There is a small cove here where the shallow sea is calm, lapping gently about the many small jagged and smooth black boulders covering the seabed.
In the evenings when the sun is about to set and there is a rosy glow in the sky, there are those whose thoughts turn to food, to the fish that fill these calm darkening waters.
Their silhouettes stand out in dark relief against the deep rosy sky.
There is the kingfisher perched on a the peak of a low triangular rock, watching the water, its big beak like a long nose, patient as any fisherman.
There is the woman bent over the rocks on the narrow shingled beach, scraping and knocking at the shellfish clinging to them, the rhythmic tapping of her tool almost the only sound to be heard in the quiet evening.
A solitary seagull flutters about the tiny pools of clear water caught between rocks. A crow skims repeatedly over the water, hoping to feed on the remains of another's feast. Slithering among the rocks is a scorpion, black and menacing.
Immersed in the sea is a large fishing net, its floats bobbing on the water. Some hundred metres away three tiny, rickety-rackety boats are anchored.
All is quiet. There is an air of expectancy, everyone waiting to catch his dinner.
On an enormous flat rock high above the water, the figure of a woman can be seen sitting cross-legged, her back straight. She seems to be meditating, looking straight at the setting sun. You can tell she's not thinking of her meal that night. What she seems to be angling for is food for the soul.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
I''ll never love green eyes again
There's an old Bob Hope joke that goes:
It was dark. A small red light was glowing in the distance. It came closer and closer. I saw it was the end of my cigarette.
A variation of this happened the other day.
It was dark. Two tiny green lights were glowing in the distance. They came closer and closer. I saw it was a tiny little frog.
Frogg froggy, what glowing green eyes you have.
All the better to see you with my dear, heh heh. Croak.
It was dark. A small red light was glowing in the distance. It came closer and closer. I saw it was the end of my cigarette.
A variation of this happened the other day.
It was dark. Two tiny green lights were glowing in the distance. They came closer and closer. I saw it was a tiny little frog.
Frogg froggy, what glowing green eyes you have.
All the better to see you with my dear, heh heh. Croak.
Friday, February 13, 2009
The last mud house
There are still a few mud houses standing in this neighbourhood, all a hundred years old, some even older. But most have been painted over in recent times and they look shabby and dilapidated. It's hard even to tell they're built of mud.
The one I like has retained its mud character. It looks a bit like a squarish anthill, but one with a roof of Mangalore tiles. The reddish mud walls rise from what seems to be a tall, crumbling mound of mud. If you scrape the walls while passing, the mud crumbles. Yet the structure is sturdy and has been standing for almost a hundred years. The old man who built it is dead, but his middle-aged granddaughter lives there now with her brother and his wife.
It's a very large house, but clearly a poor man's dwelling. You climb up rough mud steps to the high veranda. The mud floor is covered with a thin paste of cow dung and feels cool under bare feet. The old wooden pillars that used to prop up the veranda roof have been replaced by pillars of the local red stone known as cheera. Inside, the house is dark. There's only a single small window with a thick horizontal plank of wood acting as a beam to support it. When I comment on the dimness, the woman explains that they couldn't put a few glass tiles in the roof to let in some light because the monkeys would break them.
She points to the pictures placed haphazardly all over the walls. We have to search for a spot where the wall won't crumble when you hammer a nail in, she explains. That is also the reason why they've not been able to put up shelves in the kitchen. The kitchen is a very long room, without a single window, running the full length of the house.
The best thing about the house seems to be that it was built practically for free. The mud was free, so were the stones, while the wood came free from one of the trees.
Why don't people live in houses like this anymore, I ask.
Nobody knows how to make them like this, she says. It's a long process with the mud.They have to soak it in water and bake it and whatnot.
It's rather sad how traditional crafts and techniques – whether it's woodwork or the treatment of mud to build houses – are all dying out in the villages. But villagers seem to have had enough of them. They love cement and concrete roofs and bright modern paints. It's only city people who romanticise things like mud homes and tile roofs.
In another mud house in the vicinity, bandicoots have tunneled into the mud foundation. Look! – the woman wails, pointing to the hole. One day the whole house is going to fall down on my head.
Dust to dust, as they say.
