yet again ... getting lost ... then enjoying self-discovery ...

Aimless in Banaras: Wanderings in India’s Holiest City Bishwanath Ghosh Tranquebar, 2019 ISBN 9789389152005 Thanks are due to the team at First Post . Couple of months ago, as I discussed Banaras with a friend, she referred to its famed Ganga Jamni tehzeeb . The violence and acrimony we come across today is not what the place stood for, she added. Hatred, I agreed with her, was not what the town represented. However, I argued that the town was also not only about love and harmony, and that people existed between the two extremes. This other side of the story, in sync with society’s shying away from difficult topics attitude, is seldom discussed. Hatred.   During school years, I used to accompany mumi to her parents’ place each summer. There, at the heart of the town, it seemed that all the reverence was reserved for the sounds emerging from the temple. The calls from masjid were frowned upon, and decidedly so. While the Pandit was suffixed with...

Jaipur Journals: A Love Letter to the Greatest Literary Show on Earth  Namita Gokhale Penguin Viking 2020 ISBN: 9780670093557 During the recent trip to Delhi as we walked in Connaught Place I told my friend of 2 instances that I had come across amidst its inviting environs. These included young people, dressed for the purpose, dancing to music, on an early morning. I stay in Delhi but am yet to come across such a happening Connaught Place she responded. Adding, I only see what I always see here. I then told her what I recalled William Darlymple (of The City of Djinns fame) say “ I now do not now notice aspects of Delhi like I used to ”. Manu Joseph too had mentioned, “ Only outsiders can notice certain aspects about a place ”. Both these lines I had come across about 4 years ago at Jaipur; the only time I attended the Jaipur Literature Festival or JLF. Besides getting to know of authors I was yet to read, to listen to those I was familiar with, being amids...

A question of absence Published in The Hindu EDGE here .  Thanks are due to the team there. Recently, a mother came to our school with her daughter. She conveyed that her family planned to attend a wedding at a distant place. As a result, her daughter would not attend school for 10 days. One of the colleagues urged the mother, on the need to shorten the duration of the trip, so as not to harm her daughter’s academics. To bring in the context, the school, catering to the lesser privileged, is located in a peri-urban space in north India. The daughter studies in class 5. Weddings and festivals are a clear priority over school attendance. Even in a school like ours, where we strive for, and pride on, a ‘happy environment’, days when the school’s attendance hovers around 60% - 65% are not uncommon. I thanked the mother for informing (not common of parents ) and wished the student a wonderful time at the wedding. The colleague was not amused. I wondered if it struc...

Cut that call:   Ethics and Misuse of Artificial Birdcalls This piece finds place on Round Glass here Thanks are due to the team at Round Glass A few years ago, I was in Nagaland working on a community conservation project in the Mokokchung- Zunheboto area. In addition to project work, other members of the team and I would go on birdwatching walks at dawn, braving the early morning chill for sightings of grey sibia and mountain bamboo partridge. On one of these walks, I remember one of my companions playing the call of the Naga wren babbler ( Spelaeornis chocolatinus ) for so long that the poor bird came and sat on the blessed phone. When I asked him if this was wise, he argued that he was one of the more serious bird watchers in the country, and could tell that the bird was not disturbed. I asked what would happen if people from the surrounding landscape (including those who hunt) picked up this practice, but he was confident that they could not. The basis for thi...

Day Twenty Two brings the adventure to an end We take the boats early morning. The boats glide slowly and gracefully along the river, its pools and the rocks. What a lovely morning it was  We glide for longer than I had envisaged. Enroute we also spot birds. This was fun given the boat’s movement as was sharing the field guide with colleagues in the other boat. Besides couple of not so common ones we also come across a fisherman who had captured a coucal and get it released. The interactions were funny. A published note based on the morning experience here .  The bird before being released We reach what appears to be a river port straight out of Charles Dickens’ works.   Jarda was being brought and packed for export. I move around the town till the food gets done. As I walk I see how this is like other transit places that I am familiar to – albeit at a smaller scale and of course with different sounds and colours. This apparently is a river port to ge...

