Tag: india

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non-fiction Travel

India Chronicles: #7 – The Final Chapter – Kumarakom, Kerala

Complete life experience is social, spiritual, and moral. India checked all those boxes. We were rewarded with moral questions on equality of genders, compelled to look inward under the vast, free sky and endless creations of God – Earth. We met our families, and I wanted my children to remember the best about their roots, not the worst.

Our trip was hectic. We got the relaxation fix in Kumarakom. Hands down.

The strike was upon us. What I saw the next day was a first – closed shops, hardly anyone on the roads. In the car with all our bags and baggage, we stared out from our seats at the ghost town and if we saw a person, we wondered which side of the spectrum they were on—were they ensuring people were respecting the strike, or one of us, irritated that the strike was for inequality.

One of the hardest life lessons is to realize merit in adversity, that all wrong things happen for the right reasons and are a blessing in disguise. We reached our destination on the empty road where only the wind sang a melody, the mountains stood tall. Parking under the highest peak of the state, Anamudi, we were at the Eravikulam National Park, the busiest destination of the region with hardly any people. Blessing? We climbed atop an empty bus to take us up, up, and up the mountain. Here are photos from the national park.

The best restaurant we ate at Munnar was called Ali Baba and the 41 Dishes. Best dish? Butter Chicken which is spicy and textured unlike any creamy and sweet butter chicken served in American Indian restaurant.

After lunch, we left for Kumarakom. Empty roads. Before going too far from Munnar, we checked off the most recently added bucket list, of walking into one of the tea plantations.

As everyone slept, my eyes glued on the empty roads. I had read the news of violence in towns on our way. Every now and then, a shop would be open. Revolt (of the strike) was in the air. People did not want the strike. They wanted to live their life on their own terms, not fussing over some temple and its attendees.

Good two and a half hours away, when my littlest couldn’t hold it anymore, we reached a town with a restaurant in business. It had clean bathrooms, ginger tea for my recovering throat, and treats for everybody. So, the strike cleared the traffic, cut our commute time, and a shop was open when needed. We reached Kumarakom under the round, orange, setting sun with canals of waters and lush green grass. Lake Song resort welcomed us in style by putting a tilak on each of our foreheads under tens of candles.

Next day, only one item was on the agenda – relaxation.

What I mistook for ocean also known as backwaters of Kerala, was the largest lake in India, the Vembanad Lake. We rented a houseboat with two bedrooms and western toilets and an open living room for the day where the breeze of the lake frisked our hair as the boat traversed the lake, we bought fresh fish, and it was cooked to serve. The floating plant with purple flowers and the seagulls and the ducks glided alongside us. We sat there and did absolutely nothing. After lunch, we read, children did their homework, drawing and journaling Taj Mahal.

Docking the boat back on land to reality, my husband and I treated ourselves to an Ayurveda spa. I ordered the only thing on the menu that did not require me lying down in flat position because of my cough and got the head and neck massage.

Back at the hotel, we sailed the sunset Shikara tour. When I whispered to my husband that I miss music, a passenger rose who hadn’t heard our talk plugged his phone to the boat speakers and blasted off music. My husband complained I asked for music, I should have asked for something more valuable to have it be magically answered.

The last supper passed. So did the last night in Kerala, my little sliver of heaven.  And effectively, with a blink of an eye, India had passed.

We came back to Bangalore and checked into the Palm Oasis, where the children played in the pool, did some more last-minute shopping, ate at Barbeque Nation where  kabobs were grilled right on our tables. We wrapped up India and despite the sadness of an end, our hearts and soul looked forward to returning home. We returned fuller and complete.

Reunion my dear friend
Floral Rangoli
Categories
non-fiction Travel

India Chronicles: #6 – The place that heals the sick – Munnar, Kerala – Day 1 & 2

Kerala. The Southernmost state of India. Most literate state of India. Matriarchal Society (mother’s name carries the family name). Spoken Language: Malayalam. Must-Buy: Kanchipuram Saris and Stalls made from banana leaves. Must-eat: Fresh fish. 34.8 million people rich. Capital: Thiruvananthapuram.

They say God lives in nature. Beauty can uplift a tired soul, heal a broken heart, instill it with purpose, even a coughing-up-a-storm with tattered coughing chest type of a person I had become by day 9 of India.

