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Walking Back
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Monthly Archives: June 2010
Rain Trees And Sun
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While the monsoon continues, day-break brings new road-blocks.
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The local Rain Trees regularly shed their sodden boughs.
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To balance this annual attrition, new roadside trees are planted.
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But for now, blue skies promise – and deliver – a day of sunshine.
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Après Le Déluge
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“The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
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The south-west monsoon is with us until September.
After staying for several months there will be a short respite.
Then more rain: the north-east monsoon.
Five months of heavy, but fortunately, intermittent rain;
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And the parade ground given over to cattle.
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A Question Of Balance
It was one of those mornings.
The local LG Service Centre had called to say my DVD player was ready for collection, following its recent malfunction. I decided to combine the trip with buying coffee.
The taxi driver was new to me; his driving style unnerving.
The weather was poor.
Rain
And more rain.
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For an hour, I sat in the back of the car.
The driver alternated between rapid accelerations and emergency stops. His hand continuously sounded the horn.
I felt nauseous and bad-tempered.
We finally reached our destination. But the service centre had inexplicably re-located since my last visit. A move not mentioned when they called, and signed only by the damp sheet of paper, pasted on the door of the old premises.
Their new workshop was a few kilometres away, across the city.
Forty-five minutes and several phone calls later, we found it.
After waiting a while, the DVD player was produced. I asked to see it tested.
It failed.
I sulked.
During the return journey, following yet another emergency stop, I pointedly readjusted my seat-belt.
I put my hand on the driver’s shoulder and made it clear he must ration the use of his horn.
The rest of the trip was spent in relative silence, with me half-wishing the driver would make a foolish mistake, to further justify both my opinion of him, and my irritation.
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We reached Ravi’s Coffee Shop.
Ravi, himself, was there.
The sights and smells were comforting and absorbing.
Ravi’s quiet dignity; his calm, noble face; and his gentle smile brought me to my senses.
I started to see my frustrations in perspective. I began to laugh at myself.
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Living abroad entails many changes.
One of them is the loss of language proficiency.
Facing the challenge of LG’s repair-shop, and an over enthusiastic boy-racer, my first inclination had been sarcasm: a skill I spent decades honing before retirement.
But my Malayalam is non-existent, and local English is limited.
Sarcasm achieves nothing.
A more balanced approach to life’s small frustrations is now required.
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“Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration.. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less clearing up to do afterwards.” Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
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Coping With Cloud
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“Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“Every dark cloud has a silver lining, but lightning kills hundreds of people each year who are trying to find it.” Larry Kersten
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Road Works
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“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero..” Raymond Chandler
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“In our world of big names, curiously, our true heroes tend to be anonymous. In this life of illusion and quasi-illusion, the person of solid virtues who can be admired for something more substantial than his well-knownness often proves to be the unsung hero: the teacher, the nurse, the mother, the honest cop, the hard worker at lonely, underpaid, unglamorous, unpublicized jobs.” Daniel J Boorstin.
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The Aftermath
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The morning calm is deceptive.
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Last night’s storm was ferocious.
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Heavy branches have fallen.
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Power lines are down.
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Outside, driving is hazardous.
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Inside, candles still splutter.
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Fever Pitch
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Cricket has vanished.
For the duration of the World Cup, local boys play only football.
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In Kerala, Goa and Calcutta the game has always been popular.
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Though unlike cricket, it is usually just a spectator sport.
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Maybe, for most Indians, playing football entails too much running.
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But for now, football support has reached fever pitch.
Each evening, the roads are empty by 7:30.
Televisions are tuned into the sports channel;
Prayers made for an uninterrupted electric supply;
And Argentina declared the favourite.
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Revisiting
This week, in “The Hindu” newspaper, Pranay Gupte wrote of a reunion he attended.
It reminded me of a similar episode in my life. The feelings of estrangement that such events induce are probably inevitable.
Pranay Gupte finished his piece by saying:
“The past is not prologue.
When the past is gone, it is gone; no amount of imagery can truly reconstruct it.
There is no way I can translate my regret into something more meaningful. My past was lived in a different time, and although it will linger in my mind. I don’t think I will revisit it through another punishing journey. With every word I write, that past recedes, it moves away beyond my grasp. Perhaps just as well.”
