La Fin – The End

 There are days that are so horrible that they leave you counting the small blessings (full Hallmark Card feeling happens). Today was one of them, so the evening found me counting the small blessings. What were mine? Well I won’t bore you with that. I’ll bore you with other stuff J

Went out for the adrenaline fix close to 7:30 today. Its still twilight outside at that time of day, quite pleasant. By the time I’d gotten through INXS and hit my stride, night had begun to fall. School is out for summer so there are tonnes of kids playing. I passed by one lot in the cricket field that were persisting in pretending there was enough light to play. I could hear them more than I could see them. Perhaps that was the key though, they were being ‘bat’men

I could perfectly remember that summer holiday feeling when I saw them– the one where its dark, play is really done, you might even be bored out of your wits and quite ready to head home but its ‘Summer!’ – how can you go in until you’ve been called atleast 5 times?!

When I was a child I didn’t realise I was enjoying my childhood. Now I see that I did. Things were ‘finished’ when I was younger. I had the satisfaction of an ending each year – a last day of the school year and old textbooks going to another shelf. I got so used to that and now I am supposed to be an adult and nothing is ever ever finished. Every project goes on and on. Nothing ends robustly. Nobody ever says – this is the end, here is your report card, school is out and summer is in.

Birds and Birds

Read the perfect poem today given recently acquired interest in things avian. 

Praise ThemThe birds don’t alter space.
They reveal it. The sky
never fills with any
leftover flying. They leave
nothing to trace. It is our own
astonishment collects
in chill air. Be glad.
They equal their due
moment never begging,
and enter ours
without parting day. See
how three birds in a winter tree
make the tree barer.
Two fly away, and new rooms
open in December.
Give up what you guessed
about a whirring heart, the little
beaks and claws, their constant hunger.
We're the nervous ones.
If even one of our violent number
could be gentle
long enough that one of them
found it safe inside
our finally untroubled and untroubling gaze,
who wouldn't hear
what singing completes us?

— Li-young Lee

My Fondest Wish May Yet be Granted

An appropriate post from the prison with high firewalls – don’t you think? 

Please Fire Me

Here comes another alpha male,
and all the other alphas
are snorting and pawing,
kicking up puffs of acrid dust   

while the silly little hens
clatter back and forth
on quivering claws and raise
a titter about the fuss.   

Here comes another alpha male--
a man's man, a dealmaker,
holds tanks of liquor,
charms them pantsless at lunch:   

I've never been sicker.
Do I have to stare into his eyes
and sympathize? If I want my job
I do. Well I think I'm through   

with the working world,
through with warming eggs
and being Zenlike in my detachment
from all things Ego.   

I'd like to go
somewhere else entirely,
and I don't mean
Europe.
	-- Deborah Garrison

Cheating

Found this thing dating from August last year while cleaning my mailbox…. I was off blogs at the time else this would have been up  

Driving in America is an achievement for me. My auspicious beginning getting pulled over for driving too slowly on the freeway is behind me. I can’t seem to stay below speed limits now. Admittedly its the ridiculous 45mph speed limit of Chicago suburbia – the only place fortunate enough to see a display of my virtuosity behind the wheel, but still quite an achievement. I was just congratulating myself on it this morning, when my car beeped at me. (I like that about American cars, they honk at you and tell you when their lights are on, or your seatbelt is not). This one was telling me in bright red display “low fuel”. The previous week someone had been kind enough to allow me to observe and question them about the process at self – filling gas stations. So I felt relatively confident about my abilities there. Headed smoothly into the spot next to the pump, hit the release button on my fuel tank, got out with wallet and smoothly put card in and out , picked up nozzle and turned around to gas up. I'd pulled up with good Indian instinct on the wrong side. I paused, but the pump beeped at me, with huge display of “Fueling. Thank you for your payment” . Every additional beep terrified me as I tried to pull the pipe out to the other side and fill it in. It was too short. Pump is still beeping at me, a car is pulling up on the other side of the pump and I’m feeling more idiotic by the second. I took a deep breath, reminded myself that this is a country that caters to the lowest common denominator and tried to ignore the voice in my head that kept telling me i was lower than the lowest. Two deep breaths later, voila! There was the green 'cancel' button staring me in the face. Pressed it ,achieved blessed silence from the pump,  turned my car around and finished what should have taken me 3 minutes in about 15..