It was January 1st of 2019. A clean slate (even if carrying the same burden of problems). A fresh start even if just another day. But without a shard of a doubt, a brand-new destination awaited us (from a new culture to new sights).

And at 9 a.m., we were above the clouds, an unnamed hope tugged in our hearts. The pilot was kind enough to tell us of the mountain ranges under the plane, and I clicked one too many photos.

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Setting foot at Cochin Airport,  THE FIRST SOLAR AIRPORT OF THE WORLD, we were amazed by the cleanliness of the airport. Search for a speck of dust would disappoint, and one could comb one’s hair through the reflection in the shiny, dark floor.

The name of our driver was Ajmal, the man who slept in the car, all four nights, with family in Cochin but comes to Munnar weekly.

And even the littlest of hearts noted the lush greenness of the region. The banana trees sprawled the landscape where rivers cut through with the volume I had only seen in rivers of America. A vast majority of rivers in India were drying up, and welcoming the contrast, I had not forgotten what happened in Kerala just a few months before we set foot in it – deep flooding. So, nature has its mysterious ways.

Munnar is three or so hours east of Cochin, away from the coast, home to the tea plantations. A small town. A simple town.

Driving to Munnar…

Our first stop was to get fruits, only fruits were comforting to my tattered throat. Second stop? Waterfall! The base of this waterfall was dirty but the sound, the sight was refreshing for my sore eyes. We spent a few moments before resuming our journey to Munnar but now that the mountains had begun, so did waterfalls crashing along the sides of these giants, the plantations, the lakes in the mysterious valleys below, the lookout points and the coughing mess had forgotten the discomfort of a cough.

Munnar. 38K population. Former resort for British Raj elite established in late 19th century.

To top the beauty of wildflowers along a mountain, was a dose of culture, a dance show, Kathakali which means demonstration of a story through dance. Last order of business was coffee and this night, after previous two was first I slept some of it between the pangs of illnesses with heart happy with joy, happy to be in the presence of clouds where dreams surely come true, illnesses surely heal, sins surely wash away just by looking at a mountain painted pink by rising sun.

Memories from the first day …

Our resort …

We rose with the sun, warmed with a buffet breakfast to behold more lakes, dams, the top station in Tamil Nadu (neighboring state) wrapped in clouds. Our souls were getting cleansed by the sounds and sights of nature, even mother and baby elephants eating by the lakeside in the valley beneath us. Pure and utter bliss.

Not included in the photos is the elephant ride we took – bumpy and probably will not do again but it was an experience for the children, riding and then, feeding the giant mammal.

We wrapped this day with hearts full. Next day, was still unchartered because a statewide strike was declared. Strike? That is, expect all shops, restaurants, etc., to close. Expect violence. Why? Because of inequality between men and women that is nurtured in India, even in the most beautiful of all places. A temple was open for years only to men because women are considered impure because of their monthly cycle. Women fought for their rights and Supreme Court sided with them. So, lawfully, two women accompanied by police, entered the temple. The BJP government, the ruling party of India, our prime minister’s party, declared the strike in protest.

What would we do on a day we were to visit the national park near Munnar and make the 3-4 hour journey back to the coast to Kumarakom? Could we do it?  Would we see lunatics on streets making highways un-passable? All because man does not consider all equal.

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non-fiction Travel

India Chronicles: #5 – In Sickness and In Health – Indore

Indore. ~2 million people rich. Recently cleaned up. Home to my husband.

I doubt I would ever set foot in this town in the central part of India if I had not married my husband. And here we were, rich with new memories from the North, and I, with the loss of my voice. When I lost my voice, I suddenly missed my mother. It had only been five days since we arrived in India. The first time I coughed, my mother brought me Banafsha, hot herbal therapy, instantly. I laughed her off stating that pollution caused my cough. She ignored me, proud of the Banafsha curing my cough. She noted when my cough ceased. She kept feeding me the medicinal herb. It mattered less her own leg hurt her every time she walked. It mattered less (to her) she experienced blurry vision ahead of our travel to the Taj Mahal. She said she cured me with Banafsha. Having landed in Indore, away from her, suddenly down with Laryngitis and an obnoxious cough, I knew, my mother did not cure me with Banafsha, she cured me with love. So, here is my paragraph dedicated to my mother who often takes the back seat but is dearly loved for her selflessness and unparalleled love.

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The first day in Indore, we traveled to Ujjain, an hour away, a route my husband frequented between his engineering school and home. There, we met with his relatives and I learned about his culture and customs.

