some sweet Christmas holidays' memories

Our Q2 exams got over a week ago & I am enjoying Christmas holidays now. Thinking of Christmas holidays, I was reminded of one my most visited places during Christmas holidays during primary school days: Kapalli. That was the place where my dad's brother was residing during his tenure as a high school headmaster in that area. Click on this Google Map image to know where its located. This is a tiny village in the midst of Karnataka-Andhra Pradesh border, about 23 km from Chintamani, the taluq headquarter.




There were few private buses that went to this village, such as Balaji (with a distinctive yellow color), ATS (Akbar Transport Service, or something like that) and another simply called '8-single' (signifying that this bus plyed 8 times a day). These buses plyed between Chintamani & Gavunipalli or between Chintamani & Irgampalli. The buses were usually packed to the brink & it would be your lucky day if you secured a seat in the bus. The journey itself used to be a rocky one. The driver would play loud Telugu music (we were near Andhra border after all & yeah, Telugu movies was more popular than Kannada movies during those times) for passenger entertainment. An occasional drunkard used to provide more on-board entertainment. All said & done, if you were a well dressed kid from Bengaluru, you'd be in all probability the center of attraction. Someone would invariably ask me about my whereabouts and where I was heading to. "to Kapalli headmaster's house, I'm his nephew" used to be my standard reply. The bus would stop at Kapalli cross & it was a 2 km walk through the farms to the village. During my earlier childhood, there used to be fireflies in these farms that used emit fluorescent light through its tail. Trapping those insects used be my favorite time-passes. But as I grew up, these insects mysteriously disappeared.

My uncle's house was near the village entrance. A 150-200 yrs old stone arch stood at the entrance & it was now being used to tie-up cattle. The village also had some 8-10 gobar gas units that was supposed to generate cooking gas from cattle dung. But the project seemed to have flopped and most of these units had either become dumping grounds or were rusting.

The Hanuman temple at the center of the village was undoubtedly the cultural heart of the village. There was a large platform under the shade of a pepal tree that would be the place for lazy or old people to have a sieste or discuss about regional politics. A touring drama troupe would hold its night-long drama on the road opposite to the temple. An inter-village kabaddi contest would also be held under the blessings of Lord Hanuman.

Although most of main groceries were done from Chintamani or Guvanipalli, there were two small tuck shops. One was run by a single lady in her hut near the temple. Most of her wares were sweet meats, catering to small village kids. Finding a Coffee-Bite chocolate would be a rarity here, leave alone a Cadbury Five Star. Nobody knew how much she made, but I don't think she made much even though she had a near monopoly situation. Maybe she was happy with making her ends meet & wasn't caught up with expanding her business or increasing her gross margins, etc.

Needless to say, the village was surrounded by farms from all directions. One that reminds me the most was the betel leaves plantation of Subba Reddy that had a H-U-G-E well. This well was undoubtedly the largest I've ever seen & would be as large as a quarter football field. I remember going for a swim here once, only to find myself surrounded by snakes in all directions !! I've had nightmares about this well ever since.

Dairying also seemed to be a source of income for the villagers. Dairy co-operatives have been a huge success in Karnataka and have uplifted the lot of the farmer communities. The manager of the milk collection center, Venkatasubba Reddy was a very friendly person & would allow me to conduct milk purity tests & count the amount of milk brought in by each villager. Let me tell you this was quite a pristigious position & not many people would have got it.. :)

The best thing about this village was definitely its people. Everyone knew everyone else here, all of them had the innocence of the village & all of them were extremely friendly. I could write down few pages about each family & this would make this write-up so boring for you to read.

My uncle returned to my native village after he retired 10 yrs ago & my life had kept me so busy that I was barely in touch with this place or the people there. The last time I went to this village was to attend a marriage, I think 7 yrs ago. I've been to Chintamani quite a number of times in these 7 yrs, but never thought I'd miss this place so much. I've realized that there are somethings in life that you wouldn't realize how much you miss them until you are too much out-of-reach from them.

I've decided that during my next trip to Bengaluru, I'll be returing to this place that has been so much a part of me & its people who've partly shaped me to be what I am today. I'll surely make it a point to re-live some of those old memories & capture a few as a sweet remembrance of those childhood memories that I can no longer get back..& may be I'd do some not-for-profit consulting for the tuck shop lady to increase her profits.. :)

It's sometimes hard to imagine for people in big cities such as Toronto or Bengaluru or NYC that a place that doesn't even figure on the GoogleMaps can be such a lively entity. This I believe is the irony of today's world. Hope this little blog would put this tiny village: "Kapalli" on to the map of the Internet age.