Summer Girl-Part II

[Yep. The second part of the Summer Girl series is here! :) ]

Paridhi lied down on the bed in the right-corner room of the twin cottages her parents had rented for the vacation-one cottage for her family and one for Kabir's. It was well past midnight but her thoughts wouldn't quiten down enough to let her sleep. The woodwork in the room creaked as the sea raged outside. But, other than the sound of the wood settling and that of the waves crashing against the shore, it was achingly quiet. More so, because Paridhi could hear every movement from the adjacent room in the neighbouring cottage, Kabir's room. He hadn't wanted the room initially. No. He had wanted the room in the opposite end of the cottage, a room now occupied by his younger sister, secured after a well-timed tantrum she had been witness to after dinner. 

Dinner had been a raucous affair as it always was when they dined with Kabir's family. Their siblings had become inseparable since both of them had joined the same school. Their parents had known each other since college. And thus it usually happened that the only two silent people in the room since Anushka left had always been Kabir and Paridhi. Yes, in spite of knowing each other all their lives and despite having been ostensibly friends for most of it, Kabir and Paridhi did not talk. Oh, they spoke for sure. But they never talked. The gap in their 'friendship' had always existed, but Anushka's sudden exit from their lives had exacerbated it. Before Anushka left, there had been times when that gap had been breached, instances when she had been startled with the realisation that she and Kabir had managed to have a meaningful conversation. But they had always been brief snatches away from the whirlwind that was Anushka. If Anushka was a whirlwind, what was she, Paridhi? Restive? Not at all. The whirlwind had always been in her mind. And what about Kabir? With a start, she realised that she had know idea. She did not know him at all. But back to the tantrum. It had happened after dinner when everyone had settled down with cups of coffee. Kabir had announced that he was too tired to sit any longer and wanted to shift his stuff to the room of his choice. And Rita, his sister, had announced adamantly that she wanted that room too. A round of tears later, alarmed at the direction in which the stalemate was going, Kabir agreed to take the room adjacent to mine. And then inexplicably, he had stared at me, frustration rolling off him in waves. His eyes had been piercing. Unfathomable. Caught off guard, I had turned to look behind me to ascertain what he was looking at. But there was nothing behind me to look at, unless he had somehow acquired a passionate interest in the wall. Yep. He was looking at me with his inscrutable brown eyes and a frown set around his mouth. It had almost looked like he was angry with me. I had not known why and I was all too aware of it as I heard him move about in his room.

Summer Girl-Part I

[Watching the short youtube series 'Kissing in the rain' that portrays the same set of actors enacting various scenes from iconic movies and books, all culminating with them kissing in the rain, got me thinking about a short series of prose depicting the thoughts of a young girl at various points of a vacation during the summers. It's purely fictional. More of an experiment, really. Readers (it's probably only just Sam. Hi Sam! :) ), let me know if it's working in the comments (please Sam? :P ).]

Paridhi stood on the shore staring at the wide expanse of the sea in front of her. Vacation, at last. Long awaited. Long due. Vacation. Life for the past year had been a confusing whirlwind. College. Of course, most of the blame lay with college. Yes, the college of her dreams was different from what she had imagined it to be. Not bad, just different. And exhausting. A vacation was just what she wanted though she would have preferred to spend time with her family alone. Instead she was sharing them with Kabir and his family. They were family friends. Kabir has been a constant and in recent times, a somewhat confusing, presence in her life. They have known each other since forever. Considering they were only one year apart, Kabir being older, and knowing their mothers, they had probably shared a crib together at moment. He had been a consisent playmate during childhood. For a long time, it had been Paridhi, Kabir and Anushka. Kabir and Anushka had always been closer, first as children and then as young adolescents. Nothing very apparent, really. The three of them were always together in whatever they did. But within their group of three was a clique of two. What was the reason for this closeness, you ask? Paridhi didn't have the slightest clue. She wasn't very envious either. Truth be told, she started noticing Kabir as more than a permanent fixture in her life, as different than her own parents and brother, only when Anushka left. For one day, four years back, Anushka and her family just upped and left for the USA. And that is when Paridhi saw Kabir, actually looked at him, for what he was and not as the second half of the Anushka-Kabir duo. Infact, she still remembered the day she along with Kabir stood and watched Anushka leave. They were 14. To say that she had been upset that day would be an understatement. Yeah, nothing out of the ordinary there. What had come as a surprise to even her, was the reason for the same. The image that had haunted her then was that of Kabir, as he stood there with a look of complete and utter bafflement and betrayal in her face. That she hadn't known about Anushka's abrupt departure was not out of ordinary. Though she and Anushka had been constant friends, they hadn't been particularly close. But the fact that Kabir hadn't known either had been surprising to say the least.

