I aten't dead

Just out Borrowing (I think).
I'll know for sure if I come back.

Or more succinctly,

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over
Thought I'd something more to say ...

Highway to Heaven

(The original version of THIS)
(and with the pics they DIDN'T print. Gah)

Ramdhun Chaurasia gazes benignly upon us from his perch opposite Benaras’ Chowk Police Station. Five feet by five feet (and not more than four feet deep), his hole-in-the-wall paan shop provides the perfect frame for his venerable white beard and thick-framed square glasses. When I stop to take his picture, he folds his hands in a dignified Namastey, then waves us on into the maze known as Godhauliya. The heart of Benares, the essence of Kashi, this network of lanes lies slantwise along the northern bank of the Ganga. They lead, inevitably, to the 80-odd ghats that dot the bank. Two of these are also crematoria – Manikarnika and Harishchandra (where the king of legend is supposed to have stoked the pyres). The largest of them all, the Dashashwamedh ghat, is a microcosm of Kashi itself.

Half past eleven on a winter morning as Gupta-jee leads us across the road from Chowk Police Station into the mouth of the maze, shoving aside a stray bull with a slap on the rump. Smiling through a mouthful of ­paan, he says “Chaar cheez se bana Kashi – raanrh, sand, seenhri aur sanyasi”. The four things that define Kashi. I can understand the bulls, stairs, mendicants, but I’m discomfited by the casual use of raanrh­ – a term used interchangeably for widows and for prostitutes in this city of piety. I swallow the bile and walk on. Right at the mouth of the lane where we enter the labyrinth, a shop is doing brisk business. Milk. Hot milk ladled into steel tumblers from the huge pan where it simmers, milk so thick and sweet it’s almost glutinous, earthen bowls of cream sprinkled with saffron, pots of yoghurt and little earthen plates of skimmed cream. I glance at our guide and he answers my unspoken question. Not here, he says, the best lassi is over by the gate of the RamNagar palace, miles away and on the other side of the river. (And indeed it was awesome when we sampled it on the cusp of evening, lassi so thick it could not be sipped and we had to eat it with wooden spoons from earthen tumblers. But we were in Godhauliya …)

A few wisps of woodsmoke linger in the lanes of Benaras, rising above the smell of rotting flowers. But those are the grace-notes. The smell of incense is much stronger, and strongest of all is the smell of camphor. With good reason - this is the highway to heaven, the net of lanes leading to Manikarnika Ghat, where cremation and immersion guarantee salvation, and all day and all night the pyres burn down by the water’s edge. As we pause at a corner, we are shooed aside with chants of Ram naam satya hai. A small procession trails after a chaarpai. As it passes, we catch a glimpse of a bright Benares silk sari. The yards of finery lead but to the pyre … About 250 dead people pass through these lanes every day. I’m not much for spooks and haunts, but I really wouldn’t like to walk these lanes in the dark of the night.

But now, in the late morning leading into a coppery noonday, Godhauliya is bustling. Near the main road, the lanes are lined with shops. Sweets, religious tracts, flowers, unidentified multi-hued swatches of cloth (turbans?), tacky silvery fabric with glimmering fringes that could be used to scare away birds at airfields. Toys of the most hideous coloured plastic, ruled note-books for schoolchildren, paan masala in bewildering (and hitherto unknown) variety, souvenirs and gewgaws carved from stone. There are few buyers as yet. It’s too early in the morning – they will stop by after they have visited their Lord in his sanctum farther inside the maze, in the Kashi Vishwanath Mandir.

The Mandir itself is strangely disappointing. The approach lies through claustrophobic lanes choked with a double line of pilgrims. The courtyard now looks like the forecourt of a government office – railings of steel tubing, cemented pavements and dozens of policemen. Cameras are not permitted. We have to pass through a metal detector; s” is high because a disputed mosque lies within the temple perimeter. In deference to my companions’ piety I join the queue, but even here “gorment” has its say. Gupta-jee­ mumbles something to the policemen and we are whisked ahead of the rest into a tiny room where flower garlands and offerings lie half-submerged in a small sunken tank. The crush is almost as bad as in Kalighat, that other centre for purveying organised religion. Most wonderfully, the overworked priest is assisted by a pair of policemen who obviously see greater merit in part-time puja than in the security detail. I notice they are more devout than punctilious – they have left their shoes outside. My daughter sets up a wail as we leave with our prasad. A monkey has made off with her packet. The NCO in charge of the police detail shrugs helplessly. Some aspects of security are not within his purview.

As we pick our way towards the burning ghats, Godhauliya is even more labyrinthine. The lanes meander, intersect, take sudden turns, make hurried ascents via steep worn stairs. Old doorways open into dark corridors and little courtyards where men sit on stools and chaarpais, reading papers, sipping tea. Barred windows look out on the unceasing slide-show. Discordant music surges out of one opening. It leads to a small iron gate with bars, a flight of steps leading down to a cemented basement where two bearded sadhus raise their voices in tuneless song before a vermilion smeared idol, competing with loud bhajans from a boom-box in a corner. The combined effect would have inspired loud protests from Fulliautomatix. The peripheral lanes are quieter, less crowded. One can stop to pass the time of day or share a paan. Amazingly, bicycles and even motorcycles appear round the sudden corners, their riders deftly threading between pilgrims and bulls alike. It must take a brave man to venture here on wheels, for a wrong turn could leave him facing a flight of stairs with no room to turn around. As one nears the ghats the pace picks up, the crowds increase. Where earlier three feet of width seemed quaint, it now seems stifling.

Long lines of pilgrims file past us, their eyes wide in a daze of faith, pushing their way past bulls and bicycles, their bare splayed feet oblivious of the cold and wet and the occasional hooved tread. In many groups the men wear cotton Gandhi caps. A cluster of bearded Muslims in skull caps are a pleasant confirmation of diversity. But I wonder, will they be allowed in? A disturbing thought. Most of the crowd are aged, definitely senior citizens, but instead of walking sticks they hold on to each other. I can’t help but wonder whether some of them secretly hope to pass away within these lanes, to go down to the ghat again but this time borne on the shoulders of their companions. Benares or Varanasi derives its name from the confluence of the Varuna and Assi rivers, but one has vanished and the other is now little more than a drainage canal. The only reality here is the Ganges, Ganga Maiyya, Ganga Jee. Infinitely tolerant, the embodiment of Awld Tom’s “infinitely gentle, infinitely suffering thing”, she knows that sooner or later, upright on two legs or stretched upon four, all things end in her. I read somewhere that there are seven categories of people who must not be burned: children, sadhus, pregnant women, and those who died of smallpox, cholera, leprosy, or snakebite. All the others come here at the end.

