The River's Wing

I've moved...

2011-05-20T09:51:00.002+04:00

..to http://BywayStar.com

See you there!

Trunk Call - On the Thrissur Pooram

2011-04-11T21:09:00.001+04:00

On the Thrissur Pooram, festival of sound and fury.

(This piece appeared in Mint Lounge on 9 April 2011).

http://www.livemint.com/2011/04/08202446/Trunk-call.html

Remains of Naxalbari - on revisiting the start of a revolution

2011-03-16T14:52:00.003+04:00

This is my piece about Naxalbari in the March 12 issue of Mint Lounge.

http://www.livemint.com/2011/03/10213956/The-remains-of-Naxalbari.html

(If you liked this piece(or not), let me know by leaving a comment. I welcome feedback and comments, bouquets and brickbats, offers of free lunch(or not)).

En route to elsewhere - going cross-country across India

2011-02-06T10:59:00.003+04:00

This is a piece on taking a train journey across India by the Himsagar Express. It was published in Mint Lounge on 29 Jan 2011. Here it is:

http://www.livemint.com/2011/01/28185447/En-route-to-elsewhere.html

The rain train – travelling through Kerala in the monsoon

2011-01-19T21:15:00.014+04:00

(This piece appears in the Jan 2011 issue of India Today Travel Plus. There is no direct web link to the piece. This is a part of the special year-end edition - India, the all weather country. It has pieces on each state in India in one of the 4 seasons. This piece is about Kerala in the monsoon).

(14 hours and 600km in pouring rain - on spending a day with the South West Monsoons.)

Day tripper

Mangalore Central wears a disembodied look at 4am. Crowds of sleepers sprawl across the floor in uneasy half-sleep, whom you have to adroitly sidestep to make your way to the Parasuram Express.

The Parasuram Express is usually mostly unoccupied. Because of its 4:15am departure, only the most intrepid or desperate board it. The few sleepy faces inside are invariably foraging for their last fragments of sleep, as they moodily fight the bright white tubelights throbbing down.

In spite of its early morning discomforts, the Parasuram Express remains the best way to see all of Kerala in the monsoons. Every year, when the South West monsoons reach India, the rains hit Kerala first. From June to September, India’s favourite tourist state is embraced by near-continuous rains. One way to experience the monsoon is to reach any town in Kerala and watch it pour down. Another is to take a day trip across Kerala, and watch the rains drape the state all along the route. The best way to do the latter is to take the Parasuram Express from Mangalore to Trivandrum.

This isn’t for everybody, though. The train can look forbiddingly spooky in the pre-dawn. The journey can seem like forever – it’s 14 hours and 634 km in non-stop rain. You’re likely to be sleep-starved and exhausted by the time you reach Trivandrum late in the evening. It isn’t an easy ride. But if you hop on for the ride, you can see one of India’s wettest regions from a viewpoint it’s not often seen from – a train door.

Sea sighting

Soon after the Parasuram rumbles across the Nethravathi river outside Mangalore, it picks up speed and decisively cuts through the pouring rain.

There is no border to demarcate Karnataka from Kerala. But name boards on wayside stations switch from Kannada to Malayalam. Hoardings for Hoorulyn brand burqas and MCR brand dhotis surface. Silhouettes of the first coconut trees emerge from pre-dawn shadows.

Soon, the darkness lightens, but visibility is muffled by sheets of rain. Inundated fields and gushing streams become slowly visible. Even small rivulets furiously toss about branches and debris of vegetation dislodged by the rains.

Near the fort town of Bekal, around 5:30am, tearing streams occasionally reveal a glimpse of the sea. Soon, the green of the coconut groves abruptly gives way to a vast openness. Just a few hundred metres away is the open sea, its greenish-blue stretches merging into the inky twilight sky. Inevitably, the train swerves inland and moves on, ruthlessly pushing back the view until it is a mere memory.

Medley

The Parasuram express is named after the man who, according to legend, carved out Kerala by hurling his axe into the sea. Though it plies a distance of 634km from Mangalore to Trivandrum, it’s practically a series of short distance trains. People hop in and out every hour or two. Hardly anyone travels more than 4 or 5 hours. Office goers, college students and work delegations replace each other in a relay until the last batch of office returnees alight at Trivandrum, a world away from the faraway mists of 4:15am.

Water everywhere

Though it’s soon light, the sun never really comes out amid the grey-white skies. At 7:30am, Parasuram reaches Mahe, an erstwhile French colony and now part of Pondicherry. At 8:35, it reaches Calicut, best known for being Vasco da Gama’s port of call. All along, I have seen nothing but torrential rains swathe train platforms, grounds, roads and rivers. Some wetness invariably manages to trickle into the compartments. By then, as I'm joined by freshly bathed and breakfasted co-passengers, I'm already a long way into your day.

There is water everywhere. Lakes and streams encroach into flooded fields. Often, all you can see is a continuum of water punctuated by stubbles of grass within. The waters of the Thootha and Bharathapuzha rivers lap up bridge spans, flowing seemingly right under the train’s wheels.

In spite of this inundation, there is no despair anywhere. There are no refugees shivering in shacks, as you come to expect from TV news coverage of floods. Houses stand steady, their sloping tiled roofs brushing off torrents. Schoolkids wave to the train, happily jumping through puddles. Women unmindfully wade through water-logged verandahs. Everywhere along the route, groups of men crouch under colourful umbrellas, intent in games of cards.

Lunch arrives at 1:30pm in Ernakulam. The menu has just vegetarian and chicken biriyani, both badly cooked. Both are warm, though, which is all you really ask for amid the dank wetness everywhere.

Onward

Town names lengthen. Attempts to register Tripunithura’s name can result in nearly missing the pagoda-like station building standing in proud isolation in the downpour. At Mulagunnathukavu, you don’t stand a chance of noticing anything about the station.

Sometimes, the sun comes out briefly. Waterlogged rice fields stretch out in the fuzzy light, their silver surfaces carrying imperfect reflections.

Pepper and rubber trees surface. Kottayam comes at 3pm, and looks like a forest-town. The pouring rain forms a screen alongside the train. Pattering sounds carry a dull familiarity.

Amid backwaters

Soon, Parasuram express enters Alleppey district, which has most of the backwaters Kerala is known for. Canals and rivulets surge ahead with vehemence, with none of the languidness suggested by the word ‘backwater’. The Pampa and Kallada rivers are full and overflowing with violence. The Pampa plays host to the Nehru Trophy boat races every August further downstream at Alleppey. But in the fierce downpour there are hardly any boats by the trackside streams.

Parasuram then skirts the Ashtamudi lake, which is the centre of Kerala’s wetland backwater ecosystem. Perhaps by its enormity, the Ashtamudi gives the impression of placidity even in the furious rain. The contours of the lake curve tantalisingly away from the train. Some way ahead, the Kilimukkam lake melts into the immensity of the open sea.

Another Twilight

After another stretch amid coconut groves, the inevitable happens. The smoky grey that fills the sky turns just a shade deeper – a foreboding of the arrival of evening twilight. Thatched roofs, copses and rivulets give way to persistent concrete buildings, shops and traffic filled roads. Trivandrum, the end of the journey is nigh. Fourteen odd hours by greenery, in the rain approach their end.

The Parasuram express squeaks into the solemn, majestic stone buildings of Trivandrum Central, whose square, clean-cut edifice rounds off a day spent with a newly washed state.

(The first and fourth pics in this piece are by Arun Rajagopal.)

Gokarna - The Lost Waterfront

2011-01-19T19:16:00.023+04:00

(On exploring four forgotten beaches in Gokarna on Karnataka’s west coast).

Playing hard to get

Gokarna on Karnataka’s west coast can play notoriously hard to get.

Gokarna’s name features prominently on milestones along the Mumbai – Goa – Mangalore - Cochin highway NH17, but these mentions can be deceptive. The town doesn’t lie on the highway at all. It’s 9km away from the highway on a narrow, bumpy side road traversed only by infrequent rickety buses.

Gokarna’s main beachfront, the Om beach, lies 7 km away from town. There’s no public transport to Om beach. From there, the other beaches in Gokarna(Kudle, Half Moon and Paradise) are 2, 1.5 and 3 kilometres away respectively. There are no motorable roads to these 3 beaches. You have to hike across hills to get to these beaches from the main Om beach.

Every beach feels just a little farther off, just a tad unattainable. Gokarna, then, is just the sort of place that can leave you feeling like Tantalus.

From Gokarna town, the road to the main Om beach lies along a nondescript bylane, with thatched houses behind shrub fences. Some 2km before Om beach, a hill on the right drops away to reveal a yawning valley underneath. The vast expanse of the Arabian Sea shimmers below in the valley. The empty grey of the road waves about ahead, reminding you that the shore is still some way off.

The Om beach is named thus because it is shaped like the letter ‘Om’. While you can see the two semicircular shores that form halves of the Om, the meager elevation at the shore isn’t enough to reveal the Om-shape very clearly.

Because Om is the only beach in Gokarna accessible by road, it is the only one that draws crowds. It is an interesting mix of people too. Beer guzzling Europeans occupy tables in the numerous seaside restaurants, sitting alongside Indian joint families. Middle aged women wrapped in wet saris get out of the water and walk past sunbathers. Kids gaze at bikini clad women as parents make frantic attempts to divert their attention.

Along the fringe of the two arcs of the Om, there are shack-and-cottage hotels that offer rooms for rent, with hammocks slung out in front of them. Restaurants dot the contours of the Om, with boards advertising Italian, Lebanese, Russian and Israeli cuisines, presumably for the delectation of foreign travelers.

At the southern end of the Om beach, a narrow hill-path snakes out behind the last restaurant on the beach - Sunset Cafe. This path quickly rises upwards and ascends a hill, from where you can see the Om shape stand out in clear relief. This path is the route to the other beaches at Gokarna – Half Moon and Paradise.

Half moon

Atop the hill, after a kilometer of walking through a canopy of forest cover, the path steps outdoors onto a ledge right above the sea. Below, gentle wrinkles of wavelets twinkle in the sunshine. The crowds, the restaurants, the noises that lay just across a hill seem a world away.

Across this hill is the next beach – Half Moon. Half Moon beach is empty. The golden sand looks never stepped in. The beach is just some 40-50 metres across, yet its solitude gives it an air of purity, of peace. There are a few shacks being built - wannabe restaurants and hotels. But they haven’t yet managed to spoil the calm of Half Moon.

In Paradise

Paradise beach is two hills away. This trek spares you forest walks, but throws up rocks to climb, sometimes amid clear water that gurgles in frothy pools under your feet.

Paradise beach too has seaside restaurants and shacks-cottages for rent. The beach is much smaller than Om, just 150 metres or so long. There isnt much space between the rocky cliffs and the water, and the six or seven restaurants pack what little space there is. Rooms and shacks for rent lie tucked in the hills behind the restaurants.

Even though boats ply to Paradise beach from Om beach, it remains an outpost with few visitors. A few foreign tourists lie slung in hammocks, in the midst of idyllic seaside vacations. In the open air restaurants, languid conversations waft across the still air.

Paradise is a place foreign tourists are in love with. Many stay here for months together. It fits the image of a tropical paradise – trees, shade, hammocks, quiet beaches, a conspicuous lack of noise and crowds. It’s the perfect location for a summer spent away from the world.

Standing alone

Because the hikes to Half Moon and Paradise aren’t easy, these beaches aren’t crowded. The beaches still preserve a near-natural state. Thankfully for Gokarna, this doesn’t look like changing anytime soon. There are far too few tourists arriving here for it to be worthwhile for local bodies to build a road across the hills. Without better connectivity, more tourists will not arrive. Thanks to this virtuous cycle, the far reaches of Gokarna look like they’ll be spared bright lights, noisy resorts, plastic bottles and other debris of mass tourism for some time at least.

Another seashore

Gokarna has yet another beach - Kudle, lying to the north of the Om beach. From Paradise you have to retrace your steps to Om beach, and then go further north. Kudle lies two mounds across from Om. These mounds are relatively tame compared to the rough treks to Half Moon and Paradise.

The Kudle beach is a semicircular bowl of hills that contain the sea within. The water is nearly still. Waves roll in, not crash through. Kudle looks like a placid backwater, a forgotten lake, a long way from civilization. Along the sprawling half-kilometre circumference of the beach, there are no more than a dozen bathers.

As sundown approaches over Kudle, the late evening sun lowers itself into the water far away. Soon, the only remnant of the day is a diffuse orange light draped over the water.

(Second pic(of Om beach) by Kelly Martin. Other pics by self. The print article has pics by Parikshit Rao & Gireesh VV).

Riding the quiet backwaters

2010-11-25T19:32:00.012+04:00

(This piece features in the November 2010 issue of Outlook Lounge. There is no direct web link to the piece online).

(Kerala's backwaters come alive at the annual Nehru Trophy Boat Races in Alleppey.)

Getting ready for battle

The Devas is getting ready for the big day. Its surface is of thick, seemingly unbreakable wood. The pale wood is slowly acquiring a luster under the polish being applied. The metallic spear at its tip makes it look like an arrow ready to be let loose. The Devas lies in a nondescript backyard. Four strategically positioned houseboats protect it from being viewed from the lake just yonder.

The Devas is a snake boat that is being readied for the Nehru Trophy Snake Boat Races in Alleppey, Kerala. A team of 15 carpenters fuss over the boat - rubbing, scraping, polishing - making sure it is just right for tomorrow's races.

(The Devas in its yard)

I am in Alleppey, South Kerala, sometimes known as the Venice of the East. Alleppey is a major access point to the Vembanad lake, which is the center of the Kerala’s network of backwaters that have put the state on the world’s tourism map. I’m here to see the Nehru Trophy Boat Races, the highlight of the monsoon season in Alleppey.

My friend Kuriachan is showing me around Alleppey on the eve of the race. Kuriachan had promised to arrange a sneak peek of one of the snake boats before the race – he has brought me to the yard of the massive Devas.

The boat Devas has sitting compartments for some 50 rowers that somehow suggest the rigid discomfort of slave ships. The raised prow towers upwards to some 7-8 feet. At over a 100 feet in length, it is massive and intimidating.

I ask Kuriachan if I could get to meet the architects of the boats. He’s well connected in the town, but he says it’s unlikely during a race weekend. However, he adds, he can connect me to someone who’ll be far more informative than any architect, or for that matter anyone else in Kerala. He knows one of the commentators for the Nehru Trophy, and he might be able to get me some time with him.

Soon, I have an appointment with ace-commentator VV Gregory at 8am the next day.

The beginnings

VV Gregory has a pencil moustache and a near-diffident, almost shy smile. Gregory has been a commentator at the Nehru Trophy Boat Races since 1977, and is somewhat of a legend in the region.

Gregory gives me a bit of a historical perspective about the races. South Kerala hosts 47 boat races every year – Gregory commentates on more than 30 of them. Most of the other boat races in the state are held on religious occasions, and are connected with temples. The races are, in a way, religious processions. Indeed, in these races, having elaborately decorated boats and paying respects to deities is as important as winning.

While most other races are very old(the oldest, at Aranmula, is about 600 years old) , the Nehru Trophy boat race is far more recent. In 1952, when Jawaharlal Nehru was passing through Alleppey, people organized an impromptu boat race to welcome him. Nehru donated a trophy for the winners, and the race continued to be held every year thereafter.

But why, I ask, did the Nehru Trophy become far more popular than the older, traditional races? Most other races, Gregory tells me, were organized by temple committees, or at best by village/town officials, who had meager budgets. Because of its association with Nehru, the Nehru Trophy was organized by the district and state administration. This gradually led to much more money being spent on the Nehru Trophy, which in turn resulted in its much greater popularity.

The Snake Boats

Gregory tells me it takes at least 4-5 months and Rs. 20-30 lakh to build a snake boat. Snake boats are built from a local variety of wood called ‘anjili’. Each boat, typically more than 100 feet long, needs around 700 cubic feet of wood. The wood needs to be fortified for strength and stability, so you also need around 300 kg of iron and 30kg of brass for each boat. It’s a delicate balance, having to pack enough power into a boat without making it too heavy.

Gregory tells me that most people get involved in the boat races out of pride. Each team represents a town or a locality. The locality’s people often pool in money to build boats and maintain them. It helps, of course, that prominent rich men from the region pitch in, for it is a matter of prestige for them to be involved in the races.

Raceday

It’s raceday. There are stands on the lakeshore that are but rusty metallic steps. The race starts 2pm, but there is no sitting or standing room by 11am. These are no railings, nothing to prevent an accidental push from turning into a splash.

Across the water from the stands, houseboats line up in a row with spacious decks. There are tourists atop them, peering at the water from camera lenses.

At 2pm, rowers on the 16 snake boats begin a mass drill in front of the chief guest, the President of India, raising the oars up and down in response to the conductor’s whistle. While the ancient boat races elsewhere in Kerala pay respects to temple deities, the Nehru Trophy Boat Race pays its respects to the President and politicians.

An upset

The races begin. It’s the second heat of the snake boat category. There is a quickening in the crowd’s shouting and cheering, for an upset is on the cards. Jesus Boat Club from Kollam, the winners of the last two editions and hot favourites for this one, are in third place with the last 400m to go. Jesus find inspiration. Their intent, muscled arms plow into the water. But it isnt easy to surge ahead in a 100 foot long boat, not when you’re up against another such furiously rowing boat. Jesus’ burst is too late, too little, they finish third and are knocked out of the finals.

There are 4 categories of boats – snake boats are but one of them. Heats and finals for the other categories go on, one after the other.

While some teams are in uniforms and some in coloured vests and shorts with sponsors’ logos, there are some teams in lungis and shorts. Most rowers don’t quite have the sculpted bodies of sportsmen. Many rowers have prominent paunches. Some have prominent white hair and wrinkled skin. Rowing clearly hasn’t become a professional, full time activity yet(according to Gregory, most teams practice only for a month before the races).

The packed audience in the very full stands decides it needs a release. Some viewers jump into the lake, and with tyres around them float next to the first track, thereby getting a close-up view of the races.

A photo-finish

The last race of the day, at 6pm, is the snake boat finals. Even with the favourites out, there are some big names in the fray – the UBC Kainakari and the Town Boat Club Kumarakom have both won multiple times in the past. The race starts, and the boats appear far in the distance. There is a flurry of rapidly moving brown of the oars. As they come closer, the boats are but a series of splashes from the oars cutting in. The pointed fronts of the snake boats come into view.

The rowing of a snake boat is a neatly choreographed performance. Two members of the crew stand in between the rowers, and rhythmically ram down a pestle-like wooden block into the floor of the boats. This is to make sure the rowers row in sync to the beating of the blocks. Another man on each boat blows a whistle or a horn, again to mark the rhythm of the rowing, as he waves his arms animatedly, much like a western classical composer.

The boats approach the stands, the cheering increases even further when the crowds notice there is very little to separate the four teams. The boat Pattara is ahead, but only just. The boats race forward, impelled ahead by viciously rowing arms. The boat Jawahar Thayankari is crawling ahead, inch by inch, little by little.

It is a photo finish. Two of the teams have their arms up in exultation – who will it be? People huddle around the TV screen near me. We see four pointed fronts of the boats inch towards the finish line. Only in slow motion does it become evident that the Payippadan of UBC Kainakari and the Jawahar Thayankari of Town Boat Club Kumarakom are very nearly together in front. Jawahar Thayankari, though, seem to have pulled ever so slightly ahead. After about 5 minutes of waiting, the results are officially announced – Jawahar Thayankari, winners from 2004 to 2007 have won, but only just.

Elsewhere, crowds trickle out from the narrow entrance. Houseboats with watching tourists on the other side of the shore slowly pull out. Boats of sponsors patrol the lake once again, displaying hoardings of their Slice, Minute Maid, Malayala Manorama and their ilk.

Some supporters and locals remain in the stands, as dancing and cheering breaks out. Boats of supporters near the finish line shout and cheer. The winners climb atop motorboats that lazily drift in front of the pavilion.

(The pics here are by Anoop Krishnan(more here and here), who I was fortunate to meet at Alleppey. The print edition of the article in Outlook Lounge has pics by Ravi Menon).

(Here're some more notes from this trip.)

(Here's a link to all my published work).

Nowhere in Kerala - exploring Bekal

2010-11-11T14:14:00.017+04:00

(This piece features in the November 2010 issue of India Today Travel Plus. There's no direct web link to the piece online).

(On a nowhere land in Kerala, and on its ambitions of being a tourist destination).

Country roads

The first conversation was almost entirely about bumpy rides. One of us said “there was hardly any tar on the road”, but was countered by “there wasn’t even a road – the car actually bounced”. The one person who tried “it wasn’t that bad” was silenced by a ‘what-were-you-smoking’ glare from the rest.

The conversation was with some of the other travelers who I had happened to meet at Bekal. Bekal is in Kerala, but it’s not quite the Kerala you’ll usually have heard or read about. Bekal is in North Kerala, some 400 odd kilometers from the more famous parts of Kerala – the backwaters around Alleppey, beaches of Kovalam and the hills of Munnar.

The bad roads and relative remoteness are the first signs of the fact that Bekal isnt your typical tourist trap. There are no bright or gaudy hotel and resort signboards on the highway near Bekal. There are no curio shops with bizarre artifacts pretending to be ethnic. Beaches here aren’t lined by alcohol bottles and plastic packets. Passersby don’t make unsolicited offers of dope or sex. The road leading up to the Lalit Resort & Spa, where I’m staying, is a pinched narrow village road lined by coconut trees and thatched houses.

Swimming across

There is a thin line between inaccessible and pristine, between desolate and idyllic. This is a line that Bekal has attempted to go across over the last decade and a half. What makes Bekal’s journey unique, though, is that it’s been a carefully planned effort.

In1995, Government of Kerala formed the Bekal Resorts Development Corporation(BRDC) to develop Bekal as a tourist destination. The Government expected tourism in Kerala to grow over time, and wanted to develop alternatives to traditional destinations to accommodate the increased number of tourists. Another less immediate objective was that tourism would promote an ecosystem of development. Resorts would lead to shops, malls and recreational facilities, all of which would lead to employment for locals and economic growth.

