Walking Down Bhiringi

When you land in Durgapur, fresh from the sanitised ostentation of Bangalore and the politically charged flag-waving cheer of Kolkata, the sudden quietness of this peaceful small town comes as rather a shock- especially when you realise that this place is going to be home for the next six months. You can no longer complain about there being too many malls in the city, exorbitant auto fares and boring weekends. The numerous trees, clean and well laid out roads and abundant numbers of birds should rightly be more enjoyable than all the trappings of urban living; I admit, then, that three years of living in three different cities have effectively ruined me for a quiet life out on the prairies or the moors (like I'd once hoped to have).

I'd like to conveniently rest part of the blame on living with people my age- you can't even watch Splitsvilla with your parents, let alone curse the copious amounts of inanity on it- but on the flipside, you don't have to worry about which take-away your next meal is coming from, so all's well. Now that I have plenty of time on my hands, I can introduce you to Durgapur. And we begin our virtual tour at Bhiringi More, which opens into a street lined with shops and populated by that portion of Durgapur which isn't flocking to the newly opened Junction Mall.

The shelves in the display case of 'Khawa-Dawa' are lined with metal trays; a man carries in a tray of syrupy brown gulab-jamuns and spills them into a waiting plate. Fingers splayed, he rolls his hand on the sweets, spreading them out, all notions of hygiene thrown to the wind. A customer scratches his ankle with his key before attacking his ras-malai, while his son points to a heap of fly-encrusted mysore-pak. My sanitiser-toting self cringes; but it is a generally accepted truth that food cooked and eaten in unhygienic conditions is delicious, provided you're prepared to ignore the after-effects.

The lights flicker and go off. Emergency lamps, giving out thin slivers of neon light, are turned on to brighten the dingy interiors of not-so-welcoming hardware shops and restaurants. 'Kwality Lodge' next door promises 'veg., non-veg. & delicious food' at the restaurant downstairs- quite a choice there- as floral curtains billow on the balcony in the breeze rising gently now, revealing doors behind which perhaps a budding writer is hard at work. (Yes, I am thinking of Rusty!)

In this part of Durgapur, Bhiringi, the roads are chock-full of pedestrians, rickshaws and two-wheelers. Occasionally, the outrageously coloured cuboidal tin boxes on wheels that pass for 'mini-buses' lumber by; they are packed with people sitting or holding on for dear life as they press against one another in the narrow aisle. The single door is always half-open, kept suspended in mid-air by the agile body of the conductor who calls out for people to join the merry fraternity within the bus. It lurches to a stop without warning, disgorging and swallowing, unleashing frenzied cries from pedestrians and passengers alike. If you're on a two-wheeler, you're sure to be reminded of the "accelerator-clutch-brake" advertisement on TV.

The shops are colourless, much like one another and uninspiring. Dust lies thick on the plastic sheets clothing stuffed toys and the glass counters displaying knick-knacks. A brand new furniture shop, freshly whitewashed and splendidly lit (and evidently provided with a noisy generator), stands out like a resplendent beacon of hope- of what exactly, I cannot tell at this point. A spooky, vine-covered building hulking in the dark turns out, on closer inspection, to be a school; it could well have emerged unscathed from the 1857 Mutiny. The general vapidity and uniform boredom of the area would make an early twentieth-century Main Street in Oklahoma sound like paradise. Some day, though, this place will awake with a start and spring a surprise. I know I should be revelling in the quiet and that not too long ago I raved over the advantages of small-town life. So I'll also warn you now about the difficult transition it can be, when you move down from a city that houses JustBooks, HRC and a house full of boisterous girls.

As I write, an unseen vehicle mounted with a loudspeaker is passing by, extolling the virtues of Monday in Bengali (or so I think). We're waking up already!

Back, At Last, For Good

Yes, I finally have a laptop. And no, it’s not pink in colour. After nearly three months of patient waiting and almost-total lack of blogging, I now have the gates open again to the world I actually inhabit.

