harvest – Swat of All Trades

Hi all, it’s been a while since I last wrote, hasn’t it?

This post is about a short trip we took to a place called Avalabetta around 90 kms from Bangalore. But it turned out to be more than 150kms for us.

You see, my family and I love to travel. These one-day trips, especially, attract us a lot, because my dad loves to drive and if he makes up his mind to go somewhere, which is quite rare, we all readily agree at the opportunity! And we all love to sing in the car as we drive. Yesterday, my sister was missing, so not much of the singing happened. Besides, NO one knows about Avalabetta and there are no signboards anywhere. So we had to concentrate on the roads.

Our day started off with dropping my doddi at the airport, because we were all headed in that direction anyway. She left to Calcutta to meet her daughter. She is my favourite doddi. We bid her goodbye and got onto the Bangalore-Hyderabad highway.

Not too far away, we spotted a really fancy temple. Oh! It was my parents’ anniversary! 31 years! That was why we went on the trip in the first place. So they were in a very thankful mood, for being happy together for 31 years. (Obligatory ‘touch wood’). They’re a role model couple for me. (Minus the fights on what to watch on TV. Hehe.)

So here, this is the temple.

Appa and amma at the fancy temple. Their phones were off the hook with people calling to wish them. My parents are too popular pa.

Shiva temple_ — The gopuram of the temple

It was really pretty, but honestly I didn’t get the temple feel. When you visit a temple, there’s something about the atmosphere that makes you feel like it’s holy. This was just too modern and fancy. Like Iskcon. I don’t feel like Iskcon is a temple. Anyway, outside that temple, there was a tamarind tree, where we went and plucked some unfortunately ripe tamarinds. They were not nice. We all like the unripe, sour ones! Slurrrppp!

So back on the highway. We began looking for a Peresandra, from where we had to take a left turn (according to some random website called Sutha Mutha).

(PS: We assumed someone very reliable had told my father about Avalabetta and given him proper directions, but turns out he read about it in Bangalore Mirror and decided to follow what the paper said. (I didn’t know people relied like this on newspapers. I must be more careful about what I write.)

Anyway, we were lost after a while on the highway. Well, there was Google maps, but we didn’t really know what to look for, because everyone we asked didn’t know Avalabetta. We didn’t know how to pronounce it. We called it AvaLabetta (Like ‘her betta’ in Kannada) but they pronounce it Aavalakonda. The localites there are Telugu speaking people. So we were all confused.

After finding Peresandra, we were looking for a place called Mandikal. (I read it as Knee Leg in Kannada but it’s actually Knee Stone in Kannada). From Mandikal, a right turn would lead us to the foot of the hill. On our way there, we saw a bunch of farmers doing something interesting on our right. We just had to stop! I ran to the farmers and asked them what they were doing. They were harvesting potatoes! There were so many potatoes cropping out of the mud, and we got so much joy from pulling them out of the mud; it almost felt like we were creating them!

As these cows walked, the plough dug the potatoes out of the ground, thereby making it easier to pick them up! It’s too cool

Also, I was hell bent on playing with puppies, calves, kids (goat babies), anything. It’s a thing I like doing when I’m on trips. But I couldn’t find puppies anywhere. I found goats and their babies but they were too scared. I heard this one buffalo crying. I thought he was calling out to me. I took a banana for him and went to him but he got so scared! I was offended.

Back en route to our destination, Avalabetta. But wait. We all had to pee. But of course, there are no fancy rest stops in India. So yes, we all secretly watered someone’s mango grove. Sshhhh..

We finally got back on track. The farmers we helped actually told us were were off route. So we took a U-turn and asked a bunch of people that directed us correctly. We found the foot of the hill and began our journey up. My my! How horrid the road was! It’s under construction still and we thought our car would conk out. But it has very high self Esteem and couldn’t conk out. It took us up the very steeeeeep hill until we got on top.

Phew! The view was beautiful! There was not a soul in sight and we had the hilltop all to ourselves! It really is like a non commercial Nandi Hills. It was really sunny, but during Winter the place will be ideal. There’s a Forest Office guest house atop the hill, so if you ever feel like waking up to that view, and watching sun rise/set there, you can stay there.

I made a ring out of one of them. Learnt this at Mount Carmel College I think. And yes, I’ve bitten off two of my nails.

We went to the temple at the hill, and I think I forgot to click pictures there. The pujari said it is more than 1,000 years old. This was more like a temple. Old, non-fancy, with the smell of karpoora and teertha, it was perfect. The deity was inside a cave, so going from a really sunny courtyard into a cool cave felt otherworldly. It was a Narasimha temple, the God our family is supposed to pray to. My mum told me that my dad was supposed to be named Narasimha, if not for Ramesh. (Thank God they chose the latter!)

The one picture I clicked while climbing a bit to the temple after parking our car

After praying there, and being ripped off by the pujari, who took 700 bucks from my dad, we went down in search of food. We stopped at Peresandra again, which is apparently famous for chakkli.

Dabba thara ithu. After eating the chakli my mum makes it’s impossible to eat other chakkli. We also ate cucumber from the road, which I had a craving for. Then my daddy bought us Nandini majjige. Yum!

We stopped for lunch at a Panchagiri hotel, which looked all fancy from outside but was like a cave inside. Not a cool cave, this one.

After lunch, we decided to stop by at Bhoganandeeshwara temple, which is at the foot of Nandi hills. A little out of our way, but according to my sister, worth it. The temple was lovely. Built during Vijayanagara empire’s reign, it has amazing architecture, but of course all the sculptures are half destroyed thanks to invaders. That adds some sort of affect to these South Indian shiles.