At least that was the idea. But when the BRDC was set up, there were absolutely no roads, hotels or tourist infrastructure to speak of at Bekal. The BRDC had nothing to start with - they had to begin from scratch.

The BRDC decided to adopt a strategy of what it called ‘integrated resort development’. The BRDC spoke to hospitality groups and resort chains and offered them concessions to set up resorts in Bekal. The BRDC proposed a revenue share arrangement, and made commitments on ensuring road and infrastructure development. The idea was that because the Government had a financial stake in the project, they’d have an incentive to ensure the development of ancillary infrastructure like roads and facilities.

The first step

But the waters were completely untested. Resorts coming up there would still have to face huge risks. Supply chains would be difficult to set up, it’d be difficult to convince staff to relocate. Most importantly, a hitherto unknown destination would be difficult to sell to visitors. It was a chicken and egg problem – nobody wanted to set up shop until someone else did it and proved that it was profitable.

Undiscovered lands

For all its growing pangs, Bekal still had plenty of raw material with which to make itself into a tourist destination. There are backwaters of the Valiyaparamba around Bekal. There are the hills and ghats that lie between Kasargode district and the more popular Coorg in Karnataka yonder. Then of course, there are long stretches of beaches. All of these are quite bereft of hordes of tourists, so they still give one the thrill of a new discovery, of finding a new land.

There was just the small matter of convincing everyone that the place was good enough.

Seaside fort

The Bekal fort is perhaps the only thing most people know about Bekal. The Bekal fort is a mystery of sorts. It seems so out of place and context, simply because there is nothing else around that’s related to it – palaces, towns or places of worship. Yet, because the fort lies on the seaside, the unprecedented views from there have made it a favourite short stop for travelers driving on the National Highway 17.

I take a quick tour of the fort. At the entrance to the fort is the garish brown front wall of a Hanuman temple, the loud blaring of whose songs follows me into the fort. The ramshackle tea stall inside the fort sticks out amid the neatly trimmed lawns like a sore thumb. There are Archaeological Survey of India signboards - I wonder if the Survey has done anything at the fort other than put up those boards.

The fort thankfully is big enough for me to leave the music and the tea stall behind, as I walk along the 1.5km circumference of the fort. Walking along the moss-covered fort’s ramparts is like having a gallery-view of the entire district. Every bit of my view that’s not taken by the sea is occupied by a vast expanse of coconut trees. A row of boats lie immobile on the sand at a nearby fishing village. From the upper-circle viewpoint, I see the evening sun slowly descend upon the open, empty sea.

Baby steps

The Government’s integrated resort development program made slow progress – Kerala Tourism and BRDC advertised Bekal at travel tradeshows and travel marts. Resorts were cautious about taking the plunge. Eventually the Lalit Resort & Spa became the first of the resort groups to agree to set up shop – their property became operational a few months ago. They took the chance mainly because they had a long term strategy of developing properties in relatively unknown areas. After years of the initial hesitation, other resorts slowly bought into the possibility that lay in Bekal. Right now, 15 years after the formation of the BRDC, 5 of the 6 areas earmarked by the BRDC for resorts have been booked.

So resorts have said yes. Investment of Rs. 750 crore has come in, and the BRDC is set to start making money. Yet the promises of infrastructure development haven’t materialized, as partly evidenced by my ride there. I’m surprised at the tardiness, partly because Kerala tourism’s marketing is so ubiquitous and well thought out. A familiar lament I hear from people I speak to is that Government agencies are enthusiastic and optimistic when they invite investments, but once it’s their turn to keep up their end of the bargain, progress is slow.

One reason for the slow pace of development, I’m told, is that any on-ground project needs approvals from a myriad of Government bodies – water deparment, PWD, highways department, local bodies and more – which slows down progress enormously.

Flowing quietly

The absence of tourist fixtures in a way accentuates the natural charms of Bekal. The road to Bekal passes close to the sea, sometimes opening up to reveal the yawning empty openness of the water.

The Lalit resort lies on the banks of the Nombili backwater. The Nombili is a sea change from the waterways of Alleppey and Kumarakom I’d visited a while ago. The water here is clear and transparent, unlike the algae-and-weed-choked waters of South Kerala. There are no houseboats chugging by or speedboats rushing past every few minutes. There is none of the effluvium of mass travel – plastic and waste floating atop the water surface. The Nombili emerges quietly from amid a green blanket of vegetation unbroken by buildings or houses, and placidly tiptoes to the sea.

There are 12 such rivers in Kasargode district around Bekal, all of them as yet untouched by tourism – so there’s immense possibility here.

New shores

The beach near the resort appears brand new. It looks like it’s just been discovered. There’s just the endless unblemished sand on either side, unbroken by plastic or dirt. There are no bathers or picnickers, there’s no noise or bustle. There are no shacks, stalls or eatouts. The glimmering steely grey of the water is unbroken by speedboats. As I take a languid walk on the sand, a blue kingfisher flits by. There’s a pinprick on the placid water surface, a solitary dolphin punctures the horizon.

(Photo credits: Bhavati HG, the print article also has pics by Amit Parischa)

On overcoming elephantine roadblocks

2010-10-24T22:43:00.014+04:00

This afternoon, I took a road less taken. This one was a largely unused road through NagarholE, near Mysore.

At one point, this road was blocked. It was blocked by an elephant standing upon the highway, staring down at me. The immediate question was: do I blow horn or not? The creature rose to some two times my car’s height, so the decision was a no brainer. I waited and watched, hoping that this too would pass, and the elephant would give way.

2 minutes passed. I drummed my hands upon the steering wheel. I took a picture of the blighted creature. 2 more minutes passed. My friends Dire Straits, with cruel irony, pronounced over the car audio, “it’s now time to go home.” Some more minutes inched by – I clearly knew what they mean when they say it felt like eternity. The stinker refused to budge – he persisted in staying put right there in the midst of the road, allowing no room to pass.

Finally, the monstrosity nudged himself to life. He took one slow step ahead, and then another. Only, he was walking towards me. Gentle reader, you, who are a million miles away from the action, might find the verbs ‘amble’ or ‘limber’, and the adjective ‘gentle’ appropriate to describe the elephant’s movements. But I, who was behind the windshield, found but one way to describe it – he charged.

So he charged. I ran for what some would call dear life. I made my way to a safe distance, stood panting, wondering what was to happen next.

The worm wasn’t interested in me. It was the car that he lusted after. He approached my car. The lad walked around, thrusting his trunk into the open driver-window. Knopfler offered aloud:“money for nothing, chicks for free”. I could hear the loud audio from where I stood, but the bounder refused to get tempted.

The lad was poking around the car. Now, I have nothing against creatures poking around, if it were not for the fact that the blister had tusks, and that my car had rolled up glasses. Soon, under a few quick pokes, nothing remained of the rear window but shards of glass sprinkled on the rear seat.

With the safety of distance between us, I was out of panic mode by now. I was more amused than frightened, partly by the loud music from the car audio forming background score to this situation. Then the rotter decided to try toppling the car. He did the heave-ho once. The car rose slightly, but thankfully came back to position. He tried again, but hardly managed to budge the car. Knopfler elucidated "he's got the action, he's got the motion."

The lazybone didn’t bother trying again after he failed to topple the car. He was bored. The blackguard took one step away, and then another, taking care to remain within poking distance of the car. He was on the right side, the driver’s side.

I tiptoed onto the other side, inched the door open, and took one quick glance at the fragments of glass on the rear seat. I quickly slipped into the front passenger’s seat, jumped across into the driver’s seat, flipped gears and pushed down on the accelerator like it was nobody’s business. Knopfler helpfully added, “dice was loaded from the start.”

As I sped away, all I could think was, “this will make for a great blogpost”( http://xkcd.com/77/ ).

Notes From Travancore - where there are salesmen, refreshments and murdered romantic notions

2010-08-20T19:07:00.007+04:00

A town of salesmen

“You have to go to YMCA? Left and straight – half a km” he said, and paused to add, “Do you need a houseboat for tonight, sir?”

As I park my car 5 minutes hence, another man walks over, looks rather conspicuously at my out-of-town license plate, and comes over, “Houseboat night stay, sir?”

Far, far away, some 15km from town. I’m taking an evening walk in a field off the Quilon-Cochin waterway. There is the vast emptiness of paddy fields around. There are but 2 houses visible in the far distance. A man walks from the village that lies 2km away, and moves away from me.

This man suddenly stops, turns around. There’s nobody else around – just the two of us. He asks, “Houseboat, sir? 6000 rupees only for 1 night”.

Just like Bombay offers sex to newly arrived visitors, Alleppey offers houseboats-by-night.

Finding refreshments

“Toddy?”, I ask.

“Bar?” comes the reply.

“No. No. Toddy.” I insist.

“Why toddy? Go to whisky, brandy bar. Next road only”, the man persists.

Finally, I decide to take my friend Samanth’s advice .”Shaaaaap?”, say I.

No avail. Perhaps I had missed the precise intonation that Samanth insisted was the key to success.

I try again , imploring, ”Kallu shaaaap?”

I immediately receive detailed, precise directions to the nearest toddy shop.

I also get dirty stares for being a car-driving, jeans-wearing toddy-shop visitor.

Where romantic notions go to die

After I’ve booked a place to stay in, I look up directions for getting there. I find, “We are not reachable by road. We are located on the Quilon-Cochin waterway.”

Wow, I tell myself, a place with enough attitude to stay away from the path of tourists. This, I tell myself, is precisely the sort of thing one writes about.

An hour before reaching, I call the resort to tell them about my arrival. The manager asks ,”What will you have for dinner?”.

“I’ll come there and order.”

“No, we’ll need to cook for you, so tell me now.”

Ah, I tell myself, here’s a place where they cook especially for guests, which doesnt have stocks of what could be leftover dishes. Here’s a place that isnt business-like in taking orders and mass-producing dishes listed on big menus. This really must be a place one could call quaint and nice. This, perhaps, is a place that is a house, but merely calls itself a resort.

I reach the resort, taking a 10 minute boat ride across the waterway to get there.

There are but two men there. One’s in the kitchen, the cook. The other man, who’s driven the motor boat, and also mans the reception, is the manager. There are just 2 other guests in the resort tonight.

See? Quaint is just the word, I tell myself. Very nice and non-commercial. This is the way resorts should be. Owner runs the place, talks to guests, manages everything. No corporate management, no indifferent staff. Owner relaxes and lives happily because he doesn’t have to sweat himself to death about ‘scaling up’.

Romantic notions, alas, die a cruel death.

As I chat with the manager over dinner, he laments, “So many staff are on leave. The boat driver is taking a vacation. The MD wants me to handle all the work.”

At least, I tell myself, the place maintains its peaceful seclusion. It’s not for everyone, just like any place with any notion of pride should be. It’s so far away from the town, only the most intrepid, only the worthy come here. See how un-crowded it is?

That notion, too, dies an ignominious death.

Sometime later, he says, “This is a very busy waterway. Boats pass all day. We pick up guests directly from Alleppey. Sometimes, we have houseboats stop by for parties at our resort. Today somehow we hardly have guests.”

Sigh.

“Sometimes, people book the entire resort and hold parties and bonfires here. They have a great time. Especially software engineers from Bangalore.”

Well, so the place didn’t quite match up to the exalted levels of chastity I demanded. Oh well, at least the place was memorable enough to make me want to stay two extra days. One cant have everything, can one?

On the ball - world cup watching in North Kerala

2010-07-02T05:00:00.003+04:00

The soccer world cup as seen from North Kerala - my piece in today's Mint Lounge.

http://www.livemint.com/2010/07/01214849/On-the-ball.html

Driving North for the summer - 1

2010-06-13T16:48:00.005+04:00

Home stretch

Earlier this summer, I went on a slow-driving vacation covering most of the National Highway 17. The NH17 is one of India’s longest highways, running along 1400km of India’s west coast from Cochin to Mumbai(although the purists will point out that it plies, in fact, from Edapally to Panvel).

The NH17 wades through vast coconut groves, coasts through plains, climbs the enormous Sahyadris, and deposits one at the edge of the snarling metropolitan traffic of Bombay. All along, it stays tantalizingly close to the shore of the Arabian sea.

The NH17 is among India’s best loved roads. Many friends began their vacations with a drive along the very pretty Bombay-Goa stretch of the NH17. Those who didn’t take the road went along the just-as-beautiful Konkan Railway that runs alongside. The NH17 was also the stretch where I spent many weekends on motorbike-trips a few years ago.

A drive along the NH17 was, in a way, a homecoming, a return to roads once traveled and loved.

**
No seasides on this highway

Calicut in Northern Kerala is where this journey begins. For the purely practical reason that I stay in Calicut, I skipped the southernmost 200-odd kilometers of the NH17 from Cochin to Calicut.

Calicut is a seaside town, but you wouldn’t know if you passed Calicut along NH17. You pass along clumps of coconut trees, along the yawning Ferok river, along quiet cottages, but the sea remains hidden from view.

For all of NH17’s charms, its one shortcoming is that it offers very hardly any glimpses of the sea. It passes within a few kilometers of the coast throughout its 1400km length. But like a jealous lover, it snorts stubborn refusals when asked for an introduction to the Arabian sea.
**

Another English channel

North of Calicut, coconut trees cloak the highway in a cool, protective shelter from the summer. You see the open sky only where occasional rivers puncture coconut groves.

At Mahe, some 60km away, the highway is chock full of alcohol shops. That’s because Mahe is a union territory(it’s a part of Pondicherry), and has lower alcohol prices. Mahe was a French colony – but the only symbol of its French past that you can see from the highway today is the St Theresa’s church that comfortably dwarfs the coconut trees around.

Thalassery town is across the Mahe river. Thalassery was British and Mahe French, so the Mahe river wedged between the towns is oft nicknamed the English Channel.

One billboard for a real estate company announces – ‘Thalassery - the cradle of Indian cricket’, referencing a mostly forgotten bit of trivia – the fact that Thalassery is widely held to be the first place in India where cricket was played. The 200th anniversary celebrations of the Telicherry Cricket Club in 2002 went mostly unnoticed too.
**

Driving by the sea

Thalassery’s chief attraction is that it has one of only two drive-through beaches on NH17. But there are no signs or boards to prepare one for the arrival of this beach. It is rather abruptly, then, that I find myself on a half-kilometer stretch of the highway on a ledge right above the sea. There are no crowds, parked vehicles, picnickers or swimmers that you’d expect of a popular beach. Mine is the only vehicle parked on the highway.

Buses, trucks and cars whiz by in a tearing hurry. Some of their passengers peep out, and make frantic efforts to see as much of the vast open sea as possible before the road disappears into the interior of the town.

I shift into first gear, crawl alongside the sea, and gaze wistfully into infinity in the late morning sun before the highway veers me away from the sea-view.

**
The seen and the unseen

The highway traveler goes places, but never really gets to stay long enough to appreciate any one place in depth. He has to form an appreciation of each place purely on the basis of the meager clues afforded by the surroundings of the highway. Such are the implications of choosing to take a highway vacation.

On the NH17, most towns and places worth seeing lie off the highway. Now, for instance, a signboard, like a dangling carrot, tells me that the seaside fort at Bekal is 9km off the highway. Yet another tells me that the ancient pagoda-like Malik Dinar mosque is off the highway as well.

But the highway does give enough clues about what is changing. As I go further into Northern Kerala, green crescent-and-star flags and red hammer-and-sickle flags slowly reduce in number, until I find Kasargode town full of flashing saffron flags for a BJP rally. Vegetarian restaurants start to appear instead of open air chicken-grill-displays.

The shade of coconut trees diminishes. Shrubs and undergrowth hardly compensate for the lost shade, as the summer heat beats down directly. The car interior starts to get stuffy. Soon enough, I go across the Karnataka-Kerala border, traverse the immense Nethravathi river and enter Mangalore.

Another Seaside Idyll.

2009-12-19T15:04:00.004+04:00

Reaching the best parts of Gokarna can leave one feeling like Tantalus. You’ll find Gokarna’s name on milestones along the Mumbai – Goa – Mangalore highway NH17. But on approach you’ll realize with dismay that the town doesn’t lie on the highway at all. It lies 9km away on a narrow, bumpy side road that is traversed only by infrequent rickety buses.

Once you get to Gokarna town, you’ll have another twinge of disappointment awaiting you. You’ll find that the Om beach, the biggest attraction in town, is 7km away from the bus stand, and that there is no public transport to the place.

Then you’ll be helpfully told that from the Om beach, you’ve to traverse 2, 2 and 3 kilometres respectively to get to the three other beaches around (Kudle, Half Moon and Paradise). Now, that wouldn’t be so much of a bother if it weren’t for the fact that there are no roads to any of these beaches from Om. The only way to get to these beaches is to hike across hills.

I had all day, and was curious enough to travel slowly, to take my time seeing things. So I set out on walk from Gokarna town bus stand. The road to Om beach lay along what looked like a nondescript bylane. I walked along the deserted village road, past thatched houses hidden behind shrub fences.

Shortly after the 5km-to-Om milestone, the road rose to reveal just a little glimpse of the wide open sea in the distance. I regretted walking on, for the road dipped again, and the sea hid behind a hill. As I impatiently awaited the shore, the road swerved around a couple of hills. At the 2km-to-Om milestone, the hill to my right dropped away to reveal a yawning valley.

I stood staring across the valley, as the vast expanse of the Arabian Sea shimmered across it in the late morning sun. The infinite silvery stretch seemed just beneath me, yet the intervening forests made it seem tantalisingly unreachable. The empty grey of the road waved about ahead of me, and I walked on, for the shore was still some way off.

The Om beach, my first port of call, is named thus because it is shaped like the letter ‘Om’. While you can see the two semicircular shores that form halves of the Om, the meagre elevation isn’t enough to reveal the Om-shape very clearly.

Because Om is the only beach in Gokarna accessible by road, it is the only one that draws crowds. It was quite an interesting mix of people too. Beer guzzling Europeans occupied tables in the numerous seaside restaurants, as did Indian joint families. Middle aged women wrapped up in drenched saris got out of the water and walked past sunbathers. A 6 year old girl pointed excitedly at a bikini clad woman and screamed in Kannada - “she’s in her underwear!” as her parents made frantic attempts to look elsewhere.

I walked across the two arcs of the Om, past the numerous restaurants dotting the fringe. At the southern end, a narrow hill-path sneaked out behind Sunset Cafe, the last restaurant on the beach. The path quickly rose upwards. It made its way into the forests that just a little while ago had been a green blanket covering the hills bordering the sea.

Trees on either side were slender and short, and accompanied by undergrowth. The foliage completely obscured the sea. There were no people along the trail. At times the path dissolved into a clump of trees and became ill defined. Sometimes two roads diverged in a wood. I found my way from the fact that Half Moon and Paradise beaches lay in a general southward direction, across a couple of hills.

After what seemed an age of walking through the canopy of forest cover, the path stepped outdoors. I walked along a ledge, right above the sea. There was nothing but the cold blue of the boundless water below me. The gentle wrinkles of wavelets twinkled in the sunshine. The crowds, the restaurants, the noises that lay just across a hill seemed a world away.

I climbed down to Half Moon beach. It was empty. The golden sand looked never stepped in. The beach was just some 40-50 metres across, yet its solitude gave it an air of purity, of peace. The few shacks being built, the wannabe restaurants hadn’t quite managed to spoil the calm of Half Moon.

Paradise beach was two hills away. This stretch spared me forest walks, but furnished rocks to climb across, sometimes amid clear water that gently gurgled in frothy pools under my feet.
Paradise beach was a mass of seaside restaurants. The beach was much smaller than Om, just 150 metres or so long. There wasnt much space between the hills and the water, and the six or seven restaurants packed what little space there was. Shacks for rent lay tucked in the hills behind the restaurants, where a few foreigners lay slung in hammocks, in the midst of idyllic seaside vacations. My initial surprise at the existence of commerce in this outpost lasted only till I noticed boats depositing people here.

I stepped into one of the open air restaurants for lunch. Conversations wafted across the wet, still air from neighbouring tables. There was a “but I’m just disillusioned with all the commercialism” as was “and then she found another boyfriend”.

From the edge of Paradise, I retraced my steps on the two hour trek back to Om. It was late afternoon by the time I got to Om. I began walking towards yet another beach – Kudle, to the north of the Om beach. Kudle lay across two mounds that were relatively tame compared to the others I’d faced earlier in the day.

The Kudle beach was a semicircular bowl of hills that contained the sea within. The water was nearly still. Waves rolled in, not crashed through. Kudle looked like a placid backwater, a forgotten lake, a long way from civilization. Along the sprawling half-kilometre circumference of the beach, there were no more than a dozen bathers. A dolphin’s leap punctured the grey water surface in the distance.

The late evening sun lowered itself into the water far, far away. Soon, the only remnant of the day was a diffuse orange light draped over the water.

(Images here.)

A walk through Old Delhi

2009-11-18T16:30:00.005+04:00

The stuffy, cramped DTC bus deposited me in front of Red Fort. The sheer length and height of the red stone wall looked imposing, impenetrable. Flocks of pigeons pottered about within the unpeopled lawns.

I had a free evening during a business trip, and decided to employ it by taking a walk along Chandni Chowk, which, as you might know, has been variously described as ‘quaint’, ‘right out of the 18^th century’ and having ‘awesome food’. Though I'd been there a few years ago, there was much curiosity to experience it all over again.

Chandni Chowk is the road perpendicular to the Red Fort’s Lahori Gate. It is the main street, therefore the central market of the walled city of Old Delhi, which was established in 1639.

Around me, the Saturday evening traffic inches past the entrance to Chandni Chowk. Sweaty pedestrians zigzag through the maze of stuck vehicles, making no distinction between the road and the sidewalk.

