I first met Chamba in the PG, where I used to stay 3 years back. She was always draped in a maroon robe, had a close shaved head, and wore an innocent smile. Chamba is a Buddhist monk. If you enquire something to her, pat comes the reply "Yes Yes" in a queer accent. Because, "Yes" was the only English word she knew for a long time. She is a Tibetan monk, who lives in a monastery near Hubli and had come to Bangalore to learn English.
She stayed in our PG for a month. Initially we had a tough time, rather fun time, communicating using sign language like cave men. Once when she was back from her English coaching class, flaunting my great acting skills, I enquired "So what did you learn today?". Her blank face suddenly lit up, she smiled her toothy smile and replied "Chappathi". Gosh!! She thought I had asked her about what she ate. She had a note book, scribbled with English words and basic sentences. It resembled a first standard kids notebook. Every night, I and N used to read out to her from the book and ask her questions. After a few weeks, she was able to decently communicate to us through broken sentences and sign language.
Sometimes,I feel she acts like a school girl, who has just broken a few rules. She explains to me in a hushed tone, how she and her friends occasionally used to sneak out of the monastery to devour some delicious chicken fry. Who said monks are supposed to be vegetarians?? She is the most happy soul, when they serve egg and chicken once in a week in our PG. I and N loves taking her out, just to see the sheer joy on her face. She has never came out of the enclosed walls of her monastery since the last 30 years and gets excited and happy when she comes out with us to a nearby bakery to snack on egg puffs or for our occasional junk-jewellery shopping. But the only problem is that people out on the streets stare seeing a monk . But she seems quite unaware. I have never seen anybody feeling so happy to just come out of the house except maybe for my niece. But absolutely no grownups. And that's exactly why I love taking her out and I feel like I am taking her out on a special date.
She had left her home in Tibet as a teenager, to join the monastery. And that was 30 years back and she has never once gone back home since then. She gets letters from her brothers once in a blue moon and that's the only ties with the family who lives thousands of miles away. I listened in awe and finally asked her, "So do you love India? Don't you miss Tibet?" She replies, "India peace peace... Tibet no peace" She breaks away without getting the right words to continue and then started using her sign language. She explains that Chinese people come, fight and kill innocent Tibetans and hence it's very unsafe living out there. I really don't know whether the situation is same now, but maybe 30 years back this was Tibetan way of life. "India peace peace" was the proudest and most patriotic thing I have ever heard about India.
She went back to her monastery after a month, promising to come back next year. A year later, I had already moved out of that place. N called me up one day and told that Chamba was back and wanted to see me. I was getting engaged the next weekend. I came and broke the news of my engagement to Chamba. She was happy and asked me "He good?" I laughed and replied, "Yeah, he very good". She pressed a brown cover into my palm telling that it's a small gift. There were a few colourful ginger candies, sacred thread and a small craft work. She told me, "Tie the the sacred thread on his hands." She doesn't have any money, all the things I got were handmade by her. It felt so precious...
This year, she called me from a public phone booth. I wonder where she got the money from. But I was out of Bangalore that month. I don't know if I can ever see her again.. Maybe she will come next year too.. Maybe she will have money to call from a phone booth too..
Hope too see you sometime Chamba. And this Christmas season, I am remembering you, your innocent toothy smile, the good will and the cheer you brought.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!
Rajasthan of my imagination was a dry treeless arid dessert. In fact I was quite surprised to see the sprawling hills covered with shrubs all around the city. Jaipur is a colourful city. People wear bright clothes, the men in turbans and the women in colourful saris modestly covering their face. We walked through the City Palace complex. On both sides of the street were shops selling puppets, ethnic jewellery, shoes, elaborately embroidered dresses,and the famous blue pottery. We reached Hawa Mahal. This palace is shaped like Lord Krishna's crown and has an array of countless windows on all sides, which accounts for the heavy breeze inside and hence the name. During the Rajput reign, these windows gave the women folk of the palace a view of the street life outside. In AP's words, the lovesick princesses waited at these windows for their prince to come and whisk them off on gallant horses :)
Next we decided to check in at our Hotel Umaid Mahal. We had a tough time locating the hotel, because whenever we asked for direction, we were pointed to a different route. Wherever we stopped, there were eager tour guides waiting to pounce, offering to accompany us to our destination. It looked as if Jaipur is teeming with travel guides.
And Umaid Mahal was very much worth all the trouble. It far exceeded my wildest imagination of a hotel. As soon as you enter the Mahal, you get transformed to a magical palatial world. Every inch of the wall and ceiling were covered with exuberant mural paintings. Oil paintings of old Rajput empire adorned the walls. The intricately carved silver furniture, wooden sculptures and grand chandeliers that hung from the ceiling coupled with the golden glow of the lamps added to it's magnificence. I would highly recommend this hotel to anybody visiting Jaipur.
After having a late lunch, we proceeded to Chowki Dhani which is a modelled Rajasthani village. It is a rustic hamlet comprising of mud huts with thatched roofs, panchayat and forest with Rajasthani tribal. It has a carnival with performance by folk dancers, puppet show, tight rope walking, magicians, fortune tellers, potter dancers, camel and bullock cart rides. You can sit comfortably on coir cots in the huts, sip camel-milk tea from earthen pots and smoke the hookahs. Btw, camel milk tastes yuck. There were craft bazaars for shopping and I bought a beautiful Rajasthani jootha and a jewel box. There were entertainment stalls, where M tried his hands on shooting with bow and arrows and AP at shooting with a gun. Well,the mention of Chowki Dhani is incomplete without the elaborate full course Rajasthani dinner served on leaf plates. I almost lost count of the number of dishes on my overflowing platter. I guess it was around 20-25 dishes. I couldn't comprehend the ingredients of most of the dishes, which left me at awe about how much varied are the cuisines when you travel from one part of India to another!!! Truly incredible!!!
