Binsar

Water in the rhododendrons
Red tulips bunched into a heart
with sweet blood
Gleaming red, snow framed, snow like the sky
When did that giant muscle into the frame?
It believes it was always there
with its cornices, its cutting edge of time
with old rocks for crowns
Sea rocks, ocean rocks, once molten rocks
Light in the leaves
and a carpet below
new ones, thick and leafy, thick as life
The new leaves look in wonder
at the old bark, tree bark, old tree
yet young in the reckoning of ages flowing
Another scene: of a house on the edge
of a ridge that taps the sky
a waving shawl of spring colour
undulating to the edge, the house
cloaked by cedars, old deodhars
god tree, bird tree, tall tree
all the royalty old and young
look down at their hems where martens prance
- Bibek Bhattacharya

Rainy Day Movies

Nowhere Boy
I had high hopes for Nowhere Boy, the debut feature from the talented British filmmaker Sam Taylor Wood.The reviews were great, and most people thought that she'd done a credible job with the highly movie-worthy childhood of St John. It was a dissapointment, and not because I'm a fan. In fact, the fan in me quite liked the way Taylor Wood didn't play fast and loose with the source material, refrained from painting characters in an unidimensional hue, and largely kept the pace from flagging. But here's the thing- it lacks a certain grit. Grit that's not just the de rigueur of every rock biopic worth its salt nowadays from I'm Not Here to Control, but one that's necessary to tell a credible story. Forget the fact that Adam Johnson- who plays a teenage Lennon credibly enough- is far too beefy for a 16 year old, or that Lennon isn't even the real focus of the movie- its his mother and aunt. What irked me most was the shiny nature of the movie. Certainly the world that this cinematic Lennon occupies is not the dying, decaying Liverpool that the Beatles so memorably mythologised. No, this is an idealised world of neat suburbanness, the same vision that so blighted the immensely forgettable movie on the 60's, Across the Universe. This is even more surprising since she shares a screenplay writer with the superb Control, another story about a tortured rock genius, from two years ago. I wonder if the 50's are too far removed from her for her to imagine it realistically. Kristin Scott Thomas as Aunty Mimi really steals the show though. Although she overdoes Mimi's poshness, she's the beating heart of this movie. The definitive Lennon movie is still to be made.

The Confessions of Robert Crumb
Move over Woody Allen. If there's a tortured, repressed genius with oversized glasses and a penchant for playing music, its the graphic novelist Robert Crumb. This delightful little self portrait from 1987 is as warm as it is funny. We all know about R Crumb the iconoclast and counterculture hero. Here we get a sneak peek into the mind of the man himself, beyond all the parody, and cheap shots, and prurient humour and enraged feminists. A truly subversive artist takes a look at his life, and you get a glimpse of what America has the potential for, rather than what it is.

Onibaba
My friend Kingshuk is an inveterate collector. This brilliant man is currently close to mortgaging his life to build up a pretty unique LP collection, but before all that started, he was a movie collector. Still is actually. So when he gave a few DVDs of cult Japanese horror films to another friend of mine, I couldn't help but eye them furtively. Then I got him drunk and managed to sneak away the first one I could lay my hands on. It turned out to be the 1964 movie Onibaba (Demon-Woman) by the director Kaneto Shindo. It has to be one of the most atmospheric films I've ever seen, right up there with Night and the City and Jalsaghar. This isn't a horror story in the strict sense of the term. I'd rather call it a passion play, much like many other Japanese classics of the era. Its a bonfire of outsized emotions literally running amok. It tells the story of three peasants in war-torn medieval Japan, and the chaos that's caused by the coming together of those two very potent urges- lust and hunger. It takes time to build, gradually setting the scene in a phantasmagoric world of rustling reeds. If there's anything that's haunted in this movie, its the land itself. And the sexuality of the movie has a force that has to be seen to be believed. I had no clue that the profoundly conservative Japanese society had room for such frankness in the 60's. Quite brilliant.

