On a beach

I spent a couple of months in the latter half of 2011 living in a shack in a beach town called Puri. It was an interesting time. Living alone, working half the day and having the rest of the time to myself to swim if I wanted to, watch groups of tourists, pilgrims, locals, resident fishermen. I noticed the flow of tourists - seeing a group for a few days and then not seeing them anymore. And then another group on a different weekend and so on. I also noticed the presence of the local vendors. The regular sellers of badaam and tea and cutlets, the familiar voices carried by the breeze. Constant in their presence. I read occasionally, sometimes I stared out into the sea at the lights on ships far off the coast and tracked their movement across the horizon. I was lucky to have that chance. I found something I had written during that time. To me it is a great indication of what moved me the most amongst all the things I saw and experienced there.

As the afternoon disappears into evening I decide to walk off to the beach. The wind has turned chillier by a few degrees than when I’d first gotten here; about a month ago. I put on a light sweatshirt and flip flopped onto the sand past through the gate that opens onto the beach from my hotel. My aim is to see the day turn to night on the beach, to see how the colours drain from the sky, the sea, the tiny thatched roofed stalls selling tea and biscuits and the boats lined up on the sand. I’ve missed sitting out on on the beach these past few evenings and I feel like I need a refresher on the transition of afternoon to dusk to night.

Usually I head out every day to my chosen tea stall for a few cups of tea. I prefer it for its isolated location away from the other stalls with fluorescent tube lights that jar the darkness on the beach as night falls. The stall owner, an old man, who knows my routine rather well now, prefers kerosene lamps and I find the orange glow from the naked flames a more preferable a punctuation to the evening darkness as the sun sets far on the horizon.

Today though, I do not head to the tea stall right away. It still is light and I prefer to sit on the sand a few meters from where the surf dies, peters out into a thin film and the residual water recedes into the sea only to break a swell into a wave tumbling over itself roaring and splashing its way towards the beach, towards me. There has been a steely winter haze blurring the view out from the beach. It forms a solid mass of grey melting boundaries of sea and sky making either indistinguishable from the other - surprisingly, the haze is absent today. In fact the air is crisp and the horizon is clearly marked out.  From where I sit on the sand, I see the swells rise slowly and gradually roll towards the shore – they seem bottle green in colour as they rise. Further in the distance the sea swells gently, the water assumes a deeper blue colour. The wind buzzes past my ear, a sound constant in its presence but variable in its intensity. It’s like having an open window in a car speeding on a highway. I look searchingly for the sun light as it gradually dims and steals away from the sand, from the darker deeper waters far in the distance and the boats that are lined up next to where I’m sitting. But, the surf, the milky white frothing surf, captures tiny minute shades of orange as the waves tumble and roar eventually dying out on reaching the shore. For a minute I think I’ve imagined up the colour, the almost imperceptible traces of orange on the white froth. And yet again the next minute it seems very tangibly real. My eyes deceive me. The sun has disappeared off the horizon and there are little flecks of orange still lingering around as if fighting the arrival of night.

Unable to find any song to explain my predicament, I sit up at night staring at the city lights from my terrace. My cigarettes have all but run out and the smoke from the one lit in my hands is barely visible in the darkness. In this part of the country, the days are blazing hot and there's no subtlety involved in its expression. Being an admirer of the understated I don't know what to do with this full blooded rawness of the day. Which is why the warm waves of night air that rub off my shoulders and body feel comforting and familiar.

The night here is thick and heavy. Unlike a big city, the few city lights punctuating the darkness seem frail and burdened by the huge dark night. A certain restlessness is all about me. I shake my legs... tap my cigarette incessantly; anyone seeing me would think I'm eagerly waiting for something very significant to happen. But I'm not. I'm just inexplicably restless. I want to run away. I have this crazy urge, where I imagine myself running into the darkness and after a point the sound of my steps fade and so does the vision of my body that's running into the darkness. And after a considerable amount of time. A considerable amount of silence... on the other side a sunny beach emerges from the fringes of the dark shadow. And there're these eccentric characters from the French movies I've seen (as a wannabe appreciator of art movies in my younger days), who smoke and giggle and go running into the water while I lie on the sand with a huge dog running itself in a frenzy from the waters edge to my feet. There's a stranger whose guitar strums I can hear as and when the wind blows my way. I catch the tune to be Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat". The foreigner has a perfect gravelly voice and I can't help but moving up to him and asking him for a few more songs. He says he's forgotten the notes and proceeds to play a song I can't identify and therefore remains incapable of evoking any reaction unlike the Famous Blue Raincoat.