The next day, we paid a visit to my husband late father followed by a visit to his schools and a get together with his extended family.

kids played in the play yard at the hotel, and my oldest developed a stomach bug.  The third day, we flew to Bangalore – Bangalore, my one-time bachelor pad, a city I loved for its greenery and cleanliness. While the city center was just as I left it, areas of Bangalore had not been kept up. The city that welcomed all into its arm, the influx of people failed to uphold simple rituals of the past like turning off the engines at stop lights. But Bangalore will always hold a special place in my heart, no matter what.

As time rolled, my cough worsened. I spent two sleepless nights and when the time came for Kerala, the much-awaited vacation inside of vacation, I shuddered pondering if I could survive the bouts of cough and achy chest and carry on.

Categories
non-fiction Travel

India Chronicles: #4 – LOVE, the idea, the hunger, the manifestation – The TAJ MAHAL

Agra. The capital of the Mughal Empires in the 17th century. 1.6 million people rich. Home to the wonder of the world, Taj Mahal.

The headlines when Jet Airways’ wheels made contact with the Indira Gandhi International airport read, “New Delhi’s air quality improves to ‘very poor.’”

Pause.

This is not a joke. Delhi is home to 21.75 million people (not counting the suburbs which are equally or more polluted.) Are the people immune to breathing this air that caused upper respiratory wheeze in all of us?

All right, I can breathe normally again.

Agra

At Agra, the monkeys greeted us. They were everywhere. Homes had special rails to keep these nasty creatures out. Shopkeeper threw stones at them. But these scrappy creatures did not mind the stones, kept coming back, stealing food from private home fridges, and chasing tourist holding food.

Entering the Taj through the doors (just like the Golden Temple), the Taj got smaller, not bigger with decreasing distance. A sight of beauty.

I wish I could blow away the crowd by puffing at them. But we were told the crowd had lessened this year. The previous year, the lines extended beyond the barricades. Tip: Get the VIP, beat the lines, tickets.

A 20-minute photo shoot period followed, holding Taj, smiling against it, running after my littlest as he knelt under a barricade and ran into the not-allowed-to-walk-on gardens. The photographer we hired made my husband and I take such (silly) romantic pictures that we wondered if we had lost all romance and needed to rekindle how we take photos in general, staring at each other, holding hands and walking. He did not even spare Nana, Nani. I worried Papa would scold him. But somehow, we let the symbolism of Taj Mahal rule us for the day, even if for a day.

It was shockingly peaceful at the Taj despite the crowd. I even cared less for the parrot who pooped on my hair sitting along the benches listening to the history narrated by our guide. Strange tranquility surrounded this aspect of our a vacation where we learned.

Taj Mahal Trivia

Love. From the idea to the reality, love changes life trajectories. And, in the land where love is often arranged, sometimes misunderstood, an icon symbolizes it, flaunts it, visible from various points of the city. Love has a physical shape in Agra.

When you are standing beneath Taj’s shadow, awestruck, little frustrated with the sheer number of people you have to share this feeling with, you realize why, why this little structure is revered. It is the resting place of love that outlived a life.

Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal emperor of India, reigned from 1628 to 1658, considered most competent, tolerant of other religions, and giving the empire its golden period. Shah Jahan gave his beloved wife, Arjumand Banu, also his childhood love, a loving title called Mumtaz Mahal that means ‘The Exalted one of the Palace.’ She bore fourteen children and died giving birth to the fourteenth child at the early age of thirty-eight. Shah Jahan spent a week in isolation. For the final resting place for Mumtaz Mahal, he built the Taj Mahal employing the absolute best, needing a village to live in for twenty-two years. A lot of their descendants still live in Agra, working in the same profession–supporting and building.

Shah Jahan’s favorite to succeed the throne was Dara Shikoh. Aurangzeb defeated Dara and imprisoned his father (preventing him from spending any more money on his late wife’s memory) where he could view the Taj Mahal from his window, cared for by his daughter, who voluntarily went into prison to look after her aging father until his death from old age. Shah Jahan now rests along with his wife at Taj Mahal. We saw the window from outside where Shah Jahan took his full-of-longing sighs at the fort beholding the Taj. Sigh.

“Being loved” was not Mumtaz Mahal’s highest accomplishment. She was a smart woman who invented “Zardozi” – the metal work sold on the streets of Agra and worldwide.

