Tracing the largely unseen underwear to the land of its origin is probably the closest to discovery we can make these days. But for New Zealand columnist and travel writer Joe Bennett the reasons for the pursuit weren’t so illustrious: the measly price tag on the five-pack set from his local store made him wonder who would possibly profit from the transaction. He, like the rest of us, has no idea how a pair is made. He is however aware that they are made from cotton and cotton grows on bushes in ‘rabbit-tail tufts.’

Where does the rubber for the elastic band come from? Who are the men – and the middlemen – involved in the making and the marketing? Who takes a call on the accommodating and absorbing qualities of the gusset? What are the logistics that go into packaging and transport? Even though he considers it a foregone conclusion their impact on the occasional sexual partner, the scarlet hearts and racing cars on the Y front serves to arouse his interest further. When everything else except man is made in China, his curiosity about the commercial and industrial processes on which his easy existence depends lands him there.

Close discoveries: Joe Bennett (Photo from Stuff.co.nz)

Okay, ‘Where underpants come from’ was published in 2008 and many things have changed since then: a client from the engineering sector whom I am filming for currently informs me that the days of cheap labour – and poor quality, fortunately – are long over. ‘They worked really hard and met our specifications to the millimetre,’ I quote the chief project manager who was based out of Shanghai for a year to get things going. I told him it was probably because he was ex-army. Quality, I thought, was the bête noire of the Chinese. In the next hour the good colonel made me realise that my view was, as Bennett put it, ‘prejudice born of ignorance and propaganda.’ Well. ‘I wouldn’t be back here if I weren’t sure,’ he assured me. I believe him – it’s a bridge he is making.

While following his new pairs to their ancestral looms and parent Jukis form the narrative thread, the book also unveils the intricate web of cold calls and eager contacts, shifty industry visits and curious exchanges that form the crux of global trade. ‘Where underpants come from’ is useful as a people manual for anyone looking to outsource from China or enter into any sort of commercial relations. Through his visit to hinterland factories he shares with us a ‘tasting of a smidgen of rural China’; we are brought closer to the rustic folk, their urban dreams and working culture. Bennett finds out that the average duration a worker stays in the factory is two years – which is roughly the same period they remain in manufacturing units in India too. I have a textile major as a client and this one came as a stumper for its universality and lack of any specific reason. That is unless workers everywhere thought it was time to marry when they missed a hike in drudgery.

Blue hates earthquakes and cameras (Photo by Joe)

There are other interesting parallels with India like road traffic conditions and driving habits. Witnessing his second accident within 24 hours, Bennett proclaims the horn ‘enfeebled by overuse’ and calls the rear view mirror ‘largely decorative’ – which flies for us too. Corruption is endemic and everyone expects to be bribed; in India this expectation regardless of dispensation has stayed. Government sponsored sting operations have only ensured that related transactions have moved into sanitised environments. The people account from the restaurant remains mirabile dictu for the shared laughs and the random onlooker who trains the author to use chopsticks. These are people and I am familiar with people, stresses he. I couldn’t have agreed more. Some others like the Uighur issue – into which he delves with consideration erudition and panache – is not only alive to this day but kicking as well.

Arms like turkey wattles. Agricultural Trabants. Tarted up heritage. Whirling dervish dances as performed for heads of state or photographers from National Geographic magazine. The analogies that set me chuckling are numerous. As were the weighty introspections that set me on the contemplative path: the synthetic nature of tourism – the way an agreed notion of tourism is arrived at and promoted and sold to people. His disillusionment with the red light area Patpong throws light on a disconcerting fact we all chose to overlook to satiate our own lusts, including that to wander:

‘Like so many of the famous big things, the epitome things, the draw cards of the world, geographical, architectural, spiritual, sinful, their bigness rests in our imagination. Their imagination has been swollen by words, words that eventually doom the visitor into a damning ‘Is that it?’ It’s the tendency to mythologise that lurks at the heart of all religions, all advertising, that soars beyond the mundane and lures us forward.’

The author interview

Where has the rest gone to? (A handout photo)

In short, ‘Where underpants come from’ was the best gift I got last Christmas. The sister – the second of the four – who gifted it was worried if I’d like it – she had heard me talk about many writers but not Joe Bennett. Right, if I were to line up all the travel writers I know, Joe wouldn’t be there. There will be Bill Bryson, Pico Iyer and Paul Theroux. Jack Kerouac looking a tad groggy and Bruce Chatwin on a charm offensive. John Steinbeck, Graham Greene and Jan Morris shaking their heads. There will be the sombre Colin Thubron and even the famously sesquipedalian Tim Mackintosh-Smith. SK Pottekkatt, my favourite vernacular writer of the genre would lounge in his mundu and light up a filter-less Charminar. But no Joe. To find out what I was missing – and maybe even how I missed – I got into a spot of virtual chinwag with Joe.

Why are you not known like Pico Iyer or Paul Theroux or Bill Bryson or…?

I can’t answer that.

Your first novel King Rich came out last year. More are on the way. Is travel writing over for you?

I wrote four travel books. I don’t know if I’ll do any more. Right now I am working on a memoir of sorts.

Novel, to quote you, because of its emotional nature, allows one to get closest to the truth. How so? You were pretty emotional when your dog Jessie died in ‘Where underpants come from.’ 

Fiction is different from non-fiction. The techniques of putting words together are the same, but the imaginative process is different. The books I’ve read that matter most to me are almost all fiction. They cut closer to the heart of things.

(By Iain McGregor for Stuff.co.nz)

Many of your books have you on the cover. Is it kind of making up for your antipathy for the social media? 

I do despise the social media. But I also don’t design my book covers. The ones with me on them are nearly all collections of my newspaper columns. In New Zealand I am probably best known as a columnist.

Travel literature is booming in India – both reading as well as writing. Share some trade secrets with those who want to be like you (me, for example). 

I don’t think I have any trade secrets. For me the business of writing is the business of rewriting. It could always be better, tighter, simpler. Never finished, only ever abandoned. If there was a formula for good writing all good writing would be the same. The only good advice I know is Orwell’s.

Ever been to India? Plan to visit sometime? A book reading perhaps? Or the Taj?

I’ve never been to India. Was planning to do so in 2009 but the publishers suggested they’d prefer a book on Dubai, so I went there instead. And that was the last travel book I wrote. India is so vast I wouldn’t know where to begin. But yes, I would like to go there one day.

One question for you: how did you get to be called Thommen? It sounds half Norwegian, half Portuguese/Spanish. Though now I think of it, didn’t Portugal colonise Kerala for a while?

Thommen, as far as I know, is old Kerala for Thomas. But now that you say it…

China flag motif – the big golden communist star leading four smaller stars of social classes – on red underwear made for a great cover too. Imagine the furore if Bennett had traced his underpants to India.

Compared to its Mumbai namesake Jinnah House in Delhi has shunned controversy and sits quietly away from public glare, behind man-high baroque iron gates in the middle of an expansive, well groomed lawn. The guards are armed and unseen, stepping out of their watchhouse only as your car approaches. They look surprised to hear that you have indeed come to ‘10, Aurangzeb Road;’ since the recent renaming to ‘APJ Abdul Kalam Road’ which appears only at intersections most pop by to ask where it is. A flurry of calls followed by a thorough check of the car boot and an innocuous scrutiny of faces, you are directed to park in a recess next to a garage. A day time auxiliary appears holding a cordless phone and ushers us in through a side door. The Ambassador is on the way, we are informed, meanwhile, feel free to look around.

The man

Elegant edifice

Named after its most famous resident, Muhammad Ali Jinnah lived here from 1938 to 1947 with his sister Fatima; his estranged second wife Ratanbai Petit Jinnah (Ruttie) had died in 1929. He was 39 years old when he met the Parsi Ruttie who was 16; due to social pressures they waited for two years, Ruttie converted to Islam and took the name Mariam, before they got married and promptly ostracised from family circles. Sarojini Naidu who was in love with Jinnah wrote then, probably not very kindly: ‘So Jinnah has at last plucked the Blue Flower of his desire. The child has made far bigger sacrifices than she yet realises.’ They had a daughter Dina but Ruttie was soon to be disillusioned by Jinnah’s endless meetings and his lack of interest in music, arts and dance. Dina, mother of Nusli Wadia, Bombay Dyeing chairman, would later triangulate the India-Pakistan spat over the Jinnah House in Mumbai. The action witnessed by the one in Delhi shaped the destiny of two nations. It was in the wood panelled library here the final decision to divide the nation was arrived at.

The history

The All India Muslim League passed a resolution for a separate homeland for the Muslims of India at the Minto Park (Iqbal Park today) in Lahore on March 23, 1940. Following this, Jinnah began to travel to Delhi more often to discuss the finer details of Partition with other leaders like Sardar Vallabhai Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad and Gandhi. While he stayed at the Imperial Hotel during his first few visits, his friends like Liaquat Ali Khan who later became the first prime minister of Pakistan convinced him to have a more permanent arrangement here. The house on 10, Aurangzeb Road was originally built by FB Blomfied for Sardar Baisakha Singh a government contractor. It is said that Blomfied himself loved the house so much that he decided to stay there for some years on rent. Jinnah considered several properties around Delhi and finally the dapper politician settled for Singh’s stylish mansion at the intersection of Aurangzeb Road and Queensway (now Janpath). The price was three lakh rupees. The extravagant housewarming party was the talking point in social circles for years to come.

The historical library

Many more lavish parties followed – most of which were to organise Muslims for the Pakistan cause. When Jinnah was not in town, Altaf Hussain, close friend and editor of the Muslim League organ The Dawn, acted as caretaker. Hussain also moonlighted as a caustic polemicist writing speeches for Jinnah. Once the Partition was finalised in 1947 and Jinnah was about to leave for Pakistan, he sold the house to Ramkrishna Dalmia, who owned the Times of India. Dalmia first rented out the house to the Dutch Ambassador. Eventually when he got wind of the government’s plan to requisition the property Dalmia pre-empted the demarche by selling it to the Dutch government. It has been the residence of Dutch Ambassadors since. We were here to interview the current one, the 17^th since 1947, Alphonsus Stoelinga, for a film on Indo-Dutch trade relations.

The architecture

The foundation stone of the Jinnah House was laid by Lutyens, architect of modern Delhi, in March 1920; the house was designed and built by Blomfied. For nearly a century now the building remains true to its original form. A handsome habitation, some even regard this as the ‘most beautiful house in Delhi.’ Though I am not sure about this I can vouch that next to this the Antilla is a soaring Lego mishmash. Well, why just next to it!

Ponder-worthy

My gaze followed the camera as it tilted down the spotless white facade. The mansion stood elegant with its own sense of scale and proportion, spread over two storeys. The Dutch national flag was hoisted in front of a small shiny dome at the top. The top floor opened to an open balcony with an arch and two column buttresses. Two longer ones flanked the main entrance which faced a freshly watered lawn glinting under a harsh sun. Small vertical windows stood out in contrast with their timber panes. Palm trees dotted the gardenscape, every ticket of leaf spotless green. Inside there were galleries, living rooms, bedrooms and a dining room. The famous library with its lush woodwork set off sybaritic burgundy overtones in the harsh afternoon sun mellowed by the curtains. It was the Ambassador’s study – as were of the others before him. Books were neatly stacked all around me in cavernous racks. Closer to the study was one on Rembrandt which looked suspiciously new.

“I thought Jinnah was not exactly an art savant,” I remarked to the Ambassador.

“Well, that is mine,” he replied not even looking up from the cutaway working shot we were now filming. He told me later that the entire library was his. Apparently all Ambassadors travelled with their own university-size libraries. I remember contracting catalepsy once when informed of the excess baggage fine I had to cough up because of dozen-odd books.

An outstanding feature of the interior design, which I took a while to notice, was the hexagonal shaped central hall with the ground floor radiating around it. The lobby resembled different roads that led to an intersection – just like how a city map of Delhi would look like.

Blomfied and Lutyens were more than friends – they were associates too.

An idle mind is the devil’s workshop (Biblical) 

You shall do no work on Sabbath (also Biblical) 

Let there be no light

Heritage abounds: The three-domed building

What used to be a water tank for royalty thrives today as watering holes for the proletariat. There is one for every mood as long as it doesn’t involve bright. None of the wordy walls or pop bursts, fashion overdoses or ‘guaranteed awesomeness’ of the pubs in Connaught Place. Here the usher doesn’t welcome you in but directs you up – each floor is a different gig. Cover charges are in place to prevent you from going astray. Suggest you take the stairs for there are people to be met in various inspiring ataraxic interludes at the landings. There is art and some esoterica to be discovered – one place I came across a harmonium pinned to the wall which lent the air a folksy gaiety. This is also the only time you get to see other patrons’ faces and some.

Shape of things to come

On a bar hopping evening at Hauz Khas I sat on an open terrace beneath steel flues spewing water puffs; an inspired urban remake of the famed monsoon palace of Deeg. The moist draughts flew with the spirits and the spirited hookah. One with Suraj Mal himself. Everything was just perfect till it was time to eat. Now I have a non-variable need to put a face to my comestibles. And under the circumstances – where the brightest source of light was the half moon – it just wasn’t happening. So I went all the way down to ground zero to a radiant momo joint but had to leave without eating as they didn’t serve alcohol. Later I sat on another open terrace and dug into some sumptuous meaty fare with the mustard sauce and mayo splodged around my mouth.

For once I was thankful for the dark that swathed me.

What’s the special tonight?

Niche shops

The entry to a popular hangout had the dimensions of a sally port. Hovering outside was the person whom the Roman soldiers in Asterix were modelled after. The gleaming chintzy tee shirt looked like it was painted on him. Girls in skirts with sequins hanging precipitously above walked in like Alice into the Rabbit Hole. Heavy metal pulsated in bursting gusts of air from the other end of the tunnel. Strobe lights flickered across the walls and the roof like LED on legs. The whole area thrummed and throbbed. Exiting couples who canoodled on the way out were met with undiluted hatred. Everyone waited with the patience of the last pair to board Noah’s Ark. After a day-long siesta it was time for a night-long fiesta. My date had joined me after a long day in office explaining creative to a difficult client. She was hungry. We sauntered off for some grub. Dancing could wait.

“What’s the special tonight?” She asked somebody with a menu card.

“Ukrainian DJ,” he replied. “It is EDM night.”

“And not SDM?” she asked.

The harlequin just stared.

Niche shops in every nook

Kusum Jain

There was a time when Hauz Khas was a sought-after eating and shopping destination. Not anymore. Today everyone comes to get drunk and dance, a resident griped to me earlier that evening. Later, as I was leaving, I came across groups of youngsters in the parking huddled over car bonnets emptying bottles of whiskey. Some barely made it to the pubs’ side entry walking. Their disappearing feet, I was surprised to find, was not even a source of mirth to their buddies but a weekend fait accompli.

“The Village used to be a favoured hangout for the gentry,” says Avdhesh who runs Four Horsemen, a travel and leather accessory shop with a partner. “Today forget discerning customers we are running dry of any kind of customer.” Most of their business comes from online orders.

I wanted a custom-made leather seat for my bike and Avdhesh said he could do it for me.

Kusum Jain who owns Cottage of Arts and Jewels, an Ali Baba cave for old books, maps and antique items, believes it is a wrong perception that in Hauz Khas the prices are high. “All these items are laboriously sourced from all over India, their purchase and freight takes money, a lot of money.” Jain also dismisses that the rigid discouragement of bargaining – a staple in the Delhiite’s shopping experience – could be a reason why domestic shoppers do not exactly flock to Hauz Khas anymore.

Meet the people

“What’s there to bargain? I mean, on what basis can you bring down the price of an antique item? Or designer wear for that matter?” She asks while showing me her collection of silver jewellery, some of them centuries old. I did not dare ask her the prices but she told me anyway.

“This one is just 800 rupees,” she took out a jhumki. “Do you think it is too much?” Two Hoegaardens inclusive of tax and service charges cost so much, I didn’t tell her.

“They are very pretty,” I said instead.

Jain told me her grandmother used to sport an eyebrow piercing just like me. But unlike other trends and design on the comeback trail, this one hasn’t exactly caught on. I assured Mrs Jain that I was doing my best.

Punjabi by nature

After-90 borns

Hauz Khas. Las Vegas. They even sound close. The hotel-flanked Strip and pedestrian-only Fremont which go on for miles are both here. If only for a few metres. The Speedway is everywhere – courtesy of distraught residents, the only ones with permission to drive inside the Village. The freak shows and pole dances, cowboys and town cars are missing. Then so are Mike Posner, Twenty One Pilots and The Chainsmokers. Heck, Rihanna even. No, I do not have a problem with Mika; I find him the best desi rap act and even love him for his Hummer (‘Cribs India’ should kick-start with him, unless it hasn’t arleady.) But it’s the DJ who gets my goat.

