Love in Sri Lanka

My trip to the island country of Sri Lanka was shorter than I would have liked. It was rushed. But the few short days were magical. I walked along long-winding beaches, met pretty men and women the colour of burnished bronze and saw statues of Buddha locked in eternal meditation.

But my favourite memory is undoubtedly of the first three days I was anchored to Mt Lavinia. Mt Lavinia is a hotel seated on the shores of the Indian Ocean overlooking a pretty horizon – where the sea and sky are wrapped around one another like boxers in a clinch. For an escapist like me, being stranded in a strange island is the stuff of dreams. What better way to escape reality than to lose yourself in a foreign country? – Better yet, an island!

I spent days haunting the corridors of the hotel, watching the train scurry down the rail and playing tug-o-war with the sea. (I lost! The beach stole my favourite red ballerina flats.) I spent hours watching the waves slap against the rocks and was strangely reminded of a lover’s spat.
It was during one of my evening explorations of the hotel that I saw it. I paused to gaze longingly at the frame and into the painted faces of a pair of star-crossed lovers.

I didn’t know it then but this was Lady Lovina Aponsuwa herself and her par amour Sir Thomas Maitland.

It was later that I learned that Mount Lavinia hotel was once home to the Governor of Ceylone – Sir Thomas Maitland. When he first landed in Sri Lanka, a troupe of dancers were called to perform at his welcome party. Part of this troupe was a local, biracial mestizo dancer by the name of Lovina. Lovina with her hair dark as midnight and skin as brown as warm chocolate was beautiful beyond words. Lured by her charms, Sri Thomas Maitland snatched every opportunity he could to see her. Soon, the pair fell in love.

But Lovina was half-Portuguese and half-Sri Lankan. Biracials were the lowest in social hierarchy those days. Naturally, the relationship was frowned upon. So Sir Thomas Maitland built a tunnel connecting Lovina’s humble hut to a wine cellar in his palace. And every night she would take that stroll down the long dark tunnel and slip surreptitiously into Maitland’s room for a secret rendezvous.

But this story doesn’t have a happy ending. The British Crown hears of these midnight trysts and Sir Thomas Maitland is summoned back to Britain.

So what happened to Lovina? Well, no one knows for sure. There are several versions. One version says that she threw herself off a cliff and died. Apparently, her spirit still haunts the school that was built on top of her hut. Teachers and students alike, claim to hear eerie noises and see ghostly apparitions every now and then.

Whatever happened to Lovina, history asserts that Sir Thomas Maitland died a bachelor.

There are many things about Mt Lavinia that strikes me as timeless - the beach, the breeze, and the orange-red sky with the sun ensconced in a flurry of clouds. But what truly makes the place magical is its history with love. A love that was nurtured for five measly years but has somehow managed to withstand the test of time. And maybe I had too much to drink that night but as I wandered the corridors of the hotel I could feel vestiges of this grand romance in every shred of the place –but especially in myself when I stopped to stare at the painting and my heart hurt just a little.

After those three days in Mt Lavinia, we travelled to Nuwara eliya where we were ambushed at every turn by some of the largest, most colourful flowers I have ever seen. We trekked our way through Horton Plains National park to arrive at World’s End – only for the view to be clouded by mist. And later to Kandy again – to the Temple of the Tooth – where Gautama Buddha’s tooth retrieved from his funeral pyre is said to be stashed.

But of those trips I recall nothing. What I have taken with me are those three haunting days in Mt Lavinia – where I lost my best pair of ballerina flats and - my heart.

The Anatomy of Grief

So I got thinking today!
About gravity!
About grief!

Apparently, the universe is made of space-time fabric. This ‘fabric’ is knit out of the three dimensional space and the fourth dimension, time. So, space and time are like threads interwoven to create this beautiful tapestry – our universe.

