Soundtracks for a Wandering Soul : From the Temple to the Tavern

 

In October 2023, when I landed in Kerala — full of  a stubborn resolve, uncertainty, and a suitcase full of confusion — I promised myself a spiritually uplifting start to each day. My chosen ritual? Listening to MS Subbulakshmi’s Sri Venkateswara Suprabhatam every morning. A prayer composed by Prathivadhi Bhayankaram Annangaracharya, this pre-dawn chant is traditionally sung to awaken Lord Venkateswara in Thirupati. So while the divine lord was being lovingly nudged awake in temples and homes across South India, I too stirred under the soft glow of coconut and banana trees and the ethereal blue of the Travancore sky.

The rendition is so powerful that, willingly or not, you picture the deity slowly rising to the mellifluous, almost maternal voice of MS. But a few months in, as the exotic thrill faded and the realisation dawned that banana trees can’t make up for friends and familiarity, I started feeling homesick.

One morning, in a move that surprised even me — and might’ve scandalised my inner aspirant of ascetic calm — I abandoned the predictably serene strains of the Suprabhatam and queued up Pandit Jasraj’s soul-stirring bhajans instead. As his voice soared, slow and reverent like incense rising in temple air, I felt something shift. A few minutes later, almost instinctively, I followed it up with Ajay Pohankar’s Shri Krishan Govind Hare Murare in Raag Bhoop, a melody soaked in bhakti but grounded in something far more familiar: memory.This wasn’t a spiritual upgrade. It was more like finding your comfort shawl in a new house — suddenly, the air felt less foreign. It wasn’t that I was ascending toward divine consciousness; if anything, I was tumbling backwards into the comforting echo chambers of my past .

Raag Bhoop, with its pentatonic simplicity and upward lilt, somehow held all my dislocation gently. It didn’t ask me to transcend. It just helped me stay — with my yearning, my loneliness, my reluctant hope — and hum along. This wasn’t music that lifted me out of the world. It was music that let me belong to it again, if only for the length of a morning.

It was just that the familiar strains made the still-unfamiliar place feel more like home. And so I woke up on humid mornings waiting for monsoon and finally sailed into the lush, green rains of Kerala — less as a spiritual seeker and more like someone finding comfort in the radio of memory.

And then came the rains in full glory. With raindrops weaving a gauzy, silvery curtain across my windows and frogs launching unsolicited monsoon symphonies outside, my mornings shifted in texture. The devotional tracks, like seasoned stage actors knowing when to exit, stepped gracefully aside. In their place emerged the soft, contemplative poetry of Tagore — verses that carried the scent of wet earth and the melancholy of waiting. Megh boleche jabo jabo, the clouds said they would leave, and yet they stayed, just like my moods. Neelo Anjono Ghono, with its indigo thunderclouds and slow-building longing, became the soundtrack to my monsoon reveries.

The music no longer needed to uplift or anchor me. It simply needed to mirror me. Some mornings, the raag in my ear matched the gentle nool-mazha — the threadlike drizzle that stitched the world in silk. Other times, the thunder would roll like timpani, and the skies would host a tula-mazha storm — dramatic, theatrical, and best set to a Tagorean crescendo. I found myself not listening to music for comfort, but with it — like an old friend who didn’t fill the silence but respected it.

By November, Kerala’s version of winter arrived — not with frost or fog, but with a faint breeze that occasionally remembered to show up. It was less of a season and more of a suggestion, like someone whispering “winter” across a steaming cup of chai. But with it came a slump I hadn’t seen coming. My romantic affair with solitude, once poetic and Insta-worthy solo travels, began to simmer into something less palatable — an overcooked stew of loneliness and unwanted introspection and procrastination. The bhajans quietly receded. Even Tagore, with all his rain-drenched wisdom, couldn’t keep me afloat. I needed music that didn’t pretend to console — I needed music that sat with me in my gloom and nodded in solidarity.

And so entered the gentle melancholy of Judy Collins, the wistful resilience of Pete Seeger, the velvet baritone of Dean Martin, and the tender ache of John Denver. Both Sides Now played like a lullaby for grown-up disappointment. Send in the Clowns waltzed in with mascara-streaked irony. Turn! Turn! Turn! felt like a cosmic shrug to everything that had and hadn’t happened. Even on mornings when the sky wore its brightest blue, these songs somehow found the shade beneath. I had officially entered my existential playlist phase — where melodies didn’t lift you up but wrapped you in a soft, flannel-lined sorrow and said, “It’s okay, you’re not alone in feeling a little lost.”

Christmas rolled in with vacations, plum cake, and an unmistakable whiff of nostalgia. The world outside sparkled modestly — just enough to remind me of carol nights and school nativity plays. And just like that, my playlist too found its way back to the pews. Gregorian chants and hymns took over my mornings. Ave Maria and Amazing Grace played as the sun filtered softly through the curtains, evoking school assemblies minus the scratchy uniform and the well-timed nudge from a best friend during silent prayer. It was less devotion, more déjà vu — a gentle revisiting of some inner sanctum lined with memory.

By late January something shifted. Kerala’s version of spring arrived — not with daffodils and cherry blossoms, but in more grounded, tropical metaphors. The hibiscus everywhere bloomed like red punctuation marks in the green paragraph of landscape. Mangoes began appearing on trees with quiet confidence, and the koel, that seasoned herald of Indian summer, cleared its throat and began practising its solo. Butterflies performed delicate choreography across the yard, and kingfishers sat like royalty on electric lines, tossing glints of blue into the air like confetti. And so, my mornings bloomed too — with the elegance of Vivaldi’s Spring, the whimsy of Carnival of the Animals, the floral swirl of Waltz of the Flowers, and Debussy’s dreamy fauns dancing somewhere between my coffee and my consciousness. Life, in those moments, felt like a meadow in a French painting — but with a distinctly Malayalam

 caption.

