Longing....

alas....my bed is empty
but my eyes are full of dreams
i am with you when i close my eyes
so wonderfully near you seem

Awakening is not even a distant thought
Until the truth of the day comes bursting in
Dreams must vanish, life must go on
There's miles to go, before I can dream of you again.

Bitter it may be, but truth it is
that we're a world apart, and nothing can be done
but even in solitude's painful grip, I know
that i'd rather have lonely dreams than none!


P.S : Thanks to mulloy for creative collaboration

from bling jewellery to reality TV

'The wheels of change'... ever wondered why we use that particular phrase? Is it because, with ‘change’, we associate a rapid, uncontrollable movement...an inevitable fluidity of principles, economies, traditions, ideologies, of beliefs, policies, relations, borders, of rivers, glaciers, mountains and volcanoes, of love and of war... I mean, what doesn’t change?? They say the only constant in man’s phenomenal evolutionary history has been CHANGE. Well, if its motion that we wanted to signify, why not say, the 'trains of change'.... and if it’s the incessant influx of new ideas, why not, 'the rivers of change'? Maybe it’s got something to do with the way wheels move.... up-down, up-down, up-down...cyclically...up-down, up-down, up-down... We see this, let’s call it ‘cyclicity’, everywhere... in every new dawn, in every drop of thawing snow heralding the arrival of spring..in religious theories of reincarnation and in the most fundamental law of science ‘matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Only changed from one form to another’.
The old cliché 'what goes, comes around' is exemplified in the world of fashion...by what’s hot and what’s not. Boot-cuts and bell-bottoms made a comeback a few years ago, and so did block and floral prints. What was considered criminally ghastly last year is a must-have this season. Your mom may not understand the aesthetics or the logic behind carrying a mobile phone and a tiny purse in a gargantuan bag but 'Bling is THE thing!'. All this said, bling jewellery is a completely innocuous indulgence and retro fashion isn’t killing anybody. However, not all things ancient have harmless modern avatars. For example, gladiatorial combat – the epitome of the decadence of the ancient romans, is back with a vengeance in a new, glossy, revamped form – Reality TV...and it’s turning every drawing room into the colosseum and every viewer into a sadistic, blood-thirsty roman..
The barbaric romans, in all their depravity, enjoyed as a spectacle, the brutal murder of helpless prisoners by Caesar’s legions, the savage conflicts among the enslaved gladiators, the inhuman scenes of torture and the blood curdling slaughter of slaves by animals... What is called reality TV is inherently based on and thrives upon the same thing- human sadism and the perverseness of what we consider entertaining... Here however, there are no victimised slaves and no inflictors of cruelty... the viewers are gratified, true... but they’re also victimised unknowingly...
When we see our basest instincts, our meanest thoughts, our numbing mediocrity reflected on screen by the rich and the famous, it probably smothers even the tiny scruples that we may still have about being bitchy and mean and well, mediocre...it gives us the confidence that, if we choose to, we could also become rich and famous by just being our vile, below-average, lazy, mundane selves.... We see celebrity participants snapping at each other and watch in rapt attention as they make mean, below-the-belt, racist comments... we enjoy it when wannabe performers are verbally assaulted and utterly humiliated by so-called judges and we also revel in the sniping and the bitching and the tantrums of the judges themselves...We have sunk to such macabre depths of perversion that we are now telecasting wars and executions... Whats more terrible, is that it doesn’t seem like it’s going to stop here.... as we smell more blood, we get hungrier, greedier and keep asking for more..more..MORE...
In today’s world of faster cars, bigger paycheques, looser morals, ephemeral passion and instant gratification, it does indeed seem like we will remain, for quite some time atleast, in the hypnotic hold of a monster that we created ourselves, a satanic beast that feeds on greed and boredom and dissolved morals, a poison that is nurturing human vice so subtly that we aren’t even noticing anymore... the hypnotic hold, of the Big Boss...

My name is Vishnu....

