Impressions from Panama

1. The very first impression that struck me, and struck me hard, was noticing how dark (in a pleasant way) and quiet Panama city is in the evenings. At 6pm as we were entering the city from the airport, it looked like other cities do at 3am in the morning. The skyscrapers had few lights on, and the street light was so scant that you could hardly see the faces of people crossing the streets. It felt serene; like entering a candle-lit city that hasn't yet arrived into the age of bright shop-signs and screaming billboards.

2. The other thing I couldn't escape noticing immediately was that vehicles here do not display their registration number at their front, the number plate is only at the back. This makes identifying your Uber amongst incoming traffic extremely different as you can only confirm the vehicle once it has passed by you. Sometimes the drivers switch their parking lights on when looking out for their passengers, but that isn't very helpful at an airport where most taxis are doing the same.

3. The waiter taking our dinner order on the first night calmly told us, "obviously no alcohol today" which left us perplexed. The following day an American staying at our hotel cleared our confusion. Apparently the locals have a drinking problem and they go crazy drinking all day on holidays, sometimes to such an extent that they can't turn up to work the following day. That's why the sale of alcohol is prohibited on holidays.

This was very sad to know. Not because the festivities are forcibly dampened, but because this fact, if true, illustrates how vulnerable many locals are. The only other community that I know has such a deep-rooted alcohol problem are the aboriginals of Australia, and their stories always leave me with sadness.

4. The American at our hotel was the first of the many we met throughout our holiday. Like other Central American countries - particularly Mexico, Guatemala & Costa Rica - Panama is a popular choice for retired Americans looking for sun, beach and cheap beer. It's a similar case in Europe where people go to Spain, Portugal or Malta (or Thailand for the more adventurous) to live. By the way, don't be misled into thinking I'm looking down on them. On the contrary, I feel they are wise(r). Having met and talked to dozens of them over the years, I can't wait to join their club, I just need to find the perfect place first :)

A particular reason Panama ranks high among Americans is because Panama uses American Dollars as its currency, thereby taking away currency risk for those who have their savings in USD.

5. I was aware of the American influence in Panama even before I came here (due to the Canal), but I did not know the full details of their relationship. The story behind the Canal is a tragic tale of dreams, sweat, greed and deceit. It is slightly long to belong here so I have put it in a separate post (link here).

6. The other interesting story I learnt here was about Scotland's failed bid to become a colonial power. In all my history education and reading I never came across any reference to Scotland's attempt to form a colony of their own, I thought they were too busy not to become a colony themselves. So it was surprising, might even say shocking, to learn about these ambitions; like discovering a very uncharacteristic past about a friend you thought you knew all too well.

Anyway, in the late 1600s the Scots decided to start a settlement in present day Panama, in a province called 'Guna Yala' which we visited. Their endeavour failed terribly despite the Gunas being relatively friendly to them (as opposed to the Spanish who they hated). Hundreds of settlers lost their lives and nearly a fifth of entire Scottish wealth was wiped off. In a cruel twist of fate, the failure of this project was one of the important factors why the Scottish nobles, now facing bankruptcy, accepted the union with England less than a decade after the debacle (in 1707).

The Scottish settlement, once hailed the "New Edinburgh" was until 2011 called "Puerto Escocés" (Scottish Harbour) by the locals. For more reading, go to this page.

7. Food is obviously an important motivation for travel; ah! the great joy of discovering new flavours and cuisines. Panama has excellent seafood, as you'd expected from a country whose name literally means "abundance of fish". Notwithstanding the adulation it often gets, and deservingly so, seafood has one innate disadvantage in my humble opinion. Because in most cuisines it is usually grilled or fried, the flavor is quite universal, like the French Fries. It doesn't embody any unique or distinct flavour to become a national speciality, in this called being "Panamanian". I could probably have the same grilled fish and rice in every other continent. So if you asked me what Panamanian dishes I tried, I wouldn't be able to tell. My travel guidebook mentioned a few local dishes and soups but I couldn't find them anywhere. And options beyond seafood were frighteningly familiar: Burgers, Pizzas & Fried Chicken.

8. The Aftertaste: Of course I enjoyed Panama. We went with the least expectations but managed to spend eight days without ever feeling bored. But for some strange reason I am slightly unsatisfied, I feel something was lacking. I couldn't pinpoint what it was before, but pondering over it now, as I write this on my flight back home, I think I've understood it - it was the inability to sense the pulse of the country.

