Happy Place

Let’s talk about the human mind and banks, the common theme being the act of depositing and withdrawing at a later point.
You put your money in the bank and when you go to withdraw it stays the same-you get the same currency you deposited. Once upon a time you could earn some interest, but then again interest rate is a function of various economic factors, inflationary/deflationary trends which makes it discretionary (for banking institutions) and not entitlement (for the depositor)..

The human mind on the other hand is a strange beast, it records every single moment then taints it with our personal biases, interpretations, emotions and isolates the ‘happy’ and the ‘sad’ moments. Think of these two moments as separate currencies which the mind deposits into two different accounts assigning different interest rates. The catch is that at any point you can withdraw from only one account. The interest rate calculation is a complex zero sum game, if one account appreciates the other depreciates accordingly. Further the frequency with which you withdraw from an account determines the interest rate assigned to that account, the more you use the account the higher the interest rate. Humans are slaves of habits, they quickly turn into people who trade primarily in either one of the two currencies, thus for some people the past is always rosy (happy memories) and for others when they look back, all they gather are thorns..

The rosy folks shouldn’t do the victory dance just yet; the curse of the rosy eyed is that they often fall in the trap of comparing the past with the present. They fail to appreciate the beauty of the present because the past always looks more alluring to them. People, places, occasions, festivities, friendships from the past always trump the present in some way.

Yet there is a treasure of happy memories which fills the heart with profound joy and cannot be tainted by petty comparisons. You think of these people, places at your darkest hour and they have the power to pull you out of the abyss. Sure, there is a pang, a whiff, a feeling of loss if you know that you cannot run and claim that sanctuary ‘today’ but somehow just the thought that they ‘were’ there for you fills your heart with a warmth of optimism-this too shall pass..

I could also add that there are some happy food memories that can just as well 'fill' a hungry stomach. I have evoked many a happy food memories to lull myself to sleep when I crave a quick bite at odd hours at night.

Here I wanted to paint a visual picture of one such happy place for me. I visited my paternal native place in the hills when I was a toddler and after a really long time I made this trek again this year. Between now and then, I just had some old pictures of a feverish child clinging to her parents and grand dad in front of the stony facade of the old house and making offerings to the modest hill gods living benevolently under the shade of tall trees.

Honestly I didn’t have any first hand memories of the place but somehow I had extrapolated some visual aids using my imagination to create a memory of a happy place where the hills were dotted with tall walnut trees which looked admiringly at the lofty Himalayas. In the morning the Himalaya’s glistened with the golden rays of sun and then hid blushingly in the morning mists. The step farms, sometimes lush green, other time sprawled with dried pine needles and then again covered in a blanket of pure white snow always looked inviting. 

All hills are beautiful but some are more beautiful than the others.
All hills fill me with awe and peace, but some just stand apart.
This was the picture of my perfect happy place-one which I had mostly conjured in my own head

As we drove along the route to my 'Pahad', I tried to imagine the times when my ancestors made the biannual pilgrimage- once leaving the hills with all belongings and cattle during the winter months to the warmer plains and then again during the summer months back to the hills. Strangely it was only when the concrete road was finally laid connecting the plains to the hills that the pilgrimage came to an end and we decided to make the plains our new home, telling ourselves that we could make the trek back to the hills ‘anytime’ we wanted..
This is the most telling tale of our time, as improvement in infrastructure shortens the physical distances between the world and our homes, we become more outward seeking. We assure ourselves that we can always walk the distance back home when the time comes- when I have earned enough, when I have explored enough, when I have quenched my thirst…

'Home' then becomes the place where I aspire to be when I am at peace with myself and have conquered all the trappings of my mind.

Perhaps there is a certain hypocrisy in my choice to live in Hong Kong, one of the most developed places in the world and be nostalgic about my little home in the hills, but I would like to offer a different point of view.

'Home' is not just a place and point in time that we must cling onto, it is our drive to seek and re-create spaces that share the same core essence but build with new experiences. The impetus to add new milestones to the trove of older grey ones.
Every week when I force my husband to trudge along the hiking trails here in HK, I am seeking my inner happy place. When the Mister surprises you by pointing out the dried pine needles on the ground before you notice (he was the only one walking gingerly down the hilly slopes covered with the dewy pine needles back home because 'his shoes were slippery'), you reconnect with your happy place.
The happy places inside us are the ones we seek, we revisit, we share and keep them alive even when we move afar..