My name is Vishnu. I am seven years old. I live with my mother and my four year old sister outside Andheri railway station in Mumbai. My mother sells flowers and gajras at the railway station. I sell newspapers in the evening. Our house is made of plastic and is a very pretty blue colour. We got it from the vegetable market where they throw out all these plastic sheets and I picked out the colour myself. I have been going to school for two years and I already know the alphabet and even some small words. But my mother says that I may not be able to continue going to school because people don’t buy so many flowers any more. I told mom that chumki didi, who begs at the railway station, makes more money than us but my mother scolded me and said begging for money is bad. Even Raju bhaiya says that mom is right. Decent people did not beg for money. I didn’t know what decent meant but I wanted to look like a big boy so I pretended to understand.
Raju bhaiya is my best friend. He is twelve years old and very tall. Bhaiya says he is also poor but I think he says that because he thinks it makes me feel better. He has a tube-light and a table fan and it doesn’t rain inside their house. So he must be rich. He said he also used to sell newspapers at the station like me when he was a small boy. Now, he has his own bicycle and he delivers newspapers to the big houses in Juhu. On Saturdays, he takes me with him in the morning to see the big houses and the rich people. Sometimes, if the gate is not very high, he even lets me throw the newspaper inside. On my birthday, Raju bhaiya gave me a big ball. So we went to Juhu beach to play and I also shot balloons at Mohan kaka’s shop. I like shooting balloons because I am very good at it. Mohan kaka lets me shoot balloons on nights when it’s cloudy and there’re not too many people at the beach. He smiles and pats me on my back when I hit balloons in all my five shots. I like it when he does that. We went back on Raju bhaiya’s bicycle and like always, he let me ride it for a little while and, like he does almost every day, he told me that when he opens his own shop at the railway station, I can have his cycle. Raju bhaiya says that it is his ambition- to have his own shop. I have always wanted to grow up and be like Raju Bhaiya. Now I have a different ambition. I want to win a gold medal in the alimpix.
I remember that afternoon very clearly. It was pouring with rain and we were waiting for Raju bhaiya to come with the evening papers so that I could go to the station and sell them. I wanted to go play in the rain until he came but my mother would not let me. The last time it rained like this, my sister and I played for a long time and she fell ill the next day. The doctor said that my sister had something called new-moon-ya and scolded my mother for not taking care of us. My mother had to pawn her only gold chain to buy the medicines. It was a very nice gold chain. So I behaved myself and sat quietly. Raju bhaiya looked very excited when he came. I asked him what had happened and he said “India alimpix mein gold medal jeet gaya”. I didn’t know what that meant so i asked him. He seemed to be in a hurry and he said “For now, it means more people will buy the evening paper today!! Now go!!”.
I took my plastic sheet raincoat and ran out with the papers yelling “India gold medal jeet gaya! India gold medal jeet gaya!”. Raju bhaiya was right! Even people who would usually shoo me away called me and asked for a paper. Raju bhaiya had given me TWO bundles today and I had sold them all. My sister and I had an extra vada-pav at dinner that day. I was very happy. I asked bhaiya about the gold medal that night and he said that some man from Delhi had won a gold medal in the alimpix competition by shooting all the balloons. I said I can also do that. But bhaiya said it’s a very big competition and that people like us cannot win that. I think he didn’t know but pretended to know because he also wanted to look like a big boy. That man from Delhi has made so many people happy. He has given an extra vada-pav to so many children like me. I also want to make many people happy. I also want to make my mother smile again by giving her the medal in return for the pretty gold chain that she lost because of me. I also want to win an alimpix gold medal. Can someone please tell me how? Please.

blink

Mornings are beautiful.....whichever corner of the world you wake up in.... mornings are beautiful..... the freshly laundered sky....the luxuriant trees basking in the dawn and the dew.....with nature’s maestros exquisitely proclaiming another new day on their branches....oblivious to the attention or, in a growingly fast and unappreciative world, non-attention of others..... mornings are beautiful..... the sights, smells and sounds of a Chennai morning are extra beautiful to me.... now more than ever....because it will be a very different sun that will greet my bleary eyed stretches a month from now.....mornings in this nook of the earth are particularly early....as early as 4 AM..... with the tangy smell of the coast wafting in along with the uplifting aroma of fresh filter kaapi.... the elevating strains of suprabhatham in MS’s ethereal voice..... a tradition almost as emblematic of a Chennai household’s sunrise as kaapi....the newspaper sellers and doodhwalas whizzing past on their bicycles....passing maamis nonchalantly drawing intricate kolam’s..... while the men sit nearby with The Hindu in front of their noses savouring their brews along with the news.... mornings are beautiful.....