The one I like has retained its mud character. It looks a bit like a squarish anthill, but one with a roof of Mangalore tiles. The reddish mud walls rise from what seems to be a tall, crumbling mound of mud. If you scrape the walls while passing, the mud crumbles. Yet the structure is sturdy and has been standing for almost a hundred years. The old man who built it is dead, but his middle-aged granddaughter lives there now with her brother and his wife.
It's a very large house, but clearly a poor man's dwelling. You climb up rough mud steps to the high veranda. The mud floor is covered with a thin paste of cow dung and feels cool under bare feet. The old wooden pillars that used to prop up the veranda roof have been replaced by pillars of the local red stone known as cheera. Inside, the house is dark. There's only a single small window with a thick horizontal plank of wood acting as a beam to support it. When I comment on the dimness, the woman explains that they couldn't put a few glass tiles in the roof to let in some light because the monkeys would break them.
She points to the pictures placed haphazardly all over the walls. We have to search for a spot where the wall won't crumble when you hammer a nail in, she explains. That is also the reason why they've not been able to put up shelves in the kitchen. The kitchen is a very long room, without a single window, running the full length of the house.
The best thing about the house seems to be that it was built practically for free. The mud was free, so were the stones, while the wood came free from one of the trees.
Why don't people live in houses like this anymore, I ask.
Nobody knows how to make them like this, she says. It's a long process with the mud.They have to soak it in water and bake it and whatnot.
It's rather sad how traditional crafts and techniques – whether it's woodwork or the treatment of mud to build houses – are all dying out in the villages. But villagers seem to have had enough of them. They love cement and concrete roofs and bright modern paints. It's only city people who romanticise things like mud homes and tile roofs.
In another mud house in the vicinity, bandicoots have tunneled into the mud foundation. Look! – the woman wails, pointing to the hole. One day the whole house is going to fall down on my head.
Dust to dust, as they say.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
An owl drops in
Last evening, a baby owl crash-landed on my dining table. Luckily, I wasn't eating at the time or even sitting at the table.
The owl didn't fly in from the window, as bats sometimes do. It literally fell from the roof. How and why remains a mystery.
Why was it there in the first place? Are there some owl eggs I know nothing about sitting somewhere up there, waiting to hatch?
Was the owl recently hatched in the angle formed by the tiles in my roof or on the ledge outside?
Was it learning how to fly? Maybe it was just taking off, when some crows attacked it and in its terror the poor thing somehow backed its way into the house and toppled over. I heard a cacophony of crows just before the crash.
Owls eats rats and mice. Does this mean I have rats living in my roof again? "If this is so, they may lay more eggs to raise a bigger brood, being assured of feed for their little ones," an expert warns in the Times of India.
Oh my god.
I've seen little owls flying about at twilight around a tree near Patnem beach. It's an extraordinary sight. You can't tear your gaze away from the little round staring eyes. Creepy or sweet, depending on your point of view.
Sometimes I wish I was safely back in my nice barsati in Delhi where the only creature I ever encountered was a cockroach. Oh to be hounded again only by cockroaches. (I never thought I'd ever be wishing for something so absurd.)
The owl didn't fly in from the window, as bats sometimes do. It literally fell from the roof. How and why remains a mystery.
Why was it there in the first place? Are there some owl eggs I know nothing about sitting somewhere up there, waiting to hatch?
Was the owl recently hatched in the angle formed by the tiles in my roof or on the ledge outside?
Was it learning how to fly? Maybe it was just taking off, when some crows attacked it and in its terror the poor thing somehow backed its way into the house and toppled over. I heard a cacophony of crows just before the crash.
Owls eats rats and mice. Does this mean I have rats living in my roof again? "If this is so, they may lay more eggs to raise a bigger brood, being assured of feed for their little ones," an expert warns in the Times of India.
Oh my god.
I've seen little owls flying about at twilight around a tree near Patnem beach. It's an extraordinary sight. You can't tear your gaze away from the little round staring eyes. Creepy or sweet, depending on your point of view.
Sometimes I wish I was safely back in my nice barsati in Delhi where the only creature I ever encountered was a cockroach. Oh to be hounded again only by cockroaches. (I never thought I'd ever be wishing for something so absurd.)
