Reminiscing my Malgudi days...

It's been almost two months since I've been thinking of this post, but then as always, there's that "something" which prevents me from actually putting finger to keyboard! It all started when I went for the Notes of Hope 2009 program organized by ASHA. As the distinctive tones of the violin stalwarts from the Lalgudi school of music started to mellow my senses, I was suddenly transported to days past. The violin-mridangam-ghatam magic was familiar, and I was already flowing back in tune with their expressive bani.

I was back loitering the streets of R. K. Narayan's Malleswaram, the refreshing fragnance of the jasmines coalescing with the whiff of freshly boiled corn wafting past. The evening prayers had just begun in the innumerous kovils...the mild pitter-patter of footsteps on a rainy day..as the Adi Tal resonated through Thyagaraja's lyrics, I was reminiscent of the first time Deepu had guided me all the way through my first steps experiencing a Thyagaraja couplet...of the tepid bitterness of Coffee Board coffee on a vapid Wednesday noon after futile battles with staying awake in the Total synthesis classes...there was the Summer of 2006, complete with Monoda's smile, bike-rides in the rain, more interviews than I cared for, dabbling in retinal hyperpolarizability, and late night Tea Board addas!

The violin notes took me through the gullies of the city I forgot to appreciate when I was there...relationships broken over friendships forged...CTR dosas...bisi bisi sambar vada...Prof. Guru Row assisting me and Dipsy through a wayward crossword...the music reached a crescendo as I mourned the fact that the one person I was so keen on, would in fact never learn to play the violin...really, Bengaluru, I never thought I'd have to say this, but I already miss you!

The magic of Ithaca!!!

On a rainy afternoon, the icy remains were getting washed off the rocky gorges...little streams were giving way to slender waterfalls...and the brooks flowed with a renewed vigor. Yesterday afternoon, when I was activating my debit card, the person at the other end inquired - 'How do I like it in Ithaca?' I replied that it is indeed wonderful. Taken aback, he was quite amused at my liking for this little hamlet in the middle of nowhere. He went to the extent of remarking that'it doesn't even have any proper shopping malls.'

I should have expected that from an official who works for a banking company. Moreover, I hadn't done much to tell him what is so wonderful about this piece of land in upstate New York. I don't know how good of a job I would have done in infusing a pint of the spirit that excites me about Ithaca. And, that got me thinking... the thought process found its vehicle during a conversation with Platinum over lunch.

I cannot help but go back to my realization that it is the musings of the bass which appeal to me the most in any situation. It is those notes of the bass that make life at Ithaca not wonderful but magical even at greater than 10k miles away from homeland.

The bass lies not in those magnificent waterfalls but in the sound of ripples on its rocky bed... it's not in the snowscaped hills that stretch far and wide but the miniscule fractals that rest on cedar leaves once the sun beams... it's not in those never ending ping pong sessions rather those heart beats that race when the ball pecks the top of the net, only to give way to a "sorry" call... it's not in continuous drizzles but in the faces that beam under one umbrella... it's not in the tough challenges that a coursework poses but rather in the passion of the instructor... it's not in all those lunch outings but in the anticipation for it... it's not in those long drives in the night rather in the reflection of city lights on the Cayuga on your way back... it's not in the weekend 'adda' sessions where all of us blabber ad infinitum but in those few moments which occur where we communicate in the silence that transpires between the souls!!

Some might feel that spending 9 months in a city might be slightly premature to come up with the above write up... I guess that is the most significant number of months that any one of us spends since our inception - in our transformation from a lifeless mass into a human being!!

Best...

Carbide

Winged :P

Often, I have wondered what it would be like to fly. I mean really, FLY. Of course, it's one of the most common answers to "I wish I could ...." essays that circulate among junior high students, after "I'd want to be President for the day" or "I would want to change the face of Earth by banishing global warming". But then, flying has been a fantasy that I've been toying with for quite a long time...especially on vapid warm Sunday noons like today's.. ;)... The Iguana in me is some day lost in images of bungee jumping in the Rockies, or paragliding across the Alps...and last Wednesday it found an outlet behind the motors of an old Bajaj...

It was really quite a serendipitous opportunity. Brinda was a bit low-key, so in an attempt to bring back her ubiquitous smile, I requested Sudarshan to let her ride his bike (Brinda, or Thangai as we fondly call her, wanted to show off the biking skills she had accumulated on her Appa's Hero Honda..)But then, a Bajaj is somewhat apart from a Hero Honda, and she was having trouble with the weight of the ol' bike...so Sud was helping her out. Meanwhile, Dipsy and I also got involved as a result of which Sud agreed to let us take our first biking lessons right then and there...