Then came summer — hot, reflective, and restlessly existential. The air hung heavy with unanswered questions, and so did I. Living alone, once a thrilling badge of independence, had lost its charm and was now a slow-burning ache. The wait for change felt endless, like a buffering wheel spinning in the middle of my life. Thoughts of my faraway family weighed down on my chest in the early hours, and I sought solace not in music, but in monologues — TED Talks on AI, gender dynamics, mental health, and Stoic philosophy. If Socrates had curated a Spotify playlist, I think we’d have been algorithmic besties, matching notes on the futility of desires.

But as my mornings grew more abstract and my inner world more unruly, I realised I needed something gentler — something that didn’t dissect my brain but wrapped it in silk. And so, I turned to Studio Ghibli. I needed that world of meandering rivers, rustling trees, noodle bowls, and floating spirits — where life unfolded in its own quiet rhythm and the stakes, though high, never screamed. Always With Me and The Name of Life — became my morning companions, in all their avatars — vocal, piano, flute. Their gentle melancholy and quiet hope transported me straight into an anime universe, where even loneliness looks like a hand-drawn masterpiece.  Their delicate sorrow and childlike wonder offered a kind of invisible hand to hold. Mornings began to feel like painted scrolls: I wandered through them slowly, eyes wide, heart open, as if I too were a character in a Ghibli film — wistful, a little lost, but beautifully scored.

And just when I thought I’d run the full circle of sonic self-discovery, the rains returned. The scent of the earth made me long for Malhaars and Kajris, for music soaked in monsoon. But even Kishori Amonkar's Barsan Ghan Aayo Rangilo and Shubha Gurtu’s Kajris didn’t quite satisfy.

Until this morning. When Manna Dey began singing Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s Madhushala, I smiled — this was it. This was the frequency I had been searching for.

As I write this, I’m humming:

छोटे-से जीवन में कितना प्यार करूँ, पी लूँ हाला,
आने के ही साथ जगत में कहलाया ‘जानेवाला’,
स्वागत के ही साथ विदा की होती देखी तैयारी,
बंद होने लगी खुलते ही मेरी जीवन-मधुशाला !

"In this brief life, how much love can I give, how much wine can I drink?
No sooner had I arrived in this world than I was called 'the one who must leave'.
Even as I was being welcomed, preparations for my farewell began.
No sooner did my life’s tavern open than it began to shut."

What a year and a half it’s been — not just a chronicle of shifting weather and evolving playlists, but a quiet cartography of the soul. My mornings have been chapters in a private novel — each song, each note, a footnote to my state of being. I began this journey hoping for spiritual discipline and found, instead, the sprawling, shapeshifting terrain of inner life.

Music, I’ve come to realise, is less of a background score and more of a portal. A certain raga can transport you to a courtyard you’ve never visited, with rustling neem leaves and the sound of anklets in the dusk. A Ghibli piano piece can drop you into an animated landscape where silence speaks and even sorrow glows. Judy Collins can make you believe that everything — your choices, your doubts, your longing — is part of some vast, tender pattern.

Sometimes, music gives you strength — not the marching-band kind, but the quiet steel that lets you fold the blanket and face another uncertain day. Sometimes it wraps around you like your mother's saree, smelling faintly of nostalgia, offering no solutions but plenty of company. And sometimes, it simply says, “I know.”

In its mysterious way, music holds space for all versions of you — the hopeful seeker, the weary thinker, the wide-eyed child, the homesick adult. It doesn’t demand answers. It doesn’t hand out prescriptions. It just plays — gently tuning your heart to the frequency of the day.

If Spotify Wrapped could capture soul-searching, mine would be a tangle of chants and cello suites, rainsongs and revolutions. It would be confusing, yes. But it would also be a story — and a beautiful one at that.

Garden Diaries – April ( Hope is in the Air)

                             

"O Day after day we can't help growing older.

Year after year spring can't help seeming younger.

Come let's enjoy our wine cup today,

Nor pity the flowers fallen."

                           -  Wang Wei, On Parting with Spring

Yes, it is April and the spring is very much over. In fact, it has left us in the end of March itself when the flowers started withering and the sunshine became sharper. Now, almost in the middle of April, I see all the portents of Indian summer around me. Neem trees are flowering, Amla tree is showing new leaves and most importantly, Mango blossoms have turned into small raw mangoes. In my part of the world, it is not easy for mangoes to ripe peacefully.  First you have pandemonium of parakeets who find them irresistible – though half the times they just peck the fruit and play with it rather than eating it - and then almost every second evening, there is a thunderstorm making little raw mangoes fall. Well, as of now I still have some kairi (raw mangoes as they are called in Rajasthan) on the tree and I do hope they will survive all this.