"Paridhi"! She turned at the sound of her name and saw Kabir walking towards her. The years had been kind to him. He had always been tall and thin. Even as a child, he had been distinctive to look at. But the years lent a certain maturity to his face, depth to his eyes. Those deep set dark eyes were now positively piercing. And uncomfortably discerning. "So this is where you have been for the past one hour. Everyone has been looking for you. It's time for dinner. Ready to come in?", he adds with an easy smile. "Yes, let's go. I'm starving!" And they walked back to their cottage.

Under the Magnolia Tree

[This is the last post in this series. Hope ya’ll have enjoyed reading it as much as I have liked writing it.]

When I thought of writing this piece, I was under a Magnolia tree. Now, I am sitting in the Delhi Airport waiting for a flight back home. A day has passed in the interim. I have been unable to marshal my thoughts adequately enough to coherently express what is in my mind. I am a child of the mid 1990’s and early 2000’s. I have been witness to the escalating conflict in the Kashmir valley, albeit from a distance and arguably from an un-breachable one. Even though tourism never completely stopped in the valley barring brief interruptions when the violence could not be negotiated around, I had never seriously contemplated visiting the valley for an actual vacation. The extreme state of unrest in the valley in 2010 had almost sealed the decision. However, here I was in 2014, on my way to the valley for a much needed vacation. Excitement interspersed with apprehension scoured through my veins while I was waiting for my flight to Srinagar. And now at almost the fag end of my vacation, I think I can safely say that the Kashmir experience has been like no other experience I have ever had.

In my previous posts, I have time and again tried to juxtapose the breath taking beauty of the valley with the tragedy of epic proportions that it has been forced to endure. Kashmir is not the only region in India that has been plagued with unrest. Much of the North-East and large tracts of central India have been dealing with insurgency and naxalism respectively since quite some time now. I have visited the North-East in the past and happen to hail from a naxal-affected state. What, then, makes my perception of Kashmir different from all the other kinds of violence I have been privy to?

I am yet to come up with a convincing answer to this question, a question that has plagued me throughout the entire duration of this trip. Is it the stark contrast between the bewitching beauty of the valley and the rundown shabby houses that break the magnificent scenery? Or is it the fact that a state that has a population of almost 1 Crore 25 Lakhs has more security personnel visible than civilians? Or is it the palpable restlessness evident from my interactions with the local population coupled with an almost intriguing sense of surface-level normalcy that pervades the valley? Is there more to the valley than what meets the eye or is all of this a figment of my over active imagination? I seem to have left the valley with questions galore but answers to none.

