She thought she’d let them come out themselves. One by one. When they felt like it. Maybe they liked playing little games of hide and seek. Maybe they were playing hopscotch in the galaxies. Maybe they slept, waiting to be awoken for better use than games.

When they still hadn’t surfaced, many more nights later, she willed them to stay where they were. She had found no better need for them. Nothing better than hopscotch and hide & seek.

The sunshine smiles were getting restless. They thought they were losing their sunshine. Bits and pieces, chunks and bucketfuls at a time.

She felt them stir. Straining to push themselves out of the crevices and dungeons. But all she had for them , were more games in the galaxies.

They began to forget their place. They began to forget how to shine. How to creep slowly into those invisible slats and make whatever they touched, glow with such iridescence. The sunshine dwindled, and in its place, grew chapped skin and frown lines.

She needed to find them. Bring them back, share them. She wanted to lay them all out on a velvet pillow so she could choose the best one to wear that evening. She was jealous of the galaxies that basked in their glory all night. She was jealous of the deep dark dungeons where she imagined them to live, for they were drenched in a light she had’nt seen in a very long time.

When she awoke that night, the stars were out and the velvet veil was a deeper shade of blue. But she walked away, with no clue, as to where the sunshine smiles had gone to.

That girl with the dimpled smile

The last I knew,

She was fleeing her head

The girl with the dimpled smile

Have you seen the girl who ran away?

That girl with the bright brown eyes

I thought I heard her

Run away from time

That girl with the bright brown smile

Have you seen the girl who ran away?

That girl with hair that shines

Last night I watched

As she hung her dreams

That girl with the hair that shines

You know you saw her run away

That girl with the dimpled smile

You knew when she was

Showing you signs

But you let her just slip by.

Alleppey. The Venice of the East, in Gods Own Country.

Endless networks of canals and lakes merging beautifully, flanked by lush green paddy fields, Coconut trees and absolute nothingness, for as far as the eye can see.

Calm, breathtaking, awe inspiring, healing, with the kind of quiet that is almost deafening.

This really is, paradise. I can see why God would have no objections calling Kerala, his own country.

Alleppey is a two hour drive from the city of Cochin, and made up of a watery web of canals, streams, lakes, paddy fields, coconut gardens and little villages, mostly accessible only by water.

It’s the little piece of heaven that features in most travel brochures on Kerala- an explorers fantasy, full of adventure, yet unmistakably peaceful.

As we stood patiently on the banks of a large canal,  kept company by a little tin shed that sold tea and bananas, we suddenly felt something leave us. I’m pretty sure it was the exhaustion of the past week. In the distance, a man and a little girl in a paddle boat waved hello to us- signaling that they were our hosts for the night. Boban ( that was his name, and I absolutely love the way it’s pronounced- almost like bo-bin, with a swallowed N at the end) and his daughter Ria helped us onto the little boat, handed over one oar to my dear other half, and paddled us away to the other side of the river, where their gorgeous house stood waiting extremely patiently, for it’s guests.

The Boban Family home will definitely feature in my list of “inspirations” one day when I build my own place. It was grand, yet traditional, simple yet luxurious. It was difficult not to fall in love with this home, surrounded by a large garden dotted with coconut trees on one side, and a little stream that ran all the way around it ( you could actually row a boat to your neighbours to say hello!!).

The tired travelers were welcomed by warm cups of coffee and freshly fried banana fritters, and by an extremely Sri Lankan looking Lady of the house ( whose name I can’t pronounce for the life of me. Maybe it was their pronunciation of it that I couldn’t understand!) We were then shown our superb rooms, complete with wood lined walls, fresh white linen, heavy wooden doors that were too low for a tall person and, wait for it, an outdoor bathroom!

