A Sunset In The East

About the eastern lands of India, not much is said. They have always been far ignored, secretly kept and mysteriously hidden from the outside world. I happened to travel here in the middle of peak winter and witness some beautiful early sunsets, among other things.

“The prospect of spending a few days or weeks nestled in the mist, the clouds, cloaked by a determined history and a largely indeterminate future makes me both greatly excited and deeply concerned” I read in the travelogue by Sudeep Chakravarti titled “Highway 39” and I couldn’t agree more.

On my trip, I was accompanied by three of my girlfriends. After a tiring 55-hour train journey, we finally reached Guwahati on an odd afternoon. Odd, because we were welcomed by twilight at 4.30 p.m. It seemed unreal. Since it was my first time travelling to the eastern side of the country, it took me a while to get used to such a drastic weather change. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful experience to be there.

We were greeted by the relatives of one of our friends at the Guwahati Railway station and taken home, where we spent our first night. Itwas a warm house, much needed in the cold evenings of Guwahati. And having the delicious home-cooked lunch (especially after having the torturous Indian rail food for two days) was a huge relief. It felt like a home away from home. We were delighted to be in the company of a sweet chirpy Grandma who was extremely zealous to serve us hot food and a Grandpa who kept telling us stories from his youth about the time he was working with the forest department & had to hunt a man-eater Leopard.

Our goal, however, was reaching the land of Nagas and have a peek at the isolated lives of the tribes of Nagaland. The night drive to Nagaland was a little bumpy as the roads weren’t tarred and had zero street lights. We still managed, bearing through it all. On reaching the Zohenboto district, awaiting us was the Lumami Campus at University of Nagaland. We attended the YETI conference for two days and got to learn a ton of new science stuff that people from across the country were working on, meet some of the smartest minds and understand the way our world is developing because of these genius researchers.

But, after an overnight stay at the college hostel (where 7 p.m. felt like 2 a.m.) and many blissful walks under the moonlight (which was also the only source of light at night), we decided to head back to Guwahati to explore the beautiful (and highly recommended) wildlife. But leaving behind the beautiful Nagaland University, its lifeless jungles and the hars coldness was indeed an emotional moment.

On our way back, we stopped at a local hut for a cup of tea. The lady we met there made our belief in humanity stronger. Sitting with her over a cup of tea beside the fireplace and getting to know the story of her life within a few minutes was an endearing experience. She was overjoyed while talking to us. She felt proud of the fact that four young girls from a faraway land had come all the way to explore her home. When she found out that we had to travel the entire night ahead, she packed us some Oranges without charging a single rupee. It wasn’t just humanity, it was love. I think it was the first time I experienced such affection from a stranger. The Oranges she gave us were much more than just a fruit, for us they were the love & the warmth of her place that we got to carry along with us in the cold night on road that ahead and also forever in our hearts.

Next morning, we reached the Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary. It was a secluded little place, bustling with wildlife, safely hidden from the business oriented tourism of Assam. Situated just about an hour away from the city of Guwahati, it was a heavenly destination.

Here, the layers of mist danced on both sides of the road. The bright water lilies rose up in the mist covered ponds and the vast stretches of mustard fields washed in yellow made for a perfect landscape. No words could describe the serenity of this place. The dull colored grasslands, over which the Rhinos were feeding, thousands of Lesser Whistling Teals by the water and the huge migratory Adjutants flying above our heads were just among the first few observations. As we explored further, we found out that the water alone was a storehouse of 90 different species of birds, 65 out of which were the winter migrants. And the number of birds on the grasslands were impossible to count.

At the end of the day, all we knew was that we never wanted leave and go back home.

But, like all good things, this trip to the North-eastern tip of India ended too. It left behind a permanent mark on our lives though. Our understanding about the people, about the life here, changed and changed for good.

We know that these lands are going to keep calling us back and we are going to head there every chance we get, perhaps to meet the chai lady and all the flying winter visitors.

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A travel account from December 2014

Unposted..Unanswered..

I stop at your door, I ponder over the thought of entering. But like every day, I fight the feelings and decide to go in. As I take a step inside, countless thoughts flood my mind. It’s you in every picture.  I wonder why you have left me, alone, wounded, and crying. It is worse because you never liked to see my tears. Your presence always spread happiness, you made sure of that. I remember how optimistic you always were, even when things went against you. Everything beckons me.

I walk in, I see your mother talking to an elderly woman. She is sobbing, maybe expressing your loss.  She doesn’t notice me, but she realises that someone has arrived. She carefully covers her face by pulling her pallu on her forehead.  I am confused, I want to talk to her and tell that I am hurt as well. I want her to know that I cared for you too. And, I miss you too.

