Knotted after a Sojourn home

Just back from a fleeting but much awaited trip to India (home)! Right from when the flight announces its intent to land on home ground,  anxiety takes over. An unwarranted but constant battle begins - that between-  Expectations and reality! Past and present! Change and Constants! 

The first few hours were spent reconciling between all my worlds. Estranged connections started to wire up and the contours of the city I visited a year ago began to take shape. It seemed like a lot had happened in the time I was away. The city had a strange arrogance this time around. Perhaps I noticed it just as an Audi whooshed past. The city was embellished with consumerism that came to life as I drove past crowded stores of Louis Vuitton, Zara, Clarks- wondering if the hoarding of a 'Khadi Bhandar' would show up behind the rummages of the past! Just as I was looking out-  the bumpy roads, traffic jams, packed auto rickshaws  and the lady wearing jasmine on her hair, took me back to familiar ground in a jiffy. 

The IT industry had found its roots in Bangalore a few years ago. However, it seemed like it is only now that one can visualize the impact of that change, in the form of an established and definitive new culture. The denizens were foreign and yet seemed to define the very essence of the cities character. The language, the phrases, the grammar had all changed and money seemed to be dominating conversations. Even the one rupee coins had changed weight and shape. However there was a fresh energy,confidence, even sense of fashion that I saw in all segments of the city. Every job had got a new 'avatar', every service was re-packaged, every person had a new wardrobe and was technically advanced. The euphoria could be felt all around and was evident in the prosperity and choices people were making. 

The election campaign, and victory of the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi proclaimed that change was again landing itself. This time not confining itself to a specific industry or city, but it was going to guzzle the entire nation. The victory moved me; Strangely I could feel an excruciating  yet pleasant pain within when I heard they had won. It brought back hope which had ceased to exist in this country with a dis-functional democracy. 

I realized that 'time is now' and transactional presence cannot be matched with any number of fleeting visits. I complained and struggled to find my roots in this new city like a clingy child. I failed to find a good reason to reconcile with some shallow aspects of the culture. But if you did see through all that clutter, my soul was alive again. I enjoyed spending time with family - (that is unmatched to anything in life) , meeting friends, having conversations, thinking and mostly feeling! There is just an abundance of everything out there. Maybe it is that which is overwhelming and makes me want to wander off to new cities often times. 

I am back now in London after what seemed like the longest flight ever. I walked the streets today- looking for something familiar, a face a routine, or passion. I realized that all my life I have worked hard in filling life with a constant 'longing'. Maybe thats what makes me seek and makes me empty at the same time. One needs to be 'empty' to 'fill up' and one should 'long' to 'find'. On that note, I was reminded of something thats been bothering me all day. 

“We all have an old knot in the heart we wish to untie.” 

--Michael Ondaatje 

Here is to a new year in London. Hoping some knots get tied, some untied and the year is fulfilling in its own way. 

London - Without a camera

Be it on the pretext of having friends around or just because the weather has been warm - I have ended up discovering a few things about London. Unfortunately, I have not carried a camera to click some of the most beautiful moments!

British Museum - A place one can spend days in. Walk down any tube station and you will be surrounded by a picture. I was almost seeing this image in my dream. Love the photograph. Trying to discover the photographer of the same.

However, the best part of the British museum (the only part I had time to explore) - was the theme of Living and Dying. This was a room describing experiences of suffering in everyones life and how as humans we find the innate ability to fight suffering and live. What I loved about this was the true stories and the realism that exists. I was surprised to find a piece of art by women in Gujrat who had embroidered on raw silk images about AIDS awareness. Pictures that depicted how it spreads, what people should avoid and really cute pictures of condoms being distributed in the mix.  There was also a master piece of a sheet that spread a few meters which had 14,000 medicines weaved into it (apparently the number of medicines an average Britisher would consume through the cycle of life). It then had small stories for each phase of life and real artefacts beneath like a masked story. Beautifully done.
On a side note, I was not that impressed by the Olympic medals which were displayed for the upcoming olympics:-d

Barclays Cycle Hire: Been wanting to use the Barclays cycle hire more. However ended up usually taking it for a casual ride to Regents park mostly. This time tried to pick it up and ride to Greenwich (17 miles ride). The scheme seems to be expensive at the outset especially if using for more than a few hours. Cycles are not maintained all that well. Its your best bet if you want to occasionally use it to get from point A to B. However if you do cycle extensively,  I would recommend buying a bicycle.
Cycling on a lovely sunny day: However the experience of cycling on a lovely sunny day was awesome. Riding through the lanes of London made me realize how much this city has to offer in every corner. The Savoy, Shaftesbury Avenue, Eataries along Noel Street and the Somerset house are places I will go back to. Makes me wonder - what is it about us humans that makes us so curious about stories of the past? Context probably is what makes everything worth it. Be it a piece of music, a piece of art or a ruin in the middle of the city. Loved Cutty Sark and would certainly want to go back for the thames riverside walk all the way down to the London Eye. I want to climb up the 316 steps of the monument and get the best view of London and go down to the Pudding Lane which was the origin of the fire in 1666! Just so much to take in and discover!

