Of Summer, Home and Holi

Blame it on the last day of February. Or on my significant other, who mentioned the Flame of the Forest as he spoke to me from a train from Ranchi to Jamshedpur this morning. On the way the sunlight dapples the freshly-laundered linen that I hung to dry an hour ago. On the impossible combination of exhilaration and mild panic that still tends to swirl around the back of my head at this time of the year - the kind that can originate only in partly-covered syllabuses. Or on the quiet but sure signs - bright green little shoots sticking out of crevices, a bluer-than-blue sky, Holi - that legendary harbinger of all things spring and summer...or the feeling of newness that everything is imbued with.

I'm a child of the elements, I like to think. The seasons are my best friends. Delhi winters. Mumbai monsoons. Calcuttan autumns - those sublime days of the Sharadotsav. But summer and spring? Summer and spring, in my head, belong to my hometown and all the places around it. I'm probably not alone in this - these are seasons we end up linking with home, most of us.

There's something about the way the world starts to look and feel around Holi. Everything a little warmer, the sun a little brighter. I'm a 90s kid - I'm from the generation that spent entire summer vacations with a dozen cousins and massive amounts of imagination for company. I grew up sticky-fingered from eating ice candies, and making jug after colossal jug of Rasna. I pretended to be asleep when assorted aunts scolded us into bed every May afternoon, and sneaked ice-cold water out of the refrigerator when we were forbidden to drink any, immediately after we came in from a sweaty game of catch or badminton. I took the exam time-table down dutifully, as soon as it was put up. I made schedules and plans and looked at past years' question papers. Like most kids from the East, I discovered that I studied best in the morning - playing with your friends in the evening tires you, and a 5:45 a.m. sunrise means your room will steadily get brighter and warmer even as you determinedly hit the Snooze button. I was your classic nerd - I dreaded and enjoyed taking my ICSE and ISC exams - and funnily enough, the first picture that springs to mind when I remember Mom or Dad driving me to school for each paper is the clean, crisp, summery look that the colony roads wore. Those roads were lined with trees - gulmohar, amaltas, some purple-flowered variety I never learned the name of - and those trees bloomed in all their glory every March and April. It looked so beautiful - all of it - that I'd momentarily forget all about my paper, inhale deeply and break into a big grin.

I'm part of the old-fashioned lot that hung damp bedsheets at their doors and windows in Rez, hoping that would temper some of the blistering heat that the Delhi wind blew in tirelessly from July to September. I'm from the generation that would willingly cart an armload of readings and a bottle of water all the way into Main Corr, just to find a shady little nook to curl up and study in. Our classrooms were not air-conditioned (yes, yes, I'll give you New Age kids some time to recover from the shock), so we strategically chose places under the long-stemmed ceiling fans. And to this day, my answer to summer heat is a lot of nimbu pani, old faded cotton tees, and three showers a day. So all you kids who have more technologically-advanced solutions - more power to you, I say.

And now, excuse me while I go make some Rasna.

Coming back to spring and Holi - well, if you're clued-in enough, you'll know when they're around the corner. Don't ask me how - you just will. It's in the air, literally. I like Holi. I like the absolute abandon with with it is played, I like all the planning and plotting and strategizing involved - I love all the colour and I'd kill for Holi food. (I'm serious - I would.) I haven't played Holi in a while now - not enough company - but each Holi from my childhood and all my Holis from College are special. Those memories are among the things that make these places what they are to me - and that is why, all these years later, too, I find myself yearning for family, friends and food around this time.

Which is why this beautiful time of year is a particularly hard one to be away from home at. You have to see the place to believe it - it's almost as if the land spruces itself up for the festival, and the ensuing summer. The trees are abloom, the sky is clear, the air smells crisp and slightly smoky from the stacks of leaves that are piled up and burned away at regular intervals; the sun is hot but not completely unforgiving (not yet, at least), the hedges and walkways are lush - and the stars are visible at night. Mango trees are covered with flowers, wood apples are beginning to ripen and spring gets ready to make way for the Indian summer in all its raging glory. Local vendors start putting up imaginatively-worded ads for gulaal and such - and if you can get past the questionable grammar, they are actually pretty interesting. Summer frocks and Bubblegummers on little girls, all the boys finally freed of their jumpers, local newspapers beginning to talk about the impending exam season...all signs of a fresh year just beginning to settle in.

It's funny how it's the little things that mean the most - the small details that remind you how far you are from home, and still keep you close to it. It's funny how, when you spot a pack of Rasna in your neighborhood store, you drop everything else to pick it up. It's funny how, even as an adult, you look half-guiltily around to make sure no one is looking when you glug chilled water first thing after a couple of hours in the sun. Maybe we don't ever really, fully grow up. And thank God for that.

Image courtesy Google

40 days

For the last 40 days, I have been breathing deeper, more effortlessly. I let things surprise me, entertain me, shock me, anger me, make me laugh. I say things when I want to, wording them the way they occur to me. I laugh openly, endlessly, till the laughter runs its course. I let the rain soak me, and I let my feet run. I step into puddles when I want to, I pirouette around them when I don't. I jostle, and let myself be jostled. I allow myself to mutter rude things when I want to, I let myself gush when I want to. When there's something I'd like someone to know, I tell them. I don't shy away from compliments. I feel fully scared when I am scared, I feel fully awestruck when I am awed, I let myself be caught off-guard, I let myself be taken unawares, I allow myself more wide-eyed wonder than I ever have. I try whatever I want to try, I explore whatever calls out to me. I stick my head out of car windows, I lean out of moving trains. I throw my arms open for hugs to the Sea-Link, the expressways, the skywalks. I hurt like crazy when I am hurt; I sing like a lunatic when I want to sing...and I feel so happy when I am happy that I have to make a physical effort to keep my heart from exploding. In the last 40 days, I have become inexplicably...free.

