On winter afternoons.

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are –

None may teach it – Any –
'Tis the Seal Despair –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air –

When it comes, the Landscape listens –
Shadows – hold their breath –
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –

                                E. Dickinson.

Feeling a little like this.

Yuri Gagarin and Nicholas Roerich.

Yuri Gagarin, a personal hero, apparently commented on one of my favourite artists, saying:

"Rays were blazing through the atmosphere of the earth, the horizon became bright orange, gradually passing into all the colors of the rainbow: from light blue to dark blue, to violet and then to black. What an indescribable gamut of colors! Just like the paintings of the artist Nicholas Roerich."
- Statement of April 1961, as quoted in Warrior of Light : The Life of Nicholas Roerich : Artist, Himalayan explorer and visionary (2002) by Colleen Messina, p. 46

Nicholas Roerich was a Russian painter and philosopher who settled for the latter part of his life at Naggar, near Kullu-Manali and who painted the Himalayas and Mongolia and Tibet in all their glory and various moods. The mountains that he painted are grand and mysterious, and colourful - reds and pinks and blues and all other shades and hues so that if one were to go only up till the Inner Himalayas and not travel through the Greater Himalayas, it would be easy to think that Roerich's paintings are artistic license. It was only when travelling from Manali to Leh that I first realised that mountains can take on shades of the sun and the sky and be, proverbially, "purple-headed".

I don't know if the Gagarin quote is an apocryphal story - the only source for it seems to be from Roerich related links and nothing from the Gagarin ones. But it adds just one more layer to understanding Roerich's paintings. And the earth.

Kanchenjunga. 1936
Tempera on canvas. 60.5 x 99 cm. Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York

Krishna. From “Kulu” series. 1929
Tempera on canvas. 74 x 118 cm. Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York

Mount of Five Treasures (Two Worlds).
From “Holy Mountains” series. 1933

Path to Kailas. From “Holy Mountains” series. 1933
Tempera on canvas. 46.5 x 79 cm. Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York

Tent Mountain. From “Holy Mountains” series. 1933
Tempera on canvas. 46.5 x 78.5 cm. Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York

Wular Lake. From “Lakes and Gilgit Path” series. 1925
Tempera and charcoal on paper mounted on cardboard. 25 x 35.5 cm
Private collection, New York 

Pir Panjal. From the series of the same title. 1925
Tempera on canvas mounted on cardboard. 65.5 x 98 cm. Private collection, New York

Temple of Naggar. From “Kulu” series. 1929
Tempera on canvas. 74.5 x 118 cm. Private collection, USA

Himalayas. From “Holy Mountains” series. 1933
Tempera on canvas. 47 x 79 cm. State Museum of Oriental Art, Moscow

Himalayas
1944. Tempera on board. 28 x 44 cmMuseum of Oriental Art, Moscow

Himalayas
1938. Tempera on board. 28 x 44 cm Museum of Oriental Art, Moscow

Nicholas Roerich. The Hunt.
1937. Tempera on canvas. 45,5 x 78,4.
State Museum of Oriental Arts, Moscow, Russia.

Nicholas Roerich. Ice Sphynx.
1938. Oil on canvas. 48,6 х 78,8.
Museum by name of Nicholas Roerich, ICR, Moscow, Russia.

Paintings sourced from:

• http://www.tanais.info/art/en/roerich.html
• http://www.roerich.org/
• http://www.roerich.ru/index.php?r=1280&l=eng

Gurpurab di lakh lakh vadhai!

Old love.

For a very long time, the only poem of William Savage Landor that I knew was the one on Rose Aylmer's* tomb in Calcutta:

AH, what avails the sceptred race!
Ah, what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!
Rose Aylmer, all were thine.
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,
A night of memories and sighs
I consecrate to thee.

Rose Aylmer's Tomb, Park Street Cemetery, Calcutta

Until I came across this:

You smiled, you spoke, and I believed,

By every word and smile deceived.

Another man would hope no more;

Nor hope I what I hoped before: 

But let not this last wish be vain;

Deceive, deceive me once again!