More next time with pictures hopefully.

Hope you are all having a lovely time exploring the stories around your places.

Bookmarks

Often when reading a book, we want to pause, sip on coffee or just ponder. Bookmarks were probably invented with a reason. I watch a movie. Then the intermission comes in drawing the part to a logical conclusion. Life is full of such pauses too. Important days - Birthdays, New Years, Anniversaries are all about pausing, breaking our life into parts. I guess these days just don't do it for me. Hence, I am off on a self imposed pause. Call it a vacation, a trip home or just a way to break away from a non-routine to find a way to come back to one.

I know the weeks ahead are full of a lot of pauses, bookmarks and events. Marriages/Birthdays and just re-unions or wasteful days. I have not yet unwound myself in its anticipation. I guess I will just go with the flow and see if I will get back to the book or pick it up years later to find I had left a book mark some time long ago and then flip back a few pages to start again.

London - As I see it

This city feels like the epicenter of a cultural volcano. Looks calm at the surface despite the molten, quasi states of a zillion tourists and the strong and lost identities of the immigrants! What constitutes this city? It is hard to describe - Maybe culture, Maybe trade, Maybe the feeling of belonging or the feeling of not finding it my own. For being a lover of art and culture - this feels like 'Mecca'. Today I am settled in and feel like I am beginning to belong. I have managed to watch a few plays, a few concerts, walked down most known streets. I have a list of must do's for myself before I set foot into the wilderness of the globe yet again.

- Watch all my favorite artists perform
- Watch the wicked, phantom of the opera and a few not so advertised but still awesome plays
- Finish up my short course in art direction
- Learn the piano and a few other instruments. Indulge in Music - Classical Forms, Percussion!
- Walk Zone 1 and 2 of London over a weekend!
- Take the night bus more often
- Get as many seats as possible for the London Jazz Festival.

Clicked a few pictures to remember how this journey started! Just like London says - All of you are welcome as long as you are in transit!

When flights are long

Its a long journey....
My fingers are crossed:-d
My mind half shut!
Eyes blind but open.

I play my music to shut me off.
And yet time inches slowly...
Is this about faith or learning to let go?
I know i have to wait and then i ll know.

This time it seemed the door did not shut
Before i arrived,
I believe! And yet skeptical I am
Willing to be lured by surprises and unmoved by destiny.

Have you ever felt like life can be paused, the world can go by.
Or you can run and the world stands still. And yet it would not make a difference.
That is when like Buddha says: "Maybe we come to terms with the fact that we are alone after all; and the world a trajectory for several individual trespassers"

Look, a thousand tangled paths in that sea!

I hated walking as a child. Gimme some wheels and I would be most happy. My parents got to believe they have given birth to the worlds laziest child who graduated from parents arms straight to prams, bicycles, bikes, scooters, scooties and then to a car! However, I have realized that what I loved the most was really to discover. To find trails, paths that seemed less treaded but were heading somewhere. To look for treasures, secrets, meaning and reflections of some story in natures puzzle that was scattered all over.

I remember the one time I discovered a well, with a broken wall, in the middle of acres of arid land. I looked inside and saw a snake and thought that the snake was guarding it all these years. I once hit upon at least 20 identical 4 walled stone houses completely haunted a few miles beyond humanity. I hid there all day waiting for the smugglers to show up.

I feel a quaint rush of happiness, almost every time I spot a tree, a bird a church , a pond or just some beauty that nature has created somewhere. I believe every road is connected to every other.We just need to traverse the possibilities. After years, of driving I got myself a bicycle and found myself drawn again to exploring newer trails. Only this time I believe I had a clouded mind and polluted roads to break away from with my iPod. Nothing else had changed, if we really look there are small hidden nooks all around hiding something our mind otherwise misses to notice. I have traversed the same path several times and yet found myself discovering something new every single time. I don't know if life really has a purpose or if exploring is a means or an end. However, I do believe that Bangalore is a lovely city, step out and explore a little bit and you will find remnants of Goa, Rajashthan, The Grand Canyons and Europe in it. I have found a key, I will I guess look for the lock someday. Until then

"Cycle par sawaar, fiza mai mashgool, sunna hai us shor ko.
Jo chupke se kanon ma garaj ke, kuch dikha jaata hai mere aks ko..."

