Chasing shadows

It's May, that paradox of a month when it's green and just the right amount of pretty on the other side of the globe and all we are left with is a big, blazing, burning sun that never shies away from showing off its summer might. Unfair!

As I sit at the kitchen table and watch the morning sun flood the apartment in rays of gold, many things scamper and skid through my mind. Off late, I have been chasing shadows a lot, of all shapes and kinds. Some go years back in time, when the sun was mellow and seasons were a part of life, and some very recent whose bodies are too patchy to give a name to them.

In such times, I came across Kamila Shamsie's Burnt Shadows — the heroic story of a woman, spanning decades and their history, who wears the scars of her past on her skin, literally, and carries their ominous shadows across the length and breadth of the world. Hiroko Tanaka, a brave, resilient Japanese woman, miraculously survives the horror of the 1945 Nagasaki bombings and trails her journey across the world, mapping her life through the troubled territories of Delhi, Istanbul, Karachi, and New York, in turn witnessing more death and disaster brought on by man upon man. Battling her own ghosts, she sees it all — the waning years of the British Raj in India, the bloody partition of India and Pakistan, the rise of terrorism in Pakistan, and finally the harrowing episode of 9/11 in New York. She sees it all, living and losing through each of these catastrophes. But what pestered me through the pages is this nagging question — whether the shadows just announced themselves wherever Hiroko arrived, or it was she who kept chasing shadows relentlessly all her life?

Some people have a reputation of casting shadows wherever they go, after all. Just like some carry a legacy of brewing storms in picture-perfect calmness.

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

 

Of palaces and lost times

September rushed past me like those blurry landmarks of memory, where one lives but often forgets the experience. As if someone tore off the ninth page from the calendar; as if it is still waiting, breathing quietly, like an actor in the wings to make a grand entry. So much happened and yet it feels as if this month never happened. Our families were here, I celebrated another birthday, we bought a little apartment facing nothing but open fields and straggly greens. And yes, it has balconies that can be turned into decent-sized greenhouses!
Somewhere in between all this, on a rainy Sunday afternoon, a few weeks back, we found ourselves in front of the gigantic gates of the Chowmahallah Palace. A rushed visit it was, for it had started pouring with a vengeance and someone had decided it'd be wise not to lug around the big camera. Smartphones then, had to save the day.
 
The silhouettes and curves of the ever-fascinating Persian architecture rising against a belligerent, overcast sky. Corridor after corridor of what seemed like eternity. The walls cracked and the yellow on them peeled to a heartbreaking perfection. Through a series of open doors emerges the heart of the palace. The sudden, on-your-face opulence of the Durbar Hall. Rows of dazzling Belgian-crystal chandeliers. Silent, glittering testimonials to the grandeur of the Hyderabad Nizams. Of times lost and days blotted out in yellowed pages of history. 

Qutub Minar

"Dear old world', she murmured, 'you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you."

~ L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

A mellow December day. The in-between balmy hours of late afternoon and early evening. Delhi, that mad, mad city, peopled to its brim. A bewitching mosaic of a myriad worlds. Two pairs of tired, yet eager feet hop on to an attractive, yellow-green CNG autorickshaw for a stroll around the Qutub Minar. Strange, how some places just refuse to grow old in your heart despite the number of visits. The road to the once ancient city of Mehrauli flanked by old peepal trees on both sides, chockablock with swanky cars. That's Delhi for you. A forever melting melange of the old and the new. The play of light and shade of the quaking leaves allow us intermittent glimpses of the towering Minar. Resplendent and majestic as ever. The fading winter sun baths the Qutub complex in a faint rosy light. A pleasing sandstone blush. The stage for the evening twilight is all set. The sleepy jasmines pout and preen for their nocturnal show. A flurry of pigeons and parrots search for their resting pads from the scores of nooks and corners. 

