Shauq-e-safar

I think I‘ve mentioned this in another form, but apart from all the usual reasons, there is another very good reason I love travel. Every time I return home, there is a certain feeling that comes, which would make it all worth it even if it hadn’t been all that much fun in the first place. I suppose I would have to call this feeling contentment (because I can’t think of anything else that fits) but it is more a certain certainty of being in exactly the right place, at the right time and doing the right things. A fleeting Zeness settles.
Baths assume ceremonial importance on days like these. Travel leaves many kinds of stains; it feels good to clear them.
I have a hierarchy of choice for my bathroom singing playlist and really special moods usually get “kaise chupaoon raaz-e-gham” the way it was sung by the King. My theory is that if I sing it a thousand times I may learn to infuse about a thousandth of the Ruh of his singing.
Well, I was singing it today and I found myself singing a new sher, and I discovered that it was on the lines of my favourite sher of the ghazal.
Here’s them both-

Gum ka na ho koi asar, vasl ki shab ho yun guzar
Sab ye qabool hai magar kauf-e-saher ka kya karoon


Iske sivah na koi ghar, tera hi rukh dekhoon jidhar
Teri talaash mein magar, shauq-e-safar ka kya karoon

Another journey
Usual toiletries bag
Needs repacking now

Raichur - signing out

These boys here at the cybercafe have Aahista-(Kunal Ganjawala), Don't touch me soniye, Kya mujhe pyaar hai, Dil laga na dil jale se, and Tere bin kaise jiyoon on a loop on their system, and sometimes, like now, when there aren't too many people they sing along. I haven't tired of the loop in all this time; I love what it does for my screaming neck muscles at the end of each day.
I 'll probably have to say goodbye when I leave here today. I don't know if it’s strictly necessary. But when people anticipate you everyday at five minutes past six, wonder when you don't turn up, try to keep your favourite system for you, stop being business people and become just people, you tend to want to say bye. I always find it very embarrassing and a little difficult, but I do it anyway.
I'll probably have to say bye to the elderly waiter who has made it his business to see that I account for very meal and coffee I have and see that I am really eating well. And the gap-toothed watchman who helped me photograph the butterfly on the hedge and was so delighted to see it on the display screen. And all the people I am working with. Everybody is already starting to look a little despondent. I hope it’s not too bad this time.
I feel like a fraud every time I leave to return to my real life. But that’s silly and ridiculous. And I suppose it is just a smaller fractal of the larger pattern.

Raichur- It's a dogs life

These dog shows are unnatural things, I tell you, unnatural.
They’ve had banners hung up all over Raichur announcing the 2nd grand dog show and I’d never been to one, so naturally I had to go. I hadn’t given it much thought except that it would be interesting to see what breeds Raichur had; and it seemed Raichur folk must be really serious about their dogs to warrant a full-fledged dog show.
But what madness it is to bring together about fifty thoroughly pampered top dogs into one small enclosure and then not have the bloody sense to keep them apart or at least start the damned event on time. I had harrowing time for the hour and a half I waited for this thing to start. Dogs straining at their leashes, marking territory chair, pole, and fence, aggressive, intimidated, all kinds of excited and generally manic. My heart must have skipped approximately three and a half dozen beats but the owners were inexplicably unperturbed. They just lounged around calling languid ‘stay’ and ‘sit’ commands exchanging details of pedigree and trainers (I had a tough time believing any of those deranged specimens had had any training) source, cost and number of awards. All of this is interesting enough to overhear, if one is not strung like a violin string. One of them did not move an inch till her dog almost had its tail bitten off. You’d think they would look after award winning dogs better, huh?
Then the priceless part. There was actually a free anti-rabies vaccination camp on the grounds where the dogs were taken for their shot - Before the show! Now I don’t know too much about dogs but I would imagine that their nerves would be a little strained by being hauled off for an injection apart from all the madness.
At this point I’d had enough and I needed to leave in any case. So I did not actually get to see the show, and now I’ll never know how that woman with her Dalmatian pups (whose Doberman won some prize last year) fared this time, and if Prince cleaned up in time, if those Boxers were any good and if the Great Dane I was rooting for did well and what a dog show is really like.

Raichur ramblings - 2

Raichur's landscape is pretty much Deccan stuff. Dryish, with lovely dusks. But it has some beautiful rocks! In fact the entire stretch from Hyderabad has great formations, but the ones I saw this evening close to this old old Shiva temple are something else. Next time my instinct tells me to go fetch my camera I will listen to it even if it means two flights of stairs. (Raichur’s hospitality doesn’t extend to elevators.)
I am happy to report that my lethargy is a thing of the past. In fact right now with an ounce of tadaka filter coffee in my system I am feeling decidedly perky. After three days of anemic, wimpy coffee at the hotel, I decided to try this stand-up-and-serve-yourself-type joint. Rs 4 for an extra strong decoction with a dash of hot milk thrown into miniscule steel tumbler and Davara. Aha! Happiness. Porcelain is all right for tea but there is something about real coffee that demands steel.
As you can see, when I am away from home it is the mundane things that make me merry.

To continue-
Milne ke vaade se tasalli ho padi hai abke
Ke ye manzar mere hone mein hoga, yakeen nahi hota

Raichur ramblings - 1

I write this from a net browsing center. This is a first for me! I am into the one hour slot because I shot the 30 min slot by few minutes. I am yawning my head off but I like to be productive.
I usually get like this, all dazed and a little blown on the first evening in any new place. Too many things too many people, and every manner of assault on the senses. I fear sometimes that I must be a pretty weak poor sort of creature. I seem to need more brain-rest than anybody I know, aur nateeja kya nikalta hai? Khuda jane because I have the awfulest memory. One good soul, a behavioural scientist, told me that there is nothing actually wrong with me I just happen to have a semantic rather than an episodic memory /understanding of events. Oh How I cling to that!

Hmmm aur?
Aur bhi bhut kuch tha yakeenan yaad ke kabil
Ke tumse juda bhi waqt guzre, yakeen nahi hota