Perhaps the first sight of Manikarnika inspires pop philosophy. A house-high stack of timber awaits the funeral processions. In its shadow a calf suckles in its mother’s flank, providing either a picture either of life in the shadow of death or a reprise of the earlier Congress party symbol. As we join the stream flowing down the steps towards the river, my eyes go upward, seeking the house I have heard so much about. The palace of the Dom Raja. No pyre may be lit without buying fire from him, a right supposedly conferred by Vishnu himself. In a way, he is the gatekeeper to the next world Local legend has it that King Harishchandra served his penance under the king of the Doms. Ironically, the new electric crematoria have been installed at Harishchandra ghat. All I see, however, is another temple up the slope. The Dom Raja’s palace is a few hundred yards farther down the river, a flaking pile overlooking the river and guarded by two huge plaster lions. The lions have provoked the ire of the royal family of Ramnagar, who claim that only they are entitled to use the symbol. The essence of Kashi, a struggle between the temporal and the traditional.

Evening is drawing in as we make our way along the banks towards Dashashwamedh ghat. Half –way down the steps we pause to observe a stand-off between a billy goat and a matted mendicant. Hard to tell which one smells more rank. Boats are drawn up at the steps. A horde of tourists will go out on the river for a special view of the ghat after sunset, to observe one of the best-kept secrets of “incredible India”. The Sandhya Arati, the evening invocation at Dashashwamedh is a unique experience, a religious rite transformed into sheer spectacle. The Ganga Seva Nidhi deserves praise for cleaning up the ghats and organising the show, every night of every year from 1999 onwards. Under the lights, seven priests in unison invoke the gods with slow synchronized movements, with flaming candelabra, conch-shells, torches, while the accompanying scriptures boom out from loudspeakers and roll across the river to the sand-banks on the far shore. For one hour, while the boats rock and creak on the waters, we are lost in the ebb and flow of the ritual.

Later, when the lights have gone out and the ghats are dark again, we wend our way homewards through Vishwanath galli. Brightly-lit shops line the entire lane, one operating from a shrine to Krishna. Little paan­ and cigarette kiosks appear unexpectedly. Shops selling myriad mouth-fresheners – ­supari, gulkand, paan masala - all have Bengali names, but our skeptical companion sneers that it’s a marketing gimmick. Even late at night, there is no escape from the devout. Sound the trumpets and the bucinas, the saints are marching by! A band of bearded ­sadhus­ swing down the lane scattering all before them with the cacophony of their music. By the time we reach the end of the lane, footsore and faintly sweaty, we have had enough of tradition and spectacle. Hot kachoris and spiced tea are far more tempting.

The essence of these lanes may be this, that they are history and splendour only for outsiders. For those whose lives unspool within the lanes of Kashi it is home, a living organism that breathes and eats and barters and bickers while death and religion flow through the maze into the all-forgiving river.

And every day's an endless stream ...

(Published in HT Mumbai, 24th April, with a few well-deserved cuts. Check out the last page of the current TIME magazine for the value of a good editor!)

Mornings, evenings, afternoons. The faint rushing of the AC. The gurgling of a flush in the next room. The vestigial babble from a muted TV. The hiss and “pock” of the electric kettle coming to a boil. The silence of a hotel room is all of these. And more. It comes from within, a slow flood that drowns out sound, a flood that rises from too many coffees in front of too many flickering TVs, unfamiliar newspapers under identical doors, from too many tables for one just because another room service dinner can’t be endured.

The first few months, the first few times on the road, a good hotel room is a haven, an assurance of comfort. There’s a lot to be said for a life where just about anything you want is at the other end of a phone call. Where the room is cleaned and the bed made even before you ask. There’s a certain reassuring sameness to most hotel rooms – the same design, the little foyer with the mini-bar and the door leading into the bathroom, the standard furnishing of bed, bedside tables (with a Gideon Bible and perhaps a Bhagavad Gita in the drawer), armchair, desk, wardrobe, wastebasket. Then you learn to look for the little things where class shows. The choice of pictures on the walls. A footstool for the armchair. The basket of fruit, the chocolate stand. The packaging of the toiletries. (With the exception of the Marriott in Hong Kong, the stuff inside the packaging is indistinguishable. But I still filch them. It’s a neurosis, I think.)

The first few trips. Then they start to run into one another. That day I actually had the time to soak in a bath, was that Ahmedabad or Coimbatore? That long conversation on the phone, was that in the Qutb or the Ashoka? Then the sameness begins to haunt you. The evenings stretch longer. The room service menu seems to lurk like a malign presence in the old family mansion. The television’s babble invites a savage stab of the power button on the remote. Nothing fits. Especially inside my head.

Room service. At first it’s such an indulgence. The tray, the napery, the waiter’s bow at the door. The food is rarely top-notch or even good, but it’s such luxury to have a leisurely undisturbed dinner with a book. Faintly decadent, and all the better for it. Later, the longings. For a salad just so, or sautéed vegetables and butter on the side with a nice broiled chop. Which NO room service manager can understand or cater to. (These days I’m careful to order only the most basic stuff, say, a Caesar salad or some grilled chicken, the kind of thing I can set to rights with olive oil and lemon if the kitchen has goofed.) And the battle, every time, to get the makings of a café Viennoise and NO, I do NOT want you to make it for me, I want whipped cream on the side, no, NOT fresh cream please. Agh. Exasperation. (To be fair, the Metropolitan in Delhi – the Nikko as used-to-be – know what I need by now.) Eventually, the ho-hum pulling on of a shirt at ten in the evening and wandering down to the lobby floor to check out the restaurants. Because there are only so many calls one can make, so many re-runs of the same headlines to watch on TV, a book lasts an hour at most and the empty room seems to snigger at me.

