A Naive Life

I'm not a happy winter person. I don't like the heat either but I'd rather be hot and dress light than bundle up. I've spent a fair amount of my life in the hills - more particularly at a boarding school perched on the top of a mountain in the Himalayas. And then, of course, I've also battled the English winters where the sun hardly shone, but the cold was more bearable and more fashionable than the winters of Delhi and Gurgaon.

These cities are not built to endure the cold. We are all geared up for 45 degrees Celsius but have no planning to combat 4 degrees or colder. I realise that we'd possibly have less legroom if we had radiators along the walls, as well as air-conditioners. But when I think about it, since I end up wrapped up and not moving anyway, I'd be much happier with the radiators hissing on the walls. It would be warm and  far better than being dressed in layers and layers of clothing, padding the limbs such that I never get a sense of how much weight I've actually put on - gorging on my favourite winter snack which is peanut brittle - more fondly called chikki. Oh, how I love my chikki - it trumps chocolate. And that's saying a lot.

It was early December and the cold hadn’t really hit us but, every day, one more room heater was taken out in anticipation. And the light Rajasthani quilt or what we grew up calling tullaies was packed away and the heavier Duvet graced the bed instead. Yes, winter was knocking and the mornings so hard to get up to. Usually, I love waking up to sunrise, but when days run into each other where fog has eclipsed any illusions of sunrise, there’s nothing to inspire an early morning rising on my part. I mean there's nothing poetic about the sun grappling with the polluted winter air in Gurgaon, is there?  

Honestly, I'd much rather have the hot sun than wake up to grey skies, which just send me right back under the covers and then I'm so late starting out every day. And that's not good, especially when whatever light there is during the day begins to diminish by 5 pm, so then I’m upset about the cold and miffed with myself too! Yes, yes, I know that it's better than the sun setting at 3 pm as I remember it during my college days, in London. But the point is that then I was living closer to the Arctic Circle and not the Equator.

I've tried telling myself that the change in temperatures is refreshing. I get it intellectually but I never feel it. There's no sense of wonder and charm in airing out the sweaters, shawls, jackets, gloves, scarves and woolly hats. It's a necessity and they take up so much cupboard space too. Not to mention how much space is needed to store them for half the year, when they're not in use. Woollens are so bulky!

If there is anything that I do I like about winters, it is sitting in the sun. But my apartment doesn't get enough sun in the right doses, at the right time, in the appropriate space so that I can enjoy it all day long. But, on the days that it does manage to get the better of the city's pollution and shine warm and bright, I do manage to soak in a little. Perhaps not enough to top up my Vitamin D quotas but it's better than nothing.

This December, there were many flats being repaired or renovated and the cacophony of drills, hammers and screeching marble cutters resounded. In winter there’s no white noise of the fan or air-conditioners to mask these noises during the day but it's a much worse situation at night. I hear my neighbours' telephone conversations. I can hear them pull the flush, draw water from the taps and their music too. And to hear their children scampering above and below in the silence of the night, when I’m all bundled up in my duvet, is almost as torturous as the hammering three floors below and to my right or left, during the day. For some reason, everyone seems to speak louder during winter and each morning when the building's cleaners arrive, I feel as if I'm in a fish market - the racket they make is unbearable. I've no idea what they get so animated about and, nine winters on, they haven't altered the natter that grows louder as the floors rise higher.   On more than a few occasions, I've also been woken up in the dead of night, alarmed by dheenchak music. The guards that man the adjoining E and F towers were found enjoying some Bollywood music with their radios or phones blaring as if the night was theirs to do anything, just to stay awake. Even if it meant that residents, who are light sleepers like me, were compelled, against their will and desire, to keep vigil with them.

And on the subject of noise, the preferred season for noisy Indian weddings is also the winter months. So, most evenings, my redial number is the local Police Chowki where the munshi and I go through the same ritual every evening. The phone rings and a male voice says: “Namashkar, police  thaana Palam Vihar.” And I respond, “Namashkar, mein Celebrity Homes se bol rahi hu" Someone somewhere is playing very loud music. “It's too loud, apne ghar mein chaen se baith nahin sakti, could you please send someone” and more in that vein. Sometimes, they fail to identify where the music is coming from and I get calls from the riders on their beat. My phone is perpetually on silent mode, so they get voicemail.

