"Amchigel vay?"

  

“Amchigel vay?”  meaning “Are you a Konkani (specifically a Chitrapur Saraswat)?”  

There could not be a sweeter sounding question than this – at 10.30 pm in a dark street with a small cluster of  houses on either side,  in the middle of nowhere – the face peering in thru the car window was completely covered by a monkey cap and I could only see the eyes.

This was 24^th December 2022 and my car driver had finally acknowledged that he did not know the road… and well ….we may be  (a little) lost somewhere between Davangere and Mavingundi.  Mavingudi being a well known junction beyond which both of us knew the road to Chitrapur perfectly well.

How did I get into such a situation you may ask – with Google maps and all,  can one still get lost? 

My journey had begun on 22^nd – a work visit to CMC Vellore which I just could not postpone. The holiday rush meant that no tickets were available on any mode of transport – and the travel from Chitrapur to Vellore was not an easy one – a 3 hour journey to Mangalore airport, a  hopping flight via Hyderabad to Chennai  then a 3 hour road trip to Vellore kind of zigzagging across the southern part of  the country.  The actual distance to Vellore was just 690 Kms and Vivek and I  had driven just a couple of years back on that route.  So I took a decision to hire a vehicle and go.

On all our earlier trips, I would spend quite  some time mapping out the route, writing down the names of the villages en route and finding out the road conditions before the trip.  This time I left it to the driver.   A mistake I regretted after we were about 6 hours into the journey – making a slow progress on the worst stretch of road ever.  He had selected the route via Chitradurga because that was shorter than the others.  Anyway after an hour of a bumpy ride,  the rest of the road was good and we made good time reaching Vellore by around 8  pm. 

The next day was spent at CMC Vellore, the place of work.  Just as I was wrapping up in the evening, a message was sent by one of the senior person requesting whether I could meet him the following morning. That meant I could not leave for the return trip at 6 am as planned.  Anyway leaving at 10  am would still be ok I thought  and agreed for a 9 am meeting. 

As luck would have it, by the time I left it was almost 12 noon.  The previous evening,  I had spent some time mapping out the return trip and checking the road conditions, so I instructed the driver to go via Davangere.  It was slightly longer by about 15 kms but the road condition  was reported to be good.

A bumper to bumper traffic jam on the NICE road skirting Bangalore meant that it was almost 9 pm by the time we reached Davangere.  A quick halt for dinner and soon we reached the junction where we had to leave the broad National highway with well placed signage and enter the crisscrossing network of the State highways with barely visible milestones.  The roads were narrow but well maintained and almost clear of any traffic.

The State highways- very often have sparse traffic until you reach the outskirts of a village or town.

The driver mentioned that he had never driven this stretch before, but was sure he could figure out the way. I had my navigation map on, but kept losing mobile signal and by the time the screen refreshed, I realised we had missed  a turning.  Now  one of the most challenging things to do is to convince a driver to retrace the way and take the route that I had mapped.  He was sure he was on the right track.  We actually went back and forth  with me trying to tell him to look for the road to Tawargi and then Hirekerur.  These were the names of the villages I had noticed on the map.  Then for a brief period like the moon appearing from behind the clouds, my mobile signal caught on and I could see the map. I asked the driver to slow down and turn into what looked like a narrower road. He did it with the utmost reluctance, mumbling that we should have gone via the Chitradurga road.  He just did not trust my navigation skills. And there was no  one around to stop and ask for directions.

 A few minutes later we saw a scattering of a few houses on either side, but the little village seemed to be already asleep.  That’s when I spotted, just outside one of the houses, a man in a Monkey cap patting a small baby to sleep on his shoulder while a small kid walked next to him.  It looked as  if he had just stepped out into the chill night air to soothe the baby to sleep.  “Stop and ask him” I told the driver. Seeing the car stop in front of his house, the man walked towards us and the driver asked him “Is this the way to Tawargi?”.    He peered suspiciously into the car, and started explaining what sounded like multiple route options  to the driver in Kannada…toll road, good road, longer/shorter route with the driver asking him some more questions.  Finally he asked the driver – where in Tawargi do you want to go?”   That’s when I interrupted and said in Kannada “we want to go to Chitrapur” This time he peered again into the car and asked me

“Amchigele Vay?”   (Are you an Amchigele?)

