First Love...or is it?

It was the day of his son's wedding and Nanda Kurambiah was feeling good. He had not felt this good in a long time. His only son Arjun was getting married to a very pretty girl called Kritika. As far as Nanda was concerned she ticked all the boxes as an ideal wife for his son. But that was not all, the alliance was something that Nanda had been planning for years. He actually was quite surprised at his own obsession. But obsession it was.

When Nanda was a young man, staying in a paying guest accomadation in Coorg, working as a lawyers assistant, he had seen her. She was the neice of his landlord. Kaveri was absolutely beautiful, Nanda was smitten instantly. You hear of love at first sight, well according to Nanda it existed. He silently admired this beautiful creature, she did not even know of his existence. Then he heard that she had gotten engaged to a landed Coorg. Instead of his obsession waning, it actually now took on a new form. He was determined that somehow he would be connected to Kaveri. He made it his life's ambition to succeed, after all that's how he knew he would get noticed. He moved to Bangalore, and set up his own practise. Going from strenght to strenght. His parents then found a suitable bride from a wealthy Coorg family and he got married to her, ironically her name was also Kaveri. He was a good husband, but deep down Nanda knew he did not love her or ever would love her. They had two children, his eldest being Arjun and then his daughter Soumya.

Nanda continued to follow the life of his obsession Kaveri. He soon discovered that she did not have kids for a long time. She then had twin daughters, Kritika and Kavita. The next step in Nanda's plan took shape. He befreinded her husband, and got his kids introduced to her kids. Then he told all who would listen, that he would get his son married to one of the twins.

Now these many years later, his goal had been achieved. He was now forever going to be linked to Kaveri, his first love. He saw in her daughter Kaveri, and his son he saw himself.

Attention Grabbing Syndrome

Mumbai is a very difficult city. You will either love it or hate it. Daisy loved it, she loved every thing about it, the people, the buzz, the chaos and even the smell that every one complained about. Daisy was from Coorg, while studying in Mount Carmel in Bangalore, she had tagged along with a friend of hers for an audition, her friend did not get the part, she did. She was over the moon, and then that started the ball rolling, she participated in the Modelhunt competition held by a leading magazine. She placed on the top three and was invited to Mumbai to participate in the finals, where she did not win but came in second, but was completely starstruck. A famous Bollywood actor crowned her, and she got business cards from all the top agencies. “This is where I need to be, I am not going back to Bangalore”. She then pleaded with her Dad and Mom to let her try her hand at modelling, her father gave in after much negotiations, Daisy would have to finish her college and then she would be given 6 months in Mumbai. “Ok, that sounds fair”, she told her Dad.

Coming to Mumbai was tough, she had to find her self a home, the biggest question single women face in the vast city, but the God’s were smiling down at her, she knew it was a good omen, when in an audition she met another girl from Bangalore. Kavita was a Kannidiga and had moved to Mumbai to try her hand at modeling. She lived in an old part of Bandra , right behind Hill road in the fishing village, in a huge house shared with 3 other girls in the fishing village, the rent was moderate, and they had place for one more girl. Daisy moved in that day. She got the room upstairs, it had a tiled roof, and was absolutely bare. She went out and bought herself a mattress, one pillow and some sheets. She was quickly told the rules in the house, every girl had their own shelf in the fridge, bills split equally, and if boys stay over, they were not to disturb the other girls. Privacy was the most important thing for all the girls. She quickly became friends with all the others in the house, each woman was connected to the media in some way. Pia was a Maharastrian from Kolhapur and worked as the head of production with one of the best advertising house’s in Mumbai. She was no nonsense woman, with a heart of gold and bad taste in men. Malini was from Delhi, half Punjabi and half Scottish, she was a fabulous mix, and worked in as Veejay in one of the top music channels in the country. Parizad was a Parsi, she was married and divorced and was a voice over specialist and a Radio jockey.

Daisy’s career took off, and she was flying all over the country doing shows, and ads, and generally life was good. She periodically joked with her house mates, that the house was a place where she came to wash her clothes. She did not mind the travel, it was hectic and fun, though she did get a bit lonely sometimes. She quickly shook her self out of any such thoughts and realized that she would not exchange this life for any thing else. One day she came home in the afternoon, as usual, and there was a palpable quiet in the house. She went up to her room and came down to make a cup of tea. She heard loud sobbing coming from Malini’s room. Not wanting to intrude on her privacy, Daisy made her cup of tea and went into the dining room. She was sitting sipping her tea and dipping her Marie biscuits in the tea, and generally enjoying the peace and quiet, when Malini walked in. Her face was swollen and her eyes puffed up from continuously crying. She walked past Daisy, went to the cupboard, took out a bottle of Vodka, and walked back into her room. Daisy was now a bit alarmed. Wondering what she should do, she went looking for her room mates. She found Pia and Kavita sitting in Pia’s room, both were reading. So immersed in their reading were they , they did not even look up when Daisy entered. Its only when she spoke did they look up. She quietly told them about Malini, they looked at her and Pia rolled her eyes. Kavita told her in Kannada to just ignore the whole thing.

