A Montage of Words

The past couple of weeks have been all about reading, writing and research; with worlds seeming to have enveloped me in a cocoon. As I stepped out for my morning run this Sunday morning too I was shown visually intriguing montages of our daily, seemingly mundane lives transforming themselves into candid frames for my study and observation. So after the end of the run, a collective of words seemed to have strung themselves in a memory game, as I progressed with each kilometer finding itself intertwined with the previous, compelling me to memorise the sequence for a complete string of 10.    

I read somewhere that focusing on a mantra helps dispel distractions while you focus on your run. It’s all nice to say but seldom easy to have a one point focus on a thought for all the while throughout your run. This is a string of scenes I came across during my Sunday run; one world sprung to mind for each one with seemed to have synced itself with every kilometer I covered. 

1. Breakfast. What’s a rickshaw to you today? A mode of transport, bringing to mind a foul interaction with the dozen or so drivers who refuse to take you to your destination each day? No none of that, thank you. Jogging along the Bandstand promenade, my eyes fell on a scene of cupcakes, bread and chai adorning the back seat of a rickshaw. It was a simple breakfast laid out neatly for two, the driver soulfully sipping his morning cuppa and a friend partaking in the sweetmeats. Both commuter and driver sipping a bite and pleasurably watching the morning surfs chime in. Doubt the most expensive bungalows on that route could experience this luxury.  It’s the kind of image that gives Bombay a happy candid allure as opposed to this rushed manic Mumbai we are a part of each day.
2. Play. Come let’s play I could almost hear him saying. A bunch of stray dogs loitering around a path in my run, one of them having found an interesting piece of scrap long enough for two of the dogs to wrestle with. So he playfully prances to his friend on the extreme right and nudges him with his muzzle, come let’s play! A noticeable change in their stride I saw, a graceful hybrid between a hop and a gallop. It just made me so happy. Later on my run tracking app Endomodo I noticed that particular km was my fastest, wonder whether that those few minutes their enthusiasm mingled with mine. 

Breakfast. Play. Each thought compiled into a single composite word, nice I think..

3. Night out. A threesome step out of a vehicle, their Saturday night out bling still on, perhaps just about done with their all night revelries, the girls holding their stilettos in hand and the guy groggily leading them to a coffee shop. I am not much of a party animal, yet a minuscule pang of jealousy sprouts, hmm. Moving on. 

Breakfast. Play. Night out. Each kilometer personifying into a character of its own..

4. Food. A taxi driver almost done with his routine of washing up and sprucing up his wagon for the day, steps on to the side walk opens up a bag and spreads a bundle full of dry rice grains on to the floor. The light pit pat of the grains meeting the floor and the soft flutter of sparrows flying in for that generous meal, aha! It’s a mundane act, so full of compassion that its magic is so fleeting; it made me smile and thank the goodness in us all for making me a witness to it.    

Breakfast. Play. Night out. Food. Over and over I kept repeating the words, by now it was clear they demanded retention, assuring me of a well strung set..

5. Love. A lady stands with two dogs on leash, both standing in sync tall and proud of their doting human parent. No she was not cuddling and caressing either of them but a fellow third dog, albeit a stray one but a distant cousin or friend from another life. The joy with with he responded to her touch and the indulgent affection she showered on him even while her two own stood by..

This was getting tough for me, what with the short term memory retention issues I face.. yet I persisted - Breakfast. Play. Night out. Food. Love.

6. Privilege.  A black SUV, with very dark tinted glasses, and a big Maharashtra govt number plate is parked on the side of the road. A girl sits in, clearly waiting for her partner to come back. As I cross the car I see a group of young men sharing chai and smokes and whiling away an early morning in general, on my return from the same route I see one of those boys but his smoke and head back to the car. Citizens of the country are made to strip off the tinted shields from their cars after a case of molestation with a fine to all those who disobey. Yet this young chap, clearly a son of one of the great leaders of our country drives a vehicle with dark tinted glasses. As he turns on the ignition I think, what’s the point of privilege if its almost always exploited.

The rhythm set, my limbs flowing in sync with each other, not a move out of place, albeit slow but maintaining the rhythm. This mantra seemed to be helping. Breakfast. Play. Night out. Food. Love. Privilege.  

