First person

"Nam Unplugged

2012-01-03T12:25:00.007+05:30

Vietnam was a destination least in my mind when around August I was planning our December vacation, our annual Haj so to say. Riding the worldwide coma of giddy glee abound, December is a great time to indulge in revelry. Monk was reading Graham Greene, telling me in his characteristic Brown Sahib way of how romantic Greene’s Saigon was. I quickly checked the prices of the flight tickets and voila soon found the whole idea going from germination to execution. So with the help of Trip Advisor, Booking.com and Cleartrip, a 10 day trip was made possible.
We went to three places, Hanoi and Halong Bay at the Northern tip of Vietnam and Saigon at the South. There are many more lovely places like Danang and Hoi An to name a few we could not go to but there is only so much a ten day trip could achieve. So with this mental shrug I sit content and happy reminiscing about the ten perfect days. Well almost.

Our destination 1 was Hanoi. We got there via Kuala Lampur since no direct flights ply between India and Vietnam. We found ourselves quite happily hosted in Conifer Boutique Hotel right at the heart of the French Quarter, walking distance from the Old Quarter and Hoan Kiem Lake. Next we met Monk’s B school classmate Bhupi. Thus between Bhupi, the Vina mobile 3G SIM card, the GPS on my iPhone (Steve Jobs, RIP) and a copy of Lonely Planet our tryst with Hanoi began. From street food to a chic night club, from introduction to Vietnamese art houses (Bhupi, thanks man) to stumbling upon a street concerto right by our hotel courtesy Luala, we tasted greedily every bit of a new world unfolding every moment and hung on desperately to every experience like Hugh Jackman’s skull t-shirt does to his sexilcious pecs. We met a motley crew of very interesting Diaspora, saw a father and son Jazzing up in Minh’s Jazz Bar, ate food which were generally swept away by my irate mother during monsoons and aptly deemed as creeps, almost felt at home trying to cross crazy busy roads, laughed till our spleens burst on the cheesy poses the locals charter up for pictures, walked till our feet hurt but we very bravely still walked. The beautiful Opera House, imposing and grand is a standing legacy of the French influence in Hanoi. Characteristic ochre coloured sills splashed the white façade and exteriors and the French windows cut such a handsome caper that no amount of sighing took care of my longing to have belonged to an era where parasols and décolletage were a woman’s sole equity. The Military History Museum left Monk quite thrilled and even I dint have to feign excitement. Temple of Literature was fun photographically and historically and an ego boost for Monk, why with nubile young things wanting to take pictures with him.

The next destination was Halong Bay, a 3 hour ride away from Hanoi and a UNESCO world heritage site. We got to HB, got on our junkie and did things I would not have ever done had I not been under the stare of the most fun bunch of people. Kayaking, cycling through remote village islands, eating like there was no tomorrow and meeting some interesting people marked our two nights three days of thrill. The floating villages and the prehistoric caves were awe inspiring. Son (pronounced S”aw”n ), our guide in HB made me realise that if you have knowledge and you take the pain to share it, language barriers is least of the concerns. Just say it and do it and people will appreciate. HB is romantic yet elemental. Not in the “ooh I am swooning hold me sweetheart” way romantic…more like “I need that picture, I deserve this realm and I lived 3 decades for just these vistas “ way. Will I go again? Yes. Will I still shit bricks in my pants because I can’t swim? Of course. I am a creature of habit and I shall want to be thrilled again and again and again. I wish like the magical beings in Harry Potter I could collect my memories in a Penseive. I would happily plunge into these memories should events around me bog me down.

Saigon was the last in our itinerary. It was a bustling city steeped in history. Living in Radio Catinat or Hotel Continental Saigon, one floor below the room Graham Greene stayed in, was the first step towards raising our glasses to nostalgia. Watching a Vietnamese cultural pastiche of a program in the Opera House, now the Municipal Theatre was an interesting hors d' oeuvre. Christmas Eve felt like a carnival sans Dylan. It was as if every person in that city vowed to have fun and Christmas morning saw at 7 a jazz band performing at the Opera House very democratically, with little children patiently watching on and learning that fun is to be had in every single way every single day. I felt as if the whole country is home to fun denizens… of the fun, for the fun and by the fun should be Vietnam’s national slogan. It’s no less than a wonder what this country has achieved since 1975’s Reunification. Yes the poor co-exist but they are cared for. The cherry on the cake was the cooking class. It was as global as possible with people from 6 different nationalities learning how to cook from a Vietnamese chef. We cooked, talked and ate. We parted ways. We dint offer our contacts. We hardly knew each other’s names. We just knew we loved the concept of food irrespective of our skin colour, country and culture. Some one somewhere like me is trying to get hold of some Hoisin Sauce and rice papers.

Paradise but has its serpents. So the next time I shall be wary of pick pockets in cramped areas especially in the Old Quarter in Hanoi. In Saigon, cyclos, the rapidly depleting human cart pullers are desperately poor enough to rob you at broad day light by charging 50 dollars for a ride which is just 2 dollars and so next time I shall hail a cab instead. I shall be gushy and friendly but I am loathe to be had and that is why I am glad I handed the cabbie on my way back to the airport just 10 dollars in Saigon even though he asked for 20 since there was “traffic” on the road. Sorry my friend but I dint spawn those cars and having them on the road does not increase the distances just stretches the travel time and I am on a vacation for Pete’s sake. Finally, Air Asia is a sick airline. Low cost and lowly. I shall never fly them…at least try my best not to fly them since one must never say never. But I will read up the fine prints and follow my instinct.

Finally all those who bark do not always bite. Help comes by when you seek so keep earning those good karma coins because despite not having a transit visa on our way back (thanks to Air Asia’s great customer service) a fine gentleman at the KLIA immigration helped us with a special pass so we could come back home with our rose tinted glasses intact.

Life, I tell you, is worth living. Somehow world over every human being just has a few basic needs: to be loved, to be appreciated and to be useful. The more we stick to this basic reality the more uninhibited we shall feel, the more charmed will be our Eureka moments and the more hungry we shall stay to imbibe what we don’t have but we need for the sake of simple everyday living. Yes and to all those girls out there still looking for “the” man, continue doing so. A good man is necessary to have fun, a man who can soak in everything and transcend age and barriers….

Of happy feet and heart

2011-11-01T19:10:00.005+05:30

Today on Facebook, I saw a picture of a little tot with its little toes all pink and rounded gleefully pointed towards the camera. Peeking out next to it was its mother‘s not very pink and tad tired sole sticking out. Our feet, like our hearts, were soft and un-calloused when we were born. Our mothers gently counted our toes and often kissed them while lovingly cooing over us. They couldn’t have done the same with our hearts without being gruesome. However, they imbued our hearts with love. But as we learnt to walk and then to run and then to trot, our feet hardened and grew calloused. They perhaps even started to look very worn out. However, amongst us are many women and some men who care for their appearances and have kept their feet maintained. Clean and smooth. They kept their nails trimmed and their soles crack free. Some of us adorned our nails with sprightly colours or we left them blissfully bare but we know deep down that they have been pampered and loved. The well loved feet look cared for because they have been, well, cared for. Like everything in this world a thing of beauty is never by fluke. The concept of nature and nurture plays out in mysterious ways.
Such is the matter of the heart too. For it to look loved and cared for it must be given love. And not just along ones childhood but at every stage of our lives. True enough we grow up and our calling beckons. We take up jobs; we marry and have our own kids. We leave jobs, change places and at times even unfortunately get divorced (better that way than being stuck with a jerk). But we still move on and get about the business of living. These practical and at times clinical ways of life leave patinas of cynicism and distrust in our hearts. And soon our entire aura and persona get drenched in a vast cloud burst of negativity.
Often I wonder what helps me from slipping of the edge. My scant tryst with travails of life has shown me what can keep our hearts feeing loved so that we give back and God knows every little love counts.

1) Someone’s gotta give: Yes, that someone has to be us at times and not the other. Giving in to an argument with our spouse, parents, siblings and colleagues can be quite liberating. “I said so, I told you, I am always right” are giddily strong statements but “You may be right, Yeah I botched up” are so much more liberating. This stance manages to knock the ball to the other person’s court. If the person is graceful there is a truce and a feeling of mature bonhomie suffuses us and if the other person is blind with sass and narcissism, still a triumphant feeling of elevation creeps in. You figured a way out. Congratulations!!

2) Equal and fair transaction: How many of us take loans from a bank and are lucky to get a 100% waiver? Next to none. The world is a complex place of more takes than gives. Yet all’s not lost. If you are lucky and smart you will realise there are many who “give” us. Some give us time, some lend us a listening ear, some cook us a good meal, some offer a fun companionship, some a way to have fun, some just offer us peace by their simple way of life and what not. Don’t take all this as an entitlement. These are ways to soul cleansing. Receive such gifts magnanimously and have the good grace to return them in time. We all have received help from unexpected quarter. I honestly feel, without trying to get Biblical, that God works his way through people. So at times we also could be that unexpected quarter for someone.

3) Charity begins at home: So does the lesson of love. Remember all the time, money, effort and dreams your parents expended on you? It is payback time buddy. Your parents are your roots. How can the tree be strong and sturdy if the roots are not? I see around me huge gaps and chasms that get stretched over the years. I do believe it takes two to tango. Our parents need to be loved back, please give them all the love that you can. Most of us earn well. An expensive gift is a nice way to show appreciation. But is it enough? Definitely no! Give them your time. Your voice. Your smile. At times just obey. You lost out on nothing when you listened to them as a child. You for sure will not lose out on much even now. Of course everyone has to be cognizant of basic rationality and in this case both the parents and the said child in question must toe the line of mutual respect. When my parents smile back and sigh in peace because I spent a week with them doing all the crazy nothings, I am charged up and ready to take on any bloody one. As my mother once said “There is no point in crying at your parent’s grave-side. Celebrate them when they are still alive”.

4) Marry well: Take your time and cherry pick your mate. And once that you have picked your partner, celebrate him/her. You may fight. Scream. Cry. Huff off in temper flares. Like Coldplay croons “Nobody said it is easy”. There are bound to be ripples. Two thinking and sentient beings cannot resonate in the same frequency all the time. However, like all stirred up chaos, things will sort out. Just find a way to reconnect. For me food (for the belly and for the brain), books and travel and not always in that order keep me in love with my husband.

5) Treasure your friends: I simply love my best friend. She has helped me in my most trying times. She has laughed with me and cried with me. She may be a wife and a mother yet she has had time for me. And I am glad to say that I have been there for her too. I also happen to be very lucky to have some other god gifted friends, sane and rational. They have come to my rescue more than once and I know I can count on them as they can on me. As one very good friend who I met at my ex-work place said “Girl, if I meet one sane person worth being friends with after meeting a thousand buffoons, it is worth it”. When I lost my little baby,some of my friends flocked down to offer moral and physical support. I cannot thank them enough for being there for me but from them I have learnt to be just there. Just. Be. There.

6) Laugh and cry: Laughing is healthy. Positive. So is crying. I see many people take great pride in declaring “I don’t cry” “Strength lies in not crying”, etc. Bull. Shit. No one is going to give you an Oscar for stopping those tears. I am not telling you to be a tantrum throwing diva or a spoilt sport Steffi Graff who always cried when her game of tennis went kaput. No. But in the face of terrible tragedy or seemingly impossible times a private bout of tears or tears in front of people who love you and understand you shall remind them and you more importantly that you are not a robot after all. You are as infallible and as vulnerable as everyone is. And you too have tear glands and a heart that can bleed. Cry and let someone lovingly wipe those tears for you. It shall bring you close to that someone, be it your partner, friend, sibling, parent or offspring. You may feel goofy but then look at the brighter side… you and that special someone may even have a good laugh at your expense when times get better!!!

7) Learn to receive gracefully: Many of us are afraid of receiving. Advice, help, solace, compliments or gifts (from loved ones not the ones that shall land you in jail). Come-on surely you are not the most capable hence advice will come your way. You are also not omnipotent so you will need help every once in a while. As Buddha said sorrow spares no one so solace will one day knock at your door after you are left bitterly sad. Don’t be too arrogant to think that you shall get the “worst-person” award in your lifetime (have you forgotten about Hitler and Osama?) so compliments in some way will tap on your shoulders. Gifts are a tangible proof of intangibles. People you genuinely love will offer a genuine advice, help, solace, compliment or gift. Please accept all of it gracefully. Please don’t try to share it with the one dishing it out and please know that you get what you deserve. Nothing more or less. Smile and accept. You will learn to give as well.

8) Spend a little on yourself: Why are you earning? Surely not to prove that you are capable and worthy and smart and scored top marks in school. You earn so you can pay your bills. Sometimes those bills can also be the ones that need not be your monthly dues. Sometimes those bills can be something that you bloody well don’t need but you just want them nonetheless. Spend on yourself. You may not need it but if you want, buy it man!!! There are many who find me a spend thrift. I have heard a few say, on my face, hinting at me (can you imagine their temerity all this while sipping tea in MY house?) “Oh!!My wife is very particular on how she spends. She will always weigh out her options and generally shop during sales!! ”Good for you buddy, you may need a kidney transplant at 60 and she is saving it for you so you can live longer and she can get these lovely compliments…. Not suggesting here to be like the stupid grasshopper that never saved for the rainy days at all…but saving every damn dime that you earn, are you crazy? Life’s short. You will never be young again. You may not cruise in a Maserati but if you can upgrade your car and or even so mush as just add a kick-ass music console to your old car, and feel grand about it, do it!

