In Khotachiwadi, Looking For Willy

I don’t visit Khotachiwadi often so I use the two bulls flanking the entrance to Gaiwadi to alert me to Khotachiwadi’s proximity on the drive from V.T.

Past Gaiwadi, just short of St. Theresa Church, I look for a narrow lane on the right that leads past a small chapel across the lane from the Catholic Gymkhana before disappearing into the heart of the old settlement in Girgaon settled in 1800s with East Indians and Brahmins by Khot from the Pathare Prabhu sub-caste of Brahmins, hence the name Khot-achi-wadi.

Early this week, on a warm late afternoon, after finishing up with work early, I made my way to Khotachiwadi from Jehangir Art Gallery after a quick visit upstairs to see Sayali Ghotikar’s photo exhibition of abstractions, close-up pictures of surfaces worn by time into palettes of colours arranged into irregular forms, the kind that arrest attention to their form.

  

Shops were open and the street bustling with traffic when I got off the taxi and made for the narrow opening leading into Khotachiwadi.

A group of three school-going girls, bent over their mobile phones, were huddled together on one of the two cement benches facing the Chapel (A.D. 1899) where Catholic residents of Khotachiwadi prayed for their wellbeing and those of their families during the plague epidemic that ravaged Bombay in the 1890s.

A plaque in Latin at the foot of the cross cresting the Chapel reads:

A Peste Libera Nos Domine.

(O Lord, Deliver Us from Plague, Pestilence)

~

The last time I met Willy over a year ago, he was busy with a ladder and looking up at what was the tallest cactus I’d ever seen. I had never imagined cactus to grow as tall as the one Willy was contemplating when I arrived at the gate that opened into the courtyard of his home behind the Chapel and across the lane from James Ferreira’s house.

The cactus, located in a corner outside the gate, had reached the first floor window of his neighbour 's house and Willy was seized with ensuring it did not bend under its own weight like its predecessor had done. A ladder stood against the wall, approaching the first floor window but not reaching it. That was then. I remember Willy hoping the cactus would survive.

Ever since, I kept an eye out for the cactus on my infrequent visits to Khotachiwadi, pleased to see it survive.

This time around, while I spied a ladder, it wasn’t against the wall by the cactus but against the sloping roof of Willy’s home. His brother, Philip, was busy on the roof setting up a Christmas tableau complete with a snowman playing a guitar among paper reindeers while his friend in dark glasses stayed below, hand on the ladder.

At first glance, the cactus was nowhere to be seen, instead long, snow-tipped/silver coloured tinsel garlands streamed to the earth from a nylon rope fastened to a bracket supporting the rafters, covering the cactus from view.

“The cactus hasn’t grown any taller,” I said within Philip’s earshot as I paused in the shade on my way to the gate of Willy’s home.

“It keeps growing. We’ve to chop it from growing any taller,” Philip answered from the roof, straightening up as he turned to follow my gaze to the cactus obscured by the tinsel garlands lit by a warm late-afternoon sun.

It was 3 pm.

I walk ahead to the gate in the compound enclosing Willy’s courtyard and peer in. I see am elderly woman pause on seeing me.

“Is Willy in?” I ask her.

“Wait,” she says before disappearing through the door.

I wait.

The lanes are quiet except for the occasional bustle of residents passing through the lanes. Behind me, a metal door opening into a short enclosed approach to his neighbour’s house and painted with a large dog is ajar. There’s no dog as far as I can see. I can hear Philip and his friend discuss the Christmas decorations Philip is setting up on the roof. The woman reappears.

“He must be somewhere outside, here only,” she said.

“In the lanes around here,” I ask her.

“Yeah, somewhere here only,” she replies, “he should be coming soon.”

I set off among the lanes, passing fast disappearing heritage homes made of wood with open, airy street-facing verandahs and external staircases reaching first-floor rooms. Some were painted bright and cheerful while others wore subdued colours. One house near Ideal Wafers was getting a fresh coat of paint as I passed it.

Willy wasn’t to be found. I returned to his house and approached his brother still busy on the roof.

“Any chance Willy is at work?” I ask Philip.

“Not today,” Philip answers back from the roof, “He must be around somewhere. You can wait a bit.”

“I’ll be sitting by the Chapel here.” I reply, indicating to the cement bench. “Let him know when he comes.”

Philip nods.

I make for the cement bench further from the wall with a fading painting of Mother Mary holding Infant Jesus shown standing in a lotus and flanked by elephants raising a garland each to Mother Mary. I was more familiar with the traditional depiction of Goddess Saraswati seated or standing in a blooming lotus, not Mother Mary.

