Memories - the March chapter

documenting fond and fun memories so i don't lose them.. and of course, to make space for new ones. 

Mar 1st: mum was crazy about watching ramayana. we were visiting our grandparents.. a family in the neighbouring village had a tv. on sunday, my mum took my brother and i and we went to our mama's  house in that village and mum joined the huge crowd that gathered in front of the tv to watch ramayana while my brother and i played at the door.. it was a black and white tv and the signal was so bad that the audio was fine but the video was way too grainy.. the grains were the size of grapes. but mum was happy.

Mar 2nd: mom's a great story-teller.. she told me about how i was born. when mom was expecting me, everyone around her predicted that it'd be a boy. since my parents had decided to have only two children, mum was heart-broken as she yearned for a daughter and she already had my brother. so she prayed day and night for a girl.. and had one. and that's how i am a bit of a tomboy, she says... since i was supposed to be a boy but her prayers were answered and i turned out to be a girl who's fearlessness and contempt for most things were that of a boy.

Mar 3rd: this is a happy memory from the time bobo bought me a bvlgari rose perfume.. it was quite expensive and the scent was amazing.. we were both so happy

Mar 4th: when i was little and we lived in koppal.. mom was sitting at the doorstep watching my brother light crackers... i had this feeling that a rocket would bend and hit the door and i asked mom to get up from there.. she got up and went in.. the next rocket that my brother lit turned around and hit the door at exactly the spot my mom was previously seated.

Mar 5th: this is the memory of the amazement i felt when i first saw the shape of an elephant's tail. we imagine it to be round like like that of a cow.. but it's more like a flat-brush with hair sticking out from the edges. 

Mar 6: a year ago.. this day.. my beautiful nephew was born! 

Mar 7th: this is a dear memory of my sweet grandfather.. we would visit grandpa-grandma's home over summer vacations.. granpa would go take a nap after lunch at the temple right next door as the temple was quieter, cooler and better ventilated.. i would carry his mat on my head and his pillow under my arm and drop him there.

Mar 8th: contd.. there'd be this extremely sour pickle - more like a paste - of tamarind and turmeric in a container right next to the rock salt.. it was so addictive to get a bit of the pickle, add some chunks of salt to it and eat it everytime i stepped into the kitchen and no one was seeing

Mar 9th: today's memory is of grandma and her pillow... she rubbed an obnoxious amount of amrutanjan to her temples all the time and especially before going to bed.. her thick, rock-like pillow always smelled of amrutanjan

Mar 10th: contd. grandma's home in our village had a partially walled long verandah.. the open space was beautiful.. and when it rained, there were rolled-up mat curtains that were let down.. and rolled back up after the rains stopped.

Mar 11th: today's memory is of this game we played with other children at granny's village. a mound of mud was made in a straight line.. a broken piece of green glass bangle was hid in the mound and the mound was then divided into five portions by one player.. the other player had to correctly guess the section of the mound hiding the bangle piece.

Mar 12th: contd. there was this other game with five smooth gooseberry-sized pebbles. you toss one in the air and then pick another and catch the one in the air at the same time. then you repeat it till you have picked all four pebbles. round two consists of picking two pebbles at a time. round three you pick three pebbles and so on till till you accidentally drop a pebble. it's way more fun playing than reading about it.

Mar 13th: this is the memory of a fall and a cut.. dad and i were visiting yelburga mama.. i went to play at the nearby matha that was under construction and fell and got a cut on my forehead. mama and dad took me to the hospital.. dad hand was bloodied from trying to hold down on the wound. got a few stitches.. got praised by everyone for not crying.. and got back to granny's place intact!

Mar 14th: today's memory is a fun one. at an NCC national integration camp, we frequently stood in state-wise queues. being the shortest i always stood at the head of the queue, in front of the Kar&Goa sign. one of these times, a lady officer took a look at me and yelled 'stand in your respective queues'.. when i didn't budge she yelled again... and then checked with me where i was from. she was convinced from my looks that i was from Punjab and thought i was standing in the wrong queue.

Mar 15th: contd. being mistaken for a north indian... the ksrtc bus conductor.. of the bus i took everyday to work, for about a month.. spoke to me in kannada on the days i was having a bad hair day.. and in hindi the days i was having a lovely hair-day and dressed really well.. cracks me up even to this day.

Mar 16th: back in my residential school, we had something called 'temple run' - jogging down a slope till we reached a temple a few hundred metres away and then walking back up.. during rainy seasons, the tarred road would be full of earthworms.. there was no room to go around them.. so a few hundred feet crushed them as we jogged and walked.. and the smell of their dead bodies was nauseating.

