Boatman

(Volta river, Ada, Ghana.)

The clouds close overhead,
the water takes on a grey hue, mutedly shining like some molten metal,
the treeline in the distance is unchanged, muted and graceful now as it was in the sun.

The boatman is standing, one leg on the boat's edge,
a long oar piercing into the water, perhaps it could churn the molten silver all around, if he were a hero in an epic.

I try in vain to photograph the beauty of him, old man in an old boat,
strong, weather-worn, old.
Should I ask him first? He is too far. And moreover, he is part of the river.

Before the fireworks on the 4th of July

Big hallways up the pillars of the Supreme Court
(one of the three equal pillars of government, I overhear),
The smell of homemade sandwiches wafts, and the soft spray of the fountain drifts, light teal like the couch at home, on which I napped. And the quarterfinals are discussed.
Everyone's two hours early, in a tranquil wait for sundown,
And in these minutes before my friend arrives,
I think of you.

Lucknow III: Tourism

One evening I decided that enough was enough, the situation was getting out of hand, I needed to stop living by the screen light of my laptop. The clinching moment was when I ordered Domino’s pizza in the middle of answering emails. Here I was, on my tenth day in the city, a stone’s throw from the Hazratganj market with all the spiced kebabs of Lucknow on offer, for less than 200 rupees no less, and I was inside a guest room ordering Domino’s. (It was cheese-burst though, so I can’t say it wasn’t worth it.) And the European girl staying in the room upstairs had already been for a ‘history walk’ to the bhool-bhulaiya, after having arrived just the previous night. Unacceptable.

So the next day, on the way back from office, I got off at the Hazratganj bus stop and allowed myself to be absorbed into the beehive of people that was permanently present at the entrance of the market. The first order of the evening was to get a taste of the famous Lucknow kebabs. I floated along the waves of the crowd, using my elbows to convince myself that I was carving my own route, and slipped into the largest restaurant that wasn’t called Moti Mahal. (Every single city seems to have at least a few Moti Mahals, offering varying quality of what they consider North Indian fare, though many of them have nothing to do with each other. Of course, Hazratganj had one too. The common-ness of the name made dining in a Moti Mahal an un-novel thing to do.) The inside was grand in a familiar way, with tables and chairs wrapped in white cloth till the floor. The menu looked pretty regular, more or less the same selection of kebabs that the Delhi places offer. I ordered a safe-looking chicken kebab, with roomali roti that is ever a mystery with all the folds and whatnot, and a Coca-Cola which in my head was an essential part of the authentic kebab experience.

They took at least 25 minutes to bring the kebab and roomali roti, leaving me to stew in grumpiness from hunger. But when the food arrived, I got a taste of that Lucknow kebab magic after all. They were the simplest and softest kebabs I’d ever eaten, chicken with the scent of elaichi, delicate and powerful. The roomali roti was fairly Delhi-like, but with swirlier fairy folds, and even the coke tasted better after a bite of the kebabs. This thoroughly satisfied me, and I could happily go back to living in front of the laptop and ordering guiltless Domino’s in the homestay.

Lucknow II: Commute

The homestay was located behind Mayawati’s house, which was its claim to fame apart from the word of mouth from happy guests. I soon grew fond of the commute. The journey had three legs. The first was a walk along the winding lanes behind Mayawati’s house (the fifteen foot walls were safeguarded with five foot fences) till one found a (manual) rickshaw that would take one to the auto-rickshaw stop near the Hazratganj Market. Said winding lanes were below a highway, and passed by a number of interesting semi-underground havens. One was a large wall which had become a canvass for a variety of human expressions, including chalk graffiti, slogans, plain-paper posters of the local politicians, and urine from Indian males. Another was a nondescript shop of all the odds and ends that one can ever need, from biscuits in-lieu of breakfast to cigarettes, coke, chips, paan sachets, and tiny bottles of coconut hair-oil. The classic Indian kinara shop. Yet another haven was a nondescript temple, barely as big as the kinara shop, and with a vague gota-trimmed triangular flag waving above its orange-covered roof and a deity seated in the dark interior from where incense fragrance wafted out and mingled with the humid hanging air.

Once you arrived at Hazratganj Market, the second leg of the journey began. The auto-rickshaw stop stood across the archway of the old market, offering a packed glimpse of the place. Encrusted with shops on at least three or four storeys, the entrance was like a layered cake with a tuition centre on top of a restaurant on top of a garment store. My favourite was a tuition centre named ‘Epic’, which had the tagline ‘Even failed can pass!’. From here you took the shared-auto, which for fifteen rupees took you across an amazing distance at an alarming speed. Unlike the more expensive ‘personal’-auto, the shared-auto followed a definite, pre-defined path and had at least three other people, both major safety points as a young woman. We would zip by the detailed chaos of Hazratganj, and in a matter of minutes find ourselves along the massive, broad, vast highway with the bare building architecture, broad pillars, statues and waterless fountains gleaming under the sun, signifying the new glory of Lucknow. A few more minutes, and we would be among the shady groves of one of the V-khands, a residential neighbourhood where the office was located. 

