Missing Madhu Bhaloo

Madhu, pressed against Mian and waiting for me

Madhu's idea of all being right with the world is when she is sitting pressed up against my side. Being sandwiched between Mian and me is the height of bliss. At night, she will sit on me and slide down to the sheets to make sure she's as close to me as possible. And then rest her head on Mian.

She was operated recently- we don't want puppies every six months. It was traumatic for her, the poor little thing, and I was sad at all that I was putting her through. Despite that, the only way she would remain calm when groggy with the  pre-anesthesia injection was if I stood touching her.

For two nights after the operation, I tied her tight against the bed so that she could not turn her head. I applied a stinging iodine lotion to her wound several times a day. Thrice a day, I forced large pills down her throat. Through all that, despite my causing her pain and discomfort, she still was attached to me.

When I lifted her out of the hospital, she was still under anesthesia. I had planned to place her in the car so that her head could lay in my lap. When I did set her down , I did it  wrongly. Rather than push her around and hurt her stitches, I got into the car from the other side and sat with my hand on her legs. She was out, I reasoned. It would not matter.

Thirty seconds after the car started, a groggy, uncoordinated, dry tongued pup flopped around, fell off the seat and would only consent to be placed with her head on my lap. Once she was there, the world was okay again.

I waited till her stitches healed, and then took off. I left on the 29th of September, and will not be back home till the 12th of November.
I miss that pup-let so much.

Of privilege

I was sitting in the Old Delhi railway station waiting room when I heard cries between me. 'Hat! Hat!' screamed the woman attendant. I looked around. It was not a stray animal she was shooing out in that manner. It was a sleeping man. He woke, got up meekly and asked for permission to go to the loo before he left. 'No!' screamed the woman again.  I went cold with nervousness and guilt. My turn next, I thought, even as I knew that it would not come.

This was the 'upper class' waiting room- for passengers who have purchased a 3-tier AC ticket. The man who was being thrown out presumably had a sleeper class ticket. So did I. I too, was an interloper.

But I would not be thrown out, I knew. And I was both reassured and mortified by that. The being reassured is simple enough, the mortification needs some explanation.

See, what was the difference between me and that unlucky man? We both had sleeper tickets, we were both looking for a place to spend a few hours between trains. The difference was my being of a family of atleast four 'educated' generations, on both sides. And their being educated at that time could only happen because they were brahmins.

And today, because of them, I exude that something which makes the waiting room attendants believe that I belong in the Upper Class area. In the waiting room it was my computer. But the previous night, I was lying in my sleeper (non-AC) berth swaddled in Mian's lungi. Half-asleep, I could hear the ticket collector make his way up the compartment. He was business like to the point of being curt. 'Ticket dikhao' is all he said over and over again. And then I heard him say 'Hello Madam, your ticket please'. The three generations of brahmins apparently are visible even through a lungi.

It makes me uncomfortable, this cloak of privilege.

Disclaimer: I don't normally use my cloak. The ladies' waiting room was closed for maintenance, and the general one was shadowy and forbidding.

The perils of interviewing

While interviewing people in the course of work, I always am slightly uncomfortable. Researchers ask respondents for their time, their opinions and their  emotions. All of this is often willingly given. And what do we give in exchange? Very often, it is nothing.
And sometimes, we offer entertainment in exchange.
This happened when N and I trudged up to a village almost exactly in the centre of Uttarakhand. 'We are trying to understand the river', we said. 'We would like to speak with you.' We were led to a group of  five merry old women-maybe in their seventies. These were old friends who had now moved to various cities, but return to their village every year.
 On age:
'What is your age?' I asked one.
'The same as yours'
'But I am 37!'
'That's what I said. Now write that down!'

On livestock:
We asked them the number of cows, buffaloes, goats, and mules  in the village. At the end of  it, one of them pointed to a mango tree.
'There are crows there. We don't know how many, but you should go and count them.'

Towards the light

The dark underground space was full of small chirps and whistles. Almost unheard among these was the faint sound like paper being torn as the first baby pushed out of its egg. This was immediately followed by more rustlings till the entire brood had emerged from their eggs into the warm darkness of their nest. Aimlessly, they stumbled around till the first of them felt a far-off thunder and sensed a glimmer of light above. This faint radiance drew the brood towards it with the all consuming passion of  going home.

Its siblings stayed back as the first baby turtle struggled up from the nest and poked its head out onto the beach. After several suspenseful seconds, it clambered out and was immediately followed by the rest of the brood. They were going home.

There it was. The sparkling horizon reeled them in, all instincts led the turtles to scurry towards that light. Where the light twinkled, their bodies told them, there it was. There they would find home.

They continued walking around, over, and through traps that their instincts could not warn them against. The plastic bags and discarded nets and rolls of twine trapped some, but the others went on and on towards home.

Stray dogs claimed some turtles and terrorised the others. But it did not matter, there- just in front of them- surely was home.

They couldn't reason, but their bodies knew what to do. Over the beach they struggled, filled with an overwhelming sense of urgency that drove them on. And so the turtles eagerly panted on and on, towards the distant rumble and twinkling lights of the East Coast Road.

Far away behind them, the sparkling Bay of Bengal continued to call its babies.

*  *  *

D, my colleague, told me of the disorientation of the Olive Ridley hatchlings due to the road along the beach. Very few of these hatchlings survive that first walk to the ocean, even fewer reach adulthood. There are some efforts being made to lessen the extent of the damage that humans are doing. The Chennai Students Sea Turtle Conservation Network I've been told, are doing stellar work.

In hiding

There is a woman I wish I knew better. She's super-intelligent, attractive, and tough. She has committed her life to a cause most would consider lost, but still retains her sense of humour. Her integrity, her courage and her brilliance are held in awe by all the people who know her. In three sentences, I have told you pretty much all I know about her, barring a few details of name and place. Despite this paucity of information, I love her. I believe she likes me too.