These days Vodafone sends a message for each call that goes to voicemail so I know which number has left a message and can choose to check or not. And with these calls from the riders, I opt not to because I haven’t a clue where the music is coming from in any case and it’s a pointless conversation that adds to my angst.  At some point, the next day, when I need to retrieve a message from a known source, I listen to numerous such messages they have left that never go beyond hello. "Hello!" And then a few more aggressive and exasperated "hullo, hullo, hullo" and then on an aside - "koi nahin baat kar raha hai" - and then something unintelligible that fades into silence. And it never changes. Voice mail is a funny thing; even my driver can't bring himself to leave me a message on it. I know that my friends too complain about leaving a message because they refuse to talk to a machine. And many have stopped calling me altogether - which pretty much means that I'm the one that has to do the calling. Especially since almost all now have adopted the stance of uff! It’s impossible to get you on the phone, so we've given up calling.

And in the bleakness of low-light winters and the cold, that I'm not really too fond of, I now miss the warmth of many conversations too. But, my latest accomplishment has been heartening. And riding my pink cycle I pedal around, within the perimeter of the condominium, enjoying the freedom of wheels, being out in fresh air and more - more so when the wind doesn't catch my ears and freeze them. But thankfully this winter it was not quite cold enough for that – at least not for long, so I enjoyed my 10Km cycling run each evening with a light jacket, which doesn’t qualify as heavy clothing, so I didn’t feel like a plumped up chicken all ready to be baked. Well, there was that one week, or was it two, when the winds howled and it did get quite chilly. But addicted to my cycling, I just had to get out, so I bundled up with gloves and hat and scarf and sweater and jacket and sometimes even two pairs of socks!

 I found myself droning on and on, albeit silently within myself, about my winter grouses, before winter actually hit us and then more so when one was swathed in woollens. At this point the droning really began wearing me down, more so than the woollens. I hate that uncomfortable voice in my head, complaining and complaining and complaining about the cold, but more than the cold, the noises that grow louder in the cold weather. And the noise in my head was about to explode, when on one of my cycling rounds, it was around my 3rd or 4th round, when the noise abated enough for me to 'think' and hear that voice inside my head. A voice, unheard but heeded, which silently bade me look at the flowers.

In that instant, I felt chided for being such an ungrateful whine-bag, remembering that one of the blessings of winters here, were the flowers. But, having said that, our hot, summer season does sport radiant Gulmohur, drooping sunshine-yellow Amaltas and my favourite, fragrant Frangipani. And, as I pedalled on, treading the yellow dribbles of shedding Gulmohur trees, I was reminded of how bald they looked in colder climes - like skeletons in the park. But yes, at the right angle of viewing and when the street lamps are lit at night, they do cast interesting shadows on the circular building at the far end of the complex, popularly known as the 'Gol' building, even though it is named Celebrity Suites.

It's horrid to be chided, especially by one’s own soul, for not being grateful enough. It’s even worse than the complaints one drones on about. It’s horrid to see, how not in control of my mind I am prone to be. It's horrid, horrid and horrid, to be chanting complaints but I just can't pretend to be grateful and delight in wonder at the marvels of the world when the noise of discontent fills my head. And, to top it all, deride myself for allowing them to go on and on and on and eventually create the life I have - that noisy cacophonic existence instead of the peace and quiet I desire. I mean it's horrid because, at night, I can sit for a while listening to the peaceful hiss of silence and am ready for slumber, when my youthful neighbours will stomp into their home at 11pm and begin to party. And that is when I've just about appeased most of my stress to settle down for the night.

