Oh, London!

 

When September began, that bewitching temptress of months, I turned another year and found myself to be in the city of cities, London. And might I just say, for starters and for the obvious lack of poetry - Oh, London, how pretty art thou!

An old soul wandering in an olde worlde - that's just the kind of escape my heart was longing for since days and the spontaneity of this trip is what makes it so incredible. Ever since we have been here, I've practically been all over the place: museum-hopping and walking past the now obscure residences of literary heavyweights; walking under the breathtaking weepy willows in a Alice-like stupor and learning the names of English roses in the royal parks; basking in the golden-green of the early autumn sun and enjoying the crackling crunch of russet leaves; childlike surprise upon spotting clumps of spring crocuses that seemed to have sprouted overnight in a great haste; oohing at the medieval architecture, a towering aspect of the city's majestic facade; experimenting the famous pub grub in the masculine-named English pubs along with cafe stalking, what with the addictive cappuccinos the city coffeehouses offer; the touristy fascinations of walking on centuries-old bridges and streets and marveling at the modern seductions added to a rapidly-changing cityscape; watching the sun set on the mythical Thames casting deep silhouettes on the the magical spires. Oh, it's all so overwhelming and surreal.

True, London can be intimidating, even terrifying at times, but a place where absolutely no one knows you can also be liberating in many ways. It is often so exhilarating to be a foreigner, to see a place with a pair of exotic, unbiased eyes. And I'll be doing just that for some more time. I purposely sat down today morning and hunted for a quote that would justify the myriad emotions I'm swimming in, for it is all too heady for me at the moment to construct a coherent post.

"The best bribe which London offers to-day to the imagination, is, that, in such a vast variety of people and conditions, one can believe there is room for persons of romantic character to exist, and that the poet, the mystic, and the hero may hope to confront their counterparts."

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

The new view

It rains everyday. Sometimes in thunderous downpours but mostly in soothing lullabies. And when the dark clouds puff and rumble their way down, the coconut trees dance with a new-found greenness. For my green-deprived eyes, this is sheer visual poetry and much more when I realize that all this is happening when I'm still living in a big, bustling city. In India.
Of course there are the ubiquitous sky-hugging buildings too, that stand so assertively punctuating the green patch. Those rectangular dots of concrete, when strung together, that map the oxymoronic facade of this city. But on my side of the world here, unmindful of the cacophony of an always-on-its-toes city, the trees win. And so does the sky.

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.

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?

   

Monsoon, interrupted

Of late, I've been robbed of many of my favorite things - reading, blogging, watching the rain, to name a few. Thanks to work piling on heap upon heap, I've been away from my world for what seems like an eternity now. I tried, and not once, to come here and drop in a few lines, but every time the words would evade me. True, it's no fun editing academic stuff, because then all you are left with is finding flaws and correcting them. And it's supposed to stay so for a month more.
The only hints of newness that have stumbled across my way, other than one full day of sale-shopping madness, are these hues of green - the ubiquitous Hyderabadi haleem lacing the city roadsides in colourful, illuminated kiosks, and my potted palm that seems to be making most of the monsoons. At least someone's getting to enjoy the rains!

Solitude

"Finding solitude in the concrete jungle is powerful and peaceful."

~ Mike Dolan

Another of those picturesque lavender dusks. A sight so familiar, but still a novelty each time it happens. A bustling Friday traffic roars under the balmy pink-orange spread of the sky. Lights and buildings. Buildings and lights. The city blurs into a distance in my mind and ceases to be. A blissful solitude embraces me quietly. Let the weekend begin!

Buddha beckons

As I try to gather the loose strings of this post in my mind, a faint, haunting smell of mustard wafts its way through the windows. Being the queen of associative nostalgia, I am at once reminded of my most favorite comfort food - roasted potatoes mashed in a drizzle of mustard oil, with a bunch of chopped onions and green chilies thrown in for that aromatic kick. And that settles it, the tonight's dinner dilemma.

Before I confuse you further with the mismatching of the post title and its beginning, I must very quickly come back. Straying, as you must be quite aware of by now, comes so very naturally to me.
So Buddha, the great Gautama. Neither am I spiritual, nor am I a regular reader of his teachings, The Dhammapada, like my father and his childhood friend. It's just that face, that radiant, reverberating pool of wisdom and serenity. Those quiet, half-closed eyes and the kind lips curled into a forever understanding smile. They are my collective refuge, from the woes of inconsiderate, loud neighbors, the downsides of staying in a ground floor apartment and the soot making its way into our lives from the nearby, always running highway. Sure, one cannot immediately find a new place and afford to go through the settling-in drama all over again, one can only hope to adapt. To the noise, the blackening doom and the growing restlessness. The face muffles it all, for a while at least.

"Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without."
~ Buddha

Lotus Pond

A humid, overcast September afternoon. The impending rains fuel the end of the weekend lethargy, and make buzzing, predatory circles inside my head. An equally wearied husband comes and says, "May be we should go out." And that settles it. We head towards the Lotus Pond, a place that had been on our minds ever since the days have become cooler and the sun a tad friendlier. A man-made pond, surrounded by a kilometer and half of walking area, the park is a lush green palette in the middle of the screechy, sooty cityscape. Well maintained and easily accessible, if one forgets the mean mosquito rampage, there is a diverse beauty in the park's chaotic wilderness - bamboo groves, colorful reeds, wildflowers, rock formations, and myriad water birds are just some to name a few.

