Roma Koma

When FC Bayern met India (not sparks, but chips flew)

2012-01-13T14:56:00.007+05:30

Date: 10.1.2012

Venue: Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium, New Delhi.

Dramatis Personae:

Rudder, Mandakini, Dipyaman, Mehul and I.

And so here we are, at the floodlit, massive, yet curiously lifeless Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. My first live football match in Delhi, and (OMG!) it’s Bayern Munich! Against India! Bhaichung’s testimonial! Mein Gott, this place is just oozing with occasion…and bored, hair-straightened South Delhi 'party' babes of course. It’s yet another reason to pretend you’re a WAG, show off your thigh-high black leather boots, and scream “Indiyaaaah, Indiyaaaah!” followed by, “Oh No yah, I thought, like, Dhoni would, like, be playing yah!”

It’s all fabulously freaky as white expats jump queues, and cops grope anyone in sight.

And the seats are lovely plastic 1000 rupee affairs, covered with dust and debris left over from the Commonwealth Games. Me, Rudder and Mandakini settle down. No sign of Dipyaman yet as he’s gone far away to park his car.

Anyhoo, there’s loads of paramilitary personnel nearby, so I at least needn’t be scared of Maoists.

But hang on, what are those red hordes on the field? Oh, it’s only Bayern Munich.

The blue ones are India.

And…..we’re off. A huge cheer goes up from the assembled hordes.

4 mins. And first off, I must say I love Bayern goalie Manuel Neuer’s dazzling white jersey. I can see it clearly- though where I’m sitting is closer to the Indian goal- because he’s standing at the half-way mark! Bayern’s playing at a sedentary pace, and oozing menace.

5 mins. India breaks (hoofs the ball in desperation) down the right flank and it comes to nothing.

6 mins. A dazzled yet dogged India are defending so deep that they’re almost inside their own goal. Right now, we have about four goalkeepers. India have, as they say, parked the bus.

8 mins. A clever little back-heel from Mario Gomez lets Arjen Robben in, whose shot is batted off by our goalie Karanjit Singh. Bravo! Then another rare forward punt comes to nothing, as Bhaichung gets the ball and under pressure, has to dribble backwards.

10 mins. Bayern are mostly ambling down their left, giving the ball to Phillip Lahm to cross, and trying not to score an early goal.

Meanwhile, still no sign of Dipyaman, who, as you know, had to park his car.

12 mins. Another nice block from Karanjit. Evidently Bayern’s been paid handsomely to not score goals. I’m going to look for Dipyaman.

14 mins. GOAL! I see Dipyaman and almost run into an AK-47 trying to hail him. The paramilitary guy looks doubtfully at my beard, but figures that having bought a 1,000-rupee ticket, I probably am not Lashkar-e-Taiba. And yeah, well, Mario Gomez walks in a goal.

15 mins. Mandakini wants chips.

17 mins. A nice through-ball from India, but as it came from their own goal mouth, it only reaches Sushil Kumar at the centre-line. Cue a heavy first touch and lot’s of dithering. Cleared.

20 mins. Mandakini’s gone to get chips. Sanjib from CNN-IBN is cracking wise. I can’t hear the words he’s saying, but they’re full of wisdom.

21 mins. Bhaichung is falling to the ground beautifully every time he gets near the ball. He definitely is world class. Meanwhile Bastian Schweinsteiger’s savage shot almost decapitates an Indian defender. An friendly acquaintance, Mehul, is here too, in a leather jacket and three white guys in tow. He says something in Bengali heavily laced with an undifferentiated Brooklyn accent. He got us the tickets, so AR EES ESS PEE EE EEC TEE.

22 mins. Mandakini’s back. She had to abuse two spoilt kids who were abusing the poor chips seller. Karanjit Singh’s not bad, but whenever he tries to launch the ball up-field, he mostly kicks it out to touch. I mean, I’ve seen better football played by our clubs. But at least our football teams love the game better than the filthy lucre. But that’s probably because the cricket team is never going to let them get within sniffing distance of the lucre in the first place. Lot’s of cops guarding four different Audis stationed at the four corners.

23 mins. India gets a free-kick. The squib that comes of it is very damp indeed. Bayern are being made to look like Barcelona. I say tiki, you say taka.

24 mins. A lovely curling shot from Robben on the right narrowly misses the goal. How disappointing. Other than that, Bayern are walking the ball to Karanjit.

25 mins. A rare break! A nice lay-off to Bhaichung ends in him shooting to Row-Z. Dipyaman’s got his hip sneer on. “Evidently Bayern are here to sell Audis,” he smirks. The kill-joy.

27 mins. The boyfriends are waving their Manchester United replica banners, while the girlfriends tweet pictures of their nose-rings. Everybody’s devouring chips. So are we.

29 mins. GOAL! Robben crosses from the left after beating the offside trap and Mueller nods it in apologetically. He then rubs his eyes in disbelief. One less Audi sold.

31 mins. Irritating trio of kids in front of me are more interested in the cars. “Is that a Lam-bo-gini?” “No stoopid, it’s an Audi!” Their father looks at them with pride.

32 mins. A routine save from Karanjit brings a standing ovation. Some sad sacks are half-heartedly trying to start a Mexican wave. Like the tweeters care.

34 mins. A lovely turn and shot from the edge of the Indian penalty box hits the goalpost.

35 mins. Mandakini wishes she could see the players’ tight bums, and longs for a binocular. So do I, for not precisely the same reasons.

37 mins. GOAL! Mueller walks another one in. A stupid, chirpy PA guy shouts, “Don’t lose heart, it’s only 3 love.” Is he getting an Audi too?

40 mins. It’s a good thing that most of the action is happening near where we’re sitting. But I fear for the second half. It’s quite comical how deftly Robben keeps beating the off side trap. A sudden bit of acceleration, and the blue men drop off him like flies. Bayern are playing in first gear.

42 mins. A Bayern free-kick just outside the penalty area. Pushed away by the goalie.

43 mins. GOAL! A lovely curler from Schweinsteiger sails into the top corner. Karanjit had no chance. What a beauty. Like knife through butter.

45 mins. HALF TIME

Mehul wants to grab seats on the other side of the stadium block while people are away buying more chips. We’re non-committal. Meanwhile, Praful Patel, that old cheat (he’s also the head of the AIFF, oh woe) is on hand to smile benignly and give away awards. First one, a player of the year award, to Sunil Chhetri. Rs 2 lakh!? Is this a joke? Then a second one to Bhaichung. Why now? Doesn’t he get to rest at half-time? Oh no, they’re not letting him leave. Now some mook is giving him the keys to an Audi. Good for him, seriously. But why can’t he shower and freshen up? The PA is chattering away inanely. “A final look at our great champion!” says he. “Because he will be assassinated soon,” finishes Rudder. Ooh the sarcasm. Meanwhile, a good looking kid is showing off his pectorals and doing ball skills near us. Mandakini’s drooling. Then Rudder takes a snap of the two of us. Dipyaman stares hard at his Blackberry. He is probably wondering about property portfolios. AR Rehman shrieks ‘Vande Mataram’ from the PA. Sanjib has gone to look for the press box because rumour has it that journos are being fed prawns there. Of course. If Old Trafford can offer prawns, why not JNL?

Finally Bhaichung gets the chance to freshen up. That’s that for Bhutia the performing flea. God the way we treat our sportsmen!

AND the teams line up for the second half. Bhaichung’s playing, which means he got no rest. Hmm. Dangerous knifing victim Franck Ribery’s on. For India, Climax Lawrence is on, along with Subhashish Roy Chowdhury who replaces Karanjit under the bar. The Indians huddle, Bhaichung is talking to the rest excitedly.

We’re off.

46mins. Bhaichung tries to tackle Neuer, whose jersey is still spotless.

47 mins. The Indian No.7 is playing in the heart of defence. That’s radical thinking from the Indian coach! He gives the ball away to a hulking Bayern man, not sure who, who passes it back to Subhashish. I think Bayern have been told to be gracious in victory.

50 mins. India’s playing a high-pressing game, which means that they’re defending outside their own box. No mean feat that.

52 mins. Corner to India! At least in that department we now lead 1-0. In a mismatch like this, you take what you can get.

53 mins. The corner-taker hits the ball to a Bayern outfield player. Cue laughter.

55 mins. One of the kids in front looks around and says, “ That bird can see this match for free!” with great sincerity. Yes kid, the bird can.

58 mins. Coming from a city that boasts of such behemoth stadiums as Eden Gardens and the Salt Lake stadium, this lifeless 1,20,000-seater stadium looks strange to me. Must be something about the design, because there must be easily at least some 30,000 people here. And despite the noise, it looks emptier than it is.

60 mins. Bhaichung feints nicely a couple of times and sets up a one-two. But the return pass is so weak that it is easily snuffed out.

62 mins. Studs-up challenge on a Bayern player on the centre-line. A yellow card whoopee! India 1- 0 Bayern.

65 mins. India’s lead in the corners department is wiped out, because now Bayern have a corner of their own. The ball ricochets around in the box, before a stinging shot brings a fab save from Subhashish.

66 mins. Bhaichung falls after being hustled off the ball, and hauls down his tackler by grabbing his ankle. Cue applause. The Bayern free-kick results in another great shot from Schweinsteiger which brings another great save from Subhashish. That guy’s good.

68 mins. This is getting boring. I guess Bayern are not going to score any more. They recently put some 13 goals past Qatar, and they’re a much better team than us. But then, Qatar isn’t an emerging economy like India. And Bayern are here to sell Audis.

70 mins. Climax Lawrence dribbles nicely and loses his marker. He draws a foul and a free kick some 40 yards from goal. Everyone chants “Indiaaaaah, Indiaaah!” The ball sails over.

74 mins. India are battling gamely against opponents playing in their sleep. They’re also falling over as soon as they get the ball.

75 mins. Bayern ring in the changes. Robben, Lahm and Mueller are off, and some youth team guys are on. The three small boys in front are mauling each other. Mandakini leans over and whispers loudly, “These kids are totally gay for each other!” The father hears her and sternly tells them to sit down. Dipyaman says, “Boka bachcha.”

77 mins. Another attempt on goal from India, but as I knew, it sailed over the crossbar. Disinterested Bayern or not, India is definitely trying. So no point in being churlish. Dipyaman takes his mind off his imminent cross-continental Blackberry meeting on, you guessed it, property portfolios, to say, “Mama, India are getting close.” They are.

78 mins. They show a tense looking Indian coaching staff on the screen. Mandakini says, “Look, Chunkey Pandey!”

79 mins. Appeals for a handball against Bayern. Not from the players, but from the audience. Dipyaman keeps up his new-found patriotic streak. “Oder box’e amader paaye ball; kono kotha hobe na.” (We’re in their box and we’ve got the ball. No talk will be happening [not really, but it’s an appreciative statement])

80 mins. India’s right-back, who is having a superb second-half makes a fine sliding tackle. The kid on the left tells the kid in the middle, “I will keeeel you.” They both giggle. Meanwhile the crowd have fallen silent. The South Delhi babes are checking their Blackberries for the next party. So is Dipyaman.

81 mins. Everyone’s lost interest. “Will you be unhappy if we leave now?” Mandakini asks. “I will decide,” is Rudder’s Surrealist masterpiece of an answer.

82 mins. India 2-1 Bayern! Another corner thanks to some good work by Bhaichung and cohorts down the left wing….which comes to nothing. Yawn. Then a nice volley from India’s No.10 bounces off Bhaichung. This is pretty revolutionary. India has brought Bayern down to their level. They are all kicking around aimlessly around the centre circle. And then a sight to gladden the hearts of Bayern’s domestic opponents. Someone stamps on Schweinsteiger’s foot.

83 mins. Dipyaman’s been standing at the top of the aisle with his phone glued to his ears. Fine, now we’re leaving. It’s been fun people, and hurray for Audi. Any last words? Hang on, we just got a shot on target. Neuer’s jersey is slightly spotty now. Fabulous, what more can one ask for? Adieu Bhaichung!

Delhi Diaries 2006: Cat Warbling

2012-01-11T15:38:00.000+05:30

D-735, Ground Floor, CR Park 7th December
There's a cat right under the car-wash outside the door warbling away in a loud, sad voice. It's an entreating voice, almost like a baby's. It is almost sentient. The voice wants to be let in. It wants people to notice, make a fuss. Why? Because the owner of that voice thinks he deserves it. He's not a dog who will try his best to ingratiate himself, or even act friendly, just to get attention. The cat will stalk about, sit on the sofa, shamelessly forage for food. In short, do pretty much as he pleases. It's his territory right? He doesn't care what humans think they deserve from this relationship! This is his corner of the world and he wants it. But he can't get in by himself. He is, after all, too fat and lazy to be able to climb up the vine to the first floor balcony, as his children do. He has to be let in. The voice has stopped. I think he's wandered off or is chasing a mouse. He'll be back, shortly, like an erring alcoholic!
Naughty Boy

Delhi Diaries 2006: My Dylan Dream

2012-01-10T15:22:00.001+05:30

Fuck! Bob?

Well yeah, he said. As long as you don't call me Otis. How did he know I was thinking that?

Well, I said, you're moustache really got me. There was a brief second when I wondered if you were...you know...and fuck man, you are!

Heh, that's me alright. He looked around. It's a nice house you got man. Really cute. You know that owl reminds me. I was passing through this village you know? Up in the hills. It was around sunset, and the clouds were glowing a brilliant pink, you know...like day-glo candyfloss...when I saw this huge fucking white owl swoop down from the clouds and right at me. I didn't even have time to flinch. It just glided over me, wheeled around, and disappeared in the clouds. Really spooky, that.

I was glowing. To have him say anything about my poor, neglected wooden owl. I still couldn't believe it was happening. Bob meanwhile had leaned back and closed his eyes. He must be really tired, I thought. He looked just like the pictures. That wiry, taut face, that pencil thin 'tache, the remnants of that famous fuzzy head. Here was THE man, here was Zimmerman, sitting in my house! I realised I was gawking and stopped myself.

Instead I said, I love your new album man. It's such a lot of fun. He opened his eyes and gave me a lopsided smile. Yeah, well, my band's the greatest. They can play anything, anything! Sometimes I just give them weird shit to play, just to, you know, test 'em. They do it! It's fucking unbelievable. I mean there was Robbie and the boys all those years ago, and they were pretty hot. But man these guys. They're a fuckin' jukebox! Which ones do you like?

Those blue eyes...

Mississippi. It's beautiful. I'd heard the Sheryl Crow version you know, and even then I'd liked it. Your's has a beautiful weary feel to it. Love your voice on that one.

Yeah? He got up and idly went through my cds. I hate cds, but that's all you have, so...He picked up The Band.

May I?

Of course, sure.

Thanks. It's got some really nice songs.

I know.

'Across the Great Divide' starts playing. "Standing by your window in pain, pistol in your hand..."

I gave Robbie that line. His line was something quite crappy, let's see, uh...

'Standing with my head in my hands,' he croaks. I don't believe this. Really, I say?

Um, look, can I just freshen up? It's been a long ride across that burning plain that I just came through...

That way, I pointed...

*****

Later we are sitting in the kitchen eating baked beans and ham sandwiches. I am telling Bob about the band I had in college and the trouble we had trying to nail 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'.

Haha, munching on a piece of toast. That's nothing man. I went through hell just trying to write it! Days and Days of me repeating 'Johnny's in the basement, mixing up the medicine', and these Nashville guys, them musos, just sitting around looking at the clock in the studio, scratching their ass, smoking, waiting, waiting.

Then...in the hotel...'hoh-tail' he said...me popping pills, filling up my notebook and scratching stuff, and putting stuff in, and sweating sweating...this fever....trying to get it out of my head you know...and they just wouldn't come.

