March musings

"A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image."

~ John Didion

March.
When the other side of the globe looks forward to signs of change, to pearly sprouts of spring hopes, this side has begun anticipating the reign of a brutal sun and the imminent decay of anything and everything. Life and Death, spinning the wheels of the world.

A few days back, an Instagram friend asked me to which place did I belong and if I still lived in the US since my posts are pretty random without any chronological coherence, and the quirky hashtags #upperleftusa and #northwestisbest are used a lot to caption them. My answer was: "I live in Hyderabad now, my second time in the city followed by an earlier four-years' stint as a student though I belong to the coastal state of Odisha... and yes, we were in the States for almost five years". To this the friend replied: "You belong to so many places!", and that got me thinking.
I do after all, don't I? I even belong to places where I have lived only for a week, places that I've just been to as a tourist. Maybe belongingness comes easily to me, it's the uprootedness that I have a problem with. And in the process I have given shape to absent spaces, claimed certain parts and people of those places as mine and in turn, made them a part of my little world. How effortlessly I belong to each one of them, ever so easily like wearing a new skin, partaking in their joys and miseries equally. And therefore, I cannot help but mull over these geographies from time to time, be it the fate of the people or simply the changing seasons.

These days I go back to Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul: Memories and the City a lot, a book that I started reading some six months back and have been deliberately procrastinating to reach its end. It's so sensually rich in nostalgia and so brilliant is Pamuk's rendition of his city, that one immediately feels his aching love for the much-fabled streets of Istanbul. An acute sense of loss and melancholy hangs like a light but omnipresent fog throughout the memoir which is beautifully laced with black and white photographs of the city as Pamuk has seen and known it. One sentence that often comes back to me from the book is: "Life can't be all that bad," i'd think from time to time. 'Whatever happens, i can always take a walk along the Bosphorus."

Which is my Bosphorus then? The beach and the mango trees that I call home? Or the view of the misty Cascades that I know as home? Or the disarming smiles of the Himalayan faces amid whom I feel most at home? Or the dusty streets of an old city that I had once proudly boasted of as my second home?

   

Nostalgia

"Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you - and summons them to your recall with will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you."

~ John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

A terrible green. A never-ending, unfurling sea of green. On the wet, mossy branches of dark trees. A dewy carpet of newly sprung grass. As tiny throbs of life waiting to sprout on slippery, naked boughs. I miss that green. That quaking, trembling, ubiquitous green. That terrible, terrible green.

Rewriting, retelling

It rains this afternoon. It always does at this hour, when all is quiet and half of the day lies decaying, paving the way quietly for the other half. Searchingly, I run to the windows, for a glimpse of the rain-fattened sky, or may be a full-bodied, leafy tree to watch the drops do a dandy dance in the shaky caress of the drunken leaves. A rumble of thunderclap and I wake up from my wishful thoughts - my windows open to the neighbor's bedroom walls and my balcony offers only more concrete and broken vista. Devoid of any scenery, I make do with the familiar fragrance of wet earth that fills every corner of the house.

This obstruction in my rain-peeping brought back mellow memories of an always drenched place, when not so long before I would watch the rain drizzle on the dark pines from my patio that gave way to a magical peek of the cloud shrouded Cascades. All this, of course, seems to be a far fetched dream now or at best something like Coleridge's blurry fragment.
But this sudden burst of uncontrollable nostalgia surprises me. Was I not the one who would relentlessly complain of the sodding rains then? Was I not the one who would vent rain-soaked rants here, there and everywhere? How, then, did the once annoying rains become so dear today? Of course, I am moulding and mending the unpleasant bits of past to suit my precarious present. I am beautifying the once desolate, rain-beaten landscape into something romantic. And nostalgia is always romantic.

