Life in a hospital's Intensive Care Unit (ICU) can be pretty exciting. The care IS very intensive -- nurses poke you with all kinds of needles at periodic intervals, thermometers are stuck up different orifices, medicines of different colours, shapes and sizes fed to you during, before and after meals and doctors with smiles as fake as Pamela Anderson's breasts tell you not to worry about a thing and then cheerfully reel off some very worrisome facts about your body.
Why am I rambling?
It is a pleasant 40 degrees in the shade. Brave (and, I thought, a bit foolish too) young men are playing cricket in this lovely weather. And yet I can't string together a coherent thought, let alone a sentence. Heat gets to me. Always has. Among my several serious reservations about self, the biggest one undoubtedly is my inability to relocate myself from a city that I have hated with some passion over three decades now. At one point of time I used to gripe about the people of this city, but for a long time, a very long time now, I haven't enjoyed living in this city because of its terrible weather. Not that life in the decidedly more humid Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai will be any cooler.
But this, the Delhi heat, is a different sort of beast. It works on you from the beginning of February, gets its claws into you in March and April, overwhelms you in May and June, saps your energy in July and August and by October end, you are so beat you think the coolness of November, December and January is just a figment of your meteorologically deluded mind. And then its February once again, the beginning of the nine-month summer season. More than anything else, it is the length of the Delhi summer that gets to you.
I once read somewhere how the author, a political prisoner in an Indian jail, would tell stories to young children, who were staying in the jail premises along with their prisoner mothers, about dogs and cats. And then she would notice the blank look on their faces and realise most of them had never set foot out of the four walls of the jail and had never seen a cat or a dog.
Why am I rambling?
It is a pleasant 40 degrees in the shade. Brave (and, I thought, a bit foolish too) young men are playing cricket in this lovely weather. And yet I can't string together a coherent thought, let alone a sentence. Heat gets to me. Always has. Among my several serious reservations about self, the biggest one undoubtedly is my inability to relocate myself from a city that I have hated with some passion over three decades now. At one point of time I used to gripe about the people of this city, but for a long time, a very long time now, I haven't enjoyed living in this city because of its terrible weather. Not that life in the decidedly more humid Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai will be any cooler.
But this, the Delhi heat, is a different sort of beast. It works on you from the beginning of February, gets its claws into you in March and April, overwhelms you in May and June, saps your energy in July and August and by October end, you are so beat you think the coolness of November, December and January is just a figment of your meteorologically deluded mind. And then its February once again, the beginning of the nine-month summer season. More than anything else, it is the length of the Delhi summer that gets to you.
I once read somewhere how the author, a political prisoner in an Indian jail, would tell stories to young children, who were staying in the jail premises along with their prisoner mothers, about dogs and cats. And then she would notice the blank look on their faces and realise most of them had never set foot out of the four walls of the jail and had never seen a cat or a dog.
Similarly I fear Ritwik would never know spring or autumn, easily the two most beautiful seasons of my childhood and adolescence, if he grows up in Delhi. In this city, one day you go to the laundry and hand your sweaters and coats for dry cleaning and then come back and don your bermudas. In Delhi, the transition from winter to summer is terribly abrupt.
On top of it, this is a city without a major waterbody in and around it. You call Yamuna a waterbody and the river itself would rise from the mire of silt and from under the city's refuse and sue you for defamation. The water in Yamuna is as much of a chimera as the mythical Saraswati is. You knew there was water there once.
Damn, I am rambling again.
Point is, I am spoilt, both in terms of plentiful water and good weather. I grew up in Andamans, in the towns of Port Blair and Diglipur, when the population was sparse and the forest cover, at a conservative estimate, anything between 90 and 97 per cent, and anytime of the day and anytime of the year, you could feel the sea breeze on your back. In Port Blair, the front of our house faced the road. But the back of the house opened into sand and you could walk straight on to the beach and then to the water. From every room in my house, I could see the sea. And now from every room in my apartment in Delhi... ohh nevermind!
Long after I left Andamans, the islands became a refuge from my physical and emotional troubles. I would transport my mind to Port Blair or Diglipur and shut myself off from everything else. These days when I get depressed, I think a lot about the ten days I spent last year in the ICU. Both, I guess, are clumsy attempts at coping.
Right now, even as I write this, beer is emerging as a serious option. That is, as an attempt at coping.
In my mind's eye, as I wipe the dust off the years, I can see a big tub with chunks of ice, and countless bottles of beer buried in between the ice. The air conditioning on at full blast killing the afternoon heat. A bunch of old friends who can communicate even by passing a cigarette butt, an old seventies movie (could be Angoor or Golmaal or Chupke Chupke, take your pick) on the DVD in a semi-dark room with blinds drawn. Someone almost unobtrusively passing on plates of non vegetarian snacks at regular intervals. Mmmmmm.
Gosh, more rambling.
But I like the train of thought ...