“All you after 90 born Punjabis…” The DJ exhorted across three different venues. Some were to ‘thoda shor machana’ (make some noise), ‘make some noise’ and ‘put your hands in the air.’ There was no way I could be of any help – I was born in Kerala and way before 90. Even my date, although a Punjabi, was left out because of birth year stipulations. But I must confess there were some saving graces. Must have been noting my look of desolation the DJ once also included ‘all you Govinda lovers…’

“Had he seen your hair he’d have honoured Jeetendra lovers too,” said my friend.

The second time that evening I thought nicely of dim lights.

(June 2 is International Sex Workers’ Day. This is a prize winning story revolving around the adventures spanning an evening of Donna aka Devi, a fictitious streetwalker based out of the Thampanoor in Trivandrum, Kerala. Dedicated to all Donnas and Devis out there. May your profession be legalised and organised so that you can live with dignity and courage.)

Two things struck him when he slapped her hard across her face:

- unlike in the movies his hand didn’t swing in a semi arc, but stopped right on contact and,

- again unlike in the movies, it sounded like a dull thud and not as if a cracker burst.

His hand stung too – probably not like in the, well, fuck it – and he winced. She saw him redden in pain and very quickly – but not quick enough – she lowered her gaze with a defiant meekness. The pain – and the fact that she saw him in agony – only served to aggravate his anger. He kept up the violence mostly to save his face. With his left hand he mangled her cheeks and pulled at her nose as if trying to pry it off her face; some zits on her nostril broke from his nails and bled. Probably the sight of blood or just plain exhaustion, he sat on the bed panting. She stood unmoving. He was still shivering with rage and tried to kick her but his legs didn’t make contact. She moved a few steps backwards maybe to get a better look at him. He was perspiring hard: beads of sweat amassed on his forehead before flowing in minor tributaries over his temples to his shirtless torso, trickled down his nipples, traced a busy path over his bloated up belly like crystal termites on a pheromone trail before getting sucked in by the elastic band of a faded Tantex underwear. His right hand swung at her wildly, his fury refusing to ebb. She looked up at him more in amusement than in disbelief – was he so brain dead to see that she could pulverise him if she wanted to? Physically she was stronger, much stronger, than the pensioner who sat shuddering from head to toe on the bed. He swung out at her again, but his limbs were listless now like the flailing wings of a dying pigeon in the peak of summer. His face tilted to one side and his lips opened and froze midway like someone having second thoughts about what he was going to say. Slowly he slanted over the side of the bed, staring at her through glazed eyes. The pensioner, Venu, who had retired from the public works department as a chief engineer some years ago, was a severely diabetic man and he had just embarked on his second stroke which would soon prove fatal. But Devi who was with him, the one at the receiving end of his tragic little rage a little earlier, was clueless. After all, hookers do not ask for the medical history of customers. So screaming or calling for help were the last things that came to her mind. Even if it did occur to her – to help him, if at all – she was soon relieved of such noble urges.

Venu and his other pensioner friends had gathered at the Rajadhani Bar in East Fort after collecting their pensions from the different sub treasuries spread all over the city; most of them came by auto rickshaws from Vellayambalam and Vanchiyoor and one even from Kazhakkoottam, 15 km away. None of them wanted to miss these monthly get-togethers when they swam in parotta and chilly beef or Malabari chicken curry and bottles of Honey Bee brandy away from the watchful eyes of their wives; most of them had medical histories which they wrote over the 30 plus years sitting behind desks doing civil service. The rest of the month they acquiesced to salt-less curries and sugar-free coffees; wheat porridge and other baked suds even when the wives themselves wished at times they’d object for that occasional eat out at the Indian Coffee House. The few hundred rupees missing from the pension was attributed to the ‘employee welfare fund’ which actually never went above ten or fifteen rupees. But most of the women being housewives had no means to crosscheck. Venu had to account for more – 1500 rupees, to be exact. The last month and the month before he had told his wife that George, an ex-colleague, who retired as assistant engineer, was borrowing the money from him. He had even cooked up a tale on how his wife was sick and was admitted at the KIMS Hospital. So the nights he spent with hookers in lodges in Thampanoor were thus spent with George, consoling him, giving him strength. Anyway it was not like they needed the money or anything. Their kids were grown up and comfortably settled – the boy was with Wipro in Bangalore and the girl was married to a pharmacist in Canada. Still Venu made it a point to explain the missing monies as soon as he reached home so that his wife didn’t ask him unawares.

After the party they all came by auto rickshaws to Thampanoor bus terminal and parted ways promising to meet a month later; George wouldn’t be making it as he was going to Riyadh where his daughter just had a baby. Venu made a mental note of not uttering a word of George’s foreign trip to his wife.

It was only early dusk and the nocturnal crowd would take a while to appear. Venu looked at the spiral Indian Coffee House with lozenges of light coming out of its numerous jaalis and on a whim he walked towards it. Probably the thought of all the dietary constraints that awaited him he wolfed down a plate of meat cutlets with the limp onion salad that always accompanied it. Exiting the red brickwork landmark that looked like a hammered-down Pisa tower he walked towards a roadside vendor and bought a Gold Flake king size cigarette. Fifteen fucking rupees: he knew he was paying for the beat cop too.

He walked back to the bus terminal, the new bus terminal, around which everyone was still figuring their way. The only thing they all knew for sure was that buses were not to be chased like in the olden days – dissuaded by a gap on the approach with smooth steel rollers placed wide enough for the running limb to slip through. Even then most still kept at it – gingerly tiptoeing over the rollers only to find the bus has disappeared inside the terminus. Right on cue the guards would come out and chase them back over the rollers and this time some would actually slip and smash their testicles or lose their sandals into the cavernous hollow below. Venu watched the tamasha for some time and walked towards the entrance proper. He walked with not very steady steps along a slanting walkway to the entrance atop a flight of stairs. Shops – spaces, actually, denoted by downed shutters – extended to both sides of the terminus all along the ground, first and second floors. A few on the first floor were already taken, while most on the ground floor remained shut probably being more expensive. The only spaces on the ground that were occupied were the pay and use toilets, at both ends of the wing; all the spice ensuring good business. There were stairways going up and down and large areas cordoned off with yellow tapes probably earmarked for escalators. It was deserted save for a pilgrim or traveller who had spread out his mundu to dry after washing it while showering in the pay and use toilet. As soon as it got dark and the shops shut, it’d be a stopover for streetwalkers to lure customers and gays looking for companions – with darting eyes and tongues respectively. The pilgrims got quick blow jobs while their mundu dried for ten or twenty rupees. The security guard, who bastinadoed his way across the rubble and balustrade at regular intervals, turned a blind eye to the shenanigans. Unless he spotted someone ripworthy, that is – the clients, usually.

Devi was squatting on the landing of the stairway when Venu met her; they had signalled each other with their eyes and finally Venu followed Devi up the steps to a dark corner where a scaffolding stood. Some rags had been spread between the frames and there were blotches of paint everywhere. Devi went under the crossbrace in one fluid motion while Venu stood on the other side, outside.

“Quickly,” she said tugging at him by the belt.

“How much?” he asked shuffling away from her grasp.

“Two hundred, in the mouth,” Devi said. Later when the customer was caught in the throe-shold, she’d add a hundred rupees more if he wanted to come in the mouth. It always worked; tested trick of the trade.

“No, wait,” Venu said, now moving well beyond her reach.

“Fine, one hundred then, but by hand only,” she said impatiently. Business was pretty low; she hadn’t made much money the whole week. Some said it was the case in every business – heavy discounts were the norm.

“No, not that, not like that,” Venu said and asked “how much for the whole night?”

“One thousand rupees.”

Venu looked at her, seeing her for the first time. Though she sat on her haunches in front of him he could see that she was a big woman with long, muscular hands. She emerged from beneath the scaffolding like a sinewy big cat, a head taller than him with glistening dark skin. Her well-oiled hair was braided and reached all the way below her knees – one reason he didn’t bargain when she quoted her price. He always had a fascination for well-rounded women with long hair – a sort of conditioning by the leading heroines of Malayalam cinema during his youth like Sheela and Srividya. In fact he kept breaking step so he could take a look at her long braids as they headed to the lodge.

He had hardly mounted her a while later and he ejaculated.

“You’re a real devi,” he said probably by way of explaining.

“My real name is Donna,” she replied. “I just stick to Devi as it’s easy.”

“You’re still a devi,” he said. “Lovely long hair and big rounded breasts and…and…you even have more muscles than me. Were you into sports?”

Devi/Donna was a fisherwoman from the nearby port town Vizhinjam. Her husband Andros owned a fishing vessel and brought back a decent catch on most days. That was a long time ago. A diminishing catch over the years due to climate changes coupled with being an incurable soak saw to it that the boat had to be sold off. But he’d still go in other boats on a daily wage basis and she began to hawk fish for other contractors in and around Vizhinjam town. On most days she had to walk till Mulloor from Vizhinjam before she sold off her stock – three kilometres under the harsh sun with the steel vessel balanced on her head. When the announcement for the new port was made along with the promise of jobs for some 20,000 fishermen who’d lose their livelihoods, Andros stopped going to work altogether. It didn’t really occur to him that technically it was not the port which was claiming his livelihood.

It became difficult for Donna to support the family through fish mongering. But prostitution was still not her first recourse: it was stealing. She would ride in the buses that plied between Vizhinjam or the touristy Kovalam nearby and Thampanoor and steal off the rucksacks of backpackers or pick the pockets of enamoured domestic male tourists who’d press themselves up against her. She would return the pressure with a squeeze here and there and sometimes through the pocket. The picking went down with the quality of tourists visiting Kovalam. Even the phone and other accessories she flicked from the bags were cheap Chinese.

“There’s nothing in that big, stringy bag, I tell you,” she said.

“Most of those who come to our country are the hairdressers and butchers,” Venu replied trying to cover up his worry over a still-deflated member with his grasp of tourism demographics. He rose from the bed to go to the bathroom. Whatever little action had left him a little dizzy and he didn’t want the hooker to see. He hoped it’d be the Honey Bee but he wasn’t sure. Flashes of a fateful protest march years ago when he suffered his first stroke and had fainted floated across his eyes; his colleagues wrapped him immediately in a red flag and shouted slogans of martyrdom – albeit prematurely. He tried to wash them away by splashing water over his face. He was standing clutching the rim of the basin when her words struck him: hands through the pocket. Probably the bathroom door didn’t have a latch or maybe Devi/Donna was expecting the sound of the flush to announce his imminent exit. Whatever, when Venu emerged from the toilet he found her rummaging through his shirt pocket, on the verge of discovering the secret pocket sewn on the inside where he carried the serious dosh.

The stoic indifference Devi/Donna maintained throughout the assault didn’t mean that the slaps didn’t hurt. There were angry welts across her face and blood from the broken zits from the later mauling – these though had started to itch now. After watching Venu convulsing for some time, it did occur to her that it could be a seizure. Before her marriage to Andros she had a boyfriend Boney who worked as a tourist guide cum porter cum drug peddler cum call boy out of Kovalam. Boney was now running a small but successful awning business in Kyoto after marrying a 65 year old Japanese divorcee whom he accompanied to Agra where, during a midnight viewing of the Taj Mahal, he fed his well-practised spiel of Indian men and everlasting love. Bodh Gaya and Boney’s own adherence to right speech and action, the visa was made.

Boney had on many occasions acted out for Donna the paroxysmal motions of a 70-year old English tourist, a paedophile, high on the hash Boney had sold him hit by a stroke while trying out some gymnastic antics with a boy, who again, Boney had brought. Boney was in the same room rolling joints for his wife when it happened. In the supreme compassion and erudition that comes your way only when you are stoned, Boney and the English lady first decided to let the boy out and then wait till the guy had calmed down a bit before calling room service. The room service called the manager who alerted the hotel doctor who proclaimed the tourist dead on (the doctor’s) arrival. More than mimicking a Mammootty or Mohanlal, this was Boney’s favourite – he used to enact the grotesque fish-lip and gurgle, the flailing-arms-going-rigid routine with panache – after sex, while sharing a joint, while making up, right till Donna announced her wedding to Andros. See, one doesn’t marry boys like Boney. They are too funny for life.

Venu now lay on the bed and moved spasmodically, with a rigidity unlike before. Devi hastily put on the underskirt – she wasn’t wearing panties – and draped the sari hurriedly around her. She pulled on her blouse – she wasn’t wearing a bra – and hooked it into place. Just as she was about to reach out for the shirt again and its little secret pocket with the money, the door burst open and two guys stood in front of her: one was the night manager and the other the youngster who showed them into the room when they checked in.

“Do you want to be arrested for this man’s death?” It was the manager, in a curiously calm voice.

Devi knew better than to argue and turned around to leave. Probably hoping for a last moment change of heart in the guys she turned back to look at them as she reached the door; after all she was the one responsible for their good luck. One had already begun relieving the secret pocket of its contents while the other was switching off the mobile phone found in the trouser pocket. They looked up at her, menace gradually clouded their eyes.

“We’ll not tell you again.” The room boy hissed. She flew.

She got it that they had been peering through either the keyhole or some other crack or crevice in the mirror or the wall all the while. She also knew that the pensioner would be found in some trash heap the next day and photographs would be stuck on ‘request to identify’ ads in papers which wouldn’t tally with the sprightly ones on the ‘missing’ boards in police stations. She also knew that she actually ought to be thankful to those guys – what if they denied her what was fairly hers? She had never been to a police station and though she knew they didn’t shave off hookers’ heads any more, she was still scared. Besides her husband and neighbours would be notified of what she had been up to; not that they didn’t know nor cared but an official opprobrium would mean approbation to harassment and innuendos she was subject to with an increasing frequency these days. She was just another hooker trying to eke out a living. Hopefully it would all be over once the new port opened. For her and others like her living around the multi crore project area.

***

Devi went back to the bus terminal where the lathi-ed security guard let out a loud cough as she passed. It was just his subtle way of letting her know that he knew and she should also know cuts were in order. She met his eyes fleetingly to let him know that it was forthcoming.

Patience.

She went straight to her corner; the day, the week had been bad and she had to at least make a hundred rupees before she took the last bus to Vizhinjam which was in another two hours. There instead of the usual mundu-drying pilgrim resting half naked listening to religious songs on the mobile phone sat a blond-haired German, Wolfgang, in cut-offs and wrinkled tee shirt and smoking a wrinkled cigarette.

Wolfgang was waiting for the 10 PM Sulthan Bathery bus to take him to Calicut; he would be reaching at 6 in the morning. His wife Catherine had already reached from Kochi. Besides an insurance underwriter he was also a travel blogger with a decent number of RSS subscriptions. As he wanted to cover Kovalam for his readers so while his wife headed to Calicut he bussed down to Trivandrum and Kovalam just for a day.

He was keying in on his Acer Aspire when she sidled towards him:

The most fun you will have in Kovalam is body surfing, be prepared to be roasted alive though it’s not yet Thanksgiving…

He kept typing, giving her just a cursory glance:

The acid is missing from the beaches but the beer server assured me it is available, has to be, there is reggae all over and every second  tee shirt has Bob Marley on it…

He then asked her without looking up:

“You know I’m from Berlin, the land of King George Brothel?”

She looked back at him quizzically.

“You know, fuck-all-you-can?” He took a deep drag and flicked the cigarette away before looking at her and smiling.

“Fuck, yes, fuck.” She replied making a gyrating motion with her hips.

“No I can’t you see, I have a bus to catch,” he told her. “Besides I don’t think I will be able to get it up, you see am all stoned.” He spread out his long fingers which drooped down like limp members after an orgy.

“Come, we fuck, yes.” Devi repeated.

“Well, I guess that will be a new one to tell my readers then,” he said.

And wrote:

But what definitely is available is love…free love…they come to you…out of the blue. Or dark. Dark…

“But lady I must tell you that all I have is about an hour, I will have to leave soon,” Wolfgang told her before setting off towards the Aristo Junction with its many hotels. None of them were ready to give room by the hour, however one seedy one finally agreed on the condition that Wolfgang gave it a five-star rating on TripAdvisor.

Beneath the rickety fan Wolfgang’s golden mane flew. Each time he thrust into her she gasped – pain and pleasure in equal parts. ‘The blacks have the biggest dicks,’ Boney had once told her as they were about to watch a porn movie at a friend’s place. ‘It will just tear you apart.’ ‘Thank god you are not a black,’ she had replied to which everyone had laughed, including Boney. For whatever it was worth Boney was a good sport. She missed Boney.

“I love it, I love it,” she moaned remembering the lines from the movie years ago. “Faster, faster.” She didn’t remember the rest: harder.

She clutched and clawed his buttocks and cupped his testicles – did everything she knew to make him ejaculate fast, nothing worked. Finally after about half an hour Wolfgang crumpled on top of her with a loud scream. Devi was too tired and sore by then to do anything: she lay motionless feeling the still-spurting semen inside her.

Wolfgang sat up and dressed. He rummaged in his rucksack and fished out another crumpled joint which he straightened out and lit. After taking a few drags, he offered it to her. She pulled a little; she was never into drugs though it was available aplenty with Boney.

