Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Mysore with Roopu



Three days spent in gay abandon….and a lot of aches and pains… laughter and ghost stories to ease it off. Roopu, alias Sai Roopa  is Santosh  first cousin, who is married to Ravi, a Maharashtrian and lives in Nasik.
Lost her parents long back, and recently her sister too, and with one  brother tucked away in Australia she counts on us as family... Once a year for the summer holidays, she comes and stays in Kannur with my sis in law, Nyla. She seals all the family bonds and so her children, Rohana and Rahul  too inches into our hearts and souls. Rohana, aged ten, quiet and obedient, Rahul..all four yrs of naughtiness…strikes a chord and lo..you see shades of Huckleberry Finn in him.  Loves dogs to distraction..I mean he never lets you sit a moment …you  are always running his errands..ha ha..and your stomach is always hurting as you are always in splits laughing uncontrollably, at his display of antics, somersaults and incessant chatter. Last summer we decided  to go to Mysore when she comes for the coming summer. The seasons sailed by and the summer was here again. After a few days with relatives, we set off to Mysore.. “Just cant wait to see the Brindavan gardens..Chandinechii.”..my heart sank…not my list of priorities at all….


We reached Mysore by ten in the morning..so set off for the Mysore Palace…. The ticket queue was long and we joined the line and snaked in ..The board read… Foreigners are charged treble the amount.. Why Is that? What is the logic behind it? Any more facilities for them? Not even boards in English… or neat toilets with “Only for foreigners”.  It irks me no end..

Missed SriKanta Dutta Wodeyar….scenes of his funeral procession whisked through my mind. He was a burly presence and I was lucky to be born this generation, as I have had the privilege of seeing the remnants  of royalty. Whenever I walk through the palace grounds..it is hard for me not to be whisked away to the days of the Raj.  During the British reign, Mysore rulers, when they arrived in the Indian Capital..Calcutta.. they were received with  a twenty one  gun salute... which was a high privilege.  A salute state means the number of cannon shots  accorded to a  ruler of the state.. A recognition of the relationship the state has with the Crown. The gun salutes increased or decreased ..according to their performances!!!Twenty one gun salute is the highest and when Her Royal Highness, The Queen  arrives..she is received with a hundred and one salute  and the Viceroy gets thirty one salutes.

Now back to the  palace grounds.. my dreamy state  is being  shattered continuously by Rahul who is a hyper kid who is definitely not charmed by the grand palace. He wants to get on top of the camel and the horses and want s to see the elephants having a bath. We went in search of the elephant bath tub…but could not see it.The temples in the Palace were beautiful and were cozily enveloped in a mesh of large trees and vines. Met Narasimha shastrigal who proudly claims that he is the sixteenth in line who has been  doing pooja at the the palace temples, and waxed eloquent about the Wodeyars  and a tear rolled down when he touched on Srikanta Dutta Wodeyar.

We swiftly sailed through the palace, as the crowd was huge,  the floor felt earthy beneath our feet, the floor where Maharajas have tread… Rahul wanted to go to the zoo, and so  we passed the grand chandeliers, the colorfully tiled courtyards,   Durbar halls with glittering age old chandeliers, huge portraits..  Artifacts the royal family had used..history in Pictures..sighhhh. whenever I visit the palace, I am always relieved that I am not born as a royal ,as I would miss all the royal splendor and would never be able to adjust as a commoner…Reading the book “ a Princess remembers “ by Maharani Gayathri devi, gives you a feel of the change the royals felt after Independence..
Then we rushed to the zoo…. Again.. foreigners charged extra..but even name boards in English were few and far between. Discrimination …and is this what they mean by “athithi devo bhava”? Rahul and Rohana  were in their element..we passed the birds and the beasts..of all sizes and shapes…age old trees spread shade and a welcome respite from the sun. Rahul’s excitement was the only thing that spurred me on… and he wanted to see the giraffe NOW..so we ran and we ran..it was at the farthest end…I was at the end of my tether, and lapped up the icecreams which I otherwise stay clear off…
 Back home and spent the rest of the day enjoying the shower on the trees , as it had started to pour.. and with Ginger, the neighbour’s Labrador. The kids haggled on which pizza to order, and soon found us cozily between the soft quilts.
Next day dawned bright and beautiful, and  as luck would have it a brand new café..Om Café had opened up  just opposite my apartment. Hummus sandwiches for me puris and Mysore masal dosa for Roopu and Rohana with healthy fruit juice to down it all in,  and  Rahul  agreed  to have idlis dipped in sugar if we buy him a Dominoes pizza for lunch.

