A lust for life :-)

Channel 6 (a magazine based in Hyderabad) profiled me in their Achiever's Gallery for their December edition now on the stands (in Hyderabad I am told).

Read it here

My pic (in the story) is circa 2009, from before Moving On, the Royal Enfield (shown in the story) is erroneously said to be mine; as for the rest, well :-)

Thanks to KG Sujith and Sharmistha Maji of Channel 6 for this interview. Considering my PR skills (or lack thereof) it must certainly rank as an achievement for them to follow up with me and get the story inked.

Why is it...that the hills don't quake?

The title of this blogpost is an adaptation of the last stanza of "Vizag's Hills" a poem from Moving On.  

And this post itself is about one of Vizag's Hills, specifically one visible from the APTourism Guest House at Rushikonda (where I had stayed on my recent visit to Vizag) -- unmistakably so as it seems to have been cleaved to the bone by a giant, apocalyptic claw or used as a site for target bombing runs by combat airplanes.

A hill that looks more like an open wound -- bleeding ochre and red earth -- than any I have seen.

A closer look showed that this wound seems to have been terraced with plots / layouts and even bandaged with concrete (roads? sewage lines? sidings? your guess is as good as mine) that stands out white like scar tissue.

Just in front of this bleeding eyesore is another eyesore. Bungalows for the super-super-super rich built on an oh-so-nice, 15 degree incline, man made, bulldozer carved hill that towers over the Casuarina stands that fringe the beach and gives every one of them a "sea-view".

Rumored locally to have been sold for Rs. 3 crores and upwards.

In between (and I speak from my earlier peregrinations here) there are a lot of plots / layouts (some of them in three and four levels) terraced out of another hillside. You will find exotic lawns sprouting green there and nameplates in metal and stone announcing ownership that has come quickly, easily and one would think (in cases where the nameplates say -- "Dr. _________, USA") cheaply.

I am not surprised that the little I could see of the white-bellied sea eagles and the peregrine falcons was NOT at Rushikonda but at a distance, where there is no discordant development (and dynamiting) happening.

I am not surprised that I found fish (no, I did not take pictures) bloated and bluish green every 50 or so feet on the beach that the APToursim Rushikonda property overlooks.

I am surprised (as when I wrote "Vizag's Hills", some seven or so years back) that the hills don't quake.

And, I am surprised at how short-sighted and consumerist an idea, so-called "development" is.

 

 

A strangeness that grows

I don't know if I can call myself brave or courageous (though I do know that I have been called names to the contrary more than once) but I have always known that my hearing loss is progressive in nature, that it was expected to grow and I think by and large I have dealt with it in a proper way...dealing with various hearing environments and hearing instruments.

It does seem that I have lived various lives and survived the heartbreaks involved, what with each hearing instrument needing time to get adjusted to (and promising a better "quality of life")  various visits for audiology and reprogramming, etc.while the hearing loss has increased as the years have telescoped into more than a decade..

This increase in hearing loss has been evident to me, as it is tougher now than it was two years back to follow familiar voices (of the few friends who are in touch) and family (especially the little man), and these days when my hearing is unaided, for all purposes I seem to be residing in a voiceless, mute world.

As such it wasn't exactly surprising to know (through yet another session of audiology)  that I have crossed the century mark (110 Decibels) in terms of hearing loss in both the ears. And I am told that I will need to go in for a new set of hearing instruments, yet again.

Which is a bit baffling to understand because even though it is termed "progressive" hearing loss is supposed to be stopped from growing by the usage of hearing instruments. And yes, I do use two very sophisticated hearing instruments (they are small, colour coded, buzzing with life and came costing quite a packet), that I have been using them for close to two years now.

Hearing instruments that came highly recommended and were very helpful in the first two months (the trial period) but thereafter haven't been able to do much.

And while I (in a detached and stoic way) try to puzzle out how I got conned into a "discount" offer and what to do about it, I am also trying to puzzle out (in an even more detached and stoic way) what I can do about this growing strangeness which ensures that people who want to meet up and network with a lot of enthusiasm ultimately don't, prospective employers show interest and then let it fizzle out and even something as low-tech and common as catching a train becomes a challenge.

And, in a "perfect" world, learn to live with the embarrassment of ears (and highly hyped hearing instruments) that don't work.      

Uttarkhand Diary -- Birding at a Cantonment Town (2)

A dog named Bozo

Honestly, I don't know what his name was, though the soldiers at the base told me more than once, I failed to get it right. But then, if a dog is intelligent enough it will know when it is being called, whatever name you use to call him ( in this case, it was a "he"). Which meant that on more than one occasion when the mist draped the mountains all around and I wasn't looking at stirring out too far, I would call / cluck out to him and Bozo would accompany me looking as serious as a General on his inspection round (he was a barracks dog, after all) what with his propensity to sniff behind every bush and then regard the world with the lugubriousness of a Pahadi dog -- quivering muzzle, thick eyebrows and leonine head.

I have walked a lot with dogs -- especially, the two I grew up with -- through this field and that meadow and it is a different feeling altogether, the one that is borne out of this human-canine tendency to be footloose and fancy free, a companionship that is mostly silent with conversations that are monosyllabic or guttural (unless the dog is barking / yapping away to glory) or one that can be clownishly ebullient, as in when the man starts singing or reciting poetry or even if he just lets go and speaks his heart out.

Whatever it be, in this case, since I was unsure of Bozo's reactions to my singing or reciting poetry and anyway more intent on the birds in the mist-draped pines around, I mostly said "Come lets go there, Bozo" and every time our man (I was told he is around 4 years old, that's almost full grown  among dogs) would solemnly find the way on the wildflowers draped grassy hillside, with just a hint of a doggy smile to indicate his pleasure at having company along on what must be his daily beat.

I wouldn't know what Pahadi dogs are trained / bred to do (apart from being very intelligent and loyal, low maintenance, working guard dogs), but I am sure there is some kind of Pheasant hunting instinct in them (what with the Monal being found in this parts). Either that or Bozo was going around doing an inventory of the Tulip / Lilly and other bulbs, for our man would poke his nose into the mountainside, every metre or so as if he was a farmer prospecting for eggs laid by his free-ranging hens.

Mostly, Bozo did not flush any very exotic game and when you consider that I am a dog lover of a fairly unique breed, his propensity to go up and down the mountain in a way rivaling any self-respecting Ibex was pretty much of a distraction. But still he did manage to kind of spook a number of Blue Whistling Thrushes and Blue Tailed Jays to sit still long enough (out in the open where they were rooting around for grubs) for me to take some fairly decent pictures.

How I wish one of the birds he spooked into stillness was a Greater Flameback Woodpecker, totally out in the open!

Bozo also escorted me down to the "town" once (the first time we got acquainted) in a far from comforting way (he would be barely four or five body lengths away from me staring at me with doggy insolence and mutter-growling in his throat while marking his territory). How I survived that encounter without dropping my camera or wetting my pants or whatever is best described / shown in the field, I mean say, part of a Bird Photography Workshop called "How to survive mongrels and other inquisitive characters" but survive I did.

The rest as you have already read, is history.

Postscript -- Bozo also found me one evening when I was lugging my butt back up through the thick fog (and though I knew the way) feeling dead beat and very, very, very lost. He wasn't expressive at all, either, did not even wag his tail. But I knew he was pleased to see me and a bit concerned about if my plainsman legs were holding up in the hills. I could see it his eyes and I could even hear him chuckle to himself as he walked back with me to the mess.

Dogs, I tell you...

 
                    

Uttarkhand Diary -- Birding at a Cantonment Town

Surprisingly -- considering how footloose I am by philosophy and how much of free time I have on my hands -- I haven't been much into the hills and have been just once through the mountains. By hills I refer to the lower reaches of the Himalays and by mountain passes, of course I mean the high-altitude vistas and panoramic spread of Ladakh.

And yes, as many biker friends keep saying to me -- in a joshing, leg-pulling way -- that trip to Ladakh was a lifetime back, what with it being in 2005. You know, in a way that is no farther from the days of the Silk Route than we are from dirt track rallies on Mars.

I was not any more luckier when it comes to getting to the lower reaches of the Himalayas which most of the well traveled folks in Delhi refer to as the hills. Then, a one-day-long (read that as abysmally short and painfully hypenated) trip happened to a river valley a bit after the Kempty Falls (and oh-so-traffucked Mussoorie) this June.

Which is when I realised how wild and still pristine most of Uttarkhand is and how "full" of birds too! I made a promise to that river, that I will come back...and was on the lookout for another (far longer) trip into the hills.

That, thankfully happened mid July and I was technically "off to the hills" for a middling period of time (ten days involving train travel) and to top it all, a guest of the Indian Army too.

I could have pinched myself then, I still pinch myself more than a month after. And speaking of pinching, someone's convolutedly calculative thinking (and a dead-as-a-dodo's-shit data card) ensured that my pocket got pinched big, big, big time.

Prosaics (such as the preceding para and costs incurred apart), it was a stay out of a dream, a stay at a paradise of misty (and lonesome) heights almost six-thousand feet high. In a quaintly old (built in 1908, no less) bungalow that was rumored (by legend) to be directly in line to the flight of the angels to Badrinath.

In a town that probably has more trees (the amazingly deer antlered and lichen covered Baanjs and the equally lichen covered and ramrod straight Devdhars) than it does people, a strict "No Polythene" rule and has moss growing on almost every single embankment and wall.

