Morning walk

In Finland, says an article today’s FT Weekend, 14 percent of the population are avid bird-watchers. “Armed with binoculars and a mobile phone”, they venture out to explore “an oasis of birdlife on the Gulf of Finland”. If someone spots a rare bird, they use text-messaging to inform others of the find, and those who are interested in the species converge on the area where it was spotted.

The article reminded me of my walk last Sunday. The weather forecast for the weekend promised clear skies and moderate temparatures, so I planned on Saturday evening to walk through the nearby fields next morning and capture moments of life at that early hour we mostly miss during work-days.

Sm_neighbourhood

Dawn was breaking out when I left home next morning, armed with my camera and zoom lens (no mobile phone – whom could I SMS to describe the beautiful sunrise I was about to see?). The sky was clear, there was moisture in the air due to overnight rain, and the sleepy streets were slowly showing signs of waking up – I must wake up this early and walk more regularly, I told myself. And immediately I was reminded of the protagonist in R.K.Narayan’s The English Teacher, who wakes up early one fine morning to walk along the riverside.

“I stepped out of the hostel gates….As I walked down the lane a couple of municipal lamps were still burning, already showing signs of paling before the coming dawn.”

I soon crossed the edge of town and walked into the fields adjoining it. The eastern sky was lit up in orange.

“The eastern skyline was reddening and I felt triumphant. I could not understand how people could remain in bed when there was such a glory awaiting them outside.”

Sm_sunrise

I knelt down to click a few photos.

Sm_signboards

The dew on the grass, so fresh and pure, struck me as something I hadn’t observed in a long time. All through the walk this feeling kept coming back. How beautiful – I must do this more often.

“Nature, nature, all our poets repeat till they are hoarse. There are subtle, invisible emanations in nature’s surroundings: with them the deepest in us merges and harmonizes. I think it is the highest form of joy and peace we can ever comprehend. I decided to rush back to my table and write a poem on nature.”

Sm_fields

The stillness in the surroundings was broken from time to time by the click of the shutter. Such an experience was so uncommon that I began to romanticize it – me, my camera, and the sunrise, all merged into one …..

I got back home refreshed, and spent a few minutes telling my wife what she had missed. Then it was time to write.

“I returned to my room before seven. I felt very satisfied indeed with my performance. I told myself: ‘ I am alright. I am quite sound if I can do this every day. I shall be able to write a hundred lines of poetry, read everything I want to read, in addition to classwork…’ This gave place to a distinct memory of half a dozen similar resolves in the past and the lapses….I checked this defeatism! ‘Don’t you see this is entirely different? I am different today…”

I couldn’t think of a single topic to write on, so I jotted down some random pieces about different things. And felt very satisfied. Just as I am feeling now, after having written one more.

Random jottings on a Sunday morning

Ever since I learnt of M.O’s ailment I have started thinking about cancer and our war against it. A recent article in The Economist gave some grim statistics: 10 million people were diagnosed with cancer in 2000, and 6 million died from it. And the numbers are growing, despite the billions being spent on cancer research. The article, however, said there was hope for the future, in the form of a new treatment that is yielding positive results.

I am reminded of the first time I saw the movie Anand. I was probably 12 years old then, and the movie upset me terribly. I resolved to become a “doctor” and “find a cure” for cancer. My dad was very amused at this resolve – he even mentioned it to a friend and they laughed about it together. I didn’t find it funny at all.

Over the years two aunts in my family have succumbed to this disease. The count in my wife’s family is at three. And now M.O – someone who was in perfect health until the other day – has it too.

* * * * * * * *

I’m reading Pablo Neruda’s The book of questions. I fall into a trance, reading the questions…

If all rivers are sweet
where does the sea get its salt?

Tell me, is the rose naked
or is that her only dress?

Is there anything in the world sadder
than a train standing in the rain?

Why did the grove undress itself
only to wait for the snow?

Where can you find a bell
that will ring in your dreams?

Whom can I ask what I came
to make happen in this world?

Love, love, his and hers,
if they’ve gone, where did they go?

* * * * * * * *

On a recent drive with a friend, we were listening to songs from Swadesh.

