[Travelogue] To the heart of a city!

“One of the very nicest things about life is the way 

we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing 

and devote our attention to eating.” 

― Luciano Pavarotti

With that quote, you must have already guessed the theme of this piece! On our last day in Mumbai before getting back to Chennai, we decided to get a taste of the native Marathi cuisine. Our friendly driver took us to a Marathi restaurant, Shree Datta Boarding House in Lalbaug. It was quite a small place but ‘Good food’, as our driver remarked enthusiastically. While we were poring over the menu, he made some helpful suggestions - one ‘Jhinga’ (Prawn) fry and one of fry ‘Surmai’ (Indian King Mackerel). The thing is whenever you order some dish and say the magic word ‘Vade’, it instantly becomes a thali, which is a collection of 5 Vades, a Vade being a thicker and richer version of the ‘puri'. Along with this, comes the main gravy, be it chicken or veg or fish and two little cups, one of which contains ‘rassa’, meaning the essence, sort of like a thin but spicy curry  and in the other, ‘Solkadhi’, being a pink coloured tangy- tasting coconut-milk based drink with a unique personality. Tearing a piece of the Vade and dipping it into the gravy or rassa, as your mind dictates, you should let it reign over your taste buds. Delicious though it was, I was not ‘gutsy’ enough to do five Vades. I stopped with four and decided to taste a little with rice and it was a yum combo too. The driver suggested a fry of ‘Bombil’ (Bombay Duck fish), another specialty of Marathi cuisine. The thing is all these items were deep fried but magically, not a bit of oil stuck to your fingers. It had minute pieces of coconut fused all along the surface of the fried meat as if one with the soul of it. After the sumptuous meal, took a walk along the markets of the area, glancing at colourful Rangoli powders and breathing in the wafting scents of hot chillies. 

We decided to pause at the Haji Ali Dargah, the quaint old mosque on an islet connected to the mainland by a half a kilometre walkable path. But it was so densely crowded this Sunday that we decided to do it another time. In searching for offbeat things to do, happened to learn of a place called Samovar Cafe. As it was close to an art gallery and museum, which we anyway love, we decided to go towards the place. Only then, checking it on Google, we found the place to be permanently closed just in the March of this year, despite its popular demand and patronage by some of the most-famous celebrities of Mumbai. Still, as we had started the journey, we decided to continue onward and the rest of the day turned out to be a delicious surprise of another kind. Food for the soul and mind! I didn’t think much of museums here, after having seen the well-planned ones abroad but that’s only until I saw the ‘Chhatrapati Shivaji Museum’, previously the ‘Prince of Wales Museum of Western India’. Intelligently organized and well maintained, with professional and friendly staff. If not for the overwhelming number of Indian faces around you, you might believe that you were standing in Chicago or Brisbane. These collections take you to the splendour of the past elegantly. Just those two glass cupboards with neatly arranged colourful, intricately designed snuff bottles from all over China is worth the visit to this Museum. We had but one hour and it was an hour well spent. Paused to reflect how generously the business tycoons of the city such as the Tatas had generously donated to the art and aesthetic scene. Even while on the roads, I couldn’t help but notice the Godrej sponsored pots neatly tied to the walls, containing flowering plants all along a flyover. This sense of giving back and making the city rise to the heights it has taken them to, is something to be lauded. 

In the absence of Samovar Cafe, went in search of another one and Zomato recommended ‘The Nut Cracker’. Taking a short walk from the museum along ‘Gandhi Marg’, we came upon this quaint old place tucked away in a little corner, like those shops you see along London’s streets. Very Brit in its style! I owe the quote on this blog to the one of their Menu card. Ordered a ‘Bombay Local’ sandwich in the spirit of our trip while Haiku’s choice was the molten chocolate. Both turned out to be fabulously fantastic. The ‘molten chocolate with vanilla ice-cream’ being the sinner and the Bombay Local sandwich being the priest. To tell you more about the Bombay local, it was a grilled sandwich with tomatoes, potatoes, onions and green chutney, made in Mumbai style. With that lingering taste of Bombay, bid farewell to this charismatic and confident city. Bye, Mumbai… Hope we meet again!