She has been diagnosed with cancer of the breast. The mutual friend I spoke with could not hide the betrayal he felt as he told me that the tumour was not discovered for a long time. 'I don't understand how you can not notice something like that', he said. 'It's in such..such  a prominent place.' And then stuttered at his wretched choice of word. He didn't need to. I understand what he  meant. As a man worried about possible  inflammation of a hidden gland, it can be difficult to understand how women can not see something right under their  chins.

The truth is, we banish our breasts into hiding.

I am not talking of publicly- there of course, the two-three layers are there, covered with a dupatta over it all. I am talking of in private. Neither I nor my friends, non-prudish and non-diffident women though we might be, ever look at our naked breasts. We shower in a hurry, wear our clothes in the bathroom, and only face the mirror for makeup. We are conditioned to go through life hiding our breasts, and we have learnt to do that so effectively that we hide them from ourselves as well. And yes, there are times when we show them off. But then too, they are not something we look at for themselves- they are just tools in our seduction kit. Do you ever anxiously examine your chisel? And so it is shockingly easy to not notice any changes.

A breast self-examination. Learnt properly, practised regularly. Please.

Gardening is sexy!

Yes, it is incredibly sensual. There are very few other activities I know that so utterly enchant your senses. To potter around among the vegetables, feeling the air on your skin, smelling the flowering tomatoes and being kissed by the plants while the bees hum around you? It's a wonder I get any other work done at all. Focused on your surroundings, no detail gets missed. The tight symmetry of a sunflower bud, the glossy back of a ladybird, the intoxication of brushing against mint- the only other time we notice and admire such details is when we fall in love.

Our tomatoes

But like making love, gardening has its share of painfully embarrassing moments. And I am not just talking of those mornings when we wake up with aching muscles and realise that our enthusiasm has once again overridden -excuse the pun- our abilities.

First peaches from the garden

No, I am talking of conversation. Since G undertook to do the digging and heavy work around the garden, I find myself in increasingly more involved and explicit conversations. This is not helped by my poor hindi and his impeccable propriety.

Take something as simple as planting maize. G adores rows, I prefer blocks. In this case, I wanted  to explain to him why it is not just a matter of preference in the case of maize. I wanted to say that the male and female flowers are separate, that the plant is wind pollinated, and that block planting ensures that the pollen falls on the female flowers. Simple enough in English. Try to do that in a language you are not comfortable with. I ended up slipping into hand gestures before I blushed and ended with 'please just prepare a square be..plot! i mean square plot!'

And today he found me among the squash trying to impregnate a pumpkin. Not for the faint hearted, this  gardening business.

Zucchini- thankfully, these pollinate themselves

A story of perfume

Open any woman's cupboard and you will inhale a rich mixture of scents, evocative of her own self.

There might be the deep sweetness of a sandalwood jewellery box, the intense woodiness of some carefully hoarded spices, the lemony fruitiness of her favourite lotion, and there will always be perfume. That's how I remember my mother's and sister's cupboards. Amma's cupboard was redolent of sandal and lavender, my sister's of more complex perfumes and creams. As a tomboyish child who - if you were lucky- smelled of Nycil and Pears, these cupboards were indescribably exotic.

And then my  own cupboard acquired fragrance. First simpler florals and finally grown-up perfumes. I remember a friend hugging me once. 'Oh, that's what the magazines mean,' she exclaimed, 'when they say a perfume should be only smelled by the one kissing you.'

But later on, a mean little voice began to be heard inside my head. 'Such things are for pretty women' it hissed.'What are you doing with them?' I stopped and my cupboard  became a purely functional, sterile thing.

Still later, Mian came along and insisted that I deserved all the prettiest and most splendiferous things in the universe. Incredibly enough, I began to believe him. But I still did not buy any perfume. By then, I was out of place in a store that sold fripperies. I felt clumsy and gauche and showed it.

Fragrance came back to my list of 'someday haves' though, spurred by a friend who told me with a mix of shyness and defiance 'I buy nice things for myself these days. Why not?' Why not indeed? I began to read fragrance blogs. Mian, spectacular husband that he is, took notice and took notes.

And on my birthday, he pulled out the very bottle I was lusting for .'Did I get the right one?' he asked worriedly. He had, but there is no wrong one.

Now when I open my cupboard, there it is- that lovely, lovely fragrance. All mine. Back after so many years.
Thank you, Mian

Death by indiference

I wrote earlier about Rubeena and her family.
Since then, I have put up a photoset on India Water Portal's flickr page. Please do go and take a look- The people and the landscape need to be not forgotten.

How my garden grows

I have three gardening enthusiast friends in the Chatola-Sitla area. Two of these, A and L, have gardens as mature and exquisite as themselves. Their gardens manage to be both quiet and exuberant, voluptuous  and aloof. When confronted with these gardens, I find myself stunned into silence with my mouth hanging open. Come to think of it, that's also how I am in the presence of the ladies who created these spaces. I covet a garden like that, just as I too want to be as gracious and..and refined  as the gardeners. And I know that neither is achievable for the bumblebee that I am.

Our garden is  still in its infancy as far as Mian's and mine influence goes. But thankfully, we have inherited established plants from the people who lived here earlier- things that give us much joy and would have taken us a decade to grow. There are the fruit trees, of course. But there are also the giant sunflowers that I love so much, and the beautiful old roses, the lilies that crop up every year.

There are also things that I am not particularly fond of, but still turn up and are welcomed every year- the ramrod straight gladioli, the faded-yellow dahlias. They are all welcomed.

The beautiful rose arch..would have taken us  years to get it

Our mark- Mian's and mine and G's- is becoming slowly apparent now. We have planted things to climb over the house- ivy and roses and cathedral bells. There is a baby rosemary hedge- it is 6 inches tall now, but soon I will be able to spread our linen to dry on it. There are lots of golden rod and salvia to attract bees. There's parsley and chives and sage for the picking.

The Giant Sunflower in the foreground, flanked by gladioli, mint below, parsley and chives in the background, and lettuce and squash just visible!