The Lal Jain Mandir at the entrance to Chandni Chowk has a porch packed with feeding pigeons, with an empty verandah separating the gate from the sanctum. The sense of spaciousness is relative – the temple looked like an oasis in contrast with the choked road.

The crowd looks like it will spill over into the Gurudwara Sis Ganj that stands at the edge of the road, from where I can see a part of its inner hall. Its clean floors hold no props or furniture, only devotees occupied in their private prayers, covered heads bowed in reverence. Pigeons flutter atop the Gurudwara’s golden coloured dome that is splashed with a rich yellow cover by the rays of the waning sun.

Matchbox-like shops huddle together. Ancient houses with spacious, shady verandahs hide behind them. Most buildings in Chandni Chowk are grey, unpainted, nameless. Some are clumsily boarded up, hiding frantic attempts at bandaging ruptured surfaces. Crumbling, doddering are the words that come to mind – not historic, monumental.

Here, even the new and the modern dons a sober garb. The Cafe Coffee Day is on the ground floor of a wrinkled yellow building that looks like a seedy lodge. State Bank of India’s branch is situated in a town-hall like building, complete with wide staircase and tall pillars by the entrance. The golden arch of McDonald’s fronts a dull red house with fading paint, the grey underneath showing in places like a badly patched dress.

Chandni Chowk is dusty, old fashioned. Yet people throng in their multitudes, in expensive cars, autos and buses alike; its streetside shops are patronised alike by hip teens and tentative young women in cotton salwars.

Families came for an evening outing; young couples came to court; groups of collegians hung out. Shirtless daily wage workers push brimming hand carts past the shoppers.

Food is Chandni Chowk’s chief occupation -- some might say preoccupation. Purani Jalebiwala, whose board reads ‘Old Famous Jalebiwala’, serves up glistening jalebis dripping with ghee and replete with a wholesome taste I had never experienced before. The pea samosas that followed would have been great their own right, but they paled in the bountiful presence of the jalebis.

Parathewali Gali is a narrow, twisting lane full of low-roofed eateries, each proclaiming its pedigree. One was founded in 1890, another was active for 6 generations, yet another had a six word name. All announced matter of factly that they use ‘shudh desi ghee’.

The ‘parathas’ here are uncharacteristic – more like stuffed pooris or bhaturas than the more traditional flat version. These are thick, oily, rich - the greasiness drowning the taste of the stuffed vegetable and spices. There is no nuance, none of the subtleties of taste I had anticipated from a street named after them.

Across the road is yet another narrow lane, just wide enough to allow two or three people to walk abreast. People throng the entrance of the lane, and gradually trickle within. Natraj Dahi Bhalle, the alu tikki guy who had been recommended to me, is right at the entrance to the lane.

The alu tikkis look crisp, with a sharpness on their surface, but turn out to be soft and succulent as I dug into them. I mentally lament that alu tikkis are largely absent in South India, and have only a poor cousin in the form of ragda patties in West India.

There is more food all along the road – chaats, samosas, lassis, and even a government-run liquor shop sandwiched in there.

I abandoned my linear trek along Chandni Chowk to explore the streets and bylanes, tempted in part by their lyrical, wistful names – I walked along the Gali Ghantewali, Dariba Kalan ('Street of the Incomparable Pearl') and ‘favvara’ (fountain), among other places. The name Chandni Chowk itself comes from the moonlight reflecting from a canal that used to flow through the center of what is now the main road.

For all the poetry in the names, the buildings the streets house are greying, fragile. Delhi Public Library has piles of debris within. The Old Delhi railway station has carefully designed arches and precisely made metal pillars, if you can see through the cobwebs, the grime and the neglect. And everywhere, there is destitution, poverty: often, you sidestep vagrants as you progress through the narrow lanes.

Most people who frequent Chandni Chowk insist that its charms come from its antiquity. But in practice, the romance of the ancient is masked, obscured, by grime and the all pervasive squalor. The charms of the past can be endured only in small doses – you long, thus, for a speedy return to the comfortable cocoon of swankier locales.

No sooner wished, than done - only a long, largely deserted flight of steps separates grimy Chandni Chowk from the antiseptic cleanliness of the underground Metro station. Seated in air conditioned comfort in one of its shiny cars, I leave the old world behind and head, with a sense of relief, into the comfortable familiarity of 21^st century New Delhi.

(This perhaps is a good point to say thanks to the good friend who gave recommendations.)

A day with the South West monsoon

2009-11-05T11:21:00.001+04:00

The 4:15 am Parasuram Express was a ghost train as it out of sighed out of Mangalore Central. As it rumbled across the Netravathi in the pre-dawn darkness, white tubelights within throbbed down upon the few sleepy faces that populated the largely empty train.

I was on a journey that’d let me see all of Kerala in the rain. I wanted to see the South West monsoons at their most bountiful, draping what is perhaps their favourite region in India. I hoped to view India’s most popular tourist state from a vantage point that it’s not been seen from too often – the train footboard.

As the train sped southwards in the darkness and persistent rain, name boards on wayside stations switched from Kannada to Malayalam. Hoardings for Hoorulyn brand burqas and New Age brand dhothies appeared by the trackside. Silhouettes of the first coconut trees surfaced from the shadows, dwarfing and sheltering all other vegetation.

What remained unchanged were the inundated fields and gushing water bodies. Unchanged too was the violence of even the smaller streams that furiously tossed about branches and other remnants of vegetation.

The Parasuram express is named after the man who, according to legend, carved out Kerala by hurling his axe into the sea. Even though it plies a distance of 634km from Mangalore to Trivandrum, it is practically a series of short distance trains. People hopped in and out of it every hour or two – with hardly anyone traveling more than 3 or 4 hours.

Nearly all the somnambulists from Mangalore got off at Kasargode, 46km away. Folks who replaced them would alight in another two hours at Cannanore, 86km further downstream. Purposeful office goers boarding there would go an hour or two till Telicherry or Calicut, only to be replaced by college students and work delegations headed to Trichur. This relay would go on until the last cohort of office returnees alighted in Trivandrum, 14-odd hours from the faraway mists of 4:15am.

Around Bekal, 65km from Mangalore, tearing streams occasionally revealed just a little glimpse of the open sea. Just as the train put on a burst of speed, the green of the coconut groves abruptly gave way to a vast openness. Just a few hundred metres away was the open sea, its greenish-blue stretches merging into the inky twilight sky far, far away. The two or three minutes of this proximity seemed to last forever. Inevitably, the train swerved inland and moved on, ruthlessly pushing back the view until it was a mere memory.

Cannanore, 130km from home, came at 7am. The folks who entered were already the fourth set of people on the train. Calicut, best known because it was Vasco da Gama’s port of call, came by at 8:35am, 221km into the journey. The day was just beginning for the folks coming in freshly bathed and breakfasted. I was already a long way into my day, as I tucked into the thankful warmth of upma and watery tea.

Past Calicut, there was water everywhere. Lakes and water bodies had encroached into flooded fields. Often, there was just a continuum of water punctuated by stubbles of grass within. The rivers swelled, lapping up bridge spans. The Thootha and the Bharathapuzha had water rushing almost right under my feet.

Yet, there was no despair around. In Bihar two monsoons ago, I saw refugees from the rain shivering in shacks by the trackside. There was none of that here. Houses stood steady. Schoolkids waved happily to the train. Women unmindfully waded through water-logged verandahs. Everywhere along the route, groups of men crouched under umbrellas, intent in games of cards.

The railway was never alone. Often, coconut groves cocooned the track tightly on either side. Houses had the railway tracks for their front yards. Hillocks loomed alongside the tracks after Shoranur, 307km into the ride. The infrequent clearings, water bodies and fields felt like an opening up, a relief from being accompanied all the time.

Lunch came by at 1:30pm in Ernakulam, lesser half of the better known Cochin. I had the hobson’s choice of any dish as long as it was badly-cooked biriyani. As Parasuram lurched out of the city limits, the sun came out briefly. Waterlogged rice fields stretched out in the fuzzy light. Their silver surfaces carried imperfect reflections within them.

Pepper and rubber trees surfaced. Town names grew longer. Attempts to register Tripunithura’s name made me nearly miss the sight of the pagoda-like station building that stood in proud isolation in the downpour. At Mulagunnathukavu, I didn’t stand a chance of noticing any detail of the station.

Kottayam came at 3pm, and looked like a forest-town. Passengers, of course, continued their in-and-out-of-the-train medley. Soon, the Parasuram express entered Alleppey district, which has most of the backwaters that Kerala is known for. Most backwaters are canals that branch out from Vembanad and Ashtamudi lakes. I’d see the latter lake shortly, which gets its name from its octopus-shape.

Dirty grey clouds loomed above. The Pampa river was an unassuming, modest stream, but as full and overflowing as the other water bodies. In two weeks it would host the famous boat races at Alleppey.

Thick threads of rainwater sheeted down, forming a near-opaque curtain in front of me. Canals and rivulets surged ahead with vehemence, with none of the languidness suggested by the word ‘backwater’. Metres away from the deluge, I gratefully held the hot tea in my chilly hands at Kayankulam at 4pm. It was 529km into the day by now.

The train skirted the Ashtamudi lake, which, perhaps by its enormity, gave the impression of placidity, even in the furious rain. The contours of the lake curved away tantalisingly. But the train persisted in bestowing its attentions on it. After perhaps two kilometres or so of this futile courtship, the Parasuram express impatiently swung away. It clearly had no intention of following the footsteps of the Island Express, which had plunged into this lake in 1988.

This rejection, of course, wasn’t the end of the world for Parasuram. It cavorted with the Kilimukkam lake, rendered wetter by the pouring rain, and caught a glimpse of the lake dissolving into the immensity of the sea. This lake too, of course, turned out to be unattainable for Parasuram.

After another stroll amid coconut groves, the inevitable happened. The grey that had filled the sky all day turned just a shade deeper – a foreboding of the arrival of evening twilight. Thatched roofs, copses and rivulets gave way to concrete buildings, shops and traffic filled roads. Trivandrum, the end of the journey was nigh. Fourteen odd hours by greenery, in the rain didn’t quite seem enough.

The Parasuram express squeaked into the solemn, majestic stone buildings of Trivandrum Central. The square, clean-cut edifice seemed to have come too soon, as it rounded off a day spent in the abundance of unspoilt, newly washed stretches.

Konkan Railway - Off the road, but on track

2009-07-03T22:00:00.000+04:00

My piece in Mint Lounge on the Konkan Railway.

http://www.livemint.com/2009/07/03213409/Konkan-Railway--Off-the-road.html

On arrivals.

2009-06-20T17:26:00.003+04:00

Arrival # last-but-one was at Pune. The first sight there was the rear of platform 1. Cement-grey backdrop. Never been painted. Looked like it never deserved to be. Only a few bored, listless porters and tramps. Great ambience for a godown, but not exactly red carpet material.

More bleakness when I stepped out of the station. 8am, and the sun didn’t look like it’d ever come out.

Hotel Kundan Palace gave me a heavily carpeted and cushioned room. Tried way too hard for a red carpet. Much heaviness, stuffiness in the room.

10am. Skies diffused from mere sunless-ness to near-darkness. Dampness and dankness seeped through the gloom, I could only helplessly watch as they did so. The inevitable finally happened. Rain began to belt down, it was not to stop for two days.

Essentials such as local-food sampling had to wait. Relative luxuries such as cell and internet connections didn’t stand a chance. Vehement bursts puncutuated lulls in the rain, dissuading me from any attempts at going out.

The watery, lukewarm tea matched the weather just fine. Pathetic attempts at continental cuisine fit the mood just right. The cook even managed to make bad curd rice.

It was only slightly warm under a blanket. The wetness outside sucked the coziness out of any warmth there was within.

There was only so much peering-at-rain-outside-window that you could do.

The last arrival was on a bike. I was out of Mysore in the chill of early morning. Cold shafts of air rushed into my crouched upper body. Twas an invigorating coolness, though. The shivers it caused were those of alertness, not fright. Perhaps what coolness does to you depends only on what you feel like letting it do.

At 7, the coolness had slowly condensed into the chirpy warmth of morning. By 8, it was a bright sunniness amid which I was coasting away. Smooth, straight, steady, amidst equanimity. The bike was a near-noiseless purr of effortlessness.

I got out of the hotel at Kalpetta after a late breakfast. The world was a different one now. A grey smokiness had come out of nowhere and flung itself across the clear blue skies of the morning. There was rumbling in the distance. There was a hint of hesitation, a teeny bit of trepidation as I left the last house behind, exit the town limits, and go into the arms of the approaching thunderstorm.

The first refuge was under a tree. The precipitation gave no time to seek out man made shelter. A brave attempt at driving through didn’t succeed. I impatiently waited, twiddling fingers.

The storm subsided just a bit, I droned through the shower that remained.

Every piece of clothing on me was dripping. There was still 80km to go. The rain didn’t look like it’d stop all day. The morning’s sun was a distant memory.

Still amid the deluge, I descended the Wayanad ghats. Through the water curtain, I stared disbelievingly at the valley below, as the bike noiselessly glides down the 15km long downward slope. The only sound was that of wheels cutting through water on the road amid the tapping of raindrops. I was so wet, I wasnt feeling the clothes clinging to me any longer.

A renewed burst of rain forced another stop. By now, there was no fear of the rain. There was no exasperation in the inevitable wait. There was no helplessness in knowing that it was not going to stop anyway, or in knowing that I was going to have to drive through it anyway.

There was only the liberating feeling of knowing that the rain couldnt get me any wetter, that it couldnt do a thing. Perhaps that’s how hope begins.

This arrival was in the morning. Not much sleep – perhaps there was too much of anticipation of the morning. The impatience for the arrival made me cut the morning run short.

I made up for the lack of exercise by lugging boxes of material possessions. Down to the auto, into the elevator and through into the new apartment.

In every new house, there’s the inviting vacancy, emptiness, a craving for things undone and thoughts unthought. Here, today, though, there was some preoccupation with things to be done. Even the blue of the Arabian sea stretching away forever couldn’t dislodge that.

But not for long. It was in the evening, after-office, amidst twilight, when all sank in. That was when I really saw the dim lamplike glow of the lights on the beach road. I gently tiptoed to my switchboard, turned off the lights, and stood watching the row of orange embers below.

There was the sheer immensity of possibility that lay in the eternity of the deep, deep blue sea outside my balcony, as it slowly faded to black. I stood listening to the faint hum of the waves crash into the shore.

On my first day in her company, the Arabian sea made me cry.

7 - Highway Star

2008-06-06T13:05:00.008+04:00

The end of the platform at Zurich Brunau slopes down to merge with the highway’s service lane. A footpath fringes the highway up ahead. After a moment’s hesitation, I decide to cycle along the footpath, and see how far it goes. A short distance on, the highway acquires a cycling-lane - a one-metre-wide space at the far-right.

So the highway does indeed allow cyclists, unlike what I'd been told. When I notice my formals-and-tie clothing, I wonder whether I should go ahead and cycle on the highway. I hesitate, but only just, before I decide to take the plunge. Sights of other cyclists in shorts and vests, and of cyclists on super-fast geared bikes make attempts to dissuade me, all of which I resist.

My slow, ungeared city-cycle ambles on. I’m naturally apprehensive at first, because there’s just a line-painted-on-the-ground separating the car lane and the cycle lane. A couple of minutes’ riding is some reassurance – cars stay put in their lanes, refusing to swerve an inch on either side. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Swiss cars never ever overtake. They’re fast alright, but they aren’t in a tearing hurry, there’s none of what Bill Aitken calls the ‘animal lust for speed’.

The ones who are possessed by the said lust are the few motorcyclists there are on the road. Heads down, clad in jackets and tracksuits and protective gear like you see on TV races, they rush by furiously. Bigger, faster European bikes do nothing to ease the feeling that these guys might careen out of control at any moment. The insistent whining of their engines isnt a reassurance either. Yet the roads are empty and unclogged, so motorcycling looks fairly easy.

Leimbach station is a single cottage lost in time-and-space as it lies at the edge of the forested hill. The forlorn cabin and station building remind me of some solitary, lovely railway stations on long journeys on the Indian railways. Thereafter, the highway worms its way between two factory walls on either side.

The railway track and the river Sihl flow on the left. Deep green mountains tower on the right. High amid the mountains, metallic presences jut out, as cranes claw into vegetation. The Sihl narrows at one point to reveal a stone bed with picnicking families parked thereupon. The vegetation lying across the Sihl is much closer, more discrete – so you can make out its closely packed trees and shrubs.

A side road branches out from the highway and points towards Adliswil. I decide it’s perhaps a different experience to check out a small-town instead of keeping on the highway. I park the bicycle upon the overbridge and climb down to the railway platform. I take a walk along the open-air restaurant-lobby, past the couple of coffee-sippers lazing there in the sun.

I stand upon the arched bridge, looking at the steady, clear water of the river Sihl. Vehicles are infrequent on the road – there’s one car every few minutes or so. The town road is empty, pedestrians are few and the water below sprints quietly by.

Wooden cottages of a school look like fairy-tale huts in an orchard. There’s a white-flower-blanketed playground, beside a board with childrens’ drawings. Tis Sunday, so there’s an eerie, deserted look about the school. Under a playground-tree, two teenage girls gently hold each other as they kiss tenderly, unmindful of my passing-by.

On the other side, a cycling path runs parallel to the Sihl. A young man on a bench tells me it goes all the way from Zurich to Zug(some 30km away) and beyond, all along the Sihl.

Families cycle by on the grassy riverside path that glows in the gentle sunlight. Mums and dads go slow enough to allow accompanying little bicycles to keep pace. Most cyclists go slowly, looking around, taking in the view of the valley and the river, some of them spotting a distant church-spire that looks dissolved amid the forested hillside.

Mats have been spread out and food hampers unpacked as families laugh and play together on the banks. The entire town seems to be picnicking today – the banks don’t look too crowded since people disperse themselves all along the length of the Sihl.

The main street is boarded up, all businesses are closed. Tis lunchtime, and the three riverbank restaurants have their garden wicket-gates closed. Behind the river is a one room police station, and a food place that is thankfully open. An old couple and a younger woman are sipping beers in a corner of the corridor of Café du Jeannette.

I tentatively peer inside and find no one inside the dark, wine-bottle-lined wooden interiors. The younger woman, presumably Jeannette, springs up and almost sheepishly says,”’morning. Would you like some beer?”

“I was looking at something to eat, lunch perhaps.”

“Uh oh. I’m afraid I havent anything – there’re some old sandwiches, that’s all. I usually have no customers on Sundays, so I don’t really make anything. I’m really sorry.”

I walk beside a closed pizzeria and electronics shops on what’s one of the two main roads in town. A side street reveals a grand stone building that is another school. Cyclists occasionally disappear around a far corner, seemingly into a hillock lying across the town. I enter another side lane, and sit down on the steps outside the closed doors of the stately, serene stone structure of the town chapel. I take in the empty, open, tranquility of the place, as I sit unperturbed by any external stimuli, refusing to even consult my watch.

As I look at the deep, dark brown leaves of a nearby maple tree, a football flies across the street from a house down the road. Three kids run across the road amid an abrupt burst of chatter, which sight and sound puncture the uneventfulness around.

6 - Fringes of the town

2008-06-05T10:10:00.010+04:00

Tis evening. I lounge around the clean, almost-polished-looking lobby of the Youth Hostel. Most publications on display, tourist guides mainly, are in German. All else that is for sale, to my amazement, is out in the open and not in locked cases – chocolates, knives, souvenirs et al.

Two of my roommates are from Azerbaijan. I tentatively fish around for common ground, mentioning the three Azerbaijan-i men I know of. Before we know, we’re in excited conversation about the game. Gestures-with-swaying-arms, broken English and alien-words manage to come together to give all of us a general idea of what we talk about, even though we don’t quite get everything word-by-word. The 9pm summer sunlight slants down by our porthole-like-window, as we look out on the vacant, sleepy street.

I’ve borrowed one of the public-bicycles that are lent out for free by the city. I plan to cycle some way out of the city early on day 2, since I only need get out of Zurich by evening.

On the evening walk, I notice a wide, neat highway some way from the hostel, so am much reassured. Unfortunately, the youth hostel receptionist isn’t so sure – she tells me cyclists aren’t allowed on the highway. I give myself a ‘such-is-life’.

Still, when the morning arrives, I decide I’ll at least go see the highway and will loll around the railway station next to it. I deck the self up in formals-and-tie, having decided to get out of the city right after the said stroll.

When I’ve pushed the cycle up the incline, I reach the top of a small knoll. Down below are the plain-grey-sheets of the two empty railway platforms of Zurich Brunau. There are two halves of a highway that unroll themselves next to the station, split into smaller roads that go on to intertwine themselves into a series of flyovers that look like contorted octopi. The side of the hill facing the track has a bright splash of yellow across it. The hillside is smothered by yellow flowers that softly, gently move in the cool, sun-suffused morning breeze.

I wade my hands across the surface of the bowl at the base of a small fountain. The steely chill of the water vibrates across my hands. There’s the constant whizz of the highway cars in the background. The platform down below is vacant; the streets behind me atop the hillside aren’t awake either.

I steer the cycle onto the top of the railway overbridge. The pairs of metallic threads below me emerge from amid edifices, and swing outwards to curve around the side of the hill. I carry the bicycle downstairs, and cycle across the length of the platform.

There’s no one else on the platform. I sit down on a bench underneath an ad, with the cycle parked next to me. Around me is the steadiness of the highway and the stillness of the flame-hued, almost-alive hill; as the plain, bare tracks quietly snake past.

5 - The station again, and another part of the city

2008-05-30T14:48:00.008+04:00

I go down to the station in the afternoon, mainly to be able to catch a sight of the train of great speed that, rather imaginatively, is named 'the train of great speed'. I watch the sleek, earthworm-like, phallic shape pull out, even as it desists from doing so at great speed. I walk around the by-now-much-more-crowded Zurich Hauptbahnhof. It turns out there are additional platforms underneath the ones I've seen in the morning. Around the underground platforms is sprawled a massive shopping plaza that's almost hidden out of sight when you're upstairs.

