Frangipani

Himalayan Adventure Part 5

2014-10-12T13:46:00.000+08:00

Evening at Maráhni

See here for the Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 and Part 4 of this series

At the edge of the tree line

The Maráhni meadow lies above the tree line. Soon after we left Kündri the continuous oak forest started breaking up into green sunlit patches of open ground strewn with boulders. For a while we wove in and out of this patchwork of sunlight and the shadows of the forest, until finally we crossed the tree-line onto slopes covered with rolling grassland. Dense patches of rhododendron shrubs flanked the grassland. This was pink rhododendron, the state flower of Himachal Pradesh. Another variety, the red rhododendron, grows much taller but at lower altitudes. I had seen some of these in the forests around Rangthar that morning. Both species have the characteristic waxy green leaves and thick foliage which provides perfect cover for wildlife.

We crossed numerous streams flowing across our path here, indicating that further up there was still some melting snow which had retreated only recently from the soft ground we were walking on. The grass was tender and fresh. It was the first flush of new growth that the herds of sheep hadn’t reached yet.

The air got noticeably chillier as we scaled up higher and the day dipped lower. Finally, cresting a wide mound, we saw an uninhabited stone hut in the middle of a vast rolling meadow that sloped upwards. Now that the forest was below us, we had an unimpeded view of lofty mountain peaks to the north, east and south, while to the west rose the gentle slope of the ‘Maráhni top’, the peak of the mountain that we had been climbing since we left Pekhri yesterday. We had at last reached our destination, the alpine meadow of Maráhni at 3700m.

We had only an hour and a half of sunlight left, so leaving the guides to pitch the tents I set out alone up the slope to see if I could reach the top. I was told that on the far side the Maráhni top fell away in a steep and dangerous cliff, so I needed to be careful if I made it to the top. Promising our guides to get back before dark, I started walking up. On the side I was climbing, the grass slopes were so gentle that there was no need to follow any particular path and I walked straight up the face of the mountain. After about an hour I looked back to see the stone hut and the camp tents dwarfed into mere specks against the towering snow-covered mountains around. It was here that I saw one of the sources of the many streams that had flowed across our path after Kündri. Lying like a enormous grey serpent in a gully were the remnants of the winter snow, its surface flecked with grey sediment. A trickle of a water flowed out from the snout. It was joined by a more trickles some way down, and together they formed a little stream that gurgled its way down the slope I had come up. As I stood there in silence listening to my pulse pounding in my head, I realised that for the first time during the trek, and perhaps, also the first time ever, I was utterly and completely alone. This is not the same as being alone at home or alone on a street. Here I was, more than a day’s trek away from the nearest human settlement, and now out of reach of the only other human beings in the area, alone under an open sky, on vast grassland amid towering mountains. If I got into trouble here, there was no one who could’ve known even if I had screamed my lungs out for help. But then ethereal beauty of the panorama that surrounded me had rendered me speechless anyway.

Camp site at Maráhni

The mountains around me had been set on fire by the evening. The last rays of the sun had gilded everything they touched in hues of deep gold and orange. The slope I sat on lay in blue shadow, while the peaks arrayed in front looked as if a dam of golden light had burst across them. The very air vibrated with the silent energy of the sun’s rays. Every blade of grass, every wildflower, every stone sat still watching the great spectacle being played out on a scale so vast that it was overwhelming. The blush on the snows deepened with every passing minute. The snowy mountainsides glowed orange and then red. Like a splash of wine seeping through a white table cloth, the radiant colour suffused through the peaks, concentrating at their tips like an intense glowing ember.

And then in a few short minutes, the show was over. The mountains turned an ashen grey, the colour drained from their cheeks. Darkness crept swiftly up the valleys and covered the forests and the grasslands in dusky blue hues. Only the sky, a great luminous dome covering the world, still held the fast escaping light. It was too late to carry on climbing now and I turned back. The Maráhni top would have to wait until morning.

The last of the sunlight

That evening alone on the mountainside at sunset is among my happiest memories. I might as well have been a blade of grass or a piece of rock on the mountain, because for about an hour, for all practical purposes, I had disappeared from the world.

When I got back to camp, darkness was closing in fast. I was treated once again to a steaming cup of tea and some pakorás (potato fritters). This was soon followed by a dinner of curried black-eyed beans, steamed rice and kheer (rice-pudding). The abandoned stone hut had provided the team with a sheltered place to cook today which explained the extra-special meal and dessert. But the variety of foods that we were treated to every day of the trek was solely due to the capacity of these hardy folk to carry incredibly heavy loads over this difficult terrain. They had carried all the rice, the flour, the lentils, the sugar, the tea, the ghee and the vegetables to this 3700m high meadow on their backs to ensure we ate well on our trek.

The temperatures were frigid at this altitude. The cold cut one right to the bone. When we emerged from our dinner in the stone hut, a bright half-moon had risen and the snows that glowed like embers a couple of hours ago now shone pale ghostly silver. The mountains looked paler and more far away, but every crevasse and ridge was as clearly visible as during the day. Just that the world was now in monochrome.

That night, a campfire was built near the campsite. As we sat round, the flames warmed our hands and faces, even though our backs were still freezing cold. “Tonight at the highest point of our trek, we shall all sing and dance”, declared the guides. And so, the empty food containers were converted to drums. Songs rang out lustily to Bholánáth or Shiva, the God of Gods, the ascetic with the ash-smeared body and the matted locks, who lives in the Himalayas. There were others too, like the ones about Künjüwá, the mountain lad with whom a local village girl had fallen in love. Künjüwá was now hunted by her clan for the crime and men in the village waited with their guns loaded. The girl pined for him and wept everyday at the river while doing the washing, for a button was the only thing she had left to remind her of him.

The songs rang out late into the night until the flames died down.There is something quite comforting about sitting around a camp fire under a sky of stars, surrounded by snow peaks glowing in the moonlight. Certainly not your everyday end to the day.

Himalayan Adventure Part 4

2014-09-28T18:13:00.001+08:00

Through the Golden Forest

See here for the Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 and Part 5 of this series.

When sunset lights are burning low,

While tents are pitched and camp-fires glow,

Steals o’er us, ere the stars appear,

The furtive sense of Jungle Fear,

For when the dusk is falling fast

Still, as throughout the ages past,

The stealthy beasts of prey arise

And prowl around with hungry eyes

Laurence Hope

As the last traces of light drained out of the sky, and stars began to twinkle, the world around us disappeared in a dense sea of darkness. The eye that had roamed over valleys and mountains earlier in the day could no longer see beyond a few feet or so. After dinner, as the battery powered lamp was switched off and the last embers of the cooking fire died out, I was, perhaps for the first time in my life, plunged into complete and utter darkness. There would be a moon, but it wouldn’t rise up behind the snowy range to the east for at least a few hours. There wasn’t much else to be done, but go to bed. Our tent was at the very edge of the meadow, with a steep drop into a forested valley a few yards away. Snuggling against the cold in the thick sleeping bags, I lay on the ground in my tent listening to the muffled sounds of conversation and laughter from the guides’ tent about 30 yards away. I could hear their footsteps in the grass outside as they walked past our tent into the jungle below to relieve themselves before bed. Soon all sounds faded away. There was no wind buzzing through the trees anymore, and a dead silence filled the world around me.

My mind played back the events of the day. Of all the things that Hüküm Singh had said, the one that stuck was the reason he wanted the binoculars-to watch out for marauding bears and leopards. It dawned on me that we were in an extremely favourable position for a close encounter with a beast of prey - because of our proximity to Hüküm Singh and his sheep. Carnivores will quite naturally be drawn to herds of livestock, and in the silence of the wilderness, the ruckus created by a hundred bleating sheep and goats carries far and wide. It was entirely possible that a hungry leopard who had stalked the flock the whole day was now lying in wait under cover of darkness for the fires to die out and the men to retire to bed. To make matters worse, just as I was pondering over this possibility, Hüküm Singh’s dogs started barking furiously into the night. It may have been just a wild cat or a marten, or it may have been a leopard. But after that, in those few minutes of semi-consciousness before sleep takes over, every rustle in the grass became the stealthy footstep of a stalking leopard or the sniff of a hungry bear. Even as I was reasoning to myself that the sheep were actually a measure of protection - a leopard would rather carry off a sheep than break into tents - exhaustion got the better of me, and I drifted off into a deep dreamless sleep.

The next morning I stepped out of my tent into the blinding morning sunshine. Even at 7 am the sun was already too bright to be enjoyed - dawn breaks in the mountains as early as 5 am. Leopards and bears seemed as remote a possibility now as they had seemed likely in the dark. The sheep were nowhere to be seen, they had already gone off to graze. We too soon broke camp and headed off uphill towards the crest of the mountain.

Forests of Kharsü*

The way led over rough stones and broken ground, but we on much higher ground today, walking through the dappled shade of towering trees. As a result the air was much cooler, and the climb much more enjoyable. The trees were Himalayan Brown Oaks, locally known as ‘Kharsü’. They grew tall and straight, with branches sprouting only a good way up the trunks. But what was most interesting was that it was autumn in these oak forests even though it was summer elsewhere in the mountains. The small shiny leaves were a rich copper and gold. They carpeted the ground as we went further up, and at times we were walking through a dense deep tunnel of red, copper and gold surrounding us on both sides, with patches of a brilliant blue sky showing through foliage above. Occasionally, when the trees parted, we could make out the same snow-peaks across the valley that we had seen earlier, only that they were now much closer, almost at eye level, as we continued to ascend.

At one point we came across a pile of firewood, and saw that each one of our guides threw in a small twig or stick as he passed, with a deep reverent bow. It was the ‘funeral pyre’ of a man who had died up here many years ago. He was a shepherd, and somehow had been caught up here in the bitter cold. He had died alone, and later, when the body was found, it had been cremated at the very spot where the pile of sticks lay. “The mountains do not claim a life without reason. In all these years, he is the only one that we know of, who died up here, far away from the villages”, said one of our guides. ”We throw in a stick on the pile every time we pass, to show our respects.”

Jögni*

At many points during our climb we came across small stones or rock outcrops that had pieces of red and gold cloth tied round them. These were small shrines of the local deities, the ‘Jögnis’. Each Jögni looks over her patch of forest or meadow, each one who passes must pay his respects and say a short prayer. Besides the Jögnis, there were other more significant deities scattered all around the mountains. These were the guardians of all that lay across the hills and valleys, especially the forests, the meadows and the creatures who lived there. These Gods were immensely powerful, and were not to be crossed at any cost. Our guides told us the story of a government official who had tried to move the temple of one of the Gods when the park was being formed. “When he had come here to discuss possible alternate locations with the locals he was bitten near the eye by a wasp whose bite is very toxic and to which there is no antidote. The eye swelled out for days, and it was only the God’s clemency that spared him from being blinded in the eye. After that, he never here came and no one talked of moving the temple again.”

“So the Gods did not want the park to be formed?” I asked. “No no, They did. The park could have never been formed against Their wishes. The Gods are the protectors of the forests. They say that the forests are for our use, but each one may only take what he needs. Of late, people have been taking too much. Killing too many animals, taking too many rare plants. It has affected our environment as well. For instance snowfall has reduced, and you wouldn't believe how drastically. Down in Pekhri, there are houses built on raised platforms, using thick strong logs of timber. Our elders say these may look like overkill now, but there was a time when there would be so much snow that smaller houses would've been buried under. Those that didn't would've collapsed under the weight of the snow. These are just stories for us now, we’ve never seen it snow more than a foot or so in our lifetimes” Ghyanshyámji, one of our guides told me. “That is why the Gods allowed the park to be established. They realised that people had become too greedy.”

Ridge covered with forest*

As lunch time approached, we were walking along the knife-edge of a narrow ridge covered with oak forest. The guides kept a sharp look out for a stream to stop by. They carried no water- for this was one precious resource that we almost entirely depended on the mountain for. Summer was well advanced now, and the initial rush of melt water cascading down through the forests had subsided. At a couple of places where our guides thought we would find a stream, there was none. After a few disappointments, we came finally across a tiny trickle, a dark wet stain across the carpet of brown leaves. Tiny pools of water glinted in the sun through the leaf-litter. Following the wet trace up the slope, our guides soon found a spot where they located a tiny flow seeping down between stones jutting out of the earth. Using leaves from a nearby bush, they made a funnel and were finally able to direct the trickle clear off the stones and into our water bottles. Ironically, these were plastic water bottles bought in Delhi, labelled ‘Himalayan Mineral Water’. It was probably the only time that the name was true to their contents.

Through the golden forest*

We continued on our walk through the woods, and soon I could feel the day cooling down into late afternoon. The call of the Himalayan Cuckoo came floating over the rustle of the breeze in the trees. Unlike its cousin the Koel whose glorious undulating cry fills the summer mornings and evenings in the plains, the cuckoo’s call is quite unobtrusive and easy to miss. It is a short sweet “cuck-koo” uttered at long intervals, perhaps also giving the species its name. As we trudged along, our guides told us stories of the other treks that they had undertaken across the mountains. There was the 70 year old American, who had made a marathon 15 day trek up the Párvati valley, with energy and endurance that belied his age. There were the documentary film makers who had come up to Maráhni and stayed for weeks, going into the dense oak and pine forests to film wildlife. Ghanshyámji told us how big the park was, and how beautiful the “thách”s that lay further up were. Tháchs are high alpine meadows, at times surrounded by dense forest, at times lying above the tree line like Maráhni. These were where the shepherds go with their livestock, for the grazing is very nutritious in summer. Each thách would traditionally be used by a family of shepherds, with grazing rights passed down from father to son. (This was one of the problems created by the park, by robbing some of the shepherds of access to their ‘family thách’).

“Further up there are towering peaks where the snow never melts. And high up among the peaks there are lakes of magical crystal blue waters. They are incredibly vast. You can never fathom how so much water came to be so high up in the mountains. It is as if there are hidden oceans in the mountains….”, Ghanshyámji said as he described his impressions of the glacial lakes high up in the Himalayas. “And beyond the lakes, there is Tibet.”

As we talked and walked on, we suddenly burst out of the forest. The land fell away steeply into a bowl-shaped depression enclosed by steep rocky slopes on three sides and open on the fourth. The sun was behind us, and up ahead across the valley stood a magnificent snow covered mountain shining in the late afternoon sunlight, flanked by more such peaks on either side. Thick oak forests beyond the meadow, much like the one we had walked through framed it in a golden brown frame. Looking down into the depression from the edge that we were perched on was like looking down a Roman amphitheatre. A few bullocks, the size of mice, grazed on the grassy meadow, and shepherds, the size of ants sat at one end. Shadows of the steep walls had already started creeping up the grass clearing. This was the meadow, the thách, of Kündri. It meant that Maráhni was now within striking distance.

