A train to Vizag (and some other sweeping memories)

For two days now, I have been at Vizag, arriving here yet again by train -- for a day of remembrance and prayers in the memory of my paternal Grandmother. This was again another journey reminiscent of "Trains In The Night" -- though I slept soundly (it helped that I didn't have to traipse up and down the train looking for a relatively clean loo, to lock myself in and light up a smoke), and another journey that has again brought me to a place that I have fond memories of -- I was born here and my vacations in my school-going days used to be here blessed by my paternal and maternal Grandmothers.

I have always associated Vizag with humidity, (I sweat like a pig from the moment I step here) rustic poverty, (I could be mistaken about this, it's as poor or rich as any "burgeoning" city of India, nowadays) claustrophobia (as much because of the sweaty May / June nights as because of the cloying closeness of "relatives") and fabulous vistas ( thanks to what remain of the hills of Vizag and the proverbial miles and miles of its beaches).

But I have associated it the most with my paternal Grandmother, whose loss I still haven't got over. In fact, I have not visited Vizag that frequently post my Grandmother's demise. And I am here even as another loss is searingly fresh, still kind of like a trance in that a par of me still asks, "is he really gone?". To be honest, I have the mixed feeling of chill dread and guilt that one has when a contemporary exits one's life suddenly. Guilt because, there is a feeling, how can I enjoy life when it has been taken away from someone so close to me? And that chill dread, oh well...isn't it in intimation of my own mortality -- the going of one of my contemporaries?

For some peculiar reason, one of my favorite memories of spending time with him has to do with spending time outdoors -- in the golden light of winter evenings at what used to be a far more expansive Shameerpet Lake -- beer bottles in hand, both of us amused and surprised at how the lake breeze would be caught by the bottles and then whistle. And now that I am by the sea (and its persistent breeze), I look forward to sitting down with a couple of Beer bottles and looking out towards the horizons, remembering those moments near Shameerpet Lake (and other great ones that we had)...

May is incidentally the month in which he was born and this is yet another of his birthdays when I have not managed to wished him (I am horrid with dates, and can also never differentiate between A.M. and P.M.). But I hope I can make up for it day after tomorrow, and I hope he will accept my belated wishes and say cheers up there in a bar in heaven with Pink Floyd blaring away one of his favorite songs...

And I also hope (like last year) I get to see a White-bellied Sea-eagle fly in to land :-)

But then, first there is tomorrow, my grandmother's death anniversary -- a day of prayers and remembrance.