‘Travel’ is a beautiful word. It breathes deep, sets you free and replaces familiar routes, responses and landmarks with the unexpected, the surprising. As you leave behind a city you live and work in, an invisible string gets loosened and releases you. The sky opens up. The sunlight becomes more concentrated and pure. Green fields appear and grow more and more vast and there are not enough names for gradations of green to describe the profusion. On a road trip from Bangalore to Coorg, I realised how when we stay in one place for a long time, we forget the excitement and the joy of discovery, of serendipity.
**
Of being in the middle of nowhere, and noticing a pack of Ganesha revellers, dancing to the tune of Gangnam Style behind the moving cart carrying their idol! Of whizzing past single screen halls in small towns.. surviving on sleazy films, hotels with names like Hotel Palace and The Cute! The spectacular rockfaces claiming the earth and the sky at Ramanagaram, still warm with the Sholay lore. And then the places you stop at. Always. Kamat Lokaruchi on the Bangalore, Mysore highway. Designed like a village eatery, bustling with traditionally dressed waiters carrying trays of food smelling like it came from a home kitchen. The walls are painted over with murals and overhung with bunches of onions and bananas and plump gourds. The menu celebrates North Karnataka goodies like Jowar Bhakri meals , Karavali(Coastal) vegetarian meals, Ragi Mudde meals, Mudde Idli, Ragi Dosa, Neer Dosa, Akki Roti, Maddur Vada, Otthu Shavige, Holige, Dharwad Peda, Kashaya, sugarcane juice, and..whew..much much more.
You cannot drive past this place without stopping by for a few shots of their filter coffee and their absolutely addictive Mudde Idli (idli steamed in Kedige or screw pine leaves) that comes to you wrapped up like a mystery, steaming with promise and bliss that travels straight from the taste buds to the soul. This place is always full, always buzzing unlike the monotonously in your face Cafe Coffee Day that pops up every hundred metres. Good to know that ethnic food will always survive globalisation.
Please also stop at the handicraft kiosks in the courtyard and buy little knick-knacks. Me, being the incense freak that I am bought a jumbo family pack of Halmaddi (a natural resin) agarbattis.
There is a lot more to discover as you drive on. The pride Channapatana has in its toy industry. Every third shop on the highway is crammed with colourful rocking horses and wooden toys in all shapes and sizes. The fact that new age designers like Atul Johri have picked up the traditions of toy crafting from Channapatna and given them a new twist shows that Indian crafts will outlast globalisation too if they are loved and nurtured by not just domestic markets but designers with an understanding of international trends.
**
You drive past Mandya and Sri Rangapatna and many small little towns full of unrepeatable sights and sounds and wind whooshing through green, abundant fields and realise that whoever believed that the real destination was the journey, had indeed travelled a lot.
To be continued..
**
This road trip was courtesy http://plantationtrails.net/
**