Many hours later sitting in my office I think of the same thing. Of the beach. Goa isn't too far. I could take a train from here to Bombay and then one from there on. I begin contemplating the steps realistically. I'd put in a mail with my resignation. I have some money in the bank. I owe that money to my employers if I quit before the stipulated period, but that's all the money I have so I can't give that up. But if I run away unannounced then they don't give me my documents, my relieving letters, my provident fund money etc. etc. Could I just do without all of that? What is that fund providing for? World Peace? Does it give me the warmth of the sun after a swim in the ocean? Does it it give me the sea breeze to calm my tired muscles after an entire afternoon of swimming in the sea, sitting on the rocks watching the local fisher men try their luck as the sun turns the corner around the horizon?

Maybe if I were a kid I could? Just run away? And then people would worry and bring me back home and cook my favourite dishes. If I were a kid this wouldn't be something that would seem preposterous. 

Life has a funny way of coming round in circles. Some parts go missing inevitably. And some new pieces take their place. But the more the circle completes itself, one can only sit back and admire how things seem to find their place in the puzzle. Recently I read a book that movingly talked of retrospection, what the memory chooses to remember and the feelings that they evoke. Today the topic seems relevant.

Looking back at the year I can pick out more incidents that underscore this theme and why I have a weak spot for it. I remember flying into Delhi late one October night as the city prepared for Diwali. As I peered out of my cab speeding through the deserted streets and the winter tinted breeze gave me goose bumps, being accustomed to the temperate climes of the beach I had been living by, my thoughts settled on how with each passing year my life seemed to have progressed. To have moved from where it was and found a new spot to settle down in. Nudged forward by some inevitable force. I was happy to be in Delhi. And not Calcutta or Bombay or Bangalore, the other cities I know relatively well. My heart warmed on seeing houses decked up in lights in the dark night as I could almost feel the warmth inside the houses I saw. A new home awaited me.

Reminiscence once again broke the familiar pattern of life; old friend and I met up as the year drew to a close. College days and other insanities were relived over a few happy hours our money paid for in a mall. And today, again, I look ahead anxiously wondering where I’m headed (quite literally). There is absolutely no certainty to gather comfort from. And despite the reassuring circles completing themselves and familiar pieces coming back to fill in the gaps, there still is unrest in my head. 

Bum bum bum bum

I’m worried that being the bum suits me very cosily. Imagine now- B-school grad turned beach bum who feeds dogs and drinks tea in shacks. Whereas fellow graduates are investment bankers who write books on the greater meaning of life and make the world spin on its axis.

Oh, the shame!

To save face and sound wise I shall quote Stephen Fry on his school "The best thing about having gone to Cambridge University was never having to deal with not going there".

Was having a very meaningful and important discussion with a friend a few days back. The kind of stuff b-school grads normally talk about y’know. Earth shattering things like the depreciating rupee and the euro zone crisis and the general economic outlook when I suddenly decided that there should be an annual prize for being lazy. Businessweek’s list of The Most Promising Bums of 2011.  (They have a list of “hot” growth companies. HOT growth? Reaaally now? I think I want some hawt growth company myself.) And no, if you think just sitting there and doing nothing would qualify you to be a contender, hate to break it to you, being a bum is no easy job. You got to be one mean ass deep thinking bum.

Life has the weird quality to wear you out with too much activity and with no activity. I have friends (actually, make that “friends”) who are either working way too much or are losing it watching the paint dry. I belong to the latter group. It’s something I do really well. Grumble. Grumble about sitting on my bum all day staring at the crab hole in the sand next to my table at lunch and throwing little morsels of food at its inhabitant who scampers in and out to pick up my generous offerings to eat in the cool confines of his crab home.

Sunday night: I get a drunk call from friend2 who quit his job thinking he’d start something by himself. Fountain of sympathy that I am I send all sorts of jealousy vibes. Biyatch! Drinking on a Sunday night! Do you know how much we gotta work to earn our money; you think am just sitting by the beach and doing nothing, eh? Friend2: Dude, I just realized that I’m way too lazy to do anything by myself. Big mistake. Quitting job. Awkward silence.

Quick thinker that I am, I immediately change tracks to plan on become successful bums. Yeah, you need a plan for this kinda thing. You think making that Businessweek list is easy? So then we get to discussing a post he made on a blog we had going a few years back. And I ask him why he suddenly made a new post 3 years after we got forgot the blog. Response: I was dead bored. Me: So that’s the way you took revenge on the world for boring you? Take that! Bitch! Does it hurt now? Huh? Huh? How’s THAT for boring the shit out of me. You wrote a blogpost? Response: Yeah, felt way better.

So here I thought, maybe I’ll do the same. Take revenge. You just read complete crap for about three minutes. Three minutes of your life lost irreversibly. You’d probably regret that missed orgasm (pity, pity) on your deathbed cause of this post you just read. Now doesn’t that feel nice?

Been living by the beach for about a month and half now. Being a bum is the true calling. B-school grad turned beach bum. Bravo!

Dug up this song from a cavernous 20 GB folder titled "Music" from my computer. Absolutely love the man and his lyrics. They have nothing but the plain quality of being true.