I build my own castles in the air. I live in my own la-la land. I wake up with a new bright idea every day. I have begun to allow myself to feel more sorry for myself at not finding a window seat, than I do when a presentation bombs. I adopt and discard a hundred musings at will. I think about everything, and about nothing at all. I have stopped caring whether I am in line with the rest of the world - and I never really cared whether they were in line with me - so basically, I don't care at all. When the world rushes by me at the doors of a local, and all I want to do is smile into the breeze and the rain, I don't remind myself of the crowd around any longer. When I want to hold my hand out to the breakers at Marine Drive, I no longer feel the need to check if anyone's looking. When I find something adorable or hilarious, I chuckle. I let my mirth laugh itself out to its heart's content.

I am no longer afraid to love - not afraid to think about it, not afraid to talk about it, not afraid to express it. I no longer believe that drawing lines and staying guarded will protect me. I let myself love, I let myself go crazy about things, I form attachments without thinking twice. I love so much it hurts - and then I love some more. I'm not afraid to have my heart broken, I am not afraid of the effort it will take to put it back together. I am not afraid to dream. I am no longer unsure of how I will pick up broken pieces. I am no longer afraid of their entirety when they come true. I live in the moment - I know no other way any more.

I talk before thinking. I think a lot, and sometimes not at all. I do exactly as I please. I do ludicrous, ridiculous things. I take leaps of faith all the time. I draw up bucket lists every second minute, and then diligently go about ticking things off. I have begun to live like there is no tomorrow, I have begun to believe, and I am not afraid to be happy. Oh, I cry too - it's not like I don't. I cry like a baby. I let myself go. I let go. I've begun to discard baggage, I've begun to travel extra-light. I let bright lights blind me, I let colours fill up my peripheral vision, I let sounds travel directly to my senses. I filter nothing. I let it all in, raw, unprocessed, and I let myself be coloured happy. I feel.

My thresholds have become lower - so low, in fact, that they don't exist anymore. I used to have walls - they've vanished from under my nose. I have no idea what became of them, and I don't care. I'm raw, defenceless, vulnerable now.

I have never felt stronger, richer or happier.

I have never felt so much. I have never lived so much. I'm in love with the city. I have never been so free.

Set Free

I'm told I may as well enjoy the rush while it lasts. The fatigue, the long hours and the madness - I'm told it gets to you after some time. If it does, this is the first place I'll say it...but till then, it would be criminal not to celebrate the rain, or the exhilaration of footboard travel on a local.

It rains anytime it pleases. Literally. It's brilliant. Sometimes, the sky darkens and it becomes perceptibly cooler; then there's a mild shower, which steadily gives way to a glorious downpour. At other times, you're suddenly, casually told by the unmistakable patter of raindrops, or a spattered windshield or windowpane. The rain has a mind of its own, in a city with a mind of its own - a city that becomes a willing character in your story. What more could you possibly ask?

And if you haven't felt the breeze in your face as you perch at the doors of a local thundering through western or suburban Mumbai, you haven't lived. It's liberating beyond belief - and the freshness of it never dies. It's the kind that sets you free, the sort that obligingly hands you bricks for your own little castle in the air.

More, later.

The First Rush

He braked, even though she hadn't hailed the rick. So she walked up, less than desultory, and asked, "Kurla?"

The rain doesn't let up here. It's a benediction, a blind, a dogged, overconfident presence, a mug of black coffee, a pinch of opium. The lights, they never fully die either. The daylight fades slowly, languorously. The streetlights never sleep. It's a seamless handing over of wakefulness, a faceless but purposeful series of movements - like a heart beating quietly, rhythmically. The light follows its own rhythm, as does the rain, the drops beating a little tattoo on awnings, windowsills and umbrellas.

"Yes", he replied. She got in, remembered that she had missed a crucial question, realised that it might be too late already, but decided to ask it anyway.

"Meter se chaloge?"

The city recorded its highest June rainfall in a decade last Monday. Nothing moved. Anything that did quoted astronomical prices in exchange. Some might even say it was the city's way to equilibrium. Life otherwise comes packaged in a split bun here, with chutney and fried, salted green chillies if you feel like it, all for ten bucks. Life calls out to you from under brightly-painted facades and from makeshift stalls, where it sizzles on a hot tawa in a cloud of smoke. The smoke is aromatic and smells of cumin and mustard and bay leaves and curry leaves and garlic. The smoke mingles with the rain, and they beat a tattoo together on your umbrella. Plop, plop, plop-plop-plop, plop.

"Bilkul". And then she looked up in surprise. Two syllables, and no hauteur, no hurt pride, no resignation, no businesslike briskness. Just an answer to a question. A simple, confident answer to a regular, hurried, part-suspicious question.

