Nice Flowers

Some days come by for a reason. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.

I know the man is looking at me as I approach him on the sidewalk. Growing up in India one develops a sense for such things, I can’t explain how. And I know what he is looking at…

But first lets go back an hour in time.

“1,2,3,4…

Walking like a man

Hitting like a hammer

She's a juvenile scam.

Never was a quitter.

Tasty like a raindrop. 

She's got the look.”                 

Early in the morning, at the exact moment I step into the grocery store these words from (She’s Got) The Look by Roxette ring out and it’s #TBT (Throwback Thursday). I am back in High School. (This not so remarkable song except for the memory it triggers, was a chart topper in 1989, much played when MTV entered India in the early 90’s, it was MTV and not MTV India then.)

This song was my cue to walk (the ramp). So it all came back in a flash: vivacious girls, baffled teachers, and the boys…well, they were like footnotes: sometimes important, most of the time, just around. We were so busy dashing away in our two-wheelers exploring the depths and limits of freedom, that everything else was secondary. With a curiosity like ours, the mind was a bee, exploring this idea and then that, but never pausing–the final, inevitable pause was far, far away.

Now when I see those girls of summer on facebook even the idea of summer vanishes in a poof. I am sure they have happy, even fulfilling lives. Yet what an unimaginably long break from curiosity they seem to be on. But at that moment when that song played, and I was transported back in time, it was impossible not to smile remembering the same faces that these days fill me with disquiet.

Now as I am walking back home I see the man watching me. I had noticed him and his workmate on my way to the store. They are trimming the low-spreading junipers around the parking lot. It is a very humid day, a day that ordinarily gives rise to such lassitude that all sense of goodwill melts away. But I know this is not that kind of day. For it is a day of coincidences, and rare associations.

As I almost pass him by, the man looks right at me and as I had expected says, “Nice flowers.”

You see this is the second time in two weeks that this has happened with me. It is a small thing, but as I walk back from the grocery store, carrying a bunch of common, local flowers, I cease to be just me. I become a part of an association: perhaps a memory, perhaps a feeling in someone else’s life. A young woman last Thursday crossed the street to come up to say ‘Nice flowers’ and this man drenched in sweat, wiping his brow, now stops and looks up to say, 'Nice flowers'.

Remember that character, from that novel by Milan Kundera who plans to hold a blue cornflower in front of her face as she walks down the street to protect herself from the ugliness of urbanisation. Well, I am sort of like that character, though I don't carry flowers to shield myself. 

But the flowers I carry open a little space in someone else’s heart and mind. And those things lodged deep within that seemed forgotten come up for air in a rush. All transgressions are forgiven; all lapses become what they are, momentary. So we end up smiling and saying, ‘have a nice day.’

The only intrinsic part about meaning is that it comes from within us.

Some days come by for a reason. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.  

In the City: Three Easy Pieces

The Solitude

“On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy.”

– E. B. White, ‘Here is New York’ (1949)

Thus begins the most quoted poetic homage (and even prophetic given the events of 9/11) to a city. Along with Street Haunting and The London Scene (collection of 6 essays) by Virginia Woolf, it is possibly the best piece of writing on the experience of a big city.

To read 'Here is New York': http://www.travel-studies.com/sites/default/files/White,%20Here%20Is%20New%20York.pdf

The Streetwalker

               "I’m becoming

the street.

           Who are you in love with

me?

     Straight against the light I cross."

    –Frank O’Hara, ‘Walking to Work’

Almost 80% of the journeys in midtown and downtown Manhattan are made on foot. People mostly walk for practical purposes like getting to work, going to the grocery store, picking up children from school and so on. They also walk to purposes of pleasure like to the movie hall, weekend brunch or the picnic in the park. And in this time and age, for the most important purpose of all–to maintain an active lifestyle (that means walking over 10,000 steps a day). 

For most people a saunter brings to mind a walk in the park among the bounties of nature, but here’s a different, an original perspective:

"Even trees understand me! Good heavens, I lie under them too, don’t I? I’m just like a pile of leaves.

