Rewriting my Fairytale

REWRITING MY FAIRY TALE

What do you say when the one who is supposed to be your better half for a life time, pulls off a Tiger Woods on you? After the initial fireworks and blasts, you sort of become a recluse, shy away into a shell n take your own sweet time to come out of it.. In the meantime, a whole volley of events unfold around you.. First of all you (rather your close ones) are ambushed by critiques, cynics and condescending bigots in the forms of relatives, neighbours and so-called ‘well wishers’.. That’s the thing about our society bearing a glorified culture on its shoulders; people who have absolutely no idea of what actually transpired, or even worse, people who have no clue of who YOU actually ARE, get to somehow comment on your life because you went to school with them several blue moons ago or because your grand aunt’s co-sister’s neighbour got married to their uncle’s stepson’s third wife or even because your ancestral home is next to their cow farm! Every tom, dick n harry end up being highly opinionated about your life. “Oh it must definitely be her fault” or “She deserves just that” or “I didn’t expect anything better from her anyway” become the talk of the town for quite some time. The worst part is, none of the above is done to you on the face, but discreetly behind your back in hushed tones.. and the more disconcerting fact is, you invariably get to hear it! Well, because as we all know, that’s how closely-knit the gossip mongering networks in our society work! Almost like they are competing in efficiency with news exchanging little ants that busily go up and down a trail !

Meanwhile, you are still caught up in the murky world of thoughts and soliloquies ranging in all dimensions.. The million “How could he do this to me?”s, and “Am I not good enough for him?”s run amok in your head.. You introspect, analyse, over think and go into doldrums of exponential magnitudes..  And finally you somehow buck up and pull yourself together to brave the world with a bold face, or rather a face palm!

Now comes the twist in the tale.. All of a sudden the Tiger Woods pulls off the second phase, that of a contrite Bill Clinton, and expects you to be the ever charming Hillary and welcome him back into your life with open arms and rosy pathways leading to your doorstep! He is all remorseful and guilt reeks even from his breath. And this drives you into yet another frenzied state of mind, where in you are foddered with gold starred words of wisdom from all directions. Then you contemplate with all the facts and figures at hand, the before and after scenarios, familial and societal pressure, and last but mostly the least - your own individual take on the whole brouhaha. Because let’s admit it, that’s how the life decisions of a woman in our society works. Least preference to her own choices and her individuality, which is precisely the reason why most of the time you even end up in such predicaments. You end up getting married to someone even when all your instincts point towards the backdoor. Your feelings of foreboding is waved aside with a dismissive hand, berating what a young girl like yourself know about life, marriage or relationships, and hours of listening to ‘Gyan’ that “this is how it works in all Indian marriages” (Seriously, it “works” eh?) leaves you with no other choice really.

And so when the boomerang phase happens it is a tad too late. You have already reached a point of no-return. And you wonder, ‘Why don’t people get that some actions have permanent consequences’!? The damage is so colossal that nothing you say or do later is going to undo it. It is like someone rash drives and takes the life of the one travelling with them.. No words, thoughts or actions would bring the person back.. The driver should have considered the aftermath while he was at the wheel, before pulling off stunts that took a dear one’s life. So when someone you trust pulls an antic that jeopardizes everything you both had till then, may be a part of you dies along with that, and nothing he says or does can reclaim you.

So what did I do, when the above described series of events happened in my life? I took some time off.. Time to myself, time to think, read and write.. but more importantly to figure out what I really wanted.. And in the meanwhile, I checked things off my To-Do list –

• Kick started my baby – i.e., An establishment of my own (Of course not entirely myself, with my best buddy biz partner)
• Crossed the seas for a trip alone in another country (Gave me a sense of freedom I never felt before and got me more in touch with nature)
• Gifted myself a puppy   (The most adorable ball of fur who yaps and snaps at me if I don’t kiss him every day)
• Drove across the length and breadth of the country (5000 kms. Phew!.. And got to see another face of this sparkling India/World that we know of till date)
• Got my nose pierced (My long abandoned dream, redeemed.. Thanks to painless piercings! )
• Learnt to ride a bike (Why should boys have all the fun, and no I’m not talking about the silly scooty that gals ride.. This is the real deal, Motorbike WITH Gear :D)
• Coloured my hair red (And then got all other shades – brown, bronze, copper etc – free of cost shortly after)
• Found my happy tree (Frangipani – Realised that just looking at the tree makes me feel so happy that I smile to myself)
• Wrote quite some stuff I felt so strong about (And even about inconsequential inanities that I’d rather not show out in the open)
• And yes, looked death in the eye and said see you later with a smile.. :) (Though that was actually not part of my to-do list)

And the fact is during the 2 year phase, first you do plummet into these black holes that are endless pits of dark thoughts.. But, one thing is certain, you definitely would come out of it alive.. And when you do, it’s going to be a new rejuvenated, invigorated you.. With a spanking new stash of secret fuel up the sleeve, to help you launch and rebrand yourself in this world.. and here I’m.. after the whole ordeal, emerged a Superwoman! Ready to rewrite my Fairytale, all over again!! ;) 

Road Trip into the Indian Chasm

A trip which spanned across 10 days, 9 states, 5000 odd kms, variety of terrains, and various sights of human plight; that pretty much sums up the cross country trip of a lifetime. 5 of us in a Renault Duster from Chennai to Delhi and all the way back!