As luck always has her own way of mocking you, she couldn't have shoved a more appropriate read my way - The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. Just a hundred and fifty pages, yet it manages to turn you round and round as if the whole time you were on a mean, never-ending roller coaster. Tony, the protagonist, takes us on a flashback journey, primarily a solipsistic one, where we meet his mates and their youthfully pretentious, philosophical takes on life. The plot thickens when the most "clever" of them, the Camus-quoting, always serious Adrian commits suicide. Justifying the title, Barnes makes sure we sense the end after a major twist, only to be further distracted by his unreliable narrator. Tony weaves people and plots from his foggy memoir that spans more than four decades, while all the time the reader sits on an edge doubting the selectivity of his memories. What we remember as the truth and what really is the truth are two very different things. With his patchwork of additions and subtractions, permutations and combinations, he finally arrives at the truth. One that could never be retold.

"How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but - mainly - to ourselves."

~ Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

A gift and some memories

When I opened my blog yesterday afternoon, I hardly had any inkling of the beautiful surprise that awaited me. As I scrolled down my reading list, there it was, this wonderful, wonderful gift! My ever thoughtful and kind blogger friend, Pondside, just knew what I wanted at the moment. Despite being connected through the virtual yet sometimes much more comforting and real than the actual world, she has often come to my rescue with the most beautiful and encouraging words. And now, even when we no more share our most common bond, the wild and wonderful Pacific Northwest, she can sense what all I am pining for from the other end of the globe. Something which some of my old and most dependable friends just cannot, may be because they haven't been in my shoes or simply because in a time of an ever-growing and urbanizing India, no one has time for something as trivial as my rhododendron nostalgia. But in just a few heart-tugging and compassionate paragraphs, she opened up that rickety and always waiting-to-be-knocked door to the most fondest of my memoirs - Seattle.

Rhododendrons mean so much more to me than just flowers. When I had first seen them, new and nervous in a foreign land, they had seemed very, very exotic. There's a subtle pride and hardiness about them that I at once connected to. Gradually, they grew into this tiny part in me that associates them with the beginning of everything good in my life. And of course, there could not be a more mood lifting bloom, particularly when the day is overcast with a soft but steady drizzle. 
So just when I was wondering how by the end of June the rhododendrons usually paint the whole city red, pink and purple, and just when that corner of my heart was chocked with longing, Pondside's lovely mosaic rescued me.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the marvelous journey down nostalgia lane. 

Some rhododendrons, from last year's bloom...

Pine

"Dark pine, I dream for me you wait."

~ Robert William Service, Dark Pine

A month had limped past, riddled with old fears, some long known regrets and new hopes. The most confusing concoction of emotions. And yet... She could still smell the pines in her sleep. That moist, earthy smell with a teasing tinge of longing. Laced like strings of raw emeralds, they dazzled on the rugged neck of the mountains. That gouging, blinding green; the colour of her dreams. Those towering torchbearers that once paved her path and danced to her moods. The feathered, faithful, forever evergreens!
Their brooding darkness called out to her, in wails and bawls. That which was foreign and lost felt hers, in a strange, protective way. That which was left far, far behind felt more alive than the current, ticking second. One of the many ironies of life. And the foreignness lingers on.  

So long...

"If I were another on the road, I would have

hidden my emotions in the suitcase, so my poem
would be of water, diaphanous, white,
abstract, and lightweight ... stronger than memory,
and weaker than dewdrops, and I would have said:
My identity is this expanse!"

~ Mahmoud Darwish, If I Were Another

These lines have often come to me in different times over the years, but mostly when I'm the most unsure about things. There is a certain flimsiness about them, the kind that stirs you but still somehow keeps the cascade of emotions from tumbling out in the open. And hopefully they will pull me through the painfully long, fourteen-hour flight to Mumbai tonight as well (I'm not even counting the six-hour misery from here to Newark!). The time has come at last and being the lost soul that I am, I never understood what is the good in goodbyes. Nevertheless, I'll have a go at it, however feeble and halfhearted it sounds.

I will miss Seattle, a city that I've been madly in love with from then to now and forever will, despite its notorious reputation of the nine-months-a-year rains. What I have for this place is a very first love sort of fixation, for this is where I had first come, after crossing the proverbial seven seas. This is where I had first felt that acute, empty moment of being a foreigner once and quite ironically three years later, this is where I felt the most at home. There'll always, always be bits and pieces of our life spent here that I'll be rambling on about now and then, no matter how repetitive and annoying it gets.