I still have that old bit of cardboard with me somewhere. He rummaged through his bag, brought out a hip flask..."For later," he harrumphed. Rummage some more.

Ah, here it is, my very own Torah of endless permutations....

A red, worn out, hardcover notebook. This here is your song, he said, tapping one thin finger on the cover, right there...

That one book?

Yes siree, all of it. I never worked so hard on a song. I mean, I had to EDIT 'Rolling Stone', but this I couldn't even start putting down on paper...

*****

I just had to wake up then, didn't I?

Binsar

2010-10-22T13:39:00.000+05:30

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

Wee

2010-09-25T12:36:00.003+05:30

Its the Wee Kiddo's birthday today, a kiddo I love very much.
Four years ago today, it was a tense morning. From my temporary shelter in a shared apartment at Siddharth Extension, I was in touch with the Wee's father, Vicky, as the two of us kept anxious tabs on Sue. For the longest time, Vicky and I laboured under the wish that the kid would be a lovely little girl and how much we'd dote on her. Sue, however, was convinced that it would be a boy, and so it proved.
When Vicky called me from the hospital to deliver the news, I couldn't stop crying, it felt so good.

Four years have come and gone, and Wee is a little person, an ex baby, if you will. May his reign continue.

Rainy Day Movies

2010-09-14T14:16:00.003+05:30

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

2010-06-10T13:51:00.003+05:30

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

2010-06-03T15:53:00.001+05:30

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

2010-05-24T13:46:00.020+05:30

(...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

2010-05-24T10:18:00.008+05:30

(...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

2010-05-17T13:09:00.009+05:30

(...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

2010-05-15T14:35:00.007+05:30

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

2010-05-07T16:41:00.008+05:30

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!

2010-01-27T13:47:00.002+05:30

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.

NYC Music

2009-12-22T14:14:00.008+05:30

New York may have turned into Yuppie Paradise but musically it has closed the decade in style, on top of the pop heap. Excuse me then if I indulge in some dancing about architecture.

It has been a fantastic Indie decade for the city, contributing more unforgettable albums to these fragmented ten years than any other time since the CBGB’s heydays in the late 70’s. Be it The Strokes’ Is This It? or TV on the Radio’s Return to Cookie Mountain and Dear Science or Vampire Weekend’s eponymous debut, its been a thrilling ride. In my opinion though, 2009 has put all the other years in the shade.

Just take a look at this year’s releases. Among the countless hipster faves, you’ll find such gems as Antony and The Johnsons’ The Crying Light, Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, Julian Casablancas’ Phrazes for the Young and arguably the best album of the year- Dirty Projectors’ Bitte Orca.

Pic: Antony Hegarty, beautifully brittle

The Crying Light was the first of the lot that I managed to get. Its impossible to go through the strangely luminous, teasingly seductive songs that makes up the album without being profoundly moved. Everyone knows about Antony Hegarty’s much talked about sexuality, but it really amazes how few have actually heard the music. A great amalgam of jazz figures, understated autumnal strings and Hegarty’s beautiful voice, The Crying Light is absolutely brilliant. Although the album deals with issues like death and decay it’s a classic statement of the creative will turning fear into a defiant celebration of life. Epilepsy is Dancing, based in part on the famous Japanese Butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno, who at 106, is still performing, is a case in point. And then there are deeply sexy, playful songs like Kiss My Name, one of the most accomplished come-ons set to music that I can think of. On top of all that, Hegarty’s album makes one of the most personal environmentalist statements in music. In the haunting Another World, he sings, “I’m gonna miss the sea, gonna miss the snows; I’m gonna miss the trees, miss the things that grow.” A beautiful album.

Pic: Animal Collective, Good Vibrations

Very happy with life seem Brooklyn favourites Animal Collective. They delivered another early stunner when Merriweather Post Pavilion was released in January this year. MPP is like most other AC albums in one way- it takes time getting used to. At least so I thought, before I heard the album a second time. Its no understatement to say that this is veritable candy-shop of an album- immensely accessible, and with new sound-treats in store every time you visit.

Lyrically the songs move away from the tribal hootenannies of yore, peopled by strange animals and colours, as Panda Bear and Avey Tare write about the joys of domesticity on Summertime Clothes. Of course, if you’re as Day-Glo as these gents, even your domesticity’s slightly weird. They write love paens to wives and children in the band’s surreal metaphors on My Girls and Also Frightened. On Brothersport As opposed to being slightly cheesy, its actually exciting and very touching, especially when coupled to the fairground music that goes with it. Ah the music! All AC albums have followed the relatively simple but hard-to-execute sonic architecture of overlapping circular arrangements culled from samplers and damaged-guitar tones, that come together for soaring choruses and then break down again, creating a compelling ebb and flow. In MPP, they get it very right because all the sounds chase the very conventional song structures in a dizzying sound that’s designed for the inside of your head. Grounding this kaleidoscope wash of sounds are deep bass pulses, tambourines and the occasional tribal thud. By the time the album orgasms in the joyous Brother Sport, you’re left breathless and grinning. AND they made Billboard Top 20! Last month’s Fall Be Kind EP’s no slouch either.

Pic: Julian Casablancas, Synth Popper!

Strangely enough, you hear distinctly AC-ish sounds at 1:53 of 4 Chords of the Apocalypse, a great blue-eyed soul number delivered with uncharacteristic ferocity by Strokes-man Julian Casablancas. Yes, you read right- Casablancas and ferocity in one line. Nearly all the members of the Strokes had released multiple solo albums- barring guitarist Nick Valensi- but what people were really eager to hear was new music from the band’s singer and songwriter Julian Casablancas. Finally released, his debut solo album Phrazes for the Young is a triumph.

It starts out on familiar Strokes territory with the chugging, chiming guitars of Out of The Blue bursting from the speakers. But by the time the glorious chorus comes on, it isn’t guitars that come to the fore, but synthesizers! And this from a man who we all thought was a late-Seventies, guitar chewing, Velvet Underground-loving pop purist!But the song’s so good, you can hardly imagine it existing in any other sonic context. The other tune on this short album that most resembles The Strokes is the raging River of Brakelights. But the other six songs take one musical left turn after another, all the while retaining their quality pop hooks. So while Glass can only be described as a combination of Western Classical motifs and shiny, glacial electropop, 11^th Dimension wanders through a looking glass world of cheesy 80s synth pop, treated percussions and a decidedly 50s guitar figure. These wildly disparate elements should never mix, but here they do so, miraculously. In a similar vein, the deep soul of 4 Chords of the Apocalypse suddenly morphs into sampler-led sonic terrorism in the chorus, which then leads to a delightful sweeping guitar solo. It’s a mesmerizing mix, one that feels perfectly logical.

Casablancas has often been accused of singing in a sullen whine. On Phrazes he buries his vocals deep in the mix ala Mick Jagger on The Stones’ Exile on Main Street, and just as Jagger did on that album, Casablancas proceeds to unveil his rich range- considerably better than on the Strokes’ albums- from the fantastic soul croon on Apocalypse to a warped, wry sing song on the country ditty Ludlow Street. His voice is expansive and expressive. It grows on you, and soon you’re humming the tune. Ludlow Street, another strange mix of styles, is the masterpiece on this album. It starts with an ominous drone like something out of the There Will be Blood soundtrack before morphing into a country lament for the soul of New York City. While Casablancas rips into the gradual marketing and yuppification of the world’s greatest- and once the most bohemian- metropolis, banjos duel with pianos, drum machines and loud brass. I’ve never been this pleasantly surprised.

And finally, Dirty Projectors.

Pic: Dirty Projectors, obstinate eccentrics

When I saw Bitte Orca, it looked strange enough for me to get it. And when the heavily reverbed prog guitar intro of Cannibal Resource started, with the very Led Zeppelin heavy drums, I was lulled for a second into thinking that this would be a straightforward pop album. Of course, I knew nothing about band mastermind David Logstreth. Pretty soon the soaring, ethereal voices of singers Angel Deradoorian and Amber Coffman started floating all over the place, in precisely written parts over stop-start rhythms, Tinariwen-like handclaps- all tied into a very Captain Beefheart-like approach to songwriting. Its difficult music, but one that let’s you in if you give it enough time. And once you’re in, the pleasures- melodic and rhythmic- just keep on coming.

Take Temencula Sunrise for one. Soaked in the same warm communal vibes as Merriweather- is this the dawn of an East Coast love-in?- this songs winds its way into your skull through a beautiful chordal acoustic guitar figure that is as eccentric as Longstreth’s high, keening voice; which suddenly leads up to a gloriously electric chorus and then breaks for the second verse which is arranged like a song from Tinariwen’s Aman Iman from two years ago. Longstreth evidently takes African music seriously, and you can hear his influence on the band that two of his erstwhile protégés formed- Vampire Weekend. Anyway, the song then goes into a compelling, driving yet utterly inscrutable guitar solo- more inventive than anything Jack White has recorded in the past few years.

Further on you have the brilliant Timbaland soul r’n’b pastiche Stillness is the Move. Amber Coffman outdoes herself in a masterful vocal turn of glorious radiance. Then you have the unsettling folk ballad Two Doves and other highlights like Useful Chamber which winds all over the place over eerie keyboard figures and voices, a dancefloor beat before convening for the strangely uplifting chorus of “Bitte Orca Orca Bitte” and another blistering solo that Jimmy Page would have been proud of, as would be Thurston Moore. Its mesmerizing music, messy by design and rich in melody and rhythm. Its my favourite album of the year by miles.

Kid A, a personal history

2009-12-09T13:30:00.007+05:30

After almost a decade of the album being released, I downloaded Kid A today.

It’s a big deal for me.

Back in 2000, I was 19 years old, a sophomore and a diehard Beatles nut. I was also nuts for all of Britpop, at least the most mainstream artists in it, like Oasis, Blur, Ocean Colour Scene, Kula Shaker, The Verve. You name it, I loved it.

I loved all those melodies, the classicist songwriting, the guitar solos, the “wow these are my rockstars” kind of stars-in-your-eyes devotion that these bands inspired. I loved the way they dressed, their haircuts, their guitars, all that cool gear man!

Yet, there was one band that I just felt no attraction for. Radiohead. Of course, I had heard and loved Creep and Karma Police and Just, even No Surprises. But Subterranean Homesick Alien? Thanks but no thanks. This was just too weird for me, and I couldn’t abide by electronics. And what was with all that moaning anyway? Why couldn’t I make out what Thom Yorke was trying to say?

So no Radiohead for me then. In fact, when my copy of Ok Computer got whacked, I couldn’t give a damn. After all, Travis was much nicer. The Invisible Band? I thought it was a classic.

In 2000, I heard all that brouhaha about this crazy new album that Radiohead have come out with, something called Kid A. I read about it in music magazines- “Thom Yorke has an emotional meltdown!”; “Radiohead says, ‘No More Melody!’”; “Colin Greenwood confides, ‘We could almost kill each other’”. This weird band had apparently gotten weirder. Apparantly this album had no guitars, no songs, just ambient moaning, and lots of electronic didgeridoo.

Kid A was a work of painful genius, they said; it captured the disjointed new Millennia; it was the sound of the new century! Thank you, I’d rather weep to Parachutes. Chris Martin had a better voice I thought. The very name, Radiohead, reminded me of all those strange noisy bands on Rock Street Journal with ‘head’ in their names- Portishead, Buckethead, Motorhead, Jarhead, god-knows-what-head. It was so, you know, musty and Nineties!

When I left University with my MA in 2004, all of 23 and nowhere to go but away, my musical tastes were the same- Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Oasis, Kula Shaker; and bands that sounded like them. The only anomaly to this was probably my un-analysed love for The velvet Underground

And so I carried on through those lost years (in a way), as my career atrophied and went nowhere and my yearning for the mountains grew into an unrequited hurt. But musically, 2005 and 2006 were rich years. I was finally earning, though peanuts. I had a little cd player. I could finally go to a cd shop- in this case Music Land in New Delhi- and pick up old albums by The Band, Traffic, The Byrds, Motown. I could finally hear all these great bands and their albums from the 60s and the 70’s; build up a record collection that I could be proud of.

But it was a record collection that mirrored those of my peers. There was nothing I didn’t have that they didn’t. I was hanging out with a peer group at least 5 years older than me, and it did me a world of good too, as I started listening to more Jazz, Bluegrass, Folk. But there was nothing I could call my own, apart from The Beatles, and we all know just how many other billions regard The Beatles as their own! It was as if this decade, my decade, was passing me by and I knew nothing of its music, hadn’t even bothered to hear anything new. It would all be inferior to the 60’s anyway, I told myself. Why bother?

And then, 2007.

I was finally in a job that I was comfortable in; that gave me some breathing space; that didn’t ask for too much of my time. Better still, I had a regular income. And I was in a band again.

Being in a band that rehearses every other day and that wants to play its own songs does things to you that would never otherwise happen. You start thinking of music as something organic, something that grows. It ceases to be a commodity, no matter how highly prized. The band's guitar player Sujoy (The Prof) introduced me to Bop and Swing; to Django Reinhardt, Lenny Breau, Esbjorn Svensson, Brad Meldhau and so much more. Meanwhile my editor at the magazine, Sanjoy, exhorted me to write on music.

Easier said than done. I had discovered Indie, and so my first reaction was to write on Devendra Banhart or LCD Soundsystem or The Strokes, often in a haphazard way. Would staid suits (the predominant audience of my magazine) be even remotely interested? But it was a start, and I was grateful.

I got albums by the dozen. Including Radiohead’s In Rainbows. Swayed by the beautiful, haunting songs on that album, I went back to their earlier albums, especially Ok Computer. The songs started making sense. They ceased to be miserable moanings in the dark and became immensely complex bits of enjoyment. Then I discovered all those covers of the band's music by other bands, jazzmen. These forced me to listen to Radiohead-music with fresh ears.

Over the last couple of years I’ve discovered more bands and music than I can possibly keep up with. Much of it has been great. Since I was now writing on them, I had to pay better attention. Under Sanjiv, my erstwhile editor, I was forced to think about how to write, how to present my ideas, how to tie it up in a cohesive way. All the stuff, basically, that you never learn unless you’re doing it. Again, I’m extremely grateful.

My own songs started to reflect this broad palette. That, in turn got me thinking about song structures, melodic lines, key shifts, what have you. And as I grew in music, I started looking at my old loves in a new light. For the first time, I could enjoy The Beatles in an objective way, looking out for details, making notes about the songwriting and the arrangements. The internet was there, along with a plethora of books on music, for any questions I may have. Then there was the Prof, arguing with me on every turn. That helped.

I was even going to the mountains.

And so, after years of being in denial, I downloaded Kid A. From the horns-led mayhem of The National Anthem, to the panic disco of Idioteque, and the fragile beauty of Morning Bell- I'm dissolving in an ocean of sound.

Everything in its right place.

Songs of Winter

2009-11-20T15:56:00.010+05:30

When I came in to work today, the first day in over two weeks when I don’t have anything to worry about, I was determined to make it my day of music, albums back to back. On a whim I put on the Fleet Foxes' album from last year, then The Arctic Monkey’s Humbug, and finally Antony and the Johnsons’ The Crying Light. You couldn’t have three more dissimilar albums, or three more dissimilar bands for that matter. While the tripping melodies and harmonies of Fleet Foxes are by now as familiar to me as a favourite blanket, Humbug is dark and brooding, fascinating in the details, but claustrophobic in the main.

And what can I say about The Crying Light? Its one of the most haunting and intriguing albums I’ve ever heard, and not only because of Antony Hegarty’s voice or his sexuality. As I type, he is singing seductively, teasing me to kiss his name. Joy.

So let’s get straight to my Songs of Winter, shall we?

