Kaaluru Kronicles: 1. The Swansong

Kaaluru Government Primary & High School was nearing its Golden Jubilee. The Chairman, President of the temple board, Headmaster and a few other eminent figures met in the Principal’s office to deliberate on the modalities of celebration – who would contribute how much, how much must be collected from the people, among others. “It is high time that we get a film star to one of our school functions. What better occasion than the Golden Jubilee?” suggested Nagesh, who owned all buses plying between Kaaluru & highway. Many people seconded his opinion and their parallel discussions created a din. Rising over it, Nagesh said “Whatever the expenditure be, do not worry Principal Sir. Let the people of Kaaluru be assured that I am still around”, placing his hands on the table, patronizingly. If anybody in the meeting had taken time off to notice his hands, he would have noticed that eight rings decorated with different precious stones adorned his fingers. The shirt, of which the top two buttons were unbuttoned, revealed a heavy gold chain with a pendent that resembled an elephant’s tusk. No doubt he could afford to bear any expenditure, not to mention the strings he could pull to ensure that the film star they chose would be gracing the function.

The meeting was about to be concluded when Headmaster Harish hit upon an ingenious idea. Harish was popular with students and faculty alike. His deep voice contradicted his lean frame. He always wore a khadi kurta, waistcoat and a dhoti. A teacher of history, it was believed that he had foregone an opportunity in one of the colleges in Mysuru to work in his hometown Kaaluru. The other teachers, including the Principal, were there because of the government order. All of them were quite amused at Harish’s choice. “I have to take care of the fields and ancestral property as well” he would answer with a smile whenever someone asked him. Not that he had much. All he had was about five acres of land and an ancestral house, whose backyard directly led to the Kaveri. He lived with his aged mother and wife. His children, upon his wife’s insistence, were studying in a private school in Bengaluru. If left to Harish, he would have educated his son & daughter in the government school, before sending them to college. His wife, though, more pragmatic, would have none of it. 

“If I am not mistaken,” Harish said in his rich, deep voice, “Karnataka’s former Ranji Captain Kumar is an alumnus of our school. I remember reading in one of his interviews about his formative years in Kaaluru. His family then migrated to Bengaluru. He was my batch mate till class seven or eight – until he shifted. Good for him, though. His talent was given an opportunity there. If he had continued here, probably, he would have ended up as a school teacher and would be sitting with us, discussing on who has to be invited.” There was slight laughter all around. Harish waited for the laughter to die down and people to concentrate on tea which had just arrived before he continued. “Why not we organize an exhibition match for our Golden Jubilee celebrations? We can have teams from universities in Mysuru or Bengaluru, where some of our children study and have Kumar in one of the teams. His celebrity status coupled with teams from Bengaluru & Mysuru provides enough reason for people to turn up for the game. We can charge an entry fee and say the proceeds will go to some ashram in one of the cities. It would add more meaning to our fifty years of existence than anything else.” There was a murmur of agreement, while Nagesh and Khincha shifted uneasily in their chairs. Khincha was a jeweler who owned the only jewelry store in Kaaluru. He was among those who had enthusiastically seconded Nagesh’s idea of inviting a film star. Nagesh’s tea lay there, untouched. Sensing tension building in the room, Harish said “Do not worry, Mr. Nagesh. Even to invite the cricket teams, sponsor their stay and more importantly, to invite Kumar we will need your financial and moral support. How can anything in Kaaluru happen without you?” Nagesh beamed with satisfaction at the unexpected importance given to him. Another round of murmurs ensued, before the Principal concluded the meeting, approving the idea and entrusting the responsibility of contacting the teams to Nagesh while the Headmaster would contact Kumar.

Kaaluru had its moment in the sun when a couple of 24x7 news channels ran features on Kumar playing in the exhibition match. Word had somehow reached our Principal that the news channels would come to the school for shooting for a feature on Kumar’s early childhood. Sriranga, our Principal, came the next day donning a neatly ironed blazer and polished formal shoes. Somehow, such grandeur stood out oddly in the environs of the government school. It was the blazer given to him during his marriage, Sriranga said. He had never worn it after that day. His wife, daughter of a former civil engineer, had taken extra care to groom him for his special day – he would be on TV! In fact, she had even called her relatives in Bengaluru telling them about it. To those who still lived to tell the tales of the Raj, Sriranga looked very much like the Sahibs. However, no news reporter came to Kaaluru. What would she tell her relatives now?