Travel journal-Boracay

We were drawn by the azure waters, soft white sand beaches, warm tropical sun but we came back richer in ways we didn’t expect. Also I maintain that the Pahari came across stronger than the Rajasthani when it came to braving the tropical sun while indulging in all the glory of the warm waters.

We settled on Philippines after jumping around countries for a while, then again we had two contenders- Boracay or Palawan.I was not particularly enthused about visiting Boracay, it seemed like a ‘once’ beautiful place marred by excessive tourism. Palawan seemed more like my calling, promising pristine untouched beauty and chance of a quite communion with nature.

However for a short getaway trip during the Monsoon season, Boracay- the poster child of Philippine tourism seemed like a safer bet than getting stuck in remote Palawan with torrential rains and sketchy infrastructure if weather gods played truant. Thus we embarked on our to trip to Boracay in search of the island soul still throbbing and surviving despite the overbearing limelight thrust upon it. I quietly promised myself that I will better plan the Palawan trip during the saner weather.

Quick note on the planning for someone who stumbles on this post while looking for Boracay travel tips. We took the HongKong to Kalibo direct flight (2.5 hrs) with Cebu Pacific, flew out Wednesday evening and were back Monday evening. This low cost round-trip flight is available only on specific days a week, so we tailored our itinerary around the same. This effectively gave us 5 days in hand to explore Boracay and we did some smart planning. We stayed in Kalibo the first night (reached 10:30pm) and planned for a trip to nearby Bakhawan Eco-Park( 220 hectare mangrove forest) early next morning. In the afternoon we headed to Boracay(90 min drive from Kalibo to Caticlan jetty port, 15 minutes boat ride to Boracay). Transportation option is plentiful between Kalibo to Caticlan jetty port(options are mostly tradeoff between money/time/service).We stayed 2 nights at our comfortable resort on White beach Station1 and the next two nights we moved to the opposite side of White Beach-Bulabog beach and rented a native house on a hill-top.(light wood,bamboo and a thatched roof making it airy)

We did all the recommended tourist activities in Boracay: swimming in the sea, stand up paddle boarding in the relatively calm waters, parasailing, island hopping in a motorised Bangka with snorkelling at Crocodile island and visit to Crystal cove island, collecting sea shell at Puka beach and Sunset Paraw sailing. All of the above were good fun, but I guess it is the unexpected small things that sneak in a well researched itinerary that adds true charm to a travelling experience. I will document some of them here while they are fresh in my mind.

The proprietor of Kalibo guesthouse gave us a tour of his property. I thought that the mounted orchids growing on logs of wood hanging on the wall were pretty cool, their aerial roots too upscale for the lowly earth! Wikipedia tells me that of 1100 species of orchids 900 are endemic to Philippines.
He also offered us some tropical fruits growing in his garden for our tasting; my educated taste buds discerned them as distant tropical cousins of their Indian brethren (Lychee & Keenu). The hospitality and our education of the tropical flora and fauna (with crustaceans thrown in the mix) continued with our next visit to the Mangrove forest eco-park.

All trees are tall, but some trees are taller than others (Redwood trees). All trees have roots, some trees are ‘rootier’(Banyan trees). All trees are cool(shady), but some trees are cooler than others (Oak trees), I could go on but the question is what makes the Mangrove tree special?
“Mangroves live life on the edge. With one foot on land and one in the sea, these botanical amphibians occupy a zone of desiccating heat, choking mud, and salt levels that would kill an ordinary plant within hours. Yet the forests mangroves form are among the most productive and biologically complex ecosystems on Earth”-National Geographic