In a town that reminded me of the quaint bungalows and spooky walks of places around Rourkela like Bondamunda and Birmitrapur where I had traipsed back in my childhood days.

In a town that is the raising area and headquarters to a regiment of some of India's hardiest fighting forces, no... not the Gurkhas, the Garhwalis.

Call me weird but (as I am not a travel blogger) the name of the place will go unmentioned as of now, at least till I chronicle it properly. Meanwhile a bit of a precis / overview of what I did (and hey, no I am not being facetious here, I do hope this precis / overview will help marshal my memory when I get down to chronicling this trip, and yes chronicle it, I will).

**************

An Officer and a Gentleman

I am self-confessed about the fact that I am scruffy, (mostly unshaven), artless and not too bothered by it, most of the times. Because it really doesn't seem to bother either the birds (or the butterflies) or the words that visit me or whom I need to chase. But then, one doesn't stay with the army (as a guest) and NOT look like an officer and gentleman, no? 

Yes, you guessed it right, I carried a shaving kit and used it daily too. Reminded me of my earliest "ambition" to be a Naval Officer, as I would shave daily (in a quaintly roomy bathroom as big as most bedrooms) and head out to the mess attached to the bungalow for my victuals (and the occasional drink). And need I say that I was treated like royalty, as befits an officer (or at least a gentleman, in my case; one who may have been a bit not that well turned out...).

Made me feel any number of times what most of us who bypass careers in the Armed Forces miss when it comes to access to places such as these, the quality of life and the prestige of being officers and gentlemen.

***************

Six days and no sight of the Himalayas, clouds, mist and then, rain...

The bungalow where I stayed was wreathed in clouds or mist or some other kind of precipitation for some or the other amount of time daily, starting the very first day. And then (after all -- I had delayed my trip due to "work" -- end July meant rains up in the hills, in fact normally I would have arrived there soaking wet) just when I had perfectly got into the groove of early morning wake-ups and lonesome walks, it started pouring, more or less leading to a washout of two days.

All in all, this also meant that I couldn't get a dekko of the majesty of the Himalayas, neither from the bungalow where I stayed (at the lip of a valley) or other more famous viewpoints all around. But yes, it was a novel joy all the same to see a hint of sunrise on the mountain peaks as early as 5.30 in the morning.

As befits a cantonment town (with a steep, not-much-wider-than-a-jeep road linking it to the plains) this one used to close pretty early. Which is when I had to hike my way up (from the town proper) from the cybercafe (remember that mention of the dysfunctional data card?) back to my lodgings over almost three to four kilometres (or so it seemed to me, if not more) of inclines that seemed thirty and forty-five degrees.

After a day mostly spent afoot birding, mind.

And oh yes, through fog / mist that meant I couldn't see beyond my birding shoes.

I don't smoke these days, have always been fit (though a bit rotund) and am used to long, long walks because of my birding trips, but yes I was dead beat everyday!  

And to think that there are people who run up even more steep inclines as children, day in and day out. No wonder the hill tribes make such tough and indomitable fighters.

***************

A bird in the bush is worth two in the hand

Well, so I twisted the adage, as you can see.

Thing is there aren't that many birds which come to the hand the moment one gets out a camera and starts shooting. A lot of such "birds" are out of focus or even empty air. All that is of course old hat for me since I am certainly a bit better than an amateur when it comes to bird photography. But then, these were birds of the hills, as swiftly dexterous as the lovely people who live amongst them and as moody and mercurial as its weather. Which meant that I collected more heartbreaks in those six days than I have in all of my birding trips put together.

But yes, there were any number of birds in any number of bushes -- especially Woodpeckers (both lesser and greater), Oriental White-eyes, Minivets, Blue Whistling Thrushes, Blue Tailed Jays (as common as crows down in the plains) Verditer Flycatchers...

Yes, I will chronicle all the sightings (and the heart-breaks) too and very soon, its just that I have gigapixels of birds to shoot before I sleep.

For now, two stories of heartbreak.

************

One sighting of a Lammergeier and two of a Himalayan Pied Kingfisher.

The Lammergeier is the dominant raptor for most of this region, which I surprisingly found bereft of Shikras, Kestrels and other smaller raptors (though I did see and photograph Owls more than once). The Lammergeier is also not very easily seen and certainly doesn't speck the skies as do the Black Kites. So, I am still a bit confused as to should I be happy that I saw one or should I kick myself that I lost it somewhere ( and then really lost it) while I managed to get my backpack off and camera out and was fiddling with the controls.  The bird was gliding along unhurriedly, some two or three minutes must have passed, I nearly went apoplectic with excitement, all to no avail.

Oh eFF, yes.

And that was the only sighting I managed, the only one.                    

This was up on the lip of the valley, then while walking besides a river that gurgled along in a carefree way that most of us have long forgotten, cradling my camera (rather the lens) I came across yet another Oriental White-eye doing what Prinias, Tailorbirds and other Warblers do down in the plains.

Emerge from bush in a swish-swoop.

Perch tightly with both legs on some twiggy extremity, as light as a leaf, and dart neck and body girth this side and that, almost precariously and dart up and down in the bush as if searching for something without a search warrant.

Swish-swoop away into another bush.

Which means, unless you can think like a Prinia, Tailor Warbler or other one of these little fellas, there is no way you can aim, focus and shoot them in the less than two minutes window of opportunity that opens for you.

And, mind I have said "yet another" up above. Hence, I was almost goggle eyed and walking as if on black ice expecting another Oriental White-eye to emerge (in this instance from besides the river) and do its vanish into another bush (on the other side of the road, at the hill's side).

It did work, a little fella emerged and I managed to focus on him / her and even fire off a couple of shots. But then, I got distracted.

Because, just below me, a bird bigger than the Pied Kingfishers (I am so used to photographing in the Deccan) flew, in a ponderous and very deliberate straight line over the meandering river. On hindsight, I should have become a Wild West Sheriff (or unbeatable outlaw) turned ninety degrees in a quick swivel, rapidly changed the camera settings and reeled off half a dozen shots.

At the very least.  

But then, I don't know of any Sheriff (or outlaw) who did all that quick swiveling and shooting with something as heavy as a cannon (or Buffalo gun) or a bird lens which is technically not even expected to be used hand-held.

So I did not try any heroics and took no photos of the "bigger than the Pied Kingfisher" bird watching it vanish while the Oriental White-eye did its swish-swoop and disappeared into the haven of some hillside bush.

That then, was the first sighting of the Himalayan Pied Kingfisher. And as with the Lammergeier, I really don't know, should I be happy to have seen it or should I kick myself for missing it?

And yes, I saw the same bird (maybe the same individual) on my walk besides the river on the way back. Only this time I had the 18-55 lens fixed onto the camera for snapping up some vistas that were heart-stoppingly wild, when the setting sun lit up one side of the valley with its golden rays.

Time to carry two cameras?

Time to buy a mule?

Oh well...

********

To be continued :-)       
                

Untitled

In the cobwebbed
dimness and silence
of a desolate temple of my faith

A flower drops
onto the petrified floor
from atop the ear of an idol

With no more sound
than two omens brushing against

each other, telling

Me nothing.
My God stays
a stony presence

All knowing.

Tum Aa Gaye Ho...

तुम आ गए हो...नूर आ गयी है
तुम आ गए हो... नूर आ गया है

नहीं तो चरागों से लौ जा रही थी
जीने की तुमसे वजह मिल गयी है
बड़ी बेवजह जिंदगी जा रही थी

तुम आ गए हो...
नूर आ गया है

कहाँ से चलें कहाँ के लिए
ये खबर नहीं थी मगर
कोई भी सिरा जहाँ जा मिला
वहीँ तुम मिलोगे
के हम तक तुम्हारी दुआ आ रही थी

तुम आ गए हो...
नूर आ गया है
नहीं तो चरागों से लौ जा रही थी
तुम आ गए हो...
नूर आ गया है

दिन डूबा नहीं
रात डूबी नहीं
जाने कैसा है सफ़र
ख्वाबों के दिए
आँखों में लिए
वहीँ आ रहे थे
जहाँ से तुम्हारी सदा आ रही थी

तुम आ गए हो...
नूर आ गया है
नहीं तो चरागों से लौ जा रही थी
तुम आ गए हो...
नूर आ गया है


Lyrics of a lovely, evocative, inspirational and lively song from the Hindi movie Aandhi. Priceless in its meaning and innate rythm!

Don't Let It Bring You Down

Old man lying
by the side of the road
With the lorries rolling by,
Blue moon sinking
from the weight of the load
And the buildings scrape the sky,
Cold wind ripping
down the alley at dawn
And the morning paper flies,
Dead man lying
by the side of the road
With the daylight in his eyes.

Don't let it bring you down
It's only castles burning,
Find someone who's turning
And you will come around.

Blind man running
through the light
of the night
With an answer in his hand,
Come on down
to the river of sight
And you can really understand,
Red lights flashing
through the window
in the rain,
Can you hear the sirens moan?
White cane lying
in a gutter in the lane,
If you're walking home alone.

Don't let it bring you down
It's only castles burning,
Just find someone who's turning
And you will come around.

Don't let it bring you down
It's only castles burning,
Just find someone who's turning
And you will come around.

-- Neil Young

Thanks for sharing this Vamsee :-)

A game of tigers and sheep

Who has the tigers and who the sheep

never seems to make any difference.

The result is always the same:

She wins,

I lose.

But sometimes when her tigers

are on the rampage,

and I've lost half my herd of sheep,

help comes from unexpected quarters:

Above.

