Hunt for Namesake, Soul, etcetera...

As always, I have been pondering over a lot of stuff, and more so lately due to the overhaul in our life, the temporary country shift, et al. The ponderings have now become vocal and I seem to have become garrulous in extending the gyan to a few of my closest friends. And writing about them always helps me summarise, hence the following content.

My blog has been cluttered with the recent events in my life, mainly the break from career and staying across the world. Everyone goes through the emotional turmoil, of living a life of loneliness, away from kith and kin. The cultural difference and the very idea of ‘fitting in’ in someone else’s land is a huge task in itself. The legal formalities and extra cautiousness to adhere to all the paperwork does not make it easy. There remains a constant scare, a ‘flight’ stimulus that coaxes you to return to your own place at the first possible chance. I do not want to sound stereotypical. Some people do take to the new country like fish to water. Outliers, or otherwise, the people who settle down in the initial months survive happily, unlike us unlucky souls.

Amongst all the confusion, indecisiveness and contentions, a visit back home became necessary, just to remember our sane selves. The run-up to the trip was quite exciting, dreaming about Mom’s cooking, about playing with my pet, etc. but a day before the journey, you are again high-strung due to the distance, the getting-adjusted-to-IST thing, and the premonition of again leaving your loved ones behind when you will be travelling back. Yeah, I do tend to think a lot.

This is when I went into a self-rediscovery mode. Self-actualisation is a superhuman feat, but I believe knowing oneself to a large extent and empathy are two things that defines personality. There is a bit of Gemini in all of us, we are two human beings residing in one body. Our inner namesakes decide, with time, the extent of revealing oneself to the outer world. We call that the hunt for the soul, of finding the sheer meaning of existence. The more you talk to yourself, the more insights you get of the person you are.

Empathising plays a great role when this internal tête-à-tête happens with another person. The more you gauge your own life, the more you realise that the person in front of you has his / her own story to tell. Slowly, this entire empathising-behaviour gets internalised to the extent that every time you meet a person, you remember his preferences and biases, you try to read his mood and body language, and weigh any crises that might be existing before you open your mouth to rattle off about yourself. Obviously, your own bias and opinion about the person also shapes the conversation.

The above two paragraphs may or may not make any sense to you, maybe I am just rambling to myself. But as I said before, sometimes jotting down helps me frame my thoughts. Being home after a long self-imposed exile brought back childhood memories. You yearn for things to go back in time, when you wake up to the heavenly scent of Mom’s cooking, the familiar sound of the steel company’s timely sirens, the surprise at the voice of the same hawker who still passes by your street and best of all, the numerous people you meet on the road who remember you since as a child. And you are happy that the town is developing, with more shops at the local market, a new mall cum multiplex that has opened up, and the technological and fashion upgrade around the landscape.

What is sad, or scary, is that – while you were away, you have grown a year older. You have missed a precious year to be near your parents, to cater to their needs, to play with your dog, or to see your house requiring more repairs. Some things you feel are exactly the way you had seen last, but they astonish you the most because they would have definitely changed over the period. For you time stood still, with two visits a year. You expect the same scenario to be retained, but those memories bring the maximum heartache.

The last decade has been so hectic that I never had a chance to realise the importance of ‘moments’. In a hurry to rise up the career-ladder, I never took a step back to think and relive the old memories. Reading at the exact same spot where you used to study as a kid, the smell of oncoming winter, the sun-bathing on the veranda on a cold noon, mixed with of course the pampering and care received at home. Everything seems so simple and tension-free that it makes me glad to have grown up as a small-town girl, and to have such down-to-earth parents.

Soul searching or namesake hunt, the potpourri of emotions is what makes people interesting. As for me, I know that even talking or writing about the memories will not erase one prime state-of-mind: GUILT. I think many people feel the same, with the growing financial needs and cravings, we are never coming back to our beloved small towns. The getting-back-to-roots is never going to happen; the bigger task lies in accepting the same and carrying on with a normal life.

All we can do is reminisce about the past, implement the happy thoughts in the present, and hope to create a lovelier future. Amen!

When Mexico City was Tenochtitlan...

The Day 3 started with a small fiasco. We were really keen to see some more of the archeological history around the city, hence our target was the Museum of Anthropology. We wanted a slow morning and started off around 11.30 am for the museum. Little did we know that there will be almost 2km long queues at both the entrances! We circled the venue, thinking if there will be some alternate entrance for foreign tourists. There were none. We took another taxi back to the hotel, but there were road-blocks all around. The main roads were reserved for the skaters and cyclists on Sundays till 2pm, and it took 45 minutes to reach back. We were 400 pesos poorer and dejected at wasting the morning.

