I've realised that things at Prantik (and thereabouts) look prettiest by night. It helps if one can get on a rickshaw. A twenty minute passing through by low ceilinged homes with yellow light spilling out onto the road. Carrom clubs with heads and hands in focus and the rest nothing but dark smudges. Tea stalls with Hurricanes shining through steam from boiling milk. That landscape-in-the-mist place filled to bursting with fireflies at seven. Bicycle bulbs in the blackness, riders silhouetted against headlights further down the road. There's much to be said about the absence of tubelights in general. I never miss it till I feel like reading, and even then I have my phone so as far as comfort goes, light that cocoons is-just-something-else. And no one has a photo of it. Even better.

I don't think I'm that hot on getting away any more, you know why because you know what I'm going to say next. Everyone that I have ever loved, everyone is getting old. You go go, and you don't come back. You go go, and you don't come back. Can't get this out of my head now.

Winamp's on rabid shuffle. I've had a holiday without music, my music I mean. Apart from humming absently while doing stupid things like brushing my teeth (a habit I've picked up from my mother, I've realised) the only other song I heard that I can remember is an anthem going Jaya Karnataka Maate that a group of kids at a school in Kakkabe were singing. They'd probably think otherwise, or not think about it at all, but it made me feel cheated anyway, I'd like to be going to school on a mountain. Blame it on the Chalet School, which I loved only because of where it was, and Ranikhet and Rishap and this little building under Tadiyendamol, the things I could do with my life if I had a schooling under the sky.

On the train back from Bangalore I heard a kid declaim about the pubs there - clean ladies loos, smoking sections, ittis really awesome da. I could only concur. This kid, incidentally, was part of an entire panoply of college students who decided to spend most of the 29 hours hogging every charger outlet to either watch movies or transfer them. Walking from berth to loo I catch on glowing laptop screens glimpses of The Lion King, Big Bang Theory, Serendipity, Karthik Calling Karthik, and, inexplicably, Crossroads. Inception jaisa koi action film hai kya? Arre Se7en dekh. Mast hai. Magar woh waisa toh nahin hoga na, matlab gripping types chahiye. Arre Se7en dekh. Bahhhuut dangerous hai.

This is a mostly desultory post because I'm writing desultorily. My keyboard's grown stiffer. What I mean is I need to hit every key forcefully and sometimes vengefully and it's not conducive to gushing. Going elsewhere always does me good if it's not too many people and I can walk around a lot, Coorg's ideal for that if you consider lines like the woodland spring has put the darkness from your thinking, something that just came up now. It's a pretty effective analogy but I really should stop trying to write with music playing, I inevitably end up thinking via lyrics.

Most of the time I'm a quieter person when I'm travelling. I don't speak unless spoken to and I'd much rather not hobnob with other people at the dining room, chewing and watching is pretty much my game. I was rude to this gentleman during teatime because he was annoying the fuck out of me by describing the trek he'd undertaken that morning. I could tell my father was secretly pleased, but then he holds that Bloody Proselytizers deserve all the discomfort that comes their way. That is, by the way, a category. My father does not like missionaries. That is, of course, not why I was rude to him. Another thing that made my trip, reading alone. Having people come up and declare that they've just finished reading x by y then look around hoping to find someone else who's read it and will discuss it, it's taking a toll on my wellbeing. I could attribute it to a lot of other things too but being a literature student, I've realised, has come close to screwing with my happiness most of the time. That's not to say I won't survive it :)

Now for the sea.

Way in, then way out. I like doing this for fun sometimes, reduce saturation to zero. Then new things pop out, clothes look interesting.

All of these photographs look terrible in colour.

The other thing I do for fun is add watermarks to photos and feel important.

Landed. At nine am today I was pretending to be a rock at Gingee. I thought I'd coax the father into climbing all the way up to the top of the fort so I could see what a splendid kingdom I'd have had if I'd been a tribal chieftain, didn't happen because we realised halfway through we were drenched in sweat and wouldn't reach Chennai in time for the Chettinaad lunch we'd planned to have after a week of hobnobbing with what we call the idli-dosa public. So we turned around, and there it was, a wide expanse of wild grass and manicured ASI lawns with ruined temples and granaries and arched gateways popping out through the rocks like startled gnomes. Telephone lines in the distance. But mainly rocks, so many boulders turning into pebbles near the horizon, consider the number of trolls they'd make, consider building a fort on sleeping trolls. Gingee was my favourite place of the lot after Thanjavur, when I go back again I will spend the day there till my legs creak and then turn into a rock. Or maybe I'll go eat some more mutton ghee roast in Madras. It's all a matter of leverage, I'll lean the way I feel. Yet another animal-versus-mineral instance.