Everyone called us crazy, out-of-our-minds.. but a trip that started out as a cheaper and more adventurous option than flying out from ‘GST Road’ in Chennai and landing in ‘IGI Airport Road’ in Delhi, turned out to be quite an experience.. Though to all our critiques we retorted in jest that we wanted to touch the soul of India, that is in fact what ensued. With a broken GPS, which kept taking us through all the outdated routes the urban clan of India seems to have long-forgotten, we ended up visiting village after village in the remotest parts of India. And by village I do not mean the quaint picturesque ones that happen upon u while driving across Europe. These were the kind of places that our Mammootty (Courtesy: Mal movie ‘The King’) and ‘Mohanlal’ (Courtesy: Our PM’s US visit speech) Karamchand Gandhi asked us to go in search of, to know India.

We started from Chennai, drove till New Delhi and back via 2 different routes covering the states TN, AP, Telengana, MP, UP, Delhi, Hariyana and Rajastan, and were fortunate to have witnessed quite few ‘remarkable’ sights on the way – run-down buses in an about-to-collapse condition bearing proudly on its forehead “Super Luxury Bus”; a car with the sticker “Govt. Doctor” almost as if he was worried people wouldn’t believe he is actually a certified doctor; 2 guys in a bike speeding past with a cow sandwiched between them, like they were kidnapping it and fleeing from the scene of crime – scenes people capture and give the caption ‘It happens only in India’

Every few hours we were crossing 100s of kms, while flanked by barren land and visuals that would move even a barren heart. We kept seeing ‘truckloads’ of villagers – men and women going to work I suppose, all bunched up like matchsticks inside a box, too suffocated to move or even breathe properly. There were little kids and even grown-ups who did not have even a tiny closed-off space in or near their house, because why else would they do all their business by the side of the highways, along with the cattle?! Women were seen walking barefoot in the scorching heat, balancing several pots of water on their heads with finesse that would envy a professional acrobat.

Driving through a hillock in one of the villages, we stumbled upon few monkey dancers, who at first glance seemed like our ‘Pulikali’ artistes from Kerala, but turned out to be some lads masquerading as Lord Ram’s Vanara Sena. They were on their way back from a show and were delighted to see us stopping and asking to take their pics. We danced with them and at the end of it they asked if this would come on TV. We had no words hearing this ignorant or rather this innocent question of theirs.

While in Agra me and my cousin were at this busy market where people were hogging on street food. We were waiting in line and saw 3 ragamuffin kids – a boy and 2 gals loitering around begging. All the shopkeepers and parents of children, who could afford to buy them the snacks, kept shooing them like they were some scavenger crows flocking to grab their plates of food. For almost a minute I just kept staring at both these sets of children, pensively pondering at how drastically contrasting their lives are, for reasons which are none other than accidental birth. Then my sister snapped me back to reality saying ‘do u want us to buy them food’. The children took the food with no emotion whatsoever; life’s hardships at such a tender age have maybe made them impassive to everything. Not just their hands, their hearts also seemed calloused. They are young, but have aged.

Driving to Delhi we happened to stop by Madhura, Lord Krishna’s kingdom. The filth and dirt of the town was no less in comparison to the other towns and villages we passed by so far. And there we saw guides who were willing to give us a 3-hour tour of the place for a meagre sum of Rs.50! Shows how poverty-stricken the place is. 2 questions circled my thoughts.

1. If Lord Krishna’s own townsmen are in such a sad predicament, how was he expected to take care of the rest of the world who keeps beseeching his blessings??
2. Our Guruvayoor is so well-kept, a stark contrast to Madhura and Gokul temples owing to the gulf money that keeps pouring into our state. Isn’t this proof that it is infact man who made gods and not the other way round?!

Several faces kept gnawing at the back of my mind, not letting me completely enjoy the trip. The shabby looking beggar woman kissing her infant who was equally dirty, all covered in dust, and smiling looking into its face; that was the visage of a contented mother feeling how beautiful her child is. The tiny sales man of may be 7 years of age who stopped by my window in Delhi traffic. I gave him 20 bucks without taking the cloth he was trying to sell and I was greeted by this “Tank u Didi” with the most grateful smile I had ever received. The haggard old beggar with long hairlocks who was sitting by the roadside pile of garbage segregating and devouring to his heart’s content some food leftovers that was mixed up with other waste. And that was the most heart-breaking of all the scenes I had to see through the entirety of the trip.

I was thinking of these millions of people all living in such hardships that we have never experienced of, or even seen before in front of our eyes. Reminded me of these chickens in a poultry farm we saw on the way. Thousands of chickens just stuffed into cages stacked one over the other, the whole milieu filled with filth, stinking and suffocating, and those creatures are born into it, are raised there, live their whole life there and end up dying too, there itself.

