Bangalore-d

"The city is not a concrete jungle, it's a human zoo."

~ Desmond Morris

A desk and chair by the window. An oddly quiet hotel room in contrast to the view it offers. Translucent beige drapes trying hard to veil the stark ugliness of a construction site. Another addition of the 'state-of-the-art elegance' to the already bursting-at-seams concrete jungle. Stray bits of news glare from the city daily's front page. I ignore them all, choosing a classic and my favorite Latin American in the world, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The subtle aroma of green tea with a hint of cinnamon and honey from a bag. The nervous anticipations of finding a place and fitting in to the rhythms of a maddeningly crowded city. The comforting assurances of old friends who are just a call and some kilometers away.

So that's me Bangalore-d for now. Though not in the strictest sense of the word. 

The perfect closure

Old roads. Strewn with gulmohar petals, dusted with a fading nostalgia. The play of sun and shade dancing on their parched faces. A stray bicycle leaning picturesquely on a tree. Trees and trees all around. Tall, stout, leaved to their very best of summer glory. Somewhere a peacock calls lazily. Not many anymore as in those days. The familiar taste of the paratha and potato curry in the Students' Canteen. And the more than familiar, bureaucratic superiority of the administrative staff. Revisiting the old spaces. The verdant nooks that helped many to escape the world. Be it badly turned assignments or matters of heart. Driving to the signboard 'School of Humanities' and taking a sharp U-turn. What if no one recognizes me? It has been a good seven years after all.

It feels like the perfect end to my love-hate relationship with this city. My second home and my first exposure to life outside my culture, this is a city that I had once loved to the brink of my heart never knowing that one day I'll be more than desperate to escape it. And I've realized, one necessarily doesn't bid farewell to the campus after passing out of the university. Or when you leave the city (for the second time) for that matter. It'll always live inside you. A stroll between the rows of cork trees, my favorite space in the whole of the sprawling 2,300 acres, was enough to tell me that. And whenever I'm there I'll always remember the wide-eyed, passionate young woman who had arrived one July morning, armed with her Shakespeare and Keats and a little of something that resembled a small-town shyness that has never quite left her.

A summer of bouquets

"... When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table ..."

~ T.S. Eliot, 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'

Last week, on a quintessential summer afternoon, we set out on a picture-taking long ride. As the mocking, piercing late-afternoon sun gradually began melting into a warm, golden twilight, things took a mellow turn. That is when Eliot's timeless poem struck me, when the sprawling, bougainvillea-laced roadside, draped with the pinkish-gold sheen took our breath away. We have always admired this green, wooded patch of about ten kilometres, a road that leads to my alma mater, the University of Hyderabad, but come summer and it turns into a different world altogether. Therefore, only passing by it and admiring nature's patchwork isn't enough; one has to capture their kaleidoscopic glory, the gorgeous pink-and-yellow embroidery of the bougainvilleas and the laburnums. A fine summer bouquet, I call it. Who would believe there's this huge concrete, IT jungle that lies coughing and panting right next to it!

 
The other bouquets, and none too pleasing as the above, that are looming large in our days is the hullabaloo of an upcoming move to a new city in June. This May marks the exact two years since we wrapped up our lives in Seattle for a much-debated return to the home country and now it's time to move again, to go through that uncomfortable process of leaving the old and adopting the new. And this time, unlike Hyderabad, it's an entirely new city. There's a world out there that doesn't know me and whom I don't know. Despite its claims of being the best city to settle in India for nomadic hearts like us, if you have been reading me for a while you probably know how and to what extent change bothers me. I am a creature of habit. To the core. But hopefully, with friends who go back a long way and with scenic getaways within hours' drives from the city, this time it'll be different. Hopefully, this time I'll be less complaining and more appreciative of my surroundings. Hopefully, this time I'll have a tree by my window and can watch the sky puff and roar when it rains. Hopefully.  

Hill fever

"I go to the hills when my heart is lonely
I know I will hear what I've heard before
My heart will be blessed with the sound of music
And I'll sing once more..."

Wanderlust. It all came back with a morning watch of that darling of a film. Once again that desperate longing for the hills. The itch to sniff the piney mountain air. Where the sun is honest and the people simple-hearted. Where windows open to silent, sagely peaks. Where serpentine roads climb in a moody fashion. Where life does not mean getting gagged by work and expectations ...

