Once, as a Paying Guest in Delhi University

I came to New Delhi for my Bachelor’s Degree, as a wide-eyed girl who had miraculously got admission in Lady Shri Ram College. The heart was beating like it had already got free entry into the hip and newly opened The Sugar Factory next door. Or received a proposal from the dark haired Darcy himself! The head was more cautious in its celebration. Delhi was the size of a Kingdom as compared to my home hamlet. One lady in The Doon Club had told me it’s full of cheats, cheap women and madmen. ‘Be careful, beta. You know what you need to guard.’ And she had looked at my belt. My own main worry was grades. LSR inspired and thus expected excellence. And being a hard-working, above-average girl may no longer be enough to hold my own.

But what pooped completely what was a half-party anyway, was the fact that I did not make it to the college Residence Hall. Utni bhi achhi rank nahi thee, I imagined Belt Lady (from above) telling her Bingo friends. I had to look for a PG accommodation. My father was silent as a mountain, and as supportive. Only the best had to be picked. Safe. Comfortable. No compromises! That another girl from Dehradun had booked one in National Park, right behind LSR, was enough to judge the book by its marble floor and bathroom tiles which no other PG offered for miles. Three months’ rent was paid and a two-seater booked. Diamond fingers pointed us to the various facilities which were being offered to the ‘girls who are like my own daughters’, as my parents and I followed our PG aunty much like Pip did Miss Havisham. 

Alas! Soon enough it was evident this aunty had three daughters and no room for more. All promises made to parents-with-wallets started dying till they became invisible like the rajma in the gravy. That is, before the gravy ran out completely for those girls reaching the PG late. Just plain white rice in the common room, followed by jam with Parle G in the room. Room? A third bed had been shifted in with a girl on top. Now we three slept so close we could share one quilt. After all, where was the cupboard space to hold three separate ones anymore? Where will the books go? And reams of notes? Cold drinking water would often run out, specially during exams, but never for aunty downstairs. Always positive, she would instead show us the 6 pairs of shoes she got for nothing from the sale at CP. We girls would be torn between requesting for a cold water bottle, or asking for the shoes! 

If life inside the PG wasn't exactly comfortable or conducive to studies, the walk to and from college was downright unsafe. With a shady Hotel V next door and a desolate nallah with pants-down men hissing and pissing inside, it wasn’t for nothing that the area was called The Rapists’ Paradise. So the “freshers” would wait in college for other PG mates to get done with classes, and then we would walk back together. It never stopped the mucky comments from being passed or random hits-n-touches by bikers, but it softened the blow a bit. Plus, running alone down the road felt worse. It was when a friend walking beside me got dragged by her umbrella down the lane one lonely afternoon, with me helplessly running after a screaming her, that all the leftover mirth and fun, of late-night gossips about who has a boyfriend or who wears a padded bra and whom PG Uncle winked at, went completely bland. Completely.  

I decided that day I needed to get inside that Residence Hall. Thanks to the powdered-milk water and cornflakes I had for breakfast for a year to help put my soul into getting the grades, and my hosteller cousin who pushed me to it, I miraculously made it. I topped the internal assessments! Our Victorian Poetry class was interrupted when a hosteller (always late!) sashayed in with the news. My name was on the hostel list. The whole class cheered like I had battled a crocodile alone. I cried big tears. It had felt exactly like that! 

By the time my graduation was done and I became a post-graduate student of Delhi University, Arts Faculty, with some library-cum-bank-cum-canteen allegiance to Hansraj College, I knew what to expect when I didn’t make it to the Post-Graduate Women’s Hostel in the first go and took up a room in Malka Ganj. Meanwhile, Belt Lady (from above) fainted over her Bloody Mary just hearing the name of the place, and Mill gaya kamra bahut badi baat hai, yaar, remarked a senior in college. 

But was I really prepared, still? 

No beds. Only string cots. Four girls in a room with a broken window which let in not just the bugs and bees but also the hoots of prospective suitors downstairs, night after night. One fridge, but use at your own risk. Eggs vanished as did Pepsi and rosewater. (There were whispers that it was aunty!) One phone charging point and two cupboards standing on bricks. And a rickety gate and staircase keeping us and our Maggi all safely in. Itney paisey mein itna hee, please, the seepage seemed to say. Where was one to go anyway? Any kissa that would happen in a neighbouring PG accommodation and uniformed men would come to make us fill up forms, ask random questions, and leave. That fine day we would see our aunty’s face, properly, without a face pack, even as we thirstily stole secret glances at the chilled Roohafza she served the cops, teasing us right under their noses! 

Only a month of it and so I lived to tell the tale. PGW's latest list was up and I was in! That same afternoon, even before the glue behind the list which was put up was dry, I moved all my worldly belongings to its D-Block. One rickshaw, one superman ricky-bhai, one kilometre and 50 bucks later I breathed. 

All this was more than a decade back. I am that much older today, and enough to acknowledge that whatever problems beset students in their life at the university also shape them. Chisel them. Give them extra layers of hide for survival, stomachs of steel and a confidence to ‘manage on our own’ where once we were like deer in the headlights. It is only when the shit starts flowing out of the pot to enter your room, and there’s no water in the taps for two days, that you scream the loudest scream. To ask for what is right, and your right. That's exactly what's making news today and reading which made me write this.

Girls protesting against regressive and discriminatory hostel rules, rallies against the lack of basic facilities in colleges and fee hikes are headlines. Even though I read about them on a chair far removed from the broken, shared ones I studied on, I cheer and support these students’ demands wherever I sit. I applaud groups like ‘A Room of my Own’, trying to get accountability in the PG business. And I respect that they found their voices, which are only getting braver by the day. You see, it's not just about 'managing on your own', somehow adjusting. College is about finding your wings for life. And nothing should come in the way of that!   

I wish I were still a student of Delhi University. This would be my postcard to the VC. One among the 10,000 which reached him recently.

Nature and its fruits. And Love?

I just finished reading today’s newspaper. The Delhi Development Authority has decided to throw open its fruit orchards to the public. Orchards of mango, guava, ber, jamun, mulberry and star fruit will now become public spaces, with lights, jogging paths and adequate security measures. The entry to DDA’s 18 orchards will be free, thus encouraging people to come and connect with nature and its fruits. 

Nature and its fruits? 

I close my eyes and imagine... 