Developing countries, especially democratic ones, are forever going through a tumultous change, several conflicting opinions locked in a fierce debate. Travelling without encountering or understanding them becomes merely a pleasure ride, a superficial sensual journey. My favourite holidays have all been ones when I've come back identifying with the common man, understanding his grievances better. That didn't happen to me in Panama. Unfortunately, we didn't get the opportunity to step off the tourist trail and meet real people or have honest conversations.

The End.

PS: I wrote much of this blog on my flight home. I was actually on the 7th point when I landed in Madrid for my stop-over. As soon as I got off the plane I realised how stupid I was to be even half-critical of Panama. It's so freaking cold here, the singular fact that Panama has great sun makes me want to turn back.

Some photos from the trip

Pic 1 - Panama City

Pic 2 - Panamian flag fluttering as we head out of Portobelo bay. Portobello Street in London, famous for its flea market, is named after this little town in Panama. The building you see in the background was the Spanish Customs House. A third of the world's gold, alongside copius other treasures, passed through this customs house for over a century. It had a single entrance and a single exit to keep a close watch on all movements

Pic 3 - At the Miraflores Locks on the Panama Canal. We were lucky to see a large Cruise Ship pass the lock when we visited. It was Christmas Day, a live band was playing festive music on the shore, and to that jubliant music people both on the shore and the ship continuously exchanged hand-waves, fly-kisses and greetings for all the 20 odd minutes it takes for the ship to cross the gates. A young couple on the deck danced while everyone clapped for them in admiration. For a few moments it felt like the best of humanity was on display. Memorable few moments.

Pic 4 - Amongst the 300+ islands of San Blas archipelago (in the Carribean sea)

Pic 5 - Violent and Unhappy lobster

Pic 6 - A house in the hills of Guna Yala. It is a semi-autonomous province, hence the Guna flag as opposed to the Panamanian flag. There is no word for "money" in their native language because they were originally a completely barter based society.

Sport in Panama

Why doesn't Panama, unlike it's Central & South American neighbours, have football as it's most popular sport?

The story begins in 1878. Panama was a province of Colombia at that time. In 1878 Colombia granted the contract to build the Panama canal to the French team that had just built the Suez canal. The French severely underestimated the task, within a decade 22000 workers died of Yellow fever and the company went bankrupt.

The US, sensing an opportunity pressured the French to sell the project to them. In 1903 the French Chief Engineer, Philippe Bunau-Vanrilla agreed to the sale. But the Colombian government refused the sale, so Bunau-Vanrilla approached the US government for help. Soon after, a revolutionary group declared Panama independent and the US promptly recognised the sovereignty of the new country. Within a year of refusing the sale Colombia lost a province, and with it, it's biggest source of income.

Following "independence", Bunau-Vanrilla, the Frenchman, was appointed the Panamanian ambassador to the US. Before the new Panamanian government could even assemble a delegation, Bunau-Vanrilla arrived in Washington and signed a new treaty giving away far more than originally agreed. In addition to the project, the US government was granted "sovereign rights in perpetuity" over an area extending 8km on either side of the canal, and a broad right of intervention in Panamanian affairs.

The canal was completed in 1914. The US operated the canal, stationed its military forces in the canal zone, and meddled in the county's affairs repeatedly since then. They ceded complete control and withdrew military only at the turn of the century (on Dec 31 1999).

So what's all this to do with Football?

Well, owing to the long US occupation Football didn't become the most popular sport in Panama. That title was won by Baseball.

Safarnama 03 - The Triangle

This is river Vaksh, a tributary of Amu Darya (Oxus to the ancient Greeks). It was on the banks of Oxus that Alexander fell in love with a local princess and married her. Her name was Roxana (Ruksana in original Persian). The interesting thing to note is that the word "Vaksh" comes from Sanskrit. In fact Oxus is the latinised word for "Vaksh". Basically, both the river and its tributary have a Sanskrit connection.

Several lakes in Central Asia end with a suffix "kul" which means a lake (Karakul, Issykul etc). A blog I read claimed that "kul" means "pond/lake" in Sanskrit. I'm not sure if that's correct, I think the equivalent Sanskrit word is "kund". But if the claim is indeed true, then it would mean that almost all lakes in Central Asia have a Sanskrit suffix. That would be quite huge.