"Now I leave the party early at least with no regrets,
 I watch the sun as it comes up, I watch it as it sets
 Yeah, this is as good as it gets"

Beachin' it

Am back on the road again. No not homeless. Umm... well yes, homeless but not literally “on the road” in rags etc. I realise I love being by the beach. Every beach town I’ve been to has a similar flavour, colour and smell. Afternoons are awash in relentless sunshine that’ll scald bare feet if you attempt the daring walk on sand routine. Even the most crowded of places - abuzz in the evenings; stalls lit with hissing gas lights selling everything from shells and hangings made of shells that make clacking noises in the wind to fried fish, balloon wallahs playing flutes to draw attention, toy parachuted figurines shot up into the sky which float down amidst crowd catching the fancy of kids- are absolutely deserted. Instead you’d have a few makeshift sheds made of dried coconut branches bending over in the breeze and a couple of cows grimly chewing regurgitated food on infinite loop. The colours would be the beautifullest blue contrasted with the brilliantest yellow. And from far it’d be like a picture in bright sunshine; a battalion of  puffy white clouds stretching into a brilliant blue sky, the sea glinting below and the surf breaking into white foamy borders.

.............

I have a secret superpower. I can talk to the sea... sush now!

I have full conversations every time I swim. Mostly chest thumping bravado before a wave comes and drowns me out. But I love the sea. Today we had a nice battle going. Initially she was all welcoming and let me in rather warmly. But as the sun begun plumetting down the sky, hiding behind dark rain clouds in the horizon far away, the sea got temperamental and began rolling sideways. And I hate that. I hate it absolutely! Especially since I’m alone and my bag with my change, towel, slippers etc. is lying on the beach and I need to keep an eye on it. And the bloody sea will keep pushing me away further from the spot. Damn you sea!

Naa... still love you baby. Tomorrow I shall get the bike and ride off 20 kms, 30, 40 kms southwards. There’s a forest and the road goes by the sea with Casuarina forests lining the road. And there’re a couple of rivers where bike and I can rest. And I’ll take my book along and a little rum. And I shall roast myself up in the sun. Nice and brown. And swim in at least 3 different points. Damn! Now is when the forgotten plans of cycling down the coast resurface. It’s been sitting in the head for too long. And after the little mountain cycling done in Himachal a few months this plan was supposed to have neared execution stage. Corporate slavery be damned. 

Reading has returned in spurts. Ian McEwan is new brilliantness. Thanks to girl who referred him. The man depresses the shit out of me with his complete supremacy over the language. It’s his superpower, to unearth unexpressed thoughts, feelings and put them into words. The stories maybe plain and simple, but the feelings running every character dips in, are spelt out with an incredible ease. Also, I just finished Curious Incident of Dog In The Night-Time after years of being asked to read it by dear fraands. Depressed me again. I tend to get quite affected by anything that comes across that innocently. I remember being rather tender after reading To Kill A Mocking Bird when I was 12 and Jem was 10. And I loved football too and couldn’t imagine what it would be like to break a hand and not be able to play. I can’t imagine that even now, I mean I played with a broken hand early this year in Lucknow. Full covert operation to cut cast since doc refused to remove it before big game. Just. not. possible.

And it’s been about 3 months since I’ve kicked a ball. The last time I did, the knee ligaments gave way. Year of no-football it has been. Must be one of the rarest years in the Chinese calendars.  

Am currently returning to my unfinished stash of Saramago books bought on an inebriated afternoon from a Bandra book store. I always write the month and place I purchased a book from in the top right corner of the first page of every book. It captures a memory for me. Every time I open any book of mine (30 degrees maximum allowed; it’s a quirk I shall explain later), the top right corner tells me where the book was brought from, if the day was cloudy or sunny, who I had met earlier in the day and where I went after I bought the book. All from the place and date.

Have also pre-ordered my Murakami. Am a little miffed about the popularity he’s generated now. Where’s the charm in discussing him any more playing truant from work sipping coffee at the office vending machine? Where?

The blog turns out to be a little inconvenient for me, with sudden spurts of disconnected paragraphs. I wish I had a long log book to write in continuously without bothering about any flow, any connection.

....

This post is futile. All 896 words of it. Doesn’t help with the distraction. And I keep hoping that Diwali comes and time stops. That firecracker would always light the sky. And we’d be frozen, caught in a moment forever.

Sea ya.

I never thought that I'd have excess of travelling. And I'm rather unprepared for this minor mutiny within the head each time I think of packing my bags again and moving tomorrow. A few weeks back, while in Guwahati, after dinner and an extremely tiring day as I was walking around in my hotel room searching for my tickets out of Guwahati the following day, I was accosted by a thought that struck me harder than I'd expected: I hadn't lived in a house for over 3 months. That every where I went was a place I paid daily rent to live in. For 3 months I'd been living in hotels and guesthouses. And it made me feel like a privileged homeless person. Maybe I was extremely eager by then of the week ahead. The week that was to be spent in D city. And now that the week is past, it's incomprehensible to me how in a quiet unsuspecting sort of way it has grown on me and taken me prisoner.