Walking through the Mangrove forest was a first time experience for me, although a visit to the Sunderbans in Bengal always tempted me, the trip never materialized in my 2 year stay in Kolkata. In Kalibo, a mudflat was converted into a mangrove forest in 1990 as part of land reclamation effort. The Mangrove Reforestation Project provided twin benefits to the local community- a sustainable solution against flooding, and a means of income-crabs and shell fish farming. The eco-trail attracts tourists bringing in generous pesos (park entrance fee) for the park upkeep. Impressive!
The eco-trail is a 1.1 km bamboo pathway through the heart of the Mangrove forest, I was happy to stand on the curvature of the bamboo bridge overlooking the river underneath, flanked by the lush green mangrove forests while listening to the junk, junk, junk sound of the confused nightjars. Every gentle flutter or ruffle got magnified in the quite of the jungle; the most fun was to watch the antics of the flying fish- their zig-zag hop-skip-fly routine! The crabs were the perfect contrast-awkwardly navigating around with their hind legs, while their crab hands didn’t seem to help out much!

I realize that I have already filled up a lot of space even before we reached Boracay. May be I should stop tip-toeing around the sandy beach and jump into the clear azure waters already. As I took in the first view of the beach, I had to admit that I had never seen a pristine beach like this before. The soft white powdery sand had curvy wind scales, the waters so transparent you could see the white fishes running around. This sprawling beach looked like a royalty which made all the other beaches of my existence fade in comparison.
We had picked a resort(Sea Wind Resort) in Station 1, the less congested part of the beach. Also I liked that the resort encroached less on the beach, the front was spacious with the widest beach front. The property had expanded on the opposite side of the beach across the road with spacious garden view villas. I didn’t mind that we had to walk 5 minutes to cross the road and walk to the beachfront. I enjoyed the luxury of just walking into the beach from the resort, enjoy a swim in the sea and then take a quick dip in the swimming pool before lounging in the pool deck with my kindle. It was ethereal to look at the sprawling sea and sandy beaches each time you glanced up. Walking along the beachfront was also a charming sight, especially watching the silhouettes of the sailing boats against the backdrop of evening sky.

Alas despite all the prettiness I could not shake off a nagging feeling especially as we walked past Station 2. Nature had bestowed this place with pristine royal beauty but man had callously intruded her backyard with all the consumerist junk-big food chains, resorts on the sandy beach, loud throbbing music, massage and henna parlors and continuous barrage of touts selling their wares. I could see the dangerous game, how all these frills were trying to woo the multitude of tourists while slowly alienating the purists.

Thankfully one can venture out to the nearby islands to get a taste of pure untouched island beauty. It was reassuring to watch the lush green canopy of tall trees guarding the boundary of the Puka beach and as the last of the sun rays kissed the sandy beaches, the beach was left to its peaceful pondering.
While snorkeling at Crocodile Island, I glanced into the world of corals reefs and beautiful fishes for the first time. From the boat when I looked searchingly at the waters, I was fooled by the dark shadows, an appearance of shallow waters with submerged rocks. Nothing had prepared me for the sight that was lurking just under the surface for a depth of 6 meters-a blast of color and prettiness that my eyes had never experienced. Our guide told us that fishing is strictly regulated in this area; he also gave us some bread to feed the fishes- this attracted a swarm of fishes very close for viewing.
As part of the island hopping we explored the coves in the private property of Crystal Cove Island. The property had some quirky wooden seating installations (not sure if it was thematic), perhaps for people to relax and soak in the gorgeous views, but mostly they were serving as photo booths for the selfie obsessed. I had seen coves before in San Diego but had not ventured into its belly, this time we descended inside the cold cove and into the clear water washing up persistently. This was also the adobe of some secretive marine creatures; curled up sea urchins and crabs.

Our quirky native residence up the hill wasn’t exactly to the Mister's taste so I tried to bribe him

with Mangosteen. Side story- this tropical fruit had come up in a discussion with a Singaporean about Durian few days prior to our Philippine trip. I know it is a risky move taking recommendations from someone who likes Durian but knowing the Mister's love for trying out weird fruits, I picked up a bunch on our way back to the studio up the hill. Desperate time desperate measures! Thankfully this experimentation was better than the ones where I am on the receiving end..
On the first day of out stay we got introduced to another island regular-the gecko. It was so big and colorful that I first thought it was a decorative item but when it moved I nearly jumped out of my skin. Our host told us about these harmless island creatures and how they got their name, when night came we had no doubts about the name...ge-cko, ge-cko, ge-cko

