To Heaven and back

I visited my aunt last week. The trip was planned at a short notice. SG was going to Montana for a week and when I had gone to register for my Summer courses, my Program Director had advised: You are going to be really busy from July 13, enjoy the Summer till then.

I was running a temperature and my internship as a Marketing Research Analyst had started from June 11. It was a tough call. But I knew I wouldn't have time later. I told my boss about my trip and knew I'd make it up for him.

Seeing my cousins was a joy. Anupam ( Mashi's elder son) had grown up quite a bit since I last saw him in Xmas 2007. He picked me up from Washington Ronald Reagan National (DCA) airport. We took the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Yellow Line to Gallery Pi- Chinatown and then switched to the Red line to Silver Springs (The red line that smashed into another yesterday was on the way from Takoma to Fort Trotten. Takoma is the station before Silver Spring)

It was at Takoma where the man standing next to me said: Nice ring. I smiled and suggested: You can get it at Kay. He asked me if I was visiting or lived there. I looked at my cousin and mentioned that I was visiting my aunt. He asked a score of other questions like where I was from, whether I went to school etc. I scanned his dark business suit and wondered if he worked for the FBI. But I think he mentioned United States Department of Agriculture- quite innocuous. He said he was getting down at Silver Springs too. Before he could probe deeper, our station arrived and I got busy dragging my suitcase out in the crowd, and he shouted: 'Welcome to DC, have a great trip !!' I smiled at his affability and asked my cousin if it was common there to be so friendly. He said: I think he was trying to hit on you or something. And we both giggled. I saw the demographics was quite different from Boston. It was.. how shall I put it.. more diverse.

It was a vacation typical of my school days. I didn't have to cook. I had to sneak in to do my own dishes. I could drink tea without brushing and even had lunch once without having a bath first (very unlike me). No rules. Watched a couple of movies. Read : Stephen T. Kay's Boogeyman with homemade popcorn- oh yes, I did. Though, I don't think I can manage 'The Shining' all by myself yet. Boogeyman was not as scary as I thought it to be. It was all about confronting your fear. I liked the shots, well detailed and artistic. I usually like Sam Raimi's productions. My first kiss of fear was from Evil Dead. Ewww.
The 39 steps (1935) with homemade samosas and gulab jamuns. Hitchcock's depiction of a man and woman being tied in handcuffs together - now where have I seen this copied before? The 'Memory Man' concept was ingenious and hilarious. The following day, my aunt recommended that I watch Tales of the Kamasutra 2 :Monsoon. Helen Brodie looked good. Her father is Scottish I believe. Gulshan Grover was a convincing bad man. But the director could have done a better job. Later, we watched The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior and I think Michael Copon is cute.

I had picked The Kingfisher Illustrated Animal Encyclopedia by David Burnie and Anupam shirked : What are you reading? Personally, I found it interesting. The Argonauts for example. This unusual octopus spends most of its life in open water. The female is up to 20 times bigger than the male, and she has a paper- thin, spiral shell. Unlike other mollusks, the argonaut's shell is not attached to its body - the female holds it in place with her arms. She uses her shell to protect the eggs, and once they have hatched, she will often discard it.

I didn't know that Scorpions carried their young ones on their backs (or had forgotten the fact) and that some fishes have beauty consultants in Cleaner shrimps (a swimming decapod crustacean) who eat the parasites off their bodies and have a symbiotic relations with their hosts.

The overcast clouds spoiled most of our plans to go out, except when we attended a dinner invitation on Friday and went to Wheaton Mall on Saturday. I got the Transformers Blu-ray for Anupam and the Indiana Jones series for my collection. We tried to find four leafed clover, but in vain.

I saw something my father had said to me once.
Anupam showed me the Washington Monument while driving back to the airport on Sunday. Later, I recognized the obelisk in an Indiana Jones movie. Just like most movie makers show the Boston skyline with Prudential and the John Hancock towers to convince the audience.


