Now, where did I keep my pointy hat?

Today I was nursing an upset tummy with some cumin tea and thinking that I would have quite liked to be a witch- well clear of the inquisition/Manusmriti times, of course. But then I thought a little more, and realised that hey, I am!

Consider the facts:

· Lives alone in a house that is um, unconventional: check.

· Feels uprooted when in an unfamiliar ecosystem: check.

· Has a small but growing list of loyal clients for whom she performs the following services- health and wellness advice, home remedies, love potions, strategy and counselling sessions, fortune telling: check.

· Is paid in kind for said services: check.

· Most clients consult her in the wee hours of the night: check.

· Has a familiar who is independent, but chooses to hang out with her: a slug. Check.

· Attempts to cure or at least soothe most health and beauty troubles with things from her kitchen: check.

· Has next to no processed foods in her pantry: check

· Said pantry is a source of morbid curiosity to most people: check.

· People fall over each other not to be the first to sample her cooking, but are quite eager to be the second person: check.

· She has recipes that include dried animal parts/ things collected from roadsides/ instructions to enter a forest at a specific time: All of these. Check

· Has a strange, non-trend related, but interesting wardrobe: check

· One can hear voices in her house in the middle of the night, but here’s the scary part- if you peek in, there’s no one there!: You bet skype counts as magic. Check.

· Has evidence to prove that all ills can be solved by a mug of tea: check

· Is not referring to Assam Black when she says ‘tea’: check

· Is irresistibly sexy: well, if you insist. Check.

· Has heard of modesty, but will have no truck with the concept: Read this post. done.

Well?

purple sunbird

the red carpet treatment

One is sometimes given that when one does not expect it.
I have been having a rough work week, and today was going to be another tough day. So I dressed to the teeth - in my 'geddout of my way' outfit (red salwar kameez, black heels, hair in a chignon, accessories just so).
I stepped out, and there was a red carpet rolled out on the road. And then another. Till I turned off the road into the colony where my office is, my feet did not touch the tarmac once. At the end of that walk of course, I was grinning and walking a bit taller.
It's not a mystery, of course. I live next to a shop that loans tents, carpets, furniture etc for marriages and other things. Today is the day they decided to air their carpets.
but today of all the days! the multiverse likes me..

The dudes of Dehradun

are the coolest. Earrings and mohawks, gothic accessories and easy swaggers- they have them all. Occasionally, some of them can be tiresome. On Saturday, when I was walking down Rajpur Road, a chap in red on a redder motorcycle- with the silencer removed- whizzed up and down thrice. He was still doing it when I turned off into another lane. I was irritated at the assault on my ears, and at having to step into the gutter to let him pass, but sad that he didn’t seem to have anything else to do. But I don’t like any of the brash motorcycling guys in D’dun.
The chaps I like are the bus teams. It might surprise those of you who are used to a bus managed by a crew of one, that in D’dun it takes 4 people to run a bus. There is a driver, a chap who collects the fares, a chap who stands at the door and calls in passengers, and one other whose only task as far as I can judge is to lend his snazzy mobile phone for use as a music system. Most of these guys are stylish and cool in a ‘I like to jingle when I walk’ kind of way.
What is nice is that they are uniformly gallant. They will make sure the women have a seat, or atleast, a comfortable place to stand. They address the women as ‘didi’ or ‘madam’ depending on whether they are inclined to flirt a little or not. And what is truly endearing is their shyness. The most goth-inclined of them will blush to his toes if you say ‘thank you so much’ and smile, and die of embarrassment if you catch his gaze sliding rapidly and furtively over your ankles. This is such a refreshing contrast to the ‘I’m entitled to ogle you because you dare to be out of the kitchen’ attitude in the plains!

Weekend

So I didn’t go to Rajaji after all. I was waiting most of the weekend for a meeting that never happened. After cribbing to a friend about it, I decided to get up and do something. In a modified version of Muir’s leaping over the back fence with a loaf of bread and some tea, I walked out of the door with a wallet and cell phone. Prosaic, no?
I didn’t have a clue where to go, of course. But then I thought I would go to the Malsi deer park. At the least, it would be a nice ride there and back. Well, I went there, but the park occupied me for all of three minutes. The animals depressed me, and i couldn’t walk without tripping over couples seeking a little privacy. Not that I blame them. Like every other person on this crowded globe, been there done that. But I felt decidedly unwanted. And so people, I decided to walk back.
And finally, as I walked on that cool and shady road, especially when there were no vehicles zooming past me, i was truly happy. The distance? Either 9kms or 12 kms depending on which signboard one consults, but flat all the way. For most of the stretch, there is a nice sidewalk. There are interesting buildings, and later, interesting shops. Good. As for rajaji, there is always next time.

of names

I would hate to be a bird. It’s not just the lack of opposable thumbs that would get me down, the things that humans called me would depress me. What were people thinking when they named birds? Here are things that would vex me:
Insult: imagine going through life as a Lesser Cormorant, knowing that no matter what you did, you would never grow out of the Lesser. But even that is better than the Intermediate Egret. An afterthought, that is what it is. Undistinguished. Defined not only by the existence of a Greater, but also of a Lesser.
Identity Crises: The Pied Mynah is also the Pied Starling. Is it supposed to steal things like a starling, or merely have raucous parties like a mynah? Decisions, Decisions. Is it surprising that whenever I have seen it, it has been sitting alone and brooding?
Personal Comments: being named after an exceptionally ugly part of one's anatomy. the Thick-knees and the Frogmouths have reason to complain, think you not?

plans...

