So here's the thing. We all need some creative CPR once-in-a-while. I know I do. My friend Nammo - co-conspirator of all things fun - had this great idea to create collaborative pieces of digital art. And that's how 10 X TEN was born. Check out the poster to find out how it works. If you want to sign-up just email us or leave a comment with an email id so we can get back to you. We're also figuring this out as we go along so please bear with us if it sounds a little sketchy at the moment. But the basic principle is - 1o people create 10 pieces of collaborative art.
A light went out yesterday. A bright, shining radiant beam of light. It seems a moment ago, that it was there. Strong and warm, with no sign of a flicker. And just like that, it began to dim. All those who had felt its comforting glow, felt something draining out of their own heart. It ebbed to a single point of light......and then there was nothing. In its place, was heaviness. A weight that bore down on everyone. But there was no darkness. Even in the absence of that beautiful beam of sunshine, there was no black cover of dark. There was instead a glow - feeble at first, but steadily growing strong. Everyone watched it slowly throb with life. those who thought they had forgotten the light, began to remember again. They found they could vividly recall the raidiance and the illuminating joy of its presence. And as memory was called to serve, the glow became brighter and stronger still. Then they knew - those who had loved the light - that this glow would be there forever. It would be with them no matter where they were. And when the sun warmed their soul, they would rememeber their own little piece of sunshine that had lived for too short a while. But one that had blazed so bright a trail that she would glow forever. All they had to do was remember. And they did.
इस काली रात में एक आवाज़ अगर है तो वो है उस चौकीदार की छड़ी की ठक ठक । उसकी पतली टांगें जो देती हैं उसकी छड़ी का साथ, लम्बा रास्ता तय कर चुकी हैं। मेरे घर की खिड़की से उसका यह रात का सफ़र रोज़ नज़र आता है । रोज़ वह पीपल के पेड़ की तरह बंधा, गाँठ-भरा शरीर साइकिल पर बैठ कर मेरे घर तक आता है। दुबला, लेकिन बांस जैसा सीधा वह चौकीदार रोज़ मेरी गहरी नींद की खातिर अपना घर छोड़कर मेरे घर की रखवाली करने आता है। उसे देख मैं सोच में पड़ जाती हूँ । उसके चेहरे पर खिंची संकरी लकीरों पर गौर करती हूँ। और मन ही मन उससे सवाल करती हूँ - "चौकीदार तुम्हारे घर पर पहरा कौन दे रहा है? तुम्हारी बिटिया जो सपनों में अपने बाबा की साईकिल चलाती है, उसकी नींद का ज़िम्मा किसने उठाया है?" मुझे जवाब नहीं मिलता, सिर्फ रात के अँधेरे में गूंजती उस छड़ी की ठक ठक और कभी-कभी वो दो शब्द; वो पहरेदारों, चौकीदारों और रात के रखवालों का नारा - "जागते रहो!" अब नींद से भारी मेरी आँखें बंद हो रही हैं । "पर चौकीदार कहीं तुम्हारी खुली आंखों पर नीदं का साया तो नहीं ? होशियार। इस अँधेरी रात को जो तुम्हारी आँखें घूर रही हैं, उसी रात की परछाई में छिप कर दो अनजानी आँखें तुम्हें पढ़ रही हैं। बस, यहाँ तुम्हारी पलकें झपकीं, वहीँ इस सोए हुए शहर की नींद टूटी। हर रात की तरह क्या इस रात की सुबह भी तुम्हारी छड़ी की दस्तक पर आएगी चौकीदार ? हाँ। बस कुछ देर और। तब तक, जागते रहो। "
- Signature by Michael Ondaatje (From the Cinnamon Peeler)
Finally.
Delhi got the sound and light show it deserves.
No. I’m not referring to the one at Red Fort set to Amitabh Bachhan’s baritone or the one at Purana Quila narrated by Om Puri. (Ironic isn’t it – that the fort built in a time of excess gets the decadent voice of Bacchan while the crumbling, deeply neglected Old Fort has its story told by his doppelganger Puri – just a thought)
Coming back to what I was saying. We were treated to three incredible albeit short-lived thunderstorms in the span of two weeks. And what drama it was - certainly worth the wait. Sepulchral clouds on the horizon, swirling dust, winds that made light of even the mightiest Neem and raindrops that felt icy on sun-baked skin. Thunder sounded a preliminary warning and people scurried like ants, looking for cover. The rumble set the stage with a fantastic drum roll. Whooshing gusts of wind threatened to spirit away trees, birds, things and people alike. Lightning that scared the bejesus out of me with its white whip cracking across the night sky. Even hail that fell like marbles out of tin box!
And finally rain. Delicious, smelling-of-earth, soak-you-to-the-bone, redeem-the-month-of-may kind of rain.
But for me the best part is when the grand show is over. The time when the damp air and sweet smells filling it can be imbibed without prejudice. When people (some people at least!) survey in shock and awe, the arboreal carnage across the city. Huge branches, entire trees, piles of leaves, flowers, pods and nests litter the roads. A fitting homage.