Interestingly, it is not mornings that I wanted to talk about.... as I was basking in yet another beautiful Chennai morning on my front porch, my thoughts turned to this rather boring crime movie i was watching yesterday in which a cop busts a criminal at the last, crucial moment even though he had almost no reason to believe that this respected honourable man was the bad-guy.....his awed partner (a feeling we were supposed to mirror, but sadly, it was too predictable and the clichés were too many..) asks him how he did it....and our man sagaciously says ‘I saw it in his eyes’.... and this pushed my thoughts to a rather fascinating book I recently read called ‘blink’ by Malcolm Gladwell.... now though our movies and their heroes proclaim it rather smugly, we do our own share of face-reading quite a few times everyday..... we try to gauge the boss’s mood before asking for a day-off.... we try to perceive what kind of product the customer will be interested in, not just from his face but also from the way he dresses, the way he walks and talks and the shoes he wears....we steal looks at someone across the restaurant because we feel he/she’d be a good companion.... we can ‘instinctively’ tell if a person’s a good orator or a good teacher just by looking at him..... extensive research has been done on body language.... we read articles that claim to be able predict if a relationship will last just by analysing the first kiss.... we know a loving touch...a comforting hug.... a critical eye.... a scornful stare....a flirtatious glance....an envious look.... we just know.... this knowing is not based on anything literal.... it’s not something the person explicitly said! It is just something we infer....so, we, normal mortals, engage in this occult science of mind-reading enough and more.... it does seem like a pretty useful ability to have, doesn’t it....

In ‘Blink’, Gladwell explores, among many other subjects, Autism.... he says that one of the most intense and evident effects of Autism is the inability to read faces... autistic people find it difficult, if not impossible, to do what we do automatically, to interpret non-verbal cues such as gestures and facial expressions .... to understand anything beyond the absolutely literal.... this is supposedly caused by the malfunctioning of a part of the brain called the fusiform gyrus.... the person might have a very high IQ....may have impressive degrees from prestigious institutions...but he will face problems in the most routine of practical situations because of his total lack of perceptual understanding..... we commiserate with these people....we feel sorry for them and try to imagine how difficult it must be for them to cope with daily situations.... but we should stop to wonder..... is our celebrated ‘ability’ all that it’s made out to be? Don’t most of our failed relationships break because of things that we didn’t say and thought understood or things that we didn’t mean but were unconsciously implied.....Don’t most of our caste-based and religious conflicts arise because of generalised and baseless judgements made based on anything but what is actually said.....aren’t all our prejudices based on assumptions and presumptions based on colour, ancestry, history and geography rather than on the person in front of you and what he has said and done....conscious and intended prejudice is not its only form.... it is a fact that juries in the USA take significantly lesser time to convict coloured people.... these juries aren’t entirely comprised of racists and xenophobes.... but this chauvinism is imbued in our very essence....don’t we instinctively cringe and feel a little more threatened when we see a two hundred pound African American man on a deserted street than when we see a blond man in a crisp business suit? unconscious prejudice is as bad as, if not worse than, its conscious form....Maybe we need to pity rather than laud ourselves for this burden of ‘mind-reading’ that we carry.... maybe we need to base our judgements more on fact than on the figurative.... maybe we need to appreciate the literal and tone-down the symbolic.... maybe we should learn to overlook, atleast sometimes, the implications, the inferences and the innuendo.... maybe we all need a malfunctioning fusiform gyrus once in a while....

Day 2 : Part 3

Blown and bloated beyond recognition by the much awaited, incredibly delicious and indecently devoured meal ,we literally had to roll out of Master ji’s kitchen. Taking into consideration the physical travails awaiting us in the coming week and also the inconvenient propensity of spherically shaped forms to roll downhill, we decided to take a walk in an attempt to return our distended forms to human proportions. Having already explored one part of the village, we decided to head in the other direction. It led gently uphill and we could see majestic coniferous trees and vibrantly beckoning rhododendrons at a distance. As we passed what would be the official starting point of our trek, Kris was told that masterji had summoned him for discussing some important issues about our trek. He left rather haughtily, chest puffed out in pompous importance. (kindly remember that given that the starting shape itself was a grossly engorged caricature of the human form, this puff of pride, though unnecessary, was an achievement in itself). Vaguely wondering what it might be that Masterji had called Kris for, we resumed our walk, periodically punctuated by excited screams and spellbound whispers as tiny springs, hidden streams and yawning valleys provided enroute entertainment.