Andy had recommended the Holocaust Museum but the rifle-wielding James von Brunn, an 88-year-old white supremacist from Maryland, fatally shooting a security guard marred our plans.( Apparently, he is a known Holocaust denier who created an anti-Semitic Web site called "The Holy Western Empire" and has repeatedly claimed that "The Diary of Anne Frank," is a hoax.)

I can't complain. I wanted some rest. Mashi and I bonded over some manicure. Anupam made a Transformers wallpaper and showed me the E3 2009 Batman Arkham Asylum demo.

I saw Anirban playing XBox online mostly. He has grown his hair and his back looks exactly like SG. We made a joke of it. Poor kid had fever when I left them. The Wasabi sauce with sushi cured me of my cold. I hope it helped him too. And the Jamaican Habanero sauce with shrimp and vegetables spaghetti was heavenly.

My flight on Sunday got delayed owing to inclement weather in Boston. It was a good break, but I was pining to be back. My roommate picked me from the airport after being chased twice by the traffic control. SG joined us for dinner at The Kebab Factory.

The following morning I had my weekly meeting. But I felt ready for it after a restful week. Last night, I made the Italian sausage recipe I had learned from my aunt. It was a hit.

Sweet November

Itni shiddat se tumhe paane ki koshish ki hai-
ki harr zarre ne mujhe tumse milane ki saazish ki hai

Take 2:
Ladies and gentlemen,
Kehte hai agar kisi cheez to dil se chaaho to poori qayenat usey tumse milane mein lag jaati hai.

Humari filmon ki tarah, humari jindagi mein bhi end tak sab kuch theek hi ho jaata hai.Aur agar theek na ho to woh "The end" nahi.
Picture abhi baaki hai mere dost!

Ok I watched Om Shanti Om again. So what? Even if it meant sending my mind to graze grass- once more. But I had an occasion. I met Dada almost after one and a half years on the Thanksgiving weekend in Boston. I had last seen him in May 2006 in Noida, when he was about to leave for Pittsburgh.

PR (my roomate) had not watched it either, and we had made a pact that we would watch it together. But I cheated and watched it online last weekend. So, PR , her boyfriend VR (who had come over for the weekend too), Dada and me went out last Saturday to catch the flick at Capitol (Massachusetts Ave. Arlington, MA 02474) It was a neat 30 minutes drive from South Boston. I don't think it would have taken less than 45 minutes had we been in India.

I am so much used to multiplexes, that the hall looked disappointingly old. But then I decided to think of it as the "old age charm" that is intrinsic to the city. Even the red bricks of Harvard emanate it. Nothing justifies the parallelism with ivy plants better.

Believe it or not- I saw Harvard Square for the first time at night and had decent Indian food at The Bombay Club ( recommended). In short, the weekend was a typical Bollywood masala movie with an array of emotions hitting us folks :D

Wednesday:
Dada asked if I would be free this weekend and I replied in affirmative. He reached Logan airport around 10:30pm and reached home by 11:05 pm and we spend talking almost the rest of the night trying to catch up with what we had missed.

Thursday:
I decided to start with the Skywalk at Prudential Center, where you can have a bird's eye-view of the whole city and then decide upon where to go next. We had a turkey lunch for Thanksgiving and met an Indophile couple.

In the evening we met up with one of Dada's old school pals.

Friday:
I showed him around the Emerald Necklace.

Saturday:
We got out to the Bayside near my residence and I clicked some matrimonial ad-worthy photographs of Bro.

Sample :


Specially, with the ultimatum from my parents that he has just an year's time to find someone of his choice or else they will start looking for him :D

Btw, he looks more like Dad now, doesn't he? Though we have both got Mom's dimpled chin :) Quite a good looking family , eh? :D


Here's another facet of Mr. Amitabha Kar for you. Did I mention that one of my classmates had a big time crush on him ? :P (Sorry for embarrassing you in public Dad . I know you are blushing right now. Hee hee )

Went to Central Square for lunch at a Bengali restaurant and to Massachusetts Avenue in the evening.