Brave little Amiya/ Kairi still surviving Birds and Thunderstorms

But before we go any further, a word (or two) about my garden diaries. The inspiration came from Katheleen N Murray’s My Garden in Wilderness. It was such a delightful read, suggested to me by my friend Rajneesh. The joy of growing a garden is something only a gardener can understand. You are so fascinated by the changing scene in the garden- the first flowers, the attacks by birds, the swarming of bees and the never-ending weeds that you end up talking about it all the time. In my case, I found almost all my google searches and social media shares were turning to be about my garden. Like Ms. Murray, I am sure, I would like to read about my Jaipur-garden-experience again in future and may be re-live the joys and anxiety of a gardener. So the diaries are primarily for my own future reading. I am putting them on my blog, because this is where I write about things dominating my thoughts including gardening. I have earlier also written about my love for gardening and even my Gardening genes , my childhood summer days with Khus scented siestas and waking up with Cuckoos song .
So here we go – I hope to come up with monthly editions of my garden diary. Suggestions (on gardening) and comments on my post are welcome, as always.

My waterlilies

 Back to April , it is not the prettiest month in the garden. In Jaipur where I live, it is getting hotter by every passing day and the beautiful days of seasonal winter flowers are long over. Luckily, I was prompt enough to grow seedlings for my sunflowers, Zinnias, Celosia and Cosmos in February end and that's why the flower beds are now full of neat rows of plants …and a hope of flowers very soon. In fact Zinnias are already showing early blooms. Of course, I had to pinch many buds so that the plant  grow better and thicker , but I do have some flowers here and there .

Buds on Bela plant

However, the flowers which make my heart dance with joy these days, are none of these seasonals. It is our good old Bela – also called as Mogra or Motiya in India and Arabian jasmine elsewhere. Interestingly the botanical name Jasminum sambac is supposedly derived from Sanskrit word Champak. The fragrant white flowers, are loved all over Asia. It is national flower of Philippines and also Indonesia. In China it is used in Jasmine tea and in India, it is used to make gajras- the flower ornament for hair. Just a handful of these in a room can fill the room with intoxicating fragrance. The variety I have in my garden in the creeper and it is full of flowers every night. I keep them in my flower bowls, on my office table and even next to my pillow.

Surprisingly, the heat is suiting my herbs. Carrom, Rosemary and thyme are all suddenly full of life. I am growing lemongrass for the first time and even that has responded pretty well to summer.

Amla tree showing new leaves 

 “And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” 

                                                  -― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

A delightful scene change in April is bursting new leaves on all trees. There are new leaves all around. I saw the Amla growing new leaves for the first time and it is beautiful.  My lone Frangipani, the centerpiece of my lawn is full of new leaves. In the mornings it is full of chirping bulbuls, mynas, parrots, magpies, cuckoos and of course, squirrels. It attracts a lot of bird and squirrel activity around it partly because   it is in the center of the lawn and partly because I put bird feed and water in terracotta bowl under it. Most of the bird feed however is either taken by squirrels or a pair of Yellow-wattled lapwings ( Titehri in Hindi ) – who are always present in the garden.

Fragrant Desi Gulab

Few plants of  Desi Gulab  are thankfully giving some flowers. They add to the aroma of morning breeze full of mogra fragrance and also add some colour. The Indian desi Gulab or musk rose (Rosa moschata), a very fragrant rose variety, is closely related to the Damascus rose  that originated in Persia. It produces small flowers with pink petals. The petals retain their delicate fragrance long after drying. I dry some of these and use them in my recipes too.

Other than my seasonal Kochias and Portulacas , there is nothing much to plant in pots . Some Adeniums were flowering till now but nothing much to add colour. In the climbers, I have a Rangoon creeper (Madhumalti ) full of pink and white flowers and then there are couple of Bougainvilleas . Not much flowers in Bougainvilleas this season as the plants were recently planted.

Rangoon Creeper i.e. Madhumalti

While the other birds – pigeons, doves and bulbuls seem busy all the time either collecting food or collecting straws to build nests, the peacocks scream early mornings and evenings – perhaps hoping for a rain-shower. They even provide us with an occasional dance performance in the lawn after a heartful meal of bird feed and well,  insects from the waterlily pond.

Mukund during his morning performance

 The only bird who seem to be ill at ease with summer heat , like me,  is the family of owlets who live in a tree hole nearby. The heat seem to be bothering them so much that these days they make appearance even in day time. The one owlet (I have named him Peetaksh-the one with Yellow eyes) usually see me off when I get into car for office. On Sundays also, it often peeps out of its hole and occasionally in late evenings even daringly come to the water bowl for a sip or splash.

It is too hot to stay inside all day -Peetaksh

As I look at it, April is a month full of hope. Hope of ripe mangoes, hope of sunflowers and hope of surviving the green lush of the lawn in the heat. More than anything, hope that the May will be kinder to the garden and its beings. As someone said - April is a promise that May is bound to keep.

Flowers in April -Zinnias, Cosmos and an occasional Rose

Starry Starry nights

     “Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,

 Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.” 

                                                      ― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Loneliness  brings back memory of good old days, amplify it manifolds and then make you crave for them. It is almost like re-living those times- good or bad.  I had one such moment the other night. For lack of anything better to do, I was gazing out of the window of my bedroom late in the night. The Arabian sea outside was pitch black and except for few pale streetlamps there was hardly any light. My eyes followed the tall towers nearby and then fell on the sky. Like other metros of India, Mumbai sky is usually full of smog and even in daytime you do not see that brilliant colour of blue in the sky  which one finds up in the hills or in some parts of Europe. Not many stars were visible but just one look at the star and a flood of memories broke loose in my mind.