Which reminded me of this poem by Ahmed Faraz:

Ranjish hi sahi dil hi dukhane ke liye aa - Even if you bear a grudge, come at least to tease my heart
Aa phir se mujhe chhod ke jaane ke liye aa - Visit me once again, come, even if to depart

Kuchh to mere pindar-e-mohabbat ka bharam rakh - Respect a little the depth of my love for you
Tu bhi to kabhi mujhko manaane ke liye aa - You should also come someday to assuage my heart

Pehle se marasim na sahi phir bhi kabhi to - Though the relationship we had is over
Rasm-o-rah-e-duniya hi nibhane ke liye aa - Come to fulfill the rituals of the world

Kis kis ko batayenge judai ka sabab hum - Who all must I explain the reason for our separation
Tu mujhse khafa hai to zamane ke liye aa - Come, despite your displeasure, to continue the ceremony

Ek umr se hoon lazzat-e-girya se bhi mehroom - For long I have been denied even the luxury of tears
Aye raahat-e-jaan mujhko rulaane ke liye aa - O joy of my heart, come at least to make me weep

Ab tak dil-e-khushfeham ko tujh se hain umeedain - Even now this gullible heart has pinned its hopes on you
Ye aakhri shamein bhi bujhane ke liye aa - Come to blow out this last glimmering hope

The most famous version by Mehdi Hassan (though not completely faithful to the original poem*):

 

____________________________________________

* On Rose Aylmer, the British Social Life in India 1608-1937 states that she contorted "a most severe bowel complaint brought on entirely by indulging too much with that mischievous and dangerous fruit, the pineapple" and "at the end of a few days fell a martyr to the obstinacy of the malady" (and not cholera as is commonly believed). Maybe it's better to be unknown and forgotten than be remembered a hundred years later for having been a glutton. 

On another note, Rose Aylmer is also referenced in To Kill A Mockingbird: “Rose Aylmer was Uncle Jack’s cat”

** The last two couplets as sung by Mehdi Hasan are not by Ahmad Faraz. These were added later by Talib Baghbati

I wish I had the ability.

It wasn't a very loud word, but it had an effect rather like that of a drop of black ink in a glass of clear water. The word spread out in coils and tendrils, getting everywhere. It strangled the noise.

- Going Postal
  Terry Pratchett

Suicide in the Trenches

I KNEW a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
. . . .
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

Siegfried Sassoon

Au Revoir Bombay

Mordor and the Eye of Sauron - view from flat

On a clear morning - view from flat

After rains - view from flat

All shades and colours - view from flat

VT in the rain

Long Dinners and Great Memories

Waiting for a taxi - The only city in India where queues are formed, sometimes, at certain spots

My weekly headline provider on way to work - the very up-to-date Amul hoarding at Tilak Bridge

Beach and Bridge, Dadar

I will not let Delhi scare me - "jaisi billi maari, vaisi Dilli maari"

Salaam Bombay - Five things I'll miss.

It's my last night in Bombay and these are the five things that I will miss most about this great city:

1. The Parsis

I've found the Parsis fascinating as a people ever since one of my junior school textbooks informed me that Dadabhai Naoroji, the Grand Old Man of India, was a Parsi and all subsequent interactions have only reinforced my fascination. They laid the foundations of the city and continue to be the vortex around which the city revolves; somehow, I believe it is the presence of the Parsis that makes Bombay so different from any other in India - in terms of safety, culture (they turn up in all full force and of all ages at all events at the NCPA) and of course, the urban space that is South Bombay.

The Grand Old Man of India at Flora Fountain

2. King's Circle

Located ten minutes from my flat and on my route back from work, King's Circle provided me with all my necessities - an ATM, a grocery shop, a cobbler, a florist, a miscellaneous items shop, an ice-cream parlour, the chemist and most importantly, a second-hand book spread and Mysore Cafe.

Mumbai does not have very many good, or even just very many book shops. However, one does find the most beautiful second hand books. While King's Circle has many booksellers selling pirated and second hand copies, my favourite book-spread was to the left of Mysore Cafe from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. and  a most eclectic collection it is . The book-seller is knowledgeable, very helpful and never over-charges. Never having needed to bargain, I have usually ended up buying more books than I ought have but as I mentioned before, some of my favorite buys have been from there, including:

• Two Historic Trials in Red Fort - an account of the INA Trial and the Trial of Bahadur Shah Zafar complete with all documents including statements, exhibits, opening statements, arguments et al. 
• The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan
• Hard cover copies of selections of stories by Mark Twain, O. Henry and Guy de Maupassant
• The Collected DC Comics Absolute Justice
• Verse by Soviet Poets who laid down their lives in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945
• A Ramayana in Sindhi written in a variant of the Arabic scrip and a Persian Primer

My book-buying was usually proceeded by dinner at Mysore Cafe, one of the many numerous Udipi cafes dotting this area - I grew to prefer it over its rivals for its rasam-vada, its proximity to the books, their providing me with an individual table even if I went alone, their letting me sit for many hours without ordering and for remembering my usual and specific orders.

