Here’s hope that Coorg will never become the tourist haven many feel it should aspire to.
Raining old women with clubs
This ancient Namibian proverb only partially describes our wet week-long sojourn in this utterly beautiful part of Karnataka. We’re 10 minutes up a steep hill (which till recently used to house a coffee plantation) in Bittangala, a short distance from the only golf course in south Coorg, or Kodagu. But no one can play golf. For four straight days and nights, it doesn’t stop raining. The wind howls for hours on end, abating for barely 10 minutes, before picking up again with renewed ferocity. Trees are uprooted, roads are blocked (and miraculously unblocked) and we survive thanks to a generator for the entire period. This continuous sound-and-water show plays tricks on the mind—and I’m not talking about board games Boggle et al. After a while, my sons Kabir and Krishna refused to go up to the bedroom alone to fetch a book—or even a gadget!
The affable Kodendera ‘Nanda’ Cariappa—the retired Air Marshal with an enviable lineage who got famously shot down and taken prisoner in the 1965 war with Pakistan—informs me that it has never rained so heavily in this part of Coorg since he’s been back 19 years ago. Located right in the middle of a forest, we soak in the green (and many more shades of green than you can imagine). Thankfully, no snakes and leeches show up.
Green politics
This onslaught of nature—mind you, the monsoons have barely begun—has given me some hope that Coorg will never become the tourist haven many feel it should aspire to. Despite thousands of plantations and homestays knitted together by excellent roads, connectivity to the rest of the country is poor. But given that the builder lobby is busy carving up “layouts” all over the district, there are fears that residential complexes and hotels will destroy the unique ecosystem of this Western Ghats hotspot. Thanks to growth and poor sanitation, the capital Madikeri is fast becoming another Mussoorie. As writer Roopa Pai put it in a piece for the Outlook website: “Coorg is a small coffee-growing, pork-eating, hard-drinking, gun-toting district of Karnataka with a terrible superiority complex.” If you ask me, it’s in the national interest that it continues to remain so.
Right-wing rumblings
We’re in Coorg to celebrate the 75th birthday of my wife Rathi’s uncle G. Parthasarathy, the diplomat-turned-news-TV-hawk. There’s much family bonding—anecdotes are swapped, tall stories told, and I’m happy to report no one is provoked enough to spill a glass of wine. As word gets around, the invitations start flying in—everyone wants to meet the man on national TV! During one such interaction at a 100-plus-year-old house in Siddapur, it emerges that a key concern is “population control”—there has been a steady influx of Muslims from Kerala into the district. Despite assuring many of these guests that it is statistically impossible to overrun the Hindus, the older generation is clearly worried. The silver lining—one gets a calmer, more accepting view on migration when one speaks to some members of the younger lot.
Bittersweet partying
This is a first for me: I have never partied for an entire week with a group whose average age is 85, with the eldest being a sprightly 92-year-old Lt General Somanna, the former deputy chief of the army. His wife Renu, an irreverent and charming motormouth, was the star of one afternoon. You have to admire the zest for life here—they show up on time, eat and drink well, leave late, and drive their Dusters back to their estates themselves. Despite everyone knowing each other, I’m sure there’s loneliness and boredom too in these massive estates. And of course, there are limits to age. I get into a discussion on the joys of the drink Campari with a gentleman, telling him that some of the best things in life are bitter. A bit tipsy, he turned to me with a twinkle in his eye: “Well, I wouldn’t know if my wife’s bitter…it’s been a while since I’ve tasted her.”
National food integration
High up above the beautifully sleepy Mysore rests the famous Chamundeshwari temple. The tourist-clutter-complex also hosts Durga restaurant which has the best menu-teaser I’ve seen in a while: “South Indian meals, Kerala meals, Rajasthani thali, Gujarati thali, Punjabi thali, Bengali thali, Bombay thali, UP and MP, idly, dosa, alu parota, parota, puri, chapathi & side dishes Punjabi.” According to my vagabond friend Siddheshwar Wahi’s astute analysis on Facebook, “Punjabi rulz! It appears twice.” A family elder asks an important question: “Surely, parotta tastes better than parantha?”
Last week…
While visiting Mysore, I text a colleague in Delhi whose hometown it is. I get the following response: “Good. Make sure you leave it the way I left it.”
Sunit Arora is the associate managing editor of Outlook; E-mail your diarist: sunit [AT] outlookindia [DOT] com
source: http://www.outlookindia.com / Outlook / Outlook> Magazine> Last Page> Diary / by Sunit Arora / Magazine – July 13th, 2015
