Hope you are having fun and enjoying life. It feels rather strange to write this note. You are 18 and you are in one of the best phases of your life. What do I say to someone who is stepping into the world to experience life?
All I can say is — In the end, everything will be fine. Things will settle down. Just let it be. There is no point in over-thinking. Just embrace the ‘maybe(s)’ in your life, relationship, knowledge-gathering. Everything need not be absolute. There is no absolute love. There is no absolute death either. Just enjoy the flow… No need to put everything under a label/give a touch of finality.
Like seasons, everything changes in life. The only constant element of life is change. What looks big on a Monday morning might look very small on a Thursday evening. So, just embrace life and flow like a river. Like a river finds its way through rough terrain, pebbles, stones or rocks, you too will also find your way. What is meant for you will be yours. So, don’t sweat over that friend’s snarky remark or that boy-friend who’s looking for context while being in a relationship. People have their own journeys. You might be ready for something, someone else might not be.
Be generous while giving and receiving. Don’t shy away from revelling in the art of receiving. Be a large-hearted warm loving receiver. In our culture, receiving is not given much importance. But you must learn to be a happy receiver.
Be your own fashion designer, interior decorator, flower arranger. Express your creativity and individuality in everything you do. Remember, on a gloomy day, bright purple lipstick always helps. So, what are you waiting for? Put on that lipstick and groove to the music you love listening to. Celebrate anything and everything that stays with you even after the context is over. That’s real and solid.
Oh yes, always maintain a diary and note down your thoughts, your reflections, observations, the discussions you had with your teachers, friends, fine minds, the neighbourhood park’s gardener or the waitress in the restaurant. Memory is fragile. Memory is shifting sand. But give memory a contour in the pages of your diary. Years or decades after, on a beautiful mild autumn evening, maybe you will flip through the pages and through these pages you will feel as if you are watching a film in which you are the protagonist. So, be a memory-keeper.
For me, 2023 will be the year of Home, Once Again. I left home when I was 19. I only visited home during my semester break holidays, When I became a journalist after finishing my higher studies, my visits became more limited due to leave crunch situations. After I quit my Times Of India, Ahmedabad job in October 2022, I spent more than six months in my parents’ home in Bhubaneswar (Odisha’s capital city and popularly known as the temple town). After I lost my father (2011) and my mother (2013), I did not enjoy being at home. I felt as if the house was eating me up. The grief of losing both my parents in less than 30 months was too overwhelming. There was a sense of melancholy and deep loss within me that haunted me. But I am immensely grateful that I am home, once again. I will always remember 2023 with this dominant emotion of finding home again.
This post is also dedicated to all those children, teenagers, youngsters and adults — who have lost their homes in Palestine in recent war. To lose your home in seconds is soul-ripping. Where does one go after one loses home? Where does one find that sense of comfort, love and warmth? Even as I am writing this on December 31, 2023, my heart is filled with gratitude and love for the home my parents built with their limited resources, love and dedication. I relish the delicious feeling of being at home. Here are some glimpses of my home and life around it.
Every morning, I wake up to this flowering tree planted by my mother. Her absence becomes her presence. We call the flowers tagar or tarat.In Ahmedabad, I live a life amidst vertical structures. They look boring and almost colourless. Here in Bhubaneswar, I live a life amid horizontal structures. There are flowers and trees that add life to the world of bricks and concrete. I love my neighbourhood trees. The changing colours of the leaves remind me of changing seasons, changing life and changing relationships. Change is the only constant in life. My neighbourhood cat …. Always up for mischief and some deep thinking too. Koraput Coffee is my latest love. You can never take me to a Starbucks Coffee shop as I have my ideological issues with them. I love my Koraput Coffee because it is locally grown in Odisha and it’s a reflection of my th love for the soil and the farmers who grow coffee beans.From terrace to plate — There is always some surprise springing up somewhere on our rooftop. It could be an aubergine, some red hot chillies, tomatoes, cilantro or fresh mint leaves. The pleasure of connecting with life and soil. When in Odisha, eat like an Odia: Delicious pumpkin flower fritters or Kakharu phula bhaja. These melt-in-mouth Odia delicacy is something to die for What is life without flowers? Just taking a walk on the terrace and looking at these lovelies cheer up without any rhyme or reason.
