thisandthatandmuse

Ink Dries -- Book Launch at Akshara

2012-01-24T23:51:00.001-08:00

As book launches and releases go, it wasn't much, with around 25
people making up the numbers, counting the little man and my family :-)

But it was an amazing evening all the same, in terms of quality,
interest, involvement etc. and because I was able to interact with
those present thanks to the "interpreting" of U, I did not feel
the usual fears either.

In retrospect, maybe Sunday was a wrong day; in retrospect, maybe I
should have personally invited everyone I know. In retrospect...

Anyway, that's me with Professor Subbarayudu

And here are some photos of the audience

And here is one of the reading by Priti :-)

All in all, it was a good event and thus now Ink Dries is officially released (as of 22nd January). Thanks a lot to all who came a fair distance on a Sunday to attend the event. And special thanks to Akshara Bookstores!

Pre-order your signed copy of Ink Dries at Flipkart

2012-01-19T03:00:00.000-08:00

Yes, Ink Dries is now available on Flipkart.

On a pre-order basis, at a cool discount of 25%.

And these are signed copies :-)

Get your own copy here.

Ink Dries -- Book Launch at Akshara Books on 22nd January

2012-01-15T05:35:00.000-08:00

Do come on over :-)

As another year begins...

2012-01-01T21:18:00.000-08:00

For the last couple of years (since Moving On) in which I have continued
my flirtations with the poetic, and kept working at the whole process of
letting a poem take form, penning (or noting) it down and then kept at it
further, through various re-visitations and revisions -- intent on giving
it the time and effort it calls for, the days have more or less moved on.

Largely because that is the nature of time, it moves along implacably
and we cannot do much about it; but then again we do have a lot of choice
about what we do with it -- be it the apparently aimless pursuit of the
poetic, or this and that -- and a very clearly ingrained acknowledgement
of it.

Or rather -- in a peculiarly dystopic way of looking at it -- time's
like an invisible puppeteer's hand that's making us dance to its tunes,
with the years comprising acts and the months scenes and though we
may not be aware of what is happening in the play by and large, we do
seem to acknowledge the intervals.

Or maybe that again is the nature of time or how we who follow it
have been conditioned to relate to it. Yes, conditioned -- to think
about and give a lot of meaning to the "New Year".

Which, to me (blame it on my affinity for the dystopic or blame it
on the implacability with which I have peered at an empty page, at
a blinking cursor, or at the implacable face of time) seems worthy
of no more relevance than the other important acts / scenes of time,
the beginning and endings of days.

I mean -- and no, I don't say this as a poet or a photographer -- there
is a lot, lot more meaning in every sunrise and sunset, every day
of the year as compared to the one day that we call the New Year.

I will of course readily acknowledge that I wasn't always this wise
(or half-assed) and there have been other new years when I have made
resolutions, to do lists and so on and so forth...

I will also acknowledge that I gladly participated in the bacchanal
of a New Year eve party this time around too, gazed at (and liberally
partook from) the amber contents of a glass, thrilled in the sparking
warmth and delectable fare from a BBQ and more or less again stared
implacably at time...

But I will again say this, as far as inherent meaning goes, there's
nothing much in the New Year, the days that mark the beginnings or
endings of seasons have much more meaning(though, how many
seasons do exist any more in this age of wide-ranging climate change
is anybody's guess).

And I will say this too, for a year that started with my fall on the
road and the broken collar bone and ended with my father recovering
from his bypass surgery, this was certainly not an easy one.

Or then again, that is the essential nature of time -- it is always
easier and better in the past (?).

Or is it that I have changed in these last two years due to the
constant proximity to the poetic and the aimless (like the photography
of birds and butterflies and ramble out in the wilds).

Anyway, so one year ends and another begins. I do hope (there, there)
that I will be bringing out Ink Dries and more books of poetry this
year. And I also do hope that things ease out a bit all around, because
the year past was bloody tough.

And since I do believe in positivity and spreading the cheer, let me end
this post with some.

Here's wishing you and yours a very prosperous and plentiful New Year.
May you find a year's meaning, purpose, poetry and fulfillment in
each of 2012's days :-)

Its not that I have written only poetry, or shut out myself

Pre-order a signed copy of Ink Dries at Evening Hour

2012-01-01T19:43:00.000-08:00

If there's a lot that goes into writing (and reworking on) a poem, there
is an even lot more that goes into giving a collection of poems the
shape of a book -- sequencing them (this itself is worthy of a separate
blogpost), typesetting them with an ideal font (again worthy of at least
one more blogpost), deciding on paper quality, size, etc. and most
importantly, deciding on the print run.

{There is of course the most important step -- deciding on the book's
title and the cover design; but then as you (and I) know that's done
and done pretty fast this time around.}

Peculiarly enough what adds to the task of sequencing the poems in
Ink Dries is the fact that it is not a themed book, unless one calls
"writing a poem" a theme. And as with most poetry books that are not
themed, one has to face up and choose from a literal bevy of
possibilities about where to place which poem and if to let the
book segue seamlessly (as was the case with Moving On) or to
incorporate sectioning and separators...

But then, I have been here before and all that should get done in
time, and Ink Dries will be forthcoming soon. Which brings me to
this post. Thanks to Priyanka and the good people at Evening Hour,
you can now pre-order a copy of Ink Dries and get it shipped to you
free (anywhere in India)!

More details here at Evening Hour's link

The book should be available at a other places and there will be a
release / launch here in Hyderabad too. More details on all that later;
for now if you want a copy of Ink Dries, just pre-order it at
Evening Hour!

And oh yes, as I keep saying, it is poetry so be good to it. :-)

Moving On to Ink Dries and beyond

2011-12-24T00:09:00.000-08:00

When I decided to take the plunge and bring out my first collection
of English poetry I wasn't one of the "poets" belonging to a clique
or a group, or someone with an established "voice" / reputation,
academic credentials / blog, etc.

Nor was I -- for that matter -- someone established in prose or
any other genre, a name out in the market and known to readers.

In other words, I was out and out obscure and unknown. In other
words, expecting any mainline publisher to show interest in my book
would have been a bit like wishing for a lottery.

As such, I decided to go it alone and self-publish my poetry. And I
put up Coucal Books to do the same. With the objective of bringing
out other poetry books; of poets as obscure as me.

But then, this and that has resulted in the last two years being a
bit choppy on the personal and professional front; which meant I
couldn't really do much about scouting out for other poets looking
at getting their books out.

Besides, in these two years there hasn't been an earth-shattering
awakening of interest for poetry in the minds of readers. And
though it is a bit easier to find out the "niches" of poetry lovers
thanks to the burgeoning numbers of online groups, poetry books
are still risky propositions, slow starters, etc.

So, the sum total of books brought out by Coucal in the last 2 years
is one. Mine.

And the next book that Coucal's bringing out is also mine.

In the eyes of a lot of discerning or opinionated or plain cynical
people out there this would look like vanity publishing.

I wouldn't know; I am as vain about my poetry as any poet out there
but I certainly don't write to get famous or to show you my best side
or to see my name in print.

Nor do I write poetry (or bring out poetry books) to become rich,
for that matter.

So I would like to see what I do as self-publishing, that too in the
great tradition of senior Indian poets like Nissim Ezekiel, Jayanta
Mahapatra, Arun Kolatkar, etc.

For those who can't make out the difference between vanity publishing
and self-publishing, I have nothing much to say.

For those who are interested in poetry; specifically those interested
in bringing out their poetry -- hey, Coucal is here, drop me a mail,
(or message me on FB) and we will take it ahead!

Speaking of "Moving On", I still think it was one of the best things
to have happened to me, one of the most important things I have done
in life. Since then, I have learned a lot about poetry, poets and
publishing, but I am happy to say that my passion for poetry still
stays un-quenched and I will keep at it. And as far as poetry books
go, Moving On has garnered a fair amount of readership and been pretty
well received with many readers writing in to me appreciating this poem
or liking that poem.

Since I haven't done this elsewhere ever, a big thank you to all my
readers.

Yes, I promise to keep at it and write and publish more poetry,
even as the ink dries.

December Dilemmas and drying ink

2011-12-23T11:41:00.000-08:00

I have a peculiar relationship with December, for all of five or
more years now. I love December since it is the high-point of the
Indian winter, the weather is bracingly cool and ( I can say this
as have done a fair bit of touring) the landscapes and the vistas
when you are out on the road and in the interiors can be stunningly
breath-taking. And yet, December also means the end of an year;
and the onset of another that comes with its own attendant worries.
This December has been no different; and has added the gravitas
of bringing a lot of memories to do with Orissa (about which there
are quite a few poems in my forthcoming book)to the visual feast
that I have been enjoying in the wilderness I ramble in -- near my
place -- for birding. Significantly, in a throwaback to my childhood
days, I have yet again "bonded" with the outdoors, felt the same way
I used to when I was 11 years old and just learning what my self means
while rambling over the hills that comprise the Durgapur Range.

I may have aged in the interim but somehow the outdoors seem the same;
I could be sitting besides a Pokhuri in Orissa instead of a disused
quarry out here in Hyderabad. I could be rambling over the hills and
rice fields of my childhood, instead of these acres that flank a
military installation (and are left wild to serve as a perimeter)
here in Hyderabad. Its not the mind playing tricks, its an overpowering
surge of memories, a flood of poetry.

As such it has been bloody tough; to collect all finished poems,
rework on them, run edits and simultaneously finding time and
mindspace to write this month's, this season's. Oh well, maybe
its a good problem to have after all.

But the biggest dilemma of December has been what to call the book
and what cover image to run with. Revisiting all that I have gone
through and typing it all out here could end up splaying my fingers
even further; so let me suffice to say that it wasn't easy to decide
on the name Ink Dries. Nor was it to decide on the cover visual,
but then as I say in one of the poems in the book, "if you are ____,
there will always be time".

So there, the cover is decided and bit by bit the book's taking shape
too. And expected to be out in January 2012.

More updates to follow; for now some trivia -- yes, the photograph has
been taken by me and yes, the book has a number of poems dealing with
the "word" and with the most important tool of the writing trade, ink.

Hospital Diary

2011-12-23T06:16:00.000-08:00

Truth be told, I worry a lot about "where the money will
come from" for this and that, these days. Blame it on being
bypassed in the employment scheme of things by phone-obsessed,
assumption happy recruiters, blame it on the increasing
realization that I will always be penny wise and pound shy,
blame it on the rising costs of living -- of things even as
plain as Idlis (that cost Rs. 15 for four!) and this and that.

And oh, yes blame it on the fact that writing poetry is not a
profession at all, unless one is looking at a payout very late
in life, when a "matured" poet like Tomas Tranströmer. Whatever
it be, the worry has ridden me hard. And as is bound to happen
when you are family, I am sure much of this has been generously
borrowed by my father, who at 67 is a retiree and has a wealth
of own monetary and other worries.

Stress and worry are the most major triggers for a heart
condition, so in all those lengthy vigils at the hospital,
I was mentally flogging myself for being a bad son, in
addition to feeling old and poor by turns.

Oh, the pain!

#######

The hospital concerned was a corporate hospital with a
who's who of empaneled and consultant specialists. While I am
no stranger to hospitals (being the chosen one to accompany
my father on his weekly visits to a sprawling PSU run hospital
in Rourkela and being the chosen one, the attendant who is
allowed to stay with the patient when my parents were
hospitalized at the afore-mentioned hospital and being
admitted myself for a minor surgery) this one was
overwhelming in its concrete, steel and glass glitter.
As also in its level of image consciousness and
presentation (from a marketing viewpoint). My father
(as a retiree from a PSU) was entitled to insurance
reimbursement, but I still wondered all through, how much
less expensive this hospital's services would be, without
all that glitter -- of the reception and front office staff
(on every floor), the men among them dressed in suits,
the women draped in designer sarees and fancy high backed
blouses, the lift attendants and so on...
But then again, when you are at a hospital that is taking
good care of your father, you count your blessings.

####

This hospital is a stone's throw from Secunderabad
Railway Station and has come up behind what used to
be the legendary Sangeet Cinema Hall and is now an
under construction behemoth of concrete, all of 6
floors high with a big crane / hoist towering over it
all, on which most of the time, I could see at least one
Black Kite. Which meant that whenever I felt like feeling
like a bird, I would walk to the window of father's room
and look out. To see either a dogfight among the kites
in the skies, or a fight for the most favoured perch
(the weighed end) of the crane / hoist or (at least thrice)
the peculiarly carnival sight of a black kite sitting
on the crane / hoist totally unconcerned (and in all
probability enjoying) while the crane / hoist did
a complete swivel of 180 degrees and then back again.
Almost like a merry go round. One more reason to respect
these majestic creatures -- the Black Kites; they don't
seem to have queasy guts unlike me, when it comes to merry
go rounds.

Bypass Blues

2011-11-18T22:43:00.000-08:00

No this is not a blogpost about the road or about my travels. Or
for that matter my travails, though I have been worried stiff,
sleepless and scared for close to twenty days now.

This blogpost is about my father who has recently been diagnosed
with a condition that makes it imperative for him to go for bypass
surgery. Which means that we have been doing the rounds of hospitals,
looking (or rather hoping) for non-invasive alternatives and
simultaneously doing the numerous things needed to get ready for
surgery.

All this while, my worries have dogged me and contributed to (yet
another) spell of silence here on the blog. In these intervening
twenty days I have read up widely on Angina, Bypass Surgeries, etc.
and also (naturally) on non-invasive cures / remedies such as
Enhanced External Counter Pulsation. All that I have learnt would
be of help to dad as advise meant to change his lifestyle for the
better, but (though I had fervently hoped for it) what he needs as
of now is a bypass. But then all this reading up and this increased
familiarity with the terms involved have helped the worries
are still there, if in a bit more subdued and benign form and will
keep dogging me till my father gets operated on, is back home and
through with recuperation and back on his feet, to be dad as usual.

Meanwhile, I will pray for the continued health of my father
and his blessedly friendly, solidly always there presence in my life.

Om Namaha Shivaya

As grass dries under a winter sun

2011-10-30T00:37:00.000-07:00

I am reading Whitman and I honestly don't know what to make
of him and his absolutely untrammeled, "as honest as homespun"
writing.

To be precise, I am reading "Song of Myself", a "long" poem that
defeats any attempts (not that I -- not that well read -- am trying)
to genrify or label; but is evidently a magnum opus of consciousness,
frankness and time.

Incidentally, this book has inspired (among others) other poetic
magnum opuses, other long poems like Relationship by Shri Jayanta
Mahapatra, which is yet another piece of work that defeats any
attempts to genrify or label.

But (like Song of Myself) just leaves you stunned.

Speaking of Song of Myself this is a poem that shouts out its
outdoorsiness, its location in the wide open spaces and the lap of
nature. And his ability to connect with the elements, an oracle like
ability to hear the epiphanies lost to more cultured and civilized
sensibilities.

Like when he sees and gives voice to a whole universe of soul and
meaning when he writes about grass. One wonders how much of this is
about the poet uncovering basic truths (that given time, mood and
similar approach you and I could too)and how much of this is about the
articulation of his own views. In a way he paints up a narrative in
which the canvas is both a landscape and a portrait at the same time.

There are some peculiarities (apart from a tone that could seem
intimately fraternal or mildly homosexual -- depending on how you view
it) that are strikingly idiosyncratic -- usage of epsilons (four dots
and not three as is the norm these days) and a treatment that blends
the grandiloquent and the pedestal-seeking in equal measure. But then,
this is Walt Whitman, and in all probability that profundity, that
uninhibited wealth of wordiness is what made him the trendsetter that
he is.

Incidentally, this poem was untitled and part of the book Leaves of Grass
(the very name indicative of the poet's amazing eye* as a naturalist)
and was self-published him when he was around 35. Fittingly enough, the
cover has a sketch of the poet, looking very rugged and outdoorsy and
very much part of an age that did not bother too much about sunscreen
(with a high SPF factor, mind) or hair dye.

Fittingly enough (from a reader's perspective) I write this as grass
dries all around me, turning golden brown by degrees -- from a rain-fed
green -- and the sun loses its burning intensity, turning evenings into
dapples of golden light.

The right time for indulging in profundity for drawing portraits and
landscapes.

* -- Do I mean "depth of field" ? Ah, well....

Song of Myself (6)

2011-10-22T12:15:00.000-07:00

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child?....I do not know what it is any
more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green
stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see
and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child....the produced babe of the
vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphyic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I
receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of grass.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and from
offspring taken soon out of their mothers' laps,
And here you are the mothers' laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
Darker than the colourless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for
nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and
women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken
soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end
to arrest it,
And cease the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward....and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

By Walt Whitman from Song of Myself

Blogger doesn't let me insert space breaks, my apologies!

Neighbourhood

2011-10-22T05:21:00.000-07:00

On the narrow steps leading to our gate,
the pakoriwallah from Bihar is often found
kissing an anonymous woman at night.

Amazing act. My parents switch off the sitting-room
lights whenever this happens. The car beams show
them up -- one unbroken secret silhouette.

The steps invite other actions. The local fakir some-
times lies there, coloured like a ditch, and passers-by
might climb to have a better look at the orange trees.

But this is different. The soft-spoken pakoriwallah
smelling of his pakoris, his half hour island of
defiant passion on the steps of somebody's house,

while around him everyday: the brash freeloaders,
the kick in the groin, the familiar words of abuse
spoken in an unfamiliar language.

By Anjum Hasan, from Street on the Hill, Sahitya Akademi (2006)

Delhi -- Vignettes of this and that

2011-10-21T08:56:00.000-07:00

The Autorickshaws here in Hyderabad are bug like, bright yellow
and black and thanks to the cussedness and perspicacity of their
drivers -- when it comes to getting the most out of every
passenger (especially with no other dependable means of public
transport), downright infamous. In Delhi, they are a eco-friendly
green -- run as they do only on CNG -- and their drivers
are positively chatty, if in a so what "let's show this
tourist the ropes of the capital" way. And not exactly looking
at stringing you for a million bucks, either.

Must be the effect of working in the shadow of the metro, or
the fact that migrants and movers (most of the auto drivers are
from Bihar and U.P., the archetypal Bhhaiyas) aren't exactly
there in the same league with local hicks when it comes to driving
a hard bargain. Or, for all I know, considering the volumes of
Autorickshaw users in Delhi, they get enough bakras and fight shy
of tangling with a Ray Ban wearing south Indian looking fellow
speaking in unaccented Hindi.

#$#@&^

The Delhi Metro is surprisingly seductive and far more efficient
and user-friendly (with amazingly polite and courteous staff) than I
expected it to be. Cameras cannot be used on the platforms (I
did not know and was merrily clicking away in one of the entrance
tunnels, but all that an armed policeman -- security is tight but
more or less non-invasive -- did was to wave at me in a minor
reprimand, no tongue-lashing, no checking, etc.) but it would be
fun to do some slow shutter speed photography on one of those
"junction" platforms when the passengers are moving from one
train to another, or running up or down, indistinct motion blurs
of a city's constituents on the move.

Getting buffeted by the slipstreams of all the moving humanity
is of course part of being the city's.

Yes, I traveled quite a bit on the metro and would say that
its easy enough to use. Also, evidently it is okay to be confused
and unaware of which train you should catch to get to your
destination. A lot of passengers around me were in the same
predicament. But then, there are enough staff (and police) around
to point in the right direction, so one learns and catches yet
another metro train.

#$#@&^

Sadar Road -- which passed through what seems like a continuous
village of two and three storied, un-plastered brick houses ill
at ease with the cheek-by-jowl sprawl of being part of a
city -- was where my hotel was at. And since it was a budget
hotel (but surprisingly clean and comfortable) not that stand-out or
hat ke from the environs all
around, either.

All of which meant that I had the proverbial room with a
view -- of a two laned road (with one under repairs), vegetable and
fruit hawkers (most of them in the middle of that road, under the
shade of bright yellow and green polythenes) the "one old teak chair
and a mirror is all it takes to be a saloon" barber shops. So many
rickshaws and tongas too, itinerantly at work all through the
heat and dust, going and coming.

Then there were the Black Kites in the skies above; along with
swarms of pigeons flying in formation -- probably from one coop
to another. Surprisingly, I did not take any photographs, the
atmosphere of impersonal strangeness in the hotel room helped
along my procrastination and the angles I could mentally
compose did not seem wide and encompassing enough as that
of a narrative. And the heat and dust didn't help either.

#%$@&

I am artless, unsophisticated and very, very middle class. So
I have no compunctions about eating anywhere as long as the place
is clean and the food promises an adventure for the palate. My
lunch and dinner was right on Sadar Road in two hotels that were
more or less holes in the wall. The food was rustic, honest and
right in tune with the in-your-face character of Sadar Road
(okay, I know it leads to Paharganj which has a reputation for being
seedy, but I never ventured that side). Paranthas (and curd) for two
(A ate with me on the first day, after helping me move in and settle
down in the hotel) as brunch and then Paranthas for one as a late
lunch. The hotel was run by a Sikh who surprisingly welcomed us
with a very salesman like Namaste (totally A's doing and his
Delhiness, I said or did nothing much but pronounce Parantha
the right way). The other culinary adventure (again in Sadar Road)
was at another hole in the wall type of eatery where I had
Rajma Masala (surprisingly hot) that came with grated cheese and
Matar Paneer (served with a big blob of butter) and Rotis (small
and saucer sized and served right out of the Tandoor) at Rs. 2
each. Nice and filling and the bill wasn't even in three figures
which was a welcome salve to my middle class wallet.

And yes, I ate elsewhere too. Like near the metro stations. While
watching the rickshaws queue up in neat orderly rows. I ate food
that was as inexpensive as a rickshaw fare -- Chole Bhatureys and
Channa Kulchas -- and as simple and unpretentious.

BTW, no Delhi Belly to report.

A lust for life and close encounters with the beautiful wilds

2011-10-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

Looking back, over the last three years, I have spent a lot
of time outdoors, and most of it is in the "wilds"
near my place, in what is more or less military / government
land that has been left on its own -- crisscrossed by grass-verged
dirt tracks and populated by quite a few trees (though none
are that old or that giant) and interspersed with rocky outcrops
and disused quarries.

And I have been spending a lot more time here than the usual
hour in the morning or hour in the evening in the last two months,
thanks to the fact that I have had plenty of time on my hands and
that the profusion of butterflies and birds that I have found here.

I have seen the most stunning of artists -- mother nature -- at
work here, seen the dusty expanses of sun-scorched grass turn
green and then burst into colour -- with a billion wildflowers --
blue, wine red, yellow, purple and so on. And I have felt like
going down on my knee, overwhelmed by the inherent mystique in
the fluidity with which mother nature transforms what was once
a barren, almost dead landscape into something that calls out
to the Van Gogh in me...

I have agonized over the choice -- on continuous forays into
these wilds, on continuous days -- if to stick to shooting the
landscapes on offer or be led on a dance shooting the birds and
the butterflies. And there have been days when I have kicked
myself for not having both of my lenses with me (while perched
high on the narrow saddle of the Schwinn -- which doesn't have
a carrier or allow for leisurely ATB kind of cycling -- lugging
much gear is a bit tough) or when I have had both with me, I have
agonized over whether to shoot the whole meadow or a close up of
a flower and so on and so forth...

It is another matter that I have already come to the conclusion
that photography cannot be mixed with anything else; even with a
leisurely cycle ride, especially when it is the photography
of birds and butterflies.

Being on the cycle (with the camera zipped up in a bag) means that
by the time I am ready to shoot, the bird has flied off or it means
that there is a limit to the amount of "on foot" chasing that's
possible behind a butterfly, while leaving the Schwinn unguarded.

Which means, I have spent a lot of time afoot in these wilds and
hopefully will spend some more time walking through them.

And while enjoying the feeling that the wilds are my own private
preserve, thrilling in knowing these open expanses first
hand, for having played amateur naturalist and rookie woodsman
and coming across tailor bird nests, conclaves of bee eaters,
shy peacocks and even shyer coucals, pairs of bulbuls, colonies
of weaver birds, trapezing chameleons...

How do I even begin to express the pricelessness -- of the wealth
of all these ramblings in the wilds? It certainly cannot be
measured in terms of the photographs I have taken; I sincerely
feel that peering through a zoom lens is no less "naturalist" and
fieldwork from an ornithologist / lepidopterist point of view
than it would have been if the peering had been through a pair of
binoculars...and the ego boost of a good / perfect capture -- of a
bird or a butterfly is at many times secondary to the joys of seeing
the bird or butterfly with an enraptured eye :-)

And yes, just when I start thinking that I have seen it all, I see
something totally new and wonderful, something that -- yet again --
thrills me with the joy of witnessing and understanding the magic in
the behaviour of yet another "wild" species while simultaneously
humbling me with its beauty and economy of being natural.

I forget I have a camera with me when I see multitudes of small
butterflies like the Anderson's Grass Yellow -- fluttering and
wheeling around, like so many children at play -- preparatory to
settling down to puddle. Or I forget that I am supposed to take
a picture, capture the minute when I see a pair of Pied Kingfishers
bobbing / balancing on a barbed wire (for some reasons these birds
always seem to fish in a pair) while -- with the accompaniment of
a twinkle in the eye -- shitting a pearly white; instead grinning
to myself...

And it still doesn't cease to wonder me when (after having observed
the same countless times) I see weaver birds in their bright yellow
plumage, at work weaving freshly fetched green grass into what is
already a project that is a month long...going on and on...with the
finickiness of the true artists, building masterpieces the same way
countless of their ilk have done before as directed by their genetic
code.

It is more or less the same feeling -- of wonder and awe -- with
which I watch a butterfly pirouette on a lantana flower, preparatory
to going for the nectar the way a kid would for the jam bottle;
somehow the butterfly's greed seems more worthy of respect,
more evolved!

I don't know how long these wilds will survive -- as with most
open spaces within or flanking a concrete jungle called the city
these face the depredations of man too. I found (on my return from
Varanasi) that many weaver bird nests have been knocked down
and in some cases those very branches on which the nests were
have been cut; God only knows why and by whom...and a large
residential colony is already coming up flanking the wilds --
but I do look forward to some more close encounters, some more
peaceful epiphanies like the one I had on this Sunday.

I was cycling through the wilds on the dirt track and I came
across three bee-eaters, their green plumage iridescently
dazzling lying right on the track, beaks and beady red eyes
looking skywards, wings stretched out, something I have never
seen any bird do. Maybe they were sunbathing, or they were
praying.

Whatever they were doing, I did go down on my knee yet again.

And the photographs that resulted were but a bonus.

A tribute to Jagjit Singh, the master of melancholy

2011-10-18T03:41:00.000-07:00

On October 10th, while I was at Varanasi (and dealing with the
melancholy of my moods -- I have always associated Varanasi with
the cremation ghats and the Kasidaasins -- and the cacophonies
of the city) Ghazal Maestro Jagjit Singh passed away after a
protracted illness.

He was 70, but like most singers (and poets, painters and
artists) he will never have an age, never die for those who
have known and experienced the spellbinding depth of his voice.

I am not a music aficionado, nor can I claim to be any kind of a
connoisseur -- of the fascinating world of "old Hindi" -- of quiz
details like who wrote the lyrics of which song, who composed the
music and who were the lead pair and so on.

Heck, I am one of those rare ignoramuses who cannot decide for
sure if a particular song has been sung by Rafi or Mukesh. And at
the very outset, I need to make a clean breast of the fact that I
know zilch about the intricacies of music, I cannot differentiate
between a khayal and a thumri or whatever...

But -- though I am a layman and have absolutely no "ear for
music" -- for as long as I remember, I have been singing old
hindi songs to myself and since most of these songs used to be
slow, sad, melancholy numbers in which the song is more or less
a lyric accompanied by music, in the repeated singing to myself,
I have ingrained those cadences and rhythms...and also burnt
those lines...on my being.