The Rusty Shield Bearer,

neutral till then,

para-drops a winning flower —

yellow

and irrelevant —

on the checkerboard

drawn on the pavement in charcoal,

cutting off the retreat

of one tiger,

and giving a check to the other;

and quickly follows it up

with another flower —

just as yellow

and just as irrelevant — except

that it comes down even more slowly;

a flower without a search warrant

that brushes past her earlobe,

grazes her cheek,

and disappears down the front

of her low-cut blouse —

where she usually keeps

her stash of hash —

to confuse her even further, with its mildly

narcotic

but very distracting fragrance.


-- Arun Kolatkar

Delhi, Delhi -- another diary entry

As I remember having ranted elsewhere on this blog and as should be evident, I don't travel much on work and at other times, as befits a "poor" poet, I rarely fly.

In fact, truth be told, I have flied on no more than a hand full of occasions, so naturally I still find airports to be places that are unfamiliar, strange and beguiling -- what with the elaborately made up, mannequin-thin-and-unreal, garishly uniformed air-hostesses, the varied cornucopias of affluence -- coffee shops, gift shops, et al -- a virtual orgy of stainless-steel-and-polished-glass eye candy, that is just that -- eye candy. Good looking, contemporaneous, stylish and utterly lacking in soul.

Or maybe it is the people, the people, the people. Not the air-hostesses (many are in all probability acting out a role after all -- from the time they put on make-up to the time they remove it) or the flight attendants, or the other "premier" airport personnel. But rather the large number of passengers, clothed in an affluence and sporting a casual nonchalance that indicates (or rather seems to have been practised to perfection to scream out) that they have been here and done this all before, that they have been born to be here. That they belong here, in this soulless construction of polished glass and steel, however alien they and their mannerisms may seem to me.

Then again, I think -- evidently I am the alien here; shocked at the simplest of Coffee costing close to Rs.100 and a Sandwich costing almost Rs. 200 and (please don't snicker) no sight of the equivalent of Samosas or Janta Khaana / Jan Aahaar.

But I survive the airport's soullessness and even chuckle at how fake and put-on this sense of naturalness and "I-am-as-used-to-flying-as-I-am-to-the-metro" look that most of my fellow passengers sport. Or it is that I get diverted by the welcome presence of those who look more normal, the CISF (Airport Security) staff, the baggage handlers, the housekeeping staff and so on.

And then, I chuckle again (inwardly of course), wondering -- isn't this entire airport alien?

Traffic lights

Fifty phantom motorcyclists
all in black
crash-helmeted outriders
faceless behind tinted visors
come thundering from one end of the road
and go roaring down the other
shattering the petrified silence of the night
like a delirium of rock-drills
preceded by a wailing cherry-top
and followed by a faceless president
in a deathly white Mercedes
coming from the airport and going downtown
raising a storm of protest in its wake
from angry scraps of paper and dry leaves
but unobserved by traffic lights
that seem to have eyes only for each other
and who like ill-starved lovers
fated never to meet
but condemned to live forever and ever
in each other's sight
continue to send signals to each other
throughout the night
and burn with the cold passion of rubies
separated by an empty street.

Arun Kolatkar


P.S. -- Among other things, I have a pile of (work and other) writing to do and yet words won't come easy. On days such as these, the best solace I get is in poetry; like the poem here -- composed, crafted and "ciphered" in the way only Arun Kolatkar can :-) Reading this poem with an intimate eye, trying to picturise that thundering motorcade and visualizing myself sitting besides Arun Kolatkar (I do meet him a lot in my thoughts and dreams, but we rarely talk, both are equally taciturn) as he selects and fits in the "just-right" and "descriptive" word to accentuate, strengthen or delineate (deathly white, delirium, ill-starved) the lines of what he is shaping into a poem, deciphering what he "says" and leaves "unsaid" is just priceless as a release.

P.P.S. --

At my Oxford Bookstores event, a gentleman had wanted to know my opinion on "how much of poetry eludes logic" and left me totally nonplussed. Does poetry even exist on the same plane as (lay) logic? 

Can any of the instruments / tools (I am not sure if the word is right) of poetry -- allegory, imagery, metaphor, irony (to name just a few) be considered "logical" in the literal sense of the word -- do they appeal to / mesh with our own natural progression of thoughts and sense of logic? Or, is it that poetry has got its own sense of logic and unless one sees a poem with that sense of logic one sees nothing? What do you see in this poem?

     

Meet the "Birdman"

Deccan Chronicle's Hyderabad edition covered me in today's edition, take a look see here

The bird shown in the story is a little fella known as the River Kingfisher (also known as the Common Kingfisher, but as I have asked myself a thousand times -- and it seems M Krishnan also concurs with me -- what is "common" about this spectacularly plumaged joy of a bird?) I had photographed near a trout pool somewhere in Uttarkhand.

And yes, I like being called the Birdman, thank you Barkha and Deccan Chronicle :-)

I do feel a kinship with the Black Kites, at least a kinship that is deeper than what I feel with other birds and this kinship has led me to stop my motorcycle and gaze up at the skies (on the Vizag coast, near Delhi and all through Hyderabad) numerous times and also to ink many a poem.

Would ears (or hearing aids) help in photographing birds better?

I wouldn't know; I do what I can do with my eyes and its pure bliss and joy!

The quotes aren't exactly in context, but then they are not contentious either, so its okay.

Thanks also to Sujata Roy and Oxford Bookstores for setting this up.

Now if only the birds could read this, they would be happy too that I have been called the birdman!      

 

Rajesh Khanna -- the death of a super star

Do super stars (or for that matter actors and artists) really die?

A moot question, especially when one considers that they are larger than life and part of the make-believe and fantasy, love and romance, histrionics and dramatics and generally escapist world of films?

And, that every role that they may have essayed every film that they super starred in are part of popular culture, (available more or less as and when we want to relive them) and also living in our memories?

I don't really think so; and I also think that when one chooses to be an artist, one chooses to live for a "body of work" and that life subsumes the mortal one.

Either way, in my own peculiar case, Rajesh Khanna hasn't died and will live in my memories and resonate in my being through all those unforgettable songs he starred in, those songs to which he emoted as the one and only Rajesh Khanna could have, as only a superstar could have.

In my peculiar case, my name itself resonates with Rajesh Khanna's most well known movie and it is a song from that movie

...kabhi jab yoon huyin bojhal saanse,
bhar aaye baithey baithey,
jab yoon hi aankhen 
kabhi machal ke, pyaar se chal ke,
chuyey koyi mujhey par nazar na aaye, nazar naa aye...

that comes closest to haunting me, in a sad yet, in its own truthfully welcome way.

And then, while we are on this topic, a confession too -- I haven't yet seen Anand entirely; somehow missed it on the TV on DD whenever it came and never got around to seeing it on DVD, etc.

Maybe someday soon, for the aforementioned song, for the story, for the dramatics and melodrama, and for the lovely song --

Jindagi kaisi hai paheli, haaye
kabhi to hansaye kabhi ye rulaye..

Someday soon, someday soon...

While on this -- what was Rajesh Khanna the person like -- after all he was flesh and blood like most of us too, a considerate human being, a great husband, a good father, etc.?

I wouldn't know, you wouldn't know, but seems like Gautam Kaul did and it makes for compelling reading too. I first thought this to be in bad taste and not really worth publishing, so soon after Rajesh Khanna's demise.

But then, I realised such articles would anyway not hurt the dead, they are beyond all hurt. And then again, in all probability Gautam Kaul is just chronicling things "not that well known" about Kaka.

Read it here.          

          

Of Birds and Birdsong

Though I haven't managed to write much about it (largely because of the amount of time that goes into it) the biggest thing that has happened to me in the last 2 years is how I have been totally drawn into the fascinating world of birds and birding.

What started as a "lets see if I am any better at it now with digital than I was with film" lark led to one long lens and then onto another long lens. And yes, I continuously lust for lenses (and tripods and full frame cameras and camo coating and this and that) now that I know what a f/4.0 and ISO 3200 compatible setup will further impact the quality of my bird photographs in a positive way.

But then, I do use what I have, have managed to go on quite a few field trips ( mind -- none of them involved a motorcycle and almost all of them had me walking to the point of being on dead legs) and a lot of expeditions in the open areas all around my place. I consistently keep pushing myself to think like a bird and outwit it by anticipating its next movement, by spotting it when it thinks its perfectly camouflaged, by bringing in all (of the very little I know of field craft) and of course by dressing as dully as a dodo most of the time.

I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that while this and that has been happening in my life in its own way, most of my time has been solely devoted to photographing birds and birds have been the source of much merriment, activity, joy and poetry for me.

As such it was a pleasure to review "Of Birds and Birdsong" -- a collection of the writings of eminent naturalist (and pioneering wildlife photographer) M Krishnan edited by Shanthi and Ashish Chandola.The book is a delightful read (and prose of a high quality indeed) and full of insights for the amateur birdwatcher, hobbyist photographer, professional birder or any lay reader interested in nature.

Here's the review 

Love reading about birds, birdsong and nature? Do get it, you won't be disappointed, that's a birder and naturalist's word :-)

Ink Dries -- the Oxford Bookstores launch

Giridhar sets the evening rolling :-)

Mr. Marur reading from a poem on the Hussain Sagar from Moving On

Two good, eh?

In keeping with where I was coming from, I wore green, was in my birding tee.

And did I feel as fidgety as a bird as camera after camera snapped me up? 