This is Kerala, and therefore, being a lover of all kinds of Sri Lankan (hmmm….really?) food, I now have to elaborate on the food. Dinner, was Puttu ( yes, Pittu- pol pittu). Soft soft soft ( did I say soft?) white coconutty cups of steamed yumness. Oh! The pittu! Ok I’ll move on! Pittu with lurvely spicy thick chicken gravy, a reddish pol sambol looking thing that wasn’t pol sambol, potatoes, and pepper fried masala mixed chewy flavourful, mussels! That was our first time with mussels. No shells. Just the meat. Gorgeous.

Breakfast! Idhiyappam. ( strings). Little white stringhoppers, pairs, steamed together with fresh coconut in between so that it crunches. More sambol looking red and green things and more chicken. Missed the mussels. But then, it was breakfast!

Our next adventure- the houseboat tour. All hail the brainy Britisher who had the bright idea of turning traditional kerala Kattumarams into houseboats to get in tourists! Nice!

The houseboats are architectural delights. They come as in varied sizes, and can sometimes house upto ten couples. They also have a little sitting/dining area, Television, AC rooms and fully functional bathrooms. And unlike the ones we saw in Kashmir ,which were much much larger and didn ‘t sail, these ones thankfully moved!

You’ll know what I mean by nothingness when you travel in one of these. It’s silent. You hear the occasional lap of water. You see many many many coconut trees and paddy fields. And water. Miles and miles of calm, fresh, water. But when you see these sights repeat themselves for hours and hours and hours on end, you’ll see nothingness. Nothingness is beautiful. Breathtakingly so. God probably had his honeymoon on a houseboat in Alleppey. And then created nothingness. And words like peace and tranquility as well. That’s what its about.

Occasionally, nothingness gets disturbed by a sudden appearance of hundreds of  ducks or a dozen houseboats traveling down the same canal-way, but these disturbances magically disappear quite like their sudden appearances.

After around 6 hours of calm floating, a docked lunch overlooking flooded paddyfields and a stop at a little local market to buy fresh fish, the houseboat docks for the night at a quiet riverbank. Magic happens then- when the sun sets over huge expanses of water and black silhouettes of coconut trees, it creates splashes of colour in the skies and reflections of dancing fire gods in the waters. All that’s left to do then, is just breathe it all in, so that when you leave, you leave with a soul full of magic and memories of more than you ever really saw.

Goa is a far cry from Mumbais rat race, high rise apartments, overcrowded streets, polluted roadways and high fashion malls. The birds eye view of the state was a little misguiding- dry, brown, dotted with tiled roofs and not a beach in sight! But of course, we eventually found the beaches!

The Capital Panjim is built around a Church Square, and a very pretty one at that! Narrow roads with brightly coloured portugese style buildings spread out from the bright church while the Mandovi river glistens like a silver necklace along the main highway. Cruise ferrys ( I’d rather not call them ships) and yachts bob lazily down the river and add sparkle to the waters at night.

From atop the Panjim bridge, the city looks like a quaint old toy town, complete with brightly painted buildings peeking out in between large trees and coconut palms.

Goa is infamous for its beaches, but coming from Sri lanka, I must say I’d give our island waters some points fro being calmer, bluer and generally less crowded! Having said that, The beaches are the place to be, as anything that’s “happening” in Goa, happens here. Goas many many beaches are home to watersports,  fake tattoo artists, hippy clothing, excellent excellent sea food and apparently noisy parties!( I say apparently, cos I didn’t go for any of them…not much of a party person!) Taxis and tuk tuks are rare and in Goa they do seem to pinch the purse a fair bit, so the best way to do a bit of exploration is to hire a motorcycle or a scooter and ride away into the sunset…sorry just got a bit carried away there!

The ride from Panjim city to Baga beach, one of the more popular beaches on the coast takes a good 40 minutes and the landscape on the way is ( or was, since this was summer) bare, dry and brittle, kinda like the road to yala, or habarana in april!