The Templo Mayor ruins were left to be seen, so we headed straight towards the site, after a brief break at the hotel room. En route, we entered the compounds of the Mexican Supreme Court and clicked some pictures of the interesting building structure.

Our major pain point was lack of English speaking crowd. The entry-point to the temple ruins also had a long queue, so we decided to have lunch instead and then head back. Both of us wanted some light lunch and searched for an unnamed street food that everybody seemed to be having. Finally it was located at those super-small 'thelas'. We ended up having chillis and bacon, and enchiladas at a local Bar-cum-Restaurant. The cheese could have been lesser though, no wonder the people (specially women) have such huge tires around their bellies.

We gawked at some local street dancers and the traditional dancers on the way. Curiously, the Mexicans seemed quite superstitious, similar to our culture - we came across enchanters on the road to drive away evil spirits, and people actually flocked to them. We reached the ruins around 4pm. It was another enriching experience. The huge area almost declared to us its past glory. The magnificent architecture has had lots of meditations, offerings and self sacrifices to the God, a tradition quite rampant during the Aztec era. The killings were abolished instantaneously with the Spanish conquest.

There were small boards with details written at each corner of the ruins. Interesting was the fact that there were quite a few teenagers, writing down notes from these boards, and clicking pictures on a Sunday afternoon. They all seemed to be on some school project. It kind of touched us since this seemed to be an ideal way to inculcate the importance of your own historical significance from an early age. You learn to respect that feeling throughout your life and pass it on to the next gen as well.

The temple used to have seven layers to maintain the inner sanctum. It was brought down by the Spanish soon after the invasion of the then Tenochtitlan (old name for Mexico City). There is a museum attached to the ruins that contains artifacts from the early age. With eight levels and hundreds of beautiful artifacts on display, we took almost an hour and a half to even scan through. Closing time was nigh and we did not have another day to come back.

We sometimes notice weird facts on our trips. One of them were the entry fees of each of the tourism sites - they are a standard 57 pesos, with no difference between locals and foreigners OR between the sites. This maybe to maintain equality of historical significance, or maybe we were deducing too much.

Late in the evening, we went to the local market again to experience the evening communal dances and smell the local food. Then we walked to the Monument of Revolution that we could see from our hotel room, and were curious to see it up front. The building is 52 mts high and was made during the first centennial celebrations. The colourful dancing fountain in the front had many people having a fun time in the water. We clicked some pictures and went up in the glass elevator, to the top of the building. The evening wind and the night-scape welcomed us with all its serenity. Some half an hour later, we came down from the building, only to see something totally unexpected. There was an open-air projection theater and Iron Man II had just started. Pleasant surprise there!

We headed back to the hotel room with warm thoughts of the day, and 312 pictures of the day in our camera. The entire city is a wonderful amalgamation of modern civilization with old architecture, all within walking distance. As I already said, the local people respect their own culture. There are various musicians on the roads as well. The people like to spend quality family time on Sundays, encourage their performers, eat to their heart's content, and live life in their own terms - no less than King size!

Our flight was in the early morning. A quick dinner later, we tucked in for the night and headed back to LA the next day.

Pre-Aztec era in Mexico

A lot of 'Gracias', 'Senorita', 'Por Favor', 'Amigo', and 'Hola' throughout Day 2's tour, we finally picked a few of the in-vogue words. I cannot put my finger on the highest point, yet I would say the experience at the Pyramids were supreme, along with tasting deer for the first (maybe only) time ever, and the Latin dance at the local market in the evening. I almost felt like joining the dance, where there were people from all ages moving to the lovely tunes.

The day started at 10.30 am. We had booked a day-long private tour to Teotihuacan, the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon. Considering it was $160 for both of us, a quite reasonable deal for an entire day's trip. A brief and pleasant 45 minutes' drive later, we reached the grounds of the Pyramids.

Our chauffeur of the day was Roul, an 'English-speaking' Mexican, as specified by the concierge. Yeah, he did manage to communicate with us and take us through various anecdotes and historical significance of the country. The first stop was at the artifacts emporium, which was information galore! The rock formed as a result of cooled magma (the parent material) is called Obsidian. Found here in abundance, the various colours of the rocks were formed due to the difference in pressure level. The black version is the hardest and was used to make weapons by the Aztecs. Then there were quartz, purple, etc, along with the golden rock that is the rarest of the lot. The artisans still make beautiful mementos and sculptures out of the rocks, which are sold at government approved prices.

