Why I want to wish all of you a very Happy Friendship Day.

I have rarely been friendless. My life has been dotted with friends, in a way, that keeping 'FRIENDS' on Y-Axis and 'YEAR' on X axis, joining the dots would give you a flight of stairs. This stair upwards is a reflection of my evolution into the person I am today. And I like to believe that each of those friends have contributed.
Even if there were heart breaks and betrayals, even if I no longer speak to them. They will always be significant towards shaping my life because those dots cannot be erased.
In retrospect, I realise that I have been very fierce as a  friend. I have harboured extreme emotions and often my  'friends' have found it difficult to handle. Hence, many left failing to identify with my obsession with the relationship.
Today, I have this tiny group of friends, a couple of them sporadically located here and there across the country, some who have managed to survive this obsession and others who have embraced the madness.
Every friendship for me was for life. So, I ended up imposing my feelings and expected them to reciprocate, with an identical fierceness, in the absence of which I have felt dejected.
But, having lived 23 years of my unexpectedly eventful life, I wonder what I would I have done without all of you.
I know, wishing friends on a particular day is a cliche, but I am a fan of all cliches.
Most of the friends that I have today have come to develop dual identities.
A sister became a friend about 18 years ago, when I held her in my arms in a hospital ward. The memory has been recreated with the tales that I have heard over the years. Sometimes, I do wish I could remember the day exactly the way it happened but as this friendship strengthened, I have come to like this recreated version, making it dearer to me more than ever.
Then, there were friends who turned into sisters and a nephew became a friend. Meanwhile, bosses and colleagues became amiable. Friendship also gave me the person I would spend the rest of my life with.
I have inadvertently been part of trios, at school, in colleges.
Trio 1: Two girls from my days at coaching for engineering, which all three of us miserably failed at, made the failure so much easier to survive. Incompetence in a common subject was perhaps what united us.
Trio 2: We started off as a pair actually. Picking up t-shirts from the men's section, we loved to walk the streets of Kolkata in our sneakers with a backpack dangling over our backs. We were cool! Really cool! Then came along this third one. Slow, feminine but extremely talented lady-like classmate of ours. We wonder till date, how we came to become friends with this 'misfit'.
This a non-trio mention. She was not a part of any group for she was not meant to be shared. Kolkata wouldn't have been the 'City of Joy' for me had it not been for her. She was my mother, my sister and my friend all clubbed into one, for the three years in the city. She was my shoulder to cry on and my trove of happiness.
Trio 3: One of them became my partner for life. The other partner in crime. Frankly, I cannot remember the story of how the three of us came together. The brightest of the guys in our class and the most awesome (she likes it if you use the adjective for her) of the girls were my friends. I was sheer lucky, I suppose.
Here, I would like to make three more non-trio mentions.
This guy was my first friend in Dhenkanal. This obscure little place in the state of Odisha, became home as I took morning walks with him. He turned an anxious evening into a 'date' over gupchups and chaat. Today, we strangle each other and hurl abuses. But, he continues to remain close to my heart.
And another one, slightly older to me. My life would be nothing like what it is today, had he not said, "Bachhe!" and given me the best advice that I have ever received and I will be forever grateful to him.
In Dhenkanal, I also came across a man, who inspired me like never before; a teacher who had the capacity to transform a divided class room into a united newsroom; who was and will always remain our Captain!
I have also sought a friend in a brother/nephew. We have met what, three times? But, we have spoken for hours. He is the one who calls me half past midnight on my birthdays, just so we can talk uninterrupted and I? I forget to wish him when he turns 28? 29, I think.
It is said workplaces are not very friendly places. But, mine has given me some keepers.
Two madcaps - a dance partner and a Haryanvi dude.
A boss who is not bossy, who makes me want to go to work and a colleague stationed across the glass wall, who says I am her favourite.  
Last night I wished some of them a happy friendship day. One kissed me. She was lying beside me. One wished me back. One was amused. She sent back an 'LOL' for obvious reasons. And one asked me why I wished him, perhaps because we share a bond that encompasses emotions more than just being friends.
I said, "Are we not friends? Kuch bhi ho jaye, doston ki jagah hamesha alag hi hoti hai."