I got to take in the sights on my regular rickshaw ride from the metro station back to my house. The road is particularly beautiful winding up from Shamnath Marg flanked by the pristine white façade of the British built Maidens Hotel, rising up towards St. Xavier’s and the Governors residence and finally ending at a junction framed by Oleander and Jarul trees. Near the hotel, a tall eucalyptus tree had been felled by the storm, and a small army of men and women were at work trying to clear the road. Most of the leaves had been turned to mulch by the speeding vehicles. A happy accident in my opinion because the whole place smelled divine – aromatherapy in the most unlikely fashion!
Further ahead, near the beautiful St. Xavier’s school, a massive branch of Neem had broken off. Almost half a tree. As the rickshaw pulled past the giant green bush on the road I caught a glint of steel underneath. A silver Esteem barely visible, seemed to be resting, virtually unharmed under the canopy. The next day the whole thing was gone – stripped for daatun and its medicinal leaves and bark I bet – or for firewood. I remember soaking in a bath of neem leaves when I was down with Chicken Pox as a kid. To my mind, it’s the closest I’ve come to a spa treatment till date. I’m telling you – Cleopatra might have bathed in milk but I’ve had itchy sores healed by a bittersweet broth of leaves.
Anyway, the rickshaw ride had many more sights for me to savour. The purple flowers of Jaarul, magenta Bougainvillea trellis over a wall, the wet red brick building of B.M. GangeSchool and finally the flaming Amaltas (laburnum) tree in my own house compound. When May began, I was worried. The Amaltas tree I loved to watch, was still bare. In the rest of the city, they had already begun to show off their dangling yellow bunches. This one was bald except for a few new shoots. I thought the mindless pruning of its branches by the neighbours had finally been its undoing, as I had often feared. But as it turned out I was being paranoid. It was just a late bloomer. And like all late bloomers, when it finally did come into its own, it outdid all its golden siblings across town. I should’ve known – our family has a real thing for late bloomers.
These things – part of nature’s very own Cirque du Soleil - invoke in me what I imagine to be the closest thing to religious fervour and passion. A constant reminder that it takes so little to lift ones spirits. For me it takes a dash of good weather and a smattering of crushed eucalyptus leaves put together with a burst of yellow laburnum.
Ammuma - my grandmother is an ace story-teller. When my brother and I were young, she regaled us with some not-so-conventional bedtime stories. That is how I first heard of 'The Titanic' and was taken by the phrase "ill-fated maiden voyage". It was also the reason why, many years later while reading Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca I knew how it ended even before I had finished. And first sentences from books like "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderlay again" and "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" were in fact all too familiar. Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities was an instant favourite. My brother and I asked again and again to hear the story of Charles Darnay, Sydney Carton and Lucie Manette. I found the descriptions of the siege of Bastille and the rolling heads at the guillotine magnificently macabre.
I have an image from one such narration - it is of an old almost toothless woman sitting on the other side of the guillotine knitting away an inexorable scarf watching with considerable glee as the heads roll into a basket. One would imagine that my child's mind would reject such violent imagery - but somehow it stuck. As did Marie Antoinette and her "let them eat cake" remark which is something of a historical myth. I think my grandmother's bedside oratory brilliance had something to do with the fact that both history and literature became dear to me.
But the stock of great stories was endless. She never tired of telling us about our illustrious lineage. We would puff up our chests and preen at the mere mention of the 'Royal Family of Cochin'. And the inevitable child-like barrage of questions would follow. So did vallia-muthachan (great grandfather) wear a crown? Did you have an elephant of your own? Did you eat dinner on a table that was as long as a coconut tree? Of course, none of the above was true. And my grandmother would try her best to sound mysterious when she said "No.But we had two cars!! An ambassador AND a Chevrolet!!!" Needless to say, we weren't impressed. Not even when we heard about the children stealing dosas from the kitchen. Stealing? Dosas? Royalty? Pffftt.
But we loved hearing about Padmalayam - the big house, with the central courtyard. The lagoon at the back witht the coconut tree bent so low , it almost formed a bridge. The maid who would catch tiny fish using her sari like a net just to amuse the children. My great-grandfather who loved wearing walking shoes even with a mundu. And how the eldest of 6 brothers and sisters fell into a ditch full of dung while trying to run away from his tution-master.
Today, even at the age of 80, my grandmother is holding on to those stories for dear life. For so many years, growing up in family that was more scattered than together, she has been my eye and ear into the past. Going through old family albums, identifying thumb-sucking uncles and mischievous aunts while savouring anecdotes like adamaanga - yeah, that was our thing. Now, as her memory fades she finds the urge to talk about those days and years past, more often. Repition seems to be the backbone of remembrance. And even though names and incidents get all mixed up, the story never ends. She will stop mid-sentence, squint and frown - as if putting a puzzle together in her head. Eventually, she returns to her audience with a fresh detail or a forgotten twist in the tale. And we forge ahead...... It's amazing how much she still remembers, and how easily we seem to forget.
