Experiences

30 sweet seconds to enjoy a winter full moon in an inky black sky framed by the bare branches of a tree looking like a Van Gogh painting at Lonavala. 30 alone seconds to watch the tops of the 100 feet casuarina trees outside our cottage at Dive Agar erupt into a confusion of yellow as two dozen Golden Orioles rose out of it to the accompaniment of a cacophony of twitter. 30 all-too-short minutes to enjoy the biting cold of early Delhi morning at Chanakya Puri, watching school kids bundled up in woolens going to school, like so many bees. Four achingly nostalgic hours to dash from Marina Beach to Saravana Bhavan to Mount Road to Besant Nagar Beach, remembering those crucial three years of shedding small town-ness, growing wings, growing up, falling in love, being betrayed, picking up guys at a fast food restaurant on a bet, pillion riding to Mahabalipuram on a bike... Vignettes framed sharply by the strict confines of time to enjoy them--like looking through someone else’s photo albu...

You need to be in a state of preparedness to visit the Sundarbans. I suggest that you wait until you are over 30 and have experienced a few knocks, some heartbreak, and a little disappointment in life. It would help if you had ever searched for anything—God, happiness, truth, yourself. It might also be useful to believe that it is necessary to get lost to find your way. If you are the sort of person who finds music in the sound of the quiet lap of water against the tarred hull of the boat or the metaphor of life in drifting along endless waters on a little vessel, then you are ready for the magnificent mangroves. Because the Sundarbans is not for the weekend holidayers, the types who would want to drink beer, scratch their bum/crotch/head/something, throw plastic and Styrofoam into the water with impunity, and hope to get laid. I only hope that the crocodiles that eat them would not develop indigestion. It is important to find the right tour guide for the Sundarbans, as we did. Bi...

My Neighbor Totoro (1988) This is a gem of a movie—precious, joyous, enchanting and a little sad. It’s about a childhood where there are adventures to be had at every corner, spirits and creatures in the forests to frolic with, of cat buses and furry trolls, of plucking corns and driving sooty sprites away with laughter. It’s about big fat tears and wonderful giggles. It’s about breathtaking visuals and lyrical moments. It’s about two girls—short-haired and lanky Satsuki (about 10 years old) and her cuddly pig-tailed baby sister Mei (about four years old.) They move into rural post war Japan with their professor father to be near their long-term ill mother in a nearby hospital. Their house is old, rickety, falling apart in places and most importantly, allegedly haunted.  There is a giant camphor tree in the yard that looks all mysterious. The girls are excited and just a bit scared. They settle down to their new life with zest and cartwheels.  Mei follows her sist...

On the boundaries of my childhood territory was this ancient ruined temple. Silent coconut palms stood over fallen granite columns and abandoned moss covered stone idols. The temple tank was but a small hole in the ground, overgrown with weeds and laden with lily flowers during season. People seldom passed through the temple premises. One heard of spirits and sprites. Even the lone pujari seemed frightened of it—he used to come early in the morning and leave not soon after. Now, if I had but a tenth of the imagination of the Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki, I would’ve grown up to write wonderfully enchanting magical tales about the place, full of woodland spirits and pagan Gods and friendly otherworldly creatures. But alas, I’m but an ignorant hack who hadn’t even heard of the master until yesterday—and then only because my nephew set up a Miyazaki marathon to take my mind off my pesky flu. The first five minutes were enough for me to get completely addicted to the ...

O Babe of the Bayou, Big Easy on the Big River, Cousin of Cajun, Creator of Creole, Mother of Mardi Gras, Queen of Voodoo, Purveyor of Gumbo, I bow to thee! For indeed thou art the hope, succor, and ultimate recourse to the depressed and debauched, serious and quirky, prosaic and bizarre. All my doubts about why New Orleans is called the Crescent City vanished as our flight descended. The mighty Mississippi (mighty indeed at this point) made a sharp U turn and formed a perfect crescent of a delta. We are told ad nauseam that New Orleans is built on layers and layers of alluvial soil that the river has been depositing on the delta for centuries. Which means that the city has no rock bed foundation. It is built on mud, which makes everything sink--buildings, roads, anything that depends on terra firma. On the other hand, buried things come floating up during storm flooding, like coffins. Which is why, as most of you might already know, the good people of New Orleans decided to bui...

The Ford Theater (a.k.a. Oriental Theater), a Broadway in Chicago theater, is a very entertaining building to be inside of. It was built as a movie theater in 1926 and is said to have been inspired by the temples of India. Its lushly gilt-edged art-deco interiors are a riot of South Indian temple architectural motifs: lattices, peacocks, swans, the south Indian version of the dragon called the Yali (I read somewhere that it was inspired by the sphinx of Egypt), lotuses, and decorative columns. But what amuse me most are the statues, which clearly represent a western interpretation of “native” Gods. The designers must have gotten their inspiration from the paintings of condescending Raj painters, some of whose work are on display at the Victoria Memorial in Kolkata. So, right above the stage on the roof is a sexually indeterminate divine who sits in the most unnatural pose, kind of squatting while bending his/her arms out, all of which look pretty uncomfortable. And at his/her sid...

You know those fuzzy slippers-ratty PJs-limp hair-bar of chocolate-tub of ice cream days when all you want to do is to vegetate on the couch? You are perhaps depressed, lazy, anti-social, nursing a miserable cold, or confined indoors by inclement weather. You may be even celebrating a long awaited off after a particularly hectic stretch at work. What do you do on such occasions? Me—I watch low investment-high entertainment feel good romantic comedies. I do declare that there is nothing like a warm, witty rom-com full of beautiful people, clever banter, and just enough sex to pick one’s spirits and restore one’s hope for humanity. However there is one problem. They threw away the template of intelligent, edgy, and quirky rom-coms after they made When Harry Met Sally. And Woody Allen is definitely does not believe in knowledge sharing. So we are left with a dearth of good movies in this genre, with every new one failing miserably to get its act together. In the straight world that...