I love having my adrakwali chai (ginger tea) in my father’s tea cup and saucer. I had gifted this beauty to my father way back in 1996 when I was working as a journalist in Press Trust of India (PTI), New Delhi. You can call this the art of soaking in material memory
“Look! Chesters is open! Go, get your hot chocolate!”, she said excitedly. He smiled wide, and rushed in to get one. She happily waited outside, she knew he badly wanted a hot chocolate and miraculously, the cafe was open past its usual hours.
Moments later, he stepped out with his hot chocolate, and a glorious, nut crusted ice cream topped with chocolate drizzle and a Cadbury flake. She took a bite right off the top, her eyes beaming with joy.
They sat down on a bench close by, quietly enjoying their slice of joy. In those moments of bliss, they temporarily forgot about the horror called COVID-19 pandemic.
She had to take an international flight and fly across two countries to be with him after being away from him for six long months.
You can safely say that I am obsessed with Joan Didion and her works. After losing both my parents, I had read her book The Year of Magical Thinking. The book came from her own personal space. Here was she talking about what losing her husband John Dunne meant to her. Reading The Year of Magical Thinking felt like a prayer.
I have always believed that you don’t choose a book, a book chooses you. I had this sudden desire to read Didion’s Blue Nights. I had placed an order for Blue Nights on Amazon on February 28, 2020. This was an imported edition. Then the COVID-19 pandemic happened. So, the book got stuck in transit and I got e-mails from Amazon informing that it could not be delivered because of the situation. Then the Work From Home (WFH) happened to me in the last week of March. For the first one month of WFH, I was totally consumed by long hours of working, endless work-related phone calls and messages and managing all household chores and cooking. At the end of a long day, all I could do was to crash on the bed and sleep like a log. After a while, I started getting very angsty and restless. I realised that I was really missing the act of reading. I needed to read to stay sane. So, one day I just logged on to Amazon and ordered Blue Nights on kindle. That night, after work I stayed awake and read till the wee hours. I finished the book at one go. I needed that kind of reading to get over the feeling of ‘being incomplete.’ Blue Nights is about Joan Didion writing about her daughter Quintanna, whom she lost after a prolonged illness. She lost Quintanna after losing John, her husband.
In the meanwhile, in the month of May, I got a call from our office security team. They informed that there was a package. As I never got any further notification, I had lost hopes of getting Blue Nights in the physical form. I could not go to office as there was a lockdown and we were all Working From Home (Well, we are still into WFH mode). Finally when the Unlocking 2.0 happened, I went to office on July 12 to pick up some important personal papers. I went to office after more than 100 days and I felt at loss being there. There was a deep sense of melancholy within me as I walked past empty corridors, silent spaces devoid of any joy. Then I found the package in my cupboard at my work desk. The book was sealed in a thick paper envelope. This also made me realise how we all lived during the pandemic – a part of our life all sealed. Actually, a substantial part of our lives.
I held Blue Nights in my hands and closed my eyes for a brief moment. I was all alone in that huge newsroom. Everything around me felt strange and odd. I came back home and wrote it all down on the first page of Blue Nights. May be, years down someone will lay his/her hand on this book of mine (long after I am gone) and will get a glimpse of life in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic.
P S: During the pandemic, I did sometimes think of Joan Didion living her life in New York. There were times, I felt utterly desolate and listless. Living alone for more than three months during the lockdown was difficult at times. But during those tough times, I thought of Joan Didion’s words: ‘Don’t whine. Don’t complain. Just Work.’ I know, I will never meet Joan Didion in this life but in strange ways, her Blue Nights gave me courage and strength to move forward during the lockdown. Thank You, Didion.