Hundreds of mango trees stand pregnant with fruit in front of me. The sun is sweating to somehow reach the undergrowth. To touch it. To nourish it. Here and there, in those yellow patches, I spot fruit flies drunk on juice. They are dancing around plump mangoes which have fallen, as if hungry to be consumed, so ready they are! My nose smells grass and moss and bark. My ears hear the bees, the parrots, the falling fruits and also those faint whispers when the wind meets the leaves, making them shiver with an ‘I love you. I love you so much, Meenu’.

Wait, who said that? Is someone there? I see a red stone bench, a little in the sunlight and a little in the dark, as if yet to make up its mind to show or not to be seen. A boy and a girl sit huddled there, as if they were one. Someone is sobbing. Lovers, of course! Lovers professing love, discussing love, feeling love. Just the trees hear them. Only the mangoes understand. And none of the parrots can repeat their secret passion to the big, bad world of honour and blood … 

Nature and its fruits. And love.

I walk up to my book shelf and neck bent, finger the spines. 

Kalidasa’s ethereal Sakuntala, in a bark-garment, walks in the forest of her hermitage. Her girlfriends tease – ‘With you beside him the mango looks as if wedded to a lovely vine.’ King Duhsanta, spying on Sakuntala’s beauty, is smitten. He sees ‘how her lower lip has the rich sheen of young shoots, her arms the very grace of tender twining stems, her limbs enchanting as a lovely flower.’ 20 pages later there is an invitation to share the bench, if there ever was one, as Duhsanta says – ‘O girl with tapering thighs! … out of kindness, you offer me a place on this bed of flowers sweet from the touch of your limbs, to allay my weariness.’ She blushes with fire, he burns with it and her friends excuse themselves and leave. Love happens. Marriage follows soon after, but alas, it belongs not to the sylvan, fertile surroundings but to the world of the court, and its many laws. Many androcentric laws. About purity of roots, ‘varna’ and ‘uninterrupted succession’. And a woman who is ‘never free to do as I please’.  

I see a red stone bench … a boy and a girl sit huddled there, as if they were one. Someone is sobbing.

To lush regions of harmony, spiritual health, love and fancy, Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ belongs. Fancy, did I say? Yes. Make-believe! The woods, so symbolic of wilderness, are seemingly away and apart from the city-bound civilization. The traditional pastoral festivities release the escaped lovers’ energies for the continuity of life, but which in the end, sadly, are held in check. How? The city has its rules for the formal bonds of marriage. Very strict bills one needs to fit! This ‘contagious fog’ of terms and conditions can creep through the world of shady trees and reach the bench … brutal quarrels, a deranged lover, predation, jealousy, shame and disgust ensue to kill … ‘And therefore is love said to be a child because in choice he is so oft beguiled.’ Therefore.

I see a red stone bench … a boy and a girl sit huddled there, as if they were one. Someone is sobbing. 

I suddenly remember what this guy in Siddharth Chowdhury’s ‘Patna Manual of Style’ saw in Indraprastha Park, New Delhi. In his words – ‘I heard some voices from the covered pavilion that is right in the middle of the park. I thought I heard a faint female shriek for help … I found a young couple on the floor, the girl still in her school uniform, with her nylon zebra-striped chaddi and salwar around her knees and the boy bare-assed on top of her. Without thinking of consequences I ran in to save the girl and gave the boy a tremendous kick. The girl started saying ‘please, please, please’ and the boy … tried to run away… but not before some choice slaps from yours truly.’ He was just a goodly confused passer-by. No. He wasn’t a cop with a baton. But he could have been a cop, or someone serving the opaque and impermeable code of morality, of which one size fits all, and flouting which leads to such ‘dheeli chaddis’. 

I see a red stone bench … a boy and a girl sit huddled there, as if they were one. Someone is sobbing. 

The newspaper flutters in the fan’s wind to draw me back. I read yet again.

The Delhi Development Authority has decided to throw open its fruit orchards to the public. Orchards of mango, guava, ber, jamun, mulberry and star fruit will now become public spaces, with lights, jogging paths and adequate security measures. The entry to DDA’s 18 orchards will be free, thus encouraging people to come and connect with nature and its fruits. 

Nature and its fruits. And love? 

Once, at this museum in Delhi…

When news of a midnight fire destroying Delhi’s National Museum of Natural History broke, and images of the building’s façade black with soot went viral, I was struck with a strange sense of loss. Strange it seemed, for neither did I grow up in Delhi for my childhood memories to feature trips to this museum, nor was it among the popular places I frequented as a student of Delhi University for five years, and later as a journalist. Why was I sad then? What was it that made me lament the mishap as if the loss of a museum is a personal loss? Was it because it made me remember a visit to another museum, once…

The National Museum, New Delhi, was the first museum my son saw, one afternoon in the month of April. He had just turned two. My husband and I had strapped him in the car and converted an otherwise lazy afternoon into one where we were ‘doing things’ with our bubba. I had teased him for his nine years in Kolkata, which that day proved him a Bengali-parent-type by taking a tot to teach in a museum before the said tot’s molars were out! He in turn had smiled and ventured with conviction how much fun it’ll be. Come on! So I packed a WW III survival kit with finger foods, juice, hat, spare shorts, mosquito repellent cream, wet wipes, water and his favourite book. I knew I would be sitting reading to him in a cool corner, as his father fulfilled his own childhood fantasies, not having got enough of those while growing up with his face shoved inside a museum window in museum land! 

And guess what? The book wasn’t needed at all! 

The feet which climbed the few stairs at the entrance went thappad-thappad, excited just to be climbing. But the steps matured into slower taps once inside. Suddenly, the roof was soooo high, the huge room had more than the usual four walls (one, two, three, four, FIVE, SIX…) and the shiny corridor leading us in was lined with rows of statues. Hello! Are you stone?

Suddenly, there was so much to see! Further and further in and up and up towards the sky. 

The moment we entered the grand building, my son entered his own grander world of imagination seldom disturbed with facts or need to eat or pee. Curious. Quiet. Contained. With his head turning angles to really, poperly see. With his toes taking his weight so inside exhibits he could do peep-peep. With ‘what’s that and that and that?’ the only question, whispered so as not to hear his unnerving echo, and with an enthu-father ready at his service with simplified answers. Enjoying the company of his thoughts he walked. Enjoying his ‘serious’ side we followed like followers. 