~

I settle on the cement bench facing the Chapel. The three girls are gone. A light breeze is blowing.

I watch residents and visitors pass me along their way elsewhere. The sun finds an opening among houses to light up pink bougainvillea leaning over the fence of a double-storied heritage house with projecting wooden verandah running along the front. The ground floor is home to the Catholic Gymkhana.

Later, Willy told me that the Catholic Gymkhana used to own a billiards table that they sold off recently as fewer and fewer members who played billiards were left in the neighbourhood. A Hindu family stayed on the floor above.

The Chapel is open. Jesus on the Cross is flanked by statues of two women, one with hands cupped in prayer, the other with her hands close to her body, palms spread in the manner of one in shock and helpless to make a difference. Pain is writ on their faces.

Time meanders along the lane; seconds tick over into minutes, minutes near an hour. Still no sign of Willy.

Philip is laying out lights among the reindeer. His friend watches from below, as before. I walk up to them and check after Willy.

“Is he in.” I ask Philip.

“Not yet. I didn’t see him come in,” Philip answers and reaches for his mobile phone in his pocket and calls someone. His friend does likewise.

Turning to me, Philip says, “He is not answering the phone.”

“Oh, you called him as well,” his friend exclaims. “I called him. Not picking up.”

Philip calls the second time, then a third.

“Where are you,” he says into the phone, likely to Willy.

“Here? Here where? In the house?” Philip enquires of the voice at the other end.

“On the terrace? Sleeping on the terrace?” Philip enquires, “Someone is looking for you,” he tells Willy and hangs up.

“He was sleeping on the terrace all this while,” Philips tells me. “He’s coming.”

I hang around. Residents passing along the lane stop to admire the Christmas decorations and exchange pleasantries with Philip. I lean against the wall.

Soon, Willy emerges from the gate, hair tied in a pony tail as before. He’s aged since the time I first met him about a decade ago.

“Hey, how are you?” his voice booms out.

We shake hands and return to the cement bench by the Chapel and lapse into a long conversation, the kind that a long intervening time without one, usually engenders.

Every once in a while a passer-by stops by to talk with Willy.

One of them is Mr. Kulkarni. “He’s a dentist,” Willy informs me after he leaves.

Another is a young woman in a black skirt and a pronounced accent. She opens the bag she’s carrying and shows Willy the Christmas decorations she’s bought, figurines to prepare the traditional Christmas Crib. They discuss the purchase.

“I’ll be around your place after 9:30 pm tonight,” Willy informs her, “I’ll be singing Christmas Carols and will be stopping by homes along the way, singing.”

“I’ll be there,” she tells him before going along her way.

“She’s visiting Khotachiwadi from abroad, for Christmas,” Willy explains after she leaves. “This time, many from here have gone to Australia for Christmas so the place is somewhat empty come Christmas. Some have come down from abroad.”

Soon, a young boy with a distinctly West Indian hair shows up and asks Willy if he can borrow his guitar. “I want to practice Carols,” he explains to Willy.

Willy nods and tells him to pick it up from his house but not before extracting an assurance from the boy that he’ll accompany Willy tonight to sing Christmas Carols in the lanes.

“He (the boy) stays with his mother here who’s divorced from his West Indian father,” Willy tells me. “His father is from the place Brian Lara is.”

Willy Felizardo is helping keep an old neighbourhood tradition going.

“Before (many years ago), we’d have people travel to Khotachiwadi from Bandra in the week before Christmas to sing carols in these lanes, now hardly anyone is interested. They’re too busy with work and too tired after it, and many have grown old, and many have left,” he says, voice trailing off.

He spoke about the time back in the days when most houses in Khotachiwadi retained their original architectural character and had families living in them, when letting go of family homes to capricious builders was not an option anyone considered.

Willy’s family will be making a Christmas Crib in a triangle shaped cut on the outside of the compound after emptying it of displays of driftwood he’s sculpted over the years while the Crib in the chapel would be community inspired.

“We will cover ‘Jesus on the Cross’ and place the Christmas Crib out front,” Willy said, pointing to the small empty space in the Chapel.

~

I’m thinking of returning to Khotachiwadi later this week to see the Crib and take in some Christmas air.

A Name, A Tattoo, Some Colourful Balloons

Not too many clicks into the past when it was likely of those you met for the first time to introduce themselves as Lakshmi, Gita, Ram, Hanuman, Lakshman, Purshottam, Rajiv, Jyoti, Gautam, Ramnath, Priyadarshini, Raghu, Anand, Mohan, Rajesh, Manoj, Dilip, Sanjeev, Vinod, Hema, Mala, Indira and the like, there was little chance you’d get the name wrong the first time you heard them utter it.