**
The Toblerone arena that was being set up in the station foyer in the morning has much more action and bigger crowds by now. Screens show videos of the story of the founders of Toblerone, the history of the company, and the process of manufacturing chocolates. People help themselves to chocolates from bowls placed around the arena - I do too.

At one long table, people put their heads down and fill stenciled outlines of the words 'Toblerone' with colours. Many others huddle behind them to watch. 5-year olds happily spill colours outside the lines, sitting beside grandmothers who fill in slowly, easily; even as twenty-somethings rub the crayons back and forth in brisk, smooth motions. People who finish make way for other passers-by who start on another sheet. A bearded man is watching his wife and kid daughter bent over the table, immersed amid their crayons. He smiles at me, points at the '100-years-of-Toblerone' balloon, and exclaims 'Magnifique chocolate, monsieur'.

At another set of tables, people take opened-up-Toblerone-wrappers and fold-and-stick them into the characteristic triangular-prism-shape of Toblerone packs. A tower is being made of these prism-packs. A crowd cheers as it expectantly looks upwards at the tower-top where a volunteer atop a ladder adds new packs. An electronic counter reads 7571, indicating the number of prisms already in the paper-tower.

I watch at one of the tables as two women and an old man are intent in their folding-into-prisms act. One of them, a girl with flaming lipstick and pierced chin flashes a radiant smile and invites me - "Why dont you join in?". A young mother who's doing the folding-and-sticking while balancing her toddler adds - "Yes, please do." After much struggle with the cellotape and gum-stick, I wish I had a few more hands to keep the folds in place. I finish my first pack with an exultant sigh, in the time the young mother's done three. The old man at the table and gives me a "'Tis okay, you only need to get used to it". My second pack is much faster, though it looks like the folds will burst apart any moment.

**

Sometime later, as I exit the station, the mum-with-toddler-at-Toblerone passes by. She spots me amid the milling crowd , lets forth an exuberant smile and does a "Hello again. How've you been?". A couple of pleasantries later comes the "Have a nice day". It's fascinating to see the warmth and affability of the people I meet, and more so when it's put in the context of prim, formal localities I see everywhere.

After being in India, you dont quite expect uninvited greetings or good wishes - it's pleasantly surprising to be able to return compliments to people you hardly know. Even random people I strike up conversations with show an unprepossessing warmth I've hardly seen elsewhere. It's all the more surprising since most people, like their city, drape themselves in formal starched-plain exteriors that can make you feel underdressed.

**

I find a part of the city that doesnt look like it's dressed up in a suit-boot-tie. In a narrow lane behind the Limmat river, there's an open square that you could call the city's flea market. It's a counterweight to the culture of the rest of the city, even though it is very insignificant in size.

Here's everything that Zurich city would shudder at. Just outside the open-square quadrangle, there're cobblestoned pedestrian-only roads; there're Asian, Mexican and Turkish food stalls; there're cloth shops that have shelves packed with clothes, unlike the spacious designer-display-shops in the rest of Zurich. Inside the quadrangle, there're vendors in t-shirts, sombreros and long beards, people who look like they have no qualms about skipping a bath. There're also Ganesha statues, necklaces made of strange beads, jewelry made of feathers, stones that are a world apart from Zurich's primary-colour-identity.

4 - City rounds and stumbing upon black sheep

2008-05-23T09:51:00.008+04:00

Across the Limmat from the Hauptbahnhof, there’s a swarm of boards announcing cafés and restaurants. There are three cyclists parked atop the Limmat bridge ponderously looking at the placid, flat stream. A dad-son-dog trio looks into the water. A preteen in dark glasses and helmet whizzes past atop her skates.

The restaurants and cafes lazily unroll themselves, spilling their tables-chairs-clientele onto the road on the banks of the Limmat. Behind these, a hill harbours a road that shoots upwards, along which a massive hoarding advertises Lindt chocolates.

I pass a movie-memorabilia shop, and stop to look at a wayside board listing theatre and opera performances in town. Almost all are in German, and none fits my budget or time.

There are a couple of buildings with flat, towering glass facades that stick out amid the prim, ancient looking residences elsewhere. They havent the subtlety that marks the rest of the city - no statuettes and decorative motifs, not too much careful attention to detail - just one monstrous sheet of glass that rises up and spreads sideways.

These aren’t ostentatious or brash. There is only one small board near what could only be an entrance, mentioning, almost reluctantly, that this is the Marriott.

At a zebra crossing ahead, four cars line up one behind the other and wait for a young father to push a pram across the road.

**
I walk through residential areas, streets harbouring apartments. The houses, while neat and proper, offer hardly any sign of life. You see no people milling about, no one on the balconies leaning out of houses, hardly any clothes hung to dry, hardly any windows or doors open, no one out in the flowerbeds and gardens. There are no kids playing about, no teenagers roaming the streets. In commercial areas – Bahnhofstrasse and their ilk – crowds potter around, trudge gently, sit back as they populate the roadside chairs-tables of brasseries.

Life is unhurried, there’s no bustle or haste anywhere in the town. But sometimes you wonder if it's the relaxed, retiring pace of life that has conditioned people to stay within their private worlds. The extraordinary level of organization and maintenance, the trim localities, blooming gardens, avenues, and the level of public attention that seems to have gone into the city, all seem a little incongruous with such unwillingness to go out, experience the city, engage with the world.

At first, I tell myself the insulation really is some form of refinement – perhaps some variant of ‘I shant bother my neighbour’. But seeing this poster sprinkled all over Zurich city(including, ironically, the vicinity of the airport) makes me wonder if there is something deeper:

I was a tad surprised at the bluntness of the message, bespeaking some desperation. A little less paranoia perhaps could have led to a more tactful(not to mention more convincing) ad. The one below, incidentally, was another ad in the same campaign.

You’d think that a city with so much to enjoy, contemplate, appreciate would give its denizens nothing to worry about. Still skeptical, I told myself that surely this was not really representative of the entire populace’s opinion – maybe a far right fringe bunch(for the posters were a part of a poster-and-mass-media ad campaign by the Swiss People’s Party). It turns out that the Swiss People’s Party(SVP) is the biggest party in the Swiss Parliament, its rise over the last twenty years being largely founded on its anti-immigrant rhetoric.

I think back, and realize I’ve hardly seen any non-whites in Zurich. Sure, there’re some Asian tourists, conspicuous by their bag-carrying and hesitant awkwardness – but hardly anyone black or brown who look accustomed enough, comfortable enough to suggest they reside here.

A pub owner I meet a few days later, a Kosovar immigrant, mentions how impossibly difficult he was finding it to get a Swiss passport, even though he’d stayed here twenty or so years. The process is crazily drawn out – you’ve to take language tests, and in what looks an almost medieval practice, the residents in your town have to ‘approve’ of you by a vote.

Understandably, the ad campaign set off alarm bells in Europe. Doudou Diene, the U.N. special fact-finder on racial intolerance said the campaign was "advocating racist and xenophobic ideas". People have remarked how eerily similar the rhetoric is to that of Nazi Germany (and if I may add, to present day Mumbai, Gujarat, you name it).

The SVP, of course, has much to say in its defence. Ulrich Schueler, the man who created the sheep campaign said, "That's nonsense. It's not against race. It's against people who break laws. People are fed up." Another party member, Bruno Walliser had to say, “The black sheep is not any black sheep that doesn’t fit into the family. It’s the foreign criminal who doesn’t belong here, the one that doesn’t obey Swiss law. We don’t want him.”

3 - First steps in town

2008-05-21T09:40:00.012+04:00

I exit the station towards the Bahnhofplatz. There’s a statue of Alfred Escher, one of the founding fathers of the Swiss Railway network, and a fountain and a trough under the statue. The crossroads isn’t too busy this early in the morning. The glass roofing and sides, along with the early-morning-emptiness give the tram stops a newly-washed look.

To take my tram to the Youth Hostel, I turn into the Bahnhofstrasse. This one-and-a-half-kilometer long avenue is said to be one of the world’s most expensive shopping areas. I can see why – on either side are shopfronts with labels like Chanel, Armani, Cartier and their ilk. There’s even a huge Davidoff store. These facades are wide, spacious, like they’re firmly saying they don’t need to be miserly.

Cyclists, skaters and walkers have begun to crowd the sides already – there are hardly any cars. The lanes that cut the Bahnhofstrasse are half occupied by chairs and tables of brasseries. These have begun to fill up with breakfasters poring over newspapers.

I need to figure out which of the stops I need to take my tram from. I ask an old man, who says he’s headed the same way. He walks me to the tram stop, and helps me with the electronic ticket dispenser. As he gets off the tram a couple of minutes later, he gives me a warm smile and a “have a nice day!”. During the course of the day, I get this pleasantly surprising greeting from the youth hostel staff, random neighbours on trams, shops where I merely browse but don’t buy - from pretty much everyone I come in contact with.

The first tram ride takes me through two impressive platz-es(squares, plazas) – Enge and Paradeplatz. Both are broad, open, with a couple of stalls in the centre and imposing castle-like buildings on the sides. Enge has a majestic railway station to one side and tables-chairs of cafes on another. The railway-station front has tall arches spread out in a semi-circular shape, with a teeny clock on top, almost like a white bindi.

Paradeplatz, no less ambitious, pulls off its special effects with a little help from palatial corporate offices - UBS, Credit Suisse and the rest. Both Enge and Paradeplatz still manage an air of being relaxed, let-hair-down hangouts, due to the by-now-ubiquitous roadside cafes and brasseries.

I need to make plans for the day. There are close to 40 museums in Zurich – the Kunsthaus is among the most prominent in Europe, the Musee Reitberg is fairly close to the youth hostel where I will stay. But then, I’ve only a day and a half, very little money, and everybody wanting to be my baby. I tell myself that roaming the city streets will let me pack in more of local flavour into the limited time-and-money than an art trip or, *shudder*, an organized tour.

I get myself a day pass. This will let me travel on any tram and bus in the city for an entire day. The plan, therefore, is to take random trams-buses-walks all day and explore the city.

I find Zurich pleasantly old-fashioned, carefully crafted. Everywhere there are sloping roofs, chimneys, intricately carved mythological motifs on house fronts, usage of lots of stone, of dark brown wood, and hardly any high rises. Occasionally, there are stone statues on porches, flower beds between houses and gargoyles atop them. There are fountains and water bowls sprinkled across the city, all of them spouting drinking water.

Each house in the city seems individually crafted, with a distinctiveness of its own, with no locality designed en masse. Yet the design is understated and anything but loud. Zurich’s architectural charm comes from it being firmly rooted in the past. It seems to tell its beholders what Messrs Carl F Bucherer announce on their ads – ‘for those who do not go with the times’.

PS - None of the pics are my own. All are off the 'net.

2 - A station far away.

2008-05-15T13:20:00.006+04:00

The train is silent, glass-windowed, footboardless. As it does the short trip from the airport to the railway station, I try to get used to the novelty of the train, of the experience.

Zurich Hauptbahnhof(or Zurich Main, if you please) looks eerily like Mumbai VT. The station is an expansive ancient-looking stone building. Like VT, you see trains gently wedge themselves into dead-end platforms, like swords into scabbards. As platforms roll outwards from dead-ends under glass roofs, outlines of the tracks dissolve into a frantic mishmash.

I walk to the front of the platform, and go past the dead end. There is a corridor and a high-roofed hallway housing railway offices and restaurants and shopping areas. These stretch some 60 meters from the dead end within the main building. I walk around the arena and look about, lugging my two big bags along.

The first sunrays work their way past the pillars and outer walls of the hallway. Early morning commuters begin to trickle in – and not all on foot. A schoolgirl wades in on skates. A disheveled young man wheels a cycle in. Two electric scooters glide through. Two old men peer out of their jackets at the ticket vending machines.

In the middle of the foyer, a massive triangular balloon gets slowly inflated. The balloon reads “100 years of Toblerone”, and bears the said brand’s insignia. Young men and women in Toblerone t-shirts form a huddle, presumably to chalk out their plans for the day. Dispersing, they use Toblerone-yellow ribbons to demarcate the central part of the arena.

One coffee stall just beyond a platform’s dead-end has just opened; I glance at its menu and try to get the hang of Swiss Francs. I’m letting the calculations, the budgeting, the conversion into rupees distract me from taking in the vastness, the grandeur of the carefully carved stone atrium. Annoyed at self for said distraction, I take a deep breath and just look.

The parfumerie, the patisserie and the kebab stall on the outer margins of the foyer are still closed. The ticket counters and helpdesks are open, but there are only officials therein. A prim middle aged man unlocks the doors of a newspaper-and-book shop. A young, incredibly pretty woman dusts the exhibits of a flower shop. The brasserie looks appealing - it has chairs and tables placed outwards, right in the main lobby of the railway station. With some three rows of chairs-tables all facing the expanse of the hallway, it gives the impression of seats at a theatre or show.

There’s still a tang of cold in the air, as if to remind me of the winter that’s just past. It is, however, spring now - mild, golden sunlight weaves through passers-by and pours itself upon the largely empty foyer.

I order a breakfast of raspberry jam, uber-bitter coffee and soft, crumbling croissants. I occupy front row seats to look at still-fairly-sparse crowds of travelers walk across the atrium towards waiting trains and large schedule-boards.

1 - Learning to fly.

2008-05-13T11:08:00.004+04:00

I have some four hours to spend at the Bangalore airport. The chairs in the lounge arch backwards, but stop short of reclining. There is the uncertain discomfort of whether you should attempt to sit or lie down. I quit reading and do an easy saunter around the lounge.

A posse of Kingfisher air hostesses arrives with their flaming-red baggage. They wait for their luggage to get stowed away - their duty hours are yet to begin. They confer in hushed whispers, sometimes letting occasional smiles and jokes break through their trained mannerisms. The occasional anxiety and frown peeps out from behind the pink make-up and powder. One of them twiddles the blue ribbon of an Indigo check in queue that reads - 'no red tape'. The counter at the end of the ribbons is closed.

**

The coffee day bar has deep red for backdrop, with an occasional glow of mild lighting. The three tables inside arent enough for the crowd, so people step outside under a yellow stained-glass like glass ceiling. People in the queue try and balance their baggage as they dig into their pockets.

A woman with sunglasses balanced above her forehead extracts the change she needs. She spots two suit-boot clad men and greets them with a shout - "Hello! You're going to Bombay too? Which flight? We should have come from office together!". It's yet another Friday evening.

**

You realize airports do not afford you as much space or variety of views as railway stations. All I had was a fairly big hall some 100 metres across. Most stations give me the choice of the length of a multitude of platforms, as well as space outside the station. Security threats and all that ensured that I couldnt exit this hall. If only for a change of scene, I check in my baggage and move inwards into another lounge.

The inner pre-boarding lounge has commerce aplenty too. Amid the self improvement books and fiction and HBR compendia, I cant help notice one book that claims to help overcome the influence of cults, written by 'America's best known intervention specialist'.

Coffee, sandwiches, biscuits abound - but no meals, nothing that can fill a stomach. No restaurants or tables - so you've to eat amid the rows of chairs sprawled across the lounge. There are shirts and ties and designer jewelry - you sometimes wonder who precisely is it that buys these. Prices leap up as you go from the outer to the inner lounge. Airports seem to be a trifle more demanding, perhaps because they deem these boarding areas their sanctum sanctorum.

**
There's the vague feeling of boredom in the air. People know there's a late night commute-after-flight that stands between them and the weekend. Sleep is still a couple of hours distant. People chomp on sandwiches and biscuits and stare into nothingness. My flight is still one hour away. This isn’t quite a comfort zone.

Train of thought 4.75 - One hour in the last town

2008-01-19T14:52:00.002+04:00

Note: This is one of a series of posts about this journey. Other episodes of this trip are here: numbers 0, 1, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 4.75 .

Dibrugarh station is about as big as some of the double-track town-stations through which express trains whizz by without a second glance. The overbridge stands out, emphasised perhaps by the paucity of people on the platforms. The sun is up-and-shining by now, the 5:40am here is like the 9am of elsewhere. Still, the weather is beautiful and clear – no fog or rain, tis bright and cloudless.

Going past the mud-and-puddle filled front yard, I move out of the station, and walk towards the row of cycle rickshaws. I don’t quite know where to tell them to go. I think I should perhaps just walk around town. I’ve an hour here, and no idea how big the town is, so a rickshaw would be in order after all.

“Okay. Take me on a trip around town.”

“Uhh? Where do you want to go?”

“Well, I’ve an hour here, so I want to see the town.”

“Eh?”

I’ve seen that ‘you’re crazy’ look before, yesssir.

“Okay. Take me to the bus stand. How much is it?”

“10 bucks.”

En route, I tell him to chuck the bus stand and just show me what’s worth seeing in the town.

“But there’s nothing worth seeing here.”

“Well, the streets. The shops. The like.”

“It’s not even 6. Nothing’s going to be open now.”

Ahh. It’s warm, nearly getting hot, I forget that it’s effectively a different time zone.

“That’s okay. Let’s just go around the big streets of your town.”

The empty ‘big streets’ seem to have no other prominent attribute other than their width. The ‘big streets’ haven’t been claimed by commerce – they are residential just as well. They’re just uber-wide bylanes. There’s not too much of a concentration of signboards and shutters and hoardings around. Mostly homes and porches and parked cycles and bikes and coloured wooden doors opening out onto the street.

Once in a while, there’s a wide front lobby that my rickshaw-man points out as a ‘major shop’, but most places are closed, boarded up. I have to remind myself that it’s still 6am, even though it’s broad daylight. There’s one two-storied building with a glass façade that I’m told is a prominent hotel – would I like to stay here? For a fraction of a second, I’m tempted to agree.

“Perhaps you’d like to see the river?”

“There’s a river here?!”

“The Brahmaputra”

Augggh. Dammit. Brahms!? Why didn’t I know that before? Of course, because I refused to look up information online, because I thought that would be like skipping to the last chapter of a mystery novel. Because I thought it’d sour any element of surprise.

“Sure thing. Go right ahead.”, say I, camouflaging my excitement with a difficult, unstable calm.

We pass a private bus agency. To be precise, we pass the painted board above the closed office. I remember the milestone on the road just outside Dibrugarh telling me Jorhat is 145km away. Temptation wells up again, growing steadily until it threatens to overwhelm existing plans. Plan B seems tantalizingly possible. I know there is a Jorhat Guwahati train leaving around 2pm, and I tell myself I’ll comfortably catch the Dibrugarh-Amritsar Express in Guwahati. For a couple of hundred bucks, that’s great RoI, say I.

Practicality, unfortunately, arrives. Some consideration, and plan is shelved. Some more money, some more time on my hands and I wouldn’t mind the uncertainties of that unscheduled detour. Not today, alas.

Hindsight vindicates me – I find in the evening that the Jorhat train's arrival is half an hour after the Amritsar one’s departure. Still, I cant quite help a tinge of regret at missing out. Next time, I’m coming here without reservations.

From the main road, we enter an opening between buildings that’s supposed to be a path. Stones and hardened-mud lie ahead. The rickshaw guy tells me the river’s just beyond the end of this lane. The rickshaw struggles over the stones-and-hard-mud, so I just tell him I’ll walk – no point torturing his rickshaw on this monstrous path.

We walk between a row of huts, and then pass a board advertising a ferry service across the river. Temptation puffs up yet again. This time, it brings some regret along, perhaps knowing too well that the trip cant be done.

When we reach the river bank, I’m puzzled. This is a small water body – some 30-40 metres across, staid, calm, almost like a canal. Surely this isn’t the grand swirling mini-sea that I saw outside Guwahati? No, no, tells my rickshaw guy – what you see is just a mid-river island across the water. There’s a massive part of the river on the other side of the island – it’s bigger than you've imagined. If only you had the time, he adds with a tinge of infectious regret.

I fold my arms and brace myself, for there’re gusts of cold air, even as the sunlight beams down. There’re some 20-25 men and women in sweaters and scarves waiting on a bench for the morning’s ferry, whose services are advertised by another board. The ferry, my rickshaw guy says, is the only way to go across – there’s no land route.

Sigh. The few times you manage to resist temptation end up being the few times your best experiences loom ahead.

The chill in the air is suffused with the warmth of the sun that’s sprouted and fully come out. There’s a wall-less shack that exhibits glass-jars full of biscuits and rusks. We walk in, sit down on the raised-planks of wood.

“Two cups of tea.”

“Biscuits? Nashta?” asks our 10 year old waiter.

“Nahi. Phir kabhi lenge.” I so want to mean what I said. It’s 6:15am, and I so do want to come back here. Perhaps spend a couple of days, drive around town, go across river, explore roads and places in the vicinity of the place.

The tea is a sugarless, strong concoction with very little milk. I let the intense, almost-bitter-ness of the taste linger on my tongue. The heat of the glass-tumbler-with-vertical-rims passes through to my chilled hands.

I have to hurry the poor rickshaw-man on our way back to the station – he halts at the station gate with some 3 minutes left for the train’s departure. For a moment, I mull about how much to pay the guy. Quickly making my mind up, I thrust a 100-buck-note into his hands and go in.

The guard tells me there's five minutes left, so I manage pick up a couple of omlettes with some scrawny, thin bread. As I walk alongside the train, it jerks itself alive and into motion. I clutch the left railing, and balancing the food in my right hand and bag on my back, hoist myself into the now-inching-ahead bogie.

Train of thought 4.5 - The Easternmost point on the Indian Railways

2008-01-16T20:51:00.002+04:00

Note: This is one of a series of posts about this journey. Other episodes of this trip are here: numbers 0, 1, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 4.75 (in order).