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Mad dogs and Englishmen
Anybody who's taken off to the hills or to some other quiet spot for a holiday knows how the experience calms the mind.
There must be something about the hills and the sea, about fresh air and miles of green coverage, about the sounds of birds and insects that is enormously healing.
According to psychologists, people who are born and brought up in cities are twice as likely to go mad than those who live outside cities. Even those who are genetically disposed to psychoses like schizophrenia can avoid going insane if they don't have to live in cities. So the shrinks say.
It's a grim thought. Cities are where people are forced to live in order to earn their bread. Cities are also where many choose to live for the stimulation and diversions they offer.
But madness, of course, is a very relative thing. And the line between sanity and insanity a very fine line.
I think this as I sit in the shade of a beach shack one morning and gaze at the shimmering sea and the foreigners lying on the hot sand in the hot sun, tanning themselves. Some of the bodies are slowly turning a lobster red. Even the dogs are sitting in the shade.
Completely mad, the Indian waiter says to me, shaking his head and gazing at the sun bathers. Only someone mad will lie in the hot sun like this all day.
There must be something about the hills and the sea, about fresh air and miles of green coverage, about the sounds of birds and insects that is enormously healing.
According to psychologists, people who are born and brought up in cities are twice as likely to go mad than those who live outside cities. Even those who are genetically disposed to psychoses like schizophrenia can avoid going insane if they don't have to live in cities. So the shrinks say.
It's a grim thought. Cities are where people are forced to live in order to earn their bread. Cities are also where many choose to live for the stimulation and diversions they offer.
But madness, of course, is a very relative thing. And the line between sanity and insanity a very fine line.
I think this as I sit in the shade of a beach shack one morning and gaze at the shimmering sea and the foreigners lying on the hot sand in the hot sun, tanning themselves. Some of the bodies are slowly turning a lobster red. Even the dogs are sitting in the shade.
Completely mad, the Indian waiter says to me, shaking his head and gazing at the sun bathers. Only someone mad will lie in the hot sun like this all day.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
A surreal sea of rocks
The thing about the sea is that it is never the same.
There are, of course, its many moods and colours. Sometimes tranquil, sometimes ferocious, sometimes lazy, sometimes playful. As to colours, depending on the weather and sky above it could be any shade from a bilious green to a muddy brown flecked with grey, or even a pretty shimmering pink.
But for those who have never experienced the sea, particularly along a hilly coastline, what can be most surprising is the way the water sometimes recedes completely.
Patnem is a lovely crescent shaped beach here. At the curved end of the beach is a rocky hill, on the other side of which is another beautiful beach that is accessible only when the sea recedes.
At such a time, when you go to Patnem beach you find its entire topography has changed almost overnight.
It's not only that the sea, which only the other day was lapping about your feet, is now some distance away. It's that by receding it has revealed an unseen, almost surreal landscape of tall rock shelves standing on the sea bed, rather like a Dali painting.
The existence of many of these rocks was only suggested earlier by the way the sea seemed to break at certain points into sudden surf. But now you find yourself wandering about on what is the bed of the sea, and marveling at the fact that you can do so. The sand here is wet, but flat and hard, and in parts stained a dirty seaweed green. The shelves of black and brown rocks, which are taller than I am, are craggy, deeply eroded by years, perhaps centuries, of battering waves. And they're embedded with millions of whitish shells and with tiny green and white pebbles.In some seasons, these rocks are densely covered with live mussels and then entire families of villagers come with buckets, and spend hours scraping off the green shellfish. Mussel curry is quite delicious.
When the tide starts coming in, you retreat from the incoming sea and climb the rocky hill that separates Patnem from the beach on the other side. Even at this height there are pools of water among the rocks. And you realise that the tide probably comes all the way up at night. But your gaze will be on the sea. As the water comes in it hits the exposed shelves of rock first. As the water ebbs and flows, it sprays over the rocks and then dribbles over, creating the most fantastic miniature waterfalls.
There are, of course, its many moods and colours. Sometimes tranquil, sometimes ferocious, sometimes lazy, sometimes playful. As to colours, depending on the weather and sky above it could be any shade from a bilious green to a muddy brown flecked with grey, or even a pretty shimmering pink.