You could also say that somewhere in the singing of those songs
is when I developed the "ambition" of becoming a shayar / kavi /
poet and long before I really had to deal with any loss, I
probably realized (and made peace with the realization) that
immaterial of how true the lie called "happiness" is, life's
underlying truth is that it is melancholy, and dark and
layered with pathos, more or less as expressed in the lines

राही मनवा दुःख की चिंता क्यों सताती है
दुःख तो अपना साथी है

सुख है एक छाँव, ढलती आती जाती है
दुःख तो अपना साथी है

(from the film Dosti)

And yes, (as I keep telling everyone) somewhere along the same
time I realised the depth of meaning (three layers of
imagination, location, analogy, metaphor, whatever) in the
lines

कहीं दूर जब दिन ढल जाये
सांझ की दुल्हन बदन चुराए, चुप के से आये

and have always wanted to write lines that are as vivid, as
imaginative, as powerful. And yes, for me Hindi will always be
the the language of gravitas, meant for writing down and
chronicling the occasional untranslatable line that is truest
the way it comes and not for the frivolity of communicating
banalities like

फ्रेश फ्रूट जूस पार्लर

So maybe immaterial of all my known and unknown shortcomings,
I am qualified to write about Jagjit Singh, considering that
most of his songs had an unsurpassable element of gravitas
and melancholy, if not downright gut-wrenching sadness and I
have connected to them, heard them on a radio, a cassette player,
etc.; heard them sung by friends and sang them to friends while
high on rum and coke in a bonding that was in all probability
more about teenage angst than it was about the rum or the song
itself. And yes, most of those lines are burnt in my being, the
same way lines of poetry are.

So they still reverberate in me, even these days when I don't
listen to any music thanks to my bum ears.

So they still reverberate in me, and in fact I can creditably
sing some of them, closing my eyes and going along with the
flow of blessed memory, of remembered song.

Like, for instance this song that a friend (here in Hyderabad)
used to repeatedly sing -- at cafes, in the college parking
lot, at his place ostensibly for combined studies (in the balcony
while sharing a smoke) up at 2.00 in the night, and at all
those Rum Coke sessions.

प्यार का पहला ख़त लिखने में वक़्त तो लगता है
नयी परिंदों को उड़ने में वक़्त तो लगता है

Need I mention that those were the days when my friend was
going through a phase of "should I propose?", "dare I propose?",
"what if she rejects me?" and all those questions that run pell mell
through a young man wooing a young woman?

Or, the exquisitely hummable, oh-so-simple, right from the heart
echoing call of

होंठों से छु लो तुम
मेरा गीत अमर कर दो

बन जाओ मीत मेरे
मेरा प्रीत अमर कर दो

that I used to sing along with the cassette player and while
serenading my own loneliness in buses (and the occasional Auto)
while still into my second year in Hyderabad. Did I mention I
was lonely? Oh yes, its confession time, I used to keep a diary
those days and almost every week used to start with the entry --
"Need to decide what to do in life and need to get a girlfriend
soon"...So maybe, that song was Jagjit Singh singing to my elusive
girlfriend, or he and I singing together, or me singing it to
myself, while Jagjit Singh would lip synch to a spell bound
audience.

There were other Jagjit Singh songs too -- that I listened
to in rapt attention (and sang to myself) as I would beg borrow
and steal any Jagjit Singh (and Yesudas and other Ghazal / Old
Hindi) cassettes that I could and since I never got around to
getting hooked to "pop music" (maybe because I couldn't get the
lyrics over all that high frequency "music") and just had
three other cassettes -- Yanni, Khaled and Eric Clapton to
listen to, I would get bored of the "change" pretty soon and go
back to Jagjit Singh.

And thus, I got to hear the wonderfully knowing

तुम इतना जो मुस्कुरा रहे हो
क्या गम है जिसको छुपा रहे हो

The intensely romantic

तुम को देखा तो ये ख्याल आया
जिंदगी धुप तुम घना साया

and so many others, that though I can't recollect them now -- are
as familiar and permanent as the memories of old friends.

But the one song that made Jagjit Singh what he is to me is the
one where he is less of melody, technique and nuance but completely
and absolutely a requiem of grief, a gut-wrenching voice calling
out in the totality of the pain of loss. The song (if I remember
right) he sang after the death of his only son --

दर्द से मेरा दामन भर दे या अल्लाह
फिर चाहे दीवाना कर दे या अल्लाह

In all probability someone more knowledgeable or well read than me
had told me this and maybe I read more into this song because I
know (or think I know) what Jagjit Singh means by "dard" and
"deewana" in the song...I could be wrong about all that...
but somehow this has to be the ultimate song when it comes to loss
and grief for me.

The ultimate.

You will be the ultimate ever for me Jagjit Singh Ji, the
ultimate, and forever alive, because I don't even need to listen
to your songs to connect with the blessed oeuvre that you have
voiced for us, left behind for us...

For your ultimate songs reverberate in me, resonate in me, reside in
me.

As found poems.

And memories where I can find more poetry.

Thank you.

Come Again (Shit, What Did I Miss) ?

2011-10-17T04:15:00.000-07:00

You know how it is with the Phantom -- that inimitable
super hero who wears his underwear over his trunks (or
tights), is married to the gorgeous Diana Palmer and has
a pet wolf (no, its not a dog) called Devil and a white
stallion called Hero.

You know how it is even with this superhero, the ghost who
walks, the lord of the Bandar and the protector of peace in
the jungle; however loath he be, even he has to go to the city,
from time to time.

And go he does, by simply becoming Mr. Walker, by donning a hat,
a coat and a pair of dark glasses.

I am no ghost who walks (with a loyal retinue of pygmies)
ruling the dark woods, but when it comes to interacting with
the dynamic character and the "news and events" section
of my corporate website called the city my trips are as
rare as the Phantom's.

And no, I am not saying my trips to the city -- I stay in a
part of Secunderabad that is still, out and out "suburbia" -- are
limited because of my current fascination with the photography
of birds, butterflies and wide open spaces. Or because (for more
or less, the last two months) I don't sally forth into it to earn
a living.

Nor because I am a recluse living in a tree house.

It's just so that when it comes to engaging with the
amplification of the city's vibrancy and cultural spirit -- be
it theatre, dance, a book release, an art exhibition, or any
other "happening" or it's collective pulse / voice -- a private
party, an evening at a pub, and so on; when it comes to engaging
with the auditory element in all of these, when it comes to
hearing to the city, what registers on me is cacophony and chaos.

Because, my ears (hearing aids, in fact) can't do a lot of things
yours can. Because, though they are sophisticated and sexy (who
says size matters -- when it comes to hearing aids) when new and
used in controlled environments (like the audiologist's
sound-proofed cabin or programming / audiology) lab,
my hearing aids just suck --

http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/16-02/su_hearing_aids.

And, though I was told (I have been using these for more than a
year now)otherwise, my hearing aids seem to be incapable of
dealing with the loudness of voices, like that arising
out of recruitment --

http://www.hearinglosshelp.com/articles/recruitment.htm

And since every environment is different, with its own ambient
and unique sound fingerprint and since every new voice is
different, there is no way for me to know how much of my next
interaction with the "city" will be chaos and cacophony.

And how much of it will be a blessed voice that makes meaning.

But (though I am not into wearing underwear on top or flying
around in a cape, or interested in comparisons with super
heroes and their ilk) while I am not chicken, I do wish that
there are more places in the city where I can go and luxuriate
without getting assailed through the ears.

I also wish there were more spaces where I could be like a
gunman in an alien saloon -- in a wild west setting -- who
can sit with his back to a wall and watch the batwing doors
and not bother about anything because he can deal with
whatever he can see coming at him.

But then, if wishes could be horses, I would carry an
audiologist's sound-proof cabin with me everywhere. Or
everyone would carry a notepad (and not be stressed)
to write notes for me.

P.S. -- Written largely for no reason but for still thinking
in terms of "shit, what all did I miss?" after having
had some fairly cacophonic interactions with the "city"
on my 10 days of tripping. Two Cafe Coffee Day outlets
(and one upscale bar), metro and railway stations in Delhi,
the market, Vishwanath Galli and crowded bathing Ghats and a
boat on the Ganga (with a boatman called Rajan whose voice was
as high pitched as a child's; who typed the name of a
Ghat -- Vacchadraj -- on his cellphone for me).

Another Pessoan page

2011-10-16T08:37:00.000-07:00

"Literature -- which is art married to thought, and realization
untainted by reality -- seems to me the end towards which all
human effort would have to strive, if it were truly human and
not just a welling up of our animal self. To express something
is to conserve its virtue and take away its terror. Fields are
greener in their description than in their actual greenness.
Flowers, if described with phrases that define them in the
air of the imagination, will have colours with a durability
not found in cellular life.

What moves lives. What is said endures. There's nothing in
life that's less real for having been well described.
Small-minded critics point out that such-and-such poem,
with its protracted cadences, in the end says merely that
it's a nice day. But to say it's a nice day is difficult,
and the nice day itself passes on. It's upto us to conserve
the nice day in a wordy, florid memory, sprinkling new
flowers and new stars over the fields and skies of the
empty, fleeting outer world.

Everything is what we are, and everything will be, for
those who come after us in the diversity of time, what
we will have intensely imagined -- what we, that is, by
embodying our imagination, will have actually been. The
grand, tarnished panorama of History amounts, as I see
it, to a flow of interpretations, a confused consensus
of unreliable eyewitness accounts. The novelist is all
of us, and we narrate whenever we see, because seeing is
complex like everything.

Right now I have so many fundamental thoughts, so many
truly metaphysical things to say that I suddenly feel
tired, and I've decided to write no more, to think no
more. I'll let the fever of saying put me to sleep
instead, and with closed eyes I'll stroke, as if petting
a cat, all that I might have said.

Chapter (?) 27, page 30, The Book of Disquiet by
Fernando Pessoa (Tr. Richard Zenith)

To (and fro) from the City Beautiful

2011-10-14T23:48:00.000-07:00

If I ever changed my religion (though I wear my religion
very lightly and am pretty comfortable in my skin about
being a Hindu) I would convert to Sikhism and immediately
get down to learning how to tie a turban and growing
(and grooming) a beard.

And if I ever decided to swear citizenship or allegiance
or mentally get fixated and rooted to any state / province
in India (a remote possibility since I have grandiosely
believed myself to be equally belonging to the length
and breadth of ONE country called India) that state would
be Punjab.

For you see, I have immense respect (bordering the worshipful)
for the Sikh religion, creed, code of living and brotherhood
and just love most things Punjabi -- especially the food and
the Nishan Saheb marked "Panjabi Dhabas".

So, since I was to be in Delhi and was to wind up my trip
at the holiest city for Hinduism - Varanasi, I had tried
to pencil in a visit to Sikhism's holiest city, Amritsar
too.

But though my friends in Chandigarh did all they could,
to help with tickets etc. the Amritsar trip did not
happen. Largely because I did not want to arrive too
late in Varanasi (and also because I had my own
trepidations about traveling unreserved, weighed down
as I was with so much of gear).

But I did manage to get to Chandigarh, the city beautiful
for no reason but to meet some crazy, way out, madcap
(and absolutely solid and middle of the path) biker friends
whom I have surprisingly known and kept in touch with for
more than 7 years, (since that Ladakh trip).

Refreshingly enough, though we noted that most of us
were graying, the never-let-age-catch-up-with-your-biker-spirit
attitude was very much there, as was the genuine interest
and concern in each other. And though I spent barely a day
in Chandigarh and couldn't see anything much of the city
(or the sights around it)I did manage to "chill out with
the boys" over some draught and tuck into some awesome
Punjabi food for dinner (at Nagpal's Dhaba) and breakfast
the day after.

Fortunate indeed are they who live in (or have friends)
the city beautiful -- Chandigarh!

And oh yes, two more things. The train trip I took to
reach Chandigarh from Delhi must have been one of the
best "short" trips I have ever been on. You can say I am
being a bit too Pessoan with "descriptives" or just being
too romantic but I will still maintain that the grass,
wheat, sugarcane, parakeets, etc. look far greener
in Punjab. While the crows look far more gregarious
and the "Theka Desi Daaru" -- small, un-plastered,
one room affairs in the middle of endless acres of
fields worth of portraiture.

The second thing? Well, I discovered that it is possible
to get a bus (normal bus, non-Ac, non-Volvo) seat with
legroom. And also possible to write on a laptop while
bussing (though it was dusty most of the way -- and since
GT Road seems to be suffering road widening -- and
jarring). But most surprisingly, history was made
on that bus trip.

I slept.

Maybe it was the draught beer from the evening before.

Or it was the contentment of having met old friends.

Deccan Diary

2011-10-14T04:00:00.000-07:00

30 hours for a bit over 1600 kms from more or less the middle of the
Gangetic plains (which in many ways, is still the heartland / cowbelt
of India), i.e. Varanasi to Hyderabad -- Deccan is a bit of a
creditable haul by train; even in these times of Shatabdis,
Rajdhanis and Durontos. Because the basic infrastructure, underlying
complexities, local issues, etc. on / through which the railways
ply just cannot be wished away or treated as a theoretical
technicality. As such, in retrospect, I am happy with the 33
hours that my train took to reach Hyderabad.

And heck, in the light of the fact that this train was "canceled"*
and then ran (more or less on time) is itself a creditable achievement.

And it compares very creditably with similar long hauls on a
Bullet, at an average of around 50 kmph.

This is not to say that everything is good with the Indian
Railways -- in many ways the Railways are still stuck in a
time warp dating back to the 80s and the 90s -- but more
(hopefully) on that in a later post.

For now, I will take this long haul that got me home --
with the family of 6 (and their 2 friends / attendants /
relatives who were coming over for breakfast, lunch and dinner
from wherever they had parked their butts) "adjusting" in 5
berths around me from Varanasi to Sewagram and the man and
woman who boarded the train at Mancherial along with their
two 3-5 year old girls (for the sake of whose sleep, I couldn't
do much sleeping) and the numerous other things that make
most of Indian Railways compartments seem as if they are
"packed like sardines" -- and give the Railways pass marks.

#++++++++#++++++++#

One good thing about that slow, long haul - the home run from
Kazipet (Warangal) onwards was how it reminded me -- nodding
off at a window or hanging out from a doorway of the compartment,
of a similar slow, long haul from Warangal, with a moon in the sky
(like yesterday night) in a convoy of Bullets with a fellow
rider who had met with an accident and broken his arm riding along
(in an Ambassador). I was sleep deprived on that Bullet ride and
it was the stunning beauty of the moonlint night that helped me
keep awake, mentally marking off the distance to Hyderabad
(Jangaon, Bhongir, Bibinagar) even as I set the pace at the
head of the group. I was sleep deprived yesterday night too,
and again it was the stunning beauty of the moonlit Deccan that
helped me stay awake and get down at Secunderabad Railway
Station (as opposed to waking up next morning in the
shunting yard).

#++++++++#++++++++#

From what I gather -- through interactions with K and my
mother, it has rained twice (and "showered" more or less
every other day) here in the 10 days I have been away. The
skies (I get to see a lot of them around my place) have been
breathtakingly blue and beautiful all since morning. And yes,
there are clouds, with silver and gold linings aplenty along
with the persistent promise of a cloudburst. In fact, it did
rain a bit too, more or less for five minutes, but that
tells me there's rain left in the skies still.

#++++++++#++++++++#

Among all the stuff I had lugged along with me, on long
walks on endless platforms and up and down the stairways
that lead to them was my 55-300 mm lens that I did not get
to use (or feel like using) even once on this trip.
As such, it was imperative that I do a bit of narrow
perspective shooting ASAP. This necessitated a stroll with
the camera and that led to a couple of nice captures of Brown
Pansies. And some Sunbirds. So my wild touch still survives,
after travels through a lot of civilization, or so it seems :-)

#++++++++#++++++++#

Speaking of Sunbirds, while I was away, the Yellow Trumpet
tree that flanks the boundary of the homestead and has served
as a world -- for food and drink, shelter (and in all probability
as a nesting place) for a bevy of Sunbirds has crashed and
broken its trunk. Or so I am told. In fact, it had slanted
onto the road even as I was here (and earlier too) and I had
spent the good part of an evening (with a couple of neighbours
helping and the little man watching) trying to straighten / belay
it. Later on, I had firmly managed to pull it into more or less of
a vertical position with a wire (and some help from willing shoulders)
and tied down the wire with some granite blocks. But it has gone
ahead and crashed...and there is a big, irreplaceable chasm
along my boundary wall (and in my being). I wonder what the Sunbirds
must have made of the disappearance of the tree. And I wonder how
long it will take for a Yellow Trumpet (or any other flowering tree
that attracts Sunbirds) to get equally heavy with flowers as this
one for whom all I can say is RIP...

#++++++++#++++++++#

The first thing I noticed on getting home yesterday was the fragrance
of Parijaatam (it had started flowering -- for the first time -- a
couple of days before I left for the train trip). Even before I
noticed that the Yellow Trumpet (and its world of yellow) was
missing.That happy fragrance lingers, even now :-)

#++++++++#++++++++#

And, oh yes, here's the final diary entry for today. Everything
does seem hunky dory in Squirreldom.

* There was a Rail Roko announced for 13-15 of October,
the Railways first canceled my train and then (as the
Rail Roko was deferred to 15-17 October) ran the train.

Delhi Diary

2011-10-10T00:25:00.000-07:00

I am no wide-ranging traveler -- and no, I am not comparing
myself to an Ibn Batuta, a Periplaeus, a Marco Polo, a
Huein T'sang or even many of my motorcycling brethren who
have been to more "places" in this country (and world) than
me. In fact, when I say I am no wide-ranging traveler, I mean
to say that the average salesman of medical prescriptions,
software, etcetera must have been to more Indian (and oh yes,
foreign too) cities than me. It's not that I find it tough to
travel or am demanding when it comes to arrangements, etc. It's
just that most of my "chosen" traveling, as in the traveling that
comes from an urge to see the world, or is fueled by footlooseness,
has been on my motorcycle. And somehow, from the very beginning
of my days as a motorcycle tourer, the heavily laden, thumpingly
noticeable motorcycle has comes across more as an encumbrance
than a facilitator of traveling through the "city".

Which brings me to the time I had ridden from Karol Bagh to
Noida on the Bullet, with the Ladakh carriers (bulky Doodhwala
type of panniers meant to carry "survival gear" for man and
machine and other odds and ends up through the snow and slush
of Nallahs and mountain passes) freshy fixed to spend the night
at a friend's place. And how I had survived Delhi's chaotic
traffic and gaalibaazi (I did let loose a lot of gaalis too,
nobody seemed to mind much) and a couple of hits to the
Ladakh carriers in order to reach Noida.

If this wasn't enough of a thumbs down to the
motorcyclist-traveler in me, what happened two days after
totally swore me off from thinking of Delhi as a place to
go see, visit, feel, ride through and experience.

Oh well, nothing much happened. I was to set out for
Chandigarh (and Manali), so to say set out on the road
to Ladakh; but I started late (from Ghaziabad) and hence
was well and truly stuck in the traffic for well near 4 hours
in order to just get out of Delhi. Unless you have done this
yourself -- sleepless, hungover and on a (heavily laden) heavy
bike, cursing into your helmet, sweating into your jacket and
motorcycling shoes -- you can never really understand the pain
and the scarring of the psyche that it results in.

As such, my motorcycle has been parked more on beach sand and
highway verges and turf and the good earth, than it has been
in a "city".

Okay, I do exaggerate a bit, the traffic in Delhi is not the
only reason I have not ridden from Red Fort to Qutub Minar or
wherever else to wherever else, after all Hyderabad is at least
3 days of hard riding away. But then, first impressions are
first impressions and most of us don't change our impressions,
do we? We do lie a lot, but in my case I don't have to do that.
So there, as -- I have outlined in my ramble up above -- my
first impression of Delhi was "loud, pretentious, horrid traffic".

Or maybe I was exposed to the underbelly of the city, it's
road rage, it's concrete and claustrophobia and anyway never had
the luxury of spending time in it -- on my first visit or later --
to get a feel of its character.

But then, compared to seven years ago -- these are different
times, I am progressively realizing that there are times when
travel doesn't have to mean the Bullet, space that lets my mind
trip doesn't have to be an open sky and wide expanses -- the
impersonality of a hotel room is not that bad in terms of
spaciousness...

So who knows, maybe I will come again to Delhi, and -- like
this time -- again check into an obscure hotel in a not well
known road / street / bylane. And watch the throng of endless
Rickshaws (my hotel was on Sadar Road) and Tongas go by, unaware
or unconcerned by the note-taking of my writerly eyes.

And eat -- like this time -- deliciously fresh and totally
unpretentious food -- kulchas, bhaturas, paranthas,
samosas... -- from quaint roadside thelas and shacks and -- a
little more permanent -- hole-in-the-wall hotels.

And -- like this time -- travel in the Metro, again.

Thank you Delhi.

Post Script -- You know how it is, I grow old and forget things;
or there is so much to tell that even a long ramble like this
doesn't tell it properly or that since most of my writing on
this blog is more or less like a conversation with myself and
as such, there is a lot that has been said earlier, written
earlier, elsewhere...

Whatever.

I forgot to mention in the blogpost up above that one of the
warmest persons I have ever met in my life has been a
Delhite -- on the road to Chandigarh (on that historic ride
to Ladakh in 2005). I forgot to mention that this nice guy
(who incidentally was a Bulleteer who has been to Ladakh
numerous times) struck a conversation with me (on his own)
gave me a lot of tips on riding in Ladakh, nazar uttaroed me
(in a very bikerly way) for being crazy enough to set out
all alone at the end of the season and then also asked
me to look him up on the way back, saying he would like
to know how my ride was.

Surprisingly enough I remembered and called him up
when I was near Delhi (way back from Ladakh and
Chandigarh) and then this gent sent someone to
meet me and guide me to his factory and then
literally sat on my head until I agreed to stay
with him at his place.

Yes, you read that right, I rode through most of Delhi's
traffic to stay over at a perfect stranger's place. Blame
it on his large-heartedness and warmth. Or blame it on my
once-in-a-while-ability to be gregarious.

Either way, as you can see Delhi has been warm to me
for quite some time.

Thank you (again) Delhi.

Orange City and a train to Delhi

2011-10-09T03:02:00.000-07:00

For as long as I remember Nagpur's shown the way to get to
Vizag from Orissa when a particular bridge would go down
(during the monsoons) near Rayagada. But then, the credit
for that goes more to my brother who stays at Nagpur
(again for almost as long as I can remember), as in his
presence there used to make the longer haul worth the effort.

Nagpur is also where I have brethren in the form of the
Wanderlust Motorcycling Club and though I haven't really
managed to bond with them collectively, Anukaran (their
founder member and moderator) is a fellow tripper in a number
of ways dealing with belief and faith and an old, old friend.
Not that I needed a reason to ride to Nagpur, but these two
and Rider Mania were why I had been here on the Bullet in 2007.

You can say I have developed a soft corner for Nagpur's
laidback character and even developed some kind of a
familiarity with its bucolic and easy-going nature. All this
of course in comparison with the chaotic and wannabee hi-tech
city nature of development (or at least the traffic) in the
Deccan. Nagpur also means excursions to Tadoba (where I have
been lucky enough to "experience the mystique of a forest"
twice) and Kanha (where I haven't been yet) and catching up
on various types of entrepreneurial planning with my brother
-- in bars where they serve salted groundnuts on the house and
every second middle aged patron seems to be having an
adulterous affair, all alone with a glass of his tipple...

And of course, Nagpur means oranges and all the delectable
namkeen eats -- of which I never tire and about with my brother
knows more than most people who work for Haldiram. And Shahji
cuisine -- primarily non-veg food cooked with extraaaaa spice
and supposedly hot enough to make a mule do cartwheels.

However, all this sampling of Namkeen, Oranges etc. stayed
behind me in the past; because this time my brother (and bhabhi)
were fasting on account of Navaratri. I did manage to eat two
big (and really filling) samosas (on the way to my brother's
place from the station) -- the traditional Nagpuri way, broken
into pieces and doused with generous helpings of kadhi and a
watery channa / choley gravy. And yes, not to forget, served
along with a very long and very hot, raw green chilly.

I did manage to meet Anukaran for a bit and we discussed
development, tripping, books and this and that over Coffee.
Need to catch up with him more often and try and trip more
in Nagpur itself :-)

My train to Delhi was to leave in the afternoon. And it did
(with me in it as a reserved passenger, thanks to my brother's
efforts). But the highlight of that day was the Sabu Daana Poha
that my bhabi made for breakfast. Absolutely otherworldy, with
a wealth of slivers of potatos (and a dash of onions) fried
golden brown and the Sabu Daana looking like pearls with a
rice-whiteness at their centre. I had two helpings. Or did
I have two and half of them. Oh bliss.

After my brother saw me off at the station and into what was
already a badly smelling compartment (the train comes from up
ahead, somewhere near Mumbai and must have baked to stinking
point in the Vidarbha heat) I read a bit of Pessoa and then
promptly got down to stealing a "sitting" nap. Which meant
this was the second time I was taking a post prandial nap --
without a very heavy lunch, mind it -- in two days. Must be
something to do with the to and fro clackety clack of the
trains...or must be something to with the aimlessness of my
mind's wanderings...but anyway, there you have, I promptly
fell asleep.

I must have slept a couple of hours -- in the "now on,
now off" fashion that is possible when the concerned sleep
is in the presence of the comings and goings of a large
, breathing and brushing by you...when the silence of a
train that has stopped woke me up. And I found myself in
the middle of probably more trees than there are in all of
Hyderabad.

Oh, well maybe I exaggerate, but I am sure I was somewhere
in the midst of what is Kanha National Park and not so
surprisingly enough there was no signal on the phone. With
nothing much on my mind and a now very stationary and now
chugging along at a snail's pace train inviting me to do
something photographic, I pulled out the camera and spent
the next half an hour or so going along with the flow of
my eye...till the train gathered pace and became more or
less too unstable (and fast) to do any shooting from. I
mean, I am a veteran of taking photos from moving trains --
in the bygone era of film cameras, in fact -- so it was
evident to me that the exercise would be wasteful even
in digital. So I desisted after shooting a couple of
sunflares.

Then, it was time to desist and pack up the camera and
start looking out for the wares of the mystical orient...
okay, okay... I mean look out for what seems worth the
effort that it take for a gallop -- to and fro from the
moving address called a Sleeper Class Compartment -- but
then I was kind of lethargic this time around. For one,
there was a packet packed for me -- by my bhabhi -- that
was supposed to be either lunch or dinner or whatever else
I wanted to eat it as. And on top of it I had got two
Samosas and a Batata Wada packed at Nagpur Railway Station
(I forgot to mention I also had another two Samosas here,
the traditional Nagpuri way...with Kadhi and Channa / Choley
curry). Which meant that unless I was intent on stocking up
like a hibernating bear it made sense to cut down on my intake.

Besides (like I doubt if I am a photographer because photography
doesn't obsess me) I doubt if I am foodie, if being a foodie
means putting food above everything else.

After all, there is only this much one can eat.

I am not saying I went on a fast just after I realized this
home truth. I do remember having something else in the train...
either a plate of Samosas or a plate of Batata Vadas...can't
remember, must be the constant snoozing that I was resorting to...
or the other type of writing that I was doing on the phone.

I do remember getting down to stretch my legs and "see what's
on offer" on the platform at Itarsi. And almost pinching myself
at the sight of a small "chaat bandi" -- with a steaming Tawa --
one corner of a regular refreshments centre of the type where
sometimes you will find people selling Idlis hard enough to
replace cricket balls and bread that's staler than most Bollywood
jhatkas.

Yes, a "chaat bandi" selling fresh, hot piping chat on a railway
platform. So for a minute I did think that maybe I am dreaming it
up...and missing the Durga Puja Pandals of Rourkela where I used
to gorge on Chaat, Gol Gapas and other delectables every year...but
then, I decided to lay aside that nostalgia trip for later; and waded
into the crowd around the steaming Tawa.
This wasn't exactly Chat on offer here. Maybe the patrons (around
the time I was there) are mostly from ex-Mumbai trains...so what
was steaming on the Tawa was "postered / signboarded" as "Paav
Bhaaji" and though the Paav was lilliputian and the "Bhaaji" but
the peas you get in normal Chat, I must say it was really tasty.
And at 10 Rs. for a plate, I wouldn't report these people to
the guardians of Paav Bhaaji purity either.

Then it was time to go back to the train and peform the required
contortions. To get into the topmost berth (the one assigned to me).
After I had finished my packed dinner and one of the Nagpuri Samosas.

What did I do with the rest, you may ask...

Lurched across half the swaying train (mentally kicking myself
for my greed) and found a dhoti-attired Sadhu sleeping in the
vestibule, his head ( with the hair in Jata) resting on a woolen
blanket. Patted him gently and when he came awake, reverentially
put the polythene in his hand.