Dining alone in my room is lonely. But after a while, even the best chef can’t make up for the loneliness of dining alone in a restaurant. Where laughter rises from a table for four and the couple two tables down are leaning towards each other with a shared smile. While I nibble on an asparagus stick and debate on another trip to the salad bar. It’s not you, chef. It’s just that the meal doesn’t taste so good without somebody to share it with.

Some places I want to share the view. Green wind-swayed expanses from the upper floors of the Delhi Oberoi. The sea from my room at the Vizag Taj, or from the Sea Lounge in the Grand Old Lady of Apollo Bunder. Far pavilions on the horizon from Wildflower Hall. The urban glitter from the Hong Kong Marriott. Or the Pennsylvania on 8^th Avenue.

Some hotels are just so gorgeous that nothing else matters. For me, top of this list is the Taj West End in Bangalore. A low-rise built on an old planter’s estate, it sprawls across 20-odd acres with pathways winding between flowering trees and little green nooks. Some day I shall go back to their oldest room, in the original planter’s bungalow with wooden stairs, brass fittings and a huge dormer window that looks out on trees with blood-red flowers. There are others that come close. The Grand in Calcutta has real character, and huge old rooms like a nabob’s palace. Perhaps it’s a good thing that the present management considers aggressive marketing infra dig. (It also has an outstanding dessert buffet, but I’m trying to be strong). The Metropole in Brussels, 112 years old, the lobby and bars all golden light and warm wood panelling, chandeliers and polished brass. But it has no views and the rooms, though huge, are a little stark.

Some things you learn. Not just “tip once, tip early, tip big”. I’ve learnt that that the so-called club floor is usually a rip-off, where you pay extra dollar just for a concierge button on the phone and free coffees in a lounge you never get around to using. There are exceptions, like the Park in Delhi where the tea lounge is a quiet vantage point for amazing sunsets. I’ve learnt that even if it takes another quarter of an hour and another trip downstairs, it’s better to change your room right away than put up with the banging of the service door. (NEVER ever take a room near a service door. At the Marine Plaza last month, I managed to get to sleep at around 1 o’clock after a long evening with blogger friends. Only to be woken at a quarter to two by loud banging noises from the corridor. A drunken NRI couple, fat ugly and totally uncool as they bulged out of their all-black outfits, had tried to walk up from the lobby and found themselves on the wrong side of a locked service door.)

If you’re staying at the same hotel a second or third time, it helps to know a name or two. Even if the chap isn’t around, asking for him makes a point. Think about it – when you’re greeted by name, you feel a little better because you know they’re taking the trouble at least to check the room list. Don’t you think it works in the other direction too? (This works like a charm at restaurants as well. In fact, anywhere in the hospitality industry. Which, face it, is a tough and usually thankless environment. Especially when catering to a curmudgeon like me.) This does NOT work, however, in a faceless warehouse like the Ashoka. The manager in one wing may not even know the lobby manager’s name. Besides, there’s usually a high attrition rate and the staff keep changing.

I’m picky about little things. Like freshly ironed clothes. Hotel laundries are always hugely over-priced and not always reliable. Would you risk the possibility of your Italian (or faux Italian) wrinkle-free shirt coming back with the cuffs shiny or, horrors, a burn mark? That too, half an hour after you’ve showered and left the room? I get around this by asking for an iron and board in my room. In the evening, because first thing in the morning there’s a run on the irons. Free, flexi-time and if the collar’s ruined, at least there’s nobody else to blame. But you have to find an accessible power point. If there isn’t one, I’d look for another hotel. Next time, of course. Unless you use the travelling salesman’s trick of hanging up the shirt in a steaming shower stall. That works too.

Meantime, there’s the mystique of the mundane. Hang up my clothes, give my shoes a quick wipe with the shoe-mitt (I’ve stopped hoarding those), pack everything except my toilet kit and the laptop. Shake out the blanket, put a bottle of water on the bedside table, fluff out the pillows, set the air-conditioning just so, use the bedside console to switch off everything except the lamp on the far side.

Then lie awake in the dark for an hour or so while the smoke detector blinks above me and the ticking of the clock becomes clearer. Tomorrow is another day. With a pre-dawn taxi ride and a flight that is bound to leave on time only if I’m running late. Good night, world.

One way or the other

Work has a nasty habit of intruding upon Life. This has been a major reason for my infrequent posting over the last few months. (The main reason, of course, has been sheer sloth.) Now I have another one.

Some kind souls who are High Up in the Print Media surprisingly offered to print my effusions. What’s more, they actually followed up and printed them. Five or seven pieces over the last 9 months. I am deeply grateful (and marginally richer. Yes, I said marginally. Hint!) The down-side is that they have Strictly Forbidden me to post on my blog the stuff I send them, at least until after they have printed it. So now I have two thingies under submission. One will be printed on the 19^th (or so I’m told). The other one is Under Review.

So if you see a new post up here the day after tomorrow, please comment. Try and be exceedingly kind and complimentary to console me for my lack of income.

Eureka!!

A couple of years ago, a friend in Bates mailed me a sound clip.

Take one passionate Bong voice-over artiste, put him in front of a mike, stir him up about S. Ganguly’s ouster and sneakily record the out-takes of his ire. The result is a 6-minute piece known to the Bong Underground as – what else? – Bonguly.

Awesome stuff that’s lifted my spirits on many a late evening in office. I posted about it at the time (this is for YOU, before you say I’m repeating myself!) but now I found the link on The Empty Vessel (many thanks!).

Enjoy.

And since I'm at it, I may as well put up (another repeat) my other contribution to Gross National Happiness. (Quite gross, but utter delight). Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Doyal Baba.

Half a weekend

The sun is rather obtrusive. Definitely not the slow lapping flow of dawn across the Discworld, no gentle peeking over the edge of the world. The haze on the horizon stages a brief and ineffectual struggle and suddenly the sun has arrived, leaping and clawing its way up the sky. The first shimmering track across the sea becomes a pool, then a blaze of bronze that inverts shadows on the wall of my room. It’s morning in Vizag.