“See enough and write it down, I tell myself, and then some morning when the world seems drained of wonder, some day when I am only going through the motions of doing what I am supposed to do, which is write — on that bankrupt morning I will simply open my notebook and there it will all be, a forgotten account with accumulated interest, paid passage back to the world out there: dialogue overheard in hotels and elevators… ” JOAN DIDION ON KEEPING A NOTEBOOK
***********
i went to Sikkim in April, 2016 and it was love at first sight. Nature has been really kind to Sikkim in terms of beautiful landscape, flowers, majestic mountains. The prayer flags fluttering in the breeze add so much to this gentle land. And the people of Sikkim are really warm and hospitable. Today, it’s April 19, 2020. Because of the corona pandemic and extended lockdown in India, I am Home Alone. I can’t help but travel back to Sikkim through the notebook I maintained during my 2016 trip. Many things must have changed now and many things must not have. But then consider this as a love note to those carefree days when the world had no idea of a tiny virus called Corona. And we had no idea of the term called social distancing. One could travel freely to most parts of the world without fear. Today, I feel as if those days of travel were a dream. But then my notebook shows that it actually happened in real time So, here I turn to the pages of my notebook to relive my magical days in Sikkim.
OF JOURNEYS AND THE ART OF BEING
As I go through my notebook, the first thing that strikes me is that I took a Jet Airways flight from Ahmedabad to Delhi on April 7, 2016 and then another Jetlite flight from Delhi to Bagdogra. And last year, the once envied Jet Airways closed its operations. How does a much loved brand just disappear from the scene and become a matter of past reference? I always loved travelling by Jet Airways and the airlines really had a sense of style. But then staying in business is a different matter, I guess.
From Bagdogra airport, we drove down to Rumtek as we were staying in a beautiful, elegant property called Bamboo Retreat, The drive was almost 4 hours and 15 minutes. On our way, we saw river Teesta flowing quietly. By the time, we reached Bamboo Retreat, it was night. We just had dinner and slept off quickly. In the morning, when I went to my balcony, this is the view (image attached below) I saw and it took my breath away. It was so calming that I instantly felt as if I was in another world — far from my mad mad world of newspapers. Suddenly, I felt like slowing down, just to be present there in the moment.
IN THE NAME OFDEVELOPMENT: HOW FAR CAN WE GO?
But at the same time, when I was in Sikkim, I could see India changing fast in the name of development. Sikkim’s main rivers are Teesta and Rangit. The rivers are drying up because of the hydro-electrical projects. The power generated from these projects are going for consumption of people in the plains. The hill people are not getting the benefits even though their rivers are getting dried up.
Every little shop there had potato chips and aerated drinks. After a while, the sight of little shops being loaded with chips and colas somehow leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. While going from Rumtek to Rinchenpong in West Sikkim, I saw rajma packets being sold in the roadside local markets. I got curious and found out that now the government is encouraging farmers in Sikkim to grow rajma. It’s a recent phenomenon.
Sikkim witnessed a strong earthquake in 2011 and North Sikkim was badly affected then. Too many dams are bring built there and that’s causing the rivers to go dry and the eco-system is turning fragile. We saw so many caved in roads because of these excessive mindless constructions. As the rivers are drying, they are now setting up hydro-electrical projects in small streams, tributaries too. It was heart-breaking to see ecology being destroyed in the name of development.
A LOVE CALLED SOCCER/FOOTBALL
Sikkim has the most affable cab drivers. They love their game of soccer or football very very dearly and passionately.They show their loyalty towards their favourite clubs by putting up the banners of their clubs in the cab. So, if you are in Sikkim, get ready to ride in cabs with Barcelona/Arsenal/Manchester United banners. Very often you will see kids playing their game of soccer. When we stopped at a small Buddhist monastery, I got talking to a young boy whose dad was looking after the monastery. I asked the young boy about his favourite subject in school and he answered ‘mathematics’. And then when I was walking towards the gate, he told me, “Actually my father was there, so I told mathematics. But the only thing I love is playing football.” I just hugged him out of sheer joy.
A CUP OF TEMI, A PLATE OF MOMOS, A BOWL OF NETTLE SOUP
Sikkim made me fall in love with Temi, their cup of tea. My favourite activity was to just look at the mountains and sip cups of Temi. We also had excellent food during our stay in Sikkim. At Bamboo Retreat, we were treated to the most delicious momos prepared in their kitchen. At Yangsum Heritage Farm, we were served delicious multi course meals prepared with lots of love and care. From lip-smacking mutton curry to very very local nettle soup, every dish on the table was a winner.The generous owner made sure that we tasted the local Churpi cheese too.