I have next to no recollection of Chennai but plenty of my relatives. Which goes to say I'll probably have a nice time but be bored to tears. I shall look at people as a mute version of myself, nodding and laughing and helping out when needed and everyone will think I'm the poor silent sort who will trouble her parents later in life. I shall eat a large quantity of chips with meals and get used to rasam and be asked if I want Aarlicks at night. It's all good though. Some people I want to see because they figured so prominently for the first seven years of my life. The others, I don't know. I'd like to meet the family drunkard but he won't stop talking if he senses you might listen. It'll be like rehab but its ok, as long as I get to go somewhere I'll be awesome every moment. Maybe I'll be so awesome I'll go around asking for the recipe of chettinaad chicken again. Little extreme, but it should freak everyone out enough: the last time I did I was asked, in the most conspiratorial tone, if I ate mutta-dosai at home. Tamil for omelette, it struck me later.

Raju has the kind of eyes I've always wanted, he has the smiling urchin's face I've always wanted, he has the kind of dusty skin I've always wanted. He takes us past Rishikulya to the beach and points out little specks in the distance and flaps his hands, then helps me collect rainbow-coloured shells that now lie in a plastic bag on my table, they might be mother-of-pearl but I don't want to find out they aren't.

Raju has a husky voice and a red shawl and says things I don't understand, it sounds like a mixture of Telugu and Oriya but it could be something else altogether. I say things he doesn't seem to understand either, we get by with what I've now learnt are International Gestures. IGs for what is that? And no, not there. And wait, wait, there's something in my shoe. He says he's in class three, he understands the word school, also cyclone. Because he's brought us through the cashew trees and mangroves and lots of sand right to the water I'm inclined to want to bring him along into the boat we hire to take us out to sea. But he disappears, and when we come back he's scrabbling around on the sand waiting for us, bringing out two more shells and a dead crab from his pockets.

He wants a toffee but he wants my camera more. He looks at it like it's a weapon at first and then he likes the attention, by the end of it he's making faces but don't be fooled, Raju's a gentleman. He drags us to see a freshly-caught swordfish and leads us back to his village, kicking stray objects in the sand out of his way, pausing now and then to pick up a dried fish or dig his nose or point at a solitary torn chappal lying around, and then he disappears again. Just like that. We pull out in the van and I'm still looking, only he isn't there.

When the reels are developed he looks quite different. The amber of his eyes and the shininess of his hair don't come through. But there's something quieter and more subliminal going on here, I look closer and there it is, Raju's a star.

Padmasambhava. I've been following without knowing for so long it isn't funny. First Nako and then Gurudongmar, I want to go back and I want to go to Rewalsar and wherever else it is but mainly I want to go to a lake. I want to be back like I was at Nako, climbing up dusty hillside till I reached a tree and under the tree I found a skull, dog or fox, can't be sure. And under the tree I sat and held the skull in my palm and thought about the noxious-looking potatoes with stalks sprouting out of them that the villagers had sold us. Carbide the proprietor at the half-constructed guest house was convinced they were poisonous. We were convinced he was whining was because he wouldn't get paid fully for dinner. Mr Carbide had a face I can't remember, the name stays because he was cocksure and explosive and snuck up on us when we didn't expect it. Wasn't my idea, the name.

Also under the tree I remember that moment of indecision, whether to take off jacket or not in the face of mild sunshine getting cloying and warm. Mostly that morning stood for nothing, everyone isn't Padmasambhava. No epiphanies. Just a feeling of invincibility, but in an offhand way, I can't explain. Setting loose pebbles rolling downhill to the lake and then worrying about landslides. Feeling the weight of the skull make my palm all sweaty and worrying about being morbid.

All the times I've travelled with adults I've been to places I want to revisit now because they aren't cities. Being dropped down at 14000 feet versus planning the getting-there bit. Getting permission to walk around alone versus getting permits to cross a checkpost. Maybe I want to go back so I can obsess over myself in ways I don't do here. How long before they miss me? When will they call out? The mountainside's witness to the fact that you may end up a skull among boulders but the mountains will remain, and what if no one misses you, that sort of thing. Not epiphanies but neuroses.

Eight years later all that remain are trigger-words. Padmasambhava. Skull. Potatoes. Aquamarine lake, headache. Ditto for Gurudongmar, only Colder and More Blue and Fluttering Flags and Sikh Shrine. There's always a chance I haven't forgotten how they look, but I won't know till I see them again, landscapes in old photographs always look alien. If I waste this June, P, I'll never forgive myself. But then I miss out on the other lakes I could sit by, that's what it all boils down to in the end, really.

Hello, prolix post, beg pardon.

This comes a day late but I've had it with hiding the secret romanticism.