The meadow of Kündri

* My acknowledgments to one of my fellow trekkers who clicked these photographs

Himalayan Adventure Part 3

2014-08-30T11:31:00.000+08:00

Küshál Singh and Hüküm Singh

See here for the Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 4 and Part 5 of this series

'I take my sheep to mountains "over there"'

The peace of the late afternoon soon gave way to the bustle of setting up camp, as the rest of our group reached the meadow. Amid the gasps of delight at the view and the sighs of relief as the weary trekkers sat down at last, two of our guides quietly unpacked a huge plastic drum and slipped away down the forested valley behind the mud bank to get water from the closest stream. Others started setting up the tents and while two went off in search of firewood further up the hill. Our tent was of the modern folding type looking rather like a curvaceous pyramid when set up. It could be zipped up against the wind and the warm sleeping bags inside looked very reassuring, considering that there was already a nip in the evening air. In contrast, the tent for the guides consisted of a tarpaulin sheet thrown over a rope stretched between two vertical wooden stakes driven into the ground. It was under this sheet that they would cook for us, and sleep at night. At best the sheet would provide some protection from rain or hail, but certainly not the wind and the cold. Once again, my sense of achievement at sleeping on an open mountainside in a tent was quickly given a reality check by the flapping tarpaulin sheet. Soon the provisions were unpacked and a kerosene stove got going in the guides’ tent, while water was set to boil on a wood fire to one side.

Enjoying the evening: Lālu the dog, the lamb, Küshál, Hüküm Singh and a friend

As the sun dipped lower the golden colour of the light deepened, and shadows of the deodars streaked across the grass. Sitting across a rock at the edge of the meadow overlooking the Tïrthán I saw a man smoking a chillum. A lamb frisked about near him. As I thought of how similar it looked to the fat little creature I had photographed earlier that afternoon, another figure appeared over the edge of the rock, confirming my suspicions. It was Küshál with his dog, standing over the rock taking in a view of the sunlit valley below. The rich evening light was too good to resist a photo opportunity, and I strode off towards them with my camera to try my luck. The man introduced himself as Hüküm Singh. “And this”, he said pointing to the boy, “is my nephew Küshál Singh, and his dog Lālu. We've camped just further down the hillside”. I said Küshál and I were already acquainted, and asked if the lamb had a name too. At that Küshál, for the first time since I had met him, broke into a big smile. For some reason he had found the idea of a lamb having a name extremely funny .

Hüküm Singh poses for the camera with an uncooperative Lālu

Hüküm Singh was a great big old man with grubby hands and dirty fingernails, and a sunburnt face furrowed with deep lines like the hills and ridges around us. He turned out to be as talkative as Küshál was taciturn. As soon as he found out that I was one of the trekkers camping at the meadow tonight he threw a barrage of questions at me, as direct and blunt as only village folk in India can ask. Where was I from? So I lived in the city, did I? How much did I earn there? How much did my camera cost? How did I find out about this place? Where was I put up here? How much was I paying them?

He told me he was a shepherd, and had been one all his life, taking sheep every summer to the mountains pastures ‘over there’ (at this he pointed across the clear evening air to the shining peaks on the other side of the valley). Sadly he could no longer go there because of the park boundaries. But he still went as far as he could and stayed there all through the summer. Most of the animals belonged to the villagers from the valley, and he earned a few hundred rupees per season for every sheep or goat he took care of. He also had a small flock of his own among the 200 or so animals that he said were grazing downhill. But it was hard living and he was thinking of giving up the shepherding business. He wanted to start something that would attract the city tourists instead. (Hearing what I was being charged for the trek seemed only to corroborate his plans) This was his land, he said emphatically, with a sweeping gesture across the meadow, and he meant to do something with it that would bring more money than grazing sheep. Perhaps he would get ferris-wheels and carousels and organise a fun-fair in the mountains. He would play the latest film songs and get the best lighting system from the city to illuminate the fair. He would leave no stone unturned to make city folk feel right at home here. I listened to his plans with increasing disbelief.

Küshál Singh

Finest ram in the flock

There may have been some truth about the land being his, for we were still outside the borders of the park, and the rights to various grazing pastures in these mountains have always been held by different shepherd families over generations. This alarmed me all the more about the man’s grand plans. I decided there was no harm in telling him exactly what I felt. “Why do you think a fun-fair would bring in tourists”, I asked. “Yeh sab tō sheher mein bhí miltá hai.(You get all that in the city too)” On the contrary, I said, we city-dwellers come here to get away from it. All the while I was trying to stamp out of my mind a horrible vision of neon lights and carousels wheeling away to the lusty beats of a bollywood chart-buster on this lovely meadow. He seemed to ponder over that, especially since it came from a city-dweller. I pressed my advantage and went on. Why in the world would we bust ourselves climbing up this hill to ride a ferris wheel and listen to Bollywood numbers? We took the trouble to come this far come here to experience the mountains just as they were now. If there were a fun-fair here I would never bother and neither would any of the other trekkers. Instead I suggested he was better off working with the trekking co-operative, knowing the mountains as well as he did. He was silent for a while and presently admitted that I did have a point, though I don’t know whether the point was taken.

Soon he turned his attention back to my camera, which I had been using to click pictures of the valley now partly in shadow, the forests and the peaks now glowing golden, all the while that he was talking to me. He was delighted when I showed him some on the camera’s preview screen, and then looked in wonder at my lens. “Does this allow you to see things that are very far?” he asked. When I nodded in assent, he probed further “Is it better than a binocular?” When I said no, a binocular was better (marvelling to myself that the man knew about binoculars and saw the similarity between them and my lens), he asked how much a binocular would cost in the city. I said I had absolutely no idea, but asked him what he wanted binoculars for. “So that I can keep a better eye on my flock, and keep a look out for bears and leopards. My eyes used to be better than any binoculars, but I’m getting old now. When you come back here the next time, get me a pair of binoculars”, he said. I told him what he really needed was a pair of spectacles, but it didn’t seem to have much effect. “Áap tō dürbeen hee lekar áō jee! (Just get me a pair of binoculars!)”. Clearly, binoculars had taken the man’s fancy in a way that spectacles could not.

Oblivious to the glowing mountain evening around them

By this time I was aware of the approach of an indistinct but incessant sound growing louder by the minute. Soon I realised that it was the bleating of hundreds of sheep and goats coming up the hill. At first a few tentative animals came up over the mud-bank against the sun, all with their heads down, nibbling the grass in the meadow. Gradually more and more spilled across the bank into the meadow advancing a couple of steps every few minutes, eating their way through the grass. All the time, mothers were calling to their young and the young calling to their mothers and others were calling to no one in particular. For some time the peace of the meadow was replaced by the collective din of their bleating. (Goats seemed to have a higher register than the sheep). Küshál and Lālu the dog disappeared, probably to help bring up the rear of the flock. Küshál’s lamb had also gone looking for its mother, but having failed to locate her it came back and decided to follow me around in Küshál’s absence. I wandered through the flock for a while, my long shadow falling over the white, black, tan, dun, and grey figures with their mouths to the grass, totally oblivious to the glowing mountain evening around them. Then Küshál turned up again holding a magnificent billy goat with a shaggy white coat by its long twisted horns. It was the finest animal in his flock, and clearly the boy was very proud of it. He seemed to have at last overcome his camera-shyness and posed for the camera with great glee straddling the goat. The lamb also had its chance to be photographed with its now smiling owner for a wonderful portrait.

The sun was now very low over the western hills, and the wild flowers in the meadow shone like jewels in its last rays. As it dipped below the horizon, a chill descended on the hills and valleys like a curtain coming down. Our guides had come looking for us through the silver twilight with steaming cups of sweet milky tea. The snow peaks were flushed with deep orange and pink hues while dusk settled on the valleys casting them into dark gloom. The huge indigo dome of the sky seemed close enough to touch, yet floated feather-light above the landscape, just out of reach. We set off back towards the tents for dinner and some warm clothing, bidding adieu to Küshál Singh and Hüküm Singh, although I didn’t know that I was to meet Hüküm Singh once again on my way back. “Don’t forget the binoculars”, Hüküm Singh called out after me through the semi-darkness. “I won’t”, I said.

Jewels in the grass

Himalayan Adventure Part 2

2014-08-24T13:20:00.000+08:00

Climb to Rangthar

See here for the Part 1, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5 of this series

The next day we drove down from Müngla to Güshàini to meet up with Stephan once again, at his office, a little rented room on the ground level of a small two storey building. He had a small team of interns working away hard on their laptops. They were tracking payments, updating photographs on the co-operative’s website and Facebook page and preparing marketing material. Many came from the best business schools in India, while some came from other countries. They were invaluable help for the fledgling co-operative finding its roots. I could not help feeling a little envious-it was a great internship experience to have, for a good cause and amid very picturesque environs.

A quick briefing on our 4 day-3 night trek and we were off, driving up an unpaved road with excruciating hairpin bends every thirty yards or so. The road ended at the village of Pékhri, the highest motorable village in the area. It was here at the dead end of the road that we met our group of porters and guides waiting in the shade of a tree. They were a team of sure-footed young men from Pékhri who knew the terrain and had the skills for survival in the mountains. The sizes of the loads on their backs (which included a tin of oil, a pressure cooker, a huge aluminium trunk-case with supplies and a stove among other things) quickly demolished any sense of smugness I might have felt at my 9 kg backpack. To each of us they handed a small packet, our lunch, to be had on the way. Our aim today was to reach the camping ground at Rangthar, the half-way point of the ascent to our ultimate destination, the high mountain meadow of Maráhni.

The Tirthán Valley

And so at mid-day we started up a narrow path hugging the almost vertical mountain side in a single file. The steep slopes were covered with short grass, but entirely devoid of any shade. The sun was blindingly bright and burning hot and the dry mountain air was dehydrating. Our progress along the dusty path was laboriously slow. Keeping my eyes fixed on my tiny shadow at my feet (for the glare was too bright and the slopes too bare to look up) I trudged along. One of the guides who was carrying that heavy aluminium trunk was walking right behind. After we got talking he told me that he had run a fever a couple of days ago was feeling rather weak. He still had a nasty cough. Yet I was sure the man was walking slower than his usual pace only to keep me company and was probably feeling stronger than what I felt by a margin. After about an hour of progress in this fashion we rounded a shoulder of the hill, and the snow-capped peaks above the Tïrthán valley suddenly came into view shining painfully bright against a blazing blue sky. Here on, the climb seemed easier, now that we could see what we were climbing for. Yet, by the time we reached the tiny terraced fields near the village of Lákcha enroute, I was soaked in sweat, gasping for breath and giddy, with legs that felt like jelly.

Lákcha was the highest permanent settlement that we would encounter during this trek. It was not connected by any roads (save for the cattle-track we’d just come up). To live here meant doing the hard climb we had just done almost every day, hardly an enviable prospect. The village was situated on a small ledge of land on a narrow ridge the sides of which we had just scaled. Other than the fact that no two houses in the village were at the same level thanks to the uneven ground, it was like any other Indian village. It smelt of cow-dung and straw, and had narrow winding paths that passed between houses. Round every corner, snot-nosed kids peered at us curiously from behind their equally curious mothers. We refilled our water bottles at the communal water-tank (fed by a stream), and had our lunch of paranthas and a banana by a shed with a view of the valley, the river and the snows above.

The rest of the climb that day was equally tough, up steep inclines and rocky dusty paths. But now these upper slopes were covered with bushes that provided some shade. The late afternoon sun was also not nearly as intense, and though my body ached and my lungs almost burst with exertion, the gradually cooling day provided some relief.

Snowy wall of peaks beyond the Tirthán valley

It was on this leg of the climb that I met Küshál Singh. As I clambered up a steep mud-bank, I saw sheep grazing on the hill-side. A few minutes further on, there appeared the figure of a tall slightly built boy of about 12 or 13 watching over the sheep in the shade of a bush. A dog and a lamb kept him company. He looked up as he heard my laboured footsteps coming up the path, a mixture of curiosity and apprehension on his face. He had the same finely chiselled features that most of the hill-folk were graced with, and like the many of them, his eyes betrayed a trace of mongoloid ancestry from Tibet. With as much cheerfulness as I could muster under the circumstances, I shouted a greeting and asked him if the sheep were his. He nodded without a word. Pointing to my camera I asked him if I could take a photograph of him and his lamb. Once again, there was no response except that he picked up his lamb and stood up. Half-afraid he would scoot as soon as I raised the camera to my eye, I clicked a tentative photo, and found him still standing his ground (perhaps out of curiosity for the SLR lens or perhaps because he thought he was too big a boy to run away). Taking that as a yes I clicked a couple more. Not surprisingly, he was too self-conscious to smile for the camera. Finally as I turned to leave, he seemed to decide that it was ok to talk to me after all, for when I asked him his name he said in a small but resolute voice, “Küshál”.

First glimpse of Rangthar

Little knowing that I was to meet him again I left Küshál and his sheep behind and struggled onward through the thick bushes, for I knew this was the last leg of the climb before Rangthar. After another half hour of tough going (and four hours since we started climbing), the path opened out into a magnificent open meadow bathed in the late afternoon sun. The fresh green grass was carpeted with yellow and white wildflowers and the land undulated gently like the swells of the sea under a breeze. The meadow was bordered by a steep mud embankment crowned by a stand of deodars on my left, beyond which the hill fell away into a heavily wooded valley. On the right the meadow sloped gently up before falling away suddenly into the deep Tïrthán valley beyond which rose glittering snow covered peaks. Behind me lay the path up from Lákcha through dense brushwood. The tiny slate-tiled rooftops of the houses were just visible below from where we had come while lower still on the right was the thin ribbon of the river. And up ahead rose the crest of the hill clothed in stands of oaks and deodars beyond which lay our destination, Maráhni.

Relief washed over me as I realised we had reached Rangthar at last. I sat down in the shade of the mud bank to catch my breath. In front of me a wall of mighty snow-clad peaks pierced the blue sky, receding far into the distance where cloud and mountain could no longer be distinguished. But for a few minutes, not even this vista could rouse my aching body from its desperately needed rest. I closed my eyes as the wind sighed through the deodars and calls of ravens circling in the valley floated on the silence.

Late afternoon at Rangthar

Himalayan Adventure Part 1

2014-08-16T10:12:00.001+08:00

Arrival

See here for Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5 of this series

A small hamlet in the lower Tirthán valley

I awoke to the loud honk of the bus followed by a cackle of laughter as the motor-bike rider took fright and swerved off to the left on the narrow mountain road. Swedish made Volvo buses can be surprisingly silent, and apparently our driver was enjoying the thrill of sneaking up behind unwary bikers and catching them by surprise. Drowsy as I was, for the night in the bus had not made for good sleep, I looked around in the dim grey light to see that we had long left the scorched plains of North India behind and were driving up a steep valley along the course of a river. As the light grew stronger, I saw that the hillsides were covered in verdant green in stark contrast to the ochres and browns of the plains. In sunlight that was surprisingly bright for 7 am and air that was refreshingly cool for a May morning, we got off near the town of Aut, near Manáli, Himáchal Pradesh, India. Soon we were in a Toyota Innova, hurtling down what was little more than a dirt track to the village of Güshàini which was was the starting point of our trek in the Great Himalayan National Park.