My bones feel squeaky, and produce occasional snapping noises like cracking knuckles. Muscles feel like they’ve decayed to a pulp, and seem to be in a squashed, rubbery, gooey state. When the only energy expenditure you’ve done in four days is walking-to-door-and-standing-there-and-return-to-seat, you understand why the body feels uncomfortably stifled, trapped within itself. Having eaten frugally over these days hasn’t helped ease the bodily rustiness.

The hour-long stop at Guwahati, then, is just what the doc ordered. One walk all the way up and down the platform, and the muscles and bones feel slightly better. That, even though there is this persistently uneasy feeling that the paunch is slowly expanding, growing – some tummy patting gives little consolation.

I’m now right in front of the engine, having walked across the tracks and come back. I think it’d be neat to be photographed on the track between the engine-with-torchlight-headlamp that’s on one side and the signal-post-with-red-light that glares out on the other.

And before I know it, the engine leaps out from where it parks, having decided that it is time to depart, for it was already running late. It is, you’ll realize, extremely unfunny when you’re some 20 metres away from a million tonne railway engine hauling a billion tonne train, and when the said engine-and-train abruptly decide they’re going make a lunge towards you.

Yes, so 20 metres are perhaps 20 metres too many. But there still is the small matter of registering the engine’s pounce, activating instinct-of-self-preservation, leaping off the track, panting, recovering, immediately recognizing the fact that you still have to get into the train, reactivating instincts-and-reflexes, commanding whiny legs to run back like crazy, braking at just the right moment, turn around in an instant, start running in the other direction and simultaneously leaping into the speeding train.

All ended well, as you’ll have guessed by now – the episode culminated in a new world record for the aforementioned series of actions.

I pry my eyes open, and push the white bedsheets away. There’s mild, slight light outside the window. The watch shows a quarter to 5. I mutter a ‘huh?’ to myself. The train’s stopped. I slowly, sleepily totter to the door.

Tis New Tinsukia, under an hour from destination. There’s a gentle, soft sunlight that’s spread on the clean platform that’s hardly peopled. The station clock confirms that it indeed is a quarter to 5. It takes a while to realize that I’m now so far east that the day begins and ends much sooner – it really should be in a different time zone.

The compartment, fully occupied from Delhi till yesterday night, is only one-third or so full now. Everyone around has gotten off at various points of time in the night. No matter how often you’ve travelled, how often you’ve seen the here-today-gone-the-next-station nature of train travellers, you can never really help feeling vacant, weird when you wake up to see empty berths and seats, vacant luggage-less aisles. This, even though the infinitesimal familiarity you have with your-fellow travellers is further diluted by your parking at the door most of the journey.

Dibrugarh arrives at5:35 am. Getting to the Easternmost point on the Indian Railways has an Everest-ish thrill while map-gazing, while fantasizing. Reaching Dibrugarh for real doesn’t have the adrenalin-and-excitement of the fantasies – there’s a calm, an understated peace about it that makes you feel content about all that’s come on the way. I look out from the door as the train squeals slowly through the suburbs of the town. I realize I don’t quite know what to expect from Dibrugarh Town. I mean, hey, so it’s the Easternmost point on the Indian Railway. But what’s an Easternmost-point-on-a-railway *supposed* to look like? And what is one supposed to do, having gotten to the Easternmost-point-on-a-railway?

Still, the anticipation, the expectation that has been building up all these days has been quite an experience. The build up is somewhat like the trip to Chamarajnagar station that I did when I was 8 or so. Chamarajnagar was(and is) the dead end before the Nilgiris thwart any attempts at railway line building. I remember the days before that trip, almost jumping in expectation of seeing a place where the tracks would just stop. They just wouldn’t go further, and I couldn’t imagine *how* that would be possible. I mean, hey, tracks are supposed to go on and on and on, right? How could they just *not* continue?

Very often, when you do give yourself a build-up, such an eager sense of expectation, it turns out that your destination is much more familiar-seeming, much more un-exotic than you thought. You go far away from where you are, and yet you find the land, the people, the crowds aren’t new, aren’t novel. Somehow, not seeing something radically new doesn’t disappoint you – it’s a reassurance, a comfort, a feeling of belonging. Perhaps that just means you’ve made your peace with the place.

So, what plans have I for Dibrugarh town? Scheduled arrival is 5am, and I’ve planned a fleeting, running view of the town before moving out by the Dibrugarh-Amritsar express that leaves 6:45am. That just so I can see the 567km Dibrugarh-to-Guwahati stretch in the daytime(the stretch that passed in the night while arriving). The 5:35am arrival leaves just around an hour to check out the town.

Train of thought 4 - Further East

2008-01-12T16:05:00.002+04:00

Note: This is one of a series of posts about this journey. Other episodes of this trip are here: numbers 0, 1, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 4.75 (in order).

The moisture in the air makes every deep breath thicker, more refreshing, particularly when the train speeds through open pastures. Soon, there's Kishanganj and the West Bengal border. The broad, vacant NH31 that wafts some way off looks inviting.

**
Some way on, the much anticipated New Jalpaiguri arrives. Much anticipated, because it's one of those places whose only significance arises from the fact that it's a railway junction. Jolarpettai, Mughalsarai, Daund and Londa spring to mind as finest examples of this rather alluring species.

There's really no commerce, industry or activity intrinsic to these places, no crowds or overreaching urbaneness anywhere nearby. However, it is these towns' status as railheads gives them a supreme importance. What commerce there is revolves around the trains and transport.

Railway travelers who switch trains know that these places are the old faithful, even though they've probably never stayed here. They know of the multiple platforms and huge station premises and availability of trains anytime anywhere. Even those who arent quite regulars know that these stations command 20 minute halts, and speak of them with a reverence that befits such a status.

New Jalpaiguri, then, is the archetypal frontier town. It seems designed more as a marker, a milestone than to actually harbour people. It really wants no role other than that of a junction. One grand, massive railway station, and seas of uninhabited nothingness along the tracks on either side. You walk up to the engine, and you can see the fields and emptiness right ahead. I keep thinking of Jolarpettai, and fond memories of one-evening-amid-the-sunset there pop up. I've only 20 minutes here now, but am reassured by the prospect of a 5 hour wait-for-train here while returning.

Among other passengers is a young lady with dad. Splits life between Delhi and her town in East Assam, where she's headed with Dad. Isnt that the town where there was a major shootout last week, I ask. Oh well, happens so often, we dont really notice it. Once again, I don’t quite feel like the 'we always imagine it all happens to someone else' line, so I shush. As if sensing what was left unsaid, she says - of course, it helps that nobody in your immediate life has been caught up in the violence so far.

So, where was I going? Umm, err, say I. Pleasure trip around the country, say I. Like all travelers, she isnt content, and asks for more information. Sighing, I give brief outline of intent.

"Some people have such a passion for travel", saith the lass.
"I've heard that one before. It means 'you're crazy'"
"No. Really. All I can say is wow. I wish I could do that sort of thing."
"Tis not too difficult. Sit at your comp, book a ticket, and you're on your way! For now, you could park at the door for starters. It's not dangerous. Really."
"Umm, yes. I'll say yes, but I'll lose interest when I think of actually making the plan. Reg. footboard, dad's around now. Maybe the next time, I'll travel alone."

As the train clangs over a bridge, I spot the name of the river. I ask the young lady if that indeed is the river she's been named after. She blushes and nods.

"So, you must've met interesing people while traveling."

"Oh yes, tis fun, that." say I. The man-at-door-near-Mathura comes readily to mind. Nopey, not that, I cant be saying that! I do, however, tell her about the young woman at Jhansi who'd read the Hitchhiker's in Hebrew. We'd spent half a night and early morning morning walking around in crazy cold, warming ourselves by the impromptu mini-bonfires that had sprung up on the sparse platform. And while leaving, decided we wouldnt trade numbers or email IDs, and would just disappear to each other. (That, by the way, was in the hours preceding that cult classic – the Gwalior Barauni Mail).

"Well, nobody you meet on a journey is a permanent presence. Everything is transient - here today, and when you wake up tomorrow morning - poof, they're gone. That way, tis a bit like a microcosm of life in general - you cant quite expect anything to last forever. Once a journey is done, the only place it really exists is in your head."

"I'll probably never see some of these places again. At any rate, I'll never stop over and stay at these places. Knowing that you’ll never own some things, that you’ll never be a permanent part of some things doesn’t stop from loving, enjoying, appreciating them. See, you and I will never meet again. We still talk, just for this moment".

She tries to sound somewhat offended at that suggestion. "I might just pay you a visit at your post-retirement-happily-ever-after-tea-estate-villa. I hope you'll remember me then.".

There arent any hills like you've been told, no tea estates. Just rice fields that stretch on. These are a shade of intense green, evenly spread out like a vast trampoline. No light, faded or dusty shades of green here - just bright, clean, almost wet green that lies low enough to give you a view of the vast horizon.

As Assam is entered, the towns, the roads look more leisurely, less frantic, with plenty of space for themselves. Late in the evening, just after darkness descends, the train slows down, and ponderously, steadily goes with a slow rattle across the Brahmaputra, which is wide enough to look like an arm of a sea. There're city lights of Guwahati twinkling in the darkness, there're the lit up hills that adjoin the said city, there're glimmers in the vast water stretch right underneath me.

Train of thought 3.5 - Water everywhere

2007-12-30T20:27:00.002+04:00

Note: This is one of a series of posts about this journey. Other episodes of this trip are here: numbers 0, 1, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 4.75 (in order).

Tiredness brings about a dreamless, quick sleep, and with it a calm, clear-headed wake up. So much so, I dont quite mind or resent the slightly clouded window to my left. I raise myself slightly, and still half-reclining upon my berth, look out the window.

The squeak-to-a-halt provides a good excuse for getting off. Barauni, the boards tell me. I immediately recollect the Gwalior-Barauni Mail of a few years ago. If your're the sort who'd like to sample the messiest, filthiest train ever, you'd need look no beyond the Gwalior Barauni Mail. Still, the platform at Barauni has no evidence of squalor-levels that would befit such a legendary train. There's a coat of mist all over as I peer out from the door over the length of the platform. The hot-water+tea-bags+milk-powder is being distributed, so, the 'tea' is slowly imbibed on a stroll on the chilled platform.

**
I'm on the Eastern-UP-and-Bihar belt now. Everything there is is drowned out, literally, by the floods. The entire landscape is a huge water body occasionally pockmarked by land patches. There're stretches of water in every direction. Houses, or parts thereof, peep out like gyroscopes. Huts, and parts thereof, float atop the water. Occasional temple spires stand out, as if to reassure people that there is, indeed, a steady divine presence in all this upheaval. The railway track looks terribly frail, perched as it is upon hardly-adequate-seeming ledges amid water on either side.

The towns, when they do come, are hardly reassuring. Washed-away houses are lumped together now. Decrepitude is wholesale here. What emphasises the direness of it all is the fact that you can see the human cost of the flood. Every railway platform is brimming over with refugees from the water. They're camped upon the railway platforms, they arent quite waiting to go off on the next train. They're waiting for they know not what - there're makeshift tents and huts, cramped, stuffed amid the limited space there is. The railway platform affords the advantage of being at a slight elevation compared to the rest of the town. However, those who are unfortunate to get pushed to the edges of the platform find themselves getting shoved closer and closer to water levels by the upstream crowds.

It's a bleak, foggy, sunless morning. The rains, thankfully, have ceased today. The mind's eye is dimmed by the sights around. The makeshift tents are just feet away from where I stand at the door. People line the tracks outside the stations, in the countryside just as well, in areas where the track but is a temporarily safe bank from the advancing waters. The track is a thin line, almost like a tightrope, with water all around it. The train almost seems to tiptoe on it, hoping to get it over and done with.

**

There are, as you may have imagined, fellow passengers around my hardly-occupied seat. There's a young Army jawan, hardly 22 or so, there's a young lady with her dad, and a couple of other middle aged men. The jawan asks if I've friends in adjoining compartments. No, I tell him, I dont park at my seat because I'm at the door, that's all.

So, does he get to actually fight, shoot people, I ask, with more than a hint of sarcasm that he doesnt quite catch. Oh yes, says he, he's headed to either Sudan or Afghanistan, right after the vacation for which he's headed home. The UN forces, he adds. I remember Heller writing something like - "Young men out there figting for what they've been told is their country". It just seems way too cynical to actually quote the same, so I desist.

So, has he killed any man so far? Nopes. But he's had plenty of target practise, and workout with guns. But does that prepare him to kill a flesh-and-blood human being? To exterminate a life? The instinct of self-preservation, he is sure, will take over, so what he does need do is have his reflexes and skills ready. When it's him-or-you, you'd rather it's you than him.

What if you get cold feet? Killing isnt easy, I suppose. Well, you can back out before you get sent. Once you're there, you have to go out and fight. If you back off on the battlefield, folks on your side have orders to shoot you. The fear of death can infuse great quantities of courage into you, he adds.

Death is an occupational hazard, aint it? Well, he's had only a modest education, and this, fighting is his only chance of being of any significance in life. This is the only way he can rise above himself, he adds. He is a big man in his town because he's a soldier. If people think wars arent necessary, well, too bad - someone's got to do the job.

Somehow, speaking of death in the specific seems strangely, eerily different from speaking of it in the abstract, armchair-expert way.

**

The train wades onward. The water slowly, agonisingly recedes, subsides. The trackside crowds steadily thin down. In an hour and a half or so, all that remains is the wetness in the air. There is impoverishment around, you see the villages and houses are still ramshackle - even railway stations have shriveled down to one-chamber shacks with single-track-no-platform. But it's almost a relief to see that this is the normal course of affairs, that it's not an abrupt fury of nature that has afflicted these lands.

Train of thought 3 - Entering the cow belt

2007-12-26T19:23:00.002+04:00

Note: This is one of a series of posts about this journey. Other episodes of this trip are here: numbers 0, 1, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 4.75 (in order).

Delhi passes by in a haze. The crowds at Hazrat Nizamuddin are perhaps only milling slowly, in a gooey slithering flow. But when a long things-to-do list is flashing through your mind, when you're rushing through the 14 hours you have in the city, you can be forgiven for thinking that the entire capital is as frenzied as the almost-panting insides of your head.

One meet-up happens late in the evening, over French-fries-dipped-in-honey and jasmine tea. The friend is good enough to offer shelter for the night in his room. The already small room, being packed with books and cutlery and cooking vessels, has just about enough of a clearing on the floor to harbour the two of us. The other meeting is pushed to the next morning, when a young lady has to be woken up to be reminded of the said meeting.

So, it is after a good couple of hours of agitated activity that New Delhi station is rushed into, minutes before the half-past-9 departure. Soon, I am hovering around the platform to stock up and try to fulfil the morning's nutrition needs. A sandwich, a cool drink and my bag all vie for the patronage of my hands.

**

There is, surprisingly, a diesel engine up front, as the train shrugs past Delhi's outskirts. These arent the high rise, prosperous locales. Small matchbox-houses in rows of Lego-blocks are packed in a tight fit. Most have red-and-grey exteriors of raw, unpainted walls. Occasionally, patches of agricultural fields pop up, sometimes chimneys jut out, bang in the midst of a sea of unpainted concrete.

Sometimes, the compact, packed rows of houses yawn, revealing clearings of black fluids in still lakes or flowing rivulets. Buffaloes look like rocks jutting out of the water. Green rotting vegetation blankets nearly the entire surface of the water. Soon, the sea of dusky black that is the Yamuna wallows beneath my feet.

There is this state of uncertain urbaneness throughout. Locales dont quite seem very sure as to who precisely they are. Must they live up to an image of posh, upmarket citizens of a capital city? Are they almost-slums, the stepchildren of a grand metropolis that really is a world away? UP-villages like they were a few decades ago? Sooty, intent industrial areas like those that fringe every city? Hinterlands like they were before Delhi began its monstrous growth?

Sahibabad, Ghaziabad and even far exterior towns like Hapur seem to harbour a confused mix of all these identities. The bare, rugged neighbourhoods look impoverished but not frail. There's the weariness and disarray of the greying, bare buildings, but there's also the ambition and wannabe-ness of occasional isles of swankiness. There're expanses of aspiring industries, there're flashy, pervasive billboards that annouce upward mobility to be.

**

There follows what what your high school textbooks would tell you is the 'fertile Gangetic plain'. Wispy blue-white skies up above, swaying sugarcane and paddy and tufts of green. Open horizons that stretch on, unblocked by edifices. Innumerable canals and clear water streams tempt you to dive right in, right out the train door. You try in vain to recollect the poem - all you manage is to weed out two lines - 'All in the golden afternoon, full leisurely we glide' and 'beneath such dreamy weather', which more than suffice to send you into a warm, contented tizzy, as you lean back against the door balustrade in a comfortable recline.

**

Most towns are tiny oases of habitation amid vastnesses of agricultural land. The green of the fields wades into some of the towns too. The black water bodies and buffaloes are ubiquitous in the towns. Most towns have houses sprinkled liberally, comfortably spaced. Moradabad, Shahjahanpur, Bareilly and their ilk know there's plenty of space to go around for the entire town and more.

At Shahjahanpur, there's an ancient, ornate, deep brown bogie, one that was exclusively used by the colonial masters in another era. This rusting bogie is in apparent disuse for decades, and is parking in a just-as-aged shed. There're families that have made this shed their home, with this relic of the British Raj grandeur for backdrop. Their cooking for the day goes on in the underbrush-clad ground nearby.

As the diesel engine squeezes through rising sugarcane fields on each side, it flits through an empty, unpeopled station - Kakori. I momentary expect so see something to signify the events of all those years ago. What was I expecting to see, anyway? I realize there really shouldnt be any expectations that I should be having of the place. The Shahjahanpur - Lucknow down train remains blissfully in 1925, knowing it doesnt quite have a need to pop up in public consciousness now.

Kakori lasts maybe a minute, with my train rushing on to make up for the one hour delay. There's the town railway gate, keeping out the raring-to-go autos and carts and rickshaws and ramshackle vans - the fields and open skies begin abruptly, right after the railway gate.

**

Most stations have a barrack-like stiff-upper-lip spareness and minimalism - nothing extraneous or extravagant in their structures. Collectorgunj flashes by, a tiny single-room-single-platform station that is a faint but sweet memory of all those years ago. It's not been too hot, the sun's been gentle all through. Still, the evening makes the slanting golden sunbeams quite pleasant. Lucknow station is profusely bathed in mild honey-orange sunrays when the train squeaks in.

Post Lucknow, more sugarcane fields, more farmlands, more open spaces. Only, the skies' shades of blue deepen. Slowly, imperceptibly, a blanket is spread over the sky upstairs. I come back to my seat - the white lights inside the bogie are slightly jarring after an entire day at the door. I stare away at the darkness through the cloudy, muddly glass window - content in having to do nothing whatsoever at all.

Dinner happens. Tis tempting to go sleep, though it's just 9 or so. I decide to get to the door to get some fresh night air. There's plenty of that, yessiree. "Bhai saab, yaha pe bahut stoning hoti hai" the TTE attempts to dissuade me from door-parking - I wave him away. I stare into the darkness and up at the white pinpricks that are the stars, taking deep breaths of the cold night air. Varanasi is a while away - that'd be a good place to sleep off.

There's a mild flash outside, like a cigarette lighter. Tis not the stars, I see. There's another flash outside, and yet another. Before I know it, there're tiny, glowing lamps all around me outside the door. No, there're no houses or human presences. I wonder if I'm dreaming, if I've been transported into a fairy tale.

I take deep breaths - I cant believe this - there're seas of fireflies flickering atop trees along the track! The row of trees, lit up in mild flourescent glows, stretches on either side of the two doors, like rows of glittering Christmas trees - tis a 10 minute long performance. This isnt a biting glare, but a gentle, warm flickering and twinkling. The momentary frenzied I-dont-believe-this excitement slowly gives way to a peace, a gratitude - an ah-I-m-lucky-to-have-seen-this feeling - that leaves me thankful to the universe for having served me this surprise.

Train of thought 2.5 - Dilli Door Asth

2007-11-16T12:10:00.002+04:00

Note: This is one of a series of posts about this journey. Other episodes of this trip are here: numbers 0, 1, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 4.75 (in order).

The next town appears fairly big. The train ploughs through some 6-7km of its suburbs. Most of these suburbs are populated by stone quarries and grey dust. Rows of grimy trucks are kicking up mud, stuck in a traffic jam in the midst of a field. There are also, as someone put it, sons of toil covered by tons of soil.

The station is a pinkish building, making perhaps half an attempt to give itself a sandstone look. There’re arched doorways and windows – faded white semicircles that taper into onion-domes. There’re tall, dark, wine-bottle-y window panes that narrow upwards into a rocket-like shape. You’d almost think the station is all smooth curves and no edges. No storeys, just the ground floor spread flat over the length of the platform. A clocktower barely manages to peep out over the ground floor terrace.

The sunny, muddy, cow-laden platform at Kota Junction unfolds under my feet.

Signboards that could be tagged ‘career, bright, future, excellent, 100%’ fill the railway station. IIT, CBSE, GATE, IAS – some boards manage to fit all the abbreviations. The town has something for everyone.

The attendants head towards a waiting cart, and purposefully carry the day’s lunch trays onto the train. The red flickering display board makes a mention of the Haldighati passenger due later in the evening.

The train’s running an hour late. But we’re on twin tracks and an electric engine, so we flit through the fields, perhaps just over a 100km an hour.

There’s a bridge across the Chambal, with a bund downstream. At 15-20feet, it’s not quite a dam – the river threatens to dunk it underwater anytime it desires.

A hill range unfolds itself parallel to the track. This one’s rather disorderly – with edges like shards of broken glass. There’re stones strewn in the valley, that see to it that nothing can grow in the rough, stony terrain.

This is the Chambal valley, which used to be India’s prime dacoit zone. The dacoit zone begins here, and spreads across the vicinity of Jhansi-Lalitpur-Gwalior. There’re no trees, no people, and hardly any vegetation along the vast span of the ravines. The mind imagines horses thundering down the hills, but the eye only meets a hard, rocky, silent backdrop of loneliness.

