Amritsar – The Gilded City (Part 1 – The Journey)

Leaving hundreds of early morning squatters behind in the suburbs of Delhi, our train to Amritsar made its way swiftly into the heart of lush green Punjab where miles and miles of farmland spread like a butter soft quilt over the landscape. Villages dotted the land for as far as one could see. Well fed cattle grazed tranquilly and red and blue tractors chugged their way through fields. Our coach carried a mixed bag of passengers. There was a large group of elderly military veterans – both men and women. Most men in this group sported snow white handlebar moustaches that were quite the rage amongst military men a few decades ago. The women were sleek and fit despite their ripe age. They spent their hours on the train debating convivially about current affairs like the recent OROP bill, tension at the Indo-Pak border etc. It was nice to see them as it reminded me of my own parents who would have felt right at home with these gentlemen and ladies.

Then there was the quintessential Indian-American family on their annual vacation to India. The kids were armed with iPads to ward off an ailment that seems to assail the young very frequently these days – Boredom. They spoke in thick accents that no one but their parents seemed to understand. The parents, on the other hand, were well equipped to battle an Indian menace of another kind altogether – Germs! With swathes of disinfectant wipes and bottles of scented hand sanitizers, Indians who come back after years spent abroad, try to annihilate all generations of germs around them by furiously scrubbing and wiping every surface that they might deign to touch.

And then we had the nauseatingly love-struck newlyweds. This is in fact a unique subsection of mankind. The male and female counterparts are so engrossed in each other that they look like one giant glob instead of two separate individuals. The excessive love that is oozing from each pore on their bodies aids in this fusion. Braving the sharp lacquer work on the girl’s twenty two dozen glass bangles and the skin-repelling fabric of the guy’s shirt, the two remain firmly glued to each other.

Keeping Abu entertained and busy throughout the 7 hour journey was not a big challenge. There were many sights that kept him peeled to the window. Stacks of large shipping containers that looked like life-sized Lego blocks, baby goats frolicking by a gurgling stream and a gaggle of geese merrily waddling away were just a few of them. The excitement of being inside the womb of an actual train made him even more gleeful.

Having heard endless tales of the delicious food that Amritsar has to offer, we were eager to sample some of its famous wares. As our train pulled into Amritsar Junction right around lunch time, we happily scooped up our meagre luggage and our not-so-meagre toddler and headed straight to one of the most iconic eateries of Amritsar – Makhan. It is here that we had our first taste of the much talked about – Amritsari Fried Fish. Crisp and mildly flavoured with salt and chaat masala, the fried fish at Amritsar is not like anything I have tasted before.  The thin and crunchy outer layer is a perfect encasement for the succulent fish inside. Even though it is fried, there is no oily after-taste in the mouth upon eating it. The Amritsari Fried Fish is a must-try if someone is visiting Amritsar. The naans and the kulchas at Makhan are to die for too as are the chicken ra-ra and the paneer tikka masala. After eating at Makhan I can safely say that if I were to place the same order at any popular eatery in Delhi, it would taste half as scrumptious as it did here at Amritsar.

From Makhan we could think of nowhere else to go but our comfortable hotel room where a large bed awaited us. All those carbs that we had ingested at Makhan were beginning to have a stronger effect than any prescription sleep medication and soon all three of us were out like lightbulbs...to be continued

And Then There Were Three - Part 3

Amiable people. Indifferent people. People as nutty as fruit cake. People as industrious as bees. People ready to forgive anything. People ready to pick a fight over anything. People, people and more people – This is what India is mostly about, a cauldron bubbling with millions of people of all kinds.  There is not one square inch in a city like New Delhi where one isn’t part of a crowd. It is difficult to feel lonely here especially because there is always someone ready to stick their nose in your business. The point being that your business is no longer your own in India, it is communal. Unbelievable though it may seem but this heaving surge of humanity is what I missed the most each time I lived abroad.

Now that our tedious transition was a thing of the past, I was ready to bask in the relative lull that prevailed before Abu’s arrival. It was as if a storm had passed and my life was once again calm and unperturbed, much like an ocean after a tempest. Apart from the work that I continued to do for my company back in the US, there was little on my plate.  And even then, it made a world of a difference that I could now work in my pajamas with my ballooned feet propped up as opposed to being in the office, at a desk in formal garb.  All of this often makes me wonder how the world has shrunk in terms of physical distances in these past few years! It is possible to be separated by continents and time zones and yet feel as if your co-workers are working right by your side. On the other hand though, if you consider a larger perspective, as far as attenuating the more non-tangible distances like those between races, economic classes and religions are concerned; mankind still has a long way to go.