When we came out of the Taj, into the side streets where sellers (carrying inventory in their hands) chased you to buy little trinkets undeterred by the rants of unwilling customers, they were not the only chasers. The vomit-inducing, mouth-shutting smell from the gutters also found us. Such is the paradox of India where beauty lies side by side with the uglies.

We savored our lunch at a restaurant named, “The Silk Route.” We took the hour and a half trek back to New Delhi on the Gatiman. The next day I would have to say goodbye to mama and papa, who are better known as Nana, Nani and embark a new chapter of India visit.

For tonight, I slept like there was no tomorrow. Here are the photos from the one day at Agra (Taj Mahal and Baby Taj – the resting place of Nur Jahan, the queen preceding Mumtaz Mahal, the twentieth and final wife of Jahangir, Shah Jahan’s father, and Nur Jahan’s parents.)

Gatiman Express to Agra
Place Shah Jahan sat and prayed, called lover’s point.
Yamuna behind the Taj
Sunset on Yamuna at Baby Taj
What Shah Jahan saw from his prison cell
Categories
non-fiction Opinion Travel

India Chronicles: #3 – Leaving Home – Chandigarh

There is a restlessness inside the heart of an Indian. Observe them at airports, they will push and swerve to get ahead. They struggle with lines. They will stand before the seat belt sign eliminates. And, they seldom give way, they only butt in. Pardon my stereotype, but my first domestic flight out of Chandigarh unfolded in this manner. And somehow, I had forgotten to be pushy and anxious at the airport.

The airport officials understand this anxiety about Indians. They ask you not to come too early to the airport. Imagine the population explosion of anxieties. They do not start boarding before ten minutes of departure time. Because of the anxieties, magically, the full plane boards with luggage stowed away, seat belts buckled, the door disembarked in less than ten minutes. Calmness moves through slowly. It is only anxiety that propels people to such manic speeds. Maybe, it is in our blood, or in our history or simply in the population of the country. A baby must compete from the time it is born. Scoring well in exams is not a concern for hardworking Indians. It is making it to the top one thousand to land a decent spot in an engineering college (or corresponding college, but engineering and medical will beat the others easily). The anxiety keeps teenagers up at night, shoving fellow classmates at school during the day. Also, Indians do not make one queue. They make ten simultaneous queues. It is a game for the survival of the fittest.

The commotion unfolded as I stood at the end of the queue even though I got up at the first call of boarding with three brats, Ali, and Nana, Nani. We were leaving Punjab and the memories, the smell of ghee in the streets of Amritsar, the smell of mothballs from the sweaters Mama took out from old suitcases which is a smell my kids will forever now associate with Nani, the sight of peacocks en-route to Chandigarh. And the smell of burnt crop.

At home, we chatted, kids played non-stop, and the home was as warm as ever before, as though nothing had changed. When we pulled in to my Bhuiji’s street, it was dark. Sahir said, “This is the best neighborhood I have been to so far.” I replied, “Kiddo, how do you know? It is all dark.” He just knew. Six hours we took to reach Chandigarh, kids kept asking every ten minutes, “Are we there yet?” Their cousins were too strong a wait for them.

And, at the end of it all, it was a hard goodbye for me because this was the end of Punjab and home. I left a part of my heart behind with my aunts who are the pillars of strength and inspiration. Here are a few memories from the experience.

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All of us!
Nani Bhuiji and Dua
on the way … last dhabha visit
Chandigarh Trivia:

1million+ population. Capital of both Punjab and Haryana. A Union Territory (federal ground). Reported “one of cleanest and the wealthiest city in the nation.” Was designed and developed by Albert Mayer (started until he died in a crash) and completed by Le Corbusier in the mid-nineties following partition.

Title Image Source
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non-fiction Travel

India Chronicles: #2 – Roots – Kapurthala

Previous India Chronicle – Amritsar

Kapurthala. 100, 000+ people rich. ~68 km southwest of Amritsar. City of Palaces. Born, bred, loved, never left.

It was a dark and foggy ride right before the fog was lifted by the lights of Kapurthala, where I was born, made friends, grew up. We made it home to experience the shrine for his highness, also known as my brother, and his beautiful, newlywed wife.

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December 24th was a rest day to prepare for our long-winded agenda of exploring India, introducing it to our children. First order of business was to relax on the terrace where Dua enjoyed a lavish massage and a hair-do, courtesy Nani’s love.

