Bharatpur I: The birds

Nothing works better than a rickshaw ride to experience the sights and sounds of a place. If you travel through the by-lanes of old Delhi, you may come across a decorative doorway here or an ornate arched balcony there amid the chaos and congestion; a rickshaw ride in north Calcutta alleyways opens up another world, which is struggling to retain the past, but not at ease with the present.

When you visit the Keoladeo National Park in Bharatpur, Rajasthan, a morning rickshaw tour means getting to see a series of bright and colourful picture postcards of birds, unveiled by nature on both sides of the pitched road cutting right through the forest. I was there last weekend, with two friends.

Looking even more gorgeous in the mild sunshine of the early hours of the day, perched atop the branches of the Babul or the Ber, and spread all over the wide wetlands, the members of various avian species rule this forest, which was declared as a bird sanctuary in 1956 largely due to the efforts of India’s “Birdman” Dr Salim Ali. Rickshaw is the preferred mode of transport here and rickshaw-pullers double up as bird- watching guides (other professional guides are available as well), a practice which was also started by Dr. Ali. He trained the first batch of eight such people, of which, a man named Sajan Singh is still ferrying tourists and is the most well-known guide in the area.

We could not book Sajan Singh’s rickshaw, but our charioteers did not disappoint.

Brahminy Starling, Rosy Starling, Red-vented Bulbul, Coppersmith Barbet, White-throated Kingfisher, Green Bee-eater, Green-footed Yellow Pigeon, Partridge, Jungle Babbler, Yellow-crowned Woodpecker, Greater Coucal, Spotted Owl, Sunbird, Snakebird or Darter, Common Coot, Bar-headed Goose, Spot-billed Duck, Northern Shoveler, Garganey Teal, Grey-headed Lapwing, Little Cormorant, Grey Heron, Night-Heron, Glossy Ibis, Eurasian Spoonbill, Painted Stork – as we cruised through the jungles, the rickshaw guides went on rattling long and difficult names of our feathered friends at a speed faster than Google search results, adding inputs on whether a bird is migratory or local, their breeding season and feeding patterns, as well as interesting trivia.

Frankly, after a more-than-three hours ride, I was getting slightly confused about which bird is which. I decided to let go of the desire to memorize all the names and instead soak in the sense of serenity spread gently like an invisible cloak all over the place. The birdcalls were only adding to the ambiance, rather than creating a cacophony.

We were told that winter months attract hordes of avian visitors to the park. UNESCO website puts the number of species recorded in the bird sanctuary at 375. We could see about 50-60 of them, clicked even fewer as I felt bird photography without a DSLR camera will be meaningless. The rickshaw guys, however, proved to be prompt and skilful in this respect, aligning binocular lens and phone camera to record close-up pictures of fairly good quality. I tried to do that too, but failed to get even a single clear shot.

Next time, I will certainly carry a better camera, I thought.

Or maybe, I will just watch the lapwing family on a forward march and not bother about taking scores of pictures which will later remain hidden in a pen drive.

After all, some photographs are better stored in your brain.

(Note: The close-up pictures of birds have been taken by Guide Gurdeep Singh jee)

The Return of the Native

 For the past few months, I am trying to be more "systematic" and "practical", two things I was never accused of being.

In line with my new-found obsession with "keeping everything in order" (I am telling you, something is seriously wrong with me these days), I remembered my long- forgotten uncollected B.A. and M.A. certificates and decided to visit my college and university - that too on a single day - during a recent trip to Calcutta.

Now, the problem with visits back in your life's path, (especially when done after a long gap) is that you want things to be just as they were. You tend to forget that you are not anymore the person who used to dash two stairs up at a time to reach "B.B.'s class". That as your run has gradually changed into a trudge, so has the world.

Hence, the normal objections raised by the watchful eyes over entry of any "outsider" to their premises irritate you unreasonably, and you don't want to being curtly told to "use the back entry to the office" when you are looking at your favorite spot at the 2nd floor balcony of your college and almost expecting to see your mates, sitting on a high desk, dangling their feet in the air, and gossiping and arguing endlessly.