It is mostly the shoes which bear the brunt of the weather. The colour is the first to fade, relenting slowly, unwillingly, bravely to the assault by muddy water. Shoes that have served long and well, and deserve the dignity of the shelf - shoes whose long history of faithfulness keeps them from acquiring said dignity. Nobody ever stops to think this, but the shoes and the rain are intimately related. The shoes make the rain manageable, even fun. Splash. Plop-plop. Splash.

It is nearly ten. Kurla is still lit up like a Christmas tree. Smoky smells of frying green chillies and splitting mustard hang from doorways and in shop windows. Shiny garments embellished with sequins are still hung up, like tinsel on the Christmas tree. Bikes, cars, bicycles, pushcarts. A fluorescence that has settled comfortably into nooks and crannies. A day being wrapped up, like this morning's newspaper. Another night slipping effortlessly into the split bun. Chutney, anyone?

Curiosity tumbles out even as the currency is being counted for the 28-buck ride. This is a terrible hassle, this counting currency in fickle light. Everything should be pigeonholed into Smartcards and coupons - like train rides are. Train rides on the Central Line, or the Western, near the doors - are they points of entry? Exit? - with the breeze and the rain blowing past madly. Breeze chasing rain, rain chasing breeze - hard to tell which. They chase each other into her hair, over her eyelids, into the crook of her elbow and the nape of her neck. Buildings blur themselves obediently. Foliage follows. And the train rushes over the tracks. Rhythmically, purposefully. Clackety-clack. A four-stage crescendo, followed by a subdued double thud. Tek-tek-tek-tack. Four-minute nirvana in faded shoes that have learned the curves of the soles of her feet, with the rain and the breeze and the blur and the dependable, consistent rhythm of 400 tonnes of steel on weather-beaten iron.

So she glared Curiosity back into its place, asking him at the same time as she handed him a 50-rupee note, "Do you live here? Why did you agree to bring me here at this time of day - don't you have to return the rick to the owner of the fleet?"

The rain and the breeze play games elsewhere too. Marine Lines, for instance, where, during high tide, the waves build themselves a trampoline. She saw that today. For all its madness, the rain is the meeker cousin of the sea. Brash and brazen, the sea built itself up and came boldly forward with a swagger- stay if you dare, or run! - and crashed on the breakers, drenching her from head to toe. Taken - every which way -  by surprise, she took a while to breathe again, and when she did, she tasted salt on her lips. Raw, unbroken salt. Between the rain and the sea, she melted, dissolved and came together again. Washed, scrubbed clean, with salt on her lips and her skin. Touched by the elements in the bold, intimate, no-permission-needed-none-asked manner of a lover.

"Ladies first", he said. "I live in BKC", and he handed her twenty bucks in change. "I was done for the day and going home, but then I saw you waiting for the bus. You were alone, and it is almost ten. Here, you forgot two rupees."

The Prelude

I have to rush now - boarding for my flight has begun and I really don't want airline personnel to hunt me down here in the food court - but I have a LOT to tell you about this trip. It was perfect - right from the way the inspiration hit me, down to this last line I'm keying in before I find my boarding pass (I know I have it somewhere in my bag) and run to Gate 16. I'm not looking forward to seeing Delhi disappear from above the clouds - but it has to be done, and so I will do it. I will come back though, if it's the last thing I do. Bye - and I'll write to you from Kolkata.

The Post from Departures, IGI - T3 (there had to be one)

On my first evening here, I was walking around CP with a friend, and I remember looking around the Inner Circle and telling him I really, really liked this place. Later, as we walked to get some dinner, I voiced what I have known all this time. 

I love this city an irrational amount. It doesn't make sense to me how passionately I feel about it - and honestly, I have stopped trying to look for reasons. I love it - what else is there to say?

I came back to Delhi after three years. Less than three years, actually, but my last two visits didn't really qualify as visits - I barely got to spend any time with the city. The last time I was here, I broke my heart in more ways than one. There was even a phase, somewhere between then and now, when I had given up on being able to return. Not stopped loving Delhi - never stopped loving Delhi - but begun to despair about the chance to come back.

In the last three years, I have spent a lot of time in several other cities, mostly Mumbai and Kolkata. They're beautiful places. Kolkata is steeped in culture and old-world charm, and Mumbai is historically beautiful - if you get what I mean - and breathtakingly modern at the same time. Kolkata is like a tattered, dog-eared book of verses, with notes in the margins of its pages. Mumbai is all bright lights, curving flyovers and expressways and feisty sea. It's a lot like the bhelpuri served on its streets and its beaches - a little bit of everything, bright, colourful, tangy and full of surprises. And between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., it is nothing short of seductive.

But Delhi...oh, Delhi.

Oh, Delhi.

I slip into its warm, teasing embrace without knowing it. I don't know what to make of its sights and sounds and colours and moods - I know them with the intimacy that only incontrovertible love can bring, and they still awe and inspire me. Delhi makes me happy. Yes, Delhi is poetry and madness and passion and love and identity and challenge to me - but it makes me happy the way nothing else ever has. Happy, plain and simple.   I realise now that when  I left Delhi in 2010, I left a little bit of myself behind - and it wasn't intentional. When is it ever? Delhi is where I found myself. They say falling in love makes you learn as much about yourself as about the other person. True, I think. I learned about Delhi and myself in equal measure. I unconsciously imbibed some of its traits. It made me a stronger person, it taught me never to be afraid to express myself. Above all, Delhi taught me to dream, to have bright, absurd ideas, and to believe that anything, anything is possible. It taught me to love uninhibitedly and passionately, it taught me to love without fearing rejection and pain - because it taught me that you can move past those things in time. It taught me to be honest, fearless and impulsive. I turned into me, here. And Delhi loved me back. So when I moved out, I found some part of me missing, and I knew that Delhi had claimed some of me for good. I didn't bother claiming it back. I didn't want to. I wanted some of me to stay here.