My husband took the kids to the khet (crop fields of Punjab) near Kanjli on a scooter.

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I? I had official business to take care and spent it in the confines of a bank where cultural differences presented themselves. A couple of times a car alarm went off and all employees rose and went out with their keys. “Meri gaddi?” Translation, “Is that my car?” Twice.

We had tea, courtesy the bank. The employees multi-tasked, not pretending a 1:1 customer service interaction with the person sitting right in front of them.

My enlightenment moment came when I noticed daughter of on my Indian ID. At the time it was made, I was a new adult, so it fit. It’s just when asked to see my husband and update my ID to say wife of, my mind’s analytical side crumpled. I am me. I belong to me. Not a man, my entire life. Despite being a proud daughter and wife.

We ended our day at our aunt’s place, where we were showered with a four-course fiesta from Daal soup, to aloo methi, chicken, palak paneer…the list goes on.

We rode the short .1-mile trek on a scooter because smack in its middle bustled a dangerous, blood-taking, curvaceous crossing with a blind spot and lots of buses and trucks.

That night, my children slept with butterflies in their bellies, thinking of their cousins at Chandigarh and all the games they would play. I? I could not sleep listening to my littlest wheeze and wake himself up every few minutes. He had gotten better from cold in the US, but after coming to India, his demising cough had strengthened into a wheeze. I worried about the immediate future; if we stayed healthy, especially in Delhi. Remember the California fires that deteriorated the air quality to the extent that weather department told children and seniors to remain indoors? Well, that is a norm in the capital of India. And my child already had upper respiratory. Not one more grain of the pollution, please.

Stay tuned for more of my chronicles of India.

Categories
non-fiction Travel

India Chronicles: #1 – Where life lives – Amritsar

Amritsar. 1+ million people rich. Only 36 miles from the Pakistan border. That was our destination on December 23rd.

It began two days ago as we stuffed our heavy suitcases into a cab. A fifteen-hour plane ride awaited us. It passed, thankfully, event-less. As we stood in the security line in Doha, Doha reminded my daughter of Jamaica. Palm trees fluttered outside the window of the dark evening at 6 o’clock, and the sluggishness of the lines was in keeping with the relaxed Jamaican culture as well. That was also the precise time my oldest started to miss his friends. Realization that we were ways away from home, in a disparate world, sunk into him just as jet lag. Kids started noticing the Burkhas and the Saudi dress of men, and they buried me in a flurry of questions as to why these people dressed so weird. Not weird, different, I repeated to them.

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We rode out from the airport of Doha with brightly-lit light poles surrounding us with verses from Quran sculpted on them. Beige, white—all light-colored building marked the desert city of Doha. A picture of a man kept flashing at customs security and was now displayed on numerous buildings. A little research informed us that the picture represented freedom and such ideals the country stood for instead of a dictator I thought it to be.

Radisson Blu stay was comfortable, so was our ride back to the airport and the next flight. Soon, our footsteps landed in Amritsar, our destination on the 23rd. At customs, my littlest fell. His lip bled profusely and swelled up. A fellow passenger handed me a box of tissues she asked me not to return. We reunited with Nana, Nani outside. We met our Mamaji and Mamiji before entering the city center – a constant destination in Amritsar where we pay our respects at the Golden Temple each time. Our agenda was slightly different today.

As we parked and emerged, making a chain with our clasped hands and beating hearts, we went past the temple into side alleys, where the alleys shrunk smaller with each turn, the potholes larger, and the piles of garbage and dogs sleeping over them higher. You see, life does not live in the posh neighborhoods of the outskirts of any city, or at the Lawrence Road of Amritsar alone. It bustles in the city center. My oldest expressed his feeling of being out-of-place again, his biting desire to be home with his friends. I empathized, but it was not a goal to shield realities from my children about India, not about the poverty, not about the pollution that seems to top itself with each of our visits, and certainly not about the city center where so much history took place. We were a street away from Jallianwala Bagh where 1600+ people were massacred and additional 1100 injured by the British Indian army on April 13th, 1919, 99 years ago. The Golden Temple too hid scars of an attack summoned by the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi who was later shot dead, unfortunately. The city hid these wounds in its bosom and bore the burden of history, a place where a lot had occurred, lots of phenomena were still unexplained, and it bustled forward with energy for more to come.

