A cake's aroma evokes a cherished December memory

Like every December, this year too  the Xmas tree, nativity scene, festive holly, be-ribboned gifts, colored lights, poinsettias, mistle toe and the reindeer driven Santa  warm up the otherwise chilly blue Hyderabadi nights and makes my mood perkier and  merrier.

It is a visual treat to watch all the lifestyle and leisure stores deck up their windows with their merchandise and other Christmas embellishments.

Not to forget the bakeries which stock X-mas goodies like marzipans, pastries, ginger bread,Rose cookies, kalkals, Yule log and ofcourse the tastiest of them all the X-mas and New year Plum cakes.

Plum cakes for me reminds me only of two things, one is the famous nilgiris plum cake and the other the one baked by my chitti(mom’s younger sis), but she baked not for X-mas or for new year but for my cousin’s birthday which falls on the last week of December.

 This beautiful memory of late 70’s which is nestled in the crevice of my heart surfed up today when the aroma of the Christmas fruit cake wafted from my microwave.

My chittappa worked with FRL(now called the Institute of wood science) and so stayed in the quarter adjoining Sankey tank. The whole area belonged to the Forest department and so it was wooded. In the late 70’s or 80’s there was no dearth of greenery and the quarter and the forest area was separated by a huge green land like a meadow with lot of flowering plants. This extended till the sankey tank which was  barricaded with a picket fence.  

I and my cousin (he was the only child and my sis was just 2 years old) along with his friends Ganga, Shyama, Vyas and Akhila  would go around doing simple things like  throwing stones into the lake and enjoy watching the ripples, chasing butterflies and holding them in our hands till the color of their wings stuck to our hands , running around the huge green lawns ducking from the buzzing bees and printing colored flowers onto our dress etc., Suddenly we would drop all those things and go around picking up the mica flakes in the nearby earthy area. We would crush those flakes to powder which would shimmer in our hands under the sun’s rays. We would then dust it on our dress.  We would loaf around flaunting our shimmering dress.

Around noon, the aroma of the plum cake would draw us like a magnet to home. We all would wait longingly for our share but we would get a mouthful of scoldings for dirtying our dress.We got our piece of cake too that was  after a game of musical chair in the evening.


 Such footloose and fancy free days(sigh!) was a regular December routine for me till they got transferred and moved to Dehradun.

When I last passed by Sankey tank, I saw the area  stripped of trees to make way for real estate development and road widening and sadly this is supposed to be the First tree court of India, meaning if anybody wants to chop  trees in public area they have to seek permission from this place.

3 decades have passed since then and with each passing year, I feel that the year is getting shorter else how do I explain that it seems like just yesterday that 2011 rang in and is  already coming to an end so early. Though I know it sounds clichéd, I just can’t stop myself from thinking how time flies and now another goes by making way for new one , nevertheless giving us time and opportunity to build bridge to our destinies.

As the year closes in,  My prayers to  God to bless this earth with  eternal peace, cheer, harmony,  love, warmth, innocence and a healthy safe world for years to come.

Looking forward to 2012 with high hope.

 May god bless you all with good health, happiness and fulfill all your dreams in the coming year.

Dhanushkodi - A port town under the sea

In my childhood,  one of the stories  I heard from my family elders was that of Dhanushkodi, a town  on the east coast of India, which  submerged  when a cyclone of wind velocity 270km/hour crashed into it on the night of 22-23 December 1964. The killer wind  and the accompanying tidal wave blew away all structures and the storm marooned the land,  wiping almost the whole town.  Infact the Government of Madras declared it as a ghost town and unfit for living.

But a few survived to  tell the tale and one of the surviving family was my mom’s maternal uncle who worked there as DS of Customs and Central excise and lived there with his family.

Though I  have heard the story many times when I was young,  I recently asked my mom’s mama ( he is now 84 and lives in Madras) to tell it me again during our telecon a few weeks back.

And he said “ Even now, The thought gives me shivers”.(ippo ninaichalum nadungaradu)

On Dec 22, 1964, My mom’s mama, his wife and two sons aged 4 and 2 were  having their noon day siesta.  They were surprised when the water gushed into their house and in no time it slowly raised to the level of bed.  Worried about their sleeping sons and the rising water levels, they immediately placed two tall wooden stools over the bed and stood over the stool holding their 4 and 2 year old and tied them with a rope to the ceiling. The 20 metre  tidal wave flooded the home  and by evening the water came up to their neck level and it was getting difficult for them to hold  the children up there and balance themselves. Thankfully the rising water stopped just there.  With great difficulty they sustained all throughout the night with the wailing children. The water subsided only in the morning around 10 and then they were evacuated to a  temple,  where they were given food and shelter  for 3 days and finally rescued to mandapam relief camp  along with other survivors in  a ship (INS Sarada).Needless to say that they lost all their belongings.

Dhanushkodi ( also known as Sethukkarai)  was a town at the southern tip of Rameshwaram Island(in southern Tamilnadu) on the East coast of India, and the nearest Indian town close to SriLanka (just 18kms to Talaimannar,Srilanka). It was a quiet town till then (1964) except for low tidal waves, It had a post office, a Customs office,  a railway station, temples and a church. All the needs of the town like groceries, vegetables  were met by the railway people who after getting the people’s list would  bring their needs through Indo-ceylon express( also called Boat mail) which connected Madras to Colombo and the ferries from talaimannar brought them textiles and other luxury goods like jewels etc.,  Before 1964,   a train was connected to Srilanka from Chennai. It came up till a pier in Dhanush kodi and from there,  passengers used a ferry service to cross the 18km(13km?)  Adam’s bridge( a series of coral reefs) to reach Talaimannar in Srilanka. (This Adam’s bridge is also called ‘Ramsetu’ the one built by Lord Hanuman to help Lord Rama cross to Srilanka)

It had no colleges or schools so all students travelled to Rameshwaram by a train for their education. On that fateful night, This train which was approaching Dhanushkodi was washed away by the high tidal wave. The train carried  the students  who were travelling back after school and college.

The  mythological importance assigned to this town is that,  according to the hindu scriptures after the Lanka war, when Lord Rama  returned to India, Vibhisana pleaded that Lord Ram break the sethu(bridge) so that no other armies use it. Rama gave in to his request and broke the Indian side of the bridge with the end of his bow. This place came to be known as Dhanushkodi (Dhanush –bow and kodi is end). Thus this is a holy place for Hindus , further made holier by the confluence of two sea bodies, The bay of Bengal and Indian ocean.

Today , 46 years later, The structures that withstood the tidal wave still exist buried  under the sand and some partly weathered by the Sea adding a mysterious beauty to the place. A few fishermen have settled here in thatched huts and life goes on for them unaware of tomorrow.  Of late, I read in a magazine that the sea water is slowly receding and some parts of the submerged town are visible. 

 I have’nt visited Rameshwaram and Dhanushkodi, but it is on my ‘to do list’ to see  and experience how it feels, standing at the land mass which is at the tip of India.  Many tourists who travel to Rameshwaram are unaware of Dhanushkodi and the ones who visit sing praises about its  its beautiful coral reefs and rich marine life which is supposed to be very active  here since the ocean waters are very shallow.  

It  is also the birth place of our ex President and missile man APJ Kalam. and this  is  also the town  through which Swami Vivekananda entered India Via SriLanka after his famous Chicago conference.

A port, a holy town, nature lover's paradise   that was (is) Dhanushkodi. Mark it next time around Rameshwaram.

                                                The ruins in the ghost town

                
                                                           the remains of the church 

                                                         The shores of the bay today

Picture courtesy: Google images