Back to traveling and in Portland

Finally back on the plane and hit Portland a few days ago. A 34 hour flight, 5 movies and a book! Was quite a flight.

Portalnd is a nice quaint city and it rains like its the only way one expresses feelings. I am off to meet up N my best pal from college and I am "quite the" excited as she would have put it.

Up in the air, Paranormal activity, Shakti, Le Herisson are few of the movies I watched. I am trying hard to get to sleep but luck does not shine.

Waiting to hit the road and watch some more crazy movies maybe. Until then take care.

What is it that I seek

Its been maddening days with travel, work, weddings and a lot more happening at a pace that does not let me even experience it in totality. I am sure I will pause one of these days and look back and be surprised at how much has happened and how time has gone by. I am sure I will be left echoing to myself the constant question about what is it that I seek. Why is there this constant urge to pace through life and yet stand still trying to find answers.

I am in Hongkong and hope I can take some time off and explore the city. Met cousins after long time and painted the roads of Indore red. I enjoyed my second class travel, meeting people from Madhya Pradesh who I think have no characteristic feature distinguishing them when you look at them. They are best at merging. I met agriculture and seed sales men listening to Altaaf Raja like songs going on a weekend team outing to Delhi which seemed to be their high point. I was able to get off a station and have Poha and Jalebi sweetened like it was influenced from Gujrat. I heard Malwiya which cannot sound good unless you chewing on paan. I sipped on juice made of "paan" and met a girl from Chattisgarh who spends 6 months in Japan and yet was just how she was in Chattisgarh. These people I met had a strong character, a personality so distinct and yet so familiar and ordinary. Each one had an ambition and each one had to deal with reality which is so much more easier to feel than the ones I keep in my mind. Their reality was about experience and mine about thoughts.I have had so many experiences, conversations, observations and realized my heart is still not in fancy restaurants or meeting rooms. It is really here amidst noise, people and the raw. I wish to experience more and I guess for now at least that is what I seek.

The white wonder!

Its been a rather hectic week. Fast paced, interesting, tiring and surprising.The week also took me to the Taj- Yes a wonder that I had never managed to see, but had always passed by. A wonder that had eluded me for long, finally struck a connection.

I had always had dreams of how I would see the Taj ( I tend to imagine and dream most parts of life that have not happened:-) I had my own picture of what this monument would look like. I had assumed I wouldn't be fascinated by it and it would be an overrated piece of art. However,the moment that I just set my eyes on this structure has been etched in my mind and heart forever. I am not sure what it was but I just felt a strange connection, some new life took over as I walked closer to the symmetrical, white, fascinating wonder. I felt I have known the place from ever. It would be extremely hard for me to jot down my exact feelings. All I know is that:

Afloat on the sea, a white bird I am.
Standing amidst time, I shine on.
The brazen finger that carved eternity
would have gazed at the moon all night.
Triumphing his creation of the day,
perfection! Inlays that many a eyes delight.
I stand! Time shy's away.
Yet,I remember the elephant roar,
the constant hands,
the lashes of the rain.
Symbolic of love, I stand .
Witness to flawless expression.
That between any two or just, you and me.

I am sure I will go back there some day just to reassure myself.

Update from the land of safaris

Been a while since I posted an update..I guess I owe it to my blog space to at least bless it with a few bytes of garbled gibberish/ so called thoughts, information whatever..

For now I am seated at a logistics office in Johannesburg (South Africa) amidst the wilderness trying to probably take an account of where I am. The last year has kind of gotten me disoriented in terms of belonging. Was in Noida for a while and traveled to Kolkata,Pune,Hyderabad,Chennai, Indore, Bhopal for work and personal stuff. Finally got on a plane and landed here. The place at the outset came as a surprise - Beautiful landscape (not very rich with vegetation though), Clean, Very competitive infrastructure, but at the same time poverty and crime which you see and hear about kind of makes one restrained. Connectivity is probably the biggest handicap of this country. Cells phone lines drop like apples did in Newtons time, Internet connection is as difficult to own as easy it is to probably hit upon gold out here. Call rates are explosively high and people probably love just being on their own with the wild life and humongous number of places which can keep you busy all weekends.