Cafe Mysore, King's Circle

 Covered from the rain - the book-seller's spot, King's Circle

3. The Taxi Drivers

I have taken the ubiquitous yellow-black cab off the roads of Bombay at all times of the night and day during my stay here and (with a certain amount of luck, of course), I have never faced any problems. In the insane traffic of this city, I have carried on extended conversations with the taxi-drivers and exchanged notes on our experiences in the city and its politics and the state of the country and everything else.  And I have often slept soundly on my way to work on certain days in the confident knowledge the taxi would wind its way to its destination. And though it is almost a daily battle to find a taxi home, I have had, on the whole, a most interesting time with the taxi drivers of Bombay and they will be sorely missed.

I am yet to reach Delhi and I have already been warned time and again against beginning any polite conversations with the taxi- and auto- drivers in Delhi.

4. The Freedom of Movement

No poky neighbours, no judging stares in public spaces and no self-imposed time limits for being out and about town. No other city in India to give that kind of freedom.

5. South Bombay

Everything about it! Marine Drive, Causeway, Mondegar's, Gateway, the Taj, Kala Ghoda, Fountain, VT, Prince of Wales Museum, the Reading Room, Brittania and tree-lined roads to walk along.

Marine Drive

The best place to hang-out late into the night, Marine Drive

Tree-lined avenues, Ballard Estate

The 24-hour open study centre

Boy reading a book, near Cafe Universal, Fort

Toba Tek Singhs around the world.

"Only once in the course of this long journey, punctuated by suffering, blood, illness, mud, did she believe she had caught a glimpse of a modicum of serenity and wisdom. She had already reached the far side of the Urals. On the way out of the village half consumed by a fire she saw several men sitting on a bank scattered with dead leaves. Their pale faces turned toward the mild late autumn sun, radiated a blissful calm. The peasant who was driving the cart jerked his head and explained softly, "Poor people, there are a dozen of them wandering around here now. Their asylum was burnt down. Oh, yes, madmen, you know."

- Dreams of My Russian Summers
  Andrei Makine

65 years of independence...

...and neither India nor Pakistan has a public memorial remembering the partition that created the two countries; nothing in memory of more than 10 million people who lost their lives and their homes and their histories to begin anew in nations that came into existence overnight.

Toba Tek Singh
By Sa'adat Hasan Manto

(See here for the text in Urdu and here for the text in devnagri.)

Two or three years after the 1947 Partition, it occurred to the governments of India and Pakistan to exchange their lunatics in the same manner as they had exchanged their criminals. The Muslim lunatics in India were to be sent over to Pakistan and the Hindu and Sikh lunatics in Pakistani asylums were to be handed over to India.

It was difficult to say whether the proposal made any sense or not. However, the decision had been taken at the topmost level on both sides. After high-level conferences were held a day was fixed for exchange of the lunatics. It was agreed that those Muslims who had families in India would be permitted to stay back while the rest would be escorted to the border. Since almost all the Hindus and Sikhs had migrated from Pakistan, the question of retaining non-Muslim lunatics in Pakistan did not arise. All of them were to be taken to India.

Nobody knew what transpired in India, but so far as Pakistan was concerned this news created quite a stir in the lunatic asylum at Lahore, leading to all sorts of funny developments. A Muslim lunatic, a regular reader of the fiery Urdu daily Zamindar, when asked what Pakistan was, reflected for a while and then replied, "Don't you know? A place in India known for manufacturing cut-throat razors." Apparently satisfied, the friend asked no more questions.

Likewise, a Sikh lunatic asked another Sikh, "Sardarji, why are we being deported to India? We don't even know their language." The Sikh gave a knowing smile. "But I know the language of Hindostoras" he replied. "These bloody Indians, the way they strut about!"

One day while taking his bath, a Muslim lunatic yelled, "Pakistan Zindabad!" with such force that he slipped, fell down on the floor and was knocked unconscious.