We left for Srirangapatna… and marveled on Tippu the man.. The Tiger of Mysore…  not his exploits or his plunders and annexations..but the man..  What stuff would he have been made of? In a time when roads were not laid and rails were few and far between, airports had not appeared on the scene, he seemed to be everywhere.. building forts, which stamped his presence for generations to visit, a new coinage, rockets which were the best in the world,  administrative reforms, gave a new lift to the Silk Industry, penned the Military manual, Fathul Mujahuddin,  on how to use the rockets .. had alliances with the French and got their armies trained by them. He managed to rule over his territory spanning from the Krishna river in the North to The Eastern Ghats and the Arabian Sea in the West.  Even now remnants of his forts emerge throughout the South.  Trade deals were struck with ,  Sri lanka, Afghanistan, Turkey and France. Under his leadership, the Mysore army proved to be a school of military science to Indian princes. The serious blows that Tipu Sultan inflicted on the British in the First and Second Mysore Wars affected their reputation as an invincible power. We drove through the sands which spill out his name and the ruins of the huge Fort, bowed down with the burden of the blood shed on these fields.
Here is the spot where he was found dead, and where Col Wellesley waded through the dead or wounded soldiers to pronounce him dead. What a scene it would have been!!.The dungeon wherehe used to tie the prisoners and fill water in it..especially  British soldiers.
But there is another side to the coin..The Ranganatha temple where Lord  Sri Ranganathan lie in all his glory, and The Nimisamba temple where the beautiful Goddess Nimishamba resides,  by the side of the  serene  Cauvery, and the Ranganathittu bird Sanctuary,  the Sangam where the three rivers, Kaveri, Kabini and Hemavathi merge. A taste of another culture..flower sellers, bangle sellers laddoo prasad… kumkum, jasmine strands, lime garlands, tulsi ,… The black cotton soil, congenial for  sugarcane fields to thrive … rose gardens, mango groves, square  patches of marigolds, sappotta farms, dot the landscape. The wooly sheep on the meadows and the sprightly goats gives you a `far from the madding crowd feel and you feel drowsy.
 Off to Talakkad, a forty five kilometers drive from home.  A shrine I had always wanted to go, but as I couldn’t find anybody to accompany me, after having lived in Mysore for twelve yrs, the wish lay dormant. Now is the time..Talakkad..here I come.. cant wait to dig my feet in the  miraculous sands and wade in the river where Alamelamma threw her jewels to safeguard her honor.  We drove past tiny hamlets and green fields, dotted with rivulets and  springs. Tea shops with rugged biscuits and  multicolored sweets filled in glass jars. I love to observe the people having chai in these tea shops . but as the years roll by, these  teas shops are losing their charm, as commercialism seeps through every nook and cranny.
Talakkad..steeped in history and soaked in miracles. It got its name from two twin brothers, Tala and Kadu,  who saw a couple of elephants worshipping a  clump of bushes. They cleaned up the place and discovered an image of Shiva and realized that the elephants were really rishis.  Talakad story in a shot.  Tirumala Raja, king of Srirangapatnam, was afflicted by a mysterious disease, and he with his first wife,  went to seek the blessings of Lord vaidynatha in Talkkad, who was supposed to heal diseases. When the disease took a turn for the worse,his second wife too left to see him, leaving the city under the care of Raja wodeyar, a chieftan. Seizing this opportunity, Wodyar sent an army to seize  the rani and her jewels..(her jewels were used to adorn the diety in the temple) but Alamelamma  drowned herself in the river with her jewels, not before uttering a threefold curse ..”Let Malangi become a whirlpool,  let Talakkad be covered with sand, and let the Mysore Rajas fail to beget heirs..continues to this day.  So I had heard this story and have since then wanted to walk on the miraculous sand and wade  in the river where Alamelamma drowned herself.. So we arrived at Talakkad… a tiny sleepy hamlet…a guide came forward reeking of alcohol and speech slurred as his gait..we found another guide and spent the next few hours in an era long gone. There were five temples and each surrounded by sand  which was softer and thinner than normal sand. A wooded landscape, with thick foliage..  The sand here  cannot be used for construction purposes. The geologists conjure up their reasons for the phenomenon..but for me ..it was an act of God..an ethereal phenomenon, belittling the super slick, tech savvy  human race. 