Baga of course, was a treat. We slumped down at a beach shack all afternoon, gobbled down a huge grilled fish and French fries, got myself a fake tattoo and Parasailed! Im not sure if “overrated” is a good choice of word to describe parasailing because it wasn’t all that bad, but then, it wasn’t all that scary either! It was definitely less scarier than a Mumbai tuk tuk ride!  But the view was worth it, and I did quite like the jet skiing too. Boats, I decided, after a good 15 minutes bobbing up and down in one place in mid sea, are not my thing. I decide to also opt out of going dolphin watchig the next morning for fear of throwing up 15 minutes into the trip!

After a bit of hippy clothes shopping we got back to Panjim and decided to get ourselves onto one of the “cruises” for a sunset treat on the river. And what a treat that was! In a corny sort of way. The trip was basically packed with Indian tourists who jumped at every chance to dance on stage and show off their , um, moves. Well, it was worth the 150 bucks and scored 100% for entertainment!

Goa on a bike is the funnest thing!  If you can mange to forget the scorching sun that will burn you to the bone while you pretend to enjoy looking at the dry excuses for trees that line the roadways, it really is a treat. I personally love bikes, so I enjoyed looking at everything, even the twigs! The road to Old Goa was dotted with pretty little churches and very sweet looking homes. After a very brief stop at the grand old church that still holds the remains of St.Francis Xavier, and a pathetic attempt to take some beautiful church pictures, we rode back into the city looking for something goan to eat. The Ritz Classic is a hot favourite spot among locals and tourists alike, we learnt, after walking into the restaurant and spending a good 30 minutes in line, waiting for a seat. The Fish Thali is superb, so we decide to go back for dinner as well, and enjoy seafood biriyani, batter fried prawns and chilli fried king fish. Yum!

( this article ends abruptly with that meal. Those of you who know me can figure out why!)

cute church on the road to old goa

The magnitude of the mumbai slums, as seen from the plane while landing

A rundown saloon in posh Colaba

The two if us feel like someone’s used us as punching bags and punched every bit of strength and stamina out of us. It’s an effort just to get out of bed. The heat in Mumbai reminds me of that ad where a straw is stuck in your head and the sun just sucks out everything you have inside. It’s that hot.

It’s day three since we got to Mumbai and it feels like a week. We’ve walked till we couldn’t walk anymore, saw way more than we can possibly remember and ate more than we have managed to digest. In two hours, we’ll be on a plane to Goa.

Mumbai is tough. It’s fast, crowded and forever alive. It’s a city of extreme extremities. The mega rich and the ultra poor are forever are forever present, no matter where you look. Sprawling ultra swank malls house everything from designer boutiques, lifestyle stores and food courts to specialty stores and cosmetic shops. Right across the road, underneath large well-lit billboards of bollywood stars selling soaps and their next big releases, Mumbai’s slum-dwellers go about their daily begging , flashing dirty children and broken limbs.

In Mumbai, it’s a dog eat dog world. If you’re not fast enough or smart enough, if you don’t want something badly enough to do anything it takes to get it, you will be left behind- rotting in the corner like a piece of moulding bread in a slumdwellers kitchen.

Mumbai consumes everyone, everything. For a tourist, two days is scary enough to not want to live here and challenging enough to long to want live here all your life. It’s like that ad for American Tourister Luggage- Survive Mumbai, Survive the world!

It takes guts to cross roads here! Even more to brave the rush hour traffic in any vehicle, much much more to risk everything in a tuk tuk! To me, it was scarier than any rollercoaster I’ve ever been on, or should I say, “Better”?? In a tuk tuk, you breathe in heavy fumes, get roasted through in the summer heat and hold on for dear life while the driver ( who conveniently drives like he has blinds on) pretends that he never saw the cyclist two inches to the right or the car that just made a left turn onto the main road. In fact, I think everyone should ride in a Mumbai tuk tuk. It’s cheaper than Disneyland, and the thrills are tenfold!

