aditya kumar's weblog

On the way to Delhi I find myself in the company of jaats, in fact a whole bunch of them. Now jaats are nice people but you don’t want to displease them because then they can be not-so-nice, at least thats what the general assumption is. This assumes more significance when they are wrestlers and there is a whole team of them. So while they freely chose to sarcastically comment, I continued to talk with a co-passenger girl who was an English Literature graduate student. Our talking mostly revolved around writers, writing and reading — as it happens when two aspiring writers meet. But as I later found out, she chose to change her seat for the rest of the journey, much to the dismay of her accompanying father, I assume. When I met her the other day, she quite predictably, blamed it on the jaats.

There was this one moment though when two jaats decided to push the middle berth back to its original place thereby making the lower berth a place for everyone to sit to (than to lie down). One guy had been already lying there and he chose to push the middle berth (hanging then) to its plying place without looking at the hook which was to hold it after the push. Obviously, the middle berth was not able to sustain itself and came back swiftly. The other jaat then quipped — Spiderman nahi dekhya hai ke? Jyada Taakat ke saath zimmedaari bhi aani chaiye (Haven’t you seen Spiderman — with great power comes great responsibility).

In Delhi, on a Wednesday evening I am in front of PVR Cinema, in Saket — The same place I once saw that journalist 13 years ago and watched an English movie first time in a movie theater. I am there to watch a movie and I have no idea what movie would be it. Valkyrie, looks good and I get a ticket to Audi 2, Row E, seat number 8. Before the show starts, I spend the little time I have listening to Robbie Williams on my iPod. As I enter the cinema, the security guard frisks me and my possessions quite thoroughly. So comprehensive that he wants me to show him my two cellphones and my iPod in “working” mode. I know the answer but I ask him why. So that we know these are not empty cases, he tells me. What harm could an empty case do, I am tempted to ask, that little wee bit of sarcasm and just to drag it a bit though I know exactly what he means. The glowing screens of my gadgets seem to satisfy him.

In the movie, just as another plot to kill Hitler is hatched — Intermission intervenes. You know its not supposed to be there but the cinemawalas need you to go get something to eat while they modestly show you their overpriced menu. I get myself a tea while I wonder how Tom Cruise looked the same, just as young as he is now, even during the times of Hitler. And while I try to make the most of the wide leg room at offer, my foot hits something hard on the floor. Its my iPod, lying there since I don’t know when.

Saturday evening I am at the exact same place at the exact same time and as it would later turn out the exact same seat as well (thankfully, not the exact same movie). I get myself a ticket to “The Curious case of Benjamin Button”. The security guard this time does not seem interested if I am carrying empty cases of what look like gadgets (And this baffles me — its a weekend so the “threat level” should be at a higher degree). And at Audi 2, Row E, seat number 8, this time I am left wondering how Brad Pitt who has been invariably looking the same since eternity has chosen to be born as an old man.

A little confused, I check for my iPod. Assured, I make the most of the wide leg room at offer.

On the road, in Goa, found a few names of the same place.

Agacim, Agassim, Agasim, Agacaim

Two of them, on different walls of a Government building.

Hopefully, I will never need to post a letter to anyone there.

The coach was not where it should have been. B1, B2, A1, A2. But not B3. Not a good thing. Specially when valuable time was spent (and lost, as it would turn out later) zeroing in on where one would expect B3 to be. And specially when buying water was overruled in the favor of the dinner parcel that I carried. Water, afterall, was something that was available anywhere. Five minutes to go and I had to turn back — all the way back that is. Amidst the maddening crowd at Bangalore City’s Platform 8, reaching the other end of the train within 5 minutes — well, that would require some running.

The moment I found B3, I sighed in relief. Once in, I kept my stuff and rushed back to the door. There was this chubby, (very) overweight, middle aged man standing on the door, talking to a slightly overweight, another middle aged man standing on the platform.

“I need water”, I said, hinting him to make way but the train moved instead. The man on the outside volunteered — he was not to be on the train. Chuck it, said his friend. “Achcha kaam karne de yaar, mauka mila hai”, came the reply.

“Water, even I don’t have that.”

“All the more reason for me to get some! I’ve been skipping my morning walk, but thats another thing! Let me try!”

Together we looked on. Another marathon at Platform number 8. A train pulling out of the station and a middle aged man, trying hard to overcome the machine to get a stranger and a friend, a bottle of water. We bid him our goodbyes as he lost out, eventually giving up. The look on his face — he was probably cursing himself for skipping his morning walk.

Though I have my doubts if that really made any difference.

Inside, we sat down. Turned out, his seat was across mine. I asked him how much time would it take to reach Londa from Hubli.

“2 hours and a little more”.

“And from Londa to Goa? 3 more, I guess?”