The next set of admiration was reserved for the multi-purpose cacti that are grown here, most of which were used for survival. They used to get fruits and juices from a cactus that gives it's produce for 2-3 months, after that the leaves and thorns are used for papyrus, threads, aloe vera, and needles used for anesthesia and stitching. Larvae deposits on the cacti leaves were crushed to get a red hue and some leaves give the yellow colour - these were used by the Aztecs to colour their murals. The juices are used to make the local alcohol called pulque, which is still made here to taste and sell. For me, the most interesting fact was that Tequila is made from these juices and the Spanish method of distillation results in modern day version of the alcohol.

While we were still processing the gallon-load of information, Roul drove us to the actual destination. We did not really know what to expect, and you cannot make out anything from the parking lot, mainly because of the tall, thick, stone boundary that cordoned off the area. By the time we reached the top of the wall, we forgot all about the cacti and rocks, blown away by the grandeur in front of us.

Standing tall at 70 meters high, with 248 steps (each approx 1 feet tall), the mammoth structure of the Sun Pyramid welcomed us in all its glory! To the left of the Sun Pyramid, almost a kilometer away is the Moon Pyramid, which is not as tall but possesses it own beauty in structure. The pyramids were made by pre-Aztecs, potentially the Olmecs around 400 BC to 700 AD. The very top of the Sun Pyramid was a temple, which was blown away by a dynamite during excavation.

I somehow managed to huff and puff to the top, with sufficient breaks of course. We were lucky to get a clear blue sky, which accentuated the Pyramids even more. A circle around the top and we decided to climb down. It was tougher, with the sheer height of the steps, the extra tangential pyramid slope and the broken rocks. Needless to say, I did not have enough energy left to climb the Moon Pyramid.

Besides the Moon Pyramids, there is a large excavation of a palace with beautiful murals and advanced architecture. Even the sewage system was nicely organised, with indoor toilets in the living quarters. Next we spent some time at a comparatively smaller pyramid that proved that they were an agriculture based clan. There are lots of the head structures on the walls of Rain and Thunder Gods, and Quetzalcoatl (Feathered Serpent or Precious Twin - God of intelligence and self-reflection), with more murals to highlight the sculptures. And yes, the Pyramids have been recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Quite a few clicks later, we left for a sumptuous late lunch. Roul told us that in Mexico, the restaurants that are most crowded are the ones with the best and authentic food. He recommended deer for me and we took rabbit as well - the kind of food we do not get everywhere.

The final halt of the day was the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, known as the Virgin of Guadalupe who was a celebrated Roman Catholic icon of the Virgin Mary. The first church of Lady Guadalupe could hold only 700 people, even though it is huge structurally. The Aztec symbol is an eagle sitting on a cactus and devouring a snake, which stand on both sides to the entrance. The foundation of this church is sinking and it actually stands at an angle now. A new church was built with modern architecture besides the old one, and this church holds 10,000 people. The richer Mexicans who stay in Canada send money for the Independence month's celebrations (September, and the year was 1810). Also, the inside ornate ceiling design is made of wood that they have sent. An interesting factor of the new church is that it has moving walkways in front of the deity to avoid cluttering of the people.

A small visit to the local market and we went back to the hotel, after the tiring, yet exciting day amongst Mexican history. The final day lay ahead of us.

Christianity's entry-point to the Americas

A quick telegram :

Mexico similar to India. Missing Bangalore. STOP. It's COLD! Unexpected, feeling stupid. STOP. Women smoke more. STOP. People stare! STOP. Should learn Spanish to visit. STOP.

If I could time travel to the 1960s, that is how my message would have looked. Sending message might have been costly then, but I guess Telegram beats Twitter any day, simply because of its ingenuity and necessity of the service.

A mild digression and here is the day-by-day account of our Mexico trip. This is September 21, 2012.

Day Uno:

Though I consider myself a morning person, a flight at 7.15am was a bit too much, that too an international travel. The cab picked us at 3.50am. Being in LA, Mexico sounds like just over the border but it was a whole 3 hrs 30 mins journey in the air.

While chalking out the tour itinerary, we had settled down on the major sites we would like to cover in our 2.5 days' trip. Conveniently, we assumed that the country will be as hot as LA and sniggered at the people who were wearing coats at the airport. Little did we know we were the actual dodos.

As we approached the airport, the one thing that caught our attention was the roof-tops, all of them were red in colour, rendering a lovely hue to the entire city. A small needle-in-haystack search later in the Mexico City airport, we traced our hotel pickup chauffeur. The drive to the hotel was smooth, especially with the chatty driver. She tried her best to convey her welcome in broken English. And we literally were amazed by the sceneries around - roadside outlets, peak traffic, mindless pedestrians, hawkers, a mix of narrow and broad streets, flyovers - everything looked so similar to Bangalore that we yearned to be back home.