Most Indians recognise the strong link between Hindi and Farsi (Persian), several words are common to both. The popularly held view ascribes this connection to the Mughals who were great patrons of anything and everything Persian. But this is not the only reason as I'm beginning to realise/feel now. There is another link - a third corner of a triangle - Central Asia. Our languages (Farsi & Sanskrit) seemed to have met in the valleys and meadows of Central Asia thousands of years before the Mughals even arrived on the scene.

Today that third vertex of this triangle is most firmly placed in Tajikistan. Tajik, as also Dari in neighbouring Afghanistan, is a close relative of Persian, so close that it can be considered a dialect. Its Persian parentage is an exception within Central Asian - all the four other countries speak languages similar to Turkic, which is why Tajiks can't converse with any of their neighbours without resorting to their imperialist bond - Russian.

This personal discovery of the third vertex was a great joy to us. But it brought greater joy to our driver, Naseem. He had proudly played his Tajiki/Pamiri songs for the first few hours in our drive. But as soon as we played the first Bollywood song he got hooked. For the next 8 days it was only Bollywood that blared from our car. Naseem looked forward to each morning enthusiastically, hoping to hear more Bollywood in case we downloaded it the night before. His interest was not just in the music though, it was also the words, they were puzzles for him to solve. Every time he recognised a word he beamed and shared his excitement. On one sleepy afternoon Kishore was entertaining us, and just as he had finished singing a particular line, Naseem turned around and counting each word on his fingers he said - Waqt Guzarta Nahin. He had scored a hat trick!! 🙂

Good Night.

Safarnama 02 - To pee or not to pee.

Disclaimer - This reading could be a little gross. We South Indians cannot utter the words/ideas used in this post even if subjected to third degree torture. But having been married to a scatalogically superior culture for over a decade has (unfortunately) altered my thresholds. Sorry.

AirBnb, Booking.com, TripAdvisor and the other sites to book a stay have a major flaw. While each of them provides a dozen filters which help us select the comfiest room, with Wi-fi, and a scenic view, a hair dryer and even the provision of toothpaste for the forgetful ones, they do not provide any means to predict/choose the most important amenity which can make or break a holiday - a suitable toilet. The options available in this category are so varied that if gone wrong it has the potential to, well, flush down your entire holiday. In this post I plan to share some of the options I came across in my travels and hope that one of you has the power to do something about it.

Most recently I had the privilege of staying in a village which can only be accessed by trekking 7km uphill along a river. The hosts were the warmest people I ever met. But all forewarnings we were provided about the facilities (or the lack thereof) seemed to have fallen short. The place had no beds, no electricity, no wi-fi, no mobile signal, no taps and no shower. It's star feature was a squat toilet over an open pit inside a corrugated box, placed some distance away from the rest of the mud buildings.

The toilet here gave my London-born son such a fright that he automatically went into dieting mode. But it was too late. In the morning, despite my asking him a dozen times he was confident he didn't need the toilet. However, as soon as we sat down for breakfast he was grimacing, he needed the toilet urgently. Even then he could only brave doing #1, a fairly easy task for boys, and steadfastly refused the need for #2. Then we began our 7km trek downhill. Poor fellow, he was in great labour the first kilometer or so, and then surrendering himself he announced an emergency. He had to finally do #2 in the open, behind a rock as his only cover. And I had the unsavoury job of cleaning him up afterwards in the river, I've taken a vow to make him pay for this later. For the rest of the trek he was the happiest I've ever seen him. A free bird.

If nothing, the stay here gave us a satisfaction that we had seen the absolute bottom, the abyss of the global hospitality industry. Surely you can't go any more basic than that, I thought. I was wrong. Two days later we were at another place which was pretty much the same, except it lacked the mechanism to lock the toilet door from the inside. And since it was the only toilet shared between the hosts, the guests (4 rooms) and their drivers, the lock was quite a critical feature which we had forgotten to check before committing to the room (lesson learnt - toilet lock is first thing to check in a hotel).

This new challenge sent me spinning into flashback mode, to my childhood when I had used a similar toilet. It was the communal toilet in my dad's village which had a worn-out curtain pretending do to the job of a door. The user-instructions from our elders specified us to draw the curtain close and to keep coughing continuously during the entire performance. It was no guarantee against unwanted interruption, but it was the best self-defence available at the time. I used this old wisdom in my new hotel. It was a lot of hard work. So the next morning I did an upgrade - left my son standing outside as a sentry. It worked brilliantly; inside I was smiling on my seat enjoying every bit of the rare moment when I felt like a proud parent.