Like many other traits (viz. Love for gardening, food, poetry, mathematics), I got interested in stars thanks to my father. My father, who was a student of mathematics himself, introduced me to both astronomy and astrology and taught me how to calculate planetary positions. In those  pre-internet days, it was the monthly sky chart of The Hindu newspaper which generally guided my amateur spotting of constellations and stars. By no means, I was a great shot in doing this but I can still recall the thrill. Some like Ursa Major and Orian were easy to spot but some others took me hours to locate and identify...but when finally I was able to spot them, even the aching neck  and scolding of my mom for being in garden late in the night, looked trivial  against the excitement of the success.  During summer vacations, this used to be my favorite night activity. I even had  a dairy of my finds and it was the topic of discussion on breakfast table next morning whether  I recognized the stars correctly or not . My access to books on astronomy and my knowledge about telescopes etc was abysmally low in those days. Yet even a minor news about a planetary event seemed so important to me. Because of my interest in Sanskrit, I always used to note the Indian names of the constellations/ stars and was very keen to read how ancients looked at the stars. Varahmihir and Aryabhatt were great heroes in my eyes for they saw with naked eyes,what later on took  centuries of work and powerful telescopes to re-discover. And they did it not by some magic but by mathematics! Even more interesting was the fact that over the centuries, we even weaved fascinating tales about the nature of stars, their origin, characteristics and location in the sky. The ancients discussed about stars with such ease and familiarity as if they are friends and family.  The puranic stories were as fascinating as the modern day research on the stars .

When I was in 12^th standard, my father and a mathematics teacher,  had a common interest in Indian astrology. It was by sitting through those long discussions - on how mathematics and accurateness of the calculations is the crux of Indian astrology, that I developed fascination for astrology as well. Initially, like most in my generation, I rejected astrology as mumbo jumbo of superstitious people. Dad took the challenge of converting me. He asked me to just learn the making of horoscope, divisional charts etc and argued that I should not have any objection as that part is pure mathematics. He further added that I should find it even more interesting as unlike most others, I can read the basic books (available parts of  Bhrigu samhita etc) in original Sanskrit. Once I started , there was no looking back. 

As I look at it, Indian astrology has two parts – the calculation of chart and  the reading of the chart. While the latter is based on a not-so-great method of probability , the former is a combination of arithmetic, coordination theory and astronomy. I was never good in the second part as I totally lacked faith and found the things to obsolete but I mastered the first part. I daresay my understanding of ephemerides and my calculation of birth charts were pretty good. But since I never believed in the thing, I never got into the details of reading the charts. My teenager mind was rebelling to the fact that why there is so little  discussion about the predictions for  women except the facts about children, husband and the like. A number of concepts like that of 'foreign land' or 'foreigner' taken from ancient text were lost in translation when applied to modern context. Perhaps that is why I lost interest in astrology pretty soon.

 

Now when  I look back, I think I understand the subject little bit better. I think it is not all that “un-scientific” or superstitious as most people think of it . But of course it is the faith of millions of followers and mingling of all knowledge- belief streams that it has turned into a curious mix of superstition, false notions and feel good fads. Now when I find very oddly dressed astrologers on (surprisingly!) news channels, narrating the lucky color, lucky charm and fortunes for the day, I find it a pathetic image of what is far deeper and serious subject of study. I feel sorry that the subject is maligned by its practitioners but then not everyone is fake or just-earning-my-bread kind of astrologer. I have seen it firsthand how the royal physician of King of Banaras, used to practice medicine (ayurveda) through Jyotish ( astrology) with amazingly accurate results.  I know many young friends, interested in the subject seriously. Some even take courses in astrology and others learn by sincere reading and practice . Let me also confess, however much I don’t believe in these daily predictions, on most days while reading newspapers, I do glance upon the predictions for my sign.

"Do not, under the stars, Complain about lack of bright spots in your life"

                                                                                                     ---- Henrik Wergeland, Norway (19th century)

The other part of my star-fascination , i.e. in astronomy took longer to fade. I was hell bent on studying it as a subject in graduation but for various reasons,  could not. Luckily for graduation I landed up at Allahabad, got access to the Allahabad Planetarium library and learnt so much more. There I learnt quite a bit about how at different times in history, people looked and read stars . The book of fixed stars (Kitab suwar al Kawakib) written around 1^st century and of course Ptolemy’s Almagest  were fascinating to read about. I never get down to read the original text and I doubt it was even available in that small library, but it was great to read about these texts. Even now when I hear about some planetary event I feel excited  about it.

But to a large extent, today stars do not evoke such adrenaline rush  in me as before. I still find them mysterious and believe that  there is so much more to know about them, but mostly they just  remind me of those crazy nights of stargazing years back.

With age, another deep philosophical and spiritual meaning of stars has started revealing itself for me. I feel the presence of my lost loved ones in their shine.  I also  keep  reminding  myself on not so happy days, that stars shine brightest on the darkest nights . 

While lights were paling one by one...........

“It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.”

― Lemony Snicket

On this blog about 5 years back I shared my thoughts on the loss of loved ones in a post (here) and how it changes you for life . Death is a much talked about subject. There are theories, philosophies and sayings about it. Stories have been written on its cruel, impersonal and sudden nature. People  have illustrated it in art ,literature and music. But none of this world wisdom prepares you to embrace death ...specially if you are not the one who is dying.  Death is much more difficult for those who are left behind, alive – with memories, regrets, remains and legacy of the deceased.

