Dormant

I am active on http://anasuyaray.wordpress.com/
But I will return once in a while.

Comfortably Numb

Too much chaos all around, too many articles on the dishonesty of the rich , travesty of the reality and woes of the poor. But we are comfortably numb as it is not affecting us now.
Tarun Sehrawat died today.
No the news did not come in Trending Now articles or none of my friends posted about it as they must be busy in predicting Euro 2012 champions or analyzing why our honourable CM made a ludicrous statement or magnifying the ego fights between our very own Royal Bengal Tiger and the Face of Bengal Mr. King Khan.He is no Steve Jobs either!
The news came by mail from my husband who unfortunately has not been able to numb himself in the plush comforts and sophistication of the developed world.
I have known Tarun Sehrawat only recently. He is just two issues (Tehelka Magazine) old to me, yet his demise touched me like no death before. He is, am sorry, he was 22 years old a brave a fighting fit boy even younger to my brother. It amazes me how he treaded all the way to the innermost jungles of fear with Tusha Mittal by his side.
The question however is how this young boy who is no one to me, has never ever featured in my conversations to anybody, make my morning so grim and so sad that I find myself unable to do my daily tasks. Haven't I gone numb? I believed so. But wait, no, I was wrong. It still aches. It does. I am very happy about it that Tarun could make me ache for him, drop tears for him. I feel pain, I feel rage.
The hope is still there. Too many people have gone down the way but there are so so so many more. We are 1.17 billion democracy and we are the power.
No there is no hurry. We will all need our very own thresholds, may be more Tarun, more Manjunaths , more Satyendras will need to sacrifice just to wake us up and pinch us hard. Or may be something will happen to us these days and we will know we cannot be numb ever!


There's no place in this world where I'll belong when I'm gone
And I won't know the right from the wrong when I'm gone
And you won't find me singin' on this song when I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here  ~ Phil Ochs

Kilimanjaro:7 days:Live Recordings from the camps

 

Day1

Day2

Day3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Moscow: For you: in Suva's words

That's the hostel and the mates - L to R:
Suva, Forgot his name,The Israeli sisters, Andrea,
Emily and Mee .
Picture was taken by Jose :P 

Juan. No Jose. No Juan. Actually he is Juan. But all latinos are Jose. So we will call him Jose. Truly speaking, there's no story. And the story is not about them. Juan and Andrea are a Colombian couple who were staying in the same hostel as us [Moscow style hostel] in MOSCU. And there were others - the Polish girl Emily - such a drunkard - works in the IT and was all full of praise about the infy-guys being so smart, the Israeli sisters whom Anasuya (post two straight shots of the yum spicy vodka so generously contributed by Emily) castigated for the Israeli immigration not letting us into Jerusalem from Jordan last year on our Indian passport without a pre-processed visa. This was our first night in Moscow.

That was the Church I was inquiring Luisa about :P St. Basil's 

And what was Moscow.

The Hostel is run by Luisa and she speaks rudimentary english - not so much as to answer Anasuya when she enthusiastically asked her - "Where is that church in Moscow with the colorful domes like the one which is there in Saint Petersburg?". Now that's a complicated question. Just think of such a question somebody asks you in Russian in the streets of Moscow. Thankfully no one did. And just like the guide books predicted, the folks in the streets hardly ever smiled at the strangers - as if an invisible covering of self-restraint has been put on them. Except for the one drunk guy I met while strolling along the Neva in St Petes who was pleased to learn that I am from India and congratulate me in almost everything. But we are in Moscow now reading off the hostel-bookers' print-out and frantically punching the numbers to get into the fortress like building that hosts the small apartment-cum-hostel. Even our 'world phone' could not connect us to the hostel people. As we perspired at the prospect of getting stranded (and more at the fact that we are getting delayed - there being no room for adjustment in our tight schedule), Luisa saw the struggling-us from the window.

That was the window in our
room I was in love with

We had a private room that was nice and A was particularly enamored by the long window and its drapes. So much that she won't listen to me when I told her that in-room low light photos would come out shaky. We (actually she) started getting ready even before we had the room - there being a spatial separation between the excretary and ablutionary regimens - things were moving faster in the hostel. [My geek note - this is the gain you get from using two servers instead of one and forming two queues, though the servers have half the service rate. Note that the arrivals to 'these' queues, in the morning, are not Markovian, rather deterministic.]

We threw ourselves into the city as soon as we could - the city that replaced the Nizhny Novgorod as the centre of the Rus empire and has been as symbolic as any city in the world. Not quite.

We had to first shop for a nice pair of shoes for A - the second time in our journey - so that she could comfortably do what we need to do in our trips - walk miles.

Kudos to the Japanese Tourists :)

Good that the quest was not eternal and our hostel was only 15 minutes walk to the Kremlin. Through the huge streets flanked by equally tall old buildings. Some having the hammer-sickle murals with some egalitarian message, others had fine painting just ordaining the outer walls. And then through a dark subway with shops selling pastries and souvenirs, out into the open burstling with the summer tourists, and then under the fountain, Kremlin. So red. A had planned to wear red as we would walk in the red square. But I was wearing pink - perhaps consistent with my flirtations with ideas anathematic to Stalinist purists.

