Rambling

Indian forts and palaces are “exotic” to the west. Is this a subconscious form of cultural imperialism? I have never been anywhere outside India. Yet, when i look at pictures of forts, palaces, churches, graveyards, boulevards or pebbled streets, I find them awe-striking and “exotic”. Is my feeling a latent sense of an inerasable postcolonial mindset?

People are attracted to India on account of its vibrancy, its warm people; it is a colourful country with a gamut of cultures, cuisines, dialects and geographies stretched across the subcontinent. Indian people are quick to adopt Western clothes, food, architecture and technology. Yet, the sense of Indianness remains rooted in even the most corporate companies of India. For example, you walk into an Indian consultancy that prides itself in being such an ape of the West. They use the latest softwares, operate on fast speed internet and machines, travel in BMWs, wear formal trousers and suits. And then you notice the tiny sandalwood paste mark on the forehead, the touch of vermilion in a woman’s hair, a black and golden chain on her neck (a “mangalsutra”) signifying her married status; or, stones set in gold rings on their fingers.

The same people live in houses styled in Western architecture, travel in imported cars, use First World gadgets, buy imported foods and clothes. Then you notice the ring on the finger; it might strike an outsider as “oh, cool ring”; it is actually steeped in gemstone terminology and belief in their healing powers.

Even the most sceptical of Indians, will most probably be found with such a ring. It might have been worn at the behest of a loving parent who gifts, lets say, a pearl ring to keep anger at bay.

Christians in India are culturally so different from their counterparts in the West. The women wear saris on their wedding day and the couple does not kiss at the end of the ceremony. Indians are uniformly shy of kissing or displaying physical affection in public. So much so that hugging or holding hands is looked down upon in most parts or you might be glared at with disapproval.

India prides itself in copying the First World, down to the last detail. What we fail to realise is, that we cannot break free from the binds of our heritage. Even the most modern of young girls wants to wear a sari and not a dress, for her graduation dinner. Even the most “hep” boy sighs deeply when he sees his girl in a sari.

The sari is such a sexy outfit. One size fits all; it can be worn in various ways, it makes fat people look thin and skinny people look healthy. The subtle show of skin is sensuous and the draped effect brings out femininity in the most tomboyish of women.

Indian streets never fail to simultaneously shock and please the senses. Corporate parks, a swanky metro rail, dozens of cars. And then, street vendors with hand woven baskets stocked with boiled or roasted corn cobs, sweet potatoes and the infamous tea with fritters. Also, the rickshaw pullers lugging metro travellers to their destinations; or the illegal but profiting minivans that are less crowded but more expensive than buses.

Similarly, people dressed in office formals walking right past little kids sleeping on the roads, or nestling comfortably under the shade of a tree, in makeshift swings made of their mothers’ saris; while these women actually sweep the road which is to be redone.

With food, Indians are spoilt for choice. A north Indian mother caters to her son’s demands for idly-sambhar and uttapam while her south Indian compeer efficiently churns up kadhai paneer and parathas. Families argue not over restaurants but cuisine. And even though the chimpanzee effect has struck the children as well, they still crave Indian dishes over pizzas and burgers—mere snack foods to which we limit food of those “exotic” to us. “firangi khana” (foreign food) if you will.

India is complex and simple, at the same time. People might be warm hearted and help out without any selfishness or they might rip you off. For example, no matter how crowded, train passengers will squeeze in and make space for a needy person; on the other hand, you might give your laptop for reformatting, and on discovering no partition drives within, be told non-chalantly, “oh that costs extra”.

It is a good change in Indian tourism that luxury arrangements are available now. However, we also tend to overdo it. As you walk through a hotel lobby or garden, the employees will stop all work, bow at you and say “Namaste” with a smile that belies its genuineness.

Fixation is something that comes easy to Indians; be it food, movies, clothes, sports, music or books. If we like it, we will obsess over it, till it exhausts us or becomes redundant or more often than not, is succeeded by something new.

Look at what happened to cell phones, laptops, mp3 players, KFC, McDonalds, pub culture, action movies shot in foreign lands, western clothing or even cars. Suddenly, everyone wants one to flaunt it. Even if they do not require it. A minimum wage earner will painstakingly save money only to buy a touchscreen phone (whose features he is most likely, clueless of) because all his friends own one.