Enchanted

This is the second post that I am commencing with a name which is doing the rounds in popular culture in recent times, but I can’t seem to help myself! Though, to describe what I am about to write, ‘Frozen’ would work just as well. :P

When I woke up and looked at my itinerary today, my heart leaped to my mouth. The schedule just mentioned one word- ‘Gulmarg’!  Oh, how much had I heard about Gulmarg! It has been described variously by different people but the common thread that runs through all descriptions is the undisputable fact that if heaven could be brought on earth, it will probably pale in comparison to Gulmarg. Flanked by snow covered mountains on all sides, even in the midst of the scorching heat of the Indian summer, all that meets the eye is endless rolling meadows and rows and rows of tall coniferous trees. Who know there are so many shades of green! *_*

For someone like me who has lived her entire life near the sea, mountains hold a special appeal. Snow, even more so! But considering I have come to the valley in the peak of summer, I did not have much hope of watching the snow within touching distance. I had convinced myself to be contented with a distant view of the snow-covered peaks. Never was I so wrong! :D The handy cable service at Gulmarg, bafflingly called ‘Gondola’ came to my rescue and helped me land straight on the very snow-covered peak I had been admiring from a distance. A weird sledging experience, a wardrobe malfunction and a horse mishap later, here I am, grinning nine to a dozen, happier than ever before in my life, bewitched by the mysterious hold that the mountains have always had on me and continues to do so.

P.S. All I could think of when driving through the, for lack of a more fitting word, beautiful meadows, was the many Heidi episodes I had devoured as a child. A re-run seems to be in order. Till then, ta-da!

The Inheritance Of Loss*

No, I am not writing a review of the well known book by Kiran Desai of the same name. Neither am I just going to copy the book here. But the turn of phrase that the author has used here, brilliant as she is, applies to so many different experiences in life.

Today, I am at Srinagar. At the heart of the Kashmir valley, nestled amidst beautiful mountains, flanked by innumerable lakes most noticeable of which is the Dal Lake, lies this city. Home to the Mughal Gardens which had at one point reduced the great emperor Jahangir to tears with its pristine beauty, it has been a premier tourist spot for quite some time now. Strife-torn though it is, its popularity in the tourist circles has continued to remain undiminished. Ironically enough, the tourist season is probably the most peaceful part of the year for the inhabitants of the valley. From what I saw today, the local economy seems to rest almost totally on the copious amounts spent by tourists on various attractions, delicacies and handicrafts Kashmir has to offer. Kashmiri sarees have always been my personal favourite and this visit has only reinforced my preference for the same.

However, the stark contrast between what nature has to offer and the general state of the city is heartbreaking. Driving through the by-lanes of the city, I saw innumerable half-built and almost destroyed houses, nestled amidst glamorous shops selling trinkets to tourists and a few palatial houses that speak volumes about what the valley has been witnessed to in the last few decades. Caught in the cross fire between groups with different vested interests of their own, the valley has remained an almost mute yet constant spectator to the near systematic violence that has been inflicted on it. The glorious past that the valley boasts of in the echelons of Indian history when juxtaposed with the acute poverty that prevails here now is a living testimony to how times change and how the destiny of a place changes with it. And yet the city trudges on. With all its beauty, all its desperation and manifest sadness, all the burdens that have been placed on it, all the discontent that simmers just below its surface, the city and its people live on. How true this phenomenon is of human life as well! For when one is blessed with an inheritance of only unforgettable and unforgivable loss, loss that transverses the length and breadth of the horizons of one’s life till it becomes the be all and end all of one’s existence, the only thing one can do is live on, for not only is it one’s only means of survival, it is also the only way out of one’s predicament.

*As has been constantly reinforced by the legal education that my parents spend enormous amounts on, I have to emphatically state that the title to this post is not a product of my creativity. All credits for that particular turn of words goes solely to Ms. Kiran Desai and her book by the same name (I recommend it highly, by the way, and no, I am not paid for it. :P)

P.S. All views in the post are purely my own and are not meant to be representative of tourists in general or the inhabitants of the valley in particular. Any mischaracterization/exaggeration can be blamed on my hyper-active imagination and excessive sensitivity. :D

Gar firdaus rue zameen asto, hameen asto hameen asto hameen asto.

[Hi all. This is the first post in a short series chronicling my thoughts in my vacation at Jammu and Kashmir. Please read on for the rest!]

