Anindita Sengupta

“Day and night, the lake dreams of sky.
A privacy as old as the mountains
And her up there, stuck among peaks.”
~ Sophie Cabot Black, The Lake

May was full of rain. I left for Kolkata at the beginning of the month. There were a few hectic, hot days during which I spent time in dingy courtrooms with mangy lawyers (property matters),  walked around New Market in an obsessive way, sat in Flury’s, ate in various places on Park Street, ate rolls, ate phuchka, ate mishti doi. I also caught a nasty infectious bronchitis bug that was my familiar for the next two weeks while among other things, I walked on top of glaciers.

Sikkim. It was rainy. There’s nothing else I can say at the moment because it was so beautiful and so moving that I’m going to slip into cliche.  Let’s just say: Development has not yet strangled it. There are few people, lots of roses and orchids. The lakes are clear. No plastic bags. There are waterfalls everywhere.  The mountains are scary and humbling and reassuring, all at the same time.  Tiny towns nestle in between them. Gorges. Signs of landslides. Monasteries. Rhododendrons. Glaciers.

First, we were in Gangtok for two days. We couldn’t get to Nathula Pass — the big must-see place nearby — but Tsongo Lake was well worth the visit. Some loud tourists rode off on yaks to go see China but there were quiet spots. The woman at Mintokling Guest House (which is where we stayed, and epic #success) talked about how ‘seeing China’ was such a psychological thing. People like to say they’ve been to the border, she said. I was disaffected at Wagah so I was okay with not seeing Nathula. Or just being very serene in a fatalistic way. I’m not sure which. They offer you tea, a family member had told me. But don’t step across the border.

After that, we traveled to north Sikkim. Some pictures:

Some more pictures here. By the time I got back to Bangalore, it was raining here. It’s been a good month.

I know a lot of people who dislike pigeons. Pigeons don’t have the prettiness of sparrows, the panache of ravens, or even the defiance of crows. They build nests in people’s houses, make unappealing moaning-grumbling sounds and shit an awful lot.  Some of my eeriest childhood memories involve the bathroom loft and pigeons. One summer they built a nest in there. I was five, a shortish five. I couldn’t see them but I could hear them up there every time I went to pee. It was creepy. I was terrified they would emerge and start fluttering around the tiny room and thrashing against walls. Pigeons in closed spaces still make me slightly anxious.

The point of all this is that I don’t mind them so much in the open, as they are at the little pool behind the State Central library at Cubbon Park.

The National Gallery of Modern Art (or Manikyavelu Mansion as I think of it) is one of my favourite places in the city for some obvious reasons — art, trees, a building made for stories. I was there again about a week ago, noticing the way things are framed: the building by trees, the sculptures on the lawn by the gigantic fountain, the fountain by the even more gigantic tree behind it. Perhaps the eye naturally travels to this because one is in an art gallery and predisposed to seeing in a certain way.

I stared at the sweeping woman in front of the fountain for longer than deemed polite. It just seemed miraculous somehow, this tiny figure caring for all this, tiny and orange in the foreground. A little orange miracle.

In the lobby, the watchman’s chair was empty. I don’t know where he was but the emptiness of the chair in that long corridor, framed by the opening and the tree, made me think about him more than if he had actually been present.

The place is full of gigantic trees and because the mansion is only two storeys high, they tend to be easily visible. Two large rooms on both floors of the mansion hold the contemporary art collection. There are tall windows in the corners outside which the trees lean and sway, a natural sweep up to the sky. Upstairs, smaller rooms house works by the Tagores, Nandalal Bose, Ram Kinkar Baij, Amrita Shergill and Jamini Roy,  These rooms are flanked by generous verandahs and the views are lavish. See the plum tree’s post on the trees at Manikyavelu Mansion. I came across her post when I googled the Mansion in hopes of finding something on its history. (I didn’t find anything so helpful links are most welcome.) Her pictures bring home the fact that trees really are the central attraction in this place of art.

This reminds me of a bit in WG Sebald’s Austerlitz where he talks about the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, about how its design and hugeness intimidates and frustrates the visitor. There, according to Sebald, the largeness of the towers make one uneasy, even frightened. At Manikyavelu Mansion, we have to deal with largeness but of a different kind, that of nature.  And it is interesting that for the most part, largeness in nature — the sea, mountains, tall trees — tend to be relaxing rather than threatening.

I took pictures of the mansion in colour and changed some of them to greyscale on the computer. It’s interesting to see how it immediately looks more somber. All shadows and reflections. It also looks older. Is that because one associates black & white with old pictures? Or is it because some of the things that contrive to make it look less old, like new paint, are not as obvious?

To the side of this structure, there is a small cafe which reminded me of a school canteen — very functional, no frills. Tea, coffee, some soft drinks, packets of biscuits and chips. In large supermarkets, I tend to feel dazed and bewildered, even annoyed, by the surfeit of choices. The limited choices here made me feel simple, content. As if the act of choosing something to eat or drink had been restored to its natural proportions.

