......I live in the village of Aminabhavi, which is southwest India in Dharwad District of India. In my village we have two community wells, one for the upper castes and one for the lower. Most of the houses are built of mud and they have no piped water or electricity. The village is famous for its ancient temple of the Yellama, our village deity that stands just above the village square on a small hillock. The caste system, village, and temple are both today, the same as they were 1,000 years ago. There is one major difference between now and then: bicycles have taken over the bullock cart as the main form of transportation.

I rode a bicycle until I completed graduate school. Then once I began working as a computer programmer, at the age of 30, I was able to buy a motorgadi (car). I have not touched my bicycle since then. Yesterday, as I drove down the hill that leads to my village, I saw an old man sitting under the banyan tree on his charpoy (wooden cot), smoking tobacco from a hookah (tall smoking pipe). The majestic branches of the old banyan tree have presided over perhaps 300 years of daily story telling sessions. Most of the history of our area is passed through story telling. The old man reminded me of my great-grand father, who we called Ajja. He used to sit under that tree resting on charpoy and thaki (pillow) with a pot of arrack (homemade liquor) and tell stories to the children.....