Julian Casablancas- Phrazes for the Young

I don’t know about you, but for me any new Strokes related release is a cause for celebration, especially when its such a weird pop album like this one. Keyboards, slow soul, Krautrock, drum machines, surf guitar, loud brass…boy does he pile it on thick on this album, sometimes all of these things in the same song! But the man’s way with melody and his uber-sexy voice totally does it for me, every time I hear it.

Antony and the Johnsons- The Crying Light

Although it came out way back in January (which is when I acquired it), I’m listening to it more often- probably because winter’s approaching. These are sophisticated torch songs, flowing with melancholia that inspires, rather than saps. The baroque strings, the playfull jazz times, the beautiful melodies, and above it all, Antony Hegarty’s tremulous, mournful/playful voice weaves a rich tapestry of shadow and light.

The Beatles- Remastered boxsets, Mono and Stereo

What can I say? I’m shameless. But the detail! Its like a window to a world wiped clean of dust after a long shower. My favourite album turns out to be Beatles for Sale. Curiouser and curiouser.

Pearl Jam- Backspacer

I’ve never been too great a fan of them. So when people told me their new album was pretty great, it didn’t make much of a difference to me. Having heard it- though only twice- I can say that individual songs ARE actually pretty good, especially where they give themselves some space to stretch out.

Arctic Monkeys- Humbug

I don’t know what to make of this album. Its maddeningly dense, and many of the riffs and tempos and melodies sound like each other. There are lovely little bits of detail though. A fabulous manual of how to write a modern Indie rock album.

Love- Forever Changes

Not particularly new in my affections. No modern band has been able to capture the melodies, the songwriting, the hope, despair, ennui and rage of this diamond of an album.

Paul McCartney- Chaos and Creation in the Backyard

I just can’t tire of this album. Its just so sure-footed in its pop nous that its stunning. Just listen to the way the arrangement builds up in Friends To Go, and you’ll see what I mean.

The Supersonics- Maby Baking

I truly think this is the best Indian rock album of the year, full of stupid lyrics, great melodies, interesting arrangements, and tons of rock songs that stick in your head. The boys from Calcutta have swallowed The Strokes and Britpop whole, and have come up with this superb debut. I love Blotter.

The Strokes- Is This It? and Room On Fire

When in doubt, put on The Strokes!

Well, these are what I’ve been hearing to, obsessively. Of course, I still haven’t stopped playing Bitte Orca, the best album this year by a long, long mile.

Note to myself- Have to hear the new Devendra Banhart album.

A Week in Films Part 1

2009-10-28T16:27:00.005+05:30

I've never had a lot of time for films. I like them, sure, but they're not my art form of preference. I mean, if there's a toss up between a movie, a new album or a book, the movie would come a distant third. Imagine my amazement then, when I suddenly realised that I've been seeing a lot of movies lately- and in movie halls, no less.

There's something immensely soul destroying about going to a multiplex, paying some insane amount of money for the ticket and then being assaulted by some trash that I definitely wouldn't want to pay 150 bucks for. Anyhoof, no point in cribbing.

And while PVR Saket might be the total opposite of a New Empire or a Lighthouse or a Globe Theatre, at least the seats are nice, so you can doze off if you're not interested in the drivel on screen.

As it turned out, the movie on my screen was Quentin Tarantino's latest, Inglourious Basterds. What can I say? If you're into gratuitous violence, people not acting but pulling faces, and plenty of campy humour, this film's for you. But as war movies go, this one's brilliant for not taking anything too seriously. And there IS something deliciously funny with watching Hitler and Goebbels getting their faces shot in, and beautiful women being strangled to death, which steps over the Hollywood line of never killing the beautiful woman so, well, inglouriously. The main villain, a self styled Nazi "Jew Hunter" called Col Hans Landa, is played with bristling menace and hypnotic suaveness by Christoph Waltz.

Pic: Christoph Waltz is brilliant as the creepy Hans Landa

In fact, his performance pretty much makes the movie. Brad Pitt, as the leader of the Nazi-hunting Basterds pulls a white-trash-American-supremacist-but-anti-Nazi face and sticks to it faithfully for the rest of the film. And anyway, he's there to look good in a smoking jacket- or anything else- and toss off one-liners.

Pic: Brad Pitt pulls faces and carves swastikas on the foreheads of the Nazis that he doesn't kill

The other great thing about the film is that QT unashamedly shows off his nerd-boy love of the cinema. The main plot turns on an old Parisian cinema and its Jewish-victim-with-a-terrible-grudge owner. Then there are references to a hundred different films, dialogues from other movies, situations, sets, what have you. The Nazis are a delightfully wooden and creepy bunch. This is just as well, as a nuanced Nazi is problematic, carrying with it the twin baggage of justification (just doing our job) and general German complicity with the Nazi regime. Then there's the chance that Germans would actually take offence to bits of dialogue which move seamlessly from the Nazi-hating to what might be construed as German-hating. After all, in some places in the film, the American characters boast about killing themselves some Germans. But I guess QT can get away with non-PC, and more power to him for it.

Diane Kruger, in a small but important role, plays up the camp as the actress/double agent Bridgette von Hammersmark beautifully, and the opening scene of Lans Handa in action is perfectly taut with tension and menace.

Pic: Diane Kruger's at her campy best

In the end, QT even has the balls to get Pitt to say the film might be his masterpiece. It definitely isn't, but if you can keep your quibbles aside, its great fun. And another thought: QT can write!

Pic: The QT

But not as much fun as having that noted charlatan, Arindam Chaudhury, sit in the row in front of you, watching the movie with his entourage. Wonder if Planman plans to do a desi version of it anytime soon?

You Poet

2009-10-22T13:30:00.003+05:30

You Poet

You poet of unremembered night who are also the soul, the breeze, the tumbling of lights from railroad steel to bop licks are gone.

You poet of coronets, blowing hard and soft into a night heavy with heat or supple with rain and mud-splattered shoes are gone.

You poet of drunken yells, bells and sleepless spells of crying out loud for the sheer solace of unprovoked joy and love are gone.

You poet of shivering thighs, slapping holy pubic hair to moan in the gently rolling breasts of ceaseless sighs are gone.

You poet with visions of the snake and the ghosts of bums hurrying through lands of memory, words, boasts, stories, songs and children are gone.

You poet giving voice to the unknown distractions of moving moving, never stopping to find hypnosis in television sets and tax returns and bonds of money and gore are gone.

You poet of ghostly horses, saints and cons, sweet snatches, St Teresa bums, mumbling Dharma chanting woodsman poets, beatific dogs and movement are gone.

You poet I dream of in wild longings of desperate kisses I never had, the friends I never yelled “Fuck You” at, the madman who’s always fading from my memory, the song I should’ve followed to an end, the preacher I never flung a book at, the chronicler of a nation of the mind where all freedom resides in words, thoughts, desire and despair, but kindness too, are gone.

You poet, wizard of words, typing lines of distilled riffs cutting through sky blue domes and forgotten desolate tomes are gone.

Ah woe.

- For Jack Kerouac, who died devoid of poetry forty years ago. RIP Ti Jean

Chandrashila

2009-10-09T13:53:00.003+05:30

I sat beside a cairn atop Chandrashila watching clouds rise. Freezing in Sujaan's choti at Tunganath, a combination of sleep deprivation and oxygen depletion had effectively ruled out my much cherished ambition of making it to the peak before sunrise that day. Feeling a little better as the day wore on, I decided to make a try for it. After all, it was a beautiful sunny day.

At Tunganath, the weather changes every ten minutes. This a local saying, and absolutely true. I definitely didn't want to tempt the weather while the sun was still shining. So I told Biru to wait a bit for Sujoy and Debo- the friends I was travelling with- to wake up and struck off on my own. I had last climbed it in May this year. I was way fitter then, so I had very little hopes of making it up there without huffing and puffing my lungs out. As it turned out, the mountain paid me a huge compliment. Probably because I was a lot better used to breathing on this altitude, even with stops to make calls to people (high up the peak I was getting a signal from Gopeshwar on the other side of Chandrashila!) and admire the scenery, I still managed to get up there in half an hour. I was about to ring the bell at the tiny temple of the moon, when I happened to look beyond, and time literally stood still. Far away, yet strangely near, on the North Eastern horizon rose a gaggle of sharp peaks.

Pic: Nanda Devi and her sisters hold court on the far horizon

Two I could immediately recognise because of their distinctive shapes- the mighty Nanda Devi, and Hathi Parbat, the presiding peak of the Bhyundar Valley.

The temple was forgotten. Mindful of the fact that soon either my camera's going to freeze or that the batteries are going to give up, I quickly took as many snaps of this magnificent scene as I could. In the not-quite-noonday sun, the distant white peaks look like translucent chalk sketches against a blue 3D sky. Needless to say, it was unlike anything I'd ever seen before, except maybe in some dream.

The immediate patch of rocky ground behind the temple (the highest point on the peak) is covered with cairns. These vertical structures of various sizes are made from slabs of stoes from the peak and seem to be constantly made and re-made. In May I had asked Biru what these structures signify and he'd said that these were memorial stones. To my fevered imagination they look more like portals into some other world. Amongst them, a Japanese man was singing.

It was a surreal sight. This middle aged man had planted his walking stick upright, slung his thick ski jacket and hat over it, and was lying in its shade reading a book, and occasionally breaking out into song. He grinned at me and went back to reading and singing.

Pic: A Japanese sun-worshipper on Chandrashila

A few feet from him, at another part of the peak behind some other cairns, another of his compatriots was sitting still in a lotus position with his face towards Nanda Devi, deep in meditation. In all there were three of them. I was to bump into them over the next few days, either meditating on tatami mats on the peak, or wandering about wearing a lost look in Tunganath, where they were staying at a different choti.

Making sure that I wasn't disturbing them, I plonked myself down on a rock face overlooking a deep precipice. Down below, through the haze and rising wisps of clouds I could see the wooded valley that had so caught my fancy the last time I was here. In front of me, still visible clearly, rose the distant panorama.

It felt just so exhilarating to finally see Nanda Devi, unencumbered, in all her glory. The other time I'd seen her, it wasn't this sideways view. Rather I'd seen her head on, part veiled by the Mai ki Toli ridge, but with both her twin peaks visible. This was from the Binsar sanctuary in the Almora hills of Kumaon, from where its much closer. From the peak though, she looked serene, detached from the dramatic, wild beauty of her environs. Its easy to see why people revere her so.

But my view of her and the other distant giants depended purely on the whim of the clouds. By nine thirty, the day's heat had had its effect on the sub-tropical climate in the valleys which were giving rise to a succession of little pillow like clouds. While many dissolved in the cooler air above, many more started to form little gangs, which then became bigger gangs.

Pic: Cloud-eye view

Clouds change shape better than any con artist. Constantly forming, disintegrating, reforming, flowing into, out of, over and around ridges, they form an elaborately graceful ballet of carefully choreographed chaos. And so they roamed about me, avoiding this high peak, but erecting and dismantling teasing curtains between me and the distant peaks. So every now and then, all evidence of the far vistas would vanish, leaving me to wonder at what I'd seen. The first time Nanda Devi was cloaked, two Monal took wing, circling overhead while uttering mournful cries, as if in her memory. Then there were the giant Himalayan Gryphons, their backs glinting in the sun, gliding from one air current to another, circling the upper air. They seem totally at home, yet impervious to the beauty of the place.

Pic: Massive Himalayan Gryphon flying high

As the sun climbed higher, the ever present buzzing of large , laggardly flies increased. I'm absolutely not well informed on insects, but the sheer variety I saw on this lonely peak was breathtaking. And then there were ravens. Massive black birds, graver and more ominous than your average crow. They seemed to be constantly watching, flying from one impossible rock overhang to another, squawking, and making these strange half conversational sounds. They are mysterious birds, who indeed hold parliaments when there is a quorum. I can't think of a more appropriate word to describe a group of these birds.

When there was nothing to see, I simply closed my eyes. Immediately my ears pricked up. The wind blowing; a sensation of cool moisture on my cheeks; rustling, buzzing insects; an occasional avian cry. But above all, silence. Every now and then, a sound from a distant village, many thousands of feet below. Startling and funny, like rocks talking to each other.

After a spell, I opened my eyes, and the clouds had shifted. I could see Nanda Devi and her sisters holding court again in the bright sunshine. To my right, above the great green valley that leads to the Anusuya Devi temple in the jungle, huge plumes of clouds were forming. In front of me, due north, Neelkanth was suddenly revealed in all her glory. Further North East small tufts of clouds hung in the air between Chandrashila and the Kedar Massif, casting little shadows on the rich bugyals (high altitude meadows) below the range. At moments like these, I stared in vain at my notebook, struggling to find words evocative enough to describe this beauty. I smiled to myself, imagining the poet Coleridge on this peak, startled out of his opium haze into a fresh appreciation of the sublime. He was a staunch lover of mountains, sometimes recklessly so. One one occasion, he managed to get himself trapped in an impassable grotto in the Lake District. With dusk coming on, and risking exposure, he decided to shut his eyes, take a deep breath and will his way out of there. Opening them, he realised that there indeed was a way- through a difficult and dangerous rock scramble. Sure enough he did. A fascinating story. My guess is, he'd have loved this place.

Bang in front of me, between Chandrashila and Neelkanth, rose a bleak naked rocky ridge, which the local people refer to as kala paththar. An evocative enough name. Back in May, it was covered in snow and ice, but now there were just rocks, and the occasional huge gash signifying the path of a winter snow-field. But it says something about the enormity of the geography here that these same locals believe that there's nothing there. Wrong. Behind and beyond that ridge lies Nandi Kund, an enormous lake from which rises the Madhyamaheshwar Ganga, as well as the huge green hanging valley of Pandosera. That way lies a high track that crosses a couple of high passes under the toe of mighty Chaukhamba to gain access to the Bansi Narayan temple on a massive ridge further to the East overlooking the Alakananda Valley. According to Biru, many sheep-herders often go that way, as do other local people to collect Bramhakamals or the huge lotuses that the high Himalayas are famous for. Someday I'll get to see the place, I hope.

Pic: The forested river valley below Chandrashila, with a snow covered Kala Paththar in the background.

Chandrashila is the highest peak on a long, high and incredibly serrated ridge that runs south to north from the forested valley of Chopta to the highlands below Chaukhamba, running parallel to the Sari and Madhyamaheshwar ridges. Some of the other high ridge-points that I'd been climbing over the last few days with Biru now lay below me- awesome mountains in their own right, but somehow dwarfed by their magnificent setting. As I gazed, some ravens took wing, circling lazily in the morning haze.

Through all the shifting weather, the four white pillars of Chaukhamba rose imperiously, as if above human concerns, glinting severely yet reassuring in the sun. To think that just behind its massive ramparts lay the Gangotri glacier and all those fabled peaks.

Pic: Chaukhamba

Some of them I could see from there- Thalay Sagar and Shivling, beautiful spires both, are visible slightly behind the Kedar Massif. Then come the peaks of Meru, Mandani, the Bhagirathi group. Many peaks, of which I am not sure of the names. In those fabled lands had travelled both my heroes- Eric Shipton and Umaprasad Mukherjee. Both had also come here. In his journal on the 1934 Nanda Devi expedition and the subsequest crossing of the Kedar-Badri watershed under Chaukhamba, Shipton wrote about a zig-zag high altitude pass he took to get to Chamoli back on the way to Joshimath on the road to Badrinath. There it is below me, rushing down the eastern face of Chandrashila on its way down to the forests of Mandal to join the motorable road to Gopeshwar and Chamoli.

Pic: The old pilgrim trail

Mukherjee made special mention of this pass, extolling its natural beauty and bemoaning the unwillingness of pilgrims to take this harder but more enjoyable old route just because there was a tarmac road passing below through Chopta. He was writing in the early 60s. Now, it has fallen even more into disuse. While in the dry cold weather of May, I could easily make out the contours of the path, now in verdant October, just a memory of the path existed. Mukherjee was a deeply religious man, but even he acknowledged that the true reward of making the long and arduous climb to Chandrashila was this view of the high peaks. Amen.