Che
Steve Soderbergh is a strange guy. He'll make cartloads of crappy Hollywood fillers like the Ocean's Eleven movies, and about once a decade spring a stunner. This decade, its got to be Che, his biopic on Ernesto Guevara in two parts. I saw the first one yesterday, and I think Benicio Del Toro is God. He's truly brilliant in a way few good actors are. He never plays himself. In fact he never plays the same person twice. His Che is a profoundly different creature from say, his Dr Gonzo in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, or the bitter Mexican policeman in Traffic.
As a movie, Che is remarkably un-Hollywood. No final payoffs, no unnecessary deification, and on top of that, the black and white format does it immense justice. This movie covers the successful period of the Commandante's revolutionary career. The sheer impossibility of the task that Fidel Castro and his bunch of merry men set themselves is nothing short of an intensely romantic adventure. The movie captures this well, but it gives us a fuller picture of the intense difficulties involved. To top it all, its shot on location in Cuba, which has to be one of the most gorgeous places on earth. It made me think how of its time the Cuban revolution was. Back then, the military-industrial nexus of the Capitalist west was very obvious in its methods- something that called for a certain approach to counter it. 40 years later, their modus operandi's very different. I wonder how the left movement will answer such threats now? I'm looking forward to the next instalment.

Songs about the Rain

This morning I was casting about for something silly to blog about, when Harman suggested that I do one on rain songs. I know, we're all burning right now, but it pays to be ready right? So here goes my highly subjective list. Not all these songs love the rain, but no matter.

The Beatles- Rain
It had to be the first on my list. The song's about acid, of course, but it's got one of the deadliest deadpan putdown of people averse of getting wet in the rain (or baked in the sun, for that matter). 

Bob Dylan- High Water (For Charlie Patton)
I remember listening to this song after watching footage of Katrina- and the annual cyclones that wreck the Gangetic Delta, and being chilled to the bone by Dylan's gravelly voice gravely declaiming "There's nothing standing here, high water everywhere."

Memphis Minnie- When the Levee Breaks
Most people have just heard the Led Zep version, but this is the Real McCoy, genuinely scary, partly because of the inevitability of the plain yet terrifying opening line, "If it keeps on raining, levee's going to break." And we all know what that means of course.

Jimi Hendrix- Wind Cries Mary
Okay, he might have more specific rain songs, but this one for me captures the atmosphere of imminent rainfall just right, from the buoyant guitar to the changing breeze which quickens and slackens.

Doc Watson- Deep River Blues
I love the metaphor of the rain disguising the tears of a broken heart; its an intensely compelling image. The Doc's voice lives the heartbreak.

Muddy Waters- Blow Wind Blow
Its a force of nature, is Muddy's voice. Its all thunderous desire.

The Prisonaires- Just Walking In the Rain
Another lonely heart in the rain, but what a pretty song.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe- Didn't It Rain?
This song always reminds me of the days I spent in my balcony in Calcutta as a kid loving the continuous rain and hating it too, as I couldn't go out.

Moby Grape- Sitting by the Window
Another song that builds an intimate atmosphere and then builds on it some more, and finally tops it with a beautiful, blink and you miss it solo.

CCR- Have you ever seen the Rain?
Predictable, yes, but its also the song that I love shouting out when I'm getting drenched.

p.s. If you're done being happy, please vent your righteous indignation at this great post here.

Chughtai

Made my occasional-but-not-quite visit to the National Gallery of Modern Art last Sunday. It felt good to take my father there, as this is one side of Delhi that he almost never gets to see. Being short of time, we could only take in the Medieval miniatures and the Bengal School (and allied artists) exhibits.
The latter never fail to amaze me with their superlative works, with no whiff of kitsch and a lot of originality and verve. NGMA itself seems to be doing a good job, shifting the exhibits to a massive new annexe just behind the main Jaipur House, with multiple floors and lots of space for all the main exhibits. They even have a swanky new shop.
I'd been dying to buy prints for sometime, so I bought a Nicholas Roerich portfolio for myself, an Abanindranath portfolio for my mother and these two large, utterly gorgeous MAR Chughtai prints.