Now imagine this tapestry, spread out real tight. It is stretched. Now, drop a bowling ball right in the middle. See what happens? Assuming the tapestry didn’t rip, the fabric is bent. It is curved under the weight of the bowling ball. And by laws of common sense, it isn’t difficult to arrive at the conclusion that the greater the mass, the more pronounced the curve. Now try this. Drop smaller balls onto the tapestry. See how they roll towards the bowling ball because of the curve? And that is gravity – smaller mass travelling around the surface bent by and thereby towards a larger mass. The theory is simple - matter bends space.

So why am I talking about physics?
Think of reality as a continuum – a tapestry.
And emotions as objects with mass. Happiness would be equivalent to a balloon. As an emotion, happiness often leaves us feeling like we are floating on air. It is light – with negligible mass.
Grief on the other hand is like a bowling ball. It sits heavily on your mind and weighs you down. It is weighty – with staggering mass.
Hence, it comes as no huge surprise that while happiness flits in and out of your life without really changing you, grief is different. It bends the very fabric of your reality. It distorts you to such extends that you change in ways you never imagined.
Ever heard of black holes? It is a point in space with such incredible pull that nothing escapes its gravity well – not even light. And isn’t that how you feel when you are depressed? Like a hole has ripped open inside of you. It sucks the light out of you and leaves you in the dark.

Gravity is arguably the most important force in the universe. It holds everything in place.
My argument today is that grief is no different. We don’t want it. We deny it. We reject it. But of the spectrum of emotions that we experience, grief is arguably the most powerful. Maybe, it doesn’t hold us in place like gravity. But it does pull us apart piece by piece. And then, forces us to pick up those pieces and put ourselves back together.

So grieve.

It’s ok!

The Love Letter Challenge

This entry was originally written for the CBC Valentine Love Letter (?) Contest. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. 

I sank into my seat like a stone dropped in water. Tired, I closed my eyes and shut the world out, seeking shelter in my sleep.

But dreams began to invade my sanctuary. They came like a drizzle, a hint of a smile, a whisper of a voice. But soon there was a downpour.

Voices gave way to curved lips and pinched cheeks. The lines of your jaw lead down to your throat, where a pulse throbbed in the wake of titter. And the titter, born from your smiles, fledged into a laugh and rose through the air, like a bird let lose.

Troubled I woke and our eyes met. I became a human popsicle. Like a breeze you whip past me, and I shudder when I think of the chill in your eyes. How long has is it been since we last met?

Finally, the engine roars into life and goes rolling down the road. Inside the vehicle, we move as one. Everything I see you see, the air you let go, I take in. The bell that rings for you rings for me too.

I smiled. You are here and not just in my dreams.

As I look out the window, I spot the restaurant, the one we went to on our first date. I see the cherry blossom, under the boughs of which we shared our first kiss.

Each building, each passing structure, reminds me of you.

But they pass me by like the days passed by.

Everything vanishes into the void as the bus drivers on.

And each moment is turned into a memory as time turns on.

And I realize with a pang that like the days before, this too will end.

If only the earth stood still.