Nestled high above the valleys of the Sainj and Tirthán rivers, both tributaries of the Beás, the Great Himalayan National Park is one of the youngest national parks in India. Created in 1999, it encompasses an entire spectrum of mountain habitats from deciduous and coniferous forests, to high mountain meadows and icy peaks covered with eternal snows. Just in June 2014, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in culmination of five years of efforts by the park’s founders and the management. This difficult mountain terrain is one of the most sparsely populated areas of the country. Only the lower reaches of the river valleys have permanent settlements - tiny villages, some no more than a collection of four or five huts surrounded by patches of terraced cultivation on the steep hill sides. Most of that which grows in these tiny fields is barely sufficient to feed the families of the owners. Save for these tiny settlements, the rest of the vast land is a wild place of forests, rock, snow and ice.

After an hour of swerving and groaning across impossibly narrow tracks that made for roads, we arrived at the hamlet of Müngla on the banks of the Tïrthán river. By now I had a new found awareness of the inclines that an Innova could be driven up (which could have grown into respect for the car, had I not seen heavily loaded buses of the State Road Transport also sputtering up the same incredible road). Müngla seemed to consist of about five dwellings, the largest of which was Mohan Thákür's guest house, our ‘base camp’. It had about 6 rooms on the upper level opening out into a common verandah while the ground level consisted of a row of shops selling daily provisions. The upper rooms were reached by climbing a two foot wide staircase taking care not to step over Küpi, Mohan’s large, thick-set dog who was always found sleeping on the landing. Rooms were simple, sufficiently furnished, and, importantly, had attached bathrooms with running hot water. One of the rooms was converted to a kitchen, and the fresh hot food served with a smile more than made up for the kitschy décor or the low bathroom doorways (took me two hard knocks to get used to slouching my way into the bathroom). Our host, Mohan Thákür himself was a strapping young man in his twenties with a ruddy face and twinkling brown eyes with just a trace of the Mongoloid double eyelids. He was a trained mountaineer who would accompany trekkers as a guide, and was evidently used to dealing with tourists from all over the world in his guest house.

Near Müngla

After settling in we met up with Stephan Marchal, one of the earliest members of the non-profit organisation, Friends of the Great Himalayan National Park, which has been working extensively to support the park’s conservation activities along with assistance for the local community. Stephan joined us over a lunch of chapátties, rájma, dál and cháwal in the sunny verandah of the guest-house. He was a tall wiry Belgian with a boyish air about him and could be easily mistaken for a tourist on a trek until you realised that he spoke fluent hindi, ate chapátties and rájma with his hands without the slightest difficulty, knew everyone in the village and could tell you the roads like the back of his hand. Trained in the social sciences, he was especially interested in rural development and first came to India to work with the Münda tribals in the jungles of Jhárkhand in Central India with development economist Jean Drèze. He probably liked the work, for he stayed on in India, found his life partner here and moved to Himáchal Pradesh. “It is my mission to empower local communities”, he said in his lilting French-accented English. “People here used to depend on the mountain meadows for medicinal plants to sell to dealers in Küllü, and on the forests for firewood. They would send their sheep and goats to the high pastures with local shepherds for summer grazing. Formation of the park has now rendered these places out of bounds to village folk, cutting off aspects of their traditional way of life and livelihood. We are trying to compensate them with access to alternative skills and occupations to keep up their livelihood.”

While many locals are not too happy about the changes, some like Mohan have started taking things in their stride. They have turned into trekking guides, cooks and porters for tourists who now visit the park in some numbers every spring and summer, and have thrown open their homes in the villages as home-stays and base-camps. They are trying to organise themselves into co-operatives, helped by people like Stephan. Stephan’s co-operative, to which Mohan also belongs, provides camping equipment like tents and sleeping bags, and guides, porters and cooks to go with trekkers during the tourist season.

The valley of the Tirthán

We spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping off the effects of the rájma-cháwal and by evening were ready to go exploring round Müngla. In preparation for the trek the next day, we took a short hike to a nearby waterfall, with the guest house cook showing us the way. The trail led us through apple orchards, fields of golden wheat ripening in the summer sun and a little village along the banks of the Tirthán. After a half hour’s climb up a steep hillside through the brushwood, we had a view of the churning Tirthán making its way down the valley. The waterfall lay further on in a deep wooded ravine and by the time we reached it, the sun had dipped behind the hills, leaving only the upper slopes lit by the sun. Magnificent old trees with luxuriant foliage and thick undergrowth filled the ravine - a result of the perennial water supply - and the temperature dropped a couple of degrees as we approached closer. The water, fed by distant melting snow, was almost freezing cold, but wonderfully sweet.

We started back just as the last rays of the sun vanished from the hill tops and birds erupted in one last even-song. With the sunlight gone, the fields of wheat stood dark and silent, the drooping ears of grain silhouetted against a liquid blue sky. The air smelt of cow-dung and firewood smoke as we approached the village. Chinks of light glowed behind closed doors as evening deepened into dusk. A dull monotonic thud that could be heard from a few hundred yards away came from a woman pounding leaves with a stout stick in a stone depression. Her face was illuminated by the light from a nearby doorway and I could see that like most hill-women she wore a thick waist-length bodice and skirt made of coarse cloth. Her head was covered with a scarf tied tightly behind the neck. “This is for my cow”, she smiled looking at my enquiring expression, “so that she gives more milk”. The remark was greeted in assertion with a low moo by the cow in question from the darkness of the shed next door.

Golden wheat

And so I walked on along leaving the rhythmic thud of the pounding to fade away. At the river’s edge the breeze brought the sweet scent of wild grass and apple blossoms. Though the river couldn’t be seen any more, it made its presence felt by its relentless gurgle. It would be the evening rush hour back in the cities now, with its diesel fumes, honking horns and crush of bodies. The city would prepare for another neurotic evening of hysterical soap operas and latest grating chartbusters on prime time tv for the lucky, and of the sterile office cubicle, take-away dinners and glaring screens of laptops for the unlucky. For a change, we had only a riverside walk, a hot dinner and a warm bed to look forward to.

Emerald Isle

2014-06-18T21:24:00.000+08:00

An evening in the sea

I opened my eyes after a fitful nap to see patterns of dappled sunlight playing on the sheer curtains of the room. The late afternoon stillness, broken only by birdsong, was at once strange and familiar. I had woken up on afternoons like this many years ago when I spent my summer vacations at my grandparents’ sea-side house in Bombay. The first thought on waking up then would be the beach – although I would have to wait until my aunts or cousins finished their naps and conceded to take me. After all these years, afternoon siestas are no longer a part of my life, and it takes something out of the ordinary for me to have a good long nap. Today it was the early start of the day at 5 am and the 7 hour travel thereafter to Tioman Island. And here I was, after over two decades, thinking of the beach once again the first thing on waking up from a siesta.

Tioman’s allure lies partly in the fact that it is utterly unpopulated save for the 6-7 villages that dot its coastline. The interior is pretty much a vast hilly rainforest capped by the highest peak, Gunung Kajang. I had taken a 1.5 hour ferry ride through the South China Sea from Tanjong Gemuk on peninsular Malaysia’s eastern coast to get here. The only other way was to fly in on one of the tiny propeller planes from Malaysia or Singapore1. The ‘villages’ along the coast are mere settlements around major beach resorts, each with its own jetty, for there are no roads connecting them.

With its single street running along the coast, lined by mango and jackfruit trees and sea food restaurants and a few official buildings (Kastams House, Balai Polis), Tekek is the largest of these villages and the closest semblance of a sea-side town on the island. It seemed to have a school too, for on our way to our resort from the Tekek jetty, the driver of the rickety ‘resort-bus’ picked up this school kid and dropped him at a courtyard with a mango tree. Apparently the afternoon resort-bus doubled up as his school bus.

The mountain stream meets the sea

Berjaya Beach Resort near Tekek is Tioman’s largest beach resort. With its sprawling grounds, little wooden chalets beneath shady trees, a couple of miles of beachfront, a beach-side bar, a poolside restaurant and facilities for snorkelling and water-sports, it ticks all the right check boxes. Within a couple of days, I got to know most of my fellow holiday-makers by sight. Besides the beach I saw them every day at the dining hall for breakfast, lunch and dinner. There was the tall leggy Slovakian woman with a square face, her surly bearded boy-friend, the fat Briton who looked older than his years, his wife, his daughter and the Philippino nanny (the nanny seemed to spend most of her time in the sea, she was certainly having her holiday), the two caramel complexioned kids with their black father and freckled white mother, the double-chinned balding Russian with a wife who looked half his age, the Indian family with their grand-mom who was most grateful when I pointed out the vegetarian dishes at the dinner buffet, the three middle-aged Australian women who looked like sisters and always swam in the sea in the early mornings, and the thin Frenchman who looked to be in his 40s and had come over on a holiday by himself.

Morning at the bay

Early mornings were the best times to curl up on a beach-chair with a book, as sunlight sneaked up the bay and shadows of the mountain receded. The sand still cool from the night, the beach would be pretty much deserted except for a couple of the Australian sisters out for their morning swim. Every now and then small silver fish would jump out of the waves like a spray of droplets glinting in the sunlight. As the sun rose higher, the sea would start showing its blues and turquoises. When I felt the warm touch of the sun over the coconut palms, I would head in for breakfast. As the morning wore off, the mid-day heat turned the sands blazing white and the sea a blinding blue. It was in this heat that I once spotted a group of Chinese tourists jumping in the sand in synchrony for a camera that was set on self-timer. I don’t know if they managed to get that picture of exuberant mid-air glee that they were so hell-bent on taking, but they certainly provided some entertainment.

Every now and then the swishing of the palms and the lapping of the sea would be broken by the roar of a motorbike ferrying supplies. All motorbikes in Tioman seemed to have improvised side-cars attached to them. I saw long trains of these three wheelers arrive at the jetty in time for the arrival of the passenger ferry, go down a separate ramp built specially for them and return laden with vegetables, fruit, meat, dairy, bread and supplies of every other kind for the resort. It served as a reminder that Tioman was an island, cut-off from the mainland, and dependent on the ferries for supplies for every requirement.

The local people were small and skinny with Asian features and a rich coffee brown complexion gifted by the unrelenting sun. A Rahman, the boatman who took us out to see the coral reefs had a rather dessicated look on his dark wrinkled face from a life spent under the tropical sun and bloodshot eyes (perhaps from the drinks customary to a man of his profession). Employees at the resort were ruddier, but had the same slight build and Asian features, with the women often wearing the ‘hijab’2. They were used to interacting with people of different nationalities, but it was clear that spoken English was not one of their strengths. Some of the junior waitresses had a positively deer-in-the-headlights look when we ordered food off the menu rather than choosing the buffet. But for the most part the tourists’ needs were well taken care of through a combination of broken English, sign language and anticipation of the guests’ needs by the staff with years of experience dealing with tourists.

Kayaking to Renggis Island

Old Rahman, the boatman, had advised us, “You should put a few pieces of bread in a clear plastic bottle filled with water when you go snorkelling. That way the fish crowd round you for the bread, but can’t finish it off”. Renggis Island, a small piece of rock no bigger than a city block, lay a ten minute boat ride away from the beach surrounded by coral reefs and covered with dense brush-wood. As I dropped down into the water from the boat, I forgot in an instant the burning afternoon sun, and instead marvelled at the way its refracted light played on the forest of corals underneath. Life seemed to move in slow motion underwater, as my own movements slowed down, and noises of the air were drowned out by the gurgle of bubbles. Fish of incredible iridescent colours calmly moved in and out of the reefs in this whole new world just beneath the surface. Rainbow coloured parrot fish plucked dead bits of coral from the branches, tiny red clownfish hid in sea anemones’ tentacles, sea-urchins grouped together on the sand where the sea-bed was uncovered, and whole schools of yellow and black banded butterfly fish swam about in unison. I cannot imagine a world where light and colour play a more central role to the very existence of life; a coral reef probably represents one of the finest creations of nature based on these elements.

A sea of azure

Not surprisingly, Tioman was selected as one of the world’s most beautiful islands by the TIME magazine in the 1970s. It looks stunning at mid-day when the sun blazes over a sea of azure, at dusk when the sea holds the fading grey light from the sky long after it is dark on the land, and on moonlit nights when the cloudbanks glow pearly white against a pitch black sky. Its beaches are still home to nesting turtles3 and its virgin rainforests provide shelter to a multitude of creatures. It has resorts to cater to the international tourist but so far, seems to have avoided getting drowned by a deluge of tourists by being just remote enough. While there are talks of augmenting the tiny air-strip to accommodate larger jets, and more beach resorts being built by appropriating what were turtle nesting grounds, for now Tioman still has that ‘paradise-in-the-middle-of-nowhere’ feel.

The best times I spent on Tioman were undoubtedly the evenings in the sea. The sea-floor was shallow for a good distance from the coast and the water warm, clear and calm. A cold mountain stream ran into the sea near the resort, creating a delightful mix of warm and cold currents. Go chest-deep and I could turn back to see the resort dwarfed by the mountains behind. The mist-wreathed forest and the gathering thunderclouds on the mountain would be bathed in the soft evening light. I stood in the water for a long time one evening with the sun on my back, watching a pale moon rise over the forest. As the sun dipped lower, a rainbow reached down from the clouds to the mountain top. And the cry of a fishing eagle circling overhead floated faintly above the waves....

1. The air strip at Ayer Batang has got to be one of the most picturesque - and difficult - in the world, hemmed in by the mountains on two sides and the sea on the third.

2. The scarf or veil that must cover the head, as ordained by Islamic customs

3. http://www.juaraturtleproject.com/

The Island of Galloping Tides

2013-07-21T21:59:00.001+08:00

Dawn breaks over Granville*

I had seen the urban delights of Paris, but I wasn’t ready to leave without sampling some of the charms of the French countryside, even though I only had time for a quick 2 day sojourn.

The coasts of Normandy and Brittany are about a 4 hour drive away from Paris. Here, at the mouth of the Cousenon river, about half a mile out from the coast, lies one of the greatest natural and architectural wonders of France. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the third most visited tourist site in France after the Eiffel and Versailles: Mont St. Michel. We decided to make an overnight trip, visiting Versailles on the way and staying over at a seaside town in Normandy called Granville. It was a cold rainy day in Paris as I started out early in the morning in a rented SUV, with my brother and two of my Singaporean friends.