 And things are always happening in the garden- nearly every day, a new 'project' gets executed. I want fragrance, and shade. I want bumblebees and honeybees, and birds and frogs and earthworms. And for this, I need lots of fragrant flowering and fruiting things. It will happen- Not soon, but it will.

The wild himalayan rose- my favourite flower here. We don't have it near the house yet. This  monsoon, I wil plant lots

I lied to Rubeena

And I wish I hadn't. I didn't know then, that I was lying to her.

This was in Chaubari, where I was interviewing people about the state of the Ramganga.

Rubeena was in the middle of harvesting cucumbers from her fields in the middle of the river. She, along with most of the other people from her village, plant the bed of the river when the waterlevels are low. This  silty soil, with a good source of water just below, is ideal for melons, cucurbits, and gourds. They have been doing this for generations. And pitiful though the profits are, Rubeena and her fellow-farmers do not know of any other means of income. There is the farming, and a little labour in the off season.

And now there is a barrage coming up just downstream.

Rubeena had heard rumours that the barrage meant that they would be displaced, their lands flooded, their villages evicted. Not so, I told her.  The barrage is only for protective irrigation during the Kharif- the monsoon crop. Once the monsoon is over, the water will be let out and you will be able to farm as usual.

Rubeena's children

Turns out, that is not the case. I spoke to the engineer who had designed this and he said that my assumption was only half correct. Yes, this was intended only for Kharif, but there would be some impounding throughout the year. I protested, spoke about the farmers in that place. 'Change happens' he said. And then he added that awful phrase- 'It is the price of progress.'

The problem here is that the landed farmers of a far-off district are progressing while people like Rubeena pay the price.

Shooing boars

It began when Gangadi and I went to a meeting of the spring conservation committee in Mauna. The women participated in it, but then complained to us.

 'We always come to your meetings', they said. 'You never come to ours.'

'Call us and we will'. Ganga and I rashly promised

'Midnight tomorrow then. We are chasing boars.'

'Ah'

And so it is that one evening the two of us  caught the last bus down to Mauna.

That was the most raucous all-night party I've attended since my wicked college days. Actually, even those days were tame.

The people of Mauna had divided themselves into 5 groups. Earlier in the night, around 11pm, the groups formed, going from house to house and gaining members. They all met at the school where there was dancing and singing.

And then they diverged again to patrol  the village shouting, singing, beating tin canisters, ringing bells and lighting small fires.

Finally, around 1, the groups settled down for an hour or so in different fields for gossip and singing before moving back home.

I saw a totally different side to the women. Was it the faux anonymity offered by the darkness, or are they always like this  outside the meetings? They were joyful, boisterous and full of fun. The three men in our group were subject to ribald jokes. They would dance - and wonderfully- whenever the mood struck them.

We were in bed at 3am and lamenting the fact that we needed to catch the 8am bus. When we woke and staggered out, we were met by the women again. They had finished milking, cleaning the cowsheds, getting fodder, cooking and were now off to the fields- in high spirits.

These women humble me.

I walked from Mauna

Now if a pahari woman was to read this she would shrug- it's the walk that I know G casually makes to meet up with friends on festival days. But for Ganga and I, it was momentous indeed. It started off when we were returning from spending the night with a colleague.
We would catch the eight O'clock bus, and return in time for Ganga to go to office, we decided. Easy enough, except the bus never came. We asked around, walked till the junction from where we could get six-seaters, waited there, and finally called for help. The only help that was coming was in the form of a motorcycle. I can't go triples, I said. Not on these roads.
And I knew the old bridle path that led up to Chatola.  And who minds a walk when we have things like these to look at?

And so I handed over the two brooms and giant melon (my purchases from the relatively big market of Mauna) to Ganga and set off. A pahari woman would have carried the purchases herself. But I was proud of me. Not only did I do the walk, but I also arrived in decent time and in good enough breath to play with Madhu Bhaloo when I did reach. As for what I was doing in Mauna in the first place, that's another post!

Shona's gone

There. Said it. This has kept me offline for the last few months.
Shona Bhaloo disappeared one morning in April. We hunted and hunted for her, waited so many nights. She never came back. The logical explanation is that either a leopard took her, or a human being did.
Mian and I are sad.
But also glad we have Madhu Bhaloo. Her own daughter. The one about whom I say that she neither has her mother's beauty nor her brains. Thankfully, she has her heart.
Here's the last photo I have of Shona. Sho and Madhu are on our porch. Shona  is alert and watchful as usual, Madhu  is clueless, also as usual.

The times I hate myself

I was standing by that golden car ready to head back to Patna when she came up the road. A vaccination worker, Anita had walked from the bus stop on the main road carrying her cooler of vaccines and assorted notebooks. She stopped to chat with the stranger in her town, and I covertly observed her while talking with her.

That foggy morning, she was clad in one of those synthetic shawls that are sold so cheaply on the streets in India-the ones that try to make up in glitter what they lack in warmth. I was doubly warm in a hand-woven wool shawl rich with woolen embroidery and a drab but highly effective fleece (one stolen from sis, and the other stolen from husband. But how was she to know that?). Next to her, I looked rich and pampered. Next to her, I was.

Perhaps this is what prompted her line of questioning. 'What department do you work in?' she asked. 'I don't work for a government department, actually.' I replied 'I work for a magazine that writes about water and publishes on the internet'
'What do they pay you?'
I named a figure that was roughly one-half of what I do earn, knowing even this to be more than her salary.
'This is yours?' she asked, pointing to that eyesore of a car.
No! I don't have a car, I hastened to explain. And then I went into how my office pays for travel, but how its mostly public transport, and how this was for lack of time and too many places to go, all with the excessive detail born of guilt.
'Get me a job in your organization' she said.

Now I field these requests all the time. And usually saying something like, we are a small team, no plans of growth, so sorry, is enough. But this time, it stung.
See, the question is not just one of an English education. Even if her daughter was studying in an English medium school, I think its unlikely that she would get a job where I work. A first generation English scholar from a school in rural Bihar will not have the fluency, the exposure to literature that the job requires. She will not have the 'water contacts' that make obtaining content possible. She will not have the deep enough pockets that serve as my Plan B in case travel goes awry. Accumulating all this requires generations of educated and relatively affluent people.