[Travelogue] A Rendezvous with Nature and Culture!

After a late and laid-back start, we reach Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Borivali, Mumbai. How fortunate are the people of this crowded city to be blessed with 100 Sq. km national park within their municipal limits. In a city, where the only growth seems vertical and buildings dot every nook and corner of Mumbai, it’s great to gaze upon this green cover. In the past couple of days,I had glanced at the most expensive private building in the world, situated in Mumbai, seen many glass floor upon floor of dazzling multi-storeyed apartments and even heard of huts in a particular area costing 40 lakhs. Still, to me, the epitome of the wealth of this city, is this forest area. Taking a short trip on the tiger safari caught a few glimpses of tigers sauntering in the afternoon, glancing left and right, seemingly well fed and satisfied with their lot. Exotic monkeys with black faces and tails, and with beards look at the visitors, some shyly and some cheekily. Still, amidst all this beauty, had to encounter the painful scene of a deer gobbling up plastic, as if it were a rare delicacy. Man, you are strangling nature with your bare hands!

Where you only expected to find nature, there’s culture, in the form of Kanheri Caves within this park. I read that this forest used to lie on an ancient trade route and Buddhist monks have been busy creating art out of stone for 1000 years, between 1st century BC and 11th century AD. The serenity of those gigantic Buddhas is seen to be believed! Even after all these years, the magic of that smile calms you. There seems to be more 109 caves in all, of which, there are monasteries, rock-cut benches, engineering marvels storing water for the summer and halls portraying Buddha in various forms. One could spend an entire day being awed by the magic of this work of men of long ago. This made me wonder why in spite of all the technology we have today men don’t go carving mountains and creating art. To see it an opportunity of art seems to be a thing of the past. When I wondered out aloud to Madhan, he responded saying maybe it’s because mountains belonged to no one then and also that, perhaps now, man sees mountains as quarries of stone, the source of boring but useful things like roads. Pragmatic materialism seems to be at odds with spiritualistic creativity!

After relishing the evening breeze with windows open and breathing in through the lungs of Mumbai, we returned to the urban desert. Dinner was at a place called ‘The Tasting Room’ within Raghuvanshi Mills, an old textile mill transformed into a new age shopping centre. In the ruins of materialistic industry, there is art, blooming once again. The restaurant had left the walls as is, in the old dilapidated state with minimal retouching but a clean look, with faded, rusting mirrors dotting the wall. Here was proof that man is constantly reinventing. Thousands of years ago, those Buddhist monks saw rocks and created art. Now, men see ruins and create art again. In the days of yore, religion was the fountainhead of those artistic pursuits and now, wealth is the goal of these artistic reinventions. Whatever, as long as art lives on!

[Travelogue] Exquisite Elephanta!

On our second day in Mumbai, drove through extra-heavy traffic to the historic Gateway of India to sail onward to Elephanta Caves, an island off the mainland of Mumbai. The thing is, neither does Elephanta have elephants nor does it have natural caves. Elephanta was called so because when the British landed on the island, a huge stone elephant welcomed them and they decided to give that name. Perhaps, they fell so much in love with the statue that they decided to appropriate it for the mainland!

The caves were carved out of a single stone by the hand of man to proclaim the glory of his God. In such a cave here, as I observed panel after panel of the stories of Lord Shiva, I was immediately transported to the Chola temples of Tanjore. Both were celebrations of this same God on stone! The story of Shiva was depicted with such elaborate detail. I could touch the nails of the guardians of Shiva in the central temple of the Lingam and appreciate the delicately nuanced design on the necklaces and crowns of the gods therein.