 I, like most others,  want to avoid death of near dear ones indefinitely . While the rational mind reminds me of the impossibility of the thought, this is something where I want to remain stubbornly irrational. It is true that religion, rituals and philosophy provides temporary solace to the grieving, it is also equally true that nothing can take away the numbness ,the void  and the scar death of a loved one  can cause- more so if it is death of a parent  . After all , it takes away your childhood from you forever. It means end of being called by  some endearing nicknames, endless recounting of old childhood tales and an invisible cloak of protection above your head. 

“Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies that matters,

—mothers and fathers don't die……

Tomorrow, or even the day after tomorrow if you're busy having fun,

Is plenty of time to say, "I'm sorry..." 

But this post is not about just death – it is also about the city . In a city where you know no one , where you don’t even remember the roads and names of places, death enters silently in your home and takes away a precious loved one. The grief and the suddenness hit you hard in any case  but what hits harder is the fact that you are surrounded by strangers . The life in big cities is so fast and stressful that no one bothers to pause  and participate in anybody else’s grief.  The city life goes on not noticing that you are standing right there - grief stricken. The things continue to  work with machinelike efficiency and while one would be appreciating such impersonal efficiency on other days ,it stirs you when you are looking for consolation, hand holding and a shoulder to cry on. Ever wonder why young people spend considerable time and effort to find place in the high pace life of metros and then at times like these long to be back in the familiar comfort of family and house.  

So last month, for many many days I  looked out of window  staring at the Arabian sea changing colors  , feeling lost and lonely...and thinking of the void my husband is going to have in his life after losing his father...hundreds of miles away from friends and family .  As they say grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. And then one day you  learn to swim.

Like a Boss

Factually, we spend more number of waking hours in office than at home.Our comfort and convenience at workplace is therefore, very important. If I ask you what is the biggest factor for making an office good or bad for you- you may say facilities,colleagues or even the work.But for me the one factor which makes life hell or heaven at workplace is, compatibility with the Boss. If you dislike your spouse, you can stay away from home longer, you can "unfriend" your social media friends and even stop meeting relatives...but bosses are unavoidable creatures. They are there whether you like it or not. They come in many colours and sizes, are found in both genders and can have many varieties and variations. Some love to preach, others are DIY bosses, some are invisible at workplace and others love to hang around in office on weekends and holidays as well.

We all have heard about good bosses (yes they exist!), bad bosses, bosses  who made you quit a job, bosses who make you perform  better than your expectations, bosses you have crush on and bosses you won’t mind pushing from the rooftop .And then, even before you realise it, you too turn into a boss for many. I am always intrigued by the influence and impact of this creature called boss on our life and career.

As I joined government service from the highest induction level of Civil Services, I become a boss of roughly 100 people the day I stepped in my first office. Looking back, I must have been a funny sight for all those people. Ignorant, inexperienced and too keen to change the world, I must have entertained the office veterans immensely.  Slowly some of them opened up, they started smiling at my follies, took time to teach me the tricks of work and helped me become what I am today. Many of my former subordinates with time turn into friends and they still  keep in touch over phone, email , social media etc.  It was only now that I realised that as a boss how I was judged back then.  One of the best farewell gifts I got on my recent transfer from Delhi was when an almost silent subordinate came to my room and gave me a card saying: “You are a terrific boss”. I was stunned. A thought that whether he misspelt ''terrible'' with ''terrific'' also crossed my mind .I tried remembering hard my interactions with him but found nothing much of note.  Another one, a serious matter-of-fact guy, suddenly opened up to me after I shifted to Mumbai. While working with me, we talked only about work and work related stuff and now that I am no longer his boss, I realised that  he had a human side as well. We can now talk about books, music, food, life, families and even work. It is funny how work relationships bind you and mould your interaction. I must have been a fearsome boss to these guys that only after my presence from the work  scene was removed with certainty  that they started to talk.

Looking from the other side, I was fortunate to have mostly good bosses. Correction: Good yet eccentric bosses. Bosses who talked too fast to understand a word, bosses who talk so softly that you could barely hear and bosses who would not talk at all. To my credit, I picked some or the other trait from each one of them... I mimic all of them. Once my then-current boss asked me if I ever mimic him. I told him that since I mimic all important people in my life, he should take it as an insult if I don’t. Much like my relation with my subordinates, my relations with my bosses also changed color with time. One turned into advisor, someone else a good friend and well, some remain just good subjects to mimic before friends   . 

Since the government service is the only world I have seen, I fail to comprehend the situation at workplace where your boss is perhaps in some other continent and you get to interact with him/ her only over phone/ internet. I also do not realise the situation where you do not work in a hierarchy and have practically “no-boss”. If you ask me, however irritating be the bosses, it’s good to have them around. Even the bosses who think at the speed of light and those who behave like babies. They provide much required entertainment and order in the workplace. And at times, you do learn a lot even from the worst of the lot.

 In Kolkata, back when I had newly joined, I had a boss who used to roll his cigarettes in his chamber and his standard response to any file put up to him was: “Won’t you like to see it again carefully?” And once you assure him that you have already seen the file, he will set out in a task to find fault with what you have seen, or rather find what you have missed. He would then, gleefully point out what you have missed in a footnote on page 713 or how a document is not tagged correctly in file.  I probably selected maximum nicknames (some pretty nasty ones) for him. But it was his this irritating habit that made me careful for life in scrutinising the files .

Yet another boss was a born teacher. He will write all kind of nonsensical queries of file and when I will, in all sincerity, go to him explaining  the facts , he would patiently listen with a poker face and then say “ I know that ! I was just checking that you do too” and burst into his amusing signature laughter. Never realised it then, but it was because of these two bosses that I learnt the maximum tricks of the trade. This second boss, used to call me “the argumentative Indian”, for my habit of arguing with him on  every brainy idea he had . But the fact that he let me argue and put across my not-so-brainy counter arguments, made him my all time favourite boss.