Since we went to Chowki Dhani during Dussehra season, I for the first time witnessed the tradition of "Burning the Ravan". A gigantic effigy of Ravan was erected on the open court supported by ropes on all sides. We were told that the ceremony will start at 9pm. There was a huge crowd gathered. Soon all the performers of Chowki Dhani- the folk dancers,acrobats, magicians and tribal folks came together singing, dancing and blowing trumpets. They danced around the roaring Ravan and made merry.. Crackers exploded and fireworks illuminated the night sky. Ravana had chains of crackers and fireworks enclosing his body. After the merrymaking, it was set to fire. The illumination and cacophony that followed temporarily rendered us blind and deaf. I was really excited to watch this event despite the amount of air and sound pollution it created. After this, we left Chowki Dhani and returned to the hotel.
Next day after having complimentary buffet breakfast from hotel, we set off to indulge in some shopping extravaganza. Jaipur is famous for quilts/rajais. So we bought two of those along with blue pottery for our future home :) Also got some bandhini dress materials and Jaipuri bangles for cousins and friends.
It was in the scorching hot mid day sun that we went to see Jal Mahal, as a result of which I got a bad splitting headache. From there, we went on to see Jaigarh fort which is situated on hill-top. The fort must have well protected the city from the enemies during the reign of Mugals. Jaigarh fort gives a good view of the entire Jaipur city. There is a museum out there showcasing all the weapons, armour and shields used during war. I was surprised to see many of them exactly replicated in the movie 'Jodha Akbar', when I viewed it last weekend. As we were leaving the fort, I spotted a few hoopoe birds with their beautiful crowns spread out and a couple of peacocks in the wild. I guess the bird watcher in me has not died yet. I was excited to spot the hoopoe birds, though it's quite common in this part of India. Hubby dear on seeing the peacocks stopped the vehicle, ran and vanished off into the wild with his camera.
We left Jaipur by sunset, when the setting sun painted the Pink City into a dark hue of red.
Siya and Bow-bow
For the uninitiated, Shreya is my two year old niece. If you ask her name, she will promptly reply Siya. So she is Siya at home.
Siya is crazy about dogs be it the street dogs, pet dogs or her toy dogs. She refer to them as bow-bows. Siya takes her neighbour's Pomeranian dog Golu out for walking. Can you imagine a two year old girl doing it, considering that poor me, her aunt, is a bit scared of this hyperactive canine creature. She is not at all scared, rather she feels very important. She pulls the dog by his belt, bosses him around, and walks bravely along on the road, occasionally stopping for Golu to pee. It's a sight to see because Siya is hardly as big as the dog.
Siya plays a lot of imaginary games. Back home she will take her dad's belt and walk around with an imaginary Golu, talking in her baby language and occasionally shouting " Golu, come hereee", "Golu go there". After a while Siya will be bored and the belt will instantly transform from imaginary dog to an imaginary hose pipe to water the garden plants.. She will go around with the belt watering the imaginary plants and pluck imaginary flowers from her garden.
Hugs to my little sunshine girl !!!!!
I often look down through the glasspane of the restroom at my office. After a tiring time infront of the monitor, it is a comfort to see the bright sunny view outside. It is not by any means a pleasing view, with an eerie looking cemetery, an empty plot dumped with garbage and monotonous array of rectangular buildings.
On a particular frustrating day at work, as I entered the restroom with a furrowed brow, just chanced to look outside and behold, there is a perfect beautiful rainbow arched out wide across the expanse of the sky. I have seen rainbows countless times. But never have I been happy to see one since my chidhood. The sight made me happy. Maybe the frustration and stress of that day made me appreciate the simple pleasure of seeing a rainbow. It gave a hope to my otherwise hopeless day.
And today morning the life outside that window was all different. As I looked down, I could see a mob gathered
inside the cemetery. Obviously someone had died.. Few men were digging the earth to bury the corpse. I could see wailing women, garlands of flowers, the body wrapped in a white cloth and cows grazing inside the cemetery. It caught me by surprise since I had least expected to see such a view outside. In the afternoon I was expecting to see an abandoned cemetery again with an added tombstone. And what I saw shook me. There was a man lying over the grave and weeping uncontrollably. He was all alone and seemed unpacifiable.. There was nobody around to share his grief, nobody to support or comfort him.. He was a lone man. He looked like daily wager in shabby clothes and shaved head... Maybe it was his loving wife who died ..or maybe it was his beloved child.. or maybe his very own parent..An immense loss for him.. I stood there speculating for a few minutes and then moved on...
The view outside the window, I guess, will keep changing. And I on the other-side of the window has nothing much to do, but watch.
When I think green, I remember my father's ancestral house nestled in the interiors of a remote village in Thrissur. The small tiled roof house enclosed by a dense courtyard, lined with coconut, mango, jack fruit and arecanut trees. You name the trees and it will be there.. Where the faint scent from nutmeg and tamarind trees waft in the air.. Where the cows and hens rule the haven..Where the courtyard wall is never concrete or cement but a dense row of thorny bushes... Where the summer vacation were spent climbing guava trees, munching juicy red cashew fruit and slightly sour roseapples (chambakka)..
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