I did.

But thereafter I was more or less a relaxed bird, perching confidently in a familiar milieu as Giridhar set the evening rolling as the emcee and Mr. Vijay Marur once again blew the audience (a fairly sized one for poetry on a rainy Saturday evening, especially considering the Lamakaan debacle) away with his sonics, starting by reading a poem on the Hussain Sagar from Moving On (as per my wish, I thought it apt to start by paying homage to the lake) and then quite a few from Ink Dries.

After we unwrapped the copies of Ink Dries to technically launch the book, the audience took over and asked me some really interesting questions (written down for me by Giridhar and Mr. Marur).

Like, how much of poetry is lost to common logic.

Like, will poetry be successful?

Like, how much of time it took me to finish the book.

Like, why the title Ink Dries (this was asked twice by two different people and from what I recollect my answer wasn't exactly the same both times).

Was a good session that humbled me and has left me full of insights.

Thanks to all who braved the rainy weather and came to the event.  


Thanks to Sujata Roy of Oxford Bookstores for making all the (I must say, very, very professional) arrangements and I am sure I will be going a lot to their bookstore hereafter.

All the pics are courtesy Umashanker.

There, the books are out!

   

Untitled

The train
sways sighs hurtles
its carriageway a green blur

The rain
bedecks the window bars
with strings of pearls, beads

The glass panes with diamonds.

Written in the train while I am headed back home to Hyderabad where I am told the rains have been very, very heavy in the 10 or so days I was away :-)

Book Launch of Ink Dries at Oxford Bookstores

If you follow my blog or are in touch with me on Facebook (or in other ways for that matter) you must be aware that its been quite a while since Ink Dries has been out and available.

Yet, this blogpost and this invite (to "this" event).

Because Ink Dries will soon be available nationally through Oxford Bookstores.

Yes this took some doing and yes, it wasn't easy doing it and I can only thank all my readers and friends for their continued support -- something that matters a lot whenever I contemplate on the "futility" of publishing poetry in these reader-parched, let-us-all-get-published-and-famous-days. 


Maybe more on this in a bit from now. 


For now, a personal invite to you :-)


You are invited to the book launch of Ink Dries at Oxford Bookstores, Hyderabad on the 28th of July, 2012.


I will be in conversation with Mr. Vijay Marur and thereafter there will be a poetry reading by Little Theater.


If you are in Hyderabad, do please come. Immaterial, do please spread the word.


A special note of thanks to Sujata Roy (of Oxford Bookstores) and Sashi (my brother) for all they have done (especially at the last minute) to make things happen, what with me away in Uttarkhand on a birding trip.


More on that too, in a bit.


For now, this book release :-)         

S c a t t e r e d ?

That -- the title of this blog post seems to sum up the status and character of the Monsoons this year (and the related fate of India's prosperity at large). To elaborate, the forecast is that the monsoon will be mostly scattered this year. Which means, it may rain cats and dogs (and cloudbursts) over your house while it barely drizzles over mine -- immaterial of our respective houses being located in two different states, cities, colonies or even being cheek by jowl in terms of proximity.

As I write this, there already seem to be "water wars" happening here in AP with the meagre water in Nagarjuna Sagar / Srisailam the proverbial bone of contention. And though AP has received some rains (which here in Hyderabad have as usual revealed the abject state of city's urban planning as if it were covered by a thoroughly wet tee shirt), the situation is really grim and almost drought-like across a large swathe of the country -- the floods in Assam notwithstanding.

The "entire" country is a different kettle of fish and the monsoon is not something that can ever be properly predicted but still why is it so that we -- most of India's metros and towns don't do much about conserving water? That we don't do much about letting it all go and flow -- by and by of course, through one big dam and another -- out into the sea?

Why, oh why, cannot we take a leaf out of the planning and foresight of kings and kingdoms of yore, who -- in days far less scientifically advanced than these had the common sense to get tanks and man-made lakes constructed in an intricate arrangement that ensured that more or less all the bounties of the heavens could be collected?

Why oh why, don't we give our lakes -- at least here in Hyderabad -- a bit more of respect, treat them with the care they deserve as our only reservoir of fresh water?

Is it that we all think, with typical urban consumerist disdain, that we can buy as much of water as we want?

Beggars me, the very idea...what will one buy when there is nothing to buy? 

Liquid food for thought, is it not?                

An Old Woman

An old woman grabs
hold of your sleeve
and tags along.

She wants a fifty paise coin.
She says she will take you
to the horseshoe shrine.

You've seen it already.
She hobbles along anyway
and tightens her grip on your shirt.

She won't let you go.
You know how old women are.
They stick to you like a burr.

You turn around and face her
with an air of finality.
You want to end the farce.

When you hear her say,
'What else can an old woman do
on hills as wretched as these?'

You look right at the sky.
Clear through the bullet holes
she has for her eyes.

And as you look on
the cracks that begin around her eyes
spread beyond her skin.

And the hills crack.
And the temples crack.
And the sky falls

With a plateglass clatter
around the shatter proof crone
who stands alone.

And you are reduced
to so much change
in her hand.


-- Arun Kolatkar   

S c a t t e r e d

Do you remember the velvet mites
their touch a pristine soft, softer than a cherub's kiss
their colour a red
redder than the passion in our lifeblood?

Do you remember how deeply we sighed
at the thought, that they were drops
s c a t t e r e d
harbingers of the coalescing deluges of love?

Again
full of faith, the rains
are here, drenching us child like,
with memories of what could have been

The Coming of The Rains

I have a birdbath up on the terrace's ledge and opposite the door into my "writer's shack".

For most of  the summer past, it stayed bone dry as most of the time there was no water to fill into it. I also had the grief of seeing half a dozen eggplant / brinjal / aubergine (never knew the difference among them) plants drying almost half to death once in two days if I forgot to water them (incidentally with mixes of what my mother would have "thrown" into the kitchen sink and the "soakings" of half a bucket of water in which I had washed my olive green "birding" Tee shirt and the "waste fish water" from the goldfish bowl).

The writer's shack itself did not see much of me or my writing -- for one, it was unbearably hot for most of the summer and for another I was "into" birding in a big way (more about that here soon -- hopefully).

Then again this year we did not have much of the usual pre-monsoon showers; nor did we have the steady build-up (in the form of real rains) which promised the onset of the actual monsoons. Two "natural" ways in which summer's heat is vented.

So, yes it was one crazy, cruel summer indeed; with a lot of gazing up at the skies.

But then came the rains -- after two days of them streaming in, cumulus and like the frosting of a cherub's breath the clouds totally darkened the blues. And then came the rain, starting with an afternoon drizzle -- through which (from the terrace) I spotted two male Asian Koels arguing in a neighbouring tree -- that then turned into one continuous deluge, throughout the night.

That deluge gave me all the water I needed.

To bathe to the depths of my soul.

To wash the floor of the writer's shack with buckets collected from the storm-water pipe.

And -- in a birdbath that also got filled by the rain water, also for washing up all my assorted ink pens.

Balmy
snowmelt cool,
seeps deep
the rain
into
my parched soul.   

That was one unforgettable night too -- one of an extended power cut when I had a number of Pessoan insights, while "writing" into my phone.

Now, for rains of writing, as the pens await bursts and deluges of ink.

A Long Summer Break?

Well not really; though it has been one crazy summer and I haven't been blogging much, things have been more or less the same. And then again -- the killer of most blogs, Facebook takes up a lot of my time these days.

But I will blog again. 

For now the rains are here (they hit Hyderabad around a week back) and among other things they have recharged the borewell at home.

Is it vain, this feeling of being refreshed -- of glorifying in the small joy of surviving yet another summer? That too, yet one more when I was out of doors finding some more poetry?

I wouldn't know and then again, for this instant it is already a summer past.

Let's drink of, in and to the rains.

  

A Song as Summer Ends

 

You wells of implacable sun-blaze
you nibs dipped in life light
I will raise you first
skywards
for that deluge of wetness
that heaven sends
I will raise you first, when it rains
immaterial of my soul's thirst

For now, my eyes, there's more
to see and hear
in the rhythmic dance of mirages on heat melt roads
to gaze hard at clayey cracks, for hark
there's a story in this now parched
mere of water lost. Yes, my eyes
we will take root, to unravel and raconteur
what these dried snags say

Wondrous, we will stay transfixed,
hearing birdsong in silhouettes of avian flight.
For now, my eyes, there's more
to see and hear,

This summer's just a short day
and long's the distance
to that endless night,
when we close.

Happy Birthday, Chandra!

You would have turned 35 today. Or 36.

If you were here today, maybe (in all probability) I would have as usual forgotten to wish you on my own.

But I am sure -- dead sure -- that you would have remembered to somehow get in touch and fix up a meeting somewhere. Probably to treat me to Beer and Biryani or something else befitting of a birthday party / treat for one's best friend.

And you would have wondered about the amount of grey my cranial and facial hair, laughed about being younger than my younger brother and pulled my leg about a birthday card, or a gift.

But then, I could have gifted you a book this time, one dedicated to you.

Cheers, Chandra and many many happy returns of the day.

Drink with the Gods up there, my friend.      

Bhubaneshwar Diary -- This and That

My good friend and host at Bhubaneshwar, S is a poet / journalist and the editor and publisher of a Odiya "little magazine", Samakala. S also happens to be a voracious reader and someone with an eclectic taste, which meant that I had a lot to choose from when it came to doing some "quality" reading.