And now, knowing what it'd be like, and not day dreaming of what it maybe like, it's even harder to accept this constant "git your ass moving" routine. I long to be 'home' soon.

..............

I'm done packing. I have songs in my head. A shower, fresh change of clothes and off to the station. By night I'm by the sea. Again, I have it built to be something in my head. I recall the last time I took I solo trip to the sea. Somnath temple by the Arabian Sea. It turned out to be a trip of exceedingly violent images in my head. The furious sea and the temple on the beach. My imagination was bettered by reality then. That was the other end of the country. Westernmost almost. Tonight I'll be on the eastern coast of the country. And I can swim in the sea, and turn all black, roasted by the sun, and body surf. Blues be off now!

Where I'm in place A, but baggage handling misplaced my thoughts and they're still in place B

So I've been traveling in excess of late. And there couldn't be worse things than early morning/late night flights. (Yeah, you maybe thinking this to be a subtle way of trying to hint at my jet setting lifestyle; It's not a hint, it' s been spelt out to help you with your supreme ability of picking up hints. You're welcome to keep your thoughts. And it's my blog.).

Am currently in Guwahati. I walked out to get cigarettes in the morning. The Brahmaputra is across the road from my hotel and the mobile trolleyman with cigarettes was parked under a tree on the banks of the river. In an instant, the view flushed my mind clean of the sediment of thoughts settling in from last night. I'm given to over thinking. Anyone who's known me intimately would know of that. I'm superbly adept at building complex thought architectures with the intricate construction that requires one to assess the need to have an ice-cream. Wow, I do sound like a plastic mba overselling himself.

Guwahati's a pretty city. Me thinks 2 months in R has prepped me to find any city beautiful. But Guwahati is truly blessed. The mighty Brahmaputra and tiny forested hills dotting the fringes of the city could bless any city. There is something about names and dialects that when encountered by the ear whip up old memories resident in deep recesses of the brain. Stirred up from a foggily remembered childhood, the memories flavour the experience and change it from a novel one to one with a background.

Tomorrow I fly back to home base. Day after morning to another town by the river and by night into the capital. Puja's will be spent in the capital and it'll be a first. It's good to have firsts, especially good when age slowly makes tiny etches on you and youth slowly walks to the back of the room. And yes, it'll be like being home. For the first time in 4/5 years.

.....

I'm terrified. Of scaring you away with these scars I've picked up along the way. Paranoid Android.

If I could do just one near perfect thing I'd be happy

I'm wilfully trapped in a song going in loops. I want to borrow the words and use them. Like a car, sit in them and drive around the feelings surrounding me.

There's a little bit of gloom in the corner of my room, peeking at me from behind the chair. I look away, staring into my computer listening to my song. I pretend to ignore Mr. Gloom frantically waving for a lift. But he lingers in my rear view mirror, in the back of my mind.

It's raining outside and I don't like this weather much. 

Books I've been reading and associated thoughts...

The reason for this post lies with the beginning of my next book: The Hungry Tide. Actually, I was planning on buying this book as a gift for a friend’s birthday and now in retrospect ( 200 odd pages later) it seems I should have opted for this than for two other non English native speaking authors.

After having been swept away by the epic magical fable of Macondo by GGM (yes, I read 100 Years only now! And I wonder why? Maybe it has to do with the fact that LiToC didn’t impress me much when I had borrowed it from a senior in college and had to return it rather abruptly.)  I wondered if Mr. Ghosh would stand up to the mystical village of Macondo. I am a little extra judgemental, critical, cynical of authors of Indian origin. The very few I’ve read have generally tended to write about identity, family ties and culture... largely having been part of the diaspora that experiences these crises frequently. But Ghosh had been impressive through his skilful execution of radically different genres through Calcutta Chromosome, In An Antique Land and Shadow Lines.

I picked up the book yesterday and 200 pages hence I have spent a half my time googling and google map searching the whole Sunderban archipelago. In his afterword he cites the influences and people the story is loosely based on. On googling Annu Jalais my first reaction was that I was looking at Piyali Roy. The short cropped hair, the wiry frame. Just that Piyali Roy in my head is a little shorter than Annu Jalais in the jpeg image. Marichjhapi (I'm making this into a separate post), Francois Bernier and Annu Jalais’s studies are ALL clawing away at my limited attention simultaneously. And the background of the tide country, the delicate relationship between man and his lethal predator all converge together teasing my curiosity into a frenzied madness.