7. Solitary. It was like someone cut-pasted her out of a countryside scene into this urban landscape. There she was, this frail, old lady with a stack of firewood cradled with one arim on her head and a bundle of her belongings held protectively in the other. She walked barefoot on this narrow cobbled road as I jogged by and it almost felt like I was an out of place coloured blotch in this classic candid black and white photograph/ I almost saw her in black and white.

Now it was getting tough, both the run and the retention. ‘I am not playing this stupid game anymore,’ the mind says. Hmm. Breakfast. Play. Night out. Food. Love. Privilege. Solitary.      

8. Muscle moving on from that almost skeletal frame I see this mammoth creature, weighed down by his bulk. Rippling muscles from every sinewy his body, this man walks on in that classic body builder gait. We seemed to exchange a look that said, “Ah we all do what we think we want, sometimes not doing what we really need.”

‘Ok, now that’s it, you don’t think this is silly this Breakfast, Play, Night out, Food, Love, Privilege, Solitary, Muscle! They don’t even mean anything. How about we slow down and enjoy this gorgeous breeze’

Aha, nice, the mind was actually retaining it, so I said, ‘No, just a couple more, don’t disturb me now.’    

9. Study. I have completed a circuit around Bandra’s promenades by now and head towards Joggers park; just as I enter I see a boy slip but catch himself just before he tripped, another scene for my mind to get curious about.  The boy bends down to pick up a packet of biscuits that fell to the muddy track. As he bends picking up his snack for the day, my eyes trail to his left hand holding the bible of most last minute studying students - the Navneet Digest. I smile as I remember all those years ago, those last minute attempts to remember one line answers. I wonder though, how he planned to study in the midst of the many distractions in the park, but then I think who am I to judge.

I am not moving another step, I hear my mind say just as an alarm of my limbs slowing down strikes. Err no you don’t! Panic! What was it? Privilege? Something to do with dogs? What was it! I can’t remember!

BREATHE. Calm Down.

Ahh, something to do with an important part of the day? Ah yes! Breakfast.

Breakfast. Play. Night out. Food. Love. Privilege. Solitary. Muscle. Study.      

10. Celebration. The street is a buzz with the inaugural ceremony of an edifice made in honour of Sachin Tendulkar, on an otherwise quiet Sunday. Honestly I’d rather they have invested all that money in cleaning up the beach beyond the promenade. Rather I see it all neatly covered so as not to mar the celebrations of the day, a token to our favourite son of Bandra they say!

A new scene, I am glad the mind found something intriguing enough to overlook the apparent exhaustion during this last kilometer. Let’s check again what was it..

Breakfast. Play. Night Out. Food. Love. Privilege. Solitary. Muscle. Celebration      

What’s happened amazed me as every scene I came across triggered a thought. Each one of them could have lead to a barrage of thoughts and pretty much foiled my 10 km run plan. But the thoughts seemed to work in unison, they singled out a world representing each of them making it a string of montages and memories. What is a mantra but a set of world designed to help you maintain a single minded focus, this was it. The mantra that formed itself during the course of my run and made me repeat it till the end. It was a sum total of all my thoughts during the run and at the same time a focused rendition of one entirety with each thought somehow in sync with the next.    

Why have I shared this post on a travel blog you ask? because my mind travels even when I run. 

The Key

‘Germans are a cold, uninvolved people’ so I was told before my travels to the country.

Do you agree? When you travel to a destination, is your interactions with the locals of relevance? It’s a deal clincher for me - interactions with people I meet each time I travel, they are the ones that transform an experience into a memory and to think I was on my way to meet cold, uninvolved people; hmm, I was about to test that.

It was our first morning in the city of Munich. We landed at 5.45 am and were to reach our home-stay by 7.45 am. Stephie and Stephan, the young couple we were staying with left for work early in the morning which meant we had to collect the key by 7.45 am. Reaching later meant hanging around with our bags for the rest of the day waiting for them to return back home.

As per earlier correspondences with them during bookings, we were also to give them a heads up from the airport once we land, that would give a fair idea about our time of arrival at their home. As it turned out, all stores were shut at the airport and our plan of buying a local sim card to get in touch with our hosts went kaput. So there was no way we could communicate with them about our whereabouts on the move should we reach late.