The moods of quirky Siva were well captured. No doubt, he was an interesting chap to anyone from any age. And no wonder, so many kings that lived on this land were enamored by the charisma of this God. Be it his ferocious anger, artistic sublimation, yogic meditation or playful teasing, no one could express it like this God. Still, I saw the true God in the hands of those artisans who had patiently carved out panel after panel of such beauty out of a single Basalt rock. The emotions speak to you, as if it’s a movie playing on stone. There are so many interwoven stories in each panel, the expression of each character in the panel saying something fascinating.

What shocked me was how Portuguese soldiers had mindlessly destroyed many of these sculptures. Some of their bullets are still wedged within the stone. An arm gone, a face disfigured, a form distorted! In spite of this atrocity, the supremeness of art triumphs over this petty minded vandalism. How could any one not see the extraordinary beauty in this work? There is no need for belief in any God to appreciate art.

The moment reminded me of the present time when these same atrocities are being committed in Syria. If such men could somehow be made to see that their own children and children’s children would shudder in disbelief that their forefathers could even think of something like this, then perhaps the world has hope. In art, there is God or at least, man seeking to come closer to the notion of God. What does it matter what’s the name of that God?

From gazing at this piece of art, my reflections seemed to have travelled in directions, both local and global. That indeed is the power of art to inspire, to enthuse and to give human beings, the intuition to connect the seemingly disconnected and to realize, in the end, we are all but one.

[Travelogue] Coast to Coast: A journey in India

“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.” – Anonymous

Chennai says bye to departing travellers, with three billboards, one of Apollo hospital, one of Maruti’s car, S-Cross and the last of MRF Treader, as if to say ‘Thanks for coming. Don’t forget our hospitals and automobiles!’ My eyes fall on a long panel of artwork on the wall facing the runway. If you delve into the source, it’s nothing but a few wire cables twisted into forms and lo behold! there is a story revealed. It’s a procession. After a Holmes-worthy investigation, Haiku and I decide it’s a religious procession because the figure in the palanquin has one of his palms in the ‘blessing mudra'. Then, ahead of this Very.Important.God, there’s his Godly bodyguard on another palanquin, the ferocious God known as ‘Ayannar Samy’ in villages, the one with blood-shot eyes and blood-stained weapons, mounted on a horse. Men carry these two palanquins, while other men play on the drums, harmonium and other assorted Indian musical instruments. Two men with painted masks dance ahead of the procession, which Haiku interpreted as ‘Puli aatam(The dance of the tiger)’.  At the beginning and end of the procession, stand two men holding a spherical firebrand, shedding light on the entire procession. This is great work, ingenious in its simplicity! Although one question is, where are the women? Chennai Airport, you must work on an artwork doing justice to the women of Chennai!

One such, a cleaning lady in the ladies restroom, when asked about the flood situation in her place, answered that she lived in Thirusulam, which was on high ground. Besides, there was a godown and so she was pretty much secure. She commented gravely about some of her other colleagues caught in the disaster. As I was leaving, she thanked me for enquiring about her experiences, with a warm smile that went straight to my heart. We often think conversations with strangers make us vulnerable. In truth, they make us safe and whole, another step closer to being connected to all of humanity. 

Riding the clouds, I catch the first glimpse of Mumbai’s vicinity. Some stunning studs of mountains, these Western Ghats sure are. Down below, nature’s creation, a winding and curving river, with a mind of its own, runs intertwining with man’s creation, a purposeful road, seeming to have many cities to go to, travels focused with no distractions. Sort of like the interplay of emotion and logic in one’s mind. 

Through the densely-packed huts near the airport onward to the sprawling Juhu, where I hear, Amitabh comes out on the streets to greet people there, at times. One has to love the geniality of the man. Heard too, that people wait for hours together, as for a ‘God Darshan’. Moving on, Haiku and I get a little taste of Bollywood in a recording studio listening to a Hindi movie turning trilingual. Reaching out to the regions is of crucial importance in this nation of more than two-dozen languages.