Not all the inmates were insane. Quite a few were murderers. To escape the gallows, their relatives had gotten them in by bribing the officials. They had only a vague idea about the division of India or what Pakistan was. They were utterly ignorant of the present situation. Newspapers hardly ever gave the true picture and the asylum warders were illiterates from whose conversation they could not glean anything. All that these inmates knew was that there was a man by the name of Quaid-e-Azam who had set up a separate state for Muslims, called Pakistan. But they had no idea where Pakistan was. That was why they were all at a loss whether they were now in India or in Pakistan. If they were in India, then where was Pakistan? If they were in Pakistan, how come that only a short while ago they were in India? How could they be in India a short while ago and now suddenly in Pakistan?

One of the lunatics got so bewildered with this India-Pakistan-Pakistan-India rigmarole that one day while sweeping the floor he climbed up a tree, and sitting on a branch, harangued the people below for two hours on end about the delicate problems of India and Pakistan. When the guards asked him to come down he climbed up still higher and said, "I don't want to live in India and Pakistan. I'm going to make my home right here on this tree."

All this hubbub affected a radio engineer with an MSc degree, a Muslim, a quiet man who took long walks by himself. One day he stripped off all his clothes, gave them to a guard and ran in the garden stark naked.

Another Muslim inmate from Chiniot, an erstwhile adherent of the Muslim League who bathed fifteen or sixteen times a day, suddenly gave up bathing. As his name was Mohammed Ali, he one day proclaimed that he was none other than Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Taking a cue from him a Sikh announced that he was Master Tara Singh, the leader of the Sikhs. This could have led to open violence. But before any harm could be done the two lunatics were declared dangerous and locked up in separate cells.

Among the inmates of the asylum was a Hindu lawyer from Lahore who had gone mad because of unrequited love. He was deeply pained when he learnt that Amritsar, where the girl lived, would form part of India. He roundly abused all the Hindu and Muslim leaders who had conspired to divide India into two, thus making his beloved an Indian and him a Pakistani. When the talks on the exchange were finalized his mad friends asked him to take heart since now he could go to India. But the young lawyer did not want to leave Lahore, for he feared for his legal practice in Amritsar.

There were two Anglo-Indians in the European ward. When informed the British were leaving, they spent hours together discussing the problems they would be faced with: Would the European ward be abolished? Would they get breakfast? Instead of bread, would they have to make do with measly Indian chapattis?

There was a Sikh who had been admitted into the asylum fifteen years ago. Whenever he spoke it was the same mysterious gibberish: "Uper the gur gur the annexe the bay dhayana the mung the dal of the laltain." The guards said that he had not slept a wink in all this time. He would not even lie down to rest. His feet were swollen with constant standing and his calves had puffed out in the middle, but in spite of this agony he never cared to lie down. He listened with rapt attention to all discussions about the exchange of lunatics between India and Pakistan. If someone asked his views on the subject he would reply in a grave tone: "Uper the gur gur the annexe the bay dhayana the mung the dal of the Government of Pakistan." But later on he started substituting "the Government of Pakistan" with "Toba Tek Singh," which was his home town. Now he began asking where Toba Tek Singh was to go. But nobody seemed to know where it was. Those who tried to explain themselves got bogged down in another enigma: Sialkot, which used to be in India, now was in Pakistan. At this rate, it seemed as if Lahore, which was now in Pakistan, would slide over to India. Perhaps the whole of India might become Pakistan. It was all so confusing! And who could say if both India and Pakistan might not entirely disappear from the face of the earth one day?

The hair on the Sikh lunatic's head had thinned and his beard had matted, making him look wild and ferocious. But he was a harmless creature. In fifteen years he had not even once had a row with anyone. The older employees of the asylum knew that he had been a well-to-do fellow who had owned considerable land in Toba Tek Singh. Then he had suddenly gone mad. His family had brought him to the asylum in chains and left him there. They came to meet him once a month but ever since the communal riots had begun, his relatives had stopped visiting him.

His name was Bishan Singh but everybody called him Toba Tek Singh. He did not know what day it was, what month it was and how many years he had spent in the asylum. Yet as if by instinct he knew when his relatives were going to visit, and on that day he would take a long bath, scrub his body with soap, put oil in his hair, comb it and put on clean clothes. If his relatives asked him anything he would keep silent or burst out with "Uper the gur gur the annexe the bay dhayana the mung the dal of the laltain."