He had to see everything, right till the tiniest of artifacts which never before had seen so much attention. And we saw everything too through his eyes, as we looked at him seeing and describing everything in his limited vocabulary but with limitless joy. It is a joy I fondly remember when I think of it. I look at these to remember it…

Those who are remembering their visits to the National Museum of Natural History probably have memories of the place to turn back to in their most boring, idle, happy or lonely times. But no more do they have the same place. A lot of history has been lost in this fire, of course. Objects of immense value, which preserved within them a lifetime of stories, reduced to ashes. And then comes a question...   

When places vanish into clouds of smoke or wars of time, what happens to our personal histories; individual histories created as we live? Isn't it good to believe that even though places of note may be no more, or change faces like our hometowns, or be named anew on a whim, our memories of them cannot be taken from us? They are ours to own, like undocumented, dormant, sometimes silenced but always intimate thoughts which make precious home in our hearts and minds. Those bits which remain inside us till we remain, like unwound movie reels, sometimes forever, and other times flowing before our mind’s eyes in high speed. Triggered into limelight. Woken into remembrance. 

Just like this morning, when I watched one museum burn, I stepped into a different one. That was the first museum my son saw…

Horn OK Please

Flashback first. 

It took me only three sessions of professional driving classes spread over 8 years to learn how to drive.

An inspiring image that refuses to leave my mind is of my instructor hugging the door handle on his side. It showed his belief in my abilities; that my confidence behind the wheel would make him giddy … with excitement. He guided me very well, God bless that ex-truck driver. He told me that the roads in the hills will not straighten up just because a tiny, white car is coming. I have to turn the steering for that, know left from khai. He requested me not to put both feet on the floor of the car even when the radio played 'uthey sab key kadam'. He also made sure I understand that driving with the hand-brake up is by no way a safety procedure, that to reach 5 you need to go to 2-3-4 first and that the sequence is always ABC and CAB is only something I should call for whenever I am in the mood to drive (which he did not say, what a kind man). 

To cut a long distance short, I knew my ABC before I hit Delhi roads recently. I had to hit them, because someone had to pick my boy up from school. And I wanted it to be me. 

Just me. 

I wanted to keep it special. You know, like carrying a “new” toy (from the millions he has forgotten) and keeping it waiting in the car for him. Apple juice or mango juice, maybe a chocolate too. His favourite music ready to help him stay cheerful after a day’s hectic colouring-claying-crafting at school (Oh the burden of Nursery!). To chat with him over the nine kilometers asking what other mothers send for tiffins and thus keep him awake for lunch at home. Most of all, to see his face shine with happiness on seeing me from his class window. Hai! So romantic my idea was of finally being able to personally pick my child up from school. So romantic that it kept out from its loving whorls the reality of driving on Delhi roads. 

The reality.

Now, this reality did not just dawn on me. Within minutes of being behind the wheel, it was honked and honked up my ears because someone’s behind was on fire at the red light. At the red light!

Within seconds, a new Delhi driver like me had lost my virginity. 

I had rolled down my window and let my hand talk; made an air plane gesture. Only. That day I had returned home, with kid and all, and also with a deep understanding that everyone is about to miss their trains and no one wants to miss being the first to reach somewhere, anywhere, even if it meant only the next red light where Audi meets Zen meets tempo meets cycle rickshaw meets cycle meets 100-ka-10 book/tissuebox seller.

That point near zebra crossing being the biggest and the only leveller sans reservation in our country! 

Makes sense?

Initially, it used to take me full 15 minutes to just get out of my community’s gate and turn left towards the main road. Why? Nobody wanted me to get out of my colony! The left indicator went tic-tic in vain. Some drivers coming from the right would speed up suddenly and whizz past because ‘ladies log kyun first, bhai’ their manly monsters used to grumble. Some others started honking from 100 mts away to intimidate my racing car and make it cower backwards. As for turn, O kee honda hai?

There is no ‘right of way’ there is simply ‘stay right away from my way’!  

Silver lining.

As long as the Delhi belly is not pressing on the horn at red lights, those moments of pulling the handbrake and sitting around can be strangely interesting. At least one driver will be singing aloud, tapping multi-ringed fingers on the wheel, looking as much a mute moron from outside as the talkative RJ sounds inside-out. In your rear view mirror you may spot some reapplication of lip gloss in pout-unpout-pout-smile-pattern, but it could also be plucking of chin hair. If you are really lucky, you too may see the uncle ji I did at Naraina crossing once. At 17 seconds counting down, he suddenly chose to get out and stretch in slow motion, after unsuccessfully pulling his pants up properly from behind. The red ticker was counting down and he was still at scratching his balls, patting his Fiat Padmini’s bonnet lovingly and looking around lazily as if this is the echo point between Doon and Mussoorie offering him a view of the valley.

He certainly couldn’t have had a kid to pick! He did have two nostrils for the purpose. That is, just before the world (and me) almost drove over him and his reverie. 

To have an Earth mover raise its arm over your car makes you believe in God

An empty Ring Road without bottlenecks is like a red velvet cake – smooth and fun. Wait. An empty Ring Road? Is like a red unicorn. It’s all in the head, in children’s books or on another planet altogether. Often, bumper to bumper feels like dancing in a crowded disco, wanting to go-go-go all the way since time is ticking but well aware that any kind of bodily touch may not bode well. It happened once though, that touching.

The bum of a Scorpio which said in red ‘brother of ex-Vice President, Mandakini College’ brushed past the bosom of a car with a big redder bow-and-arrow and Sanskrit verses (no German!) on the back screen. A serious looking guy with his chest puffed to gargantuan proportions walked out from the bow-and-arrow, twirling his gold chain with the God on it. He surveyed the scratch, twisted his lower jaw to one side as he walked over to the ex-something culprit. I don’t know what the ex-something said from the rolled down window but this guy’s chest had gone from 53 to 35 and a meek smile had returned to the Sanskrit car. Some assi tussi kissi kitti had happened it seems. Phew! The power of being a Very Impotent Person had prevented an hour long fist-fight and many behens and mothers had been left alone at Dhaula Kuan. And then they say VIPs are arses! I say they are often some Very Important Parts of our lives!

  

Anyway, taking a short-cut now to tell you that after losing my virginity on Delhi roads with that hand gesture (air plane then, now slimmed down to a one-finger jet) I realized there was no more scope for foreplay left any more. I had to season myself and my tongue, update myself on Delhi Drivers’ Hand-y Book, and know that nosing or honking my way forward is not impolite, just like snatching parking spots from under another’s wheels is not. It is Darwin’s concept of ‘survival of the fittest’. 