I’ve taken that sort of thing for granted now – the simple things will defeat me. I always look on the wrong side when crossing, can't figure out how dishwashers or doorknobs work and look like a moronic hick taking an eye test when i have to choose anything from the shelf at the supermarket.  I have no clue which items are vegetarian. (I'm the ass that thought pepperoni might be veggie) and have to read the ingredients that are printed for 10 minutes before I can choose. But I will not figure out the closest Indian store and finish my shopping in 10 minutes. (now that i think of it, even i don't understand why. I would so dearly love to eat Maggi). Oh! that is one thing. They have Top Ramen here. The first time i spied it on the shelf my heart actually leapt with joy. Headed straight for hte familiar red package. Then KLPD happened. It was beef. Not one of the colors, not the blue, the pink, the green or the maroon were vegetarian. AND Asian = Chinese. Which means you can't find a single familiar looking thing in the Asian section of a supermarket.

I'm yet to hit downtown Chicago on anything other than work. However i think the skyline is truly evil looking. Approaching a tall building based downtown in American cities always gives me a feeling of approaching hell. I don't mean that in a “sinner-quaking-at-the-knees-there-lies-my-fate” fashion. Its more a sense of awe. But it’s not pleasant. You want to stay in a range where you want to see them together, but never get close enough that any one of them can swallow you up.

Run to the Hills – 5 : Sunrise on the garden

Just across the road from Mystic is a charming cottage. Its wide wrap-around porch – just perfect for big armchairs- and little garden would have made it pretty anywhere, but its location – at the point where the hill falls off - gives it a 100+ degree view of the surrounding hills and elevates it to spectacular. In a brief exploration the previous day I had found a set of steps leading away from the cottage which were quite perfect in themselves. There they were going down the hillside edged with pretty mountain flowers looking incredibly like they were the way paradise. (Its much more likely that they were leading to someone’s loo but I wasn’t going to investigate.)

Anyway, when the light and the birds work me up on Saturday morning I decided to head across the road to see how the way to paradise looked in the morning. (All ppl who are thinking shit reading this - Stop Thinking.)  R was still dead to the world so I tried my best to leave tippy-toe. It was bright out but the light had this unusual, gentle and diffused quality. I shivered a bit in my PJ’s – it was the shiver of muscles waking up – not the teeth chattering, extremity numbing cold one would have expected after the rain of the previous day. The white wooden gate leading to the cottage was closed and it took some effort to open it wide enough so I could slip through. I walked down the path, reached the steps and only then did I realise why the light had that peculiar feel – the sun was not over the horizon yet. The icing on the cake – the steps were east facing and quite the perfect place to view the show!

The previous day R and I had peered and peered at the view from the PWD to try and distinguish the mountain ranges. Today, I could see what we had missed. Far into the distance, higher than any of the gentler hills I could see, there rose a jagged line of peaks clearly silhoutted against the sky. A juicy orange sun was beginning its journey up and at the moment of my arrival had just begun to show through between two of the peaks. The birdsong began to sound like a well rehearsed choir. At this point I could describe what went through my head - I understood the word aubade (really understood it) and about 5 minutes into the wonder of watching the sunrise, thought – 'for astronomy to have happened some chap might have sat here and thought, “hmm.. given the angle at which this is rising and the angle at which that rises if I use whatever trigonometric formula can I not plot path etc etc” and then I wondered – “What kind of cold mind could do that when faced with such beauty?”

Even now, writing this a good 10 days after the fact, when I think of the 15 mins of sunrise a feeling of… I can’t circumscribe it to one word actually. Is it joy, peace, a sense of the grandeur of it all?… Whatever the word for it… a quiet mellow warmth settles in my heart and makes me glad to be alive.

It’s a little past sunrise as I finish writing this – the 11^th day anniversary of that sunrise, so to say. I now can’t resist the urge to indulge in some (more!) bathos. In some cultures I could name that sunrise today. Suggestions anyone?

Aside

D & I once bought Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman for a much admired English Prof (who had one of the nicest libaries in town). At the time I remember wishing someone would think I was cool enough to buy that book as a gift for me. 