Why must I write? (1)

I had written two pages, when I realised that I did
not know why I was writing. The content of those
pages now only remain etched in my memories.
 Now, I am left with ink and paper, still unsure
Why I must write.

It is strange how I cannot write.

My head is heavy with concurrent thoughts,

yet I cannot write.

Why must I write?

I am aware of the ordeal.

Then why must I write?

In a book, on papers that no one must read,

by principle, none should read. 

My sleepless nights are mine, so are the drenched pillows.

I am aware.

How the clock ticks by and I refuse to sit up,

with dreams still wreathing over the lashes,

besides the salt creeks on cheeks.

I know it all.

From the throbbing in the ears to gasping for breath,

from muffled cries to shivering rage.

Then, why must I write?

Who must know? Of the throbbing, the rage?

None.

Or I shall be (declared) sick and mad.

I shall not write. I shall not write.

Picasso comes alive and I am Alice in Wonderland!

From what I gathered on my first international visit to Hong Kong, the city/country is a place that would not feature in a person's 'places to visit' list unless it is for work. 

It is not one of those holidaying locations that you can hope would give you some solitary time out from your otherwise maddening routine. In fact, with its tall standing skyscapers and fancy cars whizzing past, the city conspicuously demands sheer business.

The bustling city life in central Hong Kong. 

Double-decker buses whizzing past Des Voeux Road in cental Hong Kong. 

It's not like the city has any dearth of scenic sights or tourist spots. There is Disneyland, Lantau islands with adventurous cable car rides, an array of flea markets et all. But, (I am borrowing this line from one of the travel websites) if you can visit only one place in Hong Kong, it has to be the Victoria Peak.

The highest point in the city, the Peak, located right at the centre of all the urban hustle and bustle, will be your respite. For me, this place was a horizon where man and nature united in perfect harmony.     

I don't say this praising the impressive "development" that this tiny island country has undergone, because I am not a fan of glass buildings miraculously reflecting the world around them. I say this because, standing at the peak I was witness to the immensely popular tower-studded city skyline. 

The tower-studded Hong Kong skyline as seen from Victoria Peak. 

What I saw was spectacularly breathtaking, but not for the clusters of rooftops. It was how the serenely blue waters of the South China Sea breathed life into those tall concrete structures that stood on the edges of the Victoria Harbour, with lush green mountains guarding them from around.          

The magic of the peak lies in that unlikely sight of the grey shades of "development" diffusing effortlessly into the overwhelming blues and greens of nature.

The sea, the skyline and the lush green mountains.  

Also, since I did not get an opportunity to foray into the city to explore the flea markets, the Peak market was where I picked up little souveneirs for friends and family back home - chocolates, chopsticks, fridge magnets etc.

However, it will not be the skyline that will remain etched in my memory. The show stopper for the 4-day-long trip has to be the peak tram ride that I took to get to the top-most point. 

The 120-year old service that has evolved over time, took us up a steep mountain in a red colonial era looking tram, driving us through a dense forest, as we tried hard not to topple over with gravity pushing us down (literally).

The evolution of  the Peak tram over the last century. 

Our ride up the steep mountain to the Victoria Peak.

Looking outside the window was mind boggling and the entire tram was in a frenzy witnessing a world that was almost upside down. 

The skyscrapers which were built on the slope of the mountain were titled by huge angles. My years at school studying geometry and physics came crashing down as I saw high rises standing tall and firm while cutting through gravity. It was, in the true sense, unbelievable. 

The view from the peak tram. The photograph certainly does not capture even an ounce of what I actually saw. The   camera is parallel to the rails of the tram window, showing that it was not the picture that was clicked at an angle but in fact the skyscrapers are tilted. 

