The compact speaker had seen better days, been on many treks and taken several falls. It was rusted around the edges but continued to play with such high fidelity that it was easy to see why my friend took it everywhere with him. Right now it was tucked into the cradle of his arms and belted out Lateralus by Tool as we walked along the Mall Road in Nainital. Over thinking, over analysing Separates the body from the mind The steely night was pricked by street lamps flickering because of
As you ascend the over 100 steps to the top of the Borobudur Temple you actually pass through three levels symbolic of Buddhist cosmology all the way to Nirvana. Chances are that you will be climbing up, unawares, in the pre-dawn dark at 4.30 AM to catch the famous ‘Borobudur sunrise’ your progress aided by lights from the rechargeable torches thoughtfully provided with the ticket. You might still be rubbing your eyes and even be a little irascible at having to wake up at an ungodly hour on a holiday.
If you are a fence-sitter when it comes to the supernatural – and its different ways of coming alive – Indonesia is a not-so-gentle nudge into adherence. The folklores and urban legends abound with spirits infamous for a lack of benevolence – some shriek forcing you to veer off the highway in the middle of the night while others beckon you sultrily into the deep sea. Every kris has its own unseen resident if the locals are to be believed. Some collectors I know vouch for it. ‘Just let them
A sudden blizzard – a regular occurrence at high altitudes – caught us unawares as we approached Khardung La and we stopped to chain up our tyres. Flaky snow fell on our jackets which were blown away by strong winds. There was nothing much we could do about the meltwater, ice-cold and mucky, that threatened to penetrate our trekking boots through submerging eyelets. Our drive up from Leh had alternated between treelines and skylines; approaching Khardung La at over 5,000 metres we drove straight into the clouds. An old stray
Much has been written about muses and understandably so – they are salacious tales and scandalous to boot. The recorder always faithfully documents the gratitude the artistic and literary worlds owe to these little Lolitas who, by dint of their tenderness and tautness, aided the ageing masters in their Elysian pursuits. What might have started as a fugacious fuck culminated in a lot more – usually great works and sometimes children. Nothing great about the pick-up lines though which were insipid at best: ‘I am Picasso. We will do great
Je ne sais quoi For all their famous hatred, the French sometimes do come to the rescue of English, the language. The word above might sound like an endearment in Mandarin but it means a wonderful ‘quality that cannot be described or named easily.’ Which means those four little words can mean everything from the reason behind the Trojan War to what Mastercard – and The Language itself – simply passes off as ‘priceless.’ I thought of this word, though I couldn’t recollect it correctly, when I met Mohana and
Take it easy, he said It all started with a valium prescription following a workout accident: I couldn’t straighten up after I put the barbell down but had to crawl on all fours and finally clamber up a chair clutching with every movable limb. That’s how the ambulance found me – sprawled like a chilling octopus. Since I didn’t scream at his random poking, the good doctor ruled out a misaligned spine, rotated innominate and a pelvic upslip. “You just take it easy,” he said giving me the valium. The
Gushing waters froth stories. When set amidst lush landscapes, the viridian violence can give rise to some very haunting ones. Sarojini Omanakuttan remembers a few with moist eyes, though not exactly a shudder – toughened by the wildness of office, nothing is shook enough for her. She pointed nonchalantly to a spot outside the wayside shed where she sat keeping an eye on visitors, guiding some and sharing stories with the solivagant. “It was exactly three years and three days ago when the engineering student drowned over there.” The spot
They are all Meeras Throbbing notes twanged out from a three-string kamaicha. Wood-ringed fingers tapped on a ghara. A sadhu with the longest dreadlocks sat like the sachem he was surrounded by attitude and subalterns and general onlookers including me. Thick wafts of grey-blue smoke rose from a smouldering chillum that briskly changed hands in the nippy morning. Sensuously draped eunuchs swirled in and out of the billowy screen singing paeans to Meera, the most devoted of the Krishna bhakts. Their raspy voices rose above the temple bells and
We are on the Kumily – Munnar route, one of the most scenic drives in Kerala. I am being introduced to a large canvas – from where smaller ones originate. There are two via options – Kattappana and Udumbanchola – the latter, along which we are now, is simply breath-taking. Our eyes are alternately soaking up the lush rain-washed valley and peeled for the rare and endangered of the region – laughing thrush, wood pigeon, pipit and grassbird. We followed one to the overhanging ledge of a lay-by and
