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 :) 

Diary of Days | Plumtree Border, April 2017

(Somewhere on the land border between Botswana and Zimbabwe.)

 

We're at the Plumtree border, clocking our fourth hour here. The sun is now bright. As the 4am chill in our skins starts thawing, our bodies forget the sensation of cold. 

Customs officers are checking bags. Or rather, sacks. One of them demands that a sack be emptied so that he can inspect the items. Two men handle, haul and wrestle with the sack as the officer stands by. Out come potatoes, and a pack of butternuts. There is also 2 kg pasta, a few feet of wire and random cans of beans. The men are gently amused and they put back the items. The potatoes go in first.

***

The lead conductor is in his element. He's walking around in his bus t-shirt, jacket tied around his waist, chewing gum with vigour. He's segregating bags, pouncing on the occasional passenger with customs-forms advice, and summoning his stout, hard working colleague with a gruff "Bighead -- Bighead!". He doesn't seem too concerned that we're steadily heading into our fifth hour at this border post.

***

Bighead works steadily, and is unassuming. He has a friendly face and is much slower at writing (filling in our passport details on the ticket sheet) than at shifting around heavy bags. His deftness with the big sacks is an interesting contrast to his in-bus persona.

Everyone is waiting, waiting good-naturedly. They're mostly Zimbabwean, and are calm and pleasant. Though there is the occasional worn-out youth who was up all night in the bus since the "standing" section of the bus were encroaching on his aisle-seat, sitting in his face and propping their legs up on his knees. He tries to catch a wink of respite out on the border-post platform, his bag propped under his head.

***

I of course, am feeling quite at home on this random border in Africa. Existential thoughts start whirring and settling. Why do I work so much? Do I need a break between jobs, and can I take one? I run so fast to keep up with life. Why don't I write everyday? I borrowed K's book and reading soothes me so. Why am I not reading more? What do I want to read? Am I on the way to becoming the person I want to become? I'm 24.

***

L, the worn-out youth, is now sipping coke. He brought a straw with him, I don't know from where. He looks buffeted and resigned as the sweet girls next to him laugh gently at something.

There's a single tree with big red flowers against the canvas of the sky. A woman sits eating a banana. In my line of vision she's directly under the tree. Life is so pretty.

My love affair with Kamla Nagar

The mad search for identity in the colour stained streets. Living the market life, where a quiet moment of solitude happens on the floor of a balcony, from where you can look up at the telephone lines and clothes lines. You can't see the chatter then, though you can always hear it.

A quiet moment of wonder comes when you look across a street into a lane you didn't notice before. A lane studded with its own houses, its own children taking turns on a bright green bicycle, even its own roosters clucking around and disrupting motorcycle traffic. But in the split second before you witness what lies behind the opening of the lane, you know it could be the lane leading to a seller of magic carpets, or a motherly tarot card reader who you could patronise, just to have someone to talk to.

The air is heavy with chatter all the time, the lights are always flashing, the rickshaw wallahs always beckoning. The heat is unrelenting, the life of the market palpably throbbing against it.

It's a home. You always return here tired. Often in search of some alone time to think or cry. Often not getting that moment, even one moment. Distracting yourself in a conversation with the warden of the PG, which leads to the conversation with your PG friend, and you visit her room and sit on her bed to evade the sense of loneliness that started reclaiming you when you climbed into that rickshaw back from college. 

The hours melt away here. The signing in at the camera-guarded gates and the picking up of keys from the key-box and the walking up to your friend's room and then coming down to dinner in a group that has ballooned to so many girls, and then chattering loudly, laughing, and seeming like the least lonely people in the dining hall, and the final return to the room to finally turn the unused key in the lock, and collapsing into bed in a fear of losing all this tomorrow. All the moments of the quarter-day fused together by the heat of time. 

The imaginary tinkling of music in a far away lane that you saw in the morning, which you imagine to be lit with soft yellow bulb-light. The image (in time it will fade away) of a girl or a boy sitting at a dull PG window, plucking away at a guitar.

I can feel, in my balcony (one of the only balconies of the congested market), the golgappas being fried at Vaishnav Chaat Bhandar, a kilometre away. I can feel the taste of the quick burger that I (exhausted after heavy efforts to draw out my innermost feelings in portrayal of a character on the carpeted stage of a dark auditorium in SRCC) bought from McDonald's in a new-found freedom to spend my money. I can feel people I know, at the coffee shops, and the juice shops, and the departmental store, that line the outer boundary of my market. I can feel the chowmein being prepared by "Maharaj ji" as his helpers wipe plates on the terrace. 

Once, four of us rode back on a rickshaw singing Don McLean's Amerian Pie, and alighted just as the song ended. 

Once, Shivan and I stood and just watched the owner of the egg-thela in his astonishingly meticulous cooking. 

Once, I got very scared on a long walk around the campus, when I thought I got lost.

And one day, maybe around the death of July, it went away. I've never found Kamla Nagar since.