I was eagerly waiting for the match day. The Chairman of the Municipal Council had taken personal initiative to get the stands in the Municipal Grounds, where the match would take place, painted. Special enclosures were created for the all eminent people and their families. Nagesh had promised to get the MLA himself from Mandya to toss the coin. Huge hoardings announcing the match were put up all across the town. More prominent than the details of the match was the address of Khincha Jewelers and Khincha’s face, who had sponsored the hoardings and filled the Council’s coffers. There were rumors that Khincha would contest the upcoming Municipal elections. This might well be the first public outreach, some said. Nagesh and the Headmaster went all the way to the highway to receive Kumar. The last leg of their journey – from the Fort to Nagesh’s house was nothing less than a procession. People stood on either side of the road, welcoming him. The old man beside me in the crowd commented on how people would stand similarly while welcoming the erstwhile Maharaja himself. I was not sure whether the Maharaja had visited Kaaluru at all, though.

As I stepped into the packed stands of the Municipal grounds, I heard tit-bits from the people about Kumar. He was an excellent right-handed batsman in his time. He was also the captain of Karnataka’s Ranji team and had led them to victories in three consecutive Ranji and Irani trophies. He was the leading run scorer for four consecutive seasons. Former Indian players who watched him bat vouched for his caliber and said that the India cap was not far off. This happened in the prime of his career, in his late twenties or early thirties. While the fact that Kumar had lost his form later was known to all, some speculated that politics within BCCI hindered his selection. Apparently, it was West Zone’s presidency then. They did all they could to promote players from their region, at Kumar’s cost. That was when he lost his form they said. Some, however, attributed the loss of form to a link-up with a cine star in the Kannada film industry.

After below-par performances in the next few seasons, Kumar was dropped from the Ranji squad. It was when the incumbent Ranji captain got the national call that Kumar, now forty, was asked to lead the team. Karnataka had performed badly ever since he left the team, not even progressing beyond group stages. Kumar led his team to victory that season before announcing his retirement. ‘An apt swansong for an eventful career’ some newspapers reported the next day. After a couple of days, Kumar was forgotten.

All this had happened five years ago. He hadn’t ever played a game of cricket, even with his kids, since that day, it was rumoured. He had taken sanyas from the game, they said, and it was only because of the Headmaster’s invitation that he had decided to appear in this match.

The match was to be played between the teams of Mysuru & Bengaluru Universities. Kumar was part of the Bengaluru University team, his alma mater. Whichever team won the toss, Bengaluru University would bat and Kumar would open the innings – that was the unwritten pact. Players of the Mysuru University came in behind the umpires and formed a guard of honour while Kumar entered the field. Shastry, the English teacher had taken up the responsibility of commentary and was blaring away on the microphone, repeatedly emphasizing that Kumar was an alumnus of Kaaluru Government Primary & High School.

People cheered as Kumar walked in, me among them. The other opener, a student of twenty-two, ensured that he did not interrupt the adulation showered on Kumar and walked in a couple of minutes after him. Kumar took strike. He trembled a little with the feel of a bat in his hand at a competitive level after five long years. Looking around to soak in the atmosphere, Kumar composed himself. What more could he, as a player, ask for than recognition of this extent in some place so remote that the government had not even bothered to start bus service?

“Middle stump,” he shouted to the umpire. He went about with his ritual of taking a bail off the stumps to mark his guard. He adjusted his helmet and gloves for one final time before facing the delivery. The opening bowler was a left-arm medium pacer. Kumar looked at the fielders and finally, took stance. Our cheering reached a crescendo as the bowler ran in. The ball pitched on middle and leg stump and was a slightly short of full-length delivery. Kumar placed his bat to defend it. It swung and all that was heard was the ball hitting off-stump!

The crowd was stunned into silence. Even Shastry fumbled for words. Kumar stood fixed in his position, as if for the photographers of various newspapers who had taken special interest in this story and made all their way to Kaaluru. The crowd finally found its voice to cheer and applaud Kumar, as he took the long walk back to the pavilion. People started moving out of the stadium, some abusing the curator for having prepared such a pitch. I, too, moved out of the stadium and made my way to the cycle stand.

Bengaluru University won the match, I heard from some of my friends.

Photographs of Kumar being felicitated by the Chairman and the Principal made it to newspapers the next day. 

