A room with a view

So it begins. The American chapter of my long-forgotten blog. A million toils lie ahead of me as I have ignored this old friend for too long. There's my sister's marriage to cover, plus there's the tornado of thoughts that rages through my mind in these, my first few days in 'the land of the free'.

I look out through the windows of my carpeted studio apartment to see a red Ford Mustang and an equally red Honda CBR600 parked on my driveway. Yeah, no prizes for guessing that they ain't mine, at least not yet. But just taking a cab from a house where these kind of exotics are casting their divine glow keeps me constantly reminded about where I am. U.S.A, or at least what I've seen of it thus far is an exercise in lavishness. Huge open spaces, huge SUVs rumbling down the roads, pretty houses spaced so far apart that you could build two houses in between and superstores that could house at least 10 Indian bazaars. But its simple, since they have it, they might as well flaunt it.

And as opposed to the big, brash image that the country seems to project as a whole, they are incredibly polite and amazingly disciplined people. It's my first foreign country but I don't think its possible to be more well-behaved than they are without seeming artificial. If first impressions are the last impressions then it'll be difficult to overturn this one. I did run across a few 'punk'ish teens on the train to Taunton, and they were hardly angels! But if every one were really the same, it'd be really boring.

Uh! What else? It's a really beautiful place. New England is an area which is considered especially beautiful and Taunton (the town near Boston where I stay) falls within this zone. It's lush green all around, overflowing with blossoms, perfect weather and a general sense of utopia. I feel a bit like a fool with all those sweaters and woolen socks bursting out out of my suitcase but I'm told by all my American friends that winter will be a reality check for thin skinned Indians like me. Right now, it's spectacular weather with a bright sun and a cool breeze. There are so many things to say and so many things to do, so I'd better break this up here. This sure ain't my last post!

Mithapur

Imagine a children's park late on a moonless night. The swings though unoccupied sway restlessly in the strong breeze. The silhouette of the slide is against the clear, star filled sky. Underneath is soft, yielding sand and beyond the streetlights which cast their light on the park, there is only the light pouring from the distant stars. In that region of darkness, I can hear the yelps of foxes who are not visible and evidently do not want to be. On another day and in another place, I might have been a little tense but this night is different and so is this place. The rules from the concrete jungles do not apply here. And that's because just beyond where the swings are, the sands have frequent visitors. Every few seconds, waves from the depths of the Arabian Sea are paying them a courtesy call. This children's park is right on a sea beach and the intoxicating rhythm of the gentle swell of the sea plays on. Of all the images worth retaining from my trip to Mithapur, this one was the most striking.

Mithapur is a small, picturesque little town located on the blue Arabian Sea (as is its colour is - in and around Dwarka) near Dwarka in the north west coast of Gujarat. It owes its existence largely to the Tata Chemicals Limited plant there around which the entire economy seems to centre. The 3 hour drive from Jamnagar is a great one too with gradually undulating, smooth roads running through acres of open, uninhabited scrub land punctuated in intervals by wind farms. Wind farms being of course the evocative name for dozens of huge windmills standing guard over these desolate areas as they go about their dreary but essential business of generating power. The Tata colony is an example of beautiful planning and whats more, its got two private beaches of its own within its vast boundaries and a toy train that ferries kids during the summer months for a day out on the beach.

The tiny, single-platform Mithapur railway station (I refer to the real Indian Railways train now) opens out into a square situated in the heart of the Tata colony and its shopping area. This plant and its associated colony was set up in the late 1930s, and back then it must have been even more magnificent, literally the last outpost of civilization in the desolation of north Gujarat. Its the typical plant colony with complete self-sufficiency and especially distant location. Its the aspect that I appreciate most about set-ups like this. The whole thought process and effort that goes into creating something exotic like this out of scratch is astounding. The insularity of the location may be stifling for some people who are used to crowds and more variety but its a really exhilarating place for a visit. It was May when I visited but the weather was shockingly pleasant with the sea breeze making vicious summer take off on a holiday! Its difficult to describe the remoteness and beauty of the place and what an incredible dimension the waters of the bordering Arabian Sea add to it. A complete soul searching experience for me if there was ever one!

Storm rider

It was about 9:45 yesterday night, when I was on the way back after dropping a friend home. Calcutta roads were their usual self with killer potholes and bumper to bumper traffic. So the summer evening breeeze decided that things were moving a tad too slow for its liking. It stepped up its pace a little bit and the reactions of all the vehicles around me indicated that emergency measures were being put into motion. People ran for cover and two-wheelers quickly parked themselves alongside the footpaths. It was time for some "tumool jhodd brishti" (Violent tropical rain storm in Bengali). A regular Calcutta feature, I am told in the summer months, when the humidity gets beyond what the already melancholic Calcutta resident can withstand.

