What I saw:

Had been out shopping for groceries with my mother. In the old part of Pune. I saw, I saw:

1. At a little streetside restaurant, a woman treating herself to lunch. This is remarkable in itself, but know also that this was an old, old rural woman. She had collected her pension (or her husband’s more likely) from the bank and had come here. I wondered if this was a little break from the family/farm/home routine, or a monthly ritual. Was it a treat, or simply a safe place where she could count out and keep away her money? I hope it is the former. I am captivated, encouraged by this woman turning a necessary trip into town into a little vacation for the self.

2. A friend had once asked me if singing while working is a very Indian thing. I remembered that today when I saw a seller of copper jewellery cleaning his wares. He was rinsing each little bunch of bracelets in lemon juice, and had set up a beat. So before one saw him, one heard the cheerful chamcham-CHAM-chamcham-CHAM he had set up.

3. The anti-encroachment police came by when I was in the market. By the time I had figured out what had happened, the stalls had magically folded in onto themselves and disappeared. All those neatly laid out goods, the tables with their little plastic roofs. Each of those stalls has such a permanent air about it that I had never realised that they are illegal, much less so temporary.

yosemite!

and today I am in India! Well, if I squint my eyes a bit. Just arrived at the Yosemite Bug, not yet checked in, and went for a short walk. The forest is exactly like the Western Ghats- 'my' forests. It is only when one looks closely at the trees that one realises that one is not home, after all.
Will post snaps of yosemite soon, in the meantime, here is San Francisco.

on presentations and audiences

had a couple of presentations scheduled last week, and what I liked the most is that the audience was mostly made up of my cheerleading squad. Yes, some did turn up because of interest in the topic, but I love the large shaggy bunch that turned up because' it's chicu' .
Thanks, and hugs, people..

What I Saw..

Yesterday, I said bye to the folks at People for Puget Sound. Today, I became a tourist on a mission.

I saw, I saw:

• The paintings and posters in Post Alley. Also Bubblegum wall. Sadly, I don’t have any pictures of the wall, (or of the rest of the day, sorry, and keep watching this page for updates!). But it is a wall where people have over the years stuck bubble gum so that now it is no longer yucky, but Art. Imagine first, a covered alley with brick walls and cobbled streets that looks like it might house Jack the Ripper. And then, one wall festooned with multi-coloured bits of gum- some just daubed on, some stretched to make patterns. There’s even a figure on a cycle! Someday, soon, I will go and take photos..

• The permanent exhibits at SAM- like with most museums, some left me cold (portraits of the rich and famous), some disturbed me (7-foot tall black rat, anyone?). And some enthralled me. One of those was a jacket from a display of Japanese theatre costumes. The jacket illustrated a story of rabbits preparing for a moon viewing party. The rabbits were showing gathering sake, grass, and I-forget-what for the party. What charmed me is that the rabbits were not walking like the ones in the children’s stories I have seen, they were gambolling! The figures were shown hopping like real rabbits, with the slight difference that these were carrying dishes. I loved it! One could just about imagine it- the softness of the rabbits, the excitement, the anticipation.
  

• And if there was one piece I thoroughly coveted, it was Dishes. This is a painting of dishes drying in a red wire rack. The surface there are set on is blue, the dishes are yellow, pink, green, blue and clear glass. There is a lot of light in that painting. And one can feel that it is a sunny morning, the meal has been shared with friends, and can almost hear the clinking and the laughter. I looked at this one for ages, and tomorrow, as I wash my dishes, I will look at them with new eyes.

• And in the Islamic arts. A photo/calligraphy work. Shows a figure in a white kameez sitting with her back to us, writing on a wall. there is writing on the kameez, on the floor, on the wall, on the writer's hand. Separate, but linked. Missed my sister and how much she would like that. Her words and life merge like that too, I think.

• The exhibition of Roman Art: As Chhotu would say, 'yes,yes, very interesting'. But the faces, esp that of Augustus, were strangely familiar. and loved.

• Came across and watched the beginning of the Labour Day March. It being Seattle, variety and freedom of expression were key. The slogans ranged from ' we charge Bush and Cheney with genocide' to the gently nostalgic 'make love not war'. Well, I saw all this, and the march passed me, and then I turned to cross the street- and did a double take. Ambling towards me, around 4 blocks down the street was a Polar Bear. It was late for the parade, poor thing, and had decided not to bother trying to catch up. So there they were, four men on a protest march of their own- two of them being a bear for a day, and the other two guiding it. (We go UP now, and then down- there is a post ahead).