And that is why I keep returning here. All the time, emotionally. As often as I can manage it, physically. I'm complete here. Delhi also taught me to go with the flow - and I have no clue where the flow is headed with me. It doesn't matter, though. There's some of me here, and even if the rest of me becomes untraceable, I'll know where to come back and graft myself a new soul.

March

March. The season of change. Time for spring, time for taxes, time for exams.

I've always loved this month. It's my month. Till a few years ago, I thought it felt mine because my birthday came at the end of it, and I had something to look forward to all month. But it feels the same now, just in a different way. I think birthdays are good, but I've moved past being especially excited about mine. March is still a favourite, though.

I've written about March before. I love this time of year too much to keep from talking about it every chance I get.

I realised it was March last week, when a sliver of sunlight awoke me at the same time that I inhaled morning air with a tinge of woodsmoke in it. I opened my eyes to a lot of green, some sky blue and a little gold at my window...and suddenly, panic gripped me with cold fingers. I know this feeling - bliss mixed hopelessly with panic. This is the feeling I awoke to every March morning between 2004 and 2007. University exams always began in the first week of April. It sounds terrible, maybe, but the sheer extremeness of the feeling is delicious, and if I were given a chance to do it all again, I would in a heartbeat.

March is beautiful, whether in Delhi or here in Calcutta. It is the same - cool mornings that brighten into intense afternoons and blend into relaxed, comfortable evenings. Something about this month spells new beginnings like nothing else can. I can't think of another month that I always wake up in such a good mood in - it is near-impossible not to love a March morning, no matter how early or late you make it.

I've been thinking about returning to my blog for months. Yet, it happened only last week. It wasn't planned that way. It's just March.

The Answer

She couldn't sleep.

It was a relatively new occurrence, she noticed. And it wasn't like she was not tired enough, or that she was depressed, or worried. She just couldn't sleep. She would stumble back home after twelve-hour workdays, scrape a meal out of whatever she could find in a refrigerator she was always too exhausted to stock, and collapse in front of the TV, bowl of cereal in one hand and the day's newspaper in the other. If she could muster the willpower and sheer physical energy, she would empty half her laundry hamper into a bucket of soapy water while she ate her dinner. By the time she was ready for bed, therefore, she was always bone-tired and more than ready to tune the world out.

Yet, she couldn't sleep.

She'd toss and turn, thinking thoughts she never allowed near herself all day, mapping the layout of her apartment, the city and the world, and locating herself on it. Sometimes, her thoughts turned to unfinished presentations and unanswered emails...but these worries usually faded out as seamlessly as they blended in. Mostly, her thoughts would take on an existential hue - just serious enough to escape being tagged ridiculous, never substantial enough to be labelled sublime. She'd remind herself that she had another long day coming up, that her body needed the rest. All she'd succeed in doing was forcing sleep farther away.

Somewhere between that point and the insistent, unnecessarily musical tone of her alarm, she would fall into deep, restful sleep. That was the only saving grace - sleep was hard to come by, but it was restful when it came.

She wondered when this had happened. When, exactly, had she gone from being the sort who slept soundly through rock concerts in the vicinity, to a near-insomniac?

She suspected she knew why. She just didn't want to think about it, that was all.

And that was why she couldn't sleep.

Coming Up Next...

This is a 46-second video shot at Bada Pani (literally, Big Water) in Shillong, Meghalaya, at 6:04 a.m. on October 10. There's nothing here that you won't see - in versions multiple times better -  on the website of a travel magazine or even a professional photographer, but it is 46 seconds out of the most beautiful, peaceful five minutes I have ever known.

I was in Shillong recently for work. I went via Guwahati. I couldn't have been happier, or more thrilled. The trip itself was wonderful, but coming, as it did, on the heels of some extensive travelling, and preceding an unexpected trip to Mumbai, it was extra-special. :)

I am missing Delhi and I have so much to tell you about all the travel and life in general...but first, I have an overflowing laundry hamper and a generally untidy apartment demanding my attention rather categorically. Ciao!

Pet Peeves - I

Hey, don't judge me already...I know it isn't good to whinge, but didn't someone say it's healthy to vent? Here goes.

1. Ok, this is a sidewalk. You are walking ahead of me. You are not elderly, not limping, not carrying a sack of flour...and because you're laughing and making fun conversation on the phone or with your equally happy, healthy, burden-free friend, I can see that nothing's got you down either. How about walking a little faster, or at least moving to one side so that you can make way for those of us who need to get someplace in under four hours?