Grandparents perhaps intuitively take on the role of chief-storyteller. Their own lives, mirrored in their children and their children's children, take on mythic proportions. Perhaps it is some primordial preservation instinct that makes us want to pass on our stories to each successive generation. So that even in un-living and un-being, an echo of the life lived may resonate in time.
So this one is called 'Chugga' - which basically refers to the food a mother bird brings back for her babies. I thoroughly enjoyed figuring out the characters and their surroundings. A lot of the action takes place in and around a maize field so I tried different view points and angles to keep the visuals engaging. After Najma Ki Jeet this is my second book with the same organisation - Room to Read (India). These books are published as part of their local language publishing program. The books find a place in children's libraries set up by the organisation in different parts of the country. Definitely a fun project!
Given how saturated our lives are these days by the omnipresent, ubiquitous in-your-face media it's hard to be restrained in one's own reactions to the goings-on around you. There have been many events, incidents, occurrences and occasions when I have wanted to vent my frustration on this blog. But for some unknown reason I haven't been able to bring myself to do it. Perhaps its the feeling that my opinion/observation would be just another shrill voice adding to the cacophony (literally - have you heard the likes of Barkha Dutt, Arnab Goswami and Rajdeep Sardesai trying to outshout their on-camera victims??) However, some time has passed and after much quiet reflection I have decided that I do want to put my do paise worth of opinion out there.
Brevity will be it though, since many of these happenings have lived out their time in the collective consciousness of the media - if not the people en generale. So here are a few things that have disturbed, enraged, upset and/or reassured me in varying degree. (in no particular order)
1) 26th November 2008: People aren't about to forget this date anytime soon. Many tears have been shed, even more words have been spoken and written. But at the time I felt nothing could heal the wound other than introspection. A serious and solemn look at our history - the parallel history of two nations which used to be one. And that erroneously forgotten human tragedy - the partition. It is said that amputees in the early days sense their missing limb as clearly as when it was still attached to their body. A phantom limb syndrome. Ring a bell does it?
2) Marathi Manoos and the politics of the MNS: An MNS worker said on television in an attempt to justify the Marathi Manoos agenda "In Rome you must do as the Romans do, or else....leave." How absurd. While they quite rightly point out that Mumbai is not Maharashtra they are unable to apply the same logic to their own mandate. For if they had, surely the MNS and Raj Thackeray would have done something for the suffering populace of Vidarbha? Surely his esteemed legions would have asserted their regional identity through Marathi Cinema and Theater....But how can they, when they are driven by nothing more than narrow political gain.
3) Media noise: It has been a while since 24X7 news became as normal as mobile phones. But how does one ignore the constant barrage of images that trivialise and sensationalise all at once. Everything is newsworthy and simultaneously nothing is. As if playing out an Orwellian saga, the camera is everywhere - lingering on every shard of glass, every drop of blood and every wrinkle on every tear stained cheek. All the world's a stage and today, someone is always watching. While the Simi Garewals and Barkha Dutt's of the world pass loud judgement, the rest of us struggle to hear the thoughts in our own head. Wildly gesticulating anchors proclaiming 'an exclusive, live, breaking news' every other minute leave no space for coherent thought. Everything is a premeditated, foregone and foretold. And in the meantime a girl and a man murdered brutally still wait for justice.
4)Mangalore, Kandhamal, Bajrang Dal, Shri Ram Sena, Intolerance INC: It seems in our country economic progress, steady growth rates and 'shining' labels are inversely proportional to tolerance. Every time such an incident occurs I find myself wondering how can one human being do this to another human being? Why is it so hard to live and let live? The musing, I am aware, sounds laughably naive. But no one - no newspaper, no book, no film, no friend or family member, no intellectual - has even brought me close to an answer. And since there is no reassurance from the State that Intolerance will not be tolerated, I believe we are on our own. (with the corporate honchos cheering for Modi, the whole thing has been painted an uglier shade)
5)Sanjay Dutt and his fall from grace: Munnabhai, MCP as he's been aptly christened on this blog has definitely lost favour with me once and for all. During his impending 6 year conviction almost two years ago I had written a semi-sympathetic post on this blog. And now I wish I hadn't. Read Sanju Baba's regressive spiel here.
6) New New Wave: On a slightly positive, uplifting note the arrival of 'Brave New Bollywood' has been such an encouraging development. So many good, heartwarming films have graced the big screen in the recent past. Dibakar Banerjee - without a doubt one of the torchbearers of this new cinema along with a few seasoned others like Anurag Kashyap, Vishal Bharadwaj and Rajat Kapoor. Small stories with great ambition that stay away from those broad brush strokes that Bollywood uses all too often to colour our notions. Just go over to passionforcinema.com and you will see the child-like wonder with which cinephiles - both known (like Kashyap) and unknown - are talking about this second-coming of mainstream cinema. Here's hoping there are more big-little movies like Aamir, A Wednesday, Mithya, Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, Khosla Ka Ghosla and Manorama Six Feet Under.