The day is winding to a close and it’s time to catch the famous superstar of a sunset on Juhu beach! Deliciousness rises to its peak in the fall of this crimson globe. The sun seems to leave the room glowing with a blush, shyly as if she’s out to romance the night. In the waning luminescence of this celestial lady, awaits an old man selling pink cotton candy tied to a post; An elderly couple walk together, shining in the intimacy of their years together, sharing their sunset years and the setting sun; Energetic youngsters do cartwheels in the sand, an infectious display of their strength and flexibility; A maid multi-tasks talking on the phone as she baby-sits a toddler; Joggers, walkers, runners on their own tracks, within and without; Haiku and I run towards the ocean. Pausing at the edge, he reflects that the sand is a mix of white and black and that the imprints of shoes seem like flower prints in the sand. 

Vada Pav, the essential Mumbai ka food, we savour on our way to Bandra. Hot n’ Hot! Heat of the vada, hot off the oven and the heat of the paprika compete to take siege of your taste buds. Here we find a snack, in Mumbai style, which fills your tummy without emptying your pocket. Hearty meal for twenty bucks! Driving through the streets of Mumbai, looking at branded shops and thrift shops, a stone’s throw away from each other. Like a quintessential metro, Mumbai seems to have something for everyone. Even chic and fashionable ladies are seen buying and bargaining with the sellers on the street.

We visit the Mount Mary church in Bandra. Looking at the paintings depicting the life of Christ, it can’t escape one’s notice how the faces look very human and like those of people in Mumbai. Ahead of us, there’s a man on his knees, intent in prayer, his posture making you want to believe that God is listening. There are also other Gods living in the same area with names like Shah Rukh Khan & Salman Khan, I’m told. 

A walk on Bandstand by the beach, holding hands with my beloved ones, ending a rich day, in which I travelled from a bustling city on one coast to a bustling city on another coast and saw with my own eyes, how these cities are both similar and different, in many ways. Lucky are Indians to savour the flavour of new cultures without even leaving their country!

[Reflections] Memory Mine!

Memories… When thinking about this, the first vision that flashes before my mind is that of Murugesan Thaatha, my husband’s late maternal grandfather. An extraordinary person with a phenomenal memory! He had the ability to store and bring to fore, not just the name of any person he had met, but also the names of that person’s father, mother, siblings, spouse and children. He always touched my heart by remembering my late father. I can never forget those memories of him saying my father’s name every time we met and adding that he was still living within me. Such an exquisite character, the mere memory of whom makes you feel warm and loved!

Why do we have the ability to remember a certain look, a far-away smile, as if it happened just then? Why is that certain memories seem to flood you with the exact sensations you felt when those memories were first formed, even if it comes back after many years? Matchless is that scintillating feeling of savouring certain memories. I think the movie ‘Inside Out’ did perfect justice to our understanding of this. This movie, I imagine, being a metaphorical letter ending, ‘Yours Artistically, The Science of Human Mind’. 

Why is this long-ago memory so vivid? The one of my nine-year-old sister coming home bleeding in the head, having taken a fall from the bus, while I was a three-year-old pedalling a tri-cycle in the verandah before my house, wearing a black dress with little yellow flowers. Amazed that in this first memory of mine, I’m there. What I was wearing, how I was looking, as if I was looking at me, from outside. As if this 35-year-old me was observing that three-year-old and imprinting this observation as a memory in that three-year-old’s head. In some ways, it’s mind-boggling. Another childhood memory flashes by, that of a disastrous first attempt at oratory. The very first oratorical competition I participated was on the topic ‘My pet’ in my second grade, an inter-class event. I remember fumbling and faltering over it, feeling terrible. From there, I remember acing every other oratorical competition in all my years of schooling in that town. So many claps, so many pats on the back but nothing as fresh as that first failure.

