The Mela and fun

Last few days was buzzing with social life. We were invited for a lunch at didis place and we had a great time. Wifey prepared sambar for didi and maya along with some chutnies and kheer. We topped the lunch with a vanilla icecream with mangoes. Ginger loved virat and he enjoyed petting their cat

Talk of weather close to the mountains and we now have enough experiences. The weather here changes so rapildy that its not easy to predict. This time of the year wind is a constant factor and we dont need a fan. One can constantly hear the buzz of wind throughout the night and the flow of water from the aqueducts adds spice to it. A bright sunny day can suddenly change and it can start pouring while a big downpour can be followed by clear skies and beautiful views of sunlit skies and mountains.  Last sunday we are supposed to have mela in rakkar but weather gods had other plans. Hailstorm followed by consistent downpour made the mela doubtful.  But boy after 3 pm it all cleared up and the mela was on.

Spring and summer in this part of himachal are abuzz with melas in many towns and villages. This owing to the fact that people can step out of their homes due to relatively pleasant weather. So last sundays turn was rakkar. We had food stalls preparing jilebis, onion pakoras, momos,chicken, mutton, kulfis, icecreams, tikka, chat, golgappa to name a few and we have shops selling items of interest for women and kids alike.  Vegetable vendors, some fun games, joy rides for kids were all part of mela. The limelight of the evening for sure were the wrestling or kusthi matches. One can see kids from 7-8 years to young and adults participating in the matches. I tried some photography of those matches and here are some results.

Interestingly both winner and looser gets paid small amount. A guy goes around  the ring drumming all  through the while. The winner will be tickmarked  on his chest with a marker and looser will have be cross-marked. The atmosphere around was buzzing. People of all ages enjoyed watching the matches. People in fact came in cars, bikes and on foot from other places and went around the place eating and shopping. We tried some food and our kid enjoyed almost all the rides. Some smart guy sold masala dosa and our taste buds could not resist tasting them, though we ended up paying a premium price. The dosa was decent but sambar was a disaster as it was spoilt and smelled aweful. Wifey floated an idea of setting a south indian food stall in such melas and I am very much for it :)

Nishtha, the local ngo organised a puppet show with environment as theme and the kids at nishtha performed it well backed by good practise. Sangitha volunteered to train the kids. Sowjanya followed it with a shadow puppet show for kids which I had to miss as virat was ready to sleep. It was a great experience and we returned home happy and content.

Meanwhile I managed to sow bindhi seeds at small patch of 3x3 sqft plot at sulochana aunties farm. Its fun learning the process as she guided me. The part of field was filled with water for complete day. Water from the nearest stream was drawn simply by placing few boulders which naturally pushed water to the farm. Next day I dug it up a little and leveled it with hand and droppings of goat,cow  and hen  were added to it as natural manure.  Post that I pushed in small seeds into the soil with little pressure and hold on don't close them yet since you need to know where you had the seed and where you didn't.  End of it close all pits with hand leveling it again. Dont water it until you see saplings emerging. Here are some photos from the activity.  I am waiting for the seeds to spring to life.

Apart from all this we went visiting close by places with our aunt guiding us last Saturday. We took the 2 pm bus to a village named tong which lies on the Dharmashala-palampur highway.Its ride of a lifetime for me. The bus took us through some roads and some little existing roads and the views are stunning and I am already looking forward to visiting tong again. As I type this the koels started synphony at 4-30 am followed by blue whistling thrushes long whistle. Himalayan bulbuls are joining the orchestra and daybreak is beckoning.

We visited Chamunda temple, a temple for goddess Kali which offer stunning views of the snowcaps. From there, we took another bus to Yol, a small town which host an army cantonment. My wife loved the views of the mountains from this town. We did some shopping, had a good ice cream. I chanced up an very professional looking barber in that town

Post shopping, we happily opted to try the village road to Rakkar instead of taking a bus back to home. We were glad with the decision as we walked through the fields that were recently harvested for wheat. The views are amazing and viraat enjoyed the hike as we walked along the fields, on the bunds watching the dauladhar ranges as the bright sun and melting snow on top showing smoky affect.

We also joined aunty and uncle clean up the wheat they produced in their farm. Wifey was happy to try her hands in the act and virat was happy too picking up fresh wheat and chewing it away.

The house where cleaning happened was their earlier house which they rented few rooms and had one room as granary. Interestingly the guy who rented one of the room goes to the forest to pick up some resin from pine trees and I am curious to join him next time to understand what he does. Wait for my updates on that.

Our hikes are fun as I walk slow watching birds and wifey goes fast and the kid trying to run between the two. In fact walking down to buy vegetables is a mini hike  in itself but we stick together and have a leisure walk. We noticed that the vegetables here cooks much faster, easier and tastes much better than our counterparts in bangalore(altitude?). We find people warmer than ever, our neighbors now know us and last week someone retired from military and had a grand lunch party and we got a message that we "angrejis" can also join the party, however we opted not to since we would love to see a wedding or more traditional function.

Yesterday I got a chance to help nishtha prepare a poster and it's good to be back to work and volunteering. I hiked back to home for lunch and went back to continue my work. In the evening we went for another hike as I added another bird to the my rakkar bird list. We were discussing to send Virat to the local anganwadi school from tomorrow to keep him occupied. I am curious to know how he would fit in here, especially since language is a barrier for him. 

That's it for now. Keep coming back for more reading