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…
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
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