I Want To Be a Traveller

Ever since I was a child, I have always suffered from a deep-seeded urge to wander. But I don’t want to be a tourist. I want to be a traveller. You want to know the difference?
A tourist’s approach to travel is very casual.
Step One – He spots her:
The tourist zeroes in on a place. He doesn’t give the place a lot of thought. Instead he picks it like he would any woman in a bar.
Step Two – The rendezvous:
A tourist makes a catalogue of places – popular (read cliché) places that Google so kindly lists for him. He rushes through each one of these places, religiously. Sort of like a quick fuck. You are in and out before you know it.
Step Three – The Morning After:
When you are a tourist your relationship with the city or country of choice is like a one-night stand. It is a brief love affair that lasts for a night and is forgotten the next morning but bragged about for days to come. But travelling is not very different from falling in love.
Step One – Love-at-First-Sight:
A traveller sees a place - and sometimes instantly or even slowly over a period of time – she (the place you long to travel to) catches his attention. And so he Googles the place relentlessly, gazing dreamily at pictures of her. He stalks her online by reading websites and travel blogs on her. He envies those who have travelled to the place with the passion of a lover seething over a girlfriend’s ex. And after days or even months of longing from afar he decides to take the first step.
Step Two - The courting:
After months of penny-pinching he is finally there. [Here again travelling is no different from a lover. She empties your pocket.] Now that he is finally with her, he pays her his undivided attention. He studies her history, her people and her places, and relishes his time with her. He takes long walks in the city, learning her every curve. He strays far beyond the tourist spots and hunts for secret places hidden in her contours. He savours her aroma and her taste at local food stalls and cheap restaurants. He makes memories with the city. Memories he knows he will hold dear for years to come.
Step Three - The parting of ways:
And when it is time to leave he carries a little part of her with him. Back at home, he thinks of those long nights and strolls on the streets with silent longing. He knows he will travel to other places, and love them more or less. But each place remains special in its own ways. I want to be a traveller. I want to know every city I go to as intimately as a lover. See, a relationship changes you. So must the places you travel to. If it hasn’t, you haven’t truly seen the place.

*I am blogging about my dreams and passions for the Club Mahindra#DreamTrails activity at BlogAdda. You can get a Club Mahindra Membership to own your holidays!*

Why I Write...

Everyone here, we all have our haven, a place that we go to when we want to escape reality. Whatever it is that we are running away from - be it a failed relationship or frustrations at work - at the end of the day, to get away from it all, we seek a refuge. This refuge comes in many forms. Some seek shelter in the shoulders of a friend, some seek to be soothed by music, yet others find solace in books. Whatever form it takes, they provide security from life's inconsistencies. Now I too have such a refuge. And my refuge is my hobby - writing. Writing has always been my consolation when things go wrong. It has sheltered me from disappointment, shielded me against hurt.

And this is how.

See as a kid I was shy. It was not easy for me to walk up to people and make myself be heard so instead I would simply sit in a corner and dive into a word of dreams, of illusions where imagination reigned supreme and rules of reality held no ground. But the truth was I lacked friends and I was lonely. To overcome this loneliness, I had several imaginary friends, from Boomer my fictional brother to blossom our extroverted cousin. But I reached a point in my childhood where the unreality did not suffice anymore. They were limited within the horizon of my mind but I wanted them to stretch further, to encroach on the realms of reality. But how do you make something unreal, seem real. This seemed impossible till I came across books. When I first read books, I realized that books were the bridge between the real and the unreal. And I came to understand the sorcery of words. One’s thoughts became tangible through words. And so I began to write. I wrote elaborate descriptions and stories of my imaginary friends and shared them with my family. And as my family read these stories, even if it was but for a few short moments, my imaginary friends existed in the minds of others as they did in mine. And that is how writing helped me cope with my loneliness.

During my teenage days, I was going through a very chaotic phase in my life. I became unruly and many times I had felt the need to simply escape my skin, to shed my identity and just not be myself anymore. And it was during a random moment of such overwhelming emotion that I found "The Percy Jackson Series". Now for those of you who haven't read the Percy Jackson books, it is similar to the Harry Potter series. The central character is a young boy - Percy Jackson – who is half-human and half-God - like Hercules. He fights against reincarnated Greek monsters like the Minotaur, Medusa, and etc. This book isn't very good. But the moment I started reading the book, reality began to crumble and in its place, ancient Greece stood resurrected. I became Percy Jackson, his world became mine, his problems became my problems, and his happiness became my happiness. And in the process of being one with the character, I found my escape. I began to forget myself. And for those few glorious moments ‘Vijee’ ceased to exist. Reading a book is a lot like Halloween. You dress up as someone else and pretend you are them. And it was during these times of self effacement, that I re-discovered words. I learnt that each word was like a spell, it could transport me to a different world, or simply inspire within me the sentiments of the characters it was portraying. I understood that my life was also a story, and so I began to write it down. And when I started writing, I wrote of my frustrations, my resentments. And unconsciously I was purging (cleansing) myself of all the bitterness built up inside of me. And so whether it was an escape or a confrontation, words lend me the means to deal with my emotions.

