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The first time I heard about Critical Mass was from a Hungarian friend-  about what it was, about how CM was shaping traffic rules there, how it is shaping the way new roads are being built. I clearly remember wondering how something like that would ever take-off in India!

I can’t wait to see what Bangalore biking scene will be like 5-10 years from now.

Cyclists held up their bikes outside Budapest Town Hall Tuesday. The “Critical Mass” event aimed to promote more environmentally friendly forms of transportation. (Balint Porneczi/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images).

Source : WSJ Pictures of the day.

“If the concept is there in the book, it doesn’t mean you need to know it. I mean, you could know it, I suppose. But, it isn’t necessary to know it. But if you would read it, you could appreciate the simplicity of it. And if you read it, you should be able to understand it fairly easily, as well. I suppose one could argue that if you did read it, it might improve your understanding of the subject and give you a holistic view. But in the priority of things, it is really not at the top, I would think.”

Phew !! I swear I didn’t make this up !!! All that came to my mind when I heard this was Sir Humphrey Appleby (played excellently by Nigel Hawthorne) of Yes,Minister fame !

I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed
I taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!

Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.

When landlords turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove’s door,
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!

Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!

–

A series of posts on Ladakh shall soon start..

[The young man ,who played Shakuni, is deep in thoughts] Probably wondering what a dozen photographers might want in that small green room ! :)

[The Making of Yudhishtira]

[Shakuni - A work in progress]

[Mr. Peethambaran turns into Drowpadi]

[Chutti - by Kalamandalam Shivaraman (The hands that apply make-up in the picture below)]

[I will slay the man who insulted my wife, says the angry Bheema]

[What the heck ! How long am I supposed to dance ?] It was 2.5 hours of arresting performance at Chowdiah last Saturday !

The ‘bestest’ parts were the interactions with Kalamandalam Shivaraman, Mr.Peethambaram (who played Drowpadi) and most notably, Mr. AchuthanKutty. The wealth of Kathakali knowledge I gained from a two hour crash course with  these people merits a post by itself. Now, whether that will happen is something that time will tell.

2/ This blog.   This is only just a mean trick that I play with myself. Sometimes, I like to keeping telling myself that I eventually will get around doing things that I haven’t been doing. So that I just might end up doing them. Whaddya know , right ? :)

- Was at IFFI Goa - 3-4 days of movies back to back. Life seemed too perfect. It was, too.
- Idlyllic Karwar and that unforgettable sunset with green(yes, green), magenta, orange, pinkn, yellow and blue hues.
- Revisited FoodStreet after about 5 years ! Twaz a light dinner. Need to go back again for a stuff-myself-full session.
- Nandi Hills, albeit on a no-fog day; Drove down the OMR.
- Valley School trip
- A few photoshoots
- Planned a two week trip to go Northward
- Canceled the planned trip
- The freelancing work
- Processed some pictures from 2008 trips
- Wrote a few write-ups from the North East and Ladakh travel diaries. Sent them for hibernation to hard disk
- More Movies: Persepolis, Blue, White, Man with a movie camera, Mon oncle, Frame within a frame, 8 1/2, Samsara.. many more.
- Compiled a list of movies I have. Something I didn’t expect myself to do. The same needs to be done for books too
- Realizing Creme & Fudge isnt worth all that hype. I remain, yours truly, a fan of CornerHouse
- But that said, discovering Irish Coffee at Gelatissmo has been a pleasure. Just the right amount of caffiene and sugar
- Cycling on a borrrowed Thunder MTB
- Planned & postponed visits to BOTS
- Got a film camera fixed, loaded Provia 100. Yet to complete the roll
- Lived a few days exclusively for melodrama. And a few days when I actually tried to let go of things, and even had some success at it.  The reading has come down significantly. Needs attention.
- Spent time wondering if 2009 will be as wonderful and action-packed as 2008 turned out to be
- Wondering why I haven’t been able to apply myself to write something on the blog
- Made a list of all the places I have travelled to outside India (Not the stop and run cities, but places where I actually spent time). The idea is to convert my paper-based diaries into digital format. Eventually, that is.
So, eventually, if I still am too chilled out to be bothered about a blog post, I might end up posting this list as well. The movie list, the book list. And now this. Too many lists, you say ?
- Admitting to self that one still has to pay up for the bread and the butter, and the dough for the occasional cheese needs to be earnt too.
- For those who believe in this NewYear buzz, I’ll start the NewYear with a small getaway. With the hope is that more travel will follow through the year.