2. I am on the phone. You, at present, are not. Also, you know I am on the phone, because you are seated two feet from me, and can see me as clearly as figs are figs. If it isn't an issue relating to personal, organizational, societal, national or global security, or a moral conundrum that needs immediate resolution, could you please postpone the conversation you insist on having with me, there and then, to after I'm done on the phone? Especially if it's a conversation you chose to start even though you saw me on the phone...and after you shook your head when I put the caller on hold and politely asked you if I could get back to you in five minutes if it wasn't too urgent? And if there's something you have to tell the person I'm speaking to, I'll be more than happy to pass the phone to you, you know. You only need ask, or even gesture. You don't necessarily have to ask me to "tell him this...and that...and the other as well, please...and what did he have to say about that?" The only conversation I can conduct parallel to the one I am already having with the person in front of me (or on the phone), is the one with myself in my head. I have many skills, but having simultaneous conversations with two human beings on two different issues isn't one of them.

I'm tired. I'm going to bed. More later. I'll add a 'Part-I' to the heading.

The Calcutta Diaries - II: Living Alone, and Loving It

Leaving home for college at eighteen was...well, let's call it a mixed experience. I'd led a happy, sheltered life up to then, and while I was absolutely thrilled at the prospect of exploring life and learning to survive, I was still a little scared, deep down.

Eight years later, I'm confident I can start calling any place home within three hours of arriving there. By the time I've had my first breakfast, I'm fairly settled in - and once I discover the closest place toothpaste is available, and locate the nearest post office, I am officially set. 

But this place I live in here at Cal is, by far, the place I love the most, and will miss the most terribly when I move out. Actually, scratch that. I know Rez is irreplaceable in my memories and my personality. Gurgaon was indispensable, and 32 U.B. brought in something no other place can. But this apartment, here in Ballygunge, is the first place that is entirely my own. It is all mine to do up, the walls and spaces are mine to clutter and declutter as I see fit...and once I shut the door after stepping in from work, it's my safe little cocoon that no one can enter without my express permission; a happy little bubble to float around in till it is time to go back to work. It's bright, happy, kitschy where I want it to be, with lots of space and sunshine and fresh air. There's greenery right outside my window, and I am actually awoken by a shaft of sunlight falling on my face every morning. If I slide the windows open, my curtains billow in the breeze...sometimes, when I've pulled an all-nighter and dawn breaks in, pink and golden, through the cracks in my curtains - or when I can see rain in the golden light of a streetlamp, and feel warm and cosy in my little house - I feel so physically full of contentment and happiness, my heart could explode.

I do the sweeping and mopping, I cook my own meals, fetch my own groceries and do my own laundry. I patiently lodge multiple complaints when the AC or the water purifier goes bust, I replace my own bulbs, I defrost my own refrigerator, and I negotiate with the plumber or the electrician because replacing a faulty plastic tube cannot possibly, reasonably, cost 700 bucks. I've learnt to keep candles and matches where they can be reached easily in the dark; and, even if I say so myself, I've elevated inventorying the contents of the fridge to minimize wastage, to a fine art. I'm crazy house-proud and have been known to politely ask friends to reschedule their visit because the flat is untidy. I can look at a shirt or dupatta and tell you whether to use Surf or Ezee, or baby shampoo; I can also starch clothes to perfection. I can multitask three ways to Sunday - cutting up craftpaper and fooling around with glitter while watching TV and keeping an eye on the saucepan as well as the two new shirts I am soaking together for the first time. These are things that I take as much pride in as I do in my achievements as a student and a professional...more pride, sometimes, because these are things that make me happy. Frequently, they act as stressbusters after a day doing something I am not always excited about. Always, but always, they make everything else I do, worthwhile. You've got to experience it yourself to know what I'm saying. Nothing chases work-induced exhaustion away like coming home to a laundry hamper that's empty because you took care of it yesterday, or a meal sitting in your refrigerator, just waiting to be microwaved, with an additional stir-fry on the side if you're up to it. Independent as I felt during college, and even when I received my first paycheck, nothing beats the high and the sense of self-sufficiency actually - physically - being able to look after yourself gives you.

Does this mean I am a domestic goddess? Far from it. I screw up more often than anyone I know. I guess it's a domestic occupational hazard.

So these are the things I have learnt, mostly the hard way. For those of us who live alone and manage our own houses, these should point you in the right direction.

 - Never step into your white-tiled bathroom in your sneakers, just to retrieve the scrunchie you left on the shelf. It is far easier to remove your shoes and put them back on, than to scrub grime and mud off the tiles later. Been there, done that. Believe me.

- Always keep a tube of quick-fix glue handy. You have no idea what a gigantic sense of security it gives you.

 - Keep Post-Its within easy reach, unless you do not mind running down to the store fourteen times a day.

 - Put your house keys wherever they're supposed to be as soon as you enter. I cannot say this enough. When you live alone, there's no one else to go ballistic over for misplaced keys.

My books! Well, at least the ones that I have not sent back home in three instalments because I had very little room here. I have a huge pile of these just waiting to be read.

I Cook!

As a stressbuster, cooking ranks right up there with clearing and sorting desks and drawers for me. Sure, there I days when I come back so late, so irritated with the world, and so exhausted, that the idea of standing by the hot plate or the microwave is practically loathsome. And sure, more often than not, I make errors of judgment in ingredients and measurements and cooking time, and the end result is just about edible, if that. But I also know that if I can only drag myself away from the comfort of my futon and into the kitchen, I will invariably come out a lot calmer and happier than I went in, even if the original idea for dinner landed in the trash (quite literally), and I've had to resort to milk and toast and apples. It's just that it is incredibly liberating to be able to turn raw material (again, literally), into a meal, and to call it your own. It feels so, so good. And when a cake is in the oven, or vegetables are cooking in a saucepan, the aroma is heavenly, homely, and therapeutic.