The next day Daisy was off to Goa for a shoot for a calendar for a liquor baron. When she returned, one week later, everything seemed to okay again. Relieved, as she hated drama, Daisy went to her room and having been exhausted with all the work and partying in Goa, she decided to crash, even though it was only the morning, she told Kavita she did not want to be disturbed and to take a message if the phone rang. She slept soundly, but around two was woken with some sounds downstairs. Thinking that it was an intruder, she picked up her tennis racket, and walked down the stairs as stealthily as she could. The sound was coming from the kitchen, and as she approached she saw a light. Feeling foolish that no burglar would switch on lights, she put down her tennis racket and walked into the kitchen to find Malini cutting onions, her eyes were streaming with tears. There were about twenty onions in a basket and a huge mound of chopped onions on one side. Daisy approached her and said “Every thing okay? Why are you chopping onions in the middle of the night?”, to which Malini replied that she was going to cook. So Daisy asked her if she could help. Malini told her no, “just leave me alone and go back to sleep”. Slightly alarmed by her tone, Daisy went to Kavita’s door and knocked on her door, Kavita came out, looking very sleepy. Daisy explained to her what was happening downstairs, they then came down together, they then went to Parizad’s room and woke her up. Parizad, being the oldest of the lot, took matters into her own hands, marched into the kitchen and asked Malini “what the hell are you doing in the middle of the night?”. They started arguing, voices steadily rising till they were both were screaming at each other. Daisy did not understand every thing, but “boyfriend dumped me”, “selfish ass”, “get a grip” was being shouted at each other. Finally Malini picked up the knife and turned, screaming like a banshee, with a look of madness in her eyes, charged at Parizad. What followed was that all three women, scattered, Daisy ran up the stairs, Kavita towards the front door and Parizad towards her bedroom. In the commotion, Daisy found she was still holding her tennis racket. She turned and ran down the stairs, and went running behind Malini, who was now chasing Parizad around the dining room, both screaming obscenities at each other. Daisy took a wide swing and hit Malini, the racket caught Malini on her arm and the knife fell down, then Daisy hit her again, but this time, at the back of her legs. Malini fell down, Parizad threw her self on top of her and tried to restrain her. By now Kavita was in the room, she also jumped on Malini.

At this point, the front door opened and in walked Pia, with her production team. They had gone pubbing and had come over a late night meal, of omelette sandwiches and tea. They came running into the dining room on hearing the commotion and found a sobbing Malini , straddled by Parizad and Kavita while Daisy had gone to get a bucket of water to throw on her. They all were separated, and over much accusations, and indignant statements, the story was narrated.

Malini had been dumped by her model/actor boyfriend, and had not taken it too kindly to find out that he had dumped her for another Veejay in the same channel. To make matters worse, she was the last one to know about it, and Malini concluded “she is soo bloody ugly, how could he dump me for her?” Pia, went into the kitchen first made tea for everybody, then used some of the chopped onions to make the omlettes, and then after feeding every body, told all present to go either go home or into their rooms.

The next day, Malini was asked to move out, it was a unanimous decision , as Pia told her “we had enough of your attention getting drama, we all have our ups and downs, but my God you take the cake and the bakery.” That evening she left for Scotland to be with her family, and peace returned to the house.

Politics makes strange bedfellows...

Anil opened the wedding invitation. He was surprised to receive an invitation, and even more so when he read the contents.

“….Shri Rachianda Cariappa and his wife Jaya, request the pleasure of your company at the marriage of their son Ponappa to Kavya daughter of …..”. Ponappa, now that’s a name he had not heard in a long time. He felt a tingle, it had been 8 years, but the name could still evoke that response.

Anil Medappa was studying for his engineering degree in RVCE- Engineering college in Bangalore in 1990. He was in his third year, and that year had decided to run for the President of the student union. He was being opposed by a heavy weight called T. Suresh, who had political backing. The moment he applied for the candidate's position, he started receiving threats. His phone would ring in the middle of the night and a voice would ask him to withdraw his nomination. This went on for about two weeks. Anil refused to back down. They started harassing him during the day, his motor bike tyres of his Yezdi were slashed, they would not let anybody in the canteen serve him even a cup of tea.