7) Slumdog Millionaire: Fact or Fiction or Who-Cares-As-Long-As-It's-Fun? I'm on the fence with this one. Do I take issue with the word 'Slumdog' -No. I think it has more to do with the word "underdog" than it has to do with the more Indian "gali ka kutta". (although in one of the sub-titles the hindi word kutta is replaced by the word slumdog) Do I have an issue with it as a film made by a foreigner who has little or no understanding of the complexities of India - Erm. Yes and No. The outsider argument does not seem relevant when you take into consideration that Danny Boyle has made the film primarily for a Western audience. Therefore the reliance on tiresome cliches like the Taj Mahal and the very Lonely Planet-ish image of the child-god Rama encountered in the scene where Jamal and Salim are running away from a riotous mob. The narrative structure too is fairly straightforward and formulaic at times, building up to a predictable yet exhilirating end. I thoroughly enjoyed the parts played by the youngest three - who were in my own personal view let down by the older actors who took over. The characters of Jamal, Salim and Latika outlined quite poignantly by them were somewhat abandoned by Dev Patel and the others. The tumble from the train, into the future was where it started going downhill for me.
An oversimplification of otherwise complex issues could have been ignored because one is so used to this lumping together of themes in a most superficial fashion in mainstream Bollywood. So while slums, squalour and even the rags-to-riches tale are fact, it is the telling of the tale that gives it away as pure fiction. So let all discussion stop at that. It is not refined social commentary. We know that. Does Danny Boyle know? I'm not sure. In the meantime....let's root for A.R because it's irrelevant whether he deserves recognition for the music in this film. The point is that he does.
8)Obama! : The world took notice as one man stepped up. What a moment. Forget whether he will be good for India or not and just revel in that most positive message of the year "yes we can!"
Winter in Delhi is many things. Bitterly cold, sun-less and bleak for the most part it can be an unhappy time for many. For me though, the city shrouded in mist is a happier place. Happier than the Delhi of April and May – when bathing defeats its own purpose and the tarred roads melting in protest, stick to your shoes. Happier than the city in monsoon when complaints are rife of potholes and puddles. No. Winter is relief.
And what an entrance it makes! Easing its way into our lives with a shudder here and a shiver there. Not like spring that reminds of the oppressive summer heat lurking ahead. Long hot days give way ever so gently to shorter days when the cool air brings goosebumps on bare arms. Night sneaks up on the day and the light fades dutifully. The sun doesn’t hurt anymore – its warmth spreading deliciously over skin bare now but soon to be hidden under warm layers. Soon instead of the once-a-week Chocobar, it’s warm smoky peanuts and seeking out the un-earthly pleasure of cracking their crunchy shell under thumb and forefinger. The city is changes its hues – Tilak Marg will be flanked by a skeletal army of trees. Trees that jealously kept out the sun, now filter its rays and create winter ephemera.
Like I said winter in Delhi is many things.
It is the billowing white mist from my mouth. It is layers of wooly pleasure – scarves, gloves, multi-coloured socks, shawls, sweaters, stockings and neck warmers. It is going to lodhi garden to watch the dogs play and laze around in the fickle sun - just like everyone else. It is huddling in an auto sharing a shawl while the wind makes light of your chattering teeth. It is waking up in the dark (when we were young) to go to school. It is a bonfire of dry leaves that dies out almost as soon as it is lit. It is the haze that hangs low on the empty streets at night and the halo that crowns the tall lights along the way. It is dahlias and chrysanthemums. It is lumpy quilts wrap around frigid toes and a frosty nose. It is sun-kissed mornings and plump oranges with tangerine jewels. It is the smell of freshly washed woolens and their fuzzy warmth baking in the sun. It is fallen leaves crackling underfoot and the smell of wood smoke.
To me winter in this city will always smell of burning leaves. Perhaps it is because until a few years ago these autumnal-discards were burnt in neat little piles along the roadside. The pungent acrid smell tickled the back of my throat. But mixed with the winter air, it felt cold but smelt of warmth. A warm woody fragrance that would get into my clothes if I got close enough to these winter pyres.
R shares my joy for the cold season. And though hers is a sartorial obsession we were equally excited about the steadily dipping mercury. One evening as we sat in auto speeding down Siri Fort road, considering the nip in the air with apt concentration R said something…..wonderful.
Don’t you think people seem a lot friendlier in winter?
Hmm. Why do you say that?
All this road rage and rabblerousing….it’s because in the summer everyone is so hot and bothered. But in winter…it’s so cold that people can’t be bothered about sticking their noses out of their monkey caps, let alone open their mouths to say something vile.
….I think you’re on to something.
I can’t wait for it to get so cold that my knuckles get jammed! says R here eyes the size of saucers. Hey, move over so I can get under your shawl. My nose is cold.
As we cowered in oner corner of the auto almost cheek-to-cheek with bare chested Sallu bhai, I caught a whiff of wood-smoke from a park nearby. Winter had warmed my heart yet again.
I loved this post on this blog. And it got me thinking - if I could visit any of the places from the imagined landscapes of the books I've read where would I go. It's a charming thought really. And for me, that's what books are all about at the end of the day. About people and places that are so delicately imagined that by the time you're finished with the book they already seem familiar.