Money is not always the answer to solve toilet problems. After seven days in the mountains when we finally returned to the city (the Capital) we decided to re-toxify ourselves with urban comforts. We stayed in a five star hotel. We assumed it was perfection created specifically for us, and maybe other guests. That dream was shattered when I, half asleep, used their hand bidet after the morning job. The monstrous device unleashed such a force and sharpness that every cell of me let out a cry. I say with no exaggeration, that device could be used as a weapon in war time, and to cut vegetables in peace time. And here it was in the toilet, with all its potential undiscovered, sodomising unsuspecting guests.

One doesn't have to stay in a hotel to gain unforgettable toilet memories. Some restaurants also offer these privileges.

I (and my Dad) have walked into ladies toilets at least on four occasions (each) because the gender sign was too modern or too creative for us to decipher. Luckily none of the incidents resulted in a visit by the police. On behalf of all the dim-witted people I'm compelled to ask - Why can't the signs be simple enough for everyone to understand? Why this discrimination against us?

Sometimes there are other kinds of surprises awaiting us inside. One time (in a roadside restaurant in Eastern Europe) I walked into a toilet which had 5 WCs (commodes) but no partitions between them (a la Roman toilet). Luckily, we were the only party that had stopped by at that time. The cleverest idea the restaurant builders had was to partition the men's section from the women's. Because of that thoughtful design, I and a friend's wife came out of the toilet beaming, and relieved at not having seen each other inside.

In other places asking for a toilet has resulted in a guided tour outside the restaurant building, along the compound wall, followed by jumping over the wall into the neighbour's garden, then softly stepping past a sleeping dog before being shown a plastic sheet made ramshackle structure. That was the restaurant's only toilet for their guests. And I won't even try describing the inside, I'll spare you that assault.

Due to my slightly conservative upbringing I'm very hesitant to pee in the open, unless it's an absolute emergency and I'm miles away from civilisation. I'd rather wait for the next available toilet a couple of hours away. But when that long painful wait ends at a toilet like the ones I've have described, I wonder if it was all worth it. And in the next similar situation, when nature calls me at an odd time, to pee or not to pee becomes a frustratingly tough call.

The End

The trek uphill to the village.

I didn't take any picture of the toilet here unfortunately. It was somewhere on the right of these animal pens and fodder storages.

The host with my son. Our room was the house behind them.

My last picture of the village before we started the trek downhill.

On the way downhill. These waters have now been polluted.

The toilet without the door lock.

Steps to help jump over the wall into neighbour's property.

The Mystery of the Misplaced(?) Aalu

It was not love at first sight. 

During my student days in Dhanbad the journey home involved a long layover at Howrah Railway Station. On one of those occasions four of us friends went to have Biryani in Esplanade. After many months of unpalatable mess food, a restaurant meal seemed like a seductive idea. We asked around for recommendations, went to a popular restaurant in New Market, sat ourselves down at a table, and without even looking at the menu ordered four Chicken Biryanis.

After some time the waiter emerged from the kitchen and started walking towards us carrying four overflowing plates on a tray. We ogled at the plates as they slowly made their way towards us and what particularly caught our attention were the huge chunks placed on each of the plates. Excited at the prospect of a meat frenzy, we drooled like Pavlov's dogs. But our excitement was short-lived, the moment the plates were put on the table we realised that the chunks were actually big potatoes (Aalu). The chicken was somewhere in the background, a supporting cast in the ensemble. I remember all of us laughing at our shared disappointment. This incident has been retold several times since, and it never fails to recreate the laughter.

This could have been my only encounter with the Kolkata biryani. But fate had other plans, a few years later I married a Kolkatan, and the entire repertoire of Bengali cuisine, its finest version, strode back into my life. I am not that student anymore, I like trying new things and have greatly enjoyed exploring the exquisite delicacies of Bengali cuisine. However, I feel that Aalu and I have had a sort of "previous relationship" before my marriage; so my heart winks at it every time I see it in a biryani.

Over the years I have visited Kolkata numerous times, it's an intriguing city. Each time I try to unravel a bit of its mystique and feel its rustic charm. This time around (in Feb 2022) I decided to pursue the Aalu, to understand how the most commonplace item found such an exalted pride of place. 