Amid all these enchantments, I try to find that lost world, when all this was true, when all this made sense. Perhaps it still does, to lost souls like me. Through its silent stone alleys and lattices, I try to unearth the magic of the bygones. I try to glue the fragments of a chipped history from the intricate carvings of the Quranic verses on the Minar's body. On the way out, I come across the bust of a half-baked dream, the abandoned Alai Minar - an ambitious imitation of the original, a dream that died with its dreamer. I remember being very moved by this story of unfulfilled aspirations when narrated by my father during my first visit to the Qutub Minar. I was fourteen then. Sixteen years later, nothing much has changed. I walk a little further and find a fallen tree, almost uprooted and spreadeagled on the ground in the most hopeless of manners, yet flourishing perfectly with the green vigor of life. May be we all need our stack of half-baked dreams to show us the path to that pot of green gold.
As the day finally calls it a day, whining about tiredness and the crowd, we walk out of the complex. And so do the birds.

John Keats

New historians have always made me a little edgy, and this is yet another of those times.

John Keats. He has been my unwavering bright star, from the word go. Ever since the nightingale song, he has been my hero. As if his enchanting poetry wasn't all, there was Fanny Brawne and then, that untimely, miserable death. His name echoed a string of tragedies - deaths in the family, unrequited love, a consuming illness; everything that endeared him to a teenage heart then.
But then came this, and ever since the morning, after reading it at a rather deliberate confusing haste, and re-reading it later to register it all, in between flashes of denial and doubt, I have reached one conclusion: I still don't understand it. May be I don't want to.

True, a languorous, dreamy aura pervades his poetry, but that cannot necessarily justify a laudanum haze. Yes, if one looks with the intention of confirming him as an opium addict, his poetry is a deluge of visions, chockablock with reveries of 'drowsy numbness' and 'a life of Sensations rather than Thoughts'. But is poetry to be read and understood literally? Isn't that against the very grain of it? Moreover, what happened to the good old trap of intentional fallacy?
On the contrary, it is this very element of detachment from the pains of the physical world and the transportation to the higher realms of tranquility and aestheticism, that makes Keats so very memorable and different from the other Romantics. The world would be a rather dull place if not for his 'Poesy' - a strange, yet impressive combination of beauty and melancholy.

And so, the bright star shines on, steadfast as ever.

"Here lies one whose name was writ on water."

~ Keats, epitaph for himself

(Portrait of Keats by William Hilton.
Source: Wikipedia)

Old tombs

My parents left yesterday evening and since then the emptiness of the house has been quite overwhelming, much more than what I had expected it would be. Ten great days punctuated by momentary disagreements (courtesy my string of tiring Virgo compulsions) sure did a world of good to the loner inside me. Now that they are gone, the gnawing unfamiliarity of everything has come back to haunt me once again. After all, amid all the chaos of the known and the unknown, the old and the new, they are the only ounce of belonging that encourages me to hang on and keep trying.

In my desperate attempt to unearth the old signs and songs that my heart was once so well versed with, I have embarked upon a determined journey - to go back to those places that once upon a time had rooted me to this colorful city. What could be more reassuring for a pair of searching, doubting eyes than a walk down the precious past. So braced with my parents and some cherished old memories, last weekend, I marched hopeful and brave toward my favorite jaunt in the city - the eternal Qutub Shahi tombs. Popularly called the Seven tombs for the seven members of the Qutub Shahi dynasty buried there, these cluster of soot-soaked mausoleums bathed in a charming timelessness has always held a special place in my heart. And this time, this is what what I came back with. 

A place of paradoxes. Enveloped in lush greenery yet covered in the dust of time and neglect, the blackened domes stand proud and mighty against all odds. A place of reverberating serenity. Pearly plumerias adorn the shaded path to the tombs while the quivering bougainvillea petals veil the weathered sepulchers in a dreamy magenta sheen. The soporific, monotonous cooing of the pigeons perched inconspicuously in the latticework. A place of surprises. The intricately detailed alleys and passages come to life with the echoes of footsteps while opening up to an unexpected facade at every turn. A place to get lost for hours. The fast fading but still breathtaking blend of Persian and Pashtun architecture takes one back to the days of poetry and grandeur. The mortuary bath, the carelessly covered sarcophagus, the dilapidated mosques strewn here and there, the watchful minarets, the aging bougainvillea - all define a time that is surely lost, but can still be felt.