Our visit to Versailles on the way was a big disappointment-we had to stand in a serpentine queue in freezing rain for over two hours just to enter the chateau.

The road to Granville

The chateau is always crowded, but on that day it was worse: everyone had been forced indoors by the rain. The magnificent baroque halls and passageways felt like packed subway train compartments at rush hour. We left Versailles exhausted, cold, damp, and disappointed by its crushing crowds and overpriced sandwiches.

Sunset enroute Granville

The drive onward to Granville was what saved the day. Soon after we left Versailles in the late afternoon, the clouds opened up to reveal the most pristine golden sunshine bathing the rolling green hills and pastures. A white church steeple stuck out amidst a clump of trees here, and a windmill stood silhouetted against the broken clouds on the hill there. The road ran like a shining ribbon up and down the undulating land and the evening sun glinted off the windows of distant cars on the road ahead. We reached Granville well after sunset, and made our way to the Hotel ibis Granville Port de Plaisance in the dark. We could tell that the sea was very close by the salty breeze and sound of waves but couldn’t see a thing in the darkness. That evening we were the only diners at the hotel restaurant, besides one other local couple.

Yachts in the Granville Harbour

Two Indian boys and two Chinese girls must’ve seemed like an outright Asian invasion in that restaurant in the sleepy French sea-side town.

First light touches Granville*

As expected, the menu was French and it did not help that the waiter spoke no English. Had that couple on the neighbouring table not taken pity on us, I am sure we were in for some gastronomic (mis)adventures that night. (In fact I did have one when I mistakenly ordered some sea-snails-bulots-and then had to eat them to save face, as I have mentioned in my earlier post).

I awoke at dawn the next day to the sound of thunder and sweeping rain, and I was afraid our luck with sunshine of the previous evening had run out. But weather can be fickle on the coast of the English Channel. Within an hour the rain cleared. As the light seeped into the sky we to our surprise saw that our hotel was built on a large jetty jutting out into the sea. Hundreds of anchored fishing boats rocked gently right next to us as the first streaks of sunlight pierced through the clouds. It was a pity we couldn’t spend more time here. After a quick walk around in the 12 degree chill of the morning and we set off right away to Mont St. Michel as the sunshine sparkled again on the glistening roads and soaked shrubbery.

Chilly morning in rural France

Breakfast awaits

Breakfast was at an unidentified village on the way consisting of two rows of low houses lining the road. The baker, the Carrefour grocery store, the dentist, the lawyer and the pub (which doubled up as the coffee shop in the morning) were all within shouting distance of each other. We bought fresh cakes and croissants from a much amused lady in the bakery (she looked at us like we were the first group of South and East Asians to be seen in her village) and settled down in the neighbouring coffee shop. Nothing can taste better than freshly baked croissants and steaming hot chocolate in a little French village coffee-shop. Of course it helps if it is a cold sunny morning after the rain.

First look at Mont Saint Michel

Stained Glass
in the Abbey

Mont St. Michel floats like a mirage on the horizon long before you reach it. It is a rocky island in the bay off the mouth of the Cousenon river, crowned by an abbey dedicated to the eponymous saint. His gilded statue watches over the island and the surrounding country from the top of the church spire, 170 metres above the sea level. Mont St. Michel’s documented history dates back well over a 1000 years to AD 709 when the bishop of Avranches built the first church here. It has been a place of worship and retreat for monks for most of that history. But the island also came to be used as a fortress during the wars that plagued Europe in the Middle Ages, and it is not difficult to see why. From its isolated location in the bay it commands a panoramic view of the coasts of Normandy and Brittany for miles inland, so that it is impossible to approach unseen. The approach itself is perilous: until a causeway was built across the mud-flats in the bay in recent times, there was no safe way to approach it. The bay surrounding the island is inundated by some of the largest tides in Europe. The difference between the high and low watermark can be up to 15 metres. They are also among some of the fastest tides in Europe. The locals call them the ‘galloping tides’, for the waters are said to coming in ‘at the speed of galloping horses’. And as if this weren’t enough, the way across the mud-flats is fraught with danger: quicksand, disorienting fog, and a sea that can encircle unwary travellers.

Wide Open Spaces

Shuttle buses ferry tourists to and fro across the causeway today. But enthusiasts are welcome to walk down if they like, and considering the fine weather that morning, that is what we did. You only realize the scale and the enormity of the place when you stand on the causeway looking towards the island. It was low tide that morning. Miles and miles of grey mudflats stretched out on either side and, beyond them, stretched the marshes and farmlands of Normandy and Brittany. White chalk cliffs rose out far in the distance and pools of sea water left behind by the retreating tide glinted sapphire-blue in the brilliant sunshine. The silence was absolute (when we were not talking), and calls of mallard ducks flying high across the mud-flats floated through air. In the vast sunlit silence, I walked for the most part to the rhythm of my breathing and my footsteps.

National Pride

Massive Stone Structures

As we approached the island, we could see massive ramparts that were probably built during the years of war, with the French flag flying atop. Mont St. Michel was the only fortress in Normandy that did not fall to the English during the Hundred Years War and is still seen as a symbol of French resistance and nationalistic pride. As we passed through the through the village at the base of the island, we went up a set of increasingly steep paths and staircases up towards the abbey. The village serves as a reminder that the principal objective of this place today is no longer religious seclusion or wartime protection: it is tourism. Every shop overflows with postcards and mementos and every restaurant offers an overpriced menu. (It was interesting to know that this area does have its own signature dish: uniquely flavoured local lamb. Sheep graze on the polder lands - lands reclaimed from the sea - along the coast. The salty meadows support salt-water-loving plants that the sheep feed on. This gives the meat its unique flavour).

Tapestries of stone and lichen

Canyon

The abbey itself is a colossus: an engineering marvel built on a rock that did not have enough level surface to hold its foundations. Immense crypts were built under the church to create a platform large enough to support each of its wings. A cluster of stone buildings abuts the church. They house granaries, living quarters for the monks and arms and garrison for the fighting armies among other things and blend in seamlessly with the stone-work of the abbey itself. Centuries of salt water, wind and sun have weathered exteriors of these walls into gorgeous tapestries of stone streaked with lichen. A narrow cobblestone path winds its way up to the church though the soaring buttresses and pinnacles on either side. As I climbed up, the crick in my neck reminded me that I’d been looking almost vertically upwards at the stonework for the better part of my ascent through this canyon. The statue of St. Michel was watching me every step of the way from his perch high atop the steeple. Emerging out of the shadows of the path and into the bright sunshine of the church courtyard at the top, it was the wind that took my breath away at first. Then it was the view.

Shadows of Clouds

The Statue of St.Michel

The Abbey

Walking was difficult across the courtyard as strong gusts of wind shoved me this way and that. A little stub of a ticket I held in my hand was snatched and blown 3 or 4 storeys high in a dizzying arc before being hurled down like a stone-only to be yanked up again inches before it smashed on the rough stones. The wind whipped my hair and tugged at my jacket and the ground slipped beneath my feet as I looked over the edge onto the sea-bed far below. Clouds floated in silence above the boundless mudflats and far-away farmlands lands of the coast, belying the cold gusty ferocity of the wind on the ground. If this was Mont St. Michel on a bright sunny autumn day at low tide, I shuddered to imagine what the place would feel like in a howling storm on a dark winter’s day surrounded by an angry heaving sea. I’m sure the images of ‘Escape from Alcatraz’ that flashed through my mind would pale in comparison to the real thing. The isolation of the place was on starkly visible from the courtyard-a mile of seabed and marsh lay between us and the nearest human settlement. Before the radio and telephone connected them to the mainland, there was just no way for people to call for help-except signalling with bonfires may be. Only the sky and the sea that embraced them would be witness to their struggles.

The seabed and the marshes*

Looking out to the English Channel

Solitary walker on the mud-flats*

After the blustery courtyard, the interior of the church couldn’t have been more peaceful and reassuring. The constant rush of the wind in my ears suddenly went silent as I stepped in the high vaulted interior. It was at least a couple of degrees warmer. I could hear echoes of shuffling footsteps of visitors as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. Logs of light filtered through the high glass windows, falling at an angle to the walls, as if supporting them. A huge church organ stood in lit by a light beam at a side overlooking rows of pews in the shadows. It was a good time for us to rest our aching legs and spend a moment in silence to catch our breath I could not help wondering what living here was like for Mont St. Michel’s monks over the centuries: isolated from the world, with only echoes of their own footsteps and the wailing wind for company. Did they find their God in this beautiful yet heart-wrenchingly lonely place? A week or two might be nice, but I shuddered at the thought of a lifetime here.

Restoration work on the Bay of Mont Saint Michel

Intrepid explorers of the sea-bed*

On my way back, I learnt from the UNESCO signboards that Mont St. Michel in recent times is no longer completely surrounded by water except during the highest tides of the year, because of extensive silting of the bay. Reduced flow of water from the Cousenon due to activities on the shore is mainly responsible. I remember the sinking feeling as I read the signboard - the story sounded eerily familiar to so many other stories of environmental disasters from around the world. But in this case, there seemed to be some hope. The signboard went on to talk about the major restoration work on since 2005. A new dam being built on the Cousenon, dredging and de-silting of the bay and a new causeway that will allow water to flow freely underneath it are some of the initiatives under this restoration project to return the area to its natural state.

The more I read about them, the more remarkable I found the concerted efforts being put in to restore Mont St. Michel’s former glory. Such decisive action to reverse the ill-effects of human activities on the land is rare. But then, Mont St. Michel is a remarkable place, an extraordinary culmination of the work of nature and man. It certainly deserves to retain the romance it has always held for centuries.

_________________________________________________________________________________

* These snaps have been clicked by my brother, who always makes me wish he would take more of such photographs

Parlez Vous Anglais?

2012-12-15T23:08:00.000+08:00

A city unlike any other

I think fluorescent tube-lights cast a very unflattering white light. Add to that a clattering metro train with an ageing steel chassis, worn purple seats and damp grey platforms outside the grimy windows and you definitely don’t have the most cheerful of atmospheres. The crowd is a mix of black and white people, with a stray brown bloke like me thrown in. This could easily be New York’s gloomy subway. It’s even got the same garish fluorescent graffiti on platform walls and tunnels.

Arguably the most famous iron structure in the world

But then you start to notice things that make you rethink the city you are passing under. The station name that reads Bréguet-Sabin announced is ‘Bghreegay Sabaan’. You take a closer look at the blacks, whites and browns in the train and notice that all of them (except yours truly) are unusually well-dressed for a regular rush-hour commute in October.Understated shades of grey, burgundy, brown and black are everywhere. No frumpy shoes, sweat-shirts, pink and red coats, or synthetic wind-cheaters here-everyone is complete with a warm woolen coat and a subtle scarf. The younger lot (which is almost everyone in the carriage) sport slim fit jeans and t-shirts. (And they all are ‘slim-fit’ sized-no bulging biceps and buxom beauties here) The much-talked about man-bag makes an appearance along with the designer purses. Many have their noses buried deep in thick paperbacks rather than a game of Angry Birds on i-Phones. As the train slows, you notice the posters on the platform walls with their faded, old but tasteful tile-work. A huge print of a classic Raphael oil on the walls declares “’Raphael in Rome’ opens at the Louvre”. The adjoining one urges you to watch for the annual event of Salon du Chocolat starting from 31^st Oct. An announcement booms through the underground station in that language which is always music to the ears, even if you don’t understand it. A Bonne Journée stall near the exit selling the last of its croissants off the now empty shelves completes the picture.

I was riding in to Paris on the metro from the Charles De Gaulle Airport to my brother’s apartment. Over the next nine days, I would get up close and personal with the arts, architecture, language, people and food of this city and repeatedly confirm what I had realized on that first day- Paris is like no other city in the world. And that is so because Parisians want it to be so.

Arc de Triomphe

For one, Paris, (like the rest of France and Europe) is a place that reminds you of the origins of English from a small group of islands off the Channel Coast. That it became the ubiquitous global super-language we know now was a game of chance, the French would have you believe. It’s little surprise that the title of this blog-post is the question I started most of my conversations from Oct 10 to Oct 19 with. The answer varied from ‘Yes I do’ to ‘Un peu (a little)’ in Paris; but in the sea-side town of Granville on the coast of Normandy I also got a flat ‘Non’ with the classic French shoulder-shrug from a waiter. (This resulted in considerable agony since the menu of the only open restaurant within a 2 mile radius was French. When - out of sheer dare-devilry - I ordered the first item in the menu, they turned out to be bulots - sea-snails. I am only glad they didn't taste half as bad as they looked). This disregard for English is a strange feeling for someone from a country that no longer thinks of English as a foreign language. The French, however, have resolutely stuck it out so far, and still relegate a lowly second place to Anglais on their sign-boards – if at all that is.(Also, the English font is at least 5 sizes smaller). Parisians, however, are conceding some ground-most Parisian signboards do have both languages.

Evening settles over Paris, seen from the Montparnasse

For another, much of Paris it looks like it just stepped out of 1892 into 2012. The World Wars that flattened so many cities in Europe, especially in Germany, spared Paris. The city rarely rises above 4 storeys. And those

are 4 storeys of ornate stone facades with the top windows jutting out of sloping roofs, while the bottom levels are occupied by beautiful cafes and shops. Even a simple pharmacie in Paris can have art deco lettering and a 1920’s shop-front. Parisians have stubbornly refused to allow any new construction within the confines of their old city. The top of the new Montparnasse tower built in the early 70s is snidely called the best spot in Paris, because it is the only place in the city from where you cannot see the skyscraper. This heritage tag attached to every brick and paving stone has strangled the supply of new homes within the city limits. As a result, many Parisians just end up renting a house and never buying one all their lives. Even the portable green ‘box’ book shops on the banks of the Seine (‘the only river that runs between two bookshelves’) are coveted property. A tradition harking back to the 16^th century, new licenses for these bookshops are no longer being issued and existing ones are handed down like family heirlooms.

The sun after the rain

Finally, through the long years of the 18^thand the 19^thcenturies, Paris has been the crucible for experiments in urban living, pursuit of the arts and philosophy, free thinking and sophistication. The process may have been catalyzed by the many revolutions that France went through, the French Revolution of 1792 being the most famous. But it has also been a process of maturing as much as it has been about upheaval and churning. Paris has been home to some of the West’s most famous intellectuals, iconoclasts, artists and rebels through the golden years of its history. These people have contributed to the texture and flavor of the culture that Paris has so prided herself on.