Logic – an evasive yet essential quality a traveller must possess. Though it is quite lost without the esoteric qualities of hope and impulse I assure you. But for this case let’s consider logic; which clearly said we were not going to reach in time even though we were in Germany, where things work; and that too at the speed of light. Expecting our hosts to wait back until we reached would have been a little too much. So the natural state of mind that early morning was not a groggy one but an alert and charged one at that.

As we headed out from the airport to catch the S8, the train line connecting us from Munich international airport to Hauptbahnhof, the city centre which is approximately an hour away; we met Noam, a musician from Isreal studying at the university. He noticed how wired we were and got chatting. My travel companion and sister Yuktie batted her eyelids and got right to it.

‘What, not you? You are the shy one?’ You might ask? Ah yes, contrary to what appears, this well travelled, globe-trotting girl is a shy thing. But ever so often when the moment feels like it she shares a part of her soul with a fellow traveller, but then it is just that. Not so much as a chat, a banter, connecting over Facebook after, no, none of that. Sharing a few thoughts with a perfect stranger and in turn being given a share of their experience, that’s half the simple pleasure I get from travelling. And then who knows, I might just meet them on another trip, in another part of the globe, and that would make for such a gorgeous story, yes!        

There I go again, aha, coming back to this story, where was I? Yes, on the S8 onward to the city centre, seeing my sister happily flirt away with Noam the musician I look out the tinted shield of the tube flying us through the landscapes of Munich, ever aware of that ticking clock, getting ever so close to 8’o’clock.  

It was 7.45 by the time we reached Hauptbahnhof from where we had to look for the connecting train to Schwanthalerhöhe, the station closest to the home-stay.

Did I tell you I failed a navigation exercise at a mountaineering course I did years ago? Getting lost is another forte it seems, and this is one of those moments I did it with flourish! Even though there were detailed maps all around us, Stephie had shared detailed directions too but in that web of trains and routes I was lost. How? You ask. Here’s a comparative example - if you are from Bombay. Imagine you’ve reached Dadar (central station) and need to head to Bandra. You find the right platform and happily wait for the train to arrive. But just after you’ve entered the train and look triumphantly at the map, you realise you have taken the train in the opposite direction towards Chembur! That’s what happened, by which time we had crossed a couple of stations. So with a backpack and trolley bag in hand we routed back to the central station and were finally directed to the correct platform, this time in the correct direction.

10 minutes to 8 o’clock and I was like a ticking time bomb. All those moments during college rushed back to my memory when friends called me a ticking time bomb, and I thought how right they were! Missing the first few minutes of a new film or being late for that musical was unthinkable and should you be with me for those minutes before an almost late arrival, let’s just say you would be best pals with the minutes and seconds handles on my watch.

Stephie and Stephan had shared with us elaborate directions of how to reach their home in the form of illustrated maps and coloured arrow marks; which I found extremely detailed and sweet coming from the reputation their country folk had. I swiped them out just seconds before the train halted at the station. Quickly stepping out of the train with all those bags in hand, high on adrenalin, swiping out my smart phone to check the next left or right. Yuktie reaches out to the person nearest as we head out for directions and before she could so much as say ‘Hi’ this tall, blue eyed man calls out, Hi, are you Diipti? I zone out of my state of panic and register this stranger with a bright smile; thinking ah I can’t be that famous already! He introduces himself  “Hi I am Stephan! I was heading for work and thought maybe I’ll find you at the station.”

He had been waiting for us at the station with the key to his home for ten minutes before heading for work that morning.

What were the odds of this happenstance? Trains and platforms as in all parts of the world are long and crowded. Yuktie and I were on the left-most compartment of the train. We could have gotten off and walked in the opposite direction. Stephan could have been standing at the other end of the station. But what were the odds of us arriving within a few minutes of him waiting for us there with the key, there - just at the spot where we got off! What were the odds.

Cold, uninvolved – not in the least! I can’t imagine a more involved, concerned gesture from a perfect stranger. Stephan not only was waiting at the station to give us a key to his home but also escorted us out in the right direction from the station almost heading back home with us. 

That right there is the best example of busting clichés and stereotypes about people when we travel.

The next time you visit Munich and are looking for a place to stay, I recommend Stephie and Stephan's home, they really make you feel like its your home.

(Note: This was a self sponsored trip, the hosts where adorable enough to spend time with us chatting about Stephie's recent visit to India and our mutual wanderlust.)

