Completing a circle

Two years later, I was back at the place where it all started. The same building, the same faces, and the same roads, essentially nothing much changed. Sure few people left and some new faces were added but it was the same old Memphis.

All through the week, I had the song ‘That’s how I got to Memphis..’ playing in my mind as I tried to place the fork in the road, in hazy mental maps. I felt warmth and appreciation for the days I spent there but there was no tug pulling me behind. I guess that is something you feel only for your ‘home’..

Yet in some ways it was fulfilling, like completing a circle. When I left 2 years before, I did not bid farewell to the people around, mostly I just disappeared in my own uncertainties.
To keep me company on this trip, I was reading ‘Hearts in Atlantis’ by Stephen King. The book is essentially a mood that is deftly crafted in the interrelated stories. This is a ‘looking back’ book and I couldn’t have picked anything better to keep me company in this journey..

Taking my flight back, I found myself musing over another of King’s quote…. ”It's a little place on the Pacific Ocean. You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific? They say it has no memory. That's where I want to live the rest of my life. A warm place with no memory.”

A visit to Lat Sahib's HeadQuarters

As I focussed my camera to take a picture of the Governor's House(Raj Bhavan) formerly called Government House, I chuckled inwardly at my poor Pahari imitation of the name from the Raj era- Lat Saab-ek-haveli..

The rising mists of the Monsoon set the perfect stage for this symbol of ancient majesty
Green is the new Purple!-the Monsoon green Deodar and Oak trees flanking the building, stand tall as the royal sentinels..
The architecture style is called Victorian Gothic domestic style, but to my vivid imagination, the front facade of the building looked like royal chess pieces laid out in this sprawling 220 acres lush green space. The police in their khakis completed the picture as the bored pawns, policing the handful of tourists.

The foundation stone of the Nainital Government House, modeled after Buckingham Palace, was laid on April 27, 1897, and the building was completed in March 1900. If memory serves right, the scaffolding and the repair work is a constant feature here, maintaining a century old building in a moisture rich atmosphere is a tall order.
Inside the building, water has seeped through the cracks and crevices of time, slowly staining the walls black and turning wooden floors mouldy. The combined effect of the constant temperature changes and the occasional dramatic hailstorms has shattered the old glass windows and glass houses. The almost shrunk bows with missing arrows, and the rusted muskets no more look menacing however the decorative animal head mounts do look menacing in this picture of slow decay and death.

The repair work has been underway since the last three years and certain parts of the building are closed for public viewing, the whole upper storey is out of bounds for tourists. The entrance foyer, ballroom, the dining space, the visitor's parlor are open for viewing. Most of the old paintings hanging on the walls have been treated and restored, the copper artefacts and the elephant tusks in the front foyer gleam eerily under the light of the grand chandeliers, the piano is kept dusted and tuned, the ballroom floor is still bouncy courtesy the springs embedded between the wooden floor boards. The guide usually makes the heftiest person in the group to jump so that the others can feel the bouncy floors. I believe this is a daily performance for the empty chairs now sitting around the ballroom!

Interestingly there is a certain vanity in all the present day repair work, the guide tells you proudly that the new renovation is modelled to replicate the current look of the Buckingham palace. The wallpaper and the carpets are same as the ones adorning the British royalty and are imported all the way from England. This 'good' part of the building is not open for general public viewing and you need to have some 'good contacts' to witness the current day luxury befitting the 'de-jure' head of the state.

Stepping out of the building is a slight relief as the stale mouldy air inside gets overbearing after a while(true only for the public section).
The well kept garden is truly inviting with multicoloured shrubs of hydrangea in full blossom. The uninterrupted expanse of green surrounding the property is a true testament to British idea of leisure, wooded pathways with trailing climbers, ornate lampposts, resting benches under the trees, stairways cutting across hill slopes.

And then there is the Golf course, an 18 hole golf course spread
over an area of 50 acres, at an altitude of 6500-6580 feet above sea level. Set in a lush and pristine hilly terrain surrounded by mixed forests, the changing elevation and thin mountain air(your ball travels longer here) make it a connoisseur's delight . The golf course has an underground tunnel to channel water to the lowest part of the course, a marvel of engineering skills of 1920's.















Apart from the touristy stuff, we also stood for a while standing and admiring the engineering details of one of the big drainage channels (nalas) constructed in the premise to allow for easy drainage of rain water. The frequent landslides in Nainital prompted the Britisher civil engineers to set up an elaborate system of drainage channels to save the hills from the ravages of heavy downpour. The rains of last year and flooding in neighbouring SukhaTaal brought the spotlight back on the neglected nalas- the lifeline of the hills..The 'Nala's' are again topical and trending courtesy high profile HighCourt orders but the real life picture hasn't changed much..