Problem was, one of my long time fantasies was turning to reality. You ever felt, at the last moment of it all, to discard the plans and doing something entirely new? Like, letting go the idea of going to place X, after you have boarded the train and wanting to go to place Y?

God help you if the place you had originally planned for doesn’t fall in the way of your new found adventure streak.

I boarded this train with a ticket to Hubli. I wanted to go to Londa — so I was to extend this ticket. I had to decide what to do at Londa after I board the train. From Londa, I could go to Dandeli, the place I have been planning to go for more than a week now or I could go to Dudhsagar falls. But now, I wanted to go to Goa.

You see, I had suddenly realized how homesick I had been.

Everyone who has ever asked me why I love traveling alone should get a hint now.

After a talk with this gentleman which lasted more than an hour and which merits its own post on this blog, he volunteered to get me some water. He eventually managed some, courtesy of one of the co-passengers that I hadn’t noticed until then. Some water but not enough to make me last the night.

Meanwhile, my indecisiveness was scaling new heights. I knew I had to go to Londa in the morning and I would need to catch a train for that from Hubli. I wasn’t sure of what would follow after that. Of one thing I was sure though — When in doubt, head home and you’ll never regret it. Never.

Thirst drew me to the coach attendant. It was past midnight. I don’t remember being so thirsty, ever. I asked him if he could help me. He stood up, went to the small compartment he kept stuff in and gave me a bottle of water. Asked me to keep it — he had his own, another one.

“Sure?”, I asked.”Sure”, he said.

It took a large, long burst of water before the first signals of a quenched thirst came from my mind. That moment, I gave a long, hard look at the bottle. “Packaged drinking water; The choice of Goa — Aditya”, it said. I read again, the last statement.

Would it be vice-versa, I asked myself.

You bet — something inside me answered back.

I see this guy, has this Johnny Depp kind of a beard and a physique that could make the strictest of gym goers wonder what could be wrong with their workout regimen. Only later do I realize, because of his continued conversations on the phone, that he is a Muslim. He is called Aslam.

So we rode down to the river where the Victorian ghosts pray
For the curses to be broken
We go underneath the arches where the witches are and they say
There are ghost towns in the ocean
The ocean…

He is not a strict Muslim, that much I can see. For he does not do his prayers on the floor but on the train seat itself, with a pillow on his lap. And it is at that moment that the words are spoken to me, the sound in my head —

Gunners in the houses and gunners in my head
And all the cemeteries in London
I see god come in my garden but I don’t know what he said
For my heart it wasn’t open
Not open…

Suddenly it’s all very clear. That very moment, those few seconds, I cease to see him as Aslam. Instead, I start seeing him as a misunderstood Muslim. And perhaps more importantly, a Muslim that has misunderstood it all. I have not come across many defining moments in my life but I sure know how it is when one happens.

A few days back I read it somewhere and I think it was Bono who said — “Generally, religion gets in the way of God.” I know exactly what Bono meant when he said that. Certainly, this is not about U2 or Coldplay’s latest or Aslam. It’s about identities lost, perceptions — both right and wrong, failures to connect with each other at the human level and a broken hotline with God, to top it all.

Suddenly, it’s all very clear to me.

From the archives, this post originally written almost 3 years back, in February 2005, deserves a comeback. I am posting it as is, again.

“Thats the James Bond Beach”, said my sister.

“Thats the what bond beach?” I asked, my face giving a convincing, confused look not sure about what I just heard.

“James Bond Beach”.

My mind raced back to all the James Bond movies I had seen, the last 4. I could not even recall a single movie scene shot in India. Bond in India? At this place? How come I do not know about it.

“Why is it called that?”, the confused look on my face has transformed into a curious one.

“Oh its not called that. I call it that. Because, you know, it gives a feeling of how a typical beach is, in Bond movies. Blue water, silver sand, no one around, a seemingly private beach. colorful fishing boats beyond the coastline. The James Bond beach.”

She was right. This looked strikingly similar to one of those. It was probably the most beautiful sea shore I had ever seen in my life.

And for the third time in the last few minutes, the look on my face was changed to a convincing one. Yes, the James Bond beach. I was now staring with gleaming eyes on the waves, crashing on the silver sand, as if, in a matter of seconds, a bikini clad Halle Barry would just pop up from nowhere between the waves. The Bond-James Bond, Beach.

I am talking about a place called Karwar, a small town in the northern coast of Karnataka, a 150 km drive from Goa. I have stayed more than half of my life on the coast, and this was, quite easily, the best seashore I had ever seen. The water was bluer than the sky. The sun shone on the white sand, washing it and left it glimmering like silver. The sea was calm, as if pretending to me, that it has always been like this. Like storms, cyclones and the recent tsunami, were strangers to this sailors grave. “It wasn’t me”, as if the sea was telling me. The waves, calm and blue on the surface of the sea. But just before they crashed on the white sand, they suddenly turned green, as if venting some hidden anger only to be released in small quantities at regular intervals so that it goes unnoticed by anyone not paying attention. The anger, it holds inside, I said to myself. Behind me was the Navy establishment giving it the look of a private beach. And no one on the shore. Just the sea and somewhere on the horizon, the deep blue sea and the pale blue sky met. Nothing at all in sight. A sight to remember. It was like a hidden treasure, in the vicinity of the Naval authorities and away from the already little tourist attraction this city receives. It had no name, so we call it The James Bond Beach. The “Bond. James Bond” Beach.