I have been to Sunderbans, a huge family outing on one of the many grand get together that are the hallmark of Bengali families. My uncle, on his once-in-two year visits to India in tow with 3 children and my kakima, is the lead character of these shows, taking it upon himself to force everyone to come for these vacations. My childhood is littered with memories of 18 people crammed into my grandmothers flat making plans simultaneously on where to go and what all can be done; everyone pushing their own agenda. So yes, we once happened to agree upon Sunderbans, and set off on a bus from the city to Gosaba. Other than an accident our bus was involved in, that trip would be remembered for a string of mishaps and of course a tiger sighting claimed by my mother and aunts. We firmly maintained it was a mud covered wolf/dog they had seen, too disappointed to admit that we missed seeing the great and elusive RBT. Otherwise, for me and my cousins those 3 days on a tourism dept. launch/ferry was more of running around mad and occasionally listening to tiger stories from the boatmen.

But now, reading this book and living just a 100 kms away from bhatir-desh (tide country); reading about Francois Bernier, of his travels in this dark corner of the world some 300 years back is just too cruel on my imagination. The thought of it chills my bones, the sense of adventure fills my body. Just like stories (actually fact, rather than fiction) of Heyerdahl’s crossing of the Pacific and Shackleton’s doomed Antartica expedition. Phew... who can dare say that I’m getting older!

Marichjhapi and Havelock (ideally, better read after my post above)

The Marichjhapii incident brings to mind my rather innocent encounter with the refugee rehabilitation travails of our government in the aftermath of independence and the Bangladesh wars. This was when we were in the Andamans last year and at my insistence the parents agreed to stay a couple of nights on Havelock Island. Lately, (2006, not so lately I guess) Havelock has become a fairly well known place after a certain Time magazine issue listed Radhanagar beach on Havelock as one amongst the 10 best beaches in Asia. It takes roughly 2-5 hours from Port Blair on sea to get to Havelock depending on the type of boat/steamer/launch you’re going in.

It’s a tiny island (22 kms in length and less than half that in breadth), which I’d read up about before our trip. So I had the geography of the island in mind, something I like to do before I go to anyplace. I must have a look at a map once at least. Despite all my reading up the biggest shock came when, reaching this tiny island consisting of one village, we realized that the local dialect was Bangal – the east Bengal version of the Bengali I’m used to speaking in Kolkata. In answer to my puzzled looks my father shared what he knew about the rehabilitation programmes set up by the GOI and the state governments to address the refugee migration problems. A large chunk of refugees coming in from Bangladesh were settled into areas around Kolkata and horror of horrors, a certain group was sent off on this island to be rehabilitated! As I read about Marichjhapi and the origin of the settlements in Sunderbans it is difficult to ignore the deep intertwining of caste in our DNAs. The refugee resettlements were guided by this too! High caste/better off people getting lands in around Kolkata to settle in whilst the lower castes sent off to places like Havelock.

Now Havelock, other than two roads and a maybe a handful of shops selling regular fmcg goods is an entirely forested island with at most 30% land cleared up for farming and village life. And this was 2010. Imagine having been uprooted from your homeland, forced to flee to a foreign country and then practically sentenced to a life of complete isolation on a dense forested island 1000 miles from mainland, 3 days by any ship today. Being able to comprehend the local dialect helped in interacting with locals and personal histories were shared. In complete awe I listened to the stories of the current generation relating their grandparents’ adventures in rebuilding their lives again. What I took away from those stories was realising the immeasurable strength of the human resolve. To be left with no choice and overcome a forced undeserved fate, heroically or rather plainly (deprived of my romanticised notions) I cannot say, but overcome it all nevertheless. Today the village on Havelock seems just about as well off as any other village in mainland Bengal. Of course school, hospital is a problem. The lack of easy mobility limits the development of this isolated community in certain ways I’m sure.

Song for the morning.

Not exactly being lazy with the posting but this song just crawled into my head. Sometimes I wake up in the mornings with a song in my head. I wonder if that's one of the many weird things I have. Of course, it's not just songs; paragraphs of prose, descriptions and stories twisted out of fiction I've been reading are all to often part of these morning assemblies like those in school. The charmed life of being on a break.

Love the rough edges to this rendition. The single guitar and the harmonics. Also, Art G's intense looks into the camera towards the end of the video :D. It is indeed, as Paul S puts it, a rather neurotic song. But I like it. I too have an armour of football, books and painting to wear whenever needed. 

She sat pensively, worried about something. Ricardo had no way of knowing what it was that hinged her thoughts away from their lunch. He was ecstatic, he had almost blown away the chance of meeting by suggesting he wasn’t interested in a heavy lunch. He would have eaten the entire animal kingdom, if she was in the mood for heavy lunch. 