It seemed as if one of Picasso's cubist buildings had come alive and I was Alice in wonderland, caught in a dream that was real. 

It has been a week since I came back. And, it did not take me long to leave Hong Kong behind and get going with the new projects that lay in front of me, but that ride up to the Victoria Peak continues to baffle me, and words have often failed to articulate the 'once in a lifetime' experience.  

Tryst with a 'FOREIGN' land

     My first 45 minutes in a new country did not evoke any excitement whatsoever of having landed on a foreign soil.  In fact, after having stared outside the window of my ride like an owl for about 10 minutes, I was fast asleep, in the absence of being able to see anything “foreign.”

     Having been woken up from my clumsy car-nap by an abruptly sharp turn, what I saw was a seemingly infinite stretch of blue water on either side covered with a blanket of thick grey mist. But what left me gaping in awe was how the city enclosed the magnificence of this massive body of water making it look like a mere swimming pool, dotted with sparkling white ferries and the giant Ferris Wheel visible in the distance. The city looked vaguely foreign.

Victoria Harbour through the mist, with the Giant Ferris Wheel in the distance.

     With an entire day at my disposal, I was looking forward to venturing out and exploring the city, but the heavy downpour marred my plans and I resolved to stay back in my room and get over the journey’s fatigue by staring out of my window that overlooked nothing but a chic Prada store.

     After spending a few lazy hours capturing pictures of the monotonous urban sight, just when my enthusiasm was drawing to a close with the setting sun, the city suddenly lit up with shimmering lights adorning the highest of the buildings, and the double-decker trams and buses appeared to be bustling with spirit, as more people walked down the pavements with long umbrellas clinging on to their wrists. For the first time, the city looked distinctly foreign.  

The view from my window, while it rained in Hong Kong. 

     At the fancy dinner that followed later that evening with the directors and curators of one of the biggest international art fairs, the three-course meal served was undoubtedly the best in town, with multiple varieties of meat and what sounded like impressive innovations in vegetarian recipes. A slew of starters revolved on our tables as we made our picks with a pair of chopsticks. Failing miserably after several attempts, I resorted to a pair of fork and knife instead for the rest of the evening. Being a vegetarian, I was surprised at not being put off by an uncanny aroma of the food that looked tempting enough to dig in right away.

     But, what followed was an unpleasant treatment meted out to my Indian palette that has been cherishing the rich spices, with a customary overdose of salt and pepper since the last 23 years. Instead, it was offered Chinese delicacies that were, to everybody’s taste, devoid of any condiment. Being the only Indian at the bourgeois gathering, and also perhaps the youngest one, I had little courage to ask for an alternative and gulped down small portions of food with larger sips of red wine. The three days that followed were spent binging on chocolate bars and packets of chips. The land now exposed itself to be gastronomically foreign.

Steamed wintermelon with mushrooms. Picture courtesy: hongkongairlines.com

     What came as a sigh of relief was surprisingly the language; to tackle which I had come prepared with a trove of possibly useful words and sentences translated into Chinese. This precaution was taken based on an earlier experience when China was participating in the International Book Fair in Delhi and delegates from the Chinese publishing industry were visiting the capital city. With almost all of them unable to converse in English, I assumed it unlikely for English to be among the commonly spoken languages in Hong Kong.

Connaught Place in Hong Kong. 

     However, to my surprise all sign boards and advertisements written in Cantonese and Mandarin were followed by an English translation. It was not difficult running into friendly Hong Kong citizens walking down the streets and striking up a conversation about their country and mine. I had come a full circle, feeling at home, but this time the excitement was at its peak.

Tumult of mighty harmonies

Like the most popular boy of class, Puri has always enjoyed the limelight, but then, the perks of being a wallflower are always there, for, at the end of the day, he outshines everybody else and comes out with flying colours. The colour of Gopalpur-on-sea is serene blue, it is foamy white and it is pitch black, reflecting the sunlight and that of the moon, leaving you mesmerized in the awe of its beauty, strength and vastness. It is infinite.