Meanwhile, Abu’s activities were peaking with each passing day. Pranay, my brother, who was also home on vacation during this time, cooked up new experiments for Abu each day. For instance, he deliberately played all kinds of music and gleefully waited for Abu’s reaction to each number. If Abu kicked on a rock number, it meant that he was going to be butch like his Mamu (uncle Pranay) and if he made his presence felt when a Hindi movie song was played, it meant that he was going to be sappy like his Mum.  Pranay also insisted that I lounge in the cozy winter sun each morning just because he felt this would keep Abu nice and warm. This was a period rife with games of ludo, books galore, great homemade food and general bonhomie. Times like these are what anecdotes are made of, stories that are wistfully reminisced for years to come.

March 13^th 2016, a day forecasted by my doctors as the day when Abu would make an appearance, rolled-in and rolled-out uneventfully. It looked like Abu was reluctant to leave his sanctuary of 40 weeks to make acquaintance with the world outside.  Finally, after extending his womb-vacation by 3 days, Abu emerged all slippery and slimy on March 16^th and said hello to those who had been waiting eagerly to meet him. It was as if it had taken him 3 additional days to make up his mind about ending his sojourn and even then he had to be coaxed and cajoled into surfacing from the crack that the doctors had made in his Mum’s tummy. I wouldn’t blame him for not wanting to vacate the cozy confines of his safe cocoon. Had it been me, I would have perhaps been just as disinclined, especially after having known the complexities of life on this planet.

Out he came covered in gloop, looking like a spindly, pale lizard (or so I am told) with long fingers and delicate features. Swaddled in a soft cloth, he was presented to me like a tiny parcel, a birthday gift of sorts that had arrived 10 days before my birthday. While the rest of the world continued to function in its usual rhythm, Arjun and I stopped dead in our tracks to marvel at what we had created. Child bearing is one of the most common natural phenomena. If statistics are to be believed, 150 babies are born across the world every single minute and yet, when we actually experienced the process, it suddenly changed from what we believed was a run-of-the-mill event to an absolutely momentous, one-of-a-kind occurrence. What followed was chaos of apocalyptic proportions. That such a tiny creature was capable of emitting such high pitched howls and could possess such an insatiable appetite that it needed to be quenched every couple of hours, was utterly flummoxing. As the country celebrated the Indian cricket team’s win over Pakistan in the T20 world cup and mourned the heinous terrorist attack in Brussels, we were deeply entrenched in our own little universe, grappling with newfound responsibilities.

All hands in the house were now busy tending to Abu. No one had a second to spare. Diapers churned with surprising promptness, massages and baths were executed with tentative hands and nursing schedules were chalked with as much efficiency as possible. Life as we knew it had changed overnight. The first thing that hit me hard about this new phase was the lack of sleep. One morning, Ma found both Abu and me sprawled in the living room, bawling our eyes out, exhausted beyond our wits after a sleepless night. Imagine her dilemma when she realized that she not only had a crying new-born to pacify but also her own 3 decade old baby to deal with! With Abu nestled in the crook of her elbow and my head resting on her shoulder, she successfully soothed our jangled nerves that day. How she achieved such a feat is still a mystery to me. I may have suffered a bout of bipolarity during these days too. My spirit seemed to sway like a pendulum. Within a matter of a few hours I would go from loathing the thought of Abu growing even a day older as his tininess was so adorable to fervently wishing for the next few months to speed by as quickly as possible so that things would get a little easier.

There were heated debates about the appropriate rate of weight gain and the need for supplementing with formula. There were also lengthy discussions on the different hues of Abu’s poop – something I had never fathomed doing especially since just the thought of bodily excrement used to make me queasy once upon a time. Even the faintest hint of a smile on Abu’s face became as coveted a sight as probably a rare bird on our balcony. Battles were waged over who got to cuddle him first. Each one of us had our own methods – Arjun had a peculiar dance which entailed holding Abu and bobbing up and down like a piece of cork floating in the ocean. Abu’s Nanaji formed a recliner with his hands, on which Abu lounged like a king while Nanaji strolled up and down. Nani often flipped him over on her lap and caressed his back, giving him relief on many a colicky nights. I loved napping with him spread-eagled on my stomach, moving up and down in sync with my breath. Pranay, when he first met Abu, was so scared of holding him that he decided to just look at him from a distance. And eventually when he did pick him up, they looked like the giant and the pea with the pea balancing precariously on the giant’s shoulder.

5 months later, the house is still in a tizzy on most days. The frenzy though is more controlled and that there is a baby amongst us is no longer an intimidating thought. The once spick and span living room is now a tiny playground with Freddie, the firefly relaxing on the couch, Ellie the elephant peeking from behind the bolster and Bandy, the monkey striking acrobatic poses on the center table. Right now if I survey my surroundings, I can spot nappies drying on the back rests of dining chairs because they can’t be hung outside due to the rain and there is a baby blanket carelessly draped over a feeding cushion with a crumpled bib tossed in to add to the mess. Preeti from a prior life might have gone insane at just the thought of a living room looking like this early in the morning but today I know I must wisely choose what to spend my precious time on before Abu wakes up. Tidying up thus will have to wait because breathing life into my dying blog is the need of the hour. 