Sunday:
Lazed about in the afternoon, honestly tired. I tried to work on my pending project report but had to cook for one of Dada's friends who was coming over for dinner. Dada helped with chopping the vegetables for fried rice and in creating an ambiance by playing songs . Recently, he has a surge of writing Shayeris. I want to locate the inspiration. Any clues?

Monday:
Woke up at 2 AM to work on the report which was giving me nightmares. If I am dreaming about it, it IS serious.

Bro will be leaving in a while. Don't know when I am going to meet him again. Maybe in December for Christmas at my aunt's place in DC. I'm glad to have a sibling to create memories with.

We have both changed in our own ways. I found him to be more care-free, more jovial and he observed that I have matured a lot, have become less expressive of my emotions maybe. Honestly, I feel I have become more like him and he has become more like my previous self.And since the growth was in vectorial opposite directions, the changes seem greater in magnitude from our present reference frames.

PR couldn't believe he is my elder bro 'cause of the way I boss over him all the time and try to micro manage things. But he understands that it is engendered out of the fact that I expect nothing less than perfection from him.

Thanks Dada, Pu and Viv for the great weekend.:)

P.S Btw, have you noticed how those lines from OSO are so eerily similar to
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it from Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist ?

Everyone deserves to find his/her happy ending.
All the best.

Travelogue: How green is my valley - II

This is a travel log of my trip to North Tripura with my parents.


Day 1:



“Sorry, there’s no weighing machine”
The Sub-Inspector of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) at the entrance to the Agartala airport looked at our helicopter tickets, then at my parents and me. He was very thoughtful, scratching his chin and obviously very confused. My dad watched him for a minute or so and asked him, ‘Aisa ticket pehle dekha nahi hai kya?’ The fellow admitted that he never saw such a ticket during his last three months tenure at Agartala airport. ‘Understandable, as no minister or a VIP might have used the chopper during the last three months for a visit to the interior areas of the State’, Dad said. An old hand of the CISF came to our rescue and asked the Sub-inspector to let us in.

We entered the airport departure lounge and sought out the reporting kiosk. Not a soul was near the check-in counter. When we decided to have some tea, the transport department guy (TDG) responsible to see us off turned up and our conversation went like this:

TDG: How old are you people?
We told our age.
TDG: How much do each of you weigh?
Dad: I am 56 kgs, my wife and daughter are 70 kgs each.
Mom and I protested vehemently and asked in unison: Do you have a weighing machine?
TDG: No. Those people (he gestured at Indian, Kingfisher, Jet, Deccan Air, Indigo counters) have weighing machines.
Dad: Why do you need to know our weights and how will you know that we are telling the truth?
TDG: This helicopter for five passengers can take only 500 kgs and the pilot will take fuel proportionate to your weights. You are allowed only 10 kgs of luggage per person.
Anyways, the TDG did not want to annoy two ladies at the same time and put our weights at 60 kgs each.

Immediately after the chopper took off I realised the beauty I had been missing these many days. I will let the photographs taken from the chopper do the talking. Though they will do no justice to what I saw or how I felt. My camera was only 1.5 Megapixels and already 10 years old. Next time, I’ll make sure I have a better digital eye.

One curious thing I noticed on reaching our destination, Kailashahar airport, was the plenitude of ruminants . A small patch of concrete is sufficient for a chopper to land but needs some dough to call it a “runway” and make planes land. On the day of our departure, the SDPO (Sub-Divisional Police Officer) informed us that the government intended to make some investments and equip the airport to capacitate the landing of some ATR planes, at least.

Three men in a boat
The flight took us 40 mins and while we were being driven to the Circuit House, Dad and me stated our own logic why the better pictures were the ones taken by each of us. I told him that the cliff was taken by me and the following pics had him looking out of the window-then the pics in between had to be mine. He surrendered saying that “OK. These are yours” but later showed me my pics and said :”Of course, and these were taken on self-timer mode? Huh?” And the war still goes on.