My trip to North India was an eye-opener, a reality check, an absolutely shocking one, one where I felt someone did an ice-bucket challenge over my head and shook me up, and made me see things I never knew existed, things I was so unaware of. There are thousands of villages in such pathetic state, in dire poverty and I wonder what the MPs of these constituencies are thinking?!?

And it made me question many things about this great nation, especially how public money is spent here. A country having a population of over 1.2 billion has around 400 million people who live with less than $1.2 under a day and doesn’t consider it superfluous to spend $1.2 billion (Rs.7350 Cr) every year for its space research.

The government seemed very jubilant to announce the upcoming spending of a staggering Rs.80000 Cr planned for submarines and surveillance aircrafts. Of course defence is one of our prime priorities, but still why so much for terror and so little for hunger, I worry.

A smug-faced head honcho of ours during his US visit was spotted with Mark Zuckerburg, discussing about the digital expansion in the country and how more than 100 Cr people in the country do not have access to the internet. And I wonder if he or any of his predecessors ever actually put serious thought about 1.5 Cr odd children (1.83 Cr to be precise)  in the same country who never get to know what internet is, because they don’t live past their 5th birthday due to the poverty-stricken conditions that they are born into.

We have 17% of the world’s population and 20% of the world’s poorest of poor living here. And it is a pity why those bearing the onus is not bothered to utilize half the energy they have for doing all the above, to implement a veritable public food distribution system when more than 25 Cr people do not have enough food to eat?!

Food for thought. Is there actually a point in making it to the top of the chart of nations with state-of-the-art space research or technological know-how, when we are also on the top of the rank chart of poverty?! Everyone is gung-ho about the fact that we accomplished Chandrayan and Mangalyaan. But think about it, are we in a position to celebrate spending so much money on technology that we don’t need right away, when everyday there is a fellow citizen dying?! All this is for what? To show the world that we are also in the running to be a super power? Or are these a facade to keep the rest of the Indian social strata in dark about the appalling poverty that India actually deals with. Why else would we have a video going viral of a bearded guy screaming “India is innovating”. When nearly one fourth of its population can’t read or write, one tenth lacks access to clean water, one twelfth are homeless, and half of its population defecates in the open, do we really think India is innovating? I feel given the current state of affairs, with the ravages of population and how conveniently oblivious the governments and political leaders seem to act of the predicament, “India is doomed”.

When India wakes up and realises that being able to spend Rs.450 Cr on a Mars Mission still does not make India a less poorer nation, that these billions spent on tech is still not going to fill the empty stomachs of the poor or fade out the cries of little ones here, India would really be innovating. India will rise.

Note: All statistical data are validated.

A kiss in the land of moral chaos!

Ok, so much brouhaha! And for what? Because a faction of liberal minds wanted to show their support for love, and maybe even their support for freedom of PDA. You can do nothing but be aghast at the sequence of dramatic events that rolled out

First of all, let’s examine who exactly these Moral Polices are;

• A curious breed of antisocials who call themselves the torch-bearers of ‘Indian Culture’, playing the roles of ‘moral vigilantes’!
• ‘Mostly associated with conservative political and religious sects that condemn anyone unwilling to kowtow to our ‘so-called morals’ or anything that is vaguely linked to openness about the ‘forbidden 3 letter word’.
• Suffering from a serious condition of ‘Frustration Disorder’
• Diagnosed with having the ‘No one-should-have-what-I-don’t-have’ syndrome
• Displays symptoms of ‘Double Standard Illness’
• Perfectly OK with carrying out any dirty work discreetly, while being in the forefront to criticize genuine people who are blatantly honest about matters pertaining to sex.
• ‘Moral Policing’ is a main occupation for many; though there is a large subsection who considers it just a recreational activity during their leisure time.
• This activity has been mainly doing rounds in our dear state for past 2 decades or so; that is since parents turned sensible and started letting their offsprings actually make friends with the opposite sex.
• Their main duties include being a German Shepherd, i.e. snooping around, sniffing out people who are doing ‘it’ anywhere that is remotely open/public, for e.g., cars, parking areas, beaches, parks etc; it being kissing, fondling, hugging or anything that suggests one apparently has the capacity of self expression.
• The trend of the activity was expected to gradually downturn and die down. But, due to the highly admirable ‘state of our state’ these ‘moral polices’ are still running rampant
• These ‘police’ have incarcerated many such ‘perpetrators’ so far. Even siblings and married couples have made it to the hit list, until proven their ‘innocence’.

Well, I wonder whoever laid down the rules in this state that you need to be hanging from different branches of the same family tree or have a blown-up laminated marriage certificate in your shoulder bag to be able to express your love and affection to someone you care about.

Now let’s slice up the clichéd reasons why a kiss in public is deemed to be wrong in our state.

1. It’s immoral

Now, who makes the definitions of morality. The dictionary definition goes as “Concerned with the principles of right and wrong behaviour”. And what is right for me might be wrong for you. There are countries across the world that practise kissing in public as a very normal affair. Does that mean they are immoral and we are highly moral? It’s a pity that we Keralites still have not learnt to respect each other’s views on morality and coexist!