OF POLITICS, KANHAIYA KUMAR AND A GAME OF CARDS
Like any other hill people, people in Sikkim are very hardworking. Most of them have a fabulous sense of humour and they are quite well-informed too. People flaunt their political leaning by putting up the flag of the political party they support on their rooftops. In West Sikkim, I saw flags of ruling Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) flying high in so many houses that I really wondered about the presence of the opposition party.
During my trip, most cab drivers and small shop owners wanted to discuss politics with me the moment they came to know that I work as a journalist. Interestingly, when I was in Sikkim in 2016, JNU was grabbing headlines because Kanhaiya Kumar, the then JNU Students’ Union President was arrested on sedition charges and later released. A group of men playing cards near Barsey Rhododendron Sanctuary got really excited when they came to know that I too studied in JNU. In their child-like excitement, they called me ‘Kanhaiya’s senior’. They all loved Kanhaiya’s speech and thought that he was very bright. So, as I was waiting for my friend to join me, these happy-go-lucky men invited me aka Kanhaiya’s senior to join them for a game of cards. Well, I am a novice in matters of card game, so I politely declined. But they had to do something for me so they offered me tea and snacks. I had to accept their love and generosity. All in the name of JNU and Kanhaiya.
P S : In 2018, Sikkim became the first Indian state to be fully organic. A remarkable feat, actually. I hope to go back there, once again. Call this… Lockdown dreams.
Ahmedabad is getting warmer. There’s no need to wrap a shawl around you.
I owe my love for shawls to my mother. During my growing up years in Odisha (Orissa then), one of my favourite activities was to tell my mother to take out her shawls. She did not have many. My cousin brother had gifted her two shawls from Kashmir. Those light coloured shawls were my favourites and I used to enjoy walking inside the house all wrapped up in my mother’s shawl. It felt like a protective gear, it gave me a deep sense of security.
Later on, in 1994, I bought this black and gold shawl for my mother when I had gone to Amritsar on work. This one is special because I bought it with my salary. This is the first shawl I bought for my mother with my own money. So, it felt extra special. It made me feel like an adult. Buying things for my mother with my own money gave me a sense of freedom and responsibility too. And this shawl was my mother’s favourite too. She loved wearing this one, every winter.
After her death in 2013, I picked up this shawl from her closet during one of my visits to Bhubaneswar. This shawl is all about love, memory and time. When I wrap it around me, I feel as if my mother is also walking with me. There’s a sense of of deep togetherness and tenderness.
I have other shawls in my wardrobe but nothing can match the warmth this beauty offers. This shawl is 26 years old. It makes me realise that it’s memory that makes clothes special. There lies the philosophy of sustainable fashion. There’s no point in buying clothes that do not even last a season. Buy less, buy wise. Celebrate clothes with memory.
The fact that this shawl has seen 26 winters fills my heart with love and joy. My mother took good care of this shawl, now it’s my turn to do so. I carry forward a family ritual of looking after things, valuing things. Not just buying and disposing them off with a sense of randomness.
I got the shawl dry-cleaned few days ago and I kept it safely in my closet.
I am now waiting for another winter so that I can again wrap it around me. .
I like my wine the way I like my cars — RED (A friend’s recent instagram post)
******
A Jaipur based poet on February 5 was driven to the Santacruz police station in Mumbai without his knowledge by an Uber driver who had found him talking over the phone to a friend back home about the anti-CAA/NRC protests around the country. The uber driver told the police, ‘Sir, aap isko andar kar lo (Please arrest him). Yeh desh jalane ke baat kar raha hai. (He is talking of setting the country on fire).”
The police interrogated him for close to two hours before he was let off after the intervention of a lawyer. The police did not file any complaint against anybody in this case. But before the cops let him walk, they gave him a piece of advice – “Avoid wearing the RED scarf you have around your neck and don’t carry your daphli (musical instrument) everywhere. Ab mahaul kharab hai (These are difficult times).”