“You smoke hashish,” she said.

Wolfgang wasn’t sure whether it was a question or a statement. He just smiled at her and nodded.

“You are, how do I put it…a good time woman?” He asked leaning back on the bed. Enlightenment had its many sources.

“No…no…no,” she replied. “I student, I fuck for fee.” Boney had told her it worked every time with the Europeans – saying you were a travel guide or a hooker because you had to finance your way through university.

“Oh you have a fee? You mean you are a…prostitute?” Wolfgang seemed mildly surprised at the possibility.

“Yes fee…fuck…fee.”

“How much?”

“Only ten thousand rupees.” Most Europeans are nice and some are dumb too – if Boney was to be believed. And this one was stoned to boot.

“What the fuck!” Wolfgang sprang up from where he sat like the cushion bit him, spat out what remained of the joint from his mouth. “Did you say ten-ficking-thousand rupees? Call the bloody manager!”

He banged his fist on the wall and dragged his rucksack off the side table before opening the door. True to reputation or prompt service, the manager stood right outside the door straightening up as if he had just finished tying up his shoelaces.

“Hey you,” Wolfgang screamed at him. “This, this whore is asking for too much money.”

“How much, sir?” The manager asked deferentially.

“Ten-fucking-thousand rupees.”

“How much did you ask him for?” The manager asked Devi in Malayalam.

“Ten thousand,” she replied.

At this the manager laughed out loudly which further irritated Wolfgang.

“Hey, sorry, I cannot participate in your joke,” Wolfgang barked at the manager. “I have a bus to catch.” And he was off. The last thing Devi saw of Wolfgang was a hazy yellow glint reflecting off his open mane as he huffed down the hallway.

“Look at them,” the manager told Devi turning to follow her gaze, “which part of them makes you think they have that kind of money?”

As Devi walked away she heard the manager mutter “I just hope the scoundrel gives me a good review on TripAdvisor.”

‘Must be some new magazine,’ she thought as she headed back to the bus terminal. ‘If Boney was around I could’ve asked him.’

***

Fr. George spread out his white towel to dry over the balustrade and looked closely at his watch. It was dark and he couldn’t see the time, he tried twisting his wrist in different directions to get a better look.

“It’s almost 10,” a female voice said.

Fr. George looked in the direction of the sound – it was just a few steps away from where he stood.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you,” he said as if he had walked into somebody’s bedroom by mistake. There was no reply.

“See I’m coming from Adoor and somebody who sat in the front seat threw up soiling my towel, but thankfully the rest of me was saved,” he said and guffawed. “By god’s grace.”

“Are you a priest?” The female voice asked.

“Yes,” Fr. George answered. “I’m on my way to Patna, there’s a train at 12:50 AM.”

“What do you do in Patna?” She asked.

“Oh I teach in a school, actually I am the principal.”

“So what are you doing in Kerala?”

“I came for the Onam celebrations. Actually I was the chief guest of a school here whose principal is my brother.”

“If I come to Patna with you will you help me find a job?”

“But what do you do here?”

“What do you think I’m doing here?” She asked, sitting up and moving closer towards the light. The pallu of her sari was spread out as a makeshift mattress and Devi was almost naked waist up. Fr. George swallowed hard before regaining his composure.

“We have a destitute home in Patna and I might be able to admit you there,” he said.

“To hell with your destitute home, I have a family to feed.”

“But what work can you do?”

“I can fuck hard – you can fuck me all you want. And your father superior too.”

“Child, remember you are talking to a priest,” Fr. George rebuked her gently.

“Why, you guys don’t have the dicky?” By then Devi had given up all hopes of landing a customer or going home. Her last bus would be leaving soon and the nearest male was a priest with a train to catch.

“As a matter of fact we do,” Fr. George said. “We’re also humans, you see.”

“Then prove it!”

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Devi, er, Donna.”

“Devi or Donna?”

“My real name is Donna and I use the name Devi, for, er professional reasons.”

“Christian?”

“Yes, Latin,” she said. “And I’m tired and now be the famous Good Samaritan and give me just sixteen rupees to go home,” she wanted to add, but didn’t. Actually.

“What are your rates my child?” He asked. “I hope you won’t fleece me, I’m a poor priest, you know.”

Just as they were heading up to the first floor, now completely shrouded in darkness, the security guard came thud-thudding the floor with his lathi.

“Where do you think you’re going?” He asked. Loud enough for the priest and the prostitute to sink in their steps but not loud enough to attract the attention of those passing by.

Fr. George took out a hundred rupee note from his pocket and handed it to the guard who pocketed it and walked away, thud-thudding after him.

‘Poor priest, bah!’ Donna thought, sure that there was more where it came from and began to run through her mind the usual tricks of additional extrication. He looked like a good sort and probably she should stick to being nice and give him a fair deal. Beginning with a good time.

“Am I your first customer today?” Fr. George asked as they neared the scaffolding.

“No, not at all,” she replied.

“How many before me?”

“There was a pensioner who paid two thousand rupees and then a German tourist who paid five thousand rupees.” She couldn’t stop the barrage of lies that scrambled out on their own. Force of habit. She looked sideways at the priest unsure whether he bought it. But he seemed to be lost in a world of his own. Was he smiling?

“Tell me more about these two customers,” he said.

“They were both men, like you, what else?” She asked.

“Like what they looked like, what they did to you, for how long. The German must have been great fun. Tell me about him. Was he fair? How big was he?”

Donna knelt beneath the crossbrace and went under the scaffolding. She took off her sari and arranged it over the rags on the ground before she lay down over it.

“Tell me…tell me about him…and you…” Fr. George gasped, leaning with one hand over the crossbrace, the other caught in a flurry of motion.

Just when Wolfgang slumped over Donna’s broad belly Fr. George squirted semen all over the scaffolding spangling the white paint blotches. Donna lay there looking at the silhouette of the priest – no hand, no mouth, just words did it. This was a first. She knew about joy (joi) videos from Boney. Maybe this was a live joy.

“How much do you charge for..,” the priest was still breathless and the words came out in rasps, “…for pissing?”

“I think it is one rupee but the ‘pay and use’ is downstairs.” Boney took off with the Japanese lady before he could show Donna any fetish videos. Boney himself was a pretty straightforward guy.

She knew something was amiss, that she was missing something. She peered intently at the priest’s face but couldn’t make out much because of the dark. Still she could make out an ethereal calm as if he was in the midst of a séance. When the first few drops of the warm, acidic shower hit her she thought it was maybe the varnish from the plank on top of the scaffolding left behind by the labourers. Then some fell on her lips and the burning sensation singed her. She at first shrank violently away from it before lashing out. But there was not much room within the caged-in area for her to move; she thrashed about her hands, splattering some of the piss back at the priest.

“Stop it, stop it, you son of a bitch,” she hissed, spitting out what fell into her mouth. Above all the commotion she heard Fr. George grunting like a wild animal, his clenched teeth shone through the thickened darkness of the facial hair.

“I love it…I love it…” he groaned just as the piss tapered and dripped over. “You should…you should…kneel close and open your mouth.”

“You fucking sick animal…” she screamed headbutting him from beneath the scaffolding. Fr. George staggered and managed to regain his balance and not land on his back. In her hurry to jump over the crossbrace, she tripped over it and fell down with the whole scaffolding landing on top her with a plangent crash. It was not very loud because of the wooden planks on the top and the rags beneath.

The priest got up and ran without even bothering to zip up the fly of his trousers. He reached the ground floor of the bus terminal. The railway station was just across the road. But there was the security guy standing, leaning on his lathi, right by the entrance. Maybe he was standing there to ask for more money, the baksheesh due for the uninterrupted time. Or maybe not, he was just standing there, between rounds giving his lathi a break. Whatever, Fr. George decided not to take any chances. He turned around and walked hurriedly towards the bus entry – the one with the spaced out rollers. He heard some noises shouting behind him and he ran.

Those who heard the rending scream said it was preceded by a loud thud – almost like he was hit by a bus. But the security officer on duty vouched that no buses had passed when Fr. George slipped through the gap and hit his head. This was further corroborated by the station master who shook his head and asked, “Why would a learned man – a man of god – go that way?”

I am conscious of flux, of disorder; of annihilation and despair. If this is all, this is worthless. (Virginia Woolf, The Waves)

Drama and cover songs

The Master Plan occupied the centrepiece of every conversation and gathering. Or more specifically the Transport Plan which the Master Plan was chiefly about. It was an officious one, a protracted one, albeit disarmingly simplistic which called the road passing through the heart of the town, the ‘spinal cord’ of the town. It proposed a hierarchy of four and two-lane roads in order to ‘facilitate safe and relatively unhindered movement of traffic within the town.’ It came with a map of the town crisscrossed by lines of different widths denoting roads 21, 18, 15, 12 and eight metres broad. Arguments broke out over whether a line was a thick or a thin one. It was the first time anyone really looked at a map. Remarks like ‘plenty of grey areas’ and ‘my panchayat is bigger than yours’ could be heard being bandied about.It was not just about roads but a consummate makeover. “If I donate some land for a bus stop, then maybe I can open a small restaurant where my house is,” a neighbour said. A meek, pleasant guy who lived off his dowry, everyone was surprised by the sudden enterprise. Then everyone had a Their Own Plan each intricately linked to the ‘land use’ proposed in the Master Plan; they turned the pages briskly as if in a hurry to decode some hidden path to wealth before any other. Nothing much was profited from the rubber subsidy which came and went. The more percipient of the population stood quiet, erect, starch-shirted harlequins. They were the original owners of the land, the ones who bought it, toiled in it and built houses and sculleries in it. Their stertorous voice had been silenced by old age and dependency. But their gleaming eyes spoke.

Rubber shops

“With the road widening, there will be no shop left in Pala town,” said Venu chettan. “At least none of the shops that have been there for many decades will survive. It’s not that they are making much money – lack of parking space has already eaten into their business. But with the new Plan, many of them will have to be razed to the ground. Entering some of the shops today you already feel like walking into a portakabin – quite palpable is the sensation that what you see today will not be around tomorrow. Thanks to the Plan, real estate which was already dull has now become even more bleak. As have my retirement plans of buying and moving into an apartment in Kochi.”

“You have to see the number of drama and ganamela companies that are closing down,” said Joseph Mathew. “Then nobody has the patience for these ancient entertainment forms anymore. Three day Kathakali recitals today are compressed into two hours at tourist centres like Fort Kochi. Roads reflect our ever increasing hurry to reach somewhere, to start, to move, to go. The more the number of roads, the more these traditional forms will suffer.”

Old church

“Sadder are the mephitic views of those from within the community,” said the Priest. “As the size of our congregation goes up, the cracking, limiting walls have to come down. And this I say regardless of a road, old or new, next to it or around it. The flock has to trust us the anointed shepherds to find them a suitable lair. Take the case of the church in Chowara which has been air conditioned factoring in the rise in global temperatures. Now, that is how we do it, how we should do it. Fighting for primordial structures is such a waste of time. People can point out antique values but the prerogative is ours to make praying comfortable.”

“Growth,” said Manimala sar, “is as inevitable as Tuesday following Monday and Wednesday, Tuesday. For progress to happen there has to be roads. I am fascinated by the many new roads coming up. Take this bypass for example – I bring everyone here who comes visiting us. Pala and its conurbations are like a many-headed monster and the roads are the veins that keep it alive. I guess ‘veins’ is better than ‘spinal cord’ and I say this not because I was a zoology professor.”

Toddy outlet

“You might scoff,” said Dr Ittyavirah “at a new bar that has come up at some godforsaken corner. But wait. The cockalorum had inside information about the Plan you are now holding, probably several years ago. Watch agape when state highways come up all around his beer and wine bar in a trice.”

“Bars boom at the expense of sweet toddy shops,” said Valsamma teacher. “Then who goes to toddy shops today, except some like my dewy son. You say the food is excellent but the toddy you bring home cannot even be used to ferment the appam mix, such is the adulteration. There has to be a law to protect this state treasure.”

“Bus stops are where we used to meet,” said Venu chettan “steal glances, touches and exchange letters. The bus stops today are like entire amphitheatres announcing the resume of the local MLA or minister. They are so big kids openly canoodle and exchange WhatsApp numbers and videos that nobody notices. Maybe nobody cares anymore.”

Bus stop

“Mark my words,” said Dr Ittyavirah “nothing is what it looks like. The Plan here while rendering many paupers will also make some millionaires. And that is by design.”

“We have to ensure nobody gets a free hand here,” said Valsamma teacher. “The municipality was taking complaints, the date is now over. We have along with some of the neighbours submitted a petition, mass signed, against some provisions of the Master Plan.”

“God is everywhere,” said the Priest. “And churches are like roads – can be built anywhere, has to be built everywhere.”

“Now,” said Joseph Mathew “there is a building where you went for your Hindi tuitions when you came back from abroad. Take a good look at it if you have nothing against it. Take a good look at it anyway, its going away soon.”

“Without growth,” said Manimala sar, “memories would be stunted.”

(The post construct is a dismissive attempt at being inspired by the ‘play-poem’ style Virginia Woolf spoke about in her pathbreaking work, ‘The Waves.’) 

The road to Bir

Dreaming of flying is apparently a sign of good tidings. Though I do not know any dream analyst to verify I will go with it. I have been dreaming of flying since I was five and all the good things – at least those I remember – happened afterwards: first glass of beer (age eight), first kiss (soon after), first shoe brand of my choice (Lotto), school expulsions which meant more sympathetic (read pliant) girls. Okay but seriously it was in 1980 – the year my mom packed us kids, canes, pressure cooker and rice and my dad his knives and Reader’s Digests and we took off to Africa – the year the movie Ithikkara Pakki released and my need to fly took wings. It was my last outing in vernacular feature for a long time to come.

In it the hero, Prem Nazir, driven up a coconut tree by cops on his tail cuts off two fronds and makes a flapping getaway. Movie over I began asking dad related questions and being a zoology professor he gave me avian-sort of answers. The knife Nazir used, I pointed out excitedly, was similar to one in his collection. Not much later he gave me an illustrated book on the history of human flying. It, I remember, had stories of many people jumping off cliffs and towers from early days with bird feathers plastered over them; some also held on tightly to decapitated bird wings. All of them took off successfully but landing was a bitch – a few escaped with broken back and limbs, most lost their lives.

From the ‘colony’

Coming back to the dream it’d be brutal if the analysis discounted reveurs. Once everyone was out of the house I would jump from the roof and hit layers of mattresses faster than I could say Icarus. Outed by an accident soon enough I moved on. Besides growing older in a liberal land also meant growing options in flying. Over the years I have watched Pakki in his short flight many times over and laughed hard. But it was essentially the same thing the Spaniard Ibn Firnas did over a millennia ago – albeit with wings proper. The only problem here too was in the landing – Firnas overlooked that minor role tails play in birds’ landing and didn’t kit himself with one. He was injured but not before ‘going faster than the phoenix’ as documented. My hero Pakki sorted this minor oversight by landing in water. More recently Dutch engineer Jarno Smeets observed the albatross and made an automaton whipping which he took off, just like that. The validity of his video has been disputed by professional pilots. But the important thing is that this race of ours does not give up the obsession to fly.

Kitting up

A quest in Leh which I had been planning for a while had to be abandoned for later for lack of time. I headed to Bir village instead in Himachal Pradesh, a little over 500 km from Delhi. Bir is one of the earliest Tibetan settlements in the country with picturesque Buddhist monasteries and stately stupas, charitable societies, learning centres and eateries. The settlement itself known simply as ‘colony’ has a somnolent square with a minor arterial road of bone-white concrete passing through. Dandy Tibetans with spiked, streaked hair zip past on flashy motorbikes with foreigners perched on the pillion seat at cannonball-man angles. Older Tibetans sit by the roadside pushing back beads on Bodhi malas with permanently bemused expressions. Everyone is restful and cordial; those wearing purple cinctures around orange robes walk with bowed heads and purpose.

“That they eat different, live different, pray different, we have come to accept,” said Mohan my cabbie, a local Hindu. “My business partner is a Buddhist and my best friend is Christian.”

To prove he pulled up his shirt sleeve to reveal the Angel Gabriel tattoo that covered most of his forearm. I hired Mohan to go to the local ‘wine shop’ to buy whiskey – my first outing among the birds had to be celebrated. After all, I’d been dreaming of it since I first saw Pakki three-and-half decades ago. Bir, along with Billing 14 km away, is the paragliding hotspot of the country. Billing at an elevation of 2430 metres is the take off point, the level fields of Bir is the landing. The canopied flights last anywhere from 20 minutes to half an hour.

Rate card

Price per flight: Rs 2000 (Tandem leaps.)

Cab charges from Bir to Billing: Rs 500 (Alternately hike up: a nice climb, 4 – 5 hours.)