9) Talk with the very old and with very young: The very old have lost their marbles or so we feel. Wrong. They have gone through what we are going through now. They have their idiosyncrasies but they are wise. They can be grouchy or friendly but they can sure open our eyes to things we are blind to. Similarly the very young have a fresh insight to the world. They have still not learnt the trick of the trade and that is why they are naturalists. They can be embarrassingly candid and spleen-damagingly hilarious. They have taught me humility, informality and have refreshed for me the ability to un-abashedly ask 20 questions at a go, much to the chagrin of others. I love talking to the very old and the very young. They are fun.

So there, these are my tried and tested ways of life that have helped me keep my heart feeling loved and pampered. Still at times I despair and frown and rave and rant. After all I am a human being. But I have a few ordinary people around me that dole out extraordinary lessons sans tarder whenever required.

Walk on mate, just remember to pamper your tootsy…. and your heart!!

History and present...all in a name

2011-08-19T22:23:00.008+05:30

Recently I got to know that Monk's forefather...Bagh Hazarika...fought the Mughals in the battle of Saraighat for the Ahom king. Bless the soul who actually did all the research. He is related to Monk's Aunt through marriage.

My forefather from my paternal side, Azan Pir Sahab, who hailed from Baghdad, and who I rather romantically hope, had a connection with Bagh Hazarika in the larger canvas of societal intercourse alas only came to Assam in the 17th century.

An interesting thing to note is that the Ahoms came to Assam from Yunan province of China via the Patkai Ranges and first settled in Burma. Then an exodus to Assam's Brahmaputra Valley established their kingdom under King Sukaapha in the 12th Century. The Ahom dynasty established one of the most exemplary administrative services in addition to carrying out an envious task of merging cultures of the settlers and the indigenous people. People were given official titles based on their occupation/designation hence Hazarika or “Commander of 1000 foot soldiers" was once such title (generally hilarity ensues in our circle of friends when my husband defends his station with this quip and frankly speaking I am the most painful bully he has to reckon with). Similarly Saika, Chaliha, Borua, Bez-barua, and others were few other titles conferred to men holding administrative positions under the Ahom kingdom.

A few centuries later the 5 Pirs (one of them Azan Pir Sahab) from Baghdad who settled in Dibrugarh and other upper valley reaches of Assam, now called Upper Assam, married into the Ahom families. Incidentally Azan Pir Sahab was a Sufi Syed. That can perhaps explain why the current day Syed Diaspora is not exactly a hijab wearing, prayer beads flaunting fanatical lots. Literary and cultural discourse and dabble have long been the tradition of the Syed Community. And yes music somehow is embedded in the DNA of the entire community. Almost everyone sings like a canary, literally and figuratively.

Today Assam witnesses a harmonious co-existence of people of various ethnicities and religious beliefs. The beauty lies in the culture of Assam like the women wearing Mekhlas(Assam’s traditional drape and highly coveted at that) for a wedding as a guest or even as a bride and enjoying the distinct taste of Pithas (pan cakes and savouries) and Bora Bhaat (sticky rice).

And when one may ask what’s in a name after all (I being a “Syed” and Monk being a “Hazarika”), I could say well loads of history in our case where some 10-12 generations down monk and I happen to get married. I guess more research is necessary and I so hope I can get down to it.

Adding a little sattire...will I preen around like some displaced half breed princess?...darling I did that anyways with or without history!!! :D

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajan_Fakir
http://www.motijan-hazarika-rahman.com/Lineage-of-Bagh-Hazarika.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahom_Dynasty

The grief that feels eternal....

2011-07-27T10:14:00.004+05:30

The grief of losing a baby is crushing, breath stopping and confusing. I am also convinced that grief becomes more intense as the attachment grows. Sapling versus tree analogy. On days when I least expect sorrow slams down ruthlessly. So does guilt as to how can I even think of moving on.. smiling, even laughing, eating, cooking? I also now know extreme grief can manifest as physical symptoms, something so far I have never experienced. The chest closes up on you, at times it even pains and breathing gets shallow and till I don’t cry it out it feels like a hard piece of apple is stuck at my throat.

However, grief puts in perspective the importance of life. The pettiness of want. The superfluousness of declarations of love. The stupidity of feeling versus thinking. In coping with grief, talking it out is helping. I can’t kick away my loss as if it were an untouchable garbage can. I really can’t pretend it dint happen. Or that it was routine. I do not want to philosophise it or rationalise it. All I want is for it to be real. My loss and my coming to terms with it. Not doing so will be really trivialising the whole event of loss. What I lost is not a diamond brooch or a fast car. It was a life of a being much wanted and very loved. That was my son. Even if people around me tell me "there will be more" ..."you are so young", and I do know they tell me all this because they care, they do love me, but for me it is a loss with which I grapple with every day. Sorrow creeps up on me when I least expect. In solitude and in room full of people.

But life must go on. I have a spouse. Parents. Inlaws. Friends. Colleagues. Eternal mourning is unviable and impossible because we human beings have a rare gift. We forget. Slowly but steadily. It is the norm of nature. Weeds and grass grow over graves. Civilizations grow over civilizations. And so the cycle of life continues.

Never before have I been so acutely aware of life and its tribunals and triumphs. Do I still take it for granted? No. Am I too old? No. Is there a limit to what I can achieve, which so far I just thought of some kind of pipe dream? Yes there are always limits but then that is why I will try. I am not suddenly invincible, not miraculously infallible but I am definitely more trusting in my abilities, more in sync with my inner voice. I am still chicken shit of risks and the unknown but I do have a definitive comeback, something to the tune of "So what? What more or worse? ".

My little winged magical being

2011-07-20T10:34:00.000+05:30

You who grew wings just a little too soon...you who came and gave me hope and joy and so what if for very brief....you who touched me deep where no one else has ever....you who were to be my friend... you who I longed to cherish but for who providence had some other plans...you for who i grieve yet exult...you who cant be replaced but always remembered... you with no name yet my little universe of a few days..... you spanning a spectrum as wide as logic, reasoning and emotions....you who made me discover your father all over again...you who brought my friends to me.... you who made me realise that i can be brave yet i can hurt raw....you who has made me fearless...you my forever talisman...my angel ...my pixie....my son... I love you so

Goodbye is just another word

2011-02-25T20:44:00.000+05:30

With the recent demise of my widowed Aunt, a septuagenarian, who never had children, a large wave of guilt and grief has been running through the family. What if siblings and nieces and nephews had asked her to move in with them, what if they were more patient with her idiosyncrasies, what if they contributed more to her rapidly depleting resources, what if they sponsored air tickets for trips here and there and so on and so forth. To this one forth-coming sibling quipped that we don’t live our daily lives and interact with people with the mind-frame that they will die in the future and it will be shameful to face the fact we were less kind, less accommodating and less understanding. When we go about the business of everyday living we do what our intellect and heart tells us to do. Our upbringing and sense of moral well-being has a bearing on our thoughts and posterity alone provides the comfort of judgement.

For the record, everyone in the family was helpful as they deemed “helpful” right. Some in the family kept her with them whenever she visited for medical check-ups, some helped her monetarily, some would call her regularly to keep in touch, some kept vigil in the hospital whenever she took ill and was admitted while some provided her, the vigilante and her litany of well meaning servants with food. But was it possible for anyone to stake claim and offer help like an off-spring? Was it possible for any sibling to show the exact affection to her as they show to their own children and for nieces and nephews to treat her at par with their own parents? Reality check is necessary for everyone, young and old, in order to lead a whole-some life.

What became the end of her, my Aunt, is not the loss of her husband or absence of children. It was the will to live. The will and need to fill her life with activities, hobbies and people that would circumvent the vacuum of having a full-fledged family in her sunset years. I agree that one's own children offers one with a deep sense of security and become a source of support in the face of crisis if not throughout one's old life. The lack of purpose and dependence on others to fill her life led her to become a recluse, and eventually led her to neglect her own health. Mental and physical inactivity led her to waste away. My own Granddad who lived till he was ninety one and my other Aunt, a few years older than the one who just expired, are a great example of people who lived their lives with a purpose. Authors like Dorris Lessing, Kushwant Singh, etc. are wonderful examples again of people with purpose in their lives. Providence has decided how long we shall live. But to fill that life with purpose and zest is our responsibility. Not only was her mind and time not occupied with social activities or hobbies but also any form of physical activity was grossly absent. To add to this woe was a gross negligence of property matters and retirement plans. She is perhaps as much to blame as her late husband. Having had no children, I wish both were a tad prudent to take care of these two very essential aspects while health and resources were in abundance, which in their case were. After all irrespective of having children or not, no one in the family can be expected to play the role of an old age ATM machine, practically and realistically speaking. One spouse is bound to outlive the other.

In the small town of Dhubri in Assam, my Uncle was a well respected attorney who ran a good practice and my Aunt always taught in a school till she retired 3 years ago. They made themselves a huge three level house and also had tenants thrown in. So money was never an issue. Far-sightedness was. A life spent with utter disregard of tomorrow is as dangerous as being neurotically cautious. As every wise man and every religion says “the balance” is necessary. When the going was good, a decadent lifestyle could have been moderated and a neat little sum could have been kept for the future. Well meaning advises from friends and family sometimes may turn out to be very beneficial if heeded to. Alas, no such advises of smart investments were heeded nor was the constant encouragement to stop wallowing in self pity was taken seriously by my Aunt.

Those of us grieving can but use all these rationales to feel less guilty, because almost everyone has the ability to make even a little difference. Perhaps we could have done more to make her feel less lonely. But the biggest difference we make in our lives are we ourselves. To me the biggest lesson her life taught is to be a little more rational, a little more cautious, to be independent, to be a support than to seek support and to profligate less.

That said my Aunt had some great traits. She was very warm, very affectionate, very stylish, very hospitable and very kind. All these traits did stand her in a good stead. She lived life king size till she lived. Her two trusted helps stayed with her till the end thus proving her kind and sweet ways. Her students, who left school eons ago still have great things to tell about her.

As they say none of us are perfect. Sadly her imperfections became a great source of insecurity for her. All I can say is that may she find peace and quiet in the new world that she has moved on to. I will miss her.

and aint no use sit and wonder why babe, it would never do somehow....Bob Dylan

2011-01-19T08:47:00.005+05:30

A friend sent me a link which is apparently causing quite an uproar in the blogging world.
Here is it:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html

I dont know why should this cause any uproar except in the minds of the bigoted and the rigid...every society has its fabric. The denizens of a society know what they want... If America is about freedom...free from stress, free economy, free from familial baggages and free of hassles.... India like China is about family, about struggling for fewer resources, about wanting the best, about battling subjugation to deficiencies and about trying hard to follow age old "traditions" even if they stand slightly half baked and bastardised. What is perhaps cruel for Americans is "normal" for Indians and Chinese.

Like everything else there are pros and cons of familial choices as well.

I think families make choices of parenting through their own experiences than through borrowed ones. Very driven families, where the Dads and Mums are achievers socially or financially or intellectually, will herd their kids towards achievement oriented life choices. Conversely, for parents with very little/no exposure to certain aspects like career choices or education or excellence due to ignorance or financial wherewithal , their way of bringing up children would be different.

One must know that no society is completely bereft of negatives. Let us face it, unlike the US, India does not entertain dignity of labour. Neither I nor any of my friends associate socially with a janitor or a security guard of an apartment complex just because we share a common interest in maths or aviation or painting. Such is our way of life that only the smart, only the well spoken and only the “actualised” will be in our circle of friends as per our personal benchmark of good and better.

We are of a society which generally looks up to their elders for advice or wants them to concur decisions. We are of a society which is risk averse and non-believers of fatalism and thank god for that. Look what kick-ass-Ivy league educated- air brushed-risk-takers like Lehman Brothers did. We are of a society where we want our elders to come around through gentle perseverance about our ways and decisions and not break ice 20 years later on an Oprah show. A society that pushes its kids to ace exams like in India, the IT bonanza ofcourse or sports like in modern day China, the Olympics effect ofcourse, at any cost and firmly believes in spoon feeding and no question asked philosphy can be called cruel. The pros are that this same facet, if modified constructively, serves us well in terms of having a social support: parents, siblings and even friends, something which is difficult to come by in the West, who have created a successful system wherein fatalism and even debt does not starve its citizens. If one reads about Andre Agassi, a phenomenal player who needs no introduction, one may realize that parental pressure is a singular force if channelized properly will take you to great heights. Because underlining all the pressure is love.

Unfortunately India or China is not yet there in terms of government sponsored social safety nets. If we don’t work hard, if we don’t ace exams, if we don’t clear interviews and if we don’t keep our jobs, matter of time we slip down Maslow’s pyramid of needs. What choices do such parents have in this part of the globe? Can we afford in India not being overtly competitive be it academics, music or cricket? Can we as a race survive not having a "good" education which is slightly better than literacy, a kind of education which is not a wholesome meal but a piss-poor capsule of necessary vitamins but which gets us jobs and helps paying the bills without any social safety net?

My very limited travel to China made me realise one thing. The Chinese may come across as robotic and un-smiling to general population but they battle a very difficult government and the choices made by their leaders since Mao Zedong’s time render them open to ridicule and ethnic side-lining. Succeeding remains the only mantra to survive whether in sports or education or medicine or music and hard work and discipline remains the only way forward. There is not much latitude for slacking. After all no one remembers Nobel nominees, we just remember the Nobel laureates. Look at the animal kingdom. A tigress relentlessly teaches her cubs to hunt and those lessons are repetitive, banal and at times harsh. Wonder what would happen if a tigress suddenly tells a small cub to 'follow his heart" and do its own bidding !!