Also, make a note to not go to Shiva temples during Shivrathri period. Apparently there was a mela going on, so it was REALLY dirty. But there was a very traditional, kola. I don’t know what you call it in English.

Bhoganandeeshwara 2_ — The vast interiors of the Bhoganandeeshwara temple

So from this temple, we left and came back home. It was a long, but fun day! A good trip after really long. So thank you dad, mom, and thank you car and thank you dad for driving the car.

Thank you for being a role model couple for me. Hope you guys grow younger with time. I don’t think I need to tell you both that I love you. So I won’t. : P

Cheers! : )

Hello everyone!

It’s that time of the year again! Err.. Ok I don’t want to start this post like that. Let’s start over.

Hello everyone!

Hope you’re doing good, enjoying the two days off that you got from work, or the one day – either for Eid/Pongal/Sankranti. I’m a Tamilian. Ideally I’m supposed to celebrate Pongal in all grandeur. But I learnt only today what the festival is about. To ‘pong’ in Tamil means to overflow. So the festival basically is a celebration of life, praying for/wishing that everyone’s life overflows with happiness, isn’t that nice? But I don’t like pongal. The dish I mean. So I won’t write about it.

What I do like, is sakkare achchu. And ellu. And the toffees and chocolates and little toys that people generally give along with the ellu bella. If you’re confused, I’m gonna give you a tutorial of this Sankranti festival. Not the religious bit, but the colloquial bit. I’ll tell you what all people do for the festival, and since I don’t wanna ramble on, I’ll show it to you in pictures.

Sankranti is a festival that’s celebrated to thank God for a good harvest. My mum says Samyak (Excellent) + Kranti (Revolution) = Sankranti. I have no clue if that’s right. Anyway, you’re generally happy about your good produce, so you feel generous. So you distribute things. Here are a bunch of things that are shared with others. All pictures shot on Malleswaram 8th cross.

I have no clue what this fruit is. It’s called yelachi hannu in Kannada.

Of course, during every festival, there have to be betel leaves (to present to guests along with kumkum and turmeric) and mango tree leaves.

Are flowers harvested? Don’t know. But it’s part of any festival.

This man wanted to pose with his tulsi garland. : )

Those are a few of the things we share with everyone. Of course you want a box or something to put all these in. So currently, markets are FULL of colourful boxes and plates!

These are more like it! These kind of boxes used to get me all excited as a kid!

I think this is one of my favourite pictures from the day!

And of course! The festival is about ellu bella (essentially sesame seeds, jaggery, groundnuts, cobri and some sort of gram. Dad says donkey gram. Sigh.) When I said colloquial, this is what I meant. It’s what the festival is known for now. They even harvest ellu (sesame seeds), and share with their well-wishers.

And women who make all these things are all excited this season.

This colourful saunf is my favourite stuff in ellu bella! : )

The best part of the festival is, of course, sakkare achchu.

So I found this garland of sakkare achchu. I’d never seen this before. I clicked a picture of it. And then the owner of the store came along and said “That’s not how you click a picture. Go stand there… Haan stop. Now as I’m explaining the garland to you, you click a picture.” This is what I got.

“This garland is used on God’s idols and on children when an aarti is being done.” *Applause*

There are just too many varieties of sakkare achchus. You’ll get tired of them really. There are colourful ones also but I wouldn’t recommend them.

Why don’t I feel like eating them? Because I get mom-made, melt-in-the-mouth sakkare achchu and those are the only ones I have ever eaten. And they come in the coolest shapes. Check these.

I love getting my mum to pose for pictures. It’s such a laughter riot! Haha! Oh! Also, she means to say, “Look what I’ve got for you! (Provided you come home)”

I’ve titled this post as a glorious post for a reason. There are TOO many pictures. AND I’m going to show you HOW to make these achchus. So only those that have lasted this long in the post will get the secret, precious tutorial.

Step 1: You have to get moulds that look like these or like in the picture before my mum. Without them, you’re going nowhere.

Step 2: Soak 1 kilo of powdered sugar in water overnight. The next morning, boil it and while boiling, add half a glass of milk. Strain into another vessel with a muslin cloth.

Step 3: You’ll be making the achchu in batches. So take a small quantity of it, heat until it boils in a smaller vessel. (shown in the picture).

Step 4: After a few minutes of boiling, take it off the stove and begin to stir it, until it turns from a clear liquid, to a dense white liquid.

Step 5: Pour the liquid very quickly and carefully into the moulds. You have to be quick because the liquid will solidify very quickly.

Step 7 – Once you think it has completely solidified, open up the mould and carefully take out the achchu.

Step 8 – You have to be careful because the sugar is too delicate. It’ll break if you’re not handling it with care.

Step 10 – And tadaaaaa! Look what you’ve got! A classy, tasty, melty, sakkare achchu! : )

You can make it in any shape you like : )

So that’s that. Anyone who has eaten my mum’s sakkare achchu will know what I’m talking about when I say it’s out of the world! I don’t have a sweet tooth really, but I eat it anyway. My mum says the stirring bit (Step 4) is the key to the perfect sakkare achchu. Now I’d suggest you don’t completely rely on this blog post if you’re making the sakkare achchu. Call my mum if you have to or read up a proper recipe. But I hope this gives you an idea of how it’s made.

So go spread sweetness, with everything Sankranti-ish! I’ve spent an entire day on this blog post, not to mention, gotten a really sticky camera and a tanned face. So thank you if you actually scrolled down until the end. (Even if you didn’t read it, I’m glad you saw the pictures!)

Also, if you’re not celebrating Sankranti, go out and walk around the markets around you. I had such an awesome time clicking pictures of all those vendors on 8th cross. They are such a happy people.

Ok enough. I’m tired. Bye : )