Ever since, I have passed by it at book stores and never bought, nor have I shamelessly demanded it as I do with other things I want. Yesterday my patience paid off. I am finally cool enough to have deserved this book for gift  

Run to the Hills – 4: The Leopard Drive

Mrs. Sharma had told us as soon as we arrived, “You know, my son, Vivek? He is 32. He will take you on laipard spotting in the evening. It is so good na, only two days ago we had honeymoon couple staying with us and they saw laipard in forest. They had camera also and they were so happy, you know. Vivek – he will take you in his car in the evening.” When R and I returned from our adventures of the day Mrs. Sharma was waiting.  “ Beta, if you get ready quickly, Vivek will take you out today because tomorrow na, we are going for dinner party”. So R and I dutifully trudged off, gulped down tea and reported back for the promised ride. Five minutes of waiting,Vivek lumbered gently up and the tour was begun.

Our vaahan was a nice little Maruti zen – which gave me hope! On the drive into the IVRI campus, which was the ‘jungle’ the leopard chose to hang out at, Vivek told us a little about himself. Five years ago, when he and his mom were on a gifted holiday to Mukteswar, they decided it was a good idea to set up something. So Vivek quit his job in the merchant navy, put all his life’s savings into buying up some land and constructing a cottage in Mukteswar. Vivek continued with his anecdotes of living ‘the simple life’ in the hills, little asides on his neighbors and past guests, commentaries on land prices in the kumaon and of course, what an amazing place he and his mom run throughtout the drive. 

The IVRI campus seems tame for the most part but there are spots where the dense tree cover closes in on all sides or where a rock juts out onto the narrow road, that make one think a leopard will leap out any minute. We ended the drive at the PWD which offers a panoramic view of the hills. Even during the day its obvious that the hills of Kumaon have been well conquered by humanity – the eye cannot look far without finding some habitation or denuded hill side, but at night the true extent of our conquest becomes clear. Lights dot the hillside everywhere till it looks like the stars themselves have come down.

Run to the Hills – 3: To the Town and Back

Mukteshwar is a tiny little town. All of its commerce is along one 500 m stretch of road. Once you walk past the market there is a ‘chauraha’ from where the road winds up to the tourist attractions

• Chauli Ki Jali
• The Siva temple
• The PWD guest house with its 180 degree view of the mountains

R and I were huffing a bit as we began the climb up to the PWD and a local policeman took it upon himself to encourage us. ‘Chalo chalo madam’ or some such which truly irritated a normally placid R. Now I’m going to cheat and pass lightly by our visit of the PWD – I’m even resisting holding forth on KMVN and their bad business strategy. We are also going to pass equally lightly over our visit to the temple (it was a brief one, as you might imagine!) and our rather longer stop at chauli ki jali where we met the ‘caveman’ guide. All of this took us till about 5:30 in the evening and the sun was beginning to set.

There is no public transport in M’war in the later part of the day. One either has to wait till there is enough quorum for the local taxi guy to make the trip or walk. Since we didn’t quite manage the quorum  it was the walk. R managed to charm a couple of locals and we followed them down the hill. A three hour walk cut down to one and some insight on the way into the life of our guide. The last rays of the sun saw us back at Mystic.

Run to the Hills – 2: Mystic Mukteswar

Mrs. Sharma’s spiel was no less charming for being practiced. Anyone who can maintain a garden like her and gets paranthas made the way she does can practice as many spiels as they want on me J. Mystic is a tiny place perched on a ledge overlooking the road up to Mukteswar. Behind it was what used to be orchard but is soon going to be ‘orchard with cottage’. There are six rooms all laid out in a row, each with its own tiny porch and everywhere you turn there are plants.Roses in all colors – and these are the real kind, with a scent and overblown, chewed on petals – fuschias, honeysuckle, apple, plum, strawberry and several plants whose name we will need to learn only on our next visit up there. Mrs. S guided us past this profusion of flora, chattering all the while, directing us to eat the strawberries when we wanted to and saying ,‘So tired you must be. Suresh will just bring you paranthas, beta’.