I Used to Travel to Escape

I used to travel to escape

Escape the familiar, the complex

I ask myself now, was it just that?

Was it not my instinct to explore, reach out, change

A beckon from the pulse of the intrepid, the surge of chaos?   

Now I travel to understand

Understand that people essentially everywhere are good

That goodness I feel when I am part of a sunrise,

That rush when I catch a train on time.

For a moment, a silent prayerful moment

In the blue mosque

I see a little girl

Silently observe the world go by

With a hand absentmindedly holding on to her grand dad.

Its just that. This pleasure of our travels,

It takes us by the hand

Silently, playfully,

Through the world’s wonders, its colours its splendours

For just that one magical moment, that warm smile from a stranger,

That is what I travelled all those miles away to experience,

Now, 

I travel to feel.   

To feel, to believe.

I Have Been Here Before

It was summer then, with the tips of rooftops awash with crisp sunshine, bright colours like fairies reflecting its surfaces. Now amidst this white powder snow, I marvel at the stark beauty; Ladakh makes sure it welcomes me with each time I visit. This is at Thiksey Gompa, one of the most visited, a must do on the tourist trail in Ladakh.

Would you go back to the Eiffel tower, each time you travel to Paris? May be you dint go all the way to the top the last time? Perhaps you would revisit a sunset at the queen’s necklace in Bombay; for a sun set after all has a different magic to it each time. For all the summers I travelled to Ladakh, this was the first winter I witnessed. If the place has a charming mystery to it in summers, the allure manifests in its every iota in winters, mesmerised I was, yes.

I am not much of a dancer; and in those layers of winter wear, moving, barely so. You don’t suppose a rhythmic step or two would be a part of the script that day, yet here I was singing and gracefully swinging along. Was it me or the magic I could feel throbbing through this landscape?

This was January 2013, just before I walked the Chadar trek, across the Zanskar valley. It was a quick day trip, just before we went off the grid, onto the seclusion of that icy white trail. It felt like home, it felt my own.

Is that another rhyme I see?

Aha yes, Ladakh tends to do that to me.  

Calling All Digital Nomads, Head to Ghoomakad

Quitting a day job and running away to the hills seems like a romantic idea? We entertain it over a cuppa and conversations with friends, but leave it at that. And then I met a group of people who went ahead and did it. This is their story.

The welcoming party, Team Ghoomakad 

Digital Nomads

Fine things churn out of debauchery, so say the likes of those who have tasted extremes. Ayush Ghai and Pratyush, founders of mindgrep.com and Metataste, a personalised movie discovery engine perhaps experienced an epiphany, a calling on one of those traffic ridden commutes from their Delhi city existence. “I just want to go to the hills and never come back, are you in?” Ayush asks his long standing footloose friend Pratyush. And the story begins.  

(l-r) Pratyush, Jubin and Ayush

They set out to Himachal, lived out of their rucksacks, digital nomads pruning the city air out of their systems. “I am not going back, I don’t know about you” said Pratyush, smitten by the mountain air. Yes, I’d like that too, but we need to look for a place to set base,” replied Ayush. Now both the young lads, digital nomads, entrepreneurs in their right, yet still they needed a base, an anchor, not a hotel, something they could make their home in the hills. A quest for such an anchor thus began, they travelled through the villages, knocked on every door, explained their purpose. The stars aligned in a little village called Rakkar, 12 kms away from the popular tourist town of Dharamshala.

From the Founder

Our host Mohinder with Guddi

Meet Mohinder Sharma, resident of Rakkar, visionary among his people, and the first in his family to receive an education. He is well aware of concepts like sustainable development, eco tourism and was looking to connect with like-minds to help him kick-start his ideas. He said, “We are shepherds by profession; our ancestors led a nomadic existence travelling from one pasture to the other. Our homes were simple, made of mud and stone. They kept us warm in winters and kept out the heat in summers. Besides they looked so beautiful. And when we moved on, the people after us could use all that natural building material for their farms. Now with everyone building fixed ugly dabba cement homes, it only pollutes the environment. So I decided to build my home in a sustainable way just like my ancestors and invite travellers into my home for an authentic Himachali home stay experience.”

“I found it difficult to reach out to travellers, to share the idea of Ghoomakad with travellers and when Pratyush and Ayush landed at my door step, it was exactly what I needed.”