This land is so old. It fills you with a deep awe that's beyond simple religiosity. As I sat in that private paradise of mine, I prayed that I'd never forget it.

Good Day Sunshine!

2009-10-08T15:22:00.007+05:30

Jumping out of bed at the cold, unearthly hour of 4:30 am I stepped out in the freezing night to have my breath taken away by the galactic arm of the Milky Way stretching over me. But I hadn't much time to lose, as I had to get to the peak of Chandrashila by 6 am or miss the fabled sunrise. So I ran in the lightening darkness, my lungs heaving with the effort in the rarefied air and my head spinning with the cold and the exertion. Behind me the Chaukhamba and Kedar peaks brightened in the fast-approaching dawn. Ahead of me, on the ridge-line the silhouettes of other sunrise-spotters intent on their goal, trudging up. One by one I overtook them, my head spinning. Below and behind, I could see a torchlight in the darkness- Debo and Biru coming up behind me.

A loud yell of exhilaration escaped my throat as I rounded the last hump and came up in front of the temple of the moon atop Chandrashila. The sky had cleared behind me, though Chaukhamba and the other giants had yet to catch fire. I made my way through the gaggle of people on the peak to the farthest point on the ridge. This is what I saw, over a half hour that lasted forever. Night below me and daybreak at 4,100 m. The sun came out slowly, like a grand comedian with impeccable timing, behind the beautiful spire of Nanda Devi.

The love of mountains

2009-09-19T15:28:00.005+05:30

Durga Pujo is around the corner. When I was a kid, the very thought used to make me go weak in the knees with happiness. Tired as I grew of it, Cal's pujo is still something to behold. In my opinion, it is the closest one comes to a carnival in this country, apart from the actual Goa carnival of course. Great memories, happy memories.

Right now, all I can think of is one thing- going to the mountains. If anything can be said to have usurped Durga Pujo's place in my affections, it has got to be the mountains. In fact, the joy I get from altitude far outstrips my childhood fondness of Pujo.

Why? Well lots of reasons really. But if I were to really put my finger on it, it would be this- the Himalayas- and other hills and mountains- are the only places which are truly spiritual to me. I mean, to walk for hours up or down mountains, through the humming quiet of the roads and forests and rocks and fields; to see geography crumpled up and refashioned on such a gigantic scale; to see the high peaks glistening unimpeachably in the sky, and to look down to see deep blue valleys emerging as if out of some primordial dream of belonging- that is the closest I come to any sort of religious epiphany. I mean, if the beauty of the land can bring tears to your eyes, isn't that something to cherish? Outside of the Bengal-Bihar countryside, where I grew up- no other place affets me as deeply.

Hence, not a month goes by without me feeling eternally grateful for my life- to be able to live and work in a place from where the mountains are just six hours away; and the high Himalayas a mere 14 hours.

My parents travelled ceaselessly, or so it seemed to me as a child. From our home in Purnea in North East Bihar, Siliguri via Kishanganj was only a six to eight hour drive away, so I'd been going to Darjeeling from the age of two. Puri was the other favourite, us being Bongs, so many a holiday was spent there as well.

But some of my favourite trips with my parents has been to the mountains. I remember the December jaunt to Manali- my first snowfall!!- in 1996 and the absolutely superlative Kedarnath-Badrinath trip of 1999. That's when I really started to see the mountains as something beyond the promise of cool climes and snow peaks. The sheer sensory experience of the Garhwal was something. I'll never forget the Kedarnath massif rising out of a cloudy dawn behind the temple of Kedarnath, or Nilkantha floating like a shark's tooth in the air above Badrinath. But it wasn't just the peaks. What I loved best was the journey to get there.

Kedarnath from Gaurikund was the first trek of my life and quite unforgettable. You start among the thick forsts of Gaurikund, and over the next 14 km, you rise up inexorably to finally emerge into the high valley above the treeline, springy turf under you and exhilirating vastness all around you.

While in college, me and some friends made our way to the Valley of Flowers in 2001. A magical land if I've ever seen one, this was high altitude all right, and I realised that the Himalayas are a most happy addiction.

Imagine my plight then, when for five long years various circumstances kept me apart from my love. Only in 2006 could I go again, this time to Mussoorie. I was aghast to find the same spoilt Delhi brats whining in a Cafe Coffee Day store on the Mall Road, but heck I could not argue with the bits of clouds playing hide and seek with me around the lush mountains of Tehri Garhwal.

Another long wait of two years. By 2008 I'd had enough of all this dicking about in the city, trying to earn a livelihood and all that. So I took off to McLeodganj to meet my friend KP who was staying there. Took another friend of mine, Debo, along.

Pic: Dharamshala and Kangra Valley shrouded in clouds, seen from McLeodganj

This was it, mountain madness had finally caught up with me and had claimed me for its own. In fact I can pinpoint the moment when it happened. The first was when I awoke at dawn on the bus to Dharamshala to find us in the middle of the Shivalik highlands of Himachal Pradesh, going past a beautiful river, on the way to Kangra. In the distance, through the clouds I could see the giant ramparts of the Dhauladhars sweeping up to the sky. At that moment, I knew exactly what I'd been missing all this time.

Pic: Triund, on the ramparts of the Dhauladhar Range.

The second moment came a few days later. Debo had returned to Delhi, and me and KP were making our way up to Triund on the shoulders of the Dhauladhars, on the way to Indrahar Pass.

Trekking up after so many years with a spoilt body full of smoke and repose was always going to be hard. The fact that I was shit stoned didn't help much either. In fact, considering the difficulty, I insisted on getting even more high, and KP was only too willing. Half way up Triund, at around 2 pm or so, wheezing and pulling my tired, screaming legs up the next boulder with my heart threatening to jump right out of my body, the clouds which had surrounded us for much of the trip burst and rain came pouring down. My predicament just got worse. Not only did this meant that the going got even tougher, as veritable rivers of mud were flowing down the quagmire of a track but my dope paranoia made me imagine that the mountain was for some reason trying to shrug me off its back. Still, we kept trudging, past immense boulders and even larger dead tree trunks in a shadow land of cloud, thunder and rain. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, we came around a bend and-Triund! A high altitude meadow, with a gentle mist hanging over it and myriad little flowers blooming in the grass. That's when I was convinced that this was the life for me.

Fortunately, that trip pretty much opened the floodgates. Next I went to this place called Viratkhaai above Chakrata in Western Garhwal for an adventure sport camp. I lost a tooth falling off a bike and got ravaged by leeches, but the place was magical.

Pic: The Yamuna coming down from the mountains north west of Mussoorie.

The monsoon had just hit and the various valleys were wrapped up in a shroud of mystery, as our Press bus went up along crumbly roads over horrid precipices up to the camp, past beautiful waterfalls and entire river systems swollen into floodwaters thanks to the incessant rain.

Pic: Mountains of Tehri Garhwal at Dhanolti near Mussoorie.

Next I went to Mussoorie again, which was pleasant. Come October, and I was off to Bhuira, this charming hamlet in the Shimla hills of eastern Himachal.

Pic: A cairn atop a hill in the Shimla hills near Bhuira

While there, us friends trekked up this local hill top. Crisp in the fall sunshine, I tugged at my beard and spaced staring off into the middle distance.

Early this year, in March, while it was still cold enough to discourage tourists, me and a friend of mine, Priyo went off to Binsar, a forest sanctuary above Almora in the Kumaon hills. Having missed a bus, and then having travelled for a full 12 hours through North UP (hell on wheels), when we woke up to a stunning Himalayan panorama (pic below) it was all worth it.

Pic: Nanda Devi and other giants at dawn, seen from Binsar.

Each and every moment of my time there was sublime- whether it was staying in a century-old forest guest house in the middle of an oak and rhododendron forest with some immense cedars for company, or the sight of the majestic Kumaoni peaks- Trishul, Nanda Devi, Nanda Ghunti, Panchachuli among them- or a fabulous trek of some 20 km through the beutiful valleys and ridge-tops of the Almora hills to the ancient temple town of Jageshwar from there.

Another trip to McLeodganj followed in April. This time there were quite a few of us, and the pace was less frantic. Indeed, for once, I was happy not to try and cover too much ground and just relax instead (I still forced them up to Triund though!).

Then in May, on my birthday along came the big trip to Tunganath and Chandrashila, again in the Kedarnath mountains of Garhwal.

Pic: The high Himalayas of north Garhwal, Tunganath.

I'd never been this close to the Greater Himalayas before, and although because of unseasonal bad weather I couldn't do the extensive trekking that I'd planned, climbing up to the top of Chandrashila at over 4000m was heady enough.

Over the next month, making my way through work and bad news I felt so horrible in Delhi, that I made another quick jaunt to McLeodganj. I have friends there now- especially a group of young locals who run home stays for European and American backpackers in the villages of upper Bhagsu and Dharamkot, above McLeodganj.

That was in June. Haven't been back to the mountains since. All I've been able to do to keep my mountain-starved mind from going insane is to read countless fabulous books on the mountains, my favourite ones among these being my hero Eric Shipton's collected travelogues and Journals, and the travel writings of my other mountain hero Umaprasad Mukherjee- some of whose peerless Bengali essays, I've tried to translate.

So, why all this talk about mountains at the end of September? Well, it ties in with what I said at the beginning of the blog. Durga Pujo is around the corner again, and this time, I hope to be back in Tunganath, staying in Sujaan Singh's lovely choti- with probably one of the best alpine views in the world- and meeting the irrepresible Biru.

Pic: The view outside Sujaan Singh's unassuming choti at Tunganath.

I intend to hijack him and make him take me to Madhmaheshwar and Deoria Tal, two absolutely fantastic places in the deep valleys and high ridges of the Kedarnath mountains along one of the greatest watershed areas on earth.

I've got my fingers crossed.

Lucy's Wedding Day

2009-09-16T16:08:00.004+05:30

To celebrate the new Beatles releases, I'm re-publishing one of my older posts

Pepperland, full-sun day

As I look up from my rocking-horse pie and wander about, I see Johnnie Boy on the crest of Velvet Hand hill with the sun in his eyes. He smiles as a tune floats down, "Day after day, alone on a hill, the man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still." Sucking on a sugar cube, I start to climb. Many hued creatures poke their heads out from behind stones shot through with colours and smile at me. Its Lucy's wedding day and the guests are busy fixing a hole in the sky, letting the rain in. The only light comes from Johnnie Boy's eyes. What a clean old man, I think. The garden east of the thunder is full of rain and Billy Shears leads the worthies to the canopy where the lemonade is being sold for one hit a miss.

I can't see Paulie, but I hear him singing somewhere with the frog chorus, "I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in and stops my mind from wandering where it will go."

I guess he's leading the horse fixers on a flag march. Rehearsals are necessary. After all, the wedding card has promised- "A Splendid Time Is Guaranteed For All".

Hari-baba is romancing a gap-toothed fairy under the cinnamon bush. He kisses her hand, his beard flying in the wind. "What do you see when you turn off the lights?", somebody, maybe Mimi, shouts at him.

"I can't tell you," he winks, "but I know its mine."

The hole fixed, the sun appears, skipping wheels of rhyme as the foggy ruins of time wash off its luminous sphere. There it goes, skidding across strawberry fields. A thin, dim figure chases it with a flashing stick. Its Johnnie Boy, that's who, weilding a slumping wedding rod shouting through the freshly minted mint leaves.

But where be Great Nose, the master of ceremonies? He had said that he'd be found navigating his yellow submarine through the sea of holes if anyone cared.

"That's it!" exclaimed Eleanor exasperatedly. "He's feeling left out once again. What did you say to him this time Paul?". This she asks the young mustachioed gallant fiddling with a bagpipe beside her, the one with the frog chorus.

"Well," said Paulie, "Rich wanted to go see Mr. Henderson ride a dragon to the Mumley tree and back and I said why not act your height and do summersaults on solid ground? He got peeved and went off in a huff to his paramour Octopussyfooting saying that I'm always trying to be taller than him."

Paulie then produced a bit of paper from behind Eleanor's left ear and and taking a long drag on the bazooka he was smoking, scribbled 'there are seven levels' on it. Winking slyly he looked at Elly and said, "You're a big mother, want to see my marguerites?" So faded the scene, amidst giggles.

A tinkling music slooshes through the hills surrounding Velvet Hand. Mr Henderson and his Fiery Frederick touches down in a swish of wings and a sniff of brimstone. He does a pirouette and and alights gracefully, a green hat in hand. "Hoom," he says, says he.

"Where be Rich, Manny?" asks Johnnie Boy through his nose, snorting away the tangerine fly trying to find a suitable spot on his hooter.

"Oh, count your lucky Starrs," hoomed Henderson, "cause Richie has put his little tiff with Paulie behind him and now wears it for a tail."

"He's trying to be big about it is he?" sniggered Paulie from under the giggling Elly.

"Far out," says Johnnie Boy and shakes a thought from his sleeve and looks at it with kaleidescope eyes. Just then Hari feels the ground move beneath him, and rolls off the lap of the fairy and lights a joint in one motion. As he exhales, the blue smoke clings to the mountain air and Rich appears, big nose and all, clothed in blue. He's reading the news. WE BECOME NAKED, screams the headline, over a picture of Marianne and Margerie buttering up their hams.

"Where the hell you been Rich?" drawls Hari, serenely smoking.

"Well," says Richie lugubriously, "them sea of holes turned out to be in Blackburn, Lancashire and being so far away from here, I had to worm-hole my way. I'm all smoky as a result." Someone tittered, maybe Paulie.

And so everyone was together again at the Chemycal Wedding of Lucy and Cristian Rosencreutz. The lights were right, the sangria laced and the meat marinated. As the boys told cool jokes and the girls smoked bongs, a cheer went up in the vales. They all looked up. Oh the marvel! Shimmering in white, riding an obsidian Olyphaunt, and ringing the wedding bell, there was Lucy in the sky with diamonds!!!

Tunganath Part 5

2009-09-08T13:56:00.014+05:30

Chopta is about a mile from Baniyakund. Along the way are a few tea shops and flophouses. The trail to Tunganath starts at Chopta. The main road carries on to the right and below from Chopta to Bhulkona, a mile away. From there, the road descends to Pangarbasa. The way lies through a deep forest, undulating like a giant snake through the dense canopy. The forest ends at the village of Mandal. From there the road carries on via Gopeshwar to meet the Badrinath road at Chamoli. However, those who venture up to Tunganath need not retrace their steps to Chopta. A pilgrim trail runs down over a pass below the Chandrashila summit, connecting Tunganath to Bhulkona below. It’s a steep, zig zag route down which you hurtle as if someone were pushing you off the mountain. From Tunganath, Chamoli is some18 miles.

The Pilgrim trail from Tunganath (courtesy Rudraneil)

The trail to Tunganath winds up relentlessly. It’s an ascent of some three thousand feet, though the actual distance you cover is only about 3 miles. However, it is a beautiful route, and time passes by like a lazy river without you realizing it as you marvel at the scenery. Through the trees you see far away a gallery of snow peaks- the Kedarnath-Badrinath ranges. It seems as if the green leaves frame this portrait of loveliness. I feel like I’m walking down the corridor of a massive gallery of sublime paintings by the Great Artist mounted against an azure wall. After a while the tree-line ends, and lush meadows carpeted with a riot of flowers make their appearance. Occasionally you pass little streams of snowmelt. Above, the wide dome of the sky. In the distance, the long, massive wall of the Greater Himalayas. It reminds me of that passage- “White swans unfurl their wings and sit- their eyes raised up- floating in the blue ocean of the sky.”

