Monsoon Mists

Himachal Pradesh has a draconian law called Section 118 that rules that a person who is not a Himachali by birth, (even if he is an Indian citizen) cannot buy land to build a home on its soil. But like all laws, this too has some little exceptions under which I had applied to the Hon'ble Govt machinery to give me permission to buy a tiny tiny piece of earth to build my tiny tiny dream home where I had planned to live till the day I died. Well, yesterday, I received a curt reply from the Hon'ble Govt: आपकी अर्जी अस्वीकृत किया गया है! And of course, no reason, none at all was offered for this heartless denial of permission.

I am devastated. There is no justice in this world. Just because I am only an aam junta with no teeth: neither connections in high places nor trunks full of cash , that I have been denied the permission. I feel it is a travesty that genuine Himachal admirers and ardent environmentalists like us are denied such rights on the pretext of conserving the ecosystem of these hills while all along unregulated urbanisation goes on unchecked: tearing down the hills, killing it's fauna and ransacking its flora, activities to which the same Hon'ble govt turns a blind eye because its eyes have been shaded with the colour of money and power.

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The last few weeks had been busy at work, uncharacteristically so and I had been rushing through the days at breakneck speed, trying simultaneously to meet deadlines and to ensure a certain standard quality of work, an undeniably difficult proposition. In fact, I was so breathlessly busy that me, the ardent nature lover, had failed to realise that summer was long gone and that the monsoons had arrived with full gusto.
Yesterday I had gone with some files to the Old Man's room and finding him busy on the phone, had stepped out onto the verandah for a breather. I had stood on this open porch that rings our office watching the world, now sopping wet with rain around me. All was silent and still, like the pregnant calm that precedes a monsoon storm. Occasionally, a faint bird call broke the stillness from someplace high up in the branches of the silver oaks. Soft swirls of mist flowed gracefully, like the fingers of Bharatnatyam dancers, towards and then over me Watching them, I suddenly realised: "Oh my, this was not mist but clouds, real clouds....!!!Oh how lovely!!" I had gushed, unable to control my delight. The clouds swooped over and around me, touching my skin with light, wet touches: caressing, playful, as if they relished my delighted surprise...The Norfolk Island pines on the road below, rose like Gothic shadows from behind the translucent cloud swirls, the cars parked in the driveway looked for all the world like Victorian horse drawn carriages and everything appeared unreal, mysterious, dreamlike. Completely bewitched by the beautiful monsoon vista before me, I had fallen into a kind of trance.
"Yes, isn't it beautiful? So much better than inside the boring old office!" The Old Man's voice startled me out of my reverie. He had emerged from the office after his phone call and we stood together for a few seconds admiring the untramelled beauty that lay around us. But duty called, for a lot of work was to be done and fast and we had to tear ourselves away from the magic, back into our staid old office.
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So, this is how wondrous these mountains are and come what may, I'm determined not to leave this Dreamland. Whatever those red taped, rule-trapped poetry-deficient bureaucrats in their dusty offices decry, I'm unfazed. Like a lover besotted, I will not end my lovestory with these mountains just because they deny me sanction. Oh no, never. My lovestory is older than all their stupid and musty rule books....
जन्म जन्म का नाता जो है हमारा....

12 Julys- Over the Years

I was born on the 12th of July. Yesterday, i.e. on the 13th of July, an old, dear friend, now overseas asked me impatiently: "Tell me how you spent your 12th July."
Getting ready for work, I told her lightheartedly: "Have patience and I'll give you a poem."

So, here it is. Only, if you are finicky about what constitutes a poem or does not, treat it for all the world, like prose. It doesn't really matter, as long as you like my words.You see, my poems are 'like this only": akin to a walk in these hills: up, down, right, left.....driftingwith no defined agenda, over no trodden path...