It's strange how the memory of that day is etched in Ricardo's mind like he took a photo of the day and put it in his wallet. Midday sun overhead, sea breeze winding through the lanes where their offices were, sunglasses... a lot of people wore sunglasses that day he'd noted. The local carbonated drinks in rainbow colours and a new cuisine were tried out that afternoon. An isolated afternoon in a long summer with days rather indistinguishable from each other. 
May - 2009

I've decided to have Spanish names for my imaginary characters; given my current fascination with the Iberian Peninsula. But it's not exactly current, this fascination. Some of it was put in motion after I saw two back to back movies starring Ricardo Darin and Soledad Villamil (the rest of course comes from the excellent Blaugrana).

Love happened after that and all information on Soledad Villamil was devoured within the next hour. The Secret In Their Eyes is definitely worth a watch; in fact the relationship between Villamil and Darin as a subplot is superbe too.Take a look at this song and try denying Cupid his aim. I don't understand Spanish, just a bit of French which is similar to Spanish, but I thoroughly enjoy the song as if I understand every word she sings!

I step into the balcony I have often mentioned. It’s 3:38 a.m. by the watch. It’s a Fastrack I had bought, one of my early acquisitions from my salary and hence precious. It was from the Titan showroom outside Andheri West. That was where I lost a phone too. Stepped out of the auto and suddenly realised that the phone wasn’t with me. Frantic running around and calling the no.; no response. The crowd had swallowed up an entire auto in 3 minutes. These two events are separated by a whole year. It’s funny how my mind can link up different periods of times together effortlessly, something my writing struggles with. I climb the balcony railing and jump out. I don’t hit the ground. Not the solid cemented pathway, nor the soft mud. Instead I’m reminded of the soft sounds of rain on a night almost half a year ago. And as the memory lingers, I let the memory complete itself savouring the particular pitch of the rain that night half a year ago. I remember the strange shadows cast by the neem tree outside my balcony on my walls from the orange lamps that lit the passage between the two dorms. But most of all I remember feeling an echo of sadness in the rain. And quite suddenly I didn't feel alone. 

- March, 2009

I've decided to start posting some of the stuff saved up on my computer over the last couple of years. I guess I started writing them out as blogposts, or sometimes personal notes. Most are lost, but some I saved up carefully. There are bits of ambitious short stories and sometimes just random lines strung together unfit to be called prose and too embarrassed to even masquerade as poetry. 


Powered by my over enthusiastic imagination, I'd draw parallels from characters and lyrics I'd encounter and forever keep blending my real life into the stuff I'd read/listen to. The primary reason for posting them I think are the memories each piece is associated with. Sometimes what they describe are memoir like and sometimes I can vividly recall the days and weeks that surrounded a particular bit of writing which would mostly be nonsense to a reader. 

Thing is, I'm suddenly back in that semi reality state; completely overpowered by the book I've been reading for a really long time now, having been interrupted by my Himachal mountain biking/cycling trip. It's not bleak by any stretch of imagination (not my Murakami fetish again). It's just a happy story. Quite like my sudden discovery of Belle & Sebastian, who I TOTALLY recommend. I'd need to thank A & D for reinforcing each others views and pushing me towards my 24x7 Belle & Sebastian playlists.

Here's one of many favourites. Describing almost exactly the way summer has been for me. 


Asleep On A Sunbeam.

When the half light makes for a clearer view
Sleep a little more if you want to
But restlessness has siezed me now, it's true
I could watch the dreams flicker in your eyes
Lying here asleep on a sunbeam
I wonder if you realise you fascinate me so

Think about a new destination
If you think you need inspiration
Roll out the map and mark it with a pin
I will follow every direction
Just lace up your shoes while I'm fetching a sleeping bag, a tent...

Another summer's passing by
All I need is somewhere I feel the grass beneath my feet
A walk on sand, a fire I can warm my hands
My joy will be complete

I thought about a new destination
I'm never short of new inspiration
Roll out the map and mark it with a gin
Made my plans to conquer the country
I'm waiting for you to get out of your situation
With your job and with your life

All I need is somewhere I feel the grass beneath my feet
A walk on sand
A fire, I can warm my hands
My joy will be complete.

I've been tempted to write for many days now, but as always sometimes a little fear and sometimes hyperactivity have conspired to keep me from all my attempts. Often my mind has taken flight and left behind all that I wanted to write about, unattended and lost!

I've been home for some time now. Blessed with the good fortune of having won some Rs. 3500 worth of Crossword coupons, I treated myself to 2 days of grand shopping. It’s interesting to see how store staff  become overtly friendly after you purchase books worth Rs. 2000 despite stinking of alcohol at 2 p.m. in the afternoon with a half empty bottle of rum stuffed into your jeans. And that too, in presumably snobbiest locality a Crossword could be in; Bandra W. Of course, being the pro of midday drunken splurging, I conducted myself with enviable grace. The truly charming Mr. Drunk.