GoPro camera hire (If you want to film your flight from take off to landing.): Rs 500 (Or use your own, but hold on hard. Real hard.)

Landing site photos by Ajit: Rs 200 (You have to ask him if you want; preferably if you’ve had a perfect landing. I didn’t.)

Getting a licensed pilot: Priceless. 

The drive

Jumbled beauty

Palampur is a good place to be in: it is 35 km to Dharamshala and 30 km to Bir, scenic drive both ways. There are many budget accommodations and some boutique ones are coming up. The people are a settled lot, quite literally too – you see the same set of them hanging around crossroads or squatting on abutments different times of the day. After you pass the pilgrim town of Baijnath a little over midway, get off the highway for a spot of mountain driving towards the village of Keori / Sherabling Monastery. Serenaded by lofty, grassy knolls and tucked away villages, the drive is the paradise that takes you to heaven. Weathered, beatific faces give a perfunctory gaze and revert to minding sheep and cattle. A far cry from the bloodshed and butchery-strewn history of the hill rajas in the days of a not too distant past. The road is not that bad either – city cars can do it without a glitch. Just be ready to swerve for argots sunning on the road.

The flight

Once you reach Billing you are surrounded by polite queries of ‘pilot mila kya?’ Got a pilot? Reply in affirmative and you are left alone; if you haven’t, most probably the asker himself will offer to fly you. The downside is that there are many unlicensed persons who do not / cannot explain properly the basics: Like you launch running but land sitting. Or there is a reserve parachute, just in case. Losing out on the instructions I landed on my knees. The second bit was totally missing which otherwise would have put me in a lot of ease. I, on my part, tried to sort the lack of information exchange by asking the pilot whether he has disentangled the numerous lines before we took off. Guess this pissed him off through the rest of the flight. But in all fairness ‘keep your hands away from the karabiner,’ was repeatedly hammered into me though. Just after I was buckled into my harness I was told that at 93 kilos I was a heavy bird. Without pausing I was told to run and I ran like my life depended on it.

Pakki at last

Soon there was a jolt backward and my legs were sprinting in the air; it took a while for me to realise that I was airborne. The craggy slope which was the take off zone disappeared into a vertical viridian abyss. The first thing I did was look around for birds: there were some who kept a safe distance from the whoopee ones. I suspected spearing spiteful looks from them for appropriating their pastoral views. I looked down and there was earth far, far below. The scene was one of jumbled prettiness – red, green and white rooftops fell over each other, trees had been cleared away in large aphyllous swathes for construction and irrigation but crowded around close to shiny, snaking rivulets. We got just low enough to make out the crenellated patterns marking terrace cultivation and the lonely shepherd and some crumbling huts when we were hit by a thermal. It was like invisible hands yanking me upward. We soared higher than Billing for a while before my pilot manoeuvred around the core and circled his way down to terra firma.

Right after me was a pretty thing in fluttering culotte shorts vying for the landing zone photographer Ajit’s attention. Both Ajit and I were happy to ignore me – a good thing because I tried to land running. ‘Keep your legs straight at landing,’ my pilot had told me. He had meant horizontal straight and not vertical straight. Despite a minor landing incident I will say this:

Everyone must fly!

The metallic clanging from the lathe shop falling oddly in step with the strides on the makeshift catwalk next to it could have been an installation. Then, this is what happens when daily life takes an arty turn. Or when you are impressively exposed to unusual attempts at reinventing space through creations that are not aloof from the land or the people surrounding it. But it was just another day in Gunehr. Rather the day before the finale. The culmination of an urge to shatter the tried and tested forms and practice of art, of reimagining art itself and probably the most simplistic and fastest way of bridging the urban-rural art divide – taking art into the village. Where the village itself is reborn as the core of art.

Fashion show auditions

There is a fine, often vague line that divides experimenting and gimmickry. When the briefs are vague – what happens when the event itself is new – the greater tendency is to veer towards the outlandish. (Right, it doesn’t mean the danger is any less in more established episodes – take the ‘Orbit’ example.) But most of the artists I met at Gunehr treaded it with gusto. Big and budding names worked side by side, roamed the fields and walked into kitchens with canvases and cameras. No emulousness, just a binding sense to create something unique. The settings provided the impetus, the people were the inspiration. Pop and installation artists, filmmakers, fabric and fashion designers all together festooned a global diction with a village veneer. This was the second edition of the ShopArt ArtShop Festival held in the Dhauladhar-clad Gunehr village in the Kangra Valley of Himachal Pradesh.

Ketna in her Photo Ki Dukaan

Taking a cue from the touristy Bir and Billing, Dharamshala and Palampur next door and forced by falling agricultural returns, the villagers of Gunehr went on a construction spree. There was also the occasional visitor from the nearby Dharmalaya Institute and the artist colony Andretta.

“But as you can see most of these shops never opened for lack of renters or closed down due to slow business,” said Chandni Jain, one of the volunteers at the event who was taking us around the village. “Initially the villagers were reluctant to let us the key to their shutters but they soon not only relented but some became very enthusiastic supporters of the mela, as they call it.” The reason could be what Frank Schlichtmann, whose brainchild the festival is, says is more ‘pragmatic than philosophical.’

“I have been here for over eight years and wanted to do something for Gunehr. Nobody, nothing seemed to come this way.” Frank’s own 4 Tables and 4 Rooms, concept restaurant and accommodation in the village are doing alright. “From the hospitality point of view, I wanted to share my customer demographic with the entire village.”

Multiplex of the mountains

If not a deluge, the footfalls have been increasing steadily since the month-long residence for artists began on May 14 this year. Travel bloggers came in batches as did some mainstream media. Everybody went back duly wowed and wrote about it in glowing terms. New paradigms of art were reported and the artists themselves were left beaming at the novelty of it all. As well as the warmth and the informality of their hosts.

“Ketna,” a little boy pulls pop artist Ketna Patel towards his lip level and after animatedly sharing some grouse darts away from her ‘Photo Ki Dukaan.’

“That one is a little gem,” she says. “He will come and report to me if anyone has been found anywhere near my prints.” Ketna’s shop has made celebrities of local villagers who have rarely gone beyond Palampur. Arcadian images of shepherds and aged couples bloom out of unexpected backgrounds, a riotous phantasmagoria. Each evening villagers come trying to spot who has been added to the kaleidoscopic wall of fame. There is much ribbing and giggling.

Amrit Vatsa outside his ‘studio’

Right across the road from Ketna’s shop the atmosphere is more sobre. Princy is choreographing for Delhi-based designer Rema Kumar’s fashion show for the final day celebrations on June 14. Encouraging applause gets drowned in the clangour from the lathe shop flanking it. Future swains hang around and try to catch the models’ eyes with looks gravid with longing. Auditions over, everyone who turned up has made the cut. Princy loves challenges. Rema Kumar will be showcasing the fashion of the Gaddi tribe of the hills with a new twist.

“My interpretation of their ceremonial wear luanchadi has got them really intrigued,” Rema informs. “Many have come forward and asked me to recreate it for them in new, brighter colours like the ones I have designed.” Rema will be taking the new ‘Gaddi’ line to a national and international audience. “Largely unheard of in India, this occasional garment of the mountain folk of Gunehr is an amalgamation of a lot of foreign influences.”

Rema Kumar opening shop

The brimming energy and activity seemed to be keeping twilight at bay longer than usual. But finally daylight grudgingly gives way to the cobalt blue blankets of dusk. Near the Tuk Tuk Cinema, Bangkok-based filmmaker KM Lo lets go of a series of loud tintinnabulations through clenched teeth. The assembled villagers, a smattering of tourists and passers-by guffaw at the Tom Thum impersonation. KM Lo’s own filmy tribute to the artists and the villagers is a perky bit of filmmaking. A bunch of pretty local girls sitting next to me on the concrete floor dynamited my ear drums with catcalls and shrieks whenever somebody they knew came on screen. This was followed by blogger and filmmaker Amrit Vatsa’s series of three-minute films. Poignant storytelling, stories from the village, of dreams seen and shared but cautiously. The camerawork – by Amrit himself – is brilliant, following the subject like an interested onlooker; Amrit says the villagers were so used to seeing him with the camera it became almost an appendage of his limbs.

Magic mushrooms

Under the moonlight, giant mushrooms in an unseen craggy nook glowed – one of the quirky installations from Bangalore-based Bianca Ballantyne and Sheena Deviah. In another, a discarded goat pen has been made lambent by papier mache lamps pendent like honeycombs. There were works by the multi-disciplinary Puneet Kaushik whose installations were unsettling and thereby thought-provoking. During the course of dinner I met many more – Neerja and Spriha who did wonders with paper, graphic designer Gargi Chandola who was instrumental in the facelift of the village square. I heard about ceramic artist Mudita Bhandari, artist couple Meenakshi J and Jey Sushil who cleaned up a mouldy, malodorous public building and painted it sparkling blue. And created coral on earth. Chandni Jain, who quit a corporate job with a luxury chain, was at her volunteering best – asking for donations.

A Kangra face-lift

A verklempt Frank kept disappearing alternately to the kitchen supervising the dishes being prepared and to the scotch which I had brought him to show my appreciation.

“So what’s next?” I ask him.

“Gotta get some sleep,” he replied.

“So how was it?” I direct my query at Chandni this time.

“Financially we are on a back foot. But we showed how art shows should be.”

They did indeed – unlike in cities where shows are put up by galleries or artist clusters for selling work, this is art for the love of art.

“And we also put Gunehr on Google.”

Looking for pusta # three-and-half

Most direction-giving is associated with landmarks. Hence the parlance here changes with topography. While the Metro introduced the ‘pillar’ as a driver marker over a decade ago, the ‘pusta’ remained confined to civic suburbia. But as cities become one nonstop conurbation with the south segueing into the southwest into the northwest into the north the pustas have come closer to urban living. But what indeed is the pusta? Heading for a shoot from Dwarka in southwest Delhi to Wazirabad along the northern fringes, a pusta was where we had to make the final turn. From my crew members to cabbie, everyone had their own takes.

“It’s a kind of road, uneven, a case of missed tarring,” said an assistant taking his cues through the window. “Like cows have right of way in the cities in pustas it is buffaloes.”

“Pusta…pusta…” the cabbie trailed off like an arcanist under duress. “Which number are we looking for?”

A pusta is broadly an embankment – which makes it mandatory for a river to be in the general area. Though not much of one during summers the Yamuna traces a path of rending strife through Wazirabad. The earliest migrants to Delhi encroached upon the riverbed or reclaimed land which they bought from local farmers. As the river flooded during monsoons they resettled into higher areas on both banks which led to the growth of the jhuggi clusters. (Though still known as jhuggi slums, they are hardly ‘jhuggi’ anymore, meaning ‘built of mud and corrugated iron’ but are houses proper, many several floors high.) The pusta along this stretch of the Yamuna looked like one long jhuggi some with garish lemony green facelifts, precarious towers leaning over service lanes. Hunting decent breakfast joints here is like looking for onions in Jain sambar. One morning blinded by hunger we waited outside a four-bench restaurant for a full two hours before the guy whipped up oil-clogged bread pakoras – served with cold mint chutney from the refrigerator. Then too, the first one went to Hanuman whose gaze didn’t stir even once from the Dronagiri he held aloft.

Locals say there was a lot of beautification done for the Commonwealth Games of 2010 for which many families – and businesses – had to be uprooted.

“All the jhuggis were moved to resettlement colonies elsewhere,” one said.

Remarkable as it was incredible I looked around: once you step behind the beautiful forevers cleaving a jhuggi from the rest was nothing short of divination.

“Can you tell us the way to pusta…number…” my cabbie asked the hotel manager before turning to me for the number. I referred my phone and said ‘three-and-half.’ The cabbie laughed thinking I was pulling his leg.

“It is between pusta number three and four,” the manager replied.

The cabbie looked around now not knowing whether to laugh or not.

Now the rest of us laughed.

Haywire helicam

I with my DOP have clung on to suspended crane baskets – and not manbaskets, even – and cavorted up cell phone towers for that one all-encompassing shot from the air. Helicams/drone cameras have been buzzing around for a few years now like an answer to a prayer I never had – for cameras attached to multiple rotors was beyond my limited capacity technical brain. Since their advent anyway I have been an ardent user and die-hard adulator at the marvel it is. As with most electronic products today the leader producer is a Chinese firm, DJI. Their Phantom series have captured the prosumer market and with the recent Phantom 4 – which I am yet to shoot with – they are at the undisputed top.

Nothing much I can do save gawk when it just zips upward with its payload – the camera and the batteries. When I began shooting with drone cameras the flight time was less than 15 minutes due to small size batteries; today it is a full 25 minutes. Both Phantoms 2 and 3 are marked improvements over the Inspire with improved stability outdoors, downward facing cameras and high speeds up to 60 kmph making it suitable for fast tracking shots. The photo quality just gets better with each passing model, 4K resolution being a standard, with the P3 even provisioning to compose the shoot. Before you say I gush too much I will come to its most awe-inspiring feature – the different modes like intelligent orientation, point of interest and the most useful one, the home lock – which brings it back to wherever it took off, however high and far it has wandered.

The controlling is done through instruments that look like gaming consoles to tablets and even smartphones. While the failsafe mode allows for foolproof homecoming there have been occasions where the signal between the drone and the controller got cut off leading to crash landing. A high chance of this occurrence is at construction areas with all the high power electrical lines lying around resulting in a lot of electromagnetic interference. We lost one P3 at a bridge site bustling with high voltage lines and machinery. My sedulous operator lost signal, the visual contact was already lost in the smog which prevented his even bringing it down manually.

Watching the final footage of a crash landing drone is crazy: dropping altitude quickly they end up getting sucked into the wash of their own propellers which make it spin wildly and crash through boles. Sometimes you can also see birds turn around in a jiffy and flutter away cackling. 

Emma, my love

The earliest cranes were built by the ancient Greeks, dating back to 6^th century BC, and see how they fared. Now if they had access to Liebherrs or the Thialf – a crane so big it’s a ship by itself – we’d just have more world wonders. While there are Gottwald truck cranes and gantry cranes of different capacities on site, the star attraction is the 1250 ton Terex Demag CC 8800 lattice boom crawler, nicknamed Emma. I love grand old dames and Emma is the grandest of them all. She sits on elevated ground with a bearing capacity specially done up to 30 tons metres square. While the elevation is a precaution from the heavy flooding witnessed along the Yamuna during monsoon it gives it a standoffish appearance, its nose already in the air. If they hadn’t named her Emma, I’d call her Maggie Smith.

An Edinburgh party scene (Photo from 10best.com)

The ‘From the Middle East to the Mount Everest’ part is over half way into the book with the climactic final assault of the Everest taking up maybe a page. The perils posed naturally by Hillary Step, the last real challenge along the Southeast route, take up a chunk of the narrative. No falling ice or avalanche, shifting glaciers or nail-biting crevasse crossing. The only suspense here is the author hurrying despite frostbite wanting his summit to coincide with Jordan Independence Day; the climb is sponsored by the royal family. He even rushes cheerily through the ‘death zone’ at descent. Then as Salameh repeatedly admits in the book, probably dousing some reader enthusiasm, climbing is not his passion but a means to raise money for causes important to him and issues that consume him especially the plight of Palestinian refugees. A reason why he seems alright about the repeated ‘first Muslim to…’ statuses bestowed on him by media following his exemplary physical feats. The first Muslim to climb the Everest was the Turkish Nasuh Mahruki; early this year Mostafa Salameh became the ‘first Muslim to reach the South Pole.’ Before that he had made it notably to the North Pole and the Seven Summits.

Though the preface to ‘Dreams of a refugee’ reads like a protracted press release for an upcoming event in Salameh’s climb-for-a-cause calendar – ascension of the Ben Nevis the highest mountain in Britain in November 2017 to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration – it also lays down with clarity, something the Declaration itself was missing which is the aspiration of a population as well as the author’s stake in it. The chapter on his growing up years in Kuwait and Jordan and early working life in London moulds some telling imagery with useful referencing to history and ongoing political turmoil. The need for ‘wasta’ or useful connections as it is called in Jordan for one to prosper in any sphere is a universal but interesting truism. We also get a glimpse of the ‘empowered refugee mentality’ that is creating upheavals in refugee camps in recent times. ‘Kuwait,’ as Salameh reflects early on, ‘you gave us schooling, why didn’t you grant us any rights?’

Mostafa Salameh (Photo from Wikipedia)

The pace of the narrative is breathless, understandably so as Salameh has a lot to say – he has gone through, and done, a lot. Through sheer will and hard work and some fortuitous ‘wasta’ he lands the dishwasher job in the Jordan Embassy in London – a job he soon leaves following a spat with the ambassador. He falls in love with Scotland, decides to settle down in Edinburgh embracing Ecstasy and the party circuit. Here he makes some life-long friends who inspire him on many levels, who help him with his English and introduce him to life-changing books and India. In his voyage of self discovery, he spends six months in Kashmir where he also meets Fatima, a school teacher, eight years older than him. They get married but he leaves her as she doesn’t get pregnant. The casualness of it all is off-putting: Surely he couldn’t have been that influenced by the libertine ways of his personal icon, the intrepid traveller Ibn Battuta? That was seven centuries ago, today we have IVF.