And Then There Were Three - Part 2

“How are we ever going to pack all of this and move it across continents?” I often lamented in the days that followed. All our possessions, everything that we had to show for all the years spent in the country, were strewn around like flotsam. Each time I ran my gaze over the state of affairs of our apartment, my heart skipped a beat. There was a colossal mound of books occupying an entire section of the living room. On most days I would come back from work to find Arjun diligently sifting through this heap, trying to sieve out the books that were really worthy of making the trip overseas. Being book-lovers of gargantuan proportions, this was a mighty dreadful task. We ended up donating quite a few books to the Farmington Hills city library, an action that made us feel much better about abandoning some of our books. As for the rest of our belongings, a huge part made for a sizeable handout to The Salvation Army while some other things found their way on to resale websites like Craigs’ List and MI Indians.

Selling stuff on these sites was like a lesson in human psychology as it forced us to deal with a variety of personalities. There were the stingy ones – those whose cheese paring methods made for hard bargains. One such ‘Uncle Scrooge’ came looking for a book rack one evening. Scrutinizing our hardly 2 month old cabinet like he was buying a million dollar race horse instead of a generic piece of furniture, he pointed at imaginary cracks on its glossy veneer so as to persuade us to shave off a couple of dollars. Tired of his whining and wheedling, we gave in and sold it to him for 12 dollars versus the 15 dollars that we had originally quoted. I would love to see the marble castles he built with the measly 3 dollars he saved that day. Then there were the excited ones like the lady who figured that a singular wooden chair that we were selling looked exactly like the 5 chairs she already had and hence flawlessly completed a set of 6. The sheer happiness that comes from unearthing something that you have been long hunting for was written large on her face the day she picked it up.

There was also the kid who took a fancy to my 8-cube organizer with the pretty purple and beige cloth drawers. He explained to me in great detail why I should wait for him instead of selling it off to someone else as he was trying very hard to piece together the amount by pooling his allowance money and doing additional chores for his Dad to earn the balance. His earnestness was endearing and I had no qualms in reducing the asking price to fit his budget even before he could ask. The Gujarati aunty, who brought us dhoklas and khandavis while picking up some of our kitchenware that she wanted to buy, was thoughtful beyond words. She didn’t want a discount in return for her kindness. She just assumed that we would be short on munchies as we had emptied our kitchen and wanted to make sure we didn’t go hungry. All of this makes me now believe with greater conviction that the world is a circle of goodwill after all. You do end up being recipients of generosity at some point if you keep the faith, avoid the cynicism and pump endless benevolence into the universe.

Somewhere along the way, during the 7 weeks that we had before moving, my friend C organized a cozy little baby shower (at Crispelli’s, a pizzeria and bakery) which left me misty-eyed and regretful about leaving such wonderful people behind. A friend even drove all the way from Chicago to celebrate Abu’s imminent arrival into our lives. There was so much love around that day! The baby shower was just a start to the waterworks that were to follow as my day of departure neared, although I now realize that I was nowhere close to being prepared for the degree of sorrow that was going to envelope me. As C later described the situation very eloquently in her quintessential American drawl – “It was a total shit show”.

13 pieces of luggage. That was all it took to finally wrap up whatever was left of our worldly belongings. At 4am on Saturday, December the 12^th, when all of Farmington Hills was still doused in a deep black inkiness, we loaded our rented car and headed off to the Metro Detroit airport to catch a Chicago-bound plane. In a few hours we were to board our next flight from Chicago’s O’Hare airport to New Delhi. If there was any remorse regarding the fact that all our possessions had boiled down to just 13 bags, it quickly dissipated the moment we saw the long serpentine queue at the check-in counter. It was going to take us forever to reach the counter, check in all our bags, complete the security check and traverse the rather large airport to reach the gate. As I waited nervously for Arjun to return the rental car and meet me back at the airport, the mountainous stack of luggage next to me suddenly started looking ominous.

A thoroughly scatter-brained lady awaited us at the check-in counter and after just a couple of minutes of dealing with her I was convinced that our flight was going to leave sans us. Snatching our boarding cards from her talons after what seemed like an eternity of watching her punch buttons, calculate excess baggage fee, recheck luggage weight and reconfirm airline policies for additional baggage, we sprinted to the security check area, hoping to finally encounter some good Samaritans who would let us cut ahead in line. We were lucky this time. With a whole lot of cooperation from the kind people in line and the airport staff we were able to complete the security check in no time. To the perturbing sounds of the final boarding call for our flight, we made a mad dash to the gate. Even with Abu presumably jangling in my tummy, my backpack - which held both my personal as well as work laptops - feeling like a block of iron dangling from my aching shoulders and roller-bags zigzagging behind us like crazed pets, we managed to avoid missing our flight, although it was merely by the skin of our teeth.

