Here and There :)

Early in the morning, as the mist over the mountains thinned into an indistinct haze, a solitary plume of smoke rose in the distance. Considering what a busy hill-station this was, the sense of tranquility that seemed to soak each passing moment was unexpectedly invigorating.

It was beautiful here. Climbing up, high above the plains, everything became ridiculously simple and uncomplicated. The view was stunning up here, the very air seemed sparkling with some strange magic.

Breakfast was a leisurely feast, the marmalade somehow essential to the setting. Do cane and marmalade actually go well together? Food... it's all about food at the end of the day! What we feed our bodies, what we feed our minds, what kind of mess we cook up with our emotions...

No, no! This story is not going to be all about food; that just happened to be on my mind (as usual). This story is about one of the many other things that usually are on my mind. The occasional mystery, for instance.

It all began some months ago, at a popular hang-out in South Delhi. There they were, five young boys, dirty, unkempt but supremely confident of their place under the sun (for that is where they spent most of their time). The bags in their hands may have been stuffed with rubbish, their brains crammed full of instructions to scavenge and claw theirway through life, but for that one moment, they were kids having fun.

Fun.

This needed looking into. It had been a while since fun had thumbed its nose at me so unexpectedly. It was like a sign that said: Catch me if you can!

Well, I'd like to, ofcourse... who wouldn't! But hey, all around me, there were people, cars, noise, smoke... the works! It seemed to be a trifle overcrowded for something as simple as Fun.

So I thought of going some place that messed up my senses less. Luckily, some friends wanted to go visit Humayun's Tomb, so I tagged along!

The monument was beautiful as ever, though pretty well swarming with tourists. The smaller tomb of Isa Khan was comparatively quiet. Yes! Good place to contemplate things, or merely take a few pictures without worrying about getting twenty random people in the frame!

The sun was already starting to yawn a little, and I had a long way to travel, so that day's investigations had to be abandoned. A new day and a new plan would solve the mystery, I was sure!

I spent the journey home thinking of bed and how nice it would feel to relax each part of my body, dreaming about what I would dream about when asleep!! Of course, that is not quite what happened!

Yes, we ended up at the mall.

A mall can be a fun place to be. There are brilliant lights in all colours, people of all kinds to watch, and of course, lots to eat! Bro was home after ages, so even though we were both rather worn out, we washed our faces and sallied forth. 'To the Mall', said he. To the Mall, it was.

While I savoured every spoonful of the chocolate ice cream he was treating me to, Bro flirted a little with the nearby billboard. Discovery of the evening: Laughter goes deliciously well with ice cream and chocolate sauce!

It so happened that Bro had some other news as well!! 'We're off to Bombay tomorrow,' he said. Perfect!! I called up my friends in that city to tell them the glad news immediately!

Friends are fun!!! And my friends in particular tend to sport rather nice footwear.

Ah, I digress! So, bro and I reached Bombay, and just because the autos there are so much of a change from the ones in Delhi, we started taking photographs almost as soon as we sat in it!

*Ting*: Sound made by the meter. Also a sound I rather like! Additionally, a sound that makes me happy, simply because it means I'm in a different part of the country and that I'm travelling!

Evening is, of course, the time to traipse around Bombay, and we did so, meeting the recently-red-headed one and doing all the touristy things possible!!

The sight of lights on water was like the sparkly paper on a gift. Of course, we'd beenenjoying the city for a while before we got to see the pretty wrapper, but still totally worth it!

Tired, but very happy, we called it a day.

The next morning, we were traveling again, this time by road. The road from Bombay to Shirdi is sometimes a nightmare, cause the people who drive trucks, buses, vans, cabs and the occasional motorcycle on that road seem to delight in trying to overtake other vehicles just as some huge bus or truck rounds a corner towards them, full speed ahead!

A could of trips down, you become immune and really start enjoying the scenery. You are liable to pick up a little marathi as well (I now know how to say 'there's a school up ahead': pudhe shaala aahe).

What I particularly like about that part of the countryside is the shape of their bullock carts. Unlike what I grew up seeing in UP, the carts here are a beautiful curvy shape, with nice large wheels that somehow look very romantic! Maybe the fact that I first saw these in the moonlight has something to do with it!

While at Kohrale, a small sleepy village, I met Lakshmi the blind cow, who could only see food, or so the guys who were taking care of her claimed! She was quite a sweet thing, happily eating all that was put before her, and trying to take the occasional bite from us tasty little morsels. That blissful day soon passed, however, and we had to go back. That's when it started to rain!