Mumbaikars, or at least some part of them, are super consumers. Like the city they call home, they too, consume everything. I doubt the existence of so many mega malls in the city otherwise. The designerwear is exquisite, the smaller brands, “affordably stylish”, the coffee houses, pretty hot, the world cuisine,  excellent and the lounge bars, pretty happening. Looks like “youngistaan” really has it all right. Makes me quite envious of this lot. There they are, in this giant spider of a city, with all the right amounts of talent, guts, competitiveness, selfishness, bravado and style it takes to live here, and they are doing quite alright.

As with any city in India, the food in Mumbai is varied and brilliant. From 3 ruppee street coffee to “Vada Pav”, from Mc Donalds to TGI Fridays outlets, the city’s foodscape seems to be ever expanding. The “Vada Pav” or Indian Burger seemed to be a hot favourite with the locals. Personally I didn’t think much of it probably cos didn’t quite palate the crispy bread that’s used for the “burger”. Seemed stale, But obviously, that’s just me.

………………………………………………………………………………….

Right now, I’m on the flight from Mumbai to Goa. My stomach did a couple of backflips during takeoff, and one just now. I decide that the tuk tuk rides were’nt quite so bad cos my stomach didn’t do any backflips then. I hate backflips….and churns..and megaburps.

The sheer size of the Mumbai slums from this altitude is just mind boggling! Its huuuuuge!!!!

Anyway, I’m annoyed with this gorgeous cute kid behind me who is incessantly screaming in my ear, I don’t like screaming children.

Snack time.

I’m unliking ( as opposed to disliking) my plane food. It’s shit.

Back to Mumbai. I was gonna talk about shopping. Mumbai really is a shoppers paradise. If you’re wealthy enough to afford it, the designerwear is excellent. For the market types, like me, there’s no shortage of places to scrounge aroung for a bargain. Fashion street in Colaba and Linking Road in Bandra are great for bargains on “chappals” shalwars and factory seconds, though the former seemed pretty overrated. I found excellent western wear (factory seconds again) at the Sunday market on Hill Road, Bandra. Don’t miss stores like Lifestyle, Shoppers Stop and Pantaloons for decently priced branded clothing. On our first Day in Mumbai we managed to cover a few malls, Linking Road, India Gate, The Taj Hotel as well as the absolutely gorgeous gothic architectural showpiece, the Victoria railway Station.

Sadly pictures are prohibited inside indias busiest, overcrowded railway station, though spitting isn’t.  We took “first class” from Colaba to Andheriwhich took a good 40mins, and thankfully we sat all the way.

We left Mumbai filled with…well, a lotta stuff, including bollywood horror stories that I’d rather not believe! The city never sleeps and doesn’t let you either!

Coming Soon: Gaga in GoaJ

Pity my head cant rule my heart,
My heart- my soul,
Cant rule anything!

Pity they work all inside out,
Upside down
Wrong side up!

Pity I adore easily
Trust easily
Break easily

Pity that when my soul slips
It trips, it flips
before it grips.

Pity, such pity
My heart just thinks.

“You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it’s all right”.  ~Maya Angelou

Maya probably met my dear husband before coming up with that one! And I’m sure he’d have a lot more to add there as well. Like “ You think you can never go home again, when you get married and are supposed to have a life of your own, your own home, your own food, you own husband, but the truth is, you never left home because when you say ”lets go home”, you mean THAT home, not THIS home, so I guess you THINK it’s all right!” or something to that effect! On the other hand, Maya probably never met a Sri Lankan before, or she’d have known that the phrase “never go home again” doesn’t apply to those of us living on this side of the earth!

But true isn’t it? How we females have this ‘connection’ to our maternal homes that we never seem to let go of? That however much we try, you really CAN’T leave home? Ever had that feeling that even though our mothers shed buckets of tears when we took our first step out of home on our wedding day, even though they said that we now belong to another home and will never come back, that they always knew we’d never really leave? That’s what home does.

