The House in Pudukkottai That Woke Up at 5AM

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By 5AM, the house in Pudukkottai was already awake. The old tape recorder would be blaring Pithukuli Murugados songs somewhere inside, and above everything else you could hear the steady creak of the wooden swing moving back and forth. My athai paati — my grandfather’s sister — would often be on that swing, singing “Gopala Krishna Swamy Gokulathiley,” a soft Krishna lullaby . She had been widowed young and lived the rest of her life in that house, and to me she always felt like someone straight out of an RK Narayan story. For us, summer meant Pudukkottai and Gobichettipalayam. A couple of days after the final exam, we would take the overnight Trichy Express from Bangalore, then a bus onward, and by the next morning we would be inside that long, bustling house full of cousins, relatives, and noise. Athai Paati with the kids on the swing The house itself stretched from one street to another, a lon...
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Holi He...

It was Holi, the festival of colours and everyone was in good spirits. We, at Rolla celebrated Holi this year too by the Schuman Lake. It was freezing but nobody was complaining. The Holi colours were purchased in Chicago. Everyone tore open the colour packets and started spraying it around on others in glee. It was supposed to be a dry Holi celebration. We weren't supposed to splash water simply because of the sub-zero temperature. But nobody was listening. People got cans to fill water from the lake to wet others. More than the colours, it was the water we had to escape from. I reached the venue about fifteen minutes late and by that time, all the colours were depleted. I had to bear the wrath of the cold water and I was literally freezing. Then I saw my friend standing. She was literally numb, thanks to the buckets of water poured. She was immediately whisked from the place by others. I realised I was lucky to be late.


After the Schuman lake, the crowd headed to the South West Bell Center(SBC) to have a snack. The menu was Pav Bhaji, Congress Masala and Laddu. Of course, people went home for a changeover.


By the way, Who will be cleaning the Schuman Lake if everybody went to SBC? So, we had to immediately find people who could do this. I along with four others got stuck with the task of cleaning up the colours. Believe me, it is no easy task!





After about an hour and a half of hectic cleaning, we headed to the SBC to have our fill of all the goodies! It was another fun filled day at Rolla away from the usual blues! If you are wondering why there are so many pictures on cleaning, your guess is as good as anybody else's - I was a part of the cleaning!!!

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 23, 2006 at 4:56 PM

    Holi in sub-zero - guess we were the first. Thankfully no hypothermia. Yea and twas fun cleaning Schuman .Darn green color.

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  2. AnonymousMarch 26, 2006 at 6:18 PM

    That was real nice!!
    Man you should eat more Dosas in order to move that Table ;-)

    I missed Holi in Pittsburgh this time :-(

    Hey will mail Amit and Shashank tom. Lets check whats these buggers are upto.

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