Boy in the Bubble

I cocoon myself in my own little bubble. The newsprint stares back squint-eyed from the paper almost every morning with a frown. I read it with a strange, almost mechanical detachment. Stories, less than happy, flood my morning thoughts, morning after morning and year after year.

Sit back for a second and think what it may be doing to the human spirit enshrined in our bodies whom we are subjecting to the monstrous indifference of our weary thoughts.

How easily we read news such as a Maharashtrian madman taking on and soundly thrashing every principle of democracy, secularism and just plain human decency.

We justify it by saying maybe he has a point (look upon yourself with horror and disdain) or that its just politics (how long before it catches up with the life you have made for yourself or of those you hold dear?).
Either way, another piece of your pure shining soul has just been smudge darkened.

I would encourage you to sit up and realise that you are doing this to yourself.
You are to blame for that acute sense of helplessness you feel at such things or that indifference you address to this situation, which is so much worse, as it tells you how far from your basic decent human values your daily dose of troublesome news has driven you.

But hey, life goes on and as long as the problems don’t affect me – I WILL SURVIVE. Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz WRONG ANSWER.

Dark words from a depressed consciousness? Perish the thought me hearties. Time to start letting these things hit home and to start making you feel bad. Don’t worry; feeling the pain, suffering and humiliation of your fellow humans will never make you worse.

It might lead the Bimbo brigade to despair and the toy boys to bewilderment but to you, the thinking, feeling, honest, upright and good person it may just be a call to arms.
Take up those weapons you can bring to bear and do something. Anything, perhaps not today but anytime soon.

The sooner the better. After all a few hundred madmen driven by the greed and lust of a maniac can do nothing against millions of decent people. We just need to get organised and mobilised and I promise you will have my best shot at it sometime soon.

Hopefully some of you may be ready with your best shots sometime then as well and maybe together we can bring back decency and truth to our fast declining civilization.

My number one suggestion these days, take a long trip to nowhere.
Highway on My Plate has taken us to so many wonderful nondescript small and off the beaten path places that they have now begun blending into one another and the highlights seem endless.

Sometimes though memories of places and thoughts of some people stick and those are the places I would like to afford a special mention to.

The Thar
About 2, 00,000 square km of sand and sun, arid, empty and ageless. The Thar may be anything between 1,000,000 years old according to some theories and others place its age as young as about 2000 BC.

It extends into Pakistan where it becomes the Cholistan Desert and its keeper to the south is the mighty Little and big Ranns of Kutch. The great Indus river stems in its western spread and here is my subject for this little piece - The Thar Desert.

The new season of HOMP covers just this region. Sadly, we were unable to cross into Pakistan to dig our teeth into their food but hey, why go further when you have Indian and so it was the Indian side where we stayed all along our western border.

The longest stretch of desert we covered in a day was just under 800 km and since we are the highway men it was obviously by road. Miles of sand, punctuated by the odd shrub or tuft of grass. It seemed barren until we got off and walked.

Every part of the desert had signs left behind by its inhabitants. Droppings of Chinkaras and black buck. Feathers left by sand grouse near empty waterholes.

The tracks of the great Indian bustard stretching endlessly over the dunes and hundreds of birds, Ibises, griffons, Egyptian vultures, bustards, Shikra falcons, black shouldered kites, ever present bulbuls, pigeons and Mynahs and the cherry on the cake, thousands and thousands of flamingos.

The sky was almost always clear and deep blue, the sand was always clear and soft yellow and the desert always made you look towards the horizon.

We don’t do that in cities but horizons are wonderful things to look at every now and then.
Looking at them makes you breathe a little deeper and feel a little calmer. Helps to let you know that you are a small part of nature’s grand design. You belong and are humbled simultaneously.

It’s a good feeling, makes you want to travel and see more – not interfere but to just look and taste and touch but never alter.

Not the same for the bhang tough. As you approach the walled fort city of Jaisalmer near the main entrance, you will find a medium-sized peepal tree.
Towards evening the calls of hundreds of birds that call it home, will deafen you but it would be worth it if you have had a bhang lassi or eaten half a small bhang cookie.

Ask me, I had a lassi and ate 3 large cookies as did my main man Mayur. We started out by enjoying the sunset under the peepal tree and ended up…well, we have no idea where how or when – please do watch the episode coming up soon and let us know how it turned out.

Honestly..our recollection is a bit…hmmmmmm lets say ‘bhang-ed’ out and by the way – highly highly recommended.

The openness does beckon. Time becomes irrelevant and deadlines seem like a joke. When you step out into the undulating, unending sand dunes it makes you realise your mortality instantly.

Get out of that fast moving insulated vehicle next time you see Nature and be a part of it for a few moments. Guaranteed to make your life just a little bit better (if not a lot). We live in many bubbles you and I. Lets burst a few and feel the air of the real world for a change.

It may hurt for a bit or make us a bit uncomfortable for a short period of time but in the long run it gives you something that our world of the metros never will. Reality. I seem to be getting a rather large dose of it and after a while, boy does it feel good.

The Rann of Kutch is magnificent. As you stand on the edge and look out you see thousands of miles of flat, open, featureless, plant-less, rock-less, and unchanging white salt plains...

Lost wanderers have their shoes and feet corroded by the salt and end up walking in circles due to the complete absence of any kind of land mark. But may I recommend that you do not get lost. The reward for it is the awesome food.

Small towns bordering the Rann of Kutch will introduce you to Gujarati, Nay, Kuchhi food (no pun intended – get your thoughts out of the gutter).
The main foods of Gujarat are the Kathiawadi (spicy and hot), Kuchhi (wholesome and spicy) and Gujarati (you know this one).
Each one similar but so very different.

The delight with Kuchhi food though is that it is best prepared using wood fired ovens and over open fires. Sev Ganthia, Sev tamatar, Kadi and the to top it all the mighty millet Rotla, a roti like none other topped with unbelievable garlic and chilly chutni.

In addition is the cooling and wonderful Chaas or buttermilk and oh, what a meal it is! Accompanying it all is the humble brinjal or aubergine taken to the status of a work of art through its many varied preparations in this region. Look forward to that one on the show.

Most of the food here is vegetarian. But carnivores like myself will not be disappointed as there is a distict Muslim non-vegetarian cuisine that satisfies one’s meat tooth.

All in all, theres a lot of excitement coming up in the new season, the end of which will be Kerala but that story is one to be told another day. Meanwhile as Paul Simon says, much better than I could …

It was a slow day,
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road,
There was a bright light,
A shattering of shop windows
The bomb in the baby carriage
Was wired to the radio,
These are the days of miracle and wonder,
This is the long distance call,
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all,
The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky,
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby don't cry
Don't cry.