In my opinion, this country is worth a visit on account of its idiosyncrasies alone. And if you are a nature lover to boot, then it is a must-visit place. This country offers its guests beaches, snow-capped Himalayas, endless other mountain ranges, lakes, cosmopolitan lifestyles, gourmet food, swanky corporates all infused with the focus on inherent spirituality and what allures foreigners the most being “spa therapy” with yoga.

This country is a multifaceted space. The same state that produced its own form of martial arts, is home to some spectacular classical music and dance forms and is also the land of backwaters and cruising houseboats. The state which is most overrun by insurgency, is also home to the largest number of migrated call centre employees, where music and football run in its’ people’s veins.

The diversity of culture between places a few miles from each other, is exhausting. Your mind is treated to the sudden changes which, before you can say “jack Robinson” turn into another hue. Delhi, the capital, is a culmination of seven cities through history. It is a metropolitan, a slum, a historical locale and a career goal all rolled into one. Journey a few miles away, into Rajasthan, and a desert greets you with its colourful people, tremendous forts, royal families and camels.

Travel north-east, and you meet a fusion of Aryan-Mongol culture; rife with Chinese and Tibetan influences and monasteries set in isolated environments, the north-east part of India is starkly different from Rajasthan in every aspect.

Travel to central india, and you will wonder if the north-east was not a different country altogether. Travel to south india, and you might just be convinced you are on a different continent. Kashmir, with its virginal beauty, its quiet yet strong people, and its political dilemnas will not fail to arouse the aforementioned thoughts in your head.

Walk into any Indian city or town, and the prices of almost anything, within the city, will range from a couple of pennies to thousands. It is also perhaps the only place where marketplaces will have a row of shops selling the exact same commodity or services and happily doing business without worrying about competition sitting right next door.

Adjustment is the keyword to understanding India. Everyone survives here, somehow. The RSS (a Hindu political organisation) creates a ruckus on Valentine’s Day, attacking popular coffee shops and malls to “save” our Hindu heritage. The most westernised people loathe them, look down upon them; yet, the very next day, they can be seen travelling shoulder to shoulder on a local train, dismissing the previous day as “it was their day, what of it now”.

Families allow their daughters utmost (sometimes, even extreme and unneeded) freedom with the mindset of “let her have fun while it lasts” only upon the agreement of entering into an arranged marriage. The girl is transformed from a bikini babe sipping margaritas to the docile “bahu” (daughter-in-law) dutifully packing off her husband to work, with a hot, fresh lunch.

So, visiting India for merely its monuments or geography is like missing the point by a mile. Visit it for its people. No anthropology or socio-economic work can describe them and no guest to the country can claim to have had the exact same experience as another.

The only thread of commonality running through the country, is the link with spirituality. Its almost like a patriotic or nationalist duty. Even the most cosmopolitan city will be dotted with temples (hideous in architecture) in the most unexpected areas. An entourage of drunk youth heading toward a pub blasting metal music will suddenly stop, bow their heads in supplication and continue with their nightly ravings.

In short, India offers itself up to its guests as a place of history, diverse cultures, intriguing architecture and varied geography. But, primarily, it is a place worth travelling to, for its people and their genetic (almost) spirituality. It allows you to form your own stories about it. And that is an experience no other could provide.

A Child's Prayer

You held hands and breathed in deep

The scent of the flowers you bloomed.

I'm dried up, torn and lonely now

The petal left adrift a half-dead tree

You ask me for the wedding band

Wrapped so carefully in soft tissue

I wish you had kept me that safe too

I smile at the idea

I give it to you, dusting the grime away

Joyous to see you smile, torn within to sighs

That should have been his who is now--

Driftwood holding me aloft

In your unknowing fluttering rivulet of joy

That only saw its own.

Luminiscent Monotony

It snowed in the mountains, hailed in the valleys and rained in the city. I walked down the muddy lanes of my neighbourhood, buoyed by a sense of excitement because the sky had been washed clean. I breathed in deep, ignoring the grey blasts from engines; and made my way to work.

The metro ride was done with a childlike gaiety and gazing out the window. As I walked down the stairs of the metro station to work, I noticed the clean grey roads with their neatly stacked traffic cones, scrubbed by the rains.