Always trust Japanese tourists.
They know exactly what picture you want them to take. And of course, be nice, and reciprocate.

The Eternal lovers at the Kremlin Wall

The change of guards - the stones with names of the soviet republics - Lenin's Mausoleum - the symbols of an empire in a different time, all mark Kremlin. And inside there's another period. The period of the Tsars. The splendor of the riches. The gravity of the Sobors. The embalmed dead.

As we wallowed on the green grass just outside the red walls enjoying our ice-creams, they were kissing, standing on the ramparts. When the whole world gets torn down by our greed, just a kiss is what will remain.

Tretyakov and Suva

I have actually cheated. We hadn't been to Kremlin. Not on the first day. We went to the Tretyakov gallery. Tatyana [not any of the St Petersburg hotel receptionists,
but the lady who used to stay in Linda's place in the Bay area] had recommended it. Good that she did, because it blew us away. With the audio-guide as we went from one painting to another, listening to the stories about them or their creators, another world, parallel to the Paris based impressionists' emerged. The packeted pancakes saved from a previous day's breakfast or the simple fare at the buffet in the museum's cafeteria actually complemented the heavy dose of art.

Sunday evening at Gorky Park

The afternoon ramble in the Gorky park was so reminiscent of our time in Parque del buen retiro in Madrid.
A always complains that the British should have built some parks in Kolkata. I say they never loved the city maybe.

The Kazakh who tamed Suva :P

Circus was my idea. And hell of an idea it was. The Nikulin circus shows the greatness you can achieve when you put your heart and mind together to build something. Every item on platter was so exquisitely served with the matching live orchestra, a theme, a story, that you would beleive that the tricks are just sides. Not perhaps when doing the moon-walking [not the MJ one :-)] on a slanted taut rope without the balancing pole, the artist faltered, recovered and then completed his mission. Without a net below to catch him alive if he fell. Even the orchestra stopped for minutes as did your hearts. And there was the lady [I am sure she is a Kazak] who could make tigers and leopards act in a play.

We went to Kremlin the next day - after we had the nice bliny (Russian pancakes) with sour-cream left on the table by Luisa who had left for work. And after A had her dose of husband-made-latte and facebook.

We did not take the boat-ride in the Moscow river. We were tight in our Rubles. Neither did we see so many of the museums, the splendid cathedrals and the magnificent markets. We hardly had time. But there is always time to take a stroll along the boulevard in Pushkinskaya - me thinking about Pushkin's beautiful wife and A still dazed by the pistachio creme brulee and sweet hospitality shown to two backpackers at an avant-garde restaurant.We even made Luisa worried. The taxi, to take us to airport was waiting for us. She had forgotten to discount the traffic delay. For 30 minutes, we had moved only half a kilometre. I was so tensed that I fell asleep. The next thing I remember was when we had reached airport. We did have about an hour to spare.

St.Petersburg -Russia - I

I had in mind that Suva is not coming to receive me at the St. Petersburg Airport. My mind was ticking on continuously with all the etched out plans to follow the algorithmic steps of crossing immigration, getting currency change at the counter enough for a cab ride to the hotel (as you get poor conversion rates at airports) , take  a cab and explain the address(the hardest of it all). I went over all these steps again and again in my short flight from Helsinki to St. Petersburg.

The airport of St. Petersburg greeted me with a long  queue at the immigration gate which looked exactly like the immigration line in Bangladesh when I had visited it last. The airport did not appear to be that big (well I flew out of Chicago -O Hare) I guess that's the reason. After currenncy I was lucky to get a cab who understood the address and there I started my journey.

On my way to the hotel I was wide awake even after 36 hours of flying. The roads are really broad and it appeared a very planned city to me. Interestingly I hardly found any swanky building or malls on my way. The city buildings, bridges appear to be quite old. Even for cafes and Mc.D-s,Burger King-s etc. I found them housed as parts of quite old and beautiful structures and believe me they look so cosy being part of those old buildings.
Later, I believe on the 2nd day we had visited a huge mall so snugly placed in a huge old building with long balconies just like the shops we have below The Grand Hotel in Calcutta. They have such nice feeling of being a part of the city which these new swanky malls lack( that's my opinion off course).

I reached the hotel ( it was a little difficult to find it as it was hiding behind a playground) only to find Suva very tensed (as I had missed my scheduled flight from Helsinki and had to take the next flight 5 hours later without his knowledge of the same) as narrated by the hotel receptionist. The conversation goes like this :) :

Tatiana (Receptionist) ( as soon as I entered) : Are you the wife? (in a heavy Russianised English -very   concerned)
Me: :D( I was too tired but I could not help smiling as she asked those words :)) Yes.
Tatiana: Your husband is very tensed. I will call him now (her russian accent made those words so sweet to my ears)

We came across three receptionists during our stay in that hotel of whom two were called Tatiana. According to Suva after he found the 2nd girl is also called the same told me they might have a single name badge hence, they changed their names  :D...well Tatiana is the most common name for girls followed by Katarina and Elena.