Also in close vicinity of the Raj Bhavan are the most prestigious boarding schools of Nainital. Founded during the British rule, each of these schools has a hundred year old rich history and many young lives have graduated from these hallowed portals to real world.
As we drove past the gates of my Alma Mater, I was flooded with fond memories of walking to Government grounds for school picnics. It was a magical place then.. and it is an equally magical place for me even today..!

To August

I had almost written off August as an uneventful month only to realize that this month has special significance for all US college graduates. The degree of this significance (pun intended) depends on how much 'college' you have in you.

If you are a fresh student starting in the fall session, somewhere around the second week of August you will get introduced to a whole new set of people in your life, and it will be the start of a new august chapter. For an international student the significance is much more, we usually shore up in the first week of August just to get settled in before school begins.The weather too is on the kinder side to make the transition smooth. And this is the story of that one day in August when we made that leap of faith.

If you are living the sordid work life, this is the month when college football starts and henceforth you get a chance to proudly wear your university colors to work. You would have already paid the $6 monthly fee for ESPN so that you have something to look forward to when you head back home from work for the next 4 months. Better still you would have made a plan already to drive up to the University for a homecoming game and meet some old buddies.

If you are in any kind of relationship with a fellow college-goer, there is a good chance that sometime in August was the first milestone for the chain of events leading to the state of affair as they stand today. I would give milestone credit  to even that lame August evening when the two of you get introduced and have a conversation for the first time and the next day the girl doesn't remember the guy's name and confuses him with someone else and the guy intermediately writes off the girl as a snob with special note to himself- never approach her again!

This is how life unfolds and memories are made a day at a time, a month at a time. This concludes my ode to August and yay! finally a blog for this month and the record still stands :)

What's with the open mouths??

Remembering the Pujos

Good times always bring back fond memories.

Pujo's in Kolkata have their own unmatched charm. For a rational  mind it will look like 10 days of relentless incongruity where the otherwise inconsequential people collectively assume a state of drunken happiness. All one thinks, talks, sees is the celebration around- the bright lights, the creative pujo-pandals, multitudes around in their best set of clothes, the food, the fun rides. 

To truly understand the significance of pujo, one not only needs to witness the pujo in Kolkata, one also has to live in Kolkata through the non-pujo days to see the transformation the city undergoes suddenly!

I cannot match the Bengali nostalgia for Pujo but still in my own way I still remember and miss the celebration. 

I would have so loved to have an old Pujo picture on my blog, but just as I dug into my pictures folder, I realized I accidentally deleted all the folders with names starting with I onward therefore no more Kol pics on my laptop.

I next thought of searching my phone for some beautiful Bengali Pujo text messages although I really doubted that I would have anything saved from 2008-2010. I still remember few words of those messages, not sure if I can retrieve them with Google search. 

Next I dug into my old loyal diary hoping to find something preserved there. Thankfully you can trust yourself for some afflictions without fail. Found a note from 9th Oct, 2008. Pujo that year must have been earlier than  this year because this note was about immersion. The last ritual after all the festivities.

'In some ways, acceptance of transience rests on the way one treats the word 'immersion'. You immerse in joy as well as in grief. the joy of creation lies in accepting this duality, in understanding that any work of art or even emotional grooming blossoms in  a state of detached attachment!

Immersion takes a quick dip!

The whole of creation, its beauty all its splendor everything is transient. With as much as a blink of eye, you can gain all, you stand to lose all. Just have the heart to rejoice..'- newspaper article (TOI or Telegraph)

This note suddenly appeared more relevant than anything else I had read in quite sometime. Each one of us have our own ways to handle the 'immersions'.. Its beautiful to think about the symbolism of immersing the deity in the waters of the Ganges. To let her go whence she came from with just a promise that she'll come back again with all the fanfare next year..in another form and with another story. (I learnt that there is always a different story and a theme associated with how she will come back next year!)

Hello Mobile..

Each of us have our cellphone stories, how and when we owned our first cellphone(self purchase/gift/second hand passed on by sibling). The basic model, the initial promotional plans, the coverage hiccups, the first polyphonic ringtones.The longest call that you made, the call that rings in happiness, the ones that break your heart. The times when you sit in anticipation for the phone to ring and the times that you dread the sound of the phone ringing. How each one of us traded our basic models for the swanky feature rich 'smart phones'. Some of us were  always quick to lap up the latest model only to be enamored by the next new thing that came along. And some of us still live in bliss holding on to our mobosaurs. This would be a sneer from some smart phone geek who thinks he is well past the Jurassic age of mobile phones. Only if he could realize that the mobile Jurassic age has shrunk to a couple of months and he will always be on the run..