Since we were on the Eastern side of the island, I woke up early both days to watch the glorious sunrise. We chatted up with our Swiss host as I dug into the sumptuous breakfast (while someone just sipped orange juice). Some people have a lot of interesting stories to tell about their life, their journeys; he was one of them. Talking to him gave us a peek into the old Boracay (a tropical beauty that enamored a man from the Middle East, a warm haven of sun, wind and waters that made a European seek refuge from the brutal cold). The conversation meandered to politics, business, dietary choices…practically everything under the Boracay sky!

The last day of our stay gave us a different flavor of wind and waves. A typhoon warning was issued for later in the week and we could sense the change in weather. It was mildly windy as we climbed into the sail boat, Paraw for a sunset cruise. Generally it is a serene gentle ride to enjoy the beauty of the sunset, but for us the island had planned a roaring send-off. As the sails caught the whiff of the wind the Paraw gained speed quickly, it cut through the waves sending splashes of water right across our faces. The thrust of the water pushed us backwards, kicked our behinds, and fought our dangling legs; I could barely open my eyes to watch the romantic sunset. It was a wild ride with loud cries and wet amused glances shared between people on board the sail boat..

Later as the evening progressed we witnessed a low tide(full moon night) and watched the receding waters reveal wide stretch of powdery white sand. The view was different in Bulabog beach where the receding waves uncovered swathes of sea-weed. I can just imagine the riches of the Puka beach where the low tide would have revealed all the colorful shells for anyone's taking. Perhaps this is the truth about travelling, you go looking for the beautiful sunrises and sunset, you bring back with you a little Moon-magic.

To The Lighhouse

One should not sleep walk through the flat earth for too long, it is important to hike your way up a hill to gain some perspective in life. When I use a sell strategy like the above on people, it usually goes like “perspective huh?” So I improvise and propose drinks at some high rise roof top bars, it usually is an easy sell. I know the two are not exactly comparable except if you argue for the word ‘high’ literally.

I slowly sip my iced coffee sitting at the footsteps of the hill overlooking the city as the sun slowly goes down and the city lights begin to twinkle in distance.
I slowly sip my Mojito sitting on my high rise bar stool overlooking the city as the sun slowly goes down and the city lights begin to twinkle in distance.
Just painted the picture so that the idea doesn’t seem completely outlandish..

However option A is still gold, once you are physically removed from your everyday surrounding, it creates a space where you can stand and look back at your life or try to gaze ahead and see where you are headed. I believe that Nature has that power over us; it can give us that outward/inward clairvoyance, a moment of peace to reflect without distractions.

In one of these moments of honest reflection as I gazed beyond the city at the large stretch of the South China Sea, the warm memories of the Pacific coast came back to me. I tried to look for the lighthouse that always showed me the way, only to realize that the blurred lines were fading away softly. I changed the course of my life and was gone too far in the opposite direction. I quietly thanked the lighthouse at the distance hoping that the waves will carry my message.

Looking away from the waters, I scanned the sky for the setting sun only to find that it disappeared slyly behind the distant hill when I wasn’t looking. I have experienced this happen to me before; the tricky sun disappears just when you are not looking, perhaps just to show that life goes on, even when we take our eyes off for a while..

Travel Charms..

Water overflows from a bucket and slowly begins to snake down the hill, slowly feeling its way down the sloping tangent guided by gravity. The little stream quietly glides by a small boy, the kid is not amused at being ‘overtaken’; he glances sideways at his competition and quickens his pace. I watch the kid as he begins to run down the hill, looking over his shoulders to make sure that the water stream doesn’t catch up with him..
This image has persisted in my mind for over a month now, may be because the scene was innocently human. May be because each one of us is kind of chasing random streams of water overflowing from different buckets lest we get left behind. May be because sometimes it is good to see that the life we live can have parallel in a kid’s universe. Life sure has a charming sense of humor; may be I should just leave this thought at this point

In a recent trip to the gambling city of Macau, knowing that riches and luck elude me, I choose to seek the charming side of history and culture. Not sure why the weather gods thought that showering us with buckets of rain would add to the charm of exploring the city but undaunted we started on the ‘list’..

