Veranda Tales-Needle in a haystack

Storytelling has been an integral part of my life since childhood. I grew up listening to stories during the hot summer evenings and nights with my cousins. Mothers and grandmothers would gather all of us children for story time. It was usually pitch dark except for a very faint light coming from the flickering candle. Power cuts were as frequent as the hot and humid summer days. We all spread out on a cool concrete floor or bamboo mats on the veranda intently listening to fascinating stories about kings, queens, princes, princesses, and peasants alike. Stories about love, life, families, and people entertained and taught us life skills. These stories transported us to distant worlds, strange yet familiar. Often the same story told by two people sounded different as storytellers added new twists and turns adding their personal style and flair to the stories.

Storytelling wasn’t limited to summer evenings and bedtime. I was surrounded by adults who didn’t pass up an opportunity to share their wisdom using the art of storytelling. These rich vibrant oral traditions include songs, poems, stories, and సామెతలు (Sametalu are proverbs in Telugu). Men and women sing songs as they work in the fields, grinding grains and spices and doing other daily chores at their homes. Stories are often used to teach important life lessons, interpersonal skills, and survival skills. These stories and the time spent listening to them made our lives richer leaving an impression on me. This series is all about reliving those memories as I share these stories.

తిరుపతిలో బోడి గుండు వెతికినట్టు (tirupathilo bodigundu vethikinatlu)

“I am afraid our kids will go missing in the sea of people in India.” I said to my spouse as we were getting ready to head out on our first trip to see family in India with two kids in tow. I explained further when I saw a very puzzled expression on his face – "Everybody has black hair there and we won’t have the luxury of spotting them as easily as we do here among a sea of different shades of blond haired people.”  I have gotten very comfortable being able to spot two bobbing heads of black hair as they walked ahead of me at malls or on the streets. The thought of losing track of them on our trip to India reminded me of the fear of leaving the car seat with my baby in it when I was pregnant with my firstborn. This fear contributed to my already sleepless nights resulting from not being able to find a comfortable sleeping position with my big belly. Sleeping on your back is bad because it could cut blood flow to the uterus and sleeping on your left side is the best. It wasn’t fun at all to lie down in any position during the last three months of the pregnancy. I never left the car seat anywhere and both my kids are now adults. I lost sleep for several months needlessly.

My spouse assured me that we won’t lose track of them in India. I was reassured and it lasted until we went to board our domestic flight in India. We were lining up for security screening, pulling out our phones, cameras, watches, and taking our shoes off while worrying about two little kids. A security official came up to us and said to me, “Women’s line is over there.”, directing me to another line at the far end of the security area. My two boys went with my spouse as he juggled two kids and three passports and three boarding passes. The boarding passes had to be stamped to indicate we cleared security. My job was easier as I had to worry about just my passport and boarding pass. Once I placed my belongings on the conveyor belt and watched them disappear under the x-ray machine, I had to wait in line for my turn for a pat down and a handheld metal detector wand. I was concerned about losing my valuables while I was in the line. At Indian airports, women and men are screened separately. Women are screened by female security officers. When my turn came up,  I stepped up onto a small platform with curtains all around for privacy. After patting me down and waving the wand around me, the security officer stamped my boarding pass to indicate that I was cleared to board. I rushed over to the screened luggage to pick up my stuff.

My anxieties flooded back in after this experience at the airport. I braced myself for four more segregated screenings during our trip. In addition to the airport experience, we had two overnight train trips to visit family.  It was a mad rush for us to get on the train with luggage and our two boys who were bewildered to be in the middle of a crowded train station. If you are used to taking trains in Japan where train compartments (cars) stop precisely at their pre-designated location on the platform, traveling by trains in India will be a huge shock to your system. There is no way to know where the compartment you reserved your seat in would stop. You wait for the train to arrive and do a mad dash towards your compartment as it speeds by you. You dodge other passengers with their luggage, porters carrying luggage, and vendors trying to sell food, newspapers, tea, fruits, and snacks during the precious one or two minutes that the train would stop for. There are also opportunists looking to snatch gold chains hanging around women’s necks, handbags from their arms, and wallets from men. It is a miracle how everybody ends up where they need to be - passengers on the train and vendors and porters on the platform after getting paid for their goods and services. Miraculously parents don’t lose one of their children or a piece of luggage and valuables during these mad rushes.