I had made feeble forays into this before, but never seriously, it was in light conversations with friends and family in Kolkata. The most common answer I heard all the time was that the Aalu was introduced in the Biryani by the exiled Nawab of Awadh, Wajid Ali Khan, as an austerity measure in lieu of his weak finances. The story goes that the deposed Nawab did not have enough money to feed his people, so he had asked his cooks to add Aalu as a substitute for full meat in the biryani, and the practice caught on. This austerity story is one I have always struggled to believe. It has loopholes, and the more I tried to understand the Nawab through books and films (played by Amjad Khan in Shatranj Ke Khiladi), the more improbable the story appeared to me. 

The Nawab was actually quite infamous for his lavish lifestyle, which was part reason (or rather pretext) used for his forced abdication by the East India Company. In exchange for his abdication, Nawab Wajid Ali was provided a pension of Rupees 12 lac per year, which I think would make a luxurious pension even today, let alone in the 1850s when it would have been ultra-lavish. To draw a comparison, the last King of Punjab was offered less than half that sum as pension - minimum 4 lacs and a maximum of 5 lacs per year. Basically, I believe the Nawab had neither the need nor the disposition to find cheaper alternatives.

So how did the humble potato gain its entry? I found the first plausible explanation in an interview of a lady who claims Nawab's lineage* (more on that later) and runs a restaurant in the city. In the interview she mentioned a very interesting point, the fact that Aalu was not as common as we take for granted now. A little digging on the Internet corroborated her point - Spanish introduced potatoes to Europe in 1570. They also brought it to the west coast of India in the late 17th century calling it "batata", a name still in use there. The British started cultivating potatoes on the foothills of Himalayas in the 1830s. However, the timing of potato's entry into Bengal is a bit fuzzy. Some records suggest that it was in 1780, when a basket of potatoes was presented to Sir Warren Hastings in Calcutta. Others believe that it was about a hundred years later, as recent as 1879 when a British Resident tried to establish a garden in Darjeeling using potato seeds brought from England. After reading several competing theories, the view I'm inclined to take is that potato cultivation and consumption slowly spread over Bengal in the second half of the 19th century, the period overlapping with Wajid Ali's stay in Kolkata, he lived there for 33 years until his death in 1887. The aalu seems to have been added to the biryani, either by the royal kitchen or someone else, but most definitely as an exotic, novel addition, not a cost saving measure.

Leaving his wife and a 12 year old son in Lucknow, Wajid Ali had sailed down the Ganges and arrived in Kolkata in 1856 to make his plea to the EIC Governor asking for the return of his Kingdom. When his plea fell on deaf ears he sent his mother and brother to England to plead directly with the Queen. However, the political mood changed suddenly with 1857 and instead of regaining the Kingdom, he found himself arrested. When he was released two years later, he had resigned to his new fate. He settled in Metiabruz in the western outskirts of the city and lived there for the rest of his life.

The pursuit of this story took me to Metiabruz. I wanted to see the neighbourhood the Nawab created, the supposed mini-Lucknow in Kolkata, visit his grave in the Imambara there, and most importantly, taste the Kolkata biryani in its original birthplace. Metiabruz is not a tourist place today, its narrow bylanes contain the back-offices of tailoring shops and abattoirs. In the Imambara the fatherly caretaker took me around explaining the photographs on the walls and the Taazias (models of Hussain's tomb in Karbala, Iraq) on display. Later, we sat together on the steps as I put my shoes back on and I asked him my final question - Which was his favourite place to try a Biryani? He smiled and gave me a name. 

The caretaker's recommendation was a very modest place a few streets away, the kind where the owner sits at a counter in the front and shouts instructions at one or two boys who run the whole place. There were only a few tables and I found one next to a couple who looked tired after a long day of shopping. When the boy came I ordered 'Biryani', deliberately avoiding to specify the meat option, for I wanted to see what the default option meant. As I had suspected, a beef biryani promptly arrived on my table.