But the one thing that I would say with a definite stance is that it is easier to let go... it is easier to shoo away difficult children and turn them out of the house at 16 to earn their own money, shut your eyes to teenage tantrums and let them be junkies and juvenile delinquents. It is more difficult to keep haranguing your precocious kids from making idiotic mistakes that may cost him or her/his life than to allow them “freedom” to do what they please so the parents can sleep more peacefully or continue their social butterflying. So just for the difficult 20 years or so that most Indian and Chinese parents spend putting their own life at hold to allow their kids “excel and do well” through means not appreciated but that yield result, my heart goes out to them. As Gandhi said "must we perpetrate all sins to realise the horror of it?".

Unfortunately just like our skin colour and genetic make-up we can’t choose our parents .... and ironically what you get is what you give...so for those of us who come from secure and well meaning families, we could pass those values on and we could “customise” the home rules to accommodate the new generation a bit, just as each generation before us did for the next, to be fair!! And well I cant recall having friends shooting kids up in my school because their Mommy made them do more Mathematics!!!

Gotta go. Have guests over for dinner. BTW all the cooking that I have learnt and all that food that people smack up was taught by my mother since I was nine :D and I dint need no shrink just because Mum made sure that the chicken bloody well come out tasty. We Indians dont throw or waste food. Too much poverty around you see!!!! GROWL

The small stream of sunlight

2010-11-26T11:03:00.000+05:30

Like every morning, this morning too Mom and I carried on with our early morning prattle. I call her for an hour most days, which could become two some days. Generally we talk of the maladies that life poses like how our very kind husbands are taken for a ride by this utterly base world because both my Dad and my husband happen to be such simple hearted folks and how we (my Mom and I) have to valiantly defend these hapless men from the cruel and mean world. Amidst all the talks of us poor Vikings having to save our men, she mentioned that her everyday house help Jahaanara did not come to work. Jahaanara is a very diligent and loyal lady; one of those rare house help who don’t think that help rendered by their employers is the employee's entitlement. She is honest and cheerful. She is also very poor. She quite reminds me of Friday in Robinson Crusoe.

Jahaanara , a mother of two, is in her early forties. I hate to call her a maid because as I said before she is a very ethical human being, very clean and she is unthinkably fit thanks to the everyday hill climbing to get to work from home; her waist line and abs can put true blue health freaks and celebrities to shame. She also proves very eloquently the point that most of eat us 100% more than what we need for sustenance. Jahaanara survives on two plates of rice with occasional meat and lentil, lots of tea and few slices of breads. I don’t endorse this less than 1000 calories diet. She has no other way because she is poor. But if you are reading this maybe cutting 400 or 500 calories from your diet will not be impossible. (By the way, you can easily cut 500 calories from your daily intake by drinking 10 cups of black tea with no sugar and not drinking any other beverage other than black or green tea, eating no sweets and dumping colas, eating three chapattis less or two helpings of rice less, avoiding fried stuff and walking for 40 minutes briskly. Clichéd but tried and tested by yours truly). Jahaanara works at two houses. At my Mom’s she gets her mid day vegetables, carb and taffeine fix. She has a late breakfast sitting next to Mom as Mom indulges in her elevenses. Her husband a daily wager these days is of no help to the family. Some heavy work has hurt his elbow and has rendered him temporarily incapacitated. So bearing the expenses of the house is now Jahaanara’s sole responsibility. She has so far managed to educate her son as an electrician. Her daughter unfortunately this year had to repeat her metric exams.

This year due to incessant rains in Guwahati one beetle nut tree near Jahaanara’s house lost soil due to erosion and in matter of time collapsed, caving in one of the walls in her house. Given that her house is a typical rural thatched and mud house, one of those many houses that dot Assam’s hill tops and valleys, it was not a very conducive living condition for her and her family. With incomes low and only her salary of less than 3000 Indian Rupees to bank on, getting an advance of ten thousand from a bank is an impossible feat. But don’t they say for every one door shut some windows just yank open. Jahaanara and her neighbours, one of the poorest of Assamese denizens are nonetheless a cohesive and a surprisingly smart lot. For years now her neighbourhood has a community micro-finance facility where everyone deposits some money and depending on someone’s pressing needs a micro loan of about 5000 to 10000 thousand rupee is doled out. The interest is very minimal of just 1 rupee a month. Jahaanara with this scheme could borrow a sum of 7000 rupees to rebuild her house. She would be repaying her loan at the rate of rupees 601 per month. Every few months a few non-profit NGOs supply her and her neighbours with spools of white and red threads for free which they spin into fabrics called “gamoosa”, an Assamese cotton towel, best suited for a very rain prone region like Assam where terry towels take ages to dry. Jahaanara earns some money through this. She also makes brooms which my Mom and likewise buy from her. Very recently she has started growing papayas in her back yard, which are organically grown and ripened. She supplies them too. So Jahaanara a very poor but ethical lady is doing every bit that she can to keep her family eating and living decently. It would have been easy for her to join a factional terrorist group and gun down people and extort money. But better sense prevails and she is leading life with courage and dignity. There are occasional gifts during festivals and my Dad generally gives her "pocket" money more than once a week which he misses giving me and my brother now that we are all grown and away. She appreciates the help my Mom and her other employers give her but like any self respecting human being she does not consider these help as her right and always over delivers through her very good house work. She also, despite being illiterate, unlike lots of urban house helps I have experienced and am currently employing, is cognizant of the fact that charity can only assist till a point. From that point on your own hard work, ethics and a pleasant disposition can get things rolling.

You rock Jahaanara. I just love your ways. You reiterate oft searched but seldom found perspective of humility, a sense of humour and hugely help to endorse that hope is a very strong prop. I am glad I got to know you and I am sure brave that you are, life will see you through

Please turn on the lights

2010-10-19T12:52:00.001+05:30

Festivals are a part of an Indian life. Though I try to celebrate Eid as best as I can, replete with retail, eats and prayers (do I sound like Elizabeth Gilbert here?), there are two other festivals that totally leave me thrilled and happy: Christmas and Durga Pujo. Sadly no other has left me starry eyed because may be there is no treating business.

I especially like Durga Pujo and that is because I have many Bengali friends or is it because I have read too many Jhumpa Lahiris and Amitav Ghoshes? Infact it could be also because of the way it is celebrated by the entire Bengali community... the food, the new clothes, may be the cultural proximity to Assam, the spirit and so on and so forth. Whatever be the reason, I find it bright and it is really the juggernaut of celebrations. What is but celebration without great food and great hospitality. I really can’t relate to people offering me sweets in a sweet box (not even a decent plate) or dry fruits to munch on. Perhaps I am being biased because I come from a family where festivals translate into great food and good clothes and warm hospitality. But can u blame me???...I have seen petite women cooking large meals in a jiffy in my family and I have tried my best to be a chip off that monolith...

For a few years now, a very close friend in the US, a quintessential Bengali woman or a Bong, as it is popularly connoted, has left me weak with joy that I am no anomaly in this eat well and cook better dictum of life. Not once a week eat well, cook better...but all the meals that go with this mantra of eat well- cook better. Let us just say that there are two anomalies now orbiting this strange world of people who can eat like there is no tomorrow but cannot cook or even serve? Is hospitality really so complex? Or like everything else, as prevalent today, not doing it is fashionable, modern, liberating?

In the West celebrating festivals (I am not talking Christmas and Thanks Giving and Halloween) is a wee bit tricky. One does not want un-necessary attention drawn to themselves so I can imagine the lack of too much glitter and sound. Does not the world know that lights, bright colours and sound offer panic attacks to most non-Asians!!! Which is fine. It is like aesthetics, muted colour tones and good lifestyle leading to panic attacks in Indians especially. So we are even. Really. Balance. Chi . Call it whatever you wish to. But how difficult is to celeberate festivals in a non-awkward, non-loud, non-obsequious yet family – oriented way?

How difficult is a little glitz, a little food, a little spirituality, say for the sake of the next generation? Why do we have to be antiseptic and earn other panic attacks. Remember we are Indians?...We already have our bane towards order, discipline (elbowing in the supermarket happens to me all the time, hell at times I do it too), and like I said before, the eternal Indian bane of looking healthy and aesthetics. Can’t we atleast redeem ourselves by being warm, hospitable and if you want to look shapeless what bad is Biryani over Burger? Or Parathas over Pizzas? Be fat. Be Indian fat. Please also gym and wear nothings to look good if you have to as well and if it is your thing. But please serve me my food well, please don’t serve me mithai in a cardboard 2 by 2, please don’t make me wince by buying your ABCD kids Halloween garb and nothing in our desi festivals, both in India and abroad. Come on, it is fun. It is just another reason to blow money, keep the economy going, and an extravaganza that keeps us realising one thing- nothing including values, traditional and ethical, are indispensible. But if you can imbue that to the next generation, what is the harm.

Just like health, traditions once let gone, go away. Being obstinate and totally inflexible about rituals and traditions is one thing. Shunning it altogether, because it is un-cool, is quite another thing. There is always a middle ground. May be that heavily brocaded saree stifles you, wear a lighter one with a halter perhaps. If it isthe cooking that gets to you, you could order in some good food from a decent place but how difficult is serving the ordered in food in a nice dish. Walk up to a Lifestyle or Shoppers Stop. Believe me you will find a serving dish well within your means. I am fine with a Khurja plate too. Every yearly salary increment is not about more investments. Please up your standard of living a wee bit. It will make you want to sit and admire your own house. Just please do me a favour. Don’t become mutants- those people who try to totally throw away what was theirs and emulate something which can’t be theirs or worse still is half baked? That is really sad. I mean eating pasta is Italian and cool, so why can’t a biryani or a luchee and kacha manksho be cool too. Recently I was so glad that there was this biryani noon at my place and all my guests.....all except maybe one or two who have never used their hands to eat rice with, used their god given good hard working hands. Hell, even the Westerners eat with their hands if you think using your digits is cringe worthy. Food like burgers and fries and even donuts is often seen being eaten with hands and sans cutlery. So well, we as Indians have the official certificate to.

The funniest thing happened to me almost a decade ago. A hulk of a batch-mate in my T-school decided to take me out for lunch. I was 19. So don’t blame me for thinking that it was a date. He took me out to this amazing restaurant called the Only Place. This place served the best All American Cheese Beef burger, before Hard Rock Cafe happened to Bangalore. While I was chomping, as daintily as burgers can be decimated, he asked me if I could tell, what was special. I gave him many options- his birthday, his Mum’s, his Dad’s, I almost even said that must have managed to deficate well that morning. Nope, none of these answers was the reason why he took me out for them burgers that day. No sir. ‘Twas 4th of July. American Independence day. I just shrugged and ate. 10 years later when I wanted to connect with him on Facebook, I was debarred. Apparently I am not in his network. He only allows US and Europe regions in his network. I could only laugh. I cannot blame him if after watching Eat Pray Love and India’s piss poor depiction therein he has stuck to his stance. Poor ex-Indian.

In the mean time my Bong pal went the whole nine yards this Durga Pujo and for two good reasons- for herself and for her son’s sake. The clothes, the food and the Pandaal hopping, she did it all. How else will her son learn? I am impressed. And away from India? Wow. Way to go, girl!!!

The Currency of Faith

2010-08-30T09:56:00.000+05:30

Nothing is more tragic than losing faith in oneself or the instinct to trust in oneself. When you feel that the whole world has taken turns to judge you and make you feel like an outcast, it is but natural to lose your confidence. Our lives are individual destinies. It was never meant to be similar to another destiny. If that were the case, would not have there been another JFK or John Lennon. No, each of us have a reason to live our lives a certain way. Call this the Big Guy’s quirk. And when you too join in your own booing, the death knell is sounded. You have killed the very human spirit the Rands of the world exhort about.

Losing faith is perhaps the root cause of militancy and hatred, for when you hate yourself, loathe yourself, disrespect yourself, all this because you have lost faith in yourself, the void thus created needs to be filled with other negative emotions. That is why sometimes utter cruelty is meted out to a very good soul. Good souls are happy souls, content, full of faith. And when people who lack this gift see a happy soul, they know that no wealth and no fame can buy that faith. And so they are cruel because they are shamed or maybe they basically have not learnt the art to imbibe rational things. And who is better than the happy soul to turn the cruelty towards….

I feel that the foremost thing is to try and accept that we keep losing little measure of faith every now and then. Once, only after one accepts this fact, can one rationally think through, weigh in option and stop the whole spiral of negative dance. The human brain has three parts to it- the cortex at the top, the brainstem as a stock attached to the cortex and the cerebellum behind the brainstem. The human cortex is what differentiates humans from primates and other mammals. We can think and perceive non essential activities- just not the basic activities like eating, drinking or reacting to survival instincts like fear, reproduction drive or hunger. We perceive wealth, status, societal norms and much more. So a long haul problem is not about panicking and taking sudden uncalculated steps. God knows we do it, all the time. Even for smaller decisions in life really.

Now, interestingly the culture that I am currently part of boasts of lots of money, year on year promotions, exotic holiday destinations, brands, name dropping, swanky jobs and sleek cars. People stand in pubs and terraces and discuss how much they make. Often I see one-upmanship that casts a shadow of pain on the poor victim when Mr. Benedicted says he or she makes a hell raising amount of money or is a rockstar. There is this pan-world phenomenon- loss of shame and decency. When the self sees all the good things, or what one defines as good things, happen to others, Loss of faith is bound to happen.

