City Market

If you are a little depressed about the cards life has dealt you and you've managed to build a little whining tower with them (like I have), City Market at 5 AM will bring it crashing down. However, that was not the stated purpose when my friend and I plotted to drive down to City Market at 4.30 AM one Friday morning. We just wanted to do something random. It was a bit of bad timing though - the morning of Varalakshmi Puja meant that prices and the crowd had as much as quadrupled overnight.

Our bleary eyes turned wide when we stepped out of the car. Why were so many people up and about at 5 in the morning? The only protective armor we had was a cloth bag A had brought along. And our elbows. I've often wondered how people get trampled to death in festival melas, and I got my answer here. In all the melee, we couldn't really figure out what we were stepping on. It could have been anything from rotten vegetables to a human head, I could not have told the difference. It took a lot of elbowing and jostling and all the power of our 5'2" frames to push through the crowd and get into the market.

The early morning light and the orange sodium vapor lamps reflect off the reams and reams of marigold and chrysanthemum laid out in tall coils like some unending Hanuman's tail. No way to stand and stare though. There is every possible color of roses stacked around. There are tens of flowers I do not even know the names of. We jostled and elbowed some more and found that it was only the entrance to the market that was so crowded. Once we are through the entrance, I make the mistake of looking down. In the orange glow, I see that we had been stepping through ankle-high muck all along. Perhaps a foot-high in places. I do not go in for a closer look, it must simply be a rich mix of every possible waste you could imagine. Hmm. I have had enough discomfort. This is not my playground. 

A hundred bodies pressed against each other. The stench of survival. Flowers in the millions,

but the fragrance long gone. Here a young man struggles with a huge stack of flowers over his head, a bundle much bigger than he should try to carry. Flowers - a burden for him, a blessing for me. Two sides, as always. As everything else. An old lady stacks up shriveled jacket potatoes, remains of the previous day perhaps. A couple of nuns stand by the side, a little taken aback by the crowd. We make eye contact and smile. Fish out of the water.

We buy a few bunches of flowers. We do not haggle. Maybe it is guilt that did not allow us to even try. We wiggle our way out again. I turn to take a photo, just to say we were here too. After a few more unspoken resolutions to count our blessings, we leave. A gives me a warm hug when she drops me off. I reciprocate with extra warmth; I suppose I just want to share my joy over the cards I've been dealt.e a warm hug when she drops me off. I reciprocate with extra warmth; I suppose I just want to share my jo

What's to love about Coorg?

I think I have been to Coorg district about 53 times so far. Ok, maybe not, maybe just about 5 times. Rafting in the Barrapole, some lame homestays, some lovely ones, a few more somewhere in between. Hospitality, lacking in class perhaps, but compensated by the warmth and sincerity of the homestay owners.

I have been to Kabbe Cottages, one of the most delightful homestays I've had the fortune to stay in. And the only one with class, let me add. So good that I went there a second time, and sent my Dad and Mom and their gang along with a jackfruit to experience their hospitality and the lovely environs. Yes, Kabbe's display of those ten million fireflies jamming on the trees in absolute symphony remains undefeated as one of the top sights I have encountered. That image can hold its own against even the mighty mountain - desert - valley views of Leh.

Kushalnagar - one visit isn't good enough for this lovely Tibetan settlement. It is difficult to imagine how it would be if I had to leave my hometown and settle 2000 kilometers away. Humans can take a lot of adversity indeed. The air is different. The guys are cuter; the women hotter; the temples different; the food curious. Namdroling enthralls with colorful wall paintings and golden towers and touristy stores. In spite of the crowds and the kids and the wailing babies, the place is peaceful. It's perhaps the prayers of a thousand displaced souls that makes this place so powerful and peaceful.

Namdroling might be crowded, but Kagyu is still undiscovered. Perhaps because the parking lot is still not cleared of grass, or maybe the anthills still stand undisturbed. Perhaps they couldn't rustle up enough money to break them down to make the circular garden, the plan of which is obvious from the pathway that leads up to the monastery. Even the imposing steps that lead up are incomplete - lines zigzag across the un-tiled steps. Inside, blue Bhutanese currency is pressed into the offering bowl alongside the incense sticks that have burned out now. Kagyu and its bee colonies stand atop a little hillock, inviting and intimidating at the same time. I want it to stay my secret sanctuary in Kushalnagar - for some more time at least.

Madikeri - that cute little town, oh! The elevation of St. Michael's church lifts you up along with it as you walk in. The prayer service - Mass - is underway inside. There is a little girl, perhaps 7 walking outside the church along with her elder brother. She smiles back at me, her eyes brighten. Playing truant, no doubt. Their sister walks out after a while, wagging her finger in disapproval. No way to get into the good books of Daddy or God.