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Revisiting the past is like turning to capture your shadow.
The image is immediately distorted. What we see, although attached to us, lacks full dimensions. It almost seems to mock us.
We are told “the unexamined life is not worth living“, but what we look at is a strange affair: a chimera. It should not be fully trusted.
The past cannot be viewed with innocent or unbiased eyes.
Its full truth is forever barred to us.
“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” L. P. Hartley.
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Morning Errands
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“True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one’s self, but the point is not only to get out – you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand.” From: Roderick Hudson (Henry James)
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Patron To The Arts
I bought my home in Kerala eighteen months ago.
My final choice of house, like the decision to settle 5,00 miles from all that might seem safe and familiar, was not entirely logical.
The house is far too big for my needs and the outside grounds too small for a garden.
But life is not logical.
My home and living on the Malabar coast both give me immense happiness.
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As if to confirm the eccentricity of my purchase, the deal included an old, run-down outhouse, complete with rubbish
inside
and out.
Although my priority was to get the main house in good decorative and working order, I often wondered what should be done with the annex.
But a solution has been found.
The out-house has been painted.
My electrician summoned:
Lights and a fan installed,
Mosquito mesh fitted.
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A local artist is to use the upstairs space of the outhouse
for a studio.
A make-shift desk is created.
Sumant, my house-boy, finds himself requisitioned as a life-model.
Art is underway.
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(Please don’t wince, Lucille!)
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Driving Downtown In The Rain
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I need to go downtown.
But looking out from my door, there is no escaping the monsoon.
All I can hear is the wind.
All I can see is the plentiful rain.
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Once it eases a little, deciding against the ferry, I take an auto:
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Business by the roadsides has quickly resumed.
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Work on the new bridge to the mainland has restarted.
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Only the fishing fleet remains anchored in enforced monsoon idleness.
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With errands completed,
I take the auto back across the bridge to sunshine,
colour
crowds
cattle
And all that remains of my umbrella.
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Monsoon Surgery
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In my small yard, stands an out-house and a few trees.
Monsoon rains have damaged a large branch next to the pomegranate tree.
My man Shaji makes the initial diagnosis. Urgent tree surgery is required.
Sebastian, the carpenter, is called.
He does not bring a saw: Sebastian prefers hammer and chisel.
His surgical assistant is in attendance;
As is Shaji;
And Shaji’s wife, Dalila.
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Soon the damaged branch has been neatly excised.
A post-operative audit is undertaken:
Pomegranates inspected;
The check-up completed;
Circulation to the out-house has been successfully restored.
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Caught In The Rush Hour
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“Rush hour: That hour when the traffic is almost at a standstill”
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I find I have fallen in love with my adopted home
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Fast Food at Café Krishna
It is Sunday.
I have no cook and four mouths to feed for breakfast.
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We set out by motorbike
and by auto.
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Sri Krishna Café is always busy.
The waiter, despite his unnerving tremor, is friendly and helpful.
We choose
Masala Dosa
And Onion Oothappams.
Then greedily, we all follow our meals with Vada
And, of course, chai (tea).
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The food is delicious.
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The bill is totalled up:
Four two-course breakfasts have amounted to 130 Rupees (less than £2 or $3)
Money well spent!
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Parties of One
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“We are born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.” Orson Wells.
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“Language… has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone.” Paul Tillich.
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The Morning After, The Night Before.
It is official. The monsoon has set.
On first hearing this phrase, I thought I might be experiencing an Al Gore moment, and that the monsoon must have finished early – extremely early.
But by setting, the monsoon has in fact arrived.
When I retired to my bedroom last night, the comfort of sleep was unaccustomedly difficult to find.
Instead, I was entertained by a mighty son et lumière performance.
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For over an hour my room became the stage on which searingly bright lights, cruelly sharp shadows, deafening sound and powerful tremors fiercely interplayed.
As dawn broke I questioned if an early morning walk would be possible.
But, other than a few puddles, life had returned to normal.
The beach was beginning to bustle:
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Footballers were back in position;
The cheerleaders their customary, sanguine selves.
A boy was opening my local tea-stand,
His first customer already waiting.
For young and old it was business as usual.
The sky was brightening,
The storm blown out.
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