And I did read a book, as in finish it, in more or less one sitting, the way it ideally should be, mostly because the book was gripping (and not that thick) and partly because I wanted to finish it in one sitting. Somehow, in keeping with the atmosphere of  S's place -- almost choc-a-bloc full with books, largely in Odiya, it was somehow apt that the book in question was It Rained All Night by Buddhadeva Bose originally a Bengali novel (with a lot of infamy, if I may so add -- banned when it was first published in the Bengali in 1967 on charges of obscenity)  in a masterly translation by Clinton B Seely.

What a lovely story (honestly it doesn't seem worth all that infamy, even in the 1960s) and it is certainly not graphic or obscene (at least not in translation) and seems just right to be called a "quick read", though the language is not what Chetan Bhagat will ever be capable of.

Also, what an indicator of the excellence and talent that lies hidden away from mainline English readers in India!

Definitely worth a second read, maybe I will get it and do a bit more of a blogpost on it soon.

Here's a good take on it   

I also read Arzee the Dwarf by Chandrahas Choudhury and it was a good read, with parts indicative of a good eye for detail (and the description of it) but somehow I did not find any high-points in the book; maybe I need to read it again.

******

There is this thing expected of me, whenever I go to Odisha. Yes, you guessed it right -- in case you know me or read this blog -- visits to Jagannath Puri and Lingaraja temples. I don't like a lot of things about going to temples -- the crowds, the lack of hygiene, the almost "not there" in terms of basic facilities for pilgrims and so on -- especially if the temples are famous / holy / revered (all three aren't exactly the word I am searching for) but I am Hindu and I believe, so I have the ability (like most pilgrims, I guess) to shut out all that is irrelevant and line up for darshan.

I couldn't make it to Puri (though a visit was penciled in and also "planned") but I did make a trip to the Sri Lingaraja temple, managing it there on my own, to reach it just at it started to rain in a steady drizzle. S had suggested that I go to Bindusagar (the Pushkarni at Sri Lingaraja temple) prior to darshan and that meant I had the pleasure of walking -- from the Prakara of Sri Lingaraja temple to the lake -- through another familiar milieu, a pleasure made more thrilling by the rain. Odisha has been lucky enough to have most of its famous temples left more or less intact (unlike in what is now UP and Bihar, unlike at Kashi and Mathura) by the Moghul and other Islamic hordes and the grandness of scale and planning was evident all around Sri Lingaraja temple -- as I walked from one Chokko (Chowk in Hindi) to another, through the ubiquitous Rickshaw stands and Sondhos (Odiya for Saandh), the un-castrated bulls who are largely left on their own, to regally plod down their "territories" in most of provincial and luckily-still-not-urban parts of Odisha. The rain meant that I had to squint for a sighting, but of course I had an idea of the peripheral presence of countless Paan, and mithai-cum-tiffin shops (with their cauldrons of blessed Ghuguni), even as I hurried on to Bindusagar.

By the time I reached Bindusagar it was raining heavily enough to be called a respectable drizzle and as scooted and I found some shelter (incidentally, under the plastic sheet awning of a closed Paan shop) right besides the lake and in front of a temple -- from which there emerged a steady procession of Pandas and Sevayats, most laded with Mahaprasad. Whichever way I gazed, I was overwhelmed by the sheer presence and visual atmosphere, the aged and much weathered stone all around -- the temples, the paved roads and the ghats bordering Bindusagar...or maybe it was the mystique of the rain.Speaking of visual atmosphere and rain, I just had to turn my head towards Bindusagar -- to see a green expanse of stillness broken by the incessant pock-marking of the rain. And as it happens to me whenever I am gazing at an expanse of water, I fell into a reverie, a calm that I can never explain, which in this this specific case was further heightened by a familiarity (I do a lot of birding around lakes and ponds and quarries in and around Hyderabad that look the same, algal / spyrogyra induced shade of green) and the nostalgia of countless such gazings...across the Pokhuris of my childhood as they were pockmarked by rain.

By and by the rain let off and I broke out of my musing / reverie too, to go down the ghats of Bindusagar and very courageously anoint my head with some of that dirty, algal green water. What a pity -- that this lake which should have been a Pushkarini in more than just name has to be this fetid pool of water, worse in upkeep than the uncleanest of any village's pond or Pokhuri.

I was at Sri Lingaraja temple on a Tuesday; a day of relatively less importance from the viewpoint of Shiva worship and as such there wasn't much of a crowd when it came to darshan. Which meant I had adequate time for my own darshan (with no one hurrying me) and prayers and could also come back and pray on behalf of A. Both the times while in the Sanctum, in keeping with my recent strengthened "strictness" of faith, I did not make any offerings to the Pandas (and I must say they weren't intent on me, since a busload of pilgrims were around) and I am happy to say I didn't feel stampeded or rushed either.

That -- not being stampeded and rushed -- is in all probability the key to enjoying a visit to any temple and in keeping with the leisurely pace with which I live these days, I had enough time to even look up at the temple. To truly get overwhelmed by the scale and magnificence of that spire, seemingly towering light years into the sky, optically leaving an impression of being far taller than the 55 or so metres that it is -- thanks to its architecture, design and construction (I hope to write more about this someday).

Not that I was rushed or stampeded while I was here last, or the time before that -- but somehow I never looked up at the spire. Maybe that should be standard practice at every Hindu temple?

I also spent some time enjoying darshan at the Parvati temple, the minor shrines (at least the major ones among them) and in a search for the Hundi (for my offerings). The highlight of this unhurried stroll was getting to see a squirrel feeding on morsels of rice (probably Mahaprasad) in the temple courtyard. Every time it would pick up a grain of rice and sit on it haunches to eat it, it seemed as if it sitting with its tiny paws joined together in reverential Namaste, deep in prayer.

Oh, how I missed not having my camera along!                               

Muir, Thoreau, I ?

Yes, my dreams have changed, this
of my free will, I admit.
This too -- in me a content grows

From these days outdoors, amidst
the goodness of trees,
the soil and the dirt

And that tell, the smell,
of the open meadow, the wooded trail;
and the rich fortune of being afoot

On the good, unpaved earth.

Friendless

After you, a year and
two days have passed away.  
Days empty, bare

Friendless with your loss.

Prosaics on doing nothing

Lately, I have realized that I am busy with a lot of things that really have no value, or that in the sum total of things, I am doing nothing. And then again, even when you are busy with the minutiae of doing nothing, sometimes you still end up doing nothing. Like it was day before yesterday, when there was a lot of gusting, thunder and lighting (again a lot of it) and almost nothing in terms of rain here near S's place at Bhubaneshwar. Of course it all contributed to making the evening pleasant (as opposed to the one before) but then what is the sum total of small things like that anyway?

What the afternoon of summer rain (or rather the afternoon of threatened summer rain) did result in was -- light so bad I could do no shooting at all which meant that my date (emphasis on "my", birds of course have their own schedules to keep) with the White-breasted Kingfishers that abound all around hereabouts ( I have already sighted 5 of them in convivial proximity to each other) was a parade that got rained on.

And then again, I saw a "bothered to bits", "almost going around the bend" (at least that's how it seemed to me) tailorbird in a wildly swaying mango tree that's almost eye level from S's bedroom balcony.

Poor thing was half crazed with all the gusting and the thunder and the lightning and the occasional pellets of rain. I spent close to a hour watching it, unable to help mitigate it's misery of hopping from one branch to another, wondering (not for the first time, I will confess)-- where do birds go when it rain? Especially if they don't have trees to nest in?

Ah, all these small things and nothings, no?

I also wrote something in verse, in more or less the same vein...I guess it needs a couple of revisions sometime soon :-)

Untitled

Yesterday, in a burning
nib's crawl on my skin
the heat wrote nothing.

Today, the sky's a page
of silver haze, riven by lightning,
it rains a drizzle, of watery ink.


Like it? Do let me know!

Bhubaneshwar Diary -- Familiar Milieus

S came and picked up groggy-eyed me (I was sleeping when the train pulled into Bhubaneshwar and it was pulling out even as I leapt onto the platform) and confessed that he had just got up. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it had poured heavily at Bhubhaneswar the night before (the evidence was there to be seen and felt as we rode to S's place through the wide roads of this planned city, in the form of a prevalently moist breeze and numerous damp patches).

S lives in the same locality he used to when I visited him last (incidentally last summer) and still has more books than any other worldly possessions. The good thing that has happened between then and now is, he's moved to a bigger place and bought some white goods. The gooder thing is that he's still the "same seriously committed to literature and spartan when it comes to other things" guy, even now.

I am in Orissa on a breezy morning, in a locality I can get along in, where I know the lie of the land,language, etc. and looking forward to the Ghuguni, the Singharas, the Aloo Chaps, the Baras and so on. Funny how the act of "traveling" takes you from one familiar milieu to another, as opposed to going from one realm of strangeness and uncertainty to another.

But then, for now, this is what I want, a familiar milieu and the comfort food of my childhood.