The sense of buoyancy vanished within a second as thoughts lurched in turmoil within me; I realised how urbanism makes robots out of us. How city life in its sheer repetitive and similarity makes us numb. Any part of the city would look no different than where I stood at ten am this morning—metal grey streets, muddy by-lanes, grumpy immigrants heading to work while the elite splash through the puddles in their cars, only to later berate the middle class inferior about this shoddy sense of dressing or mud spots on his shirt.

The Delhi sky is still a dull shade of grey, not a brightly washed blue and the sky in its all encompassing omnipresence seems to affect the people’s moods through mere colour. I begin to marvel about the hills where some lucky friends are ensconced and I find myself wondering, what does rain sound like on a roof in the jungle, uninterrupted by horns and music and technology? Would it not be music in itself, the sound of rain on the parapet akin to the sound of wheat husks falling onto the field of freshly harvested wheat while an army of mustard flowers hums methodically in the wind?

In the city today morning, when it was at the most tolerable that it could be, nothing had changed. People were still trudging to work, brown paper bag breakfast in hand, headphones fastened on, tapping away on phones and occasionally chuckling  “what a romantic day, wish we could go for a movie”. This conversation made my hopes rise and dash quicker than the woman next to me could text.

It is so disheartening to live in a city of robots. People talk the same, walk the same, wear the same, do the same. Life is all about work on week days, drink and fuck on weekends. I wish I would not use strong language here, but this is the true face of the city. People save money for spa getaways, fancier phones and even fancier homes. Everyone goes to the gym to be fit but prefers taking the lift or the escalator everywhere else; women fret over their skin while men worry about the beer belly. Yet, not one of them stops to think of resorting to a simpler lifestyle that in its own cycle takes care of everything.

Its disturbing that mere rain has made me so hugely happy and upset at the same time. I only wish I could walk away into the mountains where my mind, my eyes, my body will be set free to roam, to hear, to see and to be at peace amidst simpler people not charged up on android phones.

The fiercely cold mountain air can do me more good than the luminescent monotony of this neon-lit prison of the walking dead.

Nameless Verse 1

Glass structures of shiny green notes

Humming into your ear "progress. wealth"

Little postcards and musings on post-its

Are all that remain of your life

In this cold barren jungle of steel.

A vivid memory, an object d'art--

Mere painful reminders of a forgotten vacation.

Meant to wander, brood on mildewed benches

You now occupy a "wheel" chair of misguided hope.

Swinging around, pen in mouth--

A helpless reminder of your tyre swing.

The air conditioning that plasticates

The monsoon breezes of yore.

You silently, deftly walk around a puddle that reflects

The flashback of a youth

Spent jumping right in, holding aloft marbles of victory.

What have you become now?

But a mannequin of expectations.

No different from the stories

You travel with, everyday.

Man at the Metro

I often stare at the people I travel with, to and fro, from the jungles of Gurgaon, on the metro. I feel like we are all coal miners, enslaved to concrete instead now.

The people, who jostle for space to lean on the plasticised doorways of the train, seem like travelling stories to me. Irrespective of what we earn and how we earn, we are still enslaved to a monotonous similarity in our work lives. The same glass doors, wooden softboarded work stations, executive chairs and elaborate intercom and email systems.

On the train though, apart from the fanciful phones that ALL have plugged into their ears, the expressions, clothes and gestures tell the inside story, unique to each one of us...

Last night, on my metro ride home, lulled by the urging voice of Allison Krauss wondering “how can I keep from singing”, I walked out of the jostling crowd. On the platform, one image gleaned itself on  my heart and made my whole being akin to the house of Usher.

An old man, wrinkles speaking of the hardening of sunlight and reality on him, was trying to come out of the other metro train, hiding his sack of tools behind his back, in shame. He was over awed by the shiny phones, glittering bags and overall opulence of the earphones robots who elbowed past him, with disdain and disapproval.

I wonder why we melt into tears and pity on watching such old people on the film screen but in reality we are really, corporate bitches? This man was muttering apologies to each who painfully elbowed past him in a bid to get out first; and what was he apologising for? His poverty? His dust laden clothes and whitening hair? His once sinewy now trembling wrinkled arms?