When he had been brought to the asylum, he had left behind an infant daughter. She was now a comely and striking young girl of fifteen, who Bishan Singh failed to recognize. She would come to visit him, and not be able to hold back her tears.

When the India-Pakistan caboodle started Bishan Singh often asked the other inmates where Toba Tek Singh was. Nobody could tell him. Now even the visitors had stopped coming. Previously his sixth sense would tell him when the visitors were due to come. But not anymore. His inner voice seemed to have stilled. He missed his family, the gifts they used to bring and the concern with which they used to speak to him. He was sure they would have told him whether Toba Tek Singh was in India or Pakistan. He also had the feeling that they came from Toba Tek Singh, his old home.

One of the lunatics had declared himself God. One day Bishan Singh asked him where Toba Tek Singh was. As was his habit the man greeted Bishan Singh's question with a loud laugh and then said, "It's neither in India nor in Pakistan. In fact, it is nowhere because till now I have not taken any decision about its location."

Bishan begged the man who called himself God to pass the necessary orders and solve the problem. But 'God' seemed to be very busy other matters. At last Bishan Singh's patience ran out and he cried out: "Uper the gur gur the annexe the mung the dal of Guruji da Khalsa and Guruji ki fateh jo boley so nihal sat sri akal."

What he wanted to say was: "You don't answer my prayers because you a Muslim God. Had you been a Sikh God, you would have surely helped me out."

A few days before the exchange was due to take place, a Muslim from Toba Tek Singh who happened to be a friend of Bishan Singh came to meet him. He had never visited him before. On seeing him, Bishan Singh tried to slink away, but the warder barred his way. "Don't you recognize your friend Fazal Din?" he said. "He has come to meet you." Bishan Singh looked furtively at Fazal Din, then started to mumble something. Fazal Din placed his hand on Bishan Singh's shoulder. "I have been thinking of visiting you for a long time," he said. "But I couldn't get the time. Your family is well and has gone to India safely. I did what I could to help. As for your daughter, Roop Kaur" --he hesitated--'She is safe too in India."

Bishan Singh kept quiet. Fazal Din continued: "Your family wanted me to make sure you were well. Soon you'll be moving to India. Please give my salaam to bhai Balbir Singh and bhai Raghbir Singh and bahain Amrit Kaur. Tell Balbir that Fazal Din is well. The two brown buffaloes he left behind are well too. Both of them gave birth to calves, but, unfortunately, one of them died. Say I think of them often and to write to me if there is anything I can do."

Then he added "Here, I've brought some plums for you."

Bishan Singh took the gift from Fazal Din and handed it to the guard. "Where is Toba Tek Singh?" he asked.

"Where? Why, it is where it has always been."

"In India or Pakistan?"

"In India...O no, in Pakistan."

Without saying another word, Bishan Singh walked away, muttering "Uper the gur gur the annexe the bay dhyana the mung the dal of the Pakistan and India dur fittey moun."

At long last the arrangements for the exchange were complete. The lists of lunatics who were to be sent over from either side were exchanged and the date fixed.

On a cold winter evening truckloads of Hindu and Sikh lunatics from the Lahore asylum were moved out to the Indian border under police escort. Senior officials went with them to ensure a smooth exchange. The two sides met at the Wagah border check-post, signed documents and the transfer got underway.

Getting the lunatics out of the trucks and handing them over to the opposite side proved to be a tough job. Some refused to get down from the trucks. Those who could be persuaded to do so began to run in all directions. Some were stark naked. As soon as they were dressed they tore off their clothes again. They swore, they sang, they fought with each other. Others wept. Female lunatics, who were also being exchanged, were even noisier. It was pure bedlam. Their teeth chattered in the bitter cold.

Most of the inmates appeared to be dead set against the entire operation. They simply could not understand why they were being forcibly removed to a strange place. Slogans of 'Pakistan Zindabad' and 'Pakistan Murdabad' were raised, and only timely intervention prevented serious clashes.

When Bishan Singh's turn came to give his personal details to be recorded in the register, he asked the official "Where's Toba Tek Singh? In India or Pakistan?"

The officer laughed loudly, "In Pakistan, of course."

Hearing that Bishan Singh turned and ran back to join his companions. The Pakistani guards caught hold of him and tried to push him across the line to India. Bishan Singh wouldn't move. "This is Toba Tek Singh," he announced. "Uper the gur gur the annexe the be dyhana mung the dal of Toba Tek Singh and Pakistan."

