its me!!

Do you know digging ditches can make the world a better place? You don’t? Don’t worry. I didn’t either. Not until I went to Spiti and dug one myself! *** ‘Spiti is pretty, and you do get to travel around but staying with the locals is something you don’t get anywhere else. That’s the best part,’ Ishita Khanna, founder of Spiti Ecosphere explained the program that we had enrolled in. We all nodded in unison. ‘You stay with them, observe their routine, help solve their problems,’ the promise and anticipation continued. To  solve their problems , we were going to dig trenches. Dig trenches? How will that help?  I wondered. ‘Spiti is a cold desert. We barely get any rainfall here but ample snowfall. So, the trenches you work on, get filled with snow in winters. The snow melts in summers and increases the water-table.’ *** Geared with picks and shovels, we marched towards the fields. The prospect of making a difference in someone’s life thrilled me....

The first case of COVID-19 was reported in India in January 2020. Not many paid any heed till the lockdown was declared. It was hard to ram the bitter truth down the throat about my quashed travel plans due to Chinese misadventures. To spend my time productively , I buried myself in books. Their storylines were based in fascinating locations: Iran, Kashmir, Vietnam, and Mussoorie. I related the most with Ruskin Bond’s autobiography. He recounted several commonplace instances of his life with grace and appeal, resurfacing several of my own. They were rather commonplace instances yet stayed with me even after decades. Road trips to Kaimganj fall in such category. **** Every summer after the exams, Amma, Parul, Nupur and I, rushed to Kaimganj, a dusty town some 130 km from Kanpur. Usually, we traveled in the Pawan Express or the Passenger. Sometimes, when we were lucky, we got my grandfather’s jeep, a luxury without the need to rush to the station or queue up to get the tickets or s...

I dashed to catch the 14:43 fast local to Dadar. The next one was scheduled only after fifteen minutes. Not that a pretty one was waiting for me or I had anything specific to achieve, still I didn’t want to miss the 'fast local with empty seats'.  ‘Why’, You ask?  Then you must not have seen a local without empty seats. During the rush hour, the number of humans traveling in a local is more than half the population of Belgium.  No, that’s not a statistically proven statement and am sure its incorrect, but you get the hint. People jostle to get in and then can’t even scratch themselves due to intertwined limbs wedged under the deluge of humanity in the compartment. ‘Is this going to Dadar?’ I asked the old man sitting on the window seat. ‘You don’t even know where the train is going and yet you boarded it!’ the old man remarked with an irritated frown as if he was doing something important and I had disturbed him. Grumpy bugger , I said to him. In my head. Assuming ...

I wheezed my way to Butit’s place, which was going to be my home for the next 3 nights. Two months of Yoga doesn’t necessarily prepare you for a hike at 4200 m. Is the darkness due to deficiency of light or of oxygen in my body ? I wondered. The entrance to Butit’s house was a small green door that struggled to accommodate an average built Indian man. All the winter layering only added to the woes. The door opened to a dimly-lit passage, which smelt of spices, dust, and cow-dung. Bending was the only way to avoid banging my head with the ceiling. Heavy backpack and bent back made me gasp for air. The passage seemed overcrowded with 3 adults and 4 backpacks. “Please don’t expect any luxuries in the homestays. Houses in Demul are basic. That’s how you live like a local in Spiti.” Ishita Khanna, founder of Ecosphere had warned us before we left Kaza. Cheap stays on my travels aren’t new to me. Whenever my accommodation crosses the 3-digit mark, ‘traveler-not...

I like a girl. But I came to know through a common friend that the girl likes some other boy. A funny movie could have been made – a Romedy may be – had that boy liked some other girl and the sequence would have continued. I will confess in that situation my heartache would have been much lesser. Don’t you feel in shallower waters if people around you are in deeper ones? If you are surrounded by people going through similar or worse shit in life, life doesn’t feel that shitty. Alas, the boy is clearly wasn’t after some other female and sadly the two are dating. I have been through this situation for a little too many times for my liking. The first love of my life is married to a friend of mine who is tall, dark, handsome and rich – and bald now – thanks to my curse! The second love of my life flunked in college many times and then moved on to join some obscure college. Thanks to my curse again. The third love of my life is having a gala time with her boyfriend. She is leading a lif...

There is a tea stall close to my house. He sells tea, samosas and vada pao. I should add, he sells amazing tea, and at a cost that is Re. 1 lesser than other tea sellers across Mumbai. I usually drink two cuttings. Cutting is a kind of unit. The small glass has a mark near its neck. Tea is filled upto that mark – and is called cutting. It’s not more than 3-4 sips. There is a shop next to the tea stall. In the morning, it remains closed. So it’s stairs becomes my sofa. I take the cutting, and rest my back on the shutter of the closed shop. It is strangely relaxing. I see people rushing all around. I guess that’s what gives me peace for those few minutes – that they are rushing, and I am not. Probably, that is the reason why I drink two cuttings: it lets me have peace for extra few minutes. There was a small broken wall opposite the tea stall. The morning sun would warm that area with its rays. Couple of days, I took the cutting and sat there, in the sun. Even though Mumbai win...

I was bang on the mark – a book a week – till my 17th book, which got completed in May. Then things went haywire, and the next few months went without reading. Am happy that the love for the books resurfaced and I started reading again. I read three books in about the same number of weeks, but am writing the review for this one first. I emotionally blackmailed my parents to gift me two books on Diwali: Playing it my way, and How to be interesting. Both the books cost more than 600/-, hence the blackmail . Well, quite a bit of hoopla was created around this book, and being Sachin Tendulkar’s autobiography, it deserved so. (Yes, I am going to be biased towards him for my whole life!) Boria Majumdar, a Rhode Scholar, co-authored the book. That he was a Bong, I assumed that the written content will be of top class. I was to get disappointed at many places throughout the book. On the contrary, the program that was hosted by Harsha Bhogle on the launch of the book was far more intere...