We managed to cover the following on the list: Senado square, ruins of St Paul’s Cathedral and the Taipa village, toured the whole bunch of glitzy casinos and watched the much famed 'The house of Dancing water' show at the City of Dreams casino. We missed out on the museum tours, The Guia Fortress but I guess there is always a next time and with the time we had on hand we did a fair job of exploring the city.

The Senado square, the ruins and the Taipa village were all a slice of the Portuguese history in Chinese Macau, the churches standing tall amidst the cozy incensed temples.

The wavy black and white mosiac floor is the give away for tourists in the city trying to find the Square without any Google help. Once you start seeing the cobbled street you know you are close to The Senado square. The ruins of St Paul's Cathedral are also in the same stretch so it is easy to cover the two together. 

The colorful windows, potted plants, dainty cast iron lamp posts, it was a deja vu as i remembered the French Quarters in New Orleans. The quaint European feel that never fails to evoke the old world charm where perhaps aesthetic and beauty was a purpose in itself. 

The next day we covered the Taipa village. This small market area is a quintessential tapestry of East meets West, the narrow alleys lined with brightly colored buildings(the Portuguese flavor) in the midst of intricately designed roofs of Chinese buildings. There are small eateries, cozy restaurants all along the street with Portuguese, Spanish,  Macanese and Thai fare. Ice-creams- the Gelato variety, the pure milk Ice-cream from Hokkaido, Japan and the obnoxious Durian ice cream(i am entitled to an opinion). Taipa market is a melting pot of different cuisines, dig in and enjoy the food(hopefully you are a non-vegeterian)!

We watched the Dancing water show just before leaving Macau, the show completely mesmerises the senses, the acrobatics is awe inspiring, the design of the stage with all the water histrionics is impressive, the choreography and music set the right mood. Yet it is just that, a sensory pleasure, that holds you spellbound but doesn't grow into you. Nonetheless the show sells and it is not difficult to see why, its perfectly tailor made for the Asian Casino audience, drawing elements from both East and West and packaging it with a generous dose of Chinese motifs. I did enjoy the 90minutes performance and the Chinese lady sitting behind me was hysterical with laughter so i guess that counts for something..

I have kind of little to talk about the Casinos, they don't really work their Charm on me..(loser talk). But I do accept that each is grandiose in its own right- you heard me right, 'fake Venetian sky'!

That's it for now until I find something charming to chime about :)

Why read

A to B: Why do you read?
B to A: What do you do in your free time?

Books are one medium, you can have your own preference ‘if you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run’ all is well in the kingdom of god!

Reading is about the joy of discovery; discovering people, places, cultures, histories, emotions and so on. Human understanding is at two levels one at the physical level and the other at the intellectual level. In terms of simple physics it is about picking up the actual physical signals, processing them and the light bulb in the end. Travelling, conversations, reading books are just facilitators of the signals, the processing /discovery is a completely individual process. My mantra is better get the ‘signal’ than fret about the purity of the signal. Slowly with time you hone your skills to really eliminate the noise and embark on your own journey of discovery.

Reading is about the joy of making a connection. Sometimes a written sentence is like someone just read your mind and wrote it down succinctly for you to read with your own eyes and touch with your hands. This kind of connection is very rare, how much effort we invest on real people so that they can understand us but to no avail.
I may know 10 people in the physical world and 5 characters in the literary world. You may not know the 10 people I know but we could be acquaintances in the literary world(small world). What do people do when they meet; they talk about (gossip about) the people they know in common. Carrying forth the analogy what does book man/woman do? They talk about their literary hero’s and the literary geniuses who created them. Sometimes these conversations and connections can define years of relationship.
I have a friend with whom I could only talk about books (and only some children fiction books in particular) because we had our differences over everything else. I would call this some real connection!