Clichéd? I know I know. But it’s so damn true that I can’t help myself. Thinking of a better name when there is so much of nature’s bounty awaiting me seems like a criminal waste of time. I am at Pahalgam at the moment and have stolen a few minutes from the hectic day to pen down a few words that have been swirling in my head all day long! This isn’t the first time I have come to the hills (Kashmir is a valley, I know I know! But you get the gist of it, don’t you?) I have been to quite a few arrestingly beautiful places before. Some worth mentioning are Shillong, Darjeeling, Gangtok, Kalimpong, Kullu, Manali, and Shimla. All of these places are as enchanting as the next. Mountain streams, swift flowing rivers, hillocks, mountains, snow, clouds, flowers, trees-take your pick for all of these hill stations boast of these in abundance. Kashmir is nothing different in what it offers. Everything is the same. Everything is different. What makes it different? I am still trying to put a finger on that. Is it the general strife-torn environment in the valley that lends it the feel of a forbidden fruit? Is it the illustrious space that the valley and the associated areas hold in Indian history? Or is it the fact that the Himalayas become so much more wild and daunting in this part of the country? Majestic, the Himalayas always are. Imposing, yes. But they take on an almost haunting quality that is difficult to describe. It is not uncommon to feel small and unimportant when faced with nature at it best. But what I felt today is something I have never felt before amidst plain, raw nature- a sense of complete belonging, a fleeting belief that I am part of something bigger and better, that there is a grand scale of things in the universe and I am but a small part of it.

I’ll be signing off now for I have much better things to do than stare at my laptop. But I couldn’t resist putting my thoughts into words. I will come back for more, later.

P.S. I know this is blatant objectification and will probably be considered inappropriate in certain circles and contexts, but I have never seen so many good looking men in one sweep of the eye. *_*

P.P.S. This is going to be a part of the small series that I am going to write cataloguing my vacation at Jammu and Kashmir. I will not be able to post these as and when I write because I don’t have access to internet. But I’ll write this in order so that there is some semblance of order for the reader. (Yes, I am just going to assume that I have readers. I know for a fact that Sam reads (Yay!). I believe that there are others too! ^_^ )

But right now, my raging hormones and I bid you adieu!

American Summer

[ The realisations mentioned in this post were accelerated by a quote I came across recently. Not only does it capture my predominant emotional state, it probably applies to our entire generation at large. The quote is a simple two-line verse written by Mirza Ghalib and is part of a bigger poem popularly known as 'Koi Umeed Bar Nahi Aati' and is reproduced here:

"Marte hain marne ki arzoo main, 

Maut aati hai par nahin aati."

[I die in the hope of dying,

Death arrives and then never arrives.]

P.S. Signing off with a song that has been stuck in my head for the past few days, you can listen to it here->

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRxmgHdpXYA

P.P.S Pay special attention to the verse sung before the actual song starts. It's beautiful.]

Folks, this has been a summer of realisations. Foremost among them is that you cannot make life happen to you. An upside of this is that you don't need to convince/cajole it to happen to you. If this sentiment sounds outrageous to you, stop right there. Let me complete and then form your opinions. I believe in 'making my own destiny' as much as the next other reasonably optimistic person though I have always found the term to be a bit of a misnomer. What would life be if we didn't have the ability to pave our way through it at our own tiny, inconsequential level? However, there is a difference between equipping yourself to living life your way and highjacking the very scheme of life itself. We live in a very goal-heavy world. Everything we do has to conform to a time span. Unfortunately, this time span is immensely susceptible to societal pressures. In the mad rush of ensuring and cataloguing 'life experiences' or rather socially desired 'life experiences', we seem to have lost the ability to actually 'live' these experiences. This is of course just one aspect of it. The other aspect lies in accepting the fact that certain things happen only when they are meant to happen. Making efforts to force/cajole them to happen is more often than not a recipe for disaster. This is probably most accurately manifested in how today's generation looks at love and lust. There is not only a timeline for falling in love/lust, there also seems to be one for falling out of it too! And probably the least rewarding task is to make 'people' happen to you. Human beings, while being entirely wonderful, are also the most capable of causing heartbreak ( :P )! We are, but, a trifle in the grand scheme of things in the world. While it is commendable and indeed desirable to make efforts to make our lives worthy, an incessant effort to make this better/amass experiences shifts our focus from the very crux of efforts itself-actually 'living' the tiny seemingly inconsequential everyday experiences that more often than not build up to form larger life experiences that we crave to make happen.