2. It is against Indian Culture.

Let me make something very clear. First of all, India does not possess a culture of its own per se. The culture that we have now has been the cumulative effect of 5000 years of having borrowed infinite number of customs, rituals, languages, attires and lifestyles from every passerby who visited us or had the guts and power to invade us. The minutiae of our culture if dissected can be seen as imbibed from the Aryans, Mughals, the Persians, the British, the Portuguese, the French and so on n so forth.

I hope the young popular critic who pops up in TV every now and then just to shout the 2 words ‘INDIAN CULTURE’ for anything under the sun would have something to say about this. I would like to pose 2 questions to all those who can’t seem to stop flaunting this reason for detesting public kissing.

• Please show us where exactly in any of the scriptures or doctrines (The Gita, The Upanishads, The Vedas, The Itihasas, The Puranas) that most certainly form an integral part of Indian culture, is it written that kissing or public display of affection is a transgression.
• Isn’t Khajuraho built around 1000 years ago in the heart of India, – where display of affection, and sex itself is portrayed publically – a part of Indian culture?

3. This cannot happen on our soil

Let me get this straight. So when these same people go abroad, they would not at all cringe or look the other side at the sight of a lip-locking couple on the road. So the problem is with the land we walk on. You know this particular soil type. Ok, that makes sense.

4. If kissing is allowed today, tomorrow people will start fornicating in the open

This is like saying since today your kid in the kinder garten had a fight with his playmate, in about a decade and half he is going to grow up to be a goonda . Very sensible rationale indeed.

Well, it’s widely known that the countries across the world did not start kissing and hugging in public just about yesterday. And it would be great if our moral polices could hand over a copy of that list; you know, the one with the names of countries which now practice sex in the open as a normal thing. If after years and years of practising PDA hasn’t brought them to such a predicament, isn’t it kind of moronic to fear it would befall on us, lest we curb public display of affection altogether! Or this can be considered just another utterly lame excuse which the moral polices are trying to camouflage and package as a relevant reason.

Coming to the ‘Kiss of Love’ commotion; the attitudes of people here are so passé that it was over and out expected that there would be exponential times more people who made a foray than who supported it. The highlight of the event was a group called ‘Freakers of Kochi’ another kind of police, who put up quite a show; that the model police of State Armed Force and the moral police together joined hands in beating them up mistaking them for KoL supporters. They even seem to have come up with categorizations of which type of kiss is ‘Halaal’ and which is ‘Haraam’. Their point seems to be that adopting other cultures is utterly completely unacceptable sans the below said gimmicks.

• Getting squeezed into funky loud clothes as if they were sown on to their skins
• Unloading bottles of hair products on top of their heads and making their hair look like a toilet brush
• Getting their facial hair designed into immaculate patterns etc

Well aren’t the above said more plausible of being tagged as borrowed from the western culture than PDA and openness about sex & intimacy? At least the guy with 2 wives (one of them being a popular anchor on TV), who played gangmaster should have had some contemplation without setting out for this task. Him who has 2 wives and parades around publically with both on either side like paraphernalia sure offends me. It may comply with his religious beliefs, but it most definitely is against my ideals and morals, the ones that I was brought up with and I bet there are many who would assent. Yet we wouldn’t go out there marching with flags and flexes saying it is against the morality we believe in. That’s because some of us actually have the sense to let people make their own lifestyle choices, live their lives and do things the way they want, as long as it is not by shitting on anybody’s head, erm.. I mean by not hurting a fellow compatriot. Last time I checked, we were still not a fascist society.

And have we stooped down to the point where we have ceased to be a society where even freedom of speech is no longer the right of a citizen? Just the other day a teacher had to face so much reproach in the forms of verbal thrashing, mean posters and what not. Her offence – a post in her Facebook profile supporting Kiss of Love. And does it stop there? She was asked to be dismissed from her job, by the PTA and even the student community (who were apparently the dextrous hands behind the posters). And there is more. 10 students have been suspended from a college in Kochi because they conducted a ‘Hugs of Love’ protest, where they hugged each other to spread love and to protest the regressive attitude that is increasingly becoming unhealthy. Get a grip, people! A hug is not even a sensual gesture when done with affection. It’s even scientifically proven that ‘A hug a day keeps illness at bay’. And we protest for that. Our land is so tolerant towards violence. People stage violent protests all the time and no one is seen lifting a little finger against them. But when someone protests non-violently by showing love, suddenly there are clusters of prudes emerging from all corners!

Look at what happened in Kolkata. They pledged their support calling the movement ‘Kochi to Kolkata’ and it was a grand success. No one was beat up, no one ran frantically, no one was hurt. They came, kissed, shared their happiness, left. And isn’t Kolkota part of this very India and its culture? They are, but guess the people are more sensible.