The names were usually drawn from tradition, mainstream cultural heritage and/or linguistic (read Sanskrit) heritage and chances were you’d heard of the name before.

This was true of towns and cities with fairly homogenous populations domiciled over generations with the exception of communities/castes hailing from the hinterland – usually culturally unique to the region/geography.

Over time India began to change and other names happened, trendier, fancier and cutting across formerly unique cultural/ethnic/caste groupings.

Juhi was one such name. Outside of people settled in urban concentrations, the name ‘Juhi’ is uncommon to a non-urban ear like Juhi from @juhipande found out.

"What's your name?" "Juhi" "Julie?" "No, Juhi. With an 'h'" "Huhi?!" "Yes. Yes my name is Huhi."

— juice (@juhipande) May 24, 2015

Juhi Pande gave up on getting the other to get her name right.

The reverse is equally true like I found out recently, much to my chagrin, when I met a Rajasthani youth speaking hindi accented by his local dialect.  

  

My exchange with the bare-chested Rajasthani youth selling colourful balloons tethered to a stick pegged in the carrier at the back of a bicycle, one of the three outside a dying mall in Mulund, was no different from the one Juhi had except for the ending.

“What’s your name?” I ask the smiling youth while two of his fellow kinsmen look on.

“Bhuralal” he replies in an accent immersed in a Rajasthani dialect likely local to his region.

“Bhurlal?” I repeat to confirm if I got it right.

“Bhurla?” I try again in quick succession. He shakes his head.

“Bhuralal,” he repeats, pauses and smiles, waiting for me to “get” it.

Noticing my still confused expression, he whips out his hand in front of my face and points to his name tattooed on his arm, smiling broadly. "Mera Naam," he says. 

“Bhuralal,” I repeat, relieved to finally get it right. I'd begun to worry that I’d let him down.  

Now I knew his father’s name as well – Khumanji.

I’m not sure if Juhi Pande needs to get a tattoo of her name on her arm to flash in the face of incomprehension since, unlike Bhuralal, she has a famous namesake who captured the imagination of cine goers couple of decades ago, one who made the name mainstream for quite a while – Juhi Chawla.

I think that was the first time I heard of “Juhi” the name. QSQT was quite the rage growing up, and Juhi Chawla had cemented her place on the teenage pantheon. Then there was this other Juhi from back then – bubbly, mischievous, charming and quite the looker, setting many a hopeful heart aflutter at where I went to college.

Ah, the memories that some names evoke!

On A String

At the three-day Sindhi festival, the puppeteer grabs a quick bite while the puppets look on.

Faith Floats

Udaipur, Navratri Time, 2014

A Saying On A Ride

At the traffic signal I rest my eyes on the lines in red sticker above the windshield, barely clearing the bobbing skull cap of the impatient rickshaw driver as he waits for the signal to turn green.  

The saying by Nirankari Baba goes ….

मानवता की क़द्र करे दिल से

मानवता खिल उठे फिर से

             - निरंकारी  बाबा

Manavta ki kadr kare dil se

Manavta khil utey phir se

             - Nirankari Baba

In the backseat my world opens out to fellow riders and familiar touch points on my morning commute. Only occasionally will the ride offer up something more than the back of the rickshaw driver’s head. So I read the lines again.

While I’m not surprised to see the lines, for rickshaw drivers will sometimes philosophise and reflect on the teachings of the Guru they follow, putting them up in their rickshaws for company, I was surprised to see a Muslim rickshaw driver sport a non-Muslim (Sikh) “Godman’s” teaching above his head, not something you see often if at all.

Translated, it reads

Value humanity with your heart

(And) Humanity will flower again

-  Nirankari Baba

“You put that up?” I ask him at the next traffic signal, pointing to the lines above his head.

“Yes, I did,” he replies, riding slow and easy.

“Good one,” I let him know.

He nodds without turning his face.

“Does Nirankari Baba hold Shibir (rallies)?

“He does. He had one at Airoli last time,” he replied.

“Do you attend them?” I ask him.

“No. The night shift guys get to attend,” implying he doesn’t get the day off from riding his rickshaw to attend the rally.

Crossings: Moments in Passing, An Exhibition Of My Photographs

Click images to enlarge

  

My photography exhibition – Crossings: Moments in Passing – opens at the Jehangir Art Gallery, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai, next week from Nov 25 to Dec 1 (all days).