I will also miss being a regular here for sometime, the blog-land camaraderie in particular. Howsoever virtual it is, my fellow bloggers have been a very integral part of my life for the last couple of years. Here I've found joy, compassion and comfort from sharing and being shared, and I wouldn't let anything in the world change this. Not even change, the big old bully.
So this is not really a goodbye, for as soon as I find myself rested and revived on the other side of the globe, I shall definitely try to sneak in a post or two about our 'Incredible India' or whatever it is the cliches say.

So long then!


P.S. As a befitting resolution to my Seattle diaries, the azaleas did bloom and how! They now flourish in the foster care of a very good, equally plant-loving friend.

Tulips

"When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence."

~ Ansel Adams

When Downton Abbey and The Big Bang Theory weren't diversions enough, to the tulip fields we fled. The annual festival at Tulip Town has always been a much awaited one, where the plump mountain air mingles with the faint, lingering smell of the tulips, a combination potent enough to numb the worldly worries for a while. As we neared the valley, it became cloudy and somewhat unexpectedly cold, but then the fields emerged like the unfurling of a hundred multicoloured flags. Row after row, wave after wave of breathtaking colours - fat yellow, feisty red, shy pink, seducing violet, rusty orange - all ending in a stunning kaleidoscopic blur, inching towards each other in a strange unison, till the eye could not say which is which. 

To tulips then, the invincible, undisputed queen of spring.

Old market

Nothing perks me up more than an unintended visit to the Pike Place Market, a great place to get lost in for hours. The fresh produce, the local art and craft, the background street music, the touristy smiles and most of all the roar of the traffic by the contrasting calm of the Elliott bay; each so different but when put together they create the most perfect and harmonious collage. A hint of color here and a dash of charm there, as far as your eyes can see; something that beckons one for a visit to the old market, again and again.

There are a few corners in the market where I'm pulled to as if by magic, somewhat like a moth to a flame; the fishmongers' stall where frozen fish heads gape angrily at you; antiques and trinkets; ceramics and pottery; the chocolate coated dried cherries; and the obvious of all, the dewy flowers. And this time the market is at its colorful best, for the tulips have arrived. As if spring herself whispered in your ears, "Be patient, I'm on my way!"

Happy weekend!

Stormy

A rather strange legacy follows me wherever I go - snow storms! They somehow make their way onto my nomadic trail, be it any part of the country. As I write this, snow falls moodily; furious now, gentle the next moment. The Pacific Northwest is witnessing a storm of historical proportions, so the weather news says. We have been trapped in snow storms before and therefore know the nagging anxiety it gives rise to. This time, fortunately, it does not look that bad and I sincerely hope it stays so.

Although being cooped inside all day does not feel exactly uplifting, I try to sneak out and take some pictures now and then. Perhaps the only bright side of the picture.

It's time for a hot steaming cup of ginger tea, my third since the morning. There couldn't be a more perfect day to drown oneself in that warm, gingery aroma. Hope there's no storm in my tea cup now!

Snow blossoms; verb or noun, who cares as long as it is beautiful. An old, favourite mug that I had long forgotten till a rampant search for 'something with snowflakes' was conducted. A futile attempt to catch the ethereal flurries before the greedy rains lick them all in a day or two. The freezing landscape dressed in a soft palette of grays and whites. A strange reverberating calm.

Across the bridge

Every time I drive over this bridge that spans the breadth and captivating beauty of Lake Washington, I feel no less than a seagull. My spirits soar high over the sparkling sapphire waters as I head toward the neatly arranged concrete jungle of downtown. Today was another such day and a bright, sunny one too. 

Across the bridge awaited the happy coincidence of a conference and meeting an old friend after years, six to be precise. Armed with coffee and nostalgia, we took a walk down the good old university days - crazy professors, major Modern American Literature mishaps (we both got terrible grades there!), old crushes, tracing friends who aren't in Facebook... It was a celebration of sorts! 