While I pine for all this in my heart of hearts, I have been cooped up for a few days with a stubborn throat infection that just refuses to leave. And bouts of feverishness make it even more worse. The hills, the pines, the people - all seem far, far away. It's a terrible feeling, to be at one place and to leave one's soul languishing in another. Much more terrifying than that is to be surrounded by people and yet feel the most crushing pang of loneliness, because nothing they say makes sense to the world inside your head and vice versa. So for now, I'll have to do with Prajwal Parajuly's The Gurkha's Daughter that brings eight colorful tales from the Himalayan foothills to my arid Hyderabad doorstep. The debut of a brilliant 27-year-old, the simple yet deeply humane stories, not for once fail to mesmerize with their tender storytelling. The aroma of steamy momos, the reverberating serenity of the gompas, the ubiquitous prayer flags framed against the blue backdrop of alpine skies, the omnipresent Kanchenjunga, the murky waters of the winding Teesta - I see them all in the faint yellow of the afternoon light streaming through the bedroom windows. As I had seen them, wide-eyed and hypnotized, in a freezing winter of 2007. So yes, the hill junkie is satiated for now.

And whoever came up with the honey-ginger-pepper tea for such sore and croaky times - may you be blessed forever!

Both sides

Having nothing much to say or share at the moment for a combination of various odd reasons, thought posting this song, that has been playing on my mind for some time now, would be a good change. When one finds it difficult to have one's usual way with words, I believe, one should best remain quiet. You see, they have to come to you, words.
And so, I will let Joni Mitchell's clever and comforting words speak on my mute behalf. They have often provided me solace in strange times, and the most when I have been a stranger to myself. When the whys and hows of the world are hurled from every possible direction at you. When you realize that it doesn't always have to be an epic, cinematic tragedy for the old heart to be tired. That a whimper is all it takes to break it, yet again.

 (Photo courtesy: Wikipedia)

Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I've looked at clouds that way

But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
I've looked at clouds from both sides now

From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all

Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As ev'ry fairy tale comes real
I've looked at love that way

But now it's just another show
You leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know
Don't give yourself away

I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all

Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say "I love you" right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I've looked at life that way

But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I've changed
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living every day

I've looked at life from both sides now 
From win and lose and still somehow 
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all
I've looked at life from both sides now 
From up and down, and still somehow 
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all
~ Joni Mitchell, 'Both Sides, Now'

Change

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another."

~ Anatole France

I wish I could frame and structure my emotions better than what the great poet has already said, and how beautifully. Achingly beautiful, actually. How very ironic it all seems - when the whole world around me is undergoing a spring makeover and getting dressed in the splendor of a newly sprouted green, inside, I am groping for ways to embrace this whole other kind of change.

Change, however insignificant or huge, has never been my forte. An annoyingly stubborn creature of habit, I can crack and burst under the slightest of pressures, a trait I have continually loathed. Last week saw the beginning of the much dreaded goodbyes - bittersweet dinners and parting gifts - and as much as I would wish this all away, I know it's out there lurking around the corner.
However this time, I'm still in one piece and that is quite unusually strong for someone like me. The feeling is yet to sink in, although the countdown has certainly begun knocking at the back of my head. I don't know if this is good or bad but trudge on I must, belting my emotions for a proper unleashing, for some day quiet and befitting. Whether this is being brave or just wallowing in denial, let it just be. It's only a handful of days anyway.

The sparrows have come back in flocks and broods. The bird-feeder, never left a moment alone, swings in joy from the dance of their communal meal. Jostling for space while eyeing that next precious morsel, the patio fills in with their noisy chatter. The furry little guy has returned too from his long winter sleep, scurrying up and down the mossy branches, sometimes even hanging upside down in the most precarious of positions. Plump, promising buds on my potted azalea stir to burst open, the full-bodied May bloom of which I won't be here to see. Unfamiliar birds grace the berry tree, just like new future residents will inhabit this apartment. Chocolate-pecan scones, the last of the homemade goodies to come out of my oven here. And thus, the temperamental baker signs off. Of course, for the time being only. 

A leaf and another birthday

I have turned, and how!

Vein by vein, pore by pore

You've coloured

and changed me so

I sure have bloomed

Oh my, just how!

There was once a time so green

Precious childhood, that waxy sheen

Then came along the Sun,

the Rain and a few strange signs

I tossed and turned

blushed and burned

And I never was the same again.

Drunk with light, neck-deep in life

Dressed in such shooting rainbows dear

Do I care for that gust of wind

That bullies me so?