Digging into warm croissants and eggs never felt better and it gave us the fortification needed to kill time at the O’Hare airport. After breakfast I meandered casually through the cavernous terminals, picking some last minute treats to take back. Garret’s famous caramel and cheese popcorn was one of them. In retrospect, had I known that in a few weeks I was going to hanker terribly for its sweet and salty taste, I would have bought a larger tin instead of the minuscule one. It felt odd that we were taking a one-way flight out of the United States, perhaps because it rang with a resounding finality, almost like the end of an era. A deluge of good memories that America had given us, came flooding back like an inundated river. The clean, green, crowd-free environs were no longer going to be right in our backyard (I was in fact wrong about this) and there was no saying if and when we would ever meet the friends we were leaving behind. Then again, we were going back to our own country, a place bursting with old friends and family which made it difficult to remain melancholic for long. What I was feeling can be succinctly described in one simple word - bittersweet....To be continued

And Then There Were Three - Part 1

Baby Fingers

Pudgy, pudding-like arms and legs, gummy grins, twinkly eyes and moods that shift from happy giggles to not-so-happy wails in the blink of an eyelid – the tiny being (let’s call him Abu, simply because he reminds me of Abu, the monkey from Aladdin) who has been gobbling up my days and nights much like the eponymous caterpillar from Eric Carle’s book – ‘The very hungry caterpillar’, is all this and more. Such is the dearth of time lately that it feels like I am barely able to catch my breath, let alone ruminate on more complex ideas of the literary kind. At the same time, though, an existence devoid of pen and paper has made me uneasy enough to finally squeeze out the last dregs of energy and invest them in the pursuit of resurrecting my blog and thereby my personal almanac.

Having been created in capricious Michigan weather, Abu rightfully exhibits a kaleidoscopic disposition. Ah, Michigan, there is a tiny bit of you in my baby too! Allow me to digress, albeit only for a moment, to fondly remember a land that I recently left behind in favour of the comforting familiarity offered by the motherland. Ochre autumns and chalky winters, Tomatoes Apizza and The Breakfast Club (our favourite restaurants), gregarious friends and memories woven with them – Michigan, you will forever be missed. With my propensity for nostalgia, I seem to have merely gone from pining for family and friends in India to longing for friends and colleagues in Michigan. Oh, how the tables have turned!

Farmington Hills, Michigan, July 2015 - Not so long ago, I remember sitting at the doctor’s office, staring at a faint smudge on a black and white, Polaroid-like ultrasound image. That this amorphous speck was slowly but surely going to bloom into a wiggly monkey with a pug nose, a head full of ringlets and a personality to be reckoned with, sounded pretty preposterous at the time. Just as I was taking off on the magic carpet of my outlandish imagination to concoct tales of fantasy about this new development, the travails of the dreaded first trimester hit me like a sack of bricks, brusquely cutting my flight of fancy short. For the uninitiated, this simply meant that my favourite ‘spaghetti and pizza’ binges were replaced by bland bread and butter to avoid the unpleasantness of acid re-flux and my evening runs suddenly turned into evening naps to fight a losing battle against ever-building exhaustion. Consequently I turned into a stark raving lunatic, ready to bite people’s heads off.

Things weren’t too different at the office either.  Imagine if you will, a cantankerous, carrot-munching ogress stamping her way through the office alleys, decimating everything and everyone in her path, whilst harried co-workers scurry helter-skelter, anxious to get out of trouble’s way. Yes, I shamefully admit that for almost a quarter of a year, I was that ogress. It didn’t help that I was also growing in size with each passing day. “Is she ingesting full-grown humans now?” colleagues wondered while cowering in their cubicles. To add to my woes there was an inevitable trip that had to be made all the way to India in order to get our visas renewed. Lodged in a cramped aircraft seat for over 20 hours was an unsavory idea that made my already sick stomach turn. But, what had to be done, had to be done.

New Delhi, October 2015 – As I debarked on Indian soil, all my afflictions melted away in the scorching heat. Elbowing my way into a packed metro-train at New Delhi, it occurred to me that right then Abu was perhaps forming his very first impressions of this bustling country. Far-fetched though this notion was, it still tickled me pink. The soaring mercury, jostling crowds and a mélange of chatter were all welcoming him back to the land of his ancestors. As if responding to the mad pace at which Dilli-waalas were teeming around us, he too began exploring the joy of kicking and flailing his newly formed limbs. Soon enough I could physically discern his shenanigans. It was as if a bottle of bubbly had been popped open inside my tummy and was effervescing merrily.