The old woman leaves. Your mother gets up and walks towards the kitchen. I want to go in to talk to her, but I don’t understand if following her would be okay. Because, after you vanished from our lives, things have changed; the equations are no longer the same.  All relations have become uncertain, feeble and vacant. It seems like the glue that bonded us has lost its stickiness.

But then I hear a sound from the kitchen. It’s a manly voice, probably your father. He is shouting at your mom. He says she must stop sobbing before everyone who comes to visit her. Start forgetting your departure and start living her life again. But I wonder what she will reply. You were her life and how can she start living you when you are dead!?

I am completely out of focus for them as they continue their routine activities. Your father grabs a book and sits on his huge green chair by the window. Your mom, sobbing in the kitchen, opening the fridge to find some milk. They have gotten used to your friends coming at any hour and sitting near your nicely framed photograph that has a fresh garland on it every day. Today, however, it’s me, again.

So love, your parents don’t seem to have anything to talk to me. And maybe I don’t want to talk to them either. Just knowing that I can be around you, in your house, beside your photo and your things is more than enough for me.

But in all this chaos, my dear love, I forgot to ask you a simple thing,

WHY?

Why the suicide?

Why didn’t you tell me what bothered you?

Why was the decision so hasty?

Why didn’t you talk to me?

Why did you leave me alone?

WHY?

Why the suicide?

Oblivious

It rained that night. It was nothing less than a deluge. The sirens of the police cars could be heard from a distance. The gossiping voices were not audible because of the heavy pouring but I could see a blur gathering of the crowd from my window. The murder of Mr Bajpai and his 22-year-old son, living on Sector 3A of Cumballa Hill, had shocked every soul in the vicinity. The deeply shocked Mrs Bajpai was in no condition to talk. All the high-class socialites who populated this street felt safe no more.

“The police are doubting their maid. They took her in for questioning” said Mrs Kumar to Mrs Pandey when they were strolling around the garden the next morning. The lifestyle at Cumballa was relaxed and luxurious. I kept sitting on the same bench for Mrs Kumar and Mrs Pandey to pass by me while walking around the garden so I could overhear any other advancements about the murder. They didn’t have any. Well, it was easy for ladies of Cumballa Hill to shift from something like murder to which designer’s saree they were going to wear for the next day’s party. I moved on.

My routine was quite simple. Wake up early, go for a run, sit on the same bench in the garden where the tracksuit & gold-clad ladies took their morning stroll. Then, make some lunch, pack it and head out for work only to come back late at night. The abrupt murder in my locality hadn’t really affected me. I occasionally saw cops around the Bajpai house, but it felt irrelevant to me until the day they knocked on my door.

I was sitting on the swing chair in the balcony of my apartment, reading the latest Agatha Christie book I got my hands on, when I heard the knock on my front door. It was a Sunday night and the clock hands rested at ten. I was surprised to see Mr Rai, the inspector-in-charge of the Bajpai case, waiting at my door and after a minute, opening the door by himself and entering without looking at me.

He looked ravishing in the white t-shirt he was wearing. I couldn’t help but stare at him for a long moment. He looked like the perfect cop. The kind you read about in fictional stories. The kind who always gets the toughest of cases.

I kept looking at him as he looked around my house, finding hints and clues to solve the Bajpai murders. And, I didn’t care even if he did find something on me. I was too smitten to care about it. I still tried to tell him about the night Mr and Mrs Bajpai had talked to me and invited me over to their house for drinks. I had accepted the invitation as I was new in the locality and wanted to make some friends. I was welcomed by Mr Bajpai who told me his wife had gone out for some work and would be back soon. Their son, a smart young lad was up in his room listening to loud music. I had a few drinks as we waited for the wife to get home. What happened after that is still a blur to me. The heavy thudding in my head and the pool of blood around me is still a faint memory I cannot recall properly. I remember images of Mr Bajpai groping me and Alok, their son, running down the stairs with a cricket bat. I also remember the red lights on the top of the car I was taken into.

Mr Rai didn’t seem interested in my story as he left without saying a word, slamming the door after him. Almost as if he didn’t want to believe my story.

A month later, a rather atrocious news was unveiled in the newspapers. “The death of Bajpais: A murder or suicide?” This had shocked the whole neighbourhood once again. A wealthy businessman who’s company ranked among the top five in the country would take such an immature step suddenly was unbelievable, who not only killed himself but also his young son.

Days went by and people believed the suicide story. Everyone moved on. I didn’t. I knew no one would listen even when I had a lot to say. They had turned a blind eye to me since the night I was picked up from my own pool of blood into the red light car that I figured was an ambulance. No one acknowledged my presence. No one smiled, not even a hello. I had gotten used to the disdain and lived my own life without bothering a single soul.