And, once again, I spotted the Aalu showing itself off on my plate, and my heart winked at it one more time ;)

--The End--

PS - Here's an interesting side-dish to this story. When 1857 started, Begum Hazrat Mahal, the Nawab's wife in Lucknow enthroned her 12 year old son, Bijris Qadir, and joined the revolt against the British. She fought for 2 years before escaping and seeking asylum in Kathmandu, where she eventually died. Interestingly, Kathmandu was also providing asylum to Queen Jind Kaur (wife of the Sikh Emperor Maharaja Ranjit Singh) and the son of the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar at the same time. One of my biggest curiosities is to know the communication between these prominent families left licking their wounds in Kathmandu, all wronged by a common enemy. There are no records available of any such conversation, but surely they must have happened. Bijris Qadir in fact went on to marry Mehtab Ara Begum, Bahadur Shah's granddaughter. 

Back in Kolkata Nawab Wajid Ali died in 1887, and a few years later in 1892 Bijris Qadir came to Kolkata to claim his father's inheritance and pension. Fearing competition, his jealous relatives invited the family to a dinner and poisoned them. Only Bijris' pregnant wife and his sick daughter did not attend the dinner and survived to live. Any genuine claimant today of the Nawab of Oudh's lineage is a very lucky person.

Imambara in Metiabruz

Nawab Wajid Ali's tomb

Alvida Agra

I have come to Agra several times in the last couple of years. My main attraction here is not the Taj, it is a campus where I spent 8 of the first 10 years of my life. My Dad was posted here in the 80s, and in a lucky coincidence, my brother-in-law sometimes gets the same postings as my Dad. This providence allows me to revisit the places I grew up in.

Tomorrow we leave Agra for good once again, a new posting beckons. I doubt if I'll ever be able to return, seems quite unlikely. Therefore, I'm filling my backpack with as many memories as I can take away from here.

A few days ago I read a poem by Gulzar in which he reminisces about his ancestral village - Dina, now in Pakistan - and memories from his early childhood. One particular stanza touched me immensely, in it he describes the cosy comfort provided by childhood nostalgia. It goes..

Kaise veeran ho jaate hain saal purane
Veeran ho jaata hain bachpan
Phir bhi ek mahak rah jaati hain seelan ki
Tah-khano mein utro toh..
Tah-khano mein neend si aane lagti hain.

Here, my dear friends, are some glimpses from my tah-khana (basement).

1. The Movie Hall - My first movie hall experience was here, then called the Bluebird theatre.

I saw several movies here, though, I now remember only the terrible ones - Dak Bangla, Mard etc. After watching Mard, a friend and I wrote 'Mard' (in Hindi) on each other's chest with a red sketch, just like Amitabh has it etched on his chest in the movie, with a dagger no less. I hid it from my parents, but they saw it the next day and couldn't stop laughing, I felt like a foolish idiot :)

The entry fee here was nominal, and as the theatre is inside a campus, meant only for its residents, the ticket checking wasn't stringent. We would park our cycles on the way home from school, discreetly enter the hall from the side gates and watch the remaining movie standing behind the curtains of side exits. A part of that child is still in me I think; going to the cinema is one of my biggest passions. There, within its four walls, I feel transported to another world, one I hate to return from most times.

2. Yeh Dil Maange More - I have never been to a place where I saw more peacocks than here. However, there can never be enough of these beautiful birds.

3. Dakota - Dakota is actually the name of a famous plane (like Boeing Dreamliner). The fairly new structure in this photo is called Dakota because when I was a kid there was an actual Dakota plane here in its place, with just the fuselage and tail, no wings or wheels. It was a small snack and tea shop, people would stand and buy their stuff from the aircraft windows. This new building lacks that 'wow factor' I think.

4. This is the road where I learnt to cycle. So obviously this is also the road where I fell the maximum number of times in my life. Our house was a ground floor flat on the right (picture later). I also had a near escape from losing my left eye here, it wasn't a bike accident though. Our TV had broke down halfway through the popular cartoon 'He-Man', and I was running up the stairs to a friend's house to watch the rest. I slipped and fell, landing in such a way that my eye nearly smashed into the corner of a step, a narrow escape luckily. A big 'X' stitch mark on my eye-socket is my souvenir from that injury.

5. Heritage Hall (School) - In my memory this was a big hall, it seems so small now.

This is where I won my first quiz competition. There's an interesting story behind my win. Please forgive the vanity in my retelling, I can't think of any another way to narrate this story. My success, though very modest, does echo the old saying "Behind every successful man there is a woman" :)

I was in Class 5 at that time. The brand 'Maggi' was organising a series of quizzes in my school to pick two winners - one each from primary and secondary - who would then represent the school in an inter-school competition. In the initial rounds I was doing OK, but my Dad was working harder than me. He had this habit of preparing booklets/notes of information he deemed useful to me throughout my student life. He personally typed an entire dictionary, bound the pages like a booklet and gifted it to me when I was doing my Engineering (his habit is a story for another day). For the quizzes, he bought a few books and prepared a booklet with a selection of important points taken from them (Country Capitals, Book Authors, Currencies, Sobriquets etc).