Then came the time to hear the great Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak speak. A name that we academicians have been sweating and fretting over for years, ever since we have stepped into the abstruse waters of postcolonialism. This was my very first opportunity to see her and be in the same room as her, instead of just hearing the intimidating name that so often surfaces in the realm of world literature today. It felt truly overwhelming, although halfway through the lecture I began browsing my iphone to read about Spivak's celebrityhood. People do have this tendency to meander away during such longish talks, don't they?! Luckily, I found another person doodling away to glory and that comfortably numbed my guilt of not paying enough attention.

What began as a South Asian Literary day on the other side of the bridge ended befittingly with a scrumptious Thai dinner across this side. My stuffed head and empty, growling stomach couldn't have asked for anything more rewarding. And these mouthwatering lobster potstickers were just the starters! 

Back home

"Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home."
~ Basho

We got back to a wet, fog masked Seattle this evening from the cold but sunny farmlands of Kansas. A dank, dense veil of mist hung with a long, drawn face and wrapped the naked, cold arms of the trees. What comfort its misty, chilly embrace offered the forlorn branches, I know not of. But they looked just fine. The festive spirit perhaps?!

Getting back home is always such a comfort. It is for me at least. The everyday ordinariness of the scenes that unfold in front of your eyes - the faint morning sun streaming through the windows, the casually flung book on the coffee table, the green from the bamboo plant decking up the kitchen window, the shy glitter of the sequins from a wall hanging by the warm lamplight, the worn pair of fuzzy slippers by the couch side... I could just go on and on! Such inconsequential, quotidian details yet when pieced together, they create the most perfect picture of belonging and warmth.

True, once the hounding beast of monotony creeps in, the walls begin to look a lot like those of the Lady of Shallot's. 'Half sick of the shadows', the heart longs for an escape. But such is the tug and pull of the word home that once away, the urge to get back becomes equally intense. After all, home is where the heart is, they say.

Ilishi love

Finally. After what felt like ages and a desperation that matched the calls of "O ilishi, ilishi! Wherefore art thou ilishi?", I found it. The fish hilsa or ilishi/ilish as we east Indians call it, is an essential part of many a tales of growing up and one of the many reasons of why we are such staunch foodies. Part seafood lover and part geographical genes, the Bay of Bengal to be precise, I don't need to establish my love affair with fish. More so when it is the prized ilishi, aka the King of Fish.
After our move to the States, after four good years of living across all over the length and breadth of this ridiculously vast country, and after bouts of craving so acute that I had almost forgotten what it tastes like, where do I find it? Seattle. The city that has given me umpteen reasons to celebrate life, always. Stacked neatly in a tiny corner of the refrigerator section of an international grocery store, there it was labelled 'Chandpuri Hilsa'. It didn't take me long to crack that code - it was from the Chandpur district of Bangladesh which holds the reputation of exporting the best ilishi in the world. Now, I could not have been more happy had I discovered a gold mine!

Once back from the store I got busy in no time. With ready help from an equally ilishi-deprived husband, the whole fish was descaled and cleaned promptly for that ritualistic rub of salt and turmeric. Since our fish was a monsoon catch which happens to be the breeding time, it also had eggs in its belly. Just like the fish, its eggs too are fried to a golden crunchy perfection and are considered a regional delicacy back home.
As they say, all good times begin with a great meal, and ours was just perfect - a classic Odiya fare of white rice with dal, steamed ilishi in mustard paste, ilishi fry, and boiled potatoes mashed together with raw onions, green chilies and mustard oil. The drone of my incessant cries of homesickness were hushed with the silken, buttery wonder of the King of Fish. But to get there one must really wage a war with the countless obstructing bones. There are just way too many of them!
We did well though, from finding ilishi to revisiting a carefully preserved time and age that is etched fondly and forever in our hearts called childhood.

And yes, yet another quintessential 'foreigner' moment conquered!

Seattle loves them who love Seattle II

It is that time again when nothing feels right. Nothing, except the place and its faint cry of belongingness. Hence the sequel.

