Taamul

Compiling a list of favourite books is not as easy as it seemed when Chitra nominated me. Perhaps because our expectations and experiences from a book changes as we change. Thus as I reflected about those books which left a great deal of impression on me, I realised that they varied with the distinct phases of my life, which at the risk of oversimplification, I have categorised into- school, college-university and working life. Below are my top 10 books from my school life- the volume 1. School life - “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.” I didn’t inherit a reading library from my family. And the among the gifts that I got during my birthdays which could be read were brass vessels  embedded  with my name. As kids, buying a book, apart from what was prescribed in our school curriculum was a luxury my father couldn’t afford. But what they did, clearly beyond their financial bounds, was to pu...

Seeking empty spaces to deal with the emptiness within Looking for empty spaces, I go and crowd places. Abdicating the cacophony here, I subvert the quietude there. I go to see this, I go to see that. Browsing through the SD card, I see only myself. In front of this, and in front of that. Inexplicably wearing, My paradoxical hat.

Can you uproot the uprooted? Strong limbs, s ubmissive lives,  Bruised palms, egos , souls  untroubled  Abstracted friends,  love  forlorn,  Ghost families Burnt faces,  tireless  dreams. Undeserved,  even of punctuations? In the ditties of growth Where did paan,  bidi,  or gutkha pitch-in to   make-over,  build, develop? Unacknowledged martyrs, uncelebrated piety Killed, burnt, maimed Uprooting the uprooted fulfilling convenient whims, Of unbeknownst nations,  obtuse destinies. Wiped from imaginations Subtracted from reality. Quietly born and raised To mop, pull, push, drag civilizations'  humdrum burdens  Underneath the ordinary  where , high heaven Is the dusty earth. yet why the head  droops down and down?

From the deepest, and the darkest nook, alleys and mazes of my thoughts, Hidden  f rom facebook,  Not allowed even in my dreams.  I have hidden her from myself too. Is she shameful or is she immoral? Dogmatic, academic, eerie or fearful? So tender, so nimble, that the faintest touch. Create tenacious memories. Lest it can’t be stopped. I am never looking, yet I keep finding. Right now, I am waiting. Just to lose her,  forever.

Discovered this article which I had written 5 years ago, and had lost it since then, while doing a random google search. The original article is in the archives of Ecowatch Blog  . The sun scorched above me as I started my trip up the misty mountains to revisit my extended family of Nilgiri langurs, the Misty Monkeys of the Sahayadris. In the next two and a half hours, dramatic changes in weather conditions would unfold. I would be climbing from sea-level to 1330 meters above sea level and the temperatures would drop from a scorching 38-39 degrees centigrade to a cool 18-22 degrees centigrade. I feel apprehensive as I climb higher and higher. The first glimpse of a lonely Langur during the trip makes my heart almost skip a beat. Would the Nilgiri langur families whom I had befriended still remember me as I do them? Would they still be as friendly towards me as before or would I have to start the whole process again?  I did miss them in my urban abode. Did they too m...

An edited version of this article was published in ( Down To Earth (August, 2012) “Rivers gave us the first great human civilizations. But what did we give back to our rivers?  Death?” – Ms. Sina Suchiang, a Khasi women working as a teacher in Brichornot Village, Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya Dusty and sooty landscape of Jaintia Hills. Narpuh Reserve Forest (RF), deep inside the Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya, is among the few good forest patches which has withstood the intense pressures of growth, development and mindless extraction of natural resources like coal and limestone. It also forms an important watershed area with many important rivers originating from the hills. We visited the forest in March and November last year looking for birds and primates as part of an ecological study. The 200 km and 9 hour long journey from Shillong to Pasadwar village, the range headquarters of Narpuh RF block 1, was dominated by large broom-grass plantations, coal and limestone mi...

Swaying, chugging, whistling, tunneling through darkness, Within and beyond. Naipaul on the berth, Nokia in the palms, Kenny Rogers in the air.   Rhythm of rail in my bones, familiar journey, yet unfamiliar senses. Rattling fans, clunky iron wheels Bending my legs, I longed for familiarities of home, when   ordure and urine smell found my nose. And eyes looked towards its source. Saw a face glow, with the lonely light, erupting from the loo, against the ivory face. Hairs unmoved, scarf caught in the wind. The face entered, the darkness returned.