Putting things into perspective...

“Traveling- it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller"- Ibn Battuta
Let me tell you some stories.
 

Mustafa

It was the first day of our Ladakh ride, so to speak. We had just barely managed to spill ourselves over the Zoji-La Pass. We had waited for the army to blast a road through the mountains, when that hadn’t worked, we took a small, military only road that would help us bypass the blasting work. We ploughed through slush, tiptoed over needle sharp rocks and even ‘made our own roads’ on the way. By the time we reached the pass the weather took a turn for the worse. Rain, sleet and wind. Not a good combination!
So, cold and miserable, somehow we spilled into the valley that lay beyond. It is a pity that we couldn’t truly appreciate the beauty of the place because of our misery. Such magnificent desolation. Pillars of mountains on both sides and a lush green carpet connecting them.
The army-men who gave us shelter from the rain confirmed that Drass had no rain, so we decided to push on as soon as there was a break in the rain. We set out on the winding road again, but the rain caught up again in less than a couple of kilometers. We spotted a lonely stall on the side of the road. Across the road was the ruin of what looked like a village.
The owner of the stall waved us in. He made us take of our gloves and put them over the stove to dry them off. He then gave us piping hot tea, some puri and watery, but hot Maggi. The only way I can describe that serving is that it was the best supper I ever had. Nothing has ever come close to it. Ever.
When we finally came back to our senses, recovered from the cold chill, Mustafa, the stall owner started telling us his story. The place we were standing at was the ground zero for the Kargil war. When the war began, the army asked them to pack a bedroll and get on the truck that would take them to Sonmarg. When the war ended, the army put them back in the truck with a new bedroll and stove and dropped them back to what remained of their village.
And here he is now, piecing together every rupee so that he can re-build his home that he will never be able to build again.

 

The Inedible Dosa

When we set out towards Manali after a week’s stay at Leh, we decided to stop at an army canteen that is famous for making the best Dosa at the highest altitude. So we rode into the camp, parked our bikes and walked into the canteen, or restaurant? The place is run by army-men, so it’s a strange feeling. It’s not the usual Shanti-Sagar experience. Once we took our place, a man in the army greens came to take our orders. This. This is one of the most unsettling experiences you can ever go through. These men give up every comfort of life and family to serve the nation’s borders and then they are taking Dosa orders from us. I just sat squirming in the seat as the Dosa was prepared. The Dosa came in the hands of the same ‘waiter’. Forcing the Dosa down my throat was an ordeal, there was a constant churning in the stomach making me feel sick. And then came the bill, in the hands of the same person. Do you pay, do you tip? Do you understand what I am saying?

Two Puris and a Potato

The shaming for the day wasn’t completed yet. Riding out, we reached Tanglang-la. A magnificent mountain pass. Pity that the pass roads were still under construction. So we had to ascend and descend on non-existent roads or ride on the first base layers of what will become future roads. While rumbling on the half made roads we came across tents of the workers. The Workers were holding to puri’s and some potatoes in their hands. That was lunch. Further ahead they were bathing in the melting glacier water. This was at 14000 ft. Where we barely wanted to stop because of the lack of oxygen. And here we were complaining about the quality of the roads, or the lack of them…

Travelling does leave you speechless, then it does turn you into a storyteller. But most importantly, it brings perspective. Mustafa is rebuilding his life by feeding travelers, cheerfully. Army men are serving us Dosa’s. And laborers are threading together an existence in the harshest of terrains to build roads for us. All of this – why? So that people like us can ride through the ‘toughest terrains in the world’ and pompously declare it as the achievement of a lifetime.
So I guess what I am saying is that, the world is what it is. The social stratification is unjust. But it is what it is. If a man can be cheerful about his life after being devastated by war, rest assured, you can live through the 'mountains' of work you have. If an army man can serve you Dosa’s and if people can work in the harshest of conditions so that people can enjoy an adventure in the same place, you can drop  the air of entitlement you carry. Appreciate the small things in life and respect the opportunities given to you. You might have no idea what some people must have given up to get you into this comfortable place.
 

I think I am ...... pretentious ?

Internet meme’s have been a rage for a while now and not without reason. They tend to be outright stupid, yet hilarious. And for some reason… you relate to them. Remember those – ‘Am I the only one…’ memes?

All those embarrassing childhood thoughts, weird remembrances embodied in those anonymous ‘Am I the only one’s.

