Sunday, November 06, 2005

Travel to India - The Early Morning sketches

(This is part of a series on travel to India. Please read part I and part II before this for continuity)

I am more of an owl than a lark. It was therefore a big surprise when I started getting up at the crack of dawn during my visit to India. No doubt jetlag and my obsession with being awake to get the most out of the trip played an important role in this.
I would walk everyday along the Domlur main road, take one of the adda rasthas (cross streets), and if I found something interesting enough to sketch I would find a culvert or a slab of stone to sit on to sketch.
I liked the transformer (sketch one) at the corner of 2nd cross street. There is something raw about it standing in so prominent a place. The wires hanging out, the fencing with climbers growing over them, the BESCOM sign…..all this make for an interesting sketch. While I was engaged in sketching the transformer I noticed a keerai (spinach) seller cycling up to the culvert. I had seen him sitting on this culvert to transact his business in the mornings. I moved over and he sat down next to me after setting up his bicycle by its stand. We started chatting in Kannada for a while until I asked him, “yaavooru nimdhu?” (Where are you from?). He named a village in Tamil Nadu. Now we switched to Tamil. He told me that though he was doing relatively well in Bangalore, business was not going well. “Sundays are good though,” he admitted. “People like to buy pudhina (mint) and kothamalli (coriander) to cook their meat.”
He was kind enough to agree when I asked him if I could sketch his cycle (sketch two) with the basket of keerai kattugal (spinach bundles). After the sketch I asked his advice on what kind of keerai would make for a keerai vadhakkal (sautéed spinach side dish). He pointed out a couple of them and said that they could even be cooked together for a flavorful dish. I handed him Rs. 5 and he gave me a couple of bundles. When I walked home with what I had bought my mother was pleasantly surprised with the quantity. “I have never seen anybody give out so much keerai for just Rs. 5!” Not only had the keerai seller been kind enough to share his culvert with me, but he had also given me a whopping discount. This is the personal touch that you would not find at any Tops friendly market.

7 comments:

Suji said...

Hey Arvindh, I did not know that u had a blog.....very bad of u not to tell me earlier.

Fascinating stuff!!! Almost like reading an R.K.Narayan short story, with R.K.Laxman's sketches.

Keep posting....

arvindh said...

Thank you so much for your kind words!
Arvindh

Inqztve said...

These are really cool sketches. Really loved it.

Inqztve said...

These are really cool sketches. I really loved it.

Suji said...

Better template....but when are you going to post something new?

Mad Guru said...

Very nice. Can't wait to see more!

arvindh said...

Thank you for your encouragement!