We had the last of the six rooms. The chestnut tree across the road obscured our view of the mountains but it had much compensation to offer for this loss. The tree was in bloom and played host to several birds. They also came by to get their share of the easy pickings of grain in the bird houses Mrs S had around the place. R ‘s Salim Ali book was put to good use and I finally got to fulfil my ambition of putting a name to it as against saying bright blue bird with long tail. Here’s the list of what we saw

1.      Spotted Dove

2.      Black Drongo

3.      Yellow Billed Blue Magpie

4.      White Eared Bulbul

5.      Quaker Tit Babbler

6.      White Rumped Shama

7.      Verditer Flycatcher

8.      Sparrows

9.      Jungle Crows

I’m getting ahead of myself a bit though – Back to telling this story chronologically. R and I looked admiringly at the chestnut, wondered if these were the type whose chestnuts could be ‘roasted’ and settled down to tuck into the paranthas.

Tummy all filled, we set off to see the PWD guest house (claim to fame: used to be Jim Corbett’s base when he was disposing off the Maneaters of Kumaon) which was a 4 or 5 km walk along the road. Every so often we stopped to take photographs and sometimes just to take a deep breath of the fresh mountain air – and those deep breaths were required because said breath was taken away so often by the view!

After a leisurely walk – interrupted by a chai session made longer by the rain, we reached the pretty little town of Mukteswar.

Run to the Hills – 1 : Busride to Mukteshwar

I woke up with a start when R shook me awake. We’d reached Kathgodam and most of the passengers were off the train. Blearily I picked up my bags and got off the top berth. The first few hours of the journey from Delhi had been uncomfortable, sweaty tossing on the rexine but the cooler weather must have knocked me out.

Stepping out into the quiet and quaintness of the Kathgodam platform to see the hills across the tracks, when the last memory in my mind was of a busy, hot Old Delhi Railway Station felt strange and surreal. R could not stop smiling and once I woke up enough, I could not either. After chai and biscuits we figured out our travel options for the 65 odd km journey to M’War were as below

a)      Wait for the bus to M’war – neighbourhood shopkeeper insisted the next one would be at 2 PM

b)      Head up to Bhowali and take a bus from there

c)      Pay a usurious 800 or 1000 bucks to a cabbie

It wasn’t till later that we figured out that (a) was incorrect – the bus would have come by in a few minutes. It is anybody’s guess though whether he would have stopped! We also figured out that (c) is not the only option. Share taxis will give you a seat and cost about as much as the bus.

However, not knowing all of this, we got onto a bus headed to Bhowali. Getting into the bus is a bit of a fight – being a squeamish city type who expects little queue or even space to sit or stand when getting into a bus will not help. We missed a couple of buses before we learnt that if the bus stopped, it meant you could squeeze in somewhere – one wonders how full the ones that did not stop were!

R and I got the seat on the engine. We were sharing space with a family of seven – mom, dad and two of the younger kids got the seat while the other 3 children  - ranging between 4 and 8 or so hopped around on the ‘hot seat’ with us, getting burn marks on the bottom. Sitting on the floor of a bus meant we missed the panoramic views of the mountains that you get as you climb, however the family we were sitting with were no less beautiful and I just could not stop staring.

The bus was rattly, stopped whenever a passenger wanted to get off, sometimes when a passenger wanted to get on and one memorable time when some of the folks in the back got irritated with a drunk co passenger. Much discussion ensued on whether the offending party was to be taken to the police thana (I would have liked to see the FIR – “ek ghante se bol raha hai ki tayar puncture ho jayega”) or thrown off the bus. While this discussion was going on the beautiful man sharing leg space with us murmured to his even more beautiful wife, “Itni subah sharaab peene ka mazaa kahaan aayega?”. In response she smiled, put her arm around him and shook her head understandingly. By this time a few people realised they were running late and started with the ‘gaadi chalao’ – the driver stepped in, convinced the drunk to shut up, settled ruffled feathers, started up the engine and we were on our way again.

Our ride to Mukteswar from Bhowali was a lot more quiet and comfortable – and this time we didn’t miss the mountain views. The bus let us off at just the entrance to ‘Mystic Mukteswar’ where we were staying. Mrs. Sharma, Brownie and Suresh (who ran up and down with paranthas and luggage on a very regular basis) were all waiting for us at the gate.