I’ve been working with the idea of subconscious patterns trying to fathom this whole concept, so I do ask myself, what is it that I think, what thoughts are creating such a cacophonic life? Is it really a reflection of the noise inside my head? I mean, I know that the spiritual masters say I must take responsibility for my life because it's what I think most of the time that's creating it. That it is not what I want but that unconscious chant inside my head that is manifesting this life as it unfolds. The philosophy being that what you focus upon is what you get, so if we are obsessing over something, afraid of its impending doom, it is said that we are more likely to get that instead of what we would prefer instead. But, then I think: what about between 2-4 pm every day and all day Sunday, when the labour isn't permitted to work? Or when the Police do manage to track the wedding or party and persuade them to tone it down? Or when my neighbours do pay heed to the guards carrying my complaint. Does it mean that it's time-bound? And this too is created by me, because I have been vocal about these guidelines? But it's the norm for all buildings in Gurgaon. So does that mean that everyone living in condominiums carry the same unconscious chant inside their heads?

But the thing is that I have learned that I can't control the complaining chant by snubbing or suppressing it. The only way I can still the mind is to allow it expression. Anything else is nothing short of anarchy. But, when I can speak to my heart's content and be heard, it's peaceful. It's blissful and the world seems a much more charming place. 

That day, as I cycled around the block one more time, I cribbed about the fact that I couldn't control the misery chant anymore and said out loud, to convince no-one but myself, that I didn't need to control it. And that’s  when the shy blooms of white chrysanthemums beckoned me stop, get off my pink ‘Miss India Gold’ bike and take a long and hard look at these flowers that exult and bloom in the season I dread the most.

 

I took out my phone and zoomed into those talon-like petals that were opened wide, the sunshine yellow centre of pollen-filled stamens, inviting the birds and bees. Defenceless in their vulnerability, they remained motionless, a mere flicker in the occasional whiff from the breeze. I zoomed in close and then moved my lens around and my attention was caught by the young buds. The full blooms were daring and bold in their approach, knowing they competed with each other and that there were hundreds of pots around - all white, all perfectly formed, all awaiting a visitation- the moment they were born for. The moment they unfolded for, that moment of bonding to diminish the divide - that sense of separation. But it was the buds, each curled sepal, uncurling, unfolding, stretching - one by one, slowly opening up, that were more sensuous than the emboldened flowers on display. 

I zoomed in with my phone camera, and closer still, until all I could see were blurred hues of yellowish green merging into white. Moving out, the camera selected the buds again and this time when I looked, I saw the petals as if they were claws reaching out to life, clinging to each moment. And I wondered why, when all that was in store was the cold and the noises of being, undisguised in the chill.

 

Which, we were incidentally spared this year…..

My Life in Colvale, Goa - Guest Post by Fashion Designer Wendell Rodricks

Our home Casa Dona Maria. I can create in peace in this 450 yr old home

I live in a big home in a small village. Surrounded by nature, I am always reminded of the divine and the beauty that has been bestowed on us. 

The villagers proudly point to my home and say ''Fashion Designer, Padmashree!'' I can hear them over the high walls and smile at their simplicity and sincerity. And I also feel their sense of pride at this oddball in the village. 

 

Wendell's signature colour - white - collection called 'Yoga Calm'

 

They have little or no idea that I use the village and the villagers to creatively weave the warp and weft that keeps me afloat in fashion. It is their passion for life that drives me to a similar passion in clothes. It is their harmonious voices at morning mass that keep me singing all day. It is their fervent devotion to Lord Ganesha that makes me pray to Him and overcome daily obstacles in this journey called life.

Thanks to 200 yr old mango trees, the light in our garden is mystical and delightful

 

Ray of Light entering the garden - January 2016

It is my village which weaves a kind of magic around me and has created what the world calls Wendell Rodricks. After two decades, there are many things I have learnt from observation. Like the fact that our pool should have been built a foot away from where it is now. Each monsoon, I watch hapless baby crabs and blind field mice floundering in its blue waters.