(As reported in different newspapers on February 6, 2020)
******
I recently watched For Sama, the award-winning documentary. The website of documentary film says : “For Samais both an intimate and epic journey into the female experience of war. A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her.”
In 1989 the old city of Aleppo was declared UNESCO world heritage site. But lot has happened in the life of this city. Watching ForSama is gut-wrenching. When you watch For Sama, you see real life violence and how an entire city experienced the horrors of death and destruction. The protagonist in the docu film says with deep anguish and pain, “When I close my eyes, I only see the colour red. The floor, the walls, the rooms all look red.” Blood defined the landscape of Aleppo as it saw death, destruction and air strikes beyond description.
Happy Onam to all the wonderful people of Kerala. This post is kind of a personal love note to Kerala. I am writing this just out of sheer pleasure and love.
It’s wonderful to be a daughter-in-law of Kerala. In my mother-in-law’s house, I am not expected to do any household work. Whenever I visit my mom-in-law, I get to eat delicious food without cooking.
My mom-in-law is the best thing about my marriage. We share a very loving and open relationship. We occasionally argue and bang phones too. But you see, everything is fair in love and fights. I shall now refer her as Senior Mrs Menon (SMM)
With every passing day. my love for Kerala food goes deeper and deeper. Now, my smartphone has my MIL’s recipes of Erissery, Thoran, Inji Puli, Kadala curry and the like neatly typed on the ‘Note’ app.
One of the reasons behind me agreeing to marry my husband is his surname. I have always loved the surname ‘Menon’. My twitter handle is @menondeepika though for all official purpose, I have retained my maiden name. But I love the sound of Deepika Menon.
When I first visited Kerala as a brand-new bride, my husband’s aunt asked me, “Deepika, chor indaka?” And I got damn excited thinking that how exciting to have a Chor/Thief (in Hindi chor means thief) in the house in broad day light. Well, even as I was imagining to put up a brave fight against the visiting thief, I found out that chor in Malayalam means rice. And my aunt-in-law was just checking whether I will have rice or not.
My soul sister is also a Menon woman and she lives in Dubai. Last year, both of us along with my soul-brother went to Kerala on a holiday. I was in tears when I boarded the flight to return to Ahmedabad (where I live and work). That trip to God’s Own Country felt magical. I really miss those moments.
I feel my father instantly agreed to my marriage plans because he thought Malayalis are very intelligent people. (Husband will be happy to read this)
On a good day, I can finish off 10 parippu vadas at one go (Kerala’s famous snack). They are absolutely my favourites, I talked about parippu vadas so lovingly that Hussain (the man who was our navigator during our Kerala visit) offered to buy them for me.
I am a great sucker for Mallu sense of humour. During my first visit to Kerala, one of those cool aunts (with not so butter-tongue) told my husband that she’s very relieved to know that he doesn’t have a brother-in-law. She thought a wife’s brother generally has lots of nuisance value and little else to offer.
As a journalist, it feels great to be in Kerala because you see lots of people reading newspapers sitting in their verandah, garden or at roadside tea stalls.
My mom-in-law aka senior Mrs Menon during her growing up years in Kerala had a pet dog whose name was ‘Chundaran’ (such a lovely name to have). I asked mummy about Chundaran’s diet and was in shock when I came to know that he ate idli-chutney, upma and the like. He lived long and led a very happy life. My mom-in-law still gets teary eyed talking about her favourite Chundaran.
All through my years in Delhi, thanks to my curly hair, people thought I was from Kerala (stereotypes at its best). Well, destiny took all those questions seriously and made me a daughter-in-law of Kerala.
When we were living in Bengaluru, one day I ran down the stairs thinking that my husband was having a fight with the Malayali broker as I overheard them talking in Malayalam. Well, they were at their cordial best and having quite a polite conversation.
After listening to them, I stopped any effort to speak Malayalam. But, hey you can’t bitch about me in Malayalam in front of me. I understand the language well. But, now I seriously want to speak the language fluently. I hope to do it in this life —- My bucket list.
I now wear Kalumuthi’s (my husband’s grandmother) necklace. I feel privileged to carry a slice of history and family heritage with me though I never got the chance to meet her. I keep hearing stories about her life, her wonderful skills in whipping up delicious dishes and her pearls of wisdom.