But for those who have never experienced the sea, particularly along a hilly coastline, what can be most surprising is the way the water sometimes recedes completely.
Patnem is a lovely crescent shaped beach here. At the curved end of the beach is a rocky hill, on the other side of which is another beautiful beach that is accessible only when the sea recedes.
At such a time, when you go to Patnem beach you find its entire topography has changed almost overnight.
It's not only that the sea, which only the other day was lapping about your feet, is now some distance away. It's that by receding it has revealed an unseen, almost surreal landscape of tall rock shelves standing on the sea bed, rather like a Dali painting.
The existence of many of these rocks was only suggested earlier by the way the sea seemed to break at certain points into sudden surf. But now you find yourself wandering about on what is the bed of the sea, and marveling at the fact that you can do so. The sand here is wet, but flat and hard, and in parts stained a dirty seaweed green. The shelves of black and brown rocks, which are taller than I am, are craggy, deeply eroded by years, perhaps centuries, of battering waves. And they're embedded with millions of whitish shells and with tiny green and white pebbles.In some seasons, these rocks are densely covered with live mussels and then entire families of villagers come with buckets, and spend hours scraping off the green shellfish. Mussel curry is quite delicious.
When the tide starts coming in, you retreat from the incoming sea and climb the rocky hill that separates Patnem from the beach on the other side. Even at this height there are pools of water among the rocks. And you realise that the tide probably comes all the way up at night. But your gaze will be on the sea. As the water comes in it hits the exposed shelves of rock first. As the water ebbs and flows, it sprays over the rocks and then dribbles over, creating the most fantastic miniature waterfalls.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
The lazy flower
The white hibiscus has got to be the laziest flower on the planet.
There's a tall plant growing just outside my bedroom window. And when I wake up in the morning, I notice the hibiscus flowers are still fast asleep. The long white petals are closed and the flower itself is drooping, as though nodding in its sleep.
By 9 o'clock the flower opens just a little, like some bleary- eyed teenager reluctant to get out of bed. But it is almost 11 o'clock before this lazy flower wakes up completely. Even then it looks a little sleepy, the petals curled back as though in a yawn.
I think I've discovered why the hibiscus is a late riser, though I'm certain the botanists have a different theory.
The hibiscus is a night bird. It stays awake quite late into the night. It is at night that the flower truly blossoms, so to speak. The petals are completely open, while the pistil and stamen stick out rather naughtily.
In fact, the blacker the night, the more beautiful the hibiscus plant looks, its open white flowers glowing in the darkness.
But for whom, I wonder, is all this loveliness?
There's a tall plant growing just outside my bedroom window. And when I wake up in the morning, I notice the hibiscus flowers are still fast asleep. The long white petals are closed and the flower itself is drooping, as though nodding in its sleep.
By 9 o'clock the flower opens just a little, like some bleary- eyed teenager reluctant to get out of bed. But it is almost 11 o'clock before this lazy flower wakes up completely. Even then it looks a little sleepy, the petals curled back as though in a yawn.
I think I've discovered why the hibiscus is a late riser, though I'm certain the botanists have a different theory.
The hibiscus is a night bird. It stays awake quite late into the night. It is at night that the flower truly blossoms, so to speak. The petals are completely open, while the pistil and stamen stick out rather naughtily.
In fact, the blacker the night, the more beautiful the hibiscus plant looks, its open white flowers glowing in the darkness.
But for whom, I wonder, is all this loveliness?
Friday, February 6, 2009
No bloody chicken for me, thank you
Is it kinder to wring a chicken's neck or to chop its head off? (See an earlier post, Not for the chicken-hearted).
Macabre as it sounds, from the chicken's point of view, the question is probably irrelevant.
All the poor thing knows is it's going to die, and all it can do is struggle and squawk in terror, hoping somehow it will be saved.
One can sympathise with the chicken. If my executioner asked me whether I'd like to die by electric chair or hanging or lethal injection, I'm not sure I'd be able to decide. If he told me that one of these choices would be less painful, even more humane, I think I'd laugh in his face, a last death rattle.
Just kill me and be done with it, I'd probably groan.
