Thy sauntered in the paddy fields and roamed about the mango groves until Sandhya became sore footed to go any farther, and ignoring her coy protests, he carried her in his arms, inducing her to cling on to him comfortably. But once they reached their coconut plantation, she jumped to the ground as though to view the setting in its proper shape. Their kapu, so as to sweeten their palates and fill their bellies, fetched a couple of ganga bondaalu, and a rejuvenated Sandhya then accompanied Raja Rao to pray at the nearby darga of the legendary Vali Baba, who, it was said, walked on the rivers and wasn’t wetted by rainwater.
Returning to the Thimmaiahs for lunch, they stayed back for gossip lest their hosts should feel that they were treated as mere innkeepers. Thimmaiah poured out the problems agriculture posed, and was pleased at having a person for an audience who didn’t have ideas to differ with his own. Narasamma, however, tried to interest Sandhya with a game of dice and shells. After drubbing the bride in half a dozen games, Narasamma switched over to the sport of tamarind seeds. She spread a few score of them at random on the floor at arm length. Then she tossed one up and picked up another from the spread before catching the former mid air. As the play progressed, she increased the number of pickings from the spread and yet didn’t let the tossed-up one slip through her guard. Sandhya, who watched in wonderment, made a mess of it when it was her turn to try her hand.
When it was time for tea, Sandhya offered to serve them and savoring her sweetened preparation, Thimmaiah complimented Sandhya, ‘You seem to be one up on my old woman.’
‘To be honest,’ said Sandhya earnestly, ‘I want to be her apprentice.’
‘It’s good to know that you realize that cooking is an art,’ Narasamma said as though to begin the lessons for Sandhya, ‘though nowadays it’s being treated as a machine craft. Pressures of the times have brought in pressure cookers, and it’s lost on the housewife that as nature takes its own time to deliver, cooking needs time to impart taste to the food. And if you pressure it to deliver, either way, it’s going to be a premature issue. It has become fashionable to talk in terms of the recipes these days, though they’re no more than the same garam masala with different brand names. Won’t one lose the unique taste of the vegetables, the gravy being the same in every curry? Cooking seems to have fallen into the hands of barbarians, and the family members too don’t seem to mind any more. Anyway, I’ll give you some useful tips before you leave.’