The view from my room is … well, not awesome, but spacious. The kind of vista that makes you straighten up and breathe deep. A submarine surface-crawls across my sight, moving south towards the breakwater and the Navy base. I count seven eleven ships at anchor between the shore and the edge of the sky. A Coast Guard cutter follows the submarine towards the Dolphin’s Nose, where the lighthouse beam has faded in the sun. Two little sailboats scud along behind it. One looks like a log under a sheet. Seven little dark blips upon it; the last one must be the outboard motor. Farther north, a line of white pyramids stretches out to sea. Buoys. Last night they were lit up like party decorations. Right below my window is a morning throng. One pair of earnest joggers ignores the promenade and runs right along the road. So much energy at a quarter past six? Not just tiring but wearisome. I turn away for my morning work-out - two cups of coffee and the papers.

Vizag is sea-washed, hill-cupped, new, eager and hot. The roads are wide and smooth, the town is clean. Most Indian towns are disfigured by skeins of wires – cable connections, phone lines, power lines - that cobweb across the line of sight. Not so Vizag. So very civilised. The road from the airport is tree-lined, double-laned. As we enter the town the intersections are wide but chaotic. Something seems odd. Then I realise that the skyline around most of the crossings still stops at the second storey. Vizag is a town on the cusp of the boom, a city waiting to happen. Except by the shore road, where already block after block of near-identical condos hold their washing out to dry in the sea breeze. Land values have skyrocketed recently. The Telengana movement wants Hyderabad as its capital, leaving Vishakhapattinam (a would-be capital city is beyond diminutives!) to be the capital of Andhra.

I spent the previous day in the basement of the hotel, struggling through a learned workshop on Total Quality Management. My "take-away" is that even the most learned experts can be poor communicators, especially when carried away by their own enthusiasm for the subject. The basement cannot be accessed from within the hotel – we have to go out and come in again from the seaward entrance. The Taj Residency also has a very considerate plan. The breakfast room is so located that getting to it is bound to work up an appetite. It does have a view of palm trees and the sea, but the dosai are indifferent. Sad. I sacrificed my diet for THIS?

No, I didn’t. I sacrificed it to check out a place called Pastry, Coffee & Conversation. Recommended by an old friend and confirmed by a blogger. The way they hyped it, I thought it was a large bistro. Turned out to be a tiny shop tucked away below a rising road. Serves the most ‘mazingly good chocolates and decent pastries. The hot chocolate could be improved, though. For anybody visiting Vizag, it’s 50 ms. up the hill, on the right as you pass Karachiwalla’s store. It's run by Rajan (a suave version of Mahesh Bhatt) who is Calcuttan by birth. N wonder the place is good!

No Rishikonda beach by moonlight for me. I staggered back to the room, showered and passed out at half eight. And slept till the sun came up like thunder ‘crost the bay. Too hot to go anywhere. In any case, the view from the Kailash hill the previous evening was quite comprehensive. The amusement park up there is too awfully tacky for words, but the view and the breeze make up for it. All the way to the lighthouse beam on the headland, lines of surf along the beaches, wooded hillsides. The lights coming up in the city, and out at sea on the ships at anchor. (Wonder what the turnaround time is at Vizag port?)

The problem with small airports in India is that they don’t invest in air-conditioning. Mem: do NOT visit Vizag in summer, I’d probably collapse before I got out of the terminal (my friend has seen the board at Vizag station record 50 Celsius. Birds drop out of the sky in that kind of heat. Stupid twits to try and fly.)

My first trip on Deccan. Or Simplifly or whatever it's called these days. The first row is the only way to avoid claustrophobia, but I’m too late for that. No tele-check-in. Damn. But there are only a couple of dozen people on board when the doors close, the entire rear half of the plane is empty. I wander off and get myself a row of seats with the arm-rests up so I can lie down.

Bizarre moment before take-off. The second stewardess comes amidships and starts demonstrating the safety drill. You know, that entire “pull down the mask and place it over your face” schpiel. For an audience of one. Viz., me. It must have showed on my face, for when she caught my eye her face crumpled into a grin. A joke is always improved by sharing.

Awld Tom goofed

He was wrong. April is not the cruellest month. March is. At least in India, where the fiscal year runs from April to … right, March. Peter Finch in Network was a model of restraint compared to how I feel now. Factor in the infinite wisdom of a system that demands weekly reports on a 5-year project. Oh Death where is thy sting etc.

Coffee breaks don’t work either. Because Bloglines has lost its charm. There must be more than 50 blogs on my list and I can’t bring myself to read any of them. Well, most of them. Which is why I don’t comment either, not that any of you would have noticed. Yes, I’m feeling very Eeyore at the moment. Or Marvin, depending on whether you read Milne or Adams.

What I am reading is The Wind in the Willows. In good company. Mostly on the way to school or at bedtime. (Not my school or my bedtime, thank you. Though I HAVE been known to fall asleep before the person-being-read-to.) Due to severe critical analysis, we have not made much progress. Apparently the passage on the first page where Mole “scrabbled and scrootched and scraped” is the most riveting piece of prose ever. Despite my very high regard for the critic in question, the passage palls on me after the 7^th or 8^th reading.

Then she laughs in delight. And it’s all quite all right again.

Sunday, I had an epiphany. Lunch at the new Mainland China in the South City Mall. (Food not great but quite acceptable, the starters were actually quite good. In any case, where on earth would you get a spread like that for about 300 bucks a head? They probably charge that much for a soda in Bombay! AND the guys know how to pamper regulars, we always get a tasting platter of some new dish.)

Lunch was followed by a long browse in Starmark. Now if they would only put up a counter that served Irish Crème coffee … Problem – I desperately need to buy new bookshelves. Or at least a couple of trunks.

Well anyway, the Starmark expedition required a trip to the car to cache the loot. While the rest of the expedition wandered off to other floors. (It’s a HUGE damn mall, specially by Cal standards.) Follow closely here, boys and girls. Big mall, many floors, reportedly 160,000 people passing through after 4:30 on weekends … so easy to lose people there, innit? Whereupon I retired to the car with the Sandman. Very nice.