The train speeds past a dusty, open air station. The platform is unoccupied. There’re no people, poles or roof-shelters – nothing other than the floor going flat out. There’s just the station master who’s just come out of his single room. The man in white holds out a faded green flag which stubbornly refuses to sway or flutter. The only other presence other than him is one forlorn, frayed board at the very edge of the platform , marked Ranathambore.

I have some company at the door by now. There’s this young man, some 25 or so, who’s had my window all the time I’ve been at the door. He's in the corridor near the door, but doesnt quite want to stand at the door.

“Dilli jaa rahe ho?”

I nod.

The usual where-from-where-to questions follow, with a where-re-you-really-from added for good measure. I’ve gotten used to the irritation of the where-from-where-to questions by now. When you’ve never quite belonged to any one place, and travelled without anything resembling a purpose, you really can have any number of equally valid answers for each of these questions. I mention at random one place apiece for each question. It's hardly any effort to skip all the qualifying that’s perhaps necessary.

Madrasi hoke Hindi to achhi jaante ho.

“Haan. Thoda bahut seekha hai.”

Yeh Braj Kshetr hai. Pata hai? Krishnaji yahi pale the. Agla station Mathura hai.

I'm aware, indeed, that Mathura is in proximity, so I nod.

He pauses awhile, wondering how to continue conversation with a man who persists in looking outside the door.

Braj Kshetr ke log gaaliyon ke liye mashoor hai, pata hai aap ko?

The man’s attempting to break the ice. I do an “Achha?”

Arey? Aapko pata nahi kya? Saare UP-Bihar se zyada bhayankar gaaliya yahi pe sunne ko milegi aapko.

I stand with my back to the opened door, acknowledging that the monologue had potential to get interesting.

Ek kahaani sonata hoon Braj Kshetr ki gaalibaazi ke baare me. Ek banda Braj Kshetr jaana chahta tha. Mathura se sau kilometre door aake poocha – Braj Kshetr jaa raha hoo. Jab aayega to kaise pata chalega?

To logo ne bola, aage jaate raho. Jahaa par log bhayanak gaaliya denge, wahi Braj Kshetr hoga.

Aage jaata hai. Ek board laga hai – Braj Kshetr. Phir bhi aadmi se poochta hai – bhai, Braj Kshetr jaa raha hoo. Jab aayega to kaise pata chalega?

Toh doosra aadmi Braj Kshetr ka board dikha ke bolta hai – “Eee boarad kaa teri maa ki choot me laga hai?”

The man, verily, employs a sledgehammer to break ice.

Train of thought 2 - Morning Calm

2007-11-10T00:45:00.002+04:00

Note: This is one of a series of posts about this journey. Other episodes of this trip are here: numbers 0, 1, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 4.75 (in order).

The window-glass to my left dulls the white lights coming in from the platform. The diffused haze wakes me up. Uh, where am I? There’s this disoriented whaa-what-am-I-doing-here sensation. The eyes creak open. Memory flickers to life. There’s still a moment of disbelief – am I *really* doing this trip?

My sleep-fogged, confused mind demands other questions to be asked of it. Another beam of light seeps in, much sharper than before. The train squeaks to a stop. 'What town is this?’ - appears a suitable choice to engage the still partly dormant mind. Surat? Memories of one past trip make me wish it is. The green of the radium in my watch glows 5:40. Vadodara.

I wade out of, err, bed. Ugh, my calves almost feel sticky from the lack of exercise. I need a walk on the platform. The platform is tiled with people sleeping upon newspaper-sheets-turned-mattresses. Been there, done that, yessiree. I skirt the sleepers and walk on. It’s still dark. The tubelights blaze away relentlessly, but the slumbering multitudes are unperturbed.

The diesel engine detaches itself. The coach attendant explains ,”Cant stop long enough to change at Panvel or Vasai. The local trains, saab. They cant wait for us.”

Another unattached diesel engine coasts past, with its name ‘Cheetah’ written in large, friendly letters. The chill from the night is still in the air. There’s the sweatshirt around me. There’s the warmth of the bed tea(well, almost) that’s in my hands.

Sometime due north, the dark sky gradually fades until it is a lighter shade of bluish white. There’re rust-golden colored industrial edifices that wield chimneys. Canals and rivulets are dreary patches, wholly unlike the clear water bodies on the Konkan that made you want to dive right in.

The fields and villages are dotted with tractors that have retired for the night. The train curves around grassy mounds that look like massive pin cushions. These aren’t thick forested hills - these are stubbly hillocks that have been liberally sprinkled amid meadows and farms. Nothing is cramped or stuffed – even the two-tracked railway line has plenty of space for itself as it freely scrawls across the landscape.

Buildings in most towns have dull grey coatings. The decrepitude of most of these edifices suggests that their purpose isnt residential. The train slows down near another such town, one that doesn’t seem to have been refurbished in ages.

The platform harbours no rooms, no offices or stalls - only vendors who idly watch us go past. Another engine slumbers on the adjacent platform, its name ‘Prachand’ written in, you guessed it – large, friendly letters.

As my train leaves the unpeopled platform, the name board of the station comes into view – ‘Godhra Junction’.

The grey dissolves, the towns recede. The only habitations you can see are houses amid farms, almost like dots on a huge canvas. In a while, rocky cliffs come into view ahead.

As the train scrapes between the first of the cliffs, you see a turret topping the two cliffs on either side of the track. A pair of ornate, carefully crafted watchtowers herald the entry into an enclosure of cliffs. The train winds past subsequent hillss on either side – the rock faces are formed into carefully carved ramparts flanking the track. There’s vegetation and undergrowth amid fragments of these crumbling battlements. As the train enters the curves here, it looks like it is tucking into the remnants of a fortification or castle.

Train of thought 1 - Due north again

2007-11-05T15:15:00.003+04:00

Note: This is one of a series of posts about this journey. Other episodes of this trip are here: numbers 0, 1, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 4.75 (in order).

Not too much sleep. Sigh. I push back my overgrown hair and crumple my blanket into a heap. I look out into the dull grey of the water to my right. It’s just after 6, but the halogen lights atop the adjoining road bridge are still on. The blunt orange drips down through the half-sunlight, and winks back upwards from the water surface.

I am tired, sleepless after the exertion of the last evening. There still are 8 days to go, and here was the dank Nethravathi, intent on enveloping my first morning in gloom. The decrepit, unpaved, almost bombed out looking Kankanadi station that follows doesnt do much by way of looking cheerful.

When the milk powder + hot water + tea bag come by, the cup verily overflowed, so to say. Sigh, I know I wouldn’t be getting anything resembling proper tea for a while.

Not the most promising of starts, then. Still, the hot water of the mix warms my hands. As I slowly sip the drink at the door, I protectively hold on to the cup.

Stations on the Konkan Railway are all far away from the cities and towns whose names they bear. Most of them stand aloof, all by themselves. Murudeshwar has a distant mountain range for background and emptiness for foreground. Ankola is a small raised stage amid paddy fields that go flat out on every side. So is Karwar, except that it’s also at the mouth of a tunnel at the foot of a huge hill. All along, there’re no crowds, there’s hardly any sort of milling and activity that you’d have been accustomed to see at transit termini.

There’re brief glimpses of the sea, occasionally atop grand bridges. The river Gangavali comes by, but it refuses to sport the profusely green-draped look that it did when I saw it from the road. Goa comes by, and the track tucks into hamlets and villages that seem to have folded themselves away from the rest of civilization. The damp wetness of the morning is gone. The sun’s up and shining as the train brushes through glades and vegetation.

Past Madgaon, the train goes deeper into the Western Ghats. The green gets denser, the hills go higher. Streams and rivulets sparkle away in the mild afternoon sunlight. Viaducts pull away the ground beneath my feet, revealing yawning drops underneath. Wide, deep valleys open up. There’re tunnels that are areas of nothingness that distort my sense of space and time – the longest spans more than 6km.

As I get off at some of the smaller stations here, human habitation is farther than ever before – Vilawade is perched atop a high ledge between tunnels, Rajapur Road between two rocky faces, Vithalwadi Road amid thick forest cover. Some stations are beside waterfalls, some atop valleys, but none close to any extensive human presence. At some of the railway stations, fish flap around in the inter-track drains.

Droplets of rain come down, intensifying slowly. There’s wetness in the air. Everything appears washed, cleansed. The water dulls the greyish-steel top of the train bogies. The train ambles ahead on the sole, lonely track in the bright orange afternoon sunlight.

The train attendant asks me to move from the door for a moment. As I move away, he does a heave ho, emptying the day’s quota of waste food, bottles and packaging into the Sahyadris.

Train of thought 0 - A man, a plan.

2007-10-28T11:07:00.002+04:00

Note: This is one of a series of posts about this journey. Other episodes of this trip are here: numbers 0, 1, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 4.75 (in order).

“Daphne Dolores Moorhead,” opined my friend Wodehouse “was as full of curves as a scenic railway.” After the numerous scenic railways that I saw during an 8 day ride on the Indian railways, the possible charms of ol' Daphne verily boggled the mind.

The journey's beginnings lay a month or so before the actual ride, when I rediscovered the joys of map-gazing. Map gazing, if you aren’t aware, is an activity wherein you spread a map out, move your gaze along routes, imagine your journeys, and go places.

I would, since I was 6 or so, carefully unfold and open the creases of what would call itself a ‘political map of India’, and spread it upon the floor. I’d sit half on the floor, half on the map, moving my fingers up and down the barbed black lines that were railway tracks. With a railway time table for reference, I’d spend hours together ‘driving my train’ - deciding what train I’d be, where I’d stop, what sort of landscape would suit the vicinity of, say, the Ratlam-Kota stretch.

I’d imagine what ‘Collectorgunj’ or ‘New Bongaigaon’ stations would actually look like. I’d just *know* that the Chattisgarh Express really was a passenger train masquerading as an Express, and ponder over why trains must go all the way around Solapur-Daund-Bhusawal to get to Delhi.

So, twas a vacant evening a few months ago. While doing some mindless surfing, I trawled some travel sites. While flipping through the IRFCA and the pics therein of places and routes unseen, I was reminded of the mapgazing of all those years ago. Before I knew it, I was staring away into an India map on my laptop. I spent the next couple of hours on mapsofindia.com, and sat back in the sort of peaceable contentment that is brought on by not necessarily having to do anything at all.

Earlier that evening, I’d had a conversation with a friend when I’d suggested that being able to surprise yourself is the best way of making your life much more beautiful. That came together with the thoughts of mapgazing from all those years ago. Both these, catalyzed by a fairly long drive in the dark, formed what some writers would call a heady brew. The seeds of an impulse quickly took root, a plan was formed, and there I was, ready to try something I’d never done before, for no reason other than that I simply felt like it.

In 15 minutes, I was at my laptop, buying tickets that would take me places I didn’t know anything about, to take a trip I that had pretty much no purpose to it, and yes, expending a fair amount of my credit card’s limit in the process.

It’d be 8 days, because that was the amount of time and money I could manage. I’d sleep and reside on trains, and spend most part of those 8 days at train doors. I wouldnt stop to stay and see any place, but would move on to catch the next train right after I got off the previous one. I’d see none of the destinations themselves, but I’d catch all of what was in between them.

In the month that was to elapse before the start of the ride, I wondered if pragmatism would kick in sometime. I occasionally mulled over whether I’d be tempted to chuck it all - to just sit back to watch movies and read books and relax, rather than spend early mornings in bleak waiting rooms, at damp train doors, waking up amid a new set of strangers every day.

There and back again - 4

2007-06-16T09:52:00.001+04:00

Km 933 Mangalore, 5:05 am

Wake up with my limbs feeling completely jaded, worn out. A cold water bath dispels the grogginess and weariness only temporarily. Tempted to stay over another day and rest until the next morning, but there's no money or time for that - besides, pride intervenes.

Km 936 Kankanady circle, Mangalore, 5:50 am

“Which way is the Bangalore highway?”
“Saaar, Bangalore is very far. Take a bus.”

Km 982, Stop, 6:55am

300km to go, and the left wrist almost feels like it’s been wrenched free. I want to go sleep. Roads have worsened, patches of mud and piles of stones abruptly populate midst of tarred stretches. Soon the road begins to resemble that god-awful NH4A(Panjim-Londa-Belgaum), which, as you know, is the undisputed stinker-prince of National Highways.

No ups and downs, or descents and ascents – only the trees around rear up and occasionally form a canopy. At times the vegetation is so thick, you can’t see more than two or three trees deep.

The houses and cottages and their clumps that form villages perch on the roadside – the unending jungle as their backyard, and the by now very narrow highway as their verandah.

I park in a small clearing, acknowledge the receipt of a curious glance from the local milk girl, lie down on the bridge over a brook.

Km 1009, Breakfast!, 7:50am

Subramanya Vilasa. Store room, kitchen and eating area all in one huge hall.

Hunger, thus far blocked by other bodily aches, is soothed by 5 large idlis, 4 huge dosas and a big tumbler of coffee. All for the grand total of Rs. 25.

The satisfied feeling of a full stomach is so enlivening, the creaky joints and the countdown currently at 275 are driven out of the head. I leave a 50 buck note and take a walk, and find myself attempting to hum a tune.

An auto goes past, with the words on its hood,"Baare figure, andare togombaro Pulsar"

Translated, that means: "I tell her - come with me, o figure. She says - go get a Pulsar"

Translations just completely spoil it! Pah.

Km 1042, 9:25am

Again! Uncanny, the ability of the Sahyadris to throw up scenes that completely astound you. My road is between two enormous, grassy peaks that rear up on either side of me, both of them stretching on and on - upwards as well as on all sides – it’s the enormity of it all that overwhelms you. These two distinct peaks seem to be infinite, everywhere.

There’s absolutely no traffic – I go lie down on a stone flanking the road, and stare unbelievingly at the peaks and their cloudy halos.

As good a place as any, I say, to catch a nap. Tale for grandchildren and all that. Dreamless sleep for more than an hour, uninterrupted by passing truck-roars. Bliss!

Km1074, Sakleshpur, 11:30am

The ghats end. But not before increasingly deteriorating roads, whose effect manifests itself in four overturned trucks over 100-odd-km. As the ghats approach their end, there’re boards on the roadside homes advertising the fact that fresh honey and coffee beans are for sale. I stop for a break in what seems like an immensely dense cover of green, almost like a green tunnel.

I’ve to bid goodbye to the Sahyadris who’ve been my companions for four days, showing me a world of beauty and depth and enormity that completely amazed me. The awareness, the reaffirmation of the beauty that makes everything worthwhile, ends up changing at least some part of you deep within.

Km 1080, The plains!, 11:50am

Finally, the roads get better. Flat, straight, and as fast as you’d want them to be. That’s at the cost of the forest and the hills that now seem to have been with me for ages, who now give way to fields and flatlands that let you see as far up the horizon as you want to.

Why must a highway through the ghats be that bad? NH17 goes through much tougher terrain, and refuses to admit abrasions and lacerations on its surface. The cost of it all is what’s most tragic – all the deaths, all the accidents are so completely pointless, all the more so since they result from what are primarily pleasure trips.

Mysore-Bangalore and Pune-Mumbai, which were graveyard stretches, became much, much safer after doubling(though people still manage to find ways to kill themselves on these two roads) – why cant we fast track the doubling of every national highway around?

The trouble is, road safety is grossly underrated, perhaps because we assume accidents to be an unavoidable fact of life. Also, perhaps because we always think accidents happen only to someone else. Unfortunately, we’re all someone else to someone else.

Km 1117, 12:35pm

Past Hassan, past the intersection where two years ago I had hopped off a bus to Bangalore and lorry-hopped my way to Mysore. I dont stop at that intersection - I go past it and on.

The almost contemplative, meditative calm of driving on an even, beautiful road fills you with immense peace – all you do is look at the skies, watch the clouds, allowing no thought of what purports to be real life, as the bike coasts by, refusing to make any demands on your attention.

I’m much less than halfway through by noon, but the road here puts me at ease. I stop again, in the midst of a completely open space. As soon as I stop, the calmness, sereneness of the drive give way to the fatigue and exertion that have been in the background so far.

I go to a hut in the middle of a neighbouring field, ask if I could sit down. The old man points to the corridor where I go ahead and lie down for a while. His wife offers some water, which I refuse, and proceed to draw out my Bisleri.

Km 1167, 2:30pm

Break. Walk around, sit down at roadside beedi shop. This is sometime after lunch at a Kamat’s restaurant – where I gorged on what seemed an exorbitantly priced 90-buck meal.

Highway still fast, calm, peaceful. Towns, fields, villages, houses, people, cars, buses – everything flashes by, everything flits by – nothing’s a bother, nothing any trouble.

Km 1224, 4:10pm

Raindrops on the visor. No sweat, will drive on.

Am overtaking a truck, who decides to overtake a car that I cant see. Truck does a late swing into me. Reflexes are jaded after 4 days of constant attention, but manage to respond in time to ensure all’s well.

Km 1264, 5:10pm

Past Nelamangala. Mad traffic. Jam. Stuck. Agony of driving inside a city. Both wrists coming apart. Body pain decides it’ll go ahead and scream. In slow traffic, pain and bodily sensations get magnified, everything needs to be done with greater deliberation.

There're views of the city that provide comfort – Bangalore isnt flat, it’s largely up and down, so there’re spots where you can get a view of large swathes of the city, almost from up above.

Km 1284, Channasandra, 6:30pm

Home. I strut around for sometime, putting on my best ‘of-course-I’m-not-tired’ air.

I give up after a while, and pop off to sleep.

**

There and back again - 3

2007-06-16T09:23:00.001+04:00

Km 556, Panjim, 5:35am

Am still half asleep. Muscles and bones lodge complaints. The crawl-in-first-gear along the shimmering bluish-black of Mandovi gives some succour. The sharp tang of the wet morning air dispels sleep. The clouds look a dirty grey – I only hope it isn’t a sign of rain.

Some way on, there’s a small descent from flat ground, as the horizon opens up to reveal an enormous water body - the Zuari river, looking almost like an exit from a cave or a shell. The bridge is crossed in customary first-gear-crawl mode, even as the first shades of orange line the deep blue above.

Km 591, Madgaon, 6:20am

Refuel. Quick calculation indicates that mileage has shot up to 80. While I’m reeling from astonishment, I realize I’ve included the 30 or so kilometers of the engine-off-and-descend-ghat routine in my calculations. The mileage, then, turns out to be 77, which is still a personal best.

Km 627, 7:10am

Stop atop the first ghat. I’ve passed some Goan villages that clutch the highway’s hands on either side. There’s been a long, straight moist plain that has rushed headlong into this first ghat.

While you’d creep around the hills and go past them before, you go right through them here. You wriggle through the midst of what appears a clump of green from a distance. The ghats turn out to be thicker, deeper, more intense than the ones before – there’s an enormous green mushroom-shaped hill right across the ravine in front of me. Then there’s the usual effect of omnipresence of these ghats – with colossal green-tops spreading out, stretching on in every direction you care to see.

Km 651, 8:10am

The border, under a sunshade of green. There’re busy, bustling shacks that are checkposts. Almost abruptly, the ghats recede, but stay in the background. The road’s straight, fast, as it courses between fields that lie in the lap of the hills.

Km 662, The Kali bridge outside Karwar, 8:25am

The majestic Kali is vast enough to look like the sea has been in spate and flooded the land. Just as I begin the slow-crawl across the bridge, there’s a barricade – a police team checking everyone.

Cop looks at papers, writes down my name-address. He mentions that there’s been a burglary in town, and that the suspects got away on motorbikes, hence the checks.

“Where’re you coming from?”
“Poona.”
“Eh? Poona would be MH12. You’re MH14.”
“MH14 is Pimpri Chinchwad New Town, saar.”

I’m exasperated at having to explain that to the gazillionth man to ask the question. I am immediately issued a suspicious stare.

“Where’re you going?”
“Bangalore.”
“Why don’t you take the other highway?”
“Eh?”
“NH4. Kolhapur-Belgaum-Hubli-Bangalore. What’re you doing on *this* highway? You’d save 450km doing that one.”

Now, how does one explain that one is rather insane when it comes to travel? That one chooses routes because one has never seen some places, because one wants experiences one has never had before?

I try telling him, nevertheless – but I suspect it all comes out as a series of incomprehensible noises. By the time I leave, the cop must have been certain he’d cracked the burglary case.

Km 664, Karwar, 8:45am

After unsuccessfully attempting a restaurant-with-glass-façade that tells me it doesn’t serve South Indian food, I weave amid the pedestrians in the town market to get to a sweet-stall-plus-restaurant.

Couple of idlis and dosas, and of course the obligatory caffeine intake. Every meal, every snack on this trip is so very satisfying, so fulfilling, it eases my stomach to be able to imbibe it all. This, even when the taste is rather bland. Perhaps it’s because it’s all enormously tiring, and my body welcomes every bit of energy it can get hold of.

Sometimes there’s this ‘what-am-I-doing-here’ feeling, I begin to wonder why I’m doing all this, what’s the point of what I’m doing – day after day of completely exhausting travel, of allowing snatches of sleep and food to be the only interruptions in continuous travel, of keeping my muscles and bones taut more than 12 hours a day, of keeping my eyes open and mind awake when the body commands them to retire to sleep, of knowing that all it’s going to take is one small mistake to end it all. I don’t quite have a definitive answer to why I’m here, why I’m doing it all. At least, not at this point in my experience. Maybe I just want to prove a point to myself. Maybe I just want to look cool because I’ve done something that you, gentle reader, will not have thought of doing.

Maybe I don’t need an answer after all – it’s enough that I am able to forget myself, able to dive completely into the profusion of nature, people, homes, of every shade, every flavor around me, able to allow the Sahyadris to fill me up with sensations that are new, refreshing and awakening, and exhaust, tire, spend, splurge myself completely.

Km 666, 9:30 am

The road in Karwar heads straight into a hill, and at the seemingly last moment, sidesteps it to creep around it – and before you know it, you’re between a cliff and the deep blue sea.