Madikeri town is normal - we wander around its narrow lanes. I love the way the roads go up and down and up again. There is the drunk by the corner; his friends are trying to revive him. Wait, going by the way they are shoving him around, maybe they aren't friends. There is the old coffee estate owner ('one in Sunticoppa and the other here in Madikeri') who sweet-talks me into buying instant coffee and bay leaves. It's not much, he says. It's a lot, considering I never intended to buy from you, I reply. I look around. He sells estate coffee, Coorg spices and electronic printing. We wave goodbye. There is of course, your Malalyalee chai shop, selling pazham pori. We tuck into oily pazham pori and masala tea. Our search for bamboo shoot pickle continues. We end up buying 'malai vaazha pazham' - that roughly translates to mountain banana. The taste is as complicated as a single malt - plain banana in the beginning, honey in the middle and a coconut cream flavor finish.

My experience with Coorgi style pork curry has grown better with every trip to Coorg. Perhaps I am learning to appreciate it more; perhaps the taste is actually better. But a gushing Reena aunty happily shares her recipe, which I have forgotten now. Like every other recipe I earnestly asked for in Coorg.

As the clouds rush at touching distance, I am told that November and December are good months for stargazing. Got to go back then, I make a note in my head. My binoculars hang useless around my neck.

Back to Bangalore, pleasantly awakened to the fact that the weather was absolutely comparable to Madikeri itself. Well, I couldn't touch the clouds and the roads aren't all that up and down, but that's alright.

The fragrance of the big, green, healthy elaichi takes me right back to Madikeri. Cloves and Marathi Mokku form an irreplaceable part of my spice box now. All from Coorg, of course. The cinnamon in my coffee and the honey in my masala chai will keep Coorg alive in my head for a while... until I go back.

Chikmagalur – Time-lapsing in a coffee forest a.k.a. “Write short notes on your weekend trip to Chikmagalur(5 marks)”

Amidst the craggy mountainscapes of the Sahyadri range of the Western Ghats is nestled the average everyday Indian town of Chikmagalur. The town and the entire district wear a small-town calm; the shops are small, the buildings are sleepy, the signboards are only in Kannada and the people have an air of of small-town innocence. Wikipedia rather ungenerously describes Chikmagaluru district as “not known for well maintained roads”. There’s a lot of other things about this place that make up for that part, though.

Like coffee. Coffee invigorates. Coffee energizes. So we made sure we stayed away from it for two lazy days in the coffee estates of Chikmagalur! Actually, ‘coffee forests’ would be a more fitting term to describe the acres of plantations in Chikmagalur. Reams of rich deep green carpet the landscape. The coffee berries are out in full force now; some are a resplendent red agaisnt the deep green – it’s a sight for the sore soul. Others await the merry sunshine to blush into that shade of red that warms the coffee-planter’s heart.

The jeep safari to our camping site rattles us down to our bone marrow. ‘It’s daily business’; our driver nonchalantly brushes off our observation on the difficulty of driving on a road on its last lap of existence.

The brooding clouds add generously to the magical eerieness of the campsite. We walk to the sunset/sunrise view point – it is splendid. We are at the very edge of the cliff and there is a sheer drop to the valley below. We sit down on the bare rocks. On closer inspection, we see that the ‘bare rocks’ are of course, teeming with life that’s very capable of crawling up our legs. Ants and a variety of bugs make themselves confortable in the damp mossy forest floor. Bright red spore capsules, all of a centimetre tall, provide a contrast to the moss’ glass green (Darn, should have gotten Kiwi to take a close-up snap!)

There’s all kinds of food – delicious Nutella-Banana sandwiches which overnight turned into Ant-ella sandwiches with some insistent ants drowning in the Nutella. (I wonder how it would be to drown in a Nutella river, or pond if you like?) There’s a big citrusy fruit we do not know the name of and the largest cucumber I have ever seen generously donated by the caretaker Ranganna. We also manage to pull together something that remotely resembles sambar rice and veggies.

It’s time to pitch tents – never knew it was so much fun. And time-lapse photography takes grip. You can see the very funny results here.

Engineering brains are put to good use as the guys build a tripod that supports an umbrella to protect the camera while capturing the clouds at a rate of 1 shot a minute… results here! I quietly rue the lack of a chicken that could have roasted gently over a warm fire ably aided by the tripod. Yeah, good roast wild chicken would have done marvelous justice to that tripod! I know at least one other member of the group felt the same way too! :)

Some unnecessary brain exercise follows – for the record, I hereby state that the longest game in the history of ‘bluff’ lasting 3.5 hours was played in a 4-person Wildcraft tent under stormy conditions on a remote hilltop in a coffee plantation somewhere near the town of Aldur which is around 12 km from Chikmagalur. Needless to say, the nuances of faking things was lost on yours truly. Indeed, I was the richest player with the thickest stack of cards through most of the game!

Time blinks by. Time to return, the townsfolk looking at us quizzically, wondering why we city-folk want to be there anyway. A change of scene and scenery? To get away… from what? The trick, as we city-folk know, is to get out of there before the inconveniences get to us.

Chikmagalur – Camping, time-lapse photography, building tripods, cooking and chopping and cleaning! And cards! Hey, this wasn’t such a lazy trip after all, was it? :)

Credits: Photo and Videos – Kiwi