Two niggling points. Amid all the glitter and the admiration for the vast atrium, my usual guilt about a comfortable life resurfaced. How many kids could you send to school with that kind of investment? Oh well, at least the mall isn’t built with public money.

And the other … as I left the washroom I complimented the attendant on keeping it spotless. He smiled a big smile and said thanks, feels good because nobody bothers to appreciate it. Which made me feel all cheery and benevolent until I thought, would I ever be able to do a job like that? Dear gods, eight hours of that could drive a man insane. Day after day after day. Damn.

**** ****

The pity of it all

This guy seems to have spoken sense, but of course truth and common sense are not priorities in politics.

Flying

Too lethargic to post something. So - partly inspired by Dilip D's road journals - more from a flying laptop, three weeks late.

Mosul. Tabriz. Qazvin. Mehrshahr. Karaj. Esfahan. Kirovakan. Yerevan. Azerbaijan. Qom. South of the Caspian Sea, Amol, Babol, Sari, Qaemshahr. Ashkkabad. Mashhad. Far to the north-west, Rostad la Danu. Baku, a name hovering in the north. From 7 miles in the air, the lights of Tehran. Amid all the still lights, one glimmers, like a flare at sea or a lighthouse waxing and waning. The city grid outlined in lights, a smudge of cloud or smog floating above the western part. Outlying clusters of lights mark the suburbs, dwindling into hamlets, between them the occasional single pinpoint of light, the “good deed in a naughty world”. Farther east the darkness swallows the scattered lights. It is easy to imagine life in the wastes, miles from any other human settlement. Easy to imagine the dragons of isolation, of solitude, that eat into the mind and start the cancers of fear and exclusion, fuel the winter dark and fill it with the terrible unknown.

Sevastopol. That last line from Matthew Arnold’s Sohrab and Rustam - “the new-bathed stars / Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea ..."

…”

Nearly midnight in India, "In dinon" from Life in a Metro in the earphones as the plane starts the descent towards Chennai. Four hours in the airport before my connecting flight to Calcutta. Back after nine days, three countries, three cities. Ahead of me, two days of bloodshed in office, but that no longer matters when compared with the prospect of a Small Welcome and a Familiar Teddy Grumble.

****

Sigh

How sad is it when an old man’s idea of a good time is reduced to listening to Iron Maiden at half-eight on a Saturday evening? In office?

Yet another airport

Fifteen minutes ago I was curious. What is a bocadillo? What does Iberian ham taste like? Now I feel like Obelix as a food critic (remember the exchange with Cleopatra’s taster?). Because the answer to the second question is, salty. As for the first, a bocadillo is evidently a sandwich in something like a small baguette. Not quite so crusty. Toasted and buttered, which is very welcome, but still a trifle rugged. Even when filled with Iberian (salty, OK?) ham and melted Brie.

Half past seven in the morning, dawn breaking through the glass walls, aeroplanes squatting on the tarmac like elongated chickens – any moment one of them will shake itself, fluff out its tail and emit a huge chuk-chuk-churr-oo-ook – the terminal warm and colourful like an indoor plaza. Smells of coffee and fresh bakes register somewhere in my lower brain, and my stomach lets out a low contemplative growl. Tell me, my good man, where is this lounge of which we hear so much?

A flood of totally incomprehensible Catalan follows, accompanied by seven finger waves, a shrug, a full arm point and two (consecutive) raised eyebrows. I stem the outpourings with a hurried ‘Gracias’ and back off warily. Have to find the damn thing myself. And I do. Which doesn’t help at all at all, because a vinegar-faced girl all but shoos me away for not having a privilege card. Excuse me, kiddo? I mean, what?! You expect all passengers through Barcelona to apply, WORLDwide, for a privilege card to this lounge that looks like the lobby of a budget hotel at 3 in the morning? Tell you what, senora, you give me back my boarding pass and I’ll go find a coffee somewhere more cheerful. Meantime, you have a nice vinegar-and-horse-piss, it might improve your attitude. Buenos dias, have a nice day, remember to shut the coffin lid when you take a nap.

Which is how I arrive at the Caffe di Fiore and the Iberian ham bocadillo. Table service only and they obviously have a height requirement for the waitresses. The biggest one could just about eyeball my second shirt button, and I’m not a tall man. Small neat packages they are, though. Black hair, black eyes and black uniforms filled just right. But they serve me a cappuccino gone cold and I have to ask for a fresh hot cuppa. Bad poodles! You shall not get your walkies unless you behave!

A Spanish couple and their two daughters take the table next to me. The husband is an ash blonde version of Cary Grant. The wife and daughters, sadly enough, all look like Sammy Davis Jr. So much for Brief Encounter 2008.

Four airports so far in the last seven days, two more to go. India has uniformity in uniform. The rules are the same in all the airports. Europe seems to revel in unpredictability. At Heathrow, they let me keep my belt on but I had to take my shoes off. Here in Barca it’s the other way round. As for ‘Any liquids’, I had wised up and put even the tiny travel bot of Klein (Eternity, yes I know some of you like to know these things even when it’s not Clooney, not that you can tell us apart in a poor light, oh you can? Did I ASK you, right where were we … ?) inside my suitcase. Which apparently weighs TWENTY-NINE kilos. Agh. That’s what comes of buying Moscatell on the cheap!

Idea – I should take up ethnography. Sociology. Whatever. Do a PhD on inter-cultural and intra-cultural differences as evidenced in airport security and tourist information offices. Important and useful, innit? If I can swing funding for it I’m set for a few years – travel and write and get paid for it.

Except that it would mean too many weeks and months away from a Very Small Person. Who has just asked on the phone, ‘Papa, WHEN will you come home?’ On my way, on my way, give me a day or two!

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

More airports

The perils of travel. Ah, a Boots right next to check-in. Enter Boots, buy water. Exit Boots, burly guy at international departures says ‘No water allowed, sir’; throw away water. (You have to go buy some more inside. Water is fine, bringing it across the barrier is not. Restrictive trade practices?).