I was still kicking myself mentally for my greed, but at least
it turned out in a good cause and I ended up feeding a man of God.

I do remember I was thinking of food while I was trying to sleep;
that led to some happy dreams of Kukkad and Lassi, or rather
mountains of Kukkads and waterfalls of Lassi.

Nothing called greed when it comes to dreaming, no?

Tripping on food -- on a train to Nagpur

2011-10-05T22:38:00.000-07:00

I slept barely three hours or so and then (with K accompanying
me) caught an auto to the station, all set for the adventure
(and trepidation) of yet another "unreserved travel" train
journey. I know this may sound in keeping with my characteristic
"shall decide soon" and last minuted-ness, but till Sunday I
was caught up in a number of things that, though of not much
corporate or national or international importance, still
needed my attention.

And yes, I need to add that since most buses headed out of
Hyderabad are not running, almost all trains have been booked
solidly for the last 10 days or so.

The train I was to catch was A.P Express and it was scheduled
to depart from Secunderabad at 6.40 in the morning. Thanks to
K's worry about unreserved travel and horror stories of having
to face serpentine queues at the booking counter, we reached
the station pretty early -- and were pleasantly surprised to
find not much of chaos at the booking counter. It took just 10
mins to get a general ticket, all of Rs. 135 only.

The train was to arrive at (and leave) from Platform No. 10,
so having K along was a godsend as he helped lug my
gear / luggage (books, a camera, two lenses, a laptop and
other mandatories like clothes) being the nice guy he is.
Yes, oh yes, being afoot and having to lug gear is when I
miss my Bullet the most. But what to do, these aren't
exactly "unwristwatched" times, even for me...

The yawns arrived long before the train did, even as I was
checking out the spanking new platform, with its steel railings
and acreages of red and black granite. To digress a bit here,
I saw a wealth of the same red and black granite acreages
across most of the platforms all the way upto Nagpur. Looks
like some rich contractor has made a fortune thanks to the
inability of SCR to think of any locally available stone, or
to get out of their mindsets of considering only granite
"aesthetic". Whatever's wrong with Tandur / Betamcharla /
Normal Granite?

Oh I do agree Granite looks good, especially the red
one...but I am sure it must have costed quite a packet,
and that money would have made more impact if used for
something else.

Getting back to our narrative, I remember gently berating
K about the desertedness of the platform and broaching the
possibility of getting a berth pretty easily. To which his
response was a queer smile which kind of said -- wait and
watch. Sure enough the platform started filling up, by and
by and before it was 6.30 it looked more or less like PF
No. 1 does when (incidentally my favorite train) the Godavari
Express steams in, for a departure from Secunderabad. And when
the train pulled in (it starts at Hyderabad), I was greeted by
two completely full general compartments (and a look of horror
on K's face).

So I resolutely boarded the Sleeper Class compartment, found an
empty berth and plonked my butt on it, pushing the strolley below
the seat. And positioning the backpack safely besides me. In a bit,
the train left and I could see the same look of worry / horror
on K's face and in fact the lad even astonished me with an
"Om Namaha Shivaya", did not know if it was on account of my
intention to go to Varanasi or because he was stressed out with
worries on my behalf.

The first half an hour or so was spent by me in observing my
fellow passengers and it didn't take me long to figure out that
most were also "unreserved". Some clues that helped me Sherlock
this conclusion --
1.) No luggage
2.) Intent on climbing into an upper berth and grabbing
a snooze (some of these guys are in fact ticketless)
3.) An overall air of unconcern as opposed to a "this is
my berth, mind it" kind of just below the surface hostility
that's fairly evident in case of a passenger with a reservation.

Thereafter, I tried to snooze, but failed, as the early morning sun
was pretty much of "in your face" laddie presence and the
petulantly continuous presence of the draught from the windows
wasn't helping either (apart from cooling me, of course). Not
that I am that much of an expert when it comes to sleeping while
in motion, never did it on the Bullet, can barely manage it in a
train and hate the very idea while in a bus, if you must know. But
then, in that in-between territory -- pilloried by the glare of
the sun and the insistent clamour of the wind -- bordering
wakefulness and sleep two poems came and were promptly
jotted down on the phone.

And then, some 3 hours into the journey a nice gentleman
dressed in black, the TTE came. I explained properly and
politely (K had stressed on it) and the TTE invited me to
sit down, took my ticket from me and wrote me a reciept for
the Sleeper Class surcharge and (go ahead and rub your eyes)
berth charges. All of Rs. 135 again. And now I was S3, 53 a
passenger with a reservation hurtling at speed in a train run
by the great Indian Railways. How nice of this TTE to just get
over things with barely minimum fuss! And not even looking at me
askance or asking me to follow him or wait till he comes
back, etc. All normal tricks used by TTEs to check out how
desperate you are for a berth (and what they can wheedle out
from you, for the same).

BTW, auto fare to the station costed me Rs. 200, and the
train travel was costing me Rs. 270. That's a lot of food
for thought for our urban planners and the like, no?

Coming back to the train, leaving behind the chaos and the
utter political mis-management of the city -- What would you
have done to celebrate being allocated a berth in such trying
(in terms of increasing number of Indian travelers) times? I
hope you know that the Indian Railways doesn't serve Beer, BTW.
Also it was kinda early, even if you are from Goa or some
uninhabited island in the South Sea Pacific.

But I did find out that the catering guys served Bread
Omelets for the princely sum of Rs. 21. Two pieces of bread,
one pretty fluffy omelet and a small sachet of ketchup too.
So I put all that away without much ado. And then caught up
on snoozing (this time with the shutter down on the window).

Then it was time to travel to berth number 53 -- luckily in
my compartment only -- and secure (meaning more or less like
before) my luggage and assess all my fellow passengers again.
They come and go, gather a bottle here, a newspaper there,
basically in a more or less avuncular fashion but all the same
indicating that I am responsible for making them move, just when
they were about to digest their morning breakfast. Or maybe I
exaggerate and its just the touchiness of having too many
people all around.

But then, anyway, I snooze a bit more and then pull out
"Speaking of Siva" but before I can do any reading comes
along another hawker; this time with Batata Wadas /
Alu Bondas. A plateful is four of these round, slightly
bigger than an average onion size snack. And I get two
sachets of Cremica sauce / ketchup along with. So again,
without much ado, I put away all four of the wadas --
basically potato dumplings seasoned with green chillies,
garlic, onion and an assortment of spices, dipped in a
batter of besan and deep fried till golden yellow --
thinking fondly of what the little man would have said
when face to face with two sachets of sauce / ketchup.
Okay, let me explain -- the little man is a hogger of
sauce / ketchup / jam; it seems he uses the concerned
snack as an adult safe excuse to attack the sauce /
ketchup / jam on offer.

While I was busy noting down flavour and taste data being
broadcast by my tongue and being, by and by the train moved
from Alu Bonda land to Batata Wada land. Which in this case
meant that it moved through the shadows cast by a stand of
teak trees into the shadows cast by another stand. It was
my phone that told me; very smartly and schoool-masterishly
I must add, told me something to the effect of -- now you are
roaming, be careful with your data usage, etc.

Apart from being an aficionado of commonplace things like
Omelets and Alu Bondas, I am also a bit of Samosa hogger,
so I had an eagle eye all peeled and ready for this
triangular / conical snack of which I can never have enough.
But instead I was hectored and harangued by any number of hawkers
offering Egg and Chicken and Veg. Biryani. All of which --
with the hindsight of previous experience and the pedigree of
being a Hyderabadi -- I turned up my nose at. And instead got
around to window gazing and bird spotting of a type far removed
from what the average urban dweller does at malls. The sightings
were of the usual drongos, lapwings, bulbuls and one peafowl.
And (speaking of butterflies) a common rose. I mean these are
sightings I do remember. Maybe I should have jotted them down,
the way I used to jot down the name of platforms on
earlier (far, far earlier) train journeys. Or maybe I should
have managed to sleep more and managed to reserve a ticket
and managed to give K less reason for worry and concern.

The sun that had been in my face had by now climbed up into
the noonday position, and the weather in this part of the
country can be burning hot, even in late winter. For now,
there was a patch of hot sunlight slowly broiling my bare foot
(I was given a side berth and half sitting / half sprawled out)
and I had managed to run out of water.

But before the compartment's denizens were made to witness a
tandav inspired by thirst, the train reached Ballarshah. And
a number of bells started ringing in my head. Or maybe the
bells were ringing somewhere lower down, in my far from full
stomach.

The platform was sun-drenched and I spotted quite a lot of
butterflies too (many species are active around 12.00 -- 1.00)
but for once I had other things on my mind. Like, food. Also,
I wouldn't have risked being the object of suspicion of a train
load of passengers and the RPF, something bound to happen if I
was spotted with a long lens screwed onto the camera.

So, prudence and palate both dictated I hunt food and I did just
that. First off, my attention was directed at another encounter
with the humble dish called the Omelet. Again hawked with bread.
Two pieces of bread and a not so fluffy (got to be hurriedly made,
A.P Express aa rahi hai!) omelet, with a dash of chat masala
sprinkled on the omelet. All of Rs. 15 only. How was it, you may
ask? Scrumptious and as omeletely heavenly as any I have tasted.
Okay, I exaggerate -- it was cold, the bread was far from fresh;
but since I have had worse omelets priced twice as much as this
in the city, I will still give it high marks. Next, I found a
"drinking water" tap and after waiting a bit for a dude (who
incidentally was wearing a Tee that said "Sorry girls, I date
only models") who was washing his hair as if he were Rapunzel, asked
him to go to beauty parlour and filled up my water bottle. And then
emptied it into my vitals there. And filled it up again.

It was hot. Or else, it was the lack of the sleep. Or it was
that dude who was standing in some shade and giving me an eyeful
of his teenage ballsiness and insouciance. Whatever it be;
I -- the experienced traveler who knows of more platforms
than any software engineer -- stepped wrong, for the first of
two times. Or rather, I purposefully set forth for a cart heaped
with golden brown snacks, betting to myself with the certainty
of a 300mm lens bird photographer that they have to be Wadas for
sure. And, once at the cart, mentally patting myself on the back,
I ordered a plate of Wadas, for a measly sum of Rs. 15. Well,
they were anything but Wadas, even to me. I could have just turned
around and thrown them at the hawker and caused him serious
harm -- they were that tough, that hard -- as opposed "to the
crispy on top, soft inside" goodness of a Wada. But I did no
throwing and resorted to no violence apart from masticating
it all down (I hate wasting food, I am apalled at and by how
so many people equate being rich or being able to pay with
the superciliousness of throwing away food; are they aware
that people die hungry in the same city, state, country, world?)
and then found some shade right in front of my compartment. To
indulge in my favorite pastime -- as a veteran of Indian Railway
Platforms -- of watching passengers.

(Note to sharp-eyed readers who are keen on a career in
Sherlocking in food : this cart selling alleged Wadas was
the only one moving all along the hot sun scoured platform.
Elementary -- to conclude that the so claimed Wadas weren't
selling as hot cakes, eh? Also, the train that this cart was
serenading was a Kazipet bound train, meaning a "southwards"
bound train. Elementary again, no? That someone had tried his
hand at "cooking up" Wadas and was now trying to sell it to a
captive market which would soon be too far to complain. Eh?)

While I was torn in between deciding if I should give into the
temptation for some bananas or opt for a Slice, yet another hawker
approached. This time with a cartload of assorted nuts and
sweetmeats. Among which I could see roasted groundnuts (my
all time favorite) at Rs. 15 for a small packet, raisins and
cashewnuts at Rs. 25 a packet, pistachios (yes, I am not putting
you on) for Rs. 45, packets of dates (though they looked more
like a lump) for Rs. 25 each, some other coloured sugar candies
and packets of (what I found out on examination) of what could
have only been Mavudi Tandra (Mango Papad is the Hindi equivalent
if I am not wrong) again for Rs.25 (for a portion lesser than a
cigarette pack in size). I did a double and a triple and a
quadruple take. Believe me. I swear on Mavudi Tandra. I mean,
I have always been led to believe that Mavudi Tandra is not
made like any other papad (or bought like any other papad for
that matter). And that the best is sold only on the Vizianagaram
platform. So I put it back. I should have just walked away.
Instead I bought some groundnuts and a packet of dates. Ha!

(This incidentally was wrong step two, dear reader. As it
turned out, I did not even open the packs; nor did I take
photographs of them. Just let them gather heat all the way
to Nagpur and then lugged them to my brother's place. Call
me thrifty if you will, but Rs. 40 is a big amount to waste
while traveling in Sleeper Class, no?)

Oops.

So why did I not eat the afore-mentioned "snacks as colourful
as India"? One reason was that I went back into that ill-defined
territory; in between slumber and wakefulness thanks to the
torpor of the afternoon heat and my lack of sleep the earlier
night. The second is that I got full. I mean I ate something
else that made me feel happy, content and oh so full.

I ate a plate of Ballarshah Puris. A plate of rustic simplicity.
Six medium sized puris, a very, very tasty potato curry and two
dangerous looking green chillies stuffed into a transparent plastic
constitute a "plate" of this dish. In fact, the glint of the
transparent plastic in a gent's hand is what led me to realize /
remember that Ballarshah means these puris (oh yes, I have eaten
them earlier here on this very platform, but forgot all about it)!
So, I set out on an expedition to the almost the very end of the
platform and found a cart which surprisingly still hadn't run out
of this awesome plate of deliciousness. A princely sum of Rs. 15
changed hands and I ran back to my compartment exulting inside, as
if I had managed to get the tickets to a "first day, first show"
screening of one of Mr. Bachchan's legendary movies.

I did buy two more Batata Wadas in the train later on, but that
was more or less because of my anxiety about how long the train
will take to reach Nagpur (it just stopped in the middle of lots
of Plain Tigers -- and nowhere -- a bit before Hinganghat) and
meant to be a comfort snack, but if you really want to know,
the plate that really matters in this long rambling is the plate
of Ballarshah Puris. The rest were all side dishes.

Oh, two more things, tidbits rather. Somewhere after Ballarshah,
while turning around to help my foot escape from the magnifying
glass effect of a very afternoonish sun, I saw a hawker dressed
all in white, his face shaved to an millimetre of his skin and
wearing the dark glasses that the visually impaired do. He would
have been in his early forties, had a blind man's cane in his
hand and an assortment of guthka and other packets all over the
front of his chest and draped on his shoulders (or so it seemed
to me). He also had a massive black bag slung on one shoulder.
From which (on being asked for -- by one of my fellow passengers)
after 2-3 minutes of groping he produced a pack of playing cards.
If all this seemed incongruous and strange, what happened next
took the cake. The hawker was paid a sum of Rs. 20. And I could
see him spread the tips of his fingers all over the two currency
notes.

Did he have eyes in his fingertips?

Respect.

The second thing (incident)?

I saw a group of 4 middle aged gentlemen (they were headed
for someplace in MP) put away 6-8 plates of Ballarshah Puris.
They ate it all from the same newspaper, the way nomads and bikers
and other footloose people have done for as long as they remember.
Was nice to see, yes. Also, they folded the newspaper and did not
throw away the green chillies. After all, this is India and this
is Indian Railways; with a little bit of thrift, you can go a
long way.

No?

Blogs R Us?

2011-09-28T22:48:00.000-07:00

In a deconstructed way, most (good, great) fiction and (all?)
great poetry has an element of raw truthfullness in it. Whatever
it is that's being played out, articulated or storytold, the
great written word has an air of confessional finality and
innate believability in it. There are times when you, as the
reader are overwhelmed by the impact of a sentence here, a
phrase there, and there are times when you feel for the writer,
really live his or her experience, and realize that below all
that literary construction is a story as real as yours. A
story as common as yours too, but made unique -- in all
probability -- because of the ruthless objectivity and
frankness with which it is told.

This happens a lot with those who read poetry. In fact, for
many people for the poem to grab them "by the scruff of the
neck" or for it to "leave them winded", as if by a blow in
the guts, the poem has to have intensity and be burst of
raw emotion. The refuge not resorted to by speech, the
catharsis that is expected to balm over a deeply ingrained
wound, the angst that is so guilelessly shared.

Not surprising then, at one time, most blogs also had a
similar spine of ruthlessness, honesty and "coming out of
the closet" kind of confessional spirit. Sometimes you in
fact, even felt as if you have intruded into someone's
personal space or are reading through an immaculately
kept "spare nothing, chronicle everything" kind of daily
diary.

Oh yes, it wasn't long back ago when many used to have
"livejournals"; a blog by any other name would smell as...

Then, as we all know, google happened and its search engine
got more and more powerful (read intrusive), Facebook happened
and a lot of the time that one spends "online" got eaten up
there. As also, pretty soon many undesirables (and the literal
types) became part of the blog-reading audiences and so on...

Which means, now most blogs have gone "under the radar" and
become as guardedly insipid as most of us readers who are
connected to the intrusiveness of the Internet all the day.

Unless one considers all those "bloggers" who are "below
the radar" as it is and choose not to be crawled by search
engines, don't really care for what the world thinks of them;
whose blog posts are more or less (in terms of intimacy, honesty and spirit) prefixed with the words "Dear Diary".

Hmmm...

A train to Delhi and Varanasi -- my gullibility travels (again)

2011-09-28T01:58:00.000-07:00

A couple of days back, I have had the most peculiar dream;
that I am in a truck (or some kind of a cargo carrier, anyway)
wearing an expression of absolute tiredness, totally beat
and sweat-drenched and evidently in shock. Shock on
discovering that though I have my rucksack with me, I have
forgotten quite a lot of stuff behind -- namely my sleeping
bag, my tent, my camera tripod, a diary and so on...

Thankfully it was just a dream and I woke up to reality and
the fact that its been long since I have tripped in a way that
needed a sleeping bag and a tent.

But yeah, if you dig dreams the way I do -- this dream tells you
two things (or at least that's what I think);

i.) I have been planning a major trip and been thinking of
roughing it out too.
ii.) I am a bad traveler; at least in terms of losing things
while on the road.

And if you thought so, you would be right. Because I have been
contemplating a long trip up north -- starting from Kullu and
heading to Kedarnath and Badrinath and a bit of a bigger hike
into the snowy expanses all around. And yes, I am a bad traveler
and have lost quite a bit of stuff on the road. A list that
includes 2 pairs of hawai chappals, one set of gum boots
(this was in Ladakh in 2005 when my gear was bungeed down in a
fashion that would have made any tinker go green with envy), a
pair of Bermudas (this was somewhere after Pune when I was
returning back from a ride to Gujurat; I had the Bermudas spread
on the seat for some more comfort to my sore but and then they
just took wing somewhere), a Lonely Planet, a diary with detailed
trip logs (somewhere near Gira waterfalls in Dangs way back from
Ladakh in 2005), a tripod and a sleeping bag (at Barr in Rajasthan,
on way back from Ladakh in 2005 -- stolen while I was making a
STD call) and more helmets than I can remember...

Got to do with either the strain of being on the road, or not having
anyone watching my back or to do with my continued gullibility, but
then there you are, yes I have lost my fair share of this and that
on the road.

Oh well, while I am at it, I need to also make a clean breast of a
fact that would be downright criminal for any self-respecting
photographer (arguably also a traveler). I have also managed to
lose the lens hoods; of both the 18-105 and the 55-300 (Nikon
AF-VR) lenses I currently have. One was on the highway while I
was still getting used to the D-90 and the other was again on
the road (on a dirt track near my place, while I was on the
cycle -- way back from shooting nesting weaver birds).

So...ummm...well, hota hai yaar. Joke's on me and my gullibility,
you see.

So...ummm...well, it travels again, this time in the relative comfort
and order of a train. Heading out to Delhi (to meet a schoolmate whom
I haven't seen in more than 18 years) and thereafter to Varanasi and
the trip called Om Namaha Shivaya. And since a part of the journey
is unreserved, this should be fun :-)

No, for once I don't anticipate losing anything; but yes I look
forward to finding some poetry!

The fascinating world of my butterflies

2011-09-27T10:55:00.000-07:00

Picturise a late morning -- 11ish -- setting, of grass that has a dazzle
that can only be called "green gold", along with a wealth of Lantana,
bramble and scrub and other wildflowers, under a wealth of sunlight
pouring in from dazzling blue skies. *

Amidst this "canvas" for the photographically inclined, now picturise
the flight -- of specks of bright colour -- hither and tither, this way
and that, now soaring up to be lost in the light of the skies, now
dipping down to vanish into the green of the verdure.

If you can follow the speck of bright colour long enough and do it
again and again on a daily basis (and google for it and land up at
places like this) probably you can recognize one of them as an individual "type" as opposed to "hmmm, isn't
that a butterfly?"

Okay, if you are an "old butterfly hand" kindly excuse me for
this whiff of what may appear to be grandstanding (it's delight,
that too childish, in fact) but yes, I have got good enough to
identify some butterflies in flight (and most when they are
basking) and in fact I already have a substantial list (one that
will hopefully grow) of my butterflies.

So hold my camera while I type them down, will you please?

Common Rose
Crimson Rose
Banded Swallowtail / Blue Bottle / Common Jay
Pale Grass Blue
Common Tiger
Striped Albatross
Leopard
Red Helen
Lime Butterfly
Danaid Eggfly (male / female)
Common Jezebel
Blue Pansy
Peacock Pansy
Lemon Pansy
Yellow Pansy
Chocolate Pansy
Striped Tiger
Plain Tiger
Blue Tiger
Tawny Coaster
Common Castor
Anderson's Grass Yellow
Blue Spotted Crow / King Crow (male / female)
Zebra Blue
Pale Grass Blue
Common Cerulean
Grass Demon
Common Gull
The Pioneer
Mottled Emigrant
Common Emigrant
The Baronet
Brown Awl

Yes, many of these butterflies have even resulted in pretty good
captures! Which is like an added joy on top of the fascinating
reward of just seeing and identifying the butterfly.

As I write this, its been almost three months of lots and lots
of painstaking field work, of being scratched in the bushes,
of being led a dance in what one thinks is stalking and the
absolute disregard of time in what is involved in
"chasing a butterfly", but nonetheless it has been worth it.

As has been the tanning of my sun-exposed body and bleaching of
the wilderness of my hair.

Because, for every proper "capture" of a butterfly, there are
countless more that take root in me in the form of poems.

And capture or not, poem or not, its humbling to "see" a
butterfly and both enlightening and delightful to thereafter
read up on it and know it as an individual, as yet another
lovely living thing that makes nature what it is -- a
fascinating world.

Here's to you -- my butterflies, may your tribe(s) increase!

* Sad, but true...it hasn't rained much in Hyderabad this year.
Normally I would tear my hair out and complain and bawl a lot.
But this time I was getting something built, okay? Also, you
cannot do much photography of butterflies. Ask me :-)

"You write well...your honesty is admirable..."

2011-09-27T08:02:00.000-07:00

The nice people on the matrimonial website where I have had a
"paid" membership have given me an extension of three days. And
prior to the expiration of my "premium" membership, they even
reminded me to renew my membership fast...and to avail the special
spotlight feature for my profile.

Which is all very fine and in fact pretty forward-looking and
customer focused and market led of them. But "spotlight" on
what? Pray?

My ears? My poetic angst? Or my "admirable honesty"?

Oh well, probably I am just being strongly satirical here or
you may want to call this a mild case of gallows humour (of the
matrimonial kind) but yes (and I am sure you know it too)
matrimonial sites are where the action is, for all those intent
on getting hitched "fast" and "settling" down and it is where the
posturing and masquerading and marketing (that goes along with
showing oneself in the best light)is...

Yes, I have been on these sites before and no I wasn't expecting
miraculous results, but still...

And yes, as usual, I wonder if I am probably too open, easy-going
artless and unsophisticated for my own good. Or probably intent
on being truthful to a fault. And as you can very well expect,
these approaches don't work in a world that is getting more and
more literal everyday, when most of us are led to believe that
we are perfect (and virtuous and settled down) and should ensure
we stay that way by allying with others who are the same.

The company we keep and all that marketing jargon if you will...

So I guess -- by extension -- I am a misfit on matrimonial sites
too. Or maybe the ladies (or their chaperones) I have been
fortunate enough to interact with google me and land up here.

Well you do the math thereafter.

"Angsty poet" + "rootless motorcyclist" + "romantic tree lover" +
"unsettled consultant" + "obscure writer" doesn't add up to much,
no?

And then again, there would be the other stereotyping at play,
(since this blog mentions my being Hard of Hearing, rants about
my troubles when employed, questions my employability and so on)
making me a prospective minefield, I guess...:-)

Whatever it be, the sum total is that I don't probably weigh in
as substantial enough to be pursued as a prospective alliance.
Let's leave all that jazz about intelligence, compatibility,
common interests, etc.

Or, everyone is just too tired and expects to find the "finished
item" who has excellent phone skills, travels extensively (which
not only means he is culturally polished -- and has hotel napkins
et al to gift -- but can immediately "come" meet up) earns
big bucks, etcetera, etcetera...

Who knows, I am certainly not a woman intent (allegedly) on
getting married and I am certainly not someone who
understands them that well. Nor am I someone who is unaware of
what an average reader's reaction would be on reading "hearing
aids" on a matrimonial profile.

But then, this blog post is not about all that and in
fairness, to each one his / her own. What I find surprising is
that of a substantial number of those who "liked" my profile,
(and went on to praise it too) not many showed any interest in
taking things ahead. A bit indicative of a mindset that goes
like -- "Poetry, travel, photography, motorcycling is fine,
but I would prefer someone who is a regular guy doing a
regular job".

Oh well, like I said before -- to each, his / her own
and (no, I don't go by gender stereotypes) maybe that is
what is called "feminine logic" or whatever else...

I do know that I have been a bit too frank with that profile,
but it will stay that way, thank you.

And yes, if you have seen it and said / felt "you write well..."
hey...why, thank you! And wish you all the best for a happily
married life!

P.S. -- This post is not taking any potshots at matrimonial sites.
I still feel they are the best way to meet people; else I wouldn't
be a paid member on one. This post is about my own experience
on a particular matrimonial site and indicative (if at all) of
what confounds people like me or indicative (if at all) of how the
marriageable among the fairer sex (or their chaperones) look at
"getting married".

P.P.S -- This one is not needed -- especially if you know me :-)
Yes, I don't believe in gender stereotypes and I also believe
that it is the man who should do the wooing. But there is only
so much one can do, without "phone skills" and if the other
party gets literal and panicky...no?

The glittering happiness of three Goldfish

2011-09-27T00:25:00.001-07:00

I just changed the water in the Goldfish tank. Meaning, I just
poured out all the water (after transferring the fish out into
a small bowl), gave the gravel and the inner surface of the
tank a hand scrub, gave the plastic plant one, set it in again
and filled up the tank.

With common tap water.

And then -- when I put Tonu, Gonu and Donu back into "their"
tank, it is as if I have put them back in a paradise of bliss
and happiness. For one, their glitter has the sparkle of a
beatific smile and for another they are stiller and calmer then
before. You could say that they are floating serenely in the
middle of the tank, enjoying and thrilling in the
purity -- of water.

Even if it is common tap water.

Oh well, am telling you half the story? Yes, the other half is
when they keep making a beeline for the surface, very evidently
distressed if you see how they "blow" bubbles; it almost seems
they are coming up to breathe. This is all of course when
the water has gone all cloudy and bad, almost like a cesspool.

Well, if you keep fish and have a bigger tank than mine, you in
all probability have an aerator and some kind of fancy breathing
apparatus, but even in that case I am sure you will agree with me.
Fish in fresh water glitter their happiness, don't they?

Incidentally, this is not the first time I am keeping (and caring)
for fish at home. My earlier experiences were in Orissa, when
I was 10-12 years old and used to get pond water and half-dead
fish (from the fry and fingerlings left over when nets teeming
with Pokhuri fish are drawn in) and a attempt creating aquariums
from one and two kg Horlicks and Maltova jars. To wonder why
the fish would belly up and die, sometimes just overnight.

It wasn't all that bad either, I also used to "breed" Eels and
Catfish in the ditches all around my place when I was a bit older
and learned; and those fish lived longer too -- before disappearing
in the give-away smell of fried fish from a stealthy neighbour's
kitchen.