My job stinks of privilege- it is something I've inherited rather than earned. And I enjoy it, revel in the experiences it offers me, and would not exchange it for Anita's.

Times like these, I don't like myself very much

The times I hate my job

When I began working in the 'NGO sector', my then boss VP gave me a single bit of advice.'NGO wallahs should be like fakirs' he said 'You go to a place empty handed, stay there for a few years, and leave empty handed. And somehow, leave the place better for your being there.' I don't think he realised how it would stick to me. In all the years that followed, that was the parameter by which I judged a job.

And now I am in this one. I go to a place, escorted by the people working there. I see the work they show me, speak with the people they introduce me to. And while I speak with them, I am looking for stories, looking to create some heroes, to add drama to my article. All this I do within the span of a day or two. My job is speed-dating.

The only consolation is that as far as possible I use public transport. Sometimes I see more and converse more during my trips to and fro than during the visit itself.

Until this time. I was visiting North Bihar and the organisation I called up flatly refused to let me go gadding about by train, bus or tempo. It is not safe, not in winter, not during the fog. We don't want you stranded at some junction. If you come, they said, we will hire a car for you that we know and send a colleague along. I agreed.

When the car came, I recoiled in shock. It was a gleaming metallic beige tavera- about as discreet as a set of gold incisors. And in that huge, flamboyant vehicle sat I as we slowly rolled down impossibly narrow village lanes, brushing thatched roofs, scaring goats, crowding children. I got down, I spoke with some people, I got in, I drove off. Ugh. What a pompous, self-serving visit.

I hate speed dating. I hate this style of insulated interaction. And here I am expected to do both.

I need to defend the people I was with though..The little I interacted with them made me respect them immensely. And no, they don't do the car thing. They do local train and tempo. But they were understandably nervous of my being stuck at a junction in the middle of the night.

The last dawn of the year

It had been a bitterly cold night, and it seemed to me that I'd just managed to get warm enough to fall asleep before Shona and Madhu woke me up with their partying. There were the bumps of Shona's jumping on furniture to escape her daughter, and there was the determined scrabbling of Madhu's paws as she raced around the living room.

But wait. I had dropped the dogs off at A&D's because I would be traveling for a while. I did what I always berate the heroines of horror movies for doing and went to investigate.

It was a storm.

A storm where it seemed the four winds were dancing around this house. The howling seemed animal and malign. The trees seemed to be trying to uproot themselves and leave. And so I did what was only natural. I stepped out into that fury.

And then I gasped,came back inside, grabbed my big ladakhi coat and a pair of shoes and stepped out again. I am so glad I did.

It was snowing. Big, fat, fluffy,feathery flakes of snow driven horizontally by the wind. I came back with a drenched head and stinging face, but then I slept very well indeed. And later, I woke up to this:

The dawn

Last flowers

The forest

The yard

I ruined the pristine beauty of this yard very shortly afer this snap. And that is because my neighbour is one of the most generous men I know. He called me today when he saw I was awake and pottering around- 'Wait and I will bring you hot water' he said. I couldnt allow that,and went down with a french press, overcome with his thoughtfulness. It's not the hot water itself, though bless him for that..but how many people would remember their neighbours' cooking arrangements and the gaps therein? I know I wouldn't- I need to work on that this year.

Two-headed monster

The world's most adorable two-headed monster.

Shona and Madhu. Madhu is Shona's pup, and the one that Mian and I decided that we just cannot give away. And in a way, it's wonderful for Shona- she's turned into a pup again. On the other hand, Shona's turned into a pup again. 5 minutes after I clean the house, it looks asif a tornado went through it- and two little tornadoes have indeed gone through it.

But. They have perfected the art of snuggling with me. When I sit on the sofa, Madhu is draped across my shoulders, Shona has her head on my lap. At night, Shona tucks herself into the crook of my knees, and Madhu into my neck.

And so, here is a non-monstery photo.

Curtains

When I was in college, I would pass the Shyam Ahuja store every day. And that is when I decided that full-length silk curtains would instantly make me all classy and posh. When I grew up, I understood that
a. No amount of a fabric would make me posh, and
b. I utterly hated the idea of boiling caterpillars alive to make shiny stuff
But there was something about the lustre..

And so when I needed curtains in Dehradun, I bought myself several metres of bottle-green, dark, dhoop-chav khadi silk, which is made using spent cocoons- after the butterflies fly away. This makes the material rough, but still beautiful. Now, I felt. Now, I had arrived.

Those curtains travelled about with me, and especially in our Chatola house, worked very hard to cover up the warts and all.

And now this:

 For the last year, they have been used as sofa protectors. It was okay when we only had the decorous Shona, but with the young one..the curtains only prove to me yet again that no amount of fabric is going to make me Posh.

And I am perfectly okay with that.

Mera Kuch Samaan

A couple of friends, Mian and I were having dinner together last week when the conversation turned around to the types of people on this planet.
 'Far more good than bad', I said. 'Think of any rail journey you've been to.'
'Do you really think so?' asked R
'I know so', replied I smugly

A little too smugly, as it turns out. I had cause to regret my statement just a few days later.

It happened on the way back from Delhi. We will soon be returning to our Chatola house, and so I had bought plumbing fittings when in the big city. Nothing 'designer', but reliable and sturdy. By Delhi standards, it was perhaps not much; for Mian and I that sack represented a major withdrawal on a bank account that had been added to several months 'for the house'. In addition, my rucksack was full of the foolish and vain purchases one tends to make.

Too much for me to carry, and so I said 'yes' to the first porter who approached me as I got down from the auto. I did bargain, but not much.

There was another train at the platform, and as we passed the goods compartment, the porter and I got separated. No matter, I thought, and continued on to where my compartment would be. He would be standing there and waiting for me.

