By Nayanika Bhatia
For a brief and beautiful moment in my life, I have become a householder, and the house that I am 'holding' is in a city called Dharwad, North Karnataka. It is a lovely old house on University Cross of the city. I came to stay here when the country was under lockdown due to Corona and the place has slowly grown on me. Or around me, as I continue to inhabit it. It used to belong to a man called Keertinath Kurtkoti, and because of this in my head I call it the Kurtkoti House. Mr. Kurtkoti was a well-known literary critic of the Kannada language and a prominent member of the Dharwadi intelligentsia that has given the city its reputation as the cultural capital of Karnataka. I believe it is important to introduce those who lived in a house before I did, because no matter how many hands a house changes or who comes to live there, the sceptre of those originally built and lived in it always hangs around a house.
Living here with me are my partner on the walk, Ankit Banjaara, Ravi Ranjan, a filmmaker and Sachin, a researcher who is doing his Ph.D at Karnataka University. And there is a cat that is always demanding food, along with red ants who are always running around busily doing things. God knows what they are thinking in their little heads.
I really enjoy staying here because even though we are in the middle of the city, this house has brought me closer to nature. I've lived in more natural places before but it is the first time I am doing things like cooking, gardening and making decisions related to life and living for a prolonged period of time in a place. Perhaps this feeling comes from living here during lockdown time. Most of the things and establishments that make up the 'city experience' are shut. We spend a lot of time instead in the garden area. It would not be wrong to say that this garden has a house and not the other way round. The garden has a truly energizing influence on us. In there are the two towering coconut trees, a banana plant and countless smaller flowering bushes and plants. If you also count the neighbour's mango and neem trees, together the whole area assumes the form of an urban jungle. Oh, yes, the people who lived before loved their trees, and those that come after learn from the garden something important. The values those before thought important. The garden has lessons for us. How to live in harmony with that which is natural.
We can eat the coconuts
Let me relate an incident that occured the other day. All the restaurants are closed, so me and the boys are cooking all our food ourselves. Now as you know, before you can cook, there is a whole ‘nother process of procuring ingredients involved. Cooking and procuring are two completely different animals. Now that I’m actually doing all these things, I have started enjoying them immensely. Going to the market, getting the vegetables, planning what to cook. In all of this, I got into buying coconuts. Our scientist, Sachin, makes a killer Huli. A huli is a slightly thick sambar with a liberal quantity of coconut added to it. This is a dish that I especially enjoy eating. One day I got a coconut for Sachin to make it.
‘Are you going to cook the ‘huli’?
In response he started laughing.
‘Eh, what happened?’
‘You just asked me, ‘Are you going to cook the tiger?’’
Apparently the Kannada word for tiger and this kind of sambar is very similar. Both are called huli, with a slight variation in the way you pronounce ‘l’.
‘Why did you buy the coconut? There are around five of them sitting in the garden?’
It was the first I was hearing of it. I knew that we had coconut trees, but somehow I didn’t think it was in a usable form. How do you go from the thick, dried exterior to the usable coconut?
‘Yeah, they’re perfect for cooking.’
He took a little plough that was in the storage, fixed it in the ground and then impaled the dried up coconut onto it. He twisted it in a way that the husk came apart. He did it a few more times to completely liberate the inner coconut, harder and in a more familiar form. Because I didn’t know this process, I did not equate the thud of a falling coconut with having another coconut to cook with. Watching him break open the coconut also broke open a lot of possibilities in my life. Adding that to the huli that night made me feel like there are fewer things that rival the joy of cooking and eating that which has grown in your own backyard.
I have another story of produce that came about naturally.
The Banana Bunch
There is a banana tree in the garden that was bulging under the weight of its own bounteous fruit. A big bunch with over 50 bananas, presently in the green of their youth, were attached to it. They were soon to ripen. The next day, the thunderstorm came. The branch had not fared well in the tumult of the storm. The heavy bunch had fallen to the ground. Ravi fetched his big curved knife known as the (kurupi) in Karnataka. He hacked the fallen banana branch free from the tree, and the first day we cooked a raw banana sabzi with it. Then, we noticed that everyday it sat on the shelf, it was turning colour. It was starting to ripen and sweeten. One row at a time. For the next 2 weeks, we have bananas to look forward to.
The Day The Bees Came
All this time in nature is not entirely idyllic. An alive thing has all kinds of moods, and sometimes it can also come to sting. Quite literally. One usually tranquil morning, I was just sitting by myself on my yoga mat near the coconut tree. I was meditating as I sat there and enjoying the simple bliss of having a garden in the middle of the city. That’s when I heard a kind of dull thud behind me. Something had fallen from the tree. It was followed by agitated buzzing sounds. Since I was meditating, I was not wearing my glasses. All the action happened behind me was a little bit hazy to me visually. But, viewing it was not necessary because very soon I felt it powerfully. A sting! First one, then another. The thing that had fallen down was a bee hive and the lamenting bees were out for murder. Sitting just a few metres away, they charged me, the unsuspecting meditator, with stings of punishment. It felt to me as if I had just been attacked by poisonous darts. I jolted up from my mat and ran inside the house. One had caught me on my right cheek and the other one on my right shoulder. It burned like a slow fire and I tried in vain to lessen the pain by splashing water onto the stings. I asked Ankit to retrieve my spectacles, but carefully as the angry bees were still out there.
When I got my vision back, I saw that they were smaller that the usual bee that we know, baby bees. But, my smarting skin could testify that they could still pack a punch.
After living as a householder, I'm left with some thoughts about houses. It's funny how someone builds it with so much love and care. They live in it their entire life. Loving every corner, making memories everywhere. And then one day, the human body passes away. The house is without a body to inhabit it. Without anyone to love it. And then completely different people come in and live in the house in their own way. We fool ourselves into thinking of things as our own. Even with an infinite amount of love and care, we cannot make a thing ours forever. We will pass and we have to let things pass as well. This house teaches me the beauty of inhabiting a place for a moment. For a brief and beautiful moment.
Nature does not ask to be sold or bought. It is present freely, for anyone to take. There is a vibrant potential creative energy in the soil that grows things, in the air, inside of people. It is everywhere.
By Nayanika Bhatia
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