There could not be a sweeter sounding question than this !   He immediately switched to Konkani and explained the route to me – it was the exact same route that I had mapped and we had indeed taken the correct turn on the state highway.  I thanked him and by now the driver had begun to believe  that I had mapped the route correctly.  The rest of the trip was smooth- the road was a delight and no traffic at all.  It was indeed a relief to turn in thru the welcoming entrance to Chitrapur and then reach farm!

Now, sitting in the comfort of my home and writing this down, I must confess that I was anxious when we were seemingly lost in the pitch dark countryside! And it was indeed a relief to meet someone who could speak Konkani and explain the correct directions! 

 

Bingeing on Bananas

 (Once upon a time….)

 

The rain gushes down in torrents. The sound of the rain falling on the tiled roof is drowned out by the sound of the solid pillar of water pouring into the  drum in front of the door. I watch it through the wire mesh that covers the kitchen side of the house. I can see the Cow shed more clearly from here.  As soon as the rain abates, I run out treading the path with care to avoid the green mossy patches where I know I will slip and land in the slush. I make my way past the fragrant rose plant –the huge roses are drenched in rain. I bend down to avoid the low sloping roof and enter the front part of the ‘kottake’ (cow shed) where “Shukri” is tied. She is the most beautiful calf I have ever seen. White and golden brown patches with large luminous eyes and the softest ears. She shakes her head as if to greet me while her mother  tied yonder stops chewing her cud for a while as if to assess my intentions. I pat Shukri and she nuzzles back. After tapping all the cows on their foreheads, I race back into the house, washing my hands in the rain water and tiptoe into the store room to reach for the huge brass cylindrical container filled with sundried bananas…….not before my grandmother’s loving voice assails my ears… “You will get a stomach ache if you eat too many of the sundried bananas!”

 

Aaaah those sundried bananas …….and memories of childhood vacations spent at my grandparents’ farm!

 

(Back to the present…..)

 

When we moved to our farm at Chitrapur, I tried my best to replicate what my grandmother used to make.  Those sun dried bananas were slit lengthwise into 4 or 6 pieces, rich brown in colour and a taste that lingered in your mouth…... well  right into adulthood.  I just could not manage to slit the bananas into evenly sized lengthwise pieces.  The thin ones would stick to the plates, the thick ones would not dry out…..uff.  Maybe those bananas were a different variety, maybe the drying technique was different, maybe it was the very air , maybe……. Whatever it was, I never managed to replicate the exact taste.

 

 Finally  I decided to try slicing them into circles.   I experimented with steel plates – the slices stuck to the plates, tried greasing the plates, the result smelt awful  ….. finally a clean cloth on the steel tables did the trick.  Putting them in slightly overlapping lines eased the task of turning them over after the first day of full sunshine. By end of day 2 the slices are almost done.  Another half a day turns them to the desired level of dryness.

 

So come join me!

 

Ready for slicing

Let us put on some nice music, pull the table into the shade away from the blazing sun, and Peel-slice-peel-slice-peel-slice in a loop until EOBB (End-of-Banana bunch). 

The neat lines of banana slices are all ready for drying.

 Then push the table back into the sunshine and let’s go downstairs to have a hearty breakfast…Homegrown Horse-gram idlis on the menu today.

 

 I will treat you to a special chilled Starfruit juice for all the hardwork….. but more about the juice in the next post.

The end result - Sun dried Bananas!

And yes they are available on my online store!

Jackfruit!

 When the jackfruit makes an appearance, it is always in grand style and in huge groups! We have a very tall tree on the farm and the jackfruit always appears in clumps -  it is a wonder how even in that  seemingly crowded space they manage to grow so large!  And then sometimes there is a loner- one solitary fruit hanging majestically away from the rest on a dangerously slender branch.

I had my eye on that one and watched it grow to a humongous size.  This year I planned to get back to some of my much loved Sun-drying activities!  There is immense pleasure in letting the sun take charge of the processing and apart from the early morning rush to get the things out on the terrace to get the maximum sunlight, the rest of the day is relatively freed up for all the other work.   

I reminded my farm hand almost everyday to check whether it was ready for harvest.  An over-ripe jackfruit turns to a black mush in the heat of the sun.  An under ripe one becomes hard and quite inedible.  So it has to be just right.  How are you going to get it down? Should I call some one?  Will you do it when the coconut tree climber is here?