The 50+ photographs going on display were made over my years of meandering around India, seeking moments that place the everyday in historical, cultural and traditional contexts. And where they don’t, I sought moments devoid of drama or in the very moment of promising one.

They are about people, and their immediate and far contexts. Moments caught in transit. Moments that came to stay with me.

I’ve attempted to turn the fleeting into a temporary permanence, seeking their meaning as much in what the moments framed seek to reveal as in their act of concealment for, meanings live in dualities, and die in convergence.

Among the places I'll be featuring are Jaipur, Delhi, Bundi, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Kurukshetra, Nashik, Mumbai, Kolkata, Goa, Murshidabad, Daman, Bijapur, Afzalpur, Mysore, Baroda, Pushkar, and Mumbai.

~

Why photograph?

Sometimes, long after you last walked a street, all it takes you to remember it and all that went on in the middle, is but one framed moment that captures the essence of what you liked about the street, and how being a part of it made you feel, even if it was temporary and you were only a passing soul on your way elsewhere.

The opposite is equally true. If the framed moment is evocative, combines people and their contexts memorably, aligning elements in ways that makes it distinctive, then streets that are otherwise unremarkable, or even hostile, turn into memorable ones.

All it takes is one picture to define a feeling, one feeling to define an experience, and one experience to define an understanding – of a place and its people, and of self.

This is what makes time on the street such a dynamic place to be out on with a camera, and a reason why I seek those moments to frame so I can come away from the place with a feeling for it, for, without one it’s as if it never existed.

Often, the ‘magical’ moments slip away but every once in a while there’s one that sticks with you and defines your journey, for you.

With Crossings: Moments in Passing, I hope to bring those moments to the fore and share my feelings of those journeys, more an attempt than a certainty.

~

Why Crossings?

In crossings, moments suspend colours of meaning.

In meandering on the streets and off it, round corners and straight stretches, I soon realised that in passing people and places along the way, I was actually passing moments revealing their lives in passing – everyday moments framed against cultural, linguistic, architectural, and occasionally historical, backdrops.

I was not so much passing a moment as walking into the next one, and the next. Together they strung out the street in a series of temporary human portraits, some of whom briefly came alive in the moment they crossed over from banal beginnings to equally banal endings.

It was in the momentary crossings, when transforming moments flirted with form and colour, sometimes with intent and import, briefly capturing the essence of the place, that I sought meaning in my meanderings.

~

Do come over and see the exhibition, and if family and friends are not averse to seeing yet another India-centric exhibition of photographs, bring them along too, and help put the word out. Thanks in advance.

Venue: Jehangir Art Gallery, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai

Duration: 25 Nov – 1 Dec, 2014 (open on all days).

Timings: 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.

Bundi Milkmen

Bundi, 2014

The younger milkman on the motorcycle, more modern of the two, in conversation with the elderly milkman plying milk on his rusted but trusted bicycle around the old part of Bundi.

Faith Stretches

Mount Mary Church, 2014

The Pup And The Plastic

Anyone who has tried tearing a milk packet with their teeth will know how difficult it is, much less drinking from the irregular cut it opens in the plastic packet.

Now imagine a puppy with milk teeth trying to open a plastic packet of milk.

I spied one roadside in Kalupur on Independence Day after stepping out of a shop with a water bottle to keep the two of us company on the three hour walk through the neighbourhood adjoining Swami Narayan temple.

The discarded packet held some milk, attracting the attention of a stray puppy that made getting at the milk its early morning task. 

It wasn’t easy tearing at the thick plastic given its grip was limited by unsteady paws. Waiting for the group to emerge from the temple, I waited, and watched.

I stayed away thinking the day (Aug 15) was as apt as any for the pup to exercise its independence.

But a female sparrow did not think it that way as it hopped into the frame before …..

….. hopping around the pup’s back to see how exactly the inexperienced pup was going about it.

I wonder if it came around to lend a helping hand nee beak. I doubt it. If the sparrow was smart it’d wait until the pup had opened a gash in the plastic before stepping in.

This is one reason to not package milk in plastic packets. Bring back the bottles that can be knocked over.

The milk bottles are long gone where I come from so I suppose it’s no use crying over spilt milk now.

Of Waiting, Of Luck, Of Wanting

“The bus left just five minutes ago,” the youth in formal office wear and cradling his laptop bag said as I got into the queue behind him in the shade of an old Pipal tree that has managed to hold its ground even as tar and concrete has all but choked it where it enters the earth in a sacred pact with life.

I have no idea how water manages to seep down to its roots anymore. Only a dogged determination of not wanting to roll over and die at a place where it took root long before the earth that sustained it was tarred over to make roads, must keep it alive. I cannot think of any other reason.  