What sometimes very good souls don’t realize is that some in his brethren praise themselves because perhaps faith gets restored by telling the other person how lofty he stands. So is gaining faith at any cost the most important thing? No. Nada. The importance is in really putting your cards on the table and honestly seeing them. We all are sentient beings. No one knows us better than ourself. We are our best judge and jury and we can regain faith by analyzing ourselves. Brutally and honestly.
So gaining faith is not achieved by looking down on someone and but intelligently analyzing the relativity that exists in the have and have not spectrum of things. As one starts doing it, it will only become clear that the law of life demands that someone will have less than you and yet someone who will always have more than you- be it wealth, health, power, happiness or grief. Now that one has established this very basic truth, it is up to oneself how to use this knowledge. You may choose to fester and wring your hands in utter despair that someone has more than you in the parameter you want to compare yourself in or you may decide to make a poor hapless “lesser mortal” feel miserable because you feel you have more. Further still you may truly count your blessings.

After all no human being is Nature’s aberration. No one is totally good and horribly bad. No will have the exact same path drawn out. So to regain faith of one-self by belittling and disliking someone may seem natural, given that negativity is easier to prop on but that is not faith. That is re-assurance at any cost.

Faith is a very strong and positive emotion which like warmth must suffuse in anyone who comes close to you. Faith is something that keeps hope alive in an intelligent and rational way. Faith does not say keep sitting and you shall get food. Faith is about keep walking and you may getting to see your own vista, your own vista. Faith is to exist as a core that does not seek out for labels to define and prop you. It is very difficult to have this kind of faith. There are more diminishing forces that re-iterating forces.

Faith is also not about condoning inability and inaction. Inability and inaction robs us of the essential element of creativity, which leads to angst and loss of faith. Faith is about doing fundamentally the right, the just, the brave acts with a mix of conviction, pride and rationale. These small but firm acts of self motivation and growth are like Systematic Investment Plans that banks talk about, a small but highly effective medium of an impressive collection of wealth.

Collect small measures of faith every day and when you look back you shall see a sizable repository that will allow you to share this vital life force with another human being. If only we are replete and filled and sated can we offer help to those who may need a little restoration of faith. The small measures of faith can come from learning from others or through your own previously unnoticed acts. That someone who you may learn from could be a friend, a colleague, a leader, a spouse, an offspring, a sibling, a parent or even a perfect stranger. I have found faith in the expected quarters of those few precious who mean a lot to me...my parents, spouse, friends...and also in quarters that do not touch my life intimately and very often.

let it flow, let it

2009-12-02T15:55:00.000+05:30

i saw you as a lovely soft whisper of delicate energy. good souled. u danced in like most good serendipities do. the initial new days stay hazy, of how we got talking, what happened. one day you just told me of how he treats you, how he is and ur swollen eye rims tugged at my heart.

we spoke so many times, of how the nature of cosmic dance is. and u endeavored while i knew this will hurt. while she knew this will hurt. but like birth amd death, pain is complete, pain is inevitable, and pain is the truth. we cant be who we are with out pain can we. nothing beautiful happens with out pain- progeny, continents and new world. so u had to bite the dust. except that it strangely hurts. the anger is not for the one who had this coming your way, the anger is inexplicably for the look of utter bereft in your eyes. yes you pull yourself to your tall gait. but u do die. a little. there is rebirth with this slow death. this decay. but death is necessary for new life isn't it? dont they say, fear not the nadir because it is acme that hurts and while nadir caresses you, u can only stay safe.

u will exhale. gone will be the rose tinted glasses. gone will be the trusting gnome within. pain leaves its mark and it will be a part of your fabric. but you will be so free of guille.. and u will let go. plunge down like alice in wonderland. spiral away and land with a thud. and the rest awhile. you have a long hike up... to the clouds whence you belong... and well, you will get there. not today, may be not even tomorrow, but yes you will in your time...we all do.....

i'm a walkin' and a wonderin'

2009-10-06T14:22:00.001+05:30

Travelling as they say is the best education. Every time I pack my bags there are flurry of activities around me and within me. I love the thrill of waking up early, have a thrifty bite, get my bags, throw them in the trunk of the car, strap myself and zoom away just as the sun plants its first lazy kiss on the landscape around me. As I had been since I was three or so, even now I am left confounded how after just 10 hours of driving everything around me undergoes a metamorphosis. Roads, trees, people and well ….food!!! What is travel with no delving in food? Nothing really. And though packed lunch is safe and prevents amoebiasis, it represents rigidity and inertia to change. So I love the sweetened milk tea, a contrast to my daily large quota of black/green/some monochromatic tea with no sugar. And I love to replace my oats for something oily and spicy!!! Come on, it’s time to really unwind.
I just know that I will buy more tea mugs, I can, I am positive, raise money for any ailing IT company with just the proceeds of a garage sale of my cups and mugs. How can someone keep buying mugs or tea leaves or silver earrings or books every time he or she travels!!! I amaze myself with these banal buys. And that small shop ahead of Mysore in Gundlapet, that sells one amongst hundred a very Parsee elegant crepe silk saree that which I don’t buy will leave me heartbroken. It’s like an ablution from the usual. It’s trite but it signifies a flight. It is eerily cultish. It is akin to making love to the same man many times and still not having enough of him. It is oh so like discovering a new morning-after nuance after all these years.
This time on my way to Cunnoor, I noticed the aqueducts in Mysore for the first time. They are old, grey and they are of the road. I also now know for sure that the quaint shop that sells flavoured sweetened thick tea on the hair pin bends from Masinaguddi to Ooty is after the hair pin bend number 24. There are 36 hairpin bends from Masinaguddi to Ooty. And they are numbered at each bend as 36/36 and deplete away to 0/36…lo and behold you have reached Ooty. The old Higgins & Bothams in the far corner of Cherring Cross, housed in a burgundy wooden decrepit edifice with its rickety floor panels and scary wooden ladders, had some old and some new books. Tranquilitea is soon to move away from its current location near the Sims Garden. Sandeep, the owner, informed that the 5 year lease would end around October and they must find a new place for the Silver Tips and the Tea Breads. This will be like Elizabeth Taylor courting someone else. It will take some time to find the tea and savories hanging on someone else’s arms but in time we shall acquiesce.
The trek down the Raliah dam towards the forgotten quiet tea shrub slopes hurt my buttocks and calves. I wonder why Vatsayana forgot to mention about these aches and pains as the plump men and plumper women practiced their acrobatic stunts in Kamasutra. It needed lots of hot water and eucalyptus oil from the lone vial I bought in one of the so many spice and natural oil shops dotting teh Nilgiris, to relieve me of the soreness. I hope those acrobatic twits had such a vial. I am sure they did.
Heady yet grounded. These two emotions suffuse me with warmth. As I sat on the lone swing, beside the small cottage that became my abode for three nights and two days, gazing out at the lush green tea shrubs that cover the small hills, with the hope that I may just be able to spot a bison or two, I could only wish I stayed longer!!

Lard Jar

2009-09-20T10:12:00.001+05:30

that lard jar at work. what is she thinking wearing that body hugger and looking like a jello bowl.. cant u just see what u are doing.. the aethetics apart, all the damage to the spine et al... my poor Abusehater has suffered long with a slip disc, and she has ben sorely missed, good she is getting back and we can get on with munching names. hey what is that inside my T-shirt, below the specks? "Paunch"?? run gotta burn gotta look 20, gotta be pretty...run floozie run, instant karma is slipping away

the prodigal child

2009-08-27T14:28:00.000+05:30

i have no reason to feel good about myself. what, pray, is my contribution to the society. yet another directionless human being, thriving on the feeling of entitlement. the next raise, the next el dorado of a job, the next palm full of star dust by my pillow, all that gliteratti...yes thats what life has become.. i read about this young woman, works in my big jazzy salt mine, who inspite of being an abandoned destitute, managed to educate herself, who though hails from an orphange herself, yet has a big heart of gold, sharing and supporting the younger girls who are in need themselves in the same orphange which she grew up in. i was in that orphange for a few hours in view to a mandate and sudden "do- good act" of my great heralded portal of work. when will i stop looking for wind beneath my wings but start being the wind for someone else... petty world, this world of mine, everyday i feel some more of good, whatever little, eroding and at a very fast pace. i am at the brink of losing all humanity, how can you blame me ...i only get to see some more sycophancy, some more obsequousness, some more malignancy. the same Uraih Heeps get it all, get it remorselessly, get it like a long promised entitlement. philosophy they say is for those who have time to think because winners dont...they are doers... mechanical doers, the next kill the next jugular...thats the thirst and these people i love despising need to slake it... its like an infection...it kills you if you go against it or adopts you to be the next progigal child...... is my dislike for these Uriahs a lingering stench of my failure or is it my cue to look for a dimension which they can never afford to offer me or further still is it a plain platform of feeling good about myself........

mitra sometimes u just drop by

2009-08-21T20:04:00.000+05:30

Mitra, at times in moments of reluctance and unacceptance, I feel u draggin your lazy feet, almost screaming for being disturbed, standing behind. and i can sense ur nervous flighty self, oddly which has calmimg effects. i can hear u telling me- it matters or what? your funny hinglish!!! then u walk away, drift away. u have some thing to munch on i guess and u being the slow poke need to chew for hours...look at me, i dont even have the proprietary to be angry or irate as u walk away... its ur way, i guess??!!??

the tapri

2009-08-16T20:23:00.000+05:30

he rescued an old flask, gathering dust, from a forgotten corner!!! and rinsed it. he donned his old straw yoga slippers, took a 10 rupee note, and slowly walked out the door. i was on my phone talking. i must have talked for 10 min and then he returned, sat down in the ricketty wooden Saharanpuri chain in the small terrace and sipped his tea. i came and rested my hand on his shoulders...he said he went and got some tea, made of tea powder from the tapri, a few yards further from our stark white apartment complex. he sipped it and i fell...well good somehow...simple things left simple

if only Siddhartha was here!!

2009-07-21T13:28:00.000+05:30

i find it so ugly, so putrid. this vast collective feeling of negativity. everyone at the salt mine hate their work. hate people. hate the system. hate!! so much of hate my god! motivation is rock bottom. they all, i included, wait for the whistle to blow so they could move on. keep acting and keep eroding. somewhere in the personal account of a whore i had read how every act of paid carnal degraded the protagonist more, made her slump more, got her to a state of denial. i guess every time my brethren , i included, move for greener pastures, somehow unwittingly undergo the same pain, except instead of a man sullying a woman it is fate sullying us! sometimes despair seems to be too small a word to describe....... at other times it seems foolish to despair...anti-despair called hope crops up. ...and i want to believe in Siddartha more when in despair than when i conceive hope. if Siddhartha was here i would have asked ...why this despair? he would have smiled and said its a by product. we call it pain, god calls in cleansing, physics may call it balancing. whatever it is, it snaps ur thread of imagined flight and brings u back to the ground of reality....despair

Good morning!!!!

2009-07-07T10:56:00.001+05:30

Some days are good days. Such days do not bring in their tiding some good news or some great gifts. They are plain good. Like hot chicken soup on a rainy, cold day. The weather just may play a part as well. It is salubrious today. But really at the core of such days lie peace. Bonhomie. A coming in terms with irregularities. Irregularities one faces from relationships or from the society or from one of the many fabrics of interaction that clothe our day to day living. Such days make one almost understand what Buddha really tries to tell. Understand what an old widow may want to teach. Understand the smile of a child woken from the sweetest sleep. Come unto in peace. Where forgiving is not an agenda because there is no dark anger. Such days nor want in their wake any apologies. You want to shrug off that huge baggage of guilt you carry along, that pretty dispensable abhorrent dead weight. You may have wished someone good morning and that person may have been sleep washed but talks to you from the soul and you feel good. Or it may be your spouse leaving early at day break for someplace in a jet plane and you wake up on wet morning to brew some tea for him, fighting sleep and the urge to cuddle back again. And sleepily kiss your spouse good bye. Or a good friend thrilled at getting some snacks and some basic food you cooked for her because she is a little under the weather. Irrespective. In small measures of give and take, some days are good days. Today is such a day!

Good morning!!!

Fixation: Part I

2009-06-23T11:46:00.000+05:30

Little Washedup with Veena Chachi

When I first discovered that breasts held me captive, I was a mere lad of 7. Veena Chachi , my paternal aunt from Delhi, was visiting us in Bangalore. My mother, a harassed, young looking army wife, much raved and ranted of Veena Chachi's impending visit. After all, she was never pleased easily with orange squash from the army canteen or the regular samosas and talked too much. The fact that her two children were a little hazardous to my Mom’s dinner wagon of precious Siliguri crystals dint thaw my Mother much either. Veena Chachi belonged to a rich "South Daali" business family that traded in jewellery. She personified Dillipan so well : Lazy, loud, be-jewelled, shrewd and totally humongous that she almost looked like a beached whale. My petite, cotton sari clad, pearl string donned mother almost looked like a severe school matron in comparison to Veena Chachi . My two cousins, her two children , were little “Dilli-bubbas”: whining, competitive and destructive.. Veena Chachi had ample breasts that bordered more on being “obscenely generous” than on being “well endowed”. I am not too sure if I ogled at them too much, but I surely got to feel them a lot. Oh no. Not what you think. Back then the Pervert Quotient was very low in me, and I could not even imagine cupping, or should I say , arming them. It’s just that Veena Chachi petted me a lot, hugged me a lot and always clutched on to me. She would pluck me from my study table, tell her two impossible kids to “simmer down” and make me sit on her lap and talk for hours. That would ensure two things, first, her not having to help Ma in the kitchen and second, worm out dirty family secrets like if Pa drunk a lot or if Ma partied a lot or in any “Uncle” came about in Pa’s absence. She would drag me to the guest room, would lie on the bed talking, rest on one hand, turn on one side, keep telling her kids to simmer down like they were a rabbit stew and pretty soon snore away to oblivion.