Kaaluru Kronicles: An Introduction

On the way to Mysuru from Bengaluru, around thirty kilometers before Mysuru, on a nondescript board was written in English and Kannada “Kaaluru” with an arrow pointing left. The distance was written below the arrow – twenty-five kilometers. The board stood next to a banyan tree, comfortably in its shade. Buses that ran on the highway stopped here and people who wanted to go to Kaaluru boarded the private bus that started from the banyan tree. There was no government bus to Kaaluru and all the private buses were owned by the son of a former village accountant. Some smelt a scam. It was said, although in hushed tones, that a few years ago, the government had taken unusual interest in introducing government buses on the Kaaluru-Highway line. Then, the owner of these buses had lobbied with the MLAs from Mandya & Mysuru to get the plan stopped midway. He had spent lakhs on getting this project scrapped, it was believed. Nobody knew how he had earned so much money, because not many people travelled to Kaaluru and the population of Kaaluru itself was a few thousand at the maximum. People spoke of unauthorized bars he operated in Bengaluru, with a famous politician for a god-father. Nobody knew for sure, though.

In Kannada, “kaalu” has dual connotations – one is “leg” and the other “quarter of a whole”. “Ooru” could mean any inhabited place like a village or a town or a metropolis. The origin of the name “Kaaluru” was rooted in a legend, some learned folk said. When Goddess Chamundeshwari slayed Mahishasura (after whom Mysuru is named), his legs fell where the town stood today, giving rise to its name. Some “new-age rationalists”, the youth mainly, had an entirely different theory. According to them, while administration was run from Mysuru by the royalty, Kaaluru was very significant. Since it was nearly a quarter of the distance between Mysuru and Bengaluru (two big cities of the erstwhile Mysore state) it came to be known as Kaaluru or the “town which is one-fourth” the distance. The old guard, who could not tolerate such blasphemy (of disowning the puranic origins of their town), had a counter-argument ready - if the town was significant as recently as around seventy years ago, why was there not even something as elementary as government bus service?!

The entrance to Kaaluru was shaped like an entrance of a fort. It was mentioned in the footnotes of some history books as the Kaaluru Fort, although some believed it to be just an abandoned extension of the Srirangapatna (famous for Tipu Sultan’s summer palace) Fort. It was a small town, with just one main road running from the entrance of the fort to the end of the town, which ended on the banks of river Kaveri. It was called the M.G. Road. According to those who lived long enough after the freedom struggle to tell the tale, the Mahatma was supposed to visit Kaaluru after visiting Srirangapatna & Mysore. Local Congress workers along with the Headman, accountant and priest had gathered enough man-power to lay a new road to welcome the Mahatma. They said Gandhi was to arrive on February 2^nd. News broke out on January 30^th that “the light had gone out”, plunging the nation into darkness. Even in his death, Gandhi had given Kaaluru a lesson in self-reliance and self-sufficiency – they had built the road themselves, without government interference. The Mahatma had always wanted decentralization, that the village should be the unit of governance. Ironically, he did not live long enough to see this village realize his dreams. [Gandhi’s secretary never recollected any mention of a plan visit to Mysore, let alone Kaaluru, though!] 

An old, abandoned temple of Lord Vishnu lay on the banks of Kaveri. According to some, the temple was part of the town centuries ago which was abandoned when there was a huge flood and people were forced to move higher up, where the town now stood. Nobody built a temple for Vishnu on the outskirts of a village or town, they argued. The responsibility of protecting the village was traditionally left to Lord Hanuman. During every election, whenever the sitting MLA visited Kaaluru, people petitioned him to declare the abandoned temple as a monument. The leader would listen to them sincerely and promise to do his best. However, he would return to the town only during the next election, to receive similar petitions. A mantap belonging to the abandoned temple lay with its steps submerged in the river. People did not dare to venture near the temple or the mantap alone in the night. Voices were heard from the temple and figures were seen moving around the mantap, they said. In fact, mothers frequently invoked the ghosts of the mantap and the abandoned temple to ensure their children listened to them.

The railway line ran along the banks of river Kaveri. However, not many trains stopped at Kaaluru. The station itself was very small. It had only one platform with a couple of benches. There was also a small shop which sold tea, biscuits and juices of different colours. The owner supplemented his meagre income by being the sole newspaper agent for the whole of Kaaluru. The Mysuru-Bengaluru passenger train stopped regularly in the mornings. He had an arrangement with the drivers on the route and they would deliver the newspapers from Mysuru. The whistle of the train leaving Kaaluru served as an alarm to the people. Other trains stopped only if there was traffic at subsequent junctions. The platform was used by the idlers of Kaaluru and the surrounding villages for playing cards. In fact, they provided more business to the shop than all the passengers from the train could provide in a week!