For those who don’t, I’m just heading outta town for a coupla days. So, hang in there. Catch you all on the other side of the new year !

Wishing you all a fun-filled 2009 !!

But, a coupla hidden treasures need mention.

1/ Ustad’s house. An unassuming, old, a typically Banarasi building that was once Ustad Bismillah Khan’s house. The drawing room has those all familiar plaques on display - from Padma Shree signed by Rajendra Prasad to Bharat Ratna awarded during KR Narayan’s presidency. Unfortunately they don’t sell his music at the residence. But with all the pictures of the Ustad , the cartloads of accolades that hang from the wall and a shehnai on display, it isn’t very long before the music starts playing in your head.

2/ So, there is this place called Tateri Bazaar that is on no Lonely Planet. The shop owners busy themselves the entire day making these delicacies of rabdi, lassi and lal peda and throw the shop open by about 6PM. So an ideal thing to do for a soul-satisfying evening in Varanasi is to check out the ghat & arti scene, catch a mild dinner(optional), gulp some jal jeera to digest it and head to Tateri Bazaar by 9ish. Here is the ’soul-satifying’ bit. This knee-weakening sweet fair goes on well beyond midnight. Stay there as long as your digestive system allows you to..

I know it is a weird picture and all that, but what the heck - I like it.

[6AM, Commercial Street]

[8PM, IndiraNagar]

[6PM, Haridwar]

[7PM, Varanasi]

[12 Noon, PangongTso],

(For those in the know, this post could alternatively be titled ‘cheating’)

I’m pretty sure I’m going to process atleast a few of them. So, if this dry brown isnt your cup of butter tea , you’ll have to bail outta here - like today. I will present you many such opportunities to make an exit in future - but none might be as sincere :)

A scree slope at Alchi

Yet another ever-interesting subject was the Buddhist monk. Here goes one. More will be thrust upon thou as more posts on Ladakh make it to the site.. (Warnings apply)

At sunset, the evening shadow cast by the surrounding peaks engulfs the ridge on which the Namgyal Tsemo Gompa (Leh) sits and finally swallows the gompa into darkness. Quite a sight to see from the vantage point of Shanti Stupa. Right here, the range has already been plunged into darkness while a little bit of light still lingers on the gompa..

Namgyal Tsemo Gompa, as seen from Shanti Stupa. Leh.

So, yes - I’m back from a two month trip to Ladakh. As I was saying on a reply to one of my welcome back notes, it is the first time that I’ve come back home and haven’t quite returned yet. Ladakh continues to linger.. and still continues to consume much of my mind share. All the pictures and travel stories should come up here. Letz hope I dazzle with promptness :-p

The trip outline:
Manali and places around, Keylong, Leh, Spituk Monastery, Alchi - Murals & frescoes in the monastery, Thikse Monastery, Nubra Valley (Diskit, Hunder - White desert sands of Nubra, Bactrian camels, fertile valley, Sumur), Pangong Tso (Spangmik), Tso Moriri(Korzok), Tso Kar, Lamayuru, Dha, Likir Monastery, Padum, 10-day trek from Padum to Darcha via Shingo La. Back to Bangalore via Manali, Delhi.

I’m in the Shekhawati heartland – the flatland on the wrong side of the Aravallis. I’m familiar with this terrain, this dusty immensity. Four years amidst these mustard fields and thorny shrubs are part of fond Pilani college memories. The cactus flowers and camel carts haven’t changed all that much, but there is a small difference this time. Small, yet significant. I’ve got a new pair of eyes. I’m not anymore the teenager returning to college after the summer vacation. Right now, THIS IS my vacation. A vacation to discover the Shekhawati I’ve never seen. The Shekawati of 17^th and 18^th centuries. The Shekawati of the painted havelis and baoris. The towns that the marwari business men made it to be. I am haveli hunting, here in these painted towns of Shekhawati.