Today I came back to Delhi after 17 months. I had to. I think I owe this one to this place. No marriages to attend, no specific purpose per se; and yet I find myself in Delhi, spending a good half of my days off here.

Since I was born here and since I have spent most of my adolescence here in this city, I usually use Delhi’s name as a way out when someone asks me where I belong to. I have stayed more in Bombay than Delhi but yet I do not know for sure if I belong to this city more than any else. After spending my life in 6 cities, what place I really belong to is a question that shall always warrant a definite, and probably a more justified conclusion, something that I would never be able to arrive on.

I am yet to come to terms with air travel. Now, I have traveled by train for most of my life and I still do, but the idea that I was on the seashore till today morning and in the plains of Delhi at lunch still bewilders me.
It bewilders me because the transition is way too fast. A train travels at its own pace and you get to see the landscape changing with your own eyes. You hear the changes in dialect and your mind knows that a change is happening. You get away from the sea and the smell of the muddy swamps leaves you slowly. You start breathing more air in air. The short gushes of wet, cool air that come in intervals of the omnipresent breeze become less frequent. And you get time to soak in, sink in. The journey may take 36 hours but in a way you feel more fresh, more ready when you arrive at your destination.

I had more plans; I was to have my dinner at Amritsar tonight, the northwest frontier of India. If I didn’t have this upset stomach now, I would be in the holy city of Amritsar by night to stay there for a day. But in a way I am glad that it has stalled me here. I have traveled alone all the time and I have never had any problem with that but strangely, this time, Delhi leaves me with a feeling of voidness. I think the concept of traveling alone does not work for me anymore. It is good that I have understood this shortcoming, If one can call it that, now — precisely when it has happened.

I sometimes think, and these ‘sometimes’ are quite often, I am probably in the wrong profession. Or perhaps, I take my profession only seriously to an extent where it just qualifies to be “serious” enough. Kind of, on the edge of it all. Honestly, I am not okay with the idea that I spend 16 hours everyday, 5 days a week thinking about whats going on at work and checking my office emails all to often. I know people who do that. These people, at the same time, always complain of how the work gets to them and how much they want to get away from it.

Truth is that, on the contrary, they themselves do not attempt to get away from the madness.

I once heard these lines somewhere and I believe in it so much that it motivates me to take my mind off the trivial things that sink me down everyday — When I am 75, lying on a bed (probably because thats all I’d be able to do), I would not think that, okay — I should have chosen .NET over Java. I would not think about a project that I once messed up. I would probably not think about the laurels I was applauded for. But yes, I’d probably think and wish that I had spent more time with my parents and my sister. I’d probably be wishing that I had traveled more than I had, when I could. I believe in this so much that once I start thinking on these lines, I start hating everything that stops me from treading the path that I so much want to. Not that I have been unsuccessful all the time, in fact I am one of the most traveled persons you will ever come to know of.

So the coming two months could be one of travel. Konkan, Goa, Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta are the places I’ll have to choose from. The only time I was in Calcutta was last year and since then I have carried a part of it with me. There is a world to be explored in the streets and corners of Calcutta and I intend to do it as and when I’d be able to.

Besides, this city is testing my endurance. I have been away from home for close to 9 years now and yet, at times I feel like my first day alone, on my own. The few friends I had could not stand the loneliness this city offered them — I mean, here is a city where you can’t even talk to another guy on the street because of the language barrier. So they left. I don’t blame them. The few that remained, got married. I don’t blame them too — they had to get married, however harsh the idea may seem (No, I am not opposed to the idea at all). They, however, had to get married because loneliness got the better of them. But seriously speaking, even a guy like me who needs his solitude more than the average guy does, finds time hard to go by on a sunday evening. I too, at times, contemplate on leaving Bangalore and going back to Pune — a city of my so many ‘firsts’, a city that once got my wrath for being so insensitive by making me walk on roads that reminded me of a better time, a city once I promised to never return for all the time to come. But then again, it would be foolish to think that Pune is the same and that it would offer me all that it once did. If I go to Pune, I would go with a clean slate, a clear conscience and a heart free of prejudice but also, at the same time, free of expectations.

I am surprised that I am thinking about going back to Pune, in the first place. Its strange, and perhaps funny, how time makes even the sternest of minds to bend.

Meanwhile, expect some travelogues.