Valley of the roses

Of my first-ever trip to Kashmir, all I remember is that we couldn’t go to Gulmarg for some reason. I was about nine then, and most things were fuzzy. A few years later, we went – en famille again – on a holiday to Srinagar once more, little knowing that it would be our last trip – the troubles started a few years subsequently and we haven’t gone back since.

Almost three decades later, I’m left with but a series of impressions – words, images, sensations – of that vacation. But Srinagar was always special, as my parents had lived there for some years much earlier, when my father was posted in the region. My brother had been a toddler then, and all he had to remember it by was a stack of black-and-white pictures. Now he was returning, all grown up.

My mother recalled fascinating details of their life there, such as a houseboat named Suffering Moses. We stayed on a houseboat too, albeit not the same one. Suffering Moses used to be run, back in the 1950s, by Ghulam Mohammad who used to say of my brother: “Yeh to moochhon mein hansta hai,” referring to his upcurled-lip grin. That’s still a family phrase, more so since my brother’s son has inherited that “Rishi Kapoor grin”.

Being the youngest of the party I was given short shrift when it came to Important Decisions – like where and what to eat. In the beginning we ate some unmemorable food at a tourist-chain type of joint… until my mother remembered Grand Hotel, which was not on the package-tour itinerary. There is a Grand Hotel in every city in the world, to quote from the eponymous movie, and the one in Srinagar is etched in my memory for its food. We must have worked our way through a good bit of their menu, and what I particularly recall is their goshtaba – the best in Srinagar – and their rishta. Even their plain dal was superb. It was enhanced by the ambience of the hotel’s formerly grand but now unpretentious dining room, which had the air of an ageing beauty, knowing she can’t compete with the Miss Worlds of the day but for whom heads still turn, nevertheless. The staff quickly came to know us and our individual preferences, in a display of the renowned hospitality which my mother never stopped singing the praises of.

We stayed for a couple of days at Pahalgam too, and went on a horseback ride at Gulmarg. I had a very quick lesson in balance, counterbalance and centre of gravity, when we had to negotiate a small ditch with an almost vertical drop. The horse I was riding knew what to do, and I could practically feel him communicating to me that I should lean against the pull of gravity to help him along. In fact the horses knew the routes well, and didn’t even need a guide to lead them!

At one point, we stopped on a beautiful green hillside (well, actually, all the hillsides were green and beautiful) at a wayside shack, a dhaba, for hot tea and parathas fresh off the tava. There were no plates, and there was no place to sit – you stood around with glass in one hand and paratha in the other. As we munched, it began to rain, ever so slightly but not enough to make us scurry. The sensation was unforgettable – standing there on that hillside; fat little drops plip-plopping into our glasses; the delicious parathas; and the strong tea countering the cold wind.

Back in Srinagar, I remember we walked along the bund where I saw, for the first time, wild roses growing in lush profusion along all the walls and fences. Roses were precious and I had never seen them in such abundance. I wanted to pick one but my mother stopped me, saying they looked beautiful on the briars and there would be nothing to admire if they were picked. I responded with: “But I just want one.” And she replied: “If everyone said ‘just one’ then all the roses would be gone, wouldn’t they?” She is no more, and I still can’t abide cut flowers.

One everlasting memory is of a ride we took on a local bus to visit a shrine. It was much better than any organised tour, careening along the winding, sloping roads amid thickets and plantations and rolling fields, passing through villages and crossing shaky bridges over rushing mountain water. Among the local passengers on the bus was a party of four or five young women, perhaps in their late teens or early 20s, who were on an outing. They were teachers, and had a holiday that day. They were unabashedly friendly and charmed us all. At one point one of them, Afroze, caught me humming to myself and pounced, saying: “Aap to chhupe Rustom hain, aap gaati bhi hain?” and insisted that I sing along with them. They sang one or two Kashmiri songs for us but it was clear they loved Hindi film music, and coaxed a number out of me.

I have no idea why I chose the song I did, but I’ll never forget it. It was Khilte hain gul yahaan, khil ke bikharne ko; milte hain dil yahaan, mil ke bichhadne ko… (“Flowers bloom here, to bloom and get scattered; hearts meet here, to meet and then be separated.”) Whenever I hear it I remember that bus ride, those beautiful, happy faces, and I wonder what happened to them when the valley began to gush with blood instead of clear rivulets of water.




(First published in India Se magazine, Singapore.)

Birthday present

(No cause for alarm - this was written in 2006.)



What shall I give you for your birthday,
you asked.

Perhaps, if you could get me a painkiller
for the ache inside?
Or a pack of plasters that could
hold together pieces of a broken heart?

Everything else you have given me
is enough to last a very long time.
I can't take any more
from you.