Yet, we debate and agonise over the kindest way to kill a chicken, one that would cause it least suffering.
Are we hypocritical or kind when we do this?
As far as the butcher is concerned, it simply doesn't matter. Do you want me to wring its neck or what? – he'll say. His only aim is to satisfy his customer.
The chickenwallah I occasionally buy from wrings the necks of his chickens and then leaves them to gasp for a few seconds before dying. I asked him why he didn't just chop off their heads.
Because, he said, there is so much blood.
You can wash off the blood, I pointed out.
He shook his head. The blood stains the body and no amount of water will wash it off, he told me. People don't like to buy such chickens.
If we did,I suppose like Lady Macbeth we'd all be rubbing the blood stain on the chicken and crying: Out, damn'd spot! Out, I say!
Macabre as it sounds, from the chicken's point of view, the question is probably irrelevant.
All the poor thing knows is it's going to die, and all it can do is struggle and squawk in terror, hoping somehow it will be saved.
One can sympathise with the chicken. If my executioner asked me whether I'd like to die by electric chair or hanging or lethal injection, I'm not sure I'd be able to decide. If he told me that one of these choices would be less painful, even more humane, I think I'd laugh in his face, a last death rattle.
Just kill me and be done with it, I'd probably groan.
Yet, we debate and agonise over the kindest way to kill a chicken, one that would cause it least suffering.
Are we hypocritical or kind when we do this?
As far as the butcher is concerned, it simply doesn't matter. Do you want me to wring its neck or what? – he'll say. His only aim is to satisfy his customer.
The chickenwallah I occasionally buy from wrings the necks of his chickens and then leaves them to gasp for a few seconds before dying. I asked him why he didn't just chop off their heads.
Because, he said, there is so much blood.
You can wash off the blood, I pointed out.
He shook his head. The blood stains the body and no amount of water will wash it off, he told me. People don't like to buy such chickens.
If we did,I suppose like Lady Macbeth we'd all be rubbing the blood stain on the chicken and crying: Out, damn'd spot! Out, I say!
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Thank goddess it's Friday
Every Friday night, the goddess Santoshi Ma enters the body of a village woman who lives in the neighbourhood. It happens late in the evening in the temple of the devi, as classical bhajans fill the night. The woman jerks and sways as though she's having a fit. When she calms down, the goddess who has possessed her body speaks to the faithful who've gathered. For it's said that this most gentle of goddesses grants any wish that's asked of her.
It was not always like this. The woman, Nirmala, was once just an ordinary village woman. When she got married thirty-odd years ago, she was frail and sickly and regularly had fits. Believing some evil spirit had taken hold of her, her husband took her to all kinds of healers to have the spirit exorcised. One such witch doctor told him it wasn't a bhoot, but Santoshi Ma herself.
How he knew this remains a mystery to this day.
But overnight Nirmala was transformed from a poor sickly woman to the voice of the devi. And pious villagers began to crowd her little house in the hope that she would help make their every wish come true. Grant me a child. Let my husband not drink so much feni. Take away my sickness. Let my daughter get a good husband. Stuff like that. Many of the wishes, I'm told, came true.
She became so popular that the villagers contributed money to build her a temple and a large porch where the devotees can gather on Friday.
But only on a Friday. Only on a Friday Nirmala get fits. Why Friday, I asked. Because that's the devi's day, a woman replied simply. And she told me about the Shukrawar vraat, which is Friday fasting, and which if observed pleases the goddess very much.
All other days of the week, Nirmala – in her normal avatar - reads grains of rice to predict the future of all those who come wanting to know what's in store for them. People pay what they can.
I know it's Friday when at 9 o'clock in the morning the loudspeaker sings the first devotional song.
Mat ro, mat ro, mat ro, it sings consolingly, endlessly going on and on with same refrain of 'don't cry, don't cry' till you're ready to weep.
By nightfall I have bhajans coming out of my ears. The rest of the world might start partying on Friday night, all I do is wait for the miracle of silence.
Why is it that Hindus are so noisy in their worship? Why can't we observe the silent night, the holy night, where all is calm and all is bright?
