received an omen from a lizard on the walclass="underline" refers to lore based on the interpretation of clicking sounds made by the lizard.
Chapter 10
puranik: reciter of the Puranas.
BOOK TWO
Chapter 11
‘you speak to me in the Sahib's tongue?’: Sitamma means Bombay Hindi, or Urdu; she associates Hindi-speakers with Muslims (because they are Northerners).
Chapter 13
vairagya: indifference to worldly attachments; as if to say that Gangu has something of an ascetic streak in her.
kindari jogi: ‘Pied Piper.’ This tale, translated into Kannada, has been widely known for many years; it has been used, for example, in children's primers.
Chapter 15
ichchamarani: ‘one who can die when one wishes’: for example, a sage possessing such power may inform his followers weeks beforehand of the date on which he will leave his body.
Adishankara: another name for Shankaracharya. For chapter one, book one.
turning over: ‘horalu,’ in Kannada, suggests turning over, as when one is asleep.
the others lay down to sleep: on the pilgrimage, Dinakar has a separate sleeping-place, whereas the family (Sitamma, Narayan, Gopal and Gangu) would sleep in the same room.
samsara: worldly existence; the chain of births and deaths.
Chapter 16
Appayya: Father. Prasad refers to Chandrappa alone as ‘father,’ even though he knows that Chandrappa is not his biological father.
Chapter 17
Purana and pravacchan: ‘purana’ (lit. ‘old’), a legend or story of ancient times, typically involving gods, heroes, sages, and so on. ‘Pravacchan’: sacred writings; discourse on religious teachings.
Chapter 21
her cooking too was devoted to God: the Kannada text says that Sitamma was absorbed in her ‘kayaka.’ In this context, ‘kayaka’ means sanctified work, work offered to God; the concept is from Basava, a leader of the Virashaivite movement.
Chapter 22
‘“Let Narayan Tantri begin coming home” … This was the first time he ever spoke my name to Gangu’: Narayan is happy that his name is no longer taboo for Prasad, that at last Prasad will refer to him as something other than ‘he’ or ‘that man.’ Yet since, traditionally, no one speaks the name of his own father, it also emphasizes that Prasad does not regard Narayan as his father. (Prasad never calls Chandrappa — his self-chosen father — by name; he only calls him Appayya.)
BOOK THREE
Chapter 24
Charvak: in a note to Samskara, A.K. Ramanujan mentions ‘the Charvaka School, materialists and hedonist philosophers, who believed in the slogan … equivalent to “Enjoy yourself, even if it's on borrowed money.”’
Charvak had gone even further than a Communist: Mangala is hinting that Charvak may be a terrorist, like a Naxalite.