***

Last I visited S, he was keen on eating out; this time he has been cooking up things, starting with a spartan lunch of rice and dalma on day 1. Either side of that lovely lunch, I traipsed on the well wooded roads and lanes (most of the trees planted here are Kadamba, middling huge in height and broad-leafed) happy to spot and recognize koels, shrikes, mynahs and babblers and delighted at my first sighting of the crested / red-whiskered Bulbul. And no, these traipsings weren't meant to promote world peace or the benefits of walking. I seriously had food on my mind and I seriously did justice to my appetite for tipphin. Which in the morning meant a plate of Singharas and Ghughuni (and then another). And, in the evening meant some more of the same. These are not Samosas and Alu Bondas and the Wadas mind. These (and the lip-smacking, subtly flavoured, rustic Ghughuni served along as accompaniment) are as Oriya as Pokhalo or Daali, Bhato, Torkari. And as I tucked into the Ghuguni, spoonful after spoonful of it, I will admit, I was transported away from the developed urban setting of paved roads and posh pucca houses of this suburb of Bhubaneshwar. To the mud and wattle, asbestos and tin, hotels and chha shops of this colony and that chokko in Rourkela, the steel township where I grew up. Familiar food does that you, I guess, it fills you with more that what you bite into.

***

I find it a bit leery to publicly declare an identity and I think it is okay not to have one (apart from being Indian) even in these days when loudly proclaimed and blatantly championed regionalism is a way of life. I also find is opportunistic to claim any identity just on the basis of the ability to speak a language (or for that matter to speak English with a local accent) but then again how does one look at the environs and other shapers of one's childhood as anything apart from being one's primary identity? Mine was a largely unsupervised, very rural Odiya childhood -- of catching watersnakes (thanks to my tribal friends), lazing besides Pokhuris and wading through rice fields; and then again, the first four letter words I learnt were in Odiya.

So, I can say that a part of me is and shall always stay Odiya.

But then again, I never remembered the significance of Maha Vishuba Sonkranti, the Odiya New Year. Yet, when S mentioned that this is the day also called Pona Sonkranti, I recollected the ribald day on which most adolescents and adults partake of a drink made of ripe custard apple, bananas, other fruits and bhang. Speaking of Maha Vishuba Sonkranti, at least I don't remember being taught at school that so and so day is Odiya New Year day, also called Pona Sonkranti.

Yes, I admit that I do remember knowing the significance of Ugadi for as long as I can remember but I guess that had to do more with being Telugu by birth (and a very easily enforced, I never got around to learning how to read / write Telugu) upbringing.

So, I can say that a part of me is and shall always stay Telugu too.

***

I also don't remember knowing that Bhubaneshwar is just 64-65 years old and a "planned" city a la that other favorite city of mine, Chandigarh. Maybe this never struck me because I have always identified Bhubaneshwar with its grand old, almost timeless temples like that of Sri Lingaraja. Anyway, thanks to S and a detailed write-up in the Orissa Post (a Bhubaneshwar based English daily now into its second year, whose copy is of surprisingly good standards) now I know better.

S had an errand to run at Old Bus Stand and thereafter we intended to go meet Mr. D, a venerable senior poet / scholar with whom I am acquainted thanks to S; so I rode pillion with S, with the perpetual threat of light rain. And it was a lovely ride indeed, with most of the government buildings -- the East Coast Railway building, the Secretariat Building, the Assembly building and main squares of the city decked up in lights, puddles of water on the road and a lovely breeze present all through. Must say I missed taking my camera along. Really, really missed it. Incidentally Mr. D was busy and we did not manage to meet him that day and S wanted to shop for groceries so we landed up at Big Bazar. Where I learnt (thanks to the advertising of an offer at the afore-mentioned retail chain) that it was Chaitra Utsav, something that I have never heard of.

So there again, I am not claiming any identities, there is so much I don't know about Odiya culture.

Or about Telugu culture for that matter.

Bhubaneshwar Diary -- Prologue

So I set out on yet another train journey, or rather yet another train journey to Orissa, to the state where I grew up, a state which always has that familiar echoing call of home.

Apart from the fact that I caught the train literally by the skin of my teeth (my ticket got confirmed only in the morning, just two hours before the ETD of the train) and the fact that I managed to get off it literally by the skin of my behind (I was in deep sleep when the train reached Bhubaneshwar), the journey was more or less uneventful. But for the fact that I again couldn't read or write much and that, that I was yet again allotted a side upper berth (which surprisingly enough don't have a charge point).

Gosh!

Did I say the journey was uneventful? And I also mentioned sleeping! Lest you get the idea that I spent the whole journey flat on my back, here are some highlights.

I had to break my recently undertaken vow and buy a plastic bottle of water. But I stuck to that one through and through the journey (and can use it on my return journey too). Which meant that I (unlike most who travel AC and reserved) was part of the great Indian Railway stampede headed for the drinking water taps, at a number of platforms that the train pulled up at, in between Kazipet and Vijayawada, when the heat was at its hottest. Part of the stampede of forearms and shoulders, each intent on muscling bottle mouths to taps, for that most precious of "free" commodities, water. And -- in keeping with the panic of summer train travelers -- most of those bottles were big and even being lined up in twos and threes, while all I wanted was just one tiny bottle of water.

All this is in passing more or less, I survived all those stampedes as would anyone who has traveled enough to learn a bit of patience, a bit of consideration for his fellow man.

It's just that, during one of those stampedes, a forearm was crowding mine with a huge green bottle (that looked like a veteran of many a tap-side battle) shouldering into my puny Bibo water bottle. I felt like pushing back, but just in time, I saw a tattoo on the forearm -- MAA, in Odiya script. And all I did was half raise my arm and say something like "Ruho Tike", peace reigned and the green bottle withdrew back. I walked back with a bottle of water and a touched feeling, for once again having an intense encounter with the mystique and power of the mother cult.

It was pretty late, 10ish more or less, when the train passed through the total darkness of Elamanchili railway platform, halting barely for the 2-3 minutes it is scheduled to, almost as if it was a forced gesture. And for absolutely no reason -- no one was coming to meet me, nor did I need to buy anything to eat or drink -- I decided to wait up till the train reached Vizag. That wait which I had estimated to take no longer than 45 minutes, ended up taking close to double the time. Meanwhile I was lucky enough to witness the "hills of Vizag" standing sheer and dark like massive fort walls or the coils of some prehistoric snake against the lights of the industrial areas around Vizag...and the far off lights of the city itself. The night breeze as the train cut through it was cold, there was a hint of rain in it...and of course a hint of that peculiar cocktail of a smell too -- of sweat, salt, casuarina and coconut -- that announces Vizag to the olfactory part of me. Maybe it was worth waiting up for, I thought...while standing on Vizag platform and (off all things) charging my cellphone at a deserted charge point, watching people (many of them heavily laden) running helter kelter over a slippery platform (it had just been washed and many puddles remained) to reach the unreserved compartments up ahead, in all probability intent on making it home to Orissa, somehow or the other, in time for Maha Vishuba Sankranti.

To wind up, sharing a "discovery", you can travel without ticket on the Indian Railways now. All you need is the SMS sent to you by the IRCTC, in lieu of a print-out of your ticket. How progressive, no?

The holiness of wide open places -- 2

These wide open places, this surviving patch of wilderness (it's not true forest of course) comprises mostly of scrub and mid-sized trees with a Rain tree and a Silk Cotton here and there. The rest is all wild grass and undergrowth interspersed with a couple of abandoned quarries and a really wide fire trail (the other side of which is military no-man land) encloses it on one side. The other side is an apology (in development terms) of a road, red, red, red.

I stumbled upon these wilds totally by serendipity when I was looking at basically staying off the highways or the traffic choked one's of the colony while taking the little man on one of his much demanded "tirigi vodamu" rides -- if memory serves me right -- some 3 years back.

The little man used to call the wilds "water"; that was his blanket term for that stretch, yet another stretch dominated by a big (again disused / abandoned) quarry and the buffalo wallow that thinks it is a pond, the pond that thinks it is a tank (it even has a bund of sorts) where he once wanted me to jump into the waters and get out fish for him to eat. But then, since the little man's preferred adventure was to throw stones into water we haven't much been into the tree / grass wilds that much, but for slow first and second gear thumping, either on the red road looking out for peacocks and wild rabbits in the summer or going through every single puddle (much to the little man's delight) that had formed on it through the wet season. And of course a number of rides through shoulder high grasses after the first of which I taught him the word "forest".

For the last two years, increasingly the little man's visits have grown lesser and as to be expected, apart from the Cartoon serials on the TV he has got hooked to playing games on mobile phone handsets too. Which means that he has never come birding or butterflying with me (I have been seriously doing it for a bit over one and half years now). I hope I can do something about it this butterfly season, maybe encourage him to go chase one of them, but I know that the chances are remote -- he and the adults in the family will certainly not be enthused by the prospect. And -- in all probability -- being the opportunist he is, the little man will turn the butterflying trip into yet another pizza trip.

Then again, maybe I am running ahead of myself and he is too young to be really interested in what the difference is in between a hawk and a crow and a butterfly and a wildflower. After all he has just turned six.

But then, there is a child in me who consistently finds thrill in these open spaces; not just because of the photographs or the keepers among them. But also for the open spaces themselves, for so many things that register on the mind's eye and are beyond photography. Like the cool gusts of breeze from the quarry / pond waters bearing in them the promise of rain or the silvery flash -- more imagined than seen -- as a fish turns tail, or even the serious (thoughtful child) observations of how the grass grows (even as my hair does) and dries as a more implacable season finds its feet. And yes, I have no shame in saying that I tried shooting butterflies in flight and could have bitten myself in anger when all I could see "captured" were fuzzy blobs of colour where there should have been wings, antennae, proboscis and so on. I also have no shame in saying that I have been awestruck more than once when in some rain-fed green meadow in the wilds, I have seen more butterflies aflutter than I could count and couldn't know which on to concentrate on.