Holi

  Laila

Map Woes Part 4

(...continued from Map Woes Part 3)

A recent visit to the Survey of India map sales office in Delhi was most frustrating. The people there were extremely reluctant to show me any maps without me first telling them the exact sheet number- they probably even need the latitude and longitude- and even then could only give me some large but pretty useless trekking maps of the Gangotri, Badrinath, and Shimla hills regions.

Pic: The impressive looking but ultimately disappointing trekking map from SOI (Bibek Bhattacharya)

They were careworn and mothballed, and the contour maps were kept firmly out of sight. I had made the mistake of going there without the sheet names and they effectively used it against me. And of course there’s that eternal suspicion. Just who is this person, they think. Why does he want topographical maps of border areas?

I had to settle for the trekking maps. Next time I go, I’ll take a sheet of paper with ALL the sheet names I can think of, and then some. And this time, if they demur, I will HAVE to do the unethical thing and wave my press card at them!

But then, a few weeks ago, I found this! I’d heard of it before, but I had no clue that it was freely available.

These amazingly detailed topographical maps are the legendary Series U502, made by the US Army Map Service for, yes the US Army, back in 1955. That makes them 55 years old, but boy are they out of this world. These sheets are the real thing- at least in the absence of SOI sheets. And the sheer scope of it is massive too, covering the entire subcontinent, including India, Pakistan, East Pakistan- ah the period piece ring of that- and Ceylon.

From what little of this vast map I’ve seen, most of the Himalayan regions seem to be pretty accurately mapped, at least after checking them against the others. And I can’t begin to describe the joys of learning the names of the many unforgettable places that I’ve seen in the mountains, and all that I’m yet to see. Entire ridge systems, rivers, towns have their names. Now these names might have gone out of use since all those years ago, but many of these I’ve managed to verify. The trend seems to be that of pretty accurate nomenclature.

Pic: The Dehradun Sheet of the AMS Series U502 (Bibek Bhattacharya)

The maps trip up in some places. For example, in the 'Simla' (sic) sheet, there’s a blank spot beyond the Pin Parvati pass where Spiti should be. It could be that the region had not been surveyed at the time. Then there are problems with the deeply contentious Indo-Chinese international border north of Gangotri. According to these maps, the entire Mana Gad (Gad is Garhwali for river) valley and its tributaries belong to China, although a glance through Kapadia’s Across Peaks and Passes in Garhwal gives us the real picture. At the end of the day there is no substitute for actually visiting these places.

Pic: Compare the section of the Chini sheet with Kapadia's map for the Mana Gad area in upper Central Garhwal. (Bibek Bhattacharya)

However, it must be said that where unsure, the Series U502 mentions it. They even have a handy 'Reliability Diagram' to the right of the map, where they rate the available information in that particular sheet from 'Good' to 'Fair' to 'Poor', and even list out the dates when the ground was surveyed. The oldest survey on the 'Chini' sheet, for example, are Medium Scale Topographical Maps from 1905!

Anyway, I’m completely in love. Oh, and finally, to end where I began, I now know the names of the eminences you see when you stand atop Chandrashila on a clear October day. It might be a meager victory, but to me that’s momentous!

And so, my map woes are at an end- at least until I renew the saga of SOI Topographical maps.

Map Woes Part 3

(...continued from Map Woes Part 2)

So anyway, I went to McLeodganj shortly after that year, and in a small bookshop near the Dalai Lama’s monastery, I found two sheets of the Leomann Map series, these ones dealing with two of Himachal Pradesh’s regions. I was dumbstruck by their detail. There were clear ridge-lines and marked glaciers, all possible landmarks and trails, as well as most of the peaks en route. Leomann maps are, so far, the most comprehensive all-in-one set of maps of the Himalaya that I’ve come across.

Pic: Leomann Maps Sheet 4 (Bibek Bhattacharya)

After such knowledge, what forgiveness?

However, in the year and half since then, I’ve scoured bookshops and chat groups wherever I can and haven’t come across any other Leomann map. To get the full set, the only recourse to order the lot online, which I can't afford, especially with the shipping costs.