• Waterfall Park: WHY did noone ever tell me of this? a little garden, surrounded with high brick walls near Pioneer Square. One enters, and there is a huge thundering waterfall, with algae covered rocks and ferns in the crevices. with a little effort, I could almost imagine myself in the Western Ghats. But the garden is Japanese, and the trees are maples, and it is beautiful.
  

Methow

I don't believe this- I have not written of Methow yet. A little place, across the cascades, near Wenatchee. Even the names are interesting, na?
I stayed in a little cabin, in a valley that seemed to have walked out of an Andrew Wyeth painting. a valley of sagebrush and snow surrounded by gentle hills, with pines and boulders. I reached there on a moonless night, and it was dark ,and the snow was so white. I have no idea what light it found to reflect, but it did. white and crunchy, and the only thing one could hear was the steady crunch of our footsteps, and, i am afraid, the occasional 'oops' or worse from yours truly.
In the morning, it was an O'Keefe painting before me. I always thought she painted those purple shadows for art's sake, but no! shadows in the snow are really, truly purple-blue. And the sun was so, so bright! The air smelt of sagebrush. and it was warm, and quiet, and the colours! a limited palette, but all possible hues of purple and yellow with the green of the pines.
And at night, the stars came out. like I have seen them only a handful of times. Once each at sawantwadi, hari-hareshwar, and Dive-a-ghar, and twice at sulibhanjan. it was cold, and we were standing on the deck wrapped in blankets and looking up,up, up.
I was reading Isabella Bird, and at one point she mentions of a peaceful night ," I was woken up only once by gunshots, but after that the night was quiet and I went back to sleep." That sentence was always to me the epitome of travel. Well, here I was woken up only once by coyotes, and after that the night was quiet, but I did not go back to sleep. Instead, I went out to the porch again and stood looking at the stars.
There were deer tracks, and coyote scat, and we saw a chipmunk, and a hawk.
Everything was perfect. We walked, and read, and cooked, and played scrabble, and I was happy.

Spring!!

has sprung.
and i have never lived through this explosion before.
At home, it is a gentle awakening. it is green. the tangy smell of mango blossoms (i miss them, miss them), new leaves, the desperate-for-a-mate magpie robins.
Here, it is pink. cherry blossoms, other fruit blossoms i have not been introduced to, magnolias, camellias that are exuberant but strangely disappoint with the lack of fragrance- like a goodlooking person who is not interesting.
So home, it is green and sharp- like kairi chutney; and here, pink and sweet, like strawberry icecream. do i prefer one over the other? one is home, the other is mine. one grown with, the other reached out for. hmm.
but it snowed. And while all of Seattle was deploring the return of winter, yours truly pulled on a coat and went out. think of it, I thought I had said goodbye to Seattle snow- and then it palated. how could I not run out and hug it?
But here is a link to pinkness..

is cold

Frosh pond freezeth over!

How intelligent are gulls? are they like crows who have a concept of play? Because today on the pond I saw one juvenile 'playing' with a piece of ice. it would pick it up, drop it with a satisfying clang and then scoot around pushing the ice with it's beak. Repeat over and over again. It looked exactly like avian ice-hockey, and by the time i left, there was a crowd of spectators large enough to gladden it's little gull heart.

fear

UW police circular giving news of 'incident' on campus. 'atypical' they assure us. all my thoughts are with the young girl who came to the US to be safe. till I need to go out for an evening lecture. Then a dozen reasons why i shouldn't go out come up. it is raining, i need to read, it is not really my core subject. underneath, i recognise fear. I will be damned if i let them control my life. i put on jacket, i step out. For the first time, i am carrying a flashlight.

on snow

excerpts from two mails I sent home:
1st December:
It's snowing! it's snowing!!
was in the kitchen making bisi bele bhaat when i looked outside and saw the snow. was out of the door and into the yard in 10 seconds. stood there catching the snow on my face. was then joined by vio and moji and we took snaps.
was in slippers, so now toes are numb. will take hot shower once i send you this mail.
just now turned my head towards the window and can see the snow. big, fluffy flakes hurrying down. Not like raindrops which have a purpose. these flutter around and change direction before finally landing. so happy.