“The next bus should be here soon,” I replied.

Office goers were beginning to queue up behind me. Under an overcast sky threatening more rain after it had rained out the city the day before, the lot of us were no doubt hoping to reach our offices dry.   

The twenty-something youth in full sleeves shrugged his shoulders and managed a half smile; together they seemed to imply Well, you never know. I returned his smile, adding, “With the rains around, the buses get stuck in traffic and get delayed on their round trips to Andheri and back.”

I was looking to make small talk to while away the waiting but nature had other plans as I would soon find out.

I distinctly heard the splatter as it hit the ground a fraction of a second after I felt something brush my left sleeve and hand.

A crow had emptied its load from somewhere high up in the tree and I wasn’t about to look up just then and risk collecting a second fall on my face. Checking my shirt sleeves for stains I was relieved at having escaped with only faint trails of the familiar dark gooey as opposed to the wide splotch on the youth’s shoulder ahead.

After I pointed it out to him he turned his neck, pulled at his sleeve to get a good look and let out a wry smile before quipping, “It’s said that bird droppings landing on the left shoulder bring luck. Maybe I’ll get lucky today.”

“Are your appraisals due today?” I asked him.

“Haha,” came the reply.

Amused and heartened at the equanimity of the cheery office goer looking at the bright side of things while fielding calls from his office even as he was looking to clean up the mess on his shirt, I looked at my own left hand and sleeve. It had collected a bit of bird splatter itself or shall I say a bit of “good luck”.

I wondered if a bit of luck would come my way as well.  

Pointing to the small paan-bidi shop beside the bus shelter, I said, “He might be able to spare you some water to wash it off.”

“No, it’s okay,” he replied as he retrieved tissues from his bag and began scrubbing the bird dropping off.

Two fellow commuters behind me, a middle-aged woman and an old man, wary of being singled out for avian generosity stepped back clear off the tree. But the tree had a wide canopy. The woman would keep looking up every now and then until it was time to get onto the bus.

I opened my umbrella for ‘protection’.

Stepping sideways and looking up I saw the culprit, a male crow. Oblivious to his morning ritual having stirred up the crowd beneath, he sat still beside a nest of twigs occupied by a female. It’s likely both were on parenting duties.

After the youth had cleaned up his shirt the best he could, he rolled up the tissue paper and looked for a place to chuck it. Spotting a makeshift plastic garbage bag stuffed with empty cigarette packs, tobacco rolls, chocolate wrappers and sachets of mouth fresheners and paan masala discarded by customers shopping at the paan-bidi shop, he asked the owner if he could chuck the used tissue in with the other garbage in the plastic bag.   

The paanwallah, a lean middle-aged man sitting with his legs dangling sideways from the platform that extended from the six open shelves painted orange, the colour associated with Lord Hanuman whose photo depicting him as Panchamukha took pride of place alongside Goddess Lakshmi in an upper shelf, nodded in the negative without taking his eyes off the betel nut chopper he was busy cracking open betel nuts into small pieces. 

Instead, the paanwallah jerked his head sideways to point to the back of his shop where the youth was free to throw his garbage. Embarrassed at being refused permission to use the shop’s garbage bag, the youth curled up the tissue into a ball and tossed it behind the shop!

~

The paan-beedi shop adjacent to a Sulabh Sauchalaya was no different from the thousands that dot Mumbai, small affairs that stand in impossibly tiny spaces roadside, often operating as what can only be termed hole-in-the-wall affairs.

Largely manned by North-Indians, more likely from Uttar Pradesh than Bihar, these paan-beedi shops are a lifeline for all and sundry addicted to tobacco based products.

Stocking cigarettes, beedi, match boxes, tobacco, lime powder, betel nuts, betel leaves, badeshep (fennel seed), elaichi (cardamom), and supari, these shops serve smokers, and those who enjoy a quick bite of khaini and paan, to get them through the day.   

Elaichi packaged in small sachets is a relatively recent offering, serving as a mouth freshener more for smokers of cigarettes and beedis than those who chew raw tobacco or prefer to mix it with lime and water for a dose of khaini. Now, khaini is also available to buy ready-made in shiny sachets.

Before gutkha got banned, gutkha sachets used to be on display prominently, hanging in long strips from hooks or strings. Here, they were replaced by strips of “Chutki” – mouth fresheners. Chutki is Hindi for ‘small’ or ‘little’ though there is nothing small or little about the face of a sultry model gracing the sachet.