Life out here is not particularly easy since I commute a distance of 50 kms everyday one way to work. Would ideally take me 15 minutes..but the traffic jams are almost a regular scene and so..an hour on the road is most common. Of course I have the honour and privilege of listening to this radio channel called - Lotus FM which kind of connects you back home. Most of the time it plays bhajans or gives you telgu lessons. Yesterday we had this dude teaching Urdu and he translated iftafaq as : Union:) But yeah that keeps me entertained on the way back and forth office.

The news headlines and the stories you hear kind of scare you but I have met most wonderful people all over the country so far. Its just when you are driving and someone stops and implores you for some money, you are filled with ambivalent feelings. Should I stop and help or will he just harm me if I pull down my window?? This is the most sad part. None of my experiences so far have gotten me to believe that the place is unsafe. But then again you do read and hear of things happening around which keep you guarded.

The weekends have a couple of safaris, adventure sports lined up. I hope time does sail and a sense of belonging does sink in. I hope to also find sometime to post a few updates. Till then Adios.

From where the Kangarooos Live

And this ones for Murphy, the pal who always shows up. He would make a super boyfriend. He can be demanding, always there giving you small little surprises and yeah just hanging around even after you think it was over..I mean what if ...!!

Anyways I am here in Australia, despite getting my passport 10 minutes before my check in time with a visa (yeah you need one of those to prove you are not a terrorist, you don't pose a threat to the kangaroos , you can basically walk past immigration and say- u cant screw me! Its a different thing that as a child I thought that people can take a bus or walk around the world buy land, build houses as they took pit-stops!). Well after having had my nervous system on the edge and a battle through the security, I just sit and sit and sit waiting for a boarding call. The airports a mess, suddenly all of India just shows up from no where and grabs all the seats that exist. I just park myself on the floor and realized that no one was really in a hurry to get anywhere. No seats got available even though flights did take off and time just ticked. Then we are told, coffee day is the mantra to relieve us of any inconveniences caused cos the plane just wont take off! It wasn't in the mood to! So free refreshments at 2.00 a.m.?! Its so much a price to pay for forgiveness! Sigh! Eventually after much anticipation, speculation and hope, a plane shows up. We are asked to board and it decides it can fly and that it takes off but cannot land! So it flies and flies forever until someone says no more air after Singapore. Scared of falling it does land. Just an hour after my connection has taken off! Sigh! 12 hours on airport seats another long flight cant be the idea of fun. I land straight into my customers office presenting something and I think he would have just gifted me sleep had he got one of those knock off coupons instead of a project!

Anyways the truth is, despite Murphy I am here and ....Even though I have never been to this continent, I always dreamt of having a farm house in Australia as a child! I guess I was just a hopeless child who thought about real estate way back then! However, reality was rather disappointing. The place is so dead after 6, seems very cold and has not yet managed a wow factor! It has a beautiful harbor but no one to walk and admire it. Everyone just sleeps. It is ridiculously expensive in terms of food and tourist stuff. Its not yet appealed to me in a way that I would remember it and long to be back! Maybe its cause I am yet to see nicer parts. I have only looked at it as a city to live and work at and not yet seen the tourist spots.

I had the most amazing food though and intend to give the city a better chance tomorrow. Just came into these spaces and decided..maybe I should just update by blog so that people who do complain can let me be for a while!

Kangaroos, I am yet to see....they don't really walk on streets out here like i had thought!

The home coming!

Having survived several trips far east, I decided its time I actually sit down and take stock of my life..Take stock of where I am and how do I define it..In all this travel I have lost the sense of "home", "belonging" and its strange when every place suddenly seems like home or not home! I wonder if it is the food , or the place or the people that one usually relates to?

Each trip has sorta brought about bigger realizations of how most boundaries cultures are so human made and time based. You start to do something and in some time it becomes habit and in much larger time with more people joining the clan it becomes culture! I had never fathomed enjoying or relishing Chinese food and craving for Chinese dessert! I don't know if this is what people call being converted, but today I wouldn't mind indulging in the above. Its amazing to see how not so far away from home land there is a place which seems like this factory churning out almost everything that is a commodity far west..Intricate hands hired for their innate abilities of finery...soldering packaging and turning circuit boards to fine mouth pieces! Or be it in buildings stocked with yarns and yarns of thread..they are all there providing employment to many and artifacts for use to the rest of the world. I have lived in places far out from humanity and in settlements so full of life and people..Going past such variation in rapid speed can cause some amount of dis orientation and one can actually feel mis placed. But then suddenly when the last and final boarding call is announced and the plane takes off....it feels like the journey is taking me back..Back home? I dont know! Back to my balance amdist the chaos!

Anyways now I am back and seems like I would be for a while...before I go trotting, changing and lost in quest of home again!