Growing up with Onam

The sweet aroma of puttu and freshly harvested hay, the comforting and all too familiar noises – cows mooing, birds chirping, womenfolk chattering, children playing and the beautiful peaceful sights of paddy fields and mountains beyond…these were a few of my favourite things that I used to wake up to during Onam seasons at my ancestral home in Kerala.

Schools in Kerala give customary 10 days holidays during Onam season. As a child growing up there, every year I looked forward to these 10 days because my parents used to pack me off to our ancestral home to spend with my grandmother. Some of my uncles and aunts also did the same with their kids and so every year this period was Children’s camp for us. No strict adult supervision, no restrictive timelines, sumptuous food and completely left to ourselves…there was nothing more we could ask for! My loving and beneficent grandmother always used to have gifts and homemade snacks in store for all of us and she used to keep them in packages with our name tags on them. None of us could ask for more because that would mean laying hands on somebody else’s share.

Onam being a 10 day festival, various festivities are planned for each day culminating with the Grand Onam feast on Thiruvonam – the 10^th day. Every day after a long drawn out traditional Kerala breakfast, we used to gather flowers for the pookalam to make the circular flower arrangement larger every day.  My ancestral home was in a village then (now a township), so gathering flowers meant roaming around mountains, valleys and river banks for wild flowers. We applied lot creativity in choosing the colours of the flowers to make our floral arrangement attractive each day. Mornings were spent this way and even if we didn’t have to pluck flowers we still enjoyed our strolls, and occasionally we played local games like kuttiyum kolum too.  Some of our time was spent at cashew, mango and other fruit orchards of our family, devouring on freshly picked fruits. Lunch at grandma’s used to be elaborate with at least 4 or 5 traditional dishes. Afternoons were spent by our village brook playing in the cool water, catching fish using thinly woven towels or just sitting by paddy fields enjoying the breeze. Paddy fields those days were separated by narrow clay dividers on which people could walk on. One of our favourite past time was to push each other into the fields while walking down these dividers. Since paddy fields had loose clay soil and water, falling into the fields was like falling into quicksand…the more you try to get out the more you find yourself sink deeper.

Monsoons

Evenings we used to go back home for tea and snacks, after which we would lazy around on the veranda, listening to grandma’s stories of her childhood, history of our family, traditions, and general folklore. Post this grandma would send us all to take showers by the well. The older kids were responsible for drawing water from the well for themselves and for the younger ones. Since the well was situated on a mound we could see the idyllic vistas of the village, the sunset and with the chilly wind blowing on our naked bodies, the experience was luxurious.  Grandma was particular that all the kids sat down together for evening prayers after our public baths and before dinner. Dinners used to be noisy affairs; many times we used to have family visitors joining us. Since we did not have TV and due to frequent power cuts, post dinner time was spent reading story books under subdued lights from kerosene lanterns.

Hanging swings from trees is also a quintessential part of Onam. Swings usually were made of coir rope and stems of coconut leaves. Grandma used to make sure that the Onam swing would be up on the mango tree in front of our house even before we reached there. We kept bets on who could swing highest and touch the leaves of the trees or do stunts on the swings. Ours is also a typical Kerala family with a few uncles holding jobs in the Middle East.  Their wives were in Kerala and festivals seasons were exciting for them also because their husbands would come home for Onam. The radio would be perpetually on so we could listen to Onam festivities happening in cities. Someone from the village would dress up as Mahabali and would visit our house with his entourage playing the traditional Kerala drums. Some days we would have Pulikali artists who actually used to scare most of us kids. Grandma used to give them token money and her special Onam snacks. On the 3^rd day before Thiruvonam our parents would arrive and then they would also get busy around the house with activities such as getting the nellu dried in the sun (Onam harvest of rice grain), stacking them in the para (granary), milking the cows, grazing them, feeding the chicken, taking stock of mangos, jackfruit, cashews, vegetables cultivated in our fields and so on. On the day of Thiruvonam, all of us would wear the traditional Kerala attire, cook the Onam feast from everything that we cultivated and harvested. We would listen to Onam songs being played on radio while the feast was laid out on the floor on banana leaves. The feast would have dishes such as rice, thoran, aviyal, pappadam, erissery, pulissery, vazhattiyathu, parippu, sambhar, olan, moru, rasam, upperi, pappadam, achar and pradhaman. We would eat so much that we would not be even able to get up from the floor. Inevitably during the rest of the afternoon, all of us children and adults alike would go off to sleep…this I have realized over the years is the sleep I have enjoyed the most. Energy levels come down drastically the day after Thiruvonam. We would start sulking thinking about going back to the cities, schools reopening, getting grades of the 1^st term examination and the routine life. But we always had one more such occasion every year to look forward to..X’mas.