Kissing in all its glory is just an act of expressing love and affection. How does something considered perfectly pleasurable at night or inside the confines of a home, suddenly turn sinful and aberrant in daylight or in the open? And we are not even talking about anything obscene, for the Supreme Court itself has ruled out kissing as an act of obscenity. May be these people should ask Government to declare a dry day for kisses when no one is allowed to kiss in public. Would that suffice to satisfy these culture mongers?

The fact is this geographical part of the world was civilized much earlier than the rest. When many others lived in jungles we lived in cities. And we kept learning from all the visitors and invaders that kept drinking blood from our soil, and we kept getting enriched as a culture. I hope when people keep raving and ranting relentlessly about ‘Real Indian culture’ they would rather realise that civilization is our real culture. And beating up people who express love is not civilized at all. And that is what is against our culture.

Finally if you think you get intolerably rankled and cannot stand the sight of two people liplocking or sharing love, you should introspect whether the problem is with their love or your demented mind (read: sexual frustration).

Also on : 

http://news.entecity.com/moral-police-model-police-and-freak-police-by-aarti-panikkar/

http://www.yentha.com/news/view/columns/vantage-point-a-kiss-in-the-land-of-moral-chaos

I'm Human. You?

Written on 15 Aug 2014

Ok, it is that time of the year again. The time when every Tom, Dick, Harry and even William has a picture of the national flag displayed, has a redundant status message, or even writes a nondescript prose on how proud he is of the nation – The Independence Day week.

In India’s case, 67 years of Independence! Ah! What a feat to be proud of, right? But amidst all this I sit here and question what need there is to be ‘proud’ of. It is certain that almost everyone who reads the previous sentence would be thinking that this is yet another post that is going to vomit the socio-economic challenges India has been facing since independence.

Well, not quite. I completely agree that India’s history is truly grand, embellished with epic stories of great souls, art and heritage. But I’m here deliberating just the word ‘proud’ in a slightly linguistic context, as in where and when you can actually use the word precisely. Isn’t juxtaposing the words ‘proud’ and ‘country’ when one has not made any major contribution kind of asinine, though we seldom look at it that way?

Talking about patriotism with a negative undertone is considered an anathema, and I’m sure none in their right minds would venture into those dark waters. But I guess I would. Let me ask you how can you say you are proud of the combats your forefathers fought and of their valour in knocking off lions at close quarters? I’m completely and earnestly in consensus with the fact that they should be remembered and honoured for their achievements; but long afterwards – a tsunami, a gas tragedy, and a war later, how can you say YOU are proud of them? How can someone born decades after all that transpired feel the tingling sensation under your rib cage called pride? After all, none of us lifted even a little finger in their struggles for freedom, if I’m not mistaken!

Let alone, patriotism in such a context. How about patriotism as a singled out word? Let us revisit ‘The Pledge’ we were made to drone like robots everyday for 12 to 14 years.

“India is my country. All Indians are my brothers and sisters. I love my country and I am proud of its rich and varied culture….”

Come again, so why do we need to be proud of our rich and varied culture? Why should we – born in the 21st century AD of this supposedly 14 billion year old earth – be proud of a culture that evolved and snaked its way through 75,000 years? (I use the word snaked because slowly and slyly ‘our culture’ has insidiously seeped into this century and like a serpent ‘our culture’ has a venomous tongue, and lashes out at anyone and anything for supposed impudence in the name of ‘morality’) So why should we swell our chests in pride for an ‘accident of birth’? Just because we were born here, why on earth should we be smug about things that happened here at some point in time?

Is it the sense of belonging, the remote lineage purportedly ‘passed via blood’ that makes us think it is our prerogative to be proud? In that case are we proud of having a genetic predisposition for excessive hair fall, or excessive sweating? Or for inheriting a ‘fat gene’ which makes it compulsory to add on an extra inch of baby fat with every bite of Big Mac? If not, then why this?

It so happened that we were born in this part of the world, but why should we be proud of it? I fail to understand. Perhaps to inculcate the concept of patriotism, we have always been asked to BE proud from childhood itself (brainwashed? reminds me of the Nazis!) and hence we are. And we never really gave a second thought to it.

A few spot on, quirky lines a dear friend with similar thoughts shared about patriotism comes to my mind now –

“Did you know you are of a particular nationality because your forefathers ended up in that geographical location and adapted to the place due to lack of birth control measures and other past times they populated the area? In short, you are Indian because your forefathers decided to have some fun and stay here before they started using passports”. Come to think of it, is that reason enough to be proud of something? No personal effort of yours chipped in, and just because your nomadic great great grandfathers grew too cosy in their beanbags and were too lazy to pack up and leave from where they roamed in from!

The fact is if patriotism is kept under a microscope, at a grass-root level it is nothing but the basis of segregation. Demarcating what is ‘mine’ and what is ‘yours’. Bifurcating ‘us’ into ‘you’ and ‘me’. And don’t you think that thought right there is what has caused the whole world to wield weapons against each other. For no apparent reason at all, everyone wants a piece of the earth for themselves, to claim their own – forgetting the fact that the whole earth itself is our own. That feeling has been imbibed to such a deep dark point inside of us, that we don’t mind getting downright bloody and gory to grab it.