Crab tracks on beach dune - testimony that life is hidden all around us

There was once an old pig door near the pool. In those days, the pigs would trot in and out that door to roam the village and visit homes. I sealed the pig door when I bought the house as I did not want stray serpents, scorpions and mongoose sliding and swishing into the property. Not that they still don't manage to enter the property from other areas. We left a small hole between the laterite bricks to allow the rain water to drain into our garden as two similar spaces existed at the other end to drain the water into the fields yonder.

 

Pets are a source of joy. Zeus and Athena suntan by the pool

Gifted by neighbour - surreal double hibiscus within a hibiscus - this one is most exotic of the 8 varieties in garden

Plant gifted by my catering college professor - the purple is source of much joy.

Green Peacock Fern in his garden, glows with these hues in various corners of his garden.

I once asked my sister-in-law how the crabs and blind field mice born near the river traverse a path they have never travelled before to get to the fields. She told me that it is in their migratory DNA, similar to how the salmon swim upstream to give birth. No one guides them like we humans often are; they just know instinctively that they need to get to the fields. For three weeks every monsoon, we watch and wait. And guide the crabs and mice to the other end of the property so that they can continue on their way to their homes in the fields.

 

Beach in South Goa, renowned for its beauty, where I head off to, when I need a break

Every Sunday, when I do my gardening, I watch as caterpillars spin cocoons around themselves. A patient wait follows...as the pupa turns into a Giant Red Eye Butterfly. What a joy to watch what most people dismiss as insects and bugs. Have you seen ants collecting for the rains? They take away every morsel of food including nail clippings to re-enforce their ant hill.

 

Nature colours my work - Banana leaf thrives in my garden, for a good creation should be multiplied

No idea what this insect is, I named him the sausage leg insect

My verandah shelf has a book on birds. Each morning I watch and count the bird species that visit the garden to feast on the flowering plants and fruit trees planted solely for their ‘Royal Majesties'

 

The Yellow Chest Mynah is Goa's 'State' bird

 They love the mulberry trees. Every bird from a tiny bulbul to a giant hornbill feasts on the mulberries. On a spectacular day, I counted thirty bird varieties over breakfast. Incredible!

 

I took this pic off the net - reminder that we can all live in harmony

 And what do we do about the baby cobra that has ventured into the garden? Just let it be. It is nearing Naag Panchami and it has come to bless us. After a few days, the pheromones from the three pet cats will drive it away. One year I saw three cobras slide a foot away from me on Naag Panchami. Imagine! Everyone was at the temple and I was the blessed one whom the naag visited. The neighbours told me "You are truly blessed". And I can tell you that I do indeed feel incredibly blessed.

 

Our Colvale church sits on a river bank - a 425 yr old source of divine calm, where I attend mass every morning

I enjoy meeting the people in my village, Colvale, and especially my interactions with them. Dinesh, the fisherman, I love to chat with. I have his cell phone number so I am in constant touch and will rush out the front door to see his catch of the day. He points it out with pride, advising me on what to eat or not.  "These are bony fish. Don't eat them. But when you put them in the curry, you will see the dramatic flavour they impart," he will say. From Dinesh I have learnt the names of local fish - Chonak, Modso, Sheotai.

 

Best catch of the day from Dinesh our local fisherman

The vegetable vendor is an elegant lady with a beautiful blossom behind her ear. Her shringar is impeccable. She tends the fields and brings the choicest, crispest vegetables to our threshold. The colours of the vegetables are so vibrant that even the saturation slider on Instagram pales by comparison.

 

I love my home

From our ‘Balcao’ I see the world pass by. In a small village such as Covale everyone knows each other by name. And everyone knows what job or work they each do. Every village in Goa has  coconut pluckers, the Mango tree parasite removers, the painters who paint our walls with shell paint, the blacksmith who can fashion grills and gates to your design, the cobbler, the tailor, the carpenter, the 'ranpinkars' (who cook for feasts,  weddings, births and funerals) and lesser known occult practitioners such as the 'drishtikaar'. Our local drishtikaar is a voluptuous, always smiling lady. She arrives with three coconut shells and assorted materials of her trade. ''Why three coconut shells?'' I ask. "Nine eyes," she replies, pointing at the three markings at the top of each coconut. Then she swirls the fire into them with salt and red chillies, muttering what sounds like a prayer, with African lingo thrown in. I have learned that African slaves introduced us Goans to some occult practices, which continue to this day.  The drishtikaar leaves, with the hot, burning vessel, to throw the evil ashes into the river.