The differentiation stood at road-signs, posters, graffiti, and 'Viva Mexico' crying out from all around in Spanish. And of course, the pain in conversing. It reminded me of my initial days in Bangalore where dumb-charades had become a survival tactic. We almost cursed ourselves for not learning the language before visiting. Even the hotel staff and the 'policia' are non-English speakers!

The currency conversion is around 12 pesos per dollar currently. A decent deal from Hilton and the conversion rate made our life somewhat peaceful here. We reached the hotel room just before 3pm. A bath and lunch later, we headed for a small walk to Metropolitan Cathedral. There was a huge procession on the streets. All we could garner was, it consisted mostly of college students and they were demanding some sort of employment rights. Anyhow, it was a huge chaos on the roads. The combat policemen were around to control the crowd.

The walk to the old church is quite interesting. The buildings around are at least 300-400 years old, making the whole set-up quite surreal. It felt as if the people here transformed over time, keeping the background intact. And how the people stare! Young and old, men and women - they just scan you top to bottom! Sounds so much like back home or maybe I have got unused to the fact by living in LA, where nobody gives you a second glance.

Metropolitan Cathedral is the first church in the American continent, built by the Spaniards soon after the conquest of the Aztecs. The Spanish ruled the country from early 1500s to early 1800s, heralding Christianity to the land. They, of course, stamped the culture remarkably on Mexico. The church is humungous, even my 18-55 had trouble encapsulating it from up front. There are interesting underground pathways on the church grounds, now covered by transparent thick glasses. The inside of the church is a grand golden architecture, the striking feature is the black Christ that we found unique. The exploration was cut short since it was past the visiting hours (till 5pm).

A slow walk back through the crowd, we stopped at Starbucks for some coffee and to gloat at the new culture. Quite an experience it was.

Day 1 ended with an early dinner and bedtime. The next day was definitely going to be more interesting. The Pyramids of the Sun and Moon at Teotihuacan awaited us!

The Keeper of Time!

I am sure all of you have seen me in some way or the other, in paintings or in person. But I understand if you have not realised my existence amongst my fellow-beings. I stand at the corner of the pathway where the humans walk early mornings or late evenings, just outside Victoria Memorial in Kolkata. I am here at the same spot since the last thirty odd years (if you go by human calculations). For me, it feels just yesterday the good Samaritan in blue overalls placed me here.

I keep hearing lots of stories and chatter over the din of the moving metals boxes of various sizes (called cars) that keep honking without reason. It makes me wonder, what pleasure do they get by shouting at each other. I think they are just driven mad by the growing number of humans, hence I see them passing out more of the black air day by day, to vent their feelings.

At least I can comprehend what the humans say, unlike the cars. Most of them who sit on the bench at my foot to chat are the ones with grey hair and have difficulty in walking. Sometimes there is a man in tattered clothes who sleeps here when the sun is scorching, and then there are the young at heart who peck at each other like my friends, the Birds. I hear them chat about studies, work, money, children, houses, politics, travels, and relationships, but never about me. Yet I can't help but eavesdrop.

Nowadays, I feel sad when the ones with grey hair chat between themselves. They sound so lonely and confused at the same time. It seems none of their young ones stay with them anymore. They are either in cities they call Bangalore, Pune, Delhi, or in different countries they call US, Europe. This is happening over the last ten years. Before then, they used to talk about getting them married, and how they are faring in different life stages. Now mostly I hear them saying - my son / daughter 'called'. "They must be cooking now, they must be in office now, I heard my grandchild is growing up fast and started talking". Everything has become an assumption and craving. The human children seems to have started leaving their parents and are living independently like the Birds.

What I do not understand is, why are they never happy, why is there a mask all the time, why do they have to lie to their own, why don't they have the courage anymore to do what their heart pleases? There are two such people who come every evening. I heard them talking over the small box pressed to their ears they call 'phones', saying, "Please do not worry about us, we are fine and happy here. Visit us when you have time". And the next moment after they removed the 'phone' from their ears, they started crying, saying "wish our son can visit us this festival, we haven't seen him in two years since he went off to US". I feel so helpless, wish I could have consoled them in some way.

There is one common topic that is always in vogue in the city - Politics. The young, the old, the poor, and even the roadside vendors seem to be bound by this common term. My friend, the Dog, brings me stories from all around. That is how I know that the long strings of people who walk the roads every now and then are either supporting or protesting an idea. They convey their thoughts with 'slogans', placards, and different colour themes (which is very interesting for me, I wonder what the red or green pictures signify).