Is a piece of land which you are definitely not going to spirit away in your backpack when you die, worth dying for? (And who knows in your next life you might even be born on the other side and fight the same war! – From another school of thought) So isn’t this feeling of pride and patriotism on some levels selfishness and hence the harbinger of the world’s doom? I bet many would have a million arguments against what I said. Yes, I do agree that patriotism is an admirable thought, when you are pitted against opposing forces that are out to vanquish you.

But I keep thinking of a different realm, a different possibility – what if no child was foddered with the idea of patriotism and pride, what if no factions sprouted up because of that, what if everyone desired the good fortune of the other as much as they wish for themselves, what if you were able to transcend from the feelings of possession, what if every living being was your compatriot, what if you were a human first rather than an Indian, a German or a Palestinian… – may be the world would have been a brighter place and a safer haven to dwell in.

On this Independence Day, I’m not going to say “Jai Hind”… Instead, I’m going with “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”!

Also on:

http://news.entecity.com/im-human-you-by-aarti-panikkar/

http://www.yentha.com/news/view/columns/#

To do list - SOLO TRIP - Check ✔

The view few mins post the flight take off was priceless.. Flying alongside the beach, I saw different tones of blue gelling into each other like in a painting; different shades of a colour merging at their peripheries to form one beautiful masterpiece... Looking at pale blue hues with beautiful music dancing in my ears, I could feel an elation that was almost orgasmic..  And in a matter of half an hour the flight crossed over from above the seas to land area, almost as if we just did a ‘Hanuman’ jump and suddenly plummeted into wisps of clouds that appeared out of nowhere making the aircraft feel like its bouncing inside a cotton candy bubble.. And then the land emerged, beautiful lush green terrain, and I must say, much greener than our land of coconut trees.. 

Having reached Colombo, all I could notice was that it resembles our Chennai and Bombay in its hussle-buzzle, but lacks the charm..  May be because the bus ride from airport to the city ended in a stretch of dirty roads flanked by run-down and dilapidated apartment buildings and busy markets with random items laid out in the open.. However, the tuk-tuk driver who dropped me off at Colombo railway station with his Sangakara-like smile and last minute quip “U’re verrry veautifful”, through his completely kaput English totally made up for all the filth that marred my first impression of the country.. :D

The long wait at Colombo railway station would have definitely made me lethargic had I not taken a Sri Lankan Airtel sim that had quite affordable calling and data rates. And meanwhile, the announcers kept me amused with their high pitched voices that had an uncanny semblance to the Bhagavad Gita reciters we see at Hindu funerals. That was quite a laugh! 

Though the train journey to Kandy was dirt cheap (since only 2nd class seats were available), it was bloody tiring due to the uncomfy crammed seat. And to top it, the tablet I took during the bus ride to fend off my affinity to create ‘puke trajectories’, totally screwed me over. I was feeling drained and fatigued to the point where I thought was not going to make it till Kandy. And that image kinda made me paranoid – first day alone in another country and there i’m lying on the floor of some dingy train!! So I somehow I tried to keep my attention averted with mental soliloquies filled with positive affirmations so that I don’t succumb to the weariness of my body. And after 3 hours that seemed like 30, I safely reached Kandy City hostel and the longest day of my trip came to a close.

Morning came and I found myself in the 1^st class compartment of train no. 1005 – the train to ‘Ella’. The seats and compartment were in stark contrast to the previous one; the compartment was spick-and-span, seats were push-back with plush blue upholstery. And they were ‘rotatable’; so according to the direction you are travelling, you can turn around the seats. As soon as I got on the train I noticed this weird looking guy loitering around; he saw that the seat next to me was vacant when the train started and sat there. In just about 5 mins time, the same paranoia I experienced the previous evening boomeranged in full force! The guy kept staring at me creepily and was leaning over to my side of the seat! I kept to my side hugging close to the window as if my dear life depended on it! Mommyyy!#$%!%^@%&*(<!! I screamed in my head, a thousand thought bubbles of ‘What-ifs’ followed in quick succession. Then like a ‘knight in black shining armour’, he arrived... Yes, The ‘Ticket Checker’!.. Incidentally wearing black blazer, black pants and black shoes! Well, that was the first time I ever got so super-gratified seeing a government official. I was positive that the ticket checker would kick his ass out since it was clear as daylight to me that the jerk wouldn’t be able to afford a 1^st class ticket. But the smart ass kept feigning and fumbling in his pockets and wallet and managed to scoot from the compartment to the next when the checker was busy with other passengers. I used this gap to find a seat next to a pleasant Sri Lankan guy, Tharindu, much to the dismay of the creepy guy who returned in a bit. Soon enough he got down at the next station, which made me wonder if his sole aim was to creep the hell out of me!?!