As soon as one gets on the winding, reed-lined path, "Bow down to nature" commands an old tree and actually makes you do so! The late afternoon light paints a surreal picture of the pond, highlighting the pink glow of the lotus against a backdrop of muted blue-green. The carpet of beautiful leaves spread here and there, some dry and shriveled, give one the impression of a pond-upon-pond palimpsest. More than the dreamy lotuses, I am in love with these leaves and try to capture them greedily from every which way possible. However, more drama, more illusion beckon. A wooded path leads to more flowers, more charm. Dragonflies galore, and with their skittering wings of red and rust, the air is abuzz with flickering sparks. A pair of squabbling cormorants, carefully avoiding each other's eyes. The colorful melange of the pink and white bougainvilleas punctuated by stray bamboo groves. Soon, dusk falls and the twilight veils the pond in a magical hue. The lotus leaves turn a somber dark green and my heart moves back to them. Pearly water droplets slither and dance on their waxy bodies before finally calling it a day. An elfin, enchanting world. 

Hyderabad rocks

An old, old picture. The famous "Mushroom Rock" in my university campus. One of the many such strange, fascinating stray rock formations in the city. A site most frequented by wanderers and lovers, but mostly by nature worshipers like me. All this dates back to a good seven years, when the world around us was a little greener. 

To come back to the now, while on our way to the airport last weekend for a short trip to my in-laws', we were awed by the dramatic rocky landscape once again. The airport being far removed from the heart of the construction sprouting city, one gets an impression of being ushered by these stunning rock beauties lining both sides of the freeway. Balanced as if by magic and stoic from the scores of years of experience, the rock structures stand strong under a mellow sky. Part of the sprawling Deccan Plateau, the basalt and granite boulders are stacked upon each other in the most mysterious manner. 

But very soon one awakens to the sad reality, and not without a jolt - everyday, bit by bit, this spectacular rockscape is thoughtlessly chipped down to make way for towering buildings. The math is simple - more greed, more infrastructure, more money. Thus, in the name of urbanization, merciless quarrying of an ancient treasure has chiseled away years of history and heritage. If not for the laudable efforts of the Society to Save Rocks, this wonderful piece of nature's handiwork would be lost forever. Hope the much published and less practiced "Rock Walks" take a big leap into every Hyderabadi's heart and spread the word - Hyderabad rocks, noun or verb. 

August blooms

"Many things grow in the garden that were never sown there."

~ Thomas Fuller

Little by little, inch by inch, the spaces in our new home are being adorned with meaning and life. With the rooms almost done and the last of our shipped boxes waiting to be unpacked, the settling part at least seems to be falling into place. I had kept the garden for the last, for it needs time and patience. Like all things that need love and nurturing do.
Now, I wish, and how desperately, that I had a real garden, one where I could dig into the dirt and let my soul lose in its intoxicating earthiness. But this is a city, or as my favorite cliche would convey it more beautifully, a concrete jungle. And all I have got is a rather huge rectangular balcony where toddlers could play cricket! But the abundant space does allow me to dream of a colorful little balcony garden with rusty, unpretentious terracotta pots. I intend to create a green, breathing pad that would provide a refreshing refuge from the din and decay of the dreary city life. So with the hibiscus, rose and marigold, I dream of painting my balcony with a carnival of colors.

And so August blooms, verb or noun, quite literally.

Cloud burst

"The clouds, - the only birds that never sleep."

~ Victor Hugo

For a sky that otherwise looks engulfed in smoke and haggard from the tiresome, monotonous rants of its earth-side denizens, this seemed a fine enough spectacle. Fluff after fluff of sheer bliss it was. An azure carpet strung together with pearly, white beads. Uncountable hopeful smiles floating together in a joyous vacuum. A surreal world, peaceful and true, spreadeagled over a haphazardly stacked chaos of cold concrete. See it whichever way you would, it felt too good be true.
Some other positive signs that this surprising cloud burst brought forth - a cool morning breeze and the news of the first monsoon showers that further signal the fast approaching end of the tyrannous summer. Bring on those big, fat drops now!

India

Hyderabad. A scorching 42 degrees Celsius. A brain melting, nausea ridden fortnight. Sometimes a little guilt ridden and chokingly nostalgic too. For leaving behind the alpine grandeur and a home that already appears a little blurred in my memory-scape. Red and yellow clumps of gulmohar, perhaps the only spots of colour in this heartless, sprawling jungle of concrete. Hi-tech City, they call it with love and a strange pride. Bereft of life and charm, gone is that old city of Nizams. Five years! It sure is a long period of time. For money-minting builders and tree-chopping maniacs at least. We had once left this place and how heartbreakingly, only to come back and find it shockingly altered. What was once familiar has become intimidating now. And perhaps a little taunting too. One of the most uncomfortable feelings, may be.

I hope to dig some remnants of the old world glory, of the lanes and bylanes once steeped in history and dipped in tales. But not today. With the house hunt gladly done away with, it's mission 'salt to sofa' for the moment. Setting up another home, lining up another set of dreams. Life!