Does stress destroy your memories? My greatest fear at times is that of being unable to form memories. I do feel the quality of memories is not so fine as that of the past. I guess I sound like a middle-aged uncle saying, ‘You call that music! When I was young, the kind of songs I listened to! Pch! Those were the days of music!’ Kidding apart, analyzing with a clinical eye, perhaps it’s the lack of time and attention. The moments when I paused and forgot all that had to be done and when I was just fully in that moment, that’s when the finest of memories formed. Like that one day after a sad incident, when sitting on my terrace, looking at the floor below, as I wiped my tear-filled eyes and I looked up, right there in my line of sight was a rainbow. I can never forget that moment. It felt like the whisper of the universe. Or, like that moment when I woke up at Rishikesh and walking out of my bus, the mountain air embracing me, the rising sun shyly greeting me, in the witness of the crimson earth and the azure sky, I touched the cool Ganges. That is imprinted as if on stone. 

The memory of a certain lanky twenty-year old, whose name I have taken, and his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, as he looked at me, not hiding the love in his eyes, is a delightful one indeed. There’s another one connected to this one, in more ways than one! It’s a memory of holding my newborn close to me. Of course, he was closer within but not as close as then. That wriggly, blood stained, crying little thing with the ability to make you fall in love instantly. An unbelievably magical moment!

Memories of every kind lie within us all. Kind of like precious gems, buried in unexpected places, each one outdoing the next, each one right for a different occasion, if you know where to seek. Instead of piling gold and diamonds in one’s bank locker, one should learn the art of collecting these little gems. Refine the skill of reaching out within the mind and picking a forgotten one, dusting it just a little and placing it before the mind’s eye and basking in the glory of what one possesses. That something that nothing can take away! Make those memories! Even when all is lost, your memories and your ability to make them will make you richer than the richest person on earth. Happy collecting!

[Reflections] On the Endangered Species of Readers!

What would books be without readers? Like the question of whether the noise of a tree falling exists even if there is no one to hear it, will books still be written if there was no one to read them? Still, imagine a world where no one reads, why would there be writing? Will man still seek to express even if there is no way for it to be received? Beyond such metaphysical questions, it’s fascinating how the concept of reading has changed over the last few decades.

Not a long while ago, one had that exquisite time to curl with a book and just be lost in a new world. There was no mobile ringing near your heart. There was no apple watch tapping you on your wrist. No status message to post. No profile photo to update. No need to post a message saying “ Awesome ‘The Twins at St. Clares’! #NowReading”. You were content with your inner ‘you’ interacting silently with the characters and their conflicts. It was just you and your book. Yes, your mom was often heard shouting, asking you to sit up straight. Yes, you didn’t know what the food on your plate tasted like, caught in the conversation between your beloved characters. Still, that was a pleasure you had the privilege of enjoying. Personally, I’m grateful for that. That has undoubtedly made me who I am. That gave me the power to understand emotions, complicated and contradictory. The layers to what a person thinks, says and does, all revealed in beautiful writing, which I had the time to delve into. 

Fast forwarding to now, every minute, there seems to be an overload of things to catch up on Facebook, Twitter, Quora. One seems to be in an urgent need to digest information bombarding from multiple directions. Bring to your mind all the books you have read and have the titles of each chapter of those books flash at you, all in an hour’s interval. That’s the current situation for readers now. Where is the time to let go of yourself in books, given that you’ll lose a day’s worth of Timeline updates? 

In many ways, I see the fate of reading similar to that of listening. Once upon a time, we knew how to be completely silent and let the speaker do the talking. We learnt that from our long hours with books. Now, it seems so hard to listen to someone. The pressing need to critique, comment, opine instantly, exert tremendous pressure on your head. You feel distracted by thoughts racing up there- things you want to say in reply, things you think are related to this, things someone posted regarding this, and you end up losing the nuance of what is being said and how it’s being said. 