My first book, heavily recommended by V, was the Tin Drum. And true to what all my friends (other than V) told me, it was a tough read. Frankly speaking, I plodded through most of it. But I think I’ll be re-reading parts of it. My reaction to both this book and Midnight’s Children is similar to a certain extent. There are passages that have just blown me over, catching me completely unexpected after long drawn passages I’ve been skimming over. Some passages so complexly beautiful that I find myself lost trying to determine which thread to follow. Like maybe sitting in front of a 100 member orchestra and wondering which instrument to focus on. Which performer to track and assign the amazingly beautiful composition turned up by the orchestra as a whole. My mind trying to simplify the complicated interplay of words, emotions, colours, sounds churned up in a single sentence and absolutely unable to grapple with the staggering problem at hand. Maybe that’s the kind of writing one should aspire for I tell myself, tired after reading all these passages, making a note of the page no.s for reading up later.

And right now I’m reading Paul Auster who was discovered over a humid 2 months of summer in Bombay at A’s place. The Murakami-esque bizarre stories – the New York Trilogy, the first book I read made a strong impression. The current book I’m reading is very average to say the least, atleast till now. And especially in the backdrop of a giant like Grass, Auster’s writing doesn’t seem like it’s even trying to attempt to play catch up. But even then I like the easy read the book is. The breezy pace with which it runs, even if there is talk of death and a funeral and there is sadness in the pages, maybe I’m glad it isn’t the overpowering gut wrenching sadness with which Mr. Grass or HM would strike me. With authors like them, it’s not easy reading the book. It becomes so real that it actually becomes a physical sensation. Gripping you physically and tearing you up from the inside. Of course, that firm grip doesn't reduce my admiration for them. If anything the ability to write like that puts those authors beyond any conceivable form of praise I can assign to them. Like slippery accomplished fish they evade every net of praise I may try to ever weave.

I’m beginning to enjoy home now. Essentially, I’m settling into a routine. And I am quite a man of routine, once I find things to do. Of course, there is also a certain amount of unrest... Ulysees like I long to start travelling again. Of course people at home (no Telemachus or Penelope here) seem eager that I be off since my lazing around the house is not welcome after 2 weeks. I have used up my quota of being treated as a guest. So to make peace for everyone, my plans for travel have also been made. A North Sikkim trek and by a cycling trip in the Himalaya subsequently. I guess I’m infinitely lucky to have the time for all this travelling. Going through the computer I found a word file chronicling my travels in ’09. Haven’t done that for ’10, though I did manage to travel much more last year than before; and that too to some of the most exotic places I’ll be going to in a long time. Andamans and the valleys of Spiti and Pin which as per some geological records were the floor of the Tethys Sea eons ago!

I’m tempted to travel to Zanskar. And I’m unendingly amazed by these firangs who always manage to travel to the remotest of places in our country way before we even woke up to the prospect of travelling to these places. I came upon a site by a Brit who travelled through Zanskar in the early 90’s! I mean we weren’t even an open economy then! The sepia tinted pictures are the best part of his net-travelogue. Seem to have lost the link to the page. Will post when I find it again.

Himalayan Travels

8 Days, 1060 kms and more (Delhi -Chandigarh - Shimla - Kaza - Manali -Chandigarh - Delhi), HRTC buses on high mountain roads, Kunzum La (4551 ms), Kaza (3565 ms), Rohtang La (3820 ms), Dhankar (3750 ms). Bitter winter weather, moonscape, stars on the horizon, crescent moon sighting at 1 p.m. (post meridian, yes!) over Spiti River.

This is the worst withdrawal I have ever suffered. Hope to put up the travelogue soon.

                                                          Click on the image for details

Impressions

The impressionists were a group of French painters largely beginning to gain prominence around the late 19th century. Led by Monet who had had enough of paintings of royalty. The funny kind of self portraits, Louis XIV type. Painting, he said, should represent what the human eye sees. And he pursued, what I believe, a scientific approach (as scientific as you could get in the late 19th century). He observed that what the human eye sees when it sees a field of grass is not essentially each blade of grass and it's shade in every detail. Rather, what it sees, would be blobs of colours yellows, greens, dark greens, whites, blacks juxtaposed next to each other in a certain pattern, which when seen from a distance mixed optically to form the composite picture of the field of grass. To Monet, the quest was to represent this pattern of distinct colours without mixing them, so that once you saw the composite mixture your eyes would see as if seeing real life. And saying this, he set off in the singular most significant quest in his life. To paint in a way that would replicate what the eye sees. He sat entire days, waking up only only to stare at a building or whatever the subject was to try and understand how light and shadow lent the colours various shades. How each shade interacted with each other creating the impression the eye saw. To get underneath what the human eye saw and took for granted every living moment. And this is the way he painted!

Rock Arch West of Etretat

Guess what the real thing looks like?