The autumn woman celebrates another birthday today, and what better than a colour-kissed geranium leaf (that too from her own plant!) to mark the day.

Autumn, sure, is in the air. Welcome back trendy sweaters, scurrying squirrels, smiling chrysanthemums, fat pumpkins and apples galore.
And yes, may be a little wisdom too.

An old poem

It has been quite long since I've posted any poem. I found some fragments of an old poem, of old buried feelings, most of which I have outgrown. Or perhaps they outgrew me...

Such times were they...

Once called "once upon a time"

When the trees chimed and elves danced

The sun was a lump of citrine, the moon an enchanted mirror...

Love truly meant sleepless nights

Children trailed ruts of pixie dust...

In such times of perfection,

the storm came, one that comes after the proverbial lull.

So much happened, the change of hearts and hearths

Hopes aborted and lives defeated.

So many bits were scattered in the air --

A constellation of marred dreams.

I came out of it unscathed, albeit a little tired

Treading on the debris of skin and scars

into the clutches of a new world.

One without edges or frills,

a womb of openness.

No more walls.

In letting go...

To leave and be left behind are perhaps the two ruthless wheels on which the world strides. We have all left someone or have been left by someone at various unfortunate phases of our lives. What is it with me that keeps pushing me to the boundaries till I break? Years after a much cherished bond, one day it just falls out. Just like that. For a bunch of stupid misunderstandings, for reasons so trivial that they were able to toss years of love and laughter into a puzzled silence. It feels so supremely foolish to have had trusted someone with your life and its every little worthless detail. Sure I have lived through times when I would hang on to things that at some point would have hurt me or angered me. But the resentment would not last forever. Somehow things would patch up and the differences would be stocked up for a good nostalgic laugh. This time it is different and much more difficult, probably because we are adults now and the carefree air of childhood that shielded our blunders is no more there. We are all caught in an inescapable domestic quagmire of our own. There are so many new worlds in which we try to fit in and fail miserably. There are people whom you just don't understand, whose remorseless deeds tear you to shreds every time and in spite of all this life has to go on. Therefore this time I have not been able to pick up the shattered pieces and glue them together. May be because I can still see the fractured portions which are too loud to be ignored. Or may be it lacked the togetherness that such timeless relationships stand for. Or may be I am just plain tired.

Since I could neither forgive nor forget, the only other way left was a difficult but wise one. To let go of what is eating you, to get over the lingering gloom. I had never been able to understand the art of letting go because I loved wallowing in self pity. I was, and perhaps still am, obsessed with glorifying my grief. The free spirited child in me could never appreciate the subtle and uninvolved state of stoicism. Sure, I have quit wearing rose-tinted glasses long, long back but still I am a romantic at heart. But perhaps things are changing, and definitely for the better. The wide chasm of the deep rooted sorrow seems to be melting away. When something is just not meant to be perhaps it should be left that way. Although it is difficult to erase attachments that have gone strong for decades, I do feel healed of the anger and the hurt. May be this is a momentary feeling but it does feel light headed and wholesome. Whatever this feeling is, I want it to stay and nourish my weary mind. Because in spite of lugging the emotional baggage people do move on and so must I. After all the world has no time for clingy souls.

Tired and bruised!

There are days when you feel broken and torn and everything around you just goes on to contribute to this hard, knotty feeling. Moving to a new place is really tiresome and this was our fourth move in just two years. It has been a week since we moved into our new apartment and I, who is otherwise smart with new places, is struggling to find my way around. The built up lethargy of our longish hotel stay prior to our moving here is showing up. Now when I am back to my mundane do-it-on-your-own life, with no blessed "housekeeping" knocking at the door, I am at my wit's end. Nicknamed "queen of orderliness" by Sam, I find difficult to live up to it in the present circumstances. The 'queen', who loved to cook, now dreads the kitchen because that is where most of the disasters take place. I spill, drop, scatter and even manage to turn on the wrong stove while the pot is sitting on the other. Dinners which I could fix in no time are taking hours with my sluggish pace. I am a complete sight!

While browsing through the gardening isle in Walmart yesterday, I chanced upon this lovely sham bamboo sitting pretty in a ceramic arrangement. The tag said "Let luck shower on you", so there it was on my kitchen window, sipping sunlight through the blinds. I could never understand Feng Shui and the only reason I get lured by these items is because they represent the colourful, exotic Orient. It was simply a fake assurance, something to bring a smile to my careworn face.