I kept looking for him, but reached the end of the platform without finding him. I walked back to where I'd lost him, and again to the end of the platform. By the time I did this walk the second time, my heart was beating fast. Too many thoughts went through my mind- of how the cop asked to see the receipt for the fittings, of how the porter saw the value of the goods he was carryng for a very, very small fraction of their cost, of how terribly easy it is to walk across the dark platforms at the end and so come out into the goods yard with all its confusion. Of the foolish things I'd bought, of how I would go back empty handed.

I needed to ask for help, but my mouth was coated with something that did not allow me to speak. Swallowing was out of the question, my tongue was dry. I hooked a finger inside my mouth and cleaned it.

I was almost weeping by now.  I went up to a pair of porters standing on the platform.
'Help me. I've lost the porter who was carrying my luggage. I searched everywhere and couldn't find him'.

Something in my face told  them I was not upto conversation.

One of them indicated his shirt. I nodded. He pointed to the badge on his arm. I nodded again. He raised his hands and patted the air around him, I nodded and agreed to wait. Or maybe he was telling me to calm down.

He then told me- slowly and carefully- to go to platform 5 and he would come with me. As we turned, I saw a most glorious sight- high above the crowd, a blue rucksack and a white sack were bobbing towards me. In a scene reminiscent of a hindi romantic comedy, we ran towards each other.

'Where were you? I went to the bridge and back!'
'Where were you? I went to the end of the platform and back!'

Pretty soon, he realised what I had been afraid of. You should not worry, he said, your baggage is safe with us.

I agreed, and apologised again and again.

After he left, his colleagues admonished me further. They didn't need to, I was feeling rotten anyway.

The only thing bolstering me was the sure knowledge that I had been forgiven by the person I had wronged. As he left, he gave me a very quick, very shy, side hug.

Definitely more good people than bad, and I should remember this.

oh,the places I'll go!

Doesn't get much more exotic than the last..

The omelet that never was

Sounds like an Enid Blyton story, does it not? This story isn't quite that fluffy

Omelettes have been a big part of my childhood memories for some reason. I have written before about Susha mama teaching me to make an omelet; eggs are also part of my other childhood moments. And of course,  omelette memories of my mum predominate.

I think I first realised the magic of sharing 'special' food when my mum made me a 'sunny side up' omelet. I still remember Amma bringing her prize in from the kitchen, beaming all over,. The white was nicely set, flecked with the vivid green of finely chopped chillies and coriander; the yolk sat proudly intact in the exact centre. My younger self looked at it with superstitious awe. I could not for the life of me figure out how she did that. Today, three decades down the line, I have a fair idea of how that might be managed, but I still do not have the guts to attempt it.

Later, I began to make omelettes myself. I make them well enough, but my triumph always lay in making them the way mum liked them. And this was a moving target to aim for. Turmeric and fluffiness were the two constants. The first is now an ingrained habit; the second I learnt to achieve by beating the yolks and whites separately before folding them together. Other things varied with my mum's state of health. Her pleasure in finely chopped chillies gave way to an insistence on chilli powder, moved to large chopped chillies (all the better to pick out), and then back to the merest hint of chilli powder. Onions would be loved, or detested. But I tried; most of the time I achieved. Even when she was at her most ill it was the omelette that I could still do right, the only source of approval for my hungry self.

And today mum told me she 'never liked omelettes'.

I protested, saying that she would tell me to make them all the time. 'Yes, but because you liked them. I never did. I always wanted boiled eggs.' When I tried to protest further she became angry.

Now, I do know better. Mum always had a strong reluctance to admit that her tastes could change. This trait is a whole different discussion, but I think it centres around thinking that admitting her taste can change implies that it is not The Absolute Perfect. Far easier to deny.  Then, her memory might be failing, something that this strong woman is very disturbed about. Three, anything other than absolute assent is seen either as a threat or as insubordination in the ranks, depending on current level of vulnerability. I know all this as surely as I love her.

But knowing is one thing, accepting in my heart is another. This very trivial conversation shattered me. I am now trying to understand why. Is it for me, because it is not enough that these memories are mine, because the sharing of the memories is important? Do I question the reality of those memories, my ability to remember?

 Or is it not about the memories at all, but a terror that my sister and I are now- already- the only survivors of that little family who once lived in a rambling house in Sawantwadi?

Mum and I on the beach the three of us went to every summer. Wish my sis was in this snap too.

Missing her Mian

Not me. Well, of course me. But this post is about his little puplet.
It started when I ran out of coffee, pulled out the bag in stock, and discovered that it was full of beans instead of grounds.
Now I do know that beans are better freshly ground and all that, but I do not like the process of grinding. At all. I do not like the whirr in the morning, I don't like balancing the grinder, and I always cut my knuckles while grinding. And so, Mian does it for us. When he is not here, I use grounds.
Today however, I didn't have a choice. I dusted off the grinder, measured in the beans and started cranking.
There was an almighty THUMP! from the bedroom and Shona ran out, her tail wagging furiously. The poor, darling pup- she thought Mian was here. Looked for him, and contented herself with licking the coffee grinder.
Those two turn me into a puddle.He returns in a week. Happy times.

Bhaloo Badmash and the Martens

Shona Bhaloo gets to play with her best-friend-in-all-the-world on three occasions. When her human family decides to visit Jhumroo's human family, when her humans decide to go out of town and offload her onto Jhumroo's humans, and when Shona decides that she misses Jhumroo.

Sho and Jhum, legs intertwined and giddy with joy

Most days she is my faithful shadow as I go about my day. Sometimes though, a sudden urge to meet Jhumroo enters that adorable head and she's gone. If I don't catch sight of her for 10 mins, I call G at Chatola. 'Oh yes', he says 'she was here. She met me and now has gone to Sonapani.

And then I grumble, put on my shoes, and trudge off to bring her back. I won't grumble now; the last time I went to collect my little runaway, something magical happened.

I was on the last stretch- a concrete road. I crested a small slope and in front of me were two yellow-throated martens. They were maybe about 20 feet away, and in the middle of the road. I froze of course, but one of them immediately dropped off the road into the forest. The other stayed where it was.For nearly a minute we stayed that way. Then incredibly, the marten began to walk towards me. Hesitatingly, slowly, with many stops, it came till it had cut the distance between us by more than half. I was not carrying my camera. But even if I was, I could not have taken a snap- I could barely remember to breathe.