And as she would sleep, I would cuddle up next to her to avoid her two bratty children. They always beat me up. Also this tactic worked well for me because Ma could not bulldoze me into stupid home work. And while she slept, Veena Chachi's big bosom would heave up and down, like gigantic water lions hobbling on the beaches. I would lie next to her, very close and would try not to look at the bright magenta brassiere that peeked out of her yellow top. I would wonder why Ma would wear those boring white ones. Occasional black ones but generally tame white ones. Sighing at the wonderment heaving up and down in front of me and confused at the difference between Ma's choice of lingerie and Veena Chachi’s, I would drift away to la-la-land as well

do the math floozie!!!

2009-06-22T15:06:00.000+05:30

mba mitigates risk. u get a job. u get paid. become another coca-cola bottle, lady luck may appoint u a prodigal child and u may appear in CNN live or in WSJ or in ET, but hey its like the government bond. low risk low return.

i flirt with "what if i quit the rat race and write a book". that means i then go to Davidar from Penguin and see how can i get my book published. and well, wait, what then, I also walk in as another one to give him a run around?...he writes and publishes too. wont i be another threat. what am i worth to him really? and more importantly, then what do i write as my eulogy - consulting background, married and lives with her husband and money plants on 8th floor in Kondapur, Hyderabad? where is the Oxford? where is the Mumbai or New York? and imagine my "Blah Blah" titled book next to "Etc. etc." by Rushdie, Seth, Pamuk and Lessing...not to forget Huxley!! who will read me?

see thats why an mba....low risk low return...shut the gob and do the dhanda, like the great Cornflakes Toad!!!

It ain't easy no where, darling!!!

2009-06-22T14:55:00.000+05:30

consulting sucks. especially if u are a woman. and a married one at that. office work gets endless. home gets tiring with spoilt spouses who become suddenly juvenile after marriage and maids not turning up. nothing else is so bad. or so i thought. till recently one of my maths faculties in my GMAT coaching institute told me her schedule of 18-hours day. she leaves home at 5.30 am and reaches back at 8.30 pm to find kids hungry and wailing and the husband on the computer playing some game. as she asks him why the kids went hungry, she gets a screaming match. she gets a day off a week. never a saturday or sunday and never off on a holiday. whoever said life is fair. yet day in and day out , so many of us GMAT aspirants try re-schedule timings coz we have some work threads to be taken care of. and she relents. just this morning with GMAT 4 weeks away I was hyper-ventilating, and she re-assured that with her around, things should be smoothe for me. i just hope she has that kind of a mentor too!!

2009-06-12T23:00:00.000+05:30

da da da da...duh!!!

its morning half passed five. everyone's asleep. i just made some red tea. i added a cinnamon bark to it. i like it sugarless. i slide the terrace door and gingerly step out on the terrace. i breathe in the wet morning. the lazy "aama miah" rain in hyderabad is so refreshing. the money plant needs some pruning and i can only half heartedly blame my procastination. its so not in my list of things to be honest. i sip my tea and lean across the railing. in B603 i see Mrs Upadhyay. Bunned. Saree carelessly draped and a red bindi. the bengali shakha. in her 60's .lean and hard. she sits on the white garden chair, sipping her tea too. looking through the thick famed glasses. i guess the servant boy is not more than 12. he gets her something in a bowl. i see her setting it down on the little table hidden behind the unkempt foliage of her terrace. then she does something that enraptures me. a very normal act but magical. she un-buns her hair, loosens them, lets them lazily fall and cascade down. from this distance i cant see the grey strands, but i have seen her strolling around the apartment complex. there are ample greys. she dips her finger tips into the bowl and gently runs through her scalp. she oils her hair slowly. deliberately. my tea is finished. i need to go in as the day beckons me. i just found the whole act soothing. very different from my quick ministrations.

o jeeeeeeeeez..

2009-06-12T22:51:00.000+05:30

i caught Ahem digging something. nose! i would and should have been grossed out. but i was not. why? i was enthralled by the expression of intense concentration. the utter bliss at locating the itchy malicious culprit, Iggy. Our digger did what i expected ... took out Iggy, looked at Iggy dispationnately, rolled Iggy between the fingers and let Iggy roll away on the soft carpeted floor of the mnc office space. till Miss Stilts passed by, perhaps having just crushed Iggy mercilessly under those profanely expensive shoes, smiled at Ahem, shook hands with Ahem and said " Good Morning"

Easy...so very much!!!

2009-05-21T14:37:00.000+05:30

This morning as i walked into our team room, I see one colleague trying to solve a puzzle. She had to arrange four small parts to build a "T". She figured it out eventually. While she was doing it, she was thinking furiously. When she finished and I took it up, she was trying hard not to prod but could not help looking at what i was trying to do. And when the next person tried after me, I tried not to be too smug. This is it. Its a small dynamic really. Once u are amidst things, u try to make way and make things happen for yourself. Once u have it all figured out, u lose patience when others try to figure it out. If we all realise this and hold the impatience at bay, a lot many issues can solve eventually. It seems wise to let people figure out their way. They may take a while but they will get their bit done. Once they are done, you may be blamed that u never helped and even if you helped u may not get the credit. But the best deal out of the whole thing is, you are never expected to help again. One reason is that the other person realizes you will not really help him or her. More importantly the person is now confident in doing things himself or herself. However, there is one small injecture here, the confidence in the other person who is trying to learn, grows when the experienced onlooker in trying to be constructive while being patient. Any negative blow at this nascent stage of trying can be detrimental. What also can work at times is a detached approach with a light touch of encouragement. Detachment helps the other person to be self serving and encouragement is seen as an opposite to hostility. This combination helps a beginner more often that not. The world would have been ideal if aware and apprised people set up beginners for success and not failure. But then aware and apprised people may reflect brilliance only on the surface. Deep down they could and perhaps do harbour fear of losing out to someone else. Hence that false sense of bravado and that ridiculous one-upmanship.

the day's small love story

2009-05-17T17:59:00.000+05:30

now not that i doubt why i got respectable with Monk and dint live in sin and love him inspite of being so trady...but then he has ways to be so lovely. why this morning i put on my consulting cap and reasoned that paying 6.5 grands to our always confused driver is expensive and math proved the number is not small when calculated for a year, i mean its almost 1/4th of my potential seat booking amount in a B-school (if they would have me that is), so why not bid him adieu..Monk looked up from his 100th paper of the day and said " deny him a living? my conscience does not allow. in this current recession he will have no takers...poor man's got to eat Babe!!!" so thus i so fell in love with him yet again..yeah he may never fire nincompoops if he is ever lucky to get to the top (most who get there are pretty much seasoned hard hearted bastards who think fucking happiness is an entitlement they have earned) but the man has a soul and thats why he is my Monk!! So like it has been since i always remember, the bed i sleep in shall smell fresh always and the bread broken shall be sweet and well deserved.... thank god its worth bringing babies to earth till likes of him exist!!!

The nice ladies!!

2009-05-15T11:58:00.001+05:30

Every once in a while u meet some good people. They have quirks that leave u bemused but they re-iterate the fact that people like me can deep down get along with people who exist beyond the binary exitence. of yes and no. of pure black and mortuary white. i mean gimme a break, who needs to be so stiff with righteousness and all peaches and creme and wants the ghosts of urah heeps either!! plain have-a-thought-will-speak-it- out works fine instead of stewing over thoughts. this is why i like these two gals - "Swearhater" and "SometimesAbuser". Smart, quirky and fun to be!!! Good to people they define good (which sort of overlaps with my thoughts) and nasty to assholes!!!
they love their herbs and are pretty basic in their food...and are genuine,rational and intellectual. are not washed up like most ppl from B-schools...infact as i said they are not binary!!! they are cool they stay chilled. both of them are a tad pattable but hey thats why they are com"patable"... well girls.... rock on then!! i shall tutor you both with a detailed course on profanity very soon...till then hang in there!!!

Go earn your decree!!!

2009-05-11T11:36:00.001+05:30

As you traverse this lovely earth
And wonder what in it marks your worth
Remember not everything is revealed
Some truths lay hidden and concealed
All the alms you ever gave
Sometimes when scared , yet the smile, hence the brave
It takes more than inches to be tall
It takes the brave to smile at spring , smile at fall
That one deed of selflessness
That one angst for restlessness
That celebration of the trough
That tenacity can be yours when things get tough
To be a friend, to be a son
To know when to tarry, when to run
To know how deep you can be, yet gracefully skim
To stay centered yet run the rim
Let all the Gods be with you
Let all the adversity challenge you
When the day’s dawn has had you tested
It is the day’s dusk that leaves you rested
And when your share of happiness comes your way
The happiness that comes to stay
Rise and meet it like a comrade
Embrace it, it is pure, purer than jade
So go now, you have a long way
You may not always have a guiding ray
And you may not tell this to all and sundry
But you must take that which is yours and set yourself free
So as you lift your anchor from that deep blue
And your sojourn beckons you
Hang in there, but hold tight
Fly high my friend but soar light

Whispering wisdom

2009-05-07T22:50:00.000+05:30

the limbo again, and a pregnant expectation. the stillness in my head portends a deluge, first a trickle , later the deluge. very soon i will one way or another mark pave a path..and i will walk this path.... i ask providence to once again whisper that talismanic chant in my ear...do it... i know u can do it....

just if...

2009-05-07T22:43:00.000+05:30

if mitra, u had been lucent to the fact that greys remain greys and never turn to a vibgyor, it may have been a lovely week. you do know that never shall we meet, talk or ever see one another.may we never. never can not be too emphatic. so in anticipation i would have gone for a movie , a drink and a quiet book exchange. nothing fancy. fancy stuff is for show. just basic sketch of reality and a cognizance that hey i care, i am there, i am happy scarlet streaks in the sky sketch out for you. i nonetheless remain standing in this estuary of time...adieu!!! go light then!!!

hush my love!!!!

2009-04-27T22:08:00.000+05:30

dear mitra!!!if i could i would tell you to wrap me up in your silence. in your quiet. in your calm. its a world i dont live in. your deliberate world of stickler to norm. i would ask u to tread very slowly even in your world. because there i shall be allowed to see artefacts i usually dont. like your glance of my feet. u just look at them. and have that lovely soft look. there is no judjement. its an act of liberation marking to possess. thats an artefact. i will putter around in the background. u do the thinking. its really pure, my this fondness of you , you see. i wish not to own you. that will be ridiculous. owning. you. your mulling is another artefact. please hurry with the gait. the world is not waiting to watch your dramtic entry. no not unless it was i who alone lived in this world. but alas! i dont...do i. i am even scared to acknowledge how many tears fill my soul when i think of you. tears are for cowards. i am a coward. the brave declare...or do they? tell me what will i ever do if u ever happen to implode. but then u will , you know. implode. u are so scared of your own power, you will implode. and even then u shall implode quietly, like a soft spill of milk on a white tile. like all sound sucked away from a room. as though the singular objective of this world would be to witness the spill. your spill. then all sound will return, the chaos would return. a pregnant dimension will contain you. that dimension would not hurt you.....ssshhhhhhhhh...... quiet!!! hush my love!!!.... SQ

the shrinking shadow

2009-02-05T14:28:00.000+05:30

sometimes over tea, generally alone, i think of Bharti. she lived with her sister in whose house i lived as a paying guest.she would get me tea at 2 in the morning as i studied for some useless engineering exam the next day. she would wash off the stubborn stains off my filthy boot cut. she would steal for me the latest dark brown lipstick from her sister's little vanity shop so i could drape that and rush off for the many escapades of a young woman at the threshold of her third living decade .... movies, boyfriends, rock band etc. she even took me to meet a stubborn friend requiring tender lovin care at 10 pm rainy july bangalore night. cooked the dosas with minimal oil as i liked. kept the last piece of tasteless sponge cake from the local bakery for my saturday elevences. she cried when i did when boyfriends were dumped and i felt more the victim. she laughed when i laughed over some silly stuff playing on the TV. she loved me. i knew it then. sometimes i wondered if she were a closet lesbian. i was so mad back then, i flirted with the very idea too. it would have been neat if i were. how i discovered i wasn't is another story.back then i needed her, but dint love her. she knew that too. and one day, when "better sense" prevailed in my final year i moved out of the place where i lived for almost 2 years, to a college hostel. where i did my own bidding. where i dint really miss Bharti. where one day she same to meet me just as the hostel gate would shut at dusk to protect the modesty of the chaste (if there were any) young women. she came sat with me, got me dosas she made with no oil, a half sponge cake and the latest Maybelline cognac brown. then she cried. and i was restless with guilt i tried to smother. she left. i met her once or twice after that in the good old Yelahanka town/village/no description, call what you may, where i would go on the weekend to get the instant noodle packs, coz the hostel dosas were cholestrol breads and idlis too sour for my liking really. she would ask me out for coffee at sharavati, the best south indian joint that little place boasted of. Bharti never said no to me. I hardly said yes to most of her bidding. i finished my course, moved to another bustling big city, picked up another boyfriend . things dint work out with him either. did my resume a favor and did some more studies. got serious about life. got married. went to the US. came back. moved cities. yeah i keep moving. got fancy jobs. still do them. last when i went to Yelahanka, the old PG house was locked. there was no one there. i dont know of Bharti's whereabouts. she was 28 when i was 20. hope she is married now. hope she has a loving spouse. some brats to swat around.