Next, take out all your toiletries. Lucky lucky me, all they can seize is a nearly empty spray can of Old Spice Whitewater. Sucks to yer, mate, Oi’ll get meself a Bulgari in Barcelona. But I do have to bag all the teeny bottles and put them in the tray. Should I be embarrassed at the number of little bottles from hotel loos? Garn, who cares. Then, lose the shoes. Put them in the tray. The jacket? Yes sir, that would be a good idea. WITH the phone. Both phones. Anything else? I stop myself from asking if they want to see my new undies. Could be termed sexual harassment. Even though the guy at the security barrier is about the size of the Chrysler Building (only not so pointy on top). The idea of ANYbody other than the Rock harassing him is utterly ridiculous. Oh, maybe Vin Diesel could do it. Or Chuck Norris.

I’m lucky, they let me keep my belt on.

Figure this out, then – how did they let me through with a box of matches in my jacket pocket and a lighter (a very serious lighter, this one shoots a flame two clear inches, it’s practising to be a flame-thrower when it grows up) in the fifth pocket of my jeans where it’s VISIBLE?

So I’m through security. Where do we go from here? A sign says “Assaults on staff”. Do we line up and take turns? Naw, it’s just another stoopid example of guvmint bumph, warning AGAINST such assaults. Next item, where can I find a hot-spot? All around, mate, but you have to pay. The hotel may have been a little cramped and pokey, but wi-fi was free (not that I had much time to use it). And of COURSE my credit card has to act up NOW, just because there’s no way I can pay cash.

What else can I do to while away an hour and a haff? Check the change in my pockets. Three pounds twenny-one. What can I get for three twenty-one? Dunno, but it’s mid-day and I didn’t have much breakfast. Nor for that matter, much dinner last night. Hang on, there’s a couple of bank-notes in my wallet. Hi ho, Silver, we’re off to explore. I can come back later and fret about the chances of BA losing my luggage. Time out, gentlemen (which term legally includes ladies … )

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

In-flight

Seven miles above the earth, sipping on Dom Perignon while I nibble on Haagen Dasz chocolate ice-cream with some kind of pie that has orange peel in it. Bailey’s on ice frappe to follow, and for the first time, I wish air travel still permitted smoking. A cheap sweet cigar would have been SO good here. Or perhaps a fill of Amphora Cherry Cavendish.

I love upgrades. Sybaritic? Decadent? Bring it on, I say. And the pleasure is all the sweeter for knowing that sooner or later, this man will say “Dude, you’re doing that on MY money!” Thanks, dude, now with the aforementioned pride and admiration there’s also gratitude.

Far below us is Iran. The porthole frames an expanse of mud. From up here, it looks like Reza Shah Pallavi and the Ayatollah ruled over the world’s largest WWE mosh-pit. Then a ridge appears above the plains, like a crocodile's back surfacing. A great river valley runs from north to south, diagonally across the plane’s nor’westerly track. A series of little lakes, each with its own patch of cloud standing guard above it, dwindle into the north like yeti footprints. The in-flight screen shows us flying across the Arabian Sea, skirting Karachi and indeed all of Pakistan, entering Iranian air-space and passing way south of Kandahar and Kabul (north of Muscat and Bandar Abbas, I must post again about the magic of names). Our craft will pass directly over a town called Zahedan. Is it in these mountains that now appear below us, dark grey and stippled with patches of ice, little cousins of the Mountains of Mordor that rise above the northern horizon? Or does Zahedan lie in the Plains of Mud that must resume on the other side of the mountains? Our flight path lies north of Esfahan, south of Tehran, past Yerevan, over the Black Sea, past the south-facing port of Sevastopol and on over the Alps. Such romance in these names, such visions of deserts and caravans, ice creaking under oaken hulls and fir-bristled crags in the drifting snow.

The mountains I can see at this moment, however, could do with a make-over. Perhaps even personal stylists.

Then suddenly, dramatically, a huge massif, chocolate dark with crumbly crags, dusted with fresh cream and icing sugar^* …

I love these flying geography lessons. Like Goh Cheng Leong brought to life, or the Oxford Atlas from Metropolitan Book Store, only in bright new 3-D. If only I could connect to Google Earth in-flight. That can’t be more than 3 years away, watch this space.

Meanwhile, the sunset glows through the portholes over on the other side of the cabin. And I find some Bulgari in the wash-room. Tedium is so much more tolerable when one smells good.

* - I can’t download the picture from my phone without the connector cable. Which is back in Calcutta.

Plans

The festive season isn’t what it used to be. Good thing, say the PYTs. Gmph, say I. Muchly disappointed that we can’t order a truck-load – truck-load? Not even a head-load! – of authentic mince pies. Blitzed by hoardings and full-page ads about parties on New Year’s Eve. Confused about where and when The Gang assembles. Aching from misguided efforts towards the corpore sano … oh, OK, can’t blame that on the season, it’s a year-round constant.

WHY must ALL ads for these parties feature LARGE pictures of nekkid (well, almost) women? Are they trying to attract hormone-driven male teens who’ll shell out 3K to see skin? Do women form no part of their target audience? How do these joints think they measure up on the value-for-money angle? Face it, the bug-eyed male they’re aiming at could probably get far more direct satisfaction for the same amount of money. Beats me. A young friend (who is not unknown in the blog rajya) pointed out that the clubs, at least, also hold the promise of PYTs in TLDs (Tiny Little Dresses). I suppose that holds some appeal. Me, I knew I was old and past it on 31st December 1996 when my first reaction to the acres of PYTs in TLDs was ‘Those poor children will catch their deaths of cold!’

As for ourselves, we shall aggregate (a) selves, to wit, about 30 people who have been there, done that and don’t want to go there again, thank you (b) booze, with due attention to Smirnoff green apple and (c) food, large amounts, duhleeshus, from Bengal Club. We shall then hie ourselves to the terrace of a friend who combines the tools for a bonfire with the skills for a barbecue, where we shall stuff and irrigate ourselves till sleep overtakes us. Since we shall play our own music and not be at the mercy of some baseball-capped DJ who insists on playing house / HNeemesh, we might even Dance. All in all, a plan.

Pity about the mince pies, though.