It was already late afternoon and the sun was well on its westward journey. The colours of the ensuing twilight added to the drama, bestowing a mystical shimmer on the roadside streams and making the already intense red of the rhododendrons gleam as if on fire. This ethereal setting further enriched by the ghostly white flags billowing in the wind and the whispers of the rustling pines, kept us mesmerized for quite a while. Kris came back just as the night was creeping in and we decided to get back to the village.

Masterji had told us to stock up on chocolates, biscuits and dry fruits for the climb since we would not encounter many shops, or rather, any civilisation at all, in the days to come. Now, ‘stockin up’ and ‘chocolates’ and ‘biscuits’ were all terms that were dear to our guzzling hearts and we took to the task with gusto. The owner revelling in what was probably the sale of a life-time, we left the store with food that could have fed an army for a month and smiles that would have put the Cheshire cat to shame. After putting away our rather substantial hoard, we unabashedly trooped to the kitchen for dinner (yes! For more food! Any problems? We did take a long walk after all!). The savoury scent dismissing any qualms about the repetition, we treated ourselves once more to dal and cauliflower while masterji happily chatted away enthralling us with his accounts of the thrills and dangers of trekking along with some highly useful tips and tidbits. Among these tidbits was the rather sinister statement that the first three kilometres would take the wind out of our lungs. In response to the looks of open terror on some of our faces (identity protected in order to maintain some semblance of respect), he said, in what he assumed was a very encouraging tone, that if we could survive those (i would like to re-emphasize the IF in 'if we could survive') we would, most likely, make it through the remainder of the trek. A highly intriguing choice of words, wouldn't you say? With eager expectation overpowering any inhibitions that may have arisen, we hit the bed hoping to hurtle into the dawn that just couldn't come soon enough.

P.S : In case you’re wondering what happened to Kris, whom we shall rechristen as Banta for the time being (as in Santa and Banta, our leaders) when we were on our walk, here it is. Though Mr.Banta has some lofty and obviously spurious yarns about having been called upon to make critical decisions and do some meticulous planning, here’s our (totally honest and definitely not exaggerated) version of what he had to do. Since Mr.Banta took it into his head to be our “leader” and representative, he had to perform some ancient Sherpa rituals to protect himself and his group of “followers” from the wrath of the mountains. According to these, the leader is taken to a goat pen having about a hundred goats. Of these he has to identify the female goats (by looking ONLY at their faces! they’re sacred goats remember!! So no peeking! hence the afore-mentioned critical decision making), count (and remember) their teeth and bathe in their milk in the centre of that pen at twilight. All of these must be done with utter reverence or one might annoy the sacred goats. Though we’re still having some trouble in getting Kris to admit that he did all this, our account is based on Stuart’s extensive knowledge in this area and on strong factual evidence.

Delectable Detours 1 : Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na

Jaane tu ya Jaane Na is easily THE release of the summer!! Oodles of fun, frolic and pep… some rivetingly refreshing performances…a thoroughly enjoyable, sarcastic, spoof-like storyline…and, needless to say, the extraordinary music… all come together in Rahmanic (synonymous with perfect, wat say) harmony to give you a delightful movie with the style, class and identifiability of dch (minus the thirty somethings who played college kids), the humour and romance of Jab we met and one more significantly fantastic feature that both these films could not boast of…A R RAHMAN! Kabhi Kabhi Aditi is one of the sweetest, most romantic songs to have come out in recent times and it sets the tune for the entire movie…

Moving on to the performances… Debutante Imraan, with his chocolate boy innocence and dazzlingly cute smile captures your heart and holds it firmly throughout the film… he’s here to stay and under the tutelage of maamu Aamir, is bound to reach great heights… Genelia, as the catty Meow, all giggles and effervescence in the first half and also as the insecure and moody Aditi in the second, has played her role with elan… the friends are adorable… and so is Naseeruddin Shah as the photo dad… Ratna Pathak Shah is superb as the gutsy mother and Paresh Rawal is outstanding as the annoying naam-ke-vaste villain…

Jaane tu is about relationships. The relationships that, during the phase when we’re just entering adulthood with unrealistic hopes and custom-made rosy-eyed glasses, shape our lives and define who we are…mother and son…brother and sister…unrequited love…friendship…the thin red line between love and friendship…and, enchantingly, the relationship between a father’s photograph and his son…And with its talented supporting cast, the film portrays these relationships with panache… the selfless support and love of the mother who understands her young son’s every smile and whimper…the adoring son who will do anything to live up to the promise he made to his mom…the proud and eager father who does everything he can from the confining limits of death and a photo frame to ensure that his son fulfills his destiny… the brother who annoys his sister at every available opportunity just so that she would have something (in our dirty mouthed heroine’s case atleast a swearword or two) to say to him…the friend who, though madly in love with the protagonist, finally learns to swallow her heart and move on…and the protagonists, who don’t realize, until they drift apart and into their separate lives and romances, that they are, as everyone they knew so confidently avowed, actually in love…