In the late afternoon, when Dad was through with his work, we visited my maternal uncle and aunt who suggested that we should go cross country for a little known man-made lake called Khaorabil which supplies all the fish required for the district headquarters town. So, at about 5 pm, we started our journey to the lake. We came across border fencing between Bangladesh and India. Such border fencings - 150 yards from the zero line and inside India - have been erected at many places of the Indo-Bangladesh international border. The Indians residing on the other side of the fencing have their own chronicles of woes to tell but that is another story.

By the time we reached Khaorabil it was dusk. We visited a temple and crossed a small canal by a dingy of a local fisherman. As we moved toward the lake, we located three kids in a boat, happily singing and returning home after a good catch of small fishes. My Mamaji paid for the half of their catch and kept on advertising the freshness and food value of the small fishes found in Khaorabil and invited us over for lunch the following day. The walking along the banks of the lake became more and more difficult with the road becoming bumpy. By the time we came back to our car, it was pitch dark and we were breathing fast and in need of some cold water.

Day 2


Ten million minus one ( plus one? )
We intended to visit Unakoti, a Shaiva pilgrimage dating back to 9th century A.D. and reached there accompanied by a drizzle. The rock carvings, murals with a primitive beauty and a waterfall reminded me of the scenes in Tomb Raider III.

Unakoti means one less than a crore (ten million). As per Hindu mythology, Lord Shiva was going to Varanasi and made his sojourn here. He asked all the gods and goddesses to rise before dawn and advance towards Varanasi. In the morning no gods and goddesses could wake up. An angry Shiva cursed all the gods and goddesses to become stone statues.

A statue of Shiva and a plaque by the Archaeological Survey of India are the first things you notice on reaching Unakoti. The plaque reads:
‘Nestling in a lush green valley, Unakoti means one less than a crore (and) is an exaggeration of the colossal representation of Shiva in varied forms along with other gods and goddesses those carved in bas relief on the face of hillock. These bas relief sculptures of Shiva depicting only faces may be considered the largest in size in India. The art style differs from the classical and depicts typical tribal features both in decoration and anatomy, in fact, makes these as unique. The three rock-cut Ganesha figures fall down stream of a local spring which flows right on their heads gives a bathing scene effect.

The highly mutilated loose sculptures, some temple architectural members and traces of brick temple on the top of the hillock indicate an existence of a temple perhaps prior to these rock carvings databale to 9th-10th century A.D. on the basis of the Chaturmukha and Ekmukha Lingas, Uma-Maheshwara, Mahisasurmardini, Ganesha etc besides some Vaishnavite cults attest this valley as one of the Shaivite centers flourishing during the Pala rule which must have influenced the great rock cut carvings, in due course in this region datable to 11th- 12th century A.D. Thus Unakoti was the greatest center for religious activities that flourished at least for more than three centuries.’(Sic).
So, I got answer to my question - With Shiva’s statue in Unakoti how can there be one-less-than-a-crore statues? There are not one-minus-ten-million statues – with or without the statue of Lord Shiva.

Day 3


The Spiderman in a tea estate
It was Ratha Yatra day and the sky was threatening us with a heavy downpour from the morning. We set off for Manu Valley Tea Estate, only 5 kms from Kailashahar. I had never seen processing of a bud and two leaves (duti paata, ekti koori), though I had seen a lot of tea gardens in my early childhood.

When we reached Manu Valley we were welcomed by Mr. Asim Das, the manager of the estate and his wife Mrs. Bharati Das. Their eight-year old grandson, Tuhin was visiting them for his vacations, and had a plastered bandage on his right hand. Mr. and Mrs. Das offered to show us around after we had a very refreshing cool drink called well-you-may-name-it-anything as I forgot to ask her the name of the drink.

