Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue

I stepped outside my home yesterday, as usual fiddling with my mobile, not looking where I was going and .... no , I dint fall, thanks for thinking the nicest thought that comes into your head.... I see this couple passing by, I absent mindedly turn back to my mobile and see that the lady has stopped and turned around and was gesturing to me. She says "Chennagidiya" and I go "hmm, smile ,neenu(darn I should have said neevu)?
she nods and then I realise who she is.
Now, the area I live in, at one point of time, fully belonged to just one man. A landlord / zamindar if you will. He passed away and split it up among 5 sons, all of whom have their houses on the street that I have my house on. The village turned into part of Bangalore, land got sold to all those new settlees and people like yours truly began to call that area theirs.
Now, the family of those 5 brothers still continue to have farms and have cows , so there's a whole lot of village atmosphere yet when you go to their homes. The menfolk sell milk in the morning, the women will help clean up the gobar, they have a dozen or so servants running around.
Now the children of this household grow up in an atmosphere of zamindari whilst having to do proper physical labour without shying away from it and yet go to colleges like Jyoti Nivas or Christ and see the 'other' crowd.
Now when I used to go to college, this lady (go back to the beginning of the story, in case you forgot who the lady is) and me used to occasionally go together. She was the typical homely traditional type, who nurtured hopes or should I call them dreams of graduating and becoming a working woman, independant. She was one of those soft spoken girls who had an ever ready smile no matter what.I lost touch with her and heard a little while later that she had given up studying for marriage. The only thing that came to mind then was fury.Now, here was someone who felt studying would make a difference in her life, someone to whom it mattered that she was educated, someone who had a dream.It was all squashed for a mere marriage. And as a bystander there was nothing else I could do anyways.
She got married and left for some faraway place.
And yesterday, for RamaNavami she had come home to visit her parents and passed by my place. We got to speaking, where are you now ... Are you working? She says , I think wistfully, "I am a proper housewife" and smiles.
Truth be told, she looked so beautiful and at peace with life that it didnt seemt to matter that she wasnt working or that she even remembered what she wanted 8 years ago.
ANd best of all, she still had that smile on :)

Of hillocks,cute village boys and jackfruits

I had gone to this pretty little temple recently. A mere 70 km from Bangalore, somewhere near Tumkur in/on DevarayanaDurga. The drive was scenic in itself and I had no idea that we had road toll near Bangalore, 11Rs to use the road aint that bad. And God bless Reliance for coming up with A1 and saving us the torture of using the roadside dhabas and dont even get me started on the restroom facilities.
Anyways, road tax given, cruising along at 100 kmph (nope windows not rolled down, was way too hot to do that) , it took us a while to realise that the radio was hissing not coz the poor instrument was spoilt but coz we had left Bangalore city limits. We did have mummy giving background music, everytime daddy went right over a hump at 100 :))
Villages, hillocks, lakes, greenery .... thats the way the world was meant to be wasnt it? what is it with metal and glass skyscrapers? Are there no more Howard Roarks left in this world?
We reach the temple right around noon before realising that temples arent open 24/7 , spoilt city people us being. but, to our relief it was open until 1. We had to climb a good 500 stairs , the temple's atop a hill in a cave and there's only so far that a car can take you. There was a nice breeze blowing, helping the puffing panting souls along to the top.
It was a temple as a temple should be. Stone pillars, stone floors, scattered crowd, sweet smell of camphor, incantations of Om in the background, calm breeze, a pretty sight around, a lake behind it and a smiling pujari. What more can one ask for? and of course, the alankaram for the deity (Shri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy) was beautiful. To complete the pradakshanams , we had to walk around the 'enclosure', turns out we are standing on pure hill-rock and that had been cut away to make place for people to go around. We could see the road winding waywardly (I just liked the sound of that ,so its there... shh) and the green and before there was enough time to sigh we had burning feet to contend with , so we had to run back into the shade.
The prasadam there was by far the best I have ever eaten :D My mouth's actually watering right now at the thought of it.. the generous helping of ghee, the delicious food........ haiiiiiiiii
Darshan done, we drove back down to another temple of the same deity. The contrast has to be seen to be believed. This was almost our typical city temple, though there still was some stone work around and not all covered by the monstrosity called polished granite / marble. A pretty temple in itself no doubt but .... let me just say that the 20th century man had influenced it.
and the next highlight of the day, I drove back the entire stretch. Takes a bow :)

I wish I could find pointers to the lost memory locations in my head

A dozen things that I have been meaning to write about, things that catch my attention and I make a mental note to put it up and then time passes and I get caught up with all the boring details of life and I forget 9 out of 10 things that I should have captured and made immortal.
When you are in the midst of something happening, you tend to feel that the time/emotion is so precious or memorable that there is no way you can forget it. But time passes by and the nuances or those little details are definitely lost. The essence / gist might still linger in the recesses of your mind but you know that it is incomplete.That autograph book from the 10th std just before graduation, old mails that pop out when you are searching for God knows what, photos stowed away or those greeting cards bring back so many lost memories.
Ever wondered how it is that you can hum along when an old song that you havent heard in ages comes up. Its there somewhere in your head but you have forgotten that it exists isnt it?
Is life to be lost like that too?