So here's my list of top five literary destinations in no particular order:
1) Macondo from Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude
2) Dehradun and Mussourie from Ruskin Bond's stories
3) Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series
4) Malgudi from R. K. Narayan's Malgudi Days
5) Istanbul from Orhan Pamuk's My Name Is Red
There are of course many many more like The Faraway Tree from Enid Blyton's stories, Miss Havisham's ruined mansion from Great Expectations, the fantastic cityscapes described by Marco Polo in Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, Mr. Biswas's house from V.S. Naipaul's A House For Mr. Biswas and Jack's Garden from his Enigma of Arrival, 1968 Prague from The Unbearable Lightness of Being to name a few. Even some not so pleasant lit-scapes like Orwell's dystopia from 1984 - Oceania, the Oklahoma dust bowl from Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath and Limerick in Ireland in the 1930's and 40's from Angela's Ashes.
I'm tempted to list out fictional characters I'd like to meet (from literature and cinema), films I'd like to live in and and works of art I'd like to be! This could take a while.....
I enjoy drawing. And I discovered it only recently along with the realisation that anyone can draw. My desire to illustrate a book for children took shape in the form of 'Najma Ki Jeet' - a story about a girl who wins a small but significant victory. The project was comissioned by the organisation Room To Read. It is for now my first and only children's book. These are the only pictures I have - not the best but will have to do for the moment.
Edit: For the record, the story has not been written by me.
The following is a small extract from my diploma document. For those who don't know what that is - it is basically the final stamp on four (or two-and-a-half for some) years of design education. I look at it fondly as a reminder of all that transpired between me and NID. However, I chose to post this particular extract for a different reason......
In the four years I spent at NID needless to say, there was a lot to learn. For instance, I learnt a fair amount about what we mean by design and what one has to do to put the process of design into motion. Having been a student of Film and Video Communication at NID I have somehow always felt greatly at odds with the over-arching discipline of design vis-à-vis that of cinema. Cinema – a very intuitive and subjective medium not to mention a highly sensual one – seems far removed from the pedagogy of design. The latter is rational, logical and in its very essence something functional.
It would be far too simplistic to view the disciplines of design as cinema as two separate water-tight compartments when in fact their paths do cross often. Undeniably, a piece of cinema is actually part of a meticulously crafted and constructed reality. The beauty of cinema however, is in its ability to combine word, image and sound in space and time. It is the potential of the cinematic idiom to evoke emotions – real emotions – that set it apart from the problem-solving, analytical realm of design.
Cinema owes a great deal more to literature, music and the fine arts than it does to the academics of design which prescribes certain ways of dealing with a problem of life and living. Imagine trying to rationalize the tragicomic nature of Chaplin’s Tramp or any of Woody Allen’s neurotic characters!
Though one may say that a character is designed to perform the charade it does on screen, it is impossible to define the formula or right process by which a character may be ordered to do one’s bidding. The guidance for that comes from some sort of inner compass located first within the director/writer and in some extraordinary cases, within the gifted actors who play those parts.
Those aspects of cinema that touch a chord with its viewers operate beyond the practical realm of design. Good cinema cannot be inspired as a mere solution to say, a narrative problem. It is not the means to an end as is the case with design. It is both the medium and the message. The communicator and that which is communicated. And though it is mechanically conjured and virtually an engineered product, it transcends those limits once it reaches its final destination – when it is seen, heard and felt.
I had posted an excerpt from this article some time back on this blog. It has since then been published in Rock Street Journal. Here's the rest of it. A travel piece on Diu. This is the original piece i wrote. The one that appeared in the magazine was abruptly cut short at the end.
The Sound of Silence: Weekends in Diu
When the going gets tough…..head to Diu! That was pretty much the mantra for us while we were busy pursuing a novel education in Ahmedabad. It was always the easiest place to get to and it was never too hard to find more than willing fellow travelers. For me the lure of Diu was always the promise of an invigorating weekend at the beach away from the madness of busy lives in the city. And the fact that this particular island destination comes without the tourist hoopla that surrounds most beach-towns was the icing on the cake.
A quaint little hamlet, the island of Diu is situated off the Saurashtra coast of Gujarat. Though it is accessible by rail and by air, we always made the overnight trip by bus – a neat 180 Rs to get you from Ahmedabad to Diu. The bus is no luxury coach but the slight discomfort seemed a small price to pay for what lay ahead. By around 7 in the morning, just as you begin to rub the sleep from your eyes, the smell of the sea tells you that you have arrived. Even now, despite having been there before, every time we make the trip, the first sight of the sea never fails to excite me.
We would spot the first signs of life in an otherwise quiet town - the fishing boats anchored in the bay bobbing in tandem with the waves, nets spread out to dry, the wooden ship building yard with unfinished skeletons waiting for the tide, neatly scrubbed kids on their way to school-a sleepy town awakening to yet another sleepy day.