Anyway, if my memory serves me right, these three little goldfish
have completed more than 100 days. Or rather the fish bowl has. Oh
yes, one of the first two fish died within 4 days. Then I got another
two and they too died. And then I got another two. I am happy to say
that all seems to be well in fishland, with the last two of them here
for more than 2 months now.

Some more facts about the fish fellows -- the names were given by
the little man; or rather I proposed and he seconded the same.
I may be wrong but Tonu is the original "survivor" and a bit aloof
and the biggest of the three.

And oh yes, like any thing that needs "doing", cleaning the fish
bowl is a chore. Also, a responsibility, because "before you know why,
fish could belly up and die!". And responsibilities are scary and
painful. In my case, the pain happened as I slipped and fell (on my
behind) while changing the water at around 2.00 in the morning.

But still, its worth it all to see the glittering happiness
of Tonu,Gonu and Donu. Especially when they catch the sunlight,
streaming in from the skylight, over the landing where their
bowl is.

Tripping -- travels and travails

2011-09-25T10:09:00.000-07:00

Coincidentally enough -- as I have been procrastinating a
blog post about an amazing road trip being undertaken by two
friends -- Prabha and Harsha Koda, I have been beset by a set
of related travails; the Enfield needs a new Carburetor (and the
type I want seems to be out of stock)starter coils and some other
TLC, the Schwinn is getting either its front or back wheel
punctured more or less with as much periodicity as the moon's
waxing and waning. If that was not incapacitating enough --
in between the Enfield being unable to keep up with the 100 CC
commuters and the Schwinn making serious holes in my pocket,
I also managed to go ahead and puncture the sole of my foot.

Which (naturally) led to a poem and a lot of wonder(even more
naturally)on my part -- that of seeing my blood dropping and
drying on a decrepit and sizzling hot (and rain-washed and
spanking clean) road and that of finding that the tear in the
"leather" of my sole more or less mended itself in barely 4-5
days. How's that for being well-worn, eh?

But then, this blog post is meant to be about Prabha and
Harsha Koda's trip all along the border of India, starting
from Mumbai and ending at Mumbai.
And yes, as of now they are in Leh, eating up the miles
steadily in their beloved Scorpio

And yes, in keeping with the confessions I routinely make
on this blog, here's another -- I was invited by these nice
people -- to be part of their trip and be with them from Srinagar
to Leh.

But I am here in the Deccan itself.

#$@%!!

Coincidentally again, I got around to finally cleaning my room today.
And found a bunch of receipts, visiting cards, bills, etc. from
a road trip that I had undertaken in January 2009 on
the Enfield -- down to Kanyakumari (and Rameshwaram) and then
up along the West Coast. Didn't have the heart to throw them,
maybe I will try and find some poetry in those bills, receipts,
et al...

A lust for life (and lenses)

2011-09-21T02:54:00.000-07:00

I never learned how to paint. And, I am sure the little man
can sketch / doodle better than me; I mean he would have done
it far better than me even before he started going to "drawing
classes". But it has been said by some of my readers that there
is a bit of the imagist in my poems. Or rather, I have been told
that some of my poems are rich in "starkly vivid, photograph like
imagery" and that I "juxtapose allegory and metaphor with images
to draw pen pictures".

Is it because I am trying to paint with words? Or is it because
when (I take a photograph) or try to drink in a landscape / view
with my mind's eye -- immaterial of if I am already "writing" the
poem or gazing at the beauty of the outdoors in

awe, the poem has already taken root in me?

You know what this means. Yes, it means that everything that I
see is potentially an image that can be drawn in words, a poem.
And from the very time I have realized that I have been
boggled -- not at the prospect of what masterpieces I may be
destined to draw but at the scarier one. Of not being fast enough
or receptive enough to draw all the poems that come to me.

For being unable to focus all my being into the poem, for
doubting it, and for so on and so forth...

But then, all said and done, its a good problem to have;
its better than being totally closed to poetry and being
unable to write (drafts) with originality fed by immediacy.

Or so I feel.

I don't know if I can "devote" my life to poetry. Its tough
as it is dealing with the trickles that my "self" lets in.
Its tough as it is dealing with the epiphanies that come
unbidden, but still the greed remains -- for more. The greed
remains -- for more "writerly purpose", extended periods of
"writing in the zone" and for the overwhelming lust for life,
one that teaches a complete focus on art, to the point of being
madly obsessed with it -- Van Gogh like.

And yes, the greed remains; for better lenses. Yes, lenses that
give me a wider angle on life, and lenses that let me zoom in
and block out all that is irrelevant too -- for though I may
not be primarily be a photographer, many of my poems come to
be through my eye.

As I go down on my knees, in reverence and awe.

A room with a view

2011-09-20T23:15:00.000-07:00

In Telugu, there is this saying -- illu
kati chudu, pelli chesi chudu. Literally meaning -- build a
house and see, conduct a marriage and see. I wouldn't know of
marriages (though I am arguably a Shaadi.com veteran) but now I
can say I know a bit about building an "illu", even it happens to
be on the terrace of another and nothing very grand.

Oh yes, it has gone over budget. As any wise man would have
expected it to. And it has taken a lot many days than was
estimated. As any wise man would have expected it to. But then,
what matters is that it is finally done and now I have a good
idea of what it takes to "build" something. Even if that "something"
is but a sheet-roofed writer's shack designed and built (for lack
of a more "builderly" term) to be a penthouse.

How exactly should a newly built place feel? Overwhelmingly
impersonal? Silently spacious? Finished and foreign? Fragile
enough to inspire handling with care?

Whatever it be, I wouldn't know much about "new" spaces -- being
very low maintenance and afflicted with a sense of aesthetics
that borders the spartanly minimal -- I have not much of an
affinity for the grand and glitzy (in terms of spaces) and I
haven't been in that many of them -- at least long enough to be
considered a resident.

And then again, though the walls are new, the tiles are new
and a lot of time, money and work (at least by my standards) has
gone into creating this space, I am certainly no stranger to
it, this being the terrace of my "illu" after all. So maybe
this feeling of guarded strangeness is nothing more than what
I feel when staring at an empty page in a much used diary...the
diary is familiar but the page is still new and empty.

And yes, now for some background on this writer's shack :-)

If you know me, you would know that I absolutely adore open
spaces and just love being close to nature. So then, its not
tough to guess that a shack for someone like me would be either
on a cliff-top or besides the sea or out in the middle of trees and
other wilds. But then, I haven't got any closer to owning any such
space for the shack to come up there.

So...

If you know me, you would also know that I am rain mad and just
cannot have enough of getting drenched or being close to the rain.
And then, for me there is another far more crazier (and probably
primeval) level of associating with water, inasmuch that it is in
many ways my very ink. And, since we had a very very wet season
last year, I spent a lot of time getting drenched in deluges of
water; be it on my expeditions into the city, to or fro from work
or on mycycling trips. In fact, the first time I had the terrace
seen by an architect was on August 15th of last year, a day I got
totally drenched six times (inclusive of once on the terrace).So,
once I decided on getting a "room with a writerly view" here itself
on the illu, it had to get ready in time for me to get high on waters
that fall from the skies*.

So...

If you know me, you will also know that I am unschooled and
decide on things in my own patented illogical way. And another
strong motivator for getting the shack done ASAP was one of
the little man's sketches. Of a structure that has one door,
a conical roof and another door up there on the roof. And oh yeah,
it got done in a jiffy too!

Now, for the view. I would of course have wanted some more
elevation, maybe some 3-4 floors into the skies to see more
of the sunrise and the sunset. But yes, there are guaranteed
views of both (does that sound like advertising copy?). When a
bit more footloose, I can walk a few steps on either side and
get an eyefull of bursting blooms. A (tree of a) rosebush that
doesn't respect or care for the boundary that separates my
place from a nice neighbour's (ok, it is their rose bush, but
they have never made us feel so) and a yellow flowering tree
which I think is the Golden Trumpet on the front
of my place which runs riot with more sunbirds than I can
count, describe or capture :-)And yes, the junction box, too.

And then, there is the view on one side. Of trillions and
trillions** of lantana flowers and 8GB cards full of butterflies.
How long the butterflies stay around and how long the plot
stays that way, wild and overgrown with lantana (and other wild
flowers) is anyone's guess -- especially since there are rumors
of a water pipeline being laid to my so far "developing" and
suburbian colony.

But as long as it lasts, I would love to drink of it.

Maybe I will put little bird houses all over the terrace
(with blinds in place too) and shoot bird portraits. Or
maybe I will do some cooking. Or I will do what I have been
doing all this while, a bit of this and a bit of that :-)

But anyway, it's a bit of a kick to have a room with a
view. And yes, the little man agrees too.

* -- Call me an optimist (as opposed to being pessoan or
angsty) but I am still hoping there will be a bit more of
rains this year. And a cloudburst does seem and sound out
of the world up there.

** -- Lantana flowers in an inflorescence arrangement. Also, I am
not being literal.

A dray of squirrels

2011-09-19T09:59:00.000-07:00

It was on either the first or the second second day of my
Shiva Deeksha, towards April end, that I had got my first
sighting of a squirrel in my neighbourhood. The credit for this
mostly goes to the degree of early morning bushy-tailedness of my
eyes (the grogginess from Coffee deprivation kicked in from the
fourth day onwards), or probably to the fact that I had been peering
through a 55-300mm lens for almost a month, and had developed a
naturalist's perspective, in terms of detecting movement in what
probably constitutes the nearest plane of sight for the eye.

Or, as my brother said, it had to do with my Shiva Deeksha and
divine intervention -- since Lord Shiva is considered the lord of
all beasts, birds and praanis -- and the squirrels were "visiting"
me.

Whatever the reason be, that first squirrel sighting led to a
second squirrel sighting and then -- before I was a week into
my Shiva Deeksha -- came the discovery that a pair of squirrels
were living in a cable junction box fixed onto the electric pole
in front of my gate. Naturally, in the days that followed, the
squirrels were more or less a constant daily object of my attention,
while I got more adept at using the camera and learning the ropes of
"wildlife photography". And, the reason for a lot of wonder and joy
too, because there were times when I had to blink and pinch myself
and question if Coffee deprivation was making me see double
(or quadruple), because there would be days when four of these
little fellows would be looking back at me, watchfully and
squirrely in their mien -- perched on the junction box, peering
out of it or just curled around the coil
of cable, bushy tail hanging, shooting the breeze...

And oh yes, life wasn't exactly a picture perfect
portrait -- ensconced in a cosy and safe junction box and
the object of attention of a harmless poet -- for the
squirrels. There was much drama and pathos too.

Most mornings all through May the junction box used to be
visited by a pair (and at times three or even more) of
Brahminy Starlings (a bird related to the Common Mynah) and
all hell would break loose. Because (unless the reason for this
attack was some running feud at the family level or the species
level) the Brahminy Starlings seemed intent on grabbing the
junction box for a nest and determined on driving the squirrels
out by hectoring and dive bombing them at every available
opportunity.

In retrospect those attacks by the wildly fluttering and
airborne Starlings seem a bit comical, but when it was happening
it was quite an eyeful for me to silently observe and mindful
for me to understand and digest. Especially on days when the
Starlings had a glint in their eye that bordered on the evil
and a body language and demeanour that indicated a total
siege mentality.

For all I (or you) know probably the junction box was a nest
for these Starlings and the squirrels had moved in without
permission. However as you can very well guess, I was totally
rooting for them and completely biased towards them, and even
joined the battle on the rare occasion when (as if to break the
siege, the squirrels would emerge one by one and slither down
the pole, quickfoot; to forage) an airborne Starling seemed
close enough to hurt one of the squirrels.

I mean I would shoo away the Starling.

The attacks stopped after a while and (having shot gazillions
of squirrel photos) I ventured onto focusing on other
"wildlife", namely birds of the feathered variety, ranging
around my place barefeet and cycle-borne. And getting capture
after capture of Sunbirds, Little Egrets, Great Blue Herons,
Great White Herons, Cormorants and so on..

The Deeksha ended, life became a bit more laid back (in terms
of getting up in the mornings) a bit more caught up with this
and that and then with the first hint of rains, I discovered
that the camera and lens combo I have is good to take pics
of butterflies too.

So you can very well guess what I have been busy with these
last three months, in terms of being creative that is, when
not writing poetry that is.

Yet, all this while not a single day has passed without a
sighting of one of the little fellows; either shooting the
breeze on the junction box, or in a clump of Lantana (seems
squirrels eat both the flowers and the ripe berries)
or -- in a very mock navigatorish pose -- perched atop
the pole surveying the horizons for tidings of the weather.

And yes, I have also been taking the odd squirrel picture
here and there between captures of Common Roses and Blue
Pansies and Mottled Emigrants.

These little fellows are of course cautious to a fault
or it must be that my dark visage and bearded face makes
me look like a thundercloud. Whatever it be, at the very
most we are neighbours and I have not been anything more
than a very curious observer of squirreldom. Which means
(though I agonized about what they eat) I did not stuff
down almonds or peanuts or whatnots into the junction box
or requisition a thumb sized AC for them to deal with the
heat of May and June.

But then, two days back something happened that has
changed the equation.

On Friday evening, the cable repairmen came and got
around to doing what cable repairmen do; with a nice
big ladder propped on the pole. The first I came to know
about this domesticus interreptus happening in
squirreldom was when I saw the junction box totally opened,
the lid hanging down, a cable repairman perched on the
ladder near it and another down below peering at the ground.
As if hunting for a coin that had fallen there.

I really have no idea of how much I bristled. I also did
not knee the repairman where it hurts a lot. I just asked
if they saw any squirrels. And I was told that a couple of
them bounded out and away. So what were they searching for
then? Enlightenment struck me when I noticed what looked
like matted brown hair on the ground below. And I
realised I was looking at a nest of squirrel fur!

Were there any baby squirrels? Oh, yes, three of them, a
bit littler than my little finger with lizardly tails,
curled up and looking as defenceless as three coccineas,
but for the three stripes on their backs...

The cable repairmen seemed to be nice guys, as considerate
as me and concerned about keeping the squirrels alive. So I
did not have to resort to any story-telling about their
lineage and refer to Lord Shiva or anything. Yet, the question
that was evidently top of mind for all of us homo sapiens now
was, "What to do?"

The cable repairman was of the opinion that the nest
could be left on the ground and that the squirrels will
come and claim their own once we all left. But, I could
think of half a dozen species including snakes, geckos,
cats, dogs and bandicoots who could make morsels out of
the baby squirrels. So leaving the nest on the ground was
ruled out and I ran home and got a shoebox. The nest fitted
snugly into the shoebox and I could have said bye to the
cable repairmen, taken the shoebox home, punched some
ventilation holes into it and then left for a drink.

But, wait, wait...I did not know what grown up
squirrels eat, what in the blazes would I feed these
thumbelina sized mites? And evidently they were still
suckling...would the mother squirrel visit my home and
feed them?

Would Pakistan give us Kashmir back?

So that ruled out the shoebox too.

Thus, only one option was left.

Put the nest back into the junction box and hope
that the squirrels would get back and take care of
their own. So, the cable repairmen did just that and
left. And I looked up at the junction box, then a bit
more upwards at the heavens and (as it was getting
dark and I was getting thirsty) went in search for
that drink.

For most of Friday evening the thought at the back
of my head was -- will the squirrels return back?

For most of Saturday morning, I had a hangover of
the same thoughts worrying my being.

Till I saw a familiar sight -- on Saturday
afternoon -- the right revered Squire Squirrel of
the lineage blessed by the son of Dashratha himself,
quickfooting it down the electric pole.

Dunno which squirrel it was, mother, father, uncle,
whoever...but it was a squirrel and it was moving
with more or less squirrely matter of factness.

Oh joy!

Sunday brought some more sightings and I have seen
the fellows busy with affairs of squirreldom today
too.

Which means that either they have gone back to the
junction box, or they have moved somewhere close by. Which
more importantly means that the thumbelina squirrels are
(in all probability)being taken care of by Mama Squirrel.

And I will be peering closely at the junction box, for
some more time to come. Hoping to see the thumbelinas
make an appearance at the "door" soon.

Okay, go ahead have a laugh on me, the big bad biker, the
intense poet sounding like a godfather.

But also wish me, that my own menagerie of all things
small and beautiful and wild will still (hopefully) continue
to include a dray of squirrels.

In addition to three goldfish at home, the birds and the
butterflies.

Rhetoric Red

2011-09-17T11:38:00.000-07:00

Afoot again, somewhere
on the ill-defined travail trail
between unemployability and the stillness
of my soul. Footloose. Shall I travel
for distance -- from prosaics
and an easier way to while away time
than the angst of dealing with words?
What do you say, O road?
the altar this day, of a blood libation
from a hole in my sole?

If Kafkaesque is, why can't Pessoan be?

2011-09-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

I will be the first to admit that I am one of the least well-read poets
you will come across. And no, that doesn't refer to any genre
in particular; I am as bad about reading poetry as I am about
reading fiction. Maybe because I just don't have the time I
used to have. Or because when I have time, I would rather
write than read. Or this, and that. Ad infinitum.

But it wasn't always so. I still remember my days as a
struggling copywriter in a small, one bedroom flat (does
anyone make them still here in Hyderabad?) at a quaintly
named locality called Golkonda X Roads (near / in Gandhinagar
and nowhere near Golkonda fort) when my daily diet used
to be of books bought cheaply at Sunday Market (Abids) or
carefully (selected, weighed, half-read and then) bought at
Walden or (highly recommended and) lent by this or
that "intellectual" or "radical" friend.

For, I used to have quite a few of "intellectual" / "radical"
friends, mostly left-leaning and socialist / naxalite in
terms of ideology who used to frequent my place as a BYOB
destination for conversations dealing with anything and
everything under the sky and for sessions where rum-loosened
tongues would be raised in unrestrained singing. And while
they would bring down the roof with ballads like "Long March" and
poems by Sri Sri and other notables, I would pitch in with
soulful and sombre (or so I would like to believe) renditions
of "Dil hoon hoon kare..." and "Aa chal ke tujhe, main le
ke chaloon..."

Those were the days... when it was routine on my part to
finish a book a day. Or even two at times. And my reading
list was eclectic (as befitting a bright-MBA-turned-copywriter
who was willing to read any author at least once, and
picking up books at Rs.2 and Rs.3 each).

I confess to have continued reading the odd Nick Carter,
the little more occasional Harold Robbins, the frequent
Louis L'amour and a bit more frequenter Alistair Maclean -- in
keeping with my post-adolescent reading list (in addition to
all that a bright MBA would consider hot -- like Stephen Covey,
Jack Trout, etc.), but it was around this time that I read
voraciously of authors like Marquez, Naipaul, Krishnamurti (Jiddu),
Gibran (Khalil), Michener, Neruda, Raja Rao and others I sadly
don't remember.

And it was also around this time that I read Kafka for the
first time and probably had a brush with Pessoa too. I say
"probably" because while I continued to read Kafka off and on,
I don't remember having read anything by Fernando Pessoa in those
days or the days that followed (when I had the luxury of having
another well-read intellectual friend in my life -- one far more
prettier than the left-leaning radicals -- and was gifted both
amazing conversations and books), I somehow feel I
must have read him back then too.

Why? You may ask. Because on many days and most evenings,
especially those when there were no singing sessions, my setting
was spartan, bookish, labouriously slow (I used to maintain a diary
and also used to write poetry then) and Pessoan. When entire
days would go to recording the lengthy demise of a cigarette pack
or in putting down 8-10 lines onto a page in the form of a poem. Or
to sitting in a chair in the narrow balcony and observing the cows
and buffaloes in the sprawling khatal 5-6 floors below. Observing the
highlights -- being milked and washed down -- of a bovine life
comprising of the continual mooing for food and the mucking up
of respective pens / stakeouts.

Maybe most of those observings and most of the relative inertia
and ennui that I let brew in me -- in a one bedroom flat with
narrow windows to the world -- was because of my disconnect --
as a struggling copywriter -- with what was my immediate world
back then. Or maybe it was when I started developing a 'writer's
disquiet", but I somehow still feel I must have read a bit of
Pessoa those days. I mean, I am sure somewhere something Pessoan
must have contributed to making me "angsty".

Hell, I have nothing much to show in terms of writing from those
days, but (immaterial of whether I did read Pessoa or not) I do
consider those days as a formative phases in my life, when I probably
let my identity and location as a writer take root in me.

And in all probability, the credit for that could be a Pessoan
(or some other) page of writing with power (and brutal frankness)
as moving as that in the words below --

"I envy -- but I'm not sure that I envy -- those for whom a
biography can be written, or who could write their own. In these
random impressions, and with no desire to be other than random, I
indifferently narrate my factless autobiography, my lifeless
history. These are my Confessions, and if in them I say nothing,
it's because I have nothing to say.

What is there to confess that's worthwhile or useful? What has
happened to us has happened to everyone or only to us; if
to everyone, this it's no novelty, and if only to us, then
it won't be understood. If I write what I feel, it's to reduce
the fever of feeling. What I confess is unimportant, because
everything is unimportant. I make landscapes out of what I feel.
I make holidays out of my sensations. I can easily understand
women who embroider out of sorrow or who crochet because life
exists. My elderly aunt would play solitaire throughout the endless
evening. These confessions of what I feel are my solitaire. I don't
interrupt them like those who read cards to tell the future. I don't
probe them, because in solitaire the cards don't have any special
significance. I unwind myself like a multicoloured skein, or I make
string figures of myself, like those woven on spread fingers and
passed from child to child. I take care only that my thumb not miss
its loop. Then I turn over my hand and the figure changes. And I
start over.

To live is to crochet according to a pattern we were given. But
while doing it the mind is at liberty, and all enchanted princes can
stroll in their parks between one and another plunge of the hooked
ivory needle. Needlework of things...Intervals...Nothing...

Besides, what can I expect from myself? My sensations in all their
horrible acuity, and a profound awareness of feeling...A sharp mind
that only destroys me, and an unusual capacity for dreaming to keep
me entertained...A dead will and a reflection that cradles it, like
a living child...Yes, crochet... "

page 10-11, "The Book of Disquiet", Fernando Pessoa (translated
from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith).

Yes, I strongly recommend some Pessoan reading, or maybe again
I don't, this is deep and disturbingly "angsty" reading.

And yes, Pessoan certainly deserves to be a "word", I honestly don't
what it could "mean"; especially these days when every word has to
or is expected to have a literal meaning. Is there a singular meaning
for angst or disquiet?

On seeing two young tradesmen in a bus

2011-08-05T03:24:00.000-07:00

Neither of them looked as if they had ever shaved. Both were wearing thick, very workmansy jeans (of the type -- I still keep searching for, but fail to find in the brand showrooms -- that prospectors, cowboys and bikers favour for durability and ruggedness) and full-sleeved shirts and were well groomed and looking more or less like any urban 15-16 year old's would.

Both were also wearing boyish expressions of delight, as if they were going to a circus, cinema or cricket match. But immaterial of the boyish looks and their "holidayish" mein, these two were evidently headed for work and holding the tools of their trade in their hands.

One had an axe (the axehead comprising of a piece of a metal rib plate turned into an "O" at one end and sharpened at the other, with a still green and uncured handle of wood passing through the "O") and the other had a rudimentary machete -- a curved work knife of the kind used to cut open green coconuts or slice firewood, solidly fitted onto a handle; again of still green and uncured wood.

While I watched them -- standing in the bus with one shoulder tensed up by the grip of my arm on the grab rail and the other weighed down by the pendulum swing of the bag that carries what could be another tool of trade for me -- my DSLR -- I let me eyes do a surreptitious crawl of their faces, looking at them as subjects for my photographic eye. And noted that one of them had slightly brown hair with curls so fine he could have passed off for a Hasidic Jew and the other had a well shaped, almost aquiline nose and big wide-spaced eyes. Naturally, I started mentally calculating camera angles, aperture and shutter settings while thinking that both of them made eminent subjects and were worth working on for a day in a studio or outdoors with the sun blazing in resplendence.

Meanwhile the bus stopped and the boys got down, carefully making their way through the throng in the bus -- headed for a day's work -- at some site overgrown with Lantana and other scrub, in all probability; hands on each others shoulders.

I continued on in the bus, with the DSLR doing its pendulum swing on my shoulder.

Onto another day at work.

Part tradesman, part logophile, I work with my hands, labour with words -- I write.

Fuck -- progress is a four letter word

2011-08-05T00:05:00.000-07:00

I am not primitivist, no recluse from civilization and certainly no social claustrophobe. Okay, I do feel a bit self-conscious (in numerous ways) when I am amidst a group of strangers intent on chitchat and small talk and am given to believe that the best conversations are serious (as opposed to the banalities of online chatting comprising mostly of "brb" and "phone") but that still doesn't make me very radical, does it?

And speaking of nature and conservation, ecological sensitivity, etc. I do love the outdoors, am an avid bicyclist and get a kick by using public transport (in carbon footprint terms) but that still doesn't mean I have a dislike for civilization, development, progress or whatever else my species is currently engaged in -- on this planet, earth.

But I do know one thing, have known it all the while -- that trees are sacred living creatures and certainly not things. And that is why -- whenever I see a bleeding stump of what was once a verdant tree -- I am increasingly of the opinion that all that we as a species label as "progress", "development", "advancement" and so on are nothing but manifestations of our absolutely unfettered greed; a greed that borders on the pillage and destruction visited on by civilization by the relatively wild hordes -- like the Mongols, the Tartars and so on...all through the annals of history.

And yes, though I won't call myself a pessimist (you wouldn't either if you know me) I am again increasingly of the opinion -- whenever people brush off the cutting of trees as a necessary evil -- that our species is like a bunch of cattle stampeding with no sense of direction or purpose, mooing all the while; stampeding ahead in the march for the next level of so called advancement -- its collective ass wired to the twin obsessions of money and (what money feeds) consumerism.

I do lust for lenses and other technological advancements and I will once again repeat -- I am no primitivist and I love boulevards and bright city lights as much as I love verdant expanses and the great outdoors, but if someone says it is "progress" which makes it mandatory for trees to be cut, I will say progress is a four letter word.

In this day and this age, we need to introspect as a species and ask ourselves how advanced and evolved we really are if we cut down living, breathing, singing creatures in thousands; without even blinking an eye, as if they were deadwood.

Especially in this day and age when almost every corporate and busybody with a communication budget (or intent on getting noticed for making all the right noises) seems to be focusing on "going green", "ecological awareness", "3R's", "forestation" and what not under their CSR and other initiatives.

Anyway, read this and maybe thereafter all you can also say would be -- Oh, Fuck!

Canceled -- today's poetry reading at Lamakaan

2011-07-27T22:10:00.000-07:00

Hello people, just a quick shout out to let you all know that today's poetry reading (the fourth one in the series of Shri Jayanta Mahapatra's readings) stands canceled as he is tired and unwell after three consecutive days of readings.

If you had planned to attend this, hard luck.

I was lucky enough to manage to get away for the UoH reading. As usual felt blessed and touched by the aura of the great man. More on him and his poetry soon.

bomb blast?

2011-07-21T06:03:00.000-07:00

oh
it’s only a train i missed
missed to get a foothold before it left in a hurry
it doesn’t matter that i slipped
or fell
on the platform
and my purse is with me
my mobile
my glasses
my umbrella.

thank god
i didn’t slip through the gap
on to the rails
like so many others
that’s their problem
or their folks
if they get to know about it
i'll just get the next train
dust my back
5rs sada 7rs cream polish my shoes
and get to work
that’s what i’m here for
that's what
we are all here for
while you
the rest of india
the generals in pakistan
the so called don
pax america
saudi ayatollah
non state players
spitting around the spittoon civil society
imagine that a pawn has moved
in the great game

-- By M.S. Gopal

Shri Jayanta Mahapatra in Hyderabad -- 25-28th July, 2011

2011-07-21T04:22:00.000-07:00

I am hoping I can be there on all four days and I am hoping I can meet and greet him too. In all probability I will be spending a lot of time taking in the proceedings through the viewfinder of my camera.

Or I will be listening to him through my eyes.

Anyway, because of what he is to me (inspirationally and by virtue of my Oriya "roots") and because of the high esteem I hold him in (both as an old school gentleman and a great, wise poet) I am more than a bit excited about the four readings at which Shri Jayanta Mahapatra's poetic oeuvre will be on display -- in his voice.