But then you see, I am not that general John Doe. I have been living alone for a little too long and the limited number of people close to me (who know me?) will testify to the fact that I am weird. Self-centered and in general, colossally moody.

Now that I am introspecting/ retrospecting, I realize that as part of becoming ‘me’ I have been a major copy-cat. I learn that American sitcoms are the new rage – I watch everything from Seinfeld to Burn Notice to the latest gamut of superhero line-ups. I see someone reading Salman Rushdie – how am I not reading him! I see someone playing Crysis – how am I not running that on my laptop! Someone is listening to Pink Floyd in the room next – why am I not listening to them. And why stop there! Read Salman Rushdie, read Charles Dickens, read Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Yes, I read Chetan Bhagat as well)! And then again, why just Crysis, buy the console and play all the PS3 classics – borderlands, unchartered, the last of us, GTA (Yes, I have played Zoo Tycoon as well). And why only Pink Floyd – listen to everything from Albert King to The Cardigans – I don’t want to be cornered when talking about music. Heck I have even heard Yo Yo Honey Singh – just so that I don’t get cornered about anything.

And in some ways that has panned out. I have spent more time on sitcoms than most you. I have read more books than most of you. I have played more video games than most of you. I have listened to more music than most of you. I probably have seen more movies than most of you (IMDB top 250? Please...) Heck I even joined a riding club – and not to be outshined – I rode to more destinations than most of you. The most popular of destinations and the most unknown of destinations (I recently saw a StoryPick clickbait claiming to tell 10 places that even the most seasoned travelers didn’t know about – I clicked the checkbox on 6 of them). I spent a ludicrous amount of time and money and fuel on these vagaries.

Now by this time you must be wondering that I truly am a pretentious prick, just showing off. In part that is true, I like doing that. But then who doesn’t. A study somewhere shows that Facebook users are true narcissists.  But hear me out.

I think I have been a quiet boy, with a tendency to remain aloof – a person whom everyone knows but who knows no one; for far too long. The moulding forces of family and close knit circles of friends didn’t really act on me. But in order to hold your own, you need to be…well…you! So I started picking up pretty much everything and miraculously I found time for all of them. Though in hindsight I realize that I could have devoted that time towards family and close knit circle of friends as well.

Now that I am introspecting, at the edge of a big ‘life event’ – the big question rises. Am I a true person or just a collection of imitations? But then, I also believe that we are all, in the end, a sum of our individual experiences. I was a dull introvert up to the end of my college days. All my ‘experience’ was tantamount to being a loner who was forced by some good friends into socializing. Someone who ‘didn’t actually give a single f***’. I was even found taste with the shitty hostel food when no one else did (Sure I was lost sleep over my grade in Math-I once, and I did go all Romeo on, well someone not worth it, but…)

But when the realization finally sunk in that I am truly nobody, I started forcing experiences on myself.

And this is where it gets tricky. I tend get a bit high minded about stuff. I have become highly opinionated, much like Jeremy Clarkson (that didn’t turn out very well…did it?) Idealizing things to a fault. Realizing the practicalities of things yet idolizing the idealizations.  Getting into arguments on subjects that I just learnt about and expressing my opinions - as if I my opinion is supreme. Something that most of the people knowing me will testify to J

What’s wrong with that? And coming back to the ‘Am I the only one’ meme – am I the only one who thinks he has been imitating all this time, or is it that everyone of us here is in the same boat.

Whatever the answer to that maybe, I don’t think that I mind how I shaped up. Sure I am a bit moody, quirky and self-centered but surely you won’t hold that against me anymore?!

Somewhere in the midst of all the imitations and perfecting the imitations, exceeding the imitations, I think I found my personality. Traits. I know the kind of books I like; I know the genres of music that work for me. The video games that get me worked up and the sitcoms that deserve my attention.

Which when I think about it....is not so bad. And I think I will continue this imitation game. Experiences forced on me, or experiences forced on me by myself – how does it matter. That’s how you find new things – avoid getting into a rut of routines.(See… I am idealizing things again!) Sure I have a few process chinks to crease out and I should start idolizing things a little lesser, but then hey, as I said a while back, it’s the journey, not the destination that matters J

*BTW all being said and written, I think I am only setting myself to be called a narcissist. I am proclaiming myself to be pretentious…. How self-centered is that!)

Mahabs, My Love. Gokarna, My Mistress.