With a home base, wifi in the hills, these tech boys were all set to live their dream. Waking up to the sight of the Dhauladhar maintain range, a game of soccer with the village kids and then off to work by the stream flowing nearby, a work space and home stay with all the amenities of a city and the picturesque mountain-scapes was all set up. Jubin Mehta, a writer and story teller who joined the two tech boys a year back shares, “Once on a trek to Triund, I was travelling solo so had carried all my tech bags along, tech gadgets included and when I reach the top of the hill I was surprised to find amazing data connectivity at the top too. What more could I have asked for!” Moving to the mountains followed suit.  

Ayush notes suggestions during a brainstorming session with villagers, in the midst of a weave   

Glocalisation & Collaboration

My preference of stay to each destination I travel has always steered towards student hostels or home stays as opposed to hotels. I have found the experience of living with a local and exploring its flavours that much more wholesome than the objective hotel experience. And with online platforms like Airbnb connecting people, it is just a matter of time when hotels will cease to be the first choice for accommodations.    

Ghoomakad I’d say, it is an ideal experience for digital nomads, entrepreneurs and travellers alike. At Ghoomakad I experienced glocalisation in its truest form; with an evening spent watching live webcasts from Germany about the future of computing and the next spent with locals discussing organic farming initiatives and sustainable infrastructure in the village. It was amazing to see the openness with which the city bred tech brains aligned their thought processes with that of the simple, practical farmer and house maid, the toughest problems being solved with the simple collaborative ideas. This element of involvement is what was endearing.

Travel, yes; but if while travelling you’d like to do something, contribute to a sustainable goal, head to Ghoomakad, a work space, a home stay in the hills for wanderers and thinkers alike.

Website: http://ghoomakad.im/

Email: ghoomakad.im@gmail.com

Call: 09882226638 (Mohinder)

The Perfect Home Stay in the Himalayas - Navek-La

28^th Dec, 2013

I am sitting with a glass of home brewed peach liqueur at Navek-La, the home of Brig. Sandhu, in a quaint village called Rakkar near Dharamshala in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, India.

Am I a city girl? I have been born and brought up in one. So, maybe yes, I am familiar with the speed, amenities, chaos and clamour of a city. But ever so often I zone out – to another world, a cocoon of green, with sparkling gems of every colour winking through its open spaces. It is my little space to shut the world out from, and all this just in my little head.

Navek-La is the manifestation of that cocoon.

Naturally, you understand why I am mesmerised. A home-stay with all the simplicity of a mountain home yet an endearing old world charm, a home beautifully curated with the choicest amenities and open for travellers. Without my knowing, I was led to a space that I needed, to unwind, distress, rejuvenate, to write.

A week-long stay in the mountains with the luxury of time by your side – wishful thinking while at my desk with a pile of work yet undone. A chance meeting, an impulsive decision, and here I am, writing to you, at a home stay in the midst of the Himalayas.

I chance upon the existence of Navek-la through a sliver of conversation in the digital matrix. A home-stay hidden, with all its fruit and flowering trees camouflaging its plush persona; I think, oh I must go check it out at least.

So we set out on a quest looking for this elusive Navek-La with but a few coordinates as reference. We have a vague idea about a Brig. Sandhu being the owner but for some reason cannot reach him. So we go about asking the villagers of its whereabouts but no one seems to know. Did I imagine its surreal scapes or was it for real? I wondered. So I request my sister and co-traveller Yuktie to check whether such a place indeed exists, by which time having explored most of the village, we walk up to the local cafe and order a pahadi chai. A quick Google search leads her to the correct contact number (notice the talk of a Google search while on the move in the mountains, a pointer towards the amazing data connectivity we have up here in the mountains) and a detailed conversation with the Brigadier later we are off to find Navek-La yet again. But at least this time I know it exists!

I think it was a conspiracy to get us to reach this place around the magic hour. What’s the magic hour you ask? A photographer’s delight it is, yes, the way the rays of the sun filter through the sky just an hour or two before sunset, to give a gorgeous golden glow to everything it touches. Just around that hour, we reached the gate where the brigadier welcomed us to his abode.

A special someone asks in amazement, “How do these things happen to you? Happenchance I say, a more elaborate reasoning would be that things don’t just happen to you, they show you a glimpse of themselves, all you need to do is believe, pursue and the magic will unfold.