Matchboxes with a top for a cover were named ‘Toy’, stating the obvious that a top is a toy. They could’ve as easily named it ‘Top’ instead of ‘Toy’ and served both needs – identify the toy as a 'top' while extolling the quality of match sticks as ‘top’.

  

   

I failed to spot the once familiar cigarette brands that were a regular at paan-bidi shops – Four Square, Chancellor, Berkeley, Blue Bird, Charminar, Scissors, Bristol, Style, Charms, A-1, Panama, and Gold Flake among others.

Many of us would be familiar with those distinctive packs and cigarette advertisements before the ads were banned. 

All I could spot in the shop were packs of Marlboro and Wills Classic.

  

  

Of the beedis less said the better. They never stood a chance once micro cigarette brands like Blue Bird entered the market at the very cheap. He had stocked some beedi packs in one of the shelves.

~

There was still no sign of the bus.

A BEST bus conductor from a recently arrived bus serving a different route stepped up to the shop for some tobacco before heading back for his return journey.

The Sulabh Sauchalaya was busy. An eunuch who works a traffic signal near the bus stop hurried to the Sauchalaya, “her” colourful bindi set off by dark complexion. “She” was smiling to herself as she skirted rickshaw drivers gathered outside after washing up at the sauchalaya.

The queue for the bus had gotten longer, backing all the way up to the road. Still no bus. Overhead, the skies were getting darker.  

Then the bus came, finally. I got in.

~

Later that afternoon the lot of us in the office where I work were handed our appraisals and new salary terms. I couldn't help thinking that the bird dropping splatter on my left land had worked its magic after all.

I looked at my letter not knowing what to make of it at first. I noticed some clever jugglery in it. But they had good words to say about my work except that words are never enough to tide over inflation.

Maybe my quantum of luck would've been greater had I taken the full load as it dropped from the sky.   Who knows what might’ve been.

The other guy did. I hope it worked out better for him.

Floating Off Daman

Daman, 2014

Where the Damanganga meets the sea. 

Fishing boats had returned from their forays in the sea off the coast of Daman. The end of the fishing season was near, not in the least because of the approaching monsoons. Catch had dwindled greatly. One boat owner told me that the last 5-6 runs into the sea had resulted in losses. It was time to wind up until after the monsoons.

Reaching Ramnagar, Onward To Mohan

In 2012 my friend, Philip, and I left for Uttaranchal to see tigers and more, making Mohan our base from which to explore the Corbett National Park. It turned out to be an unforgettable trip, not least because of the tigers. Some memories remained, some did not. Yet others refused to leave us even after we did.

In a series of posts loosely connecting events, experiences and observations posted in no particular order, I hope to record our journey through Corbett Country and beyond from what I remember or noted from that year travelling through Uttaranchal on a whim and a fancy.

~

The milestone read: Mohan 0.

The road from Ramnagar had wound along hills keeping us company from the time we had hefted our bags into the sturdy Mahindra that Govind had eventually managed to wrestle to the Ramnagar railway station, two hours after the train had deposited us one early May morning in the state of Uttaranchal or Uttarakhand as it's also known.

~

The overnight journey from New Delhi was uneventful except for the anticipation that had gripped us both, Philip and I, on what was my maiden journey, and Philip’s second, to erstwhile Corbett country.

I had lain awake in the night unable to sleep, recalling episodes from Jim Corbett’s Man-Eaters of Kumaon, fuelling my fevered imagination further when we passed Moradabad at half past three in the morning. Then Aliganj, and Kashipur followed. Ramnagar was next.

The night before, I had arranged with Manoj, the manager of a hotel in Mohan, or resort as they’re commonly advertised, to have a vehicle meet us at the station to bring us to Mohan, confirming our departure from New Delhi, and messaging him as we approached Ramnagar.

“I’d have to find somebody that early to send to the railway station,” Manoj had said in a tone that vacillated to say the least, sowing doubts if he could muster someone at four in the morning to have him present at Ramnagar by five when the Ranikhet Express was expected to arrive.

“It’s fine if you can send someone out a little later, we can wait on the platform for some time,” I had assured him, “But not later than 5:45 am, surely not beyond 6:00 am.”

Manoj had sounded far away over the crackling line, querulous in snatches as if buffeted by storms wreaking havoc in a remote valley in the middle of nowhere. 

It was enough to nudge me into imagining his outfit to be encircled by hills with ridges crested by tall Sal trees the sun had to fight to break through, ridges the tigers roamed in the night except I didn’t know just then how popular the Corbett National Park had become with visitors out of Delhi, and how populated the stretches ringing the Tiger Reserve.