Expecting too much from my skinny jeans!

I too have a sticker on my back screen. Not Shonu-Monu or 'Ma ka aashirwaad' or 'Jat Boyzz' or 'Dude di gaddi'. Mine simply reads - If you have a ‘Guru ji’ on your side, I have a ‘baby on board’ and he’s named after the highest note of the octave. You touch my car and the God on Raisina Hill will hear his child's clarion call!

Off I go now. I think I have stood my car in the middle of the road long enough to type this. Any well-meaning peeing man would have returned to his similarly parked vehicle by now.

OK. Tata Bye bye. Phir milengey, bumper-to-bumper!

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was  - Sink or Swim - Tell us about a time when you were left on your own, to fend for yourself in an overwhelming situation — on the job, at home, at school. What was the outcome?

Swimming-Shimmying

I love swimming. Especially early in the mornings. You know, when the birds are twittering awake and the sun playfully winking at them from behind lush green trees swaying lightly to the cool and clear wind and …

Right, as if! When you wake up to 35 degrees at 6:00 am, the birds are tweeting rants in more than 140 characters and the brown trees trying their best to give the sun a blue eye for being such a butcher in heat. 

You exit your air-conditioned room where your cherub happily snores and it’s as if you entered a black hole spinning closest to the Sun. You gulp your cold coffee in precisely five sips lest it turns warm. As warm as the “fresh water” CPWD releases your way for an hour expecting you to tank-up and shank-down before the heat evaporates their whole office and the pipes run dry for the rest of your baking day. You water your plants and they seem too tired to raise their heads in gratitude even. Depressing. Try reading a newspaper under a fan-on-five-number and you might as well do dardey disco with your arms, neither needing eyes nor brains. 

And so, I thought of joining a DDA Sports Complex nearby to use their pool and spend some hot morning time feeling like a cool mermaid, swimming-shimmying up. And it is sitting exactly there, on a white sun bathing chair (which we Indians use like berths in a train) under an umbrella that came free with Bagpiper Whiskey, that I write this. Sitting by the side of the pool which my toes touched a few minutes back.

If I did not belong to Haridwar’s neighbour, I would have thought this is the ghat people come to dip their free sizes in after freely sinning. Citizens of a whole continent are in this pool right now, a length which takes me no more than 15 seconds to cover – all interruptions included. Like excited tadpoles in a mug of water the previous tenant left on the roof top, God alone knowing what the mug was used for. That many bobbing up and down, in that little space. And many around the pool too. 

Say that man under the shower just outside the men’s changing rooms. Little does he know this is not his ghar da shaavar, or that open air ones are for a token rinse only. He just began shampooing his hair – eyes closed tight as if his jet is landing and such chaos between the hurrying hands and the hair that soap suds are flying to stick like white whales behind another’s behind; a man’s, the one next in line who is waiting his turn, respectfully keeping his back to the lathering spandex while keeping his front reserved for public gaze. As I notice his eyes trailing to the ladies side of this family-time pool-time, I wonder which is stronger - his elastic I hear crying SOS under a monstrous belly, or that one leg which carries all his weight as the other stylishly extends forward. With hands on tilted-hips, he’s discussing politics with two men swimming breadths at the deep end. Both men periodically sprout mysterious bubbles up their back whenever they stand still, or are not burping. I switch undigested Times Now off to turn my face away, hoping for pleasanter sights and sounds. Certainly less hairy ones! And that’s when I am enamoured by a bra.

A gang of girls about 40 years of age are having a mini-kitty in 3 feet water. Two have held on to the side rails and are floating belly-up, admiring their nail paint on the toes while two others stand bent at the knees, gracefully keeping their bergs below sea level. I can make out the discussion is serious. Could be about the class 12 board results, or about Mrs Nanda’s long nose – both horrific enough topics to garner haws and hmms. One kind-looking lady's eyes just bulged forward enough to touch the strapped goggles now fogged over with what could be rage. Must have heard Mrs Mehta changed her boutique. Clandestinely. And for those couple of seconds she stood up, with knees straightened, water to the waist, hand on mouth, head shaking side-to-side I saw it. A brassier under the costume! (How lovable must their bond be that he followed her chastely to the pool! Oh envy!) The straps seemed to match the costume frilly leotard she’s wearing, so certainly intentionally worn and not forgotten to remove when in a hurry. Why, it kind of matched well with the eye shadow too.

I did decide to get in, exactly when the two teens making chapatti dives at the deep end were leaving. But at the ladder I found a face staring at mine with such concentration in its eyes and pouted mouth. What is this? Ek choti si love story happening in the pool?

The child, about three years old, looked as lost as the Batman on his floats was in this Punjabi pool. He had stopped flapping (moving as successfully as a fish on a treadmill) a couple of seconds back, and now just floated. Staring. I climbed down holding the rail, eye-to-eye, in slow motion, suspecting a loving lunge or maybe a water proof firecracker going off under me making my one piece become three. Like a prank. His older sister was trying to swim underwater but ending up much above it instead. Something was up most definitely. Well, time revealed nothing was up at all. It was all down under, for soon as my toes felt the warm water, he turned around and screamed with an ace performer's glee – ‘Mummy, I just pee-pee on my own in the middle of swimming swimming.’

In the meantime, Mummy across the breadth was too busy to have heard her boy’s success story. The two political bums in the deep continued to laugh and bubble over jokes they shared, while their friend, the second-in-line, was now vigorously wiping himself with a towel near the shower, soaping-shampooing over, of course.

Might as well jump in now? Not me! 

You?

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - Might as well Jump - What’s the biggest risk you’d like to take — but haven’t been able to? What would have to happen to make you comfortable taking it?]

Rocketing to Rajouri

I am a very homely kind of person. I like keeping it near. And dear. 

Say, my eggs and bread are accessible in a shop I diagonally cross the park across my lane to get to (henna hair uncle ji even allows credit of macroeconomic proportions). A Mother Dairy (never liked that name) is next door to his shop. So in one jute bag which came free with Kayam Churan I can get my favourite breakfast, lunch and dinner all in one go. The vegetable carts come to my door step and announce their wares in various dialects I understand not but matters not. The beauty parlour is across the main road after walking down only two sets of yellowing buildings (and I always manage a discount there – say, not pay for threading when I have paid a month’s salary for the facial). Even my child’s school is three private-quarters away within my colony (so what if A-street does not get along with E-street. Education is education). And my favourite market (Rajouri, the name is Rajouri Market) is 15 minutes of battery-operated rickshaw ride away. Just 15 minutes! 