Later as I became an adult, life began to turn a dull turn. As a restless person by nature, having a 9-5 job, in an IT industry didn't really suit me. As a kid I always fantasized that life would be a grand adventure. But I was sorely disappointed. So I did the only thing that came to mind. I read books on adventure and I began to live vicariously through my books. But what of the adventures I wanted to experience but hadn’t been written yet? Well, I decided I would write them myself. I dabbled in sorcery once again. Like a spider, I spun a web of words and found myself caught in my own creations. Every missed opportunity, every bitter disappointment and every dull moment was embellished and turned into a story. And a hobby turned into a passion. And my life ceased to be boring.

And now that I look back, I realize that words have always been my haven, my refuge at every phase and every turn of life. Be it loneliness, be it depression, be it boredom, I have tackled each problem by turning to reading and then eventually writing. And hence writing, I feel has become an integral part of me. In fact, I believe it has become the definition of who I am.

We all have our refuge, a place you can turn to, if only for a few short moments, to laugh and relax and slip away from the frustrations at work. So people, you may not always have solutions to your problems, you may not always look forward to tomorrow, but whatever your troubles be, feel safe in knowing that you always have your refuge to escape to.

Backpacking through Bhutan

These days you can find a plethora of blogs online providing travel suggestions to countries all around the world from Tanzania to Thailand. And they all seem determined to have really cliché names like ten reasons why you should travel to Taiwan or nine reasons why you should spend a night in Nepal. And with this blog entry I am just shamelessly going to add to the pile. And the country I suggest you travel to is ‘The Royal Kingdom of Bhutan’.

Reason one: It is cheap!
Bhutan isn’t almost always listed under popular destinations by western budget travellers because it is an expensive country for a foreigner, costing an average of about 200 - 250 dollars per day (Source: The internet). The high cost is deliberate. The government, in order to protect the country and its natural landscapes from ruin by an influx of backpackers, has intentionally made tourism expensive. And if you do manage to empty your pockets and visit the place, you will understand and appreciate why. The 200 – 250 dollar price tag, though, includes stay at three star hotels, your very own (rented) car… and… wait for it… an English-speaking travel guide (Ta –da!). Why does that matter? Because you are required to travel with your tour guide. Always. But consider yourselves royally lucky if you are from India, Bangladesh and other neighbouring countries because not only are we exempt from visa, the trip by privilege of our nationality becomes surprisingly cheap and we aren’t burdened to lug around a tour guide everywhere we go. We can stay happily off the leash. One Indian rupee is equal to one ngultrum (Bhutanese currency). But, they accept Indian currency as well. Fun fact: The Ngultrum was introduced in 1974 before which the Indian rupee was the accepted form of currency in Bhutan for almost 200 years.
Reason two: It is exquisite!
And I kid you not! Whoever said Bhutan is the last paradise on Earth wasn’t joking or exaggerating. In a world lost amidst tall towering sky scrapers and metallic grey buildings, Bhutan is flooded in green with specs of blue, green and yellow prayer flags fluttering in the wind. And there is a certain serenity about a place so one with nature. Bhutan also has interesting treks that I would love to try out sometime. Fun Facts: White prayer flags carry prayers for the deceased.
Reason three: It is Medieval!
Bhutan will transport you to a different world. It is a land that has so ardently held on to olden times. Every building is so patently Bhutanese with variegated windows and walls painted with strange mystic Buddhist motifs. Every city is scattered with Dzongs. Dzongs are white monastery-like buildings characterised by red flared Chinese-style roof tops and huge wooden doors. They serve as administrative centres and they are always worth visiting.