I try new recipes off the 'net, from cookbooks that came with ovens and stoves...even some outlandish combination that I've thought up at work. I seldom, if ever, follow measurements to the T - and that has often proved my - and my dish's - undoing. But like in everything else, my gut likes to take over, so I let it. 

I'm good with a knife and chopping board - and not too bad at kneading and whipping. What I am a basket case in, is knowing when something is done. More often than not, I overcook my food. My pasta dissolves into a mushy mess because I boil the bejesus out of it. My oats melt into an unrecognisable mass because I cook the living daylights out of them. And when I simply mean to saute my greens and carrots, I end up boiling them (no, don't even ask). I cut cauliflower into neat little florets and dice my potatoes just so...but then I poke them so enthusiastically with my spatula when they're cooking, my curry looks very sorry for itself by the end of it all. I roll perfectly round rotis, but they're not always perfectly even, which means they cook unevenly...which means little patches of dough show up in the final product. And, heaven knows how, I always burn the bottom of the pan I boil milk in - and then spend the better part of an hour scrubbing the pan in the sink.

So, yeah, it isn't always perfect, or even easy. Sometimes, it gets lonely, this living all alone, doing everything on your own. Sometimes, at the end of a bad day, when your upma is a watery mess, your clothes won't fit into your laundry hamper because it is already overflowing, and the cable is kaput because you forgot the DTH recharge, all you want to do is yell into the walls. But then, when you love your house, it loves you back, and being loved is an amazing feeling. It may not chase away the blues, but it makes them easier to deal with. And that is a wonderful thing.

tHinkeR aloud

Back in the day, I'd usually take everything at face value. It saves time. I still believe that...but it has also become second nature to me to re-evaluate everything I hear for "deeper" intent or implication. Sometimes, I read between lines that are not even there, to begin with.

That's just one of the changes that being an HR professional has brought in me. I'm hoping it is particular only to the field, and that I will grow out of it when I move on, because I sure as hell do not like it.

I wouldn't call myself naive, or even optimally street-smart. I'm just someone with too many things on her bucket list. Ergo, there isn't ever enough time to delve into hidden meanings in what people say, or to make murtabak of my own intent. If you're someone I care about, and have chosen, for some reason, not to be direct, I'll back off and wait till you're comfortable talking. And you'll know where to find me when you are, because you're that important. But if we're simply getting business done in as cordial a manner as possible, don't you think we'll all save time if we say what we have to, and get going?

But as I was saying, taking things to mean what they sound like is a luxury you're denied in Human Resources. Whether it is an investigation, an interview or the usual 9-in-the-morning meeting, you're conditioned - without knowing it - into evaluating everything at three levels, at least, before responding to it. And the funniest thing is, all this processing happens in real time, in the blink of an eye, and you tailor your response to give it the suitable degree of ambiguity.

The other change HR has brought in me is pretend-patience. I wish I could say being an HR manager has made me a more patient human being, but that would be a lie. I'm still, essentially, as (im)patient as I was the first 20-odd years of my life. Professionalism demands that you exercise a fair degree of forbearance, however, and in Human Resources it is a cardinal rule. I'm happy to comply, because if I'm going to work in a professional set-up, it is only fair that I play by the rules. But this thinking aloud isn't about mandatory patience - it is about how I follow the mandate. And much as I tried to use this as an opportunity to do away with the short fuse, all I've succeeded in doing is not flying off the handle at the drop of a hat.

Lest this post sound like a cribfest about HR, let me bring in what may qualify as compensation. I wouldn't go so far as to call it the upside - because it isn't - but it could try for that label, and I wouldn't discourage it right away. Being in Human Resources introduces you to a whole variety of people - each of whom brings in a whole variety of quirks - you wouldn't have met ordinarily. A lot of it has to do with the fact that, as an HR manager, you meet anywhere between thirty to three thousand colleagues a day, and as many as 20 new faces in a standard day of recruitment interviews. Some of it also has to do with how people generally perceive the HR department, and how that perception affects behaviour that is already unique by virtue of being human.

Not complete, this post, so I'll come back later and write more. Till then, wish me luck. I have behavioural event interviews coming up, and I'm really not looking forward to them.

Image courtesy Google Images

The Calcutta Diaries - I: Show and Tell

So, this is a post that's been waiting for months to make it from my head to this page. I've been in this quirky, comfortable city for about 14 months now - called it home, settled into it...I'm even planning my move out of it and what I do here, and I still don't have anything concrete about it on the Wall. That's patently unfair to a place and time that has been very good to me, all things considered.

If you're an old friend I know - or am still a stranger to - you'd have noticed that there haven't been too many posts on the Wall in the last year. Get out of the way, 72-hour workweeks, protracted projects and mind-numbing fatigue...I'm back, World!

So we'll pick up right where we left off. I'll start by showing you around.

I've been in Kolkata for over a year now. I stay in Ballygunge, which is in South Kolkata. It's beautiful and green and mostly peaceful. Sure, that traffic gets maddening on Syed Amir Ali Avenue sometimes, but because I stay at a 15 minutes' walk from where I work, life's pretty good.