You see how my universe rests within a perimeter the diameter of which must be the smallest divisible number never happy to be multiplied and loving to remain single. 

So, when I was asked a big futuristic question as to where I would like to teleport to, I caught myself thinking. My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets but why do the names of the planets seem so strange? I can’t possibly say I want to visit ‘Very’, now can I? The Moon sounds good but will out-shine me. The farthest planets are too far, the nearest hotter than me. Another Galaxy, never, for I can't turn traitor to the memory of this chocolate from childhood. So, no!

I think, if I could cut down on travel time and reach a destination in micro mini seconds, I will pick my Rajouri Market. No hailing battery-bhaiya, no tuk-tukking sitting amidst bells and button-down Akshay Kumar posters and no haggling for that Rs. 2 discount. Just teleporting. (whatever that means!) 

I don’t know why you smile. Perhaps, you think me an idiot to want to go to this Punjabi-like-me market rather than, say, Jupiter to meet Sabu or Marlowe the Moon Man keeping the moon dust falling for Noddy. Let me tell you why. Let me show you three pictures from my last visit to Rajouri Market, Wild West Delhi, only this Sunday just gone, to show you how unique and interesting this place is. 

Picture 1:

Steve Jobs could not have designed this one. Neither could have this apple orchard been grown any better by the genius who did it. The many colours, the net (‘Behenji, pure lace! Not net.’), the overall over-saturated image of this on a human shape with bitten apples on every angle and I swear on butter chicken this could not have been spotted in any other market. Such highly evolved brain synapses which could connect unrelated colours and textures and well, even symbols, with such passion for mixing-matching. Today, I am a proud owner of Apples iSuit, limited edition. (apart from a few cock-tail gowns from an over-flowing place called ‘Bangkok Mart’. Such colours you thought never existed!) 

Now, to figure out which is salwar and which the kameez. 

Picture 2:

What you say is important but how you say it is equally important. We should communicate with love, and passion too, why not. A toy set, imported from across the highest peaks of the Himalayas and found in 'Luckee Toys hee Toys', reads thus. How sweet, sweet as pure cheeni. I held this in my hand and a rush of inexplicable kindness for my next door neighbour (country, I mean) rose up my belly and into my heart (and then down). How the media buries under reams of source-papers the real relationship that the peoples of one country feel for the other. Why rake up controversies over seas, when all they desire is to be fondled admiringly. My son cannot understand the words, but when he learns to read, one day, I am sure he will start wearing a cap and a tee to proclaim his love back for this country (just like those NYC-returned ABCDs). Now, isn't this love letter on a toy unique to my Rajouri? 

PS – It has been opened and the manual instructions followed properly. 

Picture 3:

(Please stop staring. This is purely for showing you the dress material) 

And the people in Rajouri, so big and so big in heart that accommodating other’s language into their own moulds and styles is never a problem. I am sure if this lady has been shopping in Rajouri she knows the symbols of all things Chinese. They are printed behind toys and clips and candy and phone covers and Godly idols and now, on behinds too! So, in the very act of picking this pretty yellow with a foreign language dezign the woman has travelled miles in the Market of World Peace and donned a symbol of such inexplicable unity in diversity that she can quite be used as Mother World. (If only I could see the face I would have doodled it).

I have ordered a whole thaan of this piece. Some to get stitched, some to gift and some to send over for translation to the Institute of All Things Imported. It might help in understanding the print behind most objects in the market much better! 

Tell me! Do you still think me an idiot to want to go to this market rather than, say, Jupiter to meet Sabu or Marlowe the Moon Man who keeps the magic moon dust falling in Toyland?

Okay! Don’t answer that! 

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - Teleport - If you could travel to any location in the universe — where would you travel and why?]

Sounding the Red Siren against Sexual Abuse

In the year 2000 I moved from my secure, joint-family, small-town setting to become a student of a reputed college in New Delhi – raring to go, promising to make the best of hostel life and continuing wide-eyed in this big city with flyovers, McDonald’s and something called pubs.

As a part of Delhi University rules, every student enrolled in the Bachelor’s programme had to give a certain number of hours to social work to get their degrees at the end of 3 years. This idea was run under the National Service Scheme (NSS) and while some colleges simply handed over the certificates, mine made us do our bit, every minute of it. Most of us cribbed. It involved our meagre pocket money being spent on commuting to far flung places and spending free time earning good karma - something which we considered ourselves too young for. Out of the array of activities, I picked teaching in a Jhuggi Jhopri Shishu Mandir about 8 kilometers from my college hostel in South Delhi. And 40 hours in a month is what I had to complete, which meant going everyday for an hour. 

Once I got over the idea of being stared down as I entered the slum cluster and learnt to ignore the catcalls welcoming ‘madam ji’, I started enjoying the teaching greatly. A class of about 60 students, all 4-6 year old in their dark blue and white uniforms would welcome me with a sing-a-song ‘Good morning’ and repeat their letters and numbers after me in the same sing-a-song voice. It was tough, to make them sit still on the mats and listen. All they wanted to do was dance to songs they sang themselves. A few days into it, and I started a story telling session, where the last 15 minutes of every class were to be spent in sharing personal tales. I had noticed a few children never participate and while I did not want to force them to, I thought this activity might interest them. 

I was not prepared to hear what I heard. 

“I don’t talk to him because his father came to kill my father with a knife one night, because my father stole a fish from his stall” – said a boy with an Om tattooed on his wrist, telling me why he refuses to sit next to the other boy.

“Her mother is a prostitute. Everyone knows that. Other women are saying she is a witch too.” – said an older looking girl pointing at a little one sitting in the back row with an angry scowl permanently etched on her brow. 