(First posted on anothersubcontinent.com.)

Love

Don’t give it a name and don’t
make me any promises.
Just be there
when you can,
And I will hear
when you call.

There might be music
in the air, or in your heart
But that is as it should be,
regardless.

Perhaps you will smile
at a passing flower
or a memory.

Perhaps I will hum
at the bus-stop.

It’s nothing.
Really.

And if I should say
"I love you"
In a moment when I am
carried away,
Chalk it up to
ecstasy.



(First posted on anothersubcontinent.com.)

Mood

A little music -
Some wine -
The cool of the night
And a hint of rain...

Is this what makes a mood?
Stir it, gently.



(First posted on anothersubcontinent.com.)

Not a romantic

You protested,
But it is, nonetheless, so.
The prospect, the approach,
The packaging, the sales pitch.
You even had a copywriter -
A poet I've never heard of.
It's the old romantic hardsell
And I'm too old and you're too romantic.
I do believe you're the worst kind,
A hopeless romantic.
Go find someone
Whose illusions are intact.


(First posted on anothersubcontinent.com.)

Free Association

I couldn't write poetry, even if you paid me, he said.
Even if I was pickled, he said,
So we decided to listen to music.

Have you noticed, he said,
That the vermilion in your parting...
That the hibiscus in the garden sometimes,
When it blooms in full sunlight,
Is exactly that shade?

The way you stand, he said,
When you're making something lovely for dinner,
When you know I've come back too tired to help
And I just want to stand there watching you -
But I ask, nonetheless -
And when you wave me away, saying
"It's nothing, it's all done."
When you turn from counter to stove,
And you stir the familiar old pot and your wrist moves like a cloud,
And when you stand, and you laugh at me gazing like that,
The way you stand
Is like a Bharatanatyam dancer in that brief moment of repose
Between movements.

Your voice, he said,
Is like wine in a glass
Against golden light.


(First posted on anothersubcontinent.com.)

Can you write about rice-lentil cakes?

Born of an online debate about authenticity, Indian writing in English, etc... It got too much at one point and instead of bursting into song, I burst into prose. Two vignettes:


Idlis 1

My mother would make idlis at home, soak the rice and the dal, grind it into batter, leave it to ferment overnight. When I went into the kitchen for a glass of water before going to bed there would be the gentle, slightly sour hint of the next day's delights - idlis fresh out of their cups in the copper steamer, just-ground chutney with coconut and coriander, or perhaps a different chutney, with garlic and dry red chillies in the coconut. And golden sambar, unmatched, into which to dunk the idlis. It was a heavenly breakfast.

Whose mother whips up the batter for these bucketloads of idlis, I wonder. Do these people eating them remember the kitchens of their childhood, remember for a brief moment the long-ago whiff of fermenting idli batter, and do they perhaps console themselves with mass-produced chutney?


Idlis 2

The cafe was dark, as always. Light came from the bulbs, hanging overhead in ancient holders that had given their original enamel up to a patina of grime which, in a way, lent a sort of uniformity to the otherwise anachronistic decor, if that is the word, of the place. Dada's aunt had - once upon a time - chosen the paint and finishings but her son had taken issue with her choice and changed things around, and then after he died she changed some stuff around again, and by the time Dada had come to run the place it didn't have very much to say for itself in terms of character. That came with time, though. Time, and the small band of regulars who argued, thumped the tables, drank the tea, criticised the bhajiyas, chose a new government, but never made so much noise that they had to be hushed.

Sunita didn't know any of this, of course, when she walked in looking for a refuge from the afternoon sun. Neither did she know that she was to become more intimate with that little wayside cafe than she would ever have thought possible.

She saw a plate of idlis with sambar and chutney being served at another table and so that is what she ordered. But it was an illusion, as she realised when the idlis arrived before her. Where they should have been fluffy, or at least yielding, they were crumbly and almost hard. Not just that they were cold, they had also not been made with any sort of care. She tried dunking a piece into the sambar but the idli batter had obviously been specially treated to resist absorbing anything. Had it been ground in haste, left too coarse? Not fermented enough? Had it been made ages ago, and did it lose its youth in the refrigerator? Perhaps everything that could be done wrong to an idli had been done, here.

Should I say something to the guy, she thought. Or should I just forget it - it's a little chai shop in the back of beyond in Goa, how could I expect nice idlis here anyway? I might as well just have the tea and go. I'm not even staying here, I'm just waiting for my bus. What was I thinking, asking for idlis? I should have gone for pakoras instead. No, too oily. Maybe bhaaji-pao. Dip the pao into the tea.





(First posted on anothersubcontinent.com.)

Late at night

Somewhere not too far away
Clouds have gathered
And are proposing to descend
On my garden before morning.

