The wind is rustling violently through the trees, the heavens lightening up repeatedly accompanied every time by a very familiar sounding thunder. A distant, incessant ringing of a bell fills the air already leaden with gloom. Half-eaten chapattis and sabzi watch idly from the sidelines, as the family is huddled closely together, rapt in attention. I take a look at the clock and yawn, rather helplessly. 10 more minutes!
Sitting in a remote town, in one of the more underdeveloped parts of the world, I bring you the single-most unifying thread in the history of India – The Great Indian Joint Family Saga. The saga that plays itself in every abode – from a shack in a village to a duplex in posh city locale, enveloping us all in their world, making their woes and joys ours and our money and time, theirs .
Ekta kapoor has unknowingly stumbled upon an untouched nerve of Indian household. Even though the only joint families remaining in India are found on primetime, their day-to-day struggles with surprisingly dedicated vamps and terminal diseases have really touched a chord with women all over India. And it really warms my heart when I see an executive and his driver, both bitching about their wives’ fixation with Tulsi, Parvati and Mihir, as it goes on to show how saas-bahu soaps have formed a bridge across castes, religion and class barriers and even nations. My father, on a recent visit to China, watched Kyunki… dubbed in Mandarin. Though I don’t know even an iota of Chinese, it would be so cool to watch Baa squeaking, in a high-pitched voice - "Tulsi zong shì fú cóng le zhè ge fáng zi guī zé"(“Tulsi ne humesha iss ghar ki maryaada ka paalan kiya hai”)
When the place I am currently located at, Khatima, Uttarakhand, was elevated to a sub-district or something like that, one of the first demands on the citizen charter was to ensure uninterrupted power supply during 8-11 P.M (any guesses why). Moreover, when Mihir passed away in an accident (the first time), the women of the colony held a funeral to mourn his death. I reckon, when you are riding the simplest of vehicles, even a slight bump can unsettle your bum.
Talking of bumps, quite a few have shown up on my arms and face. Come dusk and the country-side air, supposed to be good for health, is filled with a ubiquitous buzz of mosquitoes. They are so many in number that they have to take turns at having a go at you, while giving the All-Out a royal ignore. Here I came across a new contraption quite popular in Khatima to fight the mosquito menace - Battery-powered electric racquets. They deliver mild electric shocks, just about managing to knock out the mosquitoes for a solitary minute before they rise again to resume their pursuits, sometimes with a hint of vengeance. So it is essential for us to create mosquito-shaped, often permanent, stains on the floor, in order to make a dent in their ranks. Hence, at night you can see the young children in every single house practicing the same maneuver - smash and step. The future of Indian Badminton has never looked so rosy.
"dàn shì wo réng rán shè fa huò dé yī xiē lè qù" (“But I am still managing to have some fun!!”)
A Few excerpts from my diary while on the move. Most of them were recorded while traveling in a bus, my handwriting transporting me temporarily to those blissful, ignorant (and shaky) times of 2nd grade -
In
For me, visiting relatives has always been a painstaking HR exercise of huge proportions. Innumerable that they are, some of them are located in the remotest corners of
But all of this isn’t enough to dampen my spirits, as I feel like a student on his last day of school. Even though he cribbed about getting up early in the morning, packing up, rushing through breakfast and catching the dilapidated school bus to be dumped at the place he doesn’t feel the need to go to, on his last day, he sees everything in a new light. The feeling is definitely the same, as I aim to seek adventure everywhere during this last in a long, long time, two-week long trip down to my roots. And though I have been to Khatima a lot of times, if I’ll ever remember a journey to that place, it will probably be this one.
Rest of the journey is quite uneventful, as I fall in and out of sleep, the conversation about recipes and sweater-weaving techniques happening between two ladies on the seat ahead notwithstanding. I’ll post more about the trip later!
* This was written on a round trip from Delhi to Gwalior last year.
** The guy in the photo is not me.
Train journeys are all about possibilities.
At 7’o clock, I was running through the quieter-than-usual New Delhi Railway Station, cursing Bhopal Shatabdi for leaving from the farthest possible platform. Anyways, I board the train in the nick of time, catch my breath and take my seat next to the window. I look out at a platform bathed with white light. The scene comprises of dozens of families stretched out on the floor in various stages of rest and slumber. The train starts with a jerk, and a group of middle-aged ladies sitting nearby start muttering silent prayers. A big yellow board at the edge of the platform proclaims in bold black letters ‘
Train journeys are all about possibilities. I think of it as a change in state. When you arrive, you are no longer the same person who departed. You can make new friends en route, or find old enemies; you may get diarrhoea from eating stale cutlets or jaundice from drinking contaminated water. And, dare I say it, you might even discover love. Sitting there in seat no. 17 of coach C4, I discover my love for Chai-Parle-G Biscuits.
I reflect on the year that has gone past. I graduated and entered the real world, a world that is as enticing as unforgiving. I fell in and out of love thrice, a record low. I had a taste of a life totally foreign to me, and got hooked to it. I finally learnt to cook, including world-class pasta in Arabiatta sauce. And I was rounding off the year with something very close to my heart.
I have always loved train journeys. As a kid, every time my family took a train journey, I was allowed to buy a comic or two for the journey. Though I have strolled past the days of lapping up Nagraj and Super Commando Dhruv, I still feel there is something romantic about train journeys. While flights seem more business-like, trains are kind of rustic and charming. In the movies, you see the hero and the heroine singing songs, dancing on the roof of the train, while other passengers, who would have probably haggled over reservations a little while earlier, leaving their berths and dancing to their cue. You never see that sort of a thing on an airplane, do you? And when in air, you remain immersed in your iPods, laptops and seat-belts, impervious of your surroundings, apart from occasionally glimpsing outside to see that serene carpet of clouds. In a train, however, you can see everything - the lush green fields, barren lands, sparkling streams, sleepy towns… You move your feet to the sound made by the train when it crosses a bridge. You recount that Sonia-Vajpayee-Lalu Prasad Yadav joke when the train goes through a tunnel. You quibble with vendors over moofali and ward off flirtatious eunuchs.
My train of thought is broken by a sheepish voice making an announcement, as the train slows down. A yellow board announcing ‘
After days of brooding over my return, seeing India and its lush green fields, barren lands, sparkling streams and sleepy towns weave past my window, I finally feel that connection again.