My new love in life is karimeen fry. Aah, Kerala take me back to your embrace soon. I want my karimeen.
Kashmir… I love the sound of it. It’s my elusive lover. Four times, I have come close to Kashmir but I could never meet Kashmir. A land is like a lover, you might be ready for your lover but the lover is not ready to embrace you. There’s nothing you can do about it till it’s the time. I have my own imagination of Kashmir. Before the onset of every autumn (my favourite season), I always travel to Kashmir in my heart. Today, the whole of India is talking about Kashmir and the scrapping of Article 370. Beyond politics, there’s poetry. Agha Shahid Ali is one of my favourite poets and he was from Kashmir. He died at a young age but his poems are his legacy. He is there. Even in his absence. Here’s the poem titled Farewell by Agha Shahid Ali.
*************
FAREWELL
At a certain point I lost track of you.
They make a desolation and call it peace.
when you left even the stones were buried:
the defenceless would have no weapons.
When the ibex rubs itself against the rocks,
who collects its fallen fleece from the slopes?
O Weaver whose seams perfectly vanished,
who weighs the hairs on the jeweller’s balance?
They make a desolation and call it peace.
Who is the guardian tonight of the Gates of Paradise?
My memory is again in the way of your history.
Army convoys all night like desert caravans:
In the smoking oil of dimmed headlights, time dissolved- all
winter- its crushed fennel.
We can’t ask them: Are you done with the world?
In the lake the arms of temples and mosques are locked in each other’s
reflections.
Have you soaked saffron to pour on them when they are found like this
centuries later in this country
I have stitched to your shadow?
In this country we step out with doors in our arms
Children run out with windows in their arms.
You drag it behind you in lit corridors.
if the switch is pulled you will be torn from everything.
At a certain point I lost track of you.
You needed me. You needed to perfect me.
In your absence you polished me into the Enemy.
Your history gets in the way of my memory.
I am everything you lost. You can’t forgive me.
I am everything you lost. Your perfect Enemy.
Your memory gets in the way of my memory:
I am being rowed through Paradise in a river of Hell:
Exquisite ghost, it is night.
The paddle is a heart; it breaks the porcelain waves.
It is still night. The paddle is a lotus.
I am rowed- as it withers-toward the breeze which is soft as
if it had pity on me.
If only somehow you could have been mine, what wouldn’t
have happened in the world?
I’m everything you lost. You won’t forgive me.
My memory keeps getting in the way of your history.
There is nothing to forgive.You can’t forgive me.
I hid my pain even from myself; I revealed my pain only to myself.
There is everything to forgive. You can’t forgive me.
If only somehow you could have been mine,
what would not have been possible in the world?
“We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.” — Pascal Mercier
I went back to Amritsar after 25 long years. I went there to honor my mother’s memory, I went there to heal myself. To liberate my inner self from loss, pain and longing. To celebrate happy memories and seek strength to move forward with a sense of joy and lightness. I hope, there will be a new beginning.
Some experiences need to be only felt deep within your heart and expressing them in words will be diluting them. So, I will keep the ethereal experience of kneeling down and praying in front of the Holy Guru Granth Sahib to myself only.
“Is it your first visit to Amritsar?”
“No, I am coming back to Amritsar after 25 years.”
“Oh, my God… 25 years. That’s really long. Can’t believe it. Amritsar has changed so much.”
“Yes, India has changed, Amritsar has changed. I too have changed.” Civilizations, nations, cities, lives, narratives … all change. Change is the only constant element in this universe.
I also feel, in those moments of deep silence, tranquility and prayers, I found what I had left behind 25 years ago.
“Time is how you spend love,” I remember reading this somewhere. For me, Amritsar is all about love. Love for my mother, love for my father, sisters, little nephew, young nieces, love for my dearest soul sister carving her own life in Dubai, love for my friend’s father who is confined to his bed for the last four years following a brain stroke, love for India, love for India’s diversity, love for humanity, love for service….
Love meeting love. Love embracing love. That’s Golden Temple for me.
Ruminator on a qwerty keyboard 