As I already said, I have seen and heard a lot over the last three decades. I have seen numerous people with varied looks and clothes visit the memorial, mostly with those clicking objects they call 'camera'. I share my experiences and thoughts with Dog, who also seems to be very perturbed nowadays. He says food is scarce and humans have become more rude. They always seem to be in a hurry and on the verge of fighting all the time. He has lived lesser than me, but he has the gift of mobility, hence has seen and heard more.

We have also faced the vagaries of weather together. There have been scorching summers, pleasant winters, and severe monsoons. I love rains, since that keeps me alive. The man in the blue overalls stopped feeding me water after a year, and I had to fend for myself. But the rains have been torrential lately. Sometimes, it goes on and on for days together, clogging the roads and making it very difficult for the men who carry behind them two big circles attached to rods (sometimes with more humans sitting on top). The cars also come to a standstill and there is even more honking, now from the humans as well, as if the boxes were not making enough noise.

What scared me was what the humans called "earthquake". One sudden afternoon, I felt excruciating pain in my veins as it got pulled and stretched for some two-three minutes. Next day the humans were ga-ga about the event, as they discussed how small an earthquake it was and comparing it to other countries, where something on the Richter scale was much higher.

Till date, I have never been scared of death. I wanted to die naturally like my fellow beings, when they grow old and dry up. The humans then saw them up and take them off to some obscure place. But this earthquake really shook me up. The humans were saying it is the result of the ravaging they are doing on Mother Nature, the increasing pollution and ever-rising population. But if such a small earthquake can cause me so much pain, I wonder how much pain my fellow beings will be in. I do not want to die an unnatural death caused by humans.

I think I can go on and on about my surroundings, the humans, the Victoria, the changes I have seen amongst all in my life. But everything looks so complicated these days, I am thoroughly confused. I long for the chatter and laughter of the small humans who used to run around me, the happy faces I see no more and the love stories that were woven around me. And I wonder, will I live to see such a day again? If not, I hope I dry up soon and die since I do not want to be the keeper of just humans sorrows.

Nota Bene - when you think too much...

I begin with a caveat, since this is going to be full of pointless clutter of thoughts. There comes phases in your life when you are so busy that a peaceful meal also becomes a luxury. You gobble your food over a murky sitcom, just to take your mind off of your daily routine - the advanced deadline at work, the month end bills to be paid, meeting your partner's expectations, your Mother's schedule for the next doctor's visit, and the list goes on.

There are few memories that get ingrained in your system. Whatever the time span, you will still remember the subject and the standard in school when you got 10/10, where everyone else scored lesser OR the embarrassing moment in your 1st job when, while bitching about your boss to your colleague, the chat went to the boss herself!

On a similar note, I still remember what a friend told me once. Everyone should keep aside at least half an hour everyday to talk to your own self. The pondering not only rectifies your goof-ups, it also allows you to pep yourself up, thinking about the positive things in life that keeps you going. As any good 'gyan' goes, I never gave any second thought to it. Till now, that is...

I guess being around a hoard of friends sometimes solves that purpose. Being alone here has given me tons of hours to just THINK - even when I do not intend to. The mind is in such a muddle that I get confused as to what I actually want to concentrate on, and I need to listen to loads of songs - both to divert my mind and not feel alone at the same time. Well, jotting down a few might take some of the crap off my head. :) Let's try and take it point-wise:

1. Getting back to roots has become very crucial. You hypocritically tend to do stuff that you scoffed at before, like listening to Bengali (specially Rabindranath) songs; waiting for your drama-soap everyday and wondering what the next day's episode is going to unravel. You start watching those '70s Hindi movies and think how come you missed the epics earlier? You even dig up documentaries on subjects that make your parents proudly say, "Oh our daughter is interested in such varied topics"!

2. Social networking and virtual web space becomes your world. However much you curse and coax yourself to get de-addicted, you cannot brush in the morning at peace, wondering about the activities and updates that might have taken place while you were sleeping!

3. You start valuing life, friends, even colleagues who used to share a random chat with you on the office floor. You realise that even bitching can be an amazing tool to relax, at least it gets you smiling... Loneliness is productive only when it is not forced on you.

4. People love to be praised! Not that it's a ground-breaking revelation, but reciprocating a phrase of niceties can work wonders on their ego. Again, the line between 'sharing secrets' and 'encroaching on privacy' is very subtle. You never know what turns off people (basically, you cared two hoots earlier, instead now you brood over the reasons).