A hurried world, indeed! From 1000 page novels to 1000 word blogs to 144 characters tweets, our attention spans have shrunk to XS size. Perhaps, a day will come when future humans will consider even those tweet readers as having phenomenal patience. Perhaps, all they will be able to digest will be small words and emoticons. If an emoji is the Oxford Dictionary’s word of this year, it isn’t too hard to imagine that future. Still, what a loss! No matter how much more information I seem to receive now, no matter how much I’m updated with all that’s happening all over the world in a single glance, everything seems so superficial and transient. Deep reflections are fast fading. I long for those days when I could be one with a book, lost to this world but observing another one, creating those landscapes and ‘mindscapes' in my own mind. All that breaking into goose bumps, dilating of pupils, shuddering in fear, shaking in anger, tears pouring down and the minute bands in the entire spectrum of feelings that can never be simulated no matter how long one spends on social media. 

This is also an opportunity for a heartfelt tribute to the readers of my blog, who have stayed with me, whether I wrote or not, even during times I got lost in the pursuits of my life, waiting for me, writing to me, persisting and insisting that I write again. They moved me and brought me back here. Such is the preciousness of a sincere reader. Long live! 

[Reflections] On Movies that Move and Move not!

Why are there certain movies that you’d like to live forever in and others that you want to run away from, in a few minutes? Is it about you or is it about the movie? You, in that time and place? Shouldn’t really good movies take you away, no matter where you are and what you are going through? Am I ascribing too much power to a movie? I only say so, because there have been movies that I simply lost myself in. Forgot what I was feeling momentarily, lost in the world and emotions of the characters. You find yourself teleported into the maze of human emotions. What really grounds me to a movie is truth. It comes from a place deep within one, which says ‘Yes, this works’ & ‘No, it doesn’t’. It’s pretty much an on-off switch. In certain bad movies, you can turn your attention to beautiful things of course. For instance, the cinematography might have such a sensuous quality but it’s just like looking at a pretty screen with nothing on and nothing outside the window either. It can hold your attention only for so long. Sometimes, a character is spectacular. He tries to pull the movie with his extraordinary performance. But, the movie falls to budge. For the sleek wheels on which the movie flies, is its story and the screenplay. It’s a duet of the two. The What and How! Sometimes, the story may be spectacular. Good, but still not as good as how it is, with the right screenplay. It’s the subtle art of ‘when to tell what needs to be told’. A certain confusion, a muddling of things, contradictory viewpoints, even an open-ended ending can turn the entire movie upside down. Awesome is the power of a movie to create unimaginable worlds. It’s been a drug ever since it was found. The mediums are changing. Why am I a fan of movies and not TV? Some people liken TV watching to the primitive fire gazing at the end of the day. Although I remember being fascinated by it, as a child, those He-man cartoons on Sunday mornings, the dripping-sad regional movies on the same afternoons, the Mahabaratha and the Ramayana and in later days, ‘Oliyum Oliyum’, which played all the latest film songs and it used to be the catastrophe of the week if the power went off at that time. Watching some of those same songs, by accident these days, makes you scream in laughter. Makes you shake your head in disbelief that you once enjoyed those things. Well, coming back, TV is a strict no-no. Although certain TV Series from US and UK has had us all captivated, of late. Still, it can’t hold a candle to a good movie. The stress is on ‘good’. There are only certain movies that seem to come at exactly the right time. At times, you find something you were battling with, solved subconsciously by a movie or even a scene in a movie. Some movies have that power to inspire and elevate you. Some movies make beautiful things out of the mundane. Some movies delve so deep into complex emotions and leave you wanting for more. But these are few and far between. In the battle between being business and art, many movies fail the ‘truth’ test. For the businessmen, it’s a lottery. For the aesthetically inclined, it’s a compromise. But few are the movies that take your breath away like a pristine island and in your search for one such, perhaps it’s worthwhile to wade through murky waters.