It was not always like this. The woman, Nirmala, was once just an ordinary village woman. When she got married thirty-odd years ago, she was frail and sickly and regularly had fits. Believing some evil spirit had taken hold of her, her husband took her to all kinds of healers to have the spirit exorcised. One such witch doctor told him it wasn't a bhoot, but Santoshi Ma herself.
How he knew this remains a mystery to this day.
But overnight Nirmala was transformed from a poor sickly woman to the voice of the devi. And pious villagers began to crowd her little house in the hope that she would help make their every wish come true. Grant me a child. Let my husband not drink so much feni. Take away my sickness. Let my daughter get a good husband. Stuff like that. Many of the wishes, I'm told, came true.
She became so popular that the villagers contributed money to build her a temple and a large porch where the devotees can gather on Friday.
But only on a Friday. Only on a Friday Nirmala get fits. Why Friday, I asked. Because that's the devi's day, a woman replied simply. And she told me about the Shukrawar vraat, which is Friday fasting, and which if observed pleases the goddess very much.
All other days of the week, Nirmala – in her normal avatar - reads grains of rice to predict the future of all those who come wanting to know what's in store for them. People pay what they can.
I know it's Friday when at 9 o'clock in the morning the loudspeaker sings the first devotional song.
Mat ro, mat ro, mat ro, it sings consolingly, endlessly going on and on with same refrain of 'don't cry, don't cry' till you're ready to weep.
By nightfall I have bhajans coming out of my ears. The rest of the world might start partying on Friday night, all I do is wait for the miracle of silence.
Why is it that Hindus are so noisy in their worship? Why can't we observe the silent night, the holy night, where all is calm and all is bright?
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Van Gogh's Yellow House revisited
Vincent Van Gogh went through his yellow phase, and it seems as if village painters are going through something similar these days.
Yellow is the colour this season. Bright egg-yolk yellow. Jaundiced yellow. You-name-it lurid yellow.
And just as Van Gogh was so obsessed by yellow he even asked that the house he rented in Arles be painted that colour, village painters are telling house owners: Try yellow. Maybe they've seen Van Gogh's famous painting, Yellow House. Maybe they all admire Van Gogh.
In the beginning there was only one yellow house here. It was such a shock to the eyes that it quickly became a landmark. Take the first turn after the Yellow House, people used to say.
Now I can count at least three. And they're not even the colour of Van Gogh's yellow House, which is a soft buttery yellow.
It's weird, but when it comes to painting their houses something happens to people in Goa. It's as if they've suddenly discovered colour, and like children with a box of paints they simply go wild trying out everything.
So far, this village has been safe from the colour mania. But now every time someone builds a house here I wonder what bizarre colour they'll paint it. Will it be the colour of hot fresh blood? A lurid dark purple, maybe? Shocking pink with all the windows edged in green? Turquoise blue? A pretty peach?
But no, Van Gogh's yellow is the favoured colour still.
I wish the village painters would realise that Van Gogh chopped off his ear while in his Yellow House, and was dispatched for a while to live in a mental asylum.
Yellow is the colour this season. Bright egg-yolk yellow. Jaundiced yellow. You-name-it lurid yellow.
And just as Van Gogh was so obsessed by yellow he even asked that the house he rented in Arles be painted that colour, village painters are telling house owners: Try yellow. Maybe they've seen Van Gogh's famous painting, Yellow House. Maybe they all admire Van Gogh.
In the beginning there was only one yellow house here. It was such a shock to the eyes that it quickly became a landmark. Take the first turn after the Yellow House, people used to say.
Now I can count at least three. And they're not even the colour of Van Gogh's yellow House, which is a soft buttery yellow.
It's weird, but when it comes to painting their houses something happens to people in Goa. It's as if they've suddenly discovered colour, and like children with a box of paints they simply go wild trying out everything.
So far, this village has been safe from the colour mania. But now every time someone builds a house here I wonder what bizarre colour they'll paint it. Will it be the colour of hot fresh blood? A lurid dark purple, maybe? Shocking pink with all the windows edged in green? Turquoise blue? A pretty peach?
But no, Van Gogh's yellow is the favoured colour still.
I wish the village painters would realise that Van Gogh chopped off his ear while in his Yellow House, and was dispatched for a while to live in a mental asylum.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