Soon, I saw what it was approaching me for. A few feet away was a dead snake. The marten reached it, picked up the snake so that it wouldn't drag and walked off- not into the forest, but along the road. I gave it a couple of minutes head start and walked on myself.

Incredibly, that was not the end of my marten experience. A little further on, a stonewall runs past the road. For nearly 50 metres, the marten walked on the top of the wall while I walked along the road. Every now and then, we would stop and look at each other, then walk on.I can't explain this behaviour. It wasn't defensive, wasn't scared- just curious.

Magic. That's what it was.

Of young men

My last post spoke about the difficulty of being the guest of people whose philosophy I don't agree with. Since then, I have been on an extended trip with this group. And yes, it was as hard as I expected to walk the balance between being a good enough host to be invited again, and not condoning hate speech by my silence.

The thing that kept me sane and civil was the fact that the hate was not directed. If it was against a particular group, I would have found the paranoia unbearable. As it is, my host was deeply suspicious and resentful towards the British, the Americans, urban people, Marwaris, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, women, multi-national corporations, young women in love, non-vegetarians, English speakers, Buddhists, researchers who use quantitative methods, environmentalists, hydro-geologists, and researchers with external funding. I discovered that I can live comfortably with such democratic xenophobia.

A little soul-searching revealed that I am not that different either. I have my own bigotry towards people who claim their god is better than everyone else's. And I cannot, absolutely cannot, stand gutkha eaters (This incidentally means ALL young men in North India, which might explain why Mian is so blissfully jealousy-free when I go gallivanting about the Himalayas). But even there, the djinns that look after such things do not allow me to be relaxed and righteously affronted.

Yesterday, for example, I wanted to neutralise the Brahman 'holiness' of the last three days and so took myself up to the old Chowk area of Lucknow. In a six-seater. There were 4 young Hindu men, of varying levels of obnoxiousness. There was a young Muslim woman sitting opposite me, and there was I- antsy about the whole setup. The young men made my hackles rise in every possible way, one more than the others. This one ate several packs of gutkha and threw the wrappers on the vehicle floor. He sat with his legs splayed and  slowly, thoughtfully, adjusted his crotch. Leaning against the backrest, he surveyed me up and down. The air was full of the sickly-sweet, nauseating smell of gutkha.

And then it began to rain. The young woman was next to the door on the windward side, and began to get drenched. Quietly, she tried to make herself even smaller and continued to sit pressed against the door rather than move into the men's space.

 Mr.Obnoxious got up and offered his seat to the young woman, and sat in the rain instead.

I am ashamed of myself.

But going back to my trip. My host- a chap around my age- was the type of person whose response to searching questions or to dissent was to raise his voice louder and louder. I am proud to report that after two days of travelling with me, he needed to request herbal tea at the houses we halted at for the night- his throat was hoarse.

Saffron and Green

So I am shamelessly stealing the title of this post from Mukul Sharma's book. Well yes. But it is very nearly on the same topic. And I am planning to read the  book! so this is almost a review! So I am entitled to steal the name.

I have clearly been hanging around with the sort of people who believe in entitlement.

The problem is that Mr.Sharma has analysed the manner in which hindu nationalism has permeated (and practically hijacked) the environmental movement in India. But he has not provided us with an users' guide to the phenomenon and that is what I sorely  need.

I am currently with, and will be spending the next week with, a group of most warm and friendly people. On hearing of my interest in the River Gomti, they have happily shifted around their already busy schedules and accommodated me and my questions.

All of yesterday, we spent touring the Gomti, her 26 tributaries within the city, and Lucknow's two sewage treatment plants. We also visited several ghats. The photo at the top of this post is from one such ghat- the only private bathing space on the Gomti. It  is a Hindu dharamsala- a place to stay for poor pilgrims. It was built by Lalla Bhagwandas in the memory of his father about a  hundred years ago, and the family still manages it. The structure, especially the colours in the first photo, was the most beautiful thing I saw all day. I would not have dreamed of the existence of this place if it were not for my hosts. With them, I got entry into a world I had not know existed.

I ate pakoras made by a sadhu, and the conversation I was privy to helped me understand how these kindly men become pawns for land grabbers. I watched squirrels run across a brick-paved courtyard and tried to hide my disbelief when I was told stories of yogis who can perform miracles. 'It's all documented' I was told. I nodded politely.

I could not however 'nod politely' when the conversation veered off into the sickeningly inevitable direction of nationalism. The 'persecution of hindus' was spoken of. 'We are ignoring our culture' was a lamented topic. I commented about how different life is in the south..I mentioned that in places beyond the Gangetic belt, people do not speak hindi (gasp!). I hinted that while Ayurveda is excellent, Unani medicine is not to be sneered at either. I suggested that eating of meat may be more of an ecological choice rather than a moral one. I reminisced of my childhood along the coast where for 4 months of the year, the monsoons flood fields and roughen seas. The only food available then is rice and dried fish- both carefully stocked in the summer. I spoke about the high himalaya, where meat is an essential-and ecologically sound- source of protein and fat in the winter. I spoke and spoke..and never got heard.

Today I am off for a week with this group. A trip I would not be able to make without their hospitality. A trip that will be all the richer for the people they will introduce me to, for the places that they will show me.

And yet, and yet..I will also lose out on some things..I am fairly sure that this is going to be a saffron trip. It will be churlish of me to push the comfort zone of my hosts. This pushing will not help either..they are much respected leaders, firmly convinced of the rightness of their philosophy.

Mr. Sharma, I need a workbook.

The reasons why

The 25th of this month was a momentous day for me.

I walked up to Mukteshwar and back in record time- just a little over two hours, including a stop for chai. I bought enough maize to satisfy all my bhutta cravings. Shona behaved herself. On the uphill climb, I did not need to make either one of my scheduled rest stops.