So, the sun is finally setting on my Bangalore days. And I am trying hard to figure out if I will miss the place or not. I have seen enough friends and mates leave this city, for various reasons. Some folks miss it for a while, swear by the invisible emotion that city invokes, and then forget about it. There are some who are about to call it home and then there are some of loathe it right from the start and simply want to pack up and get out.

Now, in all fairness, I have spent a better part of a decade in this city, seen it transform from the utopian cantonment, where evening showers were a norm and the weather demanded that air conditioners be chucked to a city choked with people, where the roads, or the lack of them, are choked with vehicles and people – no space to even cycle! And the weather has turned brutal, standstill traffic, scorching sun.

Sure, the brewery scene is attractive and the food scene is brilliant, but that’s just a Saturday in a painful week. Not a good case for my affections then. Nope.

So what is it that thing creating a pit in my stomach at the very thought of leaving this city? At this point, don’t go all ‘you getting the jitters before a big move!’, ‘you are getting cold feet’. It’s none of those.

Come to think about it, the reason for that pit it is that Bangalore has made me what I am. From a scared, fat village boy from Ranchi with no real world skills to the person I am today. I think myself to be a serious tourer. Traveller.  

Travelling around Bangalore is what made me. I think I have explored every place worth exploring, not to mention my love affair with Tamil Nadu. And through all this, I have developed special relations with some places, places that define me.

The first time I went to Mahabalipuram was Christmas time, peak season. It’s an unlikely place; the epitome of juxtaposition. The place is a UNESCO heritage site, some really impressive architecture and sculpture that has been dug up, defiled by Akshay Kumar’s pelvic thrusts ‘tandao daon daon daon…..’. But that’s getting off the point, as I was saying; it is an epitome of juxtaposition. There is the main street that divides the neo from orthodox. Branching from the main street is Ottavadai Street, the happening place for Mahabalipuram, where the world comes to visit, where the kids know skating and surfing and where the usually orthodox folks mingle with women in skimpy bikinis, comfortably ignoring us desi's, trying to hawk their pendants and necklaces. And then there is the other side of the road where the same people cleanse themselves of all the sins of the west at the central temple.

The sculptures, the Panch-Ratha’s, the shore temple – sure they are attractions, but it is this opportunity to witness this juxtaposition that keeps bringing me back to this small shore side town. Where u can peacefully sip on an ‘illegal’ beer on the wrong beach, gazing into the endless ocean starting at the feet of the shore temple, where people still go prostate in devotion to the God who has long forsaken the temple ravaged by the salty ocean in search of more comfortable thrones.

And then look back at the ever-twinkling Ottavadai street, where a French woman found love and life with a local; and where you can be comfortably be in trance in the trance of weed; enjoying the fresh catch of the day. The juxtaposition of modernity (if I may call it that) and relics.

The East Coast Road where any left turn takes you to a virgin beach, the Ottavadai Street, the timeless sculptures, the sea of humanity – Mahabalipuram. My true love.

But then I am a guy, I can’t stick to one ;) My travels took me to my mistress – Gokarna. Poor man’s Goa in common lingo. But not for me. The approach is a contrast to Mahabs. A winding country road through the Karnataka countryside as compared to the arrow straight 6 lane NH4 to Mahabs. Of course she is not easy to get – you have to wake up early, move through the foggy countryside – concentrating on the road counting down to the magnificent sunrise behind some hill on the way. Then brave the scorching heat of the way – sneak across landmarks like the Jog falls, the Western Ghats!

And then reach the peninsula – a conglomerate of 5 beaches – known to the world for its hippie ways – emanating from the religious temple town of Gokarna (All roads lead from Rome). There is the beach for the masses – a drive-in beach where you can find the common Indian mass. Peeing, pooping and picnicking on the beach.

Then comes the Kudle beach, next to a cliff, the proxy Goa where the water is calm, the beer is plenty, the crowd is varied – firangs contorting in the name of Yoga, Desis ogling at the elasticity and there is me, floating in the water, saying to myself – WTF, I don’t belong here.

This drives me to the Om Beach. Where cultures clash, the lower loop of the Om, where the common masses come to feel equal to the foreign crowd, where big bellied uncles sleep on the beach in their Rupa’s. Next is the upper loop of the Om, the land of Shiva, beyond the Parvati Rocks, where weed is easier than beer and where the more courageous arrive, differentiating themselves from the common masses, trying hard to pretend that they are not ogling at the white skin on display while ogling at the white skin at display with contorted eyes. And where all the ‘hip’ places including the Nirvana Café reside. And before you get all judgmental, I am sitting on the Parvati Rocks, trying to figure out which side of the loop I belong to, trying to use my flimsy camera phone to capture the chameleon like sunset – taking a different form every evening(before heading to the Nirvana café for the night, ogling at the white skin on display).