If you do visit Bhutan, you absolutely must visit the Tiger’s Nest. The Tiger’s Nest Monastery also called the Taktshang Goemba (Goemba meaning monastery) is perched precariously on the edge of a cliff 900 meters above the floor of Paro valley. This monastery was built in honour of Guru Rinpoche (also known as Guru Padmasambhava). The story around this Guru is that he apparently flew there on top of his consort who had transformed into a winged tiger (since the occasion demanded it). He meditated there for a period of three years, three months, three days and three hours so he may acquire the power to vanquish a demon terrorizing the lands. The 16km trek to Tiger’s Nest isn’t too demanding. There is a café on the way if you wish to rest or eat. The experience of being inside the monastery is ineffable. There is spirituality in that place that transcends religion. The engulfing silence save for the sound of the wind and the idea of being perched atop a cliff so distant and removed from all the hubbub of life outside Bhutan is beyond romantic. Up there, on top of a cliff, so close to the clouds, it’s a whole different world. What are also interesting about Bhutan are the phalluses painted on walls. You will spot buildings in Bhutan decorated with painting of phalluses. This tradition was inspired by a monk called Drukpa Kunley. This Buddhist also fondly referred to as the Divine madman or the mad saint was a pretty eccentric guy according to legend. One day someone offered him a holy thread – to tie around his wrist– for good luck. But the divine madman, whom legend has it was also a philanderer, tied it around his phallus so he may have luck with the ladies.

Interestingly, his erect phallus is also called the thunderbolt of flaming wisdom. It is said to ward off evil. Not so surprisingly, he is also the fertility saint here in Bhutan. Legend has it that he hit evil with his magic thunderbolt of wisdom (AKA his phallus) or cohabited with them and turned them into protective deities (He must have been pretty good in bed if he could do that!).
Reason four: Bhutan has interesting food!
Not a lot of people would agree to that considering the Bhutanese are known to make dishes with chilli as the main ingredient. But personally, I loved the red rice and datshi. Ema Datshi - chilli cheese stew is the national dish of Bhutan. As someone who doesn’t particularly enjoy cheese and isn’t comfortable experimenting with food, the fact that I loved the Datshi came as a surprise. Shamu Datshi – mushroom cheese stew and Kewa Datshi – potato cheese stew were mouth watering and filling.

Being Buddhist the Bhutanese apparently don’t have slaughter houses (though interestingly enough they do eat meat!). The meat is imported from India and stored in cold storage facilities. Hence it isn’t advisable to eat meat there during the monsoon.
Reason five: It is a world in itself!
Bhutan is known around the world for its poverty. People in rural places still depend on firewood for fuel. They lack basic amenities such as electricity. But interestingly the country doesn’t measure its prosperity in terms of economic growth. It measures its prosperity in terms of its people’s well being. Gross National Happiness instead of Gross National Product and the message being happiness is more important than economic development. There is criticism to this approach. But after visiting Bhutan, you will reconsider your perspective. Life in Bhutan is so unlike anywhere else in the world. It is insular, it is medieval and it is self-paced. It doesn’t rush off into the future like the rest of the world. It doesn’t indulge in the rat race like every other country. It doesn’t seek more and more. Rather it chooses to stay content and preserve what it does have. And in a country so filled with tranquillity that it almost seems tangible, happiness isn’t hard to come by. How can it be when it doesn’t set impossible body standards for its citizens, when it doesn’t idealize ambition or the ambitious, when it doesn’t confuse the pursuit of money and success with the pursuit of happiness? Films are not released in Bhutan when students take their exams. This simple gesture tells me that these people value something far more than money and profit. And happiness is so much more than electricity. Happiness is a way of life. And these people are certainly better at it than the rest of the world. So yes, there are several reasons why you should visit Bhutan atleast once. But for most of us, once is never going to be enough.