Interviews at the American consulate were given and visas were stamped, ensuring our entry back into what many believe to be the ultimate hallowed borders - those of the United States. Our primary chore done and dusted, I was now eager to meet family and friends. After a year of drudgery it was finally time to indulge in some good, old-fashioned pampering - the kinds that can only be doled out by one’s parents. Also, this time I carried with me a license to eat to my heart’s content and to laze around guilt-free and this was exactly what I did. Deep fried pooris and kachoris, creamy palak paneer, sugary jalebis and crumbly samosas, fleshy custard apples and plump almonds – I devoured them all like there was no tomorrow. This was also a time when people around me loved giving my belly a little rub once in a while to pass on their love to little Abu. Just when I was beginning to feel like a ‘laughing Buddha’ whose belly is rubbed to invoke good fortune; it was time to take the plane back to Detroit.

Farmington Hills, Michigan, November 2015 - 10 pounds heavier yet 10 times more affable than what I was when I had left, I returned home, raring to get back to business.  We were just starting to settle into our banausic routines when Arjun heard back from one of the leading universities in India. They were offering him a permanent faculty position – something he had been vying for, for long. It was as if all the major decisions and events in life were piling in front of us at once. Contrary to what I had naively believed all along, moving back to India wasn’t a snap-your-fingers-and-move kind of choice. To uproot our lives here and move to a country that Arjun hadn’t lived or worked in for 10 full years, to bring Abu into the world in our own country thereby changing the course of his life altogether but also making him truly one of us, to let go of my job yet again without any back-up plans – all of this made our heads spin.

In true ‘Arjun Sharma’ and ‘Preeti Sharma’ style, we left the mountain of choices to be made and the stress associated with them at home to go watch the latest James Bond flick – Spectre. Decisions could be left to cool their heels for a bit but James Bond wasn’t going to wait for us, twiddling his thumbs when he had a world to save using fancy cars and gadgets. A big bucket of popcorn and Mr. Bond’s antics set Abu off again. As I squirmed in my seat while he packed the punches in accordance with the action sequences in the movie, Abu made it quite clear that he was going to be just like his Papa and Nanaji (grandfather), both of whom are action-movie buffs.......Continued here - Part 2

The Zayeqa of Good Food

Thousands of miles and almost half of earth’s circumference away from the perennially hostile Indo-Pak border, there exists a Pakistani restaurant where an Indian like me is welcomed with warm smiles, steaming plates of kebabs and biryanis and friendly conversations. This hole-in-the-wall establishment that goes by the name ‘Zayeqa’, was discovered by me the day I had my first hankering for succulent kebabs in Detroit. Having moved from Austin where an equally Lilliputian, Persian restaurant catered to my cravings, I was instantly on the lookout for something just as worthy, if not more, to fill the rather big shoes that I’d left behind. Lucky for me, Zayeqa fit the bill perfectly and I became one of its many frequent customers.

It all began one warm summer afternoon as I lay around salivating at the sight of hot shaami kebabs being fried by Kashaf’s ammi in the Hum TV series ‘Zindagi Gulzar Hai’ that I’d been binge watching all week long. A quick Google search gave me the names of the three most popular Pakistani restaurants in the area. On a whim I picked Zayeqa, perhaps because its name called to mind images of all those piquant treats that I had been longing for.

Mellifluous sentences in chaste Urdu poured out of my phone and into my ears as I heard Aunty Z for the first time. I was placing a take-away order for I wanted to sample their wares in the warm coziness of my own room so that if I had to, I could unselfconsciously screw my nose if it turned out to be a bad choice or conversely lick my fingers clean if I was pleased. Their signature ‘Chicken Bihari Kebab platter’ was my first order which immediately became a hot favourite. Tender strips of roasted chicken delicately enrobed in aromatic masalas and served with raw, sliced onions, a wedge of lime, mint chutney and naan fresh out of the tandoor – made for a meal that not just filled me up but also left an indelible mark on my satiated palate. Thus the deal between me and Zayeqa was sealed.

There was no looking back after that first experience. Each time the husband and I felt a carnivorous urge, we headed straight to Zayeqa. Along the way, some friends from work joined the fan club and these trips became more frequent. Soon enough, Uncle and Aunty Z started recognizing me as that tiny Indian girl with an elephant’s appetite, who brought them regular business. Uncle Z, a man close to Papa in age, wears a salt-and-pepper moustache and beard and possesses eyes that twinkle in merriment when he sees me. He brims with stories of his singular trip across the border to India. The unbridled excitement that filled him up as he set foot in Delhi, the adventures he had in Amritsar, the awestruck tourist he embodied  in Mumbai, are precious vignettes he shares with us every time we visit.