But all this paled in comparison to the fact that I was making it  up to the Post Office on that particular day. You see, despite relying almost entirely on technology, my workplace is old-fashioned when it comes to finances- digital signatures are looked on with suspicion. Every month, I am given three days notice to post my invoices and bills. I never make the deadline.

My long-suffering boss then calls up, and we engage in a conversation worthy of a comedy.
'why haven't I received the tracking number?'
'because I haven't sent it.'
'why haven't you sent it?'
'Because the PO didn't give it to me'
'Why didn't the PO give it to you?'
'Because I didn't go there'
'Why didn't you go there?'
and here my answers end. 'Tomorrow' I reply
'But why' he asks
'TOM-orrow' I say

It's not that I don't have a reason. I usually have a very good reason- and a different one each month. The trouble is,  these are not very acceptable by Accounts. Here are a sampling:

• Its winter and the path is slippery with ice. You can not pay me to risk a broken knee.
• Its summer and I get a migraine walking in the sun.
• Its the monsoon and there are leeches on the path.
• Mian is not here, and I spent all morning chatting with him.
• Mian is here and I've better things to do than trudge 3km uphill.
• Mukteshwar has a chicken shop, Bhowali has pork. I felt like the latter, but missed the bus. 
• I wanted to go to Bhowali, and woke in time for the bus, but Shona refused to erm 'do her business' and I could not leave her alone.
• It's..well..it's that time of the month, and my back feels like it's made of fragile glass. 
• It's that time of the month and even if I could teleport myself there, I wouldn't, because I am damned if I make anyone an iota happier when I am grouchy. 

Not a quiet life

Most of my friends think that I lead the peaceful, almost meditative, kind of life here.

They could not be more wrong. Life at home is full of high drama- with nearly equal parts of comedy and tragedy.

Don't believe me? Watch.

The Honorary Pahari

It has always been a sore point with me that I am still considered an outsider in the area. When people ask me if I feel accepted, I always reply 'well..it's been two years and I haven't been invited to a wedding yet'. And its true.
But now I think there might be other indicators of acceptance.
I was returning home from the railway station with a young friend who's visiting. K had taken me there in his taxi and was bringing us back.
'Are you planning to show her around' he asked.
'yes!' I replied. 'We will walk up to Mukteshwar by the trekking route and walk down by the road'
'That's about 10-12 kms' he said.
He paused and looked at the fit and radiantly healthy young one and at my blobby greying self. I braced myself for the fitness lecture that was sure to follow
'That's far' he began 'We are used to such things. Do you think she'll be able to do it?'

'We'. Acceptance is sweet.

Where have I been?

I wonder that myself. Actually, it seems sometimes that I am living in the equivalent of a writer's retreat, where I have nothing to do but churn out the stuff. The truth is that I AM churning out the stuff, but it's all work related. Once I am done with that, I am tired of the keyboard.

And yet, I cannot bring myself to declare 'finis' or even a pause for this blog. It has too much of me in it. On the other hand, it's dishonest of me to keep it up and post once a month- and even that is when my sis calls up and tells me the date of the last post.

What to do, I wonder. For now atleast, I will fall back on the usual- Shona photos!

  

A sleepy, very sleepy bhaloo

 

Slightly more wide awake- Shona's friends came visiting. From L to R, Devrani, Pascha, Shona

After the storm

It was an epic storm and we didn't know it.
True, it was raining as if it would never stop. It began raining on the weekend, and all of Monday. We couldn't go out, but we didn't much want to either. So Mian and I cancelled our appointments and pulled out the scrabble board. Shona got cabin fever, so Mian rolled about on the floor with her. The lack of electricity meant cooking was a challenge, but we had plenty of bread and we don't get tired of 'bread+' meals. And so we were mystified when the worried phone calls started coming in.
The evening before Mian left was dismal. There was no electricity, our computers were long dead, and he was leaving. Shona caught our mood, and three glum people sat slumped on the sofa.
The next morning, we woke up to this.

 

The rain had stopped. After 3 days of pouring down without a break, the rain had stopped. The sky could be seen in parts. The sun backlit the clouds and caused the mist to rise from the forests. We were glad, Mian and I , that he was leaving in the middle of such great beauty, that this view is what he would carry back with him.

The bijli will come soon, he said. On his way down to the train station, he messaged me updates about the road and checked on whether power was back. And then the messages stopped. Not that he wasn't worried any more, but 3 days after the power went out, my phone died on me. It would take another 24 hours and two false starts before it came back on.
It is only now that I know the extent of the damage in the state. And once again, I am humbled by how lucky I am..In the middle of this crisis, our problems were inability to work, lack of a cooked meal, wet clothes.How silly it all seems.

The paidal marg to Mukteshwar

It is where I go for the ATM, for the post office, for chicken and veg.
And it is an extremely pretty road. From where we live now, there and back is an easy six km walk. From Chatola, we need to add a steep climb of another km or so.

This is where the path starts - a right turn from the handpump.

And this  is what it  looks like, more or less. Part of it is paved like the photo below, part if  it is a series of steps formed by tree roots.

The views are lovely- this is the sun shining through maple

And this is a massive rhododendron tree

 

Coming out of the forest is a bit of a shock , but  still pretty

On to the tarred road, a left turn, and another 3/4th of a km to the church..and I can stop here, or go on to buy veggies.

I am lucky to have such a pretty walk- I need to do it more often

Preserving Padam, or the wild Himalayan Cherry

I am miserly enough that I cannot let fruit spoil on the trees. And the sour cherries (Padam, as they are known locally) were definitely spoiling. They are bitter-sour enough that even the birds are not too fond of them, let alone the humans. And so Shona and I have taken it upon ourselves to harvest and use as many of the cherries as possible.