Over the past year, I’d amassed quite a few books on trekking trails, which included two quite good ones- Trekking Guide to the Western Himalaya by Depi Chaudhry and the legendary Harish Kapadia’s Trekking and Climbing in the Indian Himalaya. Both have excellent maps, although Kapadia’s book shades it, purely because he’s been all over the place and knows the terrain like the back of his hand.

This year I discovered Flipkart, and thanks to their wonderfully no-nonsense attitude to online book shopping, I was soon drowning in mountain books- and maps. The combined heft of Kapadia’s Across Peaks and Passes Garhwal Himalaya, Kumaon Himalaya and High Himalaya Unknown Valleys added some remarkable maps to my collection. Sadly, his books are horribly edited, but even bad editing can’t dampen Kapadia’s enthusiasm for the range, nor negate the sheer amount of distance that he has covered in his forty years of mountaineering. His maps are among the best I’ve seen so far. They tell you everything you need to know, and there are never any gaps in the information. They have detailed ridge lines, rivers, prominent landmarks, watershed ridges and are almost exhaustive in naming peaks in the regions.

Pic: Harish Kapadia's remarkably detailed maps (Bibek Bhattacharya)

As an aside, anyone interested to get their hands on some good writing on the range should get a hold of Bill Aitken's The Nanda Devi Affair and Footloose in the Himalaya. Both are, again, the victims of horrid editing, but Aitken's a particularly fine writer, and his passion for the range, coupled with his acute observations and charming eccentricity, make both books a must read.

Thanks to Kapadia's exhaustive maps, here was something that I could use in tandem with Google Earth to get a visual sense of the terrain in every Himalayan region. The joys were many, from charting out all possible peaks in central Garhwal- and thus solving the many mysteries of the view from Tunganath- to tracing out the more challenging trekking routes, like that from Chitkul in the Baspa valley over the Himalayan divide between Himachal and Garhwal over the glaciated Lamkhaga Pass to Harsil near Gangotri.

But proper contour maps still eluded me.

(to be concluded)

Map Woes Part 2

(...continued from Map Woes Part 1)

So I looked for other maps. Some of these I found in books, and the information I tried to locate with the help of GE as well as Wikimapia (which is better marked but not always trustworthy). It’s a painstakingly slow process, but at least I was making progress.

The Eric Shipton Anthology possessed his superlative book Nanda Devi, which had a reasonably good map (which was great to get my bearings) of the Nanda Devi-Bhyundar- Joshimath-Badrinath-Madhmaheshwar area; basically central Garhwal.

Pic: Central Garhwal Himalaya from Shipton's Nanda Devi (Bibek Bhattacharya)

An infinitely better plotted set of maps soon emerged out of mountaineer and photographer Kekoo Naoroji’s book of photo essays Himalayan Vignettes. It also had a very good set of maps of Western Sikkim, the area around Kanchenjungha and Nepal Gap glacier. What’s more, the book also included sizable chunks of lower Garhwal.

Pic: A plate from Kekoo Naoroji's Himalayan Vignettes (Bibek Bhattacharya)

A third resource was Frank Smythe’s book Valley of Flowers. That book has some nice trail maps, especially of the classic Garhwal “approach trek” from Gwaldam to Joshimath via Kuari Pass and of his explorations around the Bhyundar Valley.

Pic: Map of the Bhyunder-Kamet region in Central Garhwal from Smythe's Valley of Flowers (Bibek Bhattacharya)

The problem with this was age. It was written in 1938- he made the journey in 1937- and that area was only in the process of being properly surveyed, so names of lesser peaks, glaciers and villages wasn’t exactly fixed. But it felt great to compare maps and accounts of these early writers- for a profoundly Indian point of view of the Uttarakhand Himalaya in that era, see Umaprasad Mukherjee's travelogues.

Pic: Map of the Gangotri Glacier region from Umaprasad Mukherjee's travelogue (Bibek Bhattacharya)

Needless to say, I was devouring all this.

But I longed to get my hands on some serious maps of the Western Himalaya. Being quite hidebound as well as anal in my pursuits, I especially looked out for maps of Uttarakhand, as this was the region I wanted to explore first.