Aunty Z is a calm, ever-smiling, matronly figure. Like every other Indian/Pakistani parent, she too oozes pride from every pore when she speaks about her son who is a dentist or her daughter, who is studying to become a doctor. Tell her that you feel akin to a stuffed turkey after a large meal and she will give you a quick once-over and declare, much to your satisfaction, that you are nothing but a bag of bones that needs to be nourished with good protein in the form of her famous chicken and mutton qormas. Uncle Z and Aunty Z share an endearing camaraderie that can only develop when two individuals have faced years of thick and thin together. She loves pulling his leg ever so often and he enjoys gently chiding her over frivolous things like too much sugar in a batch of mango lassi. Once you are done savoring the food as well as their comical repartee, they see you off with an affectionate ‘Allah Hafiz beta. Mummy-Papa aayein toh unhe saath leke aana. Hum vegetarian khaana bhi badhiya banaate hain.’

Zayeqa is no longer just another restaurant for me. Within its cramped 6-table premise and amidst its stacks of disposable crockery and cutlery, beats a large, loving heart that does not comprehend man made differences based on culture, class, race or nationality. It is here that I find food, people, smells and sounds that remind me of home. These people and their ways do not appear different than what I am accustomed to. That such blatant animosity breeds between our two nations despite our very many similarities is all the more flummoxing especially on a tummy that rumbles in satisfaction.  

India Diary - The great Goan vacation of 2014 - Part 1

It is surprising how just 3 days of bone warming sun, soft sand, towering palm trees and chilled breezers with friends who have shared over a decade of my life, can expunge a couple of years of world-weariness. Which is why after a long hiatus, the first thing I felt compelled to write was a story of those 3 days, 5 friends, 1 shanty like cottage, 1 stolen iPhone, 2 gorgeous chocolate thalis, a crate of breezers, numerous plastic cups of coconut rum and plates of fried fish, a few dozen liqueur chocolates and an endless out-pour of chatter. 

With a year’s worth of planning, coordinating and dreaming behind us, we were fairly confident that nothing could possibly ruin our perfectly laid plans. After all, hours had been spent over long distance phone calls, Skype and Google hangout sessions and Whatsapp chat rallies to chalk out the awesomeness that we intended to pack in these 72 hours. Our plans seemed water tight and as I boarded the first of many flights that were to mark my trip, I wore a smile so wide that I am certain it made me look rather demented.

In our naiveté we had clearly forgotten that the best laid schemes of mice and (wo)men oft go awry. As the days of travel fast approached, the intents of some of our most confident co-conspirators started wobbling precariously like bowling pins that had been struck. After much dwindling, Mini and Arry finally gave up and fell off the merry bandwagon. It was disappointing, to say the very least. What is a girls’ trip sans Mini’s theatrics and Arry’s flakiness! On cold unforgiving nights, I still nurse bitter thoughts about that ill-timed malady that afflicted Mini’s family and that Army School Principal who made Arry stay back for a horrid school inspection.

A close shave with ‘delayed-flights-and-missed-connecting-flights’ later, I landed on Goan soil. As luck would have it, Pali’s flight had landed moments ago and was hitched to the jet bridge right next door. The sight of that elfin face was more than enough to make me believe that this trip was going to be fantastic. During the 2 hour cab ride to the ‘yoga-retreat’ that Pali had supposedly cherry-picked for us, we shared tales of eccentric bosses, kooky co-workers and other bizarre events and people that had coloured our lives lately. 

A metallic voice on the GPS chimed - "You have reached your destination". As we resurfaced from a haze of banter, it dawned on us that our cab driver had offloaded us in the middle of what looked like a dense forest with nothing but thick green foliage, zig-zag trails in the sand resembling snake tracks and a bunch of stray dogs lounging in the shade. A signboard with two arrows pointing in opposite directions made it quite impossible to figure out the location of our lodging. Much scouting brought us to a dirt track bejewelled by scorched cow dung cakes and dog excrement. At the other end of this track we found an insipid version of the resort that we had approved and reserved online. We also found an amused Joti and a very furious Tashi ma’am with her hands on her hips and imaginary smoke curling out of her nostrils and ears.

Between strings of angry expletives, Tashi ma’am explained how the lady at the front desk had thrown an unnecessary tantrum about something as trivial as a misunderstanding regarding the number of people in our party and as a result had jangled the nerves of an already travel weary Tashi ma’am who had been on the road for over 10 hours the previous night. Instantly it felt like we had regressed 10 years in time to our days in the hostel, witnessing Tashi ma’am at loggerheads with our bull-headed warden. Funny how some things never change and how happy their permanence makes me especially when life is hurling one unsettling change after another at me.