One night I saw Mr Rai below the Bajpai house. The case was settled and yet this gorgeous man was here. It made me curious and I couldn’t stop myself from going up to him and saying a hello.

He was talking to the watchman who was looking at a photograph and saying something as I approached. “..no, no-one lives there but sometimes the terrace light switches on” he completed. I smiled at Mr Rai. He looked confused. He took the photograph and started walking away from the watchman. I followed him so we could talk. Right then the wind blew making the photograph fall from Mr Rai’s hand and land on the ground. I looked at it too and I got a shiver from the root of my spine.

It was my photograph.

The watchman yelled at Rai from behind “Forget it Saheb, you will never find out what happened to them. She is dead. I know she came back to kill them as a revenge for what they did to her. It’s best you leave this case alone.”

I stood there looking at the shadow of Mr Rai under the street light as I realised that I couldn’t see mine.

The wind howled and roared.

Nothing much, really.

*7.53 pm*

So I’ve been binge watching Game of Thrones lately. Mostly because I loved how season 7 ended and also because I’m intrigued by the storyline more than ever.

It feels good to be lost in the world of fiction as it takes your mind on a joy ride. It is a world where you can get involved in the life of your favourite character and forget that you have a life of your own. The perk of being an avid reader is that I often go on such joy rides. I get lost in the stories for hours, long after they are over. I treasure this as the most magical time of my day. The reality, like everyone, annoys me. It takes away the fun as it is far more boring and miserable. As Jojen has rightly said “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”

All the “staying away from reality” talk has a deeper meaning for me right now though. Things have been unsteady and I have found a better and an exciting world in watching GoT and in the book I am recently reading, William Golding’s “The Lord of the Flies”.

Here’s hoping there’s more to smile about in the next week.

Ting!

Hard goodbyes

*9.26 am*

I write this as Bryan Adam’s “Everything I Do” is playing on my phone. I’m sure you’d agree with me when I say goodbyes are hard. They sting. However and whoever they might be with. I remember having a huge gulp down my throat every time my cousins went back home after spending the summer vacations at my place. I remember how my heart yearned to be with mum for few more minutes when every morning she left me at daycare to go to work. I remember the tears I couldn’t stop when my grandparents died before my eyes. I hate when people have to leave because of some unavoidable reasons. It is a stinging feeling when you cannot do a single thing to stop them. You have to pretend to be okay with it when you are suppressing a dark cloud of emotions inside your miserable heart. Goodbyes suck. But, why am I talking about the “goodbyes” today? Well, someone very close to me is leaving. And it sucks.

The past week for me was pretty normal. I met with the manager of a hotel near my house where I will be hosting my parent’s 25^th marriage anniversary soon. It went well and I almost finalised all the arrangements. I also painted a corner of the terrace at my house. I used all the bright colours and it looks quite attractive when the flowers and leaves sway with the summer breeze. I spent most of my afternoons, last week, at this spot, sitting on my swing chair and reading “Murder on the Orient Express” by Agatha Christie.

On Sunday, I decided to meet my cousins and practice a dance performance for the upcoming wedding of our eldest cousin. Dancing has always been my favourite hobby since the school days, mostly because I COULD dance. I can’t wait to perform with my cousins on the day of the wedding.

Also, I watched a Marathi movie called “Muramba”. It was a nice little film showing the story of a 20-something guy, his parents and his girlfriend who breaks up with him, in the first scene of the movie. The film very beautifully portrays the relationship of all the characters with each other. By the end of the film, I rediscovered how our parents are our first friends and how they can be our pillars of strength when we have lost all hope for ourselves. What this film very aptly shows is how sharing our fears and coming out of the comfort zone to achieve greater things in life is the only way we can succeed. We should never let go of the people who love us in spite of our fears and insecurities and always try to bring out the best in us. I could relate to this movie on so many levels.

The wedding dance practice, anniversary preparations and the painting have been helping me to ignore the really big thing I should be thinking about. The question- what to do next with life? Should I apply for a job? Will I even get it if I do? What if I don’t? And what if I do? Will I like it? Will I be happy? NO. I have no answers to these questions. I am trying to keep myself busy because I will have to face these questions someday soon and until then I’m going to be as shameless as possible.

(songs on my phone have shuffled and the end of “Feeling Blue” from the movie “Pyaar Ke Side Effects” slowly fades in the background)

 

“A work in progress”

*2.39 am*

Okay, I am very nervous about starting this weekly thing. I have backspaced these lines for over a hundred times. But, this is it. I have finally started something that I wish to continue and be regular at.

