Clouds in the valley...

There’s kindness in the gully’s greens Fed by summer’s rains, As the time-stilled photos make me look Beyond the shutter’s lens Images float from the Himalayan hills, As Teesta flows in green, And albums old all come to mind From long ago, unseen Marmoreal rocks, shingled sands, As slopes of jade remind, That for all those pilgrims brave to come,  The hills are always kind The hamlets pass, the Buddha beams, The Coronation shines in pink, While all along, the river gleams  As verdant as you think Prayers fly in fluttering flags, Adventure in a lemon raft, And Teesta weaves without a word,  Dreams for a future draft Which is s’posed to blow in a lacking land That gets deluged one day, For all the rains to splash the tales Of a river from faraway LIke olden love then, you find her face In every drop of green, But Teesta smiles, she doesn’t ask Where all these years you been? I feel jealous of the drizzle drops Unlike them, I don’t know where to flow, But I know I’ll hear th...

Our hotel attendant pulled back three layers of window curtains increasing the build-up to seeing what lay beyond. Zzzzzing, rolled the last diaphanous layer hanging from metal rings on a golden curtain rod. But beyond the large glass windows lay nothing – clouds of thick, foggy tendrils and mists of emptiness had blossomed in the cradle of the hills providing no views except whatever you could imagine. ‘The weather seems pretty bad today, no views of the valleys,’ responded our attendant, eking out a sigh from me. Throughout our trip from Kullu to Manali, I was mesmerised by the verdant heights of the hills and the meanders of the snaking Sutlej. I was hoping to cap it all with that unforgettable view that lights up whenever anyone utters the word ‘Himalaya’ to any sapped out, sleepy city dweller – deep blue skies and snow-clad white peaks glistening in the afternoon sun. Yet, here was I, staring at brooding clouds, veiling the shiny postcards of my anticipation. The attendant...

Sulphur fumes - That strikes a matchstick chord, In rivers of darkness, A beam of light then burns a ford   One by one, Comes lights, lamps, lustre all: Yet beyond, In sparkle shines a shimmering call   Not of light, But that of the reigning dark - ‘Without me, No glint or glare can make a mark’   Intertwined, In one the others’ fate Despite the flame, In light, the dark we celebrate   4 th November, 2021

So, the rule is not to roam as a tourist, but to stay as a resident - that alone gives you the right to actually claim the badge of ‘seeing’ a place. Cosmetic tripadvisor-ed tourism is like eating the first starter course - okay, you have seen the Eiffel Tower and its golden spangles at night-time, and have clicked the must-have selfie in front of the Mona Lisa - but ask yourself, have you actually walked on Parisian streets late at night and seen snowflakes of winter descend to start the first strokes of a white heaven? Besides the tick mark on the Louvre, could you actually go to that old rundown yet delectable house of a Rodin or a Delacroix and imagine the artists bubbling in their creativity ages back? If no, then you have seen but a fleeting glimpse of her veiled face, you have not even brushed her hand, forget about the passionate lip-lock. There is just so much more hidden in the jeweled box of every city that a fast paced week-long stay does little justice - yet, in the timele...

I garnish my spicy mutton kasha with a generous sprinkle of chopped shallot and coriander - having accomplished the magnum opus in bengali non-vegetarian, non-pescatarian cuisine, I have earned my stripes as a genuine Bhojohari Manna (the non-pescatarian disclaimer above is required as nothing comes above bhapa ilish, no not even koraishutir kochuri or a cold winter morning). I must admit, despite my usual modesty, that I have genuinely honed my skills as a chef - it takes me less than half an hour these days to whip up a teriyaki chicken or a pan fried salmon. I guess, with commitment, care and sometimes, a bit of compulsion, one can perfect any work of life. Many of my foodie-fans have often asked me where I learned the finer art of balancing the spices. Indeed, when I look back at where it started, now that is some story to narrate. I did happen to help my mum as an errand-boy in the  kitchen since I was a kid, but the real story starts not in the land of luchi and cholar dal, b...

It was very untypical of us to visit a capital city such as Amsterdam, and yet not bother scratching off the must-dos and should-dos from our typically unending list. No, no tulip gardens, no windmills, no celebration of Rembrandt or salutation for Anne Frank - we had decided to visit our old friend Prashant.  In our 3 month long exchange program in Europe, while we were busy criss-crossing the continent, capturing images in the gigabytes, and literally wearing our soles off by traipsing across tinsel-towns, Prashant had, like a monk, found his mountain top. It was located in a small room on the third floor of a quiet building overlooking a canal not very far from the Rijksmuseum. Having invited him on countless occasions to join us in our sojourns, and after being politely declined in his unreplicable singsong voice, we had decided that if the mountain would not come to Muhammad…So there we were, Nishant and me, on a crisp October evening, meeting our friend after weeks with baglo...

It is a cold, windy day that broods with pensive clouds, unexpectedly stemming the otherwise balmy advent of summer. Wrapped in a shawl, I rev up the heater again as winter seems to make a brief cameo. I look at the silvery-grey nimbus clouds, almost inevitably going back to the one place where I celebrated monsoon India like no other – Mumbai, the Sahyadri , the western ghats and the Konkan coast. It will be extremely ungrateful if I do not mention of Kolkata and its bags of blue nor’westers, Lucknow with its red-parched summers that seemed to be most thankful of the quenching rains, and then the magnum opus chapter in almost every book, that is the Himalaya – even in the rains!   Yet, there was an almost redeeming liberation in Mumbai in a lot many terms – financially and more importantly, in terms of comradery. With like-minded friends who had long broken ice in surmounting the academic rigours and challenges of Mount Lucknow, it took our small group a few months to erode th...