Adding to disturbance on the line was the unrelenting noise on the platform at Old Delhi railway station as we awaited the Ranikhet Express the night before. Toshi had left us both at a back entrance to the station before disappearing into the Delhi night.

In the faint light of mercury lamps we had negotiated the crowds on the platform before taking the stairs up and descending into the cauldron of platform 12. We might just as well have descended into a sea of refugees awaiting the last train home and not known the difference, such was the mass of humanity and clamour that greeted us on the platform. Shipments of goods awaiting delivery at stations along the way crowded it further.

“Yes, he will be there at the Ramnagar station to bring you back to Mohan,” Manoj had confirmed.

At first Philip and I had debated our options for our stay, most notably Dhikuli, before settling on Mohan, both located along the boundary of the Corbett National Park and separated by 14 kms.

“Dhikuli is no good,” Philip had opined in the days before the trip as we weighed options, debating locations in the vicinity of the Corbett Tiger Reserve that’d give us the best shot at covering the terrain in and around the Tiger Reserve at short notice.

“Dhikuli’s too crowded with hotels for long stretches. Mohan is better,” Philip insisted with an eye on birdwatching in the vicinity of our stay. So Mohan it was.

I only hoped Mohan was not so far away that we’d find it difficult to travel to entry points to the Corbett National Park, most notably the Amdanda Gate near Ramnagar that opened access to the Bijrani zone.

Bijrani is where the tiger is, everyone who knew anything about Corbett had said online in the days before we left on our journey.

~

Ranikhet Express rolled into Ramnagar a few minutes past five in the morning. We barely felt the 239-odd kms it had covered through the night from Delhi.

Moufossil stations had passed by quietly in the night, no more than insignificant shadows in a crowd of strangers strung along north India.

After a quick sip of chai at a stall selling chips and biscuits among other packaged snacks, passengers had filed out of Ramnagar Station to waiting rickshaws or transport arranged by hotels they had booked for their stay.

As far as I could tell, the only reason why tourists came to Ramnagar was Corbett National Park.  Once Corbett National Park was ticked, some would continue to Ranikhet or Nainital or both. There were other places but none as compelling as the lure of tigers. 

By quarter past five the dawn had broken and the quiet unique to very early mornings had settled on the platform as I stepped off the train, wide eyed.

5:45 am turned to 6, still no sign of the jeep Manoj had promised.

Auto-rickshaws crowding the station entrance in time for the arrival of Ranikhet Express had competed vigorously for tourists and locals alike before departing with their passengers to the Ramnagar bus stand and beyond, to hotels in Dhikuli. 

For ten rupees one could hitch a ride to the bus stand that connected Ramnagar to other destinations in Nainital district.

A lone SBI ATM expressly provided for the convenience of tourists to the Corbett National Park stood at the exit, empty. Mosquitoes droned about the machine.

“The driver is coming,” Manoj reassured me when I rung him up again to check on the promised transport; I doubted if the tiger would prove as elusive. “Wait at the station,” Manoj repeated. “He is on the way.”

“We’re waiting at the station only,” I replied, barely disguising my disappointment at the delay. We’d hoped to use the early morning for a foray in the forests about Mohan. It would’ve to be scrapped.

The station was empty save one rickshaw who hoped to convince us yet to ditch the hotel transport and hop behind for a ride.

“If everyone waits for the hotel transport what’s to become of us,” the rickshawallah entreated. “They (the hotels) take away our business,” he added.

Dogs eyed our bags as we stood outside for signs of Govind. We eyed the dogs in turn.

Equilibrium established, I turned my attention to morning activity outside the station. Milkmen and roosters were up and about. And so were children starting their school day. 

Consignments (labelled RMR, code for Ramnagar) offloaded from arriving trains had been carried out and loaded onto Goods Carriers improvised from Vijeta scooters for dispatch to destinations around the small town.

I had seen similar improvisations (Jugaad) carried out with Enfield Bullet 350 cc in Rajasthan to ferry people but none using Vijeta scooters until now.

Actually I couldn’t quite remember the last time I saw a Vijeta on the road let alone one modified into a transport carrier.

“Bas paanch minute mein pahoochta hoon, Saar,” Govind, the driver dispatched by Manoj, said each time I checked on his progress after each “paanch minute” had turned fifteen.

Govind eventually turned up at quarter past seven, a full two hours after alighting from Ranikhet Express at Ramnagar. I heard him before he made the turn in the road that straightened on its approach to the railway station, and in the days ahead I would grow accustomed to the roar of the Mahindra, enough to alert the wildlife we hoped to see stealthily.