It was explained to him over and over again that Toba Tek Singh was in India, or very soon would be, but all this persuasion had no effect.

They even tried to drag him to the other side, but it was no use. There he stood on his swollen legs as if no power on earth could dislodge him. Soon, since he was a harmless old man, the officials left him alone for the time being and proceeded with the rest of the exchange.

Just before sunrise, Bishan Singh let out a horrible scream. As everybody rushed towards him, the man who had stood erect on his legs for fifteen years, now pitched face-forward on to the ground. On one side, behind barbed wire, stood together the lunatics of India and on the other side, behind more barbed wire, stood the lunatics of Pakistan. In between, on a bit of earth which had no name, lay Toba Tek Singh.
Translation taken from: http://www.sacw.net/partition/tobateksingh.html

________________________________________________________________________________

In a recent interview, Manto's niece, Ayesha Jalal, mentioned that “Nothing worried us more than the prospect of the government of Pakistan slapping an award on him. There is a quote from Manto where he says that he shudders to think they might put a thamga (a posthumous medal) on his coffin. We are all very relieved they haven’t given him a national award, posthumously.”

Pakistan announced the award of the Nishan-e-Imtiaz to Manto on August 13, 2012.  

Depressed Oppressed Suppressed.

 

Ramzan Special - Plato Spotting and Gorging in the by-lanes of Mumbai.

To add to a previous post, here's Shahi Aflatoon spotted at Mohammed Ali Road, Mumbai during the month of Ramzan.

I didn't get the chance to try the Plato special but we did have a most filling and wonderful dinner in a most festive atmosphere.

I have a sweet tooth and I wish I'd gone a little slow on the dinner and kept space for the many varieties of desserts available - including many that I hadn't heard or seen before! But maal-poora is one of my favorite dishes, and Ramzan is occasion for this special maal-poora (the photo below), the size of the dinner plate with phirni. What a perfect end.

Ramzan Mubarak!

The Inglorious End.

ab tak dil-e-khush_feham ko tujh se hain ummeedain
ye aakhari shammain bhi bujhaane ke liye aa

(The full ghazal here.) 

Bottom of the pool and dare one even say anything about the 11th-12th placements. It's not so much the placements that hurt but that there never even seemed to be a fight. 

Well, here's wishing the Germans the Gold now.  

Those Damnable Dutch and Indian Hockey and me.

The Olympics are upon us and after the horror of Beijing where India did not qualify for hockey for the first time ever since their first appearance, just making it to London made us Indian hockey supporters breathe a sigh of relief. Do we expect to have a podium finish? No, not very seriously . And yet, the match today exceeded everyone's expectations such that we began to expect a win and were disappointed to not, at the very least,  equalize. Against Netherlands.

Perhaps we have lost more and lost worse to other teams but Netherlands remains in my memory as the nemesis of Indian hockey. I don't recall the tournament now. India playing against the Dutch were, for once, leading 3-0 with 7 minutes left on the clock. And then the electricity went. We rushed to a radio. By the time it was brought out and the correct wavelength identified, Holland had equalized! And as we heard, they scored again and had won the game 4-3 (You can see it all here). I have disliked the Dutch team ever since; in my head, Netherlands (more than Australia) has been a big bad wolf.

My loyalty was given to hockey at a young age, heavily influenced by tales told by Dad and Chachaji of the hockey games they played in and the hockey games they'd seen during their school days. Perhaps it helped that Indian cricket was also quite at its nadir in those formative years, though I would like to believe that my heart would have been given to hockey irrespective of its competitors.

My father went to a public school that shared its hockey practice grounds with the Indian team. He fondly remembers the time(s?) the school team played against the Indian team and proudly narrates the story of Surjit Singh's frustration at letting a school kid get past him and therefore taking him down^ - apparently, Surjit Singh's philosophy was that either the ball would get past him or the man, never both.

So I grew up on tales of hockey and history (the Indian glory at the Olympics*, the golden years that lasted till the late '60s, the last of the great wins of the 1975 World Cup), the turn to astro-turf, the loss of the art of dribbling and the fall of the (sub-continental) game. Despite it all, through the horrible 90s of my childhood, hockey remained the preferred sport.