The perpetually incessant roar of the waves deafens you, taking you away from all the clamour, and putting your soul at peace like never before. As the azure sky meets the like sea, and you fail to distinguish the horizon,you realise that your eyes have ostensibly become stubborn, refusing to turn away without unfolding the mysteries beyond the blue curtain.

Unlike the blue Mediterranean "lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams", the growls of the sea at Gopalpur reverberate in your ears, annihilating all your agonies and afflictions. The sea takes it all. The sea is oxymoronic.

As the sun drowns into the waters, an all-embracing black engulfs everything in its vicinity. All that the eyes can discern are infinitesimal men in white, emerging out of nowhere, impending like an army attacking its adversary on the battlefield. The sea, at night, will petrify you out of your wits- prodding the most miniscule of the vices that you might have ever possessed.

At a time when nothing can be heard, but the howling sea, one experiences, what may be called the 'tumult of mighty harmonies.'

And after a combat - physical and mental- with the sea, you crash the bed as a changed individual, for you will have attained the pleasures of what saints have called salvation.

 

Tryst with reality

Sometimes called the city of joy and on other occasions the city of palaces, Kolkata has had several names. During the final days before the British left India, it also altered into the city of the dead. Sujata Massey’s book, The City of Palaces, is a tale of a young girl in search of her identity. Opening in the 1930s the novel continues in a linear fashion, as the girl searches for her family in a precarious world, wondering if she will be able to transcend caste after she’s orphaned and adrift to build a new life by herself.

Young Pom’s life changes forever when her family is wiped out in a devastating flood. She becomes a maidservant in a British boarding school where she discovers her gift for languages. Amidst the drudgery of her duties, she finds unexpected friendship and experiences the stirrings of first love. However, tragedy soon strikes, and she is forced into hiding. Alone and desperate, she makes a dangerous journey from the secretive, decadent world of an exclusive brothel to the grand metropolis of Calcutta. Swept into the rising tide of Indian freedom struggle, she creates a new life for herself, until her past returns to haunt her. Massey has written several stories set in Japan and United States since 1997, but her place of origin always called out to her. And certainly nothing could have been a better backdrop than India’s struggle for freedom for her latest novel. “I have always wanted to write about India but I couldn’t  until I had a specific story in mind. For years I kept trying different stories about Indian-Americans in the United States but they weren’t very inspiring,” she said.

Drawing parallels between India’s rutted ride to Independence and the setbacks in Kamala’s struggle for dignity, she said, “I researched what was happening in India each year and realised I could not possibly leave it out of the story. The 1930s were the turbulent end years of British rule. Some of the big events Kamala would have known about were Gandhi’s salt march, the hunger strikes undertaken by political prisoners in the Andaman Islands, the rise and fall of Subhas Chandra Bose and the Bengal famine. The biggest event of all was the World War II because Indians really had to struggle to decide whether they wanted to back Britain in the fight or consider a new world order with Japan.” A collection of books from British colonial India and the National library in Kolkata were the chief sources of research for Massey’s book.

Kolkata is the city that reeks of  elegant history acquired by India but as it strives hard to keep pace with the surrounding economics and development, the architectural treasures stamping the city’s elegant character are being gradually lost. “I wrote this book to help preserve my own memories of a landscape I love. If I’d waited any longer to write, I fear that I might not have had any of these charming old streets to walk through and would have struggled to paint any sort of picture of the late colonial period,” Massey said.

One of the unique things that you will come across as you read on is that the author has religiously incorporated epigraphs before beginning every chapter. The author said that these epigraphs were an attempt to bring the reader closer to Kamala — what she read and how she felt. “These epigraphs are not crucial to understanding the novel but are a way of reading along with Kamala. One can zip past them or dwell on their connection to the emotions or action within the chapter. Perhaps a reader might be intrigued enough by the quotation to seek out the entire original source,” she said.

