Memories of Dharwar

Illustration/Uday Mohite

So I'm getting to a point where I'm not sure if it's Tuesday or Wednesday, but my childhood memories are sparkling clear. And one of the high points of my childhood was Dharwar (later called Dharwad), where we spent all our May school holidays - as I recently shared with my mid-day gang, with current and ex-mid-day connections. I still have mid-day friends from a previous life, when I worked for Sunday mid-day from 1988-1990, when the office was at Tardeo.

In my memories, sensations and feelings often have more clarity than facts. The smell of the horse of the tonga as we drove home from Dharwar station. The way the horse elegantly tossed his/her mane this way and that in the breeze. The lovely clip-clop music as they trotted down the streets. My sister Akku and I would sit in the ‘front seat' with the tongawallah, our feet parked in sweet-smelling hay, that would be the horse's lunch. I'd promptly grab the whip from the startled tongawallah, and order him in Hinglish, "Ghode ko nahin marneka, OK?" I may have been six or seven and love how bossy I was when it came to people being mean to animals. "Ice Factory," Amma would say, and the tonga would set off.

Yes, our aunt Kanna Pachchi's house was practically opposite the Ice Factory at Kittur Chennamma Park. Full bonus: the owner's wife Lakshmiben was Amma's and Kanna Pachchi's friend, so we gorged on free ice creams all summer. Dharwar ka Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory equivalent. When we arrived at Kanna Pachchi's sprawling house, one of the first things I loved to do, was peer down the well nearby, cool with ancient stone, fish and ferns. It almost always had a kingfisher perch on the pulley, that vanished in a streak of electric blue as I tittuped along.

Dharwar, of course, is famous for a number of singers who performed there, including Gangubai Hangal, Mallikarjun Mansur and Bhimsen Joshi. My aunt, grandmother Aai and two grand-aunts Vatsalakka and Radha Pachchi - four widows - lived in a vast house with a huge compound in front, and an enormous mango orchard at the back. Within minutes of arrival, we would climb up the mango trees and disappear.

The women would cook and gossip all day, and we were always pampered silly. They made terrific Aamchi (Konkani) dishes, like khottya idli (idli steamed in jackfruit leaf cups), shevaiyya rassu (vermicelli with sweetened coconut milk; the rice shevai would be freshly squeezed from a ‘shevayaa dante,' that looked like a medieval instrument of torture), koddel (jackfruit curry, gorgeously flavoured with ‘teppal' seeds), and all kinds of wild greens that we sneered at in Bombay, but Aai knew them all by name, their medicinal purposes, and swiftly turned them into flavoursome dishes.

Being a Bombay type, I was very embarrassed that the large bathroom had no door at all, only a thick, dark blue curtain drawn across, held by hooks. But once I got used to it, I thoroughly enjoyed baths, as the bath water was heated in an enormous brass pot over a wood fire, and I loved the scent of woodsmoke bath water and Mysore sandal soap, and I lingered, watching the smoke curl up to the glass skylight in the red tiled roof.

Our clothes would be washed with that long, yellow, Sunlight 501 bar soap, and they made a rhythmic, wetly thwacking sound as they were struck on an enormous stone slab. Indeed, our clothes smelt of sunshine as they were hung out to dry amid sun and breezes in the back garden. We enjoyed evenings at the Kittur Chennamma Park, where fountains played all day, and a police band played in the bandstand on Sundays.

Now where did I put my teacup?

Meenakshi Shedde is India and South Asia Delegate to the Berlin International Film Festival, National Award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist.

Reach her at meenakshi.shedde@mid-day.com