Because it's show and tell, I'll let these do the rest of the talking today:

That's a rare picture - because Gurusaday Road (where the office is located) is seldom this uncluttered. And because this picture's been taken at 5:30 pm on a non-Sunday, at which time I am almost never not closeted in my office, recruiting for a living. Don't miss the yellow taxi - it is quintessentially Calcuttan. It'll make several appearances in my pictures and stories because it is a fixture character in its own right in these chronicles. Hell, the city itself is a whole personality on its own.

This is classic-8 a.m.-Syed Amir Ali Avenue. If I wake up early enough (read 4:30 a.m.), this is where I head for my jog. Between 6:30 and midnight, though, it's easier to be a pedestrian here. No, scratch that. I waited 15 minutes for the signal to change on my way back this evening. Picture's from inside a yellow taxi, of course.

The iconic Birla Temple. Quite the landmark in Ballygunge. It's perfect for breezy evenings. I'm not as frequent a visitor as I'd like to be, but something about it is reassuring...basically, I am just glad it is where it is, if you know what I mean. I really should get a better picture, though. Trouble is, you're going to have to stand in the middle of the road to get the best view, and given that the road is Syed Amir Ali Avenue...

This photo's special because it was taken the morning the monsoons broke in Cal after a long, really muggy summer. At 6, the famous Calcutta humidity was at its most unbearable. Somewhere between then and 8 a.m., the rain gods decided to smile. And how! Also, there's a lot in these pictures that is typically, uniquely Calcutta - look closely and you'll see a hand-pulled rickshaw resting on the pavement, and Communist graffiti right behind it. And, of course, the yellow taxi (fine, I'll be shutting up about those now :) ).

Two days ago, the rains were extra kind. At 4:15 in the afternoon, this is what it looked like right outside my office.

And now, for my flat.

I adore my flat. Period. I've literally never loved any place I've stayed in so much - and I've had over 10 addresses in the last 8 years, so that's saying something.

I had family over for breakfast one Sunday. This is them, in my living room. I cannot say this enough - I love my flat to bits! Just the mention of it makes me smile. :) :) :)

That's one end of my room. It's where I crash at the end of the day. It's warm, safe, cosy...and all mine. :)

My favourite nook in a house I love every inch of. Family pictures, pens and Post-Its within easy-to-grab range, keepsakes, my books, stuff I do not leave home without, junk jewellery...you name it.

That still leaves the kitchen, but I'll tell you about that later, because I think I have a whole series' worth of food-and-cooking-related posts brewing somewhere in my head.

So that was the introductory post. I have so much more to tell you. I'll be back in a blink. Know, till then, that returning to you and my blog is about the best thing to have happened to me all year. :)

So long. Bhalo theko.

The Effect

It's raining again this afternoon. A rainy afternoon in June. Warm, golden weather, laden with droplets that are still making their minds up. Tentative, pensive weather that reminds me of walks, naps and conversations I'd rather keep stowed away, if only because they are too precious to handle again and again. I wish I could turn back time. Because then, I would know.

The Promise

I will be back soon, I promise. I won't let this page go dusty and neglected.

I promise!

The Assortment

1. No post on New Year's Eve...or before that, or after it...what's my world coming to??

2. Redressal is, therefore, priority.

3. I'm a light traveller. Actually, it's probably more accurate to say that I travel light when I have the choice. Goes without saying that visits home with bags and bags of shopping, do not count. I can manage trips up to a week long with one bag's worth of packing, thank you very much. Light travelling is also true of me metaphorically...but much as I'd like this point to take on a deep philosophical hue, I've got to admit I was thinking more about trips hither and thither.

4. If you give a new city the chance, it's pretty exciting watching it trying to woo you little by little. You'll have to meet it halfway, though, else you'll never befriend it.

5. Christmas on Park Street - be there to believe it.

6. I have newfound respect - and love - for the break of day. More on it later.

7. New Year resolution - more time together, my blog and I.

I'll see you on the other side of the weekend, then? :)

Love, always,
Crossworder

Insomnia - I

Just me, Blogger, a temperamental computer and almost-November...such old friends.

I was a certified insomniac back in college. I think I retain wisps of the trait, but even if I do, I'm just a shadow of my Delhi self. Back then, every night found me alternating between the rickety Samsung 2000 PC in the lobby and the chilly roof of my hostel. It wasn't because I was unhappy or unwell...I just had way too much energy to quiet down and tuck myself in every night. Winter in Delhi was an addiction. The only other element in my life that even came close, was my blog.

I don't mind belonging...but I have trouble being owned. Yet, the only entity I will ever admit to being owned by, willingly or otherwise, is Delhi. Delhi, especially between October and March, if we must mention details.

Winters there can be unforgiving. The Delhi winter doesn't care if you have Jan tests in five days or two, or today. It doesn't care if you're already bundled under seven layers of mismatched woollen clothing. It couldn't give a damn if the outdoors appear forbidding because of it. Say what you will, there is only one version of the Delhi winter - full, passionate, absolute. It doesn't abate because you are afraid of it, or because you're prepared. There's only one of it, and it knows that and respects itself enough to be all that it is, in its entirety - fog, mists, frozen nights et al.

That's how I fell in love with it.