A little distance away from the railway station stood a banyan tree, with its shade spreading across the road. The stone platform around the tree was used as a bus-stop and buses to the highway started from here. The entrance to Kaaluru Government Primary & High School stood beside the stone platform. The school itself consisted of three single-storied buildings with huge grounds in the middle. Every year, during Independence Day, Republic Day and Gandhi Jayanti, the entire town gathered there for celebrations. The school had four teachers for around a hundred students from class one to class ten. For education beyond school, they went to Srirangapatna. Fellows who were a little more ambitious went to Mysuru and only those who could afford it dared to even dream about Bengaluru!

Welcome to Kaaluru!

The Haircut

I hail from a semi-orthodox, middle-class Brahmin family in Bengaluru. My parents settled in Bengaluru – Bangalore as it was called until recently – in their late 20s and thus, I am a first generation Banglorean – born and brought up solely in Bengaluru. While one may wonder what significance the above details have, let me assure you – there is a lot of difference in being a Brahmin in a city and in a rural setting. (For starters, a Brahmin in the village is, often, respected for simply being born a Brahmin, if not anything else. That is not the case in a city, at least not publicly.)

Being born into a Brahmin family means that you are bound to follow some customs and observe some rituals. This increases manifold if you have orthodox grandparents living with you. My grandmother was one such woman. She was very finicky about certain issues – you had to bathe before you entered the kitchen; you could not place the plates on your lap while you ate; if you held the plate in your left hand, you could not touch anything else until you washed your left hand; after meals, dishes could not be placed in the same sink where gods’ idols were washed; if you came from a hospital/clinic, you had to bathe and change before you touched anything in the household – the list goes on. Not that I hold anything against her – she died around fourteen years ago – but in hindsight, I find her being finicky amusing. The only thing that probably came out of all this is that my dad and his two brothers know nothing about day-to-day stuff in the kitchen as they were restricted from entering it. (It is a matter often discussed by my mother and aunts – how hopeless their husbands are in these matters!). They do not care much about cleanliness either (probably arising out of a sense of rebellion!).

Years have passed and the ‘rationalist’ in me tries to find reason in all those restrictions. Some of them have become so deeply ingrained that they almost seem second-nature to me. I do not find it amusing when I see my cousins eating with plates on their laps or eating with both hands! What my grandmother imposed were rooted in cleanliness (though she considered any violation of them sacrilege!).

One such rule – which is still practiced in almost all Brahmin households – is that once you return from a saloon, you do not touch any household object or any person until you are “purified” by a bath. If you touch, that object/person needs to be “purified” as well!

A visit to the saloon by a male member in a household, hence, is a carefully planned event. Any day of the week is suited for a haircut except for Tuesday (saloons usually remain closed that day), Thursday (it is holy in its own right), Friday (it is the day Goddess Lakshmi visits the house) and Saturday (you do not dare offend Shani!). Monday is ruled out, that being the first day of the week and hence, busy. Wednesday is mid-week – if you did not care for a haircut on Monday, why care now? So, that leaves just one day – Sunday.

If you go to the saloon early in the morning, a bucket is filled with hot water even before you leave, so that the geyser can heat another bucket of water by the time you return. If you go late, the first bucket is filled after you leave, as there is anyway enough time to heat a second. The younger ones in the family are allowed to sleep late on such days because if they wake up, chances are that they would occupy the bathroom when you return from the saloon, causing you to wait. The more you wait, more chances that you might accidentally touch something or somebody! By the time you return, a ‘green-corridor’ is created from the door to the bathroom. All doormats, foot rugs, carpets, furniture are moved out of your way. You empty your pockets and drop the contents onto the table or sofa from a height - without coming in contact with them. Once in the bathroom, you strip to your inners and your mother pours the first two or three mugs of water on you, “purifying” you! You touch the bucket only after that.

I once asked my mother about why such an elaborate ritual had to be followed – my friends (non-Brahmins, of course!) turned up in school or college directly from the saloon (with hair sticking onto their shirts, though). My mother, a ‘rationalist’ in her own right, explained: a bath is necessary on returning from the saloon, not because it belongs to a person of another caste but because hair sticks to your body and you need to clean it. (What if a person visits a high-class saloon – the ones which charge in hundreds for a simple haircut – where they take care not to let any bit of hair fall on to your shirt or stick to your body?!)