Before chaos gets to me full throttle and warps my grey cells with life's little surprises, I better scribble away the updates. True, after wasting almost half a year cocooned in a monotonous hotel suite, one does become somewhat disoriented with spaces. And I am no different. Having said that, howsoever greedy it sounds, I am insanely preoccupied with hoarding every single minute of domestic bliss; etching my presence in every nook and corner of the apartment as if I never ever lived in one.

Since food plays the utmost important role in man's comfort, our story must begin from the kitchen. I had missed my baking sorely, but mostly it was the aimless loitering around in quest of ideas and ingredients. Nothing feels more cathartic than basking in swirls of aromatic goodness crawling out from the oven, and watching the sun set amidst a cluster of mossy pines. To put it in an elegant way, the calm reverberates T.S. Eliot's evening - "a patient estherized upon a table..." During such moments one does wish the reverie to continue, for the calm to live forever. Unfortunately, I am a creature of the real world and return must I to it.

The most precious icing to my perfectly baked Seattle cake is the thrilling proximity of the dramatic Cascade mountains, aka "America's Alps". While returning from an evening stroll a few days back, we spotted it for the first time in all its glory. There it was, hovering like a spreadeagled creature on the evening sky, humbling and towering at the same time. The best part is, on sunny days (which are oh-so-rare here) when the skies shine, I can catch a glimpse of the magnificent snow-caped peaks from our patio. What more could a mountain lover ask for?!

If the mountains humble and soothe my frayed self, spring does a beautiful patchwork on my ever tattering quilt of hope. The burst of colours in my patio infuse an unknown courage in me, one that I wouldn't know otherwise. What else is life after all? You dream, you fly, you fall and before you know you are dreaming again!

In the manner of a true bedouin, I'm guarding every inch of my newfound space, soaking in its every single drop - decorating, gardening, baking and of course ruminating. Like a caterpillar devouring a leaf's green life, I, too hold on to these little quotidian moments ferociously before life comes knocking again. The caterpillar knows being a butterfly ain't easy after all! Beautiful? Yes. But certainly not easy.

To have a room of one's own is probably the greatest of all joys. I have learnt that well during all these years of the on and off living out of suitcases. Virginia Woolf once wrote, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction". Since I own no bank, a room would do just fine. For the moment.

Seattle loves them who love Seattle

Our caravan has moved back to Seattle, the dot from where it had rumbled on three years before. The nomads have finally cruised a full circle, wheeling the entire country from coast to coast. Although I am not a believer in serendipity, this does feel like one. Who would have thought that chance alone would throw us on the beaten ruts once again?! After all, I haven't forgotten the fuss and melodrama I had made when we had to leave Seattle abruptly. Just when it was beginning to feel like home. Just when the nature junkie had begun singing odes to her pagan god. Just when ...

I still remember the faint piney tickle of the air when I had first arrived at the Sea-Tac airport in a damp June afternoon, cold and alone. A jumble of myriad emotions somersaulted inside me - the excitement of seeing Sam after a month; the daunting foreignness of every single moment; the nervousness of getting into an airport express train, for I had no idea what those eerily fast moving things were until then; the fidgeting worry whether I'll get my check-in bags (a co-passenger had already scared me saying her's was lost and wasn't found for months); and above all the giddy joy of having made it, all by myself. Strangely, the nine-hour flight from Amsterdam, after a layover of seven gnawing hours had not killed me. Haldiram's salted almonds and Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies had kept me nourished and warm. Also, I had slept through most of the first flight from Delhi and hence felt quite rejuvenated.

So there I was, received by an almost unrecognizable husband (with a bush instead of a head!) at the baggage area, with a beaming face and a bunch of bright chrysanthemums. I remember they were dyed - green, blue, orange - and I had thought, "Wow, you could get these in green too!" Oh, and yes, my bags arrived safely too.