I haven’t done much exploring since I last wrote, and there isn’t really much to talk of in terms of experience and novelty. However, I have had the opportunity to do some interesting reading, have a few intriguing conversations and learn a little more about living on my own.
When you are in Singapore and decide to go exploring, you invariably end up in a shopping mall. Naturally, when you see swanky buildings all around, some architecture that leaves you marvelled at the ingenuity of the human brain, dazzling lights that entice and enchant, you cannot help but be drawn to the glitz and the splendour, no matter how much you admire simplicity and plainness.

So it was that, on a couple of occasions, I ended up in shopping malls, riding up and down the escalators, getting lost in the milling crowds of diverse humanity. The variety is flabbergasting- and yet, sometimes, when you are not quite in the mood for it, there might be a tinge of sameness and boredom to it all- the same shops selling the same stuff in different avatars.
At night, I look out of the huge glass windows at the rows of lights on the streets, glittering out of the windows of the box-like houses, made distinct only by the people that inhabit them. An unnaturally voyeuristic desire to peep into those windows creeps up; what are the lives of these people like, how have they decorated their houses, what kind of food do they eat, what are their dreams and aspirations like? In the end, I come to the conclusion that perhaps there isn’t much to separate one house from another, after all. Sameness. All over again. Monotonous in one way, reassuring in another, especially when you are in a foreign country.

The library has been one constant factor, one pillar of support, so to speak. It never allows me to lapse into self-pitying bouts of homesickness. There is always comfort to be sought from long, hard days (or nights, because I work in shifts) in books of various kinds. Literature, religion, and a little bit of contemporary fiction- that has been my reading over the past couple of months, and I’m really trying to go beyond the boundaries that I seem to have unconsciously set for myself.
So many of my thoughts have lain dormant, haven’t found an outlet and died away unspoken. Not that they were spectacular or would have changed the world; still, it always feels good to let some of your weirder thoughts come out in the open, see how people react to them.

At this point, I don’t have a clue as to what I’m writing. These weeks of literary inactivity will take their toll, extract their pound of flesh, no matter how much I might have composed in my head. Revenge from what you love best.

I have Celtic music playing in the background. Haunting, soft, and transporting me to the Highlands. I can almost see the long-haired man in his kilt, standing high up on a cliff, his maiden hanging on to his arm, leaning on his strength, both looking out on a clear lake, feeling the power of nature and of love. What visions good music can conjure up! Celtic tunes have the most magical names- sample this: Solitude, Soft Day, Celtic Dreams, Eventide, Morning Rain, Halcyon Memories, Reverie, Ciara’s Tune…I have found some good Celtic music here in Singapore- an interest that will hopefully develop and bring with it knowledge and travel.

Those moments of disillusionment still persist- am I really in a different country? Is life really galloping by at such a pace, have I already been here for nearly three months? At times, it seems like a really short period of time to account for some of the long, arduous days that have gone by; at others, it is incredible to think I’ve been abroad for three months already. Abroad. I. Who grew up mostly in small towns, enjoying the sequestered comfort of anonymity and home. Setting up my own niche in an alien country, liking it and enjoying the feeling of getting lost among strangers.

Oh, I could go on writing tonight. All the lovely stories I’ve read want to tumble and slip over one another, beautiful scenes come to mind- is it the music, or is it just me? The excitement is not palpable, yet it bubbles and simmers underneath, quietly rising to the surface, tempered, though, by some inexplicable, unknown element. What this element is, I cannot quite figure out. I’m not even trying to. There is no harm in being quietly controlled in terms of emotions. I have not known myself to be overly gregarious in the past few years.

Christmas is around the corner. A month away? Sure it is; but the shopping malls here tell a different story. Look at the lights, the brightly decorated Christmas trees in every possible nook, the shoppers (not quite symptomatic of a festival in Singapore, maybe, because shopping seems to be the express purpose why people come here in the first place), the quantities of wonderful things to see and buy- makes it seem like there is no poverty in the world, like it is always full of Christmas cheer, that the smiling salesperson by the display of toys has not a care on his mind. Somewhere in the distance, a baritone rings out, exulting in the arrival of Christmas. However, I wonder if the excitement wouldn’t pall in a little while; if this early anticipation of fun and goodies is not taking away a bit of the spirituality that ought to be associated with the occasion. I don’t mean that zealots should take over the world and preach doctrines to everybody that goes by. However, there does seem to be something rather commercial and artificial about all that is being associated with Christmas. The real purpose seems to be buying and selling, intentional or not. That said, I cannot help confessing that wandering through the aisles of gift shops, I felt the urge to buy uninhibitedly and give away- only, here, there is nobody to give to.