Details about the readings are as below --

Monday 25th July 1pm-4pm: University of Hyderabad, Department of English.

Readings by -- Jayanta Mahapatra, Rabindra K. Swain, Hoshang Merchant, Subhashini Kaligotla, Sridala Swami.

Tuesday, 26th July, 3pm-5pm: OUCIP, Osmania University

Readings by -- Jayanta Mahapatra, Rabindra K. Swain, Hoshang Merchant, Subhashini Kaligotla, Sridala Swami.

Wednesday, 27th July 6pm (please check the time & location, if you're a member of the Poetry Society of Hyderabad): Poetry Society of Hyderabad

Readings by -- Jayanta Mahapatra.

Thursday, 28th July, 6.30pm-8.30pm: Lamakaan, Off Road No. 1, Banjara Hills

Readings by -- Jayanta Mahapatra, Rabindra K. Swain, Hoshang Merchant, Subhashini Kaligotla, Sridala Swami.

"Oeuvre" isn't exactly the right word to use for his work as of yet, he's still writing and winning awards (the last one being the Allen Tate Poet Prize for 2009) but he is 80 plus and a honorary grandfather to many poets :-)

So if you love poetry and want to experience the surreal magic of a poetry reading by a poet widely acknowledged for the melody and musicality of his work, do mark these dates and don't miss these readings.

P.S. -- I am in no way associated with organizing these readings, I am just getting the word out here on my blog as a fellow poet. And someone who is pretty kicked about Sri Jayanta Mahapatra coming to Hyderabad.

It's a joint !

2011-07-21T02:22:00.000-07:00

It has been a bit over a month (a negligible time lag for updating this chronicle-of-sorts of mine called a blog) since my Doctor took a long look at the X-ray of my right shoulder and collarbone and pronounced the bone injury (a fracture in fact) to be sufficiently healed by using the words "it's a joint".

There's still a bit of a bump where the bone has joined but seems that the bone will hold up for most of the activities and monkeying I have in mind for the coming days of post summer lushness...

I broke the bone in January and it was pronounced to have healed in June. That's five months of more or less hampered and "samhal ke" kind of living, during which I could do just a piddling amount of cycling, had to be careful about lifting the DSLR and was more or less off the motorcycle (apart from the "can't be avoided, there is no other way to commute" times).

And I must also confess that for almost all of May I was convinced that I have a malunion because I used to get twinges of pain reminiscent of the earliest days of the fracture. But then, as my Doctor (who is very much the boss in this case) has already certified the bone has joined well and I don't need surgery.

So there, woot and woot and woot again!

That's not all in fact. To celebrate (and make up for lost time) I even bought a Schwinn Sporterra Bicycle and as of now we are already firm companions with some decent roads runs already behind us and (hopefully) a lot of kilometres and open roads in front.

Coming back to the matter of the joint of the bone, I must say the clavicle is a bitch of a bone to break. Almost every movement one undergoes sends a twinge to the bone and even simple things like sitting down in a chair (and getting up from it) can be potential bone breakers. And yes it is "disabling" in a number of ways. And yes, people are kind and will even make way for you (at least they did for me) and be helpful in otherwise competitive urban spaces like vegetable markets and buses.

At another level the initial days of the fracture were like a second childhood with my mother feeding me (I am not ambidextrous and not very good at spooning up rice using my left hand) and father bathing me. Call me a sucker for "humility" and "reverence" if you will, but I will say I did feel humbled (and I still do) by the tenderness, care and ministrations of my parents.

This blog post (about the healing of the bone) took a long time. And I really don't know if I am writing this because I have blogged (a bit) about my fracture here and thus this post is but a natural progression. Or is it that I am attempting closure? To what has been an intensely painful (and incapacitating) three months followed by another two months of wait and watch (which is equally incapacitating and worrying) and nightmares of malunions and whatnot...

Either way -- it does seem medical science has limited (if at all) efficacy where my "disabilities" are concerned. For all their so-called "nano-technology" edge and "extreme power" capability my new hearing aids can't really do much (unless I am in a perfectly noise-free environment). Okay, so there are reasons why the hearing aids are what they are but then those reasons don't make being "ear incapacitated" any easier. More or less in the same vein, when I broke the bone, medical science couldn't do much but ask me to take rest, drink a lot of water and eat a (calcium) tablet a day.

Rx stoicism and "even this will pass away" bloody mindedness any day, I say.

On that note, hold my bike (its a very light bicycle in fact) while I exult once again -- It's a joint! Woot, woot, woot!!!

धीरे धीरे सुबह हुई

2011-07-20T23:44:00.000-07:00

धीरे धीरे सुबह हुई
जाग उठी ज़िन्दगी

धीरे धीरे सुबह हुई
जाग उठी ज़िन्दगी

पंछी चले अम्बर को अम्बर को अम्बर को

माझी चले सागर को सागर को सागर को

पयार का नाम जीवन है
मंजिल है प्रीतम की गली

डूब के सूरज फिर निकला
सारे जहां को नूर मिला

दिल के द्वारे तुमको पुकारे
एक नयी ज़िंदगी

प्यार का नाम जीवन है
मंजिल है प्रीतम की गली...

किरणों से दामन भर लो
प्रीत से तुम तन मन भर लो

जिस में जीतनी प्यास जगी
उतनी ही प्रीत मिली

प्यार का नाम जीवन है
मंजिल है प्रीतम की गली...

कहीं दूर जब दिन ढल जाये

2011-07-20T23:24:00.000-07:00

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...

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

कहीं तो यह दिल कभी मिल नहीं पाते /

कहीं पे निकल आये जन्मों के नाते /
थमी थी उलझन बैरी अपना मन /
अपना ही होके सहे दर्द पराये /

कहीं दूर जब दिन ढल जाये /
साँझ की दुल्हन बदन चुराए /
चुपके से आये /

मेरे ख्यालों के आँगन में /
कोई सपनों के दीप जलाए...

Vizag (and a bit beyond) diary

2011-06-29T03:28:00.000-07:00

That much anticipated "sitting down on the beach with a couple of Beer bottles" contemplation of the past and remembrance of a dear friend's absence that I mentioned here did not happen.

I did manage to get away to what is lately Vizag's best watering hole -- Sandy Lane. For an evening of reminiscing on old friendships, photography, the road, Bullets, etc. all over some very highly priced (but very tasty) Draught. And that was recompense in a way because Sandy Lane is more or less (on) the beach and...

*****

It was on account of some depression over the seas. Or it was her way of ritually purifying all of us for her ceremony through a ritual bath of rain. Either way, the deluge was spectacular, verging on the torrential for 2-3 hours early in the morning and lasting till around 11.00 or so. Among other things that were thrown out of kilter, this rain resulted in my clothes (which I had dried on evening before) in which I had intended to sit through the ceremony getting an unasked for drenching. But sit through the ceremony I did, in a wet towel, hunched and withdrawn -- the way she used to be on my Grandfather's ceremony. Sit through, I did, remembering the almost ascetic way she lived (for as long as I knew her) "giving" and "doing" till her last breath. Remembering how the drying of a madi Saree was all that worried her during a wet day (like this one) in Orissa because (like me) she had come from one son's place to another son's place and with just two Sarees. Not that she had that many Sarees to begin with. Remembering how I had come very close to "understanding" what such "simple living" bequeaths in the form of valued experiences in the limited number of days I had undertaken Shiva Deeksha and had just two pairs of clothes to "bother" about.

*****

Lately, I have been wondering about how "easy" photography has become thanks to advances in technology. And lately (after a gap of more than 5 years -- yes, that's how long it took me to make the jump from film to digital), an extension of my eye has been my Nikon D-90. The D-90 and 55-300 mm (AF - VR) lens while not exactly the best "gear" for bird photography has been surprising me (and most others) with the results. Naturally then, I had got the camera (and the long lens) along to have a "go" at the birds that are as synonymous with Vizag as is the sea -- the Black Kites that as numerous (and as omnipresent) as Vizag's more noticed resident bird, the Crow. I was lucky enough to take some stunning pics of the Black Kites (near Tenneti Park) in the days leading to Grandmother's Tadinam and as such I utilized the time that I was rained in, to good effect too. Taking "zoom" shots of water drops. Handheld. Under almost no light. The results surprised me and inspired me to go walkabout (with elder nefoo playing chaperone) on the beach barely a kilometre away.

To curse at the "aankho dekha haal" of what plastic (and other urban shit) does to beaches, and to wonder at how the sea turned almost red from the runoff from the "Hills of Vizag" just behind. Can't say I took any pics of all that gory shit but by and by I did take some more pics of this and that marine. Salt water snails, crabs and such like. And was surprised by how good the pictures were. Is it technology? Or is it me? Will post some pics :-)

******

THE GRADIENT OF DREAMS

2011-06-20T03:00:00.000-07:00

Nests. And a net thrown
neat around my neck.
It is night the concealed
voices are looking for.

Words are working out
against the napes of cries.
A withe of moment draws
me to an unknown throat.

In the dark a white, a
grief of lost. What is grace,
how dead, in this wanting
to be enough to reach across.

-- Jayanta Mahapatra (The False Start , Clearing House, 1980)

Muse India announces National Literary Awards

2011-06-13T09:47:00.000-07:00

To recognize and reward excellence in Indian literature, Muse India is happy to announce institution of two National Awards to be given annually, during Hyderabad Literary Festival. These are -

1.) Muse India Young Writer Award to be given to an outstanding original work in English or in English translation from an Indian language. Each year the award will be for a particular literary genre (poetry, short fiction, play, novel etc.). For the 2011 award, the genre will be poetry.

2.) Muse India Translator Award to be given to a significant work of translation into English from any of the Indian languages. Translation should be of a classic or any other important literary work, preferably not translated earlier, and seen as an important contribution to Indian Literature.

The Reward** - Each of the Awards will have a citation and a cash prize. The amount will be Rs.20,000 for the Young Writer Award and Rs.30,000 for the Translator Award. Of these amounts, Rs 5000 will be given to the translator, in the case of Young Writer Award being given for a translated work, and to the original author, if living, in the case of Translator Award.

The 2011 awards will be given during Hyderabad Literary Festival 2012, tentatively scheduled to be held on Jan 16-18, 2012 in Hyderabad.

Jury – a distinguished panel of judges comprising authors, scholars and critics will assess the entries and select the award winners.

Eligibility Criteria –

#The author must be an Indian citizen or an NRI.

#Works published in English and in English translation only are eligible, not those in Indian languages.

#Self published books or electronic publications like eBooks, Chapbooks etc are not eligible.

#For the Young Writer Award the author should be 35 years or younger at the time of publication of the work.

#Books of poetry published between Jan 2009 and end-May 2011 will be eligible for entry.

For the Translator Award there will be no age bar for the translator. Books published between Jan 2007 and end May 2011 will be eligible for entry.

Submissions –

#All entries must reach Muse India on or before July 31, 2011, superinscribed ‘Entry for Muse India National Award’ and enclosing complete details as sought.

#Please send a communication through email on dispatch of the material.

#Authors or Publishers can send the entries.

A set of 3 copies of the book has to be submitted initially. If short-listed for final stage of consideration, more copies may be requested, if required.

For further details contact –

Mr GSP Rao

Managing Editor, Muse India

38, Malani Enclave, Trimulgherry

Secunderabad 500015, Andhra Pradesh, India.

Mobile phone 91 98483 45490

Email- chiefeditor@museindia.com and gsprao2003@gmail.com

**Each of the Awards will have a citation and a cash prize. The amount will be Rs.20,000 for the Young Writer Award and Rs.30,000 for the Translator Award.

Of the amount of Rs 20,000 for Young Writer Award, Rs 5000 will be given to the translator, in case the award goes to a translated work. Otherwise the entire amount goes to the author. The focus here will be to recognize originality and merit in a young writer’s work.

Of the amount of Rs 30,000 for the Translator Award, Rs 5000 will be given to the original author, if alive. This award will recognize not only the merit of translation but also the effort involved in bringing to a wider audience, a classic or an outstanding work of a regional language, which otherwise would remain largely unknown.

A year on

2011-06-13T03:37:00.001-07:00

Like love, it would be a lie,

to say

I have burned with cold, every dawn

feverish with your loss.

Like love, it would be a lie,

to say

my blood stayed frozen even at high noon

all its heat gone with you.

Truth is this loneliness,

this solitary road,

where your memories still take me for a ride

a year after you did.

Phonophobia on the last bus home

2011-06-13T03:32:00.000-07:00

Then it hits you,

the tortured metallic groan

of the bus's axle -- its vibrations as shiveringly alive

as that of your spine when you had once tripped

on two Chillums of Ganja.

And you almost lose it.

Then it hits you,

the teeth-on-edge tinniness

of the bus's windows -- a rat-a-tat-a-tat knocking

that could be your nails tapping on your teeth

over and over again.

And you almost lose it.

And then it hits you,

this bray of noises, this cacophony voiced by metal

and glass -- Is it natural? Or but just

the phonophobic triumphal song

of your loneliness taking you back home?

And you almost lose it.

Book Release of Just look up...

2011-06-10T23:42:00.000-07:00

On behalf of 22 giving trees (and their denizens), I invite you to the launch of "Just look up... to see the magic in the trees around you", a book by Sadhana Ramchander, at 7 pm on Sunday, 12 June 2011, at Saptaparni, Road no. 8, Banjara Hills (next to Kalpa School), Hyderabad. See you there!

Looking back, almost half a century into being a writer and editor -- Diana Athill

2011-06-03T10:04:00.000-07:00

"Days short of her 90th birthday - the phone keeps ringing, with friends organising lunches to celebrate - she could not seem further from any kind of blurring. There is something absolutely present about her. Her voice is poised between precise pre-war tones and grammar and an unforced modernity - a tension that exists in her work, too. She began writing at 43, with short stories, before discovering that she was a memoirist, and that even dressing up memoir as fiction was not for her. Her work is always described as honest (generally preceded by words like "painful", "terrible", "deplorable", "breathtaking"). Pain, fear and shame, happiness and unhappiness are faced up to and anatomised- not dismissed, but not allowed to rule, either. She calls it getting things right.

She is helped by a vivid memory. Her parents were not particularly happy (her mother had an affair and her father, a colonel in the British Army, was often away), but Yesterday Morning, Athill's account of growing up on her grandmother's Georgian estate in Norfolk, written when she was 85, is full of happiness. She and her siblings and cousins had the run of the grounds, eating moorhen's eggs, feeding pigs, damming streams. "Everything important in my life seemed to be a property of that place: the house and the gardens, the fields, woods and waters belonging to it. Beauty belonged to it, and the underlying fierceness which must be accepted with beauty . . . safety belonged to it, and so did my knowledge of good and evil, and my wobbly preference for good." Indoors, every teatime, their grandmother read to them: Ivanhoe, The Jungle Book, Jackanapes"

Read the whole thing here

And oh, you may also want to take this test. And see how close you come to one of the world's most irascible (whenever he opens his mouth) writers. I scored 5 and was told -- "You clearly need to read more books by men."

I was like, WTF. Isn't that a "sexist" bit of advice?

For the sake of Vizag's beaches -- Chief Seattle's speech

2011-05-25T05:58:00.000-07:00

After witnessing first-hand (yet again) how Vizag's beaches are getting filthier, shittier, and scarier (from an environment / ecology perspective), after witnessing countless empty Beer, Whiskey and other liquor bottles, polythenes and plastic glasses (a large number of them unused and un-crushed), after spotting fleas and bloated, rotting, very-dead fish on the stretches that are the nesting sites for Olive Ridleys (and ironically enough, barely 100 kms from Srikurmam where Lord Vishnu's tortoise / turtle avatara is worshipped in an amazingly splendourous, ages-old temple), after witnessing the sea turn (and stay) red where a stream / rivulet flowing down from one of "Wounded in red cuts..." Vizag's Hills meets it, I give you Chief Seattle's speech. Though I am not too hopeful that humanity will learn to be less greedy, less consumerist, less wasteful...I hope some of the nature loving people who walk Vizag's beaches more occasionally than visiting me, will see a blotted, rotting very dead fish and realise "...whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected."

"I do not know. Our ways are different than your ways. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. There is no quiet place in the white man's cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring or the rustle of the insect's wings. The clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around the pond at night? I am a red man and do not understand. The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond and the smell of the wind itself, cleaned by a midday rain, or scented with pinon pine.

The air is precious to the red man for all things share the same breath, the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath. The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a man dying for many days he is numb to the stench. But if we sell you our land, you must remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.

The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh. And if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred as a place where even the white man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow's flowers.

So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept, I will make one condition - the white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers.

I am a savage and do not understand any other way. I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a passing train. I am a savage and do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be made more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive.

What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of the spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected."

Read the whole speech here, there is another version here and by the way the speeches (or rather these translations) are not exactly "verified to be true" or backed by any "epigraphical evidence" and in fact supposed to be "fiction". But sadly there is nothing fictional about how the beaches (and hills) of Vizag are getting raped. And looks like no one is really bothered since all this is "development" or whatever the fuck it is called.

Buy Moving On @ Flipkart

2011-05-23T00:30:00.000-07:00

Blame it on me (and the summer, the winter, the rains, photography and this and that) but I have taken a long time to make Moving On available on Flipkart. But anyway, that is also done and you can now buy Moving On @ Flipkart too.

I know there is a bit of notoriety involved with a book being flagged as "Out of Stock" and there are a number of "first books" of poets that I cannot find anywhere but my book is very much in stock. So go ahead and order away and enjoy the hassle-free Flipkart experience!

Signed copies of Moving On available at Evening Hour

2011-05-23T00:23:00.000-07:00

Blame it on me (and the heat) but I have forgotten to get the word out about this here. Yes, the title of the blogpost says it all, the good people at Evening Hour are holding stock of a few signed copies of Moving On. Order it here or call up 040-65873003 for more details.

Shipping is free anywhere in India.

This blog and that book

2011-05-22T23:20:00.000-07:00

Not that surprisingly -- considering that I am not that active with comments and feedback on the "blogosphere" at large and as such probably haven't encouraged any fellow bloggers to leave comments here, I have absolutely no idea of who lands up here on this blog or why / how.

Call me irreverent or plain politically incorrect but I have a sneaky feeling that many of those who land up here are prospective Father-In-Laws or employers. And I guess "readers" of both these categories either can't make head or tail out of me (which is something I cannot either, most of the time) or get scandalized by the number of times the word "Beer" occurs on this blog, or by the labels and the categories, or whatever and beat a hasty retreat :-)

With due respects to all such readers, what to do I am like this only. And not to worry, I am as middle of the path and stodgily boring as most people my age having to "earn a living", apart from those times when I am indulging in one of my escapades -- road trips, close encounters with nature or pursuits of other things poetic.

Which brings me to the basic reason behind this blogpost. To throw some light on this blog itself. I had started this blog around 2 years back as a precursor to bringing out my book and most of my poems (those written "here and there" across the years and those "written" barely minutes ago) were published here first. To an audience of one. Many of those poems have not been presented in Moving On, for a variety of reasons most of which have forgotten :-)

After the decision to bring out the book happened, this blog hasn't really reflected my muse and pursuits poetic and most of the blogposts normally meander and wander along on topics related to "this and that". Or maybe they do and its just that when I see this blog with a critical eye, I forget to realize that blogs have a life of their own too. And this has grown as it has fancied, taking me along for the ride :-)

And that brings me to my book, "Moving On" which is surprisingly moving on at a fair clip (considering it is poetry and considering that I have done almost nothing to promote it) and also helped me connect with a number of like-minded poetry lovers, with people who have taken the pains to write in with encouraging words.

Come December it will be two years since I brought out Moving On and though I will never know how much the book has suffered due to my inability / disinterest in promoting it, I still feel a kick about bringing it -- a true-blue honest "coming out of the closet" book of poetry -- out.

And somehow (sitting at a cyber cafe at Bhubaneswar after meeting Sri Jayanta Mahapatra and being gifted a copy of "The False Start" by him yesterday) it seems to be the right time to bring out my second book. After all, the idea was to hit top speed with the first book and then keep moving on!

Call For Research Papers On Portrayal of Unheard Voices in Indian Women’s Literature in English

2011-05-16T23:06:00.000-07:00

Posting this on behalf of Dr. Sheeba Rakesh and Pankh, this is a Call For Research Papers On Portrayal of Unheard Voices in Indian Women’s Literature in English. There are no contribution/ subscription fees, papers will be accepted and published free of cost and only on basis of merit. Each contributor will get a free complimentary copy from the publisher. The proposed volume will be published with an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) by a renowned publisher and Dr. Arvind Nawale will be the Guest Editor.

Thematic Focus of the Volume:

Existence, Existentialism, Identity, Resistance, Power—these have been some of the raging issues in contemporary women’s fiction and writing. From the established canons of Speech we have come to accept the “Genotext” and Luce Irigaray’s “Delirium”. Is Voice always necessarily Phallic? Must she always speak like a Man to be heard? If not, what are ‘her’ ways of expression? Do silences have their importance or, is the silent subject always marginalised? Do women’s voices clash?(Mothers/Daughters or female hierarchy at workplace) Are Gender relations undergoing a change through these voices? The Social castration of individual women’s liberty has been a mode across cultures to establish the “right” kind of behaviour. How have the women writers broken the idealised stereotypes in society and helped the reinvention of the male-gaze? How unconventional have they been towards the promotion and cultural construction of women’s subjectivities, if at all? Are we are trying close to achieving what Cixous called the “Realm of the Gift”? the chora that accommodates the “other bisexuality”? Has the clash been rather loud in terms of the confrontation of the traditional concept of “Stree-Dharma” and the sexual economy of the New woman?
....With the analysis of the French feminist theory and relevant Indian observations in the background, we solicit a wide range of research papers that critically analyse the expression/ reinvention of the Female Voice and Sexuality (including concepts of beauty) in Indo-Anglian Women’s writings. We would love to explore articles on themes such as existence, existentialism, identity, resistance, power-play, gender relations, role of women as lovers, wives, concubines, objects, ideals, mothers, women’s subjectivity etc. However, you may also send your papers on any other important issues as reflected in the works by Indian English Women Writers which in your view, should make a significant contribution towards changing mindsets.

Editing requirements:
•Paper size: A4, Font & size: Times New Roman 12, Spacing: Single line, Margin of 1 inch on all four sides.
•Title of the paper: bold, centered (Capitalize each word).
•Text of the paper: justified.
•References: Please follow MLA style (Only Author-Date or Number System) strictly. Don’t use Foot Notes.
•In the body of the book- Titles of books: Italics. Titles of articles from journals and books: “quoted”.
•Articles should be submitted as MS Word 2003-2007attachments only.
•The paper should not usually exceed 11 pages maximum, 5 pages minimum in single spacing.
•Each paper must be accompanied by i) A declaration that it is an original work and has not been published anywhere else or send for publication ii) Abstract of the paper (100-200 words) and iii) A short bio-note of the contributor(s) indicating name, institutional affiliation, brief career history, postal address, mobile number and e-mail, in a single attachment. Please attach these details in a single MS-WORD file, after the paper has already been attached.
•The papers submitted should evince serious academic work contributing new knowledge or innovative critical perspectives on the subject explored.

Mode of Submission:
Each contributor is advised to send full paper with brief bio-note, declaration and abstract as a single MS-Word email attachments to email addresses:
sheebarakesh2066@gmail.com or pankh.wingstowomen@gmail.com latest by 30th May, 2011.

Selection Procedure:
All submissions will be sent for blind peer reviewing. Final selection will be made only if the papers are recommended for publication by the reviewers. The details of the selection of your paper will be informed to you telephonically or on your email. The editors have the right to make necessary editing of selected papers for the sake of conceptual clarity and formatting. Non-selected papers will not be sent back to the contributor in any form. So, all contributors are advised to keep a copy of their submission with them. Each contributor will get a free complimentary copy from publisher.

Plagiarism Alert:
Contributors are advised to adhere to strict academic ethics with respect to acknowledgment of original ideas from others. The editors will not be responsible for any such lapse of the contributor. All submissions should be original and must be accompanied by a declaration that it is an original work and has not been published anywhere else. In case of such lapses, if any, neither the editor, nor the publisher will be responsible for the same.

Editor
Dr. Sheeba Rakesh
Faculty,
Department of English,
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Girls' Degree College,
Lucknow.
Chairperson:
Pankh – “Wings for Women”(NGO)
sheebarakesh2066@gmail.com
pankh.wingstowomen@gmail.com

A train to Vizag (and some other sweeping memories)

2011-05-15T11:02:00.000-07:00

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.

Just look up to see the magic in the trees around you

2011-05-11T03:19:00.001-07:00

I count a Guava tree amongst the most steadfast of my childhood friends. Yes, I count it as a friend because it was always there for me and silently kept all my secrets, gave me no pain (I could climb it in my sleep and surprisingly enough, never fell from it ) and was a selflessly rewarding presence in all the days we spent at that government quarter at Rourkela. And though one enduring regret of my life is that I never could live in a tree-house, I consider myself lucky that – thanks to my friend the guava tree – a large part of my childhood years were arboreal, elevated and full of delightful treats.

I also count half a dozen mango trees and two palm trees as close friends and refuge from those days. The Mango trees (remnants of what used to be an orchard) a toweringly giant source of shade for me and my friends; to fly kites from or to play marbles in; the Palm trees – a treasure trove of wonder and excitement – because of the vultures that used to roost in them and hullaballoo that used to result whenever one of their leaves used to fall, with various neighbors running through dust storms and gales or even pouring rain. To claim the leaf and get it home – for thatching the cowshed, or for use in the canopy / awning of this or that climbing vine or just to chop up and add to their stock of firewood.

I could go on and on and mention various other trees which left their distinct impression on my growing up years and with whom I was intimate – Gulmohar, Drumstick, Jackfruit, Wood Apple, Ber and so on. As also, that two of the poems (dealing with childhood and my days in Rourkela) in Moving On have trees as central characters.

I am sure this ramble (so far) has made its point. When I was a child, I used to look up and be fascinated by the magic in the trees around me. I will also openly confess that I still have a child’s sense of awe in the way I approach the natural world and that I still keep looking up (sometimes through a camera’s viewfinder) in wonder at the trees around.

But this blogpost is not about me, my rambles or nostalgia for
my childhood. It is about trees and a lovely book on 22 of
them – Just look up to see the magic in the trees around
you – by Sadhana Ramchander. With an excellent and very
heartfelt foreword by none other than Bittu Sahgal.
Just Look Up is intricately detailed, excellently designed
and painstakingly put together, a book which is a veritable
labour of love and has been long in the making.

These are 22 “common” trees found in and around Hyderabad, but I would openly admit that most of the facts presented about them in Just look up were certainly uncommon to me and as such very, very welcome gyaan.

This book is primarily for children and meant to open their eyes to the fascinating worlds of 22 trees, but (as I discovered) even nature-loving readers and outdoorsy types (like me) can learn a thing or two by reading it. Speaking of children, they should find it a fascinating read because apart from bringing alive (and storytelling) each of these 22 trees through lucid writing and colourful photographs, Sadhana also suggests “Fun stuff” and “Craft” ideas that are guaranteed to keep young readers engrossed and take them away from the TV and Google.

The book also has a calendar of magical events, a ready reckoner, bibliography and books to read, things to do pointers and presents a number of poems and quotes related to trees; poems and quotes that are thought-provoking only as poems and quotes can be; for instance on page 12 (where Sadhana acquaints us with the Rain tree) there is a footer – “Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them. (Bill Vaughn)”.

I found this quote chillingly scary and echoing with menace, having seen so many of Hyderabad’s once tree-lined roads and avenues (like Himayathnagar where Sadhana stays) turning into glitzy kaleidoscopes of concrete and steel with malls and malls sprouting everywhere like poisonous mushrooms feeding on consumerism and greed…

But then, there is hope as long as there are people like Sadhana and books like “Just look up…” Because, when we (children and adult alike) look up and see the magic in the trees, they cease to be things for us and we see them for what they are – living creatures and sources of wonder worth cherishing and protecting. Or so I would like to hope...

“Just look up to see the magic in the trees around you” is priced at a surprisingly reasonable Rs. 175, surprising when you consider how long the book has been in the making, when you consider the amazing photographs (most of them taken by Sadhana) and the uncompromising paper and print quality (standards that one would expect from someone like Sadhana, a professional editor and designer of books).