Now, here are a couple of mental exercises before you click on the pictures to see the larger versions. Try and list mentally the colours you would have on the rock and the water from the picture. Then take a look at the painting (click on it to view the large version) and have a look at the colours used. Also, notice how the colours when applied on the canvas are not mixed. They don't blend into each other. No matter how unlikely the colour, they're all existing juxtaposed next to each other unmixed.

Monet was this huge guy. The kind who would walk into to a room and the centre of gravity would shift towards him. Just as he envisioned this new way of painting, so did he influence a whole lot of other guys. And so grew the impressionist movement where a lot of these painters met up at a cafe near Monet's studio in France, discussed techniques and styles and developed impressionism further.

One person of course who stood out the most, whose name is possibly synonymous with art, is Van Gogh. Van Gogh's genius lay, according to my limited explorations of this whole new hobby, in his intuitive understanding of colour relationships. His brilliance absolutely is from the way Starry Night on the Rhone

 just lights up from the inside. There's a brightness from the stars, from the lights by the river that seem to come out of the painting and fall onto you! There are other similar paintings; The Café Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, at Night, the very famous Starry Night. In a letter to his brother Theo, Van Gogh mentions how it is wondrous to him that the night can be painted without any black colour. He refers to the night outside the Cafe at Place du Forum, Arles. And if you check out the painting and the others, it indeed lacks use of black almost completely. In fact I even came upon a paper that concludes that Van Gogh's style, the swirls and spirals coupled with the use of luminosity actually convey a feeling of motion to the viewer!Of course the fact that he suffered deeply in his last years and finally committed suicide may add to his legacy. But it surely can never take away from the genius he was.

What's most interesting is the sudden new perspective pursuing/developing something like this can give you. And it's amazing to realize that whatever we see everyday could have so many aspects to it. For starters, the next time you step out of your office or home and look at the sky or some trees in the sunlight try and count the number of distinct colours you see.

There's been a lot to write. Especially with so much of painting happening all around. I have kicked Van Gogh out of my display pic. to put in one of my own. But I'm in more than cursory appreciation of Monet and the entire group of impressionists. Creating something with your own hands in totality is a very rare occurrence of late. I mean yes, if you write something that's completely yours, then that's one of the things; else there's hardly anything that we do that could count as making something with your own hands. It's definitely been something that gives me reason to be pleased with self.

“Make a list. Cross it off. Build a fort. Read a magazine. Turn off the tv. Make some coffee. Smell the flowers. Take a day off. Take two days off. Take a week off. Go outside. Buy a plane ticket. Leave the country. Fall in love. Wear something new. Wear nothing. Camp a mountain. Swim with the fish. Paint a picture. Paint yourself. Listen to new music. Listen to old music. Play music. Take a walk. Make a new friend. Reconnect with old friends. Write people letters. Send the letters. Tell the truth. Grow your own fruit. Look at the stars. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Now, remember this moment.”
- Make a list. Cross it…from Goodmorning & Goodnight by Basheer


Have always crossed every list I've made. Stopped making them anymore. Never tried building a fort. Read a magazine. Tv's been turned off for years now. Can't make coffee. Haven't smelled flowers in a long time! Day offs - NA. Bought plane tickets. Flew off the mainland, though not to a different country. Fallen and bruised a couple of times. Need to buy new clothes! Check. Still needs to be done. Swam with fish in the Indian Ocean (While snorkeling in the Andamans a really curious bunch of butterfly fish would keep staring back at me after fluttering off into the distance to check if I was still there.) Have been painting non stop for the past 3 days. I'm too complicated to be done justice on canvas. Have been listening to a lot of Indie music of late, love most of it! Old music: refer to previous post. Need to find my harmonica. Missed out on football today :( , prefer that more to walks. New friends; that's not happened in a long time now. Reconnected with a few, yes. Does writing loong emails count? Try to, most of the times. Planted a mango tree 15 years ago, should have borne a lot of fruit. Stare at them very often. Check. Check.

Now I won't forget this in a long time!

You should do this exercise mentally if not blog it.

Doesn't get better than this. Pure vintage U2. This isn't just blast from the past, it's gas attack; central nervous system under threat!

Nothing better to do on a Sunday than dig up old stuff on your computer and look back at a much younger picture of you.

a) First job blues.
b) Quitting.
c) Republic day in college :-D.
d) Boredom in office can be turned into a blogpost. (copied from my office note book I diligently used during my internship)
e) Leaving home for the first time.

It's amazing how this blog captures so much of my past. I can remember the days, images briefly. Sometimes the feelings of anticipation, elation, worry attach themselves to the images too. Even the writing... I used to tinker with multiple backgrounds. Once I had this NatGeo photo of rains in the savannah; that's the one I remember most prominently. So there are posts with horrid font colours since the background wouldn't contrast with the white font colour it is now. There are posts with random capitalisations, drunken punctuation etc. etc.

It's scary to think I've considered deleting this site a few times already!