All my questions were answered with a vigorous head nod.  (I still have not been able to decode the direction and frequency of the head nod. ) 

I almost  gave up, well not quite.  Can you loop a rope around it and lower it down? I think that sounded quite ridiculous to my own ears. 

Finally a few days later, the jackfruit made its appearance on the front porch followed by the announcement “Halsinhannu!”  that is Jackfruit in Kannada.

It had burst open a bit, but for its size and weight of amost 20 kgs, the damage was minimal.

Out came the steel plates.  

The Steel tables are double wiped and placed on the terrace.

  And the jackfruit is sliced open.

  Plate after plate is laden with the deseeded portions and placed on the steel tables in the brilliant sunshine.

The next few days there is a steady harvest…and a continuous cycle of activity  fresh-need to be deseeded-and arranged, semi-dried-need-to-be-turned-over and the fully-dried-need-to-be-stored-away!

Then there is the vacuum packing process- the only way to store this delicacy without chemical preservatives – no the airtight bottles do not prevent moisture and mold from getting in and  and  I learnt this the hard way. 

So that is how summer months turn out to be the busiest!   And I haven’t even begun on the bananas which are waiting to be harvested!

 

 

 

 

Some unusual sightings….

 O.N.E.

A grating cracking sound just beyond the parked car.  It was too loud for me to go back to sleep.  The dogs were strangely quiet – well they were sleeping too.  I tried to ignore it but the sound was too close for comfort.  This, I have got to see. I took my torch switched on the lights in the hall and porch  and stepped out calling out to the dogs.  They followed me out.  I shone the torch in the narrow area between the parked car and the neighbour’s wall but there was nothing. The dogs did not seem keen on stepping out further, Come-ON! I goaded them and stepped out towards the wall.  As I shone the torch over the wall, I spotted it – A Porcupine with its bristles all at attention, busy crunching away at a fallen coconut.  It was least bothered with the light falling on it  - guess it knows its power -Armed and Dangerous – Stay away it seemed to say.  The dogs had trotted back into the house. I have seen porcupine quills in the farm and the forest many times, but this was the first time I spotted a Porcupine! 

A collection of Porcupine quills found in the forest beyond the farm

I could not possibly click a pic, so this is from the internet)

 

T.W.O.

When the snakes glide over the wall separating our yard from the forest , they barely make a sound, at most if they displace a leaf and you hear it, then you might look up from your work and spot it.  But today the sound was louder - a rustling of the leaves seemingly made by  a much larger clumsier animal.  I looked up from my laptop and spotted it - …..a monitor lizard!!! I left my desk and stepped towards the door.  As I gazed at it from the doorstep, it sensed my glance and froze. The long neck turned and two eyes looked unblinkingly at me,  And the next instant it climbed over the wall at an astonishing speed and disappeared!

  

Pic from the internet

 

T.H.R.E.E.

The cacophony of sounds from the tall mango tree in front of the house was a little different from what  the normal  langurs make. If it was a fight between 2 male langurs then it was definitely taking a vicious turn.  There are often noisy fights amongst the langurs- probably males trying to show their dominance  with loud furious barking sounds, the whooshing sounds as they chase one another amongst the branches and the high pitched chattering/squealing sounds that the  rest of the females and young ones make as they probably cheer them on! Today the sounds were interspersed with some other sound, but I could barely identify it - what with the added cacophony of the 3 dogs barking full throttle!

 

I peered up at the tree, but could not see anything except the foliage moving violently.  I asked my  househelps who were cleaning some spices on the porch whether they could see anything unusual.  My farm hand too was trying to see from a distance.  And then suddenly I spotted it – a huge bushy tail unlike the rope like tail of the langur.  The others spotted it too –  It was a Giant Indian Squirrel.  The langurs were agitated at the intruder, but it seemed to have gotten some distance between itself and the langurs -for they were no longer on the mango tree and the cacophony was tapering off.  The langurs leapt over the tree tops and disappeared into the forest. The Giant squirrel too leapt off in the opposite direction and disappeared into the farm.

Pic from the internet

Just a fleeting sighting.    But a tell-tale trail of destruction in the days that followed – holes bored into tender coconuts – piles of them around the base of every tree.   Well, nothing can be done,,,,  but I do wish I could catch sight of the elusive one again.