As I write this, my 11 year young nephew (currently enjoying his summer vacations) is reading and re-reading his copy of “Just look up…” and I am told that he has already “found” 5 of the 22 trees around his apartment building. As someone very interested in what my nephew learns and mindful of how his character gets moulded, I cannot thank Sadhana enough – for seeing the need for such a book and then taking the pain and bothers to bring it out.

Thank you Sadhana!

I look forward to a sequel of “Just look up…”, if for nothing else, just to recollect another friendship from my childhood, with another “common” tree.

You can buy “Just look up…” here.

Or you can get an author signed copy of the book through me (drop me a mail and we will work out the easiest way to do this). And yes, oh yes I strongly recommend it. Both for you and all the children known to you.

An edited version of this "not-exactly-a-review" was published in Teacher Plus, July 2011 edition.

Just a Monday morning status message, as normal service resumes in my mind

2011-05-02T00:04:00.000-07:00

I have been here before. Where the road ends in that timewhirl -- inchoate and echoing the last mile's song, every instant a crossroad. I have been here before. Where the road begins again, defying definition -- tattooing a new name with every now. Journey, destination, reason-for-being, release...And, consciousness.

Food for thought -- about rural India

2011-04-24T07:09:00.000-07:00

"...On average, 17,000 farmers have been committing suicide every year, for the past 15 years on the trot. Can you believe it? Most of us wouldn't know this fact. Why? Because, our great Indian media, the world's biggest media, are not interested in reporting this! Why? Because they are more interested in covering fashion week extravaganzas. They are more interested in ‘why team India was not practising when Pakistanis were sweating it out in stadium on the eve of the match?' They are more interested in Poonam Pandey...."

Read some more in the same vein, hard hitting and chillingly scary, here

In Memorium

2011-04-24T00:39:00.000-07:00

Of all the things in life, ways death is the fastest. And someone you have known for years, someone who has been part of the trials, tribulations and (minor) triumphs of a substantial and important part of your life, can go in a "poof", literally in the blink of an eye. And yeah, however much you remember the good times spent together, however much you cry (or however much you pray) there are no lifelines or second innings after death has come calling.

Yes, he is gone and this has been so bloody fast, a realisation that still hasn't sunk in, even as countless old memories cascade through me and grief assails me, at odd times for odd reasons.

The most painful memory is his constant ill-health (he was prone to asthma attacks) and thinness. Something that used to bother me a lot, something that I used to blame his lack of appetite for, something that he used to overcome again and again through a sheer bloodyminded stubbornness and the intent to live up his life.

Another enduring memory is his fastidiousness in trying to understand whatever interested him. He was a great note-taker and would fill diaries and notebooks (and bar napkins) with beautifully scripted notes, capturing the essence of our conversations on all and sundry -- advertising and corporate communications, the location of various eminent Shiva temples, what he should eat to put on weight, various quotes dealing with corporate life, sensational one-liners for Tee-shirts and (intermittently for as long as I have nursed entrepreneurial ambitions and with increasing frequency for the last year or so) answers to "how to start something of our own"...

In his opinion, I was a great talker, passionately genuine and capable of convincing people. Maybe it was just because he was one of the most considerate listeners I have ever met -- full of empathy and understanding and someone who saw potential and uniqueness in everybody. Either way -- a lot of our time used to be devoted to planning road trips and incidentally it was he who introduced me to Srisailam. I have vivid memories of each of three trips we made to Srisailam together -- the first time by bus, the second by my Bullet (with him as a very alive and "in my ear" pillion rider) and the third in blazing Mid-May heat in his car. Srisailam and our many experiences (viewpoints on the stretch to Eaglepenta, my Obelix like ascent of the Paatalganga Ghat, coracle rides on the reservoir, Shikaram, Sankaracharya Ghat, etc.) apart, he also introduced me to Uma Maheshwaram -- one of the famed entrances to Srisailam and a place where a Jatara happens every year. A Jatara we both had planned to -- and failed to -- attend numerous times.

Then there are other memories too, of hiking and monkeying around in Narsapur forest and near Shamirpet Lake and (a lot earlier, going back to my MBA days) in the glorious boulder strewn grassy open expanses beyond Hayathnagar.

Looking back, I am not surprised to recollect that he was among the first to read my diaries (and the ravings in them) and my poems. And that he was again among the first to read the manuscript of Moving On -- speaking of which, he somehow made it to the book release event though he was in the midst of Ayyappa Deeksha.

I could go on and on, the memories seem endless and enough to fill a book. I could go on and on, but the fact remains that I couldn't spend much time with him or be of any help to him in his last days, when he was ailing.

I could go on and on, but its pretty evident that however deep my grief be, its not even a drop in the ocean of grief that his family finds itself in.

I do know that I will miss him for the rest of my life. And I know that I spent some of my best years adventuring, raconteuring and experiencing life with him.

I also know that in my own way I will never get over this loss; mostly because of the kind of person I am and also because of who he was -- a treasured batchmate, a long-time room-mate and a very, very close friend, one of the most private and yet liveliest people I have been fortunate enough to know.

And I know that when my turn comes and I land up in heaven (hopefully) Chandra Mouli will in his part school-monitorish, part hrvisionary mentorish way give me a guided tour of the place and introduce me to its highpoints, the way he did it for me when I arrived in Hyderabad.

I am not Jewish, and there is no Kaddish (or its Hindu equivalent) known to me. But I have been praying since 20th April, 2011 that my late departed friend's soul merge with Shiva. And find solace in Kailash.

Om Namah Shivaya.

Untitled

2011-04-22T01:42:00.000-07:00

When all airs die
when all waters die
when only land's left -- lonely -- living a lie

Will you mourn then, O time?
Your Kaddish reverberating
the eternal requiem for silence?

The other Shiva Deeksha(s)

2011-04-19T18:34:00.000-07:00

An early memory that has frozen itself onto my being is that of seeing multitudes of unshaven, bare-feet men (for some surprising reason -- mostly young) clad in ochre / saffron -- with a bamboo pole laden with kalashes of water on their shoulders walking at a fast clip chanting "Bol Bam", "Bol Bam" and "Har Har Mahadev", headed on a pilgrimage for a famous Shiva temple at a place called Ghogar in Odisha. This used to be in the month for Shravan, i.e. during the rainy season.

I don't remember much detail, but I believe the idea was to get to the temple in a day's march (the distance was around 30 kms)and I guess this desire itself was enough to power the pilgrims through what must be a pretty strenuous hike / padayatra. I don't know if the actual march to the temple was preceded by prayers / Deeksha for a certain number of days, though I do remember (when I was relatively older) how some of my friends would be unshaven and mention that they have a trip to Ghogar (though there was no mention of a padayatra) coming up soon...I also have faint memories of a family trip to Ghogar (by car) with my Grandmother :-)

Closer home, speaking of the Deccan and my trips, another similar memory is the sight of motley bunches of people walking up the Ghat road to Srisailam (again bare-feet but not dressed in any particular way) -- while I was riding up on the Bullet. I didn't stop and ask them any questions and nor did I find out about them from others but I do remember being pleasantly surprised to see some of the people with the topi that is used by most Marathi villagers.

Later on, I came to know that many still continue an age old tradition of walking to Srisailam for darshan coming from distances near (Achampeta, Nagarkurnool, Kurnool, Guntur) and far (other places in AP, Maharashtra and Karnataka) by planning it in such a way that they take a Deeksha of 40 days and are in Srisailam on the 41st, culminating it on Maha Shiva Ratri. This is an age old family tradition indeed from the days before we had states and from the times when an entire family could take off on with nothing more than faith and (in the case of first-timers) rudimentary knowledge and what-to-do-and-where-to-stay-eat based on the hearsay of those who have been there and done that earlier.

This is the Shiva Deeksha, surprisingly not very well known (though I am told that the Srisailam Devasthanam Board is popularising it through booklets, et al)

This Deeksha or that Deeksha (the rotten-fish-stinkingly-rich, you-can-smell-me-a-thousand-kilometers-away-stinkingly-rich, thousands-of-crores-stinkingly-rich son of an ex-CM of AP sat on what was a political show of strength clutching a mineral water bottle for a day and called it a Deeksha) this God or that God, this much distance or that much distance, this many days or that many days, what does the pilgrim get out of it?

I don't know, maybe it is peace. Or it is the satisfaction of ringing solid, mettled and true (to tradition and that whole set of thinking each family has, called "it should be like this", "we are like this"). In my case, its a nice, new experience and some old-fashioned calm, bliss and happiness, of connecting with my roots :-)

And oh, the ultimate Deeksha? Kailash Mansarovar of course, now that would BE something indeed!

Where the roads have no name

2011-04-17T00:33:00.000-07:00

An old ride log, Circa 2005

For once, there was a reason for me to ride. A very close
friend had become a father and was at Nagarkurnool at
his in-laws and I had a self-felt obligation to go and visit. I
had to work on Saturday, so packed my Cramsters and
went to office directly, pushed off at 13.30 hours,
skipped lunch and there I was at 14.15 hours on the
Kurnool stretch of N.H.7.

This has been a very, very hot summer in the Deccan
and the ride was a bit like going upstream a hot river
of air, and within half an hour I was already feeling
the salt from my sweat granulating on my arms, neck
and eyebrows, while the heat from the engine was
making my legs feel like they were being barbecued.

Couldn't take it after a point and anyway I had to get
a drink of water to rehydrate my system so stopped at
Shadnagar for some water, pulled up (was it coincidence?)
in front of a liquor shop, decided to treat myself to a Beer,
bought some water sachets and pushed off in 15 minutes.

I had to take a left turn at Jadcherla and even in my
highly disoriented state (heat does that to me) I managed to
negotiate the two turns -- after the aforementioned left -- properly
and was finally out in the interiors.

This stretch to Nagarkurnool is amazing (or maybe I find all
stretches amazing) with the vistas comprising of the usual
small land-holdings, amazing outcrops of rock formations and small
hills, so I was riding blithely, happy to be on the road, the
enervating heat notwithstanding.

The road isn't as good as most interior roads in Andhra
Pradesh, but it is flanked by lots of brick kilns and has
Mango trees lining it for 10 - 15 kms at a stretch and I
could also notice that most of the fields around were tilled
and ready for the rains.

Not surprisingly, there weren't that many patches of green
and the presence of one indicated that it was the bastion of
some progressive / rich / hardworking farmer. Mahboobnagar,
incidentally accounts for some of the most drought-affected villages
in Telengana, with entire villages where people have simply
migrated to far off cities like Mumbai in order to earn a
living.

And yet, most of the fields I passed had somebody or the other
at work, usually a lone farmer bunching up and setting fire to
whichever crop he had nursed and seen withering to death while
the concentric patterns in the fields seemed like a Rangoli of
sweaty toil, drawn to charm a proper Monsoon.

A bit into the ride, I noticed a patch of verdant green besides
the road, four small rice fields besides and draining into each
other with the usual Pond Herons and Egrets standing out in their
spectacular whiteness amidst the greenery and a couple of Crow
Pheasants walking along on the bund of a field as if
it were the high wire in some circus.

I had high hopes of taking some good photos on this ride and since
the birds were anyway behind a convenient blind, killed the engine
and pulled out my SLR to do some cat-footed stalking.

By the time I am close enough to chance a shot with my inadequate
lens, the birds have wised up to me and are daintily
walking away but I still manage a couple of decent shots
before they get worried enough to fly off into the nearby trees.

Its back on the road for me now and I am riding with the SLR
slung over my back, hoping to surprise some heat-sapped bird
(I had never been so close to a Crow Pheasant) and mentally
calculating apertures and shutter speeds whenever some bird
would actually fly past at almost arm's length.

The heat was bad as ever, so I stop to empty 4 water sachets,
take another two odd shots of the vistas after loading another
roll of film and stuff everything back into the Cramsters, light
a smoke and drink in the solitude.

I finish the smoke and start again, wondering why the exhaust's note
seems a bit hollower than usual, pull into some shade and check
the engine oil, breather pipe, cylinder head etc., find nothing
amiss, blame it on the heat and ride on again.

I take the left fork at Bijnapalli, wondering why I haven't yet
managed to ride to quaint Wanaparti with its history of a quixotic
Reddy king who used to rob the Nizam's treasury, powered by his
loyal retinue of African soldiers (there's a place in Hyderabad
called A.C. Guards, meaning African Cavalry Guards), but then, that's
a road I am not taking now either -- Wanaparti is on the right
fork after all.

A bit ahead, riding up a small incline, I am suddenly in a fine
drizzle of rain and surprised to see the road completely wet
with rain, and before I need to resort to packing the camera,
I have ridden out onto a dry stretch again.

Another 20 odd minutes of riding and I am in Nagarkurnool and C
is waiting by the road, pulling his usual antics on seeing me
and naturally asking me the usual questions doubting my sanity.

A quick wash and a visit to the hospital to see the newborn and
we are now headed for a dhaba in a car (with C's brother in law),
sitting down to a repast of roasted groundnuts, fiery mutton curry, a
salad of onions laced with Chilli powder and of course some very
welcome Beer.

But I first emptied four glasses of lemonade (self made there on
the Dhaba table) all in an attempt to rehydrate some more.

The talk was of course about the "situation" in Nagarkurnool
and nearby Mananoor where there had been an attack on an Armed
Police Outpost just the evening before. And being the lazy bum he
is, that was reason enough for C to say that we should just chill,
drink more Beer and stay in the shade the next day.

I just had two Beers, and was already planning a ride to Rollapadu
the next day, though these guys were trying their best to dissuade
me from venturing out in "the risk".

Back at C's in-laws place, after a nice dinner of Egg Curry, Pappu
and Rice, we slept on the terrace and I had managed to wheedle a
promise from C to stir out at 5.00 in the morning to do some
exploratory rides before it got too hot for him.

At around 4.00 in the morning a thundershower had sent us
scurrying down and I then true to form, I overslept, managing
to wake at 9.00 and set out at 10.30 after a detailed
confabulation with C's brother in law and a piece of paper on
which I had jotted down the names of villages that Lonely Planet
doesn't show; with a very basic plan -- to head
for Nandikotkur (and Rollapadu Bird Sanctuary) via Lingal,
Kolhapur and Pagdyala.

But then I was also equally keen to go again to Uma Maheswaram
(this is one of the entrances to Srisailam from the days when
the roads really had no name) a Shiva temple set in the sides
of a horse-shoe shaped spur of the Nallamalais, so I decide
to ride till there and then ride ahead depending on what
information I get.

Of course, there was another reason for doing this, I had
forgotten the piece of paper with my route map back at Nagarkurnool.

It was amazing weather for a change, cloudy and overcast and
I was blessing myself at being spared of the heat. Somewhere
25 odd kms from Nagarkurnool, I stop amidst literally a sea
of cattle, and ask for directions, lend a receptive herdsman
a smoke and realise I am at some cattle fair. I do not
manage to get any proper directions, so I decide to ride on,
wondering how my footrests are caked in cow-dung, reach and ride
through Achampet, and finally am besides Uma Maheswaram.

Its too cloudy for taking any photos (and I have been
here twice before) and I am itching to ride in
the Ghats so I chuck the idea of taking the detour to
Uma Maheswaram and continue on to Mananoor.

I reach Mananoor and pull out my maps and am told that what
L.P. shows as a road is basically non-existent
and what L.P. indicates as a bridge over the Tungabhadra
beyond Kolhapur is in fact a river crossing. I cross check with
the Forest Department person at the checkpost and he tells me
that the best way to Rollapadu is via Kurnool. But it is already
around 1.30 by this time and I have no leave for the next day.
Meanwhile, the Forest Department person realizes that I have
a bike and asks me to ride to Nandikotkur via Dornala!

I am not really sure about what I should do, so start and head
for Srisailam, after 20 odd kms realize that the skies are even
more overcast than before (I had no rain gear with me) and I had
been seeing police patrols all along, so somehow make myself
stop and reassess the situation.

Riding through Dornala would be fun thanks to the heavenly
ghat stretches but it was a wee bit too dangerous considering the
situation and moreover I would just be plain pissed if I reach a Bird
Sanctuary at dusk!

So my options were now limited to either riding back via
Nagarkurnool (and more Beers with C) or riding back on the
Dindi road to Hyderabad.

But then, I wanted some more thrills, so I resurrected the original
plan of the morning, deciding to try the mystery roads to Kolhapur. I
ride back, stop at Mananoor and tell the Forest Department
person that I am riding back to Hyderabad and then finally get
onto the road to Lingal by turning left at the "Ambedkar Statue"
at Achampet.

It is around 2.30 in the afternoon now and I am truly headed for
the boondocks. Mystery roads have always fascinated me
and I do love negotiating bad roads, plus because I was
riding through what is classified as "scrub forest" I was counting
on encountering some Black Buck, peacocks, et al. The Black Buck
is Andhra Pradesh's state animal and has managed to become
something akin to a pest in Kurnool district, thanks to the
fact that it no longer has any natural predators out here.

The road is really bad, even for an interior road and the skies are
still overcast but as usual there are the silver linings. For one,
I am riding through small hamlets where colourful Lambada
women seem to be selling everything from mangoes to
honey to petrol on the road; for another I am riding
parallel to what would be a spur of the Nallamalais till
I finally reach Lingal. The place is spelt "Lingala" on
the milestone and is a sprawl of pucca buildings shadowed by
scrub covered hills. I ask for directions to Kollapur, am told
I am on the wrong route, that I should turn
back and head for Wanaparti, I persist and then am told
to take the next turn to the right and am also told that
there is no road for the next 6 odd kms and thereafter the
road is "illage vuntadee".

So I turn right at the next turn and realize that I am riding into
some street of Lingala, stop a passing truck and get better
directions, turn back and head straight from where I had turned
sometime back.

5 odd kms of "chalta hai" roads get me to another small village
and I am wondering if I am on the right road at all, so stop to
check with a "Maxi Cab" driver. We confer and it turns out I haven't
got lost yet, after all.

So I push off again and the real fun starts now. This is where the
roads really have no name, and by the by the road just ended, the
metalled stretch just petering into a jungle road! Evidently, now
I was into scrub forest, and there were lots of small hillocks
all along the road. The road itself was mostly gravel, badly potholed
and had stretches which could easily double up as Buffalo wallows
when it rains. My bike was wobbling all over the place, the gravelly
stretches were pretty easy, but the mud sections were a pain in the
butt, one never knows which is the level portion and which is a pothole!

But there were any number of colourful birds which I
just photographed in my cranial hard disk and then all of a sudden,
I am on a flat stretch and see 4 Black Buck around 500 metres off!
I kill the motor in a flash, but they have heard the sound and
by the time I can bring the side stand down, they are off!

So it is the road again for me, mostly 2nd and 3rd gear and once in
a while going into the fourth, soon needing to gear down when
the road takes a turn for the worse, getting caught up in stretches
of fine sand that had lesser purchase than beach sand, headed on,
not really knowing where!

Finally, it had to happen and I am at the bottom of some small hill,
a nice "offroading" destination in fact, but also the end of the
road. Evidently, I had take a wrong turn somewhere, so I double back
and ride on, reach a fork and get onto the road relatively more
traveled by.

A bit more of the same gearing up and down and slipping and sliding
in the sandy stretches and I am now at a one-street village, and
surprised to see a RTC bus! Holler up at the driver and ask him where
he is coming from, he hollers down and says from Kolhapur and I am
like, wow! I am still not lost after all!

The next 10 odd kms were more or less a repeat of the same
situation but now I was being clever and looking out for the
bus treads and sticking to the road more traveled by. And yet
there was a stretch which seemed more like the bund of a dried
up lake, with thorny scrub on both sides and a tunnelway that
couldn't have been more than 5 feet high, must say I had fun,
ducking to avoid the thorn, all the while wondering how could
the bus make it through this?

The answer was available at the fork, there seemed to be a
bypass to this forest highway which nature is converting
into a safe tunnel for all its denizens -- nothing but the
smallest route through what were once someone's fields.

By my calculations I had by this time already done some
40 odd kms of these roads and I was either lost or should
break out on a metalled stretch soon. It was in a way getting
a tad worrisome, I mean I was alone after all, and what do I do
if I have a puncture or if a herd of Black Buck attack me?

Seriously speaking, it sure was getting a bit late, and I
was wondering if I should call up my office and ask for leave
the next day (incidentally I was out of cell coverage all the
way from Jadcherla), my butt was by now yelling blue murder,
my wrists, elbows and shoulders were feeling the way they
usually feel after three continuous days on the road and I
was really getting more and more disoriented by the moment.

I am riding through yet another village now, stop on seeing what
looked like a school or some quasi-government building, walk in
and ask where I am, where Kollapur is. For the next 5 odd
minutes, almost everyone there has his own version of my
latitude and longitude and while one says take the left
after you are out of the village, the other says take right
and so on and so forth.

I am luckily used to such situations, so I light a smoke and ask for
some water to drink, wait for the excitement to subside and then ask
again. This time I gather that I am almost out of the bad stretches
and that the road gets pucca in another 2-3 kms.

For once, I have got perfect directions and within 3 kms I am on a
metalled road and promptly caught up in a traffic jam of sheep. I
love such moments, the herdsmen will act as if they are really sorry
for you, but in reality don't care even two hoots, the sheep will
panic if you honk, so makes ultimate sense to wait them out, after
all they do have right of way here.

I ride another 15 kms of interior roads, lined with thorny scrub,
negotiate 2 forks through gutfeel and finally I can see a chain of
hills on the horizon, the road straightening and a milestone
saying "Kollapur 5 ". And then I crest a rise on the road and see a
fairly-sized town, nestling on the sides of a hill-range. Soon, I am
riding into Kollapur, through a couple of markets where I sensibly do
not ask for directions and then finally stop another Maxi Cab driver,
ask him to pull over, spread my maps over his Jeep's bonnet and we
confer. Naturally, he tells me what everyone has been telling all
over, that there is no road across to Pagdyala, that there is a river
crossing on which people "go on" boats and that if I wanted to go to
Nandikotkur I should join N.H.7 at Kothakota, ride on to Kurnool and
then I will be at Nandikotkur.

I wanted a look at the river-crossing and was even
then contemplating a fast clip to Nandikotkur (it was just
5.30 or so) so I ask directions to the same, am asked to
turn right and then left and then right; I do exactly that
and find myself on a road with a couple of Autos coming from
the other way, laden with "Sintex" tanks full of water.

Aha, they are coming from a source of water,
they are coming from the river is what I tell myself,
I ride on telling myself I am not far
from a photographic oasis now, I ride on and
I ride on, but there is no river in sight.

I did pass a decent-sized lake / huge pond with around
15-20 coracles on them and many people on the
lake / pond shore.

This meant that I had taken a wrong turn somewhere
again, but there was a lovely straight and empty road
in front of me and before I could even say "help" there
was a gent besides me, I flag him down and ask him the
by now stock questions.

I am told, I asked the wrong questions and that I should
have asked for directions to Sangameshwaram, that's where
the river crossing is and that it is basically dependent on
boatmen in Coracles, and that I can simply follow this road
and will link up with the Kurnool road at Pebbair!

By now it was getting to be a "light and pattern show" time
in the skies, the western horizons now no longer overcast,
the sun hidden by a deep bank of clouds, with shafts of light
piercing through, crimson, orange and blindingly golden in turns.

So I say goodbye and thank you to my "Margadarasi" and proceed
to ride on, the road is straight and lovely, with herds of
sheep and cattle on either side and in front of me is a temple
rising sheer. I ride on, stopping by to take a shot of sheep
dotting the red vistas, stopping on a bridge to take a shot of
a disused one just below till finally I am in a small town
from where the temple rises sheer.

The temple did make a pretty sight, especially because it
was limned against an impossibly beautiful sky of cotton wool
clouds, so I take some time in enjoying its beauty and am
told by the people who stop by, that it is the Venugopalaswamy
temple, relocated to this place 25 years back to save it from
some irrigation project.

The main entrance to the temple is guarded by a huge
swarm of rock bees, so going in is ruled out, and I start off
again, promising to be back soon. This town / village is
incidentally Jatprole.

Now the temple is again rising sheer, but behind me,
I stop to compose a perfect shot of my chromed "alter ego"
against "God Lit" skies, get lucky with a small bird which
was so intent on getting its daily dose of nectar that it let
me almost catch it (still need to identify it), move on and stop
again at a "Cuddapah Slate" mine where I spent an amazingly
peaceful 15 minutes doing nothing and finally rode out again,
taking some more shots, this time of an amazingly beautiful
sunset (on a pond of all things!) and then rode on to
Pebbair with the usual bugs and crawlies getting into my
eyes and ears and nose.

Pebbair to Hyderabad is 155 kms of roads I know pretty
well, so I decided to take it easy and relive the ride while
giving my butt some much needed respite. Stopped at a Dhaba a bit
before Kothakota for my dinner (6 phulkas and toor daal fry), allowed
myself a Beer, bandied about with an inquisitive wise-ass who
wanted to know what the mileage of the bike was, what I was
doing on these roads with a camera, where I was born, what I do
for a living, if I am married, etcetera, etcetera. I call up my
brother and C and tell them that I am still in Andhra Pradesh and
that I was just taking it easy and will be reaching home
before midnight.

The last stretch, the home run, was fun as usual, I do love
riding in the night; somewhere on the way, my indicators and
speedo display lights gave up, but all in all it was some
ride indeed.

Exile, reclusion and the yoke of being a "writer"

2011-04-14T23:07:00.000-07:00

I have always wondered how much of being a good / exceptional / great writer is about the actual output of work and how much of it is the attitude / approach / philosophy of the writer.

After all, there are those who write reams and reams of what is barely passable without more or less any effort apart from what goes into a job, with drudgery that is routine; and then there are those who approach their writing as the acme of their very existence -- slogging it out mentally (and physically) on rewrite after rewrite to come up with one (in their own standards) "passable" page or paragraph.

Then again, there are those who are so enmeshed in and haunted by the very idea of writing something exceptional that they never get down to the routine or work at making the routine better :-) When not brooding with Heathcliffian miens or intent on drunken ruin like the painter in "The Last Leaf" such people make for great literary conversationalists and are most of the time voracious readers -- the type who will vitriolically tear apart any writing that is not "great". Speaking of readers, I personally am of the opinion that a "great" reader is just a "great" writer who decided to be lazy (for life?) and also couldn't deal with the "this is getting too personal" stage when it came to splattering everything out in ink...

Or for that matter, when it comes to shaping the writer, moulding that mettle, what matters the most? Pain, suffering, dispossession, identity crises, which of this is the truest of the crucibles :-) ?

I am not being rhetorical but neither do I have the answer. Roberto Bolano seems to make a really strong case for Exile, read it all here

I liked this bit a lot; maybe because I keep thinking of getting away from it all, even now and write as if I was condemned to it :-)

"What does a politician do in prison? What does a lawyer do in the hospital? Anything but work. What, on the other hand, does a writer do in prison or in the hospital? He works. Sometimes he even works a lot. And that’s not even to mention poets. Of course the claim can be made that in prison the libraries are no good and that in hospitals there are often are no libraries. It can be argued that in most cases exile means the loss of the writer’s books, among other material losses, and in some cases even the loss of his papers, unfinished manuscripts, projects, letters. It doesn’t matter. Better to lose manuscripts than to lose your life. In any case, the point is that the writer works wherever he is, even while he sleeps, which isn’t true of those in other professions. Actors, it can be said, are always working, but it isn’t the same: the writer writes and is conscious of writing, whereas the actor, under great duress, only howls. Policemen are always policemen, but that isn’t the same either, because it’s one thing to be and another to work. The writer is and works in any situation. The policeman only is. The same is true of the professional assassin, the soldier, the banker. Whores, perhaps, come closest in the exercise of their profession to the practice of literature."

And oh yes, don't miss the poetry!

"In one fragment, Archilochus doesn’t hesitate to admit that in the midst of battle, probably a skirmish, he drops his arms and goes running, which for the Greeks was undoubtedly the greatest mark of shame, let alone for a soldier who has to earn his daily bread by his courage in combat. Archilochus says:

Some Saian mountaineer
Struts today with my shield.
I threw it down behind a bush and ran
When the fighting got hot.
Life seemed somehow more precious.
It was a beautiful shield.
I know where I can buy another
Exactly like it, just as round."