Even more unlikely than the setting of these havelis in this impoverished desert sands are the reasons that led to their creation. Ever since ShekhaRao brought this unenviable land under his command in the 15^th century (Hence the name Shekhawati), the region has mostly been held by his descendants. Many external forces buzzed in and out as overlords – the Mughals , the British, the Marathas – but none held the land directly. The Mughals supplied the first set of artisans who would work in these lands. But, as much as they sowed the seed of art in this land, they also prevented it from taking root. Next in line where the Rajputs who held fort -the literal and the proverbial - here and pledged allegiance to the British. They would later be the first set of patrons that Shekhwati would see. Between the high-tax caravan routes that passed through the princely states of Bikaner and Jaipur lay this small sandy ‘pass’ of Shekawati. The ever-enterprising merchants of the area turned the situation to their advantage and presented a low-tax route through Shekhawati to the huge caravan traffic- caravans transporting everything from textiles to opium from the ports of Gujrat to Mughal capital of Delhi and from the plains of Indus to the plains of Ganges. The taxes paid by these merchants filled up the treasuries fairly quickly and provided adequate funds to nurture the local artisans. This , however, was short-lived. Owing to fiscal pressure , the Jaipuri and Bikaneri kindgom cut taxes a few decades later on the passing caravans, dealing a significant blow to the Shekawati trade. The treasuries evaporated. Dissension and deprivation in the desert gave way to looting and murder. With all the pillaging and plundering , Shekhwati turned into a place called pandemonium in the later part of the 18^th century. Until the British intervened. When the British entered the region, with them came one of the biggest inventions of the Industrial revolution – a better transport system. A fine final blow to the already ruined caravan trade and local economy.

In a masterstroke of irony, it in this misfortune lay the construction boom of havelis. When the local economy died it’s death, the Marwari diaspora ensued. These shrewd and enterprising merchants went to places as far as Calcutta and Bombay to set up new enterprises and excelled in the new business they set up in these new cities. But it was at home - in Shekhawati- lay their honor, their social status, their need to showcase their entrepreneurial successes. With each success came an opulent wedding celebration or a local school, sometimes a local temple and frequently a grand family home – The Haveli. As the last lavish touch to this extravaganza, came the paint and the pigment on these havelis !

The deteriorated paintings on the outer wall of the Gulab Rai Ladia Haveli. Mandawa, Rajasthan.

(To be continued)

Around 5AM. The call for the first prayer at the JnanaVapi Mosque (And I’m skipping the irony talk on nomenclature here) and the chants from the morning puja at the temple are both relayed to the ears by the loudspeakers. This acoustic resonance hits harder on cold mornings. Even in this early morning zombie state, Rubens Tube comes to mind. It is still dark and I fumble down the double flight of stairs at Dasashwamedh Ghat. Despite the hour, there is significant activity at the ghats. No, ‘Despite’ is not the word,I’m told. ‘Because’ is. Early mornings are auspicious.

Auspicious or not, the riverside is definitely more atmospheric in this semi-darkness. The godmen start to arrive in their groups, chanting, singing and dancing. Each group has a flag of it’s own, a handful of drum-beaters and conch-blowers. Some even have a cymbal-clasher. The mahant ,the main baba, is easy to spot. He is the cliched mental picture that the word invokes: Loin-clothed and wearing a sacred thread across, with thick matted hair and ash smeared body, he carries a pole in his hand. (Also usually has the most aggressive facial expression in the group). They arrive in groups and take their respective places on the ghat-side. If you are into this business of salvation, the ghat side at Varanasi must make for an excellent location in terms of proximity to clientele. Not to mention that it must also make an excellent ground for recruitment and induction of financially well-situated international travelers in pursuit of salvation. Alm-seekers take up positions on the ghat steps. As do the flower sellers. But the massage specialists will have to wait until the morning arti and puja are done before they set-up shop.

As the sun rises on the opposite bank, the arti commences at Prayag Ghat. The Brahmins busy themselves offering arghya. Women perform puja to the Ganges. The Dasashwamedh ghat begins to get crowded. The intensity of humanity envelopes me. Everyone here is on a great endeavour - To be this someone forever. The tranquil Ganges snakes past Manikarnika and beyond the Panchathirta ghat where the enormous high-perched mosque built by Aurangazeb dominates the skyline in that part of the riverfront even in a city that feels very Hindu. But I walk upstream past the architecturally impessive Munshi ghat and arrive at Hanuman ghat.

The Hanuman ghat is where the Ganges is at its cleanest in Varanasi. There are’nt too many bathers, floating lamps or rituals – It is one of the ghats not considered particularly sacred and hence has been spared of excessive filth. An old woman clad in bright yellow saree sits on the step below me. She turns back and we exchange smiles. Her forehead is filled with vermilion and rice, indicating she has just returned from a temple or puja. ‘Are you from India’, she inquires hovering her eyes over the camera gear. Yes. ‘Are you by yourself here?’. ‘Yes’. More questions follow. Where are you from, Why are you here and Where are you headed ? When presented with these questions in a place such as Varanasi, you can’t immediately tell if these questions are philosophical or biographical in nature. Her face is serious enough, but she seems harmless. So, I decide it is the latter. Bangalore. Just traveling. To Delhi.