The droplets of water seemed to have washed the entire earth clean and she was resplendent in all her green finery as we sped back to the city.

Soon, too soon, we were back in Bombay, and then in Delhi, where the erratic rainfall kept us wondering!

I was happy to be home, but the short, swift trip had left me buzzing with energy. I thought this would be a good time to write to my sister in college down South!

Apart from the random thrill I get from using inland letters, it's the thought of how happy it makes me to receive letters that had me writing to her. Telephones and emails made a lot of what i wrote to her redundant, but i guess the essence of that moment reached her through the ink on the paper!!

That brings me back to the beginning of this story... the hills and the tranquility.

Sitting with my feet dangling in the cold, fresh water (rushing down to be worshipped and desecrated in equal measure), my mind went back to those boys in that busy Delhi marketplace. Fun. I had my share of fun in my random quest, not when I was trying to, but in between the searching, traveling, randomness and rain drop chasing. That felt good. That explained life for me.

I'm tired now! Rambling is fun, but makes you sleepy after a while!

circumstances beyond control

There are always things you want to control, but can't. The weather, for instance. When I was in Dehradun, the weather improved in Delhi. The day I came back, it was as hot as ever! The one day I forgot to take my umbrella along, it rained. The weather... what is one to do about it?

Then there are people. Of course, people are contrary by definition. The only reason some people are around you is so that they can do their bit in irritating you out of your mind. And however well you may plan your day and your life, you can count on people to behave contrarily and ruin all your plans. Your perfect day has every chance of being marred by people who don't think anyone has a right to the 'perfect day', who perhaps believe that 'perfect days' shouldn't be allowed, that they make people too happy for their liking. I dislike having people around me who frown upon happiness. I dislike having to deal with people who are so grim that they make you lose your pleasure in life. They are real life dementors, and they don't think about it long enough to realise it.

Everyone has this life as an opportunity to share love. Instead, some people frown upon love, even though they may be benefitting from it immensely. People are contrary. They are beyond one's control. The only control you have is over yourself. You can choose to make yourself happy and you can choose to create love. You can choose to live Now in this beautiful moment and maybe that way your plans won't get scuttled, because the only plan is for this very moment.

Disbelief

So when did this happen?

When did delight turn right around

How came irritation in its place

Or is this a new way you've found

To denigrate a pure emotion

And believe the noise around?

How come you care

About some stares

some random opinion or gossip

Why are they so important to you

that you rant you rave you shout

For something simple that they don't get

But hey,

neither do you, now.

There are sunny days and cloudy days, rainy days and sultry days. There are days you wish would never end and there are days you wish had never dawned. Sometimes, the same day becomes all of these.

The last few days were hot and sunny days, merging with cloudy and outright smokey days, not to speak of loud and disturbing days. That's what happens when it's rally hot and you are forced to close all doors and windows to try and keep out the din being made by a truckload of road repairers with wives and children in tow. The people noises were hardly audible above the constant thundering of the strange machine that spewed smoke like twenty factories together.

It was so bad, cause we couldn't breathe, our eyes hurt and itched, and the added heat from the burning tar barrels and the gigantic machine just about defrosted our fridge for us. Looking at the women and kids made me feel worse.

While the women either shovelled some sand or gravel or whatever it was that they had piled up, or sat in the shade of some trees, the kids were all over the place, pushing barrels, sitting on sand heaps, beating stones with sticks, looking grubby and happy.

Why were little kids allowed on such sites? Because their mothers had to come too and where would the kids go? Why were some of the kids helping in the work? Because there wasn't anyone to ensure that they didn't, or that they went to a school, neither were their parents interested in that option. Considering that most of them are seasonal migrants, schooling is patchy even in cases where they do get sent to study.

There's a very nice case of such kids being taught by a couple of university students outside a temple nearby. The difference between the schooled and unschooled kids from this fluid migrant labouring group is pretty sharp. On days when people feed the poor outside temples, there are some who descend on them in a mob formation, with the kids being taught by their parents to beg, hide the food they got the first time and come again to ask for more, to lie about having already been fed, and to fight off any other people who might get a grain of rice more than them.

The other group is of kids who are begin taught by the university students. The understand the meaning of a line and seem to get the concept that everyone will get equal amounts if they don't try to grab. They are polite, the older ones teaching the younger ones to say 'thank you' and going off in an orderly fashion after they have eaten. They tend to ask politely if they may take some for their families, and surprisingly, even their parents seem to curb the tendency to socialise them in the 'beg and grab' technique.