Probably because of his increasing engagement with fund raising and the corporate world, the book reads like a PowerPoint presentation in many places. Histories of the Queen Margaret University and Newington were like straight out of Wikipedia – who also have been mentioned in several footnotes. I thought about Bill Bryson (‘yet to get his new book’) who presents history like a sitcom script. But the chapters ‘Islam’ and ‘Palestine, Isis, Radicalisation’ were revelations, eye-openers. Here he presents the Quran and some relevant tenets with the inquisitive mind of a philosopher and the vehemence of an activist. He profoundly investigates the rising causes of radicalisation among Muslim youth by dissecting the true meaning of jihad and Sharia laws. He traces the fragmenting of Islam into Shia and Sunni factions but treads fractious territory by quoting scholars like the controversial al-Razi who wrote that ‘all those who claimed to be prophets were devious or psychologically unwell.’ More recently there is Karen Armstrong who writes about terrorists being ‘chiefly motivated by the desire to escape a stifling sense of insignificance and pointlessness in secular nation states that struggle to absorb foreign minorities.’ The suggestion made by British Muslim Syed Kamall was immediate and impactful – the need for English speaking and moderate imams in Western mosques.

One thing I found outright unsettling was the consistently mordant mention of Israelis and all things Israeli. It is true that the author is a staunch supporter of the BDS an organisation formed to force Israel to comply with Palestinian rights through economic pressure. His puerile snubbing of the friendly overtures of an Israeli, part of the North Pole expedition party, is just one of the several anti-Israel rants in the book. For a staunch Muslim like Salameh it appears the noble Surah 60 is lost on him: ‘Perhaps it may be possible for God to create affection between you and your enemies.’

Palestinian refugees (A photo from 1948, Wikipedia)

The longest chapter in the book is on rising radicalisation and the suffering of Palestinians – to whose plight he is trying to bring international attention and possibly, succour. The conflict is presented comprehensively of course with Israel squarely vilified. While Salameh is aware that ‘fighting or violence or military action will not solve the tragedy’ he moots several possible solutions including the ‘two state settlement’ which found support from the likes of Noam Chomsky. However this was against Israel’s interests who opposed it tooth and nail. But an opinion poll conducted by The Washington Institute shows less than 30 per cent support it today. These shows a hardening of the embattled population’s stand possibly as a last ditch attempt to get their minimum dues. Then there are the usual trouble mongers like Hamas and the Islamic State who will look to fish in troubled waters – recruit confused, aimless youngsters for their violent ends. Salameh and his message of tolerant Islam surely is the need of the hour, his own personal antipathies notwithstanding.

An edited version of the book review appeared in The New Indian Express.

The sloth bear had turned in for the night, that too stoned, so it was alright our Gypsy didn’t move anymore. I and the tracker returned to announce breathlessly that we saw it disappear between a set of boulders not very far away, a mound of fur trundle clumsily in the fast falling dusk. It’s rather long nuzzle nearly upon a thicket or trunk before it retreated and changed directions. My forest tracker, whose marijuana-induced misanthropy had limited our conversation till then to matching birdsongs with their Latin clan names, was suddenly loquacious: the sloth bear doesn’t have good eyesight and hearing but more than makes up for it with an exemplary sense of smell. They are so good they can smell fear even. Good, I was suffering from the consequences of imagining sloth and sons emerge from the cave I could see from behind the paltry outcrop. Snouts in the air, fangs bared. My hirsute arms resembled the tropical forest around.

The ‘pipe-is-burst-let’s-walk’ party

“But they will soon go to sleep,” he said matter of fact than to allay my I hoped not-very-obvious trepidation. The bear, it seemed, had been snacking on the intoxicating mahua flowers from the forest – also used by natives to make a colourless, potent liquor.

“Come on, let’s go. It’s not going to come out now.” My tracker stood up and stretched – in full view of furry and family. I kept crouching. He then began sauntering back like it was the Lodhi Garden. Whether it was a courtesy extended by one intoxicated creature to another or a prosaic truth I wasn’t sure. But I followed him nevertheless – peering back cautiously, ready to run – it was dark by now. News of the stalled Gypsy greeted us – the fuel pipe was ripped by the thick undergrowth as we tried to close in on our high and mighty friend earlier.

“It will not move,” the driver announced.

“Call for another vehicle,” I proffered.

The ‘peering-over-shoulder’ party

“No network,” he replied gesturing with his chin at the trees now looming in large, dark silhouettes, hemming us in. Things were eerily quiet all around – not a single sneery langur kept us company. But on the upside the tracker could be right about the sloth snoring away.

“So what do we do now?” I asked knowing the answer fully well.

“We walk.”

Followed by the peroration:

“The nearest forest check post is 10 – 12 km only.”

That was where we had any chance of finding transport. If we walked fast we might reach before the guards turned in for the night – their working hours were between waking up and sleep. My obsequious driver offered to carry my water bottle which I refused. Instead I gave him my camera bag which he ignored.

Probably proximity to the sloth bear some of its magnificent olfactory prowess had rubbed off on me. Or maybe I was just plain gut-wrenched hungry. I detected roasting chicken even before I espied the dimly lit checkpost. The guards had caught a wild fowl which they were barbecuing over wood. Deepika Padukone inviting me into her vanity van boudoir wouldn’t have made me happier. A flurry of updating in the vernacular was followed by appraising the sorry urban dweller, glances darted and then nods. Work station tables were relieved of transmitters and radios, steel plates brought in from wherever they were forgotten after lunch, and. And out came from under the bunk bed a bottle of the sheerest mahua I had seen till then. I didn’t know what to say. Maybe I walk into the aforementioned boudoir and find Anushka Sharma too?

Delish Deepika

Delish wafts from the grill outside was punctuated by sizzling, fatty ruptures into the fire. A clear starry sky above. A brook bubbled near the portakabin, cicadas hummed like a mass of gnashing teeth, toads did their bit from a bog in the purlieu. The solar-powered bulbs wouldn’t hold for long and candles were brought out. Meanwhile the property where I was staying reported a missing guest; the guards reported back his discovery and good health.

That night listening to half-drunk forest guards in remote central India communicate over wireless radio, I learnt the effective use of inflection in communication. Not once did the exchange resort to the filmy ‘over’ or ‘over and out.’ But words and sometimes even whole sentences were modulated to convey that. Not just mandatory queries but jokes too were shared without disruption from either end. I who never learnt grammar in school was suddenly percipient of the finest nuances of language.

Later that night I reached the property riding triad on a pip-squeaking, rim-thudding 100cc motorbike which never saw first gear. A piquant me – still gushing over the inflection lessons – was met by a petulant manager. Maybe worried about the supper going cold.

“We heard there were poachers on the prowl,” he said as the bike groaned back to shape.

“Did you inform the forest guards?” I asked.

“I am unable to wake them over the radio,” he replied and did a severe once-over each at the driver and the tracker who rode back with me. The bike’s spring fork suddenly grew irresistibly appealing to them.

“We just left them, what, 15 minutes ago?” I asked my fellow riders whose gaze never left the forks. They nodded.The manager now looked long and hard at me.

Soon we all left in another Gypsy to rouse the guards.

Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now. Steven Wright (wit, writer, actor)

Time in slow motion

A mat was placed and the lady, tall, dark and easy on the eyes, motioned me to sit. I looked around the small courtyard, trellised out of view from the neighbouring huts and sat close to the opening – a clump of bristly branches held together with hemp working which required laborious joggling. The livestock in the corral peered at me through moist eyes, eerily calm and unblinking. Probably quietly relishing the services of the oxpecker gallivanting about its flanks. A rooster crowed somewhere and I thought about Surguja chicken curry – someone had told me its authentic preparation needed wild fowl. Maybe I could procure one from the village? Or convince my hostess to whip up some? Or maybe I was being too ambitious for someone who had come seeking fresh mahua in a central Indian hinterland village at seven in the morning.

Though only a few kilometres away from the touristy Chitrakote Waterfalls, the village bred its own brand of silence – exalted by the absence of television and motor vehicle noises. The sound of my borrowed 100 cc motorcycle echoed like thunderclaps as I rode in with a friend. Except for the women pottering about in the backyards of their adobe huts nothing else moved. No men were in sight. Maybe they were already in the forests foraging, fields or the waterfalls eking out a living ferrying tourists. I felt a tad uneasy about my privileged station in life which afforded me a tipple so early in the day; tried to console myself saying it was part of the job. To write about something you had to experience it first-hand, anything for a work well done, and all that. Alcohol has a very fail-safe way of convincing us we are right. Getting off the motorcycle I walked into the time warp.

Booze-some buddy

The body reacts sympathetically to different temporal stimulations – I who can elbow my way to the very front of the queue at Rajiv Chowk during rush hour found myself dawdling here. Inbuilt urban commands like ‘get going’ and ‘reach’ which infest our lives weakened their hold. Agrarian settings are potent in that way. For a moment I even thought I’d give up my quest and just drink in the atmosphere. I sat on a low slate wall and lighted a cigarette. Eva Hoffman in her seminal essay on time talks about how the experience of time varies from one culture to another and within the same culture from one period to another. I felt here time went by without much ado. Nobody cared where it came from or what it took with it when it went away. ‘Clock time’ and ‘lived time’ were one and the same. In the back of my mind I had already decided that Barsoor – an hour through thick, Maoist-held forests – could wait despite local advisory to pass through as early in the day as possible. Some kids who were playing came and stood around, staring at me with intense curiosity. I studied them back. One in a grotty tee led me to the hut where I now sat waiting for the floral ferment.

Beware of what you desire, for you shall always get it. Bedouin proverb

Epicurean delights

Travelling through these same regions some years earlier a development worker told me a story. They were in the process of setting up a skilling centre with CSR funding when they passed by some villagers squatting outside their huts. They stopped their vehicle and decided to undertake some impromptu social mapping.

“Why are you just sitting around, wasting your time?” The zealous state coordinator of the project asked.

“We are enjoying our life.” One replied and went back to peering at the ground keenly from between his knees. They were all hung over on mahua and its stronger cousin, salfi.

“Why don’t you do any work?” One job profile of state coordinators is to never give up.

“What do we get by working?” One villager asked, impatient at the persistence.

“You can get a better life and be happy.”

“We are happy now.”

This story I have heard from different places but the context remains. Bertrand Russell wouldn’t have had to look far for his essay ‘In praise of idleness.’ In these parts fun is still alive, uncorrupted by competition – an impediment to the original spirit of play. An old man sauntered in with rheumy eyes and maudlin stories. Happy for the company I made space on the mat for him. Without pausing his whine list he put on my sunglasses and gestured me to take a photograph. I did and when I showed him the review display he was least interested – he had already moved on to examining my watch with its many knobs. I removed it – before he asked me to – so that he could try it on. It was fun – pure and innocent.

Sheer delight – mahua

The mahua came and I asked for an extra tumbler, offered him a drink. He swigged it all in one go, smacked his lips and was quiet for a long moment. Wearing a bare vest he was now eyeing my jacket. I broached my desire to eat Surguja chicken; flapped my arms and made a lot of cluck-cluck chomp-chomp noises. He continued looking at my jacket through wet eyes. The lady who was watching my best dumb charade imitation of The Little Red Hen went inside and brought a bowl of raw chickpeas. Moved by her warmth and not wanting to offend her I took a handful and threw it into my mouth. Soon the composite resins attached to my front teeth were added to the channa churn. The old man was babbling again and I didn’t have any more mahua to spare. I offered him chickpeas instead. He took one from my palm and examined it closely before muttering ‘chawal baba*.’

His eyes were brimming now.

*Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh is known as ‘chawal baba’ among the tribal communities of the state. This is because his photographs appear on the sacks of rice distributed at Re 1 per kilo in the backward regions. In addition to rice, pulses too are given at highly subsidised rates. While this is imperative to ward off poverty and hunger from the tribal dominated belts, criticism has also emerged that this has given rise to a whole generation of lotus-eaters. Even in the village where I had my fill of mahua, the men weren’t in the fields or forests but were sleeping. By the time I left two hours later, I saw a half-hearted bucket brigade of young men and boys collecting and stacking fallen tamarind. 

Pigeons traipsed in circles and trilled in distress over smoke-blackened rafters at the ongoing intrusion. We had stopped for lunch at Karumbalai, three kilometres out of Salem, ushered in from the main drag by a friendly blancmange in uniform drenched in summer sweat. It was the kind of place where your burp was acknowledged as appreciation. Everyone burped before leaving their tables – met by delighted nods of approval from those around. Soon it was me and my dad’s turn as we stood up to leave. We looked at each other and gesticulated grandly for the others’ gastro gust. But the best we could muster was a gruff squeak.

It was three in the afternoon and we were 400 kilometres into the road trip we had been looking forward to for months. Though my dad did not openly admit much enthusiasm I knew from mom that he was as excited as I was, if not more.

“It would be just like Nigeria,” he had told her. “But this time it’d be his turn to wake me.”

I woke dad at six that morning. He came to the dining table and saw bread, butter, jam and coffee. Just like three decades ago when me and my sisters would be trundled out of bed, fed sandwiches and milk before being bundled into the car still in our nightwear. We’d promptly go back to sleep and woke up to change as we neared our destination.

Dad looked at the pile of bread.

“Just like Nigeria,” he said. “But who’ll eat all these?”

Kerala was a busy conurbation till we crossed the border into Coimbatore. Large and little towns segued into each other, big compound walls into small ones, an endless cascade of shop shutters, colourful billboards stacked like a deck of cards from the distance. Rubber trees stood serried at extant plantations thriving possibly from an agricultural subsidy. Once we entered Tamil Nadu we began to traverse long uninhabited stretches, simmering to boot.

“Just like Nigeria,” he remarked. “The mirages there were bigger though.”

He recounted road tales from our years abroad – tales I had heard a thousand times before. Their familiarity made it difficult even to feign a smidgen of interest. But I still start at the memory of an attempted carjack in the middle of night, laugh at how mom shouted ‘donkey’ each time she woke up after nodding off.

Flyovers and bypasses enthralled him no end and he was quiet each time we took them. There were many on the highway to Bengaluru.

“We didn’t have many of these in Nigeria,” he admitted once. “But how do you see the cities this way?”

From our lunch stop we had 200 kilometres more to go. Suddenly I didn’t want the trip to end.

“Daddy,” I said “let’s try again.”

We ordered another round of sodas and sat down. Soon we were burping so loud even the frisky pigeons above were shocked into quiet inertia.

***

Shutter and soul

Cover has gone pop so pops are not put on the cover anymore. Hence the new lure: ‘Now a major television series.’ Unless you are a stylish, trim and pleasant looking bloke like Levison Wood. His new ‘Walking the Himalayas’ has both the line and the hook Wood himself on it donning possibly a Craghopper jacket, Burberry bag and an IWC watch (if he’s not then inside he graciously puts the ‘top-of-the-range’ gear on his guide) – support from each gratefully acknowledged too. The lady friend who lent me the book took a long longing look which was heartrending. I mean, ID, take that!

Yes, in all fairness books gotta sell too, right. That little rectangular piece of plastic and glass holds several hundred of them. And no need for a reading lamp to boot. Damn! I keep looking at mine with woeful admiration like the mad scientist did his monster but the pull of mouldy cellulose is always stronger. My Kindle has lost all spark even with Sherlock Holmes on it. Sure enough, I loved the cover too. Like most men, mountains fascinate me and like some so does the good branded stuff. Wood’s book had both. But getting down to the sombre business of reading, I found heartwarming analogies and insightful introspections missing. The book throve on the here and the now – maybe a hazard being a ‘television book’ – one that complements a televised series. While crossing a pond has been so minutely and variously loquaciously described – ‘submerging your crown jewels in an ice bath’ – and you can actually see it. Easy to picture the words flying out of footage re-runs.

Probably I am a bit harsh here for pitting it against another more celebrated mountain/television book – Michael Palin’s ‘Himalaya.’ Right each writer is different, has his own style and all. Wood did bring in his army background into the narrative and words like ‘defile’ get a new life. But give me Palin’s self-deprecatory brand of humour any day! And when it comes to research, the BBC behemoth gobbles up the Channel 4 chum. Both writers meet with the Dalai Lama – mind you, its television first. ‘Great promo material,’ you can hear the producer smiling. Palin at one point speaks about 35 porters to carry the filming crew stuff and equipments. Wood keeps his narrative away from the rest of the gang – like Bear Grylls, who finds an appreciative mention.