A Parisian street leading to The Luxembourg Gardens

Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Voltaire, Sartre, Orwell, Picasso, Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh and the other names that I heard on my various excursions in the city, lived and worked here, created some of their most famous works here, and quite literally, rubbed shoulders with each other. And I don’t just mean at the salons¹ or the Salon de Paris². I mean rubbing shoulders in everyday life, in the parks, on the streets, and in the cafés. A walk down through the neighborhoods of St. Germain and Montparnasse can take you past a Café de Flores, where Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir spent a lot of their time, or a La Rotonde or a Le Dome, which regularly hosted Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Eliot, and even found a mention in their novels. Go further down from St. Germain and you can see the famous Luxembourg Gardens, Victor Hugo’s choice of setting to get lovers to meet in Les Misérables, and a favorite rendezvous spot for Hemingway and his contemporaries like Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein.

Les Invalides after a squall of rain

Autumn in Paris is unpredictable weather, and cold drizzling rain can last for whole days. But when the sun does come out it can be worth the wait. We got on to an open-top double-decker hop-on-hop-off bus, Le Open Tours, on one such sunny day and were treated to a city basking in glorious sunshine. The buses were, for a change, filled with people as inept at French as us, and I bet that common handicap gave everyone a bit of unknowing comfort.

The gardens of Les Invalides

Of course we hopped off at every major monument for a closer look. But we also saw much of the city from the upper deck, as we rode past leafy boulevards littered with autumn leaves and windows with roses blooming on the sills, past chiropracteurs and boulangeries, and marchés and bureax de poste, and fleuristes and brasseries, across narrow cobblestone streets and wide bridges over the Seine. The city is an incredible portrait of the 18^th century urban aesthetics of Europe.

“Parisians seem to spend an inordinate amount of time on appearances”, my brother had quipped when I had first asked him about his impressions of the city. Well, the city does it too, and in grand period style.

A bright autumn day in Paris

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1. Salons: 17^th and 18^th century literary gatherings to exchange and appreciate each others’ work

2. Salon de Paris: The official annual/biannual art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, arguably the West’s greatest art event in the 18^th & 19^th centuries to which many a Monet owes his fame

Of Dinners and Museums

Fine dining is a concept that Paris has given to the world, among other things. Even as a kid, I remember my characters in Enid Blytons and PG Wodehouses drool over French cuisine. Wodehouse’s celebrated French chef, anatole, has always been a key bargaining chip in negotiations to extricate Bertie Wooster from the soup he usually finds himself in.

Coffees and Conversations from the city that gave the world the Café

The Sacré-Cœur Basilica at Montmartre

Dining out is serious business in Paris and has been so for far longer than any other place in the world. You could choose to eat in a Café, a Bistro, a Brasserie, or a Crêperie³. The food is delectable and expensive-a meal in Paris with wine can cost anywhere upwards of 20 Euros per person. The confit de canard (duck), the chèvre (goat cheese) pastas, the moules-frites (mussels and fries), the Crème brûlées and the vins (wines) that I had at various times on this trip were absolutely delightful, my preference for vegetarian food notwithstanding. But dining in Paris is as much about the company as it is about food. You catch up with old friends and even meet new ones over long leisurely dinners. One dinner I had lasted for 2.5 hours. No plates were cleared until the last person on the table had finished eating and no check was produced until we asked.

Paris lights up at dusk

The notorious French working culture was inevitably the topic of conversation that night. ‘Is it really like that?’ we asked our French friend we met over dinner that night, after discussing a few horror stories about how the French (don’t) work. He smiled. “It’s always a bit exaggerated. A 60 hour work week for people like us is not uncommon at all. Nowadays it might only be the lower ranking staff like bank tellers who can pack up and leave at 5 everyday. Anyone who holds a position of responsibility and has the ambition to build a career had better think twice about how he works”. A highly educated fresh graduate, perhaps he represented a changing face of the French workforce (one that spoke English very well). And he never spoke a truer word. With two rating agencies stripping France of its AAA rating and a not-so-veiled threat to do likewise from the third⁴, the France is going to have to pull together its game, and soon. One misstep and it may find itself on the path to join its Mediterranean neighbors in the south. But change is slow. Some things will be hard to let go of, and I can very well imagine why. A passing mention of his 50 ruddy days of vacation a year was enough to leave us green with envy.

The glittering city seen from Montmartre

“I feel so nice when someone makes the effort to learn and speak French. We’re rather proud of our language, and appreciate it when someone takes notice of it”, he said, steering the conversation to calmer waters and echoing the sentiments of many other French men and women I met through the trip. A little ‘Bon Jour’ and ‘Excusé Moi’ and ‘Merci’ can change the tone of a conversation. French is indeed a very beautiful language. Other merits of a language apart, it sounds incredibly musical to the ears, far more so than English or any other language I know. You only have to hear a French song like La Vie En Rose to realize that the language was built for music, with its nasal ‘ain’s, the curvy ‘oi’s, the sensual ‘j’s ‘ and the very French ‘u’s (made by pronouncing an ‘ee’ but puckering your lips as if to kiss). Even the soft throaty ‘r’s manage to join in the harmony. German on the other hand sounds like chain saws, and many Indian languages, like rattling trains.

The Mona Lisa holds court at the Louvre

A medieval German bust of Christ

That very satisfying dinner had come on the heels of a very rainy afternoon well-spent at the Louvre. I doubt if any other museum in the world is so famous, and has so many visitors who couldn't care less about history and art. I know people who would prefer water-boarding at Guantanamo to visiting museums. And yet they all have visited the Louvre. Their recollections of the place usually consist of statistics like the 10 miles they walked inside the museum in a single day, and the 20 minutes within which they managed to ‘cover the whole of Renaissance and Ancient Egypt’. Well, I decided to spend 20 minutes at the entrance with a map instead, and concluded that I only wanted to see the Dutch and Italian paintings, the Marble Sculptures and Napoleon III’s apartment. And to start with, I made a beeline for the Mona Lisa.

The Marble Warrior

At the end of the day, I walked very few miles at the Louvre, but had more than enough time to marvel at the lush works of art that stood arrayed before me. These masters have shown that heroism, pathos, love, pain, all can be carved out of stone and frozen on to a canvas. It must have taken a detailed study of human anatomy, years of practicing their workmanship, and finally, a heart to feel everything that you wanted your viewer to feel. The Dutch landscapes, for instance, have the power to stop you in your tracks. They take you straight to the hills and rivers and woods of the European countryside, under the open skies.

The Louvre

But nothing comes close to the Impressionists’ works that I saw at the Musée D’Orsay the day before. It was a great pity that I could not capture them with my camera. The Impressionists paint light. A summer afternoon under the trees, the afternoon sun on the river, the sunlit fields and woods, the pale winter sunshine on a snowy day, the hedges full of flowers and the sky full of colors, the city streets glistening under the lights of the night: every Impressionist painting that I saw took my heart away. Renoir, Monet, Manet and others have given the world an enduring gift-a bit of sunshine on a canvas.

Autumn sunshine at the Luxembourg Gardens

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3. Café : a restaurant primarily serving coffee as well as pastries and light meals such as sandwiches

Brasserie: A type of French restaurant with a relaxed, upscale setting, which serves single dishes and other meals. A brasserie can be expected to have professional service, printed menus, and, traditionally, white linen —unlike a bistro which may have none of these. Typically, a brasserie is open every day of the week and serves the same menu all day

Bistro: a small restaurant serving moderately priced simple meals in a modest setting. Bistros are defined mostly by the foods they serve. French home-style cooking with robust earthy dishes, and slow-cooked foods like cassoulet, a bean stew, are typical

Crêperie: a takeaway restaurant or stall, serving crêpes as a form of fast food or street food, or may be a more formal sit-down restaurant.

4.Standard and Poors and Moodys have downgraded France's sovereign debt rating from AAA and Aaa to AA+ and Aa1 respectively in 2012 while Fitch has a negative outlook with its AAA rating

Impossible City?

2011-11-12T12:55:00.004+08:00

Changing times

A whirling dancer at the Desert Safari

The Muezzin’s call floated across the glass panels, white tiles and soaring ceilings of the building. It was loud enough to not be missed but soft enough to not startle me in the air-conditioned quietness. My eyes were instantly drawn back to the signage displayed everywhere. Next to every sign for restrooms and drinking water were the stylized figures of a lady in an abaya and a man in a guthra (head-scarf) kneeling in prayer. ’The Prayer Rooms for men and women are separate’, I registered mentally, and cast a furtive glance around to see if I should stand up in reverence. No one seemed to react to the slow, melodic and unmistakable chanting. So I continued reading my P.G. Wodehouse and waiting for my friend due to arrive in a couple of hours.

It was noon and I was in the waiting gallery of Terminal 3 of DXB (Dubai International Airport), one of the largest buildings in the world by sheer floor space. All of that space is exclusively dedicated to Emirates, the country’s national carrier. (There are two more terminals for others). Flights from Christchurch, Karachi, Muscat and Europe were scrolling across the display counter, and below me I could see the baggage arrival section that I had taken some 15 minutes to walk across. Baggage belts stood in two rows, some churning out bags, others silent, making the place look like a factory floor. Beyond the glass walls, a city shimmered in the desert heat in hues of beige and khaki. Over the next three days my friend and I would visit a place that almost everyone I knew seemed to have already visited, and talked about as if it were a distant suburb of some Indian city. ‘Better late than never’, I said, going across a mental checklist. ‘Dubai: Check’.

The Burj-Al-Arab

Sunset in the Sands

It is easier for a foreigner to get by in Dubai knowing Hindi rather than English. Expatriates make up more than 3 quarters of the population, and more than half of them are from the Subcontinent. Besides, cultural imports like Bollywood make their mark on the locals. Arabs love Hindi films. Comparing the dialogues with the Arabic subtitles can be one way of learning Hindi. But despite the South Asian invasion, Arabic cultural influences are everywhere. Local men unhesitatingly wear the kandura (the long white robe),the guthra and the associated accessories. The delicate slender fingers of the Arabic script can be seen on every sign-board, shop front, and shopping bag. Mosques dot the city landscape which has a profile no more than 2 or 3 storeys high except in the down town. Dry spiny palm fronds jut out from behind high compound walls. And above all, the desert makes its presence felt everywhere, in the yellowish dust on the road sides, the baked dry plots of land that lie vacant, and even in the lush green lawns that are always seen with a fine spray of water from the sprinklers shimmering under a relentless sun.

Ready for Dune Bashing

I wonder where the term ‘Dune-bashing’ was coined. It could be better described as Passenger-bashing, in an SUV in top working condition, blaring Arabic music that blends in with screaming passengers, and driven over sand-dunes with the reckless abandon of a drunken camel. It’s a great ride to start your trip of Dubai with and is a part of the famous Dubai Desert Safari. We took the trip on our very first day, and I was glad to get up close and personal with the desert right away-it was my first look at any desert. It kind of lived up to my expectations-it was sandy alright, and dry, with stunted bushes dotting the landscape. But we hadn’t gone too far from the city, the mineral water bottles strewn in the sand were proof of it, and there always seemed to be a busy highway with a little hamlet right across the next dune.

Arabian Nights

Golden Butterfly

The evening ended in a desert camp, with a stage in the centre, and low seating on rugs all around to eat,drink and watch the performers. I had ended my trip to Turkey last year with the slight regret of not having seen a belly dance performance – which I was able make up for in ample measure here. The music can only be described as a heady melody with a sensuous throbbing rhythm. The belly dancer curved, writhed and gyrated like a snake, as if the music had been cast into flesh. We went back to the hotel wondering how the same society that asks its women to wear long black abayas reconciles itself with this ancient art-form that must have had tribal origins. In the distance were the lights of downtown Dubai, as we sped down the freeway into the night.

The Dubai Mall and 'The Address' on the right

“They have very little oil, they’ve turned to tourism, shopping and real estate to make money. The real estate bubble was pricked a few years ago though...”, said my friend’s husband on the second day as they drove us around The Palm. This friend of mine has been living in Dubai with her husband for the past few years and I met up with the couple for dinner after an evening at the Dubai Mall.

Viewing Gallery atop Burj Khalifa

The Palm is one of Dubai’s many extravagant real estate projects that lie waiting for the times to turn again. Built on reclaimed land stretching into the sea in the shape of a palm frond, the place looked particularly desolate at night, with no pedestrians on the streets and lights switched on in less than half the luxury apartments. This was in sharp contrast to the Dubai Mall. The place overflowed with people, designer brand stores, eateries and entertainment, all inside a sleek, sparkling, warmly lit and climate-controlled building of immense proportions. We had taken a full 20 minutes to just drive out of the seven storeyed parking lot.

“How do you like living here?” I asked my friends over a Lebanese dinner. They lived a three hour flight away from home, enjoyed the comforts of first world living, had plenty of company of fellow-men from the home country and enjoyed a 1 AED to 13 INR currency conversion rate. They even had a two day weekend, on Friday and Saturday. “And the earnings are completely tax-free”, they said. Not a particularly bad deal, eh?

Impossible City

The Burj Khalifa is a magnificent building in downtown Dubai, and is the world’s tallest. Stretching almost a kilometre into the sky, it looks across a landscape that looks highly improbable to say the least. Dubai has risen out of nowhere, in a land with almost no natural resources. (The meagre reserves of oil don’t really count for much of its revenues). What it does have is a narrow inlet of the Arabian Gulf, which forms the Dubai Creek, and has allowed the small pearl-diving community to develop into a port and a trading hub. The Al Maktoum family has ruled this place for years and have played a crucial role in deciding the city’s fate. The earlier ruler dredged the Dubai Creek for the first time, allowing larger vessels to dock, and giving a huge boost to its status as a trading hub. The current ruler has adopted the strategy to develop the region as a centre for business and tourism. It was he who spearheaded grandiose projects like The Palm. ‘Well, they’re at least doing something even if it looks like a gamble’, I said to my friend, as we looked at the Palm and other equally grandiose reclamation projects that lay unfinished just off the coast.

By-lanes of Grand Souk

Gold Souk

After the towers and malls, we wanted to have a look at the old quaint side of the city on our final day. We spent it wandering down the crowded sections of the old city around the creek, called the Deira. (The other, more developed side of the creek where we were put up, is called Bur Dubai). They have bazaars here, the lanes are called souks, and they have different ones selling different kinds of merchandise. The Gold Souk is not to be missed, of course. But the dark shaded lanes of all souks hold many interesting sights, sounds and smells worth taking in.

It was my first time in a desert climate, and the sun was everywhere during the day. A walk down a city block in the sun was enough to leave me dazed. But step into the shade, and I could appreciate the crisp dry air, clear skies, and balmy temperatures heralding the approaching winter. We were told the place turns into a baking oven during summer, and no one dares to step out. Even schools close at the height of summer. The late October sun was enough to convince me of that. It had already got the better of us and we decided to cut short our walking tour of the old city.