A series of real stories shocked me awake from my small-town-to-elite-college-comfort. Were they pulling my leg to unnerve me? I was still wondering if I should let this exchange go on when out came this –

“You see that girl in the corner? We don’t sit with her. Her father does dirty things to her. She is very dirty and if we sit with her, our father will also do those things to us. So our mothers told us to keep away from her. Maybe she also does dirty things to her father.” – giggled a couple of boys and girls together, completing each other’s sentence with a misfit excitement punctuating their sentences. I looked at her, as she fixed her gaze on the floor with a steely tenacity. That explained why she always sat alone, opened not her mouth and did not participate at all. She sat right there and her moving shoulders told me she was sobbing, something I had noticed so many times before without realising that this little 4-something girl has been crying all this while, even as the rest of the class sang ‘A sey Anaar Aa sey Aam’.

My class was suddenly transformed into a very disturbing reality that I had no idea about, that no one had told me about before this day. I dismissed the class and waited for the principal of the school to come. The girl, Sapna, kept sitting where she sat. I asked her to go home and she nodded a no, saying "mummy has told me to stay here till the building gate closes at 4pm." I approached the principal and told her what I heard, showing her the girl insisting on sitting here. I could not believe my already numb ears when she said this to me:

"I know, beta. It has been going on for a very long time. We can’t do anything about it. These slum dwellers are like that. Let’s just do our jobs and not get personal. It’s none of our business. Plus, we have so much to worry about anyway. She sits here till I close the premises to leave around 4 pm. Then she goes home too. She is usually the first one to arrive." I wonder what shocked me more. The reality of the girl’s sexual abuse at the hands of her own father or this principal’s complacency and acceptance of it as something we cannot and should not do anything about.

Back in college, I related the story to a professor who took it as seriously as it was supposed to be taken. She visited the Shishu Mandir with me, called the girl’s mother and asked her what this was all about. The mother, shuttling between sobs of helplessness and determination to not let us interfere in her household matter told us this – "Yes, he does dirty things to her. Every day. So, what can I do? He’s the father. We have nowhere to go. If I leave him, this girl will die of starvation. At least this way she is fed and even studying to become successful one day. I just look away, even if she calls me for help. What can I do? The neighbours saw him fondling her once and the word spread. Thank God we were not excommunicated from the jhopris. Where will we go? Maybe it’s just a bad habit of my husband’s and it will pass. I hope it does. I do want it to stop. I have told her to stay in school as long as possible. I hate it too. I try to stop him. But then, he is feeding her, educating her and getting her new dresses too. What more should I ask for?"

And the girl still sat in her favourite corner, with her shoulders moving, knowing what her mother was talking about, re-living it in her mind as she did on her body, day after day. My professor contacted an NGO which worked for the rehabilitation and care for the girl child. After many meetings and even a little force, the father admitted to his crime and agreed to undergo counselling, between bouts of crying. 

My 40 hours of teaching were over, but this horrific story became a permanent chapter in my book of learning. I remember asking after Sapna from a junior who was assigned the same Shishu Mandir for NSS but she had no such student in her class. A year had passed already. 

This is the first time I share this story. Thanks to Rekha’s and Roshni’s blog posts spreading awareness about Sexual Abuse and the Girl Child, as part of Time to Sound the Red Siren Campaign by UNICEF India and Protsahan. As I look back with the eyes of a 30 year old mother and not a 17 year old teenager lost in a big city, I understand so much more than I did then.  

I see and read how sexual abuse is usually at the hands of a person known to the victim, say the father of the girl in this story. How, knowingly or unknowingly, we become abettors in the crime, like the girl’s mother, the principal, the whole jhuggi community and even those little children. Most importantly, I see how there is always recourse and hope, considering that Sapna’s father shamefacedly admitted to the crime and willingly sought counselling to stop his ‘habit’, something that seemed to be a burden for him to carry too. 

Be it making noise on public forums or whispering it in responsible ears, anything can help in stopping sexual violence against the girl child, or any child. It takes very little, and what it takes is well worth it!  

    [This post is in collaboration with Protsahan and UNICEF India‘s Time to sound the Red Siren campaign. Sexual abuse cuts across class, ethnicity, religion and origin. Millions of girls in India face obstacles in their lives, experiencing various forms of discrimination, exploitation and abuse on account of their age and their sex. Each year, an increasing number of children in India face sexual violence. Recently, there have been cases of rape that have galvanized global attention and sparked mass demonstrations and widespread debate on the issue of sexual violence directed at children. However, there are many cases that go under reported. Fear of social stigma and victimization often stop children and their families from reporting these crimes. Since much abuse is hidden from public view – and because it is too often tolerated – the numbers do not reflect the true magnitude of the problem. When violence occurs, the physical wounds or bruises may disappear but the mental scars may not.]  

What's so insanely special about Dilliwalahs

‘Insanely special’ is not a coincidental combination of words. It is as exclusive a coinage as the people it is being used for here – the dilliwalahs. If I was to ask you to draw a picture of a person from Delhi, chances are you will either fall short of colours in your crayon box, or you will fail to depict the maddening energy that those from Delhi enjoy. Even words may not do justice to this special “tribe”– which knows the right mix of culture, curry and creativity to make their everyday life extraordinary. But we can try, can’t we?

Dressing

Delhi always looks like a million dollars, and it knows the art of not spending a dime to dress itself such. The regional heterogeneity in its dressing sense is what makes it a ‘melting pot’ of, well, costumes! Cross the Yamuna and you shall see resplendent sequinned saris and fashion jewellery that would have put Jodha Bai’s to shame with its shine, if not the cost. Come West and the story continues, albeit with greater proportion of everything, the money spent and the glamour gained, both. The gota-zari dupattas of women and silken turbans of men express a royalty that deserves the BMW’s cushy seat they move in. South is a different story. Fab silk saris with leaves and worli and all things traditional, jewellery called junk but costing a whole junk-yard’s resale value and over-used kohl pencil is not uncommon. The English-speaking sophistication and the arty-ology is something that most South dilliwalahs reflect. Perhaps, going North wards will not be much different from how the rest of Delhi is clad – in all its glory – whether with royally deep pockets or deeply royal thinking it matters not! If this unity in dressing diversity is not insanely special, then what is?