Oh, to be born an island! Or in an age when there was far more time and far less things that needed to be done

Midway musings

2011-04-12T02:48:00.000-07:00

I really don't know where I am headed.

Or where I started from, for that matter.

You see, peculiarly enough both the beginning and end of this journey is me; maybe when I arrive, I will be a more footsore me, maybe when I reach, I will be a better me, but then isn't that a natural progression in life?

That we get better, wiser, tireder(??) with age?

Yes, I said "age". I am sure you will agree, 40 days would constitute an important factor of "time /age", being 1/10 of a year after all!

Lately, I have realised that I don't have a very good equation with time, and that I absolutely abhor summer. And though (I am sure) I will continue to be under the attack of delusions and imaginations (how real is poetry, anyway?) I do realise that however much I live within myself, the other will be time.

Sometimes holding a mirror to my face.

Sometimes brushing by as a cat's paw, redolent with deja` vu, leaving me flummoxed and then making me chase after it, to decipher meanings and craft words...and make sense of memories.

Sometimes like an endless road that just loses itself into the horizon.

Which means even if I do nothing, time will move and I would have journeyed, in terms of time.

So, this journey then; though in many ways not a patch on the toil and hardships of the real Deeksha, I do feel like a pilgrim and as day follows day in the march of time, there is progress too and I am now midway.

"Does the stillness of this silence say
that there's no beginning and no end -- here midway?"

Tripping on :-)

Shiva Temple, Palakolu

2011-04-07T18:45:00.000-07:00

Knees grating on the cold granite
feet getting numbed by my weight,
I marshal thoughts into coherence
mumbling more than one early morning prayer.

Why do I get drawn, moth-like
to these crowds, babel and mock devotion that I disdain?
Why do I pronounce shlokas in English
and yet don't pray for visas to lands abroad?)

The digital camera grasped crab-like,
I compose and shoot the temple spire in diffused light
to wonder as hundreds of pigeons get aflutter –
was it because I uttered "Om Namah Shivaya"?

(Why can't we who live lives, time our joys right?
Of what use, blessings of sacred rice that slide off a tonsured pate?
Or an ardent, desirously male devout gaze
that's not a spell-binding hymn that Shakti can hear?)

The day the cup came home

2011-04-07T01:29:00.000-07:00

A billion dreams.

28 years of yearning.

And then, the cup came home.

The first two lines are advertising copy. But surprisingly for once, the third one came true and after having failed to live up to its potential (real and hyped) time and again, the Indian cricket team displayed the skills, focus and the cojones to win the games that counted.

And thus, the cup (the World Cup of Cricket!!) came home. Bringing with it joys, celebrations and euphoria for millions -- cricket purists, jingoists and rednecks masquerading as lovers of cricket and those who don't know nothing about cricket.

In other words, the cup has given almost every Indian a reason to smile about, and that (in itself) is something to be happy about. Especially these days when we as a country have so less to celebrate and have almost no "real" heroes, have no one who we can look up and believe in.

Because, essentially that's what a fan is all about -- the belief. Though there are extremes here like elsewhere in life and on the one hand you have the jingoists and rednecks for whom a cricket match is just another platform to let loose and be a nuisance and on the other you have the technically and statistically minded for whom such matches are just another opportunity to show off their superior knowledge.

Because, essentially that's what a fan is all about -- the belief. That uplifts and leads to a single-minded focus on the game and keeps so many vexations and problems at bay, keeps cynicism at bay...

When India first won the world cup, I was barely 10 and from what I remember, I don't remember much about it; apart from some cricket related questions in General Knowledge at school and a spike in the interest for cricket (was it then that I started playing cricket more than Gilli Danda?) the event did not cause too many ripples in my secludedly bucolic childhood.

Apart from the fact that I was 9 years and something, there were two other reasons for this; one -- we didn't have TV at home, two -- we did not have a computer either (and there was no Cricinfo, anyway)...

I know, all the three factoids above are a bit hard to believe, but yes, they are true.

This time around, it was different and I left work early, scorched my feet on the afternoon sun-baked road, and got home with more than one prayer on my lips. And then the prayers continued (through most of the India innings) till we won the match, as I had believed we will.

And, then the cup came home.

P.S.-- Speaking of cricinfo, there's this lovely article on cricket by Wright Thomson. I found parts of it quaint and I am wondering how he communicated so well with the cab driver and his sons and I am sure this is the first such article on cricket in India with so many Americanisms but I guess he puts thing perfectly with the title itself -- In Tendulkar country

Mornings and Musings

2011-03-31T19:24:00.000-07:00

(Post my childhood) I have never been an early morning person, maybe because I have never been an early night person :-)In my early days in Hyderabad, somehow going to bed was similar to saying goodbye to the day that's past, mostly in a mood of mellow contentment at having achieved something, or because of being absolutely and totally bone-tired. That was rarely my case, and for some reasons, I always seemed to have been dealing with the unfinished, as if there was something I had not told someone, or as if there is a thought still not properly formed in my mind, so....

This of course means that there have been more nights than I can remember -- of not sleeping at all, reading up or talking to someone equally intent on not sleeping, or going for a ride (and waiting for the Irani Chhai to be served at quaintly named Cafes like Taftian, Rising Sun, Rock Sea, Friends Circle or Great India) or writing, or listening to the same songs over and over again.

Like, this one for instance*.

Dheere Dheere Subah Huyi **

This is not to say that I cannot get up early in the mornings or that I have not got up early in the mornings. But getting up that early is not a habit or a routine or a set pattern or whatshallIcallit in my case.

(You probably would be right in saying that I don't have any patterns at all, but then neither of us know me well enough.)

Whatever may be said in favor of sleeping late, getting up early in the morning gives an amazing high. I have been told (by a friend who himself was an early riser) that sleep is bliss and waking up someone who is sleeping is like breaking a magic spell or shattering a wondrous dream but I would say that getting up early in the morning (out of one's own volition and choice) is probably the best way to start a new day.

And I guess, sleep is anyway a big waste of time, all said and done :-)

* In my Kimtee Colony, Tarnaka days, among other things, the Internet wasn't all pervasive then. This is when "The Old Woman of Lalapet" happened.
** From one of my numerous past lives, yes. Please don't send me hate mail in case you don't like Jeetendra. I used to just listen to this song, or you can say, used to trip on it, never "saw" the song before today.

Thus Cycles Time

2011-03-28T23:18:00.000-07:00

Here, Silk Cotton
– black, silhouetted
by a bluely summering sky.

Soon,
it will be a bouquet
flowering lush fleshy reds.

I know.

There, Flame of the Forest
– fire flickering in day’s breeze,
a flower treed.

Soon,
this fire will catch wind and water;
even dead rock will simmer heat.

Thus cycles time.

I know.

Books from Pratilipi

2011-03-28T08:56:00.000-07:00

While I have been busy with getting out of the brace and getting into this Sandalwood coloured habit, one of my favorite journals, Pratilipi has branched out into publishing books by bringing out 7 titles (3 novels in English, translated from the Swedish; 2 collection of short fiction and 1 biography in Hindi; and a collection of Hindi poetry in English translation) at one go!

This is indeed welcome news and I hope, just the beginning (as far as books are concerned) of the Pratilipi imprint.

Click here to know more about the books and here to take a look at Pratilipi.

Happy reading!

Tripping (on Om Namah Shivaya)

2011-03-27T03:07:00.000-07:00

I am into the 5th day of another trip.

You could say I have covered almost one eight of the distance of this trip, since this trip is to be for the duration of 41 days.

There are number of interesting things I am doing on this trip, things which I normally don't. For instance, I get up (mostly) at a time that I would normally call "uncivilized", the time that corresponds to Brahmakaalam to pray. And, in a throwback to my "wild enough to get splayed feet" childhood, I go around barefoot; learning with every step -- to tread slowly and carefully. There are some other interesting things about my daily routine these days, meant to inculcate high-thinking, focus and asceticism and each is a trip in itself...

Yes, I am talking of this Deeksha that I am undertaking. Something that (looking back) I should have undertaken long back; something that (when one considers my peculiar style of tripping) seems almost pre-destined.

Here's why.

For some or the other reason, from the very beginning of my motorcycling days, there has been a Shiva connection to most of my trips. When I started tripping around in the Deccan, Srisailam was my favorite destination and a trip that has taken me on quainter trips, like to Uma Maheswaharam, Alampur, Jatprole and other Shiva temples. It was on the way back from a trip to Srisailam that I had my first major fall -- a miraculous escape it was, all said and done, the only damage to me being a scraped knee and (most importantly) my pillion the rogue Chandra got away totally unscathed!

Srisailam still remains a destination of choice, a trip that I would gladly go on again and again, any number of times.

In 2004 (if my memory serves me right) while returning from Lonar, I left my Bullet and co-riders (they gladly acquiesced) and walked bare-feet to get Darshan at Grihaneswar (the Jyotirlingam near Aurangabad).

In 2005, on the way back from my solo ride to Ladakh, after a number of scary incidents (the Bullet's headlight had conked out, I had innumerable scrapes with trucks / tractors / in-betweens and a bat almost flew into my face) in pitch dark on the mystery stretch between Udhampur and Samba, I was close to losing it and becoming a nervous wreck when I came across a Mata Mansi Devi temple besides the road. What was initially meant as a ten minute stop for my knees to stop shaking led to an hour long stop and I remember praying too; fervently and at length and needless to say, I got my courage back.

In 2009, on the South India (Tirigi Vadamu) ride with the boys, post RM and Ooty, post Coimbatore (with my Bullet misbehaving and not pulling properly) I was praying like never before and totally focused on making it to the Meenakshipuram Temple at Madurai and thereafter to the Jyotirlingam at Rameshwaram. So much so, that on the stretch to Madurai, the white strips of paint on the trees that verge the road looked like the three vibhuti smears on a forehead to me. So much so, that I was continuously reciting Om Namah Shivaya to myself Madurai onwards...

I tripped some more on the journey called Shiva on that ride, spending some amazing moments at Vadakkumnathan temple at Thrissur, Murudeshwar and Gokarna. And considering the fact that all this was done in a chaotic "Bullet ride", it was some tripping indeed!

On my most recent ride (or should I say, half-ride?), I spent the night of my birthday in a dump of a hospital with a broken collar bone and a malfunctioning phone. That I didn't break out of that hospital was largely owing to the pain-killer drugs they had pumped into me. But (though I don't remember it) I am sure it must have also been because of my prayers (to you know Who)...

Thus then, you see, I have always been tripping :-) And though I wear my religion lightly, abhor rituals and all the other baggage that comes being with a Hindu, its nice to trip on Shiva.

Though its one road that I guess I will never completely know in this life.

A.K. Ramanujan

2011-03-26T01:36:00.000-07:00

"A translation has to be true to the translator no less than to the originals. Translation is choice, interpretation, an assertion of taste, a betrayal of what answers to one's needs, one's envies."

A.K. Ramanujan -- Translator's Note, "Speaking of Siva"

THE TEMPLE AND THE BODY

2011-03-26T01:32:00.000-07:00

The rich
will make temples for Siva.
What shall I,
a poor man,
do?

My legs are pillars,
the body the shrine,
the head a cupola
of gold.

Listen, O lord of the meeting rivers,
things standing shall fall,
but the moving ever shall stay.

-- BASAVANNA

(From "Speaking of Siva", translated by A.K. Ramanujan)

The Past is Prologue

2011-03-25T22:55:00.000-07:00

(What was once
-- vaporized
into nothing

then it rained
and rained,
like an endless cascade

out of His matted locks)
"In the beginning
everything was water."

(The past is prologue)

Chidananda Rupa Shivoham Shivoham--Ādi Śaṅkarācārya

2011-03-22T21:56:00.000-07:00

1) Mano Buddhi Ahankara Chitta Ninaham
Nacha Shrotra Jihve Na Cha Ghrana Netre
Nacha Vyoma Bhoomir Na Tejo Na Vayu
Chidananda Rupa Shivoham Shivoham

2) Na Cha Prana Sangyo Na Vai Pancha Vayu
Na Vaa Sapta dhatur Na Vaa Pancha Koshah
Na Vak Pani Padam Na Chopastha Payu
Chidananda Rupa Shivoham Shivoham

3) Na Me Dvesha Ragau Na Me Lobha Mohau
Mado Naiva Me Naiva Maatsarya Bhavah
Na Dharmo Na Chartho Na Kamo Na Mokshah
Chidananda Rupa Shivoham Shivoham

4) Na Punyam Na Papam Na Saukhyam Na Dukham
Na Mantro Na Teertham Na Veda Na Yajnaha
Aham Bhojanam Naiva Bhojyam Na Bhokta
Chidananda Rupa Shivoham Shivoham

5) Na Me Mrityu Shanka Na Me Jati Bhedah
Pita Naiva Me Naiva Mata Na Janma
Na Bandhur Na Mitram Gurur Naiva Shishyah
Chidananda Rupa Shivoham Shivoham

6) Aham NirvikaLpo Nirakara Roopo
Vibhut Vaakhya Sarvatra Sarvendriyanam
Na Cha Sangatam Naiva Muktir Na Meyah
Chidananda Rupa Shivoham Shivoham

This is the Sanskrit version that was sent to me by S (many thanks) sometime back. Today seems the right time to post it here; as today's the first day of my Shiva Deeksha -- Chidananda Rupa Shivoham Shivoham / I am eternal bliss and awareness, -- I am Siva! I am Siva!

The English version is here

The Shames of March

2011-03-17T05:23:00.000-07:00

In what colour
do statues
of poets and saints
bleed?

When spat at
vandalized
dismembered;
these long dead souls

In what colour
do they weep?

Consciousness

2011-03-16T09:37:00.001-07:00

In the end,
everything is reduced --
to another speck
of ash
on Your
manifest form;
to another speck
of ash
on skin darker
than all our
lived losses griefs fears nights

In the end,
everything is reduced --
to another speck
of dust
in You
unmanifest;
to another speck
of dust
beginning on
the cosmic journey to know You
called time.

The washerwoman beats the laundry

2011-03-05T12:02:00.000-08:00

A lavadeira no tanque
Bate roupa em pedra bem.
Canta porque canta, e é triste
Porque canta porque existe;
Por isso é alegre também.

Ora se eu alguma vez
Pudesse fazer nos versos
O que a essa roupa ela fez,
Eu perderia talvez
Os meus destinos diversos.

Há uma grande unidade
Em, sem pensar nem razão,
E até cantando a metade,
Bater roupa em realidade...
Quem me lava o coração?

~~~~

The washwoman beats the laundry
Against the stone in the tank.
She sings because she sings and is sad
For she sings because she exists:
Thus she is also happy.

If I could do in verses
What she does with laundry,
Perhaps I would lose
My surfeit of fates.

Ah, the tremendous unity
Of beating laundry in reality,
Singing songs in whole or in part
Without any thought or reason!
But who will wash my heart?

By Fernando Pessoa (Tr, Richard Zenith from Fernando Pessoa & Co. – Selected Poems) from Poesia

OXFORDSHIRE

2011-03-05T11:51:00.000-08:00

Quero o bem, e quero o mal, e afinal não quero nada.
Estou mal deitado sobre a direita, e mal deitado sobre a esquerda
E mal deitado sobre a consciência de existir.
Estou universalmente mal, metafisicamente mal,
Mas o pior é que me dói a cabeça.
Isso é mais grave que a significação do universo.

Uma vez, ao pé de Oxford, num passeio campestre,
Vi erguer-se, de uma curva da estrada, na distância próxima
A torre-velha de uma igreja acima de casas da aldeia ou vila.
Ficou-me fotográfico esse incidente nulo
Como uma dobra transversal escangalhando o vinco das calças.
Agora vem a propósito…
Da estrada eu previa espiritualidade a essa torre de igreja
Que era a fé de todas as eras, e a eficaz caridade.
Da vila, quando lá cheguei, a torre da igreja era a torre da igreja,
E, ainda por cima, estava ali.

É-se feliz na Austrália, desde que lá se não vá.

~~~~~~

I want the good, I want the bad, and in the end I want nothing.
I toss in bed, uncomfortable on my right side, on my left side,
And on my consciousness of existing.
I’m universally uncomfortable, metaphysically uncomfortable,
But what’s even worse is my headache.
That’s more serious than the meaning of the universe.

Once, while walking in the country around Oxford,
I saw up ahead, beyond a bend in the road,
A church steeple towering above the houses of a hamlet or village.
The photographic image of that non-event has remained with me
Like a horizontal wrinkle marring a trouser’s crease.
Today it seems relevant...
From the road I associated that steeple with spirituality,
The faith of all ages, and practical charity.
When I arrived at the village, the steeple was a steeple
And, what’s more, there it was.

You can be happy in Australia, as long as you don’t go there.

By Fernando Pessoa (Tr, Richard Zenith from A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems)from Poesia

P.S. -- This is (in a way) via Sandhya D.N. read it on Poetry International Web, here

A Shrug of the Shoulders

2011-03-05T11:32:00.000-08:00

We generally give to our ideas about the
unknown the color of our notions about
what we do know: If we call death a sleep
it's because it has the appearance of
sleep; if we call death a new life, it's
because it seems different from life. We
build our beliefs and hopes out of these
small misunderstandings with reality and
live off husks of bread we call cakes, the
way poor children play at being happy.
But that's how all life is; at least
that's how the particular way of life
generally known as civilization is.
Civilization consists in giving an
inappropriate name to something and then
dreaming what results from that. And in
fact the false name and the true dream do
create a new reality. The object really
does become other, because we have made it
so. We manufacture realities. We use the
raw materials we always used but the form
lent it by art effectively prevents it
from remaining the same. A table made out
of pinewood is a pinetree but it is also
a table. We sit down at the table
not at the pinetree. ...

Fernando Pessoa

An excerpt from "The Book of Disquiet," written in the 1920's, first published in 1982 by Atica in Lisbon.

Tear It Down

2011-03-05T11:22:00.000-08:00

We find out the heart only by dismantling what
the heart knows. By redefining the morning,
we find a morning that comes just after darkness.
We can break through marriage into marriage.
By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond
affection and wade mouth-deep into love.
We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.
But going back toward childhood will not help.
The village is not better than Pittsburgh.
Only Pittsburgh is more than Pittsburgh.
Rome is better than Rome in the same way the sound
of racoon tongues licking the inside walls
of the garbage tub is more than the stir
of them in the muck of the garbage. Love is not
enough. We die and are put into the earth forever.
We should insist while there is still time. We must
eat through the wildness of her sweet body already
in our bed to reach the body within the body.

By Jack Gilbert from The Great Fires: Poems 1982-1992, found on www.poets.org, here

Rain

2011-03-05T08:57:00.000-08:00

Suddenly this defeat.
This rain.
The blues gone gray
And the browns gone gray
And yellow
A terrible amber.
In the cold streets
Your warm body.
In whatever room
Your warm body.
Among all the people
Your absence
The people who are always
Not you.

I have been easy with trees
Too long.
Too familiar with mountains.
Joy has been a habit.
Now
Suddenly
This rain.

By Jack Gilbert from Views of Jeopardy via Nabina Das, also found here

Of clavicles and cowls; and the demise of weeks

2011-02-25T03:06:00.000-08:00

I guess it's normal to look back and curse one's luck,
if one has been in an accident.

But no, I am not doing any cursing, though its been a
slow / boring / painful / incapacitating stretch of days
adding to weeks (and one whole month) since I broke my clavicle
somewhere on the road to Kolkata and Rider Mania 2011.

For one, when I look back I wonder how I have managed to stay
lucky so far, without being involved in a serious accident or
even breaking a bone; considering the "active" way that I have
lived.

I could have broken this (or some other) bone in my largely
unsupervised childhood (a very Huck Finnish one) days scampering
up and down hills, or jumping from tree to tree.

Or I could have broken it in some wild west saloon / setting,
catching a cosh meant for the ear, stopping a stray bullet or
getting thrown by a horse -- in all my repeated readings of
assorted cowboy westerns in my extended childhood.

You can imagine me in similar scenarios / situations / settings
from combat comics / Alistair Maclean novels. Breaking a bone is
pretty common in adventurous / active scenarios.

So, I guess it isn't exactly mind-boggling that I broke my collar
falling from my Bullet one cold winter evening some 40 or so kms
from Kolkata. I mean, maybe it wouldn't have happened if had
stayed at home instead of answering the call of the road, but
then again, it isn't that strange right?

No, I am not being facetious or mock stoic. After all, as per
the law of averages I had to crash sometime and I am lucky to
get away with neck and head (and everything else) intact. And just
bust my collar bone.

Having said that, it has certainly been a bitch -- sitting on my
behind and watching time add up the days and eat up a month, while
I wear a sling for my right arm and a brace around the shoulders and
cultivate patience; waiting for the spot-weld on the bone to
strengthen enough to pick up a pen to write.

Or for that matter, wait for the mind to move on from the hurt, pain
and ignominy of having to come back home leaving a ride incomplete
(my original idea was to ride long into February and wander around
over the North East). Or wait and learn how to deal with the wretched
feeling of watching my trusted Bullet gather dust, parked motionless,
missing its headlight cowl (part of the minimal damage to it due to
the fall) and urgently needing a service.

I am seeing my Doctor in two days (to know when I can stop wearing
the brace). Incidentally, I have got back to "writing with a pen" a
week back. So I guess I am healing, in a slow, more or less steady way.

But it doesn't mean that I will forget or ever get over the ignominy
of leaving a ride incomplete (and I hope I never have to do it again in
my life). Nor does it mean that I will forget my un-kept date with the
North-East.

For whatever my Doctor says, healing for me means being able to ride again.

After all, there are some hungers that time can't sate (or heal).

Poetry with Prakriti Poetry Contest

2010-12-06T09:40:00.000-08:00

For all you need to know about the contest, go here

Last date for sending in entries (one poem per participant) is 15th December.

The prizes are good (three cash prizes of Rs.10000/-, Rs.7500/- and Rs.5000/- each) and it's an open competition, which means anyone can participate.

So, hurry :-)

Here's more about the actual Poetry with Prakriti Contest, that's quite an event list indeed, no?

Far from the madding crowd

2010-12-06T06:54:00.000-08:00

Far from the madding crowd?

Oh yes.

Far from the effed up city traffic?

Oh yes, very much yes.

Just around 10 days back, I finally took a call and got the barrel
and piston on the Bullet replaced. I have been a bit around this
country on that barrel and piston and done close to 90k kms on it.
But still, technically speaking it shouldn't have
failed / ceased / seized. My current mechanic is soft-spoken,
highly skilled and very very wise (he's touching 60) and
according to him the piston overheated and failed. Incredulously,
not because I was racing at 130 kmph on the highway,
throttle locked and hunched like a jockey on my iron horse.
But because, I had negotiated a 55 minutes long
crawl -- Basheerbagh -> Liberty -> Tank Bund -> Sindhi
Colony -> Paradise X Roads -> Vikrampuri (where the engine
conked out), largely in 1st and 2nd gear on yet another
forgettable evening when the city's traffic was well and
truly fucked.

In other words, I got trafucked.

Is that a word (yet)? I don't know, but I am sure
Hyderabad's traffic won't get better, rains or no rains.
There are just too many people and too many cars to give
the city's roads any chance to be orderly.

So the thirst to be far from the madding crowd...

Another reason is that I am now running in the aforementioned,
"new" barrel and piston, a task that is not exactly easy,
requiring as it does inordinate patience, a nose (literally)
for the smell of over-heating, a total disregard for the passage
of time and so on and so forth...

Whatever some of my other biker / rider friends may say,
somehow the idea of running-in the city doesn't make sense
to me, after all I don't want to get trafucked again...

So I have been riding around on the highways and man, oh man,
have I been tripping or what?

Two of my status messages (from Facebook) to illustrate
what's on my mind while on the road

Then – a single lane, sunlit
dapple ground for mango, banyan and neem.
Now – a wide carriageway, to hurtle or airstrip,
in antiseptic speed. With a median that's a country
road – of grasses nodding sagely,
riding breezes and slipstreams. What remains
of that sunlit dapple ground – like a single leg
of worn blue denim, still catches sight.
Here light puddles bright,
as golden shelled maize, tanned brown paddy.

(This was after an approximately 250 kms -- to and
fro -- ride on NH 7, one of my familiar haunts for
most of my riding days in the Deccan)

The roads belong to no one,
but S.H.1 remains mine –
blessedly alive
as a beating vein on the back
of my right hand
– like my throttle wrist.
For 78 kms under a mellow November sun.
To a bit before Siddipet (and back).
Through a rain-soaked Deccan bursting
with colours – yellow-flowering gram,
“oh-so-white” cotton, wildflowers
I know not the name of and
the good, green earth.

(This was after a traipse on the road that leads
to Shamirpet Lake and a lot beyond, again a familiar
haunt for as long as I have been riding
in the Deccan)

There's a lot more of running in left and to make things more
time-consuming I also finally bought a Nikon D-90 (an impulsive
purchase using the only credit card I have) so I am hoping I will
traipse around some more and compose something poetic with my eye.

Somewhere far from the madding crowd.

When a frog in a puddle dies

2010-12-02T03:47:00.000-08:00

I am lucky in that, I live pretty close to wide open spaces and
what can be justifiably called "wilds". Barely two kilometres
from my gate, I can get lost in a charmed expanse comprising of
disused and abandoned quarries, vineyards, orchards and mixed
farms and acres of trees and grasses growing wild.

This is where I cycle as much as I can, sometimes for a reason,
mostly for none. These expanses are the setting for a number
of poems in Moving On, and one that deals with my cynical take
on the false hopes regarding the monsoons last year -- Unslept.

So it passed that this year too I was cycling in the same wilds
when the monsoons arrived over the Deccan. Many would say a sure
sign that the Monsoons are here for good is when you see peacocks
dancing. In my case, I have seen more peacocks (and peahens) than I
could count this year, but queerly enough that is really is the
Monsoons, the original item, not some false alarm was kind of was
communicated to me by a slightly dopey (or highly sated)
looking frog, sometime in late June.

It must have been five or six days into the Monsoons, and I was
on the dirt track (that winds through the charmed expanse mentioned
above) for the second time. This dirt track is incidentally wide
enough for a truck to pass and I see a healthy puddle forming on
it where it passes through a thickly wooded section. And I see
Mr. Froggie too, fat and glassy eyed. I was totally at a loss
to decipher that look; I have seen really, really thirsty people
look like that after a very welcome round of beers. I guess
in Mr.Froggie's case it was a bit more than just beers -- maybe
he was enjoying the orgasmic bliss of a private spa pool or he
was dreaming of being kissed by a princess....

So that was June. From then till end of November -- till around
a week back, to be exact -- I haven't seen Mr. Froggie or bothered
much about the puddle, but crossed it again and again and seen
it bigger and deeper than it ever was last year.

Meanwhile, 5 months passed.

In these five months, I got wet more times than I can remember,
fell sick three times (a record of sorts for me) and even as I
write this, am recovering from a very severe and debilitating fever.

In these five months, I have once again realized that the
monsoons have a magically regenerative touch (and intoxicate
frogs and human beings alike) and there is no nook or cranny
of even a concrete city that the rains cannot reach. Its a
bit overwhelming to see the tops of dead and boringly staid
walls grow green with moss, and to see a profusion of butterflies
and bees, millions and millions of them, the former coming when
the monsoons are at their peak, the latter when the waters
start "standing". Its overwhelming to ride on Tank Bund and
see streamers of butterflies flutter-flying aimlessly, blithe
and unconcerned, flowers in flight. Its fun being on the Bullet
on the highways seeing a dragonfly headed for your face and
managing to dodge it at the last minute.

It's believed that the rains slacken after Ganesh Chaturthi.
But that didn't happen this time around. It's also believed
that September 30th is officially the last day of the Monsoons.
This year, I was soaked to the underwear on September 30th in
riding home through a shortcut through the bastis that flank
Hasmathpet Lake, but the same happened a week after.

Nobody (not the least, me) minds the rains, but
5 months of it is freakish, no?

But then, last Tuesday I got a sign that the Monsoons
are done and finished.

And it had to do with a sighting of Mr. Froggie.

I am on the cycle (you know where, don't you?) and I come
across THE puddle. Or rather, I come across a very well muscled
and (really swift) seven footer of a snake, ( flecked with gravel
red) shouldering its way into the grasses besides the dirt track.
With Mr. Froggie in its jaws. Its over before I can brake the
cycle and I see that the puddle is no more than 2 inches of water
and mostly wet gravel sludge.