Mar 17th: contd. around 10:30am, we had a 'milk-break' - a bowl of hot and beautifully smelling milk and three plump biscuits. the biscuits were made in a bakery the school had and they smelled and tasted so good. it was impossible to not take a deep sniff of the biscuits before eating them.. sometimes they'd be all crumbly.. sometimes they'd be smooth and holding up so well.. they were just really exquisite!

Mar 18th: in the evenings, we went back to the school building for an extra session of self-study.. on our way to the mess, we would catch the fireflies between our cupped palms and ocassionally peek at them.. and finally let them go. they were all over the nilgiri tress and were a delight to watch!

Mar 19th: today's fun memory is of a horse trying to chew on a school-mate's fuzzy curly hair.. her pony tails did look like a bunch of grass!

Mar 20th: while on a sports outing, maybe when i was in my 8th std, we went to stay overnight at my sports-teacher's house in coorg... right outside their gate was a tiny well whose walls were upto our waist... we peeped and the water was slightly below the ground level. the next morning, we were to get water from the well.. and surprise! the well was overflowing and the water went to the nearby fields.

Mar 21st: contd.. there were pink roses in towering shrubs growing randomly around the fields.. and we saw people cutting the shrubs down... i had never before seen rose-shrubs that tall.. and people treating them as weeds..

Mar 22nd: when i was in std.7th, i always came in 2nd or 3rd in exams, never 1st. deepti who always scored the 1st rank was incredibly intelligent and an amazing hard-worker. that year i worked extra hard, sleeping only after she went to bed, spending every waking moment studying. after the exams, while i waited for the results to arrive by mail, in my dream i saw my results and i had scored the 1st rank. and sure enough, when the mail arrived i saw that i had scored the 1st rank that year.

Mar 23rd: contd. after i went back to school after the holidays, deepti came by to congratulate me on my score. she had stood second. i thanked her whole-heartedly and my heart swelled with amazement at her generosity and humility and  maturity. we remained good aquaintances with an immense respect for each other.

Mar 24th: contd. deepti went to pursue her masters in engineering.. she also married around the same time. a year into it, she had a baby and named him pranav. she sent me an email on my yahoo account and shared a pic of baby pranav. i was pleasantly surprised that she wrote to me and i also worried about her, and wished and prayed that she had good friends and was surrounded with enough love and care

Mar 25th: today's memory is of the extremely beautiful ruby finger-ring my granny's younger sister gave me... she got it made for me.. mom told me she worked in the fields all day for which she got paid rs.2 per day.. she collected a bunch of money and used it to buy this ring for me. i felt so touched and i continue to feel touched about it!

Mar 26th: this is a beautiful memory of when i was in 12th std.. we had intermediate exams.. and we wrote in unruled sheets. for the hindi exam, i took with me a ruled sheet to use as a guide for writing straight, used a black ink-pen and already had a beautiful handwriting.. the result was that the pages looked so beautiful like someone had printed them in an exotic font. not only did i score very well, my hindi teacher circulated it to every single classroom for everyone to see and learn!

Mar 27th: among the various artistry competitions we had school, there was one called dry decoration... each team would be given a small table top to display their piece made entirely of dry things like twig, leaves, seeds, stones, bird nests etc.. so teams would go collecting things from the woods nearby and one of teams brought back the transparent skin that a random snake had shed!

Mar 28th: this is a dear memory from school.. we had these adult-sized plates for eating. during nagpanchami, we got served two kadabus each. the kadubus used to be so big that they nestled on the edges of the already big plates! 

Mar 29th: this is a fun memory of when we were expecting a VIP guest for one of our functions.. and were supposed to build a helipad, at a small ground that was further away.. we had to labouriously carry bucket loads of water, clear and flatten the space, mix cow-dung in water and use it to create stronger ground.. then make a huge H inside a circle! we did not get to see the helicopter but the guest landed and took off safely

Mar 30th: this is a fond memory of how self-sufficient my school was.. we had our own cows, lemon trees, bakery and a truck for grocery runs. we also had a few horses.. and grew lots of mushrooms. 

Mar 31st: a bunch of us went to get our Transfer Certificates.. our principal signed off with good, very good, excellent for a bunch of girls. on my certificate, he wrote 'exemplary'.. i knew it meant something really good, but not knowing it's meaning was quite confusing... that evening i went back home, looked up the meaning and was properly elated!