Driving

What do you mean by thinking that driving in Delhi no longer begins with the letter ‘D’? I understand that rash and road rage both with an ‘R’ but that does not mean the letter ‘D’ has been silenced (or run over). With such distances to cover who has the time to use the brakes, I ask? And do you think a South Delhi Merc or a West Delhi Lamborghini was meant to be driven at turtle speed? Or that crossing a whole river to leave the East behind can happen at snail’s pace? A dilliwalah knows what it takes to save time on the road, and save his life in the mean time too. Why else do you think cars have Hanumans hanging on the rear view mirrors or little red bow-and-arrows stuck to the motor cycles’ speedometers? God is great, and so is the speed that he moves in, or so I gather looking at that jet driving past me at 80 km/hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic with the little God stuck to the dashboard holding on for his dear life. Insanely special – this faith in one’s reflexes as well as faith in God’s protective hands, both! Oh, and it’s not ‘right of way’ but ‘Right ho, vey!’ If you have heard that, you have not been driving the Delhi way!

Partying and Celebrating

 Dilliwalahs do not eat to live, they live to eat and drink, and eat a little more, and drink so much more if it’s on the house. Dining out is not just reserved for special days like birthdays and karva chauth dinners, but just about any day you fancy a certain cuisine – be it Punjabi Chinese, eat-all-you-can Rajasthani thali, or stuffed anything as long as it just got out of the tandoor. The younger lot can pub-hop and skip and then jump after it’s all over, which is what a little boy on a bankrupt high can do. The older ones go to insane levels of culinary patience by standing in queues (which do not work in a linear fashion like queues everywhere else) for dipping dosas in sambhar and with a little tomato ketchup on the side, why not! You cannot expect a dilliwalah to pass by a golgappa-filled stranger’s mouth without wanting to pop 10-ka-4 himself too. Where’s the party yaar? Does not matter, not always! But when there is a party, you can rest assured it will be both insane and special. They dance like their life depends on it, and they get married like it’s the end of the world the next day. Car-o-Bars inspiring Prabhu Deva in baraats and note-d showers. Lit up palm trees in wedding pandals as big as Ramlila maidans and a million calories to eat in return for the 1100 in the shagan lifafa. Without butter chicken no life. Without glitter no wife. Insanely special or especially insane? Hic! Who cares!      

Cultural Curry

If dilliwalahs are honest about something, it is in their choice of music. From Himesh Reshammiya in cars with rolled-down windows to the Jazz Festival or Bhakti Sangeet at Nehru Park, they have the capacity to consume varied forms of music. In pubs they will know their Hip-Hop from Techno. Outside, Kailash Kher is talent, Daler Mehendi is cute and Honey Singh is King. Why, even classical music finds a Kamani-full of audience. And then, apart from the ‘free-style’ dancing that can happen at the faintest roll of the drum, one child in every 20 homes is becoming a Shiamak Dawar or performing for Ashley Lobo. A similar number is learning Kathak or Bharatnatyam soon as they turn 6. And even Pummy aunty has joined belly dancing classes, for therapeutic reasons, no more! The dance and music scene in Delhi is what you can truly call a cultural curry – and it is usually served simmering hot - whether on stage or on the road!  

Brotherhood in Neighbourhood

Dilliwalas have a very unique relationship with their co-dilliwalahs. Good fences make good neighbours, especially if each family has more cars than the number of people who drive. While finding parking space is an art, keeping your parking space unoccupied by strangers’ wheels is pure genius. Have an extra cycle? Chain it to your designated square with hoops of steel while your beast is away. Got a few broken chairs? Pile them to keep your parking space exclusively yours. Also, remember that cleanliness is next to Godliness; so toss that garbage bag away from your living space and close your eyes to where it has landed, whether in the neighbour’s backyard or driveway, it is none of your business. However, make sure you remain on air-kiss terms through thick-and-thin for times when you need the elusive neighbour’s area for putting up that mata ki chowki ka tent. And do not forget to send in an extra packet of halwa for the generous leeway of property. Brotherhood in neighbourhood is nowhere as insanely special as in Delhi.  

Verbal expertise

Those from Delhi are masters of language. No, not the Merriam Webster Dictionary kinds but certainly of the I-can-use-what-words-I-please variety. For instance, expletives conjuring other’s kith and kin. Don’t get me wrong. Dilliwalahs do not always mean to express anger when they use them. You see such fluency in words from the other side of the dictionary that what seem like cuss words to you are actually just full stops, commas, full sentences, exclamation marks, fillers, greetings, middle names and often just shortened self-references. On a quieter note, have you ever noticed how they tell you the way when you ask for directions? With such confidence they will point their fingers (all five, this time!) to the next crossing that you can see and ask you to reach there, and then ask for further directions. They hate to say no to wayward tourists, even if they do not know the way. They also hate to say yes to moderation and go to such extent of hyperbole that if a mole hill is not called a mountain it means that the world is spinning from North to South. 

Phew! So you see, ‘insanely special’ is not a coincidental combination of words. And words can only but attempt to reproduce the special characteristics of dilliwalahs. The right combinations, peg measures and degrees only Delhi knows, as it lives life to the lees.

But then we tried, didn’t we?


[Written for the launch issue of the print magazine The Creative Project. All Rights Reserved.]

Small Town Mentality

In the small town

I come from a small town which grew to become a small city soon as it was declared the capital of a new-born hill State. More concrete, better roads, mushrooming universities, traffic lights, McDonalds and Pizza Hut, and even a little pub came rushing in to take their place. Month-after-month, our small town morphed into something beyond recognition and imagination. What was once called a retired hamlet downing shutters by 8 pm and going to sleep by 10 was now buzzing with ice-cream eating pan-enjoying janta even in the middle of the night. The old town became a young city – even as the elders blinked their age-old eyes awake and the young rejoiced at more-things-to-do whenever they came home on a break. The town grew, indeed!

Dictionary explains ‘Mentality’ as a habitual or characteristic mental attitude that determines how you will interpret and respond to situations - which engineers your adaptability to newness and your actions and reactions to all things foreign. As I saw Dehradun become unrecognizable, I realized how the mentality of the residents moulded itself to something so different too. More people were eating out and partying as gourmet restaurants opened their doors to them. A lot more girls and boys were hanging out together and a lot less parents frowning at that, thanks to comfortable and safe coffee shops dotting the city. With the latest designer brands came fashionable transformations of the young and old alike. In short – what I saw was a mentality gradually opening up its arms to outside forces (even if you want to call them forces of consumerism) and warming up to the changes of lifestyle and thinking that winds from bigger cities brought with them. Today, after more than a decade of becoming a capital – Dehradun is no longer just resting on rocking chairs in green verandahs, sipping tea and having pakoras. It is also learning to do and getting to accept things and ideas which form an integral part of growing with the times. Fear of unknown frontiers outside the city limits have been cast away, and a spirit of enterprise has come seeping in along with students and businesses from all over the country. And this small town’s mentality? As flexible and as forward-looking as it has always been. The town not just grew, it grew up too. 