It's yet another thing that I still will chase and try to "capture" a butterfly in flight this season too, but if I fail this time I will laugh and not be piqued. Because now I know butterflies better.

The holiness of wide open places

As the sun sets on another evening out in the field -- in this familiar milieu where I have found poetry and other idylls (such as photography) while dealing with the increasing number of perplexities that have stalked my days -- I am overcome by the desire to give away half of the millions I don't have to own a patch of wilderness like this, to ensure that every tree and trail in it can remain the way it is -- sacrosanct.

Not because of this smell of burnt undergrowth, as indescribable as that of ink. Not because I have seen and known these grasses (now, a dry and wheaten gold) as a rain-fed green, ripening into a granary of bird feed. Not because, it is here that I come across the elusive majesty of raptors -- Oriental Honey Buzzards, Shikras, White-eyed Buzzards...but because of a very selfish reason, because of a feeling of blessedness. The kind that makes my favorite song come to my lips -- unbidden.

कहीं दूर जब दिन ढल जाये /
साँझ की दुल्हन बदन चुराए /
चुपके से आये /
मेरे ख्यालों के आँगन में /
कोई सपनों के दीप जलाए...

कभी यूँ ही जब हुई बोझल साँसें /
भर आई बैठे बैठे जब यूँ ही आँखें /
कभी मचल के, प्यार से चल के /

छुए कोई मुझे पर, नज़र न आये /
नज़र न आये...

And I feel rich, feel like I am overflowing with a happiness that I cannot even begin to explain or express, feel touched by the holiness of these open spaces.

Wintry Train Trippings

Let's face it, most of our trains are dirty, most of our train travelers are opportunists intent on getting the most out of their berths, everyone treats the bathrooms and vestibules (at the very best as their colony's garbage heap and yet...and yet...there is that mystique to traveling by train.

Especially if it is winter and you don't feel being slow-cooked into Biryani by that most Indian of seasons -- summer.

Then again there is the affordability -- a Sleeper Class railway ticket to Delhi costs less than what a cab to the Airport does, in fact costs so much lesser than you can treat yourself to Beer and Biryani with what you have saved.

And, as I had already mentioned here earlier, train journeys are a nice way to unwind with nothing much but a book (or the prospects of a snack) to occupy your mind :-)

***


This time (I was headed for Delhi and then onto Chandigarh, from where I was to ride down for Rider Mania) my train was from Kacheguda and that meant taking an early morning Auto that cost almost half what the train ticket itself did. The incongruity of "urbanization" and "development" is it not?

This time (unlike the trip during September) I had a reservation, and the train was an early morning one (and post the launchitis of Ink Dries), so I started my unwinding with a long snooze that finally broke when the smell of Samosas -- that divine cocktail of a smell, of masala-laced potatoes and fried oil broke through my languor, latched into my olfactory sensors and summoned me into wakefulness.

And I do love Samosas, so it meant one or two did not suffice, but three did. I will also be shameless enough to mention that these were big and pretty hard) Samosas, but then I will also remind you that I had had no breakfast.

This was in January of what was a very very cold (especially by Deccani standards) and the weather was still mild so I enjoyed the fortune of gazing out at and drinking in from an un-ending cinemascope of bright blue skies and verdant greens, passing through what was once the Kakatiya kingdom, fertile expanses irrigated by the plenty of irrigation tanks -- the landscapes I have seen so often on my motorcycle wanderings through the lovely Deccan, on interior roads without name...rice fields sparkling with the liquid green-gold glint of growing rice, like giant bird eyes and the dark massifs of stone too, at least one in every sweep of my eye -- the Kondas I know not the names
of -- as a reminder of the aridity of this land.

Then I did nothing much till Ballarshah which (if as all the readers of my blog know) is where one comes across those famous and sinfully inexpensive Puris. And no, ravenous though I was, I did not order the lunch from the pantry car, such was the memory of familiarity and trust of those Puris.

Ballarshah comes but seems to have been wiped clean of all the hawkers. Absolutely wiped clean, so no Puris for me. But then, I scour the platform (the trains stop here for a fair amount of time, in fact, many get a cleaning / scrubbing here) and luck it out by finding a chap selling warm-to-the-touch meal packets out of a shoulder borne carton and get one. Open sesame -- there's a brick sized lump of rustic small-grained and unpolished rice, like what I have eaten across many a hostel mess in Orissa, along with small packets -- of green peas and potato curry, what looked and smelt like lentil soup (Dal), watery buttermilk and even mango pickle.

All this for 30 INR only, simple, wholesome and honest food that doesn't pretend to be anything else.

Please do remember that I don't claim to be a foodie, before you blame me for having forgotten what I did for dinner. Maybe I did do something unique but honestly, I don't remember. What I do remember is sleeping a bit early and then tossing and turning all night, feeling more and more frozen --I had forgotten to pack any blanket -- with ever kilometre of the train's progress into the cold of the north. And yes, it was really cold, the kind when you want to draw you feet into your legs and your fingers into your hands, the kind when you try that part foetus like, part dog like curl to conserve body warmth.

But then whoever designed the berths of the Indian Railways did not account for somebody as big as me, so the curling wasn't that effective either. Yes, my self-inflicted travails are legion but what matters is that somehow I survive them all, so the long cold night passed and I lived.

To wake (late) and find the train slowly making its way through heavy fog all the way into Delhi with splashes of sunlight here and there, as infrequent as butterfly sightings in December. Catnapping, I spent most of the time in a sleepy reading, of the meanings revealed in the mingling of my frosty breath with the vapours rising out of hot tea.

***

I had arrived at Hazrat Nizamuddin (and since I was prepared for the deluge of taxi-drivers and hotel touts) did not have much issues getting out of it. Or rather, since I was looking for a place to "refresh" myself (or to use the motorcycle tourer / outdoors types equivalent -- go behind the bushes) and move on to New Delhi Railway Station to catch the Una Jan Shatabdi, probably most of the touts did not find me a potential prospect.

I managed to "refresh" myself at much effort (and with a leap of faith that involved leaving my luggage unguarded right outside the loo) breakfasted on some delicious roadside Chana Kulchas and then got into a bus headed for New Delhi Railway station with the vague idea of buying woolens somewhere near it, if time permitted.

Did I not tell in an earlier blogpost that I have developed an eye for birds, that I see them everywhere, even in very humdrum urban settings? What I forgot to say is that every such sighting, even of very "common" birds leaves me with a soul-soaring of joy, something that is simply indescribable in prosaic terms. So here I was groggy after a night lacking in warm sleep -- the ideal thing for me was to ask a co-passenger (there were quite a few good looking ones wearing bright sweaters and scarves and what nots) where I should go (near NDLS) to buy some decent woolens. Instead I was looking all around and marveling at the Black Kites of New Delhi, the sheer multitudes of them, as common as me and literally everywhere and flying in unhurried nonchalance all over early morning barricaded-for-Republic-Day New Delhi.

In fact, I almost pulled out my camera (it was not in a backpack, but a suitcase rather) and almost got down from the bus and almost...but better sense prevailed and I reached New Delhi Railway Station.

And oh yes, I did not find any good woolens but I found some "okay" Chole Batore to tuck into. And then I was onto another platform, ready for another train journey. And then, there was the "foodie" discovery of the day -- on P.F. No. 10 -- a packet marked " Indian Railways Puri Sabzi, Rs. 10" surprisingly mine for 10 INR only. The contents weren't hot air either, 6 odd small (but thick) reddish, coarse-grained (hence immensely flavoursome) Puris, Potato curry and (just a dash of) pickle too!

Discovery isn't exactly the right word, I had a feeling of deja vu, have I found (and gorged on) such packets before?

Then I was again in a train bound for the greenness of Punjab and the bonhomie and paranthas (and butter) of the Panjab, in the Una Jan Shatabdi.

The Jan Shatabdi is "not" a bad way to go to Chandigarh, its in fact convenient, clean and middling "fast", but its also a "populist" train which means it is cheap and totally a "seater"( I could of course be wrong about the AC section) with barely more than enough leg room with three seats on either side of the aisle, seats that are again not meant for 6 feet types like me. Especially if the passenger besides happens to be equally big as me and intent on sitting "chaati phaad ke". But I was sure that I will somehow survive it all and reach Chandigarh and be in a position (even if fairly late) write this up :-)

The mild discomfort of being a bit closely packed apart it was yet another cinemascope of green fields and blue skies all around (rather when viewd from one side of the train -- the other had a weak, benign sun flaring into my eye and then fading into a blood red sunset while the train passed through what our history tells us were once battlefields red with blood -- Kurukshetra and Panipat and the quaintly evocative ones like Diwana and Aman. And to boot, the quaintness got heightened even further because my co-passenger (for a bit of the journey) all of nineteen years and a very charming kid with immaculate manners was reading Jane Eyre. Ha, reading and that too Jane Eyre!

Ambala arrived and I ate some more Kulchas, but I will not mention the rest, I am sure I have written about it somewhere on this blog itself recounting my earlier trip to Chandigarh by this very train...

But I must make mention of the Black Kites, again in large multitudes silhouetted against the flaring skies, which meant I again had that urge, of pulling out the camera and getting off the train, etc, etc.

Of course I didn't; and reached Chandigarh, surviving the cold getting colder with the evening. To be received at the station by K revving his Bullet and asking me to hop onto it with suitcase and all. He had even considerately brought along a helmet for me.