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“Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;
So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.”
- HW Longfellow

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12th July: Over the Years

I

12 July and there's a birthday party for me. Kite paper streamers, thin, red balloons and a home-made cake without icing. The guests arrive: colony kids and their mothers. Everyone sings 'happi bdday', eats ghugni, payesh, the cake without icing and leave. It's time to open the presents: lower-middle class families of the eighties with nil disposable income- a pencil here, a "scent" rubber there, a set of crayons ( such a luxury) and two exercise copies bought from the ration shop near by. But the paper of these copies is smooth and sepia and absorbs ink beautifully. I practice my favourite subject, English language in them.

Sometimes now, I write with ink on paper, like in those childhood days, just for the nostalgia: find I cannot remember the faces of the kids who gave me the sepia ruled exercise copies as birthday gifts.

We are but ships that pass in the night..


II
12 of July, an empty day, the monsoons have just arrived.
I ask Adit: "Want to take a walk, upto the olive green bridge?" Nodding he clasps my fingers and we stroll downhill to the river, chatting; we are good friends.
A man passing by stops to ask: " Your son?"
'Son?' Startled I correct him, "No no. I'm not married." "Accha." Says the busybody and carries on.
Adit is a four year old boy and I am only the young woman from next door.
The birthday ends with a cold glass of tingly Coke on lots of ice cubes.
Adit must be a young man now. Must be, though I have no idea.

We are but ships that pass in the night..

III

12th July eve, an occasional shower and a knock on my door at midnight. Sleep sits heavily on my eyes as I open the door: two friends with a cake and a present, at the stroke of midnight; just like the birthday eves from hostel time.
They are my friends and they are husband and wife. I am grateful for their kindness but they dismiss it: "Arrey baba, how could we let you pass your birthday alone.....?"

Is love a fickle bird or is it just a colour, a natural dye that fades fast under a strong sun? My friends have since parted ways, with each other.
And as for us, them and me- we have parted ways too,.......we talk rarely
Or not at all...

We are but ships that pass in the night...

IV

12 July and the trees drip incessant raindrops. A young woman brings two flaky veg pastries, loads of effusive good wishes and bares her soul to me.
As I listen to her, my phone screen blips- a message in monsoon green!
My heart leaps.
(Can you drown in a warm sea of words?)
I can't breathe but I'm all contentment.
The girl is gone now, she was claimed by Life. And you no longer send me words in monsoon green.

We are but ships that pass in the night...

V

12 July and another wet, grey day. The office boys gather at my door: before they can wish me, I say ,'Thank you thank you!" and laugh. Samosa, veg plum cake, cookies as treat, they are happy.
In the evening, me in my crumpled pajama, the old faithful comes with bread pakora and slices of strawberry cake. A colleague brings a surprise Tweety cake.
The cake is full of cream and possibilities: could turn a colleague into a friend.
The old faithful and I drown in Marula on masses of ice, she in happy expectations, I in my old what-could-have-beens.
I know soon Life will claim her too and there will be no more such drownings in this Marula milkshake....

We are but ships that pass in the night...

A Fit of Frustration

Have you heard of a 'Mukbang'? A raging entity on YouTube these days, it is a video of a man or woman eating on camera. There is nothing really special about the eater and it's the food that's placed in front of the camera that is the focus of attention as is the act of eating. The Youtuber films himself or herself eating various kinds of foods and in humoungous quantities. These mukbangs are immensely popular with each video clocking anywhere between 15 thousand to 15 million views, thousands of comments and millions of subscribers. Watching one such mukbang, I compare sadly the contrasting status of my blog: three or four subscribers, about fifty thousand visitors (that is over the last four and half years) and one or two comments on each post. हाय रे किस्मत! I wonder about what it is that is so attractive about watching someone hog food you cannot touch or smell? On the face of it, the thing sounds kind of gross but on pondering further, I come to the conclusion that vicarious gratification is the only probable answer. That and the fact that this gratification is instant. You see, this is the age of instant noodles, instant coffee, instant news and instant gratification. We have become creatures of limited patience and therefore the old pastimes and hobbies such as reading books are both passè and fading. No one has the time or the inclination to sit down, open a book or a newspaper and read at leisure. Or put pen to paper to write a letter or an email to a near and dear one. And why not, when you can derive the same quantum of instant gratification by simply watching a film of ninety minutes made on the very same book, scroll through your Twitter feed for news delivered to you in succinct 280 words or describe your life's happenings in actual photos on WhatsApp or Facebook?

