From the category archives:

Malnad Diary

a coffee-table story of Angadi

January 13, 2010
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There isn’t an outlet that serves a decent cup of coffee in Malnad. The little shops that make it use instant-coffee powder; but if you are desperate for good coffee, knock on the door of the coffee-planter. His woman will serve it with a fluff of froth with a wee bit of powder on top, [...]

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the Hoysalas: brigand chiefs who became kings

December 27, 2009
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In my last post I told you that all the public walls of Bangalore are painted over with scenes of ruins of our historical monuments, and larger-than-hoarding depictions of our beasts and birds and beaches. I am sitting in the Cafe Coffee Day by the highway at Hirisave, a hundred and ten kilometers west of [...]

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a divine smile called Hassan

December 17, 2009
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The ride into town
Turn right to the north on NH-48 and then at the square which comes up turn left to the west. The road (Bangalore-Mangalore Road) goes straight and curves fine to the right after a while, and then it is straight again for the few furlongs into the town center. On either side [...]

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Kadamane: kal, aaj, aur kal

August 2, 2009
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Their meal is a mess on the plate and a mess round the mouth—the kids seem to like what they are eating. For the smallest children the ayahs squeeze the morsels dry in their hands and push them into the mouths, a child at a time, patiently drawing them back from constant distraction. This creche [...]

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A Giant Theater

July 26, 2009
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In such a vast panorama only a fifth—maybe tenth—of the land is filled with trees. The rest is taken by thigh-high, chest-high cones of the shrub. The shrubs in a given patch are all trimmed to the same height and, seen level, seeing the height they have climbed and the depths they’ve plunged, they are [...]

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the week that went

July 4, 2009
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Right of us, across the street, an ambulance bobbed about like a dead beetle borne on a mass of ants undecided on the right route. Its wail was wimpish and, eventually, when things cleared, it came to life and made toward the Forum Mall and the bikes and the cars went lurching with it, squeezing [...]

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the view from Munzerabad club

June 9, 2009
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Years ago, I often shuttled with my parents between Bangalore (and Mysore) and Mangalore, and crossed the coffee-belt midway. In all my memories I peer through the trees of the plantations from the rear window, always through mist or rain or the dark, looking for the fabled estate-mansions. I saw my first plantation-homes these last [...]

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a much-loved beast of burden

August 31, 2008
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I’ve told you about elephants that descend from the hills at night and visit the plantations in Malnad. A recent post of mine tells of the torrent of trucks from the mines of Bellary that has already ruined the Sakleshpur highway—soon the green on either side of the highway will be laid waste, when the [...]

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elephantine things

August 11, 2008
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While trekking in Bhumthang in Bhutan some years ago, we asked our guide, a strapping Bhutanese, how to escape if we were to encounter a bear. He didn’t know. Sujaya remembered what someone had told her, that you should run in a wide zigzag, so as to beat the bear’s side vision. The bear can’t [...]

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Why is Shankar Shetru leaving Sakleshpur?

July 5, 2008

Some like me are half-settling in Sakleshpur. Some illustrious ones are leaving. Like Shankar Shetru.
We telephoned him and he offered to tell us how to plant and maintain pepper and he asked us to meet him with a two-hundred page notebook, and with two hours on hand. But he is seventy-six years old and has [...]

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labor pain

June 27, 2008

The location of the new Ossoor Restaurant caused such envy in me, the lush green in the trees and in the coffee all round the restaurant (and across the highway on the front) paled before the green on my face. The Ossoor plantations run hundreds of acres each, and probably total to some thousand acres [...]

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all this ado…

June 14, 2008

I’m puzzled at Dharmappa. His war with the writer has been about wanting to send labor to us. And, after that—so the writer says—to sell us saplings from his nursery, and to also ask for a loan to buy a second jeep. It is ten days since we relented and asked him to bring us [...]

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