 So after a boss who would test my knowledge on every issue, I landed up with a boss, who right from the beginning “knew that I know nothing”.A quintessential bureaucrat and therefore an ‘’I”-specialist, this one made me listen to his great feats in life for hours together. He showed me how in every way personal or professional I was a failure, while he at my level was God’s gift to the workplace and well...the world in general. Working with him greatly enhanced my capacity to tolerate nonsense, it also taught me the reason why Peter (who exactly was he!) coined his Peter Principle. Anger and frustration were his two staple emotions. He wanted to be looked as a benevolent monarch but behaved like an angry bird with most of us . Do whatever you like, put in as much effort as you please but all you receive is a little spittle when he was screaming down your face and  yes, a few insults to wipe your face with. Thankfully, in civil service you have a definite date of retirement ...so finally, this know- all,flaming fury boss superannuated.Then for a short duration, I got a boss who disliked face to face talking. On the very first day he asked me to create intra-office chat Ids and to be online for him to pass on instructions. If only he had stayed for long, my typing speed would have benefited a lot. He also had an annoying habit of crunching data on every damn thing. You make a casual remark about something you read in morning newspaper and voila, next you are collecting data on the subject from all national authorities and research bodies .

After a while, I happen to have a boss who spoke, looked like and behaved like Jesus Christ. Believe me when I say that I have never seen a more charismatic, charming and detached from work person. There were moments when my keen capricornian self disliked his cool behaviour , especially in the moments of acute work crises , but looking back, it was pure bliss to have someone, who had a smile on face even when the worst crisis  hit us in office  and who could be a gracious host to most hostile guests. The best part about this one was his cool demeanour. Nothing, just nothing, could make his attention go away from things that matter viz.  A good cup of coffee, a crisp cookie, clean environment, polite speaking and impeccable manners....Work?   Incidental, may be, but well that was never in the list. No shrieking bosses , no jittery subordinates  and no competing peers could make him lose his peace of mind. He probably was the most self actualised person I have seen.  With his impeccable taste, amazing wit, charm and style, this boss taught me to be human even when all around you are losing cool over mundane work issues.

In a work place, there are always jokes and sayings about bosses. One significant part of such work-wisdom deals with women bosses. They are supposed to be jittery, eccentric, crazy and workaholic.  Till very recently, I had never had a direct woman boss. But I had seen my own bosses fretting about their lady bosses and cursing their luck. I moved to Mumbai and found myself with a woman boss. Contrary to what people say (like to believe) about women bosses, this one is perhaps my most competent boss so far. Dedicated to work, detached to the power hang-ups of being the big boss(unlike male bosses), no insecurities of calling on holidays ... she is  perhaps  the most approachable and  understanding person I know among work colleagues  . The people who say women turn tyrant and idiotic, lose balance and temper when given charge of high posts should see her. A delight to work with, a pleasure to talk to, one feels blessed to find a boss like her. In fact at times I think that what am I missing ...I mean you are suppose to dislike you boss..right? So where is that key trait for me to dislike? So far all I see is admirable and inspiring.  But wait ....it’s just been about  100 days in this office. Give me a year and I shall find one eccentricity, one comic angle or god willing, a vice as well.

While writing this post, I cannot help thinking that many of my present, ex subordinates would also have a caricature of me and my eccentricities. I can only imagine how many jokes and saying would be doing round about me and my work style . But then that is an occupational hazard of being a boss. You have to be half mad and half eccentric to  be a unforgettable boss. The legendary bosses are either the craziest ones or the most inspirational ones. No one likes to remember a boring boss. So if an essential purpose of being a boss is to provide some moments of entertainment and spice in the office lunch room chats, the boss should be suitably mad and eccentric. I know, I qualify with distinction.

NOTE: For all the colleagues reading this post, please ignore this as a work of fiction and pretend you don’t know who I am talking about. Do not recommend this post to any other colleague / ex-boss of mine. Please remember I might have much more to write about....the best ( and spiciest) may be yet to come  .  

What the Nose knows..........

Last week I landed up in Kolkata for some medical emergency in the family. If you visit a city like Kolkata, there are some smells you just can’t avoid. Smell of a drain full of rotten garbage, smell of fish cooking in mustard oil, smell of old houses and many more smells of the old city. It was on my way back to the airport,  three days later that I started thinking about the defining smells of places I have been to . I am no olfactory expert nor do I have any particular interest in odours and scents  but unconsciously each one of us catches some smells and link  it to places, people and memories. To cite another example of my theory on smell of a city  – when I first visited Mumbai I stayed in a place at Navynagar, which is close to a dry fish factory. The smell in the air got so etched in my memory that even now I associate Mumbai sea with that smell. Believe it or not, all of us have our personal list of good and bad smells . Smell of freshly baked cake when you enter a bakery, smell of expensive perfumes in luxury hotels, smell of food in your favourite eatery and most important smell of your home are just some of the familiar ones. Then there are some peculiar smells  viz smell of  typical government offices( a curious mix of old papers, sweat and stinky toilets), smell of railway platform/trains, smell of old monuments  and smell of hospitals.