This is where the third leg began. The shared-auto dropped you off at X and Y prominent hospital. At this point it was crucial to figure out which direction you needed to take. So packed was this area with identical sized shops, that the four points of the crossroads were impossible to distinguish as a newcomer. It was only once I had the names of all the shops memorised that the direction became intuitive. From here, you could either walk the final kilometre to the office, or, if you were lucky, take another (manual) rickshaw, feeling like a princess on this light-wheeled chariot. 

The most vibrant part of the commute was on the way home. The evening would start cooling the streets, and various impromptu kitchens would spring up on both sides of the road. Everyone who lived in the streets, from beggar men to women selling bhuttas, would come to the road with their pots and pans, large, clean and sturdy. They would light firewood and coal, and begin cooking dals, chopping onions, green chilis, tomatoes and potatoes. The evening would soon become fragrant with the smell of freshly cut herbs, and the street would be lit by the fires and embers of the open kitchen. It was a moving and organic sight, this communal daily dinner.

Lucknow I: N

After a week at the cheapest acceptable-looking guest house in Vijayant Khand, I was keen to move into the ancestral house-cum-newspaper office-cum-homestay that my Lucknow colleague recommended. I walked into the house and N greeted me. N spoke fluent Hindi with the fast cadence that mohalla ladies have while gossiping. He sometimes broke into English, which he spoke with a striking Western accent and dubious grammar. He was probably in his 60s, had thin hair spread out over his head, and was vaguely pear-shaped but not overweight.


Over a few days, N and I became comfortable and came to accept each other's flaws. I thought N was quite lazy, and N thought I was quite demanding. Both were true. The daily dinner included a small bowl of daal, some sabzi and two perfectly rolled, thin chapattis -- delicious and quite insufficient, I always felt. I often asked for extra helpings, which I think slightly annoyed him. He would disappear into the kitchen to talk to the "cook" but I'm quite certain that he was the cook. When he told me he had only been working at the house six months, I was surprised. "Yes," he quipped in his low, fast manner, "main jahaan bhi jaata hoon, bilkul wahan ka ban jaata hoon." ("Wherever I go, I become one with the place.") He had the gift of familiarity, which he quickly developed with all of us guests, and had clearly cultivated with his employer too. One felt comfortable confiding in him that the bathroom tap had stopped working, or that there was beer in the fridge. He would say "Ah, will you let me have one?" but would never actually take up the offer.


One morning when N handed me my lunchbox, I asked if I could get another helping of upma. N stopped, his eyes widened, and he looked up and down my face. I wasn't sure what to do, so I tried to keep a neutral expression (which might have erred on the side of the defiant) and maintained eye contact. After a few seconds, N took my lunchbox and brought it back with more upma. He half-approvingly said, "You have a bigger appetite than most young girls!"


Oftentimes, N played the Naarad Muni in his crisscross communication. As I paid for my stay, he explained that the receipt book was too old and he would not be able to keep a receipt to show his employer -- I would need to take with me the only receipt made for the payment. When I left, he told D that I had promised to sell him two bike helmets we had bought for our fieldwork. He bought them for a 100 rupees each. It confounds me what the man wanted to do with two bike helmets, and why he wanted to pay for them at all. But well, I didn't have a plan for them either!

Cherry Blossoms in DC

Suddenly, they are everywhere. Springing out behind a house, trapping the sunlight behind them, growing brighter each minute. Springing up on a street corner in Crestwood, blooming more with every step you take. Getting thicker, thicker, till they fill every other frame, they are there when you look up at the sky, there near the door of the church, flashing by just before the bus stops, standing in a line and peeping from behind each other when you turn the corner and look up.

They are there when you look out from your morning window, and there when your eye catches a swing and follows the ropes to the cherry branch, and there when you walk through Lafayette square to work, and petals filling up the old lamppost you are trying to photograph.

From the first tree spotted early in the season (is that a cherry?) to the hundredth (here's another cherry!), they pull you with their magic, along the green mall, to the thickest grove along the Monument which is rife with them. Branches lifting thousands of blossoms up to the sky. Branches bowing with weight, lower and lower each moment, kissing the ground. Branches woven into a frame through which the majestic landmarks of D.C. are seasonally seen. Martin Luther King, Roosevelt, Jefferson-- millions of flowers paying respects to all of them.

At the tidal basin, they transform the colours. Blue above, blue below, a soft pink and a rosy white dancing in the middle. They are really everywhere, thousands of trees, all in bloom, beckoning from three feet across and from the bank across the water. Flowers, bows, branches and trees, blooming round and reaching long, up, down and far till you don't know where to look!

Beautiful cherry, born to entice on a sunny blue day, one day a year.