Home binds you. Invisibly. Uncontrollably. Willingly, even. She has a funny way of building a strong foundation at the base of your heart and then surrounding it with freshly whitewashed walls, potted plants and leaking ceilings! Home smells different. She smells like curry powdered kitchens, Harpic-ed bathrooms and eau de cologne-d dressing tables! Home sounds like home. Like Danny O’Donald crooning in the kitchen, Lady Gaga gyrating in the TV room and my mum and dog having endless conversations. She sounds like the crashing sea, the incessant crows and the malu karaya reciting the days menu.

The whitewashed walls hold stories. Truths. Lies. They whisper out hushed sisterly conversations and hurried telephone calls. They are libraries full of romantic novels, real life drama, history text books and political bibles. Every corner has a script waiting to be played- “this is where you hit your head and this is where nanga performed her first dance”.

I’d always imagined a super machine of the future, that could go into peoples homes and polish up all the whitewashed walls so that they shone- like mirrors- and mirror every episode of every day that ever went by in those homes. The people of the future might think we had pretty funny lives, and said and did the stupidest things! They’d probably love to watch the mirrors in the dining room of my home though. My mothers surreal culinary skills would be showcased meal in-meal out. Ah! The food at home! Always plenty to go around and always just the right amount of seasoning!

The water at home tastes different. It feels different when you shower. It’s cool and clear, with rusty dust settling at the bottom! Cordial at homes tastes different too- and tea, and coffee, and milo…

You know how it is right? When you settle into the fluffiest pillows and softest beds in the most plush hotels at night, and closed your eyes, but tried to get your head to believe that you were really in your own bed at home, with its noisy fan and occasional mosquito buzzing in your ear? You know how you trick yourself into believing, after one week at a luxurious boutique hotel, in a land far far away, that this is the life, only to find yourself sinking into your own bed at home and smiling a secret smile to yourself, happy to breathe in the familiar scent of your own linen? Nothing really does that better than home. And quite annoyingly so. She calls you back. Sends you invisible text messages about little unimportant things that you really don’t care about, but want to go back to!

And then you do. If not physically, then, at least in thought. In mind. The comforting thing is, being born in this part of the world, we quite often tend to prove Mayas’ statement wrong. You can ALWAYS go home again, but the truth is, you never really leave home, so it’s alright!

I don’t own a house, and I can see myself owning one in the near future cos normal people can’t afford loans in this country. Depression. I spend 90% of my hours awake in front of a computer( a very good looking large one, but still!) and I have blurred vision and painful eyes. Depression. I have to wear frigging glasses now. So not hot. Damn. I have two “tires” in my waist when I sit down. Depression.

I can’t go for music lessons, driving lessons, dancing lessons or hindi lessons because I don’t have the time. I build castles in the sky all the time. Except that my sky happens to be the one on mars. Or venus. Anyway, it’s the sky next door. So my castles in the sky are like really really depressing but I keep building them anyway. Sigh. ( ah, that’s  a nice one to write a blog post on…”my castles in the sky on the planet nextdoor!) hehe.  Oh. I’m laughing again. I shouldn’t. I’m supposed to be depressed! Oh there’s another reason to be depressed. That voice in my head. She’s such a goody-two-shoes. Now she’s saying that I ought to sit down and think of reasons to be happy and blessed and un depressed because that’s what I really am. Silly voice.

I get embarrassed easily. And then, the handkerchief moment happens ( well, according to my good friend malla, at least!).  The gode piece of fabric in my hand travels swiftly upto my mouth and covers the gaping hole now visible, because I was embarrassed, or something embarrassing happened.

Not that this blogs gonna be about embarrassing moments though. Then I probably wouldn’t be writing much. It’s just an excuse for me to write! Just cos I wanna. And, you can say my hanky sees a lot! It goes everywhere I do- there’s not much it doesn’t know. Sees what most others don’t, about me. So here’s to my first blog, and hopefully, Ill actually get a chance to keep writing!