‘I don’t live here. I’m from a village nearby. Going to Allahabad to meet my son’, she offers animatedly. She produces an assortment of things she is carrying in her bag for her newborn grandson: Sanctified clothes, sacred threads of sorts, blessed flowers from a priest, holy Ganges for the kids bath and some earthly sweets of milk and ghee. She asks me if it is 7′o clock yet and then unpacks to reveal a horticultural display that her puja goods are made of and proceeds to the lip of the water to offer prayers to the river.

Further South, the Harischandra ghat is busy with the burning and cremation. Even further is the Maharaja Chet Singh’s ghat adorned with chattris. I’m at Kedar ghat now, with a temple striped red-and-white – possibly a South Indian hand in the temple gestion. I’m scouting around with my camera in hand and it is currently pointed at a saffron-robed man. He summons me to his side with a smile. A smile is a good sign, usually.

Who? Why ? Where To? He wants to know the answers to the same three questions. Also , one more. What do you plan to do with the photo you wanted to take? Well,…errr…Nothing much really. I haven’t thought about that. Then why do you spend time taking pictures then. Err…Umm..So I use the question-for-a-question tactic: ‘So, what do you do?’

‘Me? I’m a baba’. Chilling at the riverfront under a shade ? That is not a real job, I want to tell him. It is hard to believe that he is a baba. For starters, he bears a smile and has a friendly disposition. And he hasn’t asked for ‘photo-rupee’ yet. His body language matches that of normal people - without a ‘You-are-a-lesser-mortal’ air. Three simple stripes of ash run across his forehead. And he is even fully clothed. And no matted hair ? This guy , a baba ? The baba-hood is a post-retirement job, he explains and in not exactly the same way. He also officiates pujas at one of the many small shrines that line the ghats, he confesses later.

‘What do you like about Varanasi ?’, he asks when we get talking.

‘Hmm. .The faith. However mindless it is, there is an unquestioned sense of belief. In something. Or someone.’

‘And, you like that ?’

‘It is intriguing’. It is not a Yes, nor a No. That is the kind of answer I’ve been trained to give by my corporate bosses.

‘You don’t believe in God ?’, he asks sending out a warning sign. I don’t know yet if atheism comes in his ambit.

‘Ummm..It is difficult to explain’. Boy,they should give me a Ph.D for these answers. Anyway, he considers this an acceptable response.

‘When you came to Varanasi what did you have in mind ? What did you hope to see ? ‘

‘Hmm..I expected the Ganges to be wider’, I start non-controversially. ‘I did not expect such narrow labyrinths and chaos within the city. I expected a lot less commercialism – you know these peddlers and people alike. I expected more old world atmosphere. What I see today are mobile phone-wielding , money-extorting priests, Bisleri bottles, evening arti to a music played by a sophisticated CD player and Benarasi silk saree ads at the end of arti. I expected something more – Something that signifies a 3000 years of religious history.’

He smiles in agreement and then points me to a tree with strings tied to it’s trunk and pieces of little colorful clothes to its branches. There is a small piece of rock smeared with vermilion at the base - a man is offering prayers front of it.

‘You see that? That tree represents a yakshi (tree-spirit) – Yakshis were the honored objects of worship even before the emergence of Shiva and Vishnu cult (Yes, This is one piece of info about Hinduism I knew). So, that man there is practicing something that is much more than 3000 years old. ‘You see the Ganga ?’, he waves his hand in the direction of the river. ‘She has been flowing for as long as mankind has been there’. With two perfunctory waves of his hand, he dispenses a dose of profoundness. History is people and their practices. Not buildings and archaeological excavations. He is right. Baba or not, when a man has a point you have got to give it to him.

He resumes conversation: ‘I don’t see why so many westerners come here. There is nothing of interest to a non-Indian. And they dirty this place.’ When he talks about the dirt bit, I find myself nodding my head vigorously too and not for exactly the same reason. ‘They leave this place dirtier and foster greed among the locals. It is not good karma. Someone should tell these westerners that they coming here does no good either to them or to a the city that has little to offer to them’, he declares opinionatedly. So, if you are a westerner reading this, you are hereby advised to take stock of your karmic brownie points before you make that much-anticipated Varanasi trip :-p

It is about 9AM and businesses of the non-religious kind is picking up.