Second Holi-playing chance today, am wondering whether to let it go or not. Second day of bhaang? Can't handle. Third two-hour scrubby bath in two days? Can't handle. Running around on crampy stomach and then stomaching biryani? Can't handle. But then it's homemade biryani after ages. Ma claims we're all secretly Mughal in nature. We like our saffron and we like our mutton and we like small paintings and in an earlier age I'd definitely be an annoying courtier-poet. More avenues open, more cattiness, I'd have had a ball.

My dad's been giving me guilt about dissing his idea to go watch Holi being played in the northeast; I only have his word for it but it's apparently very different and very picturesque and more than a little mindblowing. I had fourteen years of school where I played Holi nine times, that's five Holis gone where we could've been in the northeast. But this is a relatively new travelplan. We played in the para then, kids versus chengras, and it was like fighting a war. Here in the complex it's more Bollywoodish, with gulaal flung in the air and people jumping into the fountain at the end (na na, ota toh Fellini) and feeding each other laddoos. College tops all else in spite of the eggs. But I only have three years of college Holi, two down already, and given that this is one festival that gets me more hyper than Diwali I can't go away now. Even if it's to Arunachal.

Focussing on moss, no one shall know what this actually was, nothing but the moss.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
shutupandsleepwithmec'monwhydon'tyousleepwithmeshutupandsleepwithmecomeonuhhuhandsleepwithmeshutupandsleepwithmecomeonwhydon'tyousleepwithmeshutupandsleepwithmuhhuhwhydon'tyousleepwithmeeee

On a bad day it'd sound like Aqua, I think.

But there's always a neutraliser.

If I could do just one near-perfect thing I'd be happy, they'd write it on my grave or when they scattered my ashes. On second thoughts I'd rather hang around and be theeeere with my best friend if she wants me (paaon paaon paaon paaon)

Hahahahaha. Raichak on loop.

So Springfest's a drunkfest.
I wasn't very drunk.
There's fog curling around the stadium, it's empty
and yellow, and the grass is dewy, but none of this matters.
We climbed all the way up this hillock because it's the first thing we saw after entering,
Turns out it had steps in the front.
So there's cold stone underneath and I can hear Soumi's teeth chattering
and Arjit's shouting at Senjuti to shut up
and we need to pee, three times and more we need to pee from the rum
but we can't, the shadiest corners are places to pee in but they're also places
to make out in, so nada.

You can't pee on buildings.
Our bums will glow if a car passes by.
Our eyes will be too red and our hands will be too cold.
And let those three shadows go away, please, but maybe
they're just listening to the music?

The trees beyond the fog have these shapes.
One looks like a dinosaur eating up a lamp post.
And then we walk along stripes in the middle of a road
and sometimes we fall
but mostly we totter because there are other people tottering.
Cellphones lost, we need to pee again,
then I negotiate with the people at CCD, who're planning on closing down
and in the CCD loo I realise I'm mistaking the basin for the cistern
and then Senjuti punches Arijit
and Anushka headbutts my shoulder
and Choi mistakes other people for me,
and I put my foot in a squelchy puddle but don't tell anyone because I'm
too scared it's vomit.

The flashlight comes anyway,
It sweeps clean across us and everyone closes their magazines and pushes hair
out and away from their faces
and there's a jeep but the guy's really nice, he tells us to leave the stadium
and go back to the road and stay on it, how very nice,
only I'm thinking, where do we pee now?

So Springfest's a drunkfest.
Doesn't matter, we're sitting far away in a grassy patch outside the tennis courts
and it's hidden by trees.
There's a twig poking into the small of my back
and there's Kryptos playing somewhere in the distance,
lots of flashing lights and I'm guessing it's a wild wild party
but all we can hear is bass and it sounds like a minefield
and all we can see are the lights
over the trees,
it looks like an air-raid.
We're singing peace anthems, we're dancing to Marley,
cue wry smile, then forget, at least
we're spared the concert,
then someone shouts
KRYPTOSIS!
And everyone's hanging from tree branches.

I eat dal-roti at Vegies and feel happy even though it's horrible, and the quizzes don't matter
because nothing matters till it's dark (The cheese maggi matters
but it soon turns into cheesy maagi
and maagi jokes, fried maagi and plain maagi, anda maagi and motton maagi).
Then there are huddles of drunk people everywhere singing
My Heart Will Go On
and other things, I don't remember,
and it's all total fun man fuck man like yeaaah total fun man like yeaah fuck fuck fuck
yeah bitch.
And I'm on a rickshaw
dropping off, dropping off, but there are people passing everywhere till
the people and the rickshaw are sure to collide
but we reach the dorm and pee,
and then pee again.
All that goes in comes out and over again,
I think we peed all over the place.

But wait, no, we rolled all over the place too
but mostly we rolled down the grassy slope in that complex I can't remember.
So yeah, Springfest's a drunkfest but I was
Mostly dazed.