My ride being the love of my life these days, my brand new motor bike - a blue Pulsar 180. Owning this machine was a long nourished dream and the dramatic way the bike made an entry into my life makes me covet it even more. So here I was doing the biker thing, riding full on with dust blowing into my face. Vegetable vendors on the roadside bazaars were frantically trying to bring disobedient tarpaulin sheets to account and all kinds of things which a stormy breeze can pick up were flying across the roads. The first little raindrops had already started pelting down with the sting of the rain becoming quite a discomfort now and I flipped my helmet visor down. Then there was calm as my face was now curiously insulated from the mayhem all around. A very eerie sort of calm which made me quiver with excitement for what was to come. I had revelled in such massive, flash Calcutta downpours from the confines of my house or on the road, but never had had the good fortune to catch one on a bike.

With a deep throated rumble of thunder, the rain came tearing down. I was drenched to the bone in a couple of minutes but I couldn't care less. The rain went sweeping in curtains ahead of me creating waves wherever it touched the ground. The flashes of lightning revealed what was already evident. The fact that I was the only madman out on a two wheeler during the most violent phase of the storm and that I had only a handful of hulking, slow moving buses for company.

That a few minutes of rain can cause such a massive influx of water is only clear when you are out on such a night. I gripped the accelerator and twisted it up a little more just so I could hear the engine groan louder as it pounded its heart out to get me through the rising water. There were places where I knew that if the bike stalled I'd have to drag my bike home on foot, hardly the most appealing thought. But I had made my choice and the thrill of the ride ensured that I wouldn't repent it. The way the bike felt as it roared through the deserted, semi-flooded streets made me forget just about everything else. The streetlights were mysterious orbs suspended in air when seen through the sheets of rain. The road had lost its existence for the moment and there was only water, below me and in the skies above. I love the rains and I worship the open road. Yesterday I got to live in heaven for about 20 minutes.

Benares

It's close to falling to pieces; it's so overcrowded that it defies belief; for the city's people, cleanliness is definitely not next to Godliness, and yet I love the place. I was on a trip to Benares in mid-March for a family function and I found that despite the place living up to all its negative stereotypes, it's hard not to appreciate the place. To know that this was already a city in the time of Gautam Buddha and has sustained itself ever since is in itself awe-inspiring. It's evident from the time you step into the city that this is a different kind of place. The narrow, cramped lanes, the innumerable number of ancient ghats, and the expanse of the Ganga which quickly takes up the hues of the sun- all make for a grand spectacle. The evenings are especially beautiful with the tolling of temple bells all along the riverside, and the lines of lighted 'diyas' carrying a wish or the memory of a loved one into the heart of the holy river. Early morning reveals the best of Benares, when the crowds are still stirring out of their sleep, and you have the history and legends of this extraordinary place all to yourself.

Some more pics from my Benares sojourn

http://picasaweb.google.com/anuranjan.roy/Benares

The Dark Knight

My first formal introduction to Batman was through the completely corny TV serial that ran on Star Plus in the early days of cable television in India. With the "Kapow", "Bang" graphics during the fights and 'Boy Wonder' Robin's frequent "Holy Cow", "Holy Horror" dialogues, it was highly popular amongst kids back then and I too was caught up in the frenzy. But only when I graduated to the more 'real' Batman comics and the really edgy "Batman - The Animated Series" on Cartoon Network, did I start appreciating the dark, combative nature of the character.

Here is a comic character not based on the fairytale that only good things happen to good people. Victory when it finally comes to the side of the good is not without its bitter aftertaste. All characters in the strip are in various shades of gray and it does lend a very morbid and brooding atmosphere to every story. But then that's what makes it stand apart. In every struggle against his inner self or his half-mad adversaries, Bruce Wayne a.k.a Batman finds himself more in touch with his darker side. Yet his justice is not one stained with malice or grim satisfaction for the injustices life has wreaked on him, its a course correction duty that he himself would love to pull out of. His optimism even when he is at his depressed best stems from the fact that if he doesn't do the job, who else will?

Being on the right side of justice has its own heavy price to be paid, but on the other side of the fence only means a lifetime of fear and eventual, inevitable defeat. Up on the highest skyscrapers of Gotham City atop a stone gremlin, with his silhouette framed against the full moon, he represents the trials and tribulations of an active conscience to perfection. Possessed by an unshakable belief in the invincibility of his cause and powered by sheer grit, the world rests easy because it knows that justice is now an ally of the night.

B.A, Mechanical Engineering

This post has been a long time coming and I think I really owe myself this explanation. It may come across as a lame excuse for the four years of B.Tech spent in tomfoolery and reckless enjoyment, but its really necessary. I need to evaluate for myself why someone who is still hopelessly addicted to every NGC or Discovery Channel show that involves science and technology, and literally worships all engineering feats was so disillusioned with engineering itself that he feels like running away at the mere mention of it. The person in question is yours truly and here's my story.