A twenty-minute trek brought us to our destination, the Kesar da Dhabha. Dhabha is a fancy name for street food in Punjab. My son ate his paratha as I savored the Paratha Thaali, and the taste of the cholla and daal has still to leave my palate. We checked off a bucket list of eating at an authentic dhabha in Amritsar.

Moments later, we were shopping, and our last destination was the temple itself. Wind grazed my son’s hair as his face lit up in the auto rickshaw. He said, “Mama, I am better now. It is the wake-up time in America.”

We were feeling the energies and as we stood outside Golden Temple, knowing that we did not have the time to go inside this time given our adventure in the interior streets of Amritsar, we steepled our hands and closed our eyes as children recited the Japji Saheb. It was my quiet moment of the day, a precious one, a rare one.

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Last stop was getting jalebis from Jalebi Waali Gali – street of jalebis. We got them to-go.

As we drove to Kapurthala that night, fifteen minutes before destination, around eight o’clock when we reached Kanjli where crop fields are abundant and a river cuts through it all, the dreaded fog seeped in out of nowhere. Nothing was visible in any direction. Everyone was sleeping as my eyes widened and the car screeched to a speed close to zero. I glared at the snow-like, soft white vapors gliding across the street amazed the driver could drive, period. I worried we would drive into a tree or the river itself! I felt like in a dream, where the car ride was unreal but the fog was real. Like, in a moment, we had been transported elsewhere, not where we were, but in an unreal world. I grabbed my heart wondering what would follow. To know more, stay tuned for more of my India chronicles to come.

Categories
non-fiction

The Journey That Was Not To Be…

train

It was a muggy month of mid 1990’s. My parents both doctors lived extraordinarily busy lives. Amongst us, the children was my sister Gul, studying in Amritsar to become a dentist, and my younger brother Kaka, younger to me by whopping 8 year age barrier. He had yet to hit the freight train of teenage years, and was still innocent with no beard and a voice of sweetness of boyhood. Then there was me – troubled in ways, strangely aloof at times, not-so-typical teenage girl. My only open sin so far was that I was way too attached to my friends. That worried my dad because he didn’t want me to get hurt. Both my parents had learned that there was no such thing as lifelong love and friendship. Life got the better of these, they said. I had yet to find that out as my friends were my world.

It was a travel day for all of us. That meant there was more than normal chaos. That also meant more people had fallen sick and had come knocking on our door to avail the services of Dr Gill. That had been an age-old problem. Our household was a running show of “Murphy’s Law”, anything that can go wrong , will!

We lived in a small town that had only one major road on which we lived. It was a quaint little town where elders of the society converged on “The Mall Road” every morning and evening watching the sun rise and fall. As birds chirped away the elders sat on concrete benches, discussed topics such as politics or gossip, whatever be the flavor of that day. The road, surrounded by gardens on one side and residential homes on the other, smack in its middle had an ice cream shop. In this small town, everybody knew Dr. Gills. And, courtesy to them, we were called “Dr. Gill’s children.” We could not hide either.

To top the usual travel day mess of avoiding Mr Murphy and his law, we had complications embedded in the heart of our plan. We were all traveling to Delhi but at different times of the day and from different places (what were we thinking?!). My mom left in the 6am morning Shatabdi train to get things in order before rest of us joined her. Gul, my sister, was traveling east in the evening Shatabdi from Amritsar, good hour and half west of us. We-Papa, Kaka and I planned to hop on the same train from Jalandhar. We had a row of 4 seats reserved.

It was 20 mins to the train departure time and all the patients had just been taken care of and sent home healthy. The only trouble was we could not find the car keys. We scrambled around, our throats getting drier and drier. I even had a secret battle with God – “Waheguru, Why you hide keys?” And, all I heard back was loud laughter in return!

Anyhow, the keys revealed themselves, I don’t know owing to my secret angry dialogue with God or for some other mystery surrounding our lives, other than God. We rode with Papa in the fastest ride of our lives falling left and right screaming loud Aaaahs….making the 25 minute journey in little over 10 mins.

As we hurriedly dragged our luggage running towards the platform, the fast blue Shatabdi was pulling out of the station! We watched it slip away like a still from a movie. And, just like that the freight train called “the last one hour” of my life came to a screeching halt.