‘Hello, Bonjour, Hola.’ When I don’t respond to any of these - something that I’ve learnt since I arrived here in Varanasi - he accosts me with ‘Mademoiselle, voulez-vous des cigarettes? Maydam, you want cigarettes? European cigarettes’. I tell him I’m not interested in his cigarettes, primarily because I don’t smoke. He thinks it is a pricing problem. ‘8 euros, maydam’. ‘Only’, he adds as an after-thought. Ignore. Keep walking. ‘May be later? Yes?’, he offers. ‘Yeah, may be’, hoping he’ll go away. And he does, earning much of my gratitude.

This is the Varanasi of today – a potpourri of devotional and backpacking audience, both Indian and international , to whom these peddlers on the the ghats cater. The ghats are literally under siege by hawkers, beggars, boatmen and people selling everything from silk to spirit(both the instrintic and the infused variety), stalking you speaking a million languages from French to Swahili. I’m back at Munshi ghat now. The sun is pretty high in the sky.

As I sit on the steps of Munshi Ghat, a little boy about 12 years of age pulls over, puts down his peddling ware, sits down right next to me and heaves.. A heavy load of dreck for a boy of his age. He gazes at my bag, spots a water bottle. ‘Pani hai kya?’, with a friendly smile and a casual carelessness that comes with his age. I pull the bottle out and hand it over to him. He drinks to his throats content, almost finishes the bottle, but hands the bottle back. I instinctively say, ‘Thank you’. He slumps and stretches on the steps. We are both conscious of each other’s presence, but I continue writing. He leans over to look at my notebook. But surprisingly, there is silence.

A couple of minutes later (There it comes!), ‘One rupee, please’. This little guy ,who has just stretched himself to a comfortable position beside me, now wants money! Clearly he isn’t begging. He is merely trying his luck.

I smile, shake my head. He understands that it means No.

“One rupee, pleeease”.

I raise eyebrows, surprised that he is serious. I shake my head a bit more strongly and I pretend to focus on writing. A Firm No.

“You want some Saadhu photos ?” He has managed to pull out a few from his bundle and is now armed with a handful of picture postcards. 12*1 photos pack, it reads.

“You want some saadhu photos ?”, he asks again. “Not fake ones for foreign people. Real saadhus from Maha Kumbh.”, he adds, raising one hand in the air and making an it-is-big-deal face.

I have to accept now that with all his active body language and precocious confidence, he HAS managed to rouse my interest in this conversation. But most of all, what gets my attention are his eyes – bold, fearless, yet friendly. It is not that I don’t want picture postcards of saadhus, I don’t want ANY picture postcards. My backpack is brimful. But I do not mind keeping on with his conversation. So I ask him the MRP (Munshighat Rip-off Price)

“How much?”

“Assi rupey.”

“Assi ! Nahin..”

“Le lo nah..” He is not beseeching or even trying to convince me. It is casual and it is a demand- it rings of liberty that stems from acquaintance.

I sigh. I see what trap I’ve fallen into. This guy is capable of adding another whole kilo to my backpack if I don’t make an escape. A moment later, I’m on my feet. And, he calls after me (but unlike most of these sellers , he does’nt scrambling unto me).. “Kithna dhoge ? Chalees (40)?” He probably can see me shaking my head vigorously in response, without turning around. ‘Teek hai, thees..bee pe le lohhh’. Loud enough for me to hear, but he still hasn’t moved an inch from his comfortable posture.

I’m floored. From 80 to 20 in less than 2 minutes, without me uttering a word in bargain ! I turn around.

‘I give you. One pack. 20 rupees final !’, he declares.

‘I can click one photo. Of you. Free !’ My counter-offer to end this encounter.

‘Acha ayega’ ?

‘I’ll try’. Bloody choosy brat.

Poses. Click. NOW, the samson stirs and he comes over to see himself on the LCD and gives an approving look, but doesn’t ask for a copy. I give a tight-lipped smile and then a firm wave. Bye.

As I turn around to leave, I hear the familiar voice once again: ‘Didi, didi, one rupee, please..’. Pause. ‘Please. Pleeease’. Those eyes again..

Scoot. I run for dear life.. I think I’ll avoid Munshi ghat for another couple of days.