We were lucky on the first leg of the journey as we boarded the train at the originating station.  The train station was crowded and dimly lit. We were making our way through the crowds on the platform with our phones ringing continuously. Our well meaning family kept calling us to make sure we were safe and sound. We managed to find our compartment (train car) after wading through the people with our luggage and kids all the while answering phone calls to assure our family that we were indeed safe. We found our seats and secured our luggage underneath the seats with luggage chain locks. It was an important step so nobody runs away with your luggage while you are snoozing. Our train left the busy station behind and started its journey eastward through the night. Soon after we left the station, train conductors started their rounds to check tickets. They also assigned vacant berths to people who boarded the train without prior reservation or asked them to move from the reserved compartment to find a seat in a general compartment.

We packed a large stack of puris and potato curry for dinner and breakfast for our trip. Traveling by train in India was an exciting and strange experience for our kids. Our train attendant came by to give us our bedding to spread on our berths to sleep on. When I traveled on trains with my parents they used to bring bedding. Each bedding bundle the attendant gave us had a clean ironed white sheet and a red and brown checkered patterned blanket. The blanket had a deceptively fuzzy appearance, but rough when to the touch. I was concerned about using the blanket. I chose to ignore my inner voice as I handed the blanket to my older son. He woke up with hives and a rash all over his body the next morning. He must have been allergic to the rough blanket. It didn’t dampen his spirits as he chatted with fellow passengers. Our fellow passengers enjoyed chatting with my ten year old as he talked about his school and friends at school. Our younger son clung to us as he was teeny tiny.

We were looking forward to looking out the window watching the world go by as our train hugged the rails traveling through villages and towns. We realized the glass panels on the windows were clouded and dirty and we couldn’t really see much through them. It was disappointing for sure. Ironically we ended up in the exact same compartment on our return journey a few days later. What are the odds of that happening? We must have angered the train gods.

The best part of the train trip was the unlimited supply of coffee from vendors who boarded the train to sell coffee, tea, melas, and snacks. Coffee vendors kept walking from one compartment to another handing out glasses full of hot coffee and collecting money. It isn’t the brown water we call coffee in the USA. This was full bodied delicious coffee with milk and sugar. Another highlight was talking to fellow passengers and swapping life stories with them. It turned out I didn’t need to worry about losing track of children in India just like I didn’t need to worry about leaving the car seat with my baby in it when I was pregnant with my firstborn. When I begin to sweat the little things, I tell myself to enjoy life without worrying about 5% of the things that could go wrong.

Whenever I remember my fear of losing track of my two kids in the sea of black haired people in India, “తిరుపతిలో బోడి గుండు వెతికినట్టు (tirupathilo bodigundu vethikinatlu)” sameta comes to my mind.  The Tirumala Venkateswara Temple in Andhra Pradesh is a major Hindu pilgrimage site for Telugu speaking people. The temple's construction began around 300 AD under the reign of a king of the Pallava dynasty. Records indicate that a Pallava queen, Samavai donated jewels and land to the temple in 966 CE. The temple was consecrated in 1130 AD by the saint Ramanujacharya, a Indian Hindu philosopher, guru, and social reformer. Later the Chola dynasty developed the temple further. In 1517 AD, the Emperor of Vijayanagara Empire, Krishnadevaraya, donated gold and jewels on one of his many visits to the temple, making it possible for the ఆనంద నిలయం (Ananda Nilayam - inner shrine) roofing to be gilded with gold.

Devotees get their heads shaved by barbers at this temple as a sign of their devotion. It is a tradition to take children for their first దర్శనం (Darshanam) when they are one year of age to get their heads shaved and donate the hair. Because of this tradition, తిరుపతి (Tirupati) area is usually teaming with people of all ages and genders with shaved heads. Spotting a loved one in the sea of shaved heads is challenging if you ever get separated from them.