Renaissance...

Delhi is a strange place, where strangest of the things, happen in stranger ways. It is a city of dreams, though this title has been taken by Bombay years ago; but the magic of this city continues to charm and enthral. So there is no wonder that the North of India, swears by this cosmo. With more than half of the population originating from the other states. This city's only identity is its non identity. An amorphous metro, Delhi was the place where he had come to work. Hoping that within its powdery form he would create solid foundations of a future.

It had been 3 years. This evening, like so many evenings, he walked on the side of the rushing road, where cars and autorickshaws competed for everyone's attention. Yet in that drone, there was just one voice in his mind. Why did she have to go away? Why?

The sky started to turn pink with the setting sun. In between these high-rise-gray-antiquated buildings, he can not remember when did he last see the sunset in Delhi. But then the evening came to his mind, on the day long bus trip to Nainital. She sleeping through out with her head on his shoulder.

As the bus took the last turn to enter the city, she had opened her eyes to look at his face, And then he had gently turned her cheek to look at the bright red sun setting in the background of bottle-green cedars and pine set against a vermillion sky, at the last hair-pin turn where one could look down at the entire valley. She had said wow, in a sleepy tone, and he had kissed her neck, right where it warmly morphed into her shoulder. He remembered the way she looked at him. And he saw his own sunrise, in her eyes while the actual sun set over the tired earth. in that moment, his stiff shoulder had lost all its fatigue.

Arent moments like these, the true test of love. When one look is the panacea to all the woes. When a touch can rub away the pain. And isnt love supposed to last forever. Till eternity and beyond. What about all the eternal love stories, there atleast the people die. Here both he and she lived. In their story, it was their love that died.

He woke up from his walking day dream, by a little beggar boy who relentlessly pulled at his pants. It was the late october and this poor fellow was not wearing even a shirt. Holding a bunch of news papers for sale, he pleaded him to buy one. That evening he was in no mood of haggling. He looked in his pocket for a 10 Rs. note. And then bought the paper that he knew he will never read. The beggar boy, moved to wards another man, to tug another piece of cloth.

He looked at the boy starting all over again. This time the other man was not as kind or maybe disturbed, haunted by his past, and he hit the beggar boy. The boy, fell to the ground while the man moved on. The boy got up, gathered the scattered papers, and walked on. And he thought, doesnt life go on? After all she was getting married too, she had walked on. Why cant he?

An old song drifted into his mind,

Tum mujhe bhool bhi jao, toh yeh haq hai tumko
(Forget me, you have that right)
Meri baat aur hai, maine toh mohabbat ki hai
(Leave me aside, for all i did was love)

But then songs do not make real life. One doesnt actually sing while creating these masterly lines. In the light of reality, all emotions seem rhetorical. Dont they? The day she told him about her marriage, he had always known it coming. So looking at the boy who had sold two more papers in this time; he decided to let go of her, and walk on in his life. He decided to live again, maybe without love for a while, but every sore takes time to heal, and there is nothing wrong in that. There was a new gleam in his eyes. It was not the heady look of love, but a glint that comes from determination. He remembered that word from his class VIII histroy text book, the weirdly pronounced 'Renaissance'.

He looked at the hustle in the market, there were people who were so so so worse off, and yet they went on. Who knew that the man who was duping a foreigner, by selling her a cheap faux leather bag passing it on as genuine Indian Leather. Might actually be needing the money to treat his dying son. Does that justify his action? Maybe theres no such thing as karma, he thought. Maybe things happen just random. For the heck of it, for no reason at all. Just like life.

Then there was the bomb blast. While he heard the loud boom and the following sounds of panic, it all faded away slowly. the hint of that song he was thinking about floated in his mind, fading away. The paper in his hand fell back to the ground, now painted by blood, while fire ate away its edges.

Life is random. And then there is silence.

A long long silence.

No More...

It was 3:30 am...

Half an hour more and then no more! He remembered the jury passing out the verdict. '...to be hanged till death'. THUMP THUMP THUMP... came down the gavel, thumping away like a heart beating into oblivion. A smirk neither mocking nor commiserating came over his face, and spread itself. The memory of that day, brought back one of his split-second-grins to his face. The futility of any trial to convince the world about the rationale, behind his so called heinous crime was always evident to him. And when he said in a roarkian detachment that he had no counsel to counsell for him, it was not a resignation to fate, it was a mere gesture of indifference.