From that point on I sat back and savoured the splendour of the world famous train trail to its fullest. The nerve-wracking jerk of the train every time it started and stopped, views of  houses with STEEP pathways at almost 90 degrees, fully grown adults waving at the train like innocent children from sidewalks and crunchiest peanuts I ever tasted, all indeed made the journey interesting. But what made this, unarguably the best train journey of my life was the changing kaleidoscopic view outside. It seemed like we were moving through a movie set, with backdrops that kept altering on its own from time to time. Lush green meadows gave way to towering hills, deep dark tunnels opened up to smoky mist-filled river banks, gangs of tall trees stepped back for waterfalls that rushed past as if in a hurry and bottomless drop-dead valleys moved aside for perfectly manicured tea estates that magically appeared in the vicinity.. 

With Rahman music soothing my ears, I stood by the door for long, just to take in the charismatic waves of nature’s magic in all its purity.. And, then it rained.. Rain, the most precious of nature’s enchanting tricks... I let the rain dance on my face, and it felt like every raindrop was budding open into a million more droplets making me feel explosions (and implosions) of bliss! So many random thoughts passed through me in that hour of staring right into the tenderness of nature, and every single one of them had clarity of an ice crystal, and i realised, the closer we get to nature, the dearer nature is to us, the more lucid we become...

The Ella railway station was a quaint little thing, right out of a dream! And the cottage I stayed in made me wish for a second if I were not actually alone. Well, mind u, just for a second ;) 

Moving on... Ravana falls in Ella was nothing more than what seemed like some loose-bladdered guy incessantly peeing from atop the hill. However, the walk up Little Adam’s Peak made my day or rather made my trip itself! The peace and calm I felt on the way up, walking among the trees and tall grass, deep valley over my shoulders, and the cool breeze playing tunes on my face was nothing like I had ever experienced before.. The realisation that I am never alone even for a second, the feeling of actually being part of this nature, settled in, making me feel at peace than ever before.

Ravana Falls

View from Little Adam's Peak

And I got a new friend towards the end of that walk, David – a Brit born man, who likes to call himself a French, now in Sri Lanka giving free language lessons to kids. We had a long conversation about one too many matters, laughed heartily at this Chinese guy who was squealing and bouncing his way to the top like an excited electron, and promised to keep in touch even after that evening. 

Meditating early morning with the mountains in front of you is something everyone should try at least once in their lifetime (ie, if you are the meditating type). Soul refreshing is not quite the word for it; well i guess u don’t quite have a word for the most precious of feelings.. u can only feel them, but never really describe.. 

Back in Kandy, I made some more new friends. Thisum, a Sri Lankan I met at the Kandy Temple of Tooth Relic, was kind enough to explain to me the history of the temple and along with other finer points related to Buddhism (of which I’m an ardent fan). I had such great time in the World Buddhist Museum, and made mental note on few Buddhist int'l destinations I must visit sometime.

Temple of Tooth Relic, Kandy

Inside temple of Tooth Relic

Audience Hall, Temple of Tooth Relic

The Museum of World Buddhism

                                                       

And I made friends with Anna, a Russian and Ted, an Australian whom I met at the hostel. We had dinner that night and exchanged stories and interesting trivia about our respective countries. Out of everything, they were mostly appalled at the concept of arranged marriages, and how people in our country give in to such a “barbaric” practice even in this century. I laughed at their horror and enlightened them with the fact that it was still a perfectly normal tradition here.

The next day I was off to Dambulle, and on the bus I think of the interesting people I made friends with in this brief period of time, n felt like I was getting richer with currencies of different countries, by every passing day. Dambulle Cave temple was on a hill that was accessible by steps. To greet me at the entrance were these mommy monkeys with their teeny weeny cute babies. Just outside the caves I sat for a while enjoying the powerfully lashing winds that almost took me flying with it.  

Dambulle Cave Temple 

And the caves, they were a wonder on their own. There were 5 caves built around 1^st century BC, the ceilings of which were painted with countless Buddha frescoes to form motifs. The caves had a total of more than 150 Buddha statues in different sizes and poses inside them. The helpful tuk tuk driver arranged by my bus driver came to pick me and drop me at the bus station, just like the drivers I met at Kandy and Ella.

Buddha - Sleeping Lion's posture

Inside Dambulle Caves

The Ancient City of Polonnaruwa was a treat to explore. Being amidst what remained of a city which is almost a 1000 years old got me kind of teleported in time. Standing in the King Nissankamala’s Council Chamber, I could literally visualise the grand ostentatious court, the courtiers and the king himself sitting majestically on the ‘Lion Throne’. 

                                                                         

Entrance to King Nissankamala’s Council Chamber 

Kumara Pokuna brought to my mind images of princesses and their maids wading in the water sharing juicy gossips on latest rumours and heartily laughing at discreet jokes on royal men. 

Kumara Pokuna

The Palace of King Parakramabahu was so tall in its structure (only 3 out of 7 storeys remain now), and I was thinking how the hell they managed to build it in an epoch when cranes and lifts were unheard and even unimaginable. 

King Parakramabahu's Royal Palace

The Hatadage, originally a 2 storeyed relic shrine built in just 60 hours, made me wonder why in the world is it not one among the wonders of the world! I saw more structures of such ilk, The Vatadage, Rankot Vehera, Gal Vihara, Nelum Pokuna – all, embodiments of ancient history with long-lost parables whisked away in chipped off mortar and bricks.