But after some initial sadness when I allowed to run my nostalgia about my youthful years ahead of my middle-aged self, I quite enjoyed my day out to the old haunts, especially my university, the College Street Campus of C.U.

The rush of memories can be unsettling and oddly comforting at the same time. Unsettling, because you realize how much you and the world have changed. Comforting, because you also realize how most of it have remained the same.

In my case, I sometimes feel I could never come out my student days. I still want to be the same happy-go-lucky person I was then, totally, cheerfully unconcerned about the future.

There was a small corridor between English and Journalism departments in C.U. which was my go-to spot when I wanted to brood over something. I went there this time too, and saw a kite hanging there, defeated in battle but still surviving with some visible bruises.

Sometimes I feel like that kite.

Of collection, hobbies and hoarding

It is generally believed that collecting too many material possessions is not good. We can carry nothing to the other world, the songs and messages of famous spiritual leaders always remind us.

But what about collecting as a hobby? There are collectors of all kinds in the world, and those who spend fortunes to build up piles of old gramophone records or antique show-pieces are mostly praised for their efforts, despite often being prone to acting on impulse, behaving in an impractical manner or even turning obsessive in some cases.

But in this fast-paced age of internet, has collecting lost its charm? Earlier, a favourite song being played on the radio would make me elated and I would rush to find a pen and paper so that I can write down the lyrics, which I had a habit of collecting. Now I can hear nearly every song in YouTube and Google the lyrics in a jiffy, but the fun quotient is considerably less. Photo albums are now passé, but photographs stored in pen drives are rarely revisited.

My mom has a trunk-ful of old and apparently useless stuff. A leaf from a tree in Mussourie where she worked as a young schoolteacher, a letter written by her grandfather discussing a proposal of marriage of her parents which she came across somewhere, a pic of an Iraqi boy during the war, cut from The Statesman and kept because he "looked a bit like" her eldest grandson.

Now nearing 90, she often says, "I don't know why did I keep all these, nobody will have any use of these after I go." I don't try to reassure her, though I myself have been guilty of collecting bus tickets and match- boxes as a kid, and posters of sportsmen as a teenager (mom did not like me putting up photos of "males" like Maradona and Gavaskar, so I balanced it with PT Usha). However, 20 years of migrant existence has changed me. Now I throw away things mercilessly, lest they become a burden during the next move to a new house. The only exception are my books, half of them unread, earning glances of displeasure from porters during shifting, and in constant strife with pests and bookworms.

Maybe, someday, I will have the heart to stop hoarding them and give some of them away to a library. After all, the poet said, "kya leke aya bande kya leke jayega".

(P.S.: The dead-body of my first mobile phone is still with me. Call it Psycho-3, or whatever. Photograph enclosed)

A chilly morning and a poet’s resting place

On Mathura Road, at a walking distance from Jangpura-B where I have been staying for most part of my 20 years in Delhi, lies the grand Red sandstone mausoleum of Abdur Rahim Khan-e-Khanan (1556-1627), son of Akbar’s mentor Bairam Khan, a statesman and a general, and one of the “nine jewels” in the Mughal Emperor’s court.

I used to pass by the ruins twice every day, but never tried to go in, as I could hardly see any visitor inside. Then in 2014, the Agha Khan Trust for Culture started to renovate the structure as part of its Nizamuddin Urban Renewal initiative. But if not for an exhibition that I came across during an impromptu visit to India Habitat Centre in March 2017, I might not have realized that Abdur Rahim was also Rahim Das, a poet proficient in Braj bhasha, Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian, and known for his verses on life and spirituality. Those studying Hindi in schools would know, for “Rahim ke Dohe” are in CBSE syllabus along with those of Sant Kabir.