I was tempted to stop by for a splash, but figured the Om-shaped beach at Gokarna would be a better choice. Besides, a swim break right after one for breakfast may not be apt on a long 380-km day.

Km 705, 10:30am

Break. Beside a stream – the Gangavali. The green enormities on every side enclose me and the Gangavali in a warm embrace. That’s not a tight or claustrophobic hug, it’s a gentle cuddle still leaves us both unconstrained to flow on as we wish. There’s absolutely no human presence around – it looks like the ghat has been this way forever, remained unchanged over millennia, except perhaps when somebody must have come by to put a smear of tar across it.

What is astonishing is that there are so many such islands, oases of superlative beauty, of calm, of a this-makes-the-rest-of-life-worthwhile feeling. Just as amazing is the fact that these stand out amid what really is a 900km-long aesthetic experience. Each entity different from the other, each marvelous in its own distinct way, all collectively quite overwhelming.

Km 712, Outside Gokarna, 11:05am

Goddamit. The highway sidesteps the town yet again. The Om-shaped beach that I was so keen on a splash in, turns out to be some 12km off the highway, and I’ve no option but to skip it.

That’s the tragedy - although both the NH17 and the Konkan railway are commendable engineering feats for having found ways through and around the Western Ghats, their major shortcoming is that they give most towns a miss.

Km 758, Honnavar, 12:20pm

Slow crawl across the Sharavati – I look at the railway bridge that looked like it was crossing the sea when I took a ride upon it the last time. There’s a market going on upon the banks – the bank of the receded waterline is teeming with multitudes bustling about. I take a break upon the bridge.

Km 774, near Murudeshwar, 12:45pm

The rain stops, but the Sahyadris open up. It’s almost like a giant hand has been enclosing you in its palm, and has opened its fingers to let sunlight in. Motifs recur all the time on this trip – but they’re still engaging enough to completely hold your attention. The hills tuck themselves in behind the railway line in the distance.

Km 790, Bhatkal, 1:35pm

Lunch. Drizzle. Hoping.

Km 824, 3:15pm

The sea! The highway is a promenade, a walkway beside the crowded, lively waterfront. I instinctively slow to first gear and look beyond the crowds at the stretch of blue that dissolves into a different blue of the sky. The road goes on for quite a distance before swirling out of sight to the east.

Km 873, Udupi, 4:30pm

A rectangular arch with the name ‘Udupi’ inscribed in carefully calligraphed letters to my left. The highway skips this town too. I stop amid the drizzle at a one-room eatery – raving hunger is quenched by generous helpings of idli, dosas, bonda, and of course coffee. Yes, yes, I know it’s a very diverse and imaginative menu I’ve been having on this trip – thank you very much.

The bill comes to 30 bucks – I leave 60 bucks on the table and walk out. The waiter comes running after me, stuffs 30 bucks into my hand – “Saaar, you forgot to take your change.”

Km 911, Suratkal, 6:10pm

I’ve been driving in the rain since Udupi – I try pushing my helmet’s visor up, but the drops sting. It would be much more fun if I didn’t have the killer private buses to sidestep and evade. Still the jacket and kneepads reassure one.

The road and the surroundings get red around the Mangalore Port trust – there’s dust all around. There’s grey too – it’s an industrial area. Traffic around me congeals slowly until we’re all in a traffic jam – for one half of the highway is blocked for repairs. The NHAI attempts to comfort me with a board that reads “Today’s pain, tomorrow’s gain.”

My aching wrists and wailing back and the fact that it’s nearly sundown don’t make it any easier. We all crawl away to glory – barely managing 20kmph.

Km 930, Mangalore, 7:15pm

Finally. After an age of inching on, the city shows up. The roads are of concrete and not tar, so as to resist the rains better. The surface is a comfort after the agonizing ride of the last hour or so.

Km 933, 7:25pm

My hotel! I fling bag and helmet, throw self upon bed, and sink into very badly needed sleep. My stomach had been pleading for nutrition, but my eyes were clamouring for respite too. I pick a pre-dinner nap, for it is the more pressing need – there’s 350km to do tomorrow. Now, does this qualify as masochism yet?

Auggh, dammit, I need sleep, I need food, and there seems so little of it all, there seems so little time to grab it all. I need a full day’s rest, and there’s no way I’ll get it. I also need new muscles and ribs. And wrists. And knees.

There and back again - 2

2007-06-08T16:50:00.002+04:00

Km 239, Lote Parashuram, 5:40am

Hotel Pagoda Retreat agrees to give me bread-jam-tea at a half past four, in lieu of the complimentary breakfast I’d have got if I’d left after 8.

I leave in air that is wet with dew that slowly swells into a drizzle. A winding path up a hill and an engine-off-and-coast-down descent welcomes me back into the Sahyadris. The river sprawled below like a gash of spilt milk deftly sidesteps the town of Chiplun.

Km 301, 7: 05am

First stop of the day. Between a clump of rocks and a river. I haven’t been able to find out if this is the same river there was at Mahad and Chiplun, or the one that has also peeped out from behind the hills to say hello at a couple of other places. The village across the river is blanketed by green. There’s a temple tower much higher up than the village, seemingly unconnected, unreachable.

The patch of road is like a bicycle handle – it’s a straight stretch, but the road bends away on either side. The sparse traffic bows into the straight, zips on, bends ever so slightly before swinging away out of sight into the other end.

I call to confirm my hotel in Panjim for tonight. Uh oh, Mayfair’s out of rooms, sorry sir. Why don’t I try Neptune, who don’t reserve rooms, but why don’t I show up this evening, they’ll surely have rooms vacant.

Km 312, 8:05am

Some operative words are more effective than others, and often it has little to do with what they are supposed to be describing. I see a board mentioning ‘coffee bar, lounge and restaurant’, and am tempted to stop there for a second breakfast. The first is still filling me up, so I decide against it.

Coffee-bar-lounge-restaurant evokes a vision of delicacy and cleanliness that’s so much more appealing to the traveler so much more than, say, Garden restaurant, or Family Garden restaurant, at least after you’ve seen enough of the latter two.

Km 341, 8:55am

I was expecting a look at Ratnagiri town, but the highway refuses to oblige, showing me only a detour indicating that the town was 11 km away from the highway.

Km 353, 9:15am

I decided to try a one room home-plus-hotel – a run down nameless place with jars of Parle G and a kettle of tea on display. I decided to see if it was as decent in practice as I thought it would be in theory. Decent in theory, but not extraordinarily so, because this sort of establishment doesn’t have to hire inept cooks like most dhabas, or garden and family restaurants have to – it’s very likely to be homemade stuff, the cooked by wife and served by husband types.

I sit on one of the two tables in the front verandah – there’re freshly slept in charpoys in the other half of the verandah. There’s a TV in front, the table underneath which doubles as a cash counter and a shelf holding chikkis, biscuits and some of the household’s wardrobe.

The lady of the house is multitasking as cook, waitress and cashier today. I am the only customer. I have roti and a masoor dal masala. Decent, very plain, without a taste of the shady masalas that would have fed my worry. The woman’s given me 4 rotis, so I’m full enough to contentedly pat my tummy at the end of it.

The early morning wake-up jogs into memory, and I ask if I can take a nap on the charpoy within. The lady says why don’t I take it out into the outer half of the verandah, it’s cooler there. Peace. I nap there for slightly over half an hour.

Km 381, 11:15am

Another break. Another ghat. I see the valley underneath, the green top across the valley, and hills immediately above and beneath me. I am astonished, and not for the first time on this trip. These hills and valleys stretch ahead and behind you as far as you can see.

In fact, what you can see of them is absolutely no indication of their vastness – I know they stretch 300km behind me, and some 600km ahead of me. Having driven that distance one kilometer at a time, having experienced every one of those kilometers heightens the awe you feel - the sheer hugeness of it all makes you feel like you’ve had a taste of the infinite.

Km 440, Kankavli, 1:15pm

As I said before, it’s not easy to take a call on which places to eat at, especially since all you have is a split-second glance at a restaurant’s façade while biking. When I am keen on a fairly plush, high-end place, the number of cars outside it usually clinches it for me.

I spot this fairly grand looking mansion that is a resort plus restaurant, and decide that lunch is going to be at Neelam resorts. I also figure that the average Kankavli-an isnt going to shell out the sort of money I would flinch at, so prices shouldnt be exorbitant, which guess is confirmed by a glance at the menu. Turns out they’ve AC too, which justifies decision to stop.

I’m sorely tempted to try some seafood that’s all over the menu. I desist, and settle for dal-rice and curd-rice. Sigh – such is the fate that a South Indian upbringing consigns us to, although the reason I give myself is that I cant risk shady food while traveling.

Km 495, Sawantwadi, 3:50pm

When I’m not being seduced by the depth and enormity of the ghats, I’m being charmed by the trees and the path before me. Almost all through, the trees form an arch to usher me on. Sometimes, they’re bejeweled with the red, yellow and blue of the flowers upon them, which flowers sometimes fall onto the road and form a welcome carpet. Passing through the long arch of the trees of the Sahyadris is like a stroll through an infinitely large cool grove.

Next break is at Sawantwadi, one of the prettiest towns on the highway. I squeeze between the houses that almost spill onto the highway, before parking in front of the lake. All there is of the town seems centred around the lake that has a huge, almost fluid seeming mountain standing guard over it.

Km 527, 4:50pm

Goa. The green atop the hills gets thicker. The hills and the roadside villages snuggle closer to the highway, ensconcing it, as the green all around intensifies.

I stop to see a goods train carrying trucks pass atop the bridge over me. There’s the customary river to my right to stare into and across, and to tempt me to consider staying here forever.

Km 556, Panjim, 5:55pm

The hills open up to reveal open skies and underneath-lying valleys. There’s the bridge on the Mandovi – the first time I saw it, I thought it was an inland arm of the sea. I switch to first gear, crawl across the humongous river that, even in summer, is so wide it looks like it’s in spate.

Now, to find hotel Neptune. The landmark I’ve been given is National theatre. I get odd looks when I ask for said theatre. When I do find said theatre, it turns out the morning show is of Vicious Vixens(starring ‘the sensuous goddess’ Mona) and other shows are of Ghar me ho saali to poora saal diwali.

Neptune turns out to be a sterile, plain, colourless place – the white all over the bedsheets and walls makes it look like a hospital room. I need it only for a night, so I don’t bother too much. I’m not too tired, but I take a pre-dinner nap, for there’s 380km to do tomorrow.

This trip isnt about seeing towns, it’s more about seeing what’s in between towns, enjoying the middle of nowhere, so all I see of Panjim is on a short post-dinner walk along the Mandovi. Ghar me ho saali to poora saal diwali, unfortunately, will have to wait.

There and back again - 1

2007-05-31T14:22:00.002+04:00

Km 0, Pimpri Chinchwad New Town, 6:45am

Q: Why is Pimpri Chinchwad New Town like a ball outside off stump?
A: Because it can be well left.

****
Km 21, Pune City, 7:10am

Breakfast. And coffee to top the full-to-the-brim stomach. One major lesson from the starved, tired-out rides of last year - eat and rest well when driving all day. Go slow enough to take in everything there is. The plan, therefore, is to go slow, take my time, see everything, do no more than 350km a day.

The friend who accompanies me for breakfast says I look like a Mithun-movie-villain in my jacket. Unmentionable things are immediately done to him.

****
KM 33, Start of State Highway 60, 8:20am

Last view of the city. I see the lego-block houses from the perch on the hill which the SH60 ascends. There’s the NH4 bypass below that unwinds both ways and stretches away.

A sharp bend around the hill, and everything spins out of sight.

****
KM78, Just before Mulshi, 9:25am

Ghat, first of many to come. Niggle in the back, first of many to come. I park between two huge mud banks –the road makes the base of a big V with them.

Not a soul, not a vehicle, as I look down into the plain below, at houses sparsely sprinkled amid swathes of green. I wonder what life is like in a dwelling that independent, one that stands all by itself, in proud isolation.

I lie down under a tree, rest my back and look at the sky.

Right ahead is the Mulshi reservoir that the SH60 holds hands with as it walks over the next 10-15km, before the reservoir dissolves into a once flooded field. The hills around are almost Egyptian – the sharp edges give them a pyramidal appearance, with the space in between plunging into canyons.

****
Km 105, 11:15am

Absolutely vertical rock face to my left, flinging a long shadow across the road and beyond – the perfect place for a break. I lie down on a stone barrier above the drop into the valley below, and look up at the rock face. The rockface obscures the sun, even though it’s almost noon.

I join the NH17 someway on. The frenzy of the trucks and cars roaring by infects me – I’m soon taking frequent frantic glances at my watch and odometer to furiously calculate speeds, I’m going after lorries that I’d have let go sometime else. I know I need a break, so I can recover a more easy, comfortable driving rhythm.

****
Km 159, Just before Mahad, 1:10 pm

I pass by a restaurant with tables facing a riverfront. I stop immediately, disregard shady appearance that seems to almost guarantee bad food, and go in. Waiters seem to take their time, which is just as well, so I can look at the river and the glimmers within the water, almost like stars at night.

Turns out the guys can’t even make decent rice-and-dal, but I decide a splash in the water would counteract the bad food quite well.

“Nadi me us side naha sakte hai, na?”
“Saab, try mat karo. Poora chemical se bhara hai. Chutiya factory wala hai us taraf - sab nadi me chodta hai.”

At that point of time Ruchi family garden restaurant ceased to be a family restaurant.

****
Km 166, Mahad, 2:30pm

Bad dal rice needs to be supplemented, and I wonder if I’ll find a decent place to do honours. The resolution to feed myself well on this trip already seems in grave danger.

This restaurant called Vithal Kamat, with enough cars parked outside it to assure me of some level of decency in the food. Turns out the menu has curd rice on it – all I need to offset worries of sad food!

“Yeh curd rice dena”
“Saab, alag nahi milenge. Yeh dish khichdi ki tarah hai, curd aur rice dono mix hoke aate hai.”

****
Km 176, Parle, 3:35pm

A globule settles on helmet visor. Another. Yet another. Rain!

Uh oh, if the monsoon beats me to Mangalore, I’ll have to pack up bike and truck it home. The day’s paper tells me monsoons are due to hit Kerala only around the 27th, so I’m hoping they won’t get it wrong by much. This is only a mild drizzle, and so is reassuring.

For now, I lie down inside a mantap of sorts, about which the local kids tell me,”Andar baith sakte ho, par bhagwan ke time me allowed nahi hai.”

****
Km 201, Top of ghat after Poladpur, 4:30pm

Rain again! This time it decides to pour down like it’s nobody’s business. I decide I’ll drive through it, particularly since the coming stretch is a descent from the top. I switch engine off, skate the bike down the ghat in the downpour. It’s 10km in silence, amid water pouring onto me, it’s like going down an enormous slide in a park.

In this ghat, as also others, you see up close the features of the hills that you’ve seen from a distance only a while ago. Silhouettes of peaks and gashes of green and grey resolve themselves into a thousand trees and rocks and hay and mud and tar. It’s the same thing on two altogether different scales, and you love both for completely different reasons.

****
Km 213, after descent from ghat, 4:50pm

I decide I’ll spend the night here, in the lap of the Sahyadris, amid the terraces that lace the enormous peaks. I park in a roadside village, and the temple is recommended to me as a place of stay. Good, good, say I. The guys seem disappointed that I’m not put off at the prospect.

I ask if one of the families will serve me food. In return for financial considerations of course, I add. No volunteers.

I’m approached by a newcomer, who introduces himself as the temple priest. Strangers staying in the temple is okay with him, he says, but he’s just an employee – the owner of the temple is an MSRTC bus conductor, who is out on duty, and may not approve.

I have to content myself with a walk alongside the village, and drive on.

****
Km 239, Lote-Parashuram, 5:40pm

I plan to get to Chiplun for the night, but I spot this resort of sorts sometime before it. A part of me tells me it’s going to be too expensive for me, but I check it out anyway.

Plush non-ac room for 600. Very neat, almost star-hotel-ic. Includes use of swimming pool. Yes! I take it.

I cool off over tea, and wallow in what calls itself ‘the best swimming pool in Ratnagiri district’. I look on from the water as orange fades to yellow to inky blue to deep black.

2007-03-18T13:18:00.001+04:00

The abode.

Top right is where the bed is.

Bottom left is where sleeping happens.

***

****

2007-02-23T19:18:00.001+04:00

…. and where there’s a highway, what’s a little bloodshed here and there, eh?

Twas a dark and stormy night. Okay, not really stormy. One half of the National Highway 4 was barricaded for repairs. No warning boards. An area of darkness. You hear yourself crash much before you manage to see anything blocking the road.

At 75 kilometres an hour, the only sound you hear is of the metal slamming into asphalt. Of mud and gravel ripping through your clothing, of sand tearing into your skin and fusing into a mishmash of blood and flesh and earth and mud and pebbles, as you’re dragged along by the collapsing steed. That’s a lot of sounds, eh?

Poop. It doesn’t feel all that dreadful as you’re conditioned to believe – my knee and heel and everything in between all have a sharp tang emanating from them - but it’s more like irritation than agony. My perception is much heightened; I can sense more acutely the minutest sensation in my lacerated arms and legs – it’s a combination of a gazillion crawls, each different from the other. The ankle feels wet from blood trickling down it – it’s a bit of a change from the dry dirt that’s been stirred and mashed into my flesh these last few seconds; it also reminds me rather abruptly that my throat is parched.

I turn the key, and sit down on the road. I decide the nonchalant dude act is in order – nonchalant dude picks up bike, drives home, washes wounds, and doesn’t think about it afterwards. Aaaah, it’s a *little* tough bending my knee. Or for that matter lifting the bike. Or walking. Pfoo – I drag self from underneath bike, wobble towards the streetlight, recline on the divider, and stretch legs.

For the first time, I see my arms and legs. Aaaaaargh! How the hell am I going to clean all that up? There’s mud a mile deep into my flesh, all along the enormous openings in my skin, there’s red everywhere, lightened occasionally wherever the earth has pitched in, and garnished where the pebbles have volunteered. Aaaah – someone’s going to have to rub the wound a million times to get all that mud out of it.

I decide I’ll not think about it. On an impulse shut my eyes to try and do nothing but feel, sense as fully, as completely as I can the itch, the burn, the bristle in my arms and feet. Aaaah.

Gentle reader, you’re perhaps wondering if I haven’t heard of hospitals or doctors that I had decided to sit down in the midst of highways and bleed on to glory. I must point to the fact that it was a half past eleven, and so the only alternative to being nonchalant dude was to wait for reinforcements.

In due time, a solitary auto showed up. Chap picked up the helmet that had flown off my head on impact, the cell which had decided to do a triple jump from my pocket, and of course, parked the bike, which had dragged me along after having completed the formality of getting its face smashed in.

“Nah, don’t hold me, I’ll walk inside”, saith I once we reach the hosp. Aaah dammit, I haven’t the strength to speak – my vocal chords are stretched, and yet hardly a whisper emanates. Three staggering steps, as the auto guy apprehensively looked on, before he rushed to hold me. “Get a goddamn wheelchair”, I could’ve been screaming, but every word could only struggle out of my lips.

Aaaah man, I plopped into the wheelchair, it hit me as to how completely physically deflated I was. A while ago, it was almost as if no amount of bloodletting would do anything to me, and now, ah, I was so devoid of energy, or for that matter the will or the life to be able to do anything - the only resolve I seemed capable of making was to determine to do nothing, and let people take care.

Got hauled into a ward, it took a while to get all the mud cleaned – it was a strange sensation finally seeing the expanse of blood and flesh all by themselves; free of all the earth that I thought would never get away from it.

Pah – still cant speak- water please! No avail, I’m talking in hoarse whispers. Could I at least write my name? My right wrist isn’t going to jump at the idea, thank you very much. The doc let it pass.

‘Trauma’, wrote the doc, in large friendly letters. Gaah, trauma it seems – I contemplated a protest at being described thus, before surrendering to the superior, yet sweet forces of sheer fatigue that quietly embraced me.

**

Tis Immutable law time again!

One: The day you desist from wearing your jacket and shoes is the day you crash.

Two: Your insurance policy always expires two days before you crash.

Three: Time wounds all heels.

**

One does, however, look at the brighter side, which in this case was that one was compelled one to pick four wheels instead of two, which, you will admit, has its merits.

**

Light at the end of the tunnel?

2007-01-15T10:47:00.001+04:00

Where there's a will, there's a highway.

Boo!

Reflections on bus exteriors.

PS - Click on them pics to view them better.

Quizzes this weekend!

2007-01-04T09:29:00.000+04:00

There be BCQC quizzes this weekend. Please to find details here .

Do pop in!

2006-11-26T10:31:00.001+04:00

As the bike bobbed up and down in an attempt to traverse what was a rather bad excuse for a road, it ground its way over dust and stones, while its usual purr steadily degenerated into a whine. The best of journeys, I tried hard to convince myself, could have inauspicious beginnings. I was trying to make my way to the Nasik highway, for I had never ventured due north of Pune before.

The highway, once reached, pacified the body, jangled and rattled as it was by the connecting road. The seismic shuddering of the bones that appeared all set to continue forever was soon eased, courtesy National Highway number 50. While the said highway was well short of the dreamy playground-like expansiveness of the legendary NH4, the space it afforded more than sufficed for pleasurable driving.

Most cities taper off as you approach their periphery – colourful high rise homes give way to the dull grey of industrial estates, which make way for the dusty single homes and shops of townships, which in turn diminish to shacks and farmhouses, which eventually fall away to open up vast free, unpeopled stretches. Like every city, Pune too withered away before my eyes. As the last of its colourless chimneys exhaled dark wisps, the lonely, unpeopled hillocks that stood behind them intently watched the puffs of smoke meander upwards.