Panorama from the trail to Tunganath

We cross a waterfall just before we reach the temple- the Akash-Ganga. A few houses, a couple of tea shops and a dharamshala. Foregrounded by the distant snow-giants lies the beautiful temple of Tunganath, looking like a giant Shiv lingam.

The lingam worshipped here is of natural origin- a swayambhu lingam. It looks like the rear end of the mythical buffalo form that Shiva took to escape underground. The deities of the other four Kedars are also worshipped here.

The tiny hamlet of Tunganath, with the temple in the background

Tunganath is a still, peaceful place. It is over 12,000 feet in height- the weather is biting cold. Hardly any yatri stays the night here. They pay their respects to the deity and go down to Bhulkona or Pangarbasa, sometimes even all the way to Mandalchoti.

Further above the temple lies the peak of Chandrashila.

Chandrashila Peak

You follow a thin track up to the top. At places, even this excuse of a track vanishes. The peak is about a mile or so from the temple, and a good thousand feet higher. The track passes through little patches of grass, jumbles of boulders and the occasional thin stream. Small flowers dot the grass like a patchwork of colour. You can also find deep crimson rhododendron flowers- the nectar from these flowers taste divine.

Cairns atop Chandrashila

On the peak, there’s a short clearing dotted with cairns. Some of the stones are so placed that they remind me of the ruins of an old village or a castle. On the way to Tibet or in the higher reaches of the Himalayas, I have come across colourful cloth and paper flags. Similar flags fly here. At over 13,000 feet, Chandrashila is the highest mountain in the area. The uninterrupted 360 degree view you get from here is breathtaking.

Chaukhamba as seen from Chandrashila

In the distance, you can see an unbroken wall of snow peaks- Bandarpooch, Gangotri, Kedarnath, Chaukhamba. On the other side, Nanda Ghunti, Trishul, Dunagiri, Nanda Devi. They look unreal, like figures etched in a white chalk over a blue slate.

From here you look down into valleys so deep that it feels like you’re peering into the underworld. You can make out the faint white ribbon of a gushing mountain river; deep forests cloak the sides of some mountains; other slopes are barren- covered in hard, rough granite. Many thousands of feet below, you can see little villages and farms that look like miniature carpets. The dolls’ houses make me feel like I’ve stumbled into the playpen of the Nature. Somewhere there in those villages a dog barks. To me it seems the mountains themselves are speaking.

Heavily forested river valley below Chandrashila

The same pilgrim paths from where I could see the massive peak of Tunganath are lost to view from here. The enormity of the mountains of the Himalayas swallows up the trail to Kedarnath.

I sit still and look at this majestic scene, and my mind dances out of time. How can I describe the perfect silence of that height? A deep, pervasive sense of peace fills me.

Chandrashila is the best reward of the hard trail to Tunganath.

Concluded.

Consumer Guilt

2009-09-05T17:41:00.011+05:30

And so, the new Beatles albums are coming.

You know, those fabulous new Stereo mixes and the old Mono transfers of the original albums on spanking new CDs. As we all know, nobody buys CDs nowadays; nor do I, except the odd old Sonic Youth CD I might find in a bargain bin in some shop, but I know I HAVE to buy these babies.

For the last few years- at least since 2006 when Love came out- I haven’t been buying Beatles albums anymore. When I heard Love, instead of gawking at the mash-ups of Beatlemusic, I just marveled at the sound. It was eye-poppingly rich, full, and juicy, like none of their music I’d ever heard outside the odd Dr. Ebbetts mixes.

That’s when I heard reports that the entire Beatles catalogue will be out soon in spanking new sound. It would really be like hearing a brand new band.

So no new Beatles CD buys in three years. That’s fine. But now, here it comes- the stealth attack on 09.09.09...

...hiding behind the deranged The Beatles: Rockband (which is a trip, but vastly less essential) game; the real deal!

Ok, so, come Wednesday, this is what things’ll look like.

Each single Stereo album- $18.98.

Each Stereo double album- White Album, for example, $24.95.

Which means that even at a conservative estimate, the Indian versions will be about Rs 800 and Rs 1200 repectively. The Stereo Box- Set is $259.98, easily Rs 10,000; and the Mono mix Box-Set (of the albums as they originally appeared in the 60’s on LP) is $298.98, about Rs 12,000. So, I’ll end up spending some 22,000 grand soon if I’m not careful.

Seized by instant anxiety so unbearable that I started tugging at the ends of my moustache, I immediately called my friend Neo the collector. He’s no ordinary mortal, he. He has a massive library of music, much of them in various formats, mixes, and fidelity. He’s the one I got my Dr. Ebbetts stuff from. He’d been grumbling about the forthcoming releases a few days ago. So I thought he’d be the ideal person to soothe my anxiety.

He picks up the phone, grave. No doubt he’s working, today being the production day of the magazine he works at. He says that if I pre-order the individual Stereo CDs on places like Amazon, then I might get them for as low as $12. Evidently he’s done that already, but I could hear the resignation in his voice when he started talking of the Mono albums. Apparently, those box sets are being made in Japan and only a limited number of them will be available initially, and even if the Mono Box-Set made its way here as a part of the multi-pronged release they’d be shit expensive anyway. And the Mono albums (which are only available in the box format, have already sold out online. As have the Stereo boxes.

His unhappiness was so deep, I forgot my own anxiety in a jiffy. I tried telling him that Beatle-music is such a surefire seller, even in these digital-download, slumping CD-sales times they’d be available in all their formats in every big music market. After all, the Capitol Box-Sets of the bands’ American edition albums are available here...

as is the Rs 3,000 Help DVD box extravaganza (an obscene, packaging tour de force)

as well as the Hip-O Select Motown singles collections.

Nothing sells like nostalgia, especially when the music’s also great.

Hearing this lessened Neo’s pain somewhat. He quickly hung up to go work. We were both somewhat soothed, and I’d come to grips with my impending financial doom.

And now I sit here fantasising. I can’t afford to myself, but should I ask my folks to gift me at least the Stereo White Album for Pujo?

Sigh. Careful what you love. It will swindle you.

Tunganath Part 4

2009-09-02T14:38:00.015+05:30

I leave Ukhamath and carry on. From here a gentle road winds up the mountain. In front of me rises the tall peak of Chandrashila. To my right, far below me, lies the valley of the Akash Ganga. It flows down from Tunganath to the Mandakini stretched out far behind me like a ribbon.

The Mandakini valley

They seem to me like two daughters of Paradise, fast friends, re-uniting on Earth. Up the mountain on the other side of the Mandakini I see stray houses of a village- Mukhimath or Mukumath. The Pandas (priests) of Tunganath live there and worship the deity in the winter months.

Five miles down the road, on a turn of the mountain, lies Ganeshchoti. You come down to the riverbed and cross a bridge here. On the other bank begins the climb to Chopta, following the road to Tunganth. A beautiful forest starts a little way above. The still, peaceful path climbs up relentlessly under the shadow of gigantic trees.

The road up to Chopta (courtesy Rudraneil)

Two miles above Ganeshchoti lies Goliyab-garh. Three miles further lies Poukhibasa. A mile and half from there lies Dogalbitta. My destination, Baniyakund, is a mile from Dogalbitta. The chotis are evenly spaced by the mile but even then, the uphill trudge seems endless, like days of hardship refusing to end. But far from feeling despondent, I feel coccooned by the cool shadows of the deep forest.

At a point on the shoulder of the giant of Chandrashila, the road makes a massive turn. Going around it, we suddenly arrive at Baniyakund. The climb to Chopta ends here, much to the relief of the exhausted traveler. In front I see a wide bugiyal (meadow) in one corner of the mountain- green grass with roots in small, flowing streams. A peaceful place of great beauty. It makes me want to stay here for a few days.

A view of Chandrashila from Baniyakund

Baniyakund must be about eight to nine thousand feet above sea level. Its quite cold here. There’s a dharamshala maintained by Kalikamliwala, so boarding is not a problem. Let me tell you about an interesting little thing that once happened here.

I was staying by myself in a room on the second floor. Not too many other yatris. I heard a voice from a nearby room, a man chastising someone hard in Bengali. Occasionally I heard a woman’s muted voice in reply. The man's harsh words cast a pall on the perfect peace of the Himalayan scene.

I got to meet the man soon after. He was storming down the stairs when he saw me and approached. “You’re Bengali, aren’t you?” he asked. “Have you seen how these coolies behave? You look like a Bramhin, let me pay my respects.”

I stopped him. When I got him to tell me what had enraged him so, it turned out to be nothing substantial. Apparently his porter got late getting his luggage up to Baniyakund due to the steep climb. The discomfiture this caused to the gentleman was the reason for his anger. While telling me his story, he grew ashamed of his behaviour. He said, “I know, it must be pretty hard for him. I had resolved that I wouldn’t lose my temper, but I can’t help it. Human nature is so weak.”

He was a thin, dark man wearing a traditional black-edged dhoti. Must’ve been about 60 years old. His eyes and cheeks sunken, he was swathed from head to toe to keep out the cold. His teeth were dark red from betel juice.

He was from Calcutta, and looked it too. Financially secure, he was now out on pilgrimage. He confessed without guile, “I have lived the good life, and never paused to think about effects of my actions. But these past few years have been very hard on me, and now that I’m aware, I’m trying to reform myself. Every pilgrimage I make, I give up a vice. One day, I’ll be able to give up all of them.”

I smiled and remarked that he still hasn’t given up the betel leaf.

“That’s true,” he laughed, “but I’ll give it up in the end. Its my earliest vice you see. I go to sleep with a paan (betel leaf) in my mouth.” Then he became grave. “You see, I have grown tired of life. I mean, God has made me aware that its ephemeral. My wife died a few years ago. I lost my only son a few months back. Since then I’ve been a pilgrim. The Bramhin girl accompanying me- she’s not my relative. She’s been in my household since she was a child- a child widow. Her mother used to work in our house. Since she passed away, the girl takes care of our hearth god- Govinda. Takes care of me as well.Now she’s out on pilgrimage with me, as is Govinda. You tell me, how could I leave her behind, alone?”

He became silent for a while, thinking about something. Then he said, “I was telling you about giving up things. Well, I am leaving my material life behind, but I’m also getting entangled in my affection for the girl. How do you transcend the grief of losing your child?”

I looked at him and wondered. You can never guess a man’s inner demons, his struggle for self-transcendence from his demeanour.

So I told him a story. Not of a pilgrimage, or of the Himalayas, but of something that occurred at my house in Calcutta. A kirtan (devotional songs of Krishna) had been organized- a famous Vaishnav percussionist was to play the Srikhol (a double ended percussion instrument played at such soirees). The programme was about to start, but there was no sign of the man. Time was going by. People started wondering if he'd forgotten all about it. Someone from the audience started singing, and the programme began. A few hours later, the Vaishnav gentleman arrived. A small man, he joined his hands, and with an air of supplication made his way to the stage through the crowd. He touched the khol to his forehead and picked it up. The singing of kirtans resumed, and the man started playing the Srikhol. In an instant, the performance reached a different level. The Srikhol started singing in a sweet voice redolent with faith. The player looked overcome with emotion, immersing himself in the rhythm. As one, everyone stared at him, their faces and hearts transformed with joy at the divine music.

A traditional image of a kirtan (courtesy ISKCON)

To see him was to imagine the Srikhol come to life and in the intricate rhythms and melodies singing the praises of Radha and Krishna. The player, his instrument and song fused into one organism. The stunned audience joined him in an otherworldly place of great beauty. No one seemed to notice the passage of time. The night deepened, and the audience came out of its trance as the kirtan ended. People mobbed the khol player, telling him how deeply his music touched them. Everyone agreed that they’d never forget this performance as long as they lived. Then one man remarked how we had all waited for him to come play…

The Vaishnav raised his eyes at the remark. A wry smile passed over his blissful face. “Oh, yes, I know I was very late. My youngest son suddenly died today- I had to cremate him. I came here as soon as I could.” Nobody said another word. Neither did he. The hall fell silent again.

to be concluded...

Tunganath Part 3

2009-08-28T13:54:00.008+05:30

There’s a certain charm in passing the night at a temple town. Outside, the great silence of the Himalayas. The night has still not passed. Suddenly, a sound of drums. The priest is opening the doors of the temple. At dawn, the deity is woken up with a morning arati. From deep inside the blanket I hear the sweet sound of the temple bells. Its not quite like an earthquake, but it seems like the mountain booms with the deep sound of those bells, and my heart is filled with a sudden joy. I listen intently. A sense of contentment comes over me.

The puja ends. Silence returns.

Lying there, I suddenly remember Ben Jonson’s words- “Bells are profane, a tune may be religious.” But is that really true? I wonder. In those bells I hear the voice of divinity.

Again, bells ring outside, this time from the street. A flock of sheep and goats make their way down the road, carrying loads on their back. Little bells tied to their necks ring out as they move. In the still night, this is another beautiful Himalayan tune- the merry melody of the open road, like sudden birdsong in a still forest. Just as a single stringed instrument will play different tunes, or as different ragas compete for the mind with diverse emotions, the suggestive sounds of bells evoke different feelings.

I lay there and reminisce.

Childhood. Calcutta. The three-storied building of the Bhawanipur police station just opposite my house. On its terrace a large wooden shamiyana. A massive bell hangs there. Through the day, a red-turbaned policeman would be posted there, to ring it on the hour. I remember waking up suddenly in the middle of the night. My room is vaguely lit by the streetlamps outside. Everyone in the house is fast asleep. Suddenly the bell rings twice. Its 2 a.m.! The two gongs light up in the darkness like the twin eyes of a tiger. I turn to one side and try to sleep. In the day, the sound of the bell is subsumed by the roar of the city. In the morning, I hear the bells of a passing horse-drawn carriage. I can always pinpoint those distinct chimes despite the surfeit of sounds surrounding me. It’s the sound of my father returning from a round of the maidan at dawn. The carriage turns off the main road. The sound of bells cease. Now I hear my father’s footsteps. In a little while he will enter his massive book-lined study and work through the day. I sit in my little study with a small book. The blinding light of his intellect lights up the tiny toy lamp of my mind.

Pic: Old Calcutta

The ringing bell at school. The bell that signals the beginning of a class sounds so different from the one signalling its end. If it’s a class that I’ve enjoyed, I feel a sense of loss. The bell at the end of a class that doesn’t interest me brings relief. As I lie in my blanket, the sound of the school bell slowly fades from memory. I remember a class of my college professor. Animatedly reading Shakespeare. I listen to him with rapt attention. My imagination flies to the Bard’s world. The characters and events bloom vividly in my mind. The bell rings, but nobody seems to hear it. Another professor waits outside for the next class. Our reverie breaks. The chime of the bell fades away.

I remember various different bells at the Railway station or at the port. The bells ring and travellers hurry busily. People run to and fro, worried about missing their train. The chaos of the station bell enters language as a metaphor.

The sweetest bells are heard along the track-filled expanse of the Himalayas. A silent path. A still forest. Suddenly I hear bells, like a swelling invisible music. Far away I see a flock of approaching sheep. I stand to one side. Hundreds of furry bodies pass- some tripping on my feet- a massive flock crowding a narrow mountain path, trailing the sound of hundreds of tinkling bells.

I remember another set of bells on my way to Kailash-Mansarovar. A postman goes on his way, a sack of mails on his back. He holds a long stick, crowned with a bunch of tiny bells. He walks with long strides, and the bells keep up a steady rhythm. I stare at his burden of letters. He runs on from one village to the next. His sack reminds me of home, and I miss it so very much.

The chimes of the morning arati at Ukhimath remind me of bells at the banks of the Ganges in Haridwar or Benaras.