Picture shot at Paia, a village near Along, West Siang District, Arunachal Pradesh.

Our man here is a Gallong Adi tribal preparing the paddy grains to make Apong. Apong is a beer made out of rice. It is atleast 3-month process that includes drying, smoking, fermenting, filtering and finally the concoction is drunk out of a bamboo shoot. Gallons and gallons of apong goes down the Gallong Adis’ throat during Mopin, an Adi festival in the month of March/April. What you see here is the smoking stage when the rice is smoked on fire in damp weather. With that, here is an Apong toast to you! Cheers ! :-)

Picture shot at Sille, East Siang District, Arunachal Pradesh. I also spent about 10 minutes trying to make my lips go the same way, like her gymnastic lips did. No such luck. (Ok, now don’t imagine me doing that!)

Sille (pronounced Silly) is a tribal village lies in between Oriamghat and Pasighat. She is a Sille woman. No, no - She wasn’t silly.

She giggled and blushed, shied like a little girl, clapped hands like a toddler, gestured animatedly when she spoke in the local language (that we didnt understand!). And she is 90-something. She didn’t let me take a picture of her until she’d called everyone in her family , extended family, neighbours (& their extended family),dogs and hens to witness the event. One of them in the congregation said, “Lately there have been people associated with Front (ULFA-ish people he meant?) coming into Arunachal”(Hint.hint). The only Front I can possibly think of being associated to is the ‘Garden Gnome Liberation Front’. Though I didn’t tell him that.

A young monk at NewGompa, Mekchuka. East Siang Dt, ArunachalPradesh.

Mekchuka , amidst those snow-peaked sawtooth mountains, seems really like an end-of-the-world location. But the world continues - into China beyond those mountains. It is the last village on the Indian side near the Indo-Chinese border area, which is approx 20-30 kms away, as the crow flies that is. On foot, the border is a 4-day trek for the Indian Army that goes patrolling in non-winter months. In winter, this route is practically impassable. Mekchuka is also home to two impressive gompas - The old gompa is atop a hill and is about an hours climb. The old gompa has a 10 foot tall statue of I-don’t-know-what that had three devilish head arranged in a deck (amidst other Buddhist masks, Buddha statues, butter idols, prayer wheels, Tibetian scriptures etc). The new gompa is closer to the village and is a quick 15mins climb, although slightly steep. The New Gompa being closer to the village attracts the religious crowd. The New Gompa now houses a school for young monks.

**
This post is to my Dad, who has been after me to make a post on the NorthEast ever since I returned from my trip :) Dad: I’m so bored this week, why don’t you write something on your blog ? Me: You are bored and I need to post on my blog ?

That enigma called Jeanne Moreau ! I *love* YouTube !

Emerald green grass in the plains. Ubiquitous valley system in a canopy of green. A myriad of life forms. Orchids, Rhinos, Hornbills, Rhododendrons. The perpetual drama of rain and mist. Snow-capped peaks and high-altitude lakes. End of universe settlements. Animist worship to Buddhist meditation. The silver ribbon at the base of the valley – Siang. Exoctic tribal festivals. On a Four wheel drive. To Three North-Eastern states. Two travellers from Bangalore, awestruck. One amazing trip ! ;)

Guwahati – Kaziranga – Jorhat – Dibrugarh - Pasighat - Along – Adi tribal villages– Mekchuka (Of the Memba people) – Daporijo (Nyishi & Tagin tribal area) – Ziro - Apa Tani tribal villages – Tezpur - Nameri National Park - The Tawang Route - To North beyond Tawang – Shillong - Cherrapunjee.

Ratan and Bikram , the camel drivers-cum-cooks, light some firewood and set a place to make dinner. By the light of the firewood I can see the solitary camel limp around in the background and I can hear the rustle of desert shrubs when it picks off a few leaves with its strong teeth. Once the sun goes down, the dunes cool down instantly, almost by magic. I move closer to the cooking fire for some warmth and watch Ratan and Bikram conjure a wonderful dinner out of almost nothing without me having to lift as much as a finger. As we settle down to have food, Ratan patiently handles my volley of questions on desert life – how was life a decade ago when there was no electricity, how do you get by a drought, how much does a kilo of bajra cost, for long can the well feed the villages when the rains fail, how long do sand storms last , yada-yada-yada.