Engineering college I discovered was pretty much like school. Solve the 'important' questions and plunge through the papers of the past 3 years and you could pretty much ensure that you were a B. Tech (Honours) graduate if not a topper. It really don't matter if you can't tell the difference between a motor car and a thorn bush because at the end of the day, a degree is just another piece of paper, right? Not that I myself am given to an intensely scientific frame of mind which abhors all practical considerations but this level of apathy was really choking. 90% of the people around me could very much be doing a B. Com (Honours) if that offered them their dream job which in their case was not a job they had dreamed of since childhood but the highest paying job around. And as I would discover soon, this was to be the least of my issues. Well, to tell you the truth I really don't think aiming for a 'dream' job is such a crime. The jobs are there only because you've got the talent to fulfill them.

But what really got my goat was the desperation, the blind ambition and almost criminal tendency to get marks any which way they came! Here were India's best brains who should have been almost vain about their supposed 'superior' mental abilities, but here they were squabbling and scheming over petty things like how to peek into the neighbour's paper, how to smuggle that chit in and to position themselves so that they got the best overall 'view'. Guys burning the midnight oil yet not above grabbing an eyeful of everyone else's paper. It's perfectly okay to feel that strong temptation without yielding to it but the urge to take cheating to a professional level as was evident all around me made me really sick. You know things are really REALLY bad, when Electronics students on the evening before the exam are more focussed on sending a group of girls to the teacher's residence to gain IMPORTANT hints than the last minute panic studying which in my opinion is the only way of dealing with the crisis. I could see for myself perfectly good people around me transform into rats intent on winning this obnoxious rat race for careers, MBAs and IASes. I figured I wasn't born a rat and had absolutely no intention of becoming one now. Success was the only thing worth aspiring for but not at the cost of my integrity.


To my mild amusement I found out that if I tried to implement my set of ethics on everyone else, I would have no friends left. So I settled for what was then the only way out for the rather forlorn me. To live my life on my own idiosyncratic terms, enjoy it (Now that's a resolution that I feel I overemphasized on) and not to tear my hair out over what everyone else was doing. Binary marks in internals were acceptable as long as I made it up by scoring enough in the finals not to flunk the subject. Topics that weren't even part of the syllabus were invariably more fascinating to me but I guess that is a pain that most people have to live with. Getting some marks on the board could hardly inspire me any longer. I understood perfectly that I could get the marks without having an iota of interest in the subject and in fact being uninterested might be the real key to success in the exams.

I will continue to look at engineering as I had always seen it, as a magnificent collation of tiny bits of common sense over the centuries and be awe struck by the achievements of those who really loved their work. I really don't get into all the debate over art, science and their differences. As far as I am concerned, all science is art when pursued with appropriate passion and all art is science when created with sincere dedication. I missed being a Honours graduate in engineering by a whisker (4 more marks in each of the 8 semesters to be exact) but I am obscenely proud of the fact that each and every mark is completely my own! I am certainly not amongst the better engineers in the world, but for the way I admire engineering I wouldn't hesitate to hand myself a B.A, Mechanical Engineering degree. I had to let go of engineering because in the most faux-arty kind of way, I just love it too much!

Oh, Happy Day!

Just received what would have to be the best compliment I've had in my life yet, albeit accidentally. Wandering about the Eastern Command Sports Stadium, I was revelling in the sights and sounds of all the beauties on display at the annual Statesman Vintage Car Rally. I came around to a particularly attractive group of cars with two Jaguars and a Rolls Royce on display. And to add to the magic, a really pretty lass, owner of this group of cars was floating around them exactly at the time I got there. She was dressed in a period costume to match with the cars, and it was a combination made in heaven. As I stood close to a 1938 Jaguar SS convertible (Pic below) admiring it from close range, a most pleasant coincidence came about. I swear that exactly then I was only admiring the car and she really was an exotic machine.


A middle aged man, camera in hand came up to me. With a real earnest look on his face, he asked "Son, can I sit inside your car and have my picture taken?". Pleased as punch and honest as ever, pat came my reply "Sorry, it's only for display!". She was visibly taken aback at this travesty but it was very hard to miss the humour in the situation. I smiled, and then she smiled and suddenly the world seemed so very bright! OK OK, honest that I am condemned to be, my imagination may have been playing tricks on me as regards only the 'then she smiled' part of this narrative, but the rest of it is as it happened on the ground!

Check out some more pictures from the rally.

http://picasaweb.google.com/anuranjan.roy/2008StatesmanVintageCarRally