In the big city 

Now, take the 7-hours-long journey and come to New Delhi – a city that is not just big, but a metro since forever. Political capital, land of opportunity, central university, and what-not. It never sleeps, and then wakes up late on weekends. Its fast and maddening, yet fulfilling too. There is so much to do and enjoy, and equally more to look forward to another day. It is a grown-up city teeming with energy and life, all kinds. It seems many developed years ahead of Dehra Dun and its times. But what about its mind? 

In the last 13 years, I have heard a universalised definition of ‘Small town mentality’ far too many times from the cosmopolitan. Of course, directed at my kind who were born in tiny nursing homes in tinier towns. And every time I hear these 3 words, the usage bothers me. The term is used to explain everything that riddles the city - from lawlessness and indiscipline to promiscuity and immorality, from gossiping and communalism, to even excessive hospitality. Am I imagining the condescending tone in the voice which pronounces certain people’s mentality as small town, which hurts me? Am I reading too much when I see it as disrespectful towards my home town and all the people living there? Maybe underlying this not-so-veiled derisive tag is an idea of one-up-man-ship over someone who grew up in smaller places by those belonging to bigger ones? Strange, this labelling, which in the best of times seems to be coming from an incipient prejudice and in the worst with the intention of "othering" what is everyone's evil.   

One never talks about a ‘big city mentality’. Why is that? Are not residents of such cities equally responding to situations and interpreting them with characteristic traits acquired? Or is it because small town-ers coming into big cities have far more to take in and assimilate than those who need not leave their homes in big cities for greener pastures elsewhere? Maybe they are too many too busy to even know their neighbours, so shoe-boxing them under a certain umbrella of mentality is near impossible. Where as in a small town, we can easily fit everyone into one parade ground, ignoring all ideas of uniqueness and individualism which actually exist in equal quantities, everywhere.

In my mind

My experience of ‘small town mentality’? Openness to accept change with newer influences, albeit carefully and sure-footedly. Being interested in how much milk your neighbour procures, yet knowing that does not make him any different from you. Holding on to your children, their studies, your gardens and your pets with hoops of steel, but going all out to support the stranger on the road when he needs help for his own. Going to the market ready to bump into 10 people you know, yet knowing how to show a pleasant surprise and a happy smile, all 10 times. Going to the plush mall to enjoy the festivities while yet not forgetting your family jeweller, doctor, kirana shop, tailor because good will and loyalty took longer to build than that mall. That is called small town mentality, and rightly so, since most big cities leave you hungering for most of these.
      

I have no real answers which explain the ridiculous and ridiculing usage of ‘small town mentality’ that I have witnessed over the years. If I did, this post would have had less question marks than it does. I can only explain this post as one stemming from deep loyalty for my fellow small town-ers, a loyalty that is an intrinsic part of this 'small town mentality' we speak of. I do make a mental note that perhaps there is indeed a ‘big city mentality’ too, which exposes itself most when it tries to explain any kind of different-from-its-own behaviour as ‘small town mentality’. And it does neither party any good.

So, in the spirit of a true-blue small town-er who grew up living with a community as a whole and feeling of oneness even with strangers on the road, I will erase that note instantly from my mind. Shadow lines of difference need never see the light of the day!   

While my home-town remains the dearest dot on the map to me, I do thank this big city that I call home today - for having taught me not just how to live but also how to survive.

Historia - Safdarjung's Tomb, New Delhi

[My husband and I are what you call a “monumental-ly” crazy couple – rain, hail, sun or very hot sun, not much can deter us from visiting places of historical note when we have the time. Thus, soon as our son learnt to recognize us as his crazy parents, we wanted to introduce him to our shared historical hobby – to be one with history, capture it and immediately plan for the next weekend. “Historia” will be a series of informal articles on various forts, palaces and monuments we have visited over our years together. Our idea is to simply share our experience and knowledge of the place, pin-up some frames and sign-off with a few traveller tips. Bite-sized History, for quick and easy consumption!] 

Sometimes, it helps if the real merit of a historical site is not known to the crowds. Safdarjung’s Tomb is one such site. If you were to tie up the eaters in Khan market and the walkers in Lodhi Gardens to a little stone and throw them towards the Tomb, chances are they would land there before the pasta cooled down or the next 100 meters got walked. Safdarjung lies entombed that close to happy and happening humanity, yet that far from their minds. And that is good - for that beauty in solitude, in silence and in experiencing a monument as if put there exclusively for your senses.  

We wanted to capture the glory of this site in the Golden Hour (no, it’s not about jewellery. It’s the one hour after sunrise, or the one just before sunset - in this case the latter). You have to see it to believe me how glorious this last one hour of the day’s Sun is. The sunlight thickens to a deep orange hue, the leaves don’t seem green any more but made of gold and the shadows suddenly seem to acquire a depth and a slant which you have never seen before.

 Built in 1754 in the late Mughal Empire style, Safdarjung's Tomb was described as "the last flicker in the lamp of Mughal architecture". Here are a few pictures taken by us in the last flicker of the Sun. And look what it did to Safdarjung’s resting place, as it began sketching lines of darkness and light.   

There are 2 graves here. One of Safdarjung and one presumably his wife's

A doorway into the past

Hazy history

Face-to-face

And then the Sun set

What we have to say:

1. The best time to visit is in the evening, as has been amply stressed above. A secret - fading light without too many people around makes for excellent PDA, sans public that is.
2. The place is very well-maintained. Perhaps because it is not just small but also less popular with littering tourists. And since it is small, it can be done before the heat gets the better of you or nature calls. For the latter, as usual, no facility on the premises.

3. There is enough parking space. We only saw a HO-HO bus, with tourists missing.

4. The ticket guys are quite smart. They try to keep your counterfoil to reuse later. Just so with the parking guys all across Delhi. Make sure you have yours in your pocket. Makes good stickers for memorabilia scrapbooks, and prevents wrong-doing.

5. If in the mood, carry that book. We saw scope and space for a good reading session. 

6. The main fountain does not work. We wish it did, though! Would have kept our son's eyes busy elsewhere as we held hands here and took this magnificence in!  

(For a closer look, just click on any picture for the whole series to unravel)