Imaging my Incredible India - I

 The ‘Idea of India’ appeals to everyone, in fact even to the people who haven’t been here. It has been said that my country has a way of getting into people and changing them. History has shown, that the invaders got so trapped into her magic, that many made it their home.

There is colour everywhere and cuisines that completely change if you travel 200km in any direction. Flora, fauna, terrain, climates, and even the physical appearance of people change as you travel from the hills in the north to the southern peninsula, or if you take a journey from the economic capital on the Arabian Sea, and reach the lush green tea estates of the far east. Something about its spirit and earthy love digs and settles deep into your being and tugs at your heartstrings as flashes of memories surface.

On the anniversary of its birth this August, I would like to give you a small glimpse of my India, the memories of living in various places, across the land of my forefathers, and which will belong to my future generations. It is this India my being salutes when I see the national flag.

Let us start with a train or road journey to Kerala, this tiny southern tip of my country, whether undertaken from the east, north, or west, this journey is a life experience in itself. The possibility of so many shades of green is what hits you as you cross the northern borders into the state. Water...green stretches...water again, like a mirage passes by your window. It is a state holding together a complexity of ideas, overeducated people with fewer job opportunities, an unemployed but extremely proud labor class, rich NRIs in marble castles, and struggling fishermen in tiny boats. Walking into vast rubber estates or driving to coffee plantations, enjoying the huge coastline or chilling on backwaters, watching a snake boat race, or visiting a Space center, the sights are as complex as the ideas Kerala is home to.

The place of my birth, which once was the #spice capital of the world, has its food to showcase its cultural diversity. From the bakeries with delicious fruit cakes and bread, an art imbibed from pre-British times to the boatman’s delicious spicy sea fish curry. The #Muslim Mapila cuisine of delicious biryanis, parottas, and pathiris, and the lacy appams, chicken stews, and jackfruit halwa from the Christian kitchens to the unique sadhyas of Hindu homes with payasams, banana chips, avials, puttu and kadla all fiercely appreciated and held together with a stoic love of coconut and large portions of food by everyone in the state. Taking a siesta in the veranda of your house or sitting on the banks of the Pamba, a temple song drifting into your ears, a distance call for prayer in a mosque, or church bells ringing, brings the harmony of different cultures living together to you... It is truly as Malayalis call it, “#Gods own Country” with one state festival “#Onam” celebrated for “him” by everyone in the state no matter what religion, caste, or creed.

This memory of this India mingled with old loving grandparents, hot summers spent playing with cousins in between tapioca plants, and delicious food resides close to my heart. But the heart has places to go and India is vast and deep...

How many of us know there are places called Mokokchung, Ukrul, Tezu, or Walong in India? Well, they are in the seven sister states of easternmost India. Yes, there really is an east which is huge and way beyond Calcutta! No state in India has a grander entry to it than Assam. The Grand Brahmaputra has to be crossed on a nearly 1500 meters long bridge which takes you nothing less than half an hour before you touch its capital on the banks. The vastness of a river can be a humbling experience. A huge behemoth of water, with small islands in it, and no bank on the other side, visible to the human eye. It is a beast that runs wild through the east, depending on melting snows and rains in the upper reaches of the #Himalayas, taking with it homes, standing trees, and huge boulders which turn to pebbles over the years.

A train journey onwards will carry you through beautiful green rice paddies, quaint villages with clustered thatched huts around a central pond with fish and lotuses. You spot cattle grazing, pretty women going about everyday chores wearing ‘mekhala chadhar’, children playing with animals, and a total sense of peace and tranquillity. There is no urgency of time in these parts, and the horizon specked with fires from the gas and petroleum fields, glowing in the setting sun, is the only suggestion of economy and industry. One’s heart calls to leave everything and wander into the paddy or the #tea estates forever, leaving the clamour of life behind.

Cooking and living both are a challenge for outsiders, as the sudden rain showers seem to be constant, come warm summer, chilly winter, or colourful spring. This affects the availability of regular fruits and vegetables and keeping things mould-free a full-time chore. There is a strong sense of wildness and aggressive beauty like this land as if we humans are the intruders into this space. There is tall Elephant grass everywhere, long black snakes are spotted easily in your garden or climbing trees deftly. Children are warned of leeches that can cling to your legs unknowingly. Beautiful orchids burst from branches of trees shocking your wandering eye, and blood-red or white lilies appear unannounced in open meadows. The dense forests that surround the land have trees of amazing girth and size.

Everything looks or tastes different in the far-east. Bananas have big seeds and a starchy wild taste, bitter gourd looks like a tiny porcupine while the local coriander leaves look like spiky spinach with long serrated leaves!! Locally consumed greens look like curled decorative ferns from a nursery. French beans are a rare species and tomatoes a precious commodity. Huge bamboo groves stand tall everywhere, and #bamboo and cane are used extensively in all homes. The hand-operated looms of the states, make the most wonderful silks, cotton, and wools. A Naga shawl is a work of art and has its GI tag now like the #naga mircha and tree tomato.

The hills of Shillong are literally alive with the sound of singing, there is laughter in the twinkling eyes of people living in stilt houses in almost inaccessible villages, the monasteries of #Gangtok, with the shining #Kanchenjunga in the background carries you to a spiritual place like no other. A local legend says if you come to Assam and don’t go to the Kamakhya temple you will return no matter what, I hope it’s true and I will get to walk that land soon again. This is my India in the far-east, a land of simple, soft-spoken people. The beautiful memories to which I raise my heart every #August 15th.

The #India I want to image is vast and diverse, beautiful and wild, young and ancient. This is only a glimpse of a few places in the north, south, east, and west that I will bring to you as a memory of India I have lived in and I claim to be mine. I will take you next to some other distant frontiers of this #Incredibleindia which reside in my heart as I salute the spirit of India this August.

 #Independence Day #August15 #Incredible India