Monsoon and after

It has arrived, the monsoon, and with what frenzy. With the temperatures taking a huge plunge from the maddening 40Cs to the refreshing 20Cs and the city washed off its accumulated dust and summer sins, everything sparkles in a nascent, green light. A huge, huge sigh of relief it is. This much-awaited and welcome change has also brought some odd guests along - waterlogged roads, traffic delays and the most annoying of all, the common cold. It has been raining achoos all over and in my case, it is accompanied by a horrible sore throat as well. Home delivered pizza, lazily boiled soup and ginger-clove tea is what I have been living on for the past two days.

There is also the old, trusted cure of books, the very smell and feel of them and Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha it is this time. Devoid of chronology or coherence (and sometimes sense too), initially all one gets is the feel of listening to a little boy ramble on about his adventures with his friends. But then slowly it grows on you, this beautiful chaos, and flashback by flashback you get it all. Ten-year old Paddy's colloquial, naive first-person narration, the abusive relationship between the parents, and the reader's humored confusion, all remind me of Francie Brady's life in The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe (a must-read, by the way).

For some reason, I have always enjoyed Irish literature, its characters in particular and the resigned manner in which they go about their lives. There's a subtle yet sublime stoicism in them that I admire, one that caters to my present sour mood quite well.

A word about the pictures in this post:

Unable to lug the gigantic SLR around in this weather and my cold-ridden state, I finally tried my hands at Instagram, and viola! I am absolutely in love with the fact that one could just work wonders with one's mobile phone. Now the very hip and happening Urban Dictionary defines Instagram as - "Every hipster's favorite way to make it look like they take really classy pictures when really they are still using their phones. Yeah, you might really look cute/old school/vintage/retro, but it's still a cell phone picture."
Whatever the purists might say, I am all for this instant fun. What say you all?

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.

Spring Renaissance

"My heart that was rapt away by the wild cherry blossoms - will it return to my body when they scatter?" ~ Kotomichi

"Spring? And now?", will be probably your first question. I know it is quite late into the year for celebrating cherry blossoms, particularly when the leaves are about to turn and set the earth's canvas ablaze in fiery, feisty hues. But what the heck, there's no time for spring! We carry it in our hearts all the time, don't we? When happiness is perched on green leafy branches, oozing with the fragrance of love and joy... When long forgotten emotions waltz through the air and bring back a basket of ethereal moments... When that sudden realization of being alive stirs up a little throbbing storm inside... When dormant hopes rise up from their dank beds to bathe you in sunshine and desire...

So, disobeying chronology and upsetting nature's scrapbook, I thought of talking cherry blossoms today. Cherry blossoms and their revival in me.

Back in the real spring, I had come across an achingly beautiful quote by the eighteenth century Japanese author Kotomichi, which I had fallen in love with the moment I had read it. How it couldn't make its way into this blog I do not remember, for it had touched me a great deal. The coming together of the fairy-like delicate cherry blossoms and the transience of human happiness in the lines is beyond poignancy. And so I want to preserve it somewhere here, which has become a sketchy memoir of sorts. This further led me meandering to one of the most popular and oft cited poems of Modern American Literature - In a Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound. Taking birth from intense emotions and composed of a handful of just fourteen words, the poem is Imagism at its best. To do justice to the renewal of spring, I married off these beautiful lines with some photos that I had clicked earlier this spring. And what gorgeous couples they make!

"The apparitions of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough."

~ Ezra Pound

Of monsoons and memories

It is almost a year and some stubborn bouts of homesickness since my last trip home. I remember the monsoons had just waltzed in, washing away the dirt and sins of a merciless summer. How deliciously green everything looked! Shining with innocence and stripped of pretense, the very air smelled of love. And by love, I mean that first teenage crush, the galore of unexplained giggles and the ignorance that it can never end. Blessed foolishness!

The feisty gulmohar, in its blazing orangeness, played the perfect coy mistress to the hilt. She was the star of the garden and who were the dashing paper-kite butterflies to resist such charm?! What a grand garden feast it was! The pomegranate tree carried a confusing weight of both the blossoms as well as the tiny fruits, as if in a hurry to greet the rains. Amid all this burst of life surrounding me, a mean viral fever tried hard to dampen my joy, but in vain. The bedside window wasn't good enough when the earth was crooning its most romantic song.

The plump mangoes had fallen of their branches, impatient to rest on the fragrant, rain-kissed earth. How we had devoured them - raw with salt and red chilly flakes, chutney-ed, juiced, pickled. There is something about mangoes that always brings back childhood memories, of summer vacations and grandma's old house. That is the place where stories are told and memories are spun, where parents cease to be themselves and allow you to make a clown of yourself.

The rains also brought a winged guest one afternoon - an enchanting kingfisher. I had never seen one from such proximity and thus was thrilled beyond imagination. It sat on the same branch for about an hour, in its blue finery, as if brooding over its hapless past. Sometimes it made annoying faces and ruffled its beautiful feathers, as if I was a paparazzi interrupting the precious meditation. I was only too fortunate to have a treasure trove of some perfect birdie shots and how effortlessly! As if the kingfisher knew it takes only moments before I would get tired from perfection, it flew away, perhaps to some faraway distant place.

Just like I did after a fortnight.

Love songs from my kitchen

Pakora, when it pitter-patters raindrops

Tandoori chicken, get a whiff of the roaring highway side dhaba

Shrimp bruschettas, the perfect bite-sized dreams

Pan-seared tilapia, let your taste buds sing

Penne pasta & Minestrone soup, bask under a Tuscan sun

Hyderabadi chicken biryani, royally yours

A tree story

I pout and preen in my blossomy sheen

I swing and dance in a greenish trance

I'm the perfect coy mistress in my golden autumn dress

I shiver and sigh when the winds are high

Cold and lonely I stand, dreaming of a happy summery land