It was awesome fun, to say the least! Managing the accelerator, handling the clutch and gear...its sort of a feel that you slowly ingrain into you....and then of course, he allowed me to take it for a spin from SSCU to Main Guest House to Library and back (2 rounds, of course, he was guiding from the pillion)...the only negative was that I couldn't kick start the bike :(...more practice on that...all these years I'd sat next to Pc or Sud or Susanta and rode through those exact same routes...but now it felt so much more special...somewhere inbetween the JNC Guest House and Library I transited from 1st gear to 2nd gear...it was like an OMIGIOD feeling ...fluidity... butterflies in my brain...wind whistling past my ears...my body (and soul) felt like it had suddenly lost a couple of pounds :P....suddenly, I was flying!

Right now, Sud's gone home..and his bike is unavailable.....but once he's back t'will be transition to the 3rd gear...and more long flights into oblivion. Into joy. Complete wild abandon :P....

P.S. Please don't tell my Mom about any of this, she'll murder me for sure if she even has even an inkling of all this!

Obituary of the unknown...

Rarely does one sit to write an obituary with a pleasant mind, but one should also realize that an obituary may well be reminiscent of the good times, once the inevitable has happened. Hey, but was it inevitable...

A bead quite unknown dropped from an UFO into the shadow of the crown - result of some scribbling on a green paper and a rendezvous with three panelists. This bead fell for a certain 'Yes sir' from the first bench and soon the wooden, dusty racks of the library illuminated us in a pair. Enlightening people on making culinary delicacies more delightful was an interesting proposition. Time in the formative years meandered its way sluggishly through the red bricks. With time, an island was gradually washed into being.

The humble beginnings matured through the hours spent on those sprawling sun-bathed lawns, windy corridors, musically lit rooms, aromatic jungles and the cobbled canopied alleys. The seasons that ensued were truly seasons of the sun. The bead was gradually solvated. It had an identity and - an identity almost always has a name.

Maggi, Mince, Mukwest aided in comprising the rosary. The bead never realized when the scissors threatened to make its mark on the string that held them together, worse still - the possibility of such a situation was never taken into account. Certain beads realized and made a sincere yet unintelligible effort to stall the damage. And, as often happens in a natural selection, the discolored bead found itself out of place. It never found out how it lost its color but realized that it was jeopardizing the beauty of the rosary. It budded out. A solitary bead is as good as a grain of sand.

The name remained...its identity lost midway through. Good bye ......

Carbide

N. B. - Buffered en route to Bangalore, aboard 2627 Karnataka Express and blogged on an interesting day of sorts, three years down the line!!

aimless...

Sometimes, I have this loony feeling at some corner in my brain that I'm wandering pointlessly, not really going anywhere...

I am a trifle bored of the marathon literature search I've been involved with for the past two weeks, all in an attempt to come up with a passable introduction to the thesis (it started as a search for a 'job well done', and ended up being just 'so-so'....round about ok)...and this for a person who can't stand mediocrity is painful, to say the least!

Then of course, there has been this constant hum at the back of my head for the last few days...(which my labmate feels is a culmination of the protest chants of the Institute employees, crying themselves hoarse, about salary raises, while Tata looks on helplessly....) its like a million voices mumbling in unison, the sort of uniformity you experience in the middle of the din, if you stand at a corner of Howrah Station in the rush hour and watch the world zoom by past you....

The strike by the Insti employees has also led to the closure of messes for the day...and now that the loathsome food ain't available...am actually missing it... :( which is something I didn't foresee even in my wildest dreams (or incubuses, take your pick)... what in the world will I do when I actually have to cook for myself?

Am 23...but have more worries than an average 32 year old might care to bother about....and am craving for that Death by Chocolate with a far greater intensity than a 13 year old early teen...

May be the feeling in my head ain't so loony after all...!

A different hue...

Spring is in the air...the season of colors is here. Holi has always been memorable to me for different reasons, and this year proved to be no exception! As the barely-arrived winter gave way to the warmth of March, one could hear the cuckoos chirp as the days lengthened and even the vapid walkways of the familiar campus had an added zing to it...I could almost smell the fresh gulal wafting through the courtyard as I was transported back to the festival, as I perceived it, almost one and a half decades ago...