The aforesaid lady at the front desk also turned out to be the co-owner of the establishment, a yoga instructor, an erstwhile Dutch architect, the possessor of a weird clipped accent and an itra seller with a penchant for duping marijuana pumped foreigners. That she might have posted misleading, air-brushed pictures of her little ‘yoga-resort’ online now did not seem beyond her. This is not to say that I was entirely unhappy about the rickety, two floor, one bathroom, zero air conditioner hovel that we had ended up in. It was going to be an experience and it did not quite matter how the dwelling was as long as we were all together. Over chilly prawns, fish fried rice and Cabo – the locally made coconut liqueur, we fell right back into the good old arms of jaunty babble.

Plans for the evening were made. We were headed to a fancy restaurant called La Plage on Ashvem beach where the prices were sky-high, the clientèle was fashionably bohemian and the portions were minuscule. Sheer white curtains floated like delicate fairies around us as we sat on wicker chairs waiting for our food and making puns at Joti who even at 9:30 in the night was unable to get off her work phone and was delivering legal words nineteen to the dozen while doling out piles of work to her poor interns. Mere feet away from the crashing waves, even Joti wasn’t able to keep up her otherwise fierce sincerity towards her work for long. 

To be honest, I do not remember the names and forms of food we ate that night but I do remember that for chocolate aficionados like Sandesh and I, the chocolate thali at the end of our meal was like pure joy served on a plate. A sampler that beheld the choicest of La Plage’s chocolate offerings like a dense dark chocolate mousse, a sliver of a decadent seven layer chocolate cake, chocolate truffles and so on was devoured in the blink of an eyelid and chops were licked with gratification thereafter. On our way back we stumbled upon a flea market of sorts which looked like a fairy-light laced dream. Its purpose was clear – to provide a trendier version of common rummage sales for the crème de la crème to experience. We, the hoi-polloi, on the other hand could only afford a few very pretty pictures clicked by our very own ace photographer – Pali – against a backdrop of shimmering mirrors and lanterns.

In search of that most essential morning cup of tea without which massive headaches threatened to descend upon at least two of us (me included of course), we scoured the beaches of Mandrem the next day and finally found a scrawny beach side shack-owner who agreed to provide the desired cup of manna with a plateful of greasy omelettes. Like two water babies itching to envelope themselves in the silky silver, saline folds of ocean waves, Pali and Joti immediately plunged into the water. I, on the other hand, was perfectly content in lying on a beach chair, sipping chai, munching on hard as rock Goan bread and watching eastern European fitness freaks striking gravity-defying yoga poses (minus the sight of a dread locked, middle aged hippy in a thong that refused to cover parts of his anatomy that no one wanted to see). 

More fish, prawns, breezers, ocean-dips, chit-chat sessions followed as we got ourselves a cushioned spot in a shack overlooking the sea. Having turned a perfect shade of reddish-brown almost like fried crisp bacon, we dragged our feet back home. Once at the cottage, the thought of a nap made each one of us weak in the knees but we had to pull ourselves together to explore the alleys of ‘The Saturday Night Market’ – one of Goa’s largest flea markets held at Arpora. ...To be continued

India Diary - Of Animated Monkeys, Celebrity Parrots and Marble Elephants

Curtains of fog cloaked the ancient city of Agra at the crack of dawn one morning in early January. A fog so thick that walking through it felt like ferreting through a bucket of whipped cream. Despite the hindrance it posed to daily lives, the streets had already begun whirring into action. Store shutters were noisily rolled up by bedraggled shopkeepers, boys and girls with bands of oil-slicked hair stuck to their heads restlessly waited for school buses and milkmen donning snug balaclavas and sweaters pedaled their way through routes where dozens of families waited for them to ladle fresh milk into their milk-pots.

Amidst all of this, troops of red-faced monkeys casually went about their business, scouring rooftops for food, picking ticks off each other or simply watching their human descendants crank start a brand new workday. Dragging their coiled tails behind them, these dusty brown creatures ambled from one roof to the next with a confident air of being very much at home in the city. Had they been fashionable enough to dress up in a ‘conical hat and red jacket’ ensemble, they would have quite easily passed off as over-sized replicas of Abu the monkey from Aladdin. Even so, thanks to them and the vaulted exteriors of aging constructions, the city wore an esoteric, ‘Arabian Nights’ glow.

Negotiating a maze of arterial alleys, choked with piles of garbage and rows of houses stacked cheek to jowl; we made our way to the hallowed site of Mumtaz Mahal’s final resting place, the grandeur of which has earned it a place on the list of the Seven Wonders of the World. On our final mile, the congestion suddenly disappeared as the confined lane gave way to a wide cemented road. It appeared as though recovering from a bout of population and pollution induced flu, the city had finally blown its nose clean and was now taking a deep, refreshing breath. The russet walls of the Red Fort ran alongside, directing us to the parking lot at the monument’s doorstep which turned out to be a colourful mosaic of cars with hilariously corny bumper stickers (Gussa nahi, Pyaar chahiye), scooters with shiny tassels on their handles, flamboyantly decorated albeit malodorous camels with equally jazzed up carts hitched to their backs and battery operated rickshaws that looked like three-legged mules.