Flooded drains, long-forgotten debris
Hurtling down impassable streets,
My cassette tapes lost to fungus;
Yet, I miss the monsoon in Goa

(too far away now, unlike
the days in Bombay when
I could catch the No 48 BEST bus
to Bhaucha Dhakka, and the boat).

A midnight shower, then,
With Medimix soap

It smells of rain.




(First posted on anothersubcontinent.com.)

Gold-laden idol

They looked for God in a gold-laden idol
To which they gave a name
And in which they thought they found their idea of God.
But the gold dazzled them
And what they thought they saw was neither real nor the truth.

Contemplation of the spiritual

One does not need to retreat into the Garhwal hills to contemplate the spiritual. Stay still long enough and the spiritual will present itself to you for your contemplation, say when you are chopping vegetables. Do not be too surprised when it arrives; you have to save your fingers too, in addition to your soul.

Conversation

He has a long memory.

He’s my brother after all.

Oh, do you have a long memory too?

An inconveniently long one.

Why inconvenient?

Because I sometimes remember things I’d rather forget.

Things about yourself?

Things about myself, and about other people.

What do you mean?

Things I would rather forget, and other things I would rather remember. But it usually works the other way round. That’s why it’s inconvenient. One can’t control it, I wish I could.

I didn’t understand.

How old are you?

21.

Perhaps after some years you will come to understand it.

I’m not immature.

No, I didn’t mean that – at least, not in the way you seem to have taken it.

Does age have anything to do with it?

It doesn’t, strictly speaking. Not as age, not as a number of years you’ve lived per se. But it figures when you consider that at 21, and then at 31, you’ve lived that much more, seen so much and experienced all this wide scope of things. It broadens your understanding. At 31 you will know, perhaps, that there are things which are easier understood when you don’t ask questions. In fact, it is possible to understand many things without asking, without questioning – just by observing, watching and absorbing. You should start doing that now. I did, at a much earlier age than this. The I that I was at, say, 16 would not have asked “What does it mean?” The 16-year-old I would probably not have understood it then, but would have filed it away and come to see what it meant later, perhaps at 20, maybe 21.

Maybe. But people today don’t have so much patience.

Hm, so. They are the same people, it is the same world. Why is there less patience?

I don’t know.

We’ll think about it.

Morning

Early morning is a different world from the rest of the day. It’s the beginning of the day, new, hopeful, but reluctant yet to declare itself brightly. It’s not quite night. It’s not dark, not mysterious shadows and shapes and suspect figures slinking, not shapeless forms huddled in deep sleep, but it retains the shadow of night’s cloak. The memory of night hovers over early morning.

Early morning people are different — day people, but newly emerged from night. Most of them are people who would shrink from the night, would not be bold in the darkness. Daylight makes them feel safe. Yet, they too bring with them some of the cosiness of the house at night, some of the rumpled, groggy, sleep hangover. You can feel them sleeping still, snuggling down for five minutes more, swinging their legs out of bed, turning over grumbling, or sitting upright and beginning to count the coming day’s chores.

The people are part of the landscape that you see, the still air, the still-empty road, the dogs stretching and sniffing at interesting pavement splotches, the flowers shaken down from the silent trees by the night wind, the sleeping forms on the pavements stirring, slowly wakening. The people, clutching milk bags, counting little round loaves, jogging, are part of the things you see as you amble homewards, feeling the night’s fatigue in you but also aware of the day’s newness, outside you and distanced from you.

And then, a sudden woman in T-shirt and Bermudas waiting for her child’s school bus looks at you, you catch an unexpected eye — you never catch anyone’s eyes in the early morning on your way home from night shift — and you suddenly realise that she is wondering who you are; that you are part of her landscape. She brings with her an entire world of her own, she sees from inside her a scene in which she plays no part except for being there to see it. She is seeing you and everything around just like you’re seeing it, and for her it must be such a different picture. The same people, dogs, roads mean different things to her and to you. What does she think of you, hollow-eyed, hair messy, clad in jeans and shirt, clutching a bag with papers sticking out, rushing along? Does she imagine that you are a social worker, hurrying to save a desperate soul? Or someone going to early classes?

Or does she, really, guess at the truth as one of the possible scenarios she assigns to you, the funny, stooping, focal figure in this morning’s picture? Does she think that maybe you are a night shift worker in a newspaper, that your eyes are swimming from peering at type and your head is reeling from all-night alertness? That you have played a part in producing the newspaper that will catch that early-morning eye later in that day and will lure her into paying two rupees to find out which child it was that died due to what kind of neglect in which hospital?

Does she know that sometimes, when the night is a tiring one, you long to do it the other way around, to sleep at night and get up in the morning — just like her?