During the 3rd week of June 2017, the nation was grappling with the Jallikattu protests
in Tamil Nadu and one of the reasons for conducting Jallikattu events, it seems is to ensure that good breeds of local bulls are identified and further propagated, if not our country will
be flooded with Jersey cows from New Jersey.
At the
same time a
Voraganti man from New Jersey arrives and uses a different strategy this time to get all Voragantis at one place.
Earlier he used to visit
individually to all the houses. This
time his change in strategy has paid off really well and it ended up as being one of the most memorable and fun filled
event in every Voragantis life.
This Voraganti man whom
we call Dilip alias Kuppi alias vavudu alias Venkatram alias what not, announced that he will
be at Jayanagar, Sadaram’s house
sorry Sudharam ( sometimes i forget who
is the real boss ) on 20th Jan 2017.
He mentioned in
Whatsapp that he will stay for a few days
there and people can visit him like
they visit temples. He seems to have assumed a god like stature
after staying for more than two decades in US ( you see he is a Dollar Abbai) and he
was calling the shots during his stay in Bangalore.
All voragantis with baggages invaded Sudharam’s house at
Jayanagar on 20th Jan 2017 evening.
There was lot of cacophony and
sound in the house and it was free
for all and seeing the large crowd,
Aunty Sudharam lost some kilos of weight.
So much weight loss happened to Aunty Sudharam, it took her a
week to regain her lost
weight and could
raise her usual voice at papa Sadharam
again. For almost a
week Uncle Sadharam had
a jolly good time, since no one
was raising a voice
on him. Uncle Sadharam was not knowing that all
good things in life come to an
end.
Sorry i have digressed from the topic and on
20th Jan 2017 night, we
all voragantis had dinner at Maiyyas
restaurant in Jayanagar sponsored by Sterling apartment owners. ( Savitha will
say that none of the Voragantis
can think beyond MTR or Maiyyas).
I am a lecturer
used to taking attendance and
the attendance at Maiyyas on 20th Jan 2017 at 9.00 PM sharp is given below:
Attendees
:
Main
Gantis: Balasubramanyam , Annapoorna, Gurumurthy, Ramamurthy, Geetha and Dilip.
The tail Gantis
: not in any order of importance : Alamelu,
Sonia Gandhi, Sudharam and Sathyamurthy
The tail to tail Gantis :
Yeshwanthpur Shanti nivasi Chennama (excuse me, i do not know the
meaning of shanti ), Vijaya who celebrates
marriage anniversary listening to
Bombay sisters music along with Hubby Prasad were both present.
Nandita the silent and the gentle
girl who is getting her axe grinded at MS Ramaih engineering college.( Nandita
is my
favourite for her pleasing nature and shows a high degree of
maturity for her age and also since
i am a big
fan of Nandita das ).
Arathi from Vibhu
academy was present ( Unlike Vibhishana she can turn into
Ravana when espousing Hindu causes),
Shashi kumar also from Vibhu academy ( The real Vibhisana ) and
the youngest of the lot Vibhu my darling were also present.
Jikki who looked
demonised by the demonitization initiative as she
is always counting demonitized notes was there and also present was her hubby
Vishwanath the guitarist whose
music we have not heard because
it is always drowned by Jikki ‘s music.
Bakki
was present though Dwarakanath was
missing. Dwarakanath the gentlemen
who has
been empowered totally
by Bakki for
doing all the work at home. Bakki
seems to be a silent girl and it
is really intriguing how
she has managed to empower
Dwarakanath to such an extent
when all other women
have failed in this aspect. (
Husbands hardly visit Kitchen except to put off cooker (after two whistles and ten minutes) and get
something to munch before settling in
front of TV). Bakki please do not share your secrets with others.
Aravind the Jolly LLB 2 was also present ( he is the second lawyer from the Voraganti
clan after the First LLB lawyer, who else other
than the Patriarch of the entire
clan, Vasudeva sastrygaru (I will write another blog about our Patriarch
after collecting sufficient information
on how he came to Bangalore as a young
boy and built a great family )
I forgot to mention the presence of my supposed
to be gentle boss Smitha ( the
wearer knows where the shoe pinches). Also present was my suputhra
Prajwal who is double my height. I can challenge
him only on the width of my tummy.
At Maiyyas
initially half an hour was lost on deciding
on the number of full meals, half
meals, plate meals and what not.
Some of us took plate meals and did a
Boothayana maga ayyu.( Instead of
changing seats we passed on puris
and the server was looking
at Bakki and he was
surprised, how she has consumed a
dozen puris in less than five minutes. We were all avoiding the
glare of the server and were quickly downing
the puris.
Meanwhile a
trip was being
planned to Mysore
by Sathyamurthy with all gantis (It looks like Sathyamurhty hijacked the trip to
Mysore, since he wanted to show his palace at Jayalakshmi puram, walk at kukkarahalli lake, look at thattayya’s statue, some Horlicks vendors and what not in Mysore.