15th Jan:
It snowed again, but differently. this time it was like hail and so, so pretty! It had been raining all day and I had a speech to go to. But it was so cold, and I had been soaked twice already, so was coming up with a hundred different reasons for not going. And then I saw the hail. And I reached out and caught some in my hand, and they did not melt, but stayed there like small basra pearls. So I suddenly had incentive to go for the lecture. Imagine then, an absolutely deserted street, dark skies, and the orange glow of sodium-vapour lamps with three figures walking hurriedly in the silence. Beautiful! And the next day, the sun was out! but the ice had not melted, and the whole world was sparkling.
so happy.

storms and jazz

at night, the tree outside my window taps on the glass, and the screen door goes creak- groan. Two nights ago, this was so loud that it felt as if all the ghosts in the kingdom were partying in my house. got up to stop the screen door. And stepped out into a most magnificent storm. for a quarter of an hour I stood in the doorway listening to the wind before the cold finally defeated me. But i left the screen door as it was- to make all the music it chose to .

and today, i went with a friend to Pies&Pints to have, well, a pie and a pint each and listen to live bluegrass! The Loose Digits !

And so homewards. Tomorrow the quarter begins..

The Redwoods and I

Got back on the 30^th, spent New Year’s with Kenny and Diane (so nice- had fun, fun, fun). Am now curled up on my sofa with a pot of black-tea-and-lavender. Today is a relatively warm day (5 °C), so I have all the windows of my house wide open. And am playing Farida Khanum on my comp as I write. Can life be more perfect? But now of my holiday:

When and where:

Went to say hello to the redwood forests along the North California coast. I was out from the 22^nd to the 30^th of December.

People I met:

Ernie: driver of the Redwood Coast Transit Buses. He took me to the hostel and by a lovely coincidence, brought me back to Arcata. Stops when he drops people off at lonely places till someone comes to pick them up. Also stopped to show me some elk grazing in a clearing. Plays Christmas songs full volume and sings along.

barbonthebeach: Pharmacist. Distils her own medicines and cleaning agents. Got the NPS to allow alternative cleaning agents as long as they are proven effective. Arranged a ride for me which made it possible for me to see the old growth forests

Katherine and Kristina: mother-daughter pair. Take a holiday together once a year. Missed home. Spoke lots to them

Gary: met him on the Arcata-Klamath route. Absolutely fun person. Was going to Klamath to meet family for Christmas, and looking forward to living it up at Crescent City later. He took as much delight in my reaction to the first views of the coast as I did in the views themselves. Is a sufferer of something I am not sure of, so he needs to walk on crutches and has a problem with fine motor skills, but still absolutely independent. I had fun travelling with him.

Nice Iranian-Indian: Lived in Camp, Pune! Still has friends there! Is Irani, but thinks of India as home after spending all his life there. Now in Iran with family.

The Forests:

I am not quite sure I have taken them in yet. I knew they are huge, but so much! In some of my photos you can see them towering over the ferns. Well, those are sword ferns and they are 5’ tall! The forests are quiet, and old, and lovely. Once you enter, the world is made of myriad shades of red and green, with the sky a unobtrusive, pale grey. The floor is composed of a thick layer of fallen leaves so it is coloured a lovely, deep rust and one’s footsteps are deadened. The air smells like the loveliest compost. The only sounds are the occasional gurgle of a stream somewhere.

But those were the redwoods. Also spent some time walking along the coast. Here the trees are different. Some conifers (pine?) and lots and lots of mosses. Grasses along the coast. And wild flowers- Hayflowers, False-lily-of-the-valley, blackberry. Mushrooms- bracket fungi, lovely amber fungi with tasselled ends, white mushrooms with oval cups looking like a clutch of eggs out on a hike, brown mushrooms so delicate that i was afraid to breathe near them, fat cream mushrooms begging for a resident pixie. You see, of course, from my extremely scientific description why i do not pick and eat mushrooms.

Walking was nice. I was usually alone, except for passing people on popular routes, and when I went to the Stout Grove, I went with two other women. I saw two days of sunshine, one of hail (!! So pretty!) and two of rain. Was out on all those days.

I saw elk. Of the birds, brown pelicans, herring gulls, a poor dead western grebe. I still need to identify some brown birds that would accompany me on my hikes. A lot like the Indian robin, but smaller and rounder. They were in the undergrowth along the coast. I came across an owl on the highway. Mottled shades of brown, approximately 20 cm length. It was run over, poor thing, and I was too squeamish to turn it over to look at the face.

The sea:

I spent perhaps more time looking out on to the sea than in the forest. My favourite walk took me along a cliff facing the sea. At one point, there was a bench where I would have lunch- a granola bar and a swig of water- and look at the sea.

I just had to cross the road to get to a beach- the False Klamath cove. 150-200 metres south along the highway, and I would come across the Lagoon creek beach. This was perhaps my favourite. The parking was a little far away, so fewer people came here. It had huge logs on it and I could happily sit on them and just look. And of course, there was Hidden Beach. One goes down a steep trail and comes across the tiniest little toy beach. It is not more than a hundred metres in length and 10-15 metres across at high tide. And it is absolutely filled with driftwood- huge logs, tiny twigs, and one lonely slipper. It is not just possible, but necessary to walk the length of the beach without once touching the ground.