Totally cut off from this clatter and clutter is another Himalayan book – Colin Thubron’s ‘To a Mountain in Tibet.’ Not one to gush I’ll just say this is sheer lyricism in travel writing. An elegant wordsmith paying a worthy homage to the magical land of Shangri La. History is used to lend perspective, not to fill up landscapes. The people we come to know of, like a sympathetic neighbour and not just hear what they say. It is weaves brilliant images, unforgettable in their simplicity – ‘hearthrugs moving on the slopes’ (yaks), ‘a genial gallery of whiskered age and callow youth’ (monks in a monastery) – that you can conjure up only if you are alone. ‘A gap in the mountain’ can become ‘a breach in time’ only if you are not worried about camera angles and immediate audience amusement, aka TRP.

‘To a Mountain in Tibet’ was reference material when I filmed in Tibet for a travel channel. Well, if you don’t complement a series with a book, you gotta at least do it the other way around.

***

Nutty views from an open window

Day break and I sat by the window of my high rise hotel room watching the world below come alive. Highlights:

• The rooftop is the new backyard – it is piled high with junk.
• You can count the number of married sons by the number of floors added to the houses.
• Firewood stacks are kept over tin roofs – which also pins it against strong gales.
• Two little boys are feeding pigeons while having an animated conversation and air strokes with imaginary cricket bats; the birds are unperturbed.
• A man is shaving – his brush and lather on a wood panel atop a barrel. He doesn’t have a mirror but is using the water inside as one. He seems to be doing alright.
• One newly-wed woman: Soon as she was done sweeping the concrete floor her mother-in-law, most probably, came out and handed her a plastic pail from which she is now collecting water from a tap by the lane. The baby bump doesn’t seem to win her any sympathies.
• Open lean-tos metamorphose into brick and mortar houses and then on to ones with stone-cladding and iron gates towards the road.
• Some rooftops are exclusive goat-pens. The mutton kheema I had for dinner was good.
• The migrants staying on the terraces have begun cooking; going on about their assigned chores quietly, peeling, stirring, chopping, sniffing. A Masterchef kitchen minus the drama.

“13,466,” said the UN.

“17,504,” claimed Indonesia.

A thousand here, there

The 4,000-odd in between were mostly atolls and a concatenation of minor cays which disappeared during high tide, countered the UN, basing its findings on a GIS survey conducted in 2011. Hence can’t be counted as islands proper. Take these few thousands, Indonesia still remains the largest archipelago in the world. And come high tide or low water, there are around 7,000 islands inhabited round the year. But for most who actually live here these are just numbers, shrug-vague at best. What matters more are the tide charts – around which they weave their family visits and ceremonies and even fix prices of essential commodities.

Stilted wonders

“We get these tide charts once every month,” someone told me outside the Banyan Tree Temple in Senggarang.

Senggarang, somnolent

The fishing village of Senggarang on the island of Bintan is believed to be the earliest Chinese settlement in the country. The afternoon I walked along the concrete pathway that wound through its centre, the whole hamlet on piles seemed to be sleeping. Just a couple of children with smooth skin and sinic features stood by a doorway to a freshly painted palafitte, twiddling with the curtain. They ran away shrieking when my camera snout edged towards them. I made up by photographing a Vespa parked in the balcony, painted a peeling red and yellow, which would have seen more transplants than a reality TV star. I was on my way to the Banyan Tree Temple where locals congregated for gossip and caught up over kreteks, clove cigarettes. All around me was the glistening, viscous muck, the aftermath of a low tide, baring the visceral remains of disposable living.

“As you can see its low tide now and the high tide is around five hours away,” my initiation into the tide-chart-determined way of life continued outside the temple. Though fishing isn’t quite tide-dependent, incoming tides generally made for generous baits. Hence low tide was largely resting time, explaining the somnolent air.

Disappearing acts

While boating through the mangroves of Bintan the next day, Didi my sedulous and smiley guide cum conservationist pointed out a strip of land on the Sebong River. On it was a house fixed to stilts which was in turn fitted on to pontoons.

“Now that’s an island which will disappear, like, maybe twice a day,” said Didi. “But not the people,” he added seriously.

Despite its frequent vanishing acts, the island had to be counted as an inhabited one, I thought.

Now, what would the UN make of that!

Saw many zeroes

The obfuscatory devices of international money flows, valuations and speculations, I was rendered a millionaire in Indonesia. The cheap thrill was soon cut short by the pragmatic requirements of everyday transactions.

Twonky transactions

“There are too many zeroes on the currency notes,” agreed Manish Ranjan, operations manager with Plataran, a leading network of hotels and resorts. “On my first day at work I gave a 100,000 rupiah note for a pack of cigarettes and went away as I found the chaffering too confounding.” The next day as he walked to office the shopkeeper called out to him and tendered him the exact balance.

“A rare occurrence had it been our country,” he told me. Though Manish is from Bihar I couldn’t have agreed more.

Not only are the people so endearingly scrupulous but are endowed with bottomless reservoirs of patience too. My earliest dealings involved the rather twonky approach by which the shopkeeper would display for my benefit the note I was required to part with. Even then I’d get it all mixed up giving two of the green notes instead of one with the bluish-green tint. They would always return the extra note pointing out the additional zeroes on it with a gentle chiding laugh.

Glad they know us for our Bollywood heroes and not as inventors of the zero.

The quest for ‘cream chukkur’

Cream chukkur # 1

Coming from the mall-magnet Delhi I turned down offers from my hosts to accompany me when I went shopping in the famous Sarinah Mall in Sabang, Jakarta. I had seen bigger and better, I assured them cockily. The batik-work shirt for the Indonesian Independence celebrations the next day I picked up without incident. Now for the shaving cream. I went to the toiletries section and fanned my face with a clenched fist at the retail attendant. She smiled very sweetly and handed me a rounded tinny box with a lot of foamy Indonesian letters sprawled over it.

“Terima kasih,” I said with a bow of my head. Thank you. And the best way to elicit some dazzling smiles.

“Sama sama,” she replied. Welcome. With a dazzling smile.

It had been a long day: Earlier I was at the Botanical Gardens in Bogor, the Presidential Palace, Jakarta Cathedral and trotted around the gargantuan Istiqlal Mosque. So my face could have been tanned and oleaginous for the toiletry turned out to be face wash. Over the next few days I tried my best imitation of Chinese tea ceremony in different shops and was rewarded variously with moisturising lotion, sunscreen and talcum powder. Conceding defeat I sought linguistic asylum from my host.

Cream chukkur # 2

‘Cream chukkur,’ he said and I duly noted it down prior to my next shaving cream raid. This time at the Rimba Jaya Night Market in Bintan.

From Rimba Jaya where we stopped for dinner I walked a few kilometres and reached Jalan Brigjen Katamso, a picture of civic calm and all-around amiability. Well, like the rest of Indonesia, actually. First I walked into an apotik, a medical store. They directed me to a supermarket some distance away. At checkout my eye welled up as I showered ‘Terima Kasihs’ to everyone around me – they were stocking not one but two different brands of shaving foams!

This was indeed a rare occurrence as I learnt later that Indonesians have smooth facial hair which dispenses with the need for a vigorous lather.

Traffic wows

Ojeking – Way to go!

Jakarta is as trafficky as any bustling metropolis and during peak time commuters may take hours to reach. Many businessmen have fitted their SUVs with portable work stations to make the most of the time on the road. Ojeks, two-wheeler taxis and the fastest way to travel, flit through, buzzing flies. The lines snake for long distances from intersections. For an Indian all this order amidst the chaos can be maddening: not one solitary vehicle, even those with laal battis, skipped lane discipline. Neither will an ojek try to cut ahead of you. The left lane is kept free at all times. I was missing the clutter, the cussing and the incessant honking. Heading out to Ubud from Kuta in Bali I reached my wits’ end and turned to Agung Rai, tour guide, for help.

“There are rules, alright,” he said. “But we listen to our hearts.”

That is Indonesia in short: a lot of heart, worn mostly on the cuff. And it would grow on me, holding me in good stead during my stay there.

Hopefully afterwards too.

The Komodo dragon influenced the 1933 ‘King Kong’ movie

An adventure was easy to conjure: Manto the captain of the bowrider confessed to a non-functioning GPS. Everyone wore dark glasses, cigarettes were chain-lit. An Indonesian actor who was also a secret political activist held forth on the Machiavellian machinations that led to Sukarno’s, the first president, ousting from power and the rising spell of the Contra. Cans of Bintang beer sweated lustily in the icebox under the canopied stern. The sea shimmered all around, a galaxy on earth. Somebody had sighted a dolphin and screamed at the pirouette and everyone waited with abated breath, fingers fire-ready at the shutter. The boat coasted in the middle of nowhere, silenced as if against its will. Tiny islands with towering clean-shaven, green-tinted knolls dotted the horizon.

“It must be one of those?” I asked.

Manto took a deep drag of his kretek, an onomatopoeic name given to flavoured cigarettes hugely popular in Indonesia. This was clove, the flavour most commonly available, and one could actually hear the spice crackling as it transformed into brittle ash. He made an act of peering close through the windshield, as if labouring hard not to let the Singaporean sunning herself sprawled across the other windshield malign his field of vision. And quite ponderously shook his head. How do you even know, your GPS is…

“I know,” he said eerily reading my mind and tapped his head. “This is my GPS.”

The island has many stories

We docked at a long pier made like a suburban street with striped kerb and solar powered street lamps. Inevitably the chatter shifted to Komodo – after all we were now right in its backyard. I mentioned a friend who wanted an exclusive photograph – one I wouldn’t issue over any social media outlet. A better informed middle-aged Indian blogger spoke about the ‘third eye’ of the Komodo, ‘something like our Shiva’ she said daubing the information with more than a mere smear of pride. The ‘third eye’ I found later is correctly and boringly called the parietal or pineal eye, is not easily visible as it is camouflaged by the scales and is a photosensitive organ that distinguishes light and dark. This apparently was a survival mechanism for the maybe prelapsarian ‘bottom dwelling’ species to detect threats from the air. The Komodo dragon itself is believed to belong to a family of relict lizards from four million years ago. Its huge body size – 10 feet long and up to 130 kg once fully grown – has remained stable only on a handful of islands in Indonesia, mostly in the namesake one in Flores we were on now.

Hello Komodo

The shared stories and warnings, portrayals both imagined and instilled by the romance-keepers warranted probably a more dramatic entry. Instead there was one right next to the pier itself close to shore, just an overgrown gecko from above. Once the DSLRs had their fill the banter veered to what it was doing so removed from its assigned habitat: getting a tan, taking first-hand stock of its own popularity, or trying to get across to the picturesque Pink Island nearby which it must have heard was a haven for scuba divers and skinny dippers. Tasrif, local guide and conservationist, came to the rescue.

You are now officially on the Komodo trail

“It must have been hunting,” he said. “The Komodo uses camouflage extensively and exercises infinite patience often lying in wait for several hours while in pursuit of prey.” This was too much information too early, dutifully nodded at. But Tasrif turned out to be right: as we were leaving the island we saw an antelope gazing out at the sea, unmoving, from the other side of the pier where the Komodo sat. Day dreaming would be its demise. This is what it would know uselessly late in life: the Komodo dragon is an efficient hunter – can muster up to 20 km/h speed in short bursts. The squat legs are very powerful allowing it to spring, really a surprise considering its weight and otherwise sluggish demeanour, can stun a prey with a lash of its tail and eviscerate it with sharp claws and teeth. Now even if the antelope did manage to gambol away from the Komodo’s deathly jaws, it would still have just a few hours of living left before succumbing to the venomous saliva that kills or severely maims within 24 hours. The Komodo will follow it patiently for miles, a reptilian Mick Taylor, using its forked, flickering tongue to whiff out the carrion from far away.

Know your Komodo

New habitat, million-year-old inhabitants

Tasrif took us around the island largely an open grassland of low elevation – natural habitat of the Komodo dragon. Red and white signboards told us to watch out for the famous island dwellers but being afternoon most were resting indoors. We passed by ridges next to cleared open areas with dark, deep burrows: these were Komodo residences between one and three metres deep, dug by the dragons themselves using their strong claws and forelimbs. These were also ambush points for passing prey. A disconcerting piece of information considering most of us were peering intently at fallen logs for signs of movement. What were the chances that there would one sole hungry dragon? It was slim as I came to find later – most of the Komodo dragons were fed sumptuous noisettes at regular intervals. How about the upright one which believed in earning its dinner? Or Oliver which just didn’t get enough? An adult dragon can consume up to 80 per cent of its own body weight in a single sitting.

The highlight of the walk was the realisation how lucky the Komodo dragon was to be inhabiting such a pretty island. And then: maybe its still pretty because of them. We passed by several places which looked like pages out of coffee-table books. Tasrif while adumbrating over the science and physiology part of the Komodo was eloquent about the fabled narrative of its beginning. A story that revolved around twin brothers – one man, one dragon. I missed out on this one as I fell in with another group whose guide was telling them something more, well, pertinent.

“If chased by a Komodo dragon, run in a zigzag fashion,” he said. “Or clamber up a tree.”

I could neither – just before taking off for the trip the swelling around my left ankle was detected to be a possible case of gout. I just hoped the dragons were all well-fed that day.

Eating with the dragon

Our lunch was served at an elevated open hall with some senescent dragons lying around quietly relishing all the attention piled on them by the tourists. Everyone, including me, wanted that one, never-seen-before photograph of the Komodo. It transpired soon enough that they would be of the Komodo trying to snap you up. You inch close for that last leaf shot and the guides come brandishing their staffs and berate you with fatal statistics: 22 attacks recorded so far including six deaths, the last one in 1974 of Swiss national Baron Rudolf. The dragon spared his sunglasses and camera though.

The exotic Pink Island is just 15 min away

Soon we all got used to being surrounded by dragons and repaired to our lunch tables only to rush back out when one began waddling up to a widdle pool. Its tongue kept forking out intermittently as it scrounged the soupy water. It soon lost interest in hydrating itself and held us all in an unblinking gaze. Then it turned around and walked the entire length of the hall on stilts, its tongue blinking, probably all the food, before settling down to watch the next group and their gaga antics.

Late afternoon was spent on the Pink Island, 15 min away, diving, trekking and negotiating prices of coral necklaces with locals. Back on the boat as an inky dusk fell, Manto nodded at his lascar in training who rummaged through a cardboard box and brought out a flashlight. The nimble lad sprinted across the slippery gunwale before plonking himself by the bow. He then shone a fading yellow beam through the drippy dark; the boat’s headlamps weren’t working.

The adventure continued.

Magical and empowering stories from the fringes of the largest archipelago.

Ayo Mandiri Foundation

“When even the physically fit and mentally sound finds it difficult to land a job these days it is better to write off the prospects of the handicapped,” says Kasim Mambut, owner of Ayo Mandiri Massage Centre. Then this is exactly what Kasim refuses to do – write them off. His centre in Labuan Bajo in Flores trains the moderate to the extremely challenged people to be masseurs. “The only condition is that their hands should be normal.” So far Ayo Mandiri has trained blind youth to the wheelchair-bound to be masseurs. “Our reflexologists are a big hit with the hotels and we have a very loyal clientele. Ayo Mandiri does brisk business and none of it comes from sympathy,” Kasim says with notable pride.

Martinus (standing front) in class

Martinus, Kasim’s assistant manager sitting next to him, smiles broadly. “See, Martinus doesn’t smile generally but he is very happy for the season has been very good.” Martinus guffaws now. The partially blind Martinus is also the chief trainer at Ayo Mandiri. “Our training is very thorough and intense. Upon successful completion the students are issued certificates too,” Martinus says. Those who complete the course are first placed on probation and their techniques checked for a couple of months, if found wanting they are called back to the centre to refresh. This thoroughness in approach has paid off handsomely: Ayo Mandiri pass outs have so far found work not just with local hospitality properties but in tourist capitals like Bali and Jakarta too.

Ratu Niang

The Balinese dances were on at the resort’s amphitheatre when a slight drizzle began, steadily gathering force. Watched by many in serried chairs and sprawled on lawns with upturned cameras, the management began to fret and pace. The rain had to be stopped. Well. Frowning, gravid glances were exchanged. One of the elder members of the local staff quickly ducked into a corner of the garden where the rock-cut Ratu Niang, an ancestral motif held as the genius loci, stood. He took out a kretek, clove cigarette, from his pocket and instructed a younger chap to bring a glass of coffee.

Don’t wet my cigarette – Ratu Niang

The cigarette he lit and placed in the mouth of Ratu Niang and the coffee in front. Mumbling some chants he then girded the statue with incense sticks. I struggled to mask my smirk with a curious smile but he just nodded and stood a little away, gazing nowhere. The weather remained moody and the clouds pregnant but the rain trickled out within minutes. It was too much to believe for my adamantly rational brain; I was happy all the Bintangs had somewhat freed me from trying to figure the obscure. Was it Ratu Niang? The old chappie just continued nodding at my questioning looks and smiled. I suspected he was trying hard to mask a triumphal gaze. The dances went on now interrupted only by applause.

But none of it for Ratu Niang.