Why do we merely and blindly judge people by their show of money? Yet, when we watch our “stars” on the film screen, we nod robotically in approval of social upheaval of the real masses of India. Is this decadence or a mirage to disillusion our own conscience?

The old man got a hard push from a particularly “hot” woman who was being ogled at for her apparently bold show of legs and an i-phone. Countless coins from his shirt pocket fell out all over the platform. When she saw who she had bumped into, her face turned into the ugliest manifestation of human features I have laid eyes upon and she said,

“Eww. So disgusting”.

The old man looked at her. He might not have understood the language but he certainly gauged her feeling and merely smiled at the swaying hips walking past in heels. I stood and wondered, who is the whore and who the Buddha? My mind throws unrelated thoughts at me all the time and for the discerning reader, this metaphorical question would make sense (hopefully).

The pain I felt for this man was like a stack of nails grazing down my throat to my heart. He squatted on the platform, looked down upon in disgust, in wonder and condemned as “oh, innovative beggar! Asking for money at the metro platform!”.

Seemingly unfazed by the criticism that each train brought onto him, he collected his coins and continued to carefully count them, from one aged hand to the other. He looked sad and puzzled, and desperately running his sight all around in search of something.

I could not bear being a bystander anymore so I asked him what troubled him, now that he had collected all his coins. The old man said, “I had Rs.23 in my pocket and now its only Rs.20”, a tear betraying his stoicism into childish despair.

“I was saving that money to come one more time on this Godlike train, its so fast and luxurious and has such good cooling and warming technique, though I could not spot the fans!!”

I merely nodded at the pain in his voice and enquired gently, if I could give him the remaining money to which his face hardened and he told me sternly, “You are just like a daughter to me, how can I take money from my child? My wife and children live in the village and I only get to see them once in a year...so to ease my loneliness, I take this train to divert my mind”.

I could simply nod in respect and in fondness for this man who was shunned by the world he worked for. They would never be able to fathom his pain, his solitude or his remarkable ability to forgive and forget. I only wish I could emulate him...

Dharamshala Landscape

Landscape of Dharamshala and Mcleodganj

The one place where you can stick your head out of the car and enjoy the cool breeze is undoubtedly the hills. The cool grainy lashings of mountain dust and an occasional stray leaf in the pure wind against your face, creeping through alleys in your hair, refresh the mind in a way no spa therapy can rejuvenate.

I realise and feel the joy my dog felt each time it got to stick its head out from the window. I wonder if its not too much to really imitate a dog and stick my tongue out as well; but i decide against it. my cab driver is blasting Punjabi songs from his stereo which does not bother me in the least; the music exudes of the vivacity and brightness of his people who now work in the hills but refuse to let go of the plains they call home.

Lower Dharamshala is a little disappointing; after you pass the impressive army barracks and smartly uniformed soldiers, the scene is of a regular Indian market in a small urban city. It takes the pleasure of the joyride away; you wonder: wait. What? And just as you are about to dismiss this holiday as a wrong decision, the Himalayas play another trick to take your breath away.

Arrive: Upper Dharamshala. Passing a church set in colonial times, i always feel a sense of the British presence, one of my favourite daydreams. I make a mental note to visit the cemetery late in the evening—a narcissistic yet adrenaline powered rush to my sceptical atheist self. St. John’s is dilapidated, its stone walls giving away to the green moss sticking and growing all around it. the graves fascinate me because they hold within them entire life stories of people gone by and now reduced to bones in a box.

The tall, undaunted pine and deodar trees impress upon the mind, their towering and elegant personas. Never overrated is the clarity of mountain air breathed in deeply to detox. It reminds me of crystals and intensively untainted gifts of Mother Nature.

The constant, speedy hits of opposite continue to strike me like a marble on a foosball table. Mcleodganj is now reduced to a grubby little mountain town, aping the west better than a chimpanzee trying to play ball. All you see around you in the main market are clothes shops, eating joints selling mcdonald’s variety foods and people shopping till they drop. I mean, really! And to add insult to injury, a small Buddhist temple now lies sandwiched between wine shops and souvenir shops, ignored by the local tourist. It makes me seethe in anger to see young adults loitering around, sipping their cheap breezers and toying with prayer wheels, making them whir with the fickleness of a four year old playing with a new toy car.