After three years of feverish longing and wandering in the dusty bylanes of nostalgia, we are here again. It is the same idyll, blanketed with fragrant evergreen woods and sapphire blue lakes. And what's more, it's almost spring! A quick visit to the famous Pike Place market last weekend saw a beautiful display of dewy tulips, possibly the first batch of the season to make their way into the market. After being buried for months in the brutal blizzards of the east, nothing could be more comforting than the sight of these charming flowers and the syrupy warmth of a gingerbread latte.

Well, numbing these small joys is the nagging confusion of apartment hunting coming up this weekend. Wars have to be waged over Sam's obsession with endless square footage and my balcony mania. So stay tuned for more stories from the Emerald city.

Virginia is for lovers!

Cherry blossoms from our living room window

So it is that time of the year again when happiness just blooms and spreads its roots inside you because mother nature is on a song. I often lamented about never having the chance to experience a spectacular North American spring. When I arrived here first, on the land of opportunities and ambiguities, it was too late. It was June and I could see the spring blooms withering away with a very few exceptions. That was when I first met the rhododendrons or as the Seattleites would call their state flower, the "rhodies". My heart leaped and jumped and bounced as if I had never seen anything of such remarkable beauty. Now there is this 'thing' about me and those who know me would understand this. I am an obsessive nature lover and at times like these I become this absolutely incomprehensible person as if my life depended on that single moment. Most of Sam's techie friends must find me rather daft when I ramble on about how the Mount Rainier is actually an active volcano or the different kinds of maple trees or the hundreds of wild Himalayan flowers. Not that I mind their uninvolved air, but I just feel that there is so much more life in these marvels than watching detestable modern television or going to shopping malls and killing time by mostly window shopping.

Getting back to my spring euphoria, last year we were in Texas during spring and there was nothing much on the platter except a few desert willows and Mexican buckeyes bursting out in their white and pink glory. Fortunately we lived in the Hill Country area which is home to many little charming German villages that are nestled on higher altitudes and host the wildflower festival every year. We did get to see vast stretches of red poppies, bluebonnets and cornflowers, and being a wildflower buff I loved every bit of it. But all the while I longed to see some typical spring queens like tulips and daffodils which are exotic to my tropical eyes. My friends back home would often ask me about the American spring and I would be at a very sad loss. But this year luck has smiled upon me and we have recently moved to this quaint little place called Charlottesville in Virginia. Apart from getting to live in the eastern part of this huge country, there is another aspect that quite thrills me. The state of Virginia that got its name from the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth the 1st is culturally rich and is home to historical sites like Colonial Williamsburg, which was the first British capital. The stately red brick buildings and the gastropubs here are a classic example of the once flourishing British rule. This is also the land of the legendary Indian princess Pocahontas. So I do feel pretty regal in a strange fashion! And to add to all this, there's spring here. There are pearly magnolias on naked, leafless branches and vibrant forsythias that ring the word basanti in my mind. During my solitary walk yesterday I could spot clusters of wild daffodils here and there, some upright and the others still sleepy. There is a certain untamed beauty in things of the wild which is wanting in carefully, patterned landscapes.

Till date I was unaware that the prim garden daffodils also had wild cousins. Then the thought struck me, "of course, Wordsworth must have seen these wild ones in the Lake District"!

My next agenda is the national cherry blossom festival that takes place annually in Washington, D.C. After almost a complete month of being buried in brutal blizzards, the time has come to venture out and celebrate nature. This is that sort of place where I could wonder around like Ophelia, wearing a crown of wildflowers and throwing my cares to the mad world. And why not, because as they say here - "Virginia is for lovers"! Or for incurable romantics. Or a bit of both?!

An eternal love

It all started in the summer of 1998. My parents took me to Shimla, the old British summer capital, as a treat that befitted a fifteen year old who had just gone through the harrowing experience of the Board exams. I never had the foggiest idea that this journey would cling on to me as one of the most prized nostalgic recollections. We took a toy train from Kalka to Shimla for a panoramic view of the scenic Himalayas. The train rumbled on with puffs of smoke as it snaked the steep hills, brushing past the coniferous greens and the wild roses that grew carelessly on the hill slopes. Such was my first prelude to an everlasting romance: the hills. This towering side of nature mystified me to a great extent. A feeling of immense happiness and calm reverberated in me. It felt like a bizarre dream where a perfect bliss and harmony ruled the world. With a strange awakening, I returned back to my land of sun and palms.