The tomb has recently been reopened by ASI, and this morning, I ventured for the first time into the complex that I have been seeing from outside for so long. The helpful ASI guard at the gate offered me snippets of information about the mausoleum, which was built in 1598 by Rahim himself in memory of his wife Mah Banu. However, now it is only referred to by his name.

The garden pathways have been restored, along with the square-shaped main tomb. The dome remains half-painted, apparently to keep some part of the original ruins untouched. Plaques have been placed in the arched cells on the tomb’s lower edifice with Rahim’s poems inscribed on them. The pic enclosed with this post is of this doha: "Gahi sarnagati Ram ki, bhavsagar ki naav/Rahiman jagat udhar ko, aur na kachhu upaiy".

It will be relevant to mention that Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, in his “Sanskriti, Bhasha aur Rashtra”, notes that it is said that Tulsidas and Rahim were good friends and the latter, in fact, had effusively praised Ram Charit Manas in one of his poems. A rare personal copy prepared for Rahim of a Persian translation of Ramayana commissioned by Akbar is preserved at Freer Art Gallery, Washington.

Several blogs mention a conversation between Tulsidas and Rahim, after the former came to know that while giving alms to the poor, Rahim lowers his gaze. He asked Rahim in a couplet, "“ऐसी देनी देंन ज्यूँ, कित सीखे हो सैन/ज्यों ज्यों कर ऊंच्यो करो, त्यों त्यों निचे नैन”. (Sir, Where have you learnt that way of giving alms? As your hands go up, your eyes start going down). Rahim apparently replied with, “देनहार कोई और है, भेजत जो दिन रैन/लोग भरम हम पर करे, तासो निचे नैन”. (Giver is someone else, giving day and night. But people may make a mistake and think I am the giver, so I lower my eyes). Disclaimer: I don't know if the story is a true historical account.

(Note: 1. Inputs have been taken from nizamuddinrenewal.org site, and articles by Shashank Bhargava and Sayeeda Hamid in The Hindu and Indian Express, respectively. Also, jantakareporter site for the Tulsi-Rahim tale.

2. Reading wish-list – ‘Attendant Lords: Bairam Khan and Abdur Rahim, Courtiers and Poets in Mughal India’ by former diplomat TCA Raghavan.)

The Wizard is Dead. Long live the Magic

How to explain an ordinary middle-aged working woman, roaming in the dull world of   “your kind consideration" note-sheets in a city in India, feeling empty, almost as if she has lost a near one, when she hears about the death of a celebrated footballer in a country thousands of miles away?

That Diego Armando Maradona was the first magician she encountered in her childhood.

During the 1986 Football World Cup, I was 10. We didn’t own a TV set and my half-yearly exams were nearby. Still, I remember watching with amazement, at someone else's house, the short-statured stocky guy who runs like lightning, the ball stuck on his feet as if with glue, dodging and throwing off defenders on his path with casual ease.

The run, the goals, the assists -- footages of which are now easily accessible through internet, can still make someone feel better on a partlicularly gloomy day.

Reams have been written about the '86 tournament in which, as a famous football critic had said, "The Argentine artist single-handedly delivered his country its second World Cup.” With that, Maradona had barged into the psyche of (till-then) Brazil-crazy football fans of Kolkata. Newspapers were singing his paeans. Bangla children’s magazines like Anandamela were publishing articles on the childhood struggles of the man who can “make the ball listen to him”. We were trying to imitate his run during four-a-side matches in the neighbourhood. (Football was the only game in which I was somewhat okay, not the “elebele", good-for-nothing, in others) My old scrapbook still has an outline figure of Maradona, cut from an Anandamela page which I rediscovered today in internet, thanks to a blog archive called Dhulokhela.

Four years later, during 1990 World Cup, I watched every match of Argentina. The glimpses of Maradona's miracles were coming only in flashes, but it was enough for us. I was secretly coveting a no. 10 Argentina jersey, but did not tell my mom. I had learnt new words like “ball control” and “playmaker”, using them proudly during arguments with peers who doubted Maradona’s genius. If one would raise the issue of “hand of God” in 1986 QF, we will point to the “second goal” in the same match, the majestic 60-metre slice of knife that cut through the hapless English defence. Much later, years after it won the sobriquet of “Goal of the Century” in a 2002 FIFA online poll, I read the English translation of legendary description of that goal by Uruguayan commentator Victor Hugo Morales.