The entire point of a vacation, a visit to the mall or “going out” has become TO SHOP. And specifically, to shop for clothes, shoes, accessories. Where did books vanish in this picture? Personally, the only shopping i would want to do in a tourist spot would be a book (i fancy discovering a repository of the world’s finest in a quaint little wooden door book shop. Sigh) and perhaps something of local make as a useable souvenir. Or quality music. Imagine Bach or Etta James flowing melodiously out of a little store and discovering their records being played; gramophone style. Carry your carefully chosen book to the mountains with you and discover how smoothening the caress of words alongside the playful touch of the wind in your hair, can be while the Himalayas tower mightily and graciously above you.

Yet, i digress. Mcleodganj, in all its immense cultural changes and diversity has merely become a place where young students come to shop for “cool stuff”, to eat in “wicked awesome” restaurants and to smoke some “dude, it was kickass” marijuana. I sincerely believe the reader understands that my usage of the quotes is pure and heartfelt sarcasm for the language and culture of our times.

Anyway, as i make way through this crowd of young screechy adults, i discover a yellow concrete building at the end of the road. I breathe a sigh of relief as my eyes are treated to sights of Tibetan women in Sikang chupas, steaming momos at the roadside. I wonder what this building really is, so i enter.

To my painful discovery, it is the temple of the Dalai Lama. You wonder why i say painful. To my mind, a monastery must be as stunningly beautiful on the outside as it is on the inside. All the pictures i have seen of Tibetan structures have struck me in their complexity and sheer aesthetic charge. I have not yet been lucky enough to visit Ladakh or Tibet and give a more comprehensive understanding of their architecture. But like any lay man, i imagine pagodas, fading yet vibrant prayer flags and brightly robed monks when i think of Tibetan Buddhist centres.

In mcleodganj, the monastery is shockingly pedestrian in its exterior architecture; but it manages to stun you on the inside. I wonder if it is not the same trick as playing foosball. The atmosphere is hypnotic in its mystery, droning chants and quaintly carved prayer wheels. A few Tibetan elderly people sit, humming their mantras on the spacious balcony, as the candle flames quiver with every drone and sound of silent magic.

In the distance, i hear the ever sweet chatter and playful shrieks of little children; to my delight, when you look down from the balcony of the temple, you can see the playground of a school where little dolled up kids (i have to admit that Tibetan kids take the cake when it comes to cuteness with their small bright eyes and apple red cheeks!), dressed in blue and white are enjoying their recess.

The pine cones are still fresh and green and provide a stark contrast to the aged monks ambling around the premises. The raw smelling soft cones remind me of the school children below—not yet hardened by reality. However, all hill people are fond of two basic things in life—music and food. And care little for the luxuries of the plains.

In my world of throngs of people jostling to and from work, a punitive weather and constant race for money, this world is alien in its simplicity and slow attitude to ambition. Ambition is treated like a subtext here, not as the entire book of life.

I wish, like every other traveller, that i could live here forever, in simplistic and basic happiness that can come from merely getting to eat meat one day or travelling on a car the other—things that we can never view as a luxury or a gift. I bite my nails and gulp down several bouts of “do it” impulses when i see a job advertisement in a coffee shop offering a small stipend, a room and meals. And i calm my dreamy heart with a practical mind, by walking in and ordering one of the best cappuccinos of my life.

The main town is a crowded frenzy of people determined to eke out everything that their vacation can offer in terms of “fun”. Hike around the area, and you will realize the subtle tranquillity in which the Tibetan refugees live; harmonious and patient with the noisy bluntness of the tourists from the plains.

 I sat on a bench on a non-descript road behind the temple after a thirty minute walk. a few minutes later, i heard a cough and saw an old old man politely smiling down at me, silently asking “may i sit here?”. “of course”, said my equally big smile. We tried to talk till we realised he knew no English, and i no Tibetan. So, i spoke in broken nepali and he, in a few words of English.

The conversation ended in my understanding that he is REALLY old and a monk under the dalai lama while i was a “bit strange” little girl from the city. He gifted me a “dorjee”—a Tibetan totem to protect one from evil and sickness. The monk told me to walk down to dharamkot the next day and meditate with my dorjee. So i did.