Vatadage

                                                             

Rankot Vehera

Hatadage

The road to Sigiriya was through this narrow path with jungle on both sides. On the way I saw this delightful monkey with its tail straight up in the air in the shape of a curled umbrella handle, who charmed me taking strides that seemed like Olympic long jump and high jump combined. Sigiriya was this palace of King Kashyapa (fabled to be King Kubera’s from Ramayana) on top of a HUGE rock... well, 1200 steps!

Sigiriya Rock - View from the royal gardens

Steps at the base of the rock

Steps around the rock to climb up

Though excruciatingly exhausting, the view on top was breathtaking and totally worth the hike.. The view from high among the clouds.. clouds that seem like they were dipping down with every passing breeze, making you want to stretch your hands and touch them.. Down below swarming dark green flora in 360 degrees as far as your eyes could stretch and meditative peace that unfurls your mind, slows you down to a point from where you feel you don’t wanna return, ever..

Palace -  On top of Sigiriya 

The friendly tuk tuk driver took me around Polonnaruwa and Sigiriya, was with me the whole day just like the drivers I met at Kandy and Ella, and even called up to find out if i safely reached Trincomalee at night.. a gesture you could never imagine coming from an Indian cab/auto driver. That is something that I noticed in Sri Lankans in general. We feel so pleasant and warm with how extremely helpful and well-natured they are, be it the locals, the taxi drivers, the shop keepers or even Govt officials. (In India, normally the emotion we mostly associate govt officials to, is the overwhelming unpleasant feeling when welcomed with nods, grunts and totally untoward rude remarks at bill payment counters.)

Trincomalee was more or less this ramshackle of a beach town, with a beautiful island that it proudly professes to be its part; like a passable-looking shell carries a prized pearl in its belly. Pigeon Island had remarkable looking white broken corals on the beach.The waves were jade green and looked amorphous, like a million half-scoops of a jelly dessert. 

Broken Corals on the beach

Pigeon Island National Park

Till date the only undersea images I had seen were in Discovery documentaries. But Snorkelling in Pigeon Island pushed open a whole new world of marvel. The reefs and the gorgeous fishes in different colours and sizes – the black and yellow patterned one, the teal and bright green shiny looking one, and the fully black spherical one that looked like a big black ball, all were true specimens of nature’s enigma. I noticed one particular fish which was multicoloured and its visage brilliantly resplendent. All other fishes were teeming around, as if battling for the coveted position next to her! I’m sure she is the queen bee of that school of fishes, with all males vying for even just a suggestive look ;) Wading through the water among these tiny beauties, I slowed down and imbibed the subtleties of ’em wondrous creatures, in my head inadvertently assuming the role of a mermaid!

                      

All Snorkelled up!

                                                            

On the long train journey back to Colombo, I sat staring outside the window and memories of someone dear, someone long lost, someone who faded into eternity, hit me like flashes of lightening.. Tears slowly tumbled down like faltering steps.. And then I paused.. Looking at the passing trees, their leaves fluttering and I felt like it was him waving... And then it started seeping in... He is right here with us.. He has always been with us... The flowers blooming is him smiling... The wind patting my cheek is him kissing... The ocean waves hitting the shores is him whispering... The stars shining is him winking... His signature wink, which unveils his one-of-a-kind dimple below the eye! I know he is not really gone.. If u look into the heart of the universe, u can feel him... here... and everywhere...

This time I was gonna be in Colombo for 2 nights. A tuk tuk driver called ‘Mash’ was with me the whole day; took me around all the shopping places in Colombo – Majestic City, Odels, Pettah street market etc. Roaming around one whole day in Colombo made me take a U-turn in my stance about the city. It was not at all unkempt like I mistakenly perceived during the brief stint at the beginning of the trip. The city is extremely well-maintained, clean roads without heavy traffic. At the end of the day the guy amazed me by asking only the meter fee though I did tip him with a waiting charge. And while I was giving the 1000 Rupee note, I noticed that the quality of their currencies was so poor (the money value less as well); but I guess it doesn't really matter since the high quality of the people’s hearts made up for the low quality of their money.

Taking off from Colombo with Rahman's magical voice calming my ears singing “Vellaipookkal” (which was quite coincidental as it is a song depicting the political unrest that prevailed in SL), I could feel my skin 10 shades darker, and mind 1000 times richer. 

I have touched down in many an airport, but I’m yet to see another airport with such beautiful landing view as Trivandrum – with Arabian sea on one side and a copious array of coconut trees on the other. And every time I land in Trivandrum, when the wheels hit the ground, there is a sense of belonging that reverberates from the bottom of my heart.

One precious take-home from this trip is – Mindfulness; to slow down and notice the nuances of the nature, people, actions... to diligently imbibe the beauty of everything around us... to not just look, but actually start SEEING things... Made me see the world from a new pair of eyes... And I’ve realised how opulent nature is, and that to savour its grandeur with my renewed vigour is like washing down pure capsules of euphoria.