Some years back, quite accidentally, I happen to watch a movie called  ‘Perfume’. Later I read the German book titled ‘Perfume: The Story of a Murderer’ (originally published in German as Das Parfum) by Patrick Süskindon which the movie was based. The novel explores the sense of smell and its relationship with the emotional meaning that scents may carry. Set in 18th century France, the book tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Whishaw), a perfume apprentice in 18th-century France who, born with no body scent himself, begins to stalk and murder virgins in search of the "perfect scent". Interestingly the book talks about scent of a person, smell of a place and even scent of humanity (from which at some stage in the book Grenouille wants to run away). I was very moved by the book. The main plot apart, the concept of smells as an essential characteristic of a person fascinated me. I am still not sure that there can be a “perfect smell” so powerful that it can control everything and everyone ......but I do believe that smell of a place has a long-lasting memory.

                The latest research also confirms that smell have a remarkable persistence in our memories. Although people are more likely to recall exposure to a visual image than an odour when re-exposed after a short period of time, once in our memories, odours are effectively in there to stay, and are more likely than visual images to be recalled after a year. Indeed it is this factor, which is contributing towards an interest in the role that smell has to play with illnesses such as dementia and Alzheimer’s in aiding access to long-stored memories. The funny part is that our mind is not objective when it links places and smells. Usually it associates emotions and circumstances with it

So however fresh smelling be a modern hospital, my mind will still associate it with disease, pain and fear of losing a loved one. Your mother’s kitchen may smell of damp walls and pungent spices, it is likely that you’d read (rather sniff ) it as memories of favourite comfort food of your childhood. To my mind freshly cut grass smell from a lawn is inevitably linked with parks and gardens, summer, picnics and childhood and I still can’t resist sniffing a new book for the lovely smell of paper and ink . In fact , Books/ papers have very distinctive smells and are strongly influenced by age. Newer books smell of fresh print and paper while older books provide a rich, vanilla and tobacco like odour that can be associated with old wooden libraries, leather chairs and well...warmth. 

It is believed that some smells are so familiar that one can dream of them.

It is not only places and things ,  smells can even remind you of specific people.  It may sound silly but whenever I think of my father, it is the fresh smell of detergent from his clothes that comes to my mind. Yet another smell I associate with him is the smell of havan – a mix of burning of wood, camphor and Havan samagri .  

Coming back to the issue of smells of the city, when I think of Shimla, I think of sweet smell of  pinewood floors and pristine hill air  and when I dream of Lucknow, I remember smells originating from my parents’ house. The scented shrubs and creepers of Juhi , bela, Malti and chameli gave the house a heady and yet heavenly fragrance of its own. Rome for me had a peculiar smell of Churches – difficult to define and describe, but it is something I could feel both times I happen to be in that eternal city.  Talk of Varanasi, our very own eternal city,  reminds me of  typical smell at the River ghats.

 

It is again difficult to describe the smell of Delhi, but for me it is predominately the smell of power. Mumbai unfortunately till now reminds me of the dead fish smell  and I sincerely hope that in days to come,  I will find some other, better smell to remember this city with .

I read a couple of weeks back in an article that in cities like London and New York, we have advocates against deodorisation of the urban smells. For a resident of a third world country, I find the idea appalling. I can’t imagine such a thing happening in our cities smelling of garbage and rot. I would in fact welcome some bit of “deodorisation” of places around me. Usually it is a pungent smell of spices and waste that dominates the air of our crowded cities and some amount of artificial deodorisation  e..g. in malls and restaurants , airports and showrooms , in fact has a smoothing effect.  

Well let me end by stating that I am not the first or the last person to link things, emotions and places with smells. Lyricists and writers have been doing it all the time . Remember the immortal lyrics of Gulzar : “ हमने देखी है उन आँखों की महकती ख़ुश्बू ” or Hasrat Jaipuri writing for Amrapalli  “ जब फूल कोई मुस्काता है प्रीतम की सुगंध आ जाती है” . I also remember reading in some novel recently that the “city smelled like sin” and that " he could smell war from his body for rest of his life" . Decide for yourself is it your nose or the mind that makes these associations and give a unique fragrance to your memories- good , bad or ugly.

Goodbye Delhi ……….

The grandeur of Sarkari Delhi : View From Rajpath

I thought I was lucky to find a parking spot outside the small supermarket in my sector. Well, at least something was going right on that hot and humid Saturday morning. After about 30 minutes ,  I happily finished my shopping  and came out of the store only to find a  rather well-used car parked outside the parking slot ,  blocking my car . I was irritated but thought that may be the driver will be somewhere nearby. But no, the car was locked and there was no sign of the driver. I went inside the store and got the car number announced- several times. Finally after 15 long minutes, a 40 something gentleman wearing half pants and chappals ( Thinking he looks cool) emerged out of the store  . When he saw he has actually blocked car of a woman driver, he seemed rather pleased at his doing .( For those of you who don’t know, many such alpha males of Delhi  think that women drivers are some inferior species and can always be blamed for any mistake . These macho males kind of own the road, parking and well, the city)  In his Haryanvi accent English ( And yes, he has to converse in English) , he started yelling at me for making him hurry up with his shopping. When I pointed that his car was parked incorrectly, he shouted (again in English) “So what? I too have suffered many times and listen, if you start arguing , I will not take the car out.” At this stage a security guard  intervened and asked him to take his car out. Guess what ! Our hero shouted back at the guard (this time in Hindi ) “ Beech mein mat bol Saale . Mujhe pata hai kya karna hai.” Finally after creating a scene and telling all gathered  his tale of  parking woes , he removed his car and allowed me to take out my legally parked car . I won’t be surprised if he was expecting a “Thank you .So very kind of you” from me.  This, and many such incidents in last 6 years, make me feel happy that it is time to say goodbye to Delhi.