So each one has a story of our relationship with our mobile-the technical specifications, the grand stories of acquisitions, possessions, upgrades, theft, and relinquishment.
The other aspect of the story is how the phone has changed the dynamics of our personal relationship.
A daily call at 10pm ( 8:30 am India time) is my only link to my parents except for the occasional skype calls.
A phone interview is my only make or break chance to get that million dollar job that I have always dreamt of..(honestly neither have I had any such dream nor am I close to any such phone call  :P) but still for the purpose of argument it is a valid proposition.
Some arranged marriages entail an awkward phone call as the icebreaker(how ingeniously convenient)
Surprisingly some friendships are about long phone calls, sometimes small phone calls snatched between busy day schedules and also the yawning exchanges before you finally begin to snore.
We can almost look at relationships through the prism of our phone call registers..(just took fancy of the word prism and used it, though in this context we can clearly disqualify the usage)

Communication experts explain that communication entails both the verbal and non verbal aspects. A phone conversation communicates the verbal piece depending on the quality, reliability,coverage of  network service provider. That's a lot of compromise already as for the non verbal you just have to make the best guess and all of us have our stories of how tricky that gets at times. So good luck with the phony sixth sense :)

Bhuttaa..

Nani ke pahad se jab bhutta aatha tha..

pahad ki khooshboo bator ke lata tha..

Nam sa bhutta jab sukhi se lakdi ki chulhe par bhunta tha..

Kuch mehfil se jam jati thi chulhe ke pass

Aag ki lapte,bhutte ke daane kuch jugal bandi zaroor karte the

maa dhyan se ek seera pakde, ghoomati rehti thi bhuute ko aach pe

dheere dheere jaise seekta jata tha bhutta

lalach bhari aakhon se Neebu ki khoj shuru hoti thi..

A friend of mine just posted on Facebook that wherever we go we just try to recreate the sound, the smell, the taste of our childhood. For me growing up in a hill station, bhutta stands out as very symbolic. It a sight that follows you all along the curving road- a small shanty selling corns to tourists. A smell that makes you remember your small farm, small kitchen garden and the loving hands that grew them..A taste that recalls all the conversations with friends walking along the mall munching on a corn.

But for now all I can do to recreate those memories is sing along these lines:

Hari thi man bhari thi, laakh moti jadi thi
Raaja ji ke baagh men dushaala odhe khadi thi
O~
Kachche-pakke baal hain us ke mukhada hai suhaana, ichak daana
Bolo kyaa?

Bhutta..


Photo credit: sr

Sign off..

She knows how to give the right black and white effect to the moment...

The moment of reckoning, when the scores are entered and then they get the official seal. The finality of the last stroke, when with a swift movement you underline your signature and lift up the pen. It’s done, its attested, its signed, it’s the final verdict..
They could never easily decide where they wanted to go. It doesn't matter if there are two or ten people in the gang, the choices always stack up higher than what they initially thought. There is always the lure of the tried and tested places, but then there is the adventure in looking around new corners. Interestingly some one or the other must have heard something good/bad about it or read online. We just know too much always and so are always at a loss of not knowing the exact enough. And thus the question always stares.. Where do we go?
Interestingly the place of rendezvous invariably stayed the same for them. They were always meeting in smaller or larger groups at the same place, though the number and faces kept changing. We live in a strange world where there are infinite permutations of the same combination.
The same two eye, one nose, a mouth, the same basic color- a tone darker or a tone lighter yet the one above knows his art just two well, he never makes two pieces just exact.
And thus the question always stare.. Why do we keep coming back to the same point and why is it never really the same?
I could never fathom why every time they met they fought over something. They would meet after long intervals, after many failed attempts to get down together. They would plan, make promises but then they'd get busy in their sordid lives or the city would play the devil and make the distances seem double. However despite everything they would meet once in a while, sometimes another one of the flock would come calling from a different city and they'd gather together once again. Yet still the warmth and joy of meeting would be incomplete unless there were some heated exchanges and someone was/played the 'angry bird'. And thus the question always stares.. Is fighting a true sign of friendship?