All that K and I did in Chandigarh (starting then on) deserves a dedicated blogpost and maybe I get around to missing Chandigarh a lot and will do it soon too.

अब, क्या लिखूं ?

सूख गयी नमी शिशिर की
रह गयी बस बन कर
एक अध् लिखा पन्ना
-- कुछ भरा --
मेरी कल्पना की छींटों से

अब, जब आ खडा
ग्रीषम ऋतू
मेरे कवित्य के द्वार
अब, जब सूरज का बढता तेज
छलकता मुझ में, बन तेज़ाब की सियाही

अब, क्या लिखूं ?

Summer Languors

Untitled

In the afternoon, liquid bursts of taste
white rice and this season's first
green coconut chutney.

Then, that languor of doing
nothing but toss and turn
a siesta -- another forced festivity.

In the evening, the familiars
an unslept feel, the failure
of the water pump to bring up even cool air.

Soon summer will colour everything
with the brassiness of its heat,
spreading a somnolence, vaporising ink.


***

Untitled

As the sun grows
in vehemence, burns
with its light,
I -- this Sharira
for found meanings --
am a vessel on boil.

A bit of the road and my first field birding trip

I am not a compulsive blogger and I am chronologically challenged
too. On top of it all, every time I post up here I am heavily spammed in
the form of comments by various bots. And I can tell you its a fucking
nuisance to have to repeatedly hit the "notify as spam" button and yet see
the same bots do the same thing down the line.

So you can say I have my reasons for being silent out here. But now that my
father has recovered (in fact, apart from the bypass surgery he had -- from
a very bad self-inflicted scalding because he poured hot water over himself
in a hotel bathroom at Tirumala) and the book moves on
as poetry does, I hope to blog more here on this online journal
of my days (for whatever it is worth).

And in time, I hope I will get used to the bots crapping here, I guess
the way I have got used to all and sundry Facebook comments and notifications.

How I digress, you will say!

**

If you like having the wind in your face, if you like the road (whatever
it means to you, there are a thousand and one "road" philosophies, and
then some) you would know that in India there is no better time to
ride than in the winter -- when the temperature is a bracing "not-even-warm"
in the day and the nights though chilly (and very much so, even around
Hyderabad,lately)are just right to gather around a fire or a Dhaba's tandoor,
when you have that gloriously golden evening light that gives chrome a
glint that is downright in-describable.

And most of the winter past I wasn't exactly in a position to ride, couldn't
get away, did not want to be far from home. But then, as all good things
happen in time, I did manage to be in a position to answer the call of the
road around the third week of January.

It so happens that my trusted (and much loved) Bullet will turn 10 years
this May; and though I still don't know what it amounts to, this extended
ownership of and loyalty to the same set of wheels, these highway miles
that we have shared together, I do know that (though there are the usual
pitfalls and worries) there is no better way to eat up the miles than on a
Royal Enfield.

And (since I have been part of four of them) I will also say, there is
no better biker event to ride to than the annual Rider Mania conducted
by the Bullet clubs every January.This year's event was held on the
outskirts of Delhi, by the Royal Beasts.

Most importantly, last year I had fallen en route to Rider Mania
(at Kolkata) so this time around it was important that I be there. If for
nothing else, just for the pure pleasure of calling myself a biker.

But then, I had goofed up and my Bullet was not exactly ready for the road
and I was a total "mixed pickle" in the head; all at ends and in no position
to plan for the road. At around the same time my good friend
Bikram of the Road Survivors Chandigarh offered to lend me his
Bullet. Which meant that I could take a train to Delhi and then
another to Chandigarh.

And then ride out in a group (and a fairly large one) to Manesar.

350 or so kms each way (I am just guessing, the Thunderbird Bikram lent
me had no functional odometer) through cold winds which felt like a wet
cloth touching the exposed parts of the skin (in the day) and made me
feel like a Bedouin would in Greenland (in the night) still isn't much of
a Rider Mania tour. But I will take it, riding as I was with a "recuperated"
collar bone, on a strange (the Thunderbird's brake and gear levers
are opposite to that of my Bullet) bike, wearing an open-faced helmet
without a proper retaining strap provided the rest of the edge.

As did the effort of reining myself in, not opening the throttle
wide open, after all one doesn't push a bike lent by a friend
to the limits, does one?

The ride from Chandigarh to Manesar apart, there was quite a bit
of riding that I did in Chandigarh itself. This was my fourth
visit to Chandigarh and I consider myself genuinely fortunate
to have friends in this lovely city of well planned Sectors
(reminiscent of the Sectors of Rourkela) as also the lovely
Paranthas, the wayside "spring rolls" and the roundabouts.

But my most enduring memory of Chandigarh will remain the number
of turbans and the number of brightly coloured groups -- of women
and men standing out in the sun and doing nothing much but basking,
like so many butterflies. Maybe its because, it is summer and getting
hotter by the day when I write this, and I am always looking forward
to the coming of the butterflies :-)

**

It has been more than a year since I have been seriously "birding".
And while I am no ornithologist or even someone with a Graduate level
of knowledge of zoology (and by inference or extension, of birds) I
am a bit surprised about how well I have taken to it. About how fast
my development has been, about how I delight in seeing birds everywhere,
even in humdrum urban situations -- like the Black Kites of Hyderabad,
Vizag,Delhi and Chandigarh; or the Sparrows, Munias, Prinias, Silverbills
and Starlings (and crows) all around my place; or the almost "blessed
sighting" of a Peacock / Hornbill crossing over from one patch of urban
forestry to another, right over the head of road-borne me; or seeing
very green Parakeets disappear into the dirty grey monotony of a
telephone pole and so on...

And I have been getting away from it all too, stalking waterbirds,
peacocks, kingfishers, sandpipers, rollers, koels, shrikes and the
like, identifying woodpeckers, hoopoes, barbets and the like, even
as the photography has become -- in conjunction with my increasing
levels of patience and application of field-craft -- better, day by
day. And through all these days, I have continually thought about
being out in a forest / sanctuary for much more than just a couple
of hours, continually thought about the "birding bliss" of coming
across a bird that I have come across online or read about in the
accounts of someone like Kenneth Anderson. Coming across it in
flesh and blood, perched in sight and holding me rapt in attention,
transfixed like a kid looking a gift horse in the face.

As such, way back from Chandigarh, it was but natural that I landed
up at Bharatpur (especially since my much anticipated trip to
Amritsar was not happening because of the freakish cold) considering
that it was almost directly on the way back home.

And I spent a blissful 4 days at Bharatpur, cycling into the park on
a daily basis shooting a bevy of "first sightings" -- as myriad as
Nightjars, White-tailed eagles, Sarus cranes and Treepies and as
common as Painted Storks and Common Coots.

Looking back, the best part of those four days was an encounter
with a Shikra (juvenile, me thinks) in a thicket. I did not
understand when I was clicking away -- why the Shikra wouldn't fly
away, but just hop within the thicket. I must have shot some 30-40
"keepers" of the guy and finally left bemused because I did
not want to spook him / her. Later on, I saw why the bird was
behaving that way, it had one claw badly wounded and probably
in no mood to do any flying away or gallivanting. From what little
I know of raptors being that close to one is "rare" and I will
certainly cherish this encounter. Who cares if the Shikra wasn't
"perfect"? Am I? Are you?

Ink Dries -- A reading at Lamakaan

The last time Mr. Vijay Marur had lent his voice to bring my poems alive
was at the launch of my first book Moving On at the auditorium of State
Gallery of Fine Arts and looking at the numerous empty chairs, I had
mentally kicked myself for not being able to put together a packed
house -- something that a performer with immaculate credentials in
theatre like Mr. Marur deserved. Incidentally I also felt sad because
(while on the stage and looking out at the empty chairs) I got more
than one SMS from the audience (many of them first timers at any
poetry reading) saying -- "this guy is mind-blowing" and more to
that effect. I mean, what better way to introduce people to the
atmosphere and the sonics of a poetry reading than an event such as
this.

But -- immaterial of how high-thinking or literary your intentions be
you cannot force people to come, can you? And let's face it, if there
is one genre that is misunderstood and shunned repeatedly, it has to
be poetry.

Which is why (in all probability) there were empty chairs galore at
Lamakaan and I could have kicked myself so hard as to do permanent
damage to my ability for locomotion.

The rest of it was excellent; Mr. Marur as usual read my poems to
a rapt audience and we even had a creditable (the joke is on me
really) discussion with him wanting to know why some of the poems
in the book are earthy, whether I write all my poems in situ and so on.

Then we had Lamakaan's "Kaanch Ke Gilaas Mein" Irani Chhai, had a
small impromptu discussion (either sides of a power cut), I thanked
everyone who had come, had a bit of a discussion with N and it was
all over.

A big thank you to Mr. Vijay Marur, to Lamakaan and all those who
could make it to the event. As for those of you who couldn't, I do
understand what it means to labour through the prosaics of distance
and traffic on a weekday! It had to be a weekday because that was
the only slot available at Lamakaan this month.

And I will also say this in conclusion -- I don't see myself as
a "sad" poet or an "angsty" poet. I do have what is the writer's
angst and I do have some other angsts; but I am okay with them,
I can live with them. What I don't want to be is a "vain" poet
who explains the profundity of each and every word chosen by himself
at the very first opportunity. What I cannot be is a frivolous poet,
as I have always been afflicted by gravitas. But it's okay, I am
comfortable in my skin about being serious and about living
with a writer's angst. And I am as happy as anyone else out there;
life is good, can be better!

Thank you.