5. There is a desperate attempt at working on creative stuffs and rediscovering oneself. The childhood hobbies resurface, you try your hand at multiple activities like cooking, writing, sketching (only to make yourself feel worse, when you realise that you excel at none!). You plan and un-plan daily activities, promising yourself a full-fledged course, or taking up that drama class you always wanted. Well, none gets converted to reality. Self-drive and motivation can be marvelous tools, for whosoever possesses it!

You really feel that you miss out so much in your otherwise hectic life. Minute things like watching the old Hindi movies can also make you feel complete in a way, you feel part of your tradition, living a crucial bit of your parent's prime life. A skype session with Maa everyday or an impromptu one with a friend keeps me going, and of course those weekend or trip plans.

Life goes on, as the elders used to say. And now we have picked up the saying, as we take up more responsibilities of being an adult. That's enough food for thought for today :)

What really does happen in Vegas!

For a married couple specifically... When boozing, gambling and strippers take a back-seat and site-seeing leads you on ;)

A heady, vibrant 2.5 days and I HAD to jot down the travelogue as soon as I am back, before the details turn natty!

The planning for the Sin City happened in less than a week. Sans a vehicle (still!), we decided to fly. Bless the discount and offers' world here, Expedia turned up some pretty good deal for a weekday trip. Yes, we decided to reach late on a Wednesday night to avoid the weekend crowd and come back on Saturday afternoon.

We were completely oblivious to the kind of hotels there, about the Vegas Strip that everyone talked about and no itinerary in mind. The hotel Monte Carlo seemed the best option as per the deals, and we got a room higher up with an extra $10 thrown in.

The initial night view from the flight was simply majestic and the hotel was more than a pleasant shock for us. With 5000 odd rooms, and a 30th floor view, we literally jumped with the visual delight. The windows overlooked the entire colourfully-lit valley, the hills on the horizon and the clear vast night-sky! A few clicks later, we tucked in with a heavy dinner and a super gleeful heart.

The first morning started slow. It dawned on us that we did not have a tour plan. A little net search and talk with the concierge booked us Cirque du Soleil's KA that night at 9.30pm and Zumanity the next day at 10pm. We had the rest of the day to loaf around. With the show "Fall of Atlantis" at Caesar's Palace and Bellagio's musical fountain show in mind, we started meandering across the hotels (I say meandering here on purpose, because the routes twist and turn between the hotels before you reach the next destination). Most of the hotels are connected either with a string of posh outlets and lobbies or by monorail. So you can actually avoid the blasting heat outside.

Nevertheless, it ends in long walks because of the humungous expanse of the hotels. By the time we crossed the Chinese botanical garden and fountain show in Bellagio, and reached the aquarium and Atlantis show point in Caesar's Palace, we were darn tired. The garden was superb, with colourful hanging hand-painted umbrellas, insects and birds made out of flowers, with a small bridge and wishing-pond below. The aquarium had 50,000 gallon of water. It wasn't extravagant, but we reached at the time when a diver was feeding the fish - that made is really wonderful, to see the entire school swimming towards the food and eating out of the diver's hand. The Atlantis show was a disaster, the story of the sibling rivalry told with huge puppets, and spewing of water and fire. The sounds quality was bad, and the puppets were literally dummies.

Tired from the long walk, we decided to ditch Treasure Island's pirate show and the gondola ride in The Venetian. The unique thing about the hotels here are the themes they have adopted and adhered to. Caesar's Palace, for example, is so widespread that you have to turn full 180 degrees to see point to point! Then there was Luxor, shaped like a colossal pyramid, with a equally mammoth sphinx in front. The pyramid top emitted light like from a light-house that is visible from any part of the strip. The architecture and decor of each of the hotels is classically theme-based, defining grandeur at its best.

Well, back to our room, we crashed down for a couple of hours before heading for our first show - Cirque Du Soleil. It has two major versions that happens in all seasons - 'O' (theme 'water') and 'KA' (theme 'war') and is hosted at MGM Grand (yeah, the famous Metro Goldwyn Mayer). The KA was on, we reached before time and totally got engrossed in the magical acrobatics. The lights, sounds, special effects added to the enthralling dance-drama - a must-see for one of your Vegas trips :)

Next morning started off slower, since we already had our Grand Canyon airplane ride booked, and the pick-up was at 11.50am. Obviously, we were very excited. The airport was a 20 mile drive and I went clickety-click with the camera on the way. We crossed the real dry Vegas, the sparse population, stand-alone buildings, the distant hills and miles of barren land in between, the clear blue sky was breathtaking. The temperature outside was blasting 98 degree Fahrenheit, staying in the vehicle seemed so much more intelligent!