as i am sitting by the big window of this undescribed room of a row house where i shall be moving out of tomoro, i am unwittingly thinking of her, and suddenly realizing , that if i met Bharti today, i would love here back, offer her some tea and keep reading a useless book as she would most likely have sat next to me and thought of the next wonderful mundane thing to run for me. wherever you are, i refuse to shrink that shadow of ur existence. not anymore. you are larger than that. sometimes dear girl you are even larger than life. stay happy

please come

2008-09-29T00:12:00.000+05:30

round room nestled amidst pine trees. window panes with rustling sheers. the sun may rise may set.you can sit across. we can talk. i can weep you can smile. you can light the fire. i shall offer no decree. i can acuse you can close your eyes. i live you can haunt. letters lay scattered that i never sent and you never read. tea that brewed and got cold. dylan can join. roark's invited too.call robert. its the macabre. it is barret's blabber blob. please come..........

the romantic dead

2008-09-29T00:02:00.000+05:30

in the eerie silence of the night , with no soul a plaintive cry away, i wake up at around 2am. the occasional hound-barks by no means lull me to sleep. i think of the space empty next to mine. Monk is travelling. i dont miss the sudden rude kick in my shin. i do miss the soft rythmic breathing. it is assuring. i think of far away. i think of Diamonds and Rust. Baez and Dylon. i think of the cosmic coupling i must have read in some new age "fix your sex and marriage " stuff.... when i think of Diamonds and Rust i can feel the words of Robert Kincaid to Francesca. a sentimental tear takes shape and disappears in the white linen. i feel foolish. i realize i am the romantic dead!!!

dance versus dancer

2008-09-05T23:37:00.000+05:30

500 calories. 43 minutes. 6.3 km/hr. i am happy at what the treadmill display console reads. uriah heep in my ipod muses about the dancer and the dance the dancer dances. and we need to choose. but may be they already know the answer. sometimes its not the person...for all his or her exsitence, that person has both white and black hues. and like memorable pictures some moments are so intense and the color of your person at that moment is so all pervasive that the color becomes the code. so the world can judge and it does. but what remains eternal is the creation of that person. you can hate it or love it but not deny it. and if that work has dedication and it has the earnest you imbue a magic. it is called "eternity". so at the end it is the dance of natraja that is famous and not so much natraja...there uraih heep... you boys knew it, dint you now???

The dovetail

2008-09-05T02:07:00.000+05:30

waiting needs patience. patience is the mother of all virtues or so it goes... Quantum is not patient. every thing is smoothe on the surface but underneath runs these currents that tussle each other for no apparent reason. there is a need for some movement yet an inertia. this is called denial and it can be so deluging. there lies beneath the quest for unchartered yet there remains the dulcet feeling of familiarity. there is so much passion yet so much dead. dreams that are unholy yet resolute, need to vanquish the id yet resurrect the self..... it is denial???

The abode of the motley crew

2008-08-29T22:58:00.000+05:30

You either love big cities or you don’t… doesn’t feel too right… nah….let me try again…you either love Mumbai or you don’t. I love Mumbai. Yeah that’s it.
It was not easy living mind you. Filth strewn like no other city, I can only recall the description Gabriel Garcia Marquez used for the Caribbean in “Love in the time of Cholera”. Every where your eyes rest you are assaulted by nameless heads bobbing up and down in ocean of humanity. Local trains, pollution , humidity, traffic jams , flyover construction, hawkers, human feces, abject poverty, jaw dropping wealth, nameless people, star icons, overflowing drains, Arabian Sea, AIDS activists, theatre artists, eunuchs, writers and well the list can go on…..
Yet despite utter chaos there was a cosmic rule that ran as a common thread across souls…. Work hard and smile on… the city has so much of macabre to show, so why fret. There is an unspoken code of conduct …what earned you your bread is your god and god shall never be displeased. Everything in that city begins with worshipping your god and ends with the same and there are circles of entities that ensured that whatever you do, those gods must remain pleased and bless you….
The every morning auto rickshaw ride from Bandra to Malad was not easy. No sir. It was bumpy . It was arduous and took an hour everyday one way. I stopped complaining when I met a girl in one of the offices in Mindspace who came from Panvel every day. It took her two hours and a change of two buses and two trains one way. She woke up at 5 in the morning and slept at 12 at night. Such is Mumbai. She had dark circles around her eyes, a slight frame and though mere 23, her skin told a different story. What amazed me and made me celebrate the human resilience is her smile. Or the grit on every face that I saw in the local train which I took whenever to save time or the sudden urge to save 100 bucks.

Amidst the mechanical churn of life there is a continuous blossom of spring that gave hope and determination to every one. Why, that incident of a lady travelling in the train. No place to stand, she stood next to me in the all women coach. She got in from the Bandra station where I took my train from…When the train stopped at Khar , a small girl hawking odd ends got in. She droned on about her tidy basket of clips, bands, hair accessories and bindis. She soon drew closer to the door to get off at Andheri. But a sudden surge of women got her enmeshed amongst bodies and she let out a huge wail of helplessness and terror. I saw a sudden flash of a hand , that belonged to the same woman I had mentioned earlier, draw the girl close and pull her to have her ensconced safely between the woman’s body and the coach wall. She held on to the girl and in the next station, let her off personally before quickly getting in. I was touched and flummoxed at a Davidoff perfume wearing and Dior bag clutching woman to express humanity this way. Only when I said so, did she smile and said that managing finances in a big bank was not so special as managing little lives. I got to know her designation, that of a Vice President in HFDC and the fact that that morning her car broke down and a busy schedule pushed her to take the train..
It is hearty to know that neither capitalism has completely corroded the mind of some to hear just currency tellers counting money nor has communism made such minds sluggish by continual shouting matches. There are these unsung heroes that live their ordinary lives in extra ordinary way. Why isn’t it divine to just find a smile on a face when most brows furrow thinking of destiny’s next tricks and the plots in the mind to negate those.
The ode to beauty must go to such human beings who smile despite life’s everyday challenges. I salute the spirit of Mumbai and its precious thinking minds!!! Minds that really think!! People who don’t smile to impress someone but to express life’s virtue that has pain and happiness et al.

Glint in the eye

2008-08-21T19:15:00.000+05:30

Was in splits when Bryson wanted to look at the woods and comment like a seasoned mountaineer and trekker, with a hard glint in the eyes “ yeah I shat in those woods” or something to that effect. Man I almost came close… I pissed on a winding road between two car doors, opened to barricade and three helpful people covering me from a peek a boo of my posterior. Helpful tip from the gal with us who pulled the same stunt in Ladakh. Let’s call her …hmm… Tinkerbell . Tinkerbell (TB from now on) was celestially made to fall in love with Clicky Traveler(CT) and these two swell guys gave us company to explore the Hinterland of a Deccan State, Karnataka. Us? Why its Monk and SQ if you have forgotten…. The grand idea to go off for something unplanned germinated in Monk’s head, slowly really going the monk way of being shorn of hair, after the spitfire version of my energy surfaced and it was either a yearlong haranguing or a quick weekend trip….
You need hassle free, uncomplicated, shat in the woods variety for these unplanned low budget four day get away!! Monk in all his earnest could only recommend one member of his large friend circle … CT and his better three fourth TB …. CT is a great conjurer… he makes dull places look great in pictures and squeaky old cars fly like Sea Harriers that want to bombard evil terrorists in Asian heartland!!!! TB gave me a complex in loquaciousness… that gal spoke and laughed and demolished goodies with my kind of agility and earned herself the decree of being a woman of substance…if she really cares for that kind of brandishing !!! Remember she gave me a new perspective on bladder clearing and I practiced it on my way back from Bangalore to Hyderabad, the Land of Biryani. My gratitude to TB remains eternal on this account!!!
The tried and tested method of stinky stuff bonded me well with TB and CT…this was the first time I was meeting them and man I needed to get on beyond polite conversation…so in a fit of verbal diarrhea I exclaimed that the only woe for a travel bug bitten woman is the defecation bit. Ha then what, we got talking about fart, types of farts and shit habits…. There that did it, so we continued hogging and talking and making shit…..
As was expected from CT (Monk had set a very appropriate expectation from the offset for a change) that it will be very sudden, very unplanned and great fun. There would be synchronized open air dumping by the CT and Monk. It was just that. This time luck favored the sons of great duodenal lubrication, they were miraculously offered CCD toilets.
TB and I took turns to be gods of small things…we just peed everywhere possible….
The drive to Hyderabad to Bangalore, on Day 1 was tiring , irritating and dull for me and Monk…The start from Hyderabad was late and our car created some confusion that got us in a tizzy to show her to a technician…We could only get out of city premises by 1145 hours…mistake, huge mistake . This route of 540 odd kilometers does not boast of interesting eat outs like the Bangalore- Mysore- Kerala stretch. Most of the eating joints are unhygienic and have very dirty toilets. That dint deter us from eating at this very filthy place middle of nowhere and Monk thanked all the gods for conjuring rice, rasam, soggy papad and lots of busy flies!!

We had palate scalding milky tea on our way ahead and food poison inducing pakodas. We also demolished an entire plum shortcake and couple of cookies and an apple each. By sundown we were still 180 km away from Bangalore. That entailed night driving. The road is middle of an overhaul , there were potholes and everybody drove on a high beam. Add 7 hour long fatigue and 6 hour of disturbed sleep, Monk and I envisaged very horrible news traveling our friend’s circuit… but CT was our Mayday and we made it to his house at exactly 2345 hours. TB , after a day’s long work , fed our undying appetite with a homemade welcoming dinner, and after two hours of chatting and catching up we all dropped like flies to get up in the morning quite late.
On Day 2 there was still no clear cut plan of destination and after much thinking, calls and re-thinking , we all decided to go to Coorg, so we were out of the house almost at 1200 hours after a hearty brunch of dosas , palya and chutney, awesome combo, thanks to Madame Ecstasy , TB’s lifeline!!!
After some one hour on the road we re-voted for the destination and this time CT who navigated the car (get the word navigated ? well that’s because we were flying low) towards Baba Budangiri , about 200 km away.
That’s when stinky talks happened and more mindless talks, no job, no boss and no competition …clean getaway… just like Trey Anastasio croons in his number “Everything flows out right through my head”. Lunch was at a government certified vegan lunch house… four people, four meals and back to the road…. No place yet to stay due to heavy booking everywhere … my early morning ablutions worried me a bit…. But we kept driving and soon reached a place called Hassan there we spotted a manna from above…Hotel Ashhoke….TB called them and booked two rooms at unbelievable rates of just 2.5 grand a night and complimentary breakfast…we were hopeful that in Chikmagalur we may still find something to stay the night, so though dusk was not too far, we carried on. The two places Hassan and Chikmagalur, are just 65 km apart. On the way we saw a Hoysala Resort. Enquiry for rooms left us disappointed. I even tried an oriental accent but to no avail. But we still marched on to Chikmagalur and on our way stopped to take many a pictures. CT is an analog camera buff… so am I but digital ones can be handy for not very serious shooting trips and also to discern for your analog the light quality…so CT and I took many a pictures. Must say he is cool …pretty good with the light versus object thing…. CT recommended Nikon D80 and I am still hung on the Canon 400D…. both needs obscene moolah…. Let’s wait for a long time till I get one!!!
We reached Chikmagalur at around 8 or so and soon found ourselves trudging our way to an obscure Taj property…these are those leased properties that use Taj’s brand name but offer substandard facilities…must tell those guys not to dilute their brand like that, I mean 3000 for some sick buffet and no La Carte!!! Cheap wine that TB and I wasted and regular beer for Monk and CT. We drove back to Hassan at around 2200 hours and were in our rooms by 2330. We were more than happy for the pads…. Surpassed our expectations. Hotel Ashhoke was truly splendid given the circumstance and otherwise for a low budget getaway…. Hot water, spacious rooms, good service, mini bar, wake up call, clean towels, clean washrooms and comfortable beds…folks that’s not really rough traveling …. But secretly I was very happy . And complimentary breakfast that served other than the South Indian spread, bread, egg, fruit, fresh juice, chicken sausages and good coffee. Having stuffed ourselves we checked out and headed towards the real gold… Baba Budanangiri. These are coffee hills, best recommended for trekking. Legend has it that one Baba Budan, disciple of Sufi Saint Hazrat Sheikh Abdul Azeez Mecci, undertook a pilgrimage to Yemen and on returning thence , surprised his followers by some magic seeds – coffee beans…Duly planted, it gave rise to the famous coffee plantations in Hassan and Chikmagalur. It was a lovely rainy day, salubrious and green, the drive from Hassan to Chikmagalur was repetitive but from Chikmagalur to Baba Budangiri was refreshing. Narrow winding roads up the hill and coffee plantations with pepper tress. It was a perfect setting for some hot tea and spicy samosas, alas not to be found anyplace…one way its good, cuts off the crass commercialism and ecological decay by non-biodegradable waste. We started to trek up but a steady drizzling got very chilly till we hardly trekked too much and headed back more wet by rain than sweat. Our next agenda was to find a lunch place. Most of the places looked shady so we had to rely on the lone Hoysala resort. We had to call them and ask them if we could use the restaurant “Belur” therein. We were there in the nick of time to have some very average and soon gone cold lunch. The highlight was the green daal. Hot and spicy and available. Post eating we took off to Bangalore at about 1600 hours. CT and Monk took turns to drive… I was drifting in and out of sweet slumber and engaging in the general merriment. We reached Bangalore at about 2100 hours . TB being the conscientious host ordered in some very light Chinese food. Gorging which the last few days of strain surfaced. A hot shower and “ The life of others” had a soporific effect. With an early start back to Hyderabad , I had to call it a day.
The next morning, a quick packing and a sweet breakfast by TB had us ready by 0800 hours. And TB majorly embarrassed Monk and I, the shameless duo , by entrusting a lovely Goan tile on our way out. I mean we just got them some cookies and cake, which we joined them to demolish on our trip to Baba Budangiri. This is neat huh, get people cake and you munch it half yourself . Shameless I tell you, Monk and I. Anyways after a warm and lengthy goodbye we were off to tackle the 14 hour long drive to Hyderabad, boring and forlornly quiet after our three days with CT and TB. We got home late by 2230 hours. Well Hyderabad House beckoned us and we devoured Chicken Biryani like maniacs… on the way…. Jeez have you ever encountered hogs like us?
The trip was great. Bangalore is a little sad these days but Chikmagalur and Baba Budangiri was scenic, unwinding and gave one the opportunity to trek, shoot and develop a glint and say “ Yeah I pissed on one of those winding curves”…but above all it connects you to people who have an identity beyond designations in clinical glass offices….who draw their self esteem in being grounded, warm and extremely talented people. TB and Ct were so refreshing after the pseudo we come against day after day…
Let’s hope we meet CT and TB again and have very brain dead yet meaningful trips!!!!
Let’s hope we get the real glint ....eh?