Beyond the limits of my computer screen now lies a patio under a canopy of grape vines, surrounded by a variety of fruit and flowering trees. I write now listening to the sound of a stream flowing from the mountains to my right, it could lull me off to sleep but for the chirpy twitter to my left where a variety of robins hop from one tree to the other, orchestrating quite a rendition.

Did I tell you about my love for fruits? When you travel to a new destination, whats the first thing you do? Some would make a bee line to the nearest bar or go check out the most popular attractions as the first thing they do when they land in a new destination. I head to the local farmer’s market to sample the fruits of the season. And

here I was in Brig. Sandhu’s gardens, which hosts a variety of 28 fruit trees and shrubs. I cannot begin to describe to you the pleasures of sampling a home grown passion fruit, freshly plucked from the garden. It is nothing much to look at from the outside, just an average sized round brown fruit. Even as you slice it into two, it’s dark seeds and tangy mush with a citric fragrance are quite nondescript. But the second that concoction touches your taste buds – the tizzy they undergo is just otherworldly.

And this was just the beginning, what with a bumper crop of kiwi, goose berries, Pomelos and lemons; a variety of citrus fruits in winter I can’t begin to imagine the overload to the senses come spring and harvest season!     

Ikroop Sandhu in a candid moment 

“You will love it in the spring,” says Ikroop Sandhu, the Brigadier’s daughter and my new friend. “All the flowers will be in bloom. But what I love must about it is, each morning, all I have to do is just step out and I can pluck from a variety of fruits for my morning breakfast.”

29^th December, 2013

I am sitting with a glass of home brewed peach liqueur at Navek-La, the home of Brig. Sandhu, in a quaint village called Rakkar near Dharamshala in the northern state of Himachal, India.

Today has been one of the most exclusive evenings I have lived. Exclusive – I use this word to accentuate the quality of people and experiences I am in the midst of.

At night after a home cooked opulent meal, we head to a grand old fireplace, the Brigadier lowers himself to a leather chair by the blazing fire, which by now all of us kids are huddled around. While I sip my glass of Old Monk, he smiles with that twinkle in the eye which I now know means a story is brewing. With a soft drawl that blends in perfectly with the crackling fire, he sets on about a tale of when the mountain rats consumed all the Rum in the army supplies chamber. He churns one story after the other from his days back in the army and we travel through his memories from Sri Lanka to Siachen.

Leo wont let me write, so I decide to capture a few photographs of him, memories.

An ideal home must have a dog, may be two; this has three! Meet Leo the muscle, Tinky the sleepy one and Bella, sweet gorgeous British bella, ever ready to play. But of Leo I have a few stories to tell, Late one evening, we decided to step out for a walk, the sun had set and most patches on the road were dark, after a few meters, the sounds of the forest played havoc in our heads and we wondered whether it was a good idea to step out. We were heading to a friend’s place less than a kilometre away, yet still. Just when we though may be its wise to turn back, we hear a rustle through the leaves. My frightened sister screamed and as I turned around to investigate - Leo pranced forth. He walked straight ahead then turned his head slowly back to us, as if to say, ‘No need to fear the darkness, come, I’ll lead you.’ With Yuktie still clutching her heart I excitedly say, “I know you’ve come to escort us have you not!”  ‘Err yaa!’ He looks back nonchalant at me. A non seen toothy grin from me and we follow him to our destination. Another time when we returned from an all day excursion, we were welcomed by wagging tails, yes, but as I approached the loosely tied gate behind which leo stood, in true cinema style he stood up, a strong shove with his 6 foot standing tall height and the next second his paws are on my shoulders, the greeting of a long lost friend!

Only a non pet having dog lover could bother with such details, ahh.  

When it snows at Navek-La

I can go on about my perfect vacation in this gorgeous homestay, but then I must leave the rest of it for you to discover too. To sample the rainbow of fruits and get intoxicated by the fragrances of the flowers in spring, I promise to be back, inshallah I will.

www.navek-la.com

You can get in touch with Brig. Sandhu at jodhbirsingh_sandhu@yahoo.com

(This was a self sponsored stay; the hosts were kind and gracious to extend their hospitality and sent me home with a basket full of passion fruits, kiwis and gorgeous memories)