A skinny girl, aged about eight, stood beside the marigold pots, bending over her knees...trying to capture her reflection as it swayed in and out of view in a bucket filled with red colored water...she was a tad bit anxious about the possibility of her cousins bullying her...catching her unawares and pouring the big bucket filled with gulal...she shivered in the late February sun (in those days, the February air still had a pleasant chill to it)...and skipped up to her father...shirt off... basking in the sun, and "sat by him"...watched him mix colors into tepid water..."Baba, what's this mark on your back that looks like the Andaman and Nicobar islands floating in the middle of nowhere?" And like every year, he explained that it was a remnant memory of the Holi of 1973, when he had been down with chicken pox just prior to his MSc exams...


Spirits flowed as freely as the colored water...from the second floor balcony to the porticoes outside the main courtyard...a medley of cheerful voices lost amidst the gurgle of laughter...she of course adored the extra long bath that followed...complete with a sumptous lunch and a long siesta afterwards...the afternoon of abir that followed was always extra special...when one touched the feet of elders with abir (and took extra care to see that thakuma' s red bordered white sari was coated with a plethora of hues of every possible shade!)...the Gopal idol was brought from Doltala in the evening and venerated in the thakurdalan and the rejoice reached a zenith...

Years flew by...the eight year old was now a chirpy teenager...she stood by the window of their fifth floor apartment...lips blowing warmth, pressed onto the glass pane...and stared at the kids play with water baloons below...she wasn't allowed to go out and play because her sister's eye specialist had forbidden her younger sibling to be exposed to colors...and she of course didn't want to break her heart and go play...the spring of 1996 was especially memorable, when she was in bed, down with chicken pox, as a pre-teen, listening to the commentary for the cricket world cup on the dusty old radio...and painting her little world that craved to escape from the four walls of her quarantine to the colorful world outside!

Fast forward to 2004-2006...the festival acquires a new hue altogether in the portals of northern India...Delhi as a city is colorful, but in the weeks that preceded Holi, it surpassed even the gaiety and bonhomie that was quientessentially itself! Of course, life in the red citadel was always thora hatke... :)..what with mud pits, and water baloons....buckets poured under the warden's door...brunch at the Princy's residence...colors that refused to go away for days at end...taps that refused to even trickle just when you entered the bathroom for post Holi bath...and terrible "packed dinner" from the mess...it was like the pre-teenager was making up for the lost fun a decade later...

When she moved to Bangalore, things changed. Radically. Holi is an expression of love..human bonding...and it was meaningless to splurge in colors when that link was non-existant! The spring of 2009 was different. She was on the verge of leaving Bangalore...and as always, valediction brought out the softer facets in her...it was a surprise Holi organised by the lab juniors post lunch..and it was a revelation...quite an eye-opener, to say the least! Running inbetween departments, and instrumental facilities, careful not to spoil anything..yet having oodles of fun... :) the smile returned...

Colour, colour everywhere! Love was in the air. Holi hai!

Origins...

I visited the abode of my childhood - Siliguri for just a couple of days prior to crossing the Atlantic. The queen of hills – Darjeeling, was in the process of being usurped by people who think it belongs more to them than the rest of the world. Accompanying my parents, I drove up to the foothills of The Great Himalayas into the mushy trails of a tropical forest ironically named as the land of dryness – ‘Sukna’ in local language.

As one would expect in the middle of the year in these parts of the globe, it was pouring. The ground smelled wet, brooks emanated from puddles which had coalesced into a pond, the leaves wore bathed looks and gray clouds rendered the perfect bass for this monsoon orchestra. The rain was beating down fiercely on the muddy slope that maintained the forest path in place. We noticed that the impact of the rain drops had started to create a stippled motif on the muddy canvas.

My father attributed the origin of the stipples to the presence of pebbles in the ground which resisted the impact of the drops thereby stabilizing the land mass beneath it. In absence of pebbles, the drops could erode away the mud. Two tiny saplings stood testimony to this battle between the elements – Water and Earth. We anticipated the formation of an interesting landscape as the rain drew towards an end. The wait yielded a memory which had to be cared for – it had to be the cover picture of one of my first creative literary endeavours. Since my father is more comfortable with the pen than the mouse, the second sapling had to be my other partner in literary creation & criticism – Platinum. She appreciated the idea of a joint blog and the memory got framed as above.

I ran out of fuel for naming the blog as most of it had been used up in conceiving it. It had to be arbit in nature and so here was Verdigris – a phonetically interesting synonym for the bluish green mass we had long observed on copper vessels since our childhood. Calling it a day with the hope that posts and comments keep accumulating on this shingle of our life.

Carbide