"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!