Of People and Places

The beauty parlour close to my house is run by a Miss Trunchbull like personality, with whom we have only just managed to break the ice after three years. Usually, she ignores us as she expertly trims someone's hair, or does this weird walk like an Egyptian thing with her head when she is threading our eyebrows, or sharing some juicy gossip with someone who has presumably known her for more than three years. But the other day, she smiled at us and that transformed her face. It was a brief smile but it made her less intimidating. She is super efficient, barking out orders at the other girls who work there - mostly from the North - Eastern states and Nepal. They seem intimidated by her too. They are relaxed when she is not around and they laugh and giggle and horse around. I was getting a much needed pedicure to come back with some new, 'glowing' feet and one of the employees who had just walked in popped this red slab of sticky looking candy into the beautician's ...

Most of my memories of places are tangled with memories of some lip smacking food, so much so, that if I think of a place, the image of food swims tantalizingly before my eyes. So it is with Kundapura. And Prawn ghee roast. The beautiful land of Kundapura is an hour away from Manipal by bus.  I was on my way to the Namma Bhoomi campus close to Kundapura town. It is a residential school for children and it is uniquely designed with local resources and more importantly, by asking the children what they want the space to look like. The children here elect their own Makkala Panchayat and have a say in all matters. I think that’s a wonderful step towards making them responsible without too much steering from grown ups. I reach Kundapura, a withered shell of what I had once been, wilting in the coastal sun and heat, glad to be out of the crowded bus.  I ask a passer-by the way to Shetty Lunch home and he shows me the way. It is close to the bus stop. It is a little after...