Bulletin

There are a lot of helpful comments on the last post. Thank you very much, kind people. I shall respond to each individual in turn when I feel like a human being again (and not a rat’s breakfast. Don’t ask. If you’re on the platform at Mughalsarai Junction at half two in the morning waiting for India’s premier train, you actually get to see what rats have for breakfast. Excuse me while I have a quick puke).

I have not as yet bought a laptop. But I HAVE witnessed a superb spectacle. Now if only we Indians had sense enough to MARKET this …

In my-y-y life ...

Dependence. Realised once when the object of dependence is gone, realised again when a poor substitute arrives.

Laptops. My first, back in 2001, was a big clunky tank of a Thinkpad, shaped like a mini-bar and twice as heavy. I lived with that machine for nearly 4 years, carried it to just about every major city in this country and some cities outside. Plugged in what used to be called an air-card, stayed connected (as some of you might vouch) from Coimbatore and Ahmedabad and Jamshedpur (Kawardha beat me, though). Ran presentations off it 3 days a week, rummaged through it for old files and data, watched films on it on long boat rides to Haldia and on longer flights. I was a travelling salesman and it was my box of samples. We belonged together.

The Tank eventually gave way to a sleeker Thinkpad. With a touch pad. There’s life outside the track pointer!? Glory Hallelujah! I was converted within a week. Week? It took a day. So fickle are we, so quick to luxury. I sneered at that little nub that had been my support for years. But T2 and I were not long for each other. In two months, I changed assignments and bid her adieu.

In the next office I was Shown a Laptop. Such a laptop, O citizens of the cyber-world, such surpassing grace! A sleek metal shell with nary a straight line, blinking lights, a low businesslike hum … it might have got a featured role in Star Wars, it might even have made a pass at R2D2. It was a Character. But it was not a functioning laptop. I’d power it up, go into a meeting, come back and clear my mail, have a cup of coffee, finish a few phone calls – then check to see whether it had got around to asking for the password. It was the Ultimate Babu – solid, slow, dim-witted, contrary, unable to adapt (no DVD drive, ONE USB port?) and No Bloody Use.

There was a story behind that machine. Apparently my predecessor in that office had Attended an International Seminar. (Held in Calcutta, alas – International Seminars are so much more effective when they’re held in Rio or Majorca, but what to do, what to do.) And at that Seminar he saw one of his ilk, a fellow Babu from Bengal, yea, even a Bald Babu from Bengal, Making a Presentation off a Laptop. Which Presentation was Well Received and Mightily Applauded. The Predecessor, bless his naïve soul, thought it was genuine appreciation, little realizing that after lunch at a seminar all applause has One Great Cause, to wit, the need to Prove that We have been Listening and no NO we were NOT asleep. The Predecessor also Made the Next Presentation. Where he used transparencies. And Felt Inadequate. Wherefore the Word went Forth, Fetch me a Laptop, yea, even the Finest in the Land! And the query came, what are the specs? Then was there much bewilderment in the land (or at least in the company) and a plaintive question was heard, what specs? For specs there were none. Whereupon the Chaps at the Authorised Gorment Supplier exulted. And Fell About Laughing. And fought among themselves to Unload their Dud Stock.

Thus it came to pass that I was saddled with that Thing.

Out of evil cometh good, for the sheer awfulness of it goaded me to look for a new laptop. Which was how I came to find Penelope. Ah, Penelope, love of my life etc. (J. Humbert Prufrock?) Light, good-looking, easy to use and above all good to me, she was a Toshiba M300 Portege. We were together for two years until I switched to my present assignment. When I handed her over I saved her soul on three separate hard drives, but woe is me, I can never have her body again. (This is about as carnal as a middle-aged bureaucrat can get.)

My next was a Sony Vaio. Very posh, all mod con except maybe hot and cold running water and a back scratcher, but it Lacked Soul. I always had a sneaky feeling that it secretly sneered at me because I never played Halo or set up a video conference on it. Face it, a Vaio’s great for graphics and multi-media, it has major snob value, but it makes little sense for a dinosaur like me. When it was stolen last October, my sense of loss was tinged with a faint relief.

So now I’ve raided the office store and dusted off this Thinkpad. It’s bigger and heavier than the Tank (with a screen I could hire out to INOX) and only marginally faster than The Thing, but I’m grateful that I have SOMEthing to keep me company over the morning coffee until I can get a replacement.

Which brings me to what B.W. Wooster might, with his usual twittering brevity, term the res, the nub, the gist, the crux of the matter. What should I buy? The Toshiba M500 Portege would be the obvious choice, but it’s way too expensive. Poor value for money. Sony is out for much the same reason. HP have a couple that come close to my specs, but they’re heavy. The IBM X series are in there, but they don’t customize. Dell have put together an offer, but they’re trying to push a Latitude 430 – it’s light and small, but it has a 1.2 Ghz processor, no built-in optical drive and reviews say it super-heats to about 60 Celsius. I’m too old for Half-burnt Hams, thank you very much.

So where do we go from here? I use the laptop for (loads of) documents, the occasional presentation, photo-dumping, the Net and once in a long while, an in-flight movie. Which means I need a stable system (enough RAM), a fast but not super-fast processor, all the slots and ports possible, mid-range graphics and decent sound in a LIGHT package. Since I have a ginormous flash drive for data back-up, the optical drive can be external (translation – it can go in my checked baggage and not cripple my shoulder). Budget is not really a constraint, but it wouldn’t hurt if it came cheap.

Suggestions, wise people?

Coming soon ...

So the month is over and I should soon be back to a regulated lifestyle better befitting my geriatric status. The interlude ended appropriately. After seeing off Only Girlfriend, Brother-in-Arms and the Terrible (but Infinitely Adorable) Two at 4 a.m., I went back home for a short snooze before my flight to Delhi. Only to sleep through the alarm and be awakened by a call from Jet Airways asking where I was. My watch said 6:30. Take-off time. I’d missed the flight.

They put me on the next flight. At no extra cost. Hear ye, hear ye – be it known by these presentments and avouchments that I totally heart Jet Airways.

