Sunday, September 18, 2005

"Minuguthare"

Okay, this is not at all a good picture but this is the best I had here at uni.

This is home. The entire house is not covered in the pic though. My house is named "Minuguthare" which in Kannada literally means 'shining star'. The house was bulit by my grandpa in 1962 and the family moved in in 1963. My granny tell me that back then, a bulb burning in the veranda could be seen from the other side of the town. There is this slope just before you enter Madikeri, in front of hte head post office. It is here that you can see the proper town of Madikeri in full, with sloping roof tops and billboards and mosques and all the other trappings of a town. It also happens to be my favourite part of the town.

Now, this is the place from where you could see the light from the house. It would look like a star from that distance and that is how it came to be called that. I love my house, obviously. The best thing is that it is within the town limits and the main town is just about a 10-min ride. But right in the middle of the town is our little estate. We dont cultivate anything here. The entire place has the ambience of a village house, though it is anything but that. There are our fields in front, an estate, our own view point from where you can see half of Madikeri, an emerald pond, a few turtles, two huge fishes, an old well where a huge frog used to live, cows grazing nearby (not ours), trees that I love climbing, fig trees that I am very attached to, a clearing which is made for partying and a mountain called Stewart's Hill! So it is something out of a picture postcard, a true beauty. There was even a long tunnel that I had discovered, though that is gone now.

To be frank I dont miss my family as I talk to them every day. It is this mix of village and city life that I miss the most. Among my favourite pass times is roaming in my estate, sitting on the edge of the pond, looking at the bluest sky ever, gazing into the pond, the colour of precious emerald and just thinking....

They say that you can take a girl out of the mountains but you cannot take the mountain out of the girl. That is how it is with me. Madikeri will always be in my blood.

2 comments:

San Nakji said...

That looks like a great place. It is exactly what I imagine about India... How many people live there?

Deepa Bhasthi said...

this is my home. my parents, granny, my dog and I live here, apart from hundreds of other animals like i said.