The flight took off well, a 10 seat craft (including the pilot). With all the pomp and showmanship I portrayed before take-off, clicking pictures with the pilot et al, my tummy gave in to extreme motion sickness twenty minutes into the air. The small aircraft at low altitude, combined with the huge air pockets of the canyon worsened my over-sensitive system. I did drink in the awesome view till we reached Hoover Dam, but after that I could just peek through my eyelashes. Complete waste of bucks, I was thoroughly disappointed in myself, but was glad when the 1 hour tour ended. Anirban took loads of awesome pictures, which I am still relishing :)

It was too hot to be outdoors, and I was tired from all the excitement. We slept through the horridly hot evening, woke up refreshed and headed for the next show we had lined up. Zumanity is hosted in the hotel New York (with the city as its theme, of course). The cast is part of the group from Cirque Du Soleil, specializing in acrobatics and live acts, but Zumanity has the edge of sensuality and comedy. We laughed and admired to no ends, one of those shows that gets imprinted in your minds for years to come. The only regret was, they didn't allow a single click, even at the end of the show (unlike KA).

The real fun started post the show. Hotels like New York, Luxor, Flamingo, and especially Excalibur looks fabulous in the night sky. The vibrant colours, the tall towers and grand structures are surely the charm of Vegas life. We romped around from 11.30pm to 3am, from one hotel to the other, clicking pics, commenting on the obnoxious dressing style of the people (we came across a string of African-Americans from a wedding, and saw all the possible cuts and designs possible in white!), and hunting for the especially long cocktail glass we saw others carry.

I defied sleep till 4.30am, which is highly unlike me! The thought of leaving the next day just didn't go down well with me, but I coaxed myself to bed, only to wake up early in the morning. After gloating on the view from our window for a couple of more hours, we gambled to kill time. Both of us combined, we played for $7 and won $8.34! A 19% profit ain't so bad, eh?

We bade goodbye to the hotel and made an early head-start for the airport. The fun ended too soon, but we did so much in the short stay, I really don't regret much. The next visit plan is already on the table, so well, you might read about what people actually do in Vegas! ;)

About Dhaka, and my Grandfather...

Have you ever missed someone you have never met? Wished that you were around the person for at least sometime, so that you had tales to tell to the next generation? And also pondered over the simplistic achievements of the earlier era and hoped that even a percent of their goodness was imbibed in you?

My relation with my grandfather is a culmination of the feelings above. He was from Bikrampur, Narayanganj. Tall, fair, dhoti-half shirt-shoes clad, expletives-speaking, stereotypical "bangal" of early 1900s, started his career in 1936, crossed the border in 1948 with my beautiful grandmother in tow as refugees. Grandmother herself was from Rangoon (Burma), moved to Dhaka during World War II, married and shifted to India with her husband. Their refugee certificates state them as East Pakistan residents.

Amongst the new professions of that period, my grandfather was a photographer. He learnt the art in Doss company (Azimpura, Dhaka). With the early horizontal black-box cameras and a few years of employment in Doll Studio (Park Street, Kolkata), he visited Burnpur for Industrial photography, following which the family shifted to Burnpur and opened the first photography studio in the small steel city.

I have heard innumerable anecdotes from Baba about his skills, the small shop with tin roof, his tools (one of the antiques still exist within the family) and the rented house where they stayed for 42 years! My initial memories also revolve around that house, where even I have stayed for the first few years of my life.

The feelings were rekindled recently when Baba was discussing the announcement of the discovery of the Higgs Boson. Satyendranath Bose's 1924 research that created the Bose-Einstein Statistics, build the foundation for Bosons. Bose did his research in Dhaka  and grandfather was his personal photographer. Baba still has the certificate given to grandfather by Bose, amongst the various other memoirs.

Grandfather's skills were not restricted to Bose. He had accompanied General Ayub Khan (later president of Pakistan) for three months in his camps. Manipur's Raja-Rani had offered him to move to the state after seeing his work. He had clicked Sharmila Tagore's childhood pictures, when her dad was posted in Asansol Railways. Asha Pareekh's bengali-style saree clad picture, and bit of still photography work with Meghnad Saha (as assistant still photographer) and photographer in Eastern Talkies is also in his list. And finally Nehru, when he visited to inaugurate Mython Hydroelectric plant (DVC). The list goes on, and I remember this few.

His good nature and professionalism is what people remember him by. Sadly, the small shop he had opened up burnt down and most of his works extinguished with it. Baba had to rebuild the venture from scratch, a loss he regrets till date.