I want to visit Rajaji National Park. And I am plotting to do it this weekend. Do I have a map? No. Do I have a plan? No. Do I know where to go? Well, sort of. Will I go there? I will let you know on Monday.

Kanpur-Dehradun: Story/truth

It was on this visit that I came across a great many of my childhood stories now come alive. This is similar to making the discovery, while weeding, that fairies and evil gnomes do really battle it out in one’s garden. What were these stories? Well, I have already written about the coin collectors. Here are more:

The Grand Trunk Road: such a wonderfully evocative name! And in my childhood, I read and re-read the lovely description of the road in Kipling’s Kim. And then of course, there were other books, other references. I came close to it a couple of times (in Calcutta, and Kanpur), but never actually set foot on it. And this time, I did! I only travelled an infinitesimal fraction of that lovely length, of course. But I walked along it, drove on it, and ate by its side. How was it? well, at times it definitely was the ‘river of life’ that dazed Kim. And at times, it was this tiny road meandering through fields that made us wonder if it really is a National Highway. Surprising? Yes. Disappointing? No!

Gangetic floodplains: As a child I was extremely impressed when I learnt the extent and depth of the alluvial deposits in the flood plains. And I had imagined it- a vast flat, fertile expanse with rich fields and the smell of good earth. And no, I couldn’t smell it. Not in the summer. But the soil looked just like I had imagined it.

The middle reaches of the Ganga: I looked at the river and thought to myself, “Diminished flows? Where?” because you see, I am from a place where most of the streams are ephemeral, and the ones that are not are called large if they are 50 metres across. Over here, they measure width in kilometres. It is huge and totally overwhelms my provincial sense of scale. And then of course, i wanted more. I wished with all my heart that I could go back and see the river before the first barrage was built, before the first pump was installed.

Dacoits: Excuse my naïveté. But I did seriously believe that dacoits were the stuff of sensationalist reports and hindi films. I mean, I did know that they once existed, but not now! And then I travelled in an area where dacoits are a part of everyday life. Yes, today. Where there are gun and ammo shops in the tiniest villages, and people rear pet crocodiles on the corpses of their enemies.

Strange, na?

Kanpur-Dehradun: the coin collectors

When a bus/ train passes over a bridge, people fling coins into the river. Partly as prayer, partly for a safe passage. I used to do that myself as a child and it always gave me a big thrill when one of my coins actually landed in the water. in the konkan, traffic was too little and the rivers too swift to make recovery possible. On the holier rivers in the plains, enough coins get tossed in and the water is placid enough to make recovery a profitable business.

When I was a child, 'phoren' magazines were pretty hard to come by. We did however, have some National Geographics, and the only article I remember of those was a photo essay on the coin hunters on the Ganga. I still remember one of those photos vividly: a pair of hands holding mud scooped from the river bed with beads, flowers and coins.

And so I was delighted when I came across the coin collectors of my childhood on this trip. But things have progressed. Instead of scooping up mud with their hands, they drag magnets tied to lengths of rope. Several people wade in the water, but there are also several who perch on the bridge parapets. I saw a woman lower a dabba from the bridge- was it lunch, or something to place the coins in?


I spoke to a group of children and they told me they can collect Rs.500/- a day. I am not sure if this is an accurate figure, or something to impress the notepad and camera carrying woman. but they did not ask us for coins, which makes me think the figure is not too off the mark.

Kanpur-Dehradun: the photos

I have loaded them on Picasa, and you can see them here:

Ganga

Kanpur-Dehradun: The wildlife roll-call

Mynahs: the Pied, Bank, Common
A Common Flameback, a Pied Kingfisher or two, Rose-ringed Parakeets, Indian Peafowl, cattle egrets, maybe a lesser/intermediate egret (I can’t distinguish between the two unless they are standing next to each other in a police lineup- and how often does that happen?), Little Cormorants, a Black-winged Stilt, some ducks, some Indian Pond Herons, and what I think was a black-shouldered kite. I also think I saw some fishing eagles and some Pariah Kites, but I cannot be sure.
I did not see any dolphins, but we did not really go out of our way to see them.
And bonus: in a field of mustard, I came across a herd of Nilgai! Some of them were sparring with each other; some were looking at this strange being looking at them.

The preamble: Kanpur- Dehradun by road

I had been to Kanpur for a meeting on environmental flows. My boss, colleague and I then decided to motor our way across Uttar Pradesh from Kanpur back to Dehradun. I am quite full of the stories of that trip, so the next few posts will probably be of it.

storms, rain and snow

will post at length later.. but know that it rained yesterday and today (finally, the drought is over!) and it snowed in the hills. so now, in the late morning, the hills around my house are sparkly with snow.. i want to go there..

rain!

It’s raining. After being oppressive and dull and depressing all day, it’s raining! Now the world is dark, the clouds are majestic, the thunder is LOUD, and I am hoping for lightning. And the earth smells so good, this crisp, cold wind is moving through the office and all the oppression of the day is washed away.

I want to go home, make tea and stand on the lawn with my face turned up to catch the raindrops..