"Maradona on the ball now. Two closing him down. Maradona rolls his foot over the ball and breaks away down the right, the genius of world football. He goes past a third, looks for Burruchaga. Maradona forever! Genius! Genius! Genius! He's still going… Gooooal! Sorry, I want to cry! Good God! Long live football! What a goal!”

Yes, football can offer moments which can make grown people cry. It can create situations when Real Madrid fans will rise to applaud a Barcelona goal, as they did after an iconic strike by Maradona in the El Classico on June 26, 1983.

And because the “golden boy" created so many such moments in his lifetime, his controversies take a backseat in the mind of a fan. Hand of God, Cocaine, Ephedrine, unpaid taxes – all get thrown off the path to goal like opponent defenders.

Maradona Ra Mara Jan Na. Wizards never die.

P.S. I bought a no. 10 Argentina jersey in 2014 

Words, and words

    The old wizard says, "words are our most inexhaustible source of magic, capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it." 

    The wise say one word can be powerful enough to make or break - an empire or a heart. T

    hose who know the truth, also know that words are often powerless, rebounding off the hard walls built by the mighty, the heartless, or even the introvert.

    But when it comes to her, it's only words, and words are all she has, just like the song says. Mundane, meaningless words. If no one wants them, she will keep them to herself, packed in a forgotten tin box with yellowing letters and envelops. 

    Maybe someday, someone will again want to see them. But then, she might be somewhere else. Somewhere, where her words will not come out like this - full of doubts, haphazard, confused. One day, she won't blame herself for wasting too much time on words that are lying here and there like the toys of an untidy child. Then her words will form themselves into a train of thought that will know its route and run its course, unhindered. 

    Maybe in some other world?

    

Puja in Covid times

 Durga Puja trip to Kolkata this year is a story of ayes and nays.

In this "new normal" world, there is no frantic pandal-hopping, no clicking of pics, no eating out, no setting up 'get-together' meets with different groups of friends, no queuing up for 'bhog', no Panchami evening visit to see 'lighting' in pandals.

Yes, family lunches and dinners are there, along with Google Duo meets with friends, online darshan, app-based Puja Parikrama and live telecast of pujo in YouTube.

But I am missing the real Puja spirit, which has disappeared amid raging debates over social distancing in Puja pandals and too many stories of economic hardship in the Covid era. The world has changed, perhaps for ever, and even the desperately-trying- to-act-normal crowd, wearing matching masks with their attire, can feel it.

I, like many others, neither belong to the group of people who get upset that Durga Puja for most Bengalis is more about celebration than rituals, nor to those who view it through the complex prism of Aryans/non-Aryans. For us, it is a symbol of nostalgia, childhood memories, power of women, social inclusion, harmony, and pure, unadulterated happiness.

Happiness. A word which sounds like a joke to many people in the planet today.

Still, let's hope everyone will find it soon.


(Pic: a small terracotta statue of the goddess kept at my sister's house)

Six songs; six memories

1989/1990: I am at school. Watching movies are a strict no-no. Mom thinks they divert attention from studies. But I get to hear the first few lines of this Hindi song on a shopkeeper's transistor radio... "Aate Jaate Hanste Gaate"

I hardly know Hindi. I love the music. Didn't know then whether it was original or not. I get mesmerized by the voice.

1991 or 1992: Still in school. Durga Puja days. Rickety wooden folding chairs in front of the Puja pandal. Hits of new films on loudspeaker. "Tumse Milne Ki Tamanna Hai". I don't get all the lyrics, only some words. But that voice, again.

