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?!

The Sakura experience

Last evening we went out to try some Japanese delicacy to Sakura, a Japanese steakhouse. The word sakura in Japanese means flowering cherry or cherry blossoms. I have always wanted to taste sushi, but for some reason or the other I keep postponing it. Probably it is the thought of consuming raw fish that turns me off. But I always love to learn and experience the different food cultures and Japanese was one that I had yet to taste. So off we went and were warmly welcomed into a place adorned with huge murals of cherry blossoms and other Oriental artifacts. The ambiance was perfect. We were comfortably seated in the grill section of the steakhouse and Sam promised me that it will be a mesmerising affair. We decided our food to be simple, so he went for a grilled salmon whereas I chose to play safe with a grilled shrimp and sauteed mushrooms platter. We waited till we savored the last drop of osumashi (the Japanese clear soup) and the tricky miso (a seasoning made with fermented rice and soybeans) dressed lettuce salad. Then came our chef wheeling a cart of veggies, raw salmon and shrimp and other condiments that were required for the preparation of our entrees. We were seated in a square fashion where the grill consisted the center of the arrangement. And as the restaurant boasts of "where everything happens before your eyes", the chef sputtered off the hot surface of the grill with water followed by the ingredients. The manner in which he used a chopping knife looked like sheer magic. For the next fifteen minutes he was on song slicing and chopping away to the tunes of his knife and the sizzle of the items on the grill. He did it so effortlessly, it looked no less than a performance. In no time the flames boomed, reaching the chimney and our salmon and shrimp turned a deep rust, that lip smacking, perfectly grilled colour. The spices and the sauces that were used in the preparation enveloped us in an aromatic fog. I felt like being transported to another part of the world, one where there were gardens choked with cherry blossoms, where the geisha (a female Japanese entertainer) served tea in her typical delicate and artful way in a chashitsu (a tea room). It seemed like the tea ceremonies from Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha came alive! Once the food was cooked, our magician chef ladled the food on our plates. Needless to say that such aesthetically prepared food that tickled all our senses soothed our hungry and eager taste buds. What's more, Sam even rated this as one of his best dinning experiences! It was truly a heavenly experience, one that I would love to go for again, probably some day in God's own land of the rising sun!

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...)

Izz Aal Well?

There are so many I would love tos in me, listed every time and then as easily closed. There is also an If I would have which keeps lurking somewhere in the abstract abyss of my thoughts. These two incomplete expressions often remind us of the halves in us; one half that is bursting to come out and the other half that smothers it, being the more submissive one. This unreal half is always answerable to a system that is run by a set of shallow protocols. But it is the other half, the real one, that writhes and wriggles in all of us, where we all want to live. I have wanted to be so many people at so many different times -- a singer wishing to sing a Gulzar creation, sometimes a National Geographic photographer, a Himalayan explorer breathing the pristine mountains every day, and most of the times a brooding poet. Once there was also a juvenile ambition of becoming a doctor which I had to let go for my growing indifference to the world of science and figures. How we are always taught that passion is only fit for the dreams, in actual life it is practicality that works and earns. I have always believed a life lived fulfilling expectations is mere existence. The current B-town rage Three Idiots was a very heartwarming fare. Once again all the Ifs and Could haves lunged at me. In actuality there are very few Ranchos who rebel against the system and still live to see their name on the top of every list. It is such a rarity to see an idiot succeed. But the message that Rancho's character conveys is loud and clear, and worth pondering for a while. Our country is a bagful of idiots who have given up the call of their dreams for a stable and humdrum existence. But the hypocrisy of our society is such that we seldom hear these individuals complaining. Talents are let to rot and die, gathering dust and neglect, while minting money and following the wheel rut remain the eternal mantra.

Another year rolls past and a fresh year is waiting to flower and shower its surprises and shocks on the world. Peace talks, the raging consequences of global warming, recession graph, the Vancouver Olympics, the much awaited Harry Potter film, every possible sphere will once again make waves, waves of victory and defeat. And amidst this somewhere in some neverland an idiot will still be wishing for a handful of stars, just like this picture here. I just hope his heart beats croon the new confidence mantra Aal Izz Well!

The Bee

It buzzes past the myriad mazes
of a ticking, restless mind.
Maze after maze, it searches for nectar,
that dewy, lusty taste of life.
There is a forest of grey and white,
a forlorn winter scape.
High walls and claustrophobia
guard this haunting world of nonexistence.
The bee hovers and beats its wings aimlessly,
willfully hitting itself on the dank walls.
With each passing day,
there are flakes of gossamer wing
tumbling down like the hopes of a spring,
of blossoms abundant.
And then, there is the bee,
floating and gliding in a vacuum
without any wing, without any spring.