One day Anil found a note, which fell out of his books. Thinking that it was another death threat, he picked it and was about to toss it into the dustbin, when he stopped and opened it. The message was simple and clear. It just said “ Go and meet R.C. Ponappa”.

R. C. Ponappa was a legend. An ex student of RVCE, his name still made some of the professors and students quake in their boots. Various urban legends about the man and his bravery had been circulating the college. His nick name was Acid Ponappa. The story goes that a bunch of goons attacked him with hockey sticks and cycle chains, they had cornered him near the college chemistry lab. Only to have one guy loose his eyesight, two break their necks and one to have third degree burns. There was no one to verify these stories, and as R.C did not either deny or agree, these rumours grew. He was a man of few words and a black belt in Karate.

Anil went to meet him the next day at his house. He introduced himself, and told him about the upcoming elections. R. C told him that he would pick him up the next day morning at 8 o’clock from his house. The next day in the morning sharp 8, R.C was out side his house on his Royal Enfeild. He and Anil went to the college together. R. C then walked into the canteen with him, ordered two cups of tea and bread butter sandwich. The canteen was packed with students and staff, when Anil entered with R.C, a hush fell onto the crowd. R. C then proceeded to eat the sandwich very slowly, the whole canteen watching every move he made. He then got up, and asked Anil to come till the door with him, at the door, he shook hands with Anil and looked around the room slowly and left.

Anil won the elections in a land slide victory. He stood unopposed, his opponent, suddenly fell very sick.

Anil was definitely going to attend the wedding….only if it was to see who was brave enough to marry the man…..

Charkavyuha - the story of a brave soldier

The year was 1787, Muthanna and his clan had been fighting the armies of Tipu Sultan for three weeks. The men were weary and exhausted, but had taken a solemn oath of never to be caught or converted. Tippu’s army was moving across Coorg, they had started out at Mysore, and then moved West, capturing, killing and converting as they went along. The Raja of Coorg had decided to fight them. His army, a disparate group of clans from Coorg, were united in the common cause of fighting this army. Muthanna, was from the Biddanda clan, the elder of the clan had been killed the previous evening, in a sword fight. Muthanna shouted the order to withdraw and his clan melted into the hill side. Tippu’s men tried to chase them for a bit, but the sun was setting and then decided it would be futile.

That evening around the camp fire, while the injured were being looked after, Muthanna sat with his men and ate the food being prepared by his wife and the other women. They started discussing the day, and Muthanna began narrating the days events to the women. His wife Thangamma, listened quietly and then said only one word “Chakravyuha’. Muthanna asked her what did she mean by that, and she mentioned that in the great Mahabharata war, Dronacharya, the teacher of all the Pandava’s and Kaurava’s taught them about the most difficult formations, to break the enemy’s attack. It was about positioning the most powerful fighters, so as to inflict the maximum damage to the enemy. She told him “You do not win a war with might, but with brains’. Muthanna listened to his wife, and had to agree that she was right. They needed a strategy.

Muthanna did not get sleep the whole night. Try as he might, the words of his wife kept playing in his head. He awoke early, and then started putting a plan together. He knew they had one advantage over Tipu’s army, they knew the territory. His men needed to use the element of surprise, short raids, quick attacks, and maximum damage. He divided his clan into three teams, the front team were to attack the last, the attack would start from behind, then the middle section would be attacked and then finally the front. The idea was to create chaos, the rains had started in earnest to add to the confusion and it was bitterly cold.

Early in the morning, he gathered his clan together, and chalked out the plan. His men, who trusted him, wanted to win. He sent his brother Devaya, with ten others to the top of the hill. He sent his cousin Nanjappa to the middle of the hill, and asked them to take cover behind the outcrop of stones, and he positioned himself and his group at the entrance of the valley, from where the army would pass to start climbing the hill to get to the other side. Their call sign was the cuckoo birds tweet, three long one short. Only then would they be attacking. It had to happen within minutes of each other.

