Back in Wadi and face to face with a Telugu Proverb

This was narrated to me by my friend Nissankara Bhargava, presently Exhibition Officer at Visvesvaraya Industrial and technological Museum, Bengaluru. There appears to be a folk festival in some village in Andhra called Kanchukotsavam, the festival of blouses. On a particular day of the year, womenfolk of the village go to the river bank, take of their blouses and throw them into the river in spate. The menfolk, who used to wait downstream jumped into the river the moment they saw the blouses floating downstream and grabbed what came into their hands. One for each. They then went back to the women. The man with a blouse belonging to a particular woman got to spend the day (night rather) with her. Good fun and change of bed for all.

One such kanchukotsavam day, as the womenfolk were waiting with bated breaths and bared breasts, all women got their share of goodies while one particularly dumb husband – one like me- seemed to have grabbed his own spouse’s blouse. As she saw him coming towards her she gave vent to her frustration with a phrase which has since become a proverb in Telugu, meaning “Gosh! The same husband even on the festival day!” meaning nothing worth talking about even on a special occasion. “Panduga rojulo kooda paata magudena” May it be said that my homecoming to Wadi evoked similar frustration in the absence of familiar faces and circumstances. Everything had changed. Srinath now was the centre of attraction of the Family. I was a new entrant in the household I possessed and held on my palms. No old friends. Nothing. It was the first time that the truth of passing time changing the space time coordinates of a place was brought home to me so forcefully. I was a new man in Wadi. I had left a favourite child and had returned a new man. I was as much a stranger in Wadi as I was at Moovattupuzha. Happy homecoming, but same old circumstances.

And finally like the singer in TV programmes, I shout, to all of you who are reading this "come on come on comment, lets all comment together" Else gentle readers, I stop writing altogether. Or is that what you want?