But nothing…not even an Aamir Khan film, is flawless….and the movie does have its blemishes…Firstly, though Genelia’s performance is captivating, to say the least, she has a lot of work to do on her hindi diction…next, the first three songs, each one a gem, have been thrust together….however, the virtuosity of Rahman is such that you still end up enjoying them to the hilt…most importantly, the storyline… you might not notice it because of the energy and vibrance of the narration but it kinda gets into a slump in the middle…but with the enormously clichéd Knight-on-white-stallion and scramble-in-airport climax, you kinda forget the lull…

What I can promise you is that you'll come out of the theatre with a wide grin on your face... evoking nostalgic smiles from the middle-aged, knowing nods from the teeny-boppers, and eager dreamy-eyed excitement from the kids, Jaane tu is a film you‘ll just love to love… probably even against your better judgement… don’t mistake me, it’s a film that achieves, and spectacularly at that, what it sets out to achieve…and that is two-and-a-half hours of refreshing fun, rejuvenating music and youthful excitement…what I meant was, in what was an extremely dry summer season for movie buffs, when tamil cinema was catering to the front benchers and getting more and more violence-based and when good bollywood cinema has come to mean serious issue-based we’ll-make-you-think ‘ers (with a handful of exceptions like Jab we met but even that gets a little tedious in the middle), this movie, with no serious plot, no dramatic twists, no menacing villains (except the not-at-all-menacing and charismatic-as-usual Paresh Rawal),basically no bollywood histrionics and melodrama, is breezy, light-hearted and simply invigorating in its freshness and inimitable charm…

Day 2: Part 2

Stuart’s violent reaction to Kris’s miraculous and slightly unconventional water purifier resulted in some early unwanted rainfall within the car which spawned a wave of laughter. We were basking in the now ceaseless sea of mirth, (to metaphorically continue the wetness of the afore used ‘rainfall’ and ‘wave’ comparisons) and luxuriating in the splendour of the vistas that were unfurling before our mesmerized eyes, when our hypnosis was broken by a rather unpleasant sound – a sound you do not want to hear when you are in a closed car as tightly packed as salted sardines, a sound that is very unwelcome when you are in rather stingy quarters and can’t recognise if the foul smell under your nose is the vestige of your friend’s hungrily devoured carelessly-brushed dinner from yesterday or the knock-out fragrance of your own feet, a sound that is symptomatic of a lethal projectile of unmentionable stuff that might come your way any moment. The mountain goddess, who with her paralysing beauty and stunningly magnificent visuals evoked feelings of awe-struck humility and open-mouthed wonder in every traveller blessed enough to set foot in her glorious lap, had found a rather unappreciative audience in Irene - the only open-mouthed tribute Irene deigned to pay the mountains was the nauseous grunt that had caused so much horror and chaos. Mercifully, the sound had only been an omen and there was no accompanying matter. So, we hurriedly shifted Irene to a window seat, gingerly shoved a pill into her mouth (fearing the deadly outburst any moment) and plonked a reluctant Stuart next to her (ah!! the pains and trials of love). The upshot of all this bedlam was that we were treated to Irene’s contented snores for the rest of the road.

Blanketed by the captivating spectacles on either side, our journey continued in a speechless trance and we reached our in what seemed like an instant. Maneybhaijan was a charming little Sherpa village with rosy-cheeked, runny-nosed children, tiny colourful houses and of course people whose faces shone with simple smiles and genuine warmth. We were shown our cabin by the innkeeper at whose place Kris had made arrangements for us to stay - a person whom everyone affectionately called “Master ji ”. With the morning’s burnt dosa long gone and our stomachs thundering away, we dumped our rucksacks rather unceremoniously and tore headlong into his kitchen.