1992/1993: Everywhere, everyone talks about this new film called 'Roja'. A music director named A R Rahman and his tunes. A handsome actor called Arvind Swamy. I am yet to see the movie.

My sister just bought a Philips Walkman. Our first cassette too, of 'Roja', with Swamy and the red saree-wearing heroine on its cover. "Roja Janeman" is on loop. I still don't know the meaning of "vadiyaan". But I listen to "Yeh Haseen Vadiyaan" so many times that the batteries of the Walkman often run out. Sis not too happy about it.

1994: College days. A long, long film called 'Hum Aapke Hai Kaun' in Hind Cinema, Calcutta. Popular songs, but I don't like any of them. Except the first stanza of "Pehla Pehla Pyar Hai." I sing it often, when no one's around.

1994/95: The pleasant month of February. Buying a cassette for the birthday of a friend. Of assorted film music. I select a cassette just because it has one of my favourite songs. Lyrics are not that great, but the music of "Roop Suhana Lagta Hai" is catchy; and the voices are...amazing.

2002/03: Delhi. Job. Living with friends. Watching a film called "Love" on TV. The movie is just okay. But that voice, again... and another of my all-time favourite songs..."Saathiyan Ye Tune Kya Kiya".

Keep singing, S. P. Balasubrahmanyam sir.

(This post is a tribute to noted singer S. P. Balasubrahmanyam who died due to post-Covid complications on 25th September, 2020)

A piece of the sky

    At 4.45 am, she woke up. She went to her balcony. The stars were still bright, but a slice of sky was slowly turning pale-white. As trains chugged towards the Nizamuddin station, she watched it change into orange, pink, yellow, white, brighter.

    Her personal piece of sky. She has clicked the pics of the same point numerous times during lockdown days. And felt good.

    Or is it? Tomorrow she might be somewhere else. Who knows if the sky will be visible from there. Even if it is there, it won't be hers as well. As she does not own a piece of land anywhere in this earth, can she say with certainty that she owns a rectangular piece of the vast firmament?

    She doesn't need a slice of the earth, just a place, which will be enough to convince the document-hunters that she belongs here, will do it for her.

    But she won't say no to a scoop of the sky.

Dream series-1

It is late afternoon. The sun is soft and dull on the leaves of trees, on the rough cemented pavements, and greyish buildings in front of their hotel.

She has come out surreptitiously, to explore the town, alone. Her family is taking rest after lunch. Sisters. Kids. Brothers-in-Law. Mom is back home.

Why have we come to this city, she wondered. It is congested. Too many cars. Too many shops. There is a sliver of a river running through it. Is this a pilgrimage centre? Otherwise nothing seems to be extraordinary about it.

She takes a turn, and the scene changes completely. Just like that!

There is a rust-coloured cobbled path. Clean. Cosy white bungalows lining up the street. The pink of bougainvillea. The yellow of Amaltas. The flaming red of palash, bringing back childhood memories. Down the way, there are a few small eateries, like the “char dukan” of Mussourie. Families roaming around, laughing, gathering in front of a cart selling fluffy cotton candy of the colour of bougainvillea. She walks on. The road is deserted this side. She looks nervously. There are only a few dogs, fast asleep.

She can see a quaint bus stop, slope-roofed. One coach is waiting there. The seats have side-handles, just like those in a roller-coaster train. She gets in. The bus is nearly full.

And suddenly, the coach jerks and whirls upwards. They are at a circular spot, covered in glassy snow, and all around it one can see a breath-taking view of layers and layers of mountains. The white peaks are gleaming with a golden hue.

She doesn’t realize when and where she comes back, only feels an urgency to return quickly and bring her family here. They should see this.

She doesn’t realise she is in a dream. She doesn’t remember anything about any life- threatening virus. She doesn’t notice that none of the people at the shops or the bus was wearing a mask. That they were not looking furtively at each other, measuring  distance, avoiding touch. She doesn’t realise that this cannot be real.

She starts running back. In the dream.

(The accompanying picture is of Sikkim)