 

My favourite beach - nostalgia of youth and lack of crowds makes it serene

Having travelled from Mumbai, Muscat, Los Angeles and Paris, I have made my home in Colvale. I often wonder what I am doing here, among this colourful assortment of people, the Padre and the villagers. But, surrounded by nature and these people, this is now my home.

 

Wendell Rodricks spent his childhood in Bombay and started his working life in Muscat. He then moved to Los Angeles and Paris to study fashion design and couture. He returned to India in 1988 and quickly gained repute as a designer, working with renowned brands such as Garden Vareli, Lakme and De Beers. He established his own label in 1990 and moved base in 1993 to Colvale, Goa. A pioneer in the world of Indian fashion, Wendell is considered one of the most influential designers in the country and has received international acclaim for his work. Wendell also writes about fashion and lectures on world costume history. His book on the history of Goan costume, Moda Goa, was published in 2012. He is passionate about art, music, literature, food, travel and Goa's environment.

 

 

Tea and Tales from Tawang

Sela Pass

The cup of tea on the table in front of me is quite repulsive, to say the least. The container is squat, made of greyish, flimsy (possibly toxic) plastic that wobbles when held in the hand, threatening to spill out its contents. The tea, thick, dark brown and glutinous, is forming a crinkly skin on the top. It’s 7 am and I’ve just bought this brew at the Guwahati airport.

I’m seated on a large brown faux leather sofa in the VIP lounge. On another sofa, across me, Mr Nitin Gadkari, BJP ideologue and current minister for roads, is reading aloud a joke about the Congress on his cell phone and giggling happily along with his retinue. He is waiting for a helicopter to take him to district Zero in Arunachal Pradesh. I too am waiting for a chopper to get me to Tawang. 

 

A Stream by the Road

I drink the tea. It is hot, sweet and thick, as is all tea you might get at an airport – and nothing like the milk-less light Lipton Green Label I’m used to. I feel it travelling down my food pipe in a mass and hit the stomach. Instead of jerking me awake, as I had hoped (I’ve been up since 2 am to travel), it has a strangely soporific affect – and I fall immediately and deeply asleep. The next thing I know, I am being shaken awake: “Madam, the helicopter is ready, it’s 10 o’clock.” This is a commercial flight run by the state government and I go through the security check again and soon find myself on the tarmac, near the helicopter. Mr Gadkari and his group fly by overhead in a couple of Army copters. 

 

The Road to Twang, from the helicopter

The only other passenger in our chopper is a Washington Post journalist who is worried about altitude sickness in Tawang – the town is located 10,000 feet above sea level. Since I had not thought about this, I too begin to worry but not for long. Our helicopter takes off and soon we are engrossed in the visual delights outside our windows. We are travelling over hills clad in thick virgin forest, the green broken only by the pale thin ribbon of a road winding up and down endlessly. The road trip from Guwahati to Tawang takes about sixteen hours and the chopper ride a little over an hour. However, the latter is dependent on weather conditions and quite erratic.

 

White Tara at Lumla

We soon arrive at Lumla, and hover almost eye level with a huge, beautiful statue of White Tara, seated atop a hill. At the helipad, my host, the district commissioner of Tawang, has sent a Jeep and driver to meet me and soon we are on our way to Tawang Township. The air is crisp and cold, the temperature hovering around 12 degrees centigrade. The journey is an hour-and-a-half long over very bad road. Small waterfalls and streams trickling down the hillside, fields of brilliant yellow flowers, an occasional flowering rhododendron tree, a yak grazing in a meadow, prayer flags fluttering gaily from poles and rooftops, and people busy with their daily lives in the small village we pass are some sights that keep me visually engrossed and cushioned from bumps. 

