my native place contd..

Yeah… so where was I? Oh yeah. I’m very fortunate to have spent a lot of time there.

First, the household itself. I learnt something that most urban kids never do. Tolerance for other people and giving people their own space, yet remain as close as possible with people. A joint family can teach a lot of things to a person. But it can also be a royal pain in the butt if you have to live in a joint family all your life. So the two months a year schedule gave me a good taste of what it was and gave ample time for bonding with my family and yet was just right to prevent the bitterness from creeping in.

Then there’s the companionship. I had friends and virtually an infinite playground which, I can bet, no city kid will ever get. You could just lie in the fields looking at the cattle graze or climb a tree to pluck fruits. You could play cricket (yeah, the ground was uneven, but who cared?) or just climb hills for the heck of it. In short, the only thing that stopped you was your imagination. There’s not a thing we did not do. Following rills and rivulets down the mountain; go walking long distances watch village plays and yakshagana; drive the cattle to the nearest watering hole; getting bitten by I don’t know how many leeches (lucky I didn’t get bitten by a snake)…

And more importantly, the weather and the leisure. Millions of tourists pay thousands of dollars to go to places where they can just let their hair down and forget the world for a while. We just had to pay 200 bucks.

People used to look at me and say “enta pyate hudga aakkendu ee namni mann kalite” ( “What is this… being a city kid you go play in the muck like this!”) well… I’m glad I did. Every atom of the dirt I played with is precious to me.

My favourite haunt was (and still is) the lake on the other side of the main road within the forest. It is apparently one of the many sources of a bigger river called Aghanashini which goes on to create many waterfalls that are the trademark of Uttara Kannada. The place has these flat pebbles (yeah, better than the ones they show in the MotoPebl ad) than make excellent skipping stones. I was quite an expert at making stones skip. Haven’t yet lost touch, but well… I haven’t practicedJ) you can sit for hours there and not feel the passage of time.

If you find it weird that I am what I am inspite of all this, well… you don’t know me well enough yet, fella.