To our disappointment, we were told that he had had no idea as to when we would arrive and therefore had to start preparing our meal only then. So, we decided to explore the village and the surrounding countryside and set out in the direction of a little temple we had spotted from the roof of our cabin. It was a typical Nepali temple atop a small hillock vividly painted in dazzling colours with quite a few flags fluttering in the wind to carry to the heavens the prayers of the trusting natives. The brilliant azure of the clear sky perfectly complementing the bright yellow of the temple provided our shutterbugs with some very pretty pixels. After many many photographs, some involving bawling local children (courtesy Mr. Red) , we climbed down and were just about to enter a winding lane when an old man sitting at the street corner told us that the gutter at the beginning of the lane was a very important landmark. Wondering what or whose famous waste it had once contained, we inquired about the reason for this rather queer piece of information. Buoyed by his enhanced importance in the wake of a group of youngsters gawking at him, he very flamboyantly announced that this seemingly insignificant gutter was actually the Indo-Nepal border. Lauding ourselves for having set foot on this “exalted” piece of ground, we resumed our stroll around the village.

Having spent almost an hour roaming around, we could no longer silence our growling stomachs and decided to check on masterji’s progress with our lunch. The wafting scent of the tadka told us what we needed to know even before we entered the kitchen. With the steaming rice looking inviting in sparkling white and the rich yellow dal dotted with specks of lustrous green, with the velvety smoothness of the Dal enhanced by the crisp, succulent freshness of the Gobi matar, all accompanied by the heavenly intoxicating fragrance that characterises good food , Master ji’s cooking was indeed a delight to all the senses. We stuffed ourselves to the limits of our stomachs’ storage capacity (“hearts’ content”, though linguistically more appealing, would not have conveyed the full extent of our greedy plundering) while listening to the seasoned Masterji’s accounts of the adventures, dangers and wonders of mountain climbing. After our rather loutish devouring, we were introduced to Santa Bhaiya, our guide for the next ten days. “He’s the best of the best” said Masterji and we could see what he meant when we looked at the small, sturdy Sherpa standing in a corner of the room smiling shyly. With the youthful athleticism that comes from years of trekking in arduous paths and unforgiving climes and eyes shining with wisdom and unbridled enthusiasm, Santa Bhaiya was and looked a son of the mountains themselves.

Day 2 Part 1 -reaching Maneybhaijan

With a whole night’s fitful slumber (punctuated by heavy snoring, some what-can-qualify-as-slightly-scary grunting and also a few other bizarre sounds last heard on national geographic) behind them, our team woke up refreshed, rejuvenated and raring to go....well, most of us did atleast... Irene was still hugging her berth like a long-lost sibling and absolutely refused to wake up until the exact moment when her not waking up would mean we had to leave her behind....

a few minutes of coffee, crosswords and chitchat had passed when, to our delight, behind an ethereal veil of the early mist, our destination slowly came into view.... the morning fog adding to its appeal, the deserted NJP railway station looked beautiful and welcoming, a harbinger, probably, of the days to come...

As soon as we had set foot on the platform, Kris had gone into high energy mode, his head visibly whizzing with road maps, taxi charges, travel timings and god knows what else.... but, the considerate commander that he is, he had allocated some time for fulfilling the natural necessities of other normal a.k.a un-Kris-sy human beings....with everything timed to the millisecond, we lived up to the daunting task of accomplishing the requisite rituals to our contentment, all the while policed by Kris’s ticking clock.... They say excitement intensifies hunger and for six famished to-be-mountain-climbers, the burnt dosa and glue-like chutney at the railway canteen, that too after a long wait, were a huge let down (poor Kris’s plight at such unforeseen and unavoidable damage to the atomic precision of his schedule is left to the reader’s imagination).... but fuelled more by enthusiasm than the gourmet breakfast, we marched ahead to the next task on Kris’s roster, taxi bargaining... the ranks were divided into two armies one manned by the commander-in-chief himself and the other containing Stuart and, probably for comic relief, Rob.... with a resigned sigh from the taxi driver and a victorious grin from our soldiers, we were on our way to the starting point of our walk among the mighty mountains , the sleepy village of Maneybhaijan...