Even as the city was dissolving into the emptiness of the countryside,
there were hills to be gone across. The highway took a forthright approach – it refused to round the hills and tortuously wind its way around them. The NH 50 simply mounted every one of the slopes much like a kid would amble atop a slide in a park. On these hillocks, the upward moving roads evaporated into curly clouds – you couldn’t see the road plunge downwards on the other side of the slope.

Not all hills, however, take kindly to be treated in such an impudent manner –the Khed ghat was one such. It refused to let the highway through without a circumambulatory payment of respects. The highway, unmindful, wound its way through the ghat, greeting the taller of the trees in the valley that craned their necks so as to peep onto the road.

As the highway snaked its way to the top of the ghat, and I prepared to switch my engine off during the descent, surprise – there was no descent to be found! The highway continued straight on – only, wedged at a higher altitude, as the slopes evened out into flatter tracts, and only the bald emptiness of vacant sweeps of land remained as they strolled away towards the faraway skies.

Once upstairs, the blankness of the terrain was intermittent. Just when you thought you were going to get a good long spell of nothingness, along came a town, swathed in the afternoon redness of mud and dust. The metallic shimmer of the highway’s black faded to an uneven mishmash of ginger and cowdung-green, as the omnipresent sand drowned out the dusky tarmac of the road.

Quarter to three. Time, perhaps, to turn back? Slowed near what appeared to be a hamlet. Right sole went gently down upon the brake as I eased to a halt underneath a banyan tree. Gloves and jacket came off, a swig of water went in, and I tried finding a place to sit or perhaps lie down while I let the engine cool.

At first sight – no place promising enough to sit down. Go down the road, find another spot? Then it was that it caught my eye – this decently big milestone across the road. Wondered if the candybar shaped yellow and white tombstone would be comfortable enough. Tried – wasn’t too bad, so decided to park self upon the stone.

Hamlet residents one and two walked by, clearly not accustomed to seeing young men perched upon their friendly neighbourhood milestone, and issued me a what-the-hell-is-the-matter-with-you stare. I refused to pay attention to them, they walked on.

Settled thus, I had the time to do all the nothing I wanted to do, as Bill W. would have put it, and so proceeded to do the same. Looked around, past the fields on either side, beside the knoll that looked an enormous haystack, noticed the footpath etched onto the side of the said hill and spotted a cyclist amble upwards on it, saw a group of young men walk away with baskets atop their heads, perused the silhouettes of the looming hills a long, long way off that the road seemed to dissolve into, realized that I’d watched only the land, only what was terra firma, even though the vaster, larger horizon was all around me. I hadn’t noticed the enormous balls of fluffiness in the sky even though they dwarfed everything upon land that I’d watched. Made amends, watched the skies, and all the emptiness inherent therein.

The highway beside my perch, of course, continued to flow unabated. Rattle, buzz, purr, roar, grrr, tinkle, beep, pom all reached the ears. The little flowers flanking the road on either side of my perch nodded in response to the airflow engendered by the passage of traffic. The flora shook their heads vigourously to trucks and buses, and acknowledged cars and jeeps with a more understated hello.

2006-05-25T12:39:00.000+04:00

A group of us have started a new sports blog - Silly Point, which will be a features-and-opinions blog. Much like other topical blogs, but one exclusively pertinent to sport.

Transmission has begun - I've posted this piece I wrote this morning.

Do check the blog out - we hope to make it pretty comprehensive soon.

Station-ed in the metropolis....

2006-05-15T10:29:00.001+04:00

*********

Not exactly dove-hodiyodu*.

********

*******

Woah, what I would give to get to work from an office like this one... Envy of them Central Railways employees engulfs me... It is, of course, not all peace and tranquility and Brit raj charm - indeed, before you can say Shree Shree Shree Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj terminus, a gazillion people will have passed through this place... Which isnt too big a price to pay anyway...

*******

*Consult nearest Ban-ga-lora-ean for precise definition.

2006-05-10T12:04:00.001+04:00

The baap of the devil.

Significant material possessions.

Cattle class

Cattle class redux.

Going, going, gone....

2006-05-10T11:33:00.001+04:00

Thoughts of trains....

2006-05-10T10:58:00.001+04:00

While waiting for the last local back home at a half past eleven. Having a not-so-great cam does have its advantages - you get dreamy, wispy, stud images that look right out of an Edward Hopper painting.

From a local train door, earlier in the day. The places perhaps will never be written about. Suffice to say they're approximately 42km from home.

Some single-serving friends....

2006-05-10T10:42:00.002+04:00

Portraits of the driver as a young man - I.

2006-04-21T10:11:00.002+04:00

A steed. A maze of untouched, unexplored highways stretching away, inviting you to wade through every one of them, to go on through enormity after enormity of nothingness. There may be temptations that can be resisted, but this definitely isnt one of them. A new cam meant some portions of this ride across nowhere were recorded, at least to the extent that the not-particularly-great resolution of the cam permitted. Here be those sets-of-thousand-words.

That table on which the glass is, it's sub-lime, aint it?

We've come a long way, baby.

Reflections on protective gear.

Some 42km outside town, minutes before sundown, when torn between rushing to town before dark and imbibing some of the Best Sugarcane Juice in The World(TM). Said juice was drunk, darkness caused no harm to befall the driver, since city lights began a short distance after. Said driver did, however, end up with a headache due to the city traffic, whose slow-start-stop jams dont quite drive you ecstatic. Not after a no-worry highway cruise.

Portraits of the driver as a young man - II.

2006-04-21T09:37:00.001+04:00

Sunsets and sunrises are the among the most common motifs in art and aesthetics, yet they never bore you or cease to hold your imagination. Out in the open, on a highway in the middle of nowhere, watching a sunset all by yourself makes it a first hand, close up experience, much like riding across nowheres, that makes you feel closer to, in proximity with nature, with the sunset.

Sunflowers! Bad photo, but REAL sunflowers! Not on TV or in a tourist album, not even a fleeting glimpse through a speeding bus or train, but field after field of glaring yellow running away to infinity - right here, right now, right around me. I hopped off the highway, parked on the side road that coursed through the midst of these fields, sat down upon a the edge of a little bridge. Their calm was infectious. It helped that it was late morning, and that I'd been driving since sun-up and so was in need of a break, so much time could be spent here.

This was another of the times when I wished I had a much better camera. This was a swampy stretch that I viewed from the ledge of a cliff outside Hospet on NH13. I parked upon the stones on the roadside, regretting as one does on such occasions - that things like these, those that we love the most are those that we cannot stay forever with. Some half an hour was all that could be devoted, for sundown, alas, approached, and a town had to be gotten to before dark, before the killer trucks would begin to go on the attack.

Portraits of the driver as a young man - III.

2006-04-21T08:44:00.001+04:00

The Re-loins stations. Very neat, very well kept, amazingly spacious and comfortable - with hygienically prepared horrid tasting food - it tasted equally bad in the couple of stations I went to across three states. The perfect places to stop over and take a nap, after you've had lunch elsewhere.

Eh? Why should I give a caption for every pic?

That's un-burn.

The phantom steed.

Still life with unkempt hair.

2006-03-27T09:49:00.001+04:00

The steed was de-lighted. Her lights were refusing to work. That fact came into my cognizance only after I'd slithered onto the Bangalore highway on my way back home. Which fact, you'll quite agree, is distinctly unfunny at a quarter past ten in the night on a dark highway, particularly when 15 km of that thoroughfare has planted itself between you and home.

During previous rides, the headlight being in order had quite attenuated my sensitivity to the fact that there were, in fact, no street lights on the said highway. I could, of course, navigate the steed by the lights of the city that loomed beyond the knolls and go at 70 or so, but proceeding for some 10 meters sufficed to convince me of the hopeless inadequacy of the said so-called illumination for the requisite speed.

I was by now 10 meters ahead, which quite ruled out the possibility of going all the way back into the city and clutching the old highway. There was lethargy pertinent to the extra distance to be driven, there was also what I was trying to tell myself was pride, and how I'd be proud to have driven at 70kmph in pitch darkness – tale for grandchildren and that sort of thing.

Easy does it, I thought. All I need do is latch onto another motorcyclist and follow his tail light. Other motorcyclists were quite at the desired speed, so I let go as soon as the next whizz went past, and charged ahead. Seeing a blot of red 20 meters ahead and heading straight on in that general direction shouldn't be that difficult, I told myself.

A curve announced its arrival by the shoving the road away to my right, and this I had to negotiate without the benefit of any sort of illumination, for the red dot lit no part of the road, and illuminated nothing but itself. Being on the edge of the road, ambitious of touching 70, it isn't the easiest of tasks to avoid contemplating the possibility of the tar underneath your wheels sprinting off to your right and giving way to gravel, or worse - to bushes and vegetation lining the road, or to ditches and drains that were in equal abundance, or for that matter to air which would gladly proclaim its presence whenever the road would prop itself upwards.

Thoughts of the sort, therefore, walked into my head, checked in and made themselves comfortable. By now, the red spot had drifted away. The gently rising embankments of the hillock lay both to my left and right – those on my right being pockmarked by sparks, by dots of various shades of yellow and white of the city lights that punctured the darkness like shards of broken glass glinting in sunlight, but which sparkles stubbornly refused to be bright enough to show me my way ahead.

There were other red lights I could chase, and I could even do so at 60-70. But to do so and simultaneously stay on the road was, I reluctantly admitted to myself, rather beyond my abilities, considerable as they might be. I therefore resigned myself to having to take the steed along at 30 or so. Due deceleration was effected.

Given the highway was this one, I feared that a pace of 30 odd would amount to sheer torture. The next swing of the road to the left drove into exile such, and all other thought, for I was by now really paying attention, really looking, concentrating, on what I could see nothing whatsoever of. Call it survival instinct if you must – not wanting to end up on a hospital bed, I must humbly confess, does come rather naturally to me.

For the first time since I had begun driving, I was actually looking ahead, forward, and not sideways. What was my sole concern was what was immediate, and not any of the accompanying frills or sideshows. Sometimes, while on the road, when you see, love the people, the landscapes, the hills, the rivers, the skies, you miss the road itself – it's easy to skip the obvious.

I could today see the dull, dark twin blotches stroll away ahead of me, and see nothing but that. There were occasional shimmers of the radium signposts flanking the path, there was the yellow-white stripe on the left edge following it loyally to the end of the world, there were thickets that you could only see the outlines of – that earlier rides had told you were the clumps of bougainvillea that had sprung from the dividers. The road waved about left and right in curls whose roundedness I had never noticed before – somehow all that seemed to have mattered before was the speedometer reading. Mohandas had told me too – there's more to life than increasing its speed. The smooth curvature – like that of an infant's cheeks, looked like one huge, unconcerned swoosh of some cosmic paintbrush.

Sometimes embracing the hillocks, sometimes breaking free to be all by itself, sometimes taking a peek at a the shimmying of a lake that lay downstairs, occasionally crawling underneath bridges, sometimes wiggling between cliffs, at times going up on its toes to skip across rivulets, the road stretched itself out upon its back as it lay down underneath the blanket of the inky sky, even as the occasional roar of an overtaking vehicle dissolved into a crimson speck in the distance.

It moved on seemingly in ripples - flutters that used to be concealed from you before by speed, preoccupations, everything else you thought was terribly important. It gently, softly sauntered up, making of itself a mound that you felt you could almost slide off, and as it leisurely ambled down the rise I saw a glimmering stream of golden yellow, which was all you could see of the lights of the few oncoming vehicles there were at this time. It was an incandescent dribbling brook of gold that sputtered irregularly forth from far ahead, and lay before you in a neat straight line comprising of fluorescent droplets. The intermittent, discontinuous garland of approaching embers threaded together by the black of the road gave out a dazzle that glared into your eyes as it approached, and for that reason I had to try all the more harder to see the road directly ahead, immediately underneath my tyres.

***

One is reminded of these verses. Also these, and these.

2006-03-06T11:34:00.001+04:00

There’re times when something you read or see exactly reflects what you think, but have never, ever managed to put down in writing. I came across Rahul Bhatia writing about traveling alone, and doing it not just beautifully but with the sort of truthfulness that’s a relief after you see writer after writer, traveler after traveler reduce the act of travel to clichés, to what it is supposed to be, to what you simply know by experience is, if not contrived and fake, infinitely less fun. This is simply because most travelers treat chronicles as advertisements they have to design so as to make travel look cute and/or macho, and not a depiction of what they’ve actually felt. Sexiness demands careful decoration and packaging, but all that beauty asks for is the truth.

Admittedly, what Rahul writes isn’t all there is – there’s so much more to freestyle travel. But it is so incredibly difficult to transmogrify an experience, a sensation, a feeling into dry, neatly chiseled words, almost as if to say nature is as orderly, as regimented as we wish it to be, and that we can conveniently fold and fit its sensations into the colorful gift-wrapping of words. Difficult is probably the wrong word, writing is easy enough, it’s just that the write up seems so grotesque an approximation of the reality, you just feel you’re killing the spirit of the ride by doing it. You only feel like writing about something as precious, as personal as freestyle travel if you can bring to the writing at least some of the beauty, some of the truth that you’ve actually experienced.

**

Biking alone, while a subset of freestyle travel, is so very different. You are aware, awake, switched on all the time(you crash if you aren’t), so you perceive the fine details, the trifles that, while being easy-to-miss, light up your day once you spot them.

It’s crucial to take time and distance out of the equation, the augh-there-might-be-a-ghat-ahead-to-slow-me-down, eek-the-engine-is-hot, I-simply-have-to-get-there-before-5pm types of rides with a place to get to, a deadline to meet that would perch on the back of your mind, those types of rides – on bikes or otherwise, considerably diminish pleasure by their persistent nagging.

It’s so much freeing to just go, not have to get anywhere, amble, sit back, stop, look around. 400 laid back km a day are so much more satisfying than 650 frenzied ones(as I learnt during the last trip, a frantic rush to Panjim and back). The thought made me make my plans for subsequent rides much less grandiose – I’d originally planned to run about all over south India, go everywhere and see everything. It’s a choice that, I realize, while enabling me to see more, would let me appreciate what I saw so much less. The plan is therefore revised, we have resolved to go more slowly, see lesser number of places, but we’ll see more of each of them, and love them so much more.

**
On a bike, you realize, more acutely than on any means of public transport, what no Liverpudlian will tell you – that you always walk alone. Oddly, it’s a feeling that at once releases as well as frightens you – you see clearly that there’s nothing ever that you really need or require, all you need is yourself, and yet, that if you crash, or break down, or get robbed, you’re all alone, naked, with no other resource than yourself to look to.

**

It turns out, Rahul has been in Revdanda too, a piece of knowledge that corrected a belief that no non-Revdanda-ian other than me had been in the place(please note - passing through a place or seeing it is NOT the same as being there). I was able to stay there only a couple of hours, regretting that I had to go on, so I will reluctantly admit that Rahul partook more of what Revdanda had to offer. However, it was determined back then that Revdanda would be revisited, so all is well.

2006-03-01T15:52:00.000+04:00

Peter Roebuck writes in the first issue of the Cricinfo magazine:

Watching Brian Lara bat is a delight to put beside African sunsets, dry white wine, eating a ripe mango, catching a wave, reading PG Wodehouse and listening to Mozart and Bob Dylan. In short, the Trinidadian satisfies the senses. Even the most jaded cricketing palate belonging to an ancient reporter condemned to decades of fretting about 12 ^th men and cloak and dagger Indian politics feels his guard slipping as Lara constructs a humble defensive stroke. Having reluctantly accepted that the ball cannot be put away with the certainty demanded by his circumstances, Lara does not lower himself merely to interrupting the ball's progress. Rather he constructs an ornate and yet impenetrable blockade that serves its purpose without giving too much ground to the prosaic. Never has 'thou shalt not pass' been so prettily done.

Makes you realize, a thing of beauty inspires otherwise prosaic imaginations to quite beautiful creations. It was only someone as beautiful as Brian who could cause Roebuck to erupt into such prose. Reminded me of other writers whom the man's deeds have similarly moved – in particular, write ups on that 153 at Bridgetown, the 213 at Jamaica and that series in Sri Lanka. Also brought to memory some people with not-so-great-English who amazed me by coming up with some brilliant writing simply because they wrote of what they were in love with.

(Alas, I cant find a soft copy of the complete article, so cant link it.)

And then there're sub-headlines like

After the 2004 incident, the men in blue lost a one dayer in Peshawar again. But they ENJOYED a different date with history in the city after visiting the Khyber pass.

And titles like

Hutch in their clutch

That's the new Sportstar's abysmal formatting. The upper case is for emphasis, I quite agree – but surely we aren't that stupid? That kind of juvenile formatting is an insult. I cant imagine how people like Rohit Brijnath, Ram Mahesh and Brian Glanville allow their articles to be thus ravaged.

2006-02-13T18:13:00.001+04:00

Having taken Friday off, I was going on this ride this weekend. As I went by upon the Bombay highway near Khandala, I saw the road sloping downwards and swiveling away to the right without warning. It is a matter of complete amazement to me as to how drivers and riders actually pass by it and manage to stay alive, given that they go along the preceding straight at 80 and upwards, and thus hardly have time to notice the curve.

Of course, they that do crash may be considered fortunate, for, if you manage to clear the first curve at 80, there's no way you'll get past the next one that lies just 20m ahead unless you're at under 30 with your foot hard upon the brake, which curve is comprising of a road contorting itself into a grotesque reflex angle, making you wonder about the purpose of such a road, one so unnavigable. This second curve, unlike the first and like the subsequent ones, doesn't offer you the cushion of a wall to crash into – you miss the road, you fly off the cliff.

But then, such are the roads that surmount the ghats, that lace through the hills, as I found through the weekend that these curves inaugurated. It was just that I was new to driving on this sort of terrain. On these, or for that matter on any hills, your most important assets are your brake and your horn. You can forget your accelerator at home.

Death is a familiar passer by upon the Bombay Pune highway. Two motorcycles lying lacerated upon the ground in small puddles of glass shreds – giving no hints about the fate of their riders, one lorry 10km ahead, rammed into the wall of the tunnel causing a mile long clot in the traffic behind, another lorry lying overturned further ahead, with an enormous smear of red upon the tar around it, 3m of the all too frail and inadequate stretch that was the railing gone missing, having been driven through, making all too obvious the fate of the car which'd have sliced through it and taken a leap down the rock face.

Amid the mile long congealing of the vehicles, a police van flits by noisily, an ambulance rushes in with its shrill alarm. Slowly the crowding gawkers disperse, one particular motorcyclist weaves away amid the 4 wheelers to the front of the traffic jam, the jam dissolves, we all instinctively move into gear 4 and begin to accelerate, firmly convinced that it always happens to someone else.

2006-02-06T14:01:00.001+04:00

1026.7.

That was the reading on the distance indicator on steed(known henceforth as The Muse) as on yesterday night, a circumstance that was the cause of much rejoicing and tribal dance performances(for reasons mentioned here). My one spot of bother was that the moment couldnt be captured for posterity - I wish I had a cam, ra. However, there were pleasures that more than compensated.

The 1026.7 was brought up in a memorable manner too – the last few kilometers being covered at 71kmph on the bypass/Bangalore highway/whatever you call it. Whatever it is that you decide to call it, it’ll still be a rather unassuming name for as grand, as expansive a stretch of road.

I’m trying hard to keep myself from tumbling into poetic/melodramatic mode, but what can you say about a stretch on which you don’t need to go below 60? Where you can keep off the clutch, brake and gear, and just be. Just exist, just go on, in almost zen-ic equanimity wherever The Muse takes you. In a pothole-less, interference-less, traffic-less state where the mind is without fear, and that sort of thing. A video game ambience, with bridges, hills, rivers, flyovers and the occasional overtake-able lorry/auto thrown in for effect, amid the blemishless streak of black that sprints away, demanding aloud that you go ahead and call it infinite.

What civilization is visible is at times quite reminiscent of Hobbiton, with extents of rocky mounds rearing up on either side of the road, and illuminated multi-storeyed apartments and residences perched in a staggered formation upon the ledges of the mounds, like on the steps of a staircase.

At the end of the highway, you see the road go on due south-east. The small matter of a 1200km longer.

Drool. Salivate. Slurp.

**

What invariably follows a jolly ride/high/pleasurable experience is a thud-down-to-earth. So it was with The Muse and I too. Turning off the bypass onto the homeward road, we proceeded to bounce about on the potholes and stones at 70kmph.

We continued thus until we were met by another bike rider, who, unable to decide whether he should cross the road or not, concluded that parking his vehicle in the path of a 70kmph bike would enable him to reach the decision he was hitherto unable to arrive at.

A nanosecond-long prayer, a scrape, a bent number plate and lots of visions later, considerable sobering resulted. Home was reached at a more modest 39.99 kmph, a figure evocative of them old days.

**

This ride was preceded by some profound discussions upon the beautiful game, with special reference to the batsmanship of one particular player.

You are advised to desist from killing yourself if you did not understand the reference in the previous sentence.

2006-02-01T10:11:00.000+04:00

Stung by persistent critiques of the alleged artlessness of his game – the man Afridi decides to show ‘em.

He proceeds to execute an impromptu choreographic performance, the spikes upon his feet simultaneously etching a breathtaking pattern upon the ground. Yes, with a brand new medium – a cricket pitch as canvas - he brings together in one glorious performance two disparate forms of art - conjuring an exquisite piece of modern art upon the ground beneath his feet even as he waltzed away in a flowing, flowering, aah smooth dance - extemporaneously, forget not, creating art that in its dynamism expressed absolutely his personality.

His belief of his genius is cemented by the fact that his genius wasn’t being recognized in his lifetime – the peasants who catch him on camera decide not only to exile him for three games (see also - this, this) but decide also to obliterate his art by rolling the pitch - woe, never will generations to come believe that such art existed.

Oh, he pleaded, he explained, why, he wept that it was ground-breaking work, and they replied that that was why he was being ejected. Tis, ah, a cruel world. They verily are blown to dust who attempt to leave their footprints upon the sands of time.