It has been 12 years since I have visited Kerala for Onam…so this year I took the resolution to be there at this time. Our modest wood and tile ancestral home has now been replaced by a 2 storey ‘modern’ house, the mango tree in front of the house has been replaced by bougainvillea, swings have been replaced by hammocks, cows have been replaced by foreign bred dogs, clay dividers of paddy fields have been replaced by tarred pathways, our village brook is almost dry and it’s banks are now concrete, wild flowers are replaced by orchids and anthuriums, mountains and valleys are now sullied by houses with characterless architecture, Onam feast can now be bought at department stores and grandma is no more…but Kerala will always be my home and I hope this Onam will also give me more but definitely different set of memories to cherish.

Article that appeared in The Times of India Onam feature - Delhi

The Longest 30 Minutes..

Eerie and cold silence..occasionally broken by the phantasmal whistling created by a gentle breeze passing through a dense jungle canopy a few hours before day break. I waited in my new Scorpio, checking every few minutes to make sure I had locked all doors from inside…engine turned off, lights switched off hoping that the black color of my SUV would make for a good camouflage. Visibility almost zero in the darkness, I waited 30 minutes… the longest 30 minutes of my life!

Mid – February is the perfect season to go for nature outings in Uttaranchal. Jim Corbett National Park tucked away in the foothills of Himalayas presents a remarkable variety of landscapes, and breath taking vistas. During my school days I had read “Man Eaters of Kumaon” and since then nurtured a secret desire to visit the terror stricken yet beautiful places mentioned in the book. After I moved to New Delhi post my long stay in the US, I realized that Jim Corbett was a reasonable drive from the nation’s capital. I picked up on nature getaways during my life in the US when I used to pack my bags during weekends and go for long drives to national parks near Washington DC.

As a new year resolution, I decided to continue this old habit of mine. Jim Corbett is a good 7 hour drive from Delhi and as always I left at 4.30 am to get away from rush hour traffic. After almost 6 hours of relatively painless driving, I started seeing glimpses of the first national park of Asia. Sal trees grow abundantly here, the Sal trees whose timber was used in railway tracks during the British era. Various cottages and resorts offering modern world amenities in the rustic settings of the jungle are available for tourists. Most cottages are aesthetically designed to reflect an old world charm. My own cottage with walls and floor lined with wood offered 270 degree view of the jungle, the pristine aquamarine waters of Ramganga, flower beds on the banks of the river and the mountains beyond. It was just perfect!

Since I was there just for the weekend, I quickly changed as soon as I checked in and went to the information center to plan out my activities for the weekend.  Before arrival I had booked for a safari. Only Govt guides are authorized to conduct jungle safaris inside Jim Corbett, and since there are limited vehicles – Canters or Gypsies available for safaris, one has to book early. Safaris run twice a day – starting at 5.30 am, 4.30 pm and last 4 hours.  I was confirmed for the early morning safari for the next day.

That day I decided to try out some adventure sports. There are several qualified instructors at Jim Corbett who can help you quench your thirst for adrenalin pumping activities – rappelling, bridge jumping, flying fox and so on. Bridge jumping literally is jumping off a bridge. In my case jumping off the suspension bridge that spans the Ramganga from a height of 30 – 40 feet. Waters don’t run deep in the river, but the riverbed is riddled with pebbles and rocks of all sizes. My instructor did a good job allaying my anxiety by explaining the technical specifications of the safety harnesses, double/triple checking them. And yes ..against all natural survival instincts I jumped into the gurgling waters below. The sense of liberation I get when I let go, trust something outside me and allow myself to fight against preliminary reactions to situations thus stretching my comfort zone is what I live for!

Late evening, most cottages organize large bonfires allowing guests the opportunity to enjoy nature after sunset, yet not freeze to death. After having a quiet dinner of vodka, fish fry and variety of Indian dishes, I retired to get a good night’s rest in preparation for my early morning safari.