That was one very big and fat looking snake too, evidently
intent on feeding full and hibernating.

And snakes hibernate in the winters, don't they?

Which means as of last Tuesday, the monsoons have ended and
its winter here now :-)

That ends a really bountiful monsoon, one that has left the
quarries full of water and a profusion of life still sprouting
from the rain-soaked Deccan.

RIP, Mr. Froggie!

Welcome to Hyderabad Literary Festival 2010

2010-11-29T07:39:00.000-08:00

If I am not wrong, the last time Hyderabad played host to such a multitude of writers was when the ACLALS (Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies) Seminar / Conference on Post-Colonial Literature was held here. In the year 2004, if memory serves me right.

I was there at the event and though I don't remember much about it, I remember meeting Mr. Keki Daruwalla and showing him my poetry. And I also remember trying to talk to Hoshang Ji :-)

2004 seems eons ago and in my case, much ink has flowed since then. And now again Hyderabad will play host to some of India's most notable writers -- writing in our richly vibrant, regional languages and English.

At the Hyderabad Literary Festival 2010, (December 10-12) organized by Muse India and OUCIP.

Registration is a must to be at the HLF 2010 and is just Rs. 500 (inclusive of luncheons and refreshments) for all three days. Which in other words is as pleasantly inexpensive as our own Irani Chai, in my humble opinion.

So go here and register before Dec 5th, or risk missing out on literary history in the making, here in Hyderabad itself!

Shamanisms and the Mother cult

2010-11-29T00:30:00.000-08:00

By my own account I am not a very religious person. For as long
as I remember, I have never believed in rituals and orthodoxy
and nowadays, I am of the firm opinion that it’s important
for a poet to be a skeptic and iconoclast – if required of
his / her own beliefs.

But somehow (maybe because I don’t know any better) I have
always believed in the Mother cult that is in many ways
central to Hinduism. The cult that glorifies, venerates
and worships Shakti in her various forms and
Avataras – as Durga, Parvati, Ambika, Manasi, Tarani and
so on.

Does one belief lead to and feed another? Does my
relatively early exposure to the Mother cult (while
growing up in Orissa – where Durga Puja is an
overwhelmingly colourful festival of pomp and pageantry;
where almost every third temple is devoted to a
goddess – Maa Tarini, Maa Birija, Maa Samaleswari,
Maa Sankata Tarini, Maa Singhavasini, Maa Tara Tarani
and so on) explain my fascination with everything to
do with Shiva?

I really do not know.

But yes, somehow the very mention and memory of “Maa”
evokes a very blissful and humbling feeling in me. And
conjures the image of an all-understanding, fiercely
protective mother, in whose presence one relatively feels
non-existent in terms of ego and totally a wide-eyed child.
An image of goodness that will triumph over evil, come
what may, because that’s the way things are destined to be.

Need I say that I feel overwhelmed by the same childish
wide-eyed wonder and feeling of smallness when I experience
the grandeur (and mystique) of nature? Or when a poem comes
unbidden, with more meaning than I can understand, words
falling into place like some shaman’s chant?

I really do not know. But these are good problems to
have; these are deep waters worth contemplating.

One man’s prayer my be plain gobbledygook to the other,
but here’s a lovely link to a prayer / chant / bhajan / song
that has given me goose pimples from the very day I heard it.

And I will say the same thing yet again before I conclude
this post, there’s more meaning than I can understand
in Ai giri nandini,
I don’t claim to understand it all, but it’s a good
problem to have :-)

Invoking the scribe -- 2

2010-10-12T03:48:00.000-07:00

For some peculiar reason I am still caught up with memories juxtaposed with Ganesh Chaturthi; memories that seem very much mine but also have that sepia-shade of being touched by time; seeming almost as if they are from another life.

I remember the elephants (from across the border and Bihar) waddle-walking down the colony road, in a ponderous convoy of twos and threes. Then the shrill trumpets at every gate meant to summon the lady of the house -- with money and rice for the mahout and a tidbit for the lumbering giant.

I also remember how I would sometimes get a "paid" ride on an elephant (only if my father or an uncle was at home) and how most of the adults of the colony would bargain for a bristle of hair from the elephant's tail -- meant to bring prosperity.

I remember the culinary celebrations at home -- mostly dealing with delicacies that would rarely (if at all) be made till September and Lord Ganesha came again. For instance, idli batter cooked in baskets of green jackfruit leaves. To be eaten with a assortment of sambars and chutneys, each more un-idli-like than the next! I also remember the numerous types of coconut ladoos, the junnu, the payasams and so on......

And I remember a particular Brinjal curry that my Grandmother would cook when we used to have a get together of uncles, aunts and so on -- after counting the number of heads -- of which everyone would want second helpings. This is a curry that deserves a separate post altogether not only for the time-taking way it used to be made and the memories of taste associated with it but because of the name that one of my uncles had given to it -- one that would scandalize my Grandmother everytime I would utter it!

The end of September (and the Visarjan of Lord Ganesha) also meant a slackening of the rains and the arrival of sun-splashed, green gold days. And the beginnings of group picnics and escapades to pokhuris, rivers and other water-bodies buzzing with a gazillion dragonflies.

To be followed by Durga Puja and winter, of course.

Invoking the scribe -- 1

2010-09-27T21:00:00.000-07:00

I work on the other side of the lake and my commute extends from one city to another. Which means that one of the small joys that I can partake of on a daily basis (apart from Sundays) is a ride across the Bund and also that I get to see Hussein Sagar (with its changing colours, depths and moods) on a daily basis.

I am an observer, even when I am on the Bullet, immaterial of the usual dangers and risks poetic in a fast-moving city; immaterial of someone trying to overtake me from the left and someone else wanting to shoulder a way from the right and someone else wanting me to get out of his / her way.

But then, this post is not progressing the right way, it should ideally start with what happened on last Thursday. That was when it took me almost 2 hours to make it to the other side of the lake (the Bund was closed to traffic) and no, I am not going to rant about the city's lack of civic sense or other metropolitan woes.

You see, last Wednesday was when the immersion happened here in Hyderabad. And this time around it seems that the turnout of the people participating in the immersion and the number of idols were both unprecedented and thus it continued for most part of Thursday too.

I am talking of the immersion procession of the elephant-headed god, Ganesha.

Peculiarly enough (maybe because of my substantial commute this year) Ganesha has been constantly on my mind this year and I have been to more of his Pandals and immersion processions this time around than in other years.

I have been stuck on Tank Bund inordinately and ridden my way on egg shells as people have crossed the Bund barefoot -- grandmothers, mothers, daughters, fathers and sons -- entire families with their family's Ganesha. To bid him adieu till next year by immersing him in the waters.

I have chuckled to myself on finding Necklace Road open and ride-able (as opposed to being a mass of lake-watching people the very next day) and also noted that probably this is the only time when Tank Bund looks brighter and more necklace like than Necklace Road!

I have thrilled at the quaint logic and arithmetic of my mind which finally calculated and understood the reason why Lord Ganesha is also known as Bhima -- while I had slowed down in front of yet another pandal on yet another day. As something about the colour of the idol or the lighting in the pandal or some enlightenment in my mind lets me conclude that the lovable (and petulant) child God is simultaneously massive and elephant headed too.

And lastly (you could say it all started here) I have ridden as if my very life depended on it -- slowly and with utmost caution while three of his idols in wet, unbaked clay, sat pillion on the back seat of the Bullet. And felt very blessed to reach home and find all three idols intact.

I have wanted to blog all this for quite some time. And as with most observations and memories the delay in writing means I have forgotten a lot of things. Still, mine's the hope that with this blog post up, I can write a bit more (am dealing with a persistent writer's block as of now) and I hope the original scribe, Lord Ganesha blesses me to write well.

Om Ganeshaya Namaha

(O Lord Ganapati!) You are (the Trinity) Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesa. You are Indra. You are fire [Agni] and air [Vāyu]. You are the sun [Sūrya] and the moon [Chandrama]. You are Brahman. You are (the three worlds) Bhuloka [earth], Antariksha-loka [space], and Swargaloka [heaven]. You are Om. (That is to say, You are all this).

How do you write?

2010-09-09T01:01:00.000-07:00

I write with two inexpensive, fairly common fountain pens. One is a Camlin, the other an even more obscure and easily forgettable brand -- in a world of Parkers, Montblancs, Lamys and other collectible heavies.

But it wasn't always so. For most of my initial days as a Copywriter, I used to write with pencils. And I still have fond memories of my daily "getting-down-to-work" ritual. The sharpening of 4-5 pencils (with a blade) in a frenzied abandon that used to leave the area around my desk littered with shards and shrapnel of wood.

Typically, before getting down to writing copy, I would also normally sign my name on the numerous scribble pads littering my desk. And recollect and rewrite quotes like -- "I am a pencil".

Looking back at those days, one reason I can think of -- for persisting in writing with pencils -- is that, when writing with pencils, editing becomes a matter of just erasing out what is errant (for the client or the client-servicing person) and the copywriting gets done without turning the page into a battlefield of scratched out and crossed out words, something unavoidable when writing with pens.

And one consumes less paper, even if it is one-sided paper.

But then, coming back to the reason for writing this post, I write with fountain pens these days and I am high on ink. Which brings me to another ritual that I have been following for most of the last three months.

My pens bleed ink.

No, they don't just leak ink, there is no leak as such, the nib and the feeder are fitted just fine. The pens just bleed ink and I have to clean them up and leave them to dry (without the cap on) before I can get down to doing anything else.

Is it because of the high humidity levels thanks to the profuse rains we have had over the Deccan? Or is it that, for the pen -- bleeding ink is release?

I don't know, but either way, its a good problem to have and smelling ink is a good way to start another day of writing.

Then of course, there are the bonuses. Poetry has come to me thanks to the persistent inkbleeds and the smell of ink. Poetry that demands immediacy and is jotted down by me (in ink) as yet another scrap, yet another note, as the welcome flight of yet another stray bird....

Poetry like this

We dry,
my ink pens and I

Do I write all day with pen and ink? Unfortunately no, I tap out most copy on a laptop. But even for work purposes, sometimes writing in ink (on one-sided paper) helps.

Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize, 2010

2010-08-12T06:10:00.000-07:00

Participating??

Hurry, deadline is September 1st!!

Flashbacks of a fool -- is "this" important?

2010-08-11T12:15:00.000-07:00

As far as confessions go, "this" isn't much and deals with an almost open secret about me.

Even the little man seems to be understanding how to get around "this" now and mimes for me, when he is in a patient / ultra-communicative mood.

So, if you are wondering why I am disclosing "this" now, frankly there is no specific reason.

Yet, since this is the first time ever I am writing about "this" at length, one can say I am coming out of a peculiar and strange closet.

By "closet", I am referring to a close circle of people who know about "this" -- family, friends, colleagues (lot of them past, some current) and probably some readers who have guessed what "this" is, either by reading Hoshang Ji's foreword to my book or by reading the poems where I refer to "this", in a multi-layered, far from direct, maybe stoic way.

By "closet", I am not referring to my sexual orientation, this post is not about that.

Peculiarly enough my decision to "come out of the closet" was made long back -- on the first of this June -- on one of the beaches opposite Thotlakonda (near Vizag) just after I had attended my Grandmother's fourth death anniversary.

Maybe this decision was influenced by the occasion-strengthened memories of her -- I can't claim to have got over her loss but with every passing year, on attending her death ceremony, I get a heightened understanding of the grace, charisma and silent dignity with which she had lived her life.

Maybe this decision was influenced by the other-worldliness of that beach setting -- a sun-splashed evening of what was an overcast day, when as I lay / sat amidst the surf and gazed out to sea (with the only other person on the beach being my 10 year old nephew -- goose-stepping and stilt-walking to stay dry) a white-bellied sea eagle flew in and passed barely two coconut palm trunk lengths / heights away from me, the extremities of its wings burning a russet gold as they caught the setting sun, almost meeting at the "down-flap" while it furiously beat them to get higher, now that it was above land.

Either it was the occasion or the setting but from the very moment I decided to acknowledge "this", wave after wave of self-realization kept washing over me.

I may write about these self-realizations sometime soon and in all probability here itself.

Or I may decide not to.

Or I may deal with them through my poetry.

Or I may decide not to.

But it was pretty clear then (and is even more clearer now) that I have been a fool in the way I have dealt with "this". It was also clear that "this" will not go away and since my pride won't go away either, life will not get any easier for me.

So then, the "this". I am what I would choose to be called "Hard of Hearing".

No, I don't like being referred to by derivatives of "hearing challenged", "hearing impaired" or other glorified politically correct words which mean nothing but "hearing disability", because I don't consider my being Hard of Hearing a disability.

And yes, you are welcome to blame this on the pride I mentioned earlier.

At least in my case, its important that I retain my pride and dignity, because from what I have learned, the world doesn't understand the strange world of being "Hard of Hearing". For instance, the world (at least that of recruiters and other strangers who interact with me based on quaint checklists) assumes that the Hard of Hearing are good for nothing and discriminates -- either by shying away as if repelled or by assuming dystopian scenarios of my capabilities where I probably come across as someone needing a dole, kindness, sympathy, whatever...

That's something which will never cut ice with me, since I have an overpowering aversion, almost bordering the physical when it comes to dealing with misplaced senses of superciliousness / arrogance manifesting as kindness.

So then, the "this". I am Hard of Hearing and I do have a far from easy day (with family, work or with friends / colleagues) when my hearing aids don't work properly.

Yes, life's tough as it is, and even tougher when one is mistaken for a freak / retard / loonie if he cannot hear (properly).

No, I am not in denial, I have no problem in explaining the degree of my "Hard of Hearing" ness, the nature, the other nitty-gritty involved in it, but believe me its a long, "very very" technical story that you may not understand totally and I will find boring.

I mean, it's the progressive story of something like ten years of my life and by now it bores me.

And oh yes, the "this" doesn't mean I am a recluse, or not social. Not more than any other poet / writer I know or you know.

It means (among other difficulties I face on a routine "bad ear" day) that I cannot converse on phones and find it difficult to follow conversations at crowded places (like conference rooms of companies, poetry readings, cocktail evenings and bars).

Or, you could say that when my hearing aids don't work, I hear almost nothing of voices.

Apart from some friends (most of whom anyway know about "this") I really don't know who visits this blog. Frankly, I don't blog much and I certainly haven't promoted this blog. So I don't really expect anything earth-shattering to happen because of this blog post.

My days will go on, mellowly delightful when poetry comes or surging with adrenaline when I chase it. Some days (some at least) will hopefully be full of poems "written" down and "rewritten" down and stashed away. And someday soon (hopefully soon) I will sit down and plan the next book too.

Is poetry life? Is life poetry? Which should I consider a bigger priority? I don't know.

Talking of life, I will still treat it as a gift meant to be lived and chase adventures endeavoring to love and laugh as much as I can.

WTF, hearing aids or no hearing aids, I have one life and I intend to live it.

P.S. -- I know I probably come across as a bit angry. And whatever you may think about it, the pride / dignity / anger is important to me, so I will retain it, thank you so much.

P.P.S -- So, if I had decided to disclose / confess / uncloset "this" at the beginning of June, why did it take me so long? Firstly, I did not know what that bird was, took me a bit of thinking and googling to figure out it was a "white-bellied". Secondly, I had to figure out how to be best described and that took time too, I will settle for "Hard of Hearing", thank you. Thirdly, among other crazy things that have happened to me in the last two months, I have lost one hearing aid and taken up 2 other sets for trials -- and been battered and bruised by the chaos of voices machine-gunning into my head. And lastly, I have been busy with the demands of writing copy (and some poetry).

P.P.P.S -- The title of this blog post is borrowed from a Daniel Craig movie that I have seen more than 4-5 times on the telly. Late at night, with subtitles (of course).

"Media-shy" from my book (Moving On) nominated for "Best of the Net Anthology"

2010-08-09T05:13:00.000-07:00

Yes, one of my poems (Media-shy) has been nominated for Best of the Net Anthology by Asia Writes. A big thank you to the guys at Asia Writes and Professor Lee Upton (the judge who selected the 6 poems to be nominated from Asia Writes).

Thank you again, Asia Writes and I wish you guys go from strength to strength!

Six Stanzas on Nirvana (Salvation)

2010-08-06T22:54:00.000-07:00

I am neither the mind, intelligence, ego nor chitta (seat of memory); neither the ears nor the tongue nor the senses of smell and sight; neither ether nor air, nor fire, nor water nor earth -- I am eternal bliss and awareness, -- I am Siva! I am Siva!

I am neither the prana (vital force), nor the five vital breaths, neither the seven elements of the body, nor its five sheaths, nor hands, nor feet, nor tongue, nor other organs of action. I am eternal, bliss and awareness -- I am Siva! I am Siva!

Neither greed nor delusion, nor loathing, nor liking have I; nothing of pride or ego, neither of dharma or object, nor of desire or liberation. I am eternal, bliss and awareness -- I am Siva! I am Siva!

Nothing of pleasure or pain or virtue or vice do I know, of mantra or sacred place, of Vedas or sacrifice; neither am I the eater, nor the food nor the act of eating; I am eternal, bliss and awareness -- I am Siva! I am Siva!

Death or fear I have none nor any distinction of caste; neither father nor mother; nor even a birth have I; neither friend nor comrade, neither disciple nor Guru. I am eternal, bliss and awareness -- I am Siva! I am Siva!

I have no form or fancy, the all-pervading am I; everywhere I exist, and yet am beyond the senses; neither salvation am I, nor anything to be known. I am eternal, bliss and awareness, -- I am Siva! I am Siva!

From "Thus Spake Sri Sankara" -- a Sri Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore publication.

P.S. -- I wonder if these have been translated from "Sivanandalahiri" that epic Sri Sankara is believed to have composed at / after his visit to Srisailam.

Saaz Aggarwal on "Moving On"

2010-06-23T06:02:00.000-07:00

By and large, Facebook has been pretty good to me and I
have met some really amazing people on this social networking
site. One of them has been the amazingly versatile, highly
prolific (she's a writer, editor and poet too) refreshingly
witty Saaz Aggarwal.

Our interactions were about this and that (and of course Hyderabadi
Biryani) and when Saaz came to know that I have a book of poems
out, she went ahead and bought it, (from Evening Hour) promised
to read it and even said she may review it for her blog.

That verdict is out and available in full
here.

I am like, YAY and Wooooo Hoooo Hoooo to see that she says...

"Anand’s poems made me smile – some for their wit, some for their
depth. The themes were mostly elemental and filled with
passion … the monsoons … rivers, lakes, hills, trees and
cloudbursts the poet had allowed to enter his consciousness and
emerge, transformed, as evocative words on paper … a word sketch
of a day-wage labourer … the knowledge that one would have to learn
history from a book rather than from a grandmother who had lived
it … and many that dealt with a broken heart."

Thank you Saaz Ji. Thank you!

Saundhi -- An Evening of Poetry

2010-06-23T02:31:00.001-07:00

Apart from being a number of things that are food
for thought, Evening Hour is also a bookstore
(and lending library) that sells books online.
My book has been available at Evening Hour's Kukatpally
bookstore for almost 4 months now and Priyanka (who's
single-handedly taking Evening Hour places)
also tells me that it has been doing well and
attracting readers.

For as long as I remember, Priyanka has been
inviting me to interact with Evening Hour's
customers under their "Meet the Author" event.

For as long as I remember, she has also been indicating
a keen interest to organize an event specifically for poetry.

That's the setting then, for Saundhi -- An Evening of Poetry
at Evening Hour's store on 26th of June.
I will be there and in conversation with Dr. A Giridhar Rao.
Thereafter, it will be an "Open Mic" session, for poetry readings.

If you have wanted to meet me and are in Hyderabad on
Saturday do please drop by and say hello.

And yes, if you have wanted to experience the magic of
a poetry reading, or wanted to read out poetry
(by you or by anyone else) to a very receptive audience
in an informal, chilled-out atmosphere, don't miss
this "Open Mic".

Saundhi - An Evening of Poetry
When - 26th June, 2010, 6.30 pm onwards
Where - Evening Hour Store, JNTU Lane, Kukatpally, Hyderabad

Questions about "Open Mic"? Call Priyanka at 040-65873003

Know somebody who you think writes amazing poetry? Let him / her know!

A Bullet in the Rains

2010-06-19T02:44:00.000-07:00

Among the many other things I don't manage to tell this blog
(in time) is the fact that this April my Bullet turned 8.
That is 8 years. By extension (I don't have a car, maybe
I don't really like being boxed in one, maybe I am
claustrophobic, or maybe I just don't need one) this means
that I have been riding through Hyderabad's monsoons
and enjoying getting drenched in them every year.

It's a cycle for me, you see, something that I await without really
knowing why, something that also brings out the neanderthal in me
(I like grinning up at the raining skies, I like riding through
the stinging curtains of water, I don't really mind the discomfort
or the pain of having to ride through waterlogged traffic that
moves slower than a prehistoric moraine) and I am not at all
ashamed to say that I love almost everything about the rains*.

Let me temporarily forget that last year when it rained and I got
back home (in the midst of a power cut), I had slipped on a far from
thin film of water that had "rained" in and fallen heavily onto my
behind. I am sure (rain lover or rain hater) you will excuse me for
cursing the rains (and the builder) loudly for three odd days
in that instance.

Coming back to the Bullet, I guess it is not as low maintenance as
me after all, or maybe it's the fact that I do use it, or it's the
fact that the quality of whatever goes into it as spare parts sucks
to high (rainy?) heaven. Anyway, I have changed the petrol
tank cover thrice and there is this memorable incident related
to the petrol tank cover, the Bullet (and me) and the rains that
is best related on a day like this (call me a fool later if you
want) when after getting wet the way I did yesterday, I would say
it does seem that the Monsoons have "set in" over the Deccan.
And hey, hey, hey, far earlier than last year, no?

So this was the incident then (three monsoons past, if my memory
serves me right). The petrol tank cover had gone kaput again -- was
not lockable -- and I was returning from a friend's place
having ignored his requests and remonstrances to stay back
and wait out the rain. And it was pouring away. As happens in
Hyderabad (and maybe in your city too, I wouldn't be claiming
exclusivity for this, patriot that I am) when it rains for more
than half an hour the roads look like a landscape scoured by
streams and rivulets in a hurry to go and drain into some
now non-existent friendly neighbourhood lake. So I was riding
blind not knowing if there's a speedbreaker, a pothole or
something far more dangerous ahead of me under all that water.
And then it happens, I go into some kind of depression, the
Bullet sinks fork deep in waters and by the time I am out of it,
the petrol tank cover goes flying off!

Ever tried finding something that has fallen into swirling
rain waters? Believe me, it's no easy task -- especially in
the evenings -- even if you are on your hands and knees.

But all the while I was searching for the petrol tank cover,
the Bullet was idling away, unmindful of the rain bouncing off
its chrome and lancing into its petrol tank -- for what must
have been at least 2 or 3 minutes. This incident / story had a
happy ending, I found the petrol tank cover and (I did say,
happy ending) as expected, the Bullet didn't die
on me.

So now you know. I love the rains and the Bullet does too.

And yesterday it had rained and rained and rained and
rained some more. From what I could see, no cats or dogs died,
but immaterial of that the gutters weren't much distinguishable
from the roads and the roads (thanks to the medians in between)
seemed to be stopping the waters and turning into one-way canals.
So it meant something like two hours of riding to get back home,
with some stretches (the ones on Necklace Road and near
Sanjeevaiah Park specifically ) making me feel that I am riding
on a lakebed. After all, that is what most of Necklace Road is,
isn't it?

But yes, I did have an amazing time, getting soaked to the
skin and never having to stop, even while the autos and (some) cars
around were belching smoke (inzin mein paani ghoos gaya Saab) and
getting stranded.

I guess (in my far from direct or orderly way), I am writing this
blogpost out of happiness at yesterday's experience and as tribute
to the trusted chrome-plated steed that I ride. And there seems to
have been no permanent collateral damage (apart from the cell phone
dying) to me either**!!

And oh, yeah. Speaking of the Bullet, it started at first kick
today morning again. Talk of the small joys of life.

* Scratch out riding through Punjagutta Circle, Ranigunj and Abids
Circle, even after 5 minutes of rain. Double scratch the very idea
of trying to get hold of an Auto after 30 minutes of rain. And don't
get me started on the quality (or lack) of anything close to civic /
city planning in Hyderabad when it rains.

** The "Cargo" trousers I had on yesterday should get dry by today.
My cellphone died on me and finally lit up today morning (and I had
to tell it the time for a change!!). My wallet (incidentally of
Camel leather and picked up at a roadside shop near the fort at
Jodhpur is almost dry and apart from slightly bleary eyes (paani
ghoos gaya) and a sore throat (I did seem to have drunk in some of
the rains) I am pretty much okay.

As Summer Ends

2010-06-09T05:43:00.000-07:00

How cyclical the seasons are and how independent of our concepts of time (days, months, years) pains and sufferings too. We are 9 days into the June of a blazing, in many ways vitriolic, almost "out of Dante's inferno" summer. And yet, it seems respite (in keeping with it's own cyclical timing) is here. Science (or rather the newspapers and the TV Channels quoting the Met Office) tells us that the Monsoons are already here, that they will be average (but for a shortfall here or there) this year.

And though a part of me is guarding against getting excited or happy or relieved too early (after all, the last edition of the monsoons over the Deccan was so fickle-natured it left me "Unslept") this year it seems the rains will come on time.

Why do I say this? On what authority?

For one, it has blazed so much all this summer that it seems any more heat would be against the laws of nature (Global Warming be damned).

For another, it has been "clouds floating in a sea blue sky" kind of views for most of the last week or so, and those clouds seem to be packing up now and today was positively overcast.

For yet another, its been amazing cycling weather for the last two days (at least where I live, in between NH7 and SH1) and yes, I have been out cycling and even spotting a bit of wildlife here and there in the wilds around my place (this will need some explanation, maybe later). While on the cycle, for some reasons I get to either blank out my mind or focus it; in comparison, when on the Bullet, my being is in ferment with a continuous stream of thoughts, almost as madcap as Hyderabad's traffic.

And yes, for yet another, it rained a bit (and gusted a lot) yesterday evening. And no, I don't think it was summer rain. Though there has been quite a lot of it here. Because, yesterday evening it smelt different, there was a promise in the fragrance of the breeze. How do I explain that in English?

Saundhi, it was, the smell of rain on parched earth.

So, on the basis of the available evidence, I pronounce this the end of summer.

Amen.

Calling the Rains

2010-06-06T05:40:00.000-07:00

Islands white
in a sea blue sky
clouds stay
like inkwells
feeding memories
wet with aquamarine
and a thirst for rain
O, that I could be
a tree dancing in glee
my leaves like windswept hair
breezing
breathless with song

To a nameless hill near Thotlakonda

2010-06-03T08:09:00.000-07:00

The moment sat between us
like a table clothed
by a listless sky,
sea water turns
this empty beach into glass
reflecting your wilderness
like some past;
of your eagle eyries
and wild palms
soon there will be no history
as tourists drive up you
for a hotel with a view
unknowing, child-like
the seas of time will
still swish in, to take away
whatever remains
of the silences
that were once simply wild.

Moving On, now available at Benguluru

2010-05-27T02:29:00.000-07:00

If I ever get around to doing a book tour, I would love to do it on my trusted Bullet. And what better way to carry along my books on the road, but in my Cramster saddlebags? After all, my first pair of Cramster saddlebags lasted me for more than 6 years, usually carried at least one book (apart from my Lonely Planet Atlas, my other maps and notebooks into which I rarely wrote my trip logs and other biking gear) and never gave me no issues!!

And yes, I have another new pair waiting for me to hit the road again. When I will be doing a book tour and which book I will be carrying in my Cramster saddlebags, only time will tell.

Meanwhile, if you are in Bangalore and wanted to get a copy of my book, do pick it up from the Cramster Showroom. It is at,

110A, Westminster, Cunningham Road, Bangalore - 560092

The store is open on all days (including Sundays) from 11 am - 7:30pm , and the phone number is +91-80-41519713.

Many, many thanks (and a biker salute) to Keerthi and Cramster for this.