He had stabbed him 47 times, till the time others had come in to the heeding call for mercy, but vengeance has no meanings attached. The railed door slid open with a moaning sound, how apt he thought, atleast theres someone whos crying for him, someone who has tears to cry. As he walked towards the noose, he suddenly saw his school assembly, when he was 8, and had to make a speech, he recalled the disarming awe that came over him, as he stared into the vacant faces of the school children glaring over him with an emptier look. Atleast there are no faces to face today.

They asked him for his rites, and he shook them away, he had stopped believing in God, since (....), and if there was really any, he'll get to know in a few minutes he thought.

He was still wondering about when shall he see his entire life flash by in front of his eyes. He remembered when he was a child, he had an argument with his mother, while she was making him eat salt-porridge that he never liked. He had complained that he'd die on eating to which his mother had hushed him. And he had retorted that he doesnot want to see himself in the summary of his life as being dead by eating porridge. His mother had just smiled at him. Time passes by and in each and every second it does something strange to us. Like a cinder inside it keeps on changing the essence of who we are. And like a hammer it pounds slowly steadily till the iron inside becomes steel, till the crystal breaks into a starry spray.

20 minutes to go now. The hangman could be coming at any time now. Outside the guards changed their shifts. Someone on the other side coughed. While somewhere outside a dog howled, joined in unison with an owl's screech. Someone was going to die tonight, he remembered that line from Tom Sawyer. Yes someone really was, he chuckled to himself.He could remember the bloody sight that his hand had produced. And he clearly remembered that his hand then was shaking just like the way it was when he was asked to dissect a frog in his +2 Biology practicals. He had fainted then. But then there was no reason. This time people testfiy that he had the palete of fury in his eyes, breaking into a bloody dance. The look of a man possessed. Those in his office could not believe when the news broke out. They were shocked.

He too was, when on the pinnacle of ecstasy she had cooed his name.

The Journey...

It started on 23rd september. That night i boarded the train to Chennai. From the hot dry flat plains of Delhi, the boy from the Hills was taken to the Sea. And when the waves crashed against me, i could not stop asking for more. Neither was the awe lessened when the moon broke through on the choppy waters, as in the distance, the ships went to and fro. Some harboring, some leaving the port, in tiny yellow and white lights, that slowly merged into the stars, dancing to their random tune.

From the longest beach in Asia, to the solitary soul search in Mahabalipuram, when the crescendoes that crashed on the rock-and-sand shore broke the spray into a thousand rainbows. It all seemed like a cosmic symphony with the setting sun. In the vicinity of the shore temple, the sermons in stone came clearer, as sand with the water found its way to the skin.

And then a horizontal shift to another latitude, to a place where Sri Aurobindo found the mother divine, Pondicherry. Rode on hired bike through the night. Slept for 3 hours just to wake up to see the dawn break a new song. And time really stopped. Looked at a french couple kiss, love bringing a pink hue in the peach glow of the dawn. Fishermen in their small boats, were out in the sea, while time stood still on the rocks adjacent to Rue de Coubert. Fresh baked bread flavored and blue and white Auro-beach brought in the master shades to the picture of pulchritude. Time stops at Pondicherry!

Bangalore, is more than what it promises to be, a city built around traffic. But add in the wonderful weather, and the pan india crowd; top it with the pubs, and bingo you have a haven for the young crowd. But this city's biggest identity is its no-identity. Quite dissimilar to the royale feel of Mysore.

The regal city with its pompous palace, its evening rains, and quaint rustic touch, is blessed by the ruling Chamundeshwari who from her high prop takes care of the entire place. Then there is the Brindavan Garden, where lore comes alive in the dancing fountains, and one can imagine gopis dancing to the Lord Krishnas flute. Tipu Sultan still lives in the eroded blackened stones of the Seringapatam fort, where Lord Ranganathswamy rests in his divinity. The valley of Mysore pre-empts the desire to explore the Nilgiri heights.

And so we have Coorg (also Madikeri, Mercara, Kudalu, Koorg). Quite unlike the lofty Himalayan mountains; the flatness of ther Nilgiris is another experience. Though sitting at the Rajajis Seat at the height and facing the valley within does make one yearn for the step farms in Uttaranchal, my home.

From the Mountains, to the plains, to the plateaus, to the sea, and then in the hills of Nilgiri. The simple lyrics of the Lucky Ali song,

Dil bhi kahin hai pahadon pe,
Thoda sa kahin hai kinaron pe...

Suddenly everything comes true.

15 days, 16 nights, 7000 kilometers, and a wild melange of experiences later. I am still me. The dreams still morph into nightmares, the hopes still singe, the crashes still burn. But yes I have many more stories to tell. I am wiser, I have travelled.