At the rooftop of the “lonely earth” (really? HOW is it lonely?) cafe, i took my little brass friend out and made to sit in a yogic posture, confident that the Himalayas would bestow wisdom on me. However, half an hour of immense drowsiness in the soft wintry sun later, i went downstairs and indulged in a scrumptious lunch of steamed momos and a delightfully warming thukpa with thingmo bread. The dorjee has been relegated a spot on my ‘nail of artefacts’ in my tiny box room in the city.

The Tibet museum, in its sparseness, is a painful reminder of the injustice done to the Tibetan people; while the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts is a bit a of let-down in terms of “art”. However, if you are feeling cheeky, you can always score some hash right from the reception counter; or so says the “funky” crowd determined to couch themselves in a smoky haze.

The rise and fall of the sun is another feature to look out for. Make yourself wake up in the morning and trust me, the experience is worth every minute of sleep sacrificed. Or watch the sunset with a cup of tea or Tibetan soup that delightfully warms you in the chill wintry town. The Himalayas undergo every imaginable shade of red, yellow, orange, blue, purple and white with the sky. It is like watching an artist in a remote Italian town work on a painting and constantly refurbish the colours to his liking, on the canvas. It made my mind fabricate my own tales of how Tibetan people first made a foray for refuge through these tough regions; of the times they must have spent camping in the jungles, cold and hungry, yet filled with some distant hope. Hope and dreams can never be marginalised. Imagine how they must have felt, packing up their lives, to trek into a new country with anticipation and a resolution to create a new life here.

Mcleodganj is like Marquez’s Macondo; it is surreal in its own right and is populated by generations of people so estranged from their homes that they have made this city a home. it accepts the vast differences of culture that India bestows on it and also lends its own, subtly and elegantly. The rain is as unpredictable as a pregnant woman’s labour pains. One moment you bask in the gentle sunlight and the next, you are in danger of being drenched by torrential rains. Umbrellas lend colourful cheer to the sobriety that coldness is born with.

The hills are always a happy reminder of the good things in life. The sea, more or less, does the same thing too. The mountains make me wonder about what lies on the other side while the sea makes me realise how the vast ocean is brought to a humble end in frothy waves and wet sand when it nears land. So this trip, despite the aforementioned loopholes, will happen again. a third time.

Death of a Consultant

I read in the papers today about a 25 year old doctor MBA who committed suicide, leaving behind a mere note saying I have found the truth. His death does not bother me; I am used to reading about heinous crimes in our papers on a daily basis—murders, suicides, rapes and abductions—all clubbed together on one page, everyday.

The idea of death is fascinating in its fear, allure and finality. As I squat smoking on the tenth floor balcony of my office, I think of this man again. His flatmate described him as “depressed” apparently on account of his extensive reading of philosophy. This statement makes me uneasy and annoyed. Why is solitude and “philosophy” clubbed together as depressive?

As I take unthinking drags from the depleting cigarette, the sun bearing down on me, albeit quite pleasantly in the soft wintry chill of the city, I find myself staring at the pale blue metallic railing that entraps me from injury.

My mind wanders and imagines me climbing over the railing, stretching out to nothingness and gravity, with merely my fingers wrapped around the thin metal rods to prevent me from falling. I imagine myself feel the wind without the restraint of floors, concrete and metal; my hair flies helter skelter over my face and back and slowly, my sweaty fingers are beginning to lose their grip.

I know that this movement will lead to a physically rapid but mentally freeing fall and a loud thud of crunching bones, blood and hopefully death amidst the cars and bikes parked below. I would rather die after such a fall than survive so heinously injured.

My imagination has run its course and now the rational mind takes over; physically shrugging away the thought like a mother berating her child for eating too many sweets. I realise that the cigarette has long gone out and I need to return to my material duties, my bread and butter.

The only excitement of such a life of urban young adulthood lies in writing the experience down. The existentialist in me shakes her head cynically and asks, “For whom? For what purpose? Does it make your life better? It is a lie, blogs and reviews and LIFE that corrodes you till you fade away”.

The simpleton in me shies away in its feeling of insecurity and realisation that it is a lesser being and merely looks forward to an interesting lunch.