Pic: Evening arati at Benaras (courtesy Shonedeep)

Evening shadows lie on the great river. All around me, near and far swells the sound of a million bells. Thousands of temples all ring their bells together. The river is suddenly filled with hundreds of floating flowers. Little earthen lamps glitter amidst the blooms as they float gently on the river. It seems to me as if the night comes to honour the river bearing thousands of lamps to a symphony of bells.

to be continued...

Tunganath Part 2

2009-08-24T15:13:00.007+05:30

Ukhimath Temple (courtesy Trek Earth- www.trekearth.com)

Ukhimath is to Kedarnath what Joshimath is to Badri. Both these towns, founded by the Hindu seer Shankaracharya, serve the same purpose. When Kedar and Badri hibernate under the winter snows, the deities are worshipped at Ukhimath and Joshimath respectively.

Ukhimath is the local name for Ushamath. Legend has it that Usha, the daughter of King Bana- a political adversary of Krishna- fell in love with Krishna’s son, Aniruddha. This led to war between the king and Krishna, apparently near the town of Shonitpur in this region which was the capital city of King Bana. Local people can still point out the remnants of a fortress attributed to the legendary monarch.

The temple at Ukhimath looks like a fortress itself. You enter through a massive gate into an open court lined on all sides by houses. The temple lies at the centre- the classic layout of an ancient temple town. The deity is a silver-moulded idol of Shiva. Other gods and goddesses too are worshipped here. The ceremonial seat of Kedarnath resides here and

Ukhimath is where the head priests of Kedarnath- the Rawals- live and work. I used to know a previous Rawal here extremely well, and had spent many days at Ukhimath on my various trips to this region. In fact, he was the one who took me to Madhmaheshwar for the first time.

Another time I trekked to Deoria-tal from here. This beautiful lake lies atop a mountain North-East of Ukhimath, a leisurely day’s walk away. To get there, you proceed a little way along the road to Tunganath, and then leave it to climb the mountain on your left. You need a guide to navigate up this thin track through some dense forests. The priest had got one of his own men to accompany me. It is difficult to gauge the distance. Some say it is a mere 5 km from Ukhimath, others contend that its 10 km. It is a steady climb through the forest, with occasional stretches of level ground. Its very peaceful here. After a while, suddenly you hear the animated chatter of countless birds, and soon after you walk around a bend and the forest ends. In front lies the massive lake, at a height of 8,000 feet. I’m told the lake is about a kilometre in length and half a km across. In the distance you see the peaks of the Chaukhamba, Kedarnath and Badrinath (Neelkanth). The reflection of the peaks sways gently on the surface of the lake, as if the king of the mountains is admiring his own image.

Deoria Tal (courtesy Trek Earth- www.trekearth.com)

A hermit used to live by the banks of this lake in his little hut. A Bengali, he used to meditate here in peace, living on water-chestnuts. I never got to meet him as he had passed away a few years before I went there. I saw his deserted hut in ruins. There’s a lovely description of this man in the book Letter from the Himalayas by Ghantakarna.

I spent so many peaceful nights at Ukhimath. But once, I remember being woken up in the middle of the night by a strong quake. Everything was shaking. I could hear a distant ominous rumble, as if the mountain itself was moving. In the dark room I could feel my bed shaking. The wooden furniture started vibrating, the window was shaking. The tin roof over my head was rattling and I could hear the nasty, grinding sound of large rocks rolling down the slope somewhere close.

This was my first brush with an earthquake in the Himalayas. I remember I refused to move to safety. In the plains, during an earthquake you leave the building to gain the relative security of open ground. There’s no such security in the mountains where the ground itself might shift from under your feet. Then there’s the fear of avalanches. I lay there and gave myself over to fate.

There were other, smaller tremors during the night. Periodically I would hear the rattling tin roof mixed with that strange rumble from the bowels of the mountain.

The next morning everyone was talking about it. Fortunately, the town’s buildings had escaped with minor losses.

Over the next few days, the mild tremors persisted.

to be continued...

Tunganath Part 1

2009-08-19T21:20:00.010+05:30

A very favourite travel writer of mine is the late Umaprasad Mukherjee. An avid traveller, he probably popularised the Garhwals to a good three generations of Bengalis. Its criminal that his beautiful travel pieces are available just in Bengali, his native language. So I've decided to (unofficially) translate some pieces by him and publish them here. Its impossible to do justice to the man's way with language, his deep humanism and spiritual attachment to the Himalayas. Hope you like it. It was written sometime in the early Sixties.

Umaprasad Mukherjee- Himalaya Chronicles.

Tunganath Temple

Tunganath

On the way to Kedarnath, soon after leaving the town of Guptakashi, you can often see, in the distance, a massive blue mountain. Sometimes, towards the end of winter, its peak is covered with a light dusting of snow. Sometimes there’s snow even after the rains. The mountain then looks like a frail old man swathed in a white blanket to shut out the cold. At other times, it is hidden by clouds and mist. Then the mists part and it appears again- a monarch among mountains.

This is the third of the five kedars- Tunganath.

At some 12,072 feet, Tunganath is the highest temple in the entire Kedar-Badri circuit, making the name a highly appropriate one. The peak itself looms like a massive hooded cobra another thousand feet above the temple- it is called Chandrashila.

Chandrashila Peak

At approximately 13,000 feet this is higher than both Kedarnath (11,750 feet) and Badrinath (10,244 feet). Not many pilgrims who come to these parts have heard of Madmaheshwar, Rudranath and Kalpeshwar. However, many do know of Tunganath. In fact, it used to be quite popular once upon a time.

On the way to Kedarnath lies Guptakashi. Just outside Guptakashi is the village of Nala. This is where a side-track leaves the main road, and branches down to the Mandakini river valley below. You cross the river on a pretty iron bridge, and then climb up to Ukhimath.

That was many years ago. Now, a motorable highway has swallowed the track whole, like a big snake swallows a smaller one. This highway bypasses Nala, effectively shutting off the old approach to Ukhimath. Nowadays, you head off to Ukhimath directly from Guptkashi.

Before the road came, pilgrims descending from Kedarnath would take the Nala route to Ukhimath. From there they would go further up to Tunganath, cross the mountain and head off towards Gopeshwar. From there, some more hiking would bring them to Chamoli on the Alaknanda river valley. This is where they would find the road to Badrinath. Back then there was no need to come all the way down to the confluence of the Alaknanda and Mandakini rivers at Rudraprayag to get on the road to Badrinath. The Ukhimath-Tunganath-Chamoli route was a much shorter one. And that way, pilgrims would get to pay their respects at the temples of Ukhimath and Tunganath.

But this is the era of buses. So most pilgrims nowadays descend to Guptkashi from Kedarnath and get on a bus, which takes them all the way to Badrinath. You get off the bus, pay your respects at Badri, and get back on the bus. Travellers sigh with relief at being spared a long hike up and down mountains.

It is less tiring for sure. After all, the ascent to Tunganath is nothing to sneer at!

However, I feel that to come to the Himalayas and then to trade in this 3 day trek for the convenience of a bus is to deprive yourself of an unique experience. After all, the view of the Greater Himalayan peaks that you get from Tunganath is unmatched.

The track down from Tunganath affords other pleasures.

Pilgrim Road to Tunganath

It passes through a thick forest, another thing you don’t find often on the bus route. There’s nothing to fear here, as there are hardly any wild animals, and a clear track ensures that you don’t lose your way. It winds down gently under the cool shade of the trees past many waterfalls of various sizes. This ancient forest has its own charms.

And yet, nobody comes to Tunganath anymore. Even the famed pilgrim town of Ukhimath wears a deserted look.

Recently though, a motorable road has made its way to this area. This one comes down from across the village of Kunda, and makes its way under Ukhimath and Tunganath and meets the road to Badrinath at Chamoli. Perhaps in a few years buses will ply this route too. But will that be enough to lure the convenience hungry traveller from the comforts of the bus to make the difficult trek up Chandrashila to see the Himalaya in all its glory?

to be continued...

Song-Craft

2009-08-16T13:50:00.005+05:30

I was talking to the professor the other day- you know who, the swing-influenced guitar player in our erstwhile band Rented House- about the merits of song-craft while listening to Paul McCartney’s Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. It was a lovely rainy afternoon, and I’d just played the entirety of George Harrison’s excellent posthumous album Brainwashed. The Prof was of the opinion that though he likes the songs on both these albums, he reckons that the playing on the latter was better. Also that the standard major key-minor key formulas that McCartney employs so well in his pop songwriting were a bit same-y. Harrison’s songcraft, meanwhile, is that much more painstaking, with interesting shifts and solos.

My contention was that though admittedly Harrison’s songs and playing was beautiful, his album suffered because of Jeff Lynne’s very 80’s production, polishing the songs till they gleamed. McCartney’s album, is a much quieter affair, downbeat in tone and music, and expertly “put together”, was a more consistent one. From this talk turned to the music that the Beatles made, and the Prof opined that though their music is undeniable, their musical chops never matched up to their ambitious musical ideas. I think they didn’t feel the need to, given the fact that they had three great singers and that their songs were put together for the radio, where solos come a distant second to getting consistent melodic hooks across that wedge into your skull and refuse to let go. Their wry lyrical maturity helped too of course, which is the reason that they their oeuvre probably contains 70 great songs, as opposed to, say, the Stones’ 30. The Prof would give either band lot less classics, and I understand that.

To me, however, the Stones were a great groove band, and when they connected, they were irresistible. The Beatles’ music is a more complex affair- carefully constructed little potboilers which cherry-picked a wide gamut of musical ideas- from Motown (Drive My Car) to Country (I’ve Just Seen a Face) to Tin Pan Alley (And I Love Her) to Swing (Honey Pie)- without ever really mastering any one form. Instead their takes on these and other genres bordered on the pastiche favoured by Music Hall performers- showmen who could play anything for laughs. That is what makes them such pop geniuses I think, though admittedly if they had chosen any one of these forms to develop in their music, they’d be a different band, with good musical chops and solos. Harrison probably came closest to this, adopting the slide guitar, educating his ears to Eastern musical modes and thereby increasing his musical range. Whenever he emerged from his self-imposed exile to record music, as he did with Brainwashed, he sounded beautiful, fragile and not as irritatingly self assured as many of McCartney’s lesser works.

The Stones pioneered boogie-heavy blues rock, and as they grew more and more fascinated with Americana, they stretched out in other directions- Country (Sweet Virginia), Gospel (Gimme Shelter)- but essentially remained a Chuck Berry-influenced riff-based rock band, and after four great albums, they were bound to run out of steam and ideas.

Happiness

2009-07-29T12:08:00.010+05:30

Some music fans- if not most music fans- have no real, personal reference to the artist who’s music they admire. Yes, some fans of rock music might care very much about John Lennon’s thoughts on fashion in 1968, or Henry Rollins’s method of buying bus tickets in 1985, but that is relatively rare, even among huge fans. They’d much rather emotionally grapple with I’m so Tired or In My Head.

Most people react to a song itself, to its real or imagined meaning to them as individuals with their own very real lives. The music on the charts, i.e. the music that people are actually purchasing every single week, is never a reflection of this visceral reaction to song. If so, they reflect only in part. Much of chart-bound music is music to dance to, or weep to, or make love to. But only some of these songs actually outlive their shelf life and become something meaningful.

I hardly know Esbjorn Svensson, and not just because he was never on any chart. Yet, while on the train to Calcutta last year, after watching an Esbjorn Svensson Trio concert, I felt really sad that he was no longer alive. This wasn’t an entirely sentimental feeling; it was in large part because I like the music that he made, and as he was only in his early forties and at his creative peak at the time of his freakish passing, I felt great regret.

In a sense, I was mourning the drying up of a kind of song emanating from a particular musical source using a distinct musical language that I deeply love. That music imparted to its source- a man called Esbjorn Svensson- a particular glamour; an allure that in turn attracted me to him as a person. And there’s also the fact that the musical persona of Svensson also included the music that he in turn had soaked up. Some of these influences I connect with personally and some I’ve never heard. But its still the music that his band made, that I was missing.

There’s this song on the Dark Was the Night indie charity compilation called Happiness, an eight and a half ambient piece by an Iceland-based duo called Jonsi & Alex. More about them later. I don’t usually go for ambient music, like say Brian Eno’s, and when the song started playing, I instinctively skipped it. But I cannot let any song go without hearing at least a little part of it, so I started playing the song somewhere randomly in the middle. What I heard drew me in and captivated me- introspective, meditative strings playing a long held line that glided between two emotionally high notes, via deep troughs in between. The melody that was thus created was a widescreen, soft-focus window into a world of terrible beauty.

Seeing Valley- While I was listening to the song, in front of me on my computer screen was a picture I had recently taken during a stay in Tunganath high up in the Kedarnath hills. The picture was of a deeply forested valley, many thousands of feet below me, between the spurs of two gigantic ranges. A pretty captivating image it was, and rendered all the more eerie by the light. The sun streaming through billowing clouds above me created a lightly hazy, shimmering, and constantly changing screen of fractured light. On film, I had captured a brief moment, and the rest of the forbidding loveliness of the scene lay in what it didn’t make apparent. .

Hearing Happiness was like tuning into a bed of shifting, beeping reverb drones from which arose yet another stretched out electronic drone that kind of switches on like a tube light, in starts. Under this new drone, the earlier one continued, and then other electronic elements joined in, winking in and out. It was like trying to listen in on a gigantic radio antenna somewhere, while an electric music of the spheres suffusing every sense. I felt like I was swimming in a sea of electricity, only the particles were made up of notes. From within this swirl of sound came the stately strings, gradually swelling in volume and detail like the realization of a beautiful and vital memory lost. For a while- which seemed like an eternity of bliss tinged with longing that I was floating in- the strings played that one figure, over and over again, like the regular breathing of a gigantic organism. Through this I could hear the underlying drone, almost entirely overpowered by this grand emotion. Then the strings started falling, gently, like a floating feather coming to rest. It dissolved into a bittersweet coda of a three-note piano figure infused with a shifting sheet of white noise. Then this too dissolved, slowly, a true dying fall.

Hearing this music, and transfixed by the scene in front of me, I felt a welling up of intense longing. I wanted to cry. I felt like Adam must’ve felt after the Fall. It is cruel to have seen Paradise. You know happiness, and when you’ve lost it, you know that you will never know that feeling ever again. Yet I try. I listen to Happiness almost everyday.

Its part of an album of ambient work called Riceboy Sleeps by the duo Jonsi and Alex, which came out this year. Jonsi, is of the Icelandic band band Sigur Ros. Alex Sommers, his boyfriend, is an American musician and artist. Following their limited edition picture book in 2006, this is their first foray into music.

This got me randomly wondering.

I thought of the many gay people I know, and then of something that I’ve seen in their eyes. To me it always seemed that they’ve known great love, a swooning, swept-off-the-feet love. But I also saw the eventual tempering of that grand feeling, in the face of intolerance and bigotry. I don’t know if that spurred the duo to compose this music, but then again, does it really matter? Mine is a subjective point of view, just like any fans. You’ll hear other things, and see differently. But maybe, like me, you’ll love the song.

Songs of Summer

2009-06-29T13:05:00.019+05:30

As I write this, Graham Coxon's punk guitars are raging through my headphones. I love the rush. But after an entire weekend of hearing giddy punk pop, I'm wondering if I've reached saturation point. Just consider:

Graham Coxon- Happiness in Magazines; Love Travels at Illegal Speeds. The Blur guitarist is the coolest man I've seen, from the haircut to the Elvis Costello glasses, to the melodicity of his guitar playing....and now this, a couple of albums of great to middling pop songs.

Fastball- Little White Lies. Maybe its not cool to like them, but 1998's All the Pain Money Can Buy is still one of my favourite pop albums from that decade. This new album is quite nice too, especially the title track and all those melodies and hooks that stick under my skin like some insidious rash. They aren't cool for sure, but heck they're fun!