 

Monpa women dancing

Tawang district is also known as the Land of the Monpa. The Monpa are an ancient tribe that migrated to Tawang and adjacent West Kameng district from Tibet and Bhutan over time. They are followers of Buddhism; in fact, the only Dalai Lama – the sixth – to be born in India took birth in Tawang in 1683. There are many myths and stories about his life as a child, his journey to Tibet and his eventual mysterious disappearance. In the mists of time, Tibet held sovereignty over Tawang and later China became involved. The McMohan line demarcated Tawang as Indian Territory in 1914, but China still lays claim to the area. In fact, Chinese troops over-ran the place in the 1962 Indo-Chinese war and later retreated when peace was signed. The bravery of the Indian soldiers in this war is commemorated through the War Memorial in Tawang and the Jaswantgarh War Memorial close by.

 

White Rhododendron

Tawang’s other claims to fame are the Tawang Monastery, said to be the largest in Asia, and the fact that when the current (14th) Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1953, he entered India through Tawang. I can see the sprawling Tawang Monastery’s buildings with their whiter than white walls and vibrant yellow roofs from the Circuit House where I am staying. The structure dominates the town which is built on the spines of a couple of green hills – and the entire vista is really as pretty as a picture.

Having arrived at the Circuit House, I proceed to ask Yadavji, the 

Monpa men with Yak dance costume

general factotum, for ‘separate’ tea which means that the hot water and tea leaves arrive in a tea pot accompanied by milk and sugar in separate containers as opposed to the thick curry-like masala chai which is a near universal favourite. The tea arrives on a tin tray with the three containers on it. But…. the teapot contains the hated masala chai, with additional sugar and milk in case I felt like making it sweeter or milkier! I swallow my disappointment and the tea, and head out to see the sights of Tawang.

There’s a fair amount to see within the small radius in and around town. 

 

Tawang Monastery

Tawang Monastery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first stop, of course, is Tawang Monastery. We enter the ancient building into a courtyard that plays host to the annual Torgya monastic festival every winter. Up front is the assembly hall that is home to the 25-foot beautiful gilded statue of the Buddha. The room is festooned with banners, the floor has prayer mats on it and the walls are richly decorated with intricate murals and thangkas. Other buildings around the courtyard include a museum, an impressive library, storage for provisions and a cook house. Beyond are buildings that are home to the male monks and novices; every Monpa households sends one son here at a young age to learn the scriptures. 

Tawang Monastery

We then wind our way downhill to the modest Urgelling Monastery. It has some antique thangkas of the sixth Dalai Lama, prayer wheels, lamps for lighting, and other accoutrements of faith. On the first floor, in the hall, we find a priest and his family. I light the lamp at the altar and am invited to share tea with them. The Monpa butter tea or sueja is salty and made from jari or crude tea leaves that are churned together with a little milk, butter and salt in a long cylindrical churn made of bamboo or jan dhong. The sueja is served warm. The taste, though unlike the tea we’re used to, is pleasant and soothing; a certain sense of contentment falls upon me, brought on by the place and the tea.

Mentally shaking myself, I take my leave and we make our way further down to yet another monastery, Khinmey. This is a beautiful structure that has been renovated recently at the behest of the current dynamic Rinpoche. Inside, apart from the statues of deities and saints, the walls are covered with tantric (fairly erotic) paintings showing life in all its stages, especially the fate that awaits the wicked and the sinful.



Khinmey Monastery

By now it’s late in the evening and the temperature has dipped further. I decide to head back and turn in for the evening. Along the streets, especially in the market, the local people are busy transacting daily business. The Monpa are a good looking people. The young men and women sport the latest haircuts and clothing:  jeans, boots, jackets and scarves. I think that if you were to transfer them to, say, Bangkok or KL, they’d be quite at home. Not many wear the traditional gear - which uses a stunning combination of brick red and cobalt blue – everyday; it is usually reserved for festive occasions. 

 

Pond by the roadside

The driver informs me that yaks can sense the weather change and know it’s going to snow higher up so they rush downhill.