On a (slightly) more cerebral tack, one conversation sticks in my memory. Said conversation was under the watchful and rather wary gaze of Dipankar and Prashant, a pair of ace baristas­ who ply their skills in the Café Coffee Day in the Infinity Building out in Sector V. (I can recommend the Grande, especially with three shots of cream.) Since I’ve started recording my gratitude, let me also mention that they were very polite the first couple of times we dropped by, gathered our coffees and walked outside without paying. Of course, we were only stepping out for a smoke, but it is testimony to their savoir faire that they did not emit outraged squawks. After all, it was close to 2 a.m. Within a couple of nights we were regulars and they had us down pat, right down to the re-heat and extra servings of whipped cream.

So, the conversation. Marijuana is outlawed in the USA. For no good reason except that the pharma majors are scared witless of the hit on their market share if it could be bought over the counter. Makes sense. I have to read up on that. From there, a discussion of human motivation and government. How stupid is it to outlaw prostitution? Wouldn’t it be much better to legalise and regulate it? Wouldn’t it make a dent in violent crime, in the spread of HIV? Have to read up on that too. By extension, a lot of stuff that's outlawed in the name of morality would actually be pretty innocuous and healthy if it were legal and regulated. Covers practically every possible situation between consenting adults, though there are grey areas where such activities cause physical harm to either or both parties.

Meantime, what do YOU think?

Anomie

It’s a strange feeling. Like coming back to a house where you once lived. Perhaps when you were a child. Or at least many years ago. Remember that scene in Yaadon ki Baaraat where Dharam Paaji finds the toy gun? Like that.

But you can never go home again. It isn’t there.

So once in a while I open up the Philippic and check the dwindling footfalls. And read the last comment and wonder whether I have the energy to respond. Then I go 'Pbbrrrrttt, boogeritt' and look at the clock opposite and go back to work.

This last month or so – ever since my laptop was stolen – I’ve had good intentions of taking time out to post on this blog. Or the other one. Hasn’t worked. Camera-phone pics of an omelette are … well, nice, but not really a post. I can’t write a post any more. Because I don’t have my laptop. Such a stupid dependency.

The other reason, of course, is that work is climbing up my a … ummm, my walls? (Right, we shall take a short break for the libertarians to fall about laughing at the idea of a gorment paarsen WORKING. Quite done? Good, so where were we …) I’m beginning to hate having to work for a living.

I lie. I have always hated working for a living. It’s just that now THIS particular kind of work is really getting to me. 'Nuff said. End of whining session.

It doesn’t help that the city now has the most beautiful weather. As I tap away right now, I can see the ugly buildings off Park Street smiling in the evening glow. Like, say, Antara Mali photographed by Probuddha Dasgupta. Know what I mean? We KNOW they’re not really good-looking (at all at ALL) but man, they can be made to look good. This kind of a November evening, I should be out on the street feeling the city blowing in my face. Converting the moment into words that scroll through my mind’s eye like a teleprompter. And I can feel the old writing urge welling up in me but there’s nothing to say. Because that requires THAT chair and my laptop and a half hour to myself. Whereas all I have is this office and deadlines and a consuming feeling of guilt and tension because this is NOT my work. Bgrrrtttt.

Not that life has been bad. My brother-in- … arms is in town after half a decade (yes, I know I could have just said 5 years, but this is MY blog so sneck up), we’ve been having a series of bachelor nights that have left us exhausted, we’ve found what is possibly the only all-night coffee bar in this city and we have a huge stash of Bandel cheese and sossijis. We’ve even had the obligatory boys’ night out. With three young men, a black Scorpio, pub-hopping, drunken declarations of male bonding, loud tuneless chorus singing in a public space at 3 in the morning, large coffees with THREE shots of cream. Hell, one of the young uns is nice enough to drop by my office and give me a neck rub when I’m feeling chewed. Life should be good.

Which it kind of is.

But I miss my virtual inglenook. Where I can mumble to myself and tap away and then hang it on the line and wait for the gang to turn up. And eventually nice people like the Prof and the kids from jheel paar and nice ladies and maybe even A Goddess and the Smart-Asses from Stateside and the Funny Men and the Goo-roo and the Bombay Brigade and the Aphrodites of Angst and the Dervish from Delhi and the People without Names and the People who are Just a Bunch of Keyboard Characters and … well, all of you is what I mean, you know it, I wait for you to drop by and say Hullo and I can stir and wave my pipe-stem at you with a ‘hurrr hurrr gorblimey’ kind of grunt and then settle back into a tobacco doze.

That’s what it is. I miss my addiction. I miss my blogs. I miss you guys. And I’m out of green apple vodka too. Damn.

Salami Ishq

As I've mentioned before, Russi Mody is a fine gent except for his preposterous claim that he makes the world's best omelettes. Patently impossible.

With thanks to the SatanBug for playing the Recording Angel ...

A dozen eggs (and a couple more for luck), butter, fried onions, sausages, ham, salami, spiced beef, tomatoes, slathers of cheese, more butter, sauteed mushrooms. With fresh brown bread.
Also some chilli fried mackerel, just in case the omelette did not suffice. And coffee afterwards.

Pujo past

Shondhi Pujo on Oshtomi. The 108 lamps symbolise the lotuses offered by Rama to Durga when he invoked her before the battle with Ravana. (He was short two lotuses, planned to pluck out his eyes and offer them instead. Seems a bit counter-productive, since he sought the means to defeat Ravana.) In appreciation, the Goddess revealed to Rama the only time of day when Ravana was vulnerable.
Also known as Akaal Bodhan.

Obviously it's not all about rituals and reverence.
Luchi torkaari is important too.

As is Le Jive Traditionell










You've got to feel sorry for these guys. What a waste of a Pujo evening.

While the rubber-neckers clog the roads.

Nobomi dawn. Out at 4 a.m. with five youngsters in a Scorpio. Back by 7 with a load of photos, a good breakfast and a pain in the leg from the heavy clutch.

Who would have thought the old lady could look so serene?

And this one ... Calcutta instead of Le Havre?
(No, I am NOT implying I'm another Claude M.)

Doshomi.
Laal paar shaari and shnidoor khela

Laal paar, 2007 version



Aaschchhey bochhor abaar hobey!!