I sat there and drank a Mirinda and watched the building, its giant driveway and its verandahs, and wondered about the noise and life it must have contained once when some large family lived in it.

Unlike some art galleries, this one is very quiet especially on a weekday afternoon.

And there was a red door with a Banyan tree in the foreground which I photographed because it seemed mysterious, a little like something I had imagined, something from a childhood story that would lead god knows where.  Probably only to the inner workings of the place. Still, it was red. It was behind a tree. There are things to be said for that.

I thought this was going to be another ‘linking’ post but it turned into something else. Which is reassuring because it means I’m becoming less lazy as it gets warmer. I’m on the last leg of my stay in Canterbury and feeling a bit reflective. It’s been particularly interesting because it’s my first time living alone. (I moved out of home only when I got married which in any case was relatively early.) There’s a strange and sometimes disquieting freedom to being able to set the rhythms of your own day. In this case, it’s heightened because I have no job, no classes, nobody to answer to. Sometimes the space is overwhelming. Other times, it’s magical.

I spend a lot of time reading or writing in my room. It’s quieter than any place I’ve lived in before. Except on some nights when one of my flatmates decides she must make some noise. On these nights, she sings very loudly, has screaming matches with some unfortunate person on the phone or laughter fests with friends at the doorway. She’s 19 as are my other three flatmates. Apparently, there were some issues with availability of rooms so I ended up in the under-grad area. It’s possible to live very separate lives though, which is a good thing because they’re quite shy around me and (understandably) treat me as if I’m from another planet, to be stepped around gingerly and so on. I remember how I felt about people over 30 when I was 19. So it’s interesting in the ironic ‘your time will come’ kinda way to be on the other side of the fence.

Occasionally, I walk to the centre of campus about 15 minutes away to go to the library or buy something. There’s been the odd social thing and I’ve met some interesting post-grad students. Sometimes I go into Canterbury town and have lunch and walk around. The riverside walk is quite idyllic. There are gardens and little bridges, lost umbrellas, lots of ducks and then suddenly, swans.

I’ve been going to London very often, at least once a week and because I have dear people who invite me over, I’ve spent some weekends there.  There’s little one can add to the reams that have been written and said about London but I do love it. A big city has a different sort of energy about it and I haven’t experienced that since I left Bombay where I grew up. So my liking for London is partly nostalgia. But only partly. The rest is just the fantastic coolth of the city.

I also find it exhausting though. I’m always dreadfully tired by the end of the day. Okay, there is a four-hour commute. But it’s more than that, something to do with the high that comes from collective energy and the subsequent anticlimax, perhaps. This is what makes such cities so addictive, I suppose. Each day packs in more of life’s mania, darkness and exuberance, the gambler’s roller-coaster of emotions. Other places can seem desperately ordinary in comparison.

But it’s a huge sign of progress — or age — that I haven’t started mourning the loss of Bombay as a result or wishing I lived in London. I’m sort of seeing the possibilities contained in living the quieter, more ordinary life and it seems like, finally, I’ve grown to like my life in Bangalore enough to not want to change it. It’s taken a long time for it to feel like home. A little more than a decade. And it’s been very hard at times so I feel a bit like celebrating.

Anyway, now for those links. This is one of the nicest International Women’s Day posts I read (and I’m not saying that just because I’m mentioned in it). Jessica Smith on female bloggers (via Rumpus). And this poem in Writers Connect which I found surprising.

And morning has broken and I must sleep.

Last Monday, I finally went to Whitstable which is only a few miles away. No excuses for not visiting earlier except that I was waiting for it to be less cold. I visited the beachfront first which is so very different from the ones back home. The sea looks serene and in the distance, there is a wind farm in the water, giant windmills that look like pinwheels. The ground is full of shells. People walk their well-behaved dogs.

The harbour is beautiful — fishing nets and rope, blue boats, mossy ramps leading down to the water, huge bags of whelk shells outside the whelk shops. Here’s a picture of whelks being steamed to take off their shells easily. Winter is not the best time to be there because many places are closed during the week. And I had gone on a Monday, which is the day the famous Crab and Winkle is closed. I did go and stare at the offerings in the fish market though. It was a moment of longing. It must have been my Bengali blood singing. Or something like that.

I’m fascinated by fishing nets for some reason. And there were plenty of those around. I won’t inflict all the photos on you but here’s one. Aren’t they pretty?

Some more photos from around the harbour.

Weak with hunger at 5.30 pm after not having eaten all day (having been lost in photographs and seagulls and so on), I wandered into a Mr Fish and Chips. The man behind the counter was from apna Punjab.

It was a bit of a shocker, frankly, especially when he asked me to speak to him in Hindi, why don’t you? I ate my cod and chips while listening to sikh kirtans in the background. It was an odd coincidence because the last time I went traveling in India, it was to Amritsar and the music instantly transported me to the Golden Temple. I had not expected to be reminded of the Golden Temple while eating fish and chips in a seaside town in England.  Anyway next time, I’ll have a more authentic experience eating oysters.