While a lot of these epigraphs include meanings of words from the dictionary and lines from Tagore’s works, one of the epigraphs which deserves a mention is the one that is present before the novel begins. Fragment of a letter found by the Arjun Cleaning Agency was created by the author to “give an immediate indication of forthcoming suspense and also hint that the little girl whose voice narrates the first chapter, will grow into a woman of some controversy. Readers will find this letter mentioned within the story’s text, so its sender and recipient will ultimately be revealed,” she added.     (Published in The Pioneer)

Traces of the yore

As the dark frail bodies took a dive, the splashing water drew a wide smile across their faces. Not caring much about the filth, the little ones would take a leap into the water and emerge out of the adjacent well with beaming faces.It is probably the grandeur of Qutub Minar which stands magnificently at Mehrauli, that Gandhak ki Baoli and Adam Khan’s tomb, situated just at the rear of the tower, are not known by many. The only visitors are these little kids from the nearby areas. Interestingly, even the auto drivers are not familiar with the baoli’s name and often confuse it with Rajon ki baoli.The largest step well in Delhi, Gandhak ki baoli, was built by Emperor Iltutmish, the founder of the slave dynasty. It was built for Khwaja Sayed Muhammad Qutb-ud-din Bakhtiar Kaki, a renowned sufi saint whose dargah is not more than a minute’s walk from the baoli. It is believed that the emperor was a religious follower of the saint.
The dargah witnesses the Phoolwaron ki Sair (Festival of flower sellers) every autumn. Aiming to bridge the gap between Hinduism and Islam, people offer sheets of flowers at the dargah and the close by Yogmaya temple.Enclosed in an area no larger than one of the little parks in your localities, Gandhak’s baoli is likely to escape your eyes, but the tales that the people around have to tell are worth a share.The baoli has a circular well at its south, and the water in the baoli is believed to come through this well.  While one might conspicuously feel that it is the municipal corporation that fills up this well with water regularly, people believe it is “magic”.  “There have been times when the baoli remained dry for years, but nobody knows where the water comes from,” said Raju who was perched upon the highest wall of the six tiered step-well, with his friend Ghalib, watching the kids bathe in water.“Two years back the baoli was filled with water only till the second storey, and before that even lower.  This year the water has risen an extra storey,” said Ghalib. Adding to this list of fables, he said, “The water dries out when somebody drowns in the baoli.”“When the water dries up, people go to the Rajon ki baoli to bathe. It is said that the two baolis have never had water together,” he added. Dismissing the repelling filthy water and vindicating its name, the water in this baoli is believed to have sulphur and therefore healing properties. Ignorant of this fact, Raju fascinatingly informed, “People often develop the skin rashes other ailments during summers, but a single dip in the water cures all of them. Nobody knows how, but this really happens.” Believed to have witnessed a lot of diving and swimming competitions in the past, this historical structure stands neglected amidst a dilapidated neighbourhood. Apart from the Pahalwan dhaba, located infront of the baoli, there is absolutely nothing to attract visitors.  About 100 meters from the baoli, stands another unattended evidence of Indian history, Adam Khan’s tomb, which is locally known as Bhool Bhulaiyan. It is often talked about as the tomb from where Qutab Minar can be seen clearly, but the intricate art work on the ceiling has been seldom appreciated. Poor maintenance, however, is likely to make it invisible to the eyes very soon.On a summer afternoon, one is likely to find several people within the tomb which is erected opposite the Mehrauli Bus Terminus, but none of them, to your surprise, is likely to be a visitor. “Most of them come inside the tomb for shade, as they wait for their buses,” said Sudhir Kumar, security in charge of the tomb.  Although he said that young people do visit the tomb in the evenings, it is hard to believe with the structure standing like an abandoned pile of rocks and nothing more.    (Published in The Pioneer)