The couple showed us around, the minute details of turning tons of two leaves and a bud into tea granules – right from step one where fresh tea leaves are put in bags that carry them to dehumidifier trays. Later, the tea leaves are dried, cut-torn-and-crushed, roasted and separated as per the sizes of granules. The dust tea coming from the leaves gives a strong liquor (remember 200 mile-wala chai in some dhabas on GT road?) whereas the bigger granules give lighter tea liquor.

On our way back for a cup of tea (narrated in a modest manner by Bharati but it was high tea) I became quite friendly with Tuhin and asked him, ‘How did you break your right hand?’ Tuhin replied nonchalantly, ‘Oh that was nothing. I just stood up on a stool and fell down.’ It was later when we were having high tea that Tuhin’s grandpa came out with the real story. Tuhin believed he could be the Spiderman and was just trying to change space but time did not agree with his calculations.

OK, here’s the recipe for the cool drink (let me call it "Planter’s Delight"):
Have a bottle of tea liquor (do not add sugar or anything else) chilled. The shelf life of the liquor in the fridge is about 15 days.

In a tall glass tumbler add sugar, salt, jal-jeera, lemon juice to taste. Add the chilled tea liquor and serve chilled. You may add ice cubes and all the nakhras of putting sugar powder on the tumbler rim, a mint leaf on top and a sliced lemon if you like.

Day 4
The return journey was almost eventless except for mom having a flight fright when the chopper was caught in a thunderstorm and the pilot kept flying in orbit. When we landed at Agartala airport, it was still pouring heavily. Mom was stiff with fear and she had a tale to tell for many days to come how we got saved from nischit mrityu (certain death). Dad and I were a little disappointed though, we had already started imagining an adventure where the pilot would have to land in the wilderness and we would have to fight for survival for a few days until a rescue team found us wandering on the hills. Well, there's always a next time :)

How green is my valley?

I was still rubbing my eyes when Mom woke me up on Sunday morning. I told her sleepily: Ma! I woke up at 4:30 in the morning today! She smiled and said: But you went back to sleep again honey I tried to get cute and cuddle up to her so that she would let me sleep a little longer. But she is my Mom. So she kissed me and ushered me to have a bath. My maternal aunt ( my mom's eldest sister) and her family were coming over. We had planned a trip to Tripureshwari Temple, Udaipur about 57 kms from Agartala, the capital of Tripura.

It is one of the 51 pithasthans (a shrine or sacred place of worship). According to Hindu mythology, when Lord Shiva -the destroyer, enraged by the death of his beloved wife Sati, started his tandav nritya,carrying the corpse on his shoulders, Lord Vishnu- the protector directed his Sudarshan Chakra to cut the body into pieces so that the creation ( shristi )could be saved. The 51 pieces fell on earth and each one became a pithasthan . It is said that the right foot fell where Tripureshwari temple is. So much for myth, it is worth visiting just for the sake of reviving old memories. I make it a point to visit the temple every time I come home.

Back to scene 1. I don't think I could see clearly even after the bath. Mom insisted I wear a saree as I am accustomed to when I visit a temple. Lesson 1# for the day: always tie you own saree. I was running late, so my aunts came to my aid and wrapped it around me. I don't pin a gorgette in the fear that I will ruin it. When I was ready and about to leave- the other members of the trip, which included both my maternal aunts, mesho ( my eldest aunt's husband), my favorite cousin , his newly wedded bride, her parents and her cousin sister were waiting to see me at the dining space. I had a severe wardrobe malfunction and my pallu almost fell off  when my Mejo mashi came to my aid and saved the situation. I thought to myself, gritting my teeth- I should have worn a cargo.

Anyways , the rest of the journey was almost eventless. By the time we reached, it was 11 am. the time for bali or sacrifice had begun. I wanted to take a few snaps of the ritual but the I thought I could save my readers the bloodshed.


(to be continued)
Next on my itinerary are (1) the rock cuts and stone carvings of Tripura at Unakoti, which is about 178 kms from Agartala, and 8 kms from Kailashahar and (2) Ujyanta Palace.

You can read more about the temple and its history here