The ritual on arrival was always to first and foremost, hire bikes! Mopeds, scooties, the Luna or bicycles should you choose to exercise while you’re on vacation. There is nothing more satisfying than zipping around on a relic of a moped on a road that bends and dips and curves, giving you fleeting, tantalizing glimpses of the sea. Plus it’s an incredibly economic mode of transport given that the rental is about 100 bucks a day inclusive of one tank of petrol! Another reason I prefer having my own mode of transport when I’m traveling is that one avoids being bullied by over-zealous auto-wallahs who moonlight as tourist guides. Eager-beavers that they are, their sole aim is to hijack your vacation. So beware - independence is crucial to the intrepid traveler!
I must admit though, that sight-seeing in Diu was definitely not a bore. Despite being a small-town with a distinctly laidback quality, there is enough to keep you on your toes. The Portuguese fort that sort of outlines the city is definitely worth a visit. It seems to rise up out of the water and offers a spectacular view of the Arabian Sea. Though overrun by loud tourists on weekends, the fort is not to be missed by the architecture and history buff. Old cannons, ruined ramparts, a lone light house and my personal favourite – the long stone pier that stretches out into the sea - it’s the stuff of movies and legends.
The real appeal of Diu is not so much in the sights but the setting of it all. Huge rocky cliffs, diminished only by the carpet of yellow daisy like flowers, are scattered all over the island. Ideal for soaking up the sun, exploring these mountains of rock chiseled by the sea is a must-do. The Gomptimata beach – a rocky shore with wild surf – on the far end of the island has some phenomenal cliffs where if you look hard enough you can find yourself a comfy little corner on a ledge and while away the hours reading a book or just watch the waves crash into the walls below.
A former Portuguese colony, Diu still retains some of its old world charm. The remains of a colonial past are there for those who wish to see it - in the churches and forts, the names of restaurants and the elusive half Portuguese half Indian families that still inhabit the island. Those who have been to Goa will recognize the vibe – a multicultural strain trying to hold its own in the midst of the local milieu. In Diu though, unlike Goa, this strain stands out simply because it tries not to. And if you’re not careful, you might miss it altogether.
What struck me most about the place on my first visit there was the serenity and stillness that seemed to lurk in every nook and cranny. It was easy – a breeze in fact – to find a deserted strip of sand to spread out on or waves to frolic in without having to worry about strange prying eyes.
In Diu, I have found it much more rewarding to steer clear of the so-called ‘popular’ and ‘best’ beaches and head to the ones that aren’t necessarily listed on any web site or those that feature as a perfunctory remark in the travel guide. In this respect my pick is Jalandhar beach – a pristine golden stretch of sand with big beautiful waves.We were advised against swimming in these waters due to strong currents but we didn’t mind. It was enough to just sit and let the waves come to us while we sipped on beer and felt our skin turn brown. The great thing about Diu is that no one beach is like the other. If one is rocky the other is sandy. One has the perfect waves while the other is a paragon of stillness.
If you’re not sunning yourself on a beach in Diu you should be in NaidaCaves. When we got to the dirt road that said “this way to Naida caves” we were in half a mind to turn back and head to the beach where it was open and sunny and bright. What was in front of us was nothing short of something out of an Indiana Jones movie. Prehistoric was the word I believe someone used to describe these caves. But do work up the courage to venture into the underground labyrinth because it will be well-worth the effort. Once we had navigated through the undergrowth the caves just opened up in front of us. The afternoon light came in through shafts in the ceiling and suddenly it wasn’t so ominous anymore.A photographer’s delight the light, shadows, textures and sheer scale are mind-boggling once you’re there. Though it is unwise to venture into the caves late in the evening, a trip to Naida is a great diversion from the sun-sand-and-sea.
Just a few meters down from Jalandhar is ChakratirthBeach or Sunset point. A crescent shaped cove, it was here that we spent many many hours floating in the still water, playing the fool as the sun set on the horizon. If you’re traveling on a shoe-string budget you might want to consider shacking up at the Sea Village Resort on the hillock that overlooks this beach. The rooms here are made out of cargo containers which explains why it’s so easy on the pocket. It’s a tad grungy but makes up for what it lacks in comfort by its proximity to two of the best beaches in Diu.
On one occasion when we were feeling relatively rich, we decided to stay at the more up-market but curiously delightful Resort Hoka named after the Hoka tree - a strange branching variety of the palm that was introduced in Diu by the Portuguese. Hoka was marvelously comfortable with large, airy rooms, hammocks in the garden and the latest addition – a swimming pool! Another reason to go to Hoka – the food! Their sea food curries are delectable in their simplicity. Despite being a beach-town the sea-food in Diu was by and large disappointing till we discovered the menu at Hoka. I despised Tuna till the cook here made me change my mind!
It was on one such culinary excursion when hungry and hapless we stumbled upon Heranca Goesa. Tucked away in a by-lane opposite the Church of St. Francis this intimate breakfast and dinner joint is run by a pleasant Portuguese-Indian family. We were more than grateful for a hearty breakfast of chocolate and banana pancakes, eggs, toast and coffee. Their own personal kitchen dishes out these tummy-pleasing delights and for a moment you forget you’re still in Gujarat. It’s a great place to meet other travelers since everyone eats together at one table.