Yaks running downhill
 

The yaks are right. Weather rapidly deteriorates and it is raining in earnest by the time we hit Tawang. There’s a cultural festival on – the reason for my visit to Tawang -- and I leave my driver at the parking lot and walk down to the grounds where the festivities are organised. Luckily, it’s stopped raining but the ground is full of slush.
 

PT Tso Lake

Regardless, the place is bursting with activity. People from different tribes across Arunachal in their traditional, colourful costumes and beads, wearing exotic headgear and masks; men roaming around in the yak dance costumes or dance masks; musicians tuning their instruments; young and old monks; and the town people excitedly talking – it’s a scene that fills the senses. I cannot but help marvel at India and her diversity.  The governor of the state arrives and we witness local dances performed by five or six different tribes. My cup quite spills over with excitement and happiness.The yaks are right. Weather rapidly deteriorates and it is raining in.

PT Tso Lake

 

The only fly in the cup is the telecommunication in Tawang; it belongs to the dark ages. The Airtel service comes on for a few seconds then vanishes for hours. I can’t make contact with the driver, so I eventually hitch a ride with two young monks in a bright red Maruti 800 back to the Circuit House. 

 

Twang Monastery from the Circuit House

Much as I don’t want to, I have to think about getting to Delhi. Since there is no chance of the helicopter taking off in this weather, I prepare to embark on the sixteen-hour journey to Guwahati. Next morning, my host sees me off in a taxi at around 11 am. Leaving town, we descend and then ascent up to the snow covered Sela Lake and Pass at 13,500 feet altitude. Again I get that sense of the majesty of nature and our smallness in its face.

 

Yak Dancers

We drive steadily through virgin jungle along the road that I had seen from the helicopter. There is hardly any traffic and the road is seriously bad in several patches. I get the opportunity to feast my eyes of lush green, unspoilt forests that we are passing interspersed by valleys of incredible beauty. We reach Bhalukpong in Assam by 7.30 in the evening and start again at 6 am next morning, reaching Guwahati airport by about 11, well in time for my 1.40 pm flight back to Delhi.

 

A young Lama

Ever the optimist about tea, this time I go to the slightly upmarket restaurant at the airport so that I can try some excellent Assam tea. The ‘separate’ tea arrives. But a bag of Taj Mahal masala tea dangles in hot water in the pot. The waiter assures me that this is the only Assam tea he knows of. I give up! And console myself that home just a few hours away. The first thing I’ll do on reaching will be to make myself a cup of tea the way I like it.

Urgelling Monastery

 

 

 

Ananda Swaroop is a itinerant traveller. An editor by profession, she edits corporate publications and is also the editor of garam masala chai. A watercolour enthusiast and practitioner, she works with the realist genre. Ananda lives and works in New Delhi, India.

How Do You Like Your Tea?

 

I haven’t been enjoying my morning cuppa for a while and it’s been bothersome because I like the idea of drinking tea in the morning. Coffee is too strong and something I indulge in only when I am really tired and need to keep going. Don’t get me wrong, I love the taste and aroma of coffee but it just wires me up too much. But while tea does add a dash of caffeine to my lazy morning start, it’s not a jolt; it enables a steady, watchful pace into the day.

I have been experimenting with all kinds of teas, mixing up unlikely leaves to get something, a new taste, infuse some flavour into a jaded palette. And, over the last couple of days, I have realised that I just want a sweeter brew. I want it milky and sweet and this is something new for me. For years now, I have kept both the sugar [well, I take sugar-free instead] and milk to an absolute minimum, to relish the flavour of the leaf – the essence of the tea –rather than bury it with the add-ons.

May be it’s just a phase. Maybe it’s the heat or maybe I am just feeling a bit lost in the mire of doing. I don’t really know at this point what is causing this change from the subtle to the robust taste of things, but it is something I have noticed and am curious about.