Diary of Days | Nairobi, July 2017

The day started with N's smile which is warmth and dignity. Flashing past the city in a matatu, with loud music blaring from barely-installed speakers around a TV screen. I wondered at the driver's commitment to this setup. The front part of the matatu was all boarded up, leaving no possibility for a rear view mirror. Apart from being a distraction if too loud, the TV-speaker set must be a bit of a cost to buy, set up and maintain, especially since it's in a moving vehicle. Yet it is there, not in one but many matatus, and almost always blaring in full-blown glory. The TV-laden matatu doesn't just survive, it thrives. It's how it makes you feel. It's what it means to the thousands who use it, and even the thousands who don't, the place it occupies as the bad-boy of the road, showing off what Sacco it's tied to and what football club it supports (Chelsea and Arsenal seemed to be gunning for the top spot based on observations from the morning), a rushing bustling brewing of cult and culture. Safety, security, pshaw. How can they stand against the unfettered energy of this road creature?

We "alighted" (a word very common in daily Kenyan English) into a lane studded with a beautiful array of tiny apartments, curving along the bend and out of sight. As we walked down the main road, the bridge-railing on our right vanished, leaving us one step away from the roads 200 feet below. These are the sort of things that endear this place to me, no less because they instantly transport me to Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore, Lucknow, Banaras and a million cities that I could call home. 

The main road withered into a dusty path which in turn flourished into a thick parting of robust maize leaves as we found ourselves in the village. N led us into his house, and I was once again a bit shocked by how much it looked like the houses I have visited in Bangalore. We walked past a tiny kitchen with a firewood stove (literally a chulha!) into a snug living room, perhaps 10 feet by 8 feet, crammed with four sofas and a table, with a showcase (balancing a TV, two speakers, the entire cutlery of the house, and toothbrush containers) to boot.

For breakfast we had big containers of chai (!) and unassuming, sumptuous cake. F, N's wife, was beaming, silent, round and comforting. She had an air of contentment about her and gently smiled as she helped us wash our hands with mugs of warm water. We conversed with N in preliminary pleasantries braked with questions, with wide smiles beneath it all. He was very happy --as he smiled his weathered face deepened into crevices, and it looked like a hundred years of wisdom smiled with him. Perhaps our presence in his house made him feel like he was near G. She bubbled up in each stream that the conversation flowed in; this was a day dedicated to her. (If she knew she would be so pleased, lucky loved bastard.)

We finished breakfast and walked to church. This is the part I will dedicate least time to here, since we dedicated most time to it during the day. N is in the choir and was very keen to show us the best experience of the church. We stayed for two services, an hour-long English one and a 3-hour-long Kikuyu one. I nodded off about fifty times during the sermon, and when I was awake, I saw J nodding off and/or N looking across to see what we were up to. Ha. The church building was simple, full of clear windows shining with light. The members of the church seemed unassuming, and there was less showmanship than I was used to from the few churches I'd visited in Gaborone. The choir, the church secretary, the guitarist, drummers, and the wielders of the powerpoint presentation that projected hymn lyrics for all to sing (what a good use of PPT!) -- they all exuded a calm competence free of airs. After the somewhat interminable service we were reunited with N, who had changed out of his choir uniform, and were introduced to his many family members and friends. He insisted on providing for us in every way, from buying me a cup of fermented porridge to taking us to what he felt were good photo backdrops when we expressed a desire for photographs. But through it all he was talking of G, remembering her and beaming each time he got reminded that we were here because she sent us. 

By the time we strolled back to the homestead, I was feeling very at home with the surroundings and with N. F had readied lunch for us, and to my surprise she had prepared chapatti (that's actually what they call it in Kenya too!) and aloo-matar-beef (haha). Between the silent, stable homeliness, the home decor uncannily akin to S-ji's in Dommasandra circle, the tender and contained care from N, and the Indian-but-not-Indian food, I felt like I had come home. I had been longing for a trip home before my next relocation, knowing that I could not take one-- this chance trip to Nairobi fulfilled my home-longings in some strange, imperfect, precious way, piecing together memories from disparate spaces across India, melding them with jolts of surprise, creating a mosaic with enough elements of home to make me feel connected to the red soil that N proudly observed would stain our shoes. I felt comfortable enough to wander away from my host after lunch, and take rogue photos (so many attempts, so many misses!) of windows and doors around the homestead, ignoring some people and disrupting others in my heedless style. Again, something I've only done in Bangalore and Udaipur before. Perhaps I missed home badly enough to project it on the first suitable canvas I encountered. Nonetheless, the place remains one of the most precious I've visited, perhaps second to home.

***

A few wisps of memorable conversation. 

During lunch, a tail becomes visible in the three inches between the table and the sofa.
Me: Do I see a cat in there?
N: Yes, that's our cat.
Me: What's it's name?
N: It doesn't have a name.

After lunch, peeking into the living room to find the elusive Jo. sitting on the sofa.
Me: Hey you!!!!!
Jo.: <hides his face in his hands and shuts down>

In the matatu home (N is dropping us all the way back at 4pm, just like he came all the way to pick us up at 7am. He has the same smile from the morning-time and has become quite chatty.)
Me: How do you contact G?
N: I call her on this number.
Me: Oh, you call her phone?
N: Yes. I call her, because I like to hear her laughter.

Various point throughout the day.
N: No no no.
N: No no no...
N: No no no, 
N: No no no :)