I have been to Diu four times till today and each trip has been incomparable to the previous one. It’s surprising how doing very little while you’re on vacation can work wonders for a mangled wreck of a brain. I remember coming back to Ahmedabad with my pockets full of sand and thinking “does it really get better than this?”
The road curved and the sea came up in front – moonlit, the landscape seemed dramatically altered. After sun-down, cruising at a comfortable 20 km/hr on our mopeds down the road that runs parallel to the sea, someone from the distinguished convoy of travelers would always start humming “Riders on the Storm”. And somehow it fit – a familiar melody, the distant but constant sound of the surf, the wind on our face and the salty smell of a weekend well spent.
At the Osian's Cinefan film festival held recently in Delhi I had the chance to go (read sneak out of work) and listen to Paul Schrader talk about screen writing. To my mind this was a golden opportunity to a) maybe learn something about screen writing from the guy who wrote the most precise character sketch ever b) to be in the company of Scorsese's ghost :)
The Siri Fort Auditorium is uncomfortably large. There was a table, chair and white board on the enormous stage and some sort of video projection at the back which I thought would give me a decent view of Schrader as he delivered his lecture. I took my seat at the back just as he walked on to stage and took his place. Bald, chubby, casually dressed in shorts and a t-shirt Paul Schrader was as far removed as can be from the mental picture I had of him from an iconic photograph taken on the sets of Taxi Driver.
As he spoke in that distinctive American drawl about writing and creating cinema in words, he became more familiar. The session titled 'Masterclass in Screenwriting' shaped up like an outline of a lesson in scriptwriting. There were some bold statements that were thrown at the audience. I'm paraphrasing at best but here's one such statement "If you're not willing to drop your pants and let it all hang out, or if you're looking for something more polite and discreet - this [filmmaking] is perhaps not for you." Not the best orator and hardly eloquent - but then it made sense when he spoke of the need for economy of expression. Words cannot make up in number what they lack in girth. In a time when words are cheap and silence costs dear, to say nothing is saying a lot.
The audience was waiting for some sort of an epiphany. But it didn't come. Instead what we got was Paul Schrader talking about his failed marriage, many failed relationships, his suicidal rage, the birth of his daughter, the problem of abject despair and loneliness and its most absolute ambassador - travis bickle and his yellow taxi cab, sparks that fly when a problem finds its own suitable metaphor and a film we thought was about Jake LaMotta when what it was really about was two brothers.
Naturally expectations ran high - and people did end up being disappointed. However, I did find something valuable in that lecture despite the general opinion that Paul Schrader 'aint much to write home about. Which was that no matter how many scripts you write or how many films you make, everytime you write a new script or make a new film or create anything - you have to begin at the very beginning. It's never easier, shorter, quicker or any less agonising. And the journey is always inside out.
If ever there was a megalomaniac of cinema (the Hollywood kind) it is undoubtedly Steven Spielberg. There is nothing this man cannot do. Benevolent alien beings, not-so-benevolent alien beings, swashbuckling treasure hunters, dinosaurs, sharks, thieves, war heroes, war-profiteer turned heroes, racism, Nazism, colonialism - you name it he's done it.
Although it reeks of the assumption 'If it's bigger it must be better' Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of The Crystal Skull is so great to watch only because it is unpretentious and unapologetic about its need to entertain. I mean, just look at the opening sequence - the audaciously self- conscious introduction of Indy Jones as his shadow creeps up on the edge of a jeep and he puts on 'the' hat, a rapier-toting Cate Blanchet, highly magnetised mummified remains and a chase that ends in a nuclear blast which of course Henry Jones survives (and how!) . The scale of imagination (for a rationalist like myself) is just unbelievable. It's good stuff as far as entertainment is concerned. And the promise of a thrill-ride is well-kept right till the end.
Of course the tendency to indulge in some all-American flag-waving did not go unnoticed. "Better be dead than Red!". Come on! We already know what you mean Mr Spielberg when you have the Russians running amok looking for aliens that landed smack in the middle of the U.S of A. So leave the 'west is best' sloganeering where it deserves to be. Back in the 50s.
But let's call a spade a spade. This film shouldn't be judged for its cinematic appeal. Or for political correctness. Or for Spielberg's directorial abilities. For that evidence is plentiful in the form of his other films. Wikipedia has a whole other page devoted to a 'list of Steven Spielberg's films'. The point is that here is a man so comfortable with the medium at hand that he can do virtually anything with it. And for that - just that nothing more - he deserves to be remembered long after his time.
What is it about Delhi that makes even the most demure, polite,well mannered people whip out their claws and bare their teeth?
Delhi is not for the fainthearted. It is exasperating, infuriating and tends to just rub people the wrong way. A colleague at work told me that a man consumed by rage (in all probability due to an altercation over a near-invisible dent on his precious vehicle) started chucking mini boulders at other commuters, damaging a small cavalcade of big cars and even bigger egos. Where he found boulders to hurl on a main road is a question worth asking. (Although my guess is it was thanks to the BRT/MCD/PWD/NDMC or some other acronym that makes good use of the taxpayers' money by digging up every square inch of motorable road) And anyway, the fact that he found it in him to do such a thing is perhaps mundane and would draw less attention than the question of availability-of-boulders-to-throw-at-errant-drivers.