I don't have very good luck with preserving things though; my pickles invariably mould. Freezing is an option, and I know Mian is clamouring for frozen sour cherries. But we had tried that last time with mulberries. The day we found two mulberry trees in Chatola, Shona and I gorged ourselves. The next day though, my wifely instincts took over. While I still let Shona-Bhaloo eat all the mulberries that fell on the ground, I carefully picked over, cleaned, and froze the 'good' ones. After a week of patience and self-restraint, I collected two cups full. And then the electricity went out for 3 straight days. The mulberries turned to slime and my enthusiasm for freezing died.


This time, I am relying on old, appropriate-technology methods. I came across 'Bachelor's Jam' which seems to be a very laid-back process which relies on the principle that everything is better with sugar and alcohol added. Clearly,  it was tailored for me. It's been 3 days of collecting and pitting. There's no rum or brandy in the house, so I am using whisky. But fruit, sugar, alcohol- just how wrong can it be?  And now I have a jam-jar full.

The paper clip in front of the jar? That's my cherry-pitting tool.

Home after far too long

Ox-eye daisies

I haven't  been home since the end of winter. Actually, since mid-feb to the day before yesterday, I have only been home for a week.

And it has been hard.

True, I was with mum and sis for a bit, with Mian for a bit, with colleagues and friends for another bit. But I realised this  time just how much I love and miss our physical home.

Sour cherries

It was a joy to be back. I called a cab for the last leg of my journey back, and in that one hour received enough gossip to put me up-to-date with the village. I drank in the landscape. I made bread. I swept, dusted, mopped, laundered. I went and collected a pup who was ecstatic to see me. I met one of her daughters, who incredibly remembered me.

All the folks I met on the way were glad to see me and were not too shy to see it. I messaged a friend that I was back, and within 30 seconds received a call telling me to come over. More relaxed conversation, more coffee, more joy. 

dry, but fragrant roses

But while walking around, I realised I had missed most of the markers of spring that I look forward to. The fruit blossoms were over and the fruit had already set. The daffodils and the 'aprilia' were long withered. The dandelion greens were now too tough to eat. The roses had withered. All this in the one-and-half months that I was away. 

Irises (irii?)

And this made me think of Mian. Of how much he misses when he leaves to come back after months. Of the gaps that are always present in his  life. Of how difficult it must be to always feel that things are unfinished. Not earth-shattering, this revelation. And there's nothing I can do about it.

But hopefully, I will learn to be a little more gentle, a little more tender the next time he leaves. I do hope so.

The non-immortal superheroes of this country

Last month, I was in a little village in the heart of UP, the state that is the butt of nearly half of the jokes related to corruption and feudalism (Bihar is the butt of the rest of those jokes). And I met a group of people who inspired in me a profound respect.

One of them in particular fired my imagination. You see, he is a person who explains his profession as 'works in a bank'. You know the type- those faceless men and women who sit at cluttered desks in windowless rooms. The rooms are lit by flickering tubelights. The stuffing is poking out of the chairs, the formica is peeling off the desks. We tend to be rather impersonal with these people. There are banks I have had accounts with for years. I have not spoken, really spoken, to any of the people who update my books, give me my cheques, take  my cash. I do not know their names. For all I care, they are automatons that switch on at 9am and off at 5pm.

I have missed out on so much.

This particular man leads a life worthy of a fantasy super-hero. 9 to 5, he 'works in a bank'. 5pm to 9am, he fights against injustice. In the evenings and during holidays, Sanjay is a leader in a battle against a modern-day Goliath. He does not belong by birth to the village he is fighting for, he and the village have now adopted each other. He takes what he knows best- numbers- and and teaches the villagers how they can be weapons. And mighty effective weapons they are. If it were not for him, the protest at Mehdiganj would have not have had the impact that it does today.

The last time I went to UP, I met a rickshaw-puller who built a temple so that he could rid his family of the discrimination they were subject to for generations. This time, I met a superhero. What will happen next, I wonder.

Why the Immortals of Meluha is evil

Strong words? Perhaps, but the only ones that would suit.

The nightmare that many Indians of my generation wake trembling from is dominated by a single image. This is that of a hundred, a thousand, 'kar sevaks' tearing down the Babri Masjid. A teeming mass of men, clad in saffron and waving trishuls, screaming 'Har har Mahadev' and 'Jai Shri Ram'. The cries which were one merely praise for God, now forever twisted into slogans of hate. The reek of self-righteousness that oozed from them as they sought to 'rescue' a supposed birthplace. The exultation in them, the fear in the rest of the country. An archaeological monument was destroyed. A town once known for its peace remains a conflict zone decades after the event. People died. People are dying still because of the hate that this event created. The Ram Janmabhoomi issue is directly responsible for the Godhra massacre.

Babri Masjid, 2002

And now let us consider the climatic event in The Immortals of Meluha.

An army of men, all devotees of Ram, are fighting to reclaim their 'Ram JanmaBhoomi' (yes, Amish Tripathi uses the same politically-charged term) from the enemy kingdom. The heroes of the novel are guided by Shiva, who designs and mass-manufactures tridents. He also gives them a war-cry- Har Har Mahadev! This phrase occurs repeatedly throughout the chapter. 'Jai Shri Ram!' is insistently repeated throughout the entire novel till it resonates in your head.

Criminal exulting in a massacre/Melhuan: Gujarat 2002

The heroes are saffron-clad. The emblem of this enemy kingdom is a white crescent.
I wish I was making this up. I am not.

The book is nothing more, and nothing less than rabid hate-filled propaganda.
It is  layered in a veneer of gender-equality (the prime minister is a woman! Sati is a warrior!), and of the exploration of myths (Shiva as a cool-dude-tibetan!). But  those layers are too flimsy to cover the hate.

And so it disturbs me profoundly that the book is a best-seller. Over one million copies sold! screams the cover. So one million people read it, and thought it was good?

I bought it because of the hype and because of a review  I read in either Frontline or Tehelka- I don't remember which. Both are magazines I trust, with journalists I respect.The article lamented the quality of writing, as well it should. But what about the most important part? Did the reviewer not see the hate? Is it not dishonest for a journalist not to point it out? And what about the other reviewers? did not one person see anything at all? Or are we at that point in our history where hate is normal?

How in the world did we allow this to happen?