The Dusky Beauty

The Green Eyed Half-Face

We spent some time instead at a small Cafe by the creek having a traditional middle-eastern lunch of cold salads. Save for the one Lebanese dinner with my local friend, the rest of our food in the hotel and on the Desert Safari had been Indian, without even asking for it. I wouldn’t blame them though-the bus-loads of Indian tourists did make it feel like a suburb of Surat or Ahmedabad. So the effort to find some authentic Arabic cuisine was worth it. Besides, we were joined at lunch by the local cats that ran along the water’s edge from table to table, getting fed lunch scraps. At our table they had to earn their food by posing for my camera first.

Later that afternoon I was back in Terminal 3 of DXB for my flight back. I realised that I had missed out the one great purpose that most people land up in Dubai for:Shopping. But I wasn’t sure if that had detracted from or added to my experience. I think the era of coveting stuff bought in Dubai is over anyways, for malls all over the world are notoriously identical these days. If anything did not define Dubai for me, it was the malls. Nevertheless, I decided that tradition shall be adhered to. A box of dates stuffed with candied orange peel, with a ridiculous price tag, was my purchase from DXB Terminal 3. Less than an hour later I was in an Emirates A330, on my way back. As expected from one of the world's few profitable and renowned airlines, the service was crisp, efficient and courteous. And as expected it was provided by personnel, most of whom were not Arab.

Gazing across Millenia

2011-05-03T15:00:00.002+08:00

I asked myself the other day, 'How far does your gaze go?'. A fairly odd question, I thought, but nevertheless I found myself saying 'A few inches, most of the times'. A laptop or an iPhone screen is about as far as my gaze goes for a major part of the day. And then, a few hundred metres a couple of times a day, to scan for an incoming bus at the bus-stop.

Is that why it feels so different when my gaze soars over a valley from a mountain pass, or when I look at piling thunderclouds on the horizon on an evening? Perhaps. Perhaps that is also why I was so intrigued by my answer to how far is the farthest that I have glanced.

Stars are so far away that measuring their distance involves borrowing units from time. They are quite unlike anything else that we will rest our eyes upon. Here is something that is not a part of our man-made world, and -unlike much of our earth-a part of nature that we cannot even reach or touch, leave alone control. In fact, stars are not a part of our world - we are a part of theirs (and a very small one at that).

Star-studded skies are best watched on cold dark and cloudless nights, with company that is willing to shut-up talking about themselves. If there is someone who is interested in astronomy, knows the names of the stars and constellations, and their facts he is indispensable.

Even more interesting is the person who knows the mythology and the stories behind stars. Every culture has made its own attempts to relate to and identify with the mystical sparkling night sky through stories and beliefs. I think it is just our way of making these powerful unknown objects more human. Which is why people can see hunters, bulls, bears and scales in the skies.

The stories of Orion the Hunter, (Mruga, the Deer, in India), The Great Bear (Saptarshi, the Seven Sages, in India), and the Pole Star (Dhruva, the Steadfast, in India) are as interesting, if not more, than information about the distance in light years, the surface temperatures and the life-cycles of these stars. Told in the silence of the night, stretched out on the grass in an open glade, the stories can swirl up skywards, taking fantastic vivid shapes, as consciousness flirts with sleep.

Norwegian photographer Terje Sorgjerd's stunning time-lapse video of night sky and the Milky Way couldn't have captured the magic of star-gazing any better. Shot at El Teide, Spain's highest mountain, it follows the Milky Way, (or Aakash Ganga-Ganges of the Skies-at it is known in India) for a whole week.

The Mountain from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

The pursuit of astronomical or astrological knowledge aside, watching the stars with your own eyes is an experience that can silence even the most restless mouths and minds. It may have something to do with the atmosphere, the location far away from cities and crowds, and the unhurried silence. But I suspect it has more to do with the way they dwarf us in time and space, breaking right through our thoughts for once, and making us forget ourselves.

It is not for nothing that the starry night skies are called the Heavens, where we go after we shed our lives on Earth.

The Spine of the Peninsula

2011-03-13T21:40:00.001+08:00

Layered Basalt, Mahabaleshwar

Road to Sinhagad
The Lion Fort

If you happen to be flying into Mumbai from a south-easterly direction during the day, you cannot miss them. Just as the descent into Mumbai is announced, the dusty plains suddenly break up into long rectangular and jagged hills. A dam here and there, a river snaking its way, a patch of unbroken forest, and bare step-like cliffs – the details are all the more visible as the aircraft loses altitude. They disappear as quickly as they appear, and soon the creeks, mangroves and slums of Mumbai replace the view, before you touch down.

The Western Ghats form a 1600km long wall against the western coast of India, starting near the southern border of the state of Gujarat, down to southern tip of India. Himalayas may be the more famous of the Indian mountain ranges, but the Western Ghats are far older. They are remnants of volcanic activity when the Indian landmass broke away from Madagascar, on its way to ram in Eurasia and push up the Himalayas. They are, in fact, the faulted western edge of the Deccan Plateau, created by layers of volcanic rock. Hence the steep cliff-like western slopes, and the gentle, at times barely discernible, eastern slopes.

The Scorpion's Sting, Lohagad, The Iron Fort

They’ve walled off a narrow strip of coastal plains to their west from the rest of India. Called the Konkan coast in the north, the Canara coast further down, and the Malabar coast near the southern end, this is the land that greeted the first western traders to come to India in search of trade, and later, colonies.

The Ghats are a couple of hours drive from two of the biggest cities in the state of Maharashtra, Mumbai and Pune. For guys like me who grew up here, it is almost impossible not to have visited the hill-stations and forts in the Ghats on picnics and treks. Most visits were revelations though - middle school history and geography made sure that we knew about these hills in as uninteresting and hopelessly pedagogic a way as possible.

Atop Lohagad

Monsoon Clouds
Sinhagad

Locally called the Sahyadri Mountains, the Ghats provided significant military advantage to those who held control over them. The flat topped hills made for perfect military outposts and watch towers over the few navigable passes from the plateau down to the coast. Numerous forts have been built at strategic locations, to control the valleys and trade routes they overlooked. Where the cliff-faces were not steep enough, they were blasted using explosives to create sheer rock walls hundreds of feet high. And where that was not enough, massive stone embankments were constructed, many of them strong enough to be still standing for over half a millenium.

In a period pre-dating the use of motorised vehicles and aircraft, it is easy to see why a few hundred people armed with canons and guns could hold the fort - and effectively hold the surrounding countryside. The roots of the Maratha Empire can be traced to here. In its early years, Marathas, the local warrior peoples, held their own in these hills against the Deccan Sultans and the mighty Mughal Empire for decades, with the help of guerrilla warfare. Now, are all that’s needed to visit these forts is a fit pair of legs, some endurance to the sun and thirst, and a love of the outdoors-they make for great weekend hikes.

Road through the Ghat forest, Mahabaleshwar

Fruit Crushes, Mahabaleshwar

The Western Ghats profoundly affect climate and life, in ways that are now taken for granted. India’s south-west monsoons hit the Ghats before they can cross over into the peninsula, causing heavy precipitation on their western slopes. The coastal plains and the Ghats are much wetter, greener and tropical than the dry grasslands further in. The climates of Mumbai and Pune are testimony to this fact-incidentally, Pune with its hot dry summers and cold winters is definitely more liveable than coastal Mumbai, which is always humid and warm, save for a few months of winter.

Further south, on the Malabar coast, the Ghats create the climate that allows the cultivation of spices. Spices were the reason why Vasco Da Gama set sail for India, and why Columbus, though he set out for the same destination, bumped into America. In the higher reaches, the Ghats create a cool climate that European colonisers sought so much in the tropics, and created the many hill-stations that dot the range.

Monsoon Torrents
Magod Falls, North Karnataka

Fresh Produce
Mahabaleshwar

Moreover, dozens of rivers arise in the Ghats, and depending on whether they flow west or east, they either have a few dozen or upto a thousand five hundred kilometres to flow across. The ones that happen to flow down the eastern slopes of the Ghats become the life-line of millions across the peninsula. So in a way, though the Ghats block rainfall from the Deccan Plateau on the one hand, they also provide perennial water supply to these parched lands on the other.

Down south, the terrain and the climate in the Ghats have given rise to vast stretches of semi-evergreen and evergreen forests. Sholas, unique high-altitude mountain forests of dense short tree cover interspersed with grassland-occur nowhere else but here. The richness of the flora and fauna caused this area to be recognised as one of the world’s Biodiversity Hotspots-an area holding a great wealth of diverse plant and animal life, but under intense pressure from population. They are also being considered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Sunset, Lohagad

Monsoon Freshness, Sinhagad

All in all, the Western Ghats are special. They are home to some of the wildest and most pristine natural habitats in India, a huge huge attraction for me. The Shola forests around Kudremukh National Park, the rain forest around Agumbe, and the many national parks around the Niligiri and the Annamalai hills are very high on the to-visit list. With some luck, I shall write about them here.

WAUMJKGPNFMA

Türkiye

2011-02-21T02:19:00.016+08:00

Rural Turkey, Cappadocia

I felt the thrill of being a news reporter, without being one. Like a surfer skimming along the lip of a wave, I was walking right in front of a huge mass of chanting protesters along the Istikal Caddesi, one of Istanbul’s busiest streets, towards Taksim Square, with my camera in over drive. My knowledge of spoken Turkish was limited to Teshukor-Thank You, while Arabic script scored at zero, and I did not know what the hell these people were chanting about. The banners did not carry any pictures or signs to help the curious tourist understand what was going on; and I had a feeling that the curious tourist was better off not getting too deep into the issue. In a less than 2 weeks, Taksim Square would be rocked by a suicide bomber linked to the PKK, the Turkish Kurdistan Workers Party, injure dozens, and send shivers down my spine. And yet, at the time I was blissfully oblivious to these political undercurrents, and enjoying the last day of what had been a whirlwind trip to an exotic land that left me craving for more.

Land of Beautiful Horses

With an economy growing at close to 6% for the better part of the last decade, and set to cross $1 trillion in 2011, Turkey has been in the media, the news, and my MBA classroom discussions more than once. Even before that, my history textbooks had talked about the Ottoman Turks and Constantinople, murder mysteries had been set on the Orient Express that goes to Istanbul, and I had wistfully looked at Istanbul showcased in glossy inflight magazines umpteen times, as I passed right over Turkey on US-India flights. Now that I think of it, Turkey was right there, at the top of the pile, all the time. And yet, it took a good and highly impulsive friend and his brother to get me to my feet, and finally haul my ass to Turkey with them. The timing could not have been better – right in the middle of my MBA.

My first glimpse of Istanbul was deceptively cursory, just like passing through London, Frankfurt, Brussels and Paris, on one of these US-India flights. Landing in from India, 2 hours at the Ataturk Airport was all I could see of the city, before boarding the onward flight to the town of Kayseri in Cappadocia, Central Turkey. A garrulous American lady who had recently been laid-off, and had decided to make most of it by travelling, made for an interesting neighbour on the flight. ‘You’re Indian but you don’t speak with the Indian accent!’ she gushed, making me cringe. I had involuntarily lapsed into one of my most offensive American accents with her.

Housing
Cappadocian style

Göreme National Park

Cappadocia was a land of corn-flower blue skies, golden grasses, rocky outcrops and caves. It translated to ‘Land of Beautiful Horses’, as I learnt later. While I didn’t see as much as a pony in the next 2 days, the sight of wild horses galloping across the sun-drenched plateaus wouldn’t have been entirely out of place.

Cappadocia owes its form to Mount Erciyes, a 4000 ft high volcano in the region, the source of soft volcanic rock and ash. Wind and water have done their work over time and carved out strange shapes into the rocks. The natural rock minarets, turrets and fairy chimneys have made for stunning real estate and people have lived in caves in these structures for centuries. The ancient Byzantine churches of Göreme have some of the most elaborate excavated cave structures, their walls lined with fading frescoes, their kitchens still blackened with the smoke.

Twilight at Göreme

Our hotel, Gamirasu, while not a UNESCO world heritage site like Göreme, was equally impressive. It was built in true Cappadocian style, across a cluster of large and small caves on the slopes of a gentle hillside. The lush upholstery, warm lighting, shrubbery in the verandahs, and of course - the wifi connection, quite took away the ‘cave’ness. We were only reminded of it – painfully at times – by the low doorways.

Evening

The Call to the Faithful

Blessed with abundant sunshine and clear crisp weather, Cappadocian towns retain an almost vintage feel. They have narrow cobblestone streets, low rise houses, and mosques that still dominate as the town’s biggest and tallest structures. The street signs and the conversations are all in Turkish, as if to drive home the point that you are in an exotic land. People hurry home before dark and shops and businesses begin to shut down as the sun dips low. The smell of doners and kebabs wafts down streets at sunset, along with the muezzin’s evening call. Kebabs are to be had in many places in the world at many times, but none of them smell as heavenly as the ones here on the chill evening breeze. They almost seem like an answer to the prayers in the mosque.

Hot Air Ballooning, Cappadocia

Floating in silence

Hot air ballooning over Cappadocia at sunrise the next day was a delight despite of the 4°C chill at dawn. It was an hour of floating over a surreal landscape of hewn rock-columns, towers, obelisks and needles, and quaint villages where, seemingly, life had never bothered to change over centuries. It took a solitary car here and there to remind one of the present. And nothing came close to the vast silence that surrounded us in all three dimensions, as we floated over the sun-warmed lands pretty as a picture.

Cave-Houses

Our tour operator in Cappadocia apparently had a lot of his clients coming in from India, and even travelled to India on business every other year. His 20-something secretary, who had welcomed us with sparkling green eyes and warm apple tea, was as gorgeous a Turkish beauty as you could find. Despite her extremely limited English, on our last day in Cappadocia she had made small talk, enquired about our backgrounds, and asked how early did we marry in India. Unfortunately the conversation was short lived as her boss barged in with something completely unrelated to matrimony. He did let slip at the end that the her father was a conservative man and a local Police Chief, with a certain smugness that said we weren’t the first to make small talk. And so from the dry central highlands we headed to the Mediterranean shores to see the ruins of ancient Greek cities, natural springs, and a beautiful port town.

Uçhisar Castle from the air

Uçhisar Castle and the Valley of Pigeons, Cappadocia

The coast-hugging road that we drove down from Izmir airport to the ancient Greek city of Ephesus from must have starred in many an ad. The Aegean Sea was almost a painful blue. It was rather ironic that original Mediterranean landscape reminded me of California. Greco-Roman ruins in Turkey was also quite unexpected, until I realised that Turkey was only born in 1923 from the remains of the Empire of the Ottoman Turks, who themselves came to Turkey from Central Asia not before 1000 AD. 1600 years earlier, during the golden period of Ephesus, this land was Anatolia, inhabited by the Greeks,

and later, the Romans and the Byzantines.