These are the times we live in.
A time when violence is the new normal A time when we split hairs over whodunnits while a nation becomes a republic overnight A time when we ask the most banal questions with utmost sincerity....
It rained and I was happy. But I had reality shoved in my face by just another jackass - the rich kid with the big car - when he calculated the precise turn of the wheel that would splash just the right amount of murky rainwater to soak me down to the bone. Just when my head was a-buzz with rain-soaked laburnum and i-love-the-smell-of-wet-earth thoughts.
Assholes will remain assholes. Yes. Even on days when flowers that gladden your heart dance their mirth in front of your eyes.
Throw down the gauntlet. Take the bull by the horns. Wake up and smell the coffee. Get real.
It floated into my stream of consciousness like a post-it tugged loose from cyber space. Cloaked in deceptive simplicity, the ring of truth is unmistakable in this charmingly lucid statement. So true and yet, somehow, so incredibly disconcerting.
To think that life will never make complete and total sense until it has passed you by............
*shudder*
I bet there is an appropriate Calvin-esque retort to this.
The tracks span length and breadth in the soil over water, land, valley and rock they leave a marked trail the train runs snake-like pregnant with the mass of humanity lives in tow, trussed up in linen or boxed up in cheap wood. The lives dangle, they leap, they sweat they sleep, they watch, they bore they shit, they score, they cry they scratch, they shift, they doze they laze, they trace, they look they cook, they eat, they wash they give and they live from one place to the next forever in motion no full stops no stopping for air go sit on the roof if you can't breathe inside where the babies yell for their mother's breast and the air is like glue filled with the acrid smell of pickle, sweat and soot let your eye traverse the contours of resting bodies - bodies in limbo waiting to move - dormant till the next stop. the next stop life begins anew and so we play at the charade again we move, we pull, we push, we shove we lean, we stall, we, yell, we crush we smile, we wave, we holler, we pale we step, we hop, we skip, we jump we lift, we heave, we ho and we hum.
The past few days have been - to resort to acliché - an emotional roller coaster ride. To be reminded of the impermanence of life in the most jarring way, is to have a mirror held up to how you've been living it all this while. A spitting image of everything you didn't do. Didn't say. Didn't think of. Until it was too late.
No wonder it's liberating to think of yourself as a mere speck of dust on the face of the earth. Without the weight of responsibility, relationships and the rigour of living, as a speck of star-dust you are free. How cool would it be if you could zoom out at will and look down at the earth from space, and watch your troubles disappear to leave only a great big ball of blue-green? Rationalists can come running with their pitchforks of reason and yell "escapist!" but I am at the moment reveling in the (mis-guided) pleasure of denial. To try and fudge over the hurt and guilt of not having been the person I should have been.
But I know I cant bury my head in the sand forever. So when I'm ready - when I've healed a little - I'll look up and face reason, reality and all those other things I'm avoiding right now. After all how hard can it be to pick up the phone and call someone you haven't spoken to in years? Or to write that story you've been meaning to write for the longest time? Or to tell someone that you wouldn't be the same without their quiet presence in your life?
Not all that hard. For sure. And anyway, life is too damn short for me to believe otherwise.
I cannot emphasize enough what a great teacher and extraordinary human being Chitra Srinivas was. She did not merely teach history from a book, she told stories complete with the triumphs and failures, the hits and misses and the highs and lows of humanity. Her integrity and genuine love for the subject she taught reflects in this piece she wrote after she opted out of the commission set up by the NCERT to review the new history textbooks. I'm posting an excerpt. The full text can be found here.
Text books: Sectarian Story or History? by: Chitra Srinivas, November 10, 2002
"I am a schoolteacher who has taught history for the past 25 years. I have enjoyed teaching the subject. I don't claim to be an expert, and I do not belong to any group or subscribe to any particular ideology - the Left, the Hindutva school, or any other. I think the study of history is important because it helps us discriminate and judge, see patterns and connections and, above all, think logically by observing cause and effect.
History has long been treated as a boring subject; indeed, not many students want to study it at the college level. Yet, every government wants to control the writing of this subject. Because it is history that makes a nation. It is through history that one can control minds, especially the young, impressionable minds at school.
I was a member of the five-day Review Workshop organized in January 2002 by the NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training) for the class 10 textbook. I went with an open mind, but as the reading of the draft proceeded, I observed that there was virtually no discussion. For two days, the history text was merely read out. I was the only one who raised objections, whether about the language, facts or even the obvious ideological slant. It was a lonely battle.....
...... I have always told my students that the beauty of Indian culture lies in its ability to accept and assimilate any stream of thought. As a responsible teacher, I am unable to accept distortions in the writing of history that go against the very spirit of India's existence.
I wish for all my children a world where they will be free from hatred towards one another. I also love children too much for them to be left to the mercies of politicians who have their own sectarian agendas. "