Day Twenty One is about returning I wake up with an urge to be at Saiha soon. Tea is followed by discussing the options of getting to Saiha. The road route that goes via Phura is a clear NO for some of us for the road is bad and getting a vehicle is both – costly and difficult. So we will go by the river on speed boats and dug outs that ply from Burma. They will take us to a point in neighbouring district of Lawngtlai. From this point we will proceed to the district headquarters and then finally to Saiha. I take a walk and meet a young man who had applied to work with us. He is from Tokalo and works as a temporary teacher here. He tells me that the school has yet to begin after Christmas holidays. We are in March. We have a meeting with the MTP, VC and Burmese underground to discuss the Wildlife Sanctuary. I talk of (on being asked to) hunting being an issue and that it is prohibited both inside and outside the Wildlife Sanctuary and if they continue to hunt and trap as...

Day Twenty is about scampering through Waking up today to cheerful faces I realize again that most of us are excited that the survey is coming to an end. First and last time coming like this is what I have been told more than a few times. The meal today is interesting – wild banana flower with dal. Packing and getting ready to move is a much leisurely act. Were we happy to see this?  While people spend abysmal sums on meat and other actions poverty too – in these parts - is stark. One of the colleagues - helping with luggage - has never worn foot-wear in his life. Another shared that tea at his place is tea leaves and water; he simply cannot afford sugar or milk. I recall sugar being priced at 40/- and milk powder at 400/- a kg. My sojourns at Barista and Café Coffee Day come to my mind, as does a friend. The craving people have for meat has been both surprising and disturbing. How they are able to assimilate this quantity of meat besides the tobacco and areca nut r...

Day Nineteen is a long walk   Tea comes over. I see the route mapped thus far, on GPS, and get eager to look it up on a larger screen. Ditto with the images. I pack. Food is ready and soon we all too. Part of the morning meal A few hundred metres up the Tika and we are in a tougher terrain. We shift our trail for, as Jo says, ‘ there is no human way’ . This ‘ easie r way’ has me walking on trees, some sleeping and others dead. I hone my mountaineering skills – take weight of body and bags on my hands, hold crevices in rocks and move upwards. Knees have cuts as we reach the top. The smart me is for some reason in shorts today. I also come across one of the largest tree I have even seen – so huge. Awed and numbed at the same time – I touch it. Respectful silence. Though I know my picture taking skills will not do justice to it – yet I try. On reaching the top – help demolish a trap. We move across and then down towards the Khopai river. The slope is steep and the...

Day Eighteen is about replacing the missing posts. I see that rice and other items are being readied – for the rest of the survey - by new colleagues from Lopu. I do not feel the need or urge to meet them. In some ways I am also learning to function in a detached manner (unlike how I have been in the office). Hat at the Hut I discuss the Wildlife Sanctuary with the Village Council President. The villagers want their orchards and rice- fields to be exempted from the boundary. I then get to know, on questioning, that neither has the Forest Department informed them of the Wildlife Sanctuary (and its boundaries) nor have they visited them. And this, is one of the larger villages from amongst those which will be affected. Why the forest-department has espoused this attitude is beyond me and that too when the pressure (on forests) from people in the villages is not at a level that warrants conservation attention. The village has not been informed of the Wildlife Sanctuary by t...

Day Seventeen is about homes and traps I wake up in yet another house. After kua we move to interact with people in the village. I recall staring at this for long I see a volley-ball match in progress, broom-grass being dried, girls going to fetch water, people looking with amusement at me and more. We meet a couple of young men. They are eager to chat with Ja - I refrain from interfering. Next I see papaya orchards. They are as much of a surprise as was the carefully laid orange orchard I saw yesterday. This is followed by a homestead with tidily laid out cauliflower. Some of the houses have bamboo placed to ensure that the doors remain shut. There are some goats too besides the pigs and chicken and they make their presence felt on the dusty roads of a late winter morning. I am told that cows do not survive in the village despite bring present in nearby areas. People here do not milk cows, buffaloes and goats. They are either for help with cultivation or food on table. ...