The Strokes- Room on Fire. Two years after my Strokes craze, I finally hear their second album in full. A lot less giddy fun than Is This It? but then again first contact is always more electrifying. I love 12:51 and Under Control, but none come anywhere near You Talk Way To Much...perhaps because of the sentiment, or perhaps that's the song where they do theirbest Velvet Underground impersonation. I'd like to see them live.

Dirty Projectors- Bitte Orca. What drew me to them was the fantastic pop moment of Knotty Pine, their collaboration with David Byrne on the charity LP Dark Was the Night. Now for someone like me, Dirty Projectors are a difficult band. I thrive on hooks, and with this band, you have to dig deep AND be patient to find them, and then you find quite a few actually. Cannibal Resource is a fantastic song, as are Temecula Sunrise, Stillness is the Move, and the wispy and beautiful Two Doves. I love it especially when they all scream "Bitte Orca, Orca Bitte!!!" Don't even know what that means.

Doves- Kingdom of Rust. Ok I know that the big production move in Noughties Indie is the atmosphere. Its everywhere, that echoey, down-in-the-bottom-of-a-well-sound- from Arcade Fire to Fleet Foxes to Coldplay (!) to these here gents, the Doves. Their playing is great-muscular, melodic and serious but not too serious. And this album has some really good songs- Jetstream, Kingdom of Rust (with its lovely muted country rock chug which becomes something much more explosive and beautiful by the time the chorus comes about, followed by the sparkling guitar arpeggios). But why did they have to go with the in vogue thing, and make it all so spacey? I guess I love Vampire Weekend cause their sound's so crisp.

Manic Street Preachers- Journal for Plague Lovers. I like the politics of the Manics, unabashedly left of centre. But as it so often happens, the band with the most attractive politics hardly ever match it with exceptional music. So though I've liked the occassional Manics songs over the years, they've always seemed to me to be one trick poneys, wailing anguishedly over metallo-punkish guitar walls of sound. Therefore, I'm very very pleasantly surprised with this album. This is harrowing music, both lyrically and in its musical bite, and it all makes sense, in no small part due to the fact that there's a lot of different textures to the guitars which keeps the songs interesting all the time...I'll be getting more into it, I'm sure.

Green Day- 21st Century Breakdown. I know Rolling Stone is bullshit, but even then, how could they give this album four stars? If I like the Manics for the guitars, I hate this album because of the guitars. While some of the songs veer between interesting and likeable- the opening three songs for example- the monotone growl of the guitars playing identical figures on each and every song grates like nothing else. Only the bits where they try to do a Gogol Bordello are fun. I despair...I love the Green Day of Dookie and Nimrod but all this big RAWK CONCEPT ALBUM EMPTY CLICHES, GESTURES and immature facile politics leave me cold. Which begs the question, should Green Day be a sideproject to The Foxboro Hot Tubs, instead of the other way round?

The Decemberists- Hazards of Love. Heard this bizzare concept album about princesses, and forest dwelling shape shifters and evil queens and swans et al just once from start to finish. Its very lush, very melodic, and I suspect that as long as I'm not trying to follow the story or some such shit, I might just spend a lot of time humming the hooks.

Franz Ferdinand- You Could Have it so Much Better. Thrilling, super virile, very sexy rock. Therefore, very demanding too..."Well do ya, do ya do ya wanna?" God, the pressure to have a good time! I think Eleanor Put Your Boots On is a classic.

Various- Dark Was the Night. The charity LP I was talking about. A veritable Indie who's who. However, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the Indie crowd only does acoustic-y head music and leave the body to Hip Hop. However, of the 31 songs here, there are quite easily at least 25 very good songs. Favourites-

Dirty projectors and David Byrne- Knotty Pine

Feist and Ben Gibbard- Train Song

The National- So Far Around the Bend

Grizzly Bear and Feist- Service Bell

Beirut- Mimizan

My Morning Jacket- El Caporal

Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings- Inspiration Information

The New Pornographers- Hey, Snow White

Cat Power- Amazing Grace

Riceboy Sleeps- Happiness

....and finally....

TV on the Radio- Dear Science,

I spent all of last year wanting to hear this album, and now that I have heard them- over and over and over and over again- I agree with the critics. I haven't heard any of their other albums, but a band that can mix the post-Apocalypse tom toms and handclaps of Halfway Home, the absurdly lovely funk guitars on Crying, the propulsive Rap Rock of Dancing Choose, the majestic Golden Age, the stately melodic shifts of Family Tree, the funk politics of Red Dress, the Radiohead beauty of Love Dog and the brass-led sexual healing of Lover's Day into the same album could only be a great band.

Others I've heard, but not much yet: Neko Case- Middle Cyclone. The National- Boxer. The Mars Volta- Octahedron. Sonic Youth- The Eternal. Supergrass- Life on Other Planets.

Down valley

2009-05-08T14:34:00.000+05:30

Down in the valley a woodfire burns
Clouds scatter in the dawn
Give me some tea then, and breathe in the air
You can see the world from here
-Beq

A Sunday afternoon

2009-03-16T14:20:00.002+05:30

“I can’t believe the state of the world economy. I think we have to be careful about how we spend our money for the next year at least. By the way, did I tell you I just bought a Bentley?”
Fashion soirees and society schmooze-fests have their own weird internal logic, which often seems as mysterious as time travel. How else could you explain this train of thought in a not-so-prominent industrialist and Page 3 figure?
As a rule Sundays should not be spent by the poolside of a posh old five star hotel, especially if the conversation there is so deadly boring that you feel the urge to rush off to a Polo (polo!) match at a sprawling farmhouse (polo in a farmhouse!!) that you have been casually invited to by a beautiful woman in a summer dress. But you must resist, focusing instead on the sushi and the white wine, and go chat with the chefs.
There are three ways to survive such soirees without your day ruined- go there stoned, go there with someone who has a sense of perspective, and find yourself a hot and intelligent (older) woman to talk to. Once these three pre-requisites are fulfilled, then you’ll find that the afternoon has taken on an airy, vaguely Mediterranean (because of the swimming pool or the tans or the floral dresses?) summery, floaty quality where the scene is populated by aliens- is it the massive sunglasses (?)- who exist to sate your curiosity. Where else can you get edifying nuggets about wiring your loo for sound?
And believe me, I was mighty curious. Here were a bunch of people- insiders in the fickle world of luxury- who admittedly dress beautifully, but seem to derive absolutely no joy from it. They flit about air-kissing, their massive Guccis and Pradas in tow, while some of them seem to be in the process of disappearing. Really, where else outside of sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of our own countryside can you find a bunch of people so emaciated and mal-nutritioned? Why, at a five-star sushi counter! Who, among the people you know, could give you an accurate insight into the jungle that is Delhi traffic? Why, the one who lives a five minute walk from the hotel in the heart of Lutyen’s Delhi!
On the whole, the women still hold their own. There is, after all, an innate sense of gracefulness which often tides things over. You could say that’s because they’re programmed to be duplicitous, but if duplicity is what it takes, then lemme have it over the “direct” men any day! Especially on a Sunday afternoon by the poolside! The men, talk, they sport their fashionably grey-streaked hair, they slag off rivals with a polite whisper and never get the irony that despite their specially-abled features they can pull anorexic beauties solely because they have the money. Indeed, they’re damn pleased when you comment on their “sense of style.”
That is the business side of it. The models are a different proposition altogether. A particular male model- attired in designer ripped t-shirt, skinny jeans, ugly-as-sin crocodile leather shoes- was so taken by the Luis Vuitton “man-purse” that he was carrying in his back-pocket, that he was, most of the time, conversing with people with his back firmly turned towards them. A much lionized fashion designer, meanwhile, loved his models so much, that he hid himself in the middle of a veritable forest of pumped-up brawn. Other middle aged slobs dressed in younger-than-thou Ed Hardy t shirts just nodded their heads with the vapid crap that the live band played, followed by the even more bland piped Bryan Adams songs, and ogled the women.
Finally there are the “white people”. They’re always there at any such do- fashion, movies, wine launches, marriages, anything. The older men dress in drab white and blue shirts with chinos, the younger men all wear polo shirts and have a crew cut. The women wear tans and little else, and tower over everyone on stilettos about a mile high. Who are these people? Where do they come from? Maybe I’ll find out eventually.
What I make of it all is this- luxury is an attempt, at the same time aesthetic and economic, to give form to and put a price tag on a high civilisation’s self conscious idea of beauty. It is a fine line to walk, and the West- which anyway drives the trends- has digested this attempt as a way of life and is suitably understated about it. Unfortunately, this deepening of sensibilities is far off as far as India is concerned. Therefore, you get Sunday afternoons by the poolside.

The Beatles, their fans, and music lists

2009-01-23T11:37:00.005+05:30

http://magazine.jamsbio.com/2009/01/05/playing-the-beatles-backwards-the-ultimate-countdown/20/

I seriously can't think of any musical entity which has had as much words written on it as The Beatles. Its so obvious that I don't even know why I'm writing this. Maybe 'cause I'm such a nut for their music. Then again, unless you're trying to sell a book or do something suitably self-promoting on the back of your obsession, being crazy about the music is an honest enough reason to write. The link above will take you to a stupendous land of music nerd-dome. Some guy called JBev has gone and ranked some 185 published Beatles songs in terms of his preference. It is the countdown to end all countdowns.

Essentially every music fan has a love-hate relationship with music lists. The most irritating of which are probably Rolling Stone's. Ever since that magazine stopped being relevant sometime around the emergence of Punk in the late Seventies, much of its USP has shifted to making lists, lists, and more lists. And they NEVER take any risks with those lists. The top five is almost always the same- The Beatles, The Stones, Dylan, Springsteen; sometimes The Ramones, Radiohead or The Sex Pistols to show they're cool and more often Coldplay and U2 just so that the magazine doesn't scare away musical conservatives. Other magazines like Mojo, Q or Uncut don't do much better.

Websites like Pitchfork do lists too, and though they are commited to their demographic- Indie- as rabidly as Rolling Stone is to Baby Boomer icons, at least their lists are more fun. Check out their insanely addictive 200 Greatest Songs of the Sixties.

All this makes JBev's Beatles countdown all the more fun- because its a fan doing what a fan does well- being fanatic. Of course, the point of the list isn't about agreeing with the rankings (any of those 185 songs could be your favourite one on any given day) but joining another music fan in celebrating that elusive joy of really loving somebody's music. And JBev is an affectionate chronicler who's life has been informed by the Fabs. So in between lengthy discourses about the merit of each song, he inserts heartfelt details about how his father gifted him his first Beatles album when he was nine- this was Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. Like a true fan he listened to the eight-track tape until he nearly wore it out, blissing out with his earphones while A Day in the Life floated around in his head. His father passed away the year after. Though the two incidents are not necessarily related, it did have a huge impact on him.

Again, he talks of his girlfriend who doesn't like The Beatles and never did. J Bev talks of the lengths he went to to get her to like the Fabs, and how he made his peace with the fact that she never will. At least they dance to In My Life. That is what a fan's life is, and of all the lists I've ever read, this one actually means something.

Another Train

2008-12-30T10:10:00.004+05:30

11:00 am, Sunday, 28th December. Poorva Express.
Another train. I’m so glad that I’ve traveled so much by train this year. And though this one promises to get me very late, I don’t really care. After all, late running trains is part and parcel of travel really, at least in my mind. We just got out of Patna, running a couple of hours late. Maybe we’ll make up the time. Anyways. Traveling in a first class coupe, first time in such luxury. Well, first time that I can remember definitely. Maybe the time I went with my family to Mussoorie way back in the early Nineties. But I don’t really remember. One of my co-passengers is this nice enough guy, who works in Essar in Gurgaon. He’s going home to check up on his father, who’s been hospitalized. The guy’s nice enough, and has some nice old Bengali music. Old Hemanta songs and the like. But his ‘western’ music scene is dire. Basically an entire album by Aqua! Oh well, you can’t have it all. The other guy in the coupe is this engineer from Calcutta, traveling on business. Struck me as a Hindutva type with his saffron kurta, and tika, and strings around his wrist. Figured I was right when the Bengali guy asked me if Israel was not doing the right thing by attacking Hamas outposts in Palestine. Before I could answer the Meerut guy piped in and said that Israel was the only country with any balls. So I kept quite. Guess I was right about him after all. Its guys like Eammon (that’s the Bong guy’s name, dunno how he spells it!) who’s heart’s gotta be won over. But I fear I’m not the ideal person for the job. Because as this Engineer Mr. Rawat makes clear, these right wingers (the educated ones) are very patient in explaining the whys and the wherefores of their prejudices. They believe their own logic and suffer from no self-doubt, which makes their discourse problematic, but also clear. Because they will otherwise be perfectly genteel urbane people. Maybe I’d even get along with Mr Rawat if the conversation were to be limited to train rides and how much fun they are.
Since last evening I’ve read a lot. Started off with a couple of New Yorkers from two years ago. Read a cracking piece on C S Lewis and his Anglicanism vis a vis his works, especially the fantastic Narnia books. Then read a great account of the death of the Reformist Movement in Iran on the eve of Ahmedinejad’s election way back in 2005. A very poignant story, especially the account of a then-27-year-old dissenting journalist/blogger, and the shit he has to go through for defending his belief in a free society. Read some other stuff as well, but these two were especially great. I love New Yorker I’ve decided. It joins The Guardian and National Geographic as my journals of choice. Today morning read quite a bit of Bill Bryson. That book is good, witty and immensely informative without being flippant or trite. There isn’t much of a style apart from the humour, but well, that’s quite enough, frankly. Space renders me awestruck. The vastness of it all, the loneliness and fragility of Earth’s existence in relation to the Universe humbles me. What was totally a trip was Frederick Pohl’s Gateway. Finished reading it yesterday morning. Its one of those prized SF novels that haunt you long after you’ve ended it. Among its many many charms, Gateway probably has the single most fascinating and terrifying accounts of a black hole. Imagine, stuck in slow time, being sucked into a massive bluish THING five times the size of the sun. You’re stuck somewhere inside the black hole at Sagittarius AG, perhaps only a few minutes, while normal time has already aged centuries, millennia. And you’re trapped, for eternity, alive. Man, who are we? Just who are we? Insignificant, and at the same time so precious. We are like a solar flare upon the surface of the Universe. A blip really, a precious blip. And yet we hope to leave a mark. On posterity? I don’t know. True immortality could only be when beings on a world in a different Universe which we can’t comprehend will have the full account of humanity and celebrate this small fragile race of creatures on a small, beautiful blue world that is lost amidst the eddies of infinite time, of warped space. What other true immortality is there? Meanwhile, during this my very very short stay on this planet, I want to see it in all its beauty and horror. A minute little speck of carbon and methane, I want to participate in the world, and I want my participation to be in part an intellectual one, because that is the gift of my species, and that is its curse. Actually right now, I could do with some sex, maybe even a lot of it. Sigh. 11:44 am