Those days back then

2008-01-12T09:48:00.000+05:30

Sitting in my closed terrace and gazing at the steady rain. He sleeps. There is so much he needs to do during the week, so I do not wake him up. The rain falls in straight sheets. Calm and beautiful. I sit in the quiet amidst the given chaos on Hill Road, but the old bungalow¸ Rebello House, that I can see from my terrace, gives me the refuge. Old house this one. Now quite mouldy. It still provides for some people who dwell therein, I see at times come and go. Young girls. Happy and private. A car cleaner, cleaning a car parked in the small clearing near the entrance under the old trees that flank the house. I have seen some playful kittens on the tiled roof of the bungalow during last summer, scrambling around their sun warmed and soporific mother on sunny days. But today it is raining. And no one is quite seen around Rebello house. There is an obscure Bay City Club that barricades the traffic on the left hand side. For some time now renovation has been carried out in the club. The loud screechy welding machines and iron rod cutters leave me gritting my teeth at times. But overall, the rain manages to cut off most of the sound. It is pouring heavily.

Something about rains leaves me nostalgic. It could be my hometown. Shillong. I was conceived and birthed there. So was my Mother. And Shillong is to rains what Sahara Desert is to sand. Cute cozy cottages nestled amidst rounded hills. Shillong is not amidst great hills but on plateaus, part of the eastern Shivalik ranges that have abandoned sky searing loft for full bodied scenic little hills. And Shabira Cot is just another little cottage. More about the in-mates later but in a nut shell, my maternal home was this charming little world of remarkable men and women. One of them is gone. My granny, Nani. She was a cookie, that one. And the raining morns were special.

The day break in Shillong would be marked by crowing cockerels. And the distinct shuffling footsteps on wooden floorings that have to belong to a person fighting sleep, battling cold and the urge to urinate. I would get up at once, wear my pull over, pull up my socks and the morning ablutions would follow. Shillong is cold almost all mornings. Sometimes bitterly sometimes not so. But every morning is crisp, fresh, and clean. Perhaps Cat Stevens sung “morning has broken” keeping Shillong in mind.

Shabira Cot resides in Laban in Shillong. Except for the first born, who died when barely a year old, my Grandparents were prolific and bore seven more kids. Four sons and three daughters. And the last one helped name the house. That last one is also my Mother. Her elder two sisters had enough of handling three younger brothers, quite a handful they were, it is said. So when came along Mom, she was named Shabira, The house was called Shabira Cot. And my Grandparents took peace and never had any more babies. I never met my grandpapa. Nani was a different story. I more than met that fiery but warm, sharp tongued but talented lady

Coming back after that little confusing detail, let me muse about those mornings. Some twenty years back. I was little. Don’t ask my age. I shall not want you to deduct how old I am now. So once Ali,the main house help, would get up after Nani would call out from her bed, he would freshen up and kick Horu, the young twelve year old help, awake. Horu (HO-ROO) literally means small in Assamese. I hated that Ali kicked Horu awake. But Horu always refused to service any of my demands. Horu was a zit in the rump. So the kicks aimed at him lost their pain for me after my initial indignation. I would howl with fury for all those irritating nothings he would subject me to. Pull my braids. Show me his tongue. Push me in the corner and keep me waiting for my early morning glass of milk.

So once the two helps would be up and about, the large electric heater would be switched on in the kitchen. This heater was around till I was 17 or so. I loved it. Brown, rusted with two big coils. On one side Horu would keep a huge ketlee ( kettle) of water and the other would have an indigenously made mesh toaster. So as the water would boil, heaps of freshly cut breads would be toasted. And slaved with butter. And placed on that old steel tray, which always looked new because of the never ending tray cloths Nani churned out. Delicately embroidered casement pieces. The hakoba and lace ones were kept for ‘guests’. ‘Guests’ were a constant fixture in that house. More on that some other time.

But early morning plaid trey cloths would suffice, placed on the trey along with a pile of saucers, three cups of tea with sugar in them and a huge plate of hot bread with soft butter. Whenever Papa would be there, he would be given milk tea, but most of the elders preferred red tea. And Papa would come home every two months to see my pretty and slowly getting rotund Mother. Papa was in the army and away for a field tenure in Tawang. Irfan was on his way. I got to know much later that Mom was expecting him. And that explains why Mum and me and of course not a very visible Irfan were living with my Nani.
I mean my parents really took my everyday post school bawling seriously. I would harp on how all other kids had “brothers and sisters” and I dint have any. So they pondered and thought they might as well have one to keep me quiet. So now Irfan was coming. Had I known he would be so tiny, evidently fragile and unable to be my playmate and the main reason why I suddenly stopped being the centre of my parents’ constant attention, I would have thought about my stupid demand. And once his milk teeth sprouted and he would bite me to massage his tickling gums like I were his teether or broke all my toys after his were long gone , I would have seriously reconsidered my unreasonable demand. Back then I was oblivious what was in store for a “BIG SISTER”. Twenty years down the line, the equation has only grown in order. He still tries my patience and generally bores deep holes in my wallet and makes it up by acting all sweet and ready to kill for my sake.

Again I digressed. So once the trey would be ready, it would be taken to my Nani. She would always rebuke Horu, the dunce, to have forgotten to give her the two empty quarter plates for which she had to remind him everyday. Sadly those days I did not know anything about Uriah Heep. But once I read David Copperfield, some two or three years down the line, and my simmering hatred for Horu The Horrible was still alive and smouldering, my mind gave Uriah Heep a twin. Horu!!! I would almost every time enjoy seeing Horu getting scolded. It was mutual. He generally tattled about me to Nani or Mom about some mischief I would make. And those days, mischief would happen even when unintentional. I was not exactly a quiet young girl. No, I was quite a brat. On retrospect no one realized how boring life can be for a young girl, with no company, all adults and a terrible tattling servant boy. Life at times was tragic. I would draw list of all misdemeanours carried out against me to show it to my Dad, who returned home, like I said every two months or so to look us up from Tawang.

Anyway , so Horu would get her the plates and after another angry prodding from Nani, two large canisters would be pulled out from under her bed. One would have cake and the other Marie biscuits. Loads of them. The cake, needless to say would be made at home and it was stored under the bed because Horu and cakes dint get along very long. The cakes would disappear whenever left in the kitchen. Poor cakes, I mean when they rather be filched by me. I must confess I did filch few cake pieces too. But even if Nani knew, she never had the heart to scold me. Everything is fair in love and war and I loved food.

Once the biscuits, the tea, the cake and the bread would be ready, Nani would take her tea cup , take a saucer, place the cup there. Then she would daintily pick a slice of bread and take a bite. I would be busy sipping the milk I hated. Then she would call me, fold me a slice and hand it over to me. And I would blissfully munch on my bread. And would quickly take a cake slice and some biscuits before the trey be taken from Nani’s room to my uncle’s room. Oh I forgot to mention, my uncle too lived with Nani. He was unmarried and kind of looked after her. Well, he was very fashionable and would recklessly spend most of his money on good clothes. And I would love to munch my bread and tag along Horu to my uncle’s room and I would most often poke him out of sleep. He would jump and sit up with a start, very viciously tell me how inappropriate it was to wake someone like that and would dismiss Horu unceremoniously after his tea and bread and cake would be delivered. My Uncle and I shared two things in common- love for music and dislike for Horu. My uncle is tall and this is Uncle Number 4. The last son my Grandparents were blessed with. He was always running short of hair. But he was tall and had quite an arresting personality. He was always jittery when with kids because they would break into his reverie of his next big hocus bogus story that he would like to articulate. Because the real world and the imagined ones did not have too much of a difference for my uncle. But he played the guitar in the quiet cold mountain evenings when he would return from work and sang country songs and I sang along with him, and in those times I would gladly forgive his constant tame-my-niece stance towards me. And he sang well and he would often say that I sang well and I would glow with pride. Till my short span of attention would disappear and some mischief would happen and I would be banished from his room.
So while he would sip his tea and do funny antics with his voice, I would take a bite of his cake and prance around his room, touching this and that and he would be so jittery that he would get up and go to the toilet and once in a while I would hear him fart. That would lead me to giggle, eat more of his cake and go back to Nani. She would have her second cup of tea and as every time she would pour some on the saucer and slurp up most of it. I would find that fascinating. Once I tried it and spilled tea on my home knitted white sweater. Nani was livid, Mom was furious and Horu sniggered. I never tried it again. Nonetheless the art of mastering saucer tea drinking was in my agenda of list but much lower in order. There was Horu to take care of.

Mom?? I let her be. Or she made me let her be!! She would be up in our room, adjacent to Nani’s, with her morning sickness. Get up, throw up, freshen up and then have a light brew on my Nani’s bed, sitting close to my grandmum. She could not tolerate most of the odours. Poor thing looked sick every morning. I would keep looking at Mom’s face to see if I could get away with some brave confessions of some mischief I made before r, till Nani would tell me to stop staring at her daughter and let her be. I would shrug and go out of the room to the kitchen . That was where all the action was.

For breakfast, Ali would knead flour into dough with scalding hot water. How he managed such hot water, left me awe struck but I always tried to look intelligent and not show too much respect. But still the mind wondered about little wonders. He would add salt and keep kneading the dough relentlessly. His long crooked fingers would assault the poor flour and before I knew he would start making small balls out of them. I would take one or two, making Ali the Dour dourer. If Horu was a pest, Ali was sour natured. And I would make my small rooti (bread) with the long discarded rolling pin I discovered in a hidden corner of the kitchen during one of my scavenging afternoons. Ali would make some balls out of the dough bigger than the others. Place those on the wooden plate and with the rolling pin start making parathas. He would deftly apply some oil, neatly cut the spread bread from the centre to the edge, roll it like a cone and press in down to make a spiral small cake which he would spread again with the rolling pin and put it on the tawa , flip it around , apply oil , flip it many times again and keep it deftly in the thermal casserole. This he would repeat more than a dozen times till close to twenty parathas would be made. Then he would take up the smaller balls and spread them just once, make them real thin to make the famous Shabira Cot rooti. And keep them over the parathas.

Next he would bring out the chicken minced meat. He would peel and dice the potatoes real small and quickly make some minced meat with potatoes. While that would cook, he would bring some squash from our kitchen garden, wash them, peel them, slice them and make the succulent squash dish. All this great food would be made in just an hour. Once the cooking would be over Ali would bark at Horu to lay the table. Horu, in his slow way, would do the needful, simultaneously irritating me; put the table mats and plates on the table, dole out some jam, butter, jelly and the required cutlery. My Nani has lots of cutlery and crockery. Soon I would run to inform Nani, my mother, and my uncle that breakfast was at last ready. Having done my page boy duty, I would go to the kitchen with whoever of the three was first to get there.

You see we did most of our daily eating bit on the large family table in the kitchen and not in the dining table in the dining room. For one, the kitchen was cosy and second my Nani could sit there and supervise the cooking which was quintessential for her. And she would sit on the head of the table, where porcelain chrome colour bowl with warm water would await her to dip her hands and perfunctionarily clean them. I would follow suit. Only the elders got dedicated fresh finger bowls. The younger ones would quickly dip and get down to the basics. It was a norm followed in most houses in Shillong because after the British left India, most of the tribal work force who did not inherit estates or legacy, started working in Indian households. Several of such servants worked at our place before Ali the Dour and Horu the Horrible came in. They were primarily responsible for sharing tips with most house matrons and wives and by and large most families in Shillong had imbibed a large proportion of British habits. Like the trey cloth bit, and kettle bit, four post beds and many other details. However, food was most about what piqued my interest and having seated next to my Nani, opposite my mother, I would get down to eat.