Writing has always been my hobby. As a kid, I would enjoy reading story books from the school library and then try to remember all those stories while writing essays in the exam. However, my first real inspiration to write something by myself was when I came across a book called “Wise and Otherwise” by Sudha Murthy. Initially, I was too ignorant to know who this lady is, but as I read the stories in this book, I couldn’t stop obsessing over her. I was fascinated by how she had described the human facades in a very simple yet detailed manner. Her non-fictional stories and their characters inspired me deeply. The incidents and situations that are written in it spoke to me and although I was too young to relate to them, a thought that I too can write an imaginary story having some characters similar to the people in my life gave birth to the writer in me. But, reading one book was not enough. I lacked the ability to describe my thoughts in a well-articulated manner. Thus, I started to read more of Sudha Murthy’s work. I bought copies of “The Old Man And His God”, “The Day I Stopped Drinking Milk”, “Gently Falls The Bakula”, & “How I Taught My Grandmother To Read And Other Stories” and I was filled with too much of respect and love for the author. I read about her life story, about how she was the first female engineer at TATA and how she gave up her job to support her husband in his startup- Infosys. I already knew about her social work as I read her books and she inspired me not only as an author but as a human being. Her simplicity, her purity of thoughts and the way in which she described the human behavior and its myriad shades was incredible.

During my vacations after the tenth class board exams, I began writing a small story about two friends and the experiences they go through together while at school. These characters were inspired by two of my close friends at that time. After writing two chapters of this story, I asked my parents to read it and they were amazed at how well I had described these two friends and their surroundings. They immediately guessed which two characters from real life were described in this story and that was my first achievement. My first two readers could very well understand and relate to my descriptions of the characters. I began reading up more fictional books after this. Many Indian, as well as foreign authors, started to become my inspiration day after day and my stories took a new shape. The descriptions of events and places became much more detailed and realistic. My personal diary became my whole world as it gave me a secret stage to openly express everything about my day. The words started flowing easily and the diary entries became more interesting by the day. This led me to write another story of about 120 pages. It meant a lot to me at that time. It was during the first few days of my college, I had been reading a lot of other books, learning how to build up the story. I was also making new friends at college and it helped me shape some characters of my new story. More than anything, I loved that I could express my own thoughts and feelings in form of the characters in my stories. I enjoyed the freedom of making my characters feel and say anything I wanted as opposed to the real life.

What took this small hobby of mine to another level was when my essay in the mid-semester English exam was appreciated by the Professor. It was then that I told him how I liked reading and writing stories. I showed him my 120-page blurb with a mixed feeling of excitement and the fear of being judged. This was the first time someone was going to read my unsupervised thoughts and I was really anxious. After a couple of days, he told me that he was quite impressed with the way I had expressed my thoughts in this write up and suggested I should try writing short stories instead. He appreciated how each detail was carefully put and asked me to reduce the length of the story, combining it with some kind of a message at the end. An English subject professor appreciating and encouraging me with my writing was another big achievement for me. I did take his suggestion seriously and published short stories in the college magazine for the two years that I studied in that college.

After I joined the senior college for my next course, I started writing a lot of short stories, few of which made their way on my own Blog site. This was the first time I had gone public with my writing and I was nervous about the review I might get. But, it was another big achievement when these short stories were well appreciated by my friends and it gave me a huge amount of confidence. I wrote mostly about friendship as my world revolved around my friends at that time. I also included a lot of travel stories when I became a volunteer for a camping organization. I started roaming around in the forests and capturing the wild in my camera. This inspired me to write about the jungles, the animals, the rivers, the city spaces and the shades of life observed in different parts of the country as I traveled across states. I also tried writing a short murder mystery, a poem about the dilemma and a few more things which were liked by my group on social media. Most of the creative ideas however never got their conclusions and still hang around incomplete. It is usually because of procrastination and sometimes just because it is really silly.

I have found myself awake on many nights sitting with my laptop and coming up with ideas for my blogs. Even though all those ideas don’t end up being published on my blog site, I enjoy the process of pouring out my thoughts on the screen. It gives me peace and a feeling of freedom like no other. I never took any course in creative writing (which now I feel I should have) and yet I think I’m doing pretty okay for a start. So, here comes the purpose of this weekly blog. A medium of expressing what I feel, as me and not through a character in any short story. A small attempt to tell about the amazing people in my life and the crap they get me into for being a good listener. It is a small effort to deal with the quarter-life crisis by sharing my fears, my mundane adventures, my small bits of happy days and big life decisions that are to be made.

So, here it is. I’m Nikita, a 23-year-old girl from Pune. I have a post-graduate degree in Geology and I have no idea what to do with it. I don’t know what to do with life anymore anyway. Short term goals: I am thinking of adopting a cat soon but I am just scared she will feel lonely if I go out and lock her inside the house. What do I do? No, seriously, tell me.