At this stage, if you are wondering why I named a post about my protracted ramblings on life 'American Summer', let me clarify. It took at unexpected interaction with a bunch of American Students to had come my university for a short study tour to jolt me out of complicity in believing that I could 'make life happen to me'. While at some level I could and still can, this summer has taught me that at a deeper and more important level, I would rather sit back and take things as they come for things long anticipated and untampered with are often the best things that happen to one!

What is it about rain that makes you remember?

[In re  the heavy rains that lashed my city yesterday. 

P.S. This is not the first time this has been put up on a blog since I didn't have one when I wrote it. Just saying.]

 I am sitting by the window. It is raining and I can feel the drops of water on my face. A drop trickles down my face and falls on my hand. Memories of a time long forgotten, a childhood, not that far back yet so unreachable, flood my mind. A sudden flashback of running through the front garden and getting drenched in the rain in one of the many old British-style houses that I lived in fills my mind vividly. Then another image, of my mother shouting at me, asking me to come back.

What is it about rain that always makes you sift through all those past memories that in the humdrum of daily life become repressed in your subconscious?

Hailstones! The initial excitement of listening to the exaggerated pitter-patter on the roof as tiny lumps of ice fall on the ground. Running to the front verandah to collect the ice faster than my brother. Images after images of those days, long past. Of innocence, long gone. Of hope, long forgotten. Memories.

A song comes to my mind. The song that was playing in the background when I shared an umbrella with my first crush. I can almost feel my heart thundering, the way it had thundered for those few precious stolen moments. Anticipation tugs at my heart. And a certain melancholy. A sudden yearning to go back into those days of sweet innocence, of glorious horizons and endless possibilities, of happy dreams. Falling asleep near my mother. Playing with my brother. Not knowing the feeling of apprehension. Where future is a bright happy place.

What is it about rain that makes you remember?

New Beginnings And Some Realisations

[Hey everyone( Yes, I am just going to assume that I actually have readers)! I hadn't really intended my first post to be a protracted rambling on my 'feelings' but here I am doing exactly that owing to an inherent urgent need to put my thoughts in writing. Do bear with me. Okaybye.]

"Mamihlapinatapai -This word captures that special look shared between two people, when both are wishing that the other would do something that they both want, but neither want to do."

Who would have thought there's a word for this often complex and all too common feeling. There is probably nothing more romantic than missed chances. I know this sounds weird but do hear me out. Think back to that one time where a fleeting moment shared with that one person was worth more than hours spent with others, when that one passing look was enough to make your skin tingle, when a few stolen words were more meaningful than your entire existence, when a single touch seared through your skin. The one moment that encapsulated what what you are and always wanted to be, a moment where you were as alive as you ever could be. A single moment which felt like an indication of things to come, not necessarily with the same person, but coloured with the same emotions, the same awareness of self, the same sense of just being. Can anything be more romantic than this? Skeptics would probably dismiss all of this as utter tosh. A couple of days back, I would have too. I have always believed that romance is a state mind, that the presence of another person in the picture does not necessarily add anything to it. But a chance meeting with a person which turned out to be not quite what I wanted but so much more than what I needed, has taught me better. I will never meet him again and in due course of time, my memories of him will recede to the background. And his will too. But every time I laugh with someone, every time I see seasons change, every time the wind teases my hair, every time I hear a love song, in the recesses of my mind, I would catch a glimpse of the dark haired boy as he looks intently at me, a slight smile at the edge of his lips, a little uncertain, a little shy, a little vulnerable. And that would suffice.