It is maddening that I cannot connect to the Internet yet, and shall have to wait another day, perhaps more, before I can update my blog and connect to the world that is really mine. Along with the books now, there is going to be something more to look forward to. Life, as I always say (barring in moments of extreme pessimism), is indeed beautiful.

PS: This was typed out yesterday, when I was yearning to blog and couldn't connect to the Internet. Happily enough, the wireless problems have been sorted out, and I don't think I shall sleep tonight, because I have reconnected with the world I've been missing for so long.

A Foreigner in Singapore

Life works in incredulous ways, or so I thought, when I found myself miles away from home in a country I'd never dreamed I would be in. Just a few weeks after I'd been wondering if I'd ever have a chance to go abroad, I found myself bang in the middle (not quite literally) of Singapore, especially when the first-ever F1 night race, the Singapore GP, was around the corner. Contrary to popular belief, I didn't attend the race- did not even catch it on television, thanks to work. I did, however, catch the briefest glimpse of a Ferrari and what I assumed to be a BMW zooming by during qualifying, as our taxi passed by a section of the track. I was thrilled about it, about having got to hear the whine of the engines of F1 cars, having actually spotted a Ferrari- I raved about the 'event' to anybody who cared to listen (never mind that the number of such people was fewer than I'd have liked).

I never meant to disappear without notice, but everything happened pretty fast and with astonishing suddenness, so I couldn't write a decent hiatus blog. Anyway, I'm glad I didn't- one month and a half isn't really a hiatus, is it?

I first realised I really was in another country when I applied for a library membership and was asked,"You are a foreigner, right?" With hundreds of South Asian faces popping up in the sea of spotless creamy-complexioned ones, you don't really feel out of place. So what is Singapore like? Indescribably clean, organised, glittering with the lights of malls and skyscrapers. I stay with five other girls in an eighteenth-storey flat, and I like looking out at the sky, uninhibited and vast, spreading out in the distance, puffy clouds splayed across the smooth blue. As darkness falls, the lights come twinkling on, and there comes my only grudge- I can hardly see any stars, for the glow of neon obscures everything that is pure and natural. One spectacular sight I remember, though, is of a yellow oval moon suspended in the sky a few nights ago, dark clouds swirling about it.

There is much I need to explore here in Singapore, and I made a start with the National Library. It is Paradise. I have no other word for it. Every author I ever wanted to read adorns the vast shelves of the library, and you could just go in and get lost and never ever want to come out. Bliss of the highest order. (More raving later.) By the way, these are the books I have finished over the last few weeks: E M Forster's The Longest Journey, which I cannot claim to have thoroughly understood, but nevertheless liked; Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake, exquisitely written, but a little jarring and discordant (as I felt) in its use of tenses as it wavered back and forth between past and present; Muriel Maufroy's book Rumi's Daughter, a breezy little book, but a bit too heavily inspired by The Alchemist, sometimes to the point of rephrasing ideas mentioned by Paulo Coelho. Currently, I'm reading The Age of Innocence by Edith Warton.

Office is by the ocean, quite close to Sentosa. You can see the head of the Merlion poking into the sky, often hidden by one of the cruise ships that float in. Some of the ships are admirable- long, sleek, sailing in slowly and gracefully. The waters of the Indian Ocean change colour every hour, sometimes green, at other times grey, never still, rippling in the moonlight or catching the shimmer of the sun. They conspire with the elements and send up sudden clouds which spread out across the sky imperceptibly, opening up as light, soft showers of rain. What I miss here is the fragrance of moist soil, for it is mostly cement and concrete all over, and you never really hear the water gurgling through drains or your feet go squelching through the mud.

There is much I want to talk about, but as I am in a tearing hurry, I don't think I'll do enough justice to any of it. I spent the whole afternoon in anticipation of this single hour of blogging, and that should explain how much I've missed it. This post is incoherent and disorganised, more so than usual, but I know I shall sleep easy for a few nights.