The next day dawned bright and clear..hopped to OM Café for  breakfast and Ginger the lab next door was lying in blissful expectation to have a rendezvous with Rahul..Rahul hung from the grilled balcony, straining to give him a pat.. called out to the maid and asked her whether she would let him in..she  was confused as she  was the lone occupant, and decided she could not risk her job by letting him in, though he had no mean intentions..Ginger’s tail wagged a dozen times a minute too, longing for good company.
One more day to go…Had promised to take them to Mc Donald’s for lunch.. after burgers and ice  creams…Roopu’s husband d Ravi, texted her to take the kids to the rail museum..it was just adjacent Mac’s so off we went and the next few hours found us in a fascinating world of locomotives , a toy train,  swings and  the traditional manual merry go rounds…we had the place all to ourselves.. 
An old inspection car served as a ticket counter..Rohana was being pulled and goaded by the happy Rahul, to push him high on the swings and go round and round on the tiny merry go round, blissfully  oblivious of the historical importance  of the place.. Maharani’s saloon ,  the Maharani’s suite in the royal train, the wooden toilets and the   bedroom suites, which evoked an Ohhh   from me and Roopu.. we imagined a day in the life of the Wodeyars and pretended to be the King and the queen…
We were able to see how royalty travelled .. the first steam locomotive of India , the  age old pillars from Srirangpatna railway station , and the hall of history which tracked the evolution of railways..we had to wait for another two passengers to go on a ride in the toy train.. This was definitely not the random tourist’s cup of tea.. This place was established in 1979 under the supervision of The Indian Railways. The only place in India where there is an outdoor  exhibits of age old locomotives.  The first steam engine built in India occupies pride of place here.  The royal carriage dates back to 1899 and was donated  by the Wodeyars . After the joyous train ride , Rahul is happy and we are happy for different reasons though..we trooped out.
 A bit of shopping .. and to Brindavan gardens… a long story short.. it was a disaster..the crowds were huge.. we jostled against each other,,the smell of stale jasmine strands, oiled hair and sweat …couldn’t keep them at  bay..we jostled against each other holding on tight to dear Rahul..who considered holding his hands was belittling him..It is ironical that lighting is poor, as we are here to see the lighting..and it is  sheer luck that we do not trudge and fall
..The clouds  seemed to burst any moment.the crowd walked unheeded, .walked a stretch of two kilometers on the bridge.. the flower beds were littered to the maximum.. at last we reached the musical fountain.. the water and the music did nothing to cheer us up and we looked up at the threatening clouds.. a walk back ..a nightmare it wd have been.. luckily we took the boat and was thankful it was over…the only cheerful aspect was the fluorescent bangles which cost  twenty at the entrance and then five on our way back. Years back, it was a glorious place, formed the backdrop for various movies… but now when all institutions, hospitals, schools and colleges boast of a manicured garden and fountains,..this has to upgrade it self… we set off to Kannur, savoring the street food on the way, stopping for chai and omlettes, once we touched Kerala soil. 







































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