Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Poetry

In my first serious foray into reading poetry, I picked up a book I'd acquired from my brother's bookshelf. Nissim Ezekiel's Collected Poems. This poem has moved me (don't intend to infringe copyright by posting it here)...

Motives
Nissim Ezekiel

It's easy to remember
your body in its nakedness.
I dwell on it
as on a landscape
or a beloved painting.
Not the total form only
but the details interest me.
My motives are sexual,
aesthetic and friendly
in that order, adding up
to bed with you.
Your skin is white
but black or grey
would do just as well.
The eyes are large,
so are the breasts--
does size matter?
I don't think so.

Your thighs are full and round,
thin and flat I'd love them too.
There go my aesthetics.
In making love
certain things
for which I have a taste
you do not quite accept,
you dress again
rather hurriedly,
you do not speak,
you look away,
you are somewhat quickly over.
Never mind. I adjust myself.
So much for my sexual motives.
I stay with you, close to you,
so perhaps the friendly motive
absorbs the other two.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Matheran


Matheran, the pedestrian hill-station with red earth. The last time I was in Matheran I was around 16 years old I think. So it was after 20 years that I went there in early September. 
The first thing I have to say is that I was positively thrilled at the ease with which I got there. I left home (in Ahmedabad) at 6 am, took the flight to Bombay, a cab from the airport to Dadar station, the local train towards Karjat and got down at Neral, then a shared taxi from the Neral railway station up to Matheran, and finally after a sweaty 45-minute walk with my rucksack (filled with some books... pant pant...) I reached the guest-house just after noon. In fact, it would be just as cool going by train – taking an overnight train from Ahmedabad to Bombay that stops at Dadar – that way I can have a smaller ecological footprint and even the cab from the airport to Dadar station can be avoided.
The monsoons were in full swing which was nice. The verandah at Rugby Hotel, and later the verandah at what used to be called Barr House – now a Neemrana property called “Verandah in the Forest” - were absolutely lovely places to lounge about, both to watch the rain and mist and to read and work on my writing. 
pages curling from the intense moisture in the air
rugby hotel verandah
When the rain stopped and I felt the need to stretch my limbs, I went for a walk through the mist. The mist cleared during only one of my walks to give me a lovely view of the valley below and the hills beyond. I reached this viewing spot quite unexpectedly. I'd noticed a narrow curving path between the hedges and trees during one of my walks and I had to take it. Emerged in a clearing at the edge of a cliff. The mist was less thick and there I stood, looking at the sunlight breaking through the clouds to stream down on to a small hillock across the valley. There was not a soul in sight anywhere. Only a group of youngsters, in silhoutte, in the distance on an adjoining hill. I went back the next day with my camera, only to find that I could not see anything beyond 10 metres. In a way that was good – the experience of the previous day could not have been repeated in any case. And some moments are best not captured on camera, for then they are more free to become a lovely memory in the recesses of the mind.
watchman and his umbrella, at rugby hotel
companion on one of my walks (don't know why this dog took to me; they never do usually. he refused though to look at the camera)
mist curling around the trees
I was enchanted with the ruined colonial-era bungalows scattered all over the place, and which looked all the more eerie in the mist. Hill-stations were made by the British as places of refuge from what they felt were the dusty plains, places where they could recover from the illnesses they seemed to contract in the plains. Their elite “native” collaborators took to the hill-stations too, perhaps more so near Bombay with its particular history of British-era “native” elites. I took my camera with me only once during these walks, when I went specifically to find a sanitorium that had been built during the colonial period, now in ruins and covered with moss and undergrowth.
gate of a colonial-era bungalow

sanitorium photos below:





And to end this blog-post with something entirely of the present: 
one, Shiv Sena's presence in Matheran. 
and two, "hope hall hotel since 1875" 
which has certainly been true to its word and given Matheran "a touch of the new"

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Back

It has been exactly a year since my last post. Where time flies. Saying those three innocent words is tempting me to launch into a philosophical rant, but I shall not. Instead let me say what I came to say, which is that I hope to be back on this blog real soon - it has been dormant for too long. In a couple of days I am leaving for a much-needed holiday up north. Looking forward to getting out in good weather and walking a lot. If I don't lose my camera like I did the last time I went up to the mountains, there shall be photos from my trip on the blog before the end of June. So keep tuned.

Meanwhile, here is a photograph I recently took of a Yellow-tailed Ashy Skimmer at Thol, the bird sanctuary near Ahmedabad. 


When I found my photos of the dragonfly I had spotted last year on a dhobi's clothesline on the Sabarmati riverfront, it turned out to also be a Yellow-tailed Ashy Skimmer. A real beauty.


 (this one has a semi-broken wing... though to my eye, this did not seem to affect its flight)


I was reading a bit about dragonflies recently - will post some titbits when I get time. One titbit that I remember and which I find fascinating is that dragonflies lay eggs only in clean water, and therefore their presence is one indicator of the well-being of our waterbodies and wetlands. 
But as I said, tidbits on dragonflies later... when I get some time. There is also some stuff I want to write  on Thol and Nal Sarovar, the two bird sanctuaries near Ahmedabad. Has to do with how the Gujarat Government has (or has not) been dealing with these as ecologically sensitive zones. Soon.. soon.