Like an apparition, the Taj Mahal rose from the grip of a cloud of fog that, instead of thinning, seemed to be getting denser by each passing hour. In the vicinity, a quintessential coterie of pale, light eyed foreigners clutching ‘Lonely Planet’ guide books and hi-tech cameras were fighting a losing battle to deter a pack of touts that had hungrily descended upon them. Steering clear of the smooth talking salesmen and the harried bunch, I slipped on the gauzy shoe covers that are required to be worn over footwear before entering the mausoleum and walked into the marble monolith. This wasn’t my first time at the Taj, yet it’s intricately carved and delicately filigreed features did not fail to enthrall me. Even though it is a mausoleum that is said to signify the angst of a bereft husband over the death of his beloved wife, the pulchritude of the Taj was sufficient to shoo away any lugubriousness that the story threatened to bring about. 

Shah Jehan’s second love – that for the cool confines of marble structures, seems to have rubbed onto Agra dwellers over centuries. Treated as a mark of prosperity, slabs of marble are still used extensively as building material here. If not the whole house, at least the floors in most houses are made of either the original mottled white marble or its fancier coloured variants. In the form of a small marble elephant with a lapis lazuli flower inlaid on its rump, a piece of this obsession made its way into my luggage as well.  

As it turned out, the poker-faced camels that welcomed us at the Taj weren’t meant to be the last animals to greet us that day. Our foray into the behemothic Agra Fort began with sighting a jalapeno coloured parrot with a bright red beak, lounging blithely in a slight nook in the wall while amusing itself by posing like a diva for the tourist cameras. The ease with which animals blend into public spaces in India has always tickled me. For instance, it is completely natural for traffic to come to a standstill as a cow parks herself in the middle of the road, lazily chewing her afternoon cud. Similarly, a horse trotting languidly next to a car on the main road is not a sight that will make the driver do a double take before succumbing to a stroke. Herds of goats making their way back to their barns at the end of a long day seem to commiserate in loud bleats with their human counterparts who share the same back alleys on their way home. It is thus a country where livestock is not confined to the countryside; it has equal rights to enjoy the glitter and glamour of city life as well.

Examples of enterprising Indians conjuring opportunities out of thin air can be seen in abundance at sites like the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort. At the gates of the Agra Fort, my ears pricked up as the sound of a flurry of excited German commentary mouthed by a puny Indian lad with a shock of disheveled hair drifted by. Upon closer inspection I found that he was a tourist guide who made a living by showing German tourists around. The fact that he spoke their language made even the oft stingy Germans loosen their purse strings instantly. Later, as I explored the fort, I found Russian, Japanese, Mandarin and Cantonese speaking tourist guides too, seeking those who preferred listening to the enchanting tales of history in their own dialects. These tales mostly sounded authentic and got a thumbs-up from Google but they were also laced with a handful of fabricated figments, sprinkled on to add a pinch of drama.

Then there were those selling a deluge of articles on mobile carts. Cut from the same cloth as their ‘tourist-guide’ cousins, these hawkers were difficult to shake off as they attached themselves inextricably by our side while trying to convince us that theirs was the best deal in town and that ignoring them was a grave folly that would come to haunt us later. Quick to deduce the needs of their prospective clientele, their wares were a motley collection of plastic souvenirs, memory sticks for cameras, suspiciously flimsy plastic bottles with muddy ‘mineral water’, feeble key chains, tacky fridge magnets, pencil torches, picture postcards and a variety of quick bites packaged in transparent cellophane paper.

One of the most crucial messengers of love in India is food. Aaloo kachoris fried to a golden crisp, flaky bajre ke (pearl millet) paranthe ready to be dunked in flavourful curries, syrupy jalebis fried in skillets of bubbling hot shudh ghee and stuffed paranthas fresh off the stove with a blob of homemade butter melting atop into a rich pool of creamy indulgence – they all carry calorie laden tidings of deep rooted affection. The best season to partake of this largesse is the winter as our perennial love for food seems to peak just as the first winter chills start seeping into our houses. Luckily, I found myself quite in time for it. With each day starting with a steaming cup of sugary tea spiked alternately with black pepper and ginger and ending with a generous helping of flaming red gaajar halwa, I was in food paradise.

A few added inches to my waistline, a satiated tongue, a trumpeting marble elephant, a picture book brimming with stories and an undying urge to visit again are souvenirs from my days in Agra. They remind me of a city that is slowly but surely making its way into my heart.