Rainbow Reading Gardens

Monica and the readers

Taman Bacaan Pelangi (Rainbow Reading Gardens) was founded in 2009 in Flores to open up a whole new world to the children of the under developed regions of eastern Indonesia. This was through firing up their imaginations by giving them access to story and picture books and sometimes even whole libraries. What was started by conservationist and book blogger Nila Tanzil with just 200 books, today has grown to nearly 40 libraries across 14 islands. Here is Monica, a project coordinator in Labuan Bajo, Flores, with the kids of a local school where the Reading Garden is located. An ex journalist with a television channel, Monica quit due to the ‘overt commercialisation of journalism and the consequential compromise in reportage’ and underwent training in basic library management before joining the NGO. “Yes, there is the threat of computers and the internet but as long as the eastern regions are deprived of electricity, reading will remain the main source of entertainment,” says Monica. “Education is a happy bonus.”

Regan

Caught up in taking things around us we invariably miss those taking us in. I didn’t see Regan despite his piercing, easy charms and would have walked away had curiosity not gotten the better of me. Trying to find where all the men and women in ceremonial finery at the Monkey Forest in Ubud were headed to, I sat next to Regan and asked his name.

“Regan,” he said.

“Boy, you are famous,” I told him and laughed. Regan just smiled. I was sure he didn’t get the joke. The tour guide came along and informed me that the people were all decked up for a wedding; there was a very revered temple inside the forest where they were all making their offerings. I stood up to leave and found Regan still peering at me, amused.

Regan lump-locked me

“There was an American president, you see…” I said brimming with condescension, as if talking to Rainman.

“Yes sir, I know,” Regan cut in, smiling, “I know Ronald Reagan.”

I sat back down, kind of impressed by not just his general knowledge but his effortless English too.

“So what do you do, Regan?” I asked.

“Sir, I make penjors,” replied the one-handed Regan. Penjors are elaborate designs woven from palm leaves, indispensable for all Indonesian ceremonies. It is a skill that requires both hands in a flurry.

I sat there lump-struck and humbled, fumbling for words.

Almost a first.

Ikat works

In the Flores village of Melo we were all welcomed by the clan chief with a shawl draped around us. The shawl featured lovely ikat work handcrafted by the women of the village. Ikat is an Indonesian loanword that means any of the thread, cord or knot that goes into the weaving as well as the finished fabric. It is a patterning technique that requires exemplary skill and patience, the latter trait making it an exclusive women’s fiefdom.

Ikat’s how we do it

“As you can see the patterns are stunning and it requires great dexterity to make one,” said Georgui Arianto, a young member of the Manggarai tribe, traditional inhabitants of the village. “But not everyone appreciates the effort and we are struggling to find takers.” It is the buyback arrangement from the government that primarily keeps the craft from dying out. “Tourist sales are negligible.” And interest non-existing, I looked around.

“Probably more contemporary designs can fire up demand?” I asked.

“The designs are primarily traditional,” he said. “Though many do experiment with designs these days.”

Our discussion veered to a uniform craze prevalent in Indonesia. Apparently ministers, civil servants and village heads were required to wear uniforms while some government departments allowed wearing batik shirts on Fridays. Some even mandated the wearing of local fabric on particular days of the week.  Georgui’s contention was to do away with these predominantly dull uniforms and instead introduce traditional wear on all days of the week.

“That way ikat and batik will find not just more takers but the civic departments will also get a much-needed makeover.”

Let the rumbles begin.

Ibu Robin / Bumi Sehat

When Windy said something I knew better by now than to give a cursory ear. Some of my most memorable and meaningful interactions in Indonesia were because I had unquestioningly subjected myself to the flurry of suggestions of this writer and ‘life traveller.’ We were ojekking around Ubud when she said I had to meet Ibu Robin.

“You are going to love her,” Windy proclaimed. I didn’t doubt it even if I was hearing the name for the first time.

“What does she do?”

Ibu, Mother, Robin (Pic courtesy: Windy Ariestanty)

Ibu or ‘Mother’ Robin is the founder of the Bumi Sehat Foundation, a community health and childbirth clinic in Bali and Aceh. Among the sensational new developments she brought to the local birthing table was burning the umbilical cord instead of cutting it which could cause tetanus – a distinct possibility in disaster and backward zones. (The centre in Aceh was opened after the calamitous tsunami on Boxing Day, 2004.) Besides taking care of the patients at her clinic and training new midwives – qualified ones are a premium in Indonesia – Ibu Robin is a committed activist fighting to restore the rights of parents who had to put up their babies for adoption as they didn’t have the money to pay the labour bill. She is also an advocate of water birthing and her popularity has led to many celebrities check into the humble facilities at Bumi Sehat and leave generous donations. All the money goes into facilitating healthy and happy childbirths of the 80 per cent of those who come to Bumi Sehat who can’t afford any payment.

We walked into her clinic in Bali. A soon-to-be father stood outside a room curtained off from the veranda, anxiously running his fingers through his own golden curly hair. Probably a surfer boy, looking a little clucked at the approaching choppy. I felt a strange kind of excitement, a golden-contoured one, one that smelts beads of warmth right into the heart. The way you feel when you are led into the presence of a truly exalted one, benign by deeds. Where you don’t have to be anyone else.

Ibu Robin wasn’t in – she had left an hour ago as she was going to the States on some fundraising work.

“You would’ve loved her,” Windy said again.

“Oh I do,” I replied.

And I meant it – not because Windy said it.

The ritual rooster

A hunt in the deep forest where I vanquished a wild boar with my bare hands followed by the martial Caci (pronounced ‘chachi’) dance when I leapt and brought the whip down on my opponent from a jaw-dropping sky-angle. It didn’t take any of these for the Manggarai tribe of Kampung Melo (‘kampung’ is ‘village’ in Indonesia) in Flores island and their headman to declare me the chief from the visitors’ side for the day; guess they decided to settle for the guy stumbling about with the biggest backpack and lachrymose eyes, thanks to the sudden bright afternoon sun after an air-cooled, 45-minute drive from Labuan Bajo, 17 winding kilometres away. In Indonesia it is not difficult to feel the welcome anywhere you go but in Melo you actually live it.

Chief inspecting the line of Caci dancers

The clan leader in his ceremonial finery and heirloom kris – a sheathed zigzag rapier believed to accommodate spirits tucked into an ornate sash around his waist – waited for us with other finely turned out village members beneath a bamboo archway decked up with palm leaves shaped into intricate patterns called penjor, part of every ceremony in Indonesia usually with an offering next to it on the ground. Each of us was welcomed with an ikat shawl handcrafted by the village women. Gilpy little girls giggled as we were led up the hummock to the village square by the adults chanting what sounded like a communal orison, difficult to follow even for those from Indonesia. The Manggarai inhabiting western Flores have never numbered more than a million but speak their own language and follow their own political system which revolves around clans. There are primarily three clans – each assigned their own social function in the largely agrarian community. As we climbed higher we could see larger and larger clearings – the tribe practices swidden agriculture and rising population pressures have mandated the clearing of an increasing acreage.

Rooster, rupiah and reading

A Manggarai meal

The two chiefs sat facing each other on a bamboo mat in the centre of the village. One waxed earnest, sonorous, on how privileged he was to host the other and his well, tribe. The other nodded vigorously at every translated gist and looked around solemnly at the members – raucous with hunger and in rapture by the fantastic views from the village which goes all the way to the Komodo Island across the waters. Gifts and money were exchanged, primarily one-way. This included a rooster with drooping eyelids, probably the midday heat or just plain bored playing out its designated role of feathered regalia in numerous other welcomes before. The ceremonies, the fiesta that was soon to follow and the traditional programmes are all organised by a cultural cooperative which has taken upon itself to keep alive the centuries-old customs and traditions of the Manggarais by re-enacting them for tourists.

Warriors then, dancers now

A paan box – filigree encrusted, oblong metal, rusted to iron brown – was taken around by a robust built woman with pleasant features, dressed in silken brocades and wearing a balibelo, an ornamental headgear worn by the women of the tribe – something like Captain Spock gone native in Tahiti. Following cues from the (real) chief, I helped myself to a piece of areca nut and a generous gob of lime, betel leaves weren’t around. Appetisers – the sweeter, cloudy tuak and the clearer, more potent sopi, palm toddy – were brought out in bongos or cups fashioned from coconut shells. The meal was sumptuous: chicken and fish – fried and barbecued, beef – minced and garnished with grated coconut, a lemony curry and red rice cooked textured with a smattering of husk.

Just a pretty picture from the village

The lunch was served in a modest hovel on stilts in the purlieu of the square where the earlier ceremonial exchanges took place. I was surprised to see it was actually a library with a large collection of illustrated and comic books. It was my first encounter with Taman Bacaan Pelangi or Rainbow Reading Gardens started in 2009 by conservationist and blogger Nila Tanzil to encourage reading among children of the under developed provinces of eastern Indonesia. Started with just 200 books and one centre, today there are almost 40 Rainbow Reading Gardens across 14 islands. Me and my fellow tribe members were sitting in one of the earliest centres in Flores; over the next few days I would be visiting some more around the island enthralled by the sheer nobility of the idea.

One cracking performance

Web and weaves – an ikat worker

The dolmen by the corner of the courtyard shimmered under the sun in anticipation of the action coming up; drums, gongs and gamelans were being placed. The women of Indonesia are naturally malacophonous and this trait just gets increasingly breathtaking as you head into the interiors. At Melo the women excelled at both singing a capella, playing instruments and were endowed with a glorious nimbleness of feet as it soon turned out – jumping deftly untouched by the staves during the bamboo dance. The curtain-raiser was the centrepiece of Manggarai machismo, the Caci dance, a whip fight choreographed to minimum physical contact and maximum showmanship. The faux chief was summoned to crack the first whip.

Dancing to keep a culture alive

My opponent was shirtless, wearing white hessian trousers flapping in the cooling breeze that flowed through the arena. Draped over the trouser was the handwoven songket, a broader variant of the shawl I was given earlier. From the songket a tail rose rigid with a furried tip; I gathered it was to add to the overall ferocity quotient. It all worked pretty well till I heard the plangent cowbells that were attached to his ankles. It was pretty jarring for it didn’t sit well with the warrior’s own lithe motions like a boxer retreating to his corner waiting for the KO call. He wore a horned wooden mask and held a leather shield. Our eyes met and he smiled. Clever! I measured the distance to the shield with the whip. In my best Troy-inspired move, without batting an eyelid I did a tricky lunge from the left and lashed out from the right. Soon enough I was relieved of the whip and the real chief signalled for the festivities to begin.

The fervour, I hoped, might be something they have come to expect of my tribe.

(The story appeared in the Sunday Express publication of the New Indian Express.)

“When I invite my girlfriend to an evening in the karaoke bar she is aroused and anguished at the same time,” says Alitt Susanto taking deep drags from a fancy cigarette atomiser. A fruity flavour wafts around us.

Enter colour – a karaoke bar

“She doesn’t know whether I will be singing about love and longing. Or leaving.” The silver haze is quite atmospheric, something like what Rhett Butler might have stepped out into after the famous ‘Frankly…’  Alitt, a bestselling author and vlogger from Indonesia, cloaked his purple prose of love in celluloid wizardry which won the attention and eventually the affection of his partner. They both travel a lot on work. “And we meet a lot of interesting people on the road.”

“The tables are turned when she takes the mic,” he grins. The atomiser which looks like an oversized Zippo lighter chortles.

More ambiguous smoke.

A lavender wave

A vent for Valiant

The Indonesian love for singing and showcase singing that is karaoke, I was exposed to right when I stepped out of the Jakarta airport. A video screen folded down behind the driver cabin of the luxury bus soon as we began our journey to Sabang. Everybody was taking photographs through the window; those who weren’t taking photographs were shooting videos. Those who had done both were busy editing, readying their next social update. I sat, a muggle, fixated on the screen on which lyrics now appeared. Popular lyrics. From The Boss to Bieber. The words were soon highlighted in a lavender wave that washed over them, disappearing with it. Line. Lavender. Repeat. They scrolled over home shot videos – mostly featuring a single white girl walking barefoot on a beach, doffing her lacey frock for a bikini and walking into the sea regardless of where the song was going. No sound as there was no line out – provided if anybody wanted to sing along as I found later.

“We even have a headphone output for the serious singer,” the driver told me. This allows the singer to listen to the music without outside distractions and not miss a beat.

Sing a suspense – Alitt

On that first inroad into Indonesia I sat gawking at lyrics, scrolling and colouring, from pop and blues to jazz and dangdut – local folk with strong influences from Hindustani and Arabic. These are wildly loved for their foot-tapping quality – something like the south Indian dappankuthu but softer and sexier. On retrospect, I might have expected some tourism videos to be played, some message from the concerned minister or a senior pariwisata official – after all we were there on the invite from the Tourism Ministry. Then this was typically Indonesian – no charade, just straight to the heart.

Enrique for dinner

It is Yunita Zahara’s job to know Jakarta like the back of her hand which she does as she works with an international relocation solutions provider. Accompanied by a common friend, we went to a karaoke bar on my second evening in Jakarta. By then I had heard enough to be significantly piqued.

Yunita – Kiss hands singer

“The youth of Indonesia are under a lot of pressure,” says Valiant Budi Yogi, an award winning author and travel blogger. “Karaoke bars are the cheapest and most fun way of venting all that pent up steam.” He made them sound like the prescription if alexithymia was a medical condition. Or is it? The sombre observation was a marked departure from the usually buoyant Val which in a way spotlighted the undeniable social relevance of karaoke bars. Private roomed – the one which I hired costing 100,000 Rupiah per hour – and single floored bars were not really within reach of the common lot. So enterprising Indonesians started mobile karaoke bars – fitting their cycle rickshaws with sound systems and video screens. The song selection was limited here as they cater largely to the local populace; you can still have your fill of peppy dangdut numbers though.

Indra – Not singing is not Indonesian

But at the karaoke bar at the Sarinah Mall which Yunita had found for us we had it all. The console which she held was the key to a staggering musical universe where songs knew no boundaries of language, movie or album, genre or singer. The only thing limiting your access to songs was your knowledge of them. The walls were fitted with lights over which the doctor would spread your medical report and shake his head. The strobe light was after an annoyingly fast spider. But Yunita sang so beautiful that I cried. I took her hands and kissed them. I told her I always wanted to kiss a great singer’s hands. She blamed the Bintangs and said coyly:

“All Indonesians sing very well.”

A bit longer – Vika

Which was actually true as I found out later that night. Staggering back to the hotel after three hours at the karaoke bar we were suddenly hungry. We stopped by a roadside food stall exhibiting an array of meat and fish dishes; the dogs and cats lounging about did a better job of entreating passers-by to come in than the proprietors. Hardly had we sat down when two heavily tattooed youngsters appeared and took our jukebox requests. Soft and romantic ballads were belted out with the presence and panache of real rock stars. In Indonesia these folks are called pengamen. You can see them ambling about food markets and generally crowded areas with a guitar and sometimes a drummer companion; 5000 Rupiah for three songs. But you can pay more – these are really gifted guys, strolling Idols. I did. And I hugged them.

And declared them brothers.

The karaoke culture

Like a lab, but still – tacky inside a karaoke bar

“It’s a very rare Indonesian who doesn’t sing,” says Indra Widjaya, a popular vlogger who wrote a blockbuster novel about his not making it to the top league in the Indonesian Idol. “In Indonesia we sing not just to convey love but even anger, some simmering resentment or even a way out of an ongoing feud.” Alitt says he has businessmen friends who seals deals with a song. Well, if somebody told me Indonesian mothers censure their kids for not doing homework with a song, I’d believe that by now. It was food, clothes, shelter and song for these guys.

“We grind away all our blues at the karaoke bar,” says Vika Fitriyana, celebrated television anchor. “Whatever your problems there’s nothing which won’t go away if you sing two more songs or dance an hour more.”

“That’s the healing quality of music which you can see at work in the karaoke bars,” says Valiant Budi who is also a songwriter. “Just as much the youth expresses through music they imbibe its sublime powers too.”

Pengamen – a song in every street corner

Okay, it’s not all singing and dancing at the karaoke bar. Asking for karaoke bars in Bali I had to contend with offers of girls? then, boys? ‘Any type’ and all ages! An American who went native in Jakarta told me about karaoke bars which came at a few thousand dollars per hour which also came with bathycolpian hostesses – who may or may not sing great but whose prowess lay elsewhere. Popular with European and Japanese businessmen these tony joints still keep the age-old reputation of the karaoke bar alive.

Honky tonk blues, to borrow from an old Rolling Stones song.