Going back to the picture above, this is a small piece of what really transpires before Nelly sits down to fill out the feedback form at Yo-China in Delhi after a sumptuous meal with the old college flock- The friends who meet after innumerable rounds of planning and ditchings'. Then they do the customary multiple rounds of CP where some of them are dying to sit and eat and the other half is dying to shop. By this duration some one or the other has picked up a fight because they are tired and hungry. Then the discussion starts about where to eat, which invariably ends in a Chinese place but not before whiling away a good hour or two.
Its then when the sun really sets on that day of togetherness and each one of us sets off in his own direction. Its then that we sign off again on an invisible promise to meet once again; do all the above things with the same spirit. Love and Fight and split the cheque/check with always the same honesty... ALways...

photo credit:sr

Sum total

With the entire summer to my disposal,
I sat down to do some 'sum total',
Its always good to revise
the little maths you remember to appear wise


I stared at the anomaly that is me
and the anomaly that is you
in the light and 'shades of ray'
And it was clear this math is going to take a while
even without the friendly distractions and the tea breaks..
So with a deep breath I begin the task in hand
And took a sojourn into the years passed behind..


Its a rookie mistake to start at a zero
we start at a coincidental score..
the place, the country, the religion, the color 
the parents, the family 
an inheritance, an identity, a baggage
choose your word carefully my friend
because
it will always add up to who you are..


I like not the above grim math,
so a cheerful childhood reminiscence, should serve me right
every little game that kept you on your toes,
every little joy that gave twinkle to your eyes
every little fight that made you mad,
every little story that lulled you into sleep,
the rhymes, the festivities, the surprise tests,
the road to your home,
the stationers shop, the ice cream parlor
the friendly neighbor, the jealous aunt
each one added a piece to who you are.


The people you love and the ones you fight,
The friends you make and the ones you alienate
The movies you love and the ones you hate.
The songs that run in loops day in and out..
The person you are in the spotlight
and the one you turn into in the darkest hour


I like not the fuzzy math,
so a count of material riches, should quantify things right
the number of fancy dresses in your closet,
the number of new cellphones you've lost
the number of hardbound books,
the number of original CD's & DVD's
and yes the pirated ones as well
the cities you have seen,
the languages and foods you know
all speak of the person you are..


Can someone really do the math?
We trust not any person who nods in affirmation..
There's always more that what meets the eye
yet still, we hope for someone to get this math right..
to know and understand us,
when we cry and when we laugh..


But then all life promises is to somehow balance out in the end
and the sum total will be known only when it is truly the end..

One more time

Three o'clock, this morning, I woke up in a dream.
Thought I heard a flathead motor roar, I thought I smelled gasoline.
A feeling came upon me, that I ain't had in years.
Something like a hot dry wind, whistling past my ears.
Saying "time, time, time is all you got".
There's a memory that's still burning, way down in my mind.
And that's why, I'm going out and trying, a flathead one more time.

I ain't seen my racing buddies in thirty years, or more.
One by one I lost them, out on the dry leaf floor.
We learnt to push those flathead cars as hard as they could go.
Just like old Whiskey Bob, down on Thunder Road.
I hear their voices calling, just across the finish line.
And that's why, I'm going out and trying, a flathead one more time.

I'll get back to you baby, don't you have no fear.
'Cos I been there, and I wrecked that, and baby I'm still here.
But I can't take you with me, when I cross the finish line.
And that's why, I'm going out and trying, a flathead, one, more, time.

Time, time, time is all you got.

Ry Cooder

These lines touched a deep cord somewhere :)
And that's why, I'm going out and trying , a flathead one more time..

Voices

'You didn't know what you were looking for
Till you heard the voices in your ear..'

& so goes the song. '..I fell in love with you again.. Please can I see you ev'ry day'.

Its just some voices, some sights that take you back once again to the time you miss somewhere deep down. There are certain patterns of life that you grow up with. For me it was listening to Mukesh sing Ramayana early in the morning. It was my dad's ritual but slowly i found myself humming to it unconsciously. It was always there within me. I outgrew those days of getting ready for school. The cassettes outlived their days and just like that the pattern lost its continuity. Today after so many years my morning again had the Ramayana playing just like yesteryears. I didn't know that I was seeking it all along but when I heard the singing I felt the joy of discovering it.

There are so many things that we seek from life. Some that we are aware of and a good many that we are not even aware of. We realize it only when we accidentally stumble upon it someday. They were always so much within our reach if only we had known that we wanted them all along. The joy of reconnecting with the old and dear is inexplicable.

Then there is the other stuff. The things you seek and do not get. The connections that just lose their touch. The things that you really seek and the things you seek because everyone wants. The things you really bond over and connect and things you fake.

The quest continues always :)