Six years is a long time to know a city …to fall in love with it …to start hating it…for getting used to it. I came to Delhi full of apprehensions. Most of which turn out to be true. My discomfort  with Delhi- way of living  never went away and despite its many comforts and advantages , Delhi remain an odd city for me. In fact after living here I realized that it is no more one city. It is a strange amalgamation of many  cities, kasbahs and villages  . Perfectly cosmopolitan in some parts and equally rural and crude in most others- sometimes it looks like a city full  of old-world character and at others totally bereft of it .  In fact there were times when I wondered where is the Delhi about which  Meer had  said –

कूचे न थे देहली के अवराक़े मुसव्विर थे

जो शक्ल नज़र आई तस्वीर नज़र आई।

( Delhi’s streets were not alleys but parchment of a painting, Every face that appeared seemed like a masterpiece).

All I found was people bloated with ego, intoxicated in money and muscle power and streets full of problems for common citizens. And yet, I survived. I think one big reason why I survived the city and its people,  is that I stayed outside its typical circles- stubbornly  unsocial and aloof . I interacted with people at work and outside only on need-to-interact basis and made very few friends here. In fact, now that I count, most of my friends, including those whom I met in Delhi were not Dilliwallahs,  at least not the typical ones.

However, I would be missing the purpose of this post, if I fail to recount that in last six year s, there were also many many moments when I was glad to be here.  I got some fantastic work assignments here, met some extraordinary people outside work and participated in some wonderful activities. I also saw some extraordinary things happening in front of my eyes- the civil protest at India Gate, the breaking of scams and its aftermath, the ugly scenes of unashamed arrogant power , wealth and corruption and the impressive struggle of  few people who wanted to change the system.

 But the thing about memories is that they never get the ‘big picture’ . They are very subjective, personal …almost irrational . They do not honour the perceived importance of events and people in any particular way.  I wonder what I will remember of this Delhi tenure 10 years from now ?  Here is the tentative list of memories I can think of right now:

·         I will think of Delhi trees of different seasons. I will miss gawking from the car window and admiring the trees, specially in Lutyens’ Delhi . How just before Diwali , Saptaparni blooms  with its exotic fragrance and how the spring is announced with numerous Semal trees lining the Delhi streets . Even in the summer months, the bright happy  yellow Amaltas and  red Gulmohar trees made my heart dance with joy.  Even  tedious office work was somewhat bearable after sighting these on my way .

·         I will remember my favorite hideouts – National Gallery of Modern Arts and  National Museum . They may not be in the best of conditions but still, they are an unparallel treasure trove.   I wish I get to see them many more times . The memory of plays watched at National School of Drama will stay with me for long . I was mesmerized to meet Banbhatta on NSD stage (in Banbhatta Ki AtmaKatha ) and learnt so much about theatre from Indian and foreign plays performed here .

·         I think I will think about the names of the streets and my (mostly failed) attempts to remember them. The strange landmarks of places which I built in my mind- the lone statue of Alexander Pushkin outside Sahitya Academy Building or the magnificent statue of Gandhiji outside  Parliament house  .

·         I will also miss my visits to well known, less known and not-known-at-all monuments of Delhi. I thank my stars that I got to see these fascinating places as part of my job. While it fills me with rage that Red fort is in such pathetic condition, thank God, we also have Humayun’s tomb – just restored to its glory. The turquoise blue glazed tiles of this Mughal tomb filled my heart with such bliss when I first saw them after restoration.

·       

  I know it sounds lame, but I will definitely miss and remember my  Delhi office and my  NOIDA home . I still dream of all my previous homes and I know I lived a blessed life in my present one too. My office – the place where perhaps I spent most of my waking hours will remain etched in my memory for long. It was actually fun to work so close to the power centre of bureaucracy .

           Whatever reservations I have bout Dilliwalahs , the fact is that it was only with the kindness and generosity of many ordinary Dilliwallahs at my workplace that I survived. Ajay- my loyal man Friday,  who successfully found solutions to all my big-small problems with amazing efficiency; Ashish and Sanjeev, my drivers, who somehow found ways in the lanes of Delhi for their direction challenged madam going in search of one German Bakery and one unknown grave – God,  I am definitely going to miss  them . The colleagues I worked with and bosses who tolerated me, many of whom I hope to cross ways again, floored me with their kindness . 

There are still so many things, sights, places and people  to remember…….. driving  to Italian Embassy for  the Italian course relishing the sights of diplomatic Delhi , shopping in Connaught Place,  the India Gate circle  , the official meetings at numerous stately buildings of Government of India  and  yes, the white pigeon who regularly visited my office window ( mostly to eat the daana  left by Ajay) . Well, to quote Meer once again, I have to agree :   

दिल व दिल्ली दोनो अगर है खराब;

पा कुछ लुत्फ उस उजड़े घर में भी हैं!

(Both heart and Delhi may have been worn out, But some little pleasures still remain in this ruined house).

But in the end, I am glad it is time to say goodbye to this mad mad city . I know life might bring me back in these corridors, but as of now, I go out of Delhi with a relieved look of sanity on my face. Just can’t wait to find the new chapter of life unfolding at yet another fascinating and awe-inspiring city- Mumbai . The adventure of life , after all, exists in those spaces between the known and the expected- in the unexpected and the unknown.