At our first pitstop along the way, a tiny road-side tea stall, Mike got down to buy some mineral water when Kris, doing a Scrooge a la Dickens said, “Mineral Water?? Bah! Humbug!”... a dramatic pause ensued and then “Behold the miracle water purifier!!” he said, holding up a rather unremarkable little blue bottle with the pomp and haughty splendour of a showman exhibiting freakish prudence and the ever expanding horizons of his expertise... It stands as lasting testimony to the importance of humility as a virtue that Mike spat out his generous first gulp of ‘purified’ water with disgust saying it made him feel like he was drowning in a seldom-cleaned swimming pool.... as the water was passed around (with muted grumbling from Kris that we had to get used to what he chose to call the ‘slightly unconventional’ taste of the purifier) we suddenly realised that Stuart was missing.... as we waited for him, assuming that the cold had made his body phobic to previously consumed water molecules and that he’d gone to relieve himself, we witnessed the first occurrence of what was soon to become a normal happening....the infamous cluck-click phenomenon....a group of hens were hurrying our way with indignant and slightly frightened clucks.... closely followed by their camera wielding predator, Stuart... after some not-so-veiled threats from a frustrated Kris and fuming Irene, we were back on the road singing at the top of our voices and enjoying the rolling hills and roadside springs....

DAY 1 : THE TRAIN JOURNEY

With the colourful characters introduced, it is now time to plunge into our travelogue...

After many disappointing delays owing to unrest in Darjeeling, D-day dawned with our lil bees packing their rucksacks and meticulously checking and rechecking the list of must-haves (provided, of course, by our queen, err, king bee Kris)... it is worth mentioning that quite a lot of thought and effort went into the rucksacks themselves... Kirsten’s took about three hours of combing through the lil bazaar in Guwahati (which is where the beehive is situated, in case i haven’t mentioned this earlier) for just the right size, shape, and given that it’s Kirsten in question, the perfect ‘look’...along with a lot of coaxing, cajoling and threatening (all of which add up to something Kirsten dreads and Irene has skilfully mastered- the science and methodology of effective bargaining)... and Irene had to do an exhaustive survey of the hostel to find her perfect one...(and in her case perfect turned out to mean least comfortable and most likely to not last for the entire trip, her struggles with the afore mentioned rucksack will be explained later)... with the preparations in order, the pioneering trek began with blaring trumpets and amidst wild cheering (audio effects by Irene and Kirsten)... after a sumptuous dinner at a nearby restaurant, the six-pack entered the train, only to find their seats occupied by four other men... though the men had valid tickets, it turned out that they had been upgraded to first-class... the heavy weights (Kris and Stuart) were explaining the situation to the ‘intruders’ while the feather weights were doing the same with ignoramus Kirsten... three of the men finally accepted that the ‘up’grade was, after-all, to their benefit, after some patient explaining by the TTR and other passengers (our persistent clarifications were silenced with a suspicious and scornful gaze)... with that out of the way, we sat down with a collective sigh of relief, only to realize that there was one more fellow left in our cabin... he was a dark, tiny, rotund man clutching his one bag very tight with an expression akin to a cornered rodent...he hadn’t understood one iota of what had happened until then and was still labouring under the delusion that we were trying to dupe him and steal his ticket... the TTR was called again, and since our bloke here couldn’t understand hindi very well, the entire sermon had to be repeated in broken Bengali... he still wasn’t ready to move... the exasperated TTR had by then, had enough... he told us to show him to the first class compartment and plonk him down in his seat... so Stuart and Mike walked him to the first class compartment, sat him down and, since the guard had blown his whistle, ran back to our cabin... the train started...and we were safely chaining our bags and laughing about the man who didn’t want a first class seat, when, wonder-of-wonders, there he was again... with the very same rat-like expression of fear mingled with wariness... the rodent man had returned to plague us with his mistrusting eyes making us feel like we were really encroaching his rightful seat... after around 15 uncomfortable minutes of awkward silence(interspersed by muffled giggling from, well, guys don’t giggle...), the train halted and the rodent man was firmly led back to his first class seat and cautioned that we would have to complain if he returned to annoy us...

Though it was time for lights-off, the party was too charged with adrenaline to be able to sleep... however, after repeated admonishment from Kris and threats to leave anyone who wasn’t well-rested behind, they had to relent and agree to at-least try and get some sleep...if the rat man had come back, he would have seen six blissful faces with delightful dreams of the wondrous adventures to come...