Thereafter I nurtured a hope that someday I shall return to the hills, once again to be awed and mesmerised by their sheer stoicism. But time does play its elusive little tricks! After a vast stretch of ten years Darjeeling happened, the shinning jewel of the North Eastern Himalayas. This experience was more poignant and deep, for this time I devoured the pastoral beauty of hills with an adult eye. The balmy smell of the oaks and the pines, and the fog clad hills rekindled a lost fire. But what actually augmented the trance was the exotic North Eastern culture. I felt far removed from the India of tropics, from the India to which I belonged. This little tourist town with the omnipresence of the hovering Kanchenjunga in the azure sky, the striking patterns of silver jewelery and the mouth watering momos was the perfect escape that one could indulge in to forget a mundane city existence. I fed on every bit of the rustic hilly charm. On the day of leaving I could sense an odd feeling of loss, as if I had left little bits of my soul scattered everywhere, among the pine clusters, in the tea gardens, on the hilltops, and finally amidst the people.

Ever since I was a kid I have always savoured Ruskin Bond's stories which abound in tales of the sleepy Himalayan towns of the pre-independence days. No other writer has been able to capture the grandeur and the simplicity of the hills at the same time like him. After these Himalayan escapades, I would often read these stories with a touch of sentimentality. Months later, after our short and memorable holiday in Darjeeling, I had to fly to Seattle, the emerald city of America. The grief of leaving behind my home and my people had allowed me no time to delve into the topography of this foreign land which was to be my home for sometime. All I could gather from here and there was that it rained nine months of the year there. And with such prepossessions I found myself in Seattle in a late spring afternoon oohing at the blood red rhododendrons and the dark tall pines that thronged the avenues. The nostalgic air of the hills at once hit my senses. There was a countryside charm in the blinding greenery and the soothing clean air. As if God had at last heard me! Redmond, our neighbourhood, might be a prominent dot on the globe for being the Microsoft capital and the home of the great Bill Gates, but to a nature gazer like me the experience of living each day in this sylvan quietude was overwhelming. Visiting the picturesque Mount Rainier (in the picture above) remains the creme de la creme of my Seattle memoirs. Shrouded by pines and maples, it looked like a piece of magic, too surreal to stand on its own on this earth. The innumerable melting glaciers on its slate gray crest resembled locks of dishevelled white hair on an old man's face that has stiffened with age and experience.

And now, my mulling over these greener times on a hot Texan day, makes them grow fainter as if they belong to a long lost world. I have been longing for a bit of the proverbial 'mountain air' for my worries to melt away like the snow on the slopes of Mount Rainier. The haunting words of Rudyard Kipling keep playing in my mind - "The smell of the Himalayas, if it once creeps into the blood of a man, he will return to the hills again and again and will love to live and die among them."

I am all that I have

Gigantic spruce and pines engirdle my vision

watchful, stern as armed guards.
Rhododendrons of a bloody hue
proud of their plump bloom,
flank a choking-green yard.
Shivering thistle leaves promise a good summer.
Only what kind of summer, I ponder...
Unknown birds sing unheard tunes as if,
their lyrics were potent enough
to germinate a belongingness!

Strange, a nature so unscathed and unmarred,
everyday bruises my identity!
These hardly seem mine...
the trees, the flowers, the birds.
All beautiful, in such proximity
and yet so much distanced!
They can charm and excite,
and yet fail to captivate the 'me'...

A foreign me
that searches for trails of known-ness.
For sunny, tropical faces
For spices wafting in the air
For the known cacophony of crows, of blaring honks.
This frozen, alien nature,
this unaccustomed earth...
This is not mine.
Only, I am all that I have.

P.S. This was written with certain pre-conceived, foolish notions of a hopeless romantic about her initial experiences of being the 'foreigner'. Even the sylvan abundance of Seattle had failed to soothe her homesickness back then!