An hour later, Bikram spreads a sheet on the sand and tell me that my bed is ready. A few years ago I was in Switzerland during summer, where I spent a few nights in a barn. Those hay stacks had been the softest bed that I’d ever slept on until that time. But this silky desert sand beats it all. As I lie down, the bed of sand quickly takes the shape of my body, putting me at comfort and  Kurl-on to shame , simultaneously.

As the night progresses, the activity around is settling down. Ratan has gone to his bed and Bikram to his bidi. The infant moon has set too, leaving a star-bright sky behind. The Hunter has occupied his usual prominent place on the night sky. The camels have stopped snorting. The wind has busied itself in its super-important exercise: Transporting fine sand from one dune and depositing it on another a little farther away. It blows a chilly sandblast on the face of everything that is on it’s way, especially on those who question the purpose of its activity. Except for the crackle from the dying embers, you could have heard a pin drop. I have nothing worthy to add to this serenely still setting. May be I should go to sleep too.

**

I awake to the tinkles from the bells of the grazing camel. It must be well past midnight , for right above on my head in the sky is Bootes - flanked by Leo Major and the unmistakable crown of Corona Borealis. The long tail of Hydra snakes and bends past Crater & Corvus and leads my eye to the head of Scorpio (whose own long tail winds and twists crookedly, before disappearing into the south horizon ). I hug myself hard as I realize it was not those gentle clinks that woke me, it is the cold. I tug at the rucksack to pull out my jacket and the star dial falls out. It is a sign. Or perhaps not. But it is hard not to be enamored by the cloudless star-studded desert sky. My night is packed.

I’ll never know what ensued the next couple of hours was a dream or was for real. I drifted between the shifting sands and the scintillating sky watching the stars move in a procession across the surreal sky. Against the crystal clear dark background, the stars take on an unreal brightness. So bright that they felt perilously close. So close that I could have practically touched them.

In this mesmerizing drama of shooting stars and shining planets, the names of constellations and stars soon start to lose their relevance. All that seemed to matter was that there were those twinkling dream-like galactic diamonds and there was me, until there were just those diamonds…

A solitary camel at the dunes. Thar Desert, Rajasthan

Summer ushered in early, they say: Even the demoiselle cranes have left a fortnight too early. The hot whirling wind from the desert blows continuously carrying fine sand. And when the wind is strong enough, one can even hear the sound of its circular breathing. Camels and humans alike have to break this eddy as they trudge forward.

To fancy a walk outside of a desert village in the afternoon ‘to check out desert life’ is as magnificent as a folly gets for the Bisleri-drinking bloody tourist! ;) It must have been about twenty minutes in the afternoon and even this simple action of walking around rhe small human settlements outside the village wears me down. I instinctively reach for the bottle of water and empty it out. But almost instantly, I feel better.

Water. Water is the key to survival in these lands. Something that these villages have very little of. Ratan, who comes from a nearby village where his parents continue to live until today, says there was hardly any water in his village when he was young. ‘Whenever there was , it was so murky that we had to strain it all day long in shade. And finally, the little water that was left was so salty that we had to add sugar to mask the taste’.

‘Ithna hi paani mein dhin ka pura kaam chalaathe the’. He cups his right hand to indicate the quantity – I stare in disbelief.

Likewise in Jaisalmer, a restaurant owner who had moved there about half a decade ago remembers his memorable childhood folly: Forgetting a bowl of water on the courtyard to the scorching summer sun, losing the water for the entire day to evaporation! Fortunately, now that his village has sufficient water to get by, he can laugh at the incident today.

Today, the scene isn’t as bad in Khuri. It has been much better off since the last decade,since the time desert safari scene picked up here: When the tourists started trickling in, with them came electricity. And consequently, a borewell that provides Khuri’s salt water today. All the rainwater is diverted into two wells that serve the village’s need for drinking water.

Most villages have electricity and have risen above the erstwhile state of despair for most part of the year, they tell me. But there are still small settlements outside villages for whom life is still a daily strife – A constant battle with the encroaching desert , raging elements and limited resources. Why then do they live outside the villages , I ask. Well you know , it is for these cattle – Living far out the cattle gets enough to eat (no depletion from over-grazing), which cuts the spending on cattle food significantly in summer months. A simple math on cattle maintenance is produced by Badal Singh, the man who runs the guest house I stay in: ‘Living within the village, during summer it costs 50 rupees to feed a cow. And I get 30 rupees worth of milk. A 20 rupees loss every single day during the summer months’. Fortunately for him, the guest house business brings him adequate money to see him through the year.