Paradise.....Part 1

Treacherous, dangerous, harsh and forbidding but rewarded by stunningly beautiful valleys, awe-inspiring peaks and picture perfect lakes and rivers, trekking among the majestic beauty and cultural diversity of the eastern Himalayan region has captured the imagination of many a traveller. Ten days in this paradise are what inspired me to document the trip...our adventures and apprehensions, the enticing sights we saw and the wonderful people we met...the soul-stirring sunrises and fire-place bondings...to try and (albeit partially) recreate the magic of our extraordinary experience through my limited mastery of the English tongue...
As is customary, I shall start with a list of the characters involved in our charming lil travel tale... an extremely assorted group of people, each hilarious and therefore mention-worthy in his/her own special, crazy way.....
Kris: a.k.a ‘Krisipedia’, an avid traveller with an exasperatingly exhaustive encyclopaedic knowledge of almost anything...the leader of this rather motley group of adventurers... kind of an anatomical puzzle with his freakishly accurate internal alarm, a lens in place of his nasal apparatus and facial muscles that frequently change shape and structure to create alarming and sometimes hilarious graphic effects... to add to this, rumour mills have it that, until recently, this bio-miracle’s aortic pump was floatin around a lil outside of his body...
Stuart: Don’t be misled by the name...this dude is anything but ‘Little’....like Kris, also unrecognisable without a camera in front of his face...has a fascination for chickens ...dubbed as the ‘Murgi Man’, he can be recognised by the characteristic sounds of the clucking of hens followed by the clicking of his camera...has been discovered to be an ideal travel companion during the course of this trek due to his many uses...as a delectable source of nourishment according to Rob, a sturdy wind-anchor according to Kris, a cosy hot water bottle to warm Irene’s bed and so on...
Rob: also has a fascination for chickens, though his love is contingent upon a mandatory rite-of-passage through the fires of a gourmand’s kitchen... enthrals listeners with his original rendering of the hindi language, the alphabet of which he has effectively shrunk by half (through his highly efficient merging of consecutive consonants)...his cannibalistic instincts irk the antennae of most alert children and send them into fits of teary-eyed bawling and this howling is often greeted with a victorious grin and a click to remember from Rob-the-Red...makes up for being the kids boo-boo-monster by also being a modern-day Casanova... simultaneously courting more babes than some people manage in a lifetime...
Irene: hmm... let’s start by saying this trek has added to the (already extremely deep-seated) uncertainty about her exact species...Irene-watchers claim that she has, in the past, been spotted demonstrating behaviour that is characteristic of various forms of poultry, some species of fowl and also some different kinds of homo sapiens not normally seen in everyday existence...we are happy to report that this bizarre list has been extended to include farm animals and imaginary cartoon characters...her bewildering evolutionary history apart, Stuart’s very own ‘little’ lady is the power transducer of the group...runs towards fireplaces with (almost) the speed with which Stuart runs towards local beer, and converts the heat into hyperactive enthusiasm...
Mike: what you have here is textbook case of a split personality disorder... one minute he is your average young man walkin along...totally ordinary...deceptively normal...But put him in front of a camera and behold the transformation...what a lens can do to his various joints (his body creates angles hitherto unknown to human kind) is nothing compared to the look of constipated concentration that arrests his face when asked to pose...some might say that he has a killer attitude and the looks to match, but, in keeping with the trend so far, yours truly shall refrain from the meaningless and un-interesting things that are compliments...and hold your horses...the personalities don’t end here...unlike Irene, our guy here is very clear about his simian traditions and is prone to demonstrate ape-like tendencies now and then...
Kirsten: wellllll...the narrator knows this gal a lil too well to write a good, and by good i mean sardonic, biting and a lil tongue-in-cheek, description, but, in good spirit, one shall give it a sporting try... a pint-sized spring toy....an intriguing and comical medley of Happy the dwarf and the sometimes vain fairy tale princess herself, mirrors and camera lenses have a death grip on this ball of energy.... mundane things like train-lamps and ornate ash trays can send her into fits of astounded glee, much to the amusement of the rest.... with her what-she-assumes-is-cute ( a notion that is misplaced by atleast a few light years) expressions and antics, is at an eternal lock-horns with Irene for the rather prestigious “group clown” title.... the deceptive dwarfism and perpetual state of excitement notwithstanding, ‘the Pankazzz’ , as she is popularly known, is surprisingly considered the brains of the group.... (please refrain from mentally estimating the IQ level of a group where Kirsten is considered the brainiac)
Sam: Sam the guide...an ideal foil to our group of fire-crackers...the rock-solid voice of sanity sent by God himself to keep this ensemble of comic characters on schedule and on planet earth... looks half his age thanks to the life-time of trekking in the heavenly Himalayas...the mountains probably know our sensible Sam as well as he knows them...