On top of it, this is a city without a major waterbody in and around it. You call Yamuna a waterbody and the river itself would rise from the mire of silt and from under the city's refuse and sue you for defamation. The water in Yamuna is as much of a chimera as the mythical Saraswati is. You knew there was water there once.
Damn, I am rambling again.
Point is, I am spoilt, both in terms of plentiful water and good weather. I grew up in Andamans, in the towns of Port Blair and Diglipur, when the population was sparse and the forest cover, at a conservative estimate, anything between 90 and 97 per cent, and anytime of the day and anytime of the year, you could feel the sea breeze on your back. In Port Blair, the front of our house faced the road. But the back of the house opened into sand and you could walk straight on to the beach and then to the water. From every room in my house, I could see the sea. And now from every room in my apartment in Delhi... ohh nevermind!
Long after I left Andamans, the islands became a refuge from my physical and emotional troubles. I would transport my mind to Port Blair or Diglipur and shut myself off from everything else. These days when I get depressed, I think a lot about the ten days I spent last year in the ICU. Both, I guess, are clumsy attempts at coping.
Right now, even as I write this, beer is emerging as a serious option. That is, as an attempt at coping.
In my mind's eye, as I wipe the dust off the years, I can see a big tub with chunks of ice, and countless bottles of beer buried in between the ice. The air conditioning on at full blast killing the afternoon heat. A bunch of old friends who can communicate even by passing a cigarette butt, an old seventies movie (could be Angoor or Golmaal or Chupke Chupke, take your pick) on the DVD in a semi-dark room with blinds drawn. Someone almost unobtrusively passing on plates of non vegetarian snacks at regular intervals. Mmmmmm.
Gosh, more rambling.
But I like the train of thought ...
9 comments:
Forget the blog. Expand your train of thoughts and write a book instead. You can call it "Tales of the Escapist Epicurean".
Hey, I rather loved this blog. I think perhaps because I haven't really hung out with you for a while and this captured some of the nuances one catches in realtime conversations.
These are the questions I would ask you if I could:
What was the view like out of your hospital room?
More pragmatically: isnt the heat in coastal countries such as A&N worse than the dry heat in Delhi?
And, I remember your home being much cooler and A.C endowed than my own: heavy curtains and nice semi-darkened rooms. I rather liked it. So what gives..? Oh! are you not in Patel Nagar anymore?
And again, is this what a blog response supposed to be about? I think of it as a conversation with a friend including lag time.
There are some blogs that are more you than others. This one is one of them. Loved reading it. I agree with your friend, may be its time you at least think in terms of a book. A male, Indian version of Bridget Jones Diary?
Dada, way to go. Had a great time reading this one. Reminded me of some of the beer sessions on a hot afternoon. Jaane kahan gaye woh din?
Dear Anonymous,
I've missed our convos too. Hope we can catch up when you visit India later this month. Let me try to answer your queries :
The hospital room only had four white walls for one to look at. And rows of patients, with tubes and pipes hanging out of them. I was much better off and almost felt guilty as i lay there, reading books.
And next time you describe A&N as a country, just wait and see what I do to you.
Last but by no means the least, that lovely semi-dark, cool room of mine has been hijacked by a three and a half year old anarchist and looks a bit like Stalingrad after the German blocade.
Hope you realise if I type one more word on the subject, just might explode.
Soo, on that note,
aur revoir, tata, shuvratri,
Loved this one. I grew up an atheist, but each year in June I raised my hands to the heavens and asked god for mercy and an escape route. Long time ago I made a choice between better weather and familiar lifestyle - it boils down to courage and opportunity of choosing the lesser of the two evils. I just can't wait to have a small amount of savings to go move out for ever to a small beach town with a good hospital.
I read that and reached for a cold beer. A lot of things we used to chat about, your constant lament about Delhi, all that came back to me. Serious bout of nostalgia. And i silently thanked myself for getting out of Delhi at the right time. If you put your mind to it, I am sure you can, too. Until then, go easy on the hooch.
Dear old friend (and by 'old' I mean you),
Sorry about the A&N blooper. The fact it was a Freudian slip of sort offers insight to the sorry mainstream (ditzy) mindset.
But I checked your site after quite a while and one thing that struck me is how many people responded so intensely to your personal note in this blog. What do you think it means? In a book, you don't really know the author as we seem to know you. Are we responding to YOU in your words or to the words themselves? And what does a more impersonal genre such as a book work?I mean that I would like to read Khushwant Singh's work because along with his excellent writing, I feel I know a little bit of his colourful personality. But how does a newbie write? Convey more of his personal self in writing? First get a publicly known persona through journalism and then write? How?
Anyway, random musings.
Be on the same hemisphere with you on 22 June! # 25728757, a reminder.
I think we all have memories of semi-dark rooms with curtains drawn during summer afternoons and hours spent, guzzling beer, watching movies,and singing Hindi songs. Thanks for taking me on that trip down the memory lane.
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