The Temple of Hadrian, Ephesus

Marble ruins of Ephesus

Ephesus was a vast city for its times, with more than 250,000 people living here at its peak. Second only to Rome, it was, not surprisingly, the second largest city in the world. It survived many attacks and changes of power, but its real undoing proved to be the gradual silting up of the Cayster River, which blocked its access to the Aegean Sea, rendering its harbour useless.

The Library of Celsus, Ephesus

Today its white marble ruins stand out under a blazing blue sky. Even in its broken state, the clear straight lines, the concentric circles and the angular edges are unmistakable. As is the evidence of painstaking planning to ensure that it had everything that a city would ever need, from parliaments to marketplaces, libraries to theatres, and public toilets to brothels. The still standing façade of the magnificent Library of Celsus and the colossal open air theater that could seat more than 40,000 spectators give some idea of the city that once was. It is cruel irony that the single standing tower of the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, is a grim reminder of the destructive power rather than the glory of religion. The Pagan temple dedicated to the goddess Artemis survived natural disasters, looting and arson. But the final blow was dealt by early Christianity, declaring Paganism as Devil-worship.

Kuşadasi Waterfront

Mary's house

Jesus’ mother, Mary, is said to have spent her last days in the hills around Ephesus, and the house that currently exists has been built over ruins that date back to the relevant period. Whether Mary lived her last days here or in Jerusalem is still apparently a matter of debate. As is the historical accuracy of the story of Christianity. But the idea that an old lady, whose son had been murdered for his non-compliant religious beliefs, spent her last days in these secluded hills with the help of her son’s friends is entirely possible, and I could live with that.

When you’ve been trudging around hillsides under a cloudless sky for a whole day, and your feet have turned to quivering jelly, it’s surprising what a warm shower can do. This was exactly what was on my mind during our post-hotel-check-in-and-shower stroll along the beach that evening at the beautiful port town of Kuşadasi. Mediterranean cruise liners coming in from Greece dock at Kuşadasi, and we saw a couple of them pulling into the harbour as we walked. A gold and orange glow of the sunset lingered in the sky. The promenade along the waterfront was aglow with shops, restaurants and bars welcoming the guests from the ships. As the Dominos, McDonalds and Heinekens flashed their signs, Ephesus, Artemis and Mary went back to where they belonged in time - far far away.

The ruins of Hierapolis

The road to Hierapolis

The next day, at the natural calcium deposits and terraces at Pamukkale, was different day altogether. Cold, cloudy and windy, there was a smell of rain in the air as we climbed the steep hillside to the ancient Roman ruins of Hierapolis, a city that started out as a spa and healing centre, associated with the natural springs of this area. Ephesus, Hierapolis and Bollywood were part of the the reason for our trip to Turkey.

Bollywood lives on a staple diet of love stories, and constantly needs new romantic locations for the lead pair to sing its love to each other. This can end up inspiring people like my friend who got me to Turkey. When he saw super-star pair Katrina and Ranbir cavort around the ruins of Pamukkale, Hierapolis and Ephesus in this song ( Tu Jaane Na ), he decided it was time to pay a visit.

Calcium terraces, Pamukkale

Unlike the song, we could not see Pamukkale’s glory sans the visiting tourist hordes, but the white calcium cliffs and terraces were very impressive nevertheless.

Turkey had quite surprised me so far with what it had to offer. Just as India is the land of Tigers, Elephants, and Snake Charmers, Turkey to me had been the land of Hookahs, Kebabs and Belly Dancers. Though both definitions do capture the salient points, both are just as incomplete. It was time to see some more of Turkey, Istanbul was calling, and soon we were flying off into the night to Ataturk Airport.

A cold blustery day in Istanbul

The Bosphorus

Straddling the continents of Asia and Europe on either side of the Bosphorus, Istanbul is certainly a remarkable city. It sits on a narrow strip of land that separates the Sea of Marmara to the south from the Black Sea to the north. The 31 km long Bosphorus Strait is the only channel of water that cuts across this strip of land, connecting the two seas. Its little surprise that the city grew to such importance – its ruler not only controlled the land link from Europe into Asia, but also sea-borne trade between Russia and the Mediterranean. Anyone who ruled here was only too aware of this - from the Byzantine Emperor Constantine after whom the city was named Constantinople, to Ottoman Sultans who infused the city with Islamic architecture, cuisine and culture.

The Queen Mother Mosque, Istanbul

The Blue Mosque

As we set out on a city tour, the weather that was closing in at Pamukkale finally broke. Cold and blustery, the weather whipped the Bosphorus into frenzy, and the glistening wet cobblestone streets were filled with people huddled in coats and under umbrellas. Cafes pulled away their outdoor seating on the sidewalks, and gone were any hopes of a sunset walk along the Bosphorus. Nevertheless, the city lived up to its name as the melting pot of history and cultures. The Blue Mosque, and the Hagia Sophia – a church, a mosque, and finally now a museum – are huge imposing structures, architectural marvels, and concentrated concoctions of history. Equally intriguing is the Grand Bazaar, and the Egyptian Spice Market, both of which continue to be in use today. The indoor streets of these covered bazaars are a kaleidoscope of colours, sights, sounds, smells and faces. Within the few minutes I stood there, a cross section of Istanbul’s population passed me by.

Hagia Sophia

Egyptian Spice Market

The royalty of Istanbul, however, lived in the magnificent Topkapi Palace. The gates of this palace of the Ottoman Sultans look like they have come straight from the movie Shrek. The vast treasures inside look more like they have been pulled out of the Arabian Nights. Ottoman Sultans wrested Constantinople from the Byzantine Emperors, and ruled Turkey in a reign of unmatched power and wealth until very recent times. As a result, many relics of the Ottoman era, including the Topkapi Palace, have been preserved remarkably well, and give a very real glimpse into the empire.

We were late to get out of Topkapi, and missed our tour bus. The ensuing walk back to the hotel through the wind and the drizzle and the wet streets of Istanbul was an up-close and personal encounter with Turkish street food. The Galata Bridge over the Bosphorus had carts of pretzels, peanuts and sausages. The Istikal Caddesi (Istikal Street) on the other side was lined with shops selling kebabs, pizzas and doners. Doners are stacks of boneless marinated meat packed close like a sausage, skewered on a slow rotating vertical rod and placed close to a burner. The stack is topped with fat that drips down the stack as it is heated. The spiced meat roasts slowly in the fat and its own juices. When sliced off onto pita bread with white sauce, it makes a snack that you have to be really unfortunate to miss.

Turkish Dolma and Pasta

But thinking back to all the lunches and dinners we had had, starting from the ‘dining cave’ at Gamirasu hotel, I realised that Turkey, in fact, is a very friendly place for vegetarians. My two vegetarian friends who watched me devour fish and meat at almost every meal, would certainly attest to that - because they themselves had their plates full of assorted selections at all times. Yogurt, cheese, spices, vegetables and saffron are extensively used in Turkish cuisine. Some specialities like Dolma (vine leaves stuffed with cheese and glazed with olive oil), Humus, and Pilav (spiced rice with meat/veggies - akin to the Indian Pulao) are positively mouth-watering. Nothing beats Turkish desserts though, and the Baklava takes top honours here. It’s actually worth trying to find the closest Turkish restaurant for Baklava, if someone hasn’t tried it before. Liberal use of sugar syrup, nuts and cream ensures that Turkish deserts do their bit for your taste-buds and coronary arteries.

Turkish Carpets

Ortaköy Mosque, Istanbul

Tramway, Istanbul

A couple of days earlier, on our way to Istanbul from Pamukkale, we had stopped at a roadside eatery. As we awaited our brick-oven pizza, I had a few minutes to reflect about this exotic land. Behind the layers of exotic mystery that it hold for tourists, Turkey has had its own share of problems: Kurdish rebellion, long-standing issues with Armenia over the Armenian Genocide, the challenge posed by the surging Islamic orthodoxy, rapid growth in a globalized world and the economic inequality left in its wake – our blonde haired guide to Pamukkale and Hierapolis talked long and deep about these issues. He had some German blood in him – blondes are very uncommon in Turkey. He was most worried about radical Islam turning back Turkey’s progress a few decades. He talked about the radicalists' efforts to undermine the independence of the judiciary, and islamicize the educational system. To me, the fact that he was talking about these issues to a bus full of tourists, was in itself a testimony to the success the Turkish Government's liberal policies thus far.

Interior of a mosque, Istanbul

Istikal Caddesi, Istanbul

Now on the last day, as I watched the protesters march into Taksim Square, I could not help wondering what this protest was about, and whether it would even be possible to have such demonstrations in Turkey in the future. The uncertain future notwithstanding, the allure of the country was unmistakable, and a week of freedom from the MBA was priceless. My friends, unencumbered by any such burdens, were flying off to Greece the next day, as I would be making my way back to business school.

I smiled as I remembered my short definition of Turkey again. I had smoked the Hookah, had a bath in a Hammam, stuffed myself with local cuisine and kebabs, hemmed and hawed over priceless Turkish carpets without buying any, and even tried the national drink-Raki, aniseed flavoured and very potent grape liquor. In the land of Kebabs, Hookahs and Belly Dancers, I had, however, missed out on the third piece. May be Turkish belly dancers are a good reason to visit again.

Bird-Watching..

2010-02-20T23:52:00.003+08:00

The birds I saw were quite the members of the avian populace, but the seasoned reader would be aware of the bird-watching opportunities in Mumbai. And he would also appreciate the need for a good lens, possibly a Telephoto, for the pursuit. I was missing the lens, but the birds were there alright.

I was honestly astounded by kind of bird-life to be found in a suburban backyard of one of India's largest cities, teeming with people, auto-rickshaws, BEST buses, hand-carts, zipping two-wheelers and annoying cyclists. Its open spaces are being gobbled up by high-rises, that are growing at such an alarming rate, that only the rocketing real estate prices can keep pace with them.

Rose-ringed parakeets are the most common species of parakeets found in India and can often be heard in the winter mornings, their calls carrying far through the crisp clear air. They travel in large flocks, and favour certain trees, which bear pods that they feast on. But one morning I also saw them alight en-masse on my terrace parapet, which to me was quite bold of them. One of them kindly obliged to pose for me on a televsion cable wire.

The flock did not shy away while I stood there clicking away for I was worth. They only dispersed in a cacaphony of screeches and went over to a nearby peepul tree when a large black jungle crow flew over.

Now this tree seemed to be a favourite with a lot of different kinds of birds, and one morning I had the privilege of seeing the very elusive female Indian cuckoo sunning herself on a bough. A female cuckoo looks surprisingly like a hawk, with her patterned feathers, her curved bill and her uncannily hawk-like size and shape. Her red eye, so different from the tawny grey eyes of a hawk, is perhaps the give-away though. The male cuckoos or Koels, as they are called in India, can often be heard singing away to glory, and can also be seen much more easily- they are glossy black, and are often sighted as they flee, chased by a pack of crows. This is a very planned action though, for this is when Mrs. Koel gets into her act, laying her eggs into the unwitting crow's nests.

After a couple of sightings like these, I decided to get up early more often. My sacrifice of a warm blanket on a cold winter morning did not go unheeded(yes, it can get cold in Mumbai on winter mornings!) I saw a fork-tailed Drongo on one of those days. This glossy black bird has a very sweet high-pitched whistle, and can be sighted much more often in the country-side, perched on telephone wires to catch the morning sun. Insects are a favourite food, and I've seen these birds twist and twirl above the crop-line as they chase after fleeing insects.

I also had the pleasure of seeing a crow-pheasant, more than once. It lived in a small clearing overgrown with weeds behind my building. It was quite a large bird, with a shiny black head, a beady red eye, and rich glossy coffee brown wings and back. Apparently, it didn't like flying very much, and preferred to stay on the ground, scratching for insects like a hen. It was careful to keep out of reach of the stray dogs that chased it though, and on such occasions, showed that it could indeed fly if needed. It's called 'Bhaaradwaj' in the local language, and sighting it is said to be lucky according to folklore. So I unwittingly found myself glancing out the back window every morning before it was time to go out for the day.

Coppersmith Barbets were among the more exotic birds to be seen. With it's bright red forehead, white breast and green back and wings, this bird makes up in colour what it lacks in size. Smaller than a sparrow, I often first saw them as bright red moving spots in the green canopy. Their monotonic call, however, was much more familiar, (and is what gives them their name - it sounds like a copper-smith striking metal with a hammer).

But the best of them all was a golden-yellow and black beauty, which I had seen flash by my window more than once. I was very happy to see the Golden Oriole one morning, perched on a nearly leafless tree. The yellow was quite shocking actually, especially when the bird flew by, and you were left wondering what that flash of yellow was. It is a larg-ish bird, and very handsome indeed. The black and white bars on its wings give it a very elegant look. And on that day, he had decided to do some sun-basking with the missus. The female oriole was equally elegant, though less strikingly coloured. She too had the kohl-lined eyes and the deep black wing bands, but hers was a more pale green than a shocking yellow. Both of them stayed there for quite some time, in conjugal bliss, at times talking Oriole to each other. As the sun got a little warmer, both of them flew away to a nearby shady tree.

Island of the Gods

2009-12-27T13:08:00.004+08:00

The similarities were unmistakeable..the swaying palms, the small shacks all along the streets, the rented scooters and motorbikes thronging the roads, the many sea-food places advertising the best food in town and the swarms of European and American tourists everywhere..Bali was a larger version of Goa, India's most famous sea-side resort.

Bali has a very strong Hindu culture, in fact it has its own version of Hinduism-Balinese Hinduism. Hinduism is not a stranger to many different sects and streams, all with their own Gods and Godesses gathering under its umbrella. It's probably the most diverse religion in the world, and Balinese Hinduism, with its presiding deity, Acintya, is one of these many forms.

Thanks to this religious influence, Bali has a multitude of temples, with their own unique architecture, motifs and ornamentation. The dwarapalas or the temple guardians at the gates here are some of the best I've seen. With their fierce faces and fangs, they reminded me of Chinese dragons and the ornate statuary of South India at the same time.

Here's a closer look at one of the Balinese temples, bang in the centre of Kuta, the town close to the Ngurah Rai International Airport. All around the temple, which formed a largish traffic circle, the evening traffic screamed and honked and fumed, and shops buzzed with people. And yet, right in the centre was this calm little temple that looked strangely out of place.

Other Balinese temples are located in much more spectacular locales than traffic islands.The temple at Tanah Lot for instance is built right into the sea, on a giant monolithic piece of rock jutting out of the sea a few hundred yards from the coast. It can be reached on foot during low tide, but during high tide it is guarded by fierce waves and a frothing churning sea.

I also happened to witness this evening prayer ceremony taking place at one of the shrines on the mainland near the Tanah Lot temple. A prayer is beautiful by itself, but a setting like this makes it seem as if the prayer itself has come alive in the sky,the clouds and the sea.