Our class monitor was a very pretty Malayali girl named Reshma, the typical studious and strict first ranker. The boys were head over heels for her. Incidentally, Reshma was also my immediate neighbour (a picture of that house is given later), which is one reason why my birthday parties were well attended by my friends.

One day when I was playing outside my house, Reshma asked me how I was preparing and I told her I was reading only my Dad's notes. She requested if she could have it for 1-2 days to copy it. Of course I said yes, my rare chance to impress her; I ran inside, fetched the notes and gleefully handed it over to her.

When my Dad noticed that I was not studying in the evenings, he enquired my reason. Me - "Daddy, I gave the notes to Nair uncle's daughter. I'll resume my study once she returns". My dad was so disappointed that he didn't even hit me, he just gave me a sad look. I felt so ashamed, so filled with guilt; I had gifted away all his hardwork to another competitor. The next day I asked my notes back and finished reading it. In the following days I started going through the books which my Dad used as his source. I still remember one of the handy books "Upkar's General Knowledge", I had pretty much the whole book memorised by heart (albeit without much understanding, that happened later). I sailed through the next few rounds, fought off all competition (including Reshma) and eventually won the school championship. For the inter-school, I was paired with the Principal's daughter but we didn't win that one, we came third if I remember right.

This incident started my long association with quizzing. I was in a quiz team every year of my student life since then, and represented my schools/colleges several times. Collecting information, especially obscure triva, became an obsession. By the time I came to do my Post-Grad in Mumbai I started seeing people several times better than me at competitions, some of the best quizzers and quizmasters of India, they were unbeliveable. But strangely, it was also the same time when I began to find this kind of "knowledge" very superficial. I couldn't understand the point of knowing it - a snobbish vanity, hollow from the inside? I felt as if I was running around in the rain trying to catch as many drops as possible. I gave up, stopped going to quizzes completely, not even as an audience. Now, I just want to stand in that rain with outspread arms, close my eyes, and feel the drops that hit me.

6. School Water Tank - This watertank has always been a haven for large beehives. At least on one occasion the school was forced to close abruptly when some smart-ass threw a stone at a beehive. I was talking to the security gaurd this time, he's been at the school since 1982 and said that in his time such bee-attacks and school closures happened several times. Some tricks don't change.

Talking about security gaurds reminds me another story. I was a forgetful boy, some complain that I still am. On a few occasions I went to the school on my cycle and absent-mindedly took the school bus on the way home. Each time that happened I had to go back and beg the security gaurds to let me in to take my cycle home. They can be very difficult to please.

7. Jungle Area - This open area, recently cleared to make way for a Basketball court, used to be a jungle of bushes, trees and weeds (like you see on the other side of the wall, that is Agra Airport by the way).

This bushy area was the place where some boys played "Who Pees the Farthest?" competition. Very common, funny game at a young age. I have indulged in that sport in other schools too. My personal favorite was at Sainik School Korukonda (SSK) because of something unqiue there. A common weed at SSK was the 'Touch-Me-Not' plant (Chui-Mui in Hindi). It's a magical plant whose leaves fold up when touched. If you haven't seen it, I'd highly recommend you to see it on Youtube (Link). When playing the game, as one covered the ground it used to turn from light-green (open leaves) to dark-green (closed leaves). It was truly magical to see the changing colors as we messed about, a great fun. Looking back, perhaps my first foray into modern art ;)

8. Home - These are some of the quarters where we lived, all tiny 1 bedroom flats.

Some of these quarters were shared between two families, meaning each family had just 1 room and a shared kitchen/bath. I was too young to understand the domestic issues back then, but now I know things weren't all rosy. Anyway, the house on top-left is the one next to Reshma's (her's the one on the right in that picture). The person we shared the bottom-left house with was a keen gardner, he would dig radishes from the garden and make children eat them. Bottom-right is the house where I got my first cycle (BSA SLR) and the eye injury.