It was mayhem, Muthanna and his men caused the maximum destruction to Tipu’s army. In the ensuing confusion, Muthanna and his men escaped into the hills. This was the starting of a series of small victories and battles, between the Coorgs and Tipu’s army, and Muthanna’s legend grew, and stories of his bravery and cunning reached Tipu. Tipu called his Army Commander in Chief- Yaar Muhammed, and told him he wanted Muthanna dead or alive. Yaar Mohammed, was a brave and brilliant strategist. He decided to smoke Muthanna out of hiding, and he literally did just that. He started burning village after village in Coorg, making the women and kids homeless. He knew that one day he would exhaust his opponent. They played a cat and mouse game, it lasted for seven months. In the summer of 1788, Muthanna was killed. When Tipu heard the news he sent word to Yaar Muhammed to get him proof of this. Yaar Muhammed reached the Srirangapatnam fort and entered the palace and went straight to Tipu’s private chambers. He carried with him the decapitated head of Muthanna. He presented the head covered in cloth to Tipu. When Tipu removed the cloth, he was shocked on how handsome, young and regal the man was. Muthanna was buried with full military honors, as befitting a General.

The story of Muthanna is one of many in Coorg, and in many biography’s of Tipu Sultan, there is a mention of the bravery of the Coorgs. The Coorgs finally lost the war against Tipu Sultan, and he formed a Coorg battalion, which fought against the British.

CIRCLE OF FREINDS

Sunanda’s story

Sunanda’s daughter Padma was getting married. The family was in the middle of all the preparations. Sunanda did a mental checklist, flowers had been ordered, caterers were setting up, the wedding planner had a team of people, putting up the tents, bringing in the cushions, the makeup artist was upstairs doing up the bride and her friends. Sunanda remembered her own wedding, a more modes t wedding in the 1960’s. She had just finished her graduation in Home Science and she was getting married. Her husband Pratap Muthanna, had been working in the middle east, in Abu Dhabi, and came from a good family. He was an engineer working in the oil and gas industry in Abu Dhabi. That seemed so long ago, it almost seemed like another life. Sunanda shook her self out of the reverie and went up to look at how her daughter Padma was doing.
Padma was a pretty girl, she had long hair, thick lashes and lovely olive skin. Her parents had very high expectations of her, and so when she came home one day in Abu Dhabi with Arjun Koshy, a Malyalee boy she had met in college, they were disappointed. Arjun was a nice boy, but as Sunanda delicately hinted to her friends was not from the same “background” as them. Padma was stubborn, she would get married to Arjun and nobody else. Sunanda’s best friend Preeti had been Padma’s confidante. It was in Preeti’s house that Arjun met Padma, and with her full encouragement, they started seeing each other. Sunanda and Pratap were the last ones to know.

Sunanda and Preeti, were in a group of five women, who in Abu Dhabi was nicknamed “the Unhappy Wives club”. All of them had husbands with roving eyes. Pratap was the worst, since he took Sunanda completely for granted. It was a known fact that he would have affairs with all his secretary’s in quick succession, and then they would either be transferred or sacked. Initially he thought he loved Sunanada, only to quickly realize that it was an infatuation and he then looked at her as the mother of his kids. He then in predictable in quick succession hit on most of her friends. Preeti had not been spared either. Despite all this the women stayed friends, an uneasy friendship, which had lasted for the last 20 odd years.
Sunanda entered the room, found her daughter, with all her friends laughing and giggling, and in the corner Preeti was standing, getting out the jewellery and glass bangles from boxes. Preeti, was a stunningly beautiful Punjabi lady. She had tall, statuesque, with long hair, framing a face, with big eyes, strong straight nose, and a lovely smile that lit up her face. She turned and smiled at Sunanda and continued to sort out the jewellery.

Preeti’s story

Preeti Chibber, was 20 years old, when she got married after finishing her Bachelors in Political science from Miranda House in Delhi. Her husband Chetan Chibber, was working in Abu Dhabi, as an accountant with a trading company. He was an only child, and a complete Mommy’s boy. Preeti had, from day one problems with her inlaws. When she had a daughter, it just got worse. She then produced two more daughters and it just got worse. Husband and wife would fight non stop. Chetan was best described as an indifferent husband. When Pratap made a pass at Preeti, she was very upset. What angered her more , was the fact Pratap knew that Chetan would not do anything. Few days later, she met Sunanda and told her about the incident. Sunanda just apologized to her “Pratap is like that, don’t take it to heart, he was drunk’. He was not drunk, even Sunanda knew that was a lie.

Something snapped in Preeti that day, she wanted to get even. She wanted Pratap to feel the hurt, the hurt that he had put his wife through and all the other women. Patience , she told her self, your time will come. Today Preeti had her revenge, Pratap’s daughter Padma, the apple of his eye, was getting married to a boy Pratap completely disapproved of, there was nothing Pratap could do.

After all, Preeti knew, only a child could bring a parent to their knees. Today , Pratap was on his knees.