Down with Aspidistras

Charaiveti: Part I

The first time I was initiated to the Majnu Ka Tilla, frankly speaking, I didn’t think much of it. But then again, I was new to the city, and had other things on mind. Also my self appointed guardian had filled us up with fearful stories of that tiny little colony just off the north campus of the Delhi University.

It was much later, then…well about two and a half years to be precise, that I started frequenting the place with my Bobby McGee. It was also in those magical days that I would just go up to his room just before our customary evening tea, and around 8 o’clock when it was time for me to get the boots (as DU was rather prudish, and still continues to be the last time I checked) it was sometimes on a whim we would just go off to the Majnu Ka Tilla. Sometimes there would be three people all squeezed in one rickshaw, for unlike it’s Calcutta avatar, a Delhi rickshaw was built to accommodate three people, with one perching over the other two, arms girdling the shoulders of the remaining relatively comfortable seated passengers.

It was thus seated once, on a windy afternoon, that I had seen one of those rare expressions of absolute glee on the faces of a bunch of kids chasing the promise of rain with the blowing dust and dirt at the fringes of a national highway. And yet another time walking down the lanes of that Shangri-La with signboards all in Tibetan (strangely resembling Bengali script), roguish youths playing carom under lamps hanging from thin wires or just the narrow lanes with their colorful displays just off the rather bleak highway giving it a mirage like air, that I had felt perfect happiness.

As one entered the narrow mouth of this tiny refugee colony one had pass by the walls of a monastery, high enough for anyone, higher than usual for me. So no doubt on certain nights when sounds of drums and chanting used to float in the night air from the monastery grounds, I was perhaps the most curious to peep inside and catch a glimpse, a feat which I never managed to achieve. It was slightly weird that I was more caught up with my tingmo when the small black and white TV set, which happened to be there, had first informed me of what was later to be widely known, and profusely written about, the 9/11 incident. But then those things were of little importance to me back in those days.

Yet another time, I stood in the middle of the road, watching my friend and some globe- trotter-friend-of-a-brother-bloke taking off for Laddak, just like that. I was sad, partly as the news came as a surprise, but mostly because I couldn’t have just gone like them. Just to decide on a hot afternoon that to catch the next local bus to undertake a journey (as later informed) of 18 hours on bumpy roads and unsure passengers was not feasible for me.

Dinesha, whose words would stay with me for a longer period of time than her physical presence, had looked into my eyes and had told me, ‘Don’t worry, your time will come too.’

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It is weird, then, that right now I have no home. I have absolutely no home at all. Lugging around with a suitcase 17 kgs overweight (or so says Jet Airways) I have stopped buying books, clothes, shoes, CDs, souvenirs, gifts, cups, cosmetics, jewellery, trinkets, pick-me-ups, film roles, bags, lacy underpants, gossipy tabloids, umbrellas, water bottles, aspirins, solutions for my contact lenses, letter pads, diaries, calendars, stuffed dolls, laptop bags, towels, soap cases, hair bands, inflatable gym balls, track pants, cute tops, batteries, body oils, gum, needle, jumping rope, cleansing milk, cotton balls, vibrators, socks, wallet, hair dryers, coffee flasks and other such basic necessities of life.

Bally romantic, one must say…except getting mails is such a big pain.


Just to take off. And this is nothing to do with my customary visits to four corners of the country, or even to the yearly overhauling across the oceans. And even traveling alone to Europe was nothing, absolutely nothing, in comparison to just taking off in the middle of the night…only a mile away, to crawl through someone’s window…. Or just being called at one in the morning for a slice of pizza and a glass of wine. Or to walk up and down a road in an over crowded wet hill town. Or just to take an auto, on a bored afternoon, in an unknown city, to visit an 800 year temple of a dear Goddess. But then, one remains practical, and one is scared … of lecherous eyes, of sketchy roads, or bleeding bodies, of absence of women, or non existing toilets, of groping hands, or protruding bodies, of pinching fingers, of brushing palms, of empty places, or crowded places, or paranoid parents, of protective friends, of hostile strangers, of over friendly strangers, of approaching deadlines, of hostel rules, of shrinking purse strings, to just take off.

And yet we all find our ways, in however insignificant ways. For the distance between Vancouver and Seattle is nothing, and to pop in and out between the two places over a weekend is very very common (unless, of course you are considered an alien). And even I had popped in and out about half a dozen times. And yet it was only one time when I had discovered the city myself, lost in it with a map in hand, and just taking off in a local bus to stay in a shady hostel in a shadier neighborhood. It was the cheapest hostel perhaps in the entire Pacific Northwest, just near the central railway station where I had put up. It would take someone a few minutes to locate it even with the correct address, for its entrance was quite inconspicuous looking, with a flight of stairs almost vertically leading to the first floor. The room where I was staying was a dormitory of four beds, not very different from my youth hostel in Geneva, but far more run down and ten times dirtier. It had a sink inside the room which emitted slightly brownish water which would become increasingly hot and would emit an angry shrill every time one would turn the tap on. The entire hostel seemed to have only two communal bathrooms. There was also a common room with a TV where I would meet other back packers who had seen much more of the world than I can ever aspire to. I particularly remember one cute Australian bloke with an sweet smile and an incomprehensible accent. Also there was this British couple who, just having visited Australia, had told me the amazing fact that you can actually wash Australian money in the washing machine. The hostel also had a smoking room, which on the only occasion I happened to be there, the proprietor had peeped in to meekly urge its occupants to kindly restrict marijuana smoking to the balconies. The hostel, further, had a kitchen, where I would find a bunch of impoverished students making their daily gruel of instant noodles. My roommates consisted of a young Japanese (or Taiwanese or Korean) girl who was apparently visiting Canada to learn English, and an elderly lady who was traveling to work on her book. Of the other roommates I remember nothing, and hence most likely there were none.

Now something must be said about the neighborhood. In general Vancouver is supposed to be one of the friendliest cities in the Americas, and after all it was the friendly Canada. And yet, I managed to choose perhaps the only shady neighborhood in the entire city. The first day as I had ventured out on the streets, a perfect stranger had walked upto me and after having helped me with the city map, had warned to guard my camera and my wallet as things used to get snatched there in broad day light. And the same night while returning to my hostel I got slightly lost and hence had to wander along a street with people openly shooting needles up their veins and angry brawls in almost every street corner.

Vancouver, moreover, remains the only city where I would go for a midnight peep show and have a dinner comprising entirely of six different kinds of oysters. But then that was to happen a year and a half later.

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Now coming to the question of the Big Apple, there is nothing much to add to what hundreds of people have already written about it. For people had and are and will still visit, live, leave, set foot on the grounds of the New York City for pleasure, business and random rendezvous with past lovers.

The fact that it is yet the only city where I had smoked weed in a car parked in dark alley, had convinced an unknown proprietor of a basement jazz club to feed me cheese and olives, had got stuck in a broken down train at two in the morning, had survived on a pretzel for whole day in order to visit a Broadway musical, had bumped into the same postcard-graffiti and had felt perfectly at home even in my shabbiest moment, can be of little interest to anyone else.

posted by Bithran @ 12:25 AM