But this was not the end to my string of maladies. It also happened to be the much dreaded time for one of these blinding migraine headaches which made things worse. At such times I become this ultra sensitive person who would flinch from any kind of light or noise and would just prefer to lie down in a dark corner with a cold gel pack pressed on the forehead. There was a saviour for my disappointing afternoon in the name of Julie & Julia. I finally got to watch the movie and could relate to Julie in more than one way. Like me she loved to cook and also happened to blog. Like me she too felt that her dreary life had no purpose and that she just lived her days one after the other. The movie cheered me up like any other Meryl Streep starrer does. I felt revived and was looking forward to an evening walk with Sam by the lake side, which happens to be right in front of our apartment. So there I was promising myself to be cheerful and positive, surrounded by dogwood flowers and paddling geese. Everything was perfect until this cute little Dalmatian came along with its owner. Normally pets here are very friendly and well trained. But this one, for no apparent reason, lunged forward at me with a nasty snarl which made me grab on to the hedge behind as a desperate measure. Just then I felt a stabbing pain in my thigh and almost for a second thought the canine had managed to get a chunk off me. Instead it was the fence which I had bumped into hence resulting in a big painful bruise. The puzzled owner just offered a polite American 'sorry' and marched off with her leashed fury.

It has been more than four hours since this harrowing incident and I still wonder what made that dog behave in such a strange manner. I am utterly crushed because I am a major dog lover. I am tired of this horrible day and I want it to end. Without further ado, the best thing would be to go to bed. I might have a perfect sleep with the perfect dream as Dumbledore says "In dreams, we enter a world that's entirely our own". I hope when I wake up I will find my lost world of order and reign as the 'queen' again.

A whiff of nostalgia

Strange, how a certain place grows on us and then goes on to become a part of us, of the intricate web of 'who I am'. Most of the times this gossamer bond is formed due to pleasant people who go on to make sunshine memories. But there have been occasions when the tidings were a little rough. Still, I find myself so much tethered to that place, to its lanes and bylanes, to every one of its facade. A strange sense of sadness and loss overcomes me while leaving a certain place, even if the stay would not have been of such a conclusive duration that would define my emotions. It is not the coming change that worries me, but the leaving behind, the little somethings that I shall no more be able to hold as a part of my everyday life bothers me. There is always some bit of memory or a piece of my surrounding that I cling on to dearly as a remnant, a precious fossil of all these places.
A few days back I stumbled upon a quote by the French poet Anatole France which did help me to understand my predicament to a great extent: "All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." And so I yearn for this dead life, one that has long shut its doors on me.

Most of the times I nurse my nostalgia with a characteristic scent of these dead lives. I have read somewhere that this tendency to associate memories with a definitive smell is called associative nostalgia. Isn't it strange how we decide to preserve certain memories in the backstreet of our minds? The world may not care twopence about them, but you do. I remember my childhood in so many ways - the festive air swollen with incense and the latest Hindi film songs during the pujas, the comforting scent of Nivea creme which used to come in a round blue tin box back then, the smell of old, yellowed books in Bapa's room. My inexperienced hostel days in Bhubaneswar take me back to the evening summer breeze that made its way through the windows to my study table where I would be fiddling with the bulk of A History of English Literature, knowing not what to do with the scores of literary heavyweights mentioned in there. Sometimes the graduation days also remind me of the fresh roasted bhutta (corn on the cob) in the rainy evenings or the citrus Elle 18 perfume which I loved to wear to my morning Honours classes. When I remember my days in Hyderabad, the city of love for me, I get a whiff of the old world charm from the ittar vendors along side the bylanes of Charminar. At other times the addictive elaichi chai (cardamom tea) of the university canteen does the trick. It is as if I live and relive these fond moments in these aromas, hence making them immortal and exclusively mine. The mention of Seattle brings back the characteristic dewy, dreamy scent of rain and pines. Our apartment in Redmond, the little Microsoft city neighbouring Seattle, reminds me of freshly mowed grass and a dish washing soap of water lily and jasmine fragrance. The minimal amount of time that we spent in the bay area of California contributes to my nostalgia bank as well. I would often admire the intimidatingly beautiful redwood trees during my solitary evening walks, and later would try to recollect their woody smell.

Jagjit Singh, with his voluminous range of ghazals that perfect such sombre moods has sung the most apt lines on the lingering fragrance of memories:

Shaam mehke tere tassawur se,

Shaam ke baad phir saher mehke...

(The evening is fragrant with your thoughts,

After the evening, the dawn is fragrant as well...)