WoRDs, HOmeStays and GliTter

I seem to be all over the place, arms outstretched.
It is raining words! Maybe not…
Words do not pour.
Nor do they fall down.
They float, on a meandering path
They gently wind down.
Snow snows, rain falls down, but I catch words that gently wind down!


There are so many I read, so many I hear…
They sometimes make a gentle popping sound.
After which opens up a bottle of rainbow soda!
Up come bubbles of psychedelic fizz
I thirstily gulp down.
Always!

Thane is always good.
We walked down the market street. We shopped.
We ate Rajmata Vada Pav and had Sitafal pot ice-cream.
We walked. We got tired.
We sweated. We laughed.
We stepped on each other’s toes. We frowned.
We saw Jogvaa I cannot write about.

A concrete road snaked
Under a canopy of two named trees
Could have been Gulmohar
Could have been Shirish…
Walking lightly against the gentle breeze
Like a bubble gliding in the wind
The falling yellow leaves
Was glitter at my feet…

LuCknow

In cities, one has never visited, it helps for the place of work to be far away from the place where one is put up. More the travel, more the glimpses of another city going by! A rickshaw would have taken 15 minutes to Ameenabad! Uttar Pradesh Parivahan took 45 minutes. It stopped, packed some more people, trundled along the streets of Lucknow! I feasted on sights like Umraav, the theatre showcasing Babbar, a hotel called Man Ka Meet, the Vidhan Sabha, road signs announcing Charbaug, Chowk, Hazratganj, Barielly, Unnav… all coming to me through the bars of the window of a rickety CNG bus.

I left early to reach Amausi airport. The rickshaw too took a longer route. Such a beautiful coincidence! I did not care about not visiting touristy places when I got to sit in a rickshaw that traveled through the city for 50 minutes until it dropped me off at the airport. 50 minutes of pure Lucknow! No chattering tourists. No cameras! Only the city, unaware, going about its business…while I watched!

A striking moment was when I was driven to my place of work in Charbag one very hot afternoon. I sat cool and refreshed in the air conditioned jeep while watching the city simmer outside. Ghulam Ali played softly in the jeep and life had the perfect background music! Yes, he sounds more authentic in Lucknow. Yes Lucknow seems more Lucknowee. Life seems livelier when there is apt background music! I, however, felt as if in a dream….

Lucknow is much more than chaat, chikan and kebabs…. It’s a place that is capable of making life look as profound as Ghalib’s poems and as melodious as Ghulam Ali’s ghazals…. It is a place where life can have the perfect background music…

It is a place like itself.

*Disclaimer: I am well aware neither Ghalib nor Ghulam Ali have anything to do with Lucknow. I however associate both with it... simply :)

Wool and Warmth

When it got too cold, and 3 jackets, a monkey cap, gloves and all of us huddled together would not help us keep the warmth, we would roll up the windows of the vehicle.

There were so many woolens in the car. Jackets that would come off occassionally, gloves that had to be taken off when the scenery warranted a picture with the camera or when in those rare moments of "full network" hurried messages had to be typed out which gloved hands could not, wet socks (wet from accidentally stepping into stinging cold streams),monkey caps, head bands, scarves, kerchiefs...a lot of woolens!

During maggi/chai breaks, when cramped legs and backs would finally ease and people would literally tumble out of the vehicle groggy and struggling to gain orientation, along with them would tumble the woolens. Gloves that we had accidentally been sitting on, scarves on laps that had been forgotten...all would spill onto the ground! Someone would point out and somebody else would pick them up just as nonchalantly. I remember dropping my gloves innumerable times, in slush, in water, on hard ground and wearing them back without a care! As things are used and begin to get dirtier on journeys such as these, they become ever so charming and romantic! Everything attains character! And then it is difficult to part with them. I still have them floaters, powder blue in color that is now unrecognizable and also of a shape that suggests loss of all shape. It is a souvenir of all that Ladakh was. Becoming unrecognizable and shapeless in a gaining new recognition and new shape way.

Back in Mumbai, in moments of tiredness I have often wished for me to be in a vehicle. With music. On a long journey. To not reach anywhere soon, to not stop, to not have to talk, to not have to move yet keep moving.

During Ladakh,

The vehicle cruised from Delhi to Manali - 14 hours!
Manali to Sarchu - 10 hours!
Sarchu to Leh - 8 hours!
Leh to Srinagar - 14 hours!

Music and Silent Musings.

Precious. Unbelievably.

दिल ढूँढता है फिर वोही फुर्सत के रात दिन..

I remember Ladakh vividly only in bits and pieces...rest is a memory mist. Engulfing but escaping!

जाडों की नर्म धूप और आँगन मैं लेट कर
आखों पे खीचकर तेरे दामन के साए को ....

A special occasion warrants a special dress. And a special dress is saved, neatly wrapped, for the special occasion. Mountains need a special song. Some songs are meant for the mountains!

बर्फीली सर्दियों में किसी भी पहाड़ पर
वादी मैं गूंजती हुई खामोशिया सुने
आखो मैं भीगे भीगे से लम्हे लिए हुए

There were these mountains! Or was that a joke?

ठंडी सफ़ेद चादरों पर जागे देर तक
तारों को देखते रहे ,छत पर पड़े हुए...

Stardust fell on Stanzin's roof that night! No wonder we all gleamed even after the night faded. The starshine of stargazing shined....is still shining!

The memory mist engulfs but the memories largely escape...


औंधे पड़े रहे कभी करवट लिए हुए ....

All through the night!