That is also how I learnt to co-exist with it. I stopped shying away from the winter. I went and befriended it instead. Whenever the cold got a little bitter, I'd raise my arms for a hug. And cold, wintry Delhi hugged me back, till that draught of icy air creeping to the back of my neck past a carefully-wound muffler exhilarated, rather than discomfited, me.

This evening, I was thinking I should do a post about the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures I associate with the University. Maybe I'll do it tonight. Who knows.

Soft Focus

"I'm interested in financial analysis", he is saying, "a credit-related role."

"We'll come to the profile in a bit", I respond, almost as if on autopilot.

It is stealing upon me, bit by obvious bit. An expectant little thrill, the sort you feel in the presence of your first love. I look out of the picture window again. I couldn't have felt the pull more strongly if I were a lodestone in an exceptionally strong magnetic field.

I shiver a little. It could be the airconditioning. It could be something else.

"...the ideal ratio, of course", he is saying again, "is 2:1. I'm a fresher", he adds with some pride, "but I do believe I can add value to the financial and accounting aspects of your organization."

"We're a bank", my colleague remarks, drily. "At the end of the day, finance and accounting is all we're about."

I look out of the window again. I feel the slight chill and that old pull once more, at the same time. I know that chill. I know that shade of twilight. I know how it feels. I have nothing if not those feelings.

"You know I know how much you miss it all."

"I've never pretended otherwise", I say aloud in my head, half awed, half defensive.

It laughs softly, raises an enticing arm. Invites a hug.

All I want to do is run into its embrace. This interview, the world, all be damned.

So I stare resolutely at the psychometric profile and begin a question. My brain slips into autopilot mode again. I pause for the briefest fraction of a second to make sure it's headed in the right direction, then hand over control before resuming my conversation with whatever it is outside the picture window, in the fast-falling darkness.

I know the room is virtually airtight right now, but it is getting progressively cooler. The chill is setting in with the self-assurance of someone who knows they're needed, even if you deny it to them till you are blue in the face, while your heart is pounding with terror at the thought that they will take you at your word and leave.

That isn't what surprises me. I'm shaken - alarmed and reassured in equal measure, all at once - by something else. That chill caressing my skin feels like the warmest, most familiar hug I've ever been in.

And then it hits me. It's been sitting in plain sight all this while, which is probably how it escaped notice in the first place. Typical.

It's the Delhi winter. It's home, and it's looking for me.

The One Song Wonder

So, I was watching Delhi Belly the other day, and, gross as the movie is, the fact is, I loved it.

Did you notice how many commas that previous sentence had?

I've been a Vodafone user for about five weeks now. After seven years of being an Airtel loyalist, six of them with one prepaid number, I thought it would be a huge change. I mean, even up to last year, switching networks would have been an occasion for me. New jingles, a new logo, a new mascot. Hell, I'm someone who'll wake up ninety minutes earlier than usual just to use her new toothbrush. But nothing happened. The nice guy from Vodafone came and gave me a new SIM card and took my signature on one dotted line. Not even ID proof. And I sent a message out to all my contacts, and carried on as if nothing had happened.

That's how mindlessly numb corporate life can be.

I'm still hopelessly in love with Delhi. I notice Calcutta (I refuse to use the new name) wooing me little by little, though. Some days, I am inclined to give in, just a little bit. At any rate, we'll always be good friends.

Life and its hobgoblins make regular appearances. They're not so bad.

Moving In

 I remember this vividly. The smell of fresh paint - pungent, tantalizingly clean. The sting of lingering turpentine in my eyes. The starkness of freshly-distempered walls and the surgical precision with which every angle and vertex of every door and window stood out. The unsettling sense of emptiness and the mute invitation it extended – come, settle in, fill all this up.

I grew up in several houses. By the time I was eighteen and ready to go to college, I had lived in five apartments. It’s something I’ll always be grateful for, to the organization Dad is with. I’m very sure that’s where my ability to adapt has its beginnings. I recall getting very excited when we moved onto the second floor of our new building from our fourth-floor apartment in another part of the colony, because things suddenly appeared so much larger and closer from windows and balconies.

And each time we stepped into a new house for the first time, I smelt fresh paint, touched the blank smoothness of the walls, and felt a muffled sense of anticipation and excitement for all that this blankness and newness was capable of becoming.

Tonight, when I stepped into my apartment, my own apartment, for the very first time, I felt it all again.

When did all the growing-up in between happen, though?

Life comes full circle in so many ways. Exactly fifty-three weeks ago, I was at the beginning of a friendship which would morph into a relationship that changed life as I knew it. I didn’t know it back then, of course, the fact that I was at the beginning of anything at all. I realised that much later…and by the time I did, it was over.

It’s been exactly six months since. Tonight, gazing at the starkness around me (you know, the sort which makes every thing stand out in alarming contrast) I wonder if there ever was anything to have realizations about.

I find myself packing up and moving every May, every year. I packed and moved to College. I packed and moved every year that I was an undergrad. I packed and moved to begin my first job. I packed and moved when I ended my first job and began life as a postgrad. I packed and moved to intern over the summer that followed. I packed and moved to a random corner of the country to begin work full-time. I’ve packed and moved again.

Each time, in May.

I have a history of sudden departures. I am beginning to feel I prefer it that way. And, like the sense of emptiness in a freshly-painted house waiting to be moved into, that feeling is unsettling.