It was very nostalgic for me to go back to these houses after 30 years. The saddest part was to see the swings taken out from the trees. To me, the creaking of the swing was like the hearbeat of my childhood.

9. Before/After - And finally, here's a picture of us taken when we were last in Agra, paired with a recent one also taken in Agra. I must confess that despite a few attempts we were unable to recreate the twinkle seen in our childhood picture.

Alvida Agra, thanks for being a happy place for us. If we are lucky, we'll return to you one day.

The End

PS - I honestly do not expect anyone to read this long, tiring, saga of personal stories. It was primarily meant for my own record. But if you have come this far, I'm thankful for your patience and time. I will make it up for you by posting something more interesting next time.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Today I had the unique opportunity of visiting a Mental Hospital, to accompany the doctors as they went on their daily rounds through the wards. It was a first time for me, I saw so many new things that I'm yet to digest them all. But I do not want to forget my thoughts so I am trying to jot some of them down quickly (forgive the sloppy writing).

The first thing which hit me as I entered the very first ward was that there are no allocated beds. The patients sleep wherever they fancy, sometimes not even on the bed. As I was told later, that's because allocation needs cooperation from the patients to work, or a massive investment/resources to implement it forcefully. This one difference made me realise that the work done by the staff at a Mental Hospital is ten times harder than at any other kind of hospital, hospice or care-home. Even the most mundane of tasks can become a challenge, sometimes potentially violent. In fact I was not taken inside the most violent ward where they were repairing a portion of a wall broken in an escape attempt.

A lot of patients looked perfectly normal. One lady got up in the middle of a group Yoga session, as we were passing by on the side, and gave an impressive speech, mostly complaining about the poor quality of food, about having to do too much work and other gripes, she even apologised at the end for hijacking the Superintendent's attention in this way. In the post-discussion amongst the team I learnt that she was a second timer at the Hospital.

There was another patient, a forlorn looking lady in her mid 40s, whose identity, language and place of origin have been a mystery since she came into the hospital 7 years ago. She is famous amongst the staff because she's the first patient; the Hospital inaugurated with her. The staff suspects she's Bangadeshi but no one understands her tongue, she doesn't speak Bengali. In my travels to obscure places I have used apps to detect a spoken language and translate it, so I offered to try it with her. The Superintendent agreed, a few of us were taken to a room and she was brought in. I first tried the manual way, looked at her and said clearly "Basha?" - which is the root word for 'language' in almost all Indian languages, she uttered a feeble "Odia", which bamboozled those present because this has never been mentioned in her records. It is not clear if she's literate, but I tried showing some Oriya words on my phone, she didn't show any response. Then I googled and showed her a picture of Mujibur Rahman and her face lit up visibly, she was definitely a Bangladeshi. Next I opened a Wikipage on 'Languages of Bangladesh' and read out, one by one, all the non-Bengali language names - Chakma, Hajong, Sadri, Kurukh, Koda etc - the list is quite long, I was myself surprised. But unfortunately we couldn't get a detectable response to any name. I tried the app (to detect the language) but her words were too few and faint for that to work. Then we tried to find her place. She identified an image of Sylhet Railway Station but mentioned another name (Karimganj), presumably a village in Sylhet. But on Google Maps they looked too far apart, so we discounted that as a meaningless contradiction, after several other attempts we gave up. I was quite disappointed that we did not get any breakthrough, despite the apparent advantage of technology, but I wish we had more time to think of alternate approaches or had come prepared with her case.

As I was seeing all this around me I couldn't help drawing parallels to and remembering characters from 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest', especially McMurphy and The Chief. I bet a lot of people I saw today were like them, sane (whatever that means) but errant, round pegs in a square hole. I bet some of us, certainly me, have crazier thoughts than them. What keeps us on this side of the fence is our ability and lifelong training to reveal only the most accepted version. We are programmed to conceal the rest, it is expected of us. The only way to unmask this society is to put a mask on everyone. This contraction makes me wonder - who's the patient? Who is real in this world, and who is fake? It's hard to play both at the same time. If tempted to pick a side, being the iconoclastic McMurphy doesn't work, it's much safer to be the deaf and mute Chief. Alas!

<End>

PS - I came home and googled Karimganj and this is what I found - "Karimganj was previously part of the Sylhet District before the Partition of India. It became a district in 1983." The Bangladeshi lady was right, except her memory is pre-1983. I sooo want to go back and talk to her again.