Sticky black and soft white — the two types of mud this writer’s best-loved clay dolls were made up of. It was part of our homecoming ritual. Every year, we were welcomed into nanihal with pot-bellied figurines called Goku, Pupe, Riki and Kucho. Names could change, but nani made sure that the meek characters played their part in the tales she covertly pulled out of her pallu. The memory stays swaddled in the smell of Ganga maati — the white river mud variety. Our recent chat with Praneetha Yenduri about bommala koluvu took us back to that time. 

Make-belief amusement rides