Sun n' Sand

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Most of my schooling was in the seaside village Muthukur.

The land there was sandy. And we played in the sand as if we were camels. Sand gets tremendously hot in sun. But cools down fast. So, in summer, we had to wait till evening (we never had any footwear). But days are long in summer, so we did get our quota of games. And these were typically kabadi-kind.

In the rains, sand gets soaked so much that it gets as hard as a rock. We could then play ball games like football. And races.

I then shifted to Ponnur for my one-year Pre-University. The land there was black cotton soil. Mostly clay. This is the very opposite of sand. In the rains, it gets so glutinous that your feet dig into it and every effort has to be made to pull it out step after step. Walking is a punishment; and cycling is even worse. So, we had to take long detours to find dry patches. Any kind of outdoor play was out of the question.

But in summer it gets as hard as rock and all sorts of field games were a delight. I learned cycling there. The land was so fertile that an acre of it cost thrice its Muthukur cousins.

When I was just a kid, we lived in the village, Atmakur, for a year. All that I recall is that it was rocky. There was a hillock right in the midst of the village and we used to climb it to hunt and collect golies made of rock by Mother Nature. They were perfectly spherical and came in all sizes. The place would have been a treasure for students of geology. It appears that when broken rocks are beaten by hostile weather like rain and wind and sun their angularities are rounded...like toothless old men {;-}

From Ponnur I shifted to the University town of Visakhapatnam for 7 years.

This is a unique place. It has sea on one side with a vast stretch of sandy beach where we used to hang around. When we got bored with sea, we used to walk inland where there were as many hillocks as you wish with verdant greenery, mini-waterfalls, huge trees and temples.

We had the best of both worlds.

Listen to our Autocrat on sea vs mountains:

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--The sea remembers nothing.  It is feline.  It licks your feet,--its huge flanks

purr very pleasantly for you; but it will crack your bones and eat you, for all

that, and wipe the crimsoned foam from its jaws as if nothing had happened.

The mountains give their lost children berries and water; the sea mocks their

thirst and lets them die. The mountains have a grand, stupid, lovable

tranquillity; the sea has a fascinating, treacherous intelligence.  The

mountains lie about like huge ruminants, their broad backs awful to look

upon, but safe to handle.  The sea smooths its silver scales until you cannot

see their joints,--but their shining is that of a snake's belly, after all.--In deeper

suggestiveness I find as great a difference.  The mountains dwarf mankind

and foreshorten the procession of its long generations.  The sea drowns out

humanity and time; it has no sympathy with either; for it belongs to eternity,

and of that it sings its monotonous song forever and ever.



Yet I should love to have a little box by the seashore. 

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Then I shifted to KGP for the next 40 years.

The place is a jungle or forest, as you like. It is a paradise for bird-lovers, tree-lovers and bug-lovers. But it has no great water body nearby where one can sit and get lost in the infinite. But it used to have a glorious night-sky during monsoons since we used to have all-night power cuts. Not nowadays I think.

Now I am in Hyderabad...full of boulders and rock formations. And crumbling palaces. We do have a vast water body right in the midst of the city...Hussain Sagar...but it stinks.

And in any case I am too old to stir out. Deccan Chronicle and Times of India are my windows on the city.

Mix sand, clay (cement) and rocks (gravel) and I guess you get roadside concrete...like my head {;-}

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Chutzpah

US: "Don't crush Anna's campaign"

India: "Mind your debt"


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