That evening Suva dragged me for a quick walk tour of the city.On our way we saw the admiral, St. Isacc's Cathedral, the Hermitage , the numerous fontanka-s.
We walked along the most populous Nevsky Prospekt and had ice cream in one of the many parks ( Its a city with huge parks). We finally had dinner at one of the local eateries before I collapsed to bed that night.

Rushdesh-er Upokatha (Folk Tales from Russia)

The Preface: 

The book "Rushdesh-er Upokatha" was one of my childhood's most precious possession. It must be lying somewhere in book shelf even to this day carefully dusted by mother now and then. In my little heart I never ever thought that a day will come when I will visit the land of "Sivka-Burka" :) as the the prince was called.

The key to the door of the folk land came to us one morning when Suva's paper got accepted in ISIT'2011. We were thrilled at the opportunity as ISIT'2011 was to be held in St.Petersburg,Russia this year. 

The next part was the most difficult part of the entire trip- arranging visa to visit the land of Tsars. We fortunately did not waste much time and as according to the conference guidelines, started off with the preparation of arranging docs and sending it across. But the process was much slower than we had imagined. After we had requested with all docs and details the TELEX code(which is mandatory for the visa we were travelling on- HUMANITARIAN- god knows why its called so :P ) came from the authorities after around 15 business days.
However, since they had been taking time and we were not able to contain our excitement had started planning our itinerary. It so turned out that they gave VISA exactly for 8 days +/- 2 days of the conference. So we had to cut short Moscow by a day :( . That's how we were blessed with Riga :)

Meanwhile we had been trying to reach all 4 Russian Embassies around the corners of USA as we did not have one in Chicago with all our clarification questions but in none of the Embassies I was able to reach to a human voice. At the SFO Russian Embassy it did not matter that how many times I kept on pressing 1 to hear the options in English the automated voice kept on hurling undecipherable Russian sentences at me. That was when we knew we had to know the basics before we travel. And ohh!! it was such a wise decision.
We contacted a couple of travel agents to take upon the task of getting our visas done but to our dismay they suggested we do it on our own :P. Finally Suva found out an agent who took it upon themselves on assurance of some generous fee. So we were over with this episode.

We got back our passports in a couple of weeks and we had to apply for a Schengen Visa for our Baltic Trip. By the time we got back our passports from Sweden Consulate we just had a week left for our trip.

Suva left 4 days earlier to attend his conference on a Saturday morning as early as 3 am and I was supposed to leave by Wednesday morning. So those three days I just listened to Suva's stories from St. Petersburg and waiting to feel the imperial touch.
Finally Wednesday was here and I departed from SFO and made my journey towards the folk lore land.

Mid-Life Love

Dear Mr. Saha,

I have finally found the time to write to you after ages today. There used to be times when each little phrase I wanted to coo-coo went into the paper and got collected  till it was delivered by hand to your shirt pocket, the pocket with small blue bird emblem on it . Those days are gone.

My hair now has the silver tinges which peeps out every now and then defying my efforts to keep them under wraps. At times after a shower when I am looking at myself at the mirror I try to remember if ever you looked at me in a  special way but all I can remember is your boyish smile , you standing at the doors of 12 C waiting for our class to get over. You remember you had those big glasses which made you look like an Electrician and with your blue bag you used to look like a conductor, also my memory gets misty with the mornings when a young boy will run to get on to my auto or wave his hand frantically from the tram :), yes brings smiles to my lips.

With time you have emerged into a creature of serious species who looks at the world with cynical eyes. You have grown a more reserved person with political views and at times influence me too :O surprising isn't it !! You have such ranges in your personality that sometimes I feel like asking are you Real? Or are you split ?? Or are you nuts ??? But you are still you .

You hate to call up friends if I remind you that you have not called them for ages now and they will be offended. But then it might happen the very next week you call them up on an emotional splurge seeing The Bengal Reds finally succumb and talk away for hours . Ohh boy!! you you still have that boyish smile :).

You had been the one who introduced me to the world of social networking to Orkut , to Facebook and gradually you withdrew back to your den. The only posts that we can see from you are the articles you want us to read to look through your eyes to see beyond our image of the "All Things Bright and Beautiful..The Lord God made them all" ( I love when you recite those lines from memory- again that boyish smile peeps in my mind) . I know they are an important read but you know at times if you just "like" a photo or just post a couplet or just scrap someone that boyish smile will peep again and make my day sunny.

Love the times when you emerge in a devastating avatar to pull someone's legs paired up with your PJ twin or you just have a couple of beers to wash away your cynicism is the time you really become the boy in you. The world is indeed a beautiful place to live in in spite of all that is going around us and there is so much to love to be loved.

I still love you.

Your truly.

P.S. Reply awaited soon :P