Thin to the point of being skeletal, Govind was built small and sported a ready smile, his pearly white teeth set off by dark skin. 

In time we would warm up to his effusive personality, entertained by his stories about Corbett tigers and their hoary exploits from the moment he turned the jeep in the direction of Mohan. Throwing the gear forward was an effort to his wiry hands and he would bring his shoulder to bear in affecting the change of gear.

Mohan, or Mohaan as locals pronounce the name (Govind certainly favoured Mohaan) lay 21 kms. north of Ramnagar, the drive along the eastern boundary of the Corbett National Park barely deviating from the course Kosi etched in the mountainous terrain.

Soon we would leave Ramnagar behind as we made for Mohan along the Kosi.

~

Ramnagar.

I rolled it off my tongue slowly, seeking in its sound the beginnings of a story from the 1930s.

It was in Ramnagar in the month of May over eighty years ago that Jim Corbett alighted from the 1 p.m. train before setting off on a twenty-four-mile foot journey to Kartkanoula, halting at Gargia for the night before making for Mohan village on foot the next morning.

Mohan Bazaar

After a brief halt at the Mohan forest rest house, soon after meeting with locals from Mohan bazaar who, as he notes in his celebrated book, The Man-Eaters of Kumaon, filled him in on stories of the man-eater terrorising Mohan, Jim Corbett left Mohan for Kartkanoula, a ‘four-thousand-foot’ climb with his entourage of two servants and six Garhwalis, where the man-eater that came to be known as The Mohan Man-eater, had killed three villagers in the week before Corbett’s arrival.

By circumstance or by coincidence, our choice of stay, Mohan, while in no way influenced by the fact that it figured as the setting of The Mohan Man-Eater back in the 1930s, had risen in notoriety as recently as a little over a year ago after a tiger from the Corbett National Park turned man-eater and preyed on villagers in the forest hamlets adjoining Mohan, namely Gargia and Sunderkhal, the latter an illegal encroachment of settlers and a determining factor in the rise of man-animal conflict in this part of the country, and the former, home to a temple dedicated to Gargia Devi as Goddess Parvati is known here. 

Located a little over 14 kms. from Ramnagar, the Gargia Devi temple is perched on a massive rock rising from the Kosi. Over the duration of our stay we could pass by it along the road connecting Ramnagar with Mohan.

“On Karthik Poornima, the temple fair is worth coming to see. People come from far and wide offer prayers at the temple,” Govind interjected the silence. We had pulled over to the side of the road up an incline while I photographed the Kosi river and the temple in the distance.

The river ran dry in some parts along this stretch save a few areas where water had collected in inviting pools, projecting an appearance of studied calm while contrasting starkly with dry areas strewn with stones bleached white.

Standing on the edge of the hill where it dropped away sharply to the Kosi below, I sought breaks in canopies of trees growing on the slopes and photographed devotees enjoying a dip in spots where the river had pooled its scarce resources for the summer.

It was a happy bunch, white teeth and all. The calm was a far cry from the swollen beast of 2010 that had swept away all it could reach, trees, animals, people, homes, hopes, everything.    

The Kosi floods of 2010, whose then water level can be seen marked prominently on the retaining wall of the Kosi Barrage upstream of the river at Ramnagar where visitors cross over to the Ramnagar Forest Division enroute to Sitavani to the forests extending from the western banks of the mighty river, has entered the local lexicon as a permanent reference.

Talking to Kundan in Mohan Bazaar one evening after we had settled in our new temporary ‘home’ in Mohan I didn’t at first catch on to his reference to 2010 in “Dus mein tho sangatan waley bahut dey gaye”, “Dus mein tho aisey aisey cheezey di gayi ki … logon ney … kapda-shapda, kambal-shambal, duniya bhar ke cheezey … par hissaa nahi diya kissi nay.”

“Dus mein” (Do Hazar Dus – 2010) has come to attain a significance formerly restricted to events such as births and deaths in a human lifetime. At least that was the sense I got from talking to people there.  

Along the Kosi past Ramnagar, the Kosi floods of 2010 divide the timeline of life into a before and an after, strengthened no doubt by the resentment among the displaced who view their plight as unresolved to this day, atleast according to Kundan.

The story is no different along the stretch on either side of Gargia, a stretch on the faultlines of human-animal conflict since the days of Jim Corbett, considerably worsening ever since.

Like always there was more that meets the eye than what our own expectation had led us to believe.

This was promising to be more than just about tigers, just how I would've wanted it.

Note: The series will continue in fits and starts, and in no particular order of occurrence.