“I want to see this movie” he said, after listening for a while.

“Why?” I asked.

“I like the songs – not one of them so far has been of the pyar-mohabbat type!”

* * * * * * * * *

We watched Khoobsurat (starring Rekha, Rakesh Roshan, etc) some days ago. Loved it, as always. Movies are reasonably accurate mirrors of the times they are made for, and this makes it easy to see why they do not make such movies now-a-days. Life isn’t so simple anymore. An Amol Palekar like character – full of innocence, simplicity and quite the opposite of a macho-man – would probably be a misfit in today’s world. Atleast he wouldn’t be someone most people would want to pay and watch in a movie. Thank God for old movies and literature.

* * * * * * * * *

It is a bright morning, and sun’s rays illuminate dark corners of the house and expose well-knit spider webs. Should clean up before wife spots them, I tell myself, and reach for the jhaadoo.

Her eyes are quicker than my hands.

Winter approaches

One notices the onset of winter through different signs. Fallen leaves are most common, but this time I saw winter coming differently: last weekend, when I was outdoors taking photos, I couldn’t hold the camera still and found my hands reaching for the pocket as soon as I completed a shot. It reminded me of last winter, which seemed not too long ago.

Conversations

“Finished with the comp?” she asks.

“Yes.” I reply

“Put up your next post, have you?”

“No.”

“No? Then what did you do?!!”

“Read other bloggers’ posts and felt guilty.”

“Serves you right. Hope the guilt kills you.”

“I see. Well, I just decided I haven’t finished with the comp. Not yet.”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Last week a friend was here for a few days. He had some time before his next term started, so he flew over from Ireland. We spoke – or rather, he spoke, while I listened – of many things: of days in Hyderabad (where he spent most of his childhood), of life in the CIEFL campus (where his dad, an English professor, acted with other colleagues in plays staged for the CIEFL community, and where he, as a kid, read Hansel & Gretel for a programme aired on the UGC), and life now in Ireland (where he sometimes visited friends who owned sheep which ran all over the place and refused to get back in after grazing despite his earnest and exhausting efforts, after which the dogs were let out and he watched with disbelief as they barked and hounded the sheep until they fell in line and walked back obediently into their enclosures).

His CIEFL days reminded me of my younger days, the times spent with families my parents socialised with, the uncles, aunties and their kids whom I played and fought with, the picnics and parties we attended, the movie-weekends we spent together and so on. And I could not dismiss the thought that kept coming back: how different the times are now.

It was the aspect of socialising that interested me most. Back then, dad used to come home around 6 pm and we would go out often, either shopping or to meet friends. If we stayed back, chances were good that someone dropped in home. There was constant activity, and the chatter never seemed to end. These days, the evenings seem to offer little time and energy for such activities (And on the rare occasions I get back at 6 pm, the abundance of time available sometimes makes me feel disoriented – for a while I’m unable to decide what to do, although I know that there is a lot to be done and that this extra time is such a blessing.)

We earn much more than our parents did during those days, and the work is good too, but most of life revolves around aspects surrounding work. Even when we find time to socialise, we do so with people in the software field (a lot of them are colleagues), and conversation often leads to topics related to office or software (and when it doesn’t it means the men are talking about cars or some new electronic gadget, while the women are exchanging recipes or discussing the merits of following Atkins’ diet).

I cannot help thinking about the families we interacted with many years ago in Kathmandu. Ravi Uncle worked at the Indian Consulate, Ramu Uncle worked with the Geological Survey of India, Venkataramiah Uncle was a professor of Psychology, Anand Sir was a teacher at the Central School I studied in, Mini aunty’s husband (I miss his name) was an ex-pilot, and my dad was an engineer – imagine the conversations such a motley crowd could have!

New times bring in new possibilities; these days I read blogs. And although they cannot be substitutes for real-life conversations, they open windows into other people’s lives and offer a chance to know – and sometimes interact with – people from different backgrounds. Alpha designs roads, Leela is in advertising, Patrix is an architect and public-policy expert, Rash and Anita are journalists, Hekate is (or was?) an ‘Instructional Designer’ – I shouldn’t really be complaining, should I?