Such times bring such a hollow feeling, an indefinable emptiness, to reach out and live the un-missed moments, get pampered for a few years, just to be able to recount the love, affection and simplicity of the person who passed on his genes to you. Wish he had known that his granddaughter will be on her way to the world! Lots of struggle and ups and downs later, he gave in to his health at the age of 51, ensuing another life of struggle for Baba, who was just 17 then. Well, that is another story altogether :)

The professional success of the period was more towards sustaining families. To pull through the emotional and financial burden of leaving everything behind and begin afresh in a new country. The unsung heroes, the common man, faded away to obscure corners of the hearts of family members. The dedication of the genre of that age was so profound, their art and intelligence was several strata above what we can ever imagine to possess. Hats off to what we call the older generation.

I have promised myself to visit Dhaka (and Bikrampur) at least once in this lifetime, as an ode to the man I am proud to call my grandfather. All I can say about him is that the yearning is going to live and die with me - the remorse of never having seen him and the complaint against God, for taking him away so soon! I guess even He wanted some nice portraits to be clicked :)

Hop, Skip and Dream!

Guess day-dreaming comes as a bundled-service created by God for a Piscean ;). Some might say it is escapism, some might chide them for not being realistic. But for people under the sun-sign, it is THE euphoric state of mind that no other can experience.

Let's go by an example (since the rest of the signs choose to run by logic). Visualise this : Three friends, meeting after 2-3 years, open-air restaurant, hookah, chicken platter, live music, beer, heady nostalgia, laughter, anecdotes, catching up on recent life events, pulling each other's legs, and lots of pictures being clicked to remember the night by. The illuminated faces oozing out confidence, love, protection, extreme sense of belongingness, the carefree postures, all give you the high - to forget all worldly tensions. When you feel like dancing into the windy night, hug each other tight, drive late into the night and reach home - half drunk, more from the happiness than by booze!

It might be difficult to believe that these are just figments of imagination, concoctions of your desires, visualisation of a perfect evening that you intend to have in the future. So vibrant are the day dreams, it takes you to a state where you can actually forget your current tensions, shrugging it just as a phase in your life that is preparing you for lovelier times ahead. You actually smile to yourself while replaying the events in your head, and promise to yourself, YES, I will make sure I live this dream.

Laugh as you want, you non-believers, you non-Pisceans (if I may call you so)! We know how to create our own mind-space, survive to dream the euphoric dreams, and have the capability to revert to reality, when it is called for of course.

Kudos to God, for imbibing and dedicating such a special quality in the Pisceans. Kudos to the likes of Linda Goodman, for sieving out that specialty. Above all, kudos to the Pisceans, for keeping the spirit alive! A day-dreaming-happy-Piscean prevails!

Of glamour, tour and settlement!

Touring has always been one of my weak (and strong points), and writing about them a side-business. As a kid, my Dad used to maintain journals of our numerous tours and I believe the habit of travelogue is more of an inheritance than fate.

The recent transition of tours, from Indian locales to LA has been tad of a shift culturally. Well, who doesn't dream of visiting Hollywood, but to live here was far away from my deepest desires. Beginning of 2011, all I was thinking of was visiting home, new role in office, possible job shift, and changing houses. Mundane dreams of an office-goer, a kind of settled life, with day-to-day trifles that keeps you alive.

Come July and the entire scenario changed. Excitement, apprehension, nervousness, planning (and un-planning), decisions, and most importantly the tensions - there were emotions galore, and the funnier thing is, the mixed feelings still exist. The concomitant events were as stressful. To say the least, somehow we pulled through the section of life, where finally the visa got approved and Anirban moved to LA in December. I tailgated in January 2012.

And hence follows the constant state of awe and wonderment - did we take the right decision? Mind you, we are still fixated at that thought. Most of us, as kids, have tried to stand in the center portion of a see-saw, and balance yourself with the momentum. Either ways, there is a high risk of injury by a bad fall. We are yet to figure out the stronger momentum - do we miss Bangalore (and our friends), or do we hate being here more?

On to something positive - and to the theme of this prose. Traveling was a major incentive for us to seriously consider this country shift. As I already said, who wouldn't want to hitch-hike to Hollywood! Ah well, even though public transportation seems to be at a loss on the west coast, we did manage to check out the key places.

Griffith Park, Universal Studios, Walk of Fame, Santa Monica & Santa Barbara beaches and a brief tour to San Francisco in a matter of 5 months. I do consider it a small feat. :) The facts surrounding the locales, and a few supporting pictures are what we go after. So far, our record in India tours has been that wherever we head to, we always promise to revisit with a better game-plan. It is no different here.

The exploration so far has been limited due to lack of a vehicle. Once that is accomplished, the tours hopefully will know no bounds. Looking forward to settling down further, an exciting rest-of-2012 and more travelogues!