Coolies in red shirts slipped by left and right. The murmur from the crowd sounded like bees on a farm. A child was crying somewhere out far behind the stained walls of the market around the station. The birds were flying away, and the honks from cars went on and on. Such was the state of my mind, subjected rudely into my present longing for the past 5 minutes to rewind and my aching feet to climb atop the train I was supposed to be on. And, instead I stood there on the platform listening to the unwelcome present. My mind was uttering a flurry of unfinished questions.

“But Gul is in the train finding three empty seats next to her…” “But how do we reach Delhi now…” “But how do we inform Mamma…” “But…”

Or I wondered if I should just let Papa worry about it.. After all, it is the grown-ups full-time job to worry and sort things out. We were still children (at least treated that way) and fiercely sheltered. But we did worry. We worried a lot. I don’t mean the messed up teenage worry I was in the middle of. I meant children of all ages worried to some degree. We worried for our parents safety and if the world was really out to get them! We worried about school, unfinished homework and above all my current state misery – unfinished train ride.

So, I worried while Papa talked to the yawning guy on the other side of the window. He bought three new tickets for some Chhattisgarh overnight slow train with scheduled 6:30 am stop at Delhi the next morning instead of earlier planned 10:30 pm arrival Delhi that night. Our quiet moment ended suddenly thereafter. Now we were rushing for this slow train standing on the other platform scheduled to leave at 6:30pm, minutes away. But we made it.

Now this story was before the days of cellphones where simple phone call would have taken the next wrinkle out of our lives – “Hey, I missed this train, now on this one, Don’t Worry!” Short and Sweet!

Gul knew we were not on her train. We too fully knew what mess we were in. One person oblivious of all, and in her happy zone was Mamma, in her world all order was in place in all of our worlds.

When Ludhiana station pulled in, Papa informed us that he will call Mamma from a phone booth and inform her of the revised itinerary and to pick Gul from the train station (unlike previous expectation of us coming home on our own). With that he left.

Kaka was using his humor techniques to alleviate the gravity of the situation. I had an unfaltering gaze from the window searching for a running shadow resembling my dad’s as the train emitted the final horn signaling departure.

No Shadow, No Papa, just random faces walking past each other, none towards the train. I couldn’t sit still inside my window sleeper booth. There was commotion inside my being. So, I walked to the door with Kaka following me. He was munching on a sandwich, holding the rest of it in his hand. My eyes sifted through the crowd. The sun had set and it was now dark. No sign of Papa. The situation called for some action. I couldn’t just wait. I turned to Kaka and said.

“At any cost, do not get out of the train. Stay in our booth with the luggage.”

“I’ll be back.”

I let the train slide by. Kaka no longer laughing, or joking, wearing a serious look one of worry. Now worry had reached a carefree 8-year-old heart. I walked fast in the opposite direction of the train, looking for Papa. When train picked up speed, I knew it was now or never. I could not abandon little Kaka. I was now the adult. I envisioned it all with a lump in my throat, I climbed on to an overcrowded non-A/C coach car or someone helped me climb, I can’t say. Train was now moving at full speed.

The coach car was so crowded with men there was no space to stand or figure a way out to where Kaka would be freaking out at this very moment. Right alongside our air-conditioned car I could not have imagined existing a car without A/C of course but with so many people that there was no room to sit down. One stranger witnessing the horror on my face enquired, and understood. I needed to go to the AC side. He led the way making room for me to pass. Following him, I prayed fervently no longer fighting with Waheguru, I couldn’t risk making God more angry! “Waheguru, may there be papa there!” I repeated like a saint. I opened a shrine inside my head, shoved back tears, folded the hands – the whole nine yards, as I followed the stranger, my feet trembled and I could hear my heart pounding inside my chest, an organ I had happily ignored ever existed right inside my chest. It made its presence felt abundantly especially now when I reached our car to find a bunch of men standing by Kaka looking down. When he looked up and saw me, he said softly,

“I thought I will now go alone to Delhi with all the luggage.”

I could see a stream of dried up tears on his cheeks.

“Oh No! Oh No! This could not be happening. No Papa, just me and Kaka now!” rang voice inside my head.

I slumped into the space next to Kaka and wept like a baby, not the newly pronounced adult, the actual 16 year-old, but a baby.

Right then, Papa emerged from behind the crowd, I called “Our Misery Audience.” I leapt up and hugged him. He looked shocked and surprised.

“I wouldn’t have missed this train at any cost, you know that right?”

