For some reason I remembered "Devi" from my childhood days, I don't know why. He or she I don't know, he used to wear a saree but had a voice of a male. Devi was probably eunuch. I was going still a kid about 6 or 7 years old when we lived in a place called " Coronation Town" in Kolar Gold Fields. I don't know why it was called coronation town, maybe in remembrance of the coronation of a British monarch. KGF interestingly has many such English names like " Henry's", "Robertsonpet", "Andersonpet", "Kennedys" etc.
So we lived there maybe for 3 or 4 years according to my childhood memory. Devi used to live in one of the cramped houses of coronation town, we my father, mother and sister were only slightly better off in the sense that we lived in a slightly bigger house with couple of bedrooms and more importantly with our own separate toilet. But the other people living there has to use the communal toilet of coronation town, to reach which they had to pass in front of our house.
That's when I used to seen Devi, he would scare me with his mannerisms, always had pan(beetle leaf and nut) in his mouth and was sometimes drunk as well. But as far as I remember he was a nice person and good at heart, he used to do the menial jobs that people offered him for some cash. So my mother used to get Devi's help to do odd things and gave money and food in return. And most importantly she used Devi into scaring us, if me or my sister were doing any mischief or refusing to eat food, my mother say that she will call Devi and that he will take us away with him. That was enough for us to get scared and do whatever mother told us to. He was like a "Goravayya" to us.
Coronation town was a very deprived area of KGF, most people were Tamils and worked in the gold mines, some of them were petty labourers. Lot of fights used to happen around that place and was known for it's notoriety. Our landlords were Tamils, our neighbours were Tamils and so were everyone in coronation town, apart from one or two Kannada speaking families and one coorgi speaking family. But they never bothered us, they would fight amongst themselves, they would create scene after drinking, they would brew arrack and got into trouble eith police frequently, but never targeted us or discriminated us because we spoke Kannada.
We did not have many kids of our age to play with, so me and my sister would spend time in our owners house and our landlords house. Our landlord was a retired miner who had built a couple of reasonable looking houses and had rented them out. He was old and we used to call him " thatha" and his wife our landlady was also a nice women but with a big mouth and she sort of dominated thatha, she would often make us pluck grey hair from her head. Thatha apparently cried when we vacated the house to move closer to the town.
As for devi was concerned, I don't know what happened to him, maybe I had seen him once or twice in the old bus stand when I was travelling to college. For some strange reason I remembered Devi and the people of coronation town today. Lot of my childhood memories are from that place. I dont think the living conditions have improved a great deal, the gold mines is closed and people of KGF in general are struggling to find jobs. I wish good for the people of coronation town and hope Devi os still alive, maybe I will try to go back and meet them sometime.
So we lived there maybe for 3 or 4 years according to my childhood memory. Devi used to live in one of the cramped houses of coronation town, we my father, mother and sister were only slightly better off in the sense that we lived in a slightly bigger house with couple of bedrooms and more importantly with our own separate toilet. But the other people living there has to use the communal toilet of coronation town, to reach which they had to pass in front of our house.
That's when I used to seen Devi, he would scare me with his mannerisms, always had pan(beetle leaf and nut) in his mouth and was sometimes drunk as well. But as far as I remember he was a nice person and good at heart, he used to do the menial jobs that people offered him for some cash. So my mother used to get Devi's help to do odd things and gave money and food in return. And most importantly she used Devi into scaring us, if me or my sister were doing any mischief or refusing to eat food, my mother say that she will call Devi and that he will take us away with him. That was enough for us to get scared and do whatever mother told us to. He was like a "Goravayya" to us.
Coronation town was a very deprived area of KGF, most people were Tamils and worked in the gold mines, some of them were petty labourers. Lot of fights used to happen around that place and was known for it's notoriety. Our landlords were Tamils, our neighbours were Tamils and so were everyone in coronation town, apart from one or two Kannada speaking families and one coorgi speaking family. But they never bothered us, they would fight amongst themselves, they would create scene after drinking, they would brew arrack and got into trouble eith police frequently, but never targeted us or discriminated us because we spoke Kannada.
We did not have many kids of our age to play with, so me and my sister would spend time in our owners house and our landlords house. Our landlord was a retired miner who had built a couple of reasonable looking houses and had rented them out. He was old and we used to call him " thatha" and his wife our landlady was also a nice women but with a big mouth and she sort of dominated thatha, she would often make us pluck grey hair from her head. Thatha apparently cried when we vacated the house to move closer to the town.
As for devi was concerned, I don't know what happened to him, maybe I had seen him once or twice in the old bus stand when I was travelling to college. For some strange reason I remembered Devi and the people of coronation town today. Lot of my childhood memories are from that place. I dont think the living conditions have improved a great deal, the gold mines is closed and people of KGF in general are struggling to find jobs. I wish good for the people of coronation town and hope Devi os still alive, maybe I will try to go back and meet them sometime.