(to be continued)

Map Woes Part 1

Trying to find good trekking and topographical maps in India is somewhat like the proverbial head meeting the proverbial wall. My year of looking for the perfect set of maps- primarily of the Indian Himalaya, but also of other places- has yielded very interesting results.

I love travelogues, especially those dealing with mountains, specifically the Himalaya. Now due to the range's monumental hold on generations of visitors, there’s no short supply of great books or essays on this subject. But for an obsessive like me, what’s the fun in reading about these grand places without a good map to locate them on?

The most commonly available maps of Uttarakhand and Himachal are the Nest and Wings maps, which are a combination of various sources, including the Survey of India trekking and topographical maps, and others. Now, these are generally quite good, with towns, cities, villages, passes, roads, lakes, trails etc mentioned in impressive detail. For the longest time, they were enough for my needs.

Pic: A section of the Nest&Wings map of Uttarakhand

But with a deepening interest came the urge to collect better maps, which would chart out valley systems, topographical features, ridge lines, peaks and approaches better. Now, this isn’t an unfair thing to expect. Look up any mountainous region in the world where travelers are wont to venture, and you’ll find some excellent trekking maps- not the meagre ones that our government issues, but more on that later.

My search began in earnest last summer, after a visit to Tunganath and Chandrashila in the high Garhwal Himalaya, a place with views that make you want to sink to your knees and weep with rapture. Faced with the dramatic panorama of the Himalayan crest on the northern horizon, and the lower hills and then the plains far away, I was burning to lend nomenclature to all that I was seeing. Thanks to Nest and Wings, I had a general idea of the regions I was looking at- e.g. I could trace roughly the line from Bedni bugiyal via the high distant ridge of Kuari Pass in the west and below it, the deep cleft of the Alaknanda gorge. Where mid-day clouds covered the horizon, I expected the western arm of the Great Himalaya, containing the likes of Trishul, Nanda Devi, Dunagiri, Hathi Parbat, Ghori Parbat and Kamet, to name a few.

Pic: Nanda Devi looking west from Chandrashila (Bibek Bhattacharya)

In front of me, just beyond the end of the ridge running north from where I was, the cairn strewn summit of Chandrashila, loomed Chaukhamba. It is also known as Badrinath, after the Dham, and these four pillars of snow, ice and granite held sway over the imagination of Garhwal.

Pic: Chaukhamba looking north from Chandrashila (Bibek Bhattacharya)

On its northern face it formed a cirque of peaks at whose feet arose the Gangotri glacier. Further north west ran the line of the southern faces of a host of well known peaks that cluster around the Gangotri Glacier.

It was impossible, however, to be sure of the names of the peaks- apart from those of Kedarnath and Chaukhamba- at least for me. Having recently discovered Google Earth, however, I was hopeful of finding out the names.

Pic: An overhead screenshot of Uttarakhand Himalaya

Google Earth was quite brilliant, visualizing the peaks for me, but they weren’t named, at least the vast majority weren’t. In this case, Nest and Wings was useless.

(to be continued)

Southern Storm

There’s a beast of a storm brewing on the Vembanad lake. Everything’s still, waiting for the onslaught. The jetty’s creaking slowly as if it doesn’t relish what’s coming. Ominous thunder growls at the edges. Occasionally a fork of lightning rips across the dramatically dark sky across the lake. Further out, the waves are getting restless as the squall hits. White-heads form on their lips as they rush along like a blind mob. The destroyed jetty from the storm last evening lies submerged in the water, which is a deep emerald in colour.

Pic: Bibek Bhattacharya

Now the air’s full of thunder. A ceaseless crackling sound. I can almost feel the electricity on the nape of my neck. The storm seems to be circling around the lake, threatening, looking for a way in. Out deep in the lake, the water’s very choppy. A strong wind drives the waves on relentlessly, which now look like a cavalry charge, moving north to south, the white-heads more prominent. Now, even the water at the jetty is animated. The trees murmur uneasily, as the vaguely armadillo like houseboats out on the lake, scuttle this way and that.