I now stay in a hostel and I obviously cannot expect anybody else to assist in my “purification” bath here. I have devised my own way of circumventing this issue. Before I visit the saloon, I make sure that I keep my clothes, shampoo and bucket separate from the rest of my belongings so that I can take them to the bathroom, without coming in contact with anything else – I do not like hair sticking to my chair, bed or cupboard! I, sometimes, do not even take my cell phone along (I cannot wash it). If Grandmother is watching all this from up there, she would, no doubt, be very happy!

Yours Whimsically...

December 30^th. It was around eleven-thirty in the night. I was finding it difficult to fall asleep. ‘Maybe I ate a little too much. That uneasiness is not letting me sleep’ was the first explanation that occurred. Possible. ‘If I browse through facebook a little while, maybe I will fall asleep.’ Brilliant! I took my phone and started browsing through the flood of statues, shares, selfies – with pouts & new hairstyles, hashtags - #goodbye2015, #newyearplans, #bff, updated DPs. It took quite a while before I saw one on New Year Resolutions of celebrities. Some resolved to spend more time with family; some resolved to maintain that elusive “work-life balance”. Too predictable!

Having browsed quite a lot, I finally decided to fall asleep. Sleep eluded me still. I realized that I was hungry too! ‘Oh! So, this was the reason why I couldn’t sleep.’ Too lazy to go to the kitchen, I thought ‘Maybe if I think about something deeply, I shall fall asleep during the thought process.’ Fantastic! ‘What do I think about?’ was the next question. The answer was already there – New Year resolutions. New Year was just a day away and it wouldn’t do any harm to come up with a resolution that I could share on facebook and twitter. (Sticking to it is an entirely different discussion altogether!)

Where do I begin? For starters, I couldn’t resolve to spend more time with family because I stay in a hostel. Nor could I resolve for “work-life balance” simply because I don’t work! Celebrities out of the window, I had to come up with something more original.

‘I could resolve to use swear words less frequently, perhaps.’ Yes. That would do. Around two years earlier, when I had just joined the hostel, I remember having told, lectured rather, a couple of friends on why one shouldn’t use swear words. “It devalues your words” I had said, without forgetting to add “People will not respect what you say. They will not respect you as a person.” Just a semester later, they found that my vocabulary had been enriched by a word or two, much to my embarrassment! I couldn’t help it, though. The environment around me had forced that change in me (at least, that is how I justified it to myself). Now on, I would make a conscious effort to keep it in check – as my New Year resolution.

Out of the blue, my phone buzzed – quite badly, much to the displeasure of my brother who was asleep. One of my friends had texted saying he would probably not be able to meet before I returned to the hostel. “S**t!” I said out loud and silently, cursed a little more. Well, giving up swear words was not my cup of tea, perhaps. I decided to find another one – easier to keep.

‘I could resolve to maintain my journal daily’ I thought. Doable, it seemed. But then, there were days (& nights) when conversations with friends would stretch upto three or four in the morning. If I decided to write my journal and then sleep, I would spend the rest of the next day sleeping! Not practical; rejected.

‘How about resolving to regularly update my blog? Say, one post a month.’ Nice. That way, there would be 12 posts a year. After a couple of years, there would be two dozen. Combine a few of my previous posts and I could get it printed! What a feeling that would be – to see my name in print on a book of my own! There would probably be a short interview by one of the newspapers – on the success of the book, on how I started writing. The school I studied in would invite me as a guest to one of its events. That would be a moment to remember!

I then remembered that I had made a similar resolution the previous year. And what a colossal failure it turned out to be! I couldn’t even make half-a-dozen posts. That realization brought me back to earth. I was no longer on stage as a guest in my school; I was in bed, thinking hard to come up with a practical New Year resolution. 

All that thinking had made me hungrier. ‘I need to get up early and have breakfast.’ That’s it! Breakfast was the answer. All those late-night movies, conversations and studying (sometimes) caused me to wake up late and I missed breakfast quite often in the hostel. This New Year would change all that. I would get up early every day and have breakfast – the “most important meal” of the day! Three good meals a day would help me put on some weight which I had lost due to skipping breakfast. I would go to the gym as well, as I had discussed with one of my friends. Regular work-out and proper food habits would shape my body. I wouldn’t be surprised if I found a “muscular-me” in the mirror, probably within the semester.

The chain of thoughts went on and I never realized when I fell asleep. The ploy had worked. More importantly, I had a practical New Year resolution (though not “cool” enough for public display).

3 days into the New Year...I had been successful in missing breakfast on all three days!