If you have to showcase responsible tourism practices the way it should be – a collective effort – then frame this one. All the seafood, vegetables, egg, coconut, oil and fruits used in the homestay are produced locally ensuring benefit for the entire village. In the three-acre coconut farm surrounding the property no chemical fertiliser or pesticide is used; the kitchen itself uses biogas for its cooking. Whitewashing of the house is done with locally produced lime. Toddy – the local liquor – from fermented coconut or palm is promoted as the healthier alternative, which it is. Fishing being the mainstay occupation of the village, mechanised boats are discouraged in the backwaters next to the homestay. This is Gramam Homestay (Neduveli House) belonging to Jos Byju and wife Lyma in the Kumbalangi village in Kochi outskirts. Even the name ‘Gramam’ (meaning ‘village’) is evocative of the whole village than the homestay per se.

This sense of collectiveness, the community harmony, is necessary for the success of any responsible tourism initiative. Kumbalangi village was among the select locations where rural tourism initiatives were launched by the state tourism department back in 2008; the role played by Gramam (the homestay) here is a commendable one. The whole village which lines the ecologically fragile banks of the backwaters has realised that myopic, mindless development will be catastrophic and everybody seems to be well-versed in the basics of sustainable practices. That is not to say hospitality and tourists take a backseat. Here too, the whole village comes forward together to make you feel like king. Or god.

Guests residing at Gramam have the first say; you get to pick the juiciest lobster or crab or the biggest prawn before they are packed and iced off to nearby markets. Byju is the resident expert who will teach you to assess freshness from the red of the gill; Lyma will then explain the different preparations – curried or fried, spicy or with coconut milk. Her fish moilee (a gobsmacking preparation of fish cooked in coconut milk) and appam (rice hopper) are out-of-this-world. When it comes to curries, you might want to remind your hosts to go easy on the spice, though.

The responsible outlook is reflected even in the number of guests at the homestay any given time which is kept to the basic minimum. The Gramam includes two accommodations in the sprawling, sandy coconut plantation: The Cottage and the Lake View Room. The Cottage is right next to the backwaters and used to be an old coconut farm house which was renovated and converted to a homestay for those looking for privacy. The Lake View Room is a stand-alone wing of the main house itself where Byju and Lyma stay. Both accommodations have wide open verandas where you can while away a lazy afternoon. All the rooms are spotlessly clean and furnished with antique furniture, bamboo knick-knacks, western toilets and walk-in showers. The Cottage has a kitchenette with solar-powered water heaters and a fridge making it an ideal choice for staying with family.

Bearing tall testimony – quite literally as well – to the sustainable practices that make Gramam stand out is the 200-year old mango tree known locally as ‘Chandanakaran.’ The tallest tree in the whole village, everybody talks about ‘Chandanakaran’ as if it were a living person. Which you will also find, it is.

Practical information

• Address: ‘Gramam,’ Neduveli House, North Kumbalangi, Kochi
• Telephone: +91 484 2240278, +91 9447177312
• Website / Contact email: www.keralagramam.com, info@keralagramam.com
• Nearest airport / Distance: Kochi International Airport / 45km
• Tariff: Both the rooms are double occupancy and prices start from Rs 3,500 onwards

Facilities

• Number of rooms: Two very spacious rooms with very large twin beds, well-maintained and kept spotlessly clean. Attached toilets come with western fittings and walk-in showers.
• Air-conditioning / heating: No
• Hot and cold water: Yes
• Food/restaurant/kitchen: Lyma, Byju’s wife is the in-charge of cooking. She does a mean Kerala meal – a ‘thali’ which is an assortment of different curries, chutneys, pickles, rice and topped with dessert. You can also have your choice of fish or any other seafood which is the fresh catch of the day and have it prepared your way by Lyma. Washed down with Kerala toddy, waking up from the afternoon siesta can be a happy ordeal. Breakfast is also typical Kerala – puttu (steamed rice cake) and bananas or egg curry. On request Continental food is also served.
• Telephone: Yes
• Internet: Provided on request
• Swimming pool: No
• Child friendly: The homestay by the backwater is a perfect holiday spot to bring your children along. But make sure you book The Cottage as it has a bigger surrounding area and a larger veranda. However keep an eye on the kids for this accommodation is just a stone throw away from the backwater.
• Credit card payment facility: No
• Airport pick up and drop: On request

Activities / Places to see / Things to do

• Visit a nearby Kerala ‘nalukettu’ (typically a traditional house with a large courtyard) which is 350 years old where a family still resides and lights a lamp every evening at the ‘kaavu’ or sacred cove dedicated to the snake god.
• Boat along the serene backwaters or take in a slice of the rural countryside on a bicycle.
• If you are missing the sea, a visit to the Marari Beach is recommended – a quiet beach, not yet touristy.
• Byju will be happy to take you to the fish farm nearby; it’s here you decide on your lunch menu most of the time. Pick the basics of shrimp and prawn farming too.
• The homestay arranges special kathakali or kalaripayattu performances on request.
• Cooking classes in traditional Kerala cuisine can also be arranged on request.
• Hop into Fort Kochi – just 9km from Kumbalangi – for a visit to the famous Chinese fishing nets, Spice Market, Synagogue, the Mattancherry Palace, etc.

‘Geological time includes now.’

Looking up at the looming cracked dolmens, precariously balanced boulders, perching promontories and other formidable formations from the gulch I was tracing it wasn’t easy to shrug away Edward Abbey’s artful caution. That they had been like that for most part of millions of years is exactly what prompts – and tempts – you to walk among them and even try a hand at bouldering while there. Soloing myself up, no fancy highballing, I looked up again while in a hand jam. Cerulean skies parted for the sun to blaze through silhouetting the outcrop in a heavenly flash. Little black dots funneled their way into my vision. Help, if needed, was close at hand. Yet I thought of Aron Ralston. This time the words of the famously passionate and equally prickly ranger and author’s words struck closer home: watch out for falling rocks.

I had begun my trek early that morning with a friend at Virupapur Gaddi, popularly known as Hampi Island, across the Tungabhadra river and the erstwhile tourist hangout Hampi Bazaar. We were making for the Virupaksha temple that rose majestically above the dewy green of the paddy fields and palm trees, the petering river and languorous hammocks of the guest houses that dotted the bank. The remarkable rocks came in the way; Virupaksha, which was across the water anyway, had to wait. Trying for some handy beta from the hotel staff, I later queried casually what would have formed the magnificent if haphazard Lego block eminences which were now slowly swathing in the lustrous gold of the rising sun.

“Sir, it was like that only even from my childhood. So, I don’t know.” He replied genuinely distressed at being unable to help.

Enamoured and intrigued by what we saw that morning, we decided to spend the day scouting for the stupendous and the strange, the prettiest and the parlous rock formations that marked the landscape. Driving up a shale-strewn path that doubles as a waterway in the rainy season we reached a narrow road that connects the nearest rail head Hospet (30km) and the historic Anegundi not very far. Along the way to Anegundi there is the carcass of an aqueduct – or bridge, as some claimed – whose construction was abandoned following a collapse and loss of lives; the reason has been variously attributed to shortage of funds and paucity of labourers who baulk at the supposed supernatural warning to stay away sounded by the deaths.

Pindas and marbles. And some missing jewellery.

The warnings are not without reason, locals say. Or adequate faith. Hampi and Anegundi are believed to form parts of Kishkindha, the monkey kingdom, which forms the crux of many significant events in the holy Indian epic Ramayana. Brothers Ram and Lakshman reach Kishkindha looking for missing Sita. Here they meet Hanuman, who was only a monkey general at that time. Hanuman takes them to king Sugreeva who, realising the potent combo of sheer divinity and raw strength in the brothers, offers all help. He takes them to a cave with the floor littered with Sita’s ornaments – which he said fell off as she was abducted by the demon king Ravana who came swooping down on his flying chariot. In exchange for help from Hanuman, Ram kills Vali, Sugreeva’s warring brother and a thorn in his throne. Hanuman is immediately dispatched to Lanka to do a reconnoitre and comes back with news of spotting Sita. The monkey army of Kishkindha begins construction of a bridge to Lanka, there is a calamitous rain and war and all that which makes Ramayana the timeless classic it is. Kishkindha remains to this day in the many temples of Hampi and Anegundi with their monkey panels and splendidly decked and towering images of Hanuman. The jewels of Sita are still believed to be in a cave – now submerged – falling somewhere between the Tungabhadra and the masterpiece Vithala temple complex.

That Lord Ram has walked these parts make it holy for the Hindus. But what makes it even more so is the belief that the rounded boulders were originally pindas placed by Rama in the memory of his father, Dasaratha. Pindas are rice balls that form part of a sraddham or homage ceremony in accordance with Hindu tradition. While this is official for the smooth-edged rocks in the area surrounding the Malyavantha hill, the locals are only too happy to extend its scope. Well, why not! Karlu Karlu in the Australian outback holds immense cultural and spiritual significance to the earliest inhabitants, the Aboriginals, who believe all the rounded rocks are eggs laid by the sacred rainbow serpent. It came to be called ‘Devil’s Rocks’ after a possibly blinkered, definitely fatigued member of an overland expedition called it that.

Weathering and flooding. And some rock climbing.

Whether as a matter of earnest belief or a clever pre-empting of possible fundamentalist resistance to the region’s burgeoning popularity as a hippie hangout and bouldering destination, some old hands have wilfully clubbed the sport with the persona of Hanuman – strong, lithe and maybe a tad defiant. Well, among those who aren’t any of these (the boulderers themselves), there wouldn’t be many who wouldn’t believe themselves to be some of these. Whew! Please don’t make me say it again. While we can happily overlook any wily deliberations for the sake of bigger good and a fantastic sport, we do have to get our facts straight. Marbles and pindas are good when its pilgrimage on your mind but it’d be better as you heel hook your way up to know that these are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg: the exposed layer of a vastly more expansive underground granite formation that has been around for not millions, but billions of years.

Several billions of years ago, during an age noted by geologists are Archean, the magma beneath the earth’s crust cooled to form the granite. Pressure from all around over millions of years caused tectonic shifts which resulted in the granite breaking through the surface and making an appearance, continuous and un-cracked from what we see today. This also resulted in the cataclysmic rearrangement which broke up the one single continent of Gondwanaland into India and Africa. This was really a long time ago for we – in Delhi or Bangalore – have forgotten we are supposed to be nice to the Africans. What then followed was the millions of years of weathering by dint of exposure to sun, wind and rain. While a process called exfoliation rounds off the boulders in places, thermal stress weathering caused by repeated exposure to day and night causes it to crack, sometimes right down the middle. Rarely are they the handiwork of men as reported in some places. Vertical cracks when followed by horizontal ones renders the mountain into a bundle of rectangular blocks. Like the one I was attempting to climb now, gear less, barefoot.

I clambered up on all fours along a steep that glinted and grew warmer under the sun, like Spiderman after a bout with The Lizard. Tolerably proud of my accomplishment and gasping for breath I crept into a gap between two gargantuan boulders leaning against each other to rest and reflect.

What’s now in geological time?

Massive pillar baring Lahori brickwork

What do you wear when you are soon going to doff it for a copulation session for canvas? What was that semaphore again for more shisha in the hookah? How long does one keep jigging for the frolicsome mood to be captured as still life? At the Qudsia Bagh in Civil Lines I tried to lay a handle on some possible existential crises of Mohammad Shah ‘Rangeela’ (‘The colourful’), one of whose begums built the eponymous garden. The crossdressing debauchee was also the longest serving Mughal emperor since Aurangzeb. Well, he lasted long – nearly three decades from 1719 to 1748 – largely because he busied himself with these more, well, immediate issues rather than the regular drawn-out ones like, say, war strategies and kingdom expansions. He also didn’t engross himself much with a popular pastime of the period which enjoyed regal patronage, an activity which led to the untimely – and mostly gory – demise of seven rulers in the 12 years before him – conspiratorial killing of blood relations posing any threat to your own ascension.

Painting by Nainsukh c. 1730 – 40

While plenty has been known, envied, and seen of Rangeela not much has been written about the Qudsia Bagh, garden, which could be because not much is left of it. A sprawling pleasure garden, this was at par with the famed Vauxhall along the Thames and laid out in 1748 typically along the banks of the Yamuna which later decided to course further east. Where the river once flowed is the Ring Road today. The English retribution following the uprising of 1857 saw to it that the stately ornate buildings and winding water pathways of the garden were rendered vengefully mouldered. Development and related encroachment in an independent India saw the garden wither to 50 and then 30 acres. Today local estimates place the area at a vastly diminished 20 which is expected to shrink further once the ongoing work on the Metro line next to it is complete. And with it turn away many birds, including rare migratory ones, which pass by.

As shrivelling green lungs vanishing verdure seem to be a matter of distant if not a concern soon receding-into-irrelevance for the city dwellers. This is going by the pollution levels which, during Diwali this year reached 17 times the prescribed danger limit. In a city where every third child has a respiratory condition there was little thoughtful cessation in the cracker-bursting revelries. The gasping situation has provoked no active curbs from the authorities and the condition is projected to get worse with the marriage season around the corner.

But what subsumed me at the moment was the wonderful and massive gateway unimaginatively called the ‘Haathi Darwaza.’ (Massive gateways all over India are called ‘Haathi Darwaza’; I shan’t be surprised if in all these cases it is ASI the unimaginative godfather.) Trying to make up for what the ASI lacked I imagined Qudsia Begum enter the garden sitting astride an elephant. Not very far-fetched by any yardstick. Quli Khan in his travelogue Muraqqa-i-Dihli (The Delhi Album) chronicling the Sufi saints and dance girls and rent boys of Delhi under Rangeela also mentions a Nur Bai who travelled only on elephants who ‘ruined many houses.’ (You should join the ASI if you think this destruction was brought on by trampling.)

Fast fading glory

Qudsia Begum was originally Udham Bai. A gifted dancer, Udham Bai’s seductive moves charmed Rangeela who soon married her. Udham Bai thus became Qudsia Begum who went on to create one of the finest pleasure gardens in the world at the time probably replete with its own promenades, bandstands, fountains and maybe a harem even to ensure her husband visited often. It might have been difficult to hold on to a lotus-eating emperor whose pleasure-seeking pursuits covered the whole gamut from fetish to fear. Widely spotted in women’s clothes, he was rumoured to have been impotent – to counter which, it’s said, some of the paintings were commissioned. The most noteworthy that of him fornicating in near nudity, female attendants fanning draught and desire. Others include a celebration of Holi, watching an elephant fight from a safe height and another framed by a jharokha. This style of painting pioneered by Nidha Mal grew to be a rage among other rulers. Rangeela could have sucked on his hookah, straddled the courtesan or cut a rug for the paintings in the garden where I was strolling now.

This emperor decided to do away with clothes

By the side of the path leading to the gateway were the derelict ruins of a pillar with peeling stucco baring the ordered maze of fine Lahori brickwork beneath. Corbel remains pointed to a taller and probably more elaborate structure. Tousled with creepers, determined some clung to it concealing open wounds – preserving whatever of the grandeur left. Inside the Darwaza I was flanked by not dark, dingy sally ports, a fort staple, but stairways that wound all the way up to an airy, sunny terrace. It seemed to have been once sequestered from view by columns with florid motifs; what remained were baroque bases and bulbous stubs of tops awaiting further beheading by a passing gryphon. Hundreds of pigeons arose in a cooing flutter like they do ahead of the hero and heroine running in slomo holding hands with the Gateway or India Gate in the background. Some did a flying scat protest as I stepped into their cereal breakfast just served by the garden attendant.

Rangeela grounds

Govind’s un-washed, oversized shirt fell like a soutane. A gormless but otherwise avuncular man, he carried the harried air of a single working mother on a PTA Saturday. He paused for my questions and itched out his answers from his balls.

‘The British built so many buildings all over Delhi. Nobody should expect me to remember their names.’ This was the gist of what he said before shuffling away now trying to positively pry his balls out. I walked away before he could lob them at me in case he succeeded.

Concrete walkways wound their way around the park and passed by benches where people sat mirthlessly guffawing their way into yogic longevity. If the Metro work didn’t scare away the birds, this would, I thought. Amorous youngsters, seemingly diddling to passers-by, dotted the lawns their hands disappearing into dupatta folds and jacket hems.

Rangeela was around.

Some more action: It is true that with the passing away of Syed Ausaf Ali, the revered historian last month, nobody knows Delhi anymore like the back of their hand. But it is only fair that those employed by the ASI, like Govind (surname and photograph withheld to protect sorry identity), should at least know the history of the site they are posted to. Govind, as I said in the post, did tell me the buildings in the Qudsia Bagh were built by the British whereas most of it were destroyed by them. True, I knew about the Qudsia Bagh more or less when I visited but I didn’t know about the Mohammad Shah connection. When Govind told me it was all built by the British I felt like crying; when he said nobody should expect him to remember names I felt like kicking the body part he was busy raking.

On the rolls of a prestigious, responsible and well-funded body, it’s not too much to expect Govind to tell me the correct history of the garden and introduce me to Rangeela. If Govind is busy feeding pigeons or dismantling his own body parts, the ASI should at least put up a board with the history on it. I shall write to the ASI as well as mark a copy to the email provided in the signboard here. Progress shall be duly noted in the comments section below.