Reading is about learning to become more tolerant in the real world. The more you see people who are not like you the more you learn to accept them. The first human reaction is to ignore if something doesn't directly affect us, but a humane society entails empathy not ignorance.
Our relationships encompass people who are in some way like us, how do we seek out people who have nothing in common with me? There are always two sides of a story, we always know our version, and how do we see the other version?
Books provide that window to peer and look, the more you try to seek you might actually be able to put together the pieces of the elephant that baffled the blind men(blind men who went to inspect an elephant, each one came back with a different version, none closer to truth individually)

Circling back to the foremost point made earlier, reading or any other interest is all about having a good time.
On a rainy day, take a glass of wine, sit by the window, dig into a comfortable lounger with a snug throw and read a book till you doze off peacefully at the same spot. Books are a simple romance and a worthy pursuit..

The Creative process

I am always fascinated by the back stories, how someone comes up with the inspiration to create, compose, conceive or conceptualize something. The germ of conception has a kernel of a real life experience but the final creation arcs tangential from the point of origin and creates its own space.

So can we truly interpret a work of art? Just by looking at the final product reverse engineer all the way to the source, the thought process and pinpoint the trigger?

My answer would be no, art cannot be surgically evaluated. However this doesn't protect it from the curious minds looking for a meaning, or interpretation. Rather the answer lies in acceptance of duality, the inspiration of the artist and the interpretation of the critic can exist at completely different planes but both equally qualify to exist but not necessarily agree with one another. The character and history of any piece of art is built on this interaction between art and it’s surrounding- the artist and the audience.

Now that we have got the philosophy out of the way, I wanted to talk about a Colin Hay song that somehow catalyzed this stream of consciousness (also the Grammy are underway, the previous blog too warranted some answers-the germs are all around for this outburst).

I am talking about the song Down under-Colin Hay. Talking about the origin of the song Colin Hay noted that “the verses were very much inspired by a character he had called Barry McKenzie..".
The character was a parody of the boorish Australian overseas, particularly those residing in Britain – ignorant, loud, crude, drunk and punchy – although McKenzie also proved popular with Australians because he embodied some of their positive characteristics: he was friendly, forthright and straightforward with his British hosts, who themselves were often portrayed as stereotypes of pompous, arrogant, devious colonialists

"The chorus is really about the selling of Australia in many ways, the over-development of the country. It was a song about the loss of spirit in that country. It's really about the plundering of the country by greedy people. It is ultimately about celebrating the country, but not in a nationalistic way and not in a flag-waving sense. It's really more than that."
Today it is a popular and patriotic song in Australia. It became the unofficial theme song of the Australian team at the Sydney Olympics and the band performed the song during the closing ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
For all this recognition bestowed on the song Colin had this to say, "I love the song, I have strong feelings about it because it's looked after me for many, many years."

Don McLean voiced the same sentiment regarding the song, ‘The Day the music died’. When asked what "American Pie" meant, McLean jokingly replied, "It means I don't ever have to work again if I don't want to”..

How something is conceived and how it is perceived follows a path of its own which might not necessarily reflect the vision of the creator. But in a way that is the inherent characteristic of everything that lives and survives, it finds its own trajectory.

So if you still looking for meaning, go figure!(for that little sliver, the needle in the hay stack)..

For the song find the link here:

Background information about the song from Wikipedia.

Confessions of a Non Believer

I don't belong in your world.. the world of early sun rises and hard work at crack of dawn..
I don't belong in your world.. the world of late nights with little rest..

I don't identify with your band.. the optimist fraternity believing in the promise of the day..
I don't sing your song, the trained voices rising in unison singing the choir..
I don't speak your language, the sound of the said word or the shape of the written letter
I don't drink from your chalice, the giddy euphoria of togetherness and drunken happiness
I don't share your dreams, the stories that parents tell their children when they put them to sleep..
I don't see with your eyes, the vistas and visions of future..

I don't believe in your kindness, the flavor of dishonest cruelty
I don't believe in your respect, the sycophancy of compromised morals..
I don't believe in your courage, the disappearing grin of the Cheshire cat..
I don't believe in your freedom, the safety valve lest the facade implode..
I don't believe in your religion, the diktats of the self serving..

I don't believe in your love, the thin veil hiding selfish fears..
I don't believe in your wars, the thin veil hiding selfish fears..

But I am trying..