I often get told by friends: oh you must publish. In the beginning, I would be flattered no end by such advice. These days, a disgruntled me just retorts icily, a sarcastic smile pasted on my face: would you buy my book?
And if that someone, still not feeling the frost of my sarcasm, answers: yes of course; I tell them, frost a degree colder: so what and when was the last book you bought? Even the most persistent of people get the hint and swallow their effusive encouragement after this.
Truly, who reads books today? Or blogs with a literary tilt?
My dreams of fame via blogging have quietly retreated underground these days. Sometimes, when they do rear their timid little heads above ground, they are pushed back into hiding by advice from supercilious relatives that go something like this: oh why are you running after fame? You must write for the pleasure of writing...karmanye vadhikaraste ......

Pah! I am not some karmayogi looking for nirvana. I lust for fame. I want my two minutes of basking in the sun, my instant gratification ...

Tell me, would you like to watch and subscribe to a channel that has a fat, fifty year old Indian woman eating bhaat(rice), maccher jhol and ekti kaancha lonka (one green chilly) on YouTube?

To Kuttush with Love

Kuttush died yesterday afternoon; Kuttush, my great biscuit coloured Labrador with the proud otter tail who's fur was tinged with gold, as if angels had sprinkled him with sparkles of sunlight. Kuttush was special all right, and his gold flecked fur was more proof that he was from from a place angels and fairies and other such beautiful things come from. Other Half felt this too and often remarked: Kuttush's a saint! He was, but a hedonistic saint, one who loved his comforts: hearty meals of large and frequent proportions, a cool place to splay himself on his back, all four legs in air and gently snore the day away.....He relished all the little pleasures that life has on offer: the library of interesting smells from the fields around our house where he spent hours and hours snooping, sniffing and gallivanting, the cubes of ice a friend always offered him when he went visiting her, the tangle in the hay with the buxom lady Alsatian next door, the Fauji ration potatoes that he filched with impunity from atop the dining table, the never ending adoration from his numerous human female fans... everything. In some ways he was very much like me: fat, lazy and unduly fond of his physical comforts like food and sleep. But in so many ways, he was completely different from me: detached and free of silly emotional attachments. But that does not mean that he was apathetic or indifferent; on the contrary, he was full of fondness for all living creatures around him: from the ill-tempered cow that entered my garden on the sly to the evil stray who had bitten him more than once, Kuttush loved one and all; without exception, without discrimination. He was specially fond of socializing with humans and made it a point to plonk himself, right in the middle of my living room when we had guests over and contribute to the raging debate with the occasional loud and empathetic 'Baoow'. And he was a complete gossip master and the neighborhood snoop, keeping tabs on the comings and goings of all my neighbours. And unlike Mimie or Khushi, my female labs ( both of whom have crossed over) I know Kuttush loved me more than anyone else. I know it as surely as I know that the sun rises in the east. So what was he to me: a child who grew old and frail faster than me yet always remained my child? I can hear him say: Huh! I was never your child, ladki. On the contrary, YOU are my child. Don't remember how you put your head over my side and slept/cried/laughed/confided like little girl to her Mom?
Yes, I was his child, we both were, myself and Other Half for only a parent can give you so much love and so much forgiveness; and take nothing in return, absolutely nothing.
I am crying as I write this and I am trying to stop too, for I know Kuttush would never approve of all this sniffling and sobbing. He would put one paw on my hand and say, Ho ho ladki, kyun roti hai? In this endless journey of birth and life and death, we'll meet again somewhere, pucca. So quit the tears and get on with life. And keep the potatoes ready, girl. Who knows, you might find me just round the corner......