Canter safari

Jim Corbett covers over 500 sqkm of land. Several safari routes are available – Bijrani, Jhirna, Dhikala to name a few. I had opted for the Dhikala safarai which was conducted in a canter. I had to travel 3- 4 km deep inside the forest to the spot where I was to board the canter. Reporting time was 5.30am and I was told to account for 25- 30 minutes driving time because of road conditions. The previous day I had heard stories of tigers that had appeared at the periphery of the national park and had paid visits to many of the cottages and residences, waking up residents at night by clawing on doors and windows. I was not exactly thrilled by the idea of driving before daylight deep into the forest where there were no street lights or any natural light for that matter. But I had wanted to do this for as long as I can remember. ..So, I left my cottage at 5 am, took some directions from the information center and set off to the pick-up point for my canter safari. I had never experienced a night darker than that or a road more deserted than the one I was driving on..I pushed away all horrendous thoughts of my SUV breaking down, running out of fuel or fog lights going dysfunctional…At every curvature on the road, I expected an encounter with the orange and black striped jungle feline, because of the nocturnal behavioural patterns of the animal.

Elephant herd

I was the first one to reach the pick-up spot. There were no other vehicles, no check post staff, no visitors’ center… not a single human in sight. During my entire trip I was advised not to step out of my vehicle anywhere inside the jungle. So I waited inside..waited…and waited…I turned off the engine, switched off the lights, locked the doors and ducked in so low as to be able to just barely see over the steering wheel. Occasionally I could hear ruffling of leaves and I would jump up to see if I had a jungle visitor. I started recollecting pages from “Man Eaters of Kumaon”, tiger attack documentaries from The Discovery Channel and the bloody history of Jim Corbett. The entire time my body was on such high alert and heart was racing so fast that I could feel my fingers shake. It was almost 30 minutes before the next car arrived. I have never been so happy to see another human although am not sure what he could’ve done in case of a wild animal attack. Soon more people and the canter arrived and we set off for the safari…phew!

Sambhar deer

Tiger pug marks

Every piece of land was covered with splendid landscapes, dense vegetation, geographical formations unbridled by human touch. Jim Corbett is home to moist deciduous forest which mainly consists of sal, haldu, pipal, rohini and mango trees, 50 species of mammals, 580 bird species, 25 reptile species and most importantly it’s the home of the Bengal tiger.  This park was the first to come under Project Tiger initiative. We also saw numerous ravines, ridges, streams, small plateaus with varying degrees of slopes and the partly dried up Ramganga with foot prints on the banks of wildlife for which Ramganga is a life source.  After almost 2 hours of driving during which we spotted herds of sambhar and spotted deer, elephants drinking water and a few wild boars, we reached a rest stop. This is the only place within the forest visitors are allowed to alight their vehicles. So we got to walk around, enjoy the touch and smell of wilderness - cameras clicking away, handycams recording away. The quiet of the jungle was once broken by the growl of a tiger, which seemed to arise from some point so close to where I was standing that my insides almost turned upside down. After refreshments and bathroom break, we set out back. As soon as we started our return journey, we came by fresh tiger pug marks on the road. As per the tour guide we had apparently missed it by utmost an hour. We waited awhile to see if we could spot it, but couldn’t. So, after a futile 10 min wait, we left back. As per the tour guide, spotting a tiger during the safari was quite rare because of the secretive nature of the animal. Moreover, the dense undergrowth of the forest provides for sufficient protective cover so that even if the animal is resting 10 ft away from the road, one may not be able to see it.  In my group there were people who were visiting Jim Corbett for the eighth time hoping to spot a tiger. As our safari came to close, we gave up all hopes of catching a glimpse of a tiger.

An hour later, we were dropped off at the pick-up point and I drove back to my cottage feeling refreshed and thankful that I was able to enjoy and take in so much natural beauty. A few hours later when I hit the road back to Delhi, I couldn’t help thinking that even though I did not get to see a Bengal tiger at Jim Corbett, I experienced 30 mins of fear like I have not experienced before by the sheer unknown presence of it possibly even a few feet from me. Such is this enigma and power of this stealthy and majestic animal…

Would I do this again? Absolutely yes!

Article that appeared in The Times of India supplement - Delhi