It’s taking me back into the watchful mode, making me look at my days, my feelings and thoughts in an active way which, with all that doing, all that work, that doesn’t really do much other than exhaust me and leave little room for reflection, has been enervating indeed. I love looking at life unfold. I like to see how miracles occur in the day, how my thoughts create or how things unfolding around me create my day – its events – not necessarily stuff that delights, but bringing forth anger and irritation and more. I have realised that it isn’t so much about being busy as it is about not being able to deal with the stuff inside, the emotional ups and downs through engaging with people and not getting the desired response, or having to deal with their energy levels which could well be at odds with mine. And over the past couple of weeks of some quieter moments, I have realised it mostly comes about because of judging the way that I feel.

I was coming out of the pool the other day and a young man of thirty-something, who had been playing with his wife and kids as I swam my 50 lengths in under 40 minutes [it’s a small pool so no more than 825 metres], commented on my stamina. He was a virtual stranger and I was taken aback and, in my awkwardness, didn’t exactly take the compliment with enough grace. And that made me start the old babble inside the head. I stopped myself saying, it was okay to have been awkward, I was taken by surprise and focused upon getting out and getting back to work, I hadn’t expected it. And it was unusual one, don’t you think? 

A few moments later, I did something else that made me feel guilty – even as I was asking something of someone, knowing full well why I was doing it. And it made me realise just how much one does tend to judge oneself for things.  Where does this judgement come from? Who has decided what is the right way and the wrong way to do things and live life?

I have just spent a whole twenty days tuning into the Hay House online summit and heard over thirty-five speakers over three weeks. It was very inspiring. I learned many things and certain things that I had experienced were given definitions and more in the same vein. But what I noted especially about the whole summit was that everyone spoke about different things. Some were scientists who had learned about the spiritual dimension through their work and some were just people who had been abused as children and found a way out. Others were people who had evolved deep philosophies for their own life which they shared as courses and books and stuff. What interested me most were the stories that everyone had to tell, where the most miserable of circumstances and enormous pain was not something that they allowed themselves to be stuck in, but through which they have found their own philosophy and techniques to live a better and happier life.  Often the ideas of one could seem to be in conflict with other speakers, but this is what made it a great lesson in non-judgement. It was so apparent listening to diverse voices from all parts of the world, from various disciplines of learning that anything and everything leads to a deeper understanding of the spirit of being. And that there really is no other path for everyone other than what your life has charted. It’s about the proverbial Mahabharata of our personal lives, not something that is understood or arrived at by renouncing the world. What we need to renounce is judgement that says this is right and this is wrong.

I was sharing this with a friend, who then asked but what would you say for a man who has just killed someone in road rage? We had been discussing a mutual friend’s sudden illness when the conversation turned to this as I was trying to explain the mind-body connection. I was telling her how illness is essentially caused by suppressing our feelings and not expressing them, for various reasons. She said would you condone the killer, would you say that it was not wrong? I didn’t have to think this one through because for me it was the same thing – the sick person and the one who carried so much rage inside of him were coming from similar spaces of suppressing their feelings, of not finding the courage to express. In effect, probably judging themselves for feeling whatever it was because someone, somewhere, had dinned it into their heads to either get over it and let go, or such like. Something we often do, when we cannot listen to another’s pain.

I also noted that some of the summit speakers impacted my mind more than others. I tried various techniques, choosing a few that fitted in well with the way that I liked to meditate and heal the chakras, etc. But, above all, what I enjoyed listening to was the way everyone had positive things to say about experiences that could debilitate the best of us into not feeling good enough, into not wanting to get up and face the day, into despair and depression. Non-judgement didn’t come from sitting and saying why did I say this or that, or why did I think this or that and feeling bad about it.  It came from an acceptance that what they felt and experienced was what they knew and that their experiences taught them. Once we become aware, things do change. Life was their teacher and this inference was uplifting. 

My need for a more robust flavour in life, for sweeter and milkier tea rather than the subtle was just something that I needed to allow to come into being, for it to reveal the change in the mental patterns and resultant body chemistry. Maybe I was more willing to experience life in a more robust way. Or, maybe I needed a more robust flavour to bring me back into the fray....whatever it was, who’s judging, right?