21st Jan 2017 (
Trip to Mysore )
A twenty seater
van left at
8.00 AM from Jayanagar to
Mysore with all gantis loaded
into it. We were
supposed to have breakfast at
Kamat Yatri nivas on the Mysore
road near Ramanagara.
Sathyamurthy took control
on reaching kengeri ( we
did not know he was taking
control of the entire two days trip) and
suddenly decided to have
breakfast at Udipi gardenia soon after Kengeri. He was breaking the break fast my making
us have early breakfast.
The van
with the Voragantis left to Melkote. ( My
main attraction of going to Melkote was food at
Subbana’s mess ). As
per Sikhs after langar
only we have prabhu ka darshan.
The Melkote is
a deviation of 36 kms from Mandya on the high way to Mysore. There
is a lot of greenery on either side of the road to
Melkote and was a treat to watch and soothing to the eyes.
After reaching Melkote at around 12.00 pm, We had Cheluvaraya Swami darshan and
then we started hunting
for the lane of Subbanna’s mess. ( A small eatery
and the owner is from Hoysala
Karnataka sect, Shivamogga ) . The
meal was simply out of the
world. The sugar pongal, Jaggery pongal, the trade mark
Puliyogare, Huli, majjige huli and rasam. We were downing
all the items into our stomach in kilos as if there was no tomorrow.
This was my second visit to Subbana’s
mess. In my earlier visit many years back, i identified the Subbanna mess before identifying the temple and had to
listen to an earful of gaallis from my gentle Smitha ( Devarannu nodoke bandidirro illa puliyogare
thinnoke bandidirro). The Subbanna mess
Puliyogore was worth all the gaallis.
From Melkote
after packing the stomach with
Puliyogare and taking packets of Puliyogare mix for packing
the stomach once again with puliyogare at night, we
headed to the palace of Sathyamurthy at Mysore. We reached
Mysore around 4.30 PM.
Sathyamurthy took on a conducted tour inside his house explaining the photos and all the standard operating procedure to be followed in the house. This
Standard operating procedure
has been drawn by the Lakkavalli brothers.
( they missed out including that drinking glasses can be used at home.)
Therefore the drinking glasses
are banned at home. You cannot raise glasses nor toast and if lawyer papa’s
boss comes to know a case
will be filed by Papa against
his own Lakkavalli brothers, you see
papa has to listen to his boss).
I do not know which other lawyer the
remaining Lakkavalli brothers will appoint to fight the case of the clinking
glasses.
After taking rest for an hour or so in the apartment, we
left to Srirangapatna to view the sound and light show which
depicts the rise and fall of Tipu. ( Shashidhar Adapa has done an
excellent job depicting the history). We
feel thrilled and get
goosebumps at listening to the
glory and the bravery of the people of those days. Srirangapatna is the best fortified
city in India but due to the machinations and back stabbing by its own
people it fell to the britishers.
We came back to Mysore
and we all
had a gala voragantis night, everyone
sang and enjoyed.
Mankuthimmana
kaggas to Mukesh songs
to Rafi Songs to the
song composed by Geetha
for empowering women’s role,
everything was touched
spanning a past period of more than 50 years. It
was one of the best sights,
i have ever seen where all voragantis were
re - living their childhood
days and sharing anecdotes.
We have to thank
Dilip and Sathyamurhty for making this trip happen. My
eyes are welling up as i am writing this piece. I am guilty of seeing too much
tamil news and tamil movies off late.
22nd
Jan 2017 ( Sunday )
On 22nd Jan 2017 we
all left the apartment in the
morning and headed to kukkarahalli lake.
After strolling inside
for an hour or so. We all had herbal
drink outside ( For Sathyamurthy it
tasted like Horlicks for the reasons he knows well).
Then we
had Dosas at
Mylari hotel, one of the old land mark hotels in Mysore.
After visiting the
Nanjangud temple, we headed
to Bangalore. It was nice to hear Dilip telling shlokas for the entire time inside the Nanjangud temple. I never felt he is away from India and its
ethos. Kudos to Dilip for upholding our culture. I was feeling like a pigmy in front of Dilip
for i have not learned any slokhas.
On the way to
Bangalore at Indradhanush Hotel we
had some snacks. Thanks Savitha for weaning us away from MTR’s,
Kamat and Maddur Tiffany’s. We reached Bangalore around 6.00 PM.
We were all exhausted
by the time we reached Bangalore but on the whole it was a memorable journey.
My take on the above:
What is life other than
some treasured memories from the past. What
has happened till now in life are no more than images and memories lodged in
some recess of our brain. The past memories
keep our roots well anchored in
the past, while we are winging our way
into the future. Future in no time becomes the past and this play of nature
continues and the relentless march of time keeps putting the players one at a time back into the closet. ( please clap !!!)
Note : Some of the snaps taken at Nanjangud and Indhradhanush hotel follows after this blog.
Long live the Voragantis clan with all prosperity of mind,
body and soul.
Signing of with love
Voraganti Sastry
Below Snaps taken at Indra dhanush hotel
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