Pic: Bibek Bhattacharya

Two men from the homestead next door are peacefully oblivious of all this, swimming neck deep in the water, lazily doing backstrokes.

Pic: Bibek Bhattacharya

The storm is nothing if not punctual. It was supposed to break around 4:30 pm, and now, at 4, its building up pretty impressively. But what if it’s a massive anticlimax, all sturm und drang signifying nothing? I, for one, don’t care. Just the privilege of watching something like this after so many monsoons spent outside Calcutta is enough for me.

Pic: Bibek Bhattacharya

A massive chain of lightning lights up the lake, and it seems like the world holds its breath for a moment. Then comes the dull crack of thunder and the wind rushes back, blowing in to fill the vacuum.

Finally, the rain comes, in scarce fat drops. The wind has picked up, rocking the maroon jetty, which seems to be groaning for mercy, while I stand on it, trying to take pictures. The sky is a grey so deep and dark that it could almost be black. Deep in the lake, two houseboats make their way towards Alleppey in the south by the main channel- where this massive lake’s at its deepest, a ridiculous 12 feet! They’re moving against the full force of the mighty wind, the waves breaking in stupendous white spray against their hulls, which bob up and down, riding the choppy waves. Thunder travels the dark sky over my head, ominous growls riding the charged clouds from one end of the lake. The storm finally hits land, as the trees rustle wildly and the branches lean with the force of the wind; small vicious waves, propelled by that same wind, crash against the shore. A cuckoo somewhere trills in either joy or panic, while the water of the infinity pool beside me flows backwards.

Pic: Bibek Bhattacharya

The lake is a seething mass of restless waves. Apsara’s (the boat) crew sit on the rocking jetty, dangling their legs; talking amongst themselves with the quiet bonhomie of old friends, watching the storm. The boat stands calm, gently rocking, confident in her low slung infallibility. The crew aren’t taking any chances, especially after the previous day’s mayhem. The boat is lashed securely to the jetty, which in turn is tied firmly to sturdy masts on the shore as well as a couple out in the water.

Pic: Bibek Bhattacharya

Now the waves change their direction and come straight at the shore, playing with the jetty. A lone fishing pole stands unperturbed out on the water. In the morning it was playing host to a cormorant, but right now it stands alone and bare, bending slightly in the wind, as the waves rush on by it. A flock of cranes try to fly north over the lake but are driven west by the gusting wind. A white eagle swoops down and flies off with a fish, an outraged crow in hot pursuit.

-Bibek Bhattacharya

Good Day Sunshine!

And so, I choose to begin a new year at this blog on a lovely sunny day. Believe me, it’s a hoot and a blast to wake up one day and see the sun shining outside, and actually wanting to get out of bed just so that you can sit in the sunshine and have a cuppa. Especially when a chilling cold wave of foggy days and foggy nights showed no signs of ending only a few days ago.

Not that I have anything against the cold. In fact I love it about as much as I love the rains. Many of my friends in Delhi absolutely detest winter and murmur how bad a time they’re having and shiver horribly for added effect. This I don’t understand, especially when everyone can see that they’re shivering because they don’t have enough warm clothes on. But then again, even I can take only so many gloomy days, overcast and foggy with chilly winds at noon.

And so, finally, good day, sunshine. I celebrated by taking a long, leisurely bus to office and reading Umaprasad Mukherjee’s travelogue on Kedarnath. What a way to get to work! So happy was I, that I even forgot to take the five bucks the conductor owed me. He grinned and screamed from his window that he’ll give it to me tomorrow morning. I love this familiarity. If there really is a sense of community, this is it- being friends with the conductor. I read here that Margaret Thatcher once said that "A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus, can count himself as a failure." How typical. The right end of the political spectrum probably believes that unless you own a sedan post 26, you’re useless. I’m 28, and I love taking the bus. I can't imagine why I'd rather drive than take the bus! Apparently, even Robinho's been at it.

So, anyway, back to work. Though one thing worries me. If its this warm on Jan 27^th, what will summer be like? I shudder to imagine.