But even in villages like Khuri that are better-off, the visual indications of desert life are ubiquitous. Conservation and Recycling are the perennial buzzwords. The evening finds men twisting strands of waste cloth or camel fur into ropes to tie the goats with. Not fresh water, but it is usually the water that has been used a couple of times for cleaning that is given to the animals. The vessels are washed sparking clean ,not with water, but fine sand. Bajra, a crop that requires a mere 2-3 rainfalls to yield a good harvest, is their staple food. Curries and pickles alike are made out of the desert kher. People bathe in a quarter bucket of water standing on a huge big basin that collects the water from ablutions -and this collected water is then reused – Conservation has become a way of life. ‘But with sufficient rains in 2006 and 2007, these are good times’, I’m quickly reminded.

A village woman at Khuri

Almost all the food consumed, except probably for bajra and kher that is grown locally, arrives from the neighboring state of Gujarat. Fruits are a luxury and fresh vegetables non-existent. But,thanks to the tourism, there is enough buying power in the village. There is even some money to spare on education. Khuri has a government school, which is also plagued by the omnipresent problem of govt schools: Schools without teachers, atleast none at arrive before midday. But, it is a school nevertheless. There are two private schools too that offer better quality of education, but are these are only primary schools and students have to go to the government school for higher classes. But the free books from the state government scheme seems to have reached the students.

That day back at the guest house talking over evening tea, Badal Singh, a man who has never set foot in a school and has learnt all his English from visiting tourists, says: ‘My life is changing now. I have a lot of friends who first came here as travelers, who have become my good friends and well-wishers over the last 10 years’.

‘Without education, one is blind.’, he continues. ‘There was nobody to guide me. But atleast now I have people who can guide me on these matters’, he finishes in impeccable English !

And as we chat away in the front yard, Badal’s son, who was busy in the morning with science lessons, now sets out to take a few tourists to the usual evening sunset safari. Constantly juggling his time between school work and supplementing family income with a few camel safaris, it is a life of unquestioned contradictions.

The water’s edge at the ghat is surrounded by moored boats , boats that bring the wood stock for the cremation from downstream. Wrapped in a simple red cloth or shiny expensive silk or both (depending on how rich the family of the deceased is), the newly arrived bodies - sometimes from places as far away as Mumbai or the Middle East - await in a long queue at the waterfront waiting its turn to be doused in the Ganges before the final rites begin. There is an incessant inflow of bamboo litters carried by doms, a group of outcastes who hold the fort at Manikarnika ghat.

This burning ghat in Benares is exclusively a dom’s territory. Transporting the dead bodies to the ghat, maintaining the supposedly sacred fire from which all funeral pyres are lit, chopping up the wood, weighing them, hauling up the huge logs to the cremation place, calculating the taxes, kindling and upkeep of the pyre to ensure proper burning, dousing the embers after the rites are over – everything that happens here is done by the doms. One of dom men I’ve been talking to says that it takes a minimum of 4000 rupees and 3 hours to burn a body. For the financially less fortunate, the body is taken to the middle of the river and drowned with a stone tied to it – The water currents are supposed to do the rest. But, in this season, the river current takes it no further than the few hundred meters to the sandy bank opposite, where the large packs of starved dogs bank on this meat for survival.

‘All these tons of ash and flesh everyday, don’t they pollute the river ?’, I ask him. With an incredulous look , he demands- ‘Aap Hindu hain na’? When I answer in the affirmative, he explains in a touchy tone that the ‘great Ganges is the miraculous Shakti and she is capable of cleansing her waters. It is not within the means of mere mortals to pollute her’. I cannot help but notice the testimony that the filth-ridden waters at Varanasi hold to this miracle in action. But, I talk no more of pollution to him.

In this cremation ground, no one is wailing, screaming,weeping. But there is a hurried solemness about this place. It is a constantly bustling scene: The bodies being bathed in Ganga, cremation ground cleared, firewood stock being managed, little children idling time on a boat moored nearby, a group of boys drying their clothes in the heat of a funeral pyre, snap-happy foreign tourists – No one cares about anyone else’s presence, except for an odd self-proclaimed ‘fireman’ of the ghat trying to make some money out of the tourists.

At Manikarnika, death seems to have been reduced to a sequence of logistics to be taken care of. Right here at Manikarnika ghat, the place where death is considered most auspicious, is also probably the place death is most clinical.

Firewood making its way to Manikarnika ghat

Cremation at Harishchandra ghat