Bali's traditions and customs are as beautiful as its scenery. Its a pity we did not have time to watch any traditional Balinese dance performances, but they're quite beautiful watch, with splendid traditional costumes and finery. And equally splendid is Balinese food, with it's liberal use of spices, seafood and rice. Seafood lovers, its your paradise; vegetarians, its a golden chance to convert.

Bali is famous for is its coffee. We did manage to go to a coffee plantation located on the higher slopes of Bali's hills.As we reached there at around 4ish in the afternoon, it was coffee time already and the aroma of freshly roasted coffee was very welcome in the cool mountain air. We were ready for a steaming hot cup of coffee, or hot chocolate or herbal tea, and we tried all of that. We also tried a very unique Balinese coffee that makes for very intersting coffee time conversations, if not anything else.

The Asian Palm Civet, a small cat-sized animal, produces this highly sought after and expensive coffee. It's called Kopi Luwak ( Kopi = Coffee, and Luwak = Civet), and believe it or not, its made out of coffee beans defecated by this blighter, the Luwak. Some explanation is in order. The Palm Civets love eating coffee berries. They tend to pick the ripest and the sweetest berries, and thereby the ripest coffee beans. Moreover, the digestive system of the civet breaks down the protiens that give the coffee bean it's bitterness. The enzymes also 'add' to the flavour. The rest of the bean, stripped of its bitterness, passes out undigested. The beans are then lightly roasted to produce this coffee. We tried it out. It was a bit anticlimactic though, it seemed quite unremarkable to me at least. ( The coffee beans in the picture above are the regular ones.)

Batik is Indonesia's gift to the world of textiles. We had a look at this traditional process of block printing, at a handloom centre. This is the stuff that interior designers are probably looking for all the time, to get that 'ethnic' look and feel. The cotton fabrics were indeed quite handsome, and we saw exactly how the painstaking process of handweaving them was.

As the sun set on the last day of our visit to Bali, I was thinking about our short 3 day trip. Bali has something to offer everyone. Whitewater rafting, paragliding, parasailing, scuba diving, spas and massages, shopping, great food, traditional performing arts, a national park for nature lovers, temples with some eye-catching architecture, plenty of opportunities for the photography buff and nightlife for the party lover (HardRock Cafe, Kuta, has a mean rock band). Of course its a paradise for honeymooners, but that is equally true for families, friends and casual vacationers. Whoever you are, the Island of the Gods has something for you.

Truly Asia

2009-12-27T02:18:00.002+08:00

Its been a little bit of a predicament to discover the real Asia, and that's pretty ironical coming from an Asian. But the truth of the matter is that Asia's simply too vast and too diverse to have one 'true' self. It also true that South East Asia is a much more closely knit region than South Asia. South Asia, due to its adjacency to Persia, the Middle East, and its connections to Europe via the sea was always in a state of diffusion of cultures and peoples. And so there have always been significant differences between India and her eastern neighbours - differences that go way beyond that fold of eyelid skin that gives East Asians their 'oriental' look. And the Orient traditionally meant lands to the east of India.

Malaysia's marketing campaign claims it to be 'Truly Asia', but the capital city of Kuala Lumpur spoke of an Asia very different from the conventional images of a 'mysterious and exotic' Far East. It spoke of a region fast rising on the wings of western capitalism, riding new technology, new business practices and creating its own place under the sun. Nothing could be more emblematic of KL than the twin Petronas towers seen above, taken at a really low shutter speed.

Downtown KL glittered and sparkled after a late downpour, and city looked like a party-goer and shoppers paradise. The conversion rate of the Malay Ringit makes spending in SGD deceptively easy, and that never bodes well for the shopper's purse. KL has all the brands you've ever known about, and probably some that you've not known about. The stores and malls can give any American mall a run for its money, and the downtown is studded with diners and cafes for the hungry and watering holes for party-goers.

Kuala Lumpur is doing all the right things: working towards establishing a good infra-structure, inviting retailers from all over the world to tap into its very receptive markets, and getting it's people hooked on to a diet of malls and showrooms and shopping. Selling itself as the ultimate shopping destination and drawing in hordes of tourists from within the country and abroad, KL is is doing everything it can to whip up a voracious retail appetite in its markets.

It has a casino at the near-by hill resort of Genting. The clown here was one of the many attractions on the way to Genting, trying to make life a little more entertaining for people queueing up for the 20 minute cable car ride up the mountain. And as soon as we reached the top, we were greeted by a blast of chilly mountain air and some freshly brewed Chinese herbal jelly. The dark mahogany decoction was steamed in huge brass vats, so that it congealed to form a jelly, and was served steaming hot. Its hot pungent aroma filled the air, and very soon, we'd downed two cups of the jelly each, with some very sweet honey water to complement the slight bitterness of the blend. The jelly seller lady who served us with much ado about its health benefits, agreed to pose with her vat of jelly.

The Genting Highlands are roughly an hour's drive from KL, followed by a 4km ride on a cable car that takes you to a height of well over 1700 m. In spite of being in steamy Malaysia, Genting enjoys an almost perfect climate with temperatures ranging between 16 and 24 degrees celcius. Plentiful rainfall ensures lush rainforests covering the slopes. This comes the closest to my idea of an ideal climate...I had never imagined I'd ever want to wear a sweater and sip on some hot chocolate at 4.00 in the afternoon anywhere in South East Asia.

But Genting is too busy being the Las Vegas of Malaysia to pay heed to nature's gifts. We saw a colossal resort filled with an indoor and outdoor amusement park, and of course, a casino. The casino was overflowing with gamblers and the amusement parks were overflowing with picnickers and kids. I saw these two little dudes waiting patiently for their balloons outside one of the many rides.

We had a lovely time trying out the rides. And a little less lovely time watching the games of roulette, and wishing we had enough money to just blow it off on a night in the casino. The shoestring budgets that we had planned our trip on had no room for such extravagances. We did cook up a hypothetical fool proof scheme for making some money on the roulette the next time we came back.

The dining was very fine, and inspite of constraints faced by our vegetarians, we sampled some Vietnamese food. The restaurant had some lovely decor.The food of course was very nice too, but to people famished after a day of trudging theme parks and casinos, I wonder if the taste would have made any difference.

Thus ended our very first attempt to discover Asia. Even though what we saw was the very superficial, fast changing, market driven face of Asia, it was nevertheless one facet of this exotic place. Perhaps there are other things to be discovered by going, not on a trip to a Casino resort, but perhaps on a trek to the rainforests of Indonesia, or a trip to the rice fields of the Phillipines or the temples of Angkor. I hope I get a chance to write about these places in this blog.

The Jersey City WaterFront

2009-08-11T20:04:00.002+08:00

Its difficult to find an Indian living in the US who has never been to Jersey City. If you are a US NRI, you probably know someone who lives here and have visited him-that is if you don´t live here yourself. The reason for Jersey City's popularity lies across the Hudson river: New York.

Seen here is the lower Manhattan skyline is made up of the buildings from the Financial District . The delicate gem-stone like colours reflected from the buildings made this sunset a rare and special one. I loved the warm glow of the lamps against the cool blue of the water and the sky.

The Empire State in the evening light

The famed Wall Street employs vast numbers of Indians to drive itś IT systems. This is the secret of the NRI love for Jersey City. The city is a natural choice for the 20-something college graduate starting out as an IB analyst, or the 30-something newly married manager looking for a ćlassy´apartment within commuting distance. With its wide range of housing options, Jersey City has something for everyone. Besides having a huge Indian community, it has the lower taxes of New Jersey, a lower cost of living (although that is now fast catching up with Manhattan), an almost seemless connectivity to Manhattan, and and a conveniently located airport of its own.

The waterfront here is perhaps the best part of the city. With extensive views of Manhattan, apartments on the waterfront charge a heavy premium. The boardwalk serves as a park, as well place to relax and socialize. It is always an interesting place in the evenings. Grandmas and Grandpas come out for walks with their grandchildren in strollers. Some tenacious souls with fishing lines try to get something out of the dirty Hudson. Pretty young things in little pink clothes walk their (quite ugly) toy dogs. Joggers whiz by with iPods strapped to their arms. The office worker in full formal attire and a briefcase tries to get in his daily exercise by walking along the waterfront to the train station. It is very entertaining even to just sit on a bench and watch the whole cross section of the community walk past you.

Young Asia

This Asian brother-sister pair was down for Sunday evening dinner at the waterfront with their dad. Its amazing how innocent kids can look, and it can be quite humbling to realise that losing this magical quality is a trade-off of growing up.

An evening catch up

These two Spanish grandmas were also out for the evening walk and perhaps a catch-up session on the day's gossip. Both these photos were possible only because of the a zoom lens that lets you get right in the middle of the action without getting physically close and disturbing your subjects.

Sunsets can be quite beautiful here, with Manhattan glittering pink and purple at times, and looking like gilded gold at other times. That Manhattan has one of the most well known and well loved skylines in the world helps make the view special. Up until a few years ago, the twin towers of the World Trade Centre stool tall and imposing, completely dominating the lower Manhattan skyline. 9/11 irrevocably changed the skyline, and so will the Freedom Tower that will replace the twin Towers.

Manhattan Skyline at dusk

The Last Great Wilderness

2009-08-06T02:52:00.002+08:00

Yellowstone National Park is one of the last remaining pieces of large untouched temperate wildernesses. Windswept moors, steep broken cliffs, vast stands of dark conifers and swift frothing rivers, all make up Yellowstone.

The park has been blessed with a rich variety of wild life, including elk,bison,brown bear,grizzlies, wolves and coyotes. This magnificent bull elk in the photo had settled down to chewing the cud right next to the road, and refused to move inspite of us photographers. His unmoving countenance allowed me to shoot him at a low shutter speed in the fading light of the twilight. I could even avoid the flash and prevent a red-eye.

Yellowstone however has some unique geological features thanks to its location on a hotbed of volcanic activity. The core of the park sits on a 28-47 mile caldera or basin, that had collapsed during the last volcanic eruption here about 600,000 years ago. The boiling hot magma under the earthś crust is unusually close to the surface here, and is responsible for the unique geothermal features of this region.

Yellowstone has geysers (pronounced ´guy-sers´ in American English), hot water springs and pools, often with brilliantly coloured deposits around their rims, steam vents and mud volcanoes. In addition to Old Faithful, the most famous geyser in the world, Yellowstone has many more.Hereś an image of a geyser about to erupt, taken at high speed in the blazing afternoon sun.

We had the perfect spring weather on our trip to the Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Parks. Unpredicatable though the weather was, the spring air was refreshingly clear and crisp when the sun did come out. The Nissan Altima we drove was a driving pleasure, and the magnificent vistas meant that my camera was spoilt for choice. This picture of the Idaho river with the montains of Yellowstone as the backdrop was taken enroute the park.

Yellowstone has a huge lake, made up of a portion of the caldera which is now submerged. The lake too has many underground vents releasing hot water close to the shore. This prevents patches along the coast of the lake from freezing over, while the rest is covered by thick ice for most of the winter. In this photo you see one such volcanic vent, seen against the calm and brilliant blue waters of the lake.

A surreal feel envelopes this photograph taken from some distance along the shore of the lake. The picture was clicked from a high point, and you can clearly see the unfrozen coastline of the lake, followed by miles of frozen ice stretching to the mountains in the horizon. It was a brilliant sunny day and the blues of the sky and the water were incredible.

Winter lingers much longer here than the rest of the country, and while the east coast was well into summer, parts of Yellowstone still looked as if in the dead of winter. This black-and-white picture taken at the Lewis river enroute Grand Teton might well pass off as a winter scape.

The highways in Yellowstone are often the best places to watch wildlife. As we were travelling along an open moor, we spotted a pair of grizzlies in the distance. Unfortunately, they were too far away for me to get them on the camera, but I did capture this father and son duo watching the bears.

Yellowstone is a photographer's paradise, just as it is a nature lover's eden. It keeps you on your toes all the time, you never know what surprises might turn up round the next bend in the road. The greatest moment for us on this trip was when we locked eyes with a wolf. This was a little after we photographed that elk in the brush at twilight. As I was driving, my friend practically jumped out of his seat (and the car) and made me come to a screeching halt a few hundred metres up ahead. We walked back the road, four guys unarmed guys, alone on a huge grassland, with the night closing in fast, knowing that there were wolves out there, and we weren't at our bravest. We neared the spot where we thought we had seen it, and were stopped in our tracks by a huge head appearing out of the bushes.

To look straight into the yellow eyes of a wolf in the wild does make your blood curdle.Especially when your are on his terrain, his kingdom, where he is in his element. That moment is pretty much frozen in our memories.

I guess he was pretty averse to our company as well, because the huge head slowly retracted back into the bushes, and we saw him cross the road a few yards futher down, scattering a herd of elk on the other side as he went through the brush.

The Frangipani

2009-08-06T01:46:00.003+08:00

The heady scent of the frangipani wafting over the warm summer air has mellowed the harshness of many an Indian summer for me...

The dark glossy green leaves cast a cool shadow underneath its boughs twisted like aged wrinkled hands. The flowers themselves look so dewy fresh even under a blazing sun, they can make you forget the heat for a few moments.

The Frangipani, better known in India as ´champa´ in north India and ´chapha´ in Maharashtra is a tropical plant native to Asia and the Americas. It has a great many species producing exquisitely coloured flowers in many hues and shades.

Moreover these flowers often have an irresistible sweet fragrance.

Little surprise that these flowers have found their way into love songs and symbolise beauty, romance and love in many eastern cultures.

A famous marathi song talks of a maiden whoś hiding her feelings for her lover. Her friends compare her hidden love to the fragrance of the green champa flower hidden under her drape, try as she might to hide the flower, its fragrance still surrounds her.

The picture here was taken at Lalbaug in Bangalore, on an overcast day in late July.

I sign off this first post with a beautiful piece on the Frangipani by Rabindranath Tagore.

The Champa Flower
Rabindranath Tagore

Supposing I became a champa flower, just for fun, and grew on a branch high up that tree, and shook in the wind with laughter and danced upon the newly budded leaves, would you know me, mother?

You would call, "Baby, where are you?" and I should laugh to myself and keep quite quiet.

I should slyly open my petals and watch you at your work.

When after your bath, with wet hair spread on your shoulders, you walked through the shadow of the champa tree to the little court where you say your prayers, you would notice the scent of the flower, but not know that it came from me.

When after the midday meal you sat at the window reading Ramayana, and the tree's shadow fell over your hair and your lap, I should fling my wee little shadow on to the page of your book, just where you were reading.

But would you guess that it was the tiny shadow of your little child?

When in the evening you went to the cow-shed with the lighted lamp in your hand, I should suddenly drop on to the earth again and be your own baby once more, and beg you to tell me a story.

"Where have you been, you naughty child?"

"I won't tell you, mother." That's what you and I would say then.