Next morning, I try to figure out my place in Gokarna, I trek beyond the Om Beach, still trying to get the ‘Om’ shape with every step of the hike (unsuccessful. Period.) I reach to another cliff, jutting out of the landmass, a solitary palm tree adorns the drop of the cliff.

This. This is the place. Where I spend my mornings, waiting for the sun to rise behind me and warm the water below and where I spend my evenings looking at the sun going down, contemplating what I saw through the day. The chameleon sunset displaying its skills again.

So what about the day? I use it to hike to the half-moon beach. If I may call it that – my apartment’s swimming pool feels about the same size, But there is something different about it, the green hills rising behind it, a few scanty shacks on the beach and the few people, some in transition to the Paradise Beach, and some like me, who like the solitude. Bathe. SunBathe. Bathe. That’s all – sure you can read a book in the while or sip on a cold one. But be warned, there will be tourists from India, on boats, looking at you like animals on display thinking – why can’t they be normal and swim in the abundance of the Om-Beach :/

The palm-adorned cliff and the Half-Moon beach – that is Gokarna for me. A state of transition, yet a state of desired permanence. My mistress. That sinful feeling. Away from all the worries in the world, how can I be so peaceful here when there is so much chaos in my life? The lust for solitude. Where there is nothing else. Me and her. Mahabs sulking with her overflowing masses somewhere as an afterthought.

But.

There was someone else. A secret love affair. An unfinished business. Something hidden from both Mahabs and Gokarna. Something wonderful happened.

Hampi.

It was a chance visit, might I call it a forced visit in an unlikely time. The roads to Hampi are beautiful and bad. Potholes the size of moon-craters and twice as frequent amidst the beautiful North Karnataka countryside. The road to Hospet seems to be forsaken. But the inconvenience of the road is actually a build up to the place itself. An unlikely ode to the place of places – where the rocks are plenty, the roads are none and the beauty is unbound. The juxtaposition of modernity and relics is to be found along with the solitude strewn amongst the rocks and monuments. Like the narrow stretch of untouched tarmac between the potholes on the approach road.

The juxtaposition. The village and the island are separated by the Tungabhadra, meandering around stubborn rocks and connected by a lonely ferry piloted by a captain of many languages.  The village has the central temple that dictates the purity of the place, uttering the word ‘meat’ itself feels foul. Across the multilingual ferry is the island – Veerupapura Gaddi. The island of decadence, the dream of Caligula. Whatever is your vice, you name it, and you will get it, grown in the fields, or plucked from the huts of Anegudi. But yet I love it. 

Come evening, you can sit on one of the rocky outcrops on the sandy shores of the island and gaze into the sunset, pondering over the meaning of existence and then once the sun sets, squander the existential crisis in the haze of the hookah – exchanging stories with unknown people across the table and tapping into the rhythm of trance music in the background.

But that is not all. No sir! Hampi after all is the land of boulders and architecture. Days can be spent exploring every nook and cranny of the place. Looking at the same temple from arm’s distance and marveling it from atop a hill reward you with different experiences.

Hampi to me is transcendent. There is a piece of home here. She is complete – there is a constant display of the rigors of daily life in the agriculture of Anegudi, yet there is the comforting embrace of the island at the end of a tiring day. A representation of...many things. Where you can be and cannot be…

Yes. This is it. This is why I love Bangalore. The ‘emotion’ that people talk about when referring to Bangalore is a very personal thing. Bangalore can give you anything you want. It might not be in the core of the city, but surely there is someplace close-by that she will guide you to.

For me, it is and always has been riding and exploring, and Bangalore never disappointed. You don’t choose the destination here, and you choose the direction. Rest assured, you will land in a place that you like.  This is what is creating that pit in my stomach. The fear of losing the place that I have explored, that has revealed me, yet there is so much to be revealed.

But then, that is the secret of long lasting love – leave something more to explore. That urges you to know more, learn more, and love more. Make you come back for more.

Which, someday will bring me back to Bangalore. The city that made me.

P.S. I know it’s sad that I am actually romanticizing places rather than women.

P.P.S.  Pardon my love analogies. I whole heartedly endorse monogamy.

Pic Credits :
Suteja Kanuri
Udayaditya Kashyap Photography