12:41 pm.
Saw an Esbjorn Svensson Trio concert in the past one hour. This was them playing in Stockholm in 2000. Just like Lenny Breau before him, I’ve developed an intense liking for Esbjorn Svensson. Well, not him really as a solo artist, but for the E.S.T as a group. Can’t remember, rather can’t really spell their difficult Nordic names, but boy, are those three guys good. The sad thing is that since ES is dead, there’s very very slim chance of me hearing the other two ever again, except on E.S.T. albums or whatever live videos I can get hold of. Right now, I have two, the Stockholm one, and a superlative concert from 2003. Its one of those regrets of mine- I’ll never see them play live. Just imagine how fucking phenomenal that’d be. Especially when you consider all the second rate crap that comes to India during all those hyped Jazz Utsavs and the like. Right now I’m listening to their album, Good Morning Susie Soho. My favourite of the lot.. Must get my hands on their last album from earlier this year, Leucocyte. Funnily enough, I don’t think if I were to hear any ES solo I’d like it. Don’t think I would. (Spam-Boo-Limbo just started. LOVE IT!!!) He’s the quintessential trio guy. And what a trio. They feed off each other beautifully, switching between grooves, shifts in time signatures, keys. They play like a dream together. No matter how much of a genius ES might’ve been, the joy of hearing a band in full flow is just awesome. I’ll give an opposing example- Brad Meldhau. Now THAT guy’s absolutely brilliant solo. I was as blown away by his Live In Tokyo as by any of E.S.T.’s albums. Listening to his 19 min plus cover of Radiohead’s Paranoid Android sends shivers up my spine every time. The thing is, I downloaded a Brad Meldhau Trio album- Day Is Done, and though that’s quite good, but not as great as his solo stuff. In fact my favourite track off Day Is Done is his peerless solo reading of The Beatles’ Martha My Dear. So in the absence of ES, I guess Brad is one guy to follow. The trouble is that no matter how good he is, he just isn’t as electrifyingly brilliant as the E.S.T. Truly, what a loss. I must get my hands on their entire catalogue. Eammon just asked me if Metrogyl should be given to the train staff. Apparently the guy is suffering from an upset tummy. Oh, more news. Train’s 4 hours late. Which means we ain’t reaching before 10 pm or so. FUCK THAT!!! 1:00 pm

4:23 pm.
Just left Jasidih on the Jharkhand-Bengal border. Now that Lalu’s train has stopped leading the Poorva, we’re going as per schedule. Now my only wish is that we reach at 10. It would be nice to reach, though all things considered, its been a great journey so far. Spent a lot of time hanging out of the door. A very good thing to do while the sun’s still up and you’re getting bored. Beats staring at the laptop for sure, like a moron yuppie, which I seem to be turning into. So I’m standing there, watching people trying to barge into the general compartment next to our bogie (the irony! Cheapest next to the most expensive!) at Kiyul Junction. It’s a major one, as the steward confirms. I remember going off towards Purnia by train from this very place as a kid. Yes, says the steward, the other line does indeed head off towards Katihar Junction, the next big one near Purnia. In the rush at Kiyul, this old man bound for the general compartment only makes it as far as our gate. The steward, a nice middle aged Bihari man called Prosad, lets him up on the condition that he goes on to the general compartment at the next station. So anyways, I hang on. Its quite pretty outside. The stretch-till-infinity Gangetic plains is showing some bumps and slopes as it gets close to the Chota Nagpur Plateau. Now, as luck would have it, Lalu’s train (seven compartments long, according to some idling cops) are on the same line as ours heading towards Jamui, further down the track. This means that we get a red at every successive signal. Right outside Kiyul, a picturesque sight. The branching line in the distance has a long, solitary train on it, waiting for the green signal to approach Kiyul. Its blue and white in colour like most other expresses. Wonder where its coming from. Too far to read the lettering. It’s a pretty sight as I count the compartments- 13. I follow the line away towards the horizon (most train lines can be distinguished by the fact that they are usually upon a bankment, higher than the surrounding plains. Of course, you’ve got to know what you’re looking for in the first place). A large ridge appears in the middle of a sea of flat land. Looks like Ayer’s Rock. We approach it rapidly. The branching line goes around the other side of the ridge and is soon lost in the distance. From a distance it looks like a giant hillock but it IS a ridge, and a pretty long one at that. A couple of small villages at the bottom, with a large house on a smaller bump just before the ridge starts. Looks like the local zamindar’s haveli. From the train its difficult to say if its still inhabited.
As the train runs parallel to the ridge, we slow down. I crane my neck out and see a red signal in the distance. Here we go again. So we stop, the stragglers at the doors of the general compartment start getting off to stretch their legs, pee, or just stand around and spit. The conscientious old man wants to know if we’ve stopped at a station so he can go over to the correct compartment. I tell him to relax. Poor old man. After all he DOES have a ticket right? So what if it isn’t A/C? No reason for him to feel hassled unnecessarily. Three cops with massive rifles come and join me at the gate. They’re all butt ugly, but have nice enough grins. One of them gives me the news of Lalu’s train. Apparently he’s traveling in a 7-bogie train up-front with full fanfare, off to inaugurate a new platform in Jamui. As he speaks we start moving, and sure enough, as we pass by several level crossings, villages and ramshackle roads coming up to the train line from farms everywhere, right next to the train line, are throngs of men, women and children dressed in the gaudy colours of their Sunday best, waving their hands at the Poorva, as if every passing train holds the “Honourable Railway Minister, the Messiah of the Downtrodden, the Keeper of Lohia’s Flame, the Scourge of Communal Forces, the Charismatic (and now subject of Management Studies) Lalu Prasad Yadav.” Fluttering paper flags with the lantern symbol of RJD, Lalu’s party, fringe the train line. Its all quite fascinating.
Dunno why, but proximity to cops, no matter how friendly, makes me nervous. I guess they’re pigs, that’s why. So I go inside. Look around, nothing much happening. Rawat is sitting cross-legged staring out of the window while worrying some prayer beads. The old grandfather of the little baby (an occasional grinning/bawling visitor to our coupe) is sleeping on the bottom bunk. Eammon sees me and jumps down and sits between Rawat and me. Asks me if Lalu really should get the credit for the recent spectacular profits that the Railways have been posting. The political animal Rawat’s ears perk up. I tell Eammon what I think, that Ministers by themselves cannot achieve much. What good administrators do is help cut through the red tape and ensure that there are deserving public servants in the Ministry who can do a good job. Rawat agrees. Eammon and I talk a little about going to Cal, and how frequently we’re able to do it. Rawat can’t take it and asks me where I work. I’m sure he’s dying to know who this bearded Leftie is and why is Eammon (the everyman as it were, the person who the left and the right fights over) asking me political questions in a little awestruck way. So I smile sweetly at him and say, “India Today.” That’s that.
To avoid further conversation, I take out Bill Bryson and glance through the pages. We stop at Jamui, and then Jhanjha. This means that a) we’re finally rid of playing bridesmaid to Lalu’s train and b) we’re about to enter the Jharkhand part of the Chota Nagpur Plateau. Actually I realize that a good fifteen minutes after leaving Jhanjha. Chota Nagpur Plateau means ridges, and forests! I rush out to the doorway as the train is pulling out of a station. I open the door facing west, cause if my memory serves me well, the stuff to see will be on that side (if you were to take the Gaya line further to the south, instead of the Patna line that we’re on, then you’ve got to open the other door). And I was right. We are traveling through a rolling countryside of densely forested high ridges. Further west and south, ridges march out to the horizon, hazy in the light of the setting sun. Everything is bathed in a golden-silver light. We pass through deep cuttings, the train blaring out its horn, going faster at every turn, building up a head of steam. Well none of those around. More like a head of diesel. I’ve seen this countryside countless times from passing trains, but every time I see it, it awakens the same sense of wonder as the best myths do. It does look like a mythical, fairy tale landscape, the kind that Bibhutibhushan talks of in his peerless Aranyak. It’s the same landscape in fact. Little forest streams and rivers come up to the train line, shyly almost. A sudden deep culvert disorients, but soon passes. The track curves resolutely to the right, and then the left. I look forward and to the rear of the train. Its like I’m attached to this giant caterpillar. Ancient red brick walls act as cuts and channels, works of many generations past, separating the agent of civilization, the train line, from the primeval mysteries of the forests of the Plateau. The sunset makes it just right. If we’d passed through here at the correct time, it would’ve been around 11 in the morning. Good enough, but it wouldn’t have had a similar dramatic impact. I wonder why more Indians aren’t moved by this beauty that surrounds them. And by this I mean mostly urban India, because so much of rural India lives in or near landscapes like these. Why don’t people from the city bother? And as every time I pass through some place like this, some more of my heart is hardened towards the vacuousness of the modern urban, ignorant, technocratic India.
If you’re looking at the passing land from the train, pay attention to the occasional deep cuttings that the track passes through. Apart from reminding you of Ruskin Bond’s The Tiger in the Tunnel if you’ve read it, what you’ll notice is that every time you come out of a cutting, the landscape has changed in a very subtle way. What a cutting does is basically carve up a way through the most convenient rise or crest in this constantly undulating landscape At no point is it flat, and occasionally you’ll find yourself traveling through a bowl shaped valley with forested ridges on all sides. Its quite spectacular. In fact, its an even better sight if you’re on the Gaya line. Imagine the effort to get the Railways through here! Phenomenal. The scenery changes, predictably, with every cutting. Coming out of a final, long cut, I see that we’ve left the high ridges behind (the highest of which must be a good thousand or two feet high). We pass by the station of Simultala, famous to previous Bengali bhadralok generations as a charming beauty spot. A very British phrase isn’t it? That’s what the bhadralok thought. And who am I to scoff? It IS pretty. Even though the ridges are gone, the undulating land continues, as does the occasional patch of forest interspersed with patches of farmland. Its almost sundown, and people are returning from the fields with firewood, and produce, and their gaggle of cattle. There are dogs and goats and cows milling about everywhere. A few kids playing make-shift cricket on tilled fields. I’m watching all this when I get a massive fright. A speeding train rushes by in the opposite direction barely five feet from me. The sudden blaring horn and the rush of air from the speeding brute totally shocks me. I let go of the hand rails and jump ever so slightly. In an instant, I quickly grab hold of the rails. My heart’s still racing. What a brute. And what speed. Quite a rush. We approach a station. We stop. I get off, drink some tea. Pretty soon we’ll be entering Bengal. I smile at the thought.
5:51 pm. We passed by Chittaranjan a while back and are about to enter Asansol. Chittaranjan is where you enter Bengal. The steward says that we’ve made up some time and might even get to Howrah by 9 pm if all goes to plan. I’ll stop writing.

Darkest Knight

2008-12-16T17:00:00.005+05:30

After years of wanting to do so, I finally laid my hands on The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller. A fantastic re-imagining of the Batman mythos in the late Eighties, this graphic novel probably made sure that the Caped Crusader would never again be thought of as anything other than what he is- a haunted, troubled psychopath who is ultimately scarier than the myriad bizarre villains he fights. I don’t think the current version of the Batman movie franchise would have been possible without this brilliant piece of work. But you al probably already knew that.

Along with Alan Moore’s peerless Watchmen, what totally impressed me about The Dark Knight (and to be fair unsettled the pants off me) is how so much of the politics of the book is so hyper-relevant right now. Both the books came out in the Eighties, bang in the middle of the deeply divisive and paranoid reigns of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. in the U.S. and Margaret Thatcher in England. The latter’s anti-society stance and scary totalitarianism, and the former duo’s delusions of imperial grandeur were doing some serious damage both in the social and political spheres. Add to that Soviet aggression in Afghanistan, a fiercely dogmatic China shooting at its own youth and the real fear of some idiot somewhere pushing the nuclear button had made that decade the most paranoid one since the 1950s. Many of our problems today, the spectre of worldwide terrorism, severely escalating environmental damage at the hands of massively polluting big business, growing shortage of resources etc, they all have their genesis in that decade. Dark Knight mirrors all of them so well that its quite uncomfortable going through it.

There are some unforgettable images in the book, like the intrusive TV media that makes it it’s business to pry everywhere. In the many violent clashes between the savage old Batman (Bruce Wayne’s pushing 60) and his adversaries, the TV and its vacuous talking heads reducing everything to talking points, jostling for that breaking news story. I was reminded of our own illustrious media coverage of the Mumbai attacks. The city slickers aren’t spared either. There’s one obnoxious minor character, an ad executive, who keeps cropping up throughout the narrative, doing and saying some heinous things and then saying he’s not to blame. Who’s to blame then? Why, the government, other people, minorities, everyone else. Again compare that to the urban protestors in many of our cities who’ve been threatening not to pay taxes and urging the government to bomb Pakistan.

Nor are the politicians spared either. There’s the caricature US President, a cross between Nixon and Reagan who says inanities and acts like a fascist. Caricature did I say? He sounds and acts scarily like Sarah Palin! Fancy that. Although the book has its Soviet paranoia (back then they were the only ones with a fearsome nuclear arsenal- apart from the US), when the spectacular nuclear strike takes place towards the end, the American corporate-government nexus is equally implicated.

But the scariest are the superheroes themselves. While the Batman is consumed with rage and frustration and acts like the creepy control freak vigilante he is, Superman has bought his peace with the repressive government by becoming a weapon of war, albeit one with a conscience. Alan Moore investigates a similar theme- and in many ways does it better- in The Watchmen, but here Miller is dealing with real, mainstream comic book heroes, which makes the book pretty cutting edge.

Finally there are some unforgettable images- of the Joker coming out of catatonia (a series of six panels where he sees the Batman on a TV screen, his expression changing from a bland, dead expression to the murderous grin we all know so well), of an aged Batman almost suffering from a cardiac arrest, of a nightmarish nuclear strike and finally a plane crashing into a skyscraper. Spooky.

A Whisky Tasting Session

2008-12-12T12:35:00.001+05:30

Connoisseur’s Phrasebook

And so here you are, at a vaunted whisky tasting session. Arrayed in front of you are rows and rows of some of the best single malts that you could ever wish to taste. But there’s one slight problem. What’s all this stuff about the “nose” of the whisky and it’s “body”? And what is with all this “peaty” stuff? Doesn’t make any sense. Well, we do not claim to fill these gaps in your knowledge, but we can have a little fun. Here are a few examples of how NOT to use the phrasebook.

The first five single malts (Sober)

So you start off with your head placed squarely on your shoulder. You gamely sip the first whisky, then the second, then the third….Oops you’re occasionally forgetting not to swallow the whisky. Hmm…

Malt 1: A dignified taste with a soft nose like a stately garden in a soft haze; but dark flavours bloom abundant on the palate, with a sticky, salty end.

Malt 2: A hard nose, medium bodied, but a rich smoky taste with malty, peaty fruity notes and more than a hint of a sea breeze; full bodied, with rich citrus aromas and a long, gentle, lingering, complex, hard to define minty end.

Malt 3: Hints of cherry pie mingle with sharp notes of citrus and melon. A potentially overwhelming grassiness is subdued by a little grape stalk. Pear skin lingers, gives it a balanced, playful ending.

Malt 4: On the nose, yellow fruit is pleasantly plump, and precedes a delicate peat-smoke. Mingled tones of ginger and geranium create a spicy palette, rounded out with a smooth vanilla finish.

Malt 5: Sherry-sweet nose with a good bouquet; a hint of wood and vanilla; full bodied and round with a complex, patience-yielding palate and a long, lingering finish.

The next five (Drunk)…

So, by the time you’d gotten to the long, lingering finish of Malt number 5, you’re well on your way to that woozy, heady feeling. Maybe your spirits are up and you feel like you’re floating down the Scottish Highlands to the sound of celestial bagpipes. Ah, bagpipes, there’s something mournful about them, isn’t there? Reminds you of your ex girlfriend? Sigh…

Malt 6: I'm on a salty cliff made of honey and bagpipes, the mint is wrestling the sultanas and oak, I think the sherry's winning.

Malt 7: A squishy buttery nose with a hint of marmalade and ex-girlfriends, with a firm, chocolate follow-through, and a toasty, sad finish. She doesn't love me after all.

Malt 8: A ferocious nose, I hear trumpets and a bar fight, followed by a skip through fields of toast and fudge.

Malt 9: A weepy nose. Sweet cherry blossoms are gliding down the moonbeams; the full-bodied chickpeas are dueling high up in the air in a long and lengthy battle to the bitter end.

Malt 10: Oh woe is me. One more dram please.

You Poet

2008-11-21T22:08:00.002+05:30