Invoking the scribe -- 2

For some peculiar reason I am still caught up with memories juxtaposed with Ganesh Chaturthi; memories that seem very much mine but also have that sepia-shade of being touched by time; seeming almost as if they are from another life.

I remember the elephants (from across the border and Bihar) waddle-walking down the colony road, in a ponderous convoy of twos and threes. Then the shrill trumpets at every gate meant to summon the lady of the house -- with money and rice for the mahout and a tidbit for the lumbering giant.

I also remember how I would sometimes get a "paid" ride on an elephant (only if my father or an uncle was at home) and how most of the adults of the colony would bargain for a bristle of hair from the elephant's tail -- meant to bring prosperity.

I remember the culinary celebrations at home -- mostly dealing with delicacies that would rarely (if at all) be made till September and Lord Ganesha came again. For instance, idli batter cooked in baskets of green jackfruit leaves. To be eaten with a assortment of sambars and chutneys, each more un-idli-like than the next! I also remember the numerous types of coconut ladoos, the junnu, the payasams and so on......

And I remember a particular Brinjal curry that my Grandmother would cook when we used to have a get together of uncles, aunts and so on -- after counting the number of heads -- of which everyone would want second helpings. This is a curry that deserves a separate post altogether not only for the time-taking way it used to be made and the memories of taste associated with it but because of the name that one of my uncles had given to it -- one that would scandalize my Grandmother everytime I would utter it!

The end of September (and the Visarjan of Lord Ganesha) also meant a slackening of the rains and the arrival of sun-splashed, green gold days. And the beginnings of group picnics and escapades to pokhuris, rivers and other water-bodies buzzing with a gazillion dragonflies.

To be followed by Durga Puja and winter, of course.