The parathas, steaming hot and soft would be handed around. Next the minced meat with potatoes and the squash preparations would follow. Meal times were the only time when I was quiet, focused and absolutely angelic. Baring few incidents, most meals went without having to remind me of minding my Ps and Qs. The minced meat with potatoes would have a dry consistency and the squash was slightly gravy-ish. The squash would particularly have small whole cloves of garlic. The jam and the jelly would always be served in small porcelain white bowls and the butter in a cut glass butter dish. Jam, jelly, spicy preserves and pickles were Nani’s specialty amongst other culinary wonders.

Jam would be made from the fruit and jelly from the juice of the fruit. Both required tremendous amount of patience to be cooked in large cauldron like pots. And would be cooled and jarred in large bottles. From there they would be spooned out every day for daily consumption.

After I would quickly gobble up one paratha with the minced meat with potatoes and the squash preparation, I would have one rooti with the jam du jour. I always like the jams better than the jellies because they were more crunchy and yielding. Jellies were slightly more solidified. Sometimes when the regular jams would exhaust, fruit preserves of slightly spicy-sweetish flavour would be served instead. Preserves like pear with cinnamon and ground pepper and the famous plum with red chilli powder were often served. I long for those even now.

I do not know what was larger; the hearts of the people in Shabira cot or the kitchen, but in the far corner of the kitchen, a long table and a bench was placed. There Ali and Horu sat and ate along with all of us. There was an unspoken belief that the family that ate together lived together. I guess that’s why Ali, later looked after Nani on her deathbed much better than a son would.

I always felt I and Horu contended for a wee bit more jam to establish our supremacy over the other and both liked to believe the other got less. So our constant bickering and “getting evens” would continue. There post meal, Horu would quickly scurry to get the chrome bowl for Nani with fresh warm water and the small aluminium mug with more warm water to assist Mom wash her hands. And then he would grudgingly help me wash my hands too. Tea would follow again.

So those were my idyllic days. Long gone now. That same kitchen, where sumptuous food would be cooked, served and eaten, I have not visited for so long. We are eleven grand children. All of us have lived some parts of our infancy in Shabira Cot. Rains are a part of everyday life in Shillong. The kitchen would have clothes line drawn from end to end, above the heater, where all the baby clothes damp and necessary would be dried. The warm cosy kitchen is so nostalgic, where new years’ cakes were baked and iced and served, the kitchen where feasts for marriages, births, birthdays, Eids and milads (Muslim social get together) were cooked. Where plans for everything big and small was carried out. How can I not love it and miss it painfully. Irfan came along soon. We moved away. Horu found a girl, moved out, got married and I heard four years back, he died of consumption. Ali got married and has two kids and lives in the outhouse. My uncle got married, lived there for a few years and he too moved out of that house with his wife and child. Uncle number three, his wife and three kids moved in. And now Nani is gone. I miss her at times and her knack to spruce me up. Make a lady out of me. And give me a bite of her tea soaked biscuits in the morning. Giving in to my cajoling to draw the impossible fox my insane drawing teacher told me to draw as my home assignment. Giving in to my pleas to tell the Arabic teacher who always came on bright Sunday mornings to teach me Arabic, precisely when Doordarshan would air Mickey and Donald.

I never really learnt the art of “saucer tea drinking”. But I mastered the art to deliciously recall those memories of Shabira Cot, twenty years later, on a Saturday Monsoon morning, alone in my terrace of my Mumbai home, having just red tea and nothing else.

the shoe strings: just like that

2006-11-07T01:12:00.000+05:30

monk and i wanted to take care of our immediate need.. very biological.. no not procreation or the requisite precendence .

food. we needed food. the everyday need but who cares. one more phone call . one more that very ridiculous chore which if not performed will not read 'armageddon'. but it was the lord's day. and we were backward bent on a good brunch. so though on the peril of being labelled persnickety by the monk, i took a quick shower and my wallet, the chapstick , ummm..... camera??

monk: do you need that camera?
shelledquantum: uhuh!
monk: (shrugging) whatever !..why??
shelledquantum: camera...

so monk, camera and i, headed off to the haven of salvation for every cullinary-skill lacking, breakfast craving, not very domestic average American wives... IHOP.

i am immodest. i am good at cooking. stellar. not a house frau mind you, but a wise demon who has enticed the monk by very innocuous sins like good cooking and many others which i care not to discuss now. but demons need rest. especially on the mornings of lord's day. also i am not american(thank god! my president is not Bush!) and i know i am not average!! way above that mark, you see!

so we drove out to IHOP. for brunch. on the lord's morn. and we saw a huge crowd that was starving and killing time around the reservation area. did that daunt me? no!

we reserved ourselves in... just like that!
waited to be seated...just like that!
i embarrassed monk by open display of one episode of carnal pleasure that lord allows in the church but man gapes when carried out in a waiting area... i kissed monk...just like that!!
so i see a couple sitting close to where monk and i, waiting for a table... just like that!
yes...a chubby bespectacled woman, a skinny unspectacled man, both young, both with denim overall and both quite canvas sneakers clad....just like that?? no!

it was planned!
it was nice!
it was my picture theme!
so ...

shelledquantum: hey good shoes.both of yours!!!
chubby woman: thanks
skinny man: thanks
shelledquantum: may i click a snap of your shoes?
chubby woman: sure, i love doing whacky thing like that
skinny man: (smiles to acquiesce)
shelledquantum: thanks

so i stood. monk turned purple with embarrassment. and i took a picture. i took the chubby woman's email id and i snapped off my camera and i went off to eat.

just like that!

Gypsy Route - Part 1

2006-10-17T21:32:00.000+05:30

travelling and i are unseparable entities. i recall more of transitions than rooted living, to be nonchalantly bland about it. yet i cant deny the thrill to sit in a vehicle, with a bag packed and setting out for yet another unknown.

i recall my maiden visit as an adult with monk to upper assam in may 2006. the last time i went to upper assam was in 1984 . i was a kid back then too young to recall, except for lots of water around.

we set out at half past nine, with the sun quite fiercely heating our car, full of many bags and cases, from guwahati with a close kin. quite defeated lay our lofty ambitions of leaving right post sunrise but how do you battle eye pricking soporify, especially after a very late night tete-e-tete. our driving route was via jagi road, kaziranga & nogaon to and then further the moran teas estate. may is unforgiving in assam. humid and can be claustrophobic. qahn mehm our spirits were as high as perhaps was sukaphaa's , the first ahum king who annexed the Brahamaputra Valley.

we stopped at Jagiroad for tea. tea in assam is like no where else. obviously. what with singara and sondes it was pute delight. even monk's ever afflicted digestive tracks could not dare to rebel. the insides gurgled with such gastronomic salutations. we knew what awaited us. more and more sumptuous delights!! the sun also decided to add his bit to the enthusiasm. he beat stronger!

the monk and the kin took turns to drive. 27 Club gave company. with every mile covered, different sceneries unfolded. dense forrests would give away to open wide paddy fields. the terrain would be at times winding mountainous bits and at other times, plain tarred straight roads. never as wide as other highways in the country. but surprisingly for a rainy area, not tyre tearing either. and still the black palio kept averaging a cool 70kph. we soon entered kaziranga.

kaziranga, a national wildlife sanctuary. the home to the rare one horn rhinos in the whole world and many species of flora and fauna. one of the mnay prides of assam. we continued through the thick of it all , scanning the hoirizon for a fluke rhino sighting. we spotted wild buffaloes and hyenas but rhinos decided to allude. a little dampener but the solace lay with the fact that we were not there for a jungle safari. we were just passing through. so may be thats why the proud sluggish creatures had no reason to show themselves. we continued with rekindled spirit towards jorhat. monk's maternal home.

we stopped on our way in another highway side restaurant. basic in its amenities. it served the purpose of stretching, hydrating, bladder relieving and reiterating the might of the fierce may sun!!! we hit the road again after we took some innocuous pictures.

talking, swearing, laughing, drifting and hydrating , our journey thus continued through reserved areas like karbi, a special tribal area. we passed by semi dense forrests where poeple had set up resorts. the palm and thatch variety that are so famous in kerela and as unsung in assam. it thrilled me that such a lovely place was offering good resorts to stay for a while.

we soon entered nagaon. famous for its simple assamese food we so longed for some lunch. however paucity of time stopped us from doing do! monk's aged was waiting for us for lunch and we were not really making it on time. so just passing through this strategic place, we continued our onward journey.

Dancing foliage

2006-10-14T19:56:00.000+05:30

with autumnal foliage flirting with sunlight, scattering some caressing some, i stop for a moment thinking about the little things that go unceleberated but that celeberate me so much.

like the lazy sun avalanching through the window against which i rest my head and conduct my holy and not so holy interlude with karamzov, iyer, roark, rand and the quintessential cuppa. sometimes wolfgang mozart amuses me as much as he thrills me to the extent that i curl my toes. or when vivaldi disdainfully chews his lips for my failing in gleaning his genious and just hearing his renditions, not soaking! anastasio gets his Ghost and himself to commit sins along with the Danish Marble Cut cakes from one of those many stores.

the sagging cushion on which i rest i flip it over and sit back again. the occasional strands of hair that lie on the floor and stab the eyes, are quickly disposed. turn my head to the dancing foliage again.

i sigh in peace and in the quest to share all this with all life forms and all ids. i know i cant.

Facade

2006-10-14T10:03:00.000+05:30

for years i have listened and heard when many thought i talked more than i listened. i have amazed myself more than anyone else by recalling very minute details and nuances of people and events and sometimes may have come across as an unfortunate tale spinner.

so why do I remember these many nothings and when major those things have sublimed cleverly from the mind? i think the mind just photographed and trapped those moments. for the Outsiders if i could replay my images what value shall it hold? at that instant the voice of the speaker gruffens , the surrounding becomes a vacuum and the person is viewed with a wide telescopic and microscopic lense simulateously. the whole event is as surreal as the dream just before you wake up sometimes with no jolts, no surprise, with a heart portending apcalypse. clinically calm like an assassin. for me the visions revealed the Uriah Heeps, the Pips and the poor Elves. some moments, very fleetingly denude the facade many wear. i too don some on different occasions and I wonder how many times and in what instant has someone seen a lot through a crack of something fantastically nothing.

oh, the pain to discover conciet, deciet, greed, lust, niggardly gnomes, gutter rats, alley cats and the unchallenged wicked! the itch to pull off the charade. the battle in the mind with still a sliver of self doubt about the discovered that eschews the declaration first to the self and then to the Outsiders.

if only i had a screen where someone could predict the dimension where my mask would fail.

i am so wicked, but did you know our little secret?...... you must know that you are too.

Paradise on earth: Portland

2006-10-05T00:42:00.000+05:30

the monk had an earthly deed and so i went with him. his companion. the neon lights of the hotel was inviting after the nine hour journey by road so we went to our soporify . this patch of earth was baptised Machigonne by the rightful Indians. much later it was rechristened Portland. we had to stay here for two days, much of which went by in the course of my monk doing his many mundane deeds.

i woke up the day of departure early and wished i had caught the sunrise on a beach . but the wants are seldom the occurences. so the monk and i left when the sun had fairly roused. i wanted to see the land and its people and my monk fulfilled my want.

we came upon a land so awe-inspiring that it was with diffidence a human being could concieve such a presence on earth, without a visual experience.

the small Victorian houses stood on their stead beckoning to be embraced as ones eternal dwelling place. the narrow winding which can hardly be called roads meandered through the sleepy wonderment of existence. the azure sky and the white candy clouds rendered the whole divine picture a bright hue. what with the loud calls of the sea-gulls, this coastal place had the air of a quaint bygone English countryside look. quietly moving along the streets , gratefully assited by the impeccable behaviour of our rented Subaru Outback, the monk and i kept driving towards our paradise, quite unknowingly.

the street would end as a decisive T junction. we parked our vehicle and no sooner would we cross the street, that we would stand at the brim of paradise. the edge of a Persian carpet like green meadow that would abruptly end to take the shape of the Atlantic Ocean. blue, eternal and sparkling under the autumn sun. so we took one of the narrow dirt trails along the meadow and walked slowly down where the meadow would end and a man made tarr jetty-like juttings, would start. this tarred patch had old rail jigs for trains some eras back. my mind conjured up the majesty of a train journey along the atlantic. we walked across the tarred patch and came at the edge of the Atlantic. yes just like we would come upon a small brook. as inconsequentially and as lovingly as possible. when we turned to look back at our point of descend, it was as beautiful a view as it was before we descended. The meadow was lined with white victorian houses.

i thought that man and nature can still live side by side, each respecting the other, unlike as in my country where we destroy our land, fell our trees and think of pubs and discotheques as the present day nirvana. i thought of our many wants and needs and sighed at our near sightedness and revelled at the peace and the quiet of the place. for all the usual banterings against the americans for their general fast paced, not a very family oriented outlook in life and the very mercenary transactions they grow up watching, for once my mind was filled with great respect at their reverence for their natural and historical heritage!!!

i said as much to my monk. he smiled and nodded his beautiful head.

First Person

2006-09-29T19:28:00.000+05:30

the self is so absorbed in layers.... the expression fails as the ego remains mired in cess of wat we call thoughts and words are so superfluous. the journey has just begun . the renderings are human afflictions anyway . i shall afflict and get wounded later . now is not the time ... no!!