In the morning I lose all sense of direction
(It'd been intact all night)
Then I realise you can see the moon in the morning
and other people can see it too
and I realise it's not like being scared by animals while you're tripping
(Like cowdung means a cow's around, and a trotting dog's a monster).
Maybe it isn't IIT at all,
maybe it's us.
I've mixed up Night One and Night Two but they could be interchangeable
because it's all the same, tremendously cold hazy loud furry smoky.
Tremendously in, tremendously out,
Tremendously taxing.
I snore.
I'm not going back, I think.

And then I come back home after a never-ending train journey and take a bath and
pull out a plate to eat my lunch
and five others fall out and are smithereened more thoroughly than anything
has ever been smithereened
and scoobyfreakingdoo, boo-tralala-hoo,
It's all okay,
As long as I sleep,
As long as I get up,
As long as I can
find out why my sneakers are glowing in all the pictures.

There is nothing I can say about Bombay that has not been said before. I cannot write about it because I can't pinpoint what exactly I like about it, it has been a failing with most cities I like, seeing as there are so few of them. As a kid, however, I remember liking the city because it had FIATs for taxis. We'd just bought a second-hand Premier Padmini, the first family car, and it made me feel like every Bombay taxi was mine. The taxis remain, but I rode a local train. That rhymes.

I'm glad I walked out of VT only slightly less faster than it took the rest of the crowd to walk in, in spite of being mildly freaked out at everything. There are ticket meters in Marathi but keep walking, everyone's walking the other way but keep walking, the building's so pretty but keep walking. Gag, Slumdog, gag, here? But keep walking. That's what VT was like.

No vada-pav because I don't like it, but akoori and mawa pudding, check. Right after we got back I visited Nahoum's and it's true, Kyani's is more or less a Nahoum's with chequered tablecloths and pillars.

There were kids flying kites on Marine Drive. And there was Porcupine Tree, but I cannot write about that either. There were also a whole lot of new people, funny people, wonderful people, hot coffee-providing people, but fuck it this post's bad enough already.

Chopta was the first time I almost scared myself to death. There was this guy at the chulha who told us we'd get roti and lauki ki sabzi, nothing else, he also told us that we'd better get back to our room quickly because sometimes panthers went by the village at night. I was nine and secretly neurotic already, and a panther was a PANTHER! but the folks stepped out anyway. Within half a minute of walking down the road we were in a kind of darkness you don't see anywhere else, pure pitch without glimmerings of any other shade. And since you don't need a panther if you're inside it already, my usual attack of silent hyperventilation started. Then I looked up at the peak of it all, and there seemed to be more light up in the sky than down here, more stars than I had ever seen in my life, spread out till as far as I could follow. All right this sounds really sappy now, like a parable or something. But it was huge then, like Complan powder on a granite slab, like spray-painting with toothbrushes (white paint, black chart paper) during craft classes. Charts of the solar system, encyclopedias with colour illustrations, science city, nothing compares. We sat down for a bit in the middle of the road at great peril to our bottoms and huffed out mouthfuls of vapour, and all I wanted was to get back to a lit room because as far as I was concerned a panther was following us back all the way from the village.

It's always been my favourite part of being in the hills ever since, looking up at a clear night sky on a dark road and becoming Microbe Number One. And a part of my refusal to learn to tell constellations apart, I think, is this need to not be able to discern, to not, for once, try and find a pattern to everything. It's not that it helps you survive a walk at night, looking up. It just distracts in a way I can't explain, almost subliminal, I don't even completely know what that word means. But there it is.

I remember first wanting to go to Kumartuli at nine, it's stayed since then as a want that just didn't work out till Friday. And now that I've been I think I won't return. It's not the narrow lanes or the little workshops stuffed to bursting with limbs and gaudy cloth, it's that the place is haunted. I can't explain how. There was this smell of clay that brought back a texture. I was immediately reminded of the way clay modelling classes used to feel at age nine - I'd walk out with hands squirming with the smell of wet earth, feeling slimy when dry, feeling dirty when all of it had been washed off, black clay still packed tight under the fingernails, that overwhelming coolness of the skin for hours after. It was one of my favourite courses though, clay modelling. Kumartuli is like clay modelling class round-the-clock and on a scale larger than I'd imagined, only the products, they scare me. It's not even the products, really, it's that the men who create these statues live with them. I don't know how they cannot be haunted, I wouldn't last a night in the place. Lions looking over me jaws extended, fake whiskers still, paws ready to swipe, but never doing anything. Just gleaming and sending out the smell of varnish. Red lips and pointed teeth. Angry eyes everywhere. Doing nothing but gleaming and giving off that smell of varnish till I'm dizzy, the very thought scares me.

This is the closest I could get to a fairly spacious workshop, and it still scared me.


It isn't even all of this. It's all the claustrophobia. And a cracked moulded hand I saw languishing by the side of a road.