Tonight, a young team on a blue turf they've barely played on, having only a few players with any Olympic experience, played well. Certainly not well enough but though they did not win, they helped put a few personal ghosts to rest. It was one match and it is one small sign but in my imagination finally the Dutch no longer seem invincible and larger-than-life.

There are five more games to go and only two teams to make the next round and all that India realistically hopes for is making the top six. The Indian Hockey Federation and its politics are still dirty, the Indian team is still mercurial, their game still fairly slow, and how the future will play out, through the Olympics and beyond, shall be revealed in time. Yet, for today, Michael Nobbs' boys seem to have a fresh energy and a spring in their step not often seen in the Indian team. For now, that is enough.  
__________________________________________________________________

*a clip of the India-Germany final in 1936, which India won 8-1
^ Ajit Singh's reaction: Kyon jawaak nuun kutti jaana hain? [Why are you beating up/going after a kid?]

Acersecomic

Brain Pickings Weekly's Unusual Words Rendered in Bold gives a useful word for me to know:

Acersecomic: A person whose hair has never been cut.  

And World Wide Words gives this further information:

"The legitimacy of this word rests entirely on two appearances in dictionaries, in 1623 and 1656. It seems never to have been used seriously and ever since has been held up as an example of an odd word, in modern times in works with titles like The Joy of Lex,Poplollies and Bellibones, Have a Word on Me, and Dimboxes, Epopts, and other Quidams.

It means a person whose hair has never been cut. Though that may appear comic to some, there’s nothing humorous in its etymology. The word is from the classical Latinacersecomes, a long-haired youth, a word borrowed from an earlier Greek one that was made up from kome, the hair of the head (which is where comic comes from in the ending), keirein, to cut short, and the prefix a-, not. Though this sounds like a aged curmudgeon’s way to talk about unkempt youngsters who weren’t like that in his day, it was actually neutrally descriptive — it was usual for Roman and Greek youths to wear their hair long until they reached manhood.

Greek kome has given us one sense of coma: a diffuse cloud of gas and dust that surrounds the nucleus of a comet. The same -comic ending turns up in two terms that, if possible, are even rarer: acrocomic, having hair at the tip, as in a goat’s beard (acro-means tip) and xanthocomic, a person with yellow hair (from Greek xanthos, yellow)."

Xanthocomic Acersecomic.

Bombay Monsoon - II

It finally reached.

Flagging a cab.

It was a Clark Gable day again today.

It's not hitchhiking but some days, willingness to pay the fare (and even extra) is no guarantee of a ride. Nothing works - not the smiling face or the long face or the crazy arm waving or jumping up and down or even the tried and tested thumb. And I can't decide whether to curse more the cabs which whizz right past or the ones who make a pretense of slowing down and raising hopes and move on before I've even finished saying my destination.

The Trams of Calcutta

Tera mujh sey hai pehley ka naata koi
Yun hi nahin dil lubhaata koi...

I fell in love with trams the first time I visited Calcutta in January 2009. Calcutta being the only city in India to currently have trams, it was the first time I ever saw one in operation or rode one. Actually, rode many. As many as I could convince my friends to take. I recently visited again and many of the routes plying in 2009 have closed. We took two routes this time, from Tollygunge to Kalighat and Esplanade to Kidderpore, and in the sweltering heat of June, the tram was the coolest way to travel.

The history of tram transport in India goes back to the 1870s when trams were introduced in Calcutta and Bombay and subsequently in Delhi, Madras, Patna, Nasik and Kanpur. Delhi and Bombay were the last to hold out, shutting down in the 1960s. The Calcutta tram survived and is the oldest operating electric tram in Asia, running since 1902.

I was most surprised (and irritated) to find that no tram souvenirs were available anywhere in the city. No postcards, no magnets, no t-shirts. (What shops do sell is the Victoria Memorial, some Howrah Bridge and lots and lots of, of all things, the Taj Mahal (Agra)). 

Oh it hurts me just to see 'em
Going dead in a museum

- Robyn Hitchcock, Trams of Old London 

Where trams go to die - Tollygunge Tram Depot

Ram Rattan Singh, who has been driving trams for 32 years

My love for trams is not an isolated phenomenon...

...and thankfully, they seem to have made a comeback in many cities around the world in the past couple of decades, including London in 2000. One can only hope that the Indian government will catch on and the Calcutta trams especially will also be remembered and cared for and regain their glory.