I did not know. I did not care. He was back and everything was going to be ok.

And, it was. I slept soon after. Our eyes were cloudy and hair ruffled as we climbed out next morning from the slow Chattisgarh train. I never thought about the journey we did not take again, for the one taken was far more significant.

Categories
non-fiction

Rescued by an Ambulance

ambulance

It was one of those restaurants with a dim light, perfect for a romantic dinner. Although there were no candles that were lit, but it seemed as though there were. A lonely love song played softly in the background. The ambiance was such, it removed you from the others and inwards into your table. I and my husband sat there with another couple, sipping our drinks, as conversation flowed from one topic to another.

It was Thursday night. My husband had just returned back from his business trip with a fresh incident that occurred just the night before to a “fresh-from-India” colleague of his. He was put up at a hotel near the office as were the other consultants of the IT firm my husband worked for. Without going into the intricacies of a mind that is removed suddenly from the hustle and bustle of India, or the society where people live in joint households, this guy simply needed to wake up at night, his first night, to use the toilet. It was as simple as that. It was an average private hotel room, but see, the mind of a lonely first night is such, that out of habit, he locked his bathroom door from inside before using the bathroom. The trouble was that when he was done, and he tried to open the door, the lock snapped on him! Poor fellow did not know what to do. He panicked. He banged on the door until he was convinced the door was locked shut and couldn’t be opened. He did not have a phone in the bathroom to call for help. So, he decided to bang on the wall of the adjacent room. Lucky for him there was an occupant on the other side of the wall. Not so lucky for the voice that yelled back at the knocking – “Cut it out!!” “I need help, I am locked out!” yelled Ram Prasad. After a long back and forth of confused angry exchanges, I am not sure if it was understanding of the situation that made the neighbor call the front desk, or it was plain frustration, who really cares! Apparently when something like this happens at a hotel, a fire brigade is ushered in. That is intense for someone from India where people could get hit by a runaway car and bodies decay on the side of the road, here an emergency service comes rushing in on just being locked in a bathroom of a tall hotel building. So, the blinking lights in the parking lot heralded help for Ram Prasad who was cursing himself for using the toilet in middle of the night. But, he got rescued alright, as we laughed hard over his misery, rubbing the water from our eyes from laughing so hard.

This elicited another incident that our friend remembered happened to one of their friends who too got rescued by an ambulance. His friend had just come to America and just like Ram Prasad we will not go into the feelings of his lonely heart, or the long 24 hours of flight that preceded such a state of mind, or the moist goodbyes, and long promises on the other side of the world, let us just say certain anguishes just need being rescued by an ambulance dramatically. On this guy’s first night, the elevator got stuck. Imagine, coming all the way to America to experience on the very first night, the thought of spending the last few hours of your life being trapped, in an 8 by 6 feet box crashing to the floor in the darkness of the night when sun is shining on the country you boarded a plane out of! He screamed from inside as people looked at each other outside the elevator wondering what was happening inside. He too got rescued by an ambulance that night.

Yes, we were laughing at these stories but there was a tinge of sadness in all of us. For we all knew the nervousness associated with coming so far from home, from everything you have known in your life into another world maybe for a job prospect, or higher education, or for more superior dreams. We all had our first nights that we did not talk about that night, maybe our night wasn’t as dramatic, it simply involved laying in the dark not being rescued by the sirens of an ambulance, laying unheard and unspoken with unknown fear in our hearts staring at the dark ceiling wondering where our life would take us, and if the bold decisions we had made, were worth making, because I spent almost 5 years of my life not being rescued but terribly homesick. I spent all of my undergraduate degree here in the US, and then first year of my professional career, paying off student loans, dreaming of returning back to the country I came from. I was not rescued. It wasn’t until after I quit a permanent job to go back, and then returned a year later to pursue even higher education, that I was battling homesickness all over again when my car lost control on the Pennsylvania turnpike, turned upside down and then back on its wheels, meandering away from the freeway, away from the surrounded trucks and vehicles, on to the grass and down the cliff into infinite demise only to be stopped by a tree that the blinking lights of an ambulance and its approaching sirens made their way towards me. It wasn’t until then I was rescued by an ambulance away from my mangled car, into the safety of an ambulance where a nurse took my blood pressure and deemed I was fit enough to not be escorted into a hospital. That indeed I was fit to walk into this world without support. It took 5 years for me to be rescued by an ambulance!

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