One thing I missed was wildlife. At home, the beaches are filled with things- starfish, the occasional washed up fish or seasnake, sea anemones, sandworms, ghost crabs, pea crabs, one’s toes are kissed by fish if one is lucky, mussels, other bivalves, those funny little univalves that are black and white and leave trails along the sand, jewel-like little univalves in every colour of the rainbow, gulls, terns, fishing eagles, crows. Here, some of the rocks had acorn barnacles and two types of seaweed, but I didn’t see anything else. And oh, there were a couple of gulls and I saw a grebe. Is it natural for shores so far north, or is it a sign of pollution or something?

The travel bit:

I greyhounded all the way. It was interesting, because I was missing my sis, who likes the idea of taking the bus across the states, and I was wondering what she would say if she saw it as I did the first time. It was a bad time to travel, what with the snow in the North, and the Christmas rush.

Kipling had written that India is the only truly democratic country in the world and it is when I was sitting there that i realised just what he meant. In India, everyone travels by bus. Ok, so there are state buses and private carriers, and some people do drive between cities. But when in a bus-stand, there is enough of a cross-section of society so that one feels at home whether a pilgrim, or a business traveller. There is also more of a struggle, perhaps, but less animosity. Or maybe i just feel like that because that is home. Here it was different. Atleast on the routes between cities (Seattle-Sacramento) there were far too many combat outfits, and vacant gazes, and swearing. It wasn’t directed, and that’s probably just a style of speaking, but I was tired, and the bus was delayed by 4 hours, and i was going to miss my connections. So i was not very comfortable there.

But, yes, I did make my connections, and the last-but-one was especially interesting. There is only one bus every evening from Oakland to Arcata, and if i didn’t catch it, i would need to stay one night in heaven-knows-where, forfeit my booked room at Arcata, AND miss one day in the forest. I said as much to the driver, and he took it as a personal quest. We took the backroads through Davis to miss a traffic jam, and everyone cheered when he confirmed that the Arcata bus was waiting for me!

A day in the life of CVL, with a description of where she stayed:

I lived at the Redwoods hostel, which is on the beach, in the forest, and close to most of the National and State parks. When it comes to location, this is king! The hostel is also great when it comes to liveability- absolutely clean (barefoot in the bathroom standards), absolutely charming. Run by Kaci and Barb, who are a great deal of fun and very resourceful. And no, they have not bribed me to ensure a favourable review.

Like most hostels, it has a great sense of community, and this has the added advantage of having the loveliest living room to be social in. Huge sofas to curl up in, a fireplace with a stone hearth, more travel books than one can possibly read, a book swap, and a fully stocked kitchen. Most of the other travellers were families on vacation, so that at one time there were far too many children running along. But other than that, it was Fun!

I took my food with me, and they have condiments and things galore, so people would actually come sniffing around my oatmeal and instant noodles- “ooh you are cooking up a storm here!” The dorms are smallish-sleeping six, and so quite nice. And clean, clean, clean.

I would get up around 7.30, make my oatmeal and tea and eat it looking at the sea. Then off I go! I would be back around four, dry up a little, make some more tea and out to the beach for the sunset! Back around six, bathe, and select a book for the evening. Spend all evening drinking herbal tea and reading, with a short break for dinner and back to bed. Is that not a nice routine? I only changed it once when I caught the bus to Crescent city. Ostensibly my trip was for sightseeing, but actually I wanted to eat some food that did not come out of a can. I actually walked 1.5 miles one way in the rain and freezing cold for a bit of grilled cod. Was it worth it? Yesh.

Travel moments:

· Swimming in the pacific! Ok, so I didn’t actually swim, but waded hip-depth. But I might have swum across the ocean for the reaction I got. “You did WHAT?” “Hey listen! This lady is crazy! She entered the water!” Apparently no one swims in the cold. But now I Have Done It.
· Seeing Mt. Shasta in the morning. It is a volcano cone, and I saw it on a morning when the snow had fallen and the entire world was black-and-white. Only the clouds over the mountain were pink and orange and red, so I could almost convince myself that the volcano had erupted again.
· Watching ‘It’s a wonderful life” and eating pumpkin bread with the others on Christmas Eve.
· Touching the Redwoods with my own hands, smelling the forest, being there.
· Sitting on a beach when it was so, so cold that I was dressed in four layers and still froze. Watching the waves till I hypnotized myself.