Kestur, My Alps

Home is where the heart is, and what if your heart is lodged in a thatched house in the midst of lakes afloat with dead memories of roaring children’s laughter ? It is still my home, with nobody but the rather loud echoes of the past. 

Books have been an eternal part of my life at this point, wherein I play the side character with an escapist charade and ensure the main character role is rendered by the fantasy land I live rent free in. These fantasy lands take me to my comfort zone, where I zone out for a while without the constant chattering of the person next to me, the blaring red lights of the traffic of life and the ceaseless buzz in my head. I met someone there who resembled me and adopted me under her wing, Heidi. 

I had spent a year or two of my childhood in my village, Kestur. Kestur is a village near Maddur Taluk, Mandya District, 65 kms from Mysore, and 85 kms from Bangalore. Recently,I googled kestur to see what the search showed, and well, the population was 5549. Not instilling numbers and figures to my tearful memorabilia, but in today’s generation five thousand seems like a puny number. A puny number to the myriad memories I had gathered while I was with my grandparents. People are quite  simple out here even when life can be a rough path of gravel. The Cities are different, we are expected to grow along with the hustle; I grew homesick instead. 


In the hazy memories of a 5 year old, let me begin the beautiful start of my day in kestur. My grandpa would get up early by five AM in the morning , sometimes maybe four, and take cold water baths. The determination and strength to do that so early in the morning was incredible. However, he would also shove firewood into the furnace for me and ajji to take a hot water bath.  He was a priest at the Ram temple, a few minutes walk from our home. He would prepare rasayana as prasada (religious offering) for everyone who would come to the temple. The rasayana was the best offering ever, the sweet was made of banana, jaggery and coconut milk. He made it at home everyday at the first break of the day, and perform various rituals before heading off with his classic white panche, Upanayanam thread secure and a saffron wrap, calling out greetings to all the villagers who went “Aynore, devasthana kade hortrenu”. My ajji would wake up around the same time as thatha and take bath, and go round and round the house reciting many mantras and worship the sun, earth, tulsi plant and all the portraits hung around our wall. Her hair would be tied around a white towel and a huge red bindi on the point center of her forehead. Her saree was sectioned by every lapel with matching blouse, bangles, earrings and rings. She could close her eyes and pick out the lapel design and matches for every day without wasting a minute , and I would still spend hours searching for something right in front of me. Her skincare routine was flawless, and not a day deterred her from following it, matching blouse and saree, round red bindi, earrings, Bangles. Next, Apply Fair & Lovely, Ponds powder, parachute oil, tight braid and wound it as a bun. 

I would wake up to the tring tring of the milkman’s bicycle every morning when he came with the steel can and a measuring tumble for one and a half litre. Everyone rushed out of their home for their daily supply, holding different sizes of tumblers and pots and complaining about the usual water to milk ratio. My ajji would boil it on the stove and call out my name for the neighbouring houses to hear as well, and I would earn my morning fifteen minutes of fame right there. I loved having to bathe there, as the handi had the temperature of a creek ranch , and one drop of it kept me awake for the entire day.After that, I distinctly remember the warm smell of Upma wafting through the air as ajji added too much ghee to enrich the taste. Thatha would be back by then as well, and we would all pray and eat together. Decoction coffee is always ready in small tumblers, and pouring them from the top to bottom for the foam was the only way to drink coffee. The first sip then is divine as they both let a sigh of contentment .

The villagers were like a huge joint family sleeping in different houses, because other than that, everyone gathered on each other’s veranda and would talk about everything under the sun, same talk but a different flavour to it everyday. The mornings were hopscotch under the sun, as we had to skip on elaborate rangolis, flower designs and sometimes dung cakes on the streets too. The cowherd and the goatherd were friends, and their huge herd’s mess and chatter while they went together to graze was a welcome chaos. This way, we were quite eco-friendly as many of them dried the cow dung and used it for other purposes, or spread them in front of the house to make the roads more stable. The best memory has to be when my thatha would drop me off  to school on his scooter, I would  wave continuously at everyone while picking through the wheat fields, throwing rocks into the huge wells and the wind fanning you to sleep, and I would startle awake again here, Homesick.

The weekend was great as everyone got busy on those days , unlike today’s culture. The weekend meant ಜಾತ್ರೆ(fair), ಜಗಲಿ ಕಟ್ಟೆ ಊಟ (loads of food) , ಮೊಗ್ಗಿನ ಜಡೆ (flower hair) , ಅಳಿ ಗುಳಿ ಮಣೆ and so much more . The fragrance of jasmine and marigold filled the entire room when we sat with the elder women and learnt the art of garland making , the various wrist flicks and the numbing of the fingers, but when the garland  decoration hung around the idol in the temple , the effort was worth it . At night, when the moon was bright, all of us sat together with the radio playing old Shankar Nag songs, and only one vessel had a mix of food. My ajji would then make us hold our palms in the shape of a bowl and eat Kai tuttu. Everyone is in the same vessel, relishing the same tang of tamarind rasam and kinship.

There is so much noise in today’s world, social media noise adding to the latest. There is no escape plan once we fit in the hustle , there’s a constant need to create, need , want or do something. Even when I sit in the balcony on one of those evenings, it’s hard to reminisce memories of when was the last time I relaxed without a care like a child . We have so many devices to connect with people now, yet so rarely do we take the first step. I have been homesick for a while now, but this has settled into a comfortable feeling, one I revisit every time when I’m dominated by other forebodings. Kestur holds a special place in my heart, Kestur is my Alps.