However, I have never clogged myself with the praises of pastoral life, nor with nostalgia for an innocent past of perverted acts in pastures. No, one never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes–I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there’s a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not regret life. It is more important to affirm the least sincere; the clouds get enough attention as it is and even they continue to pass.”

– Frank O’Hara, ‘Meditations In An Emergency’

The Sunsets

And people continue to notice the passing clouds, and the resulting sunsets more often. Not just because they are instagramming the shit out of it. I think it is because of the nature of light projection in the city. The tall buildings have often been likened to canyons but made of glass and metal. These reflective surfaces throw the light around in ways that change with the trajectory of the sun across the sky. Sample this: at 7:30 PM the light from the setting sun falls on the west face of the building on the easternmost part of the street, bounces and strikes the windows of the building on the opposite side and this room (that I am typing in) is bathed in gold. So, it is hardly a surprise that a 6 PM meeting on a certain floor, in a certain building in downtown may get interrupted if the room gets flooded by light from a sky streaked purple, mauve, red and orange.

Thank you for the music

It is late afternoon. The temperature is 29C, humidity above 55%. Everyone seems to be in a hurry to get back into pleasant, controlled environs. Two tote bags, one on each shoulder I carry as I walk on.

Someone clears her throat behind me. Suddenly a song. After a few seconds she is in the groove and singing– in another age I’d have written with gay abandon– well, joyfully. I do the most natural thing. I slow down.

The singing woman and her companion overtake me. The woman is taller and has her right arm around the man’s shoulders, a gold chain sparkles on his neck and the grey shows on his head. They are sharing an earpiece each– listening to the same song that the woman is singing aloud. We are on the 8^th Ave. I turn on the 11^th. I hope so do they. 

Now I’ve got time. Walking uncharacteristically slowly, I follow the couple listening to the song (I am afraid I have no idea which song it was).

Never missing a step, arm around the shoulder, singing her heart out the couple walk on. I follow. On 10^th Ave the song ends. The woman has stopped singing. We’ve come upon a red light. The man takes her face in both his arms and kisses her. The cabs are turning right, the drivers are going to get a halal meal at the food cart parked on the opposite side of this street.

I turn left. The couple continue towards 11th Ave, still in step, arm around the shoulder, sharing an earpiece each listening to the same song.

Perhaps someday I'll wonder more about the significance of that song. Or, the couple’s ability to create a space for just the two of them unmindful of the world. But that day is not today.  

Today I say thank you for the music. For giving it to me.

Today

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“The wanderer in Manhattan must go forth with a certain innocence, because New York is best seen with innocent eyes. It doesn't matter if you are younger or old. Reading our rich history makes the experience more layered, but it is not a substitute for walking the streets themselves. For old-timer or newcomer, it is essential to absorb the city as it is now in order to shape your own nostalgias.”

–Pete Hamill, Downtown: My Manhattan

*

Walking past Chelsea Park I come upon a dragonfly on the sidewalk. The translucent wings shimmer in the sunlight. It is a great blue darter. Or, rather it was. All speed and agility and yet, lying motionless on the sidewalk. Just remember death is not the end.

A girl shouts. The children are playing football today. The two teams are composed mostly of girls and a few boys. It is interesting how in USA football is a girl’s game at the junior level. As is hockey, the one played on artificial grass.

Hockey always reminds me of K. Super-talented K: a hockey player, singer-guitarist, and poet; possessing other talents that I am sure I am unaware of. Most recently we met at a French bistro in West Village. The second act to take the stage was a trio– two young women and a young man each with a guitar and the gift of a golden voice. “Perhaps one day we’ll be watching you”, we said as we paid the check and hurried towards our dinner date. The act had only sung one song. Yes, I did wonder what it must be like to watch people leave while you sing so sublimely.

Which naturally brings to mind the tender, melancholy of ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’– ‘Fare thee well, O Honey, fare thee well’.

*

They are serving two kinds of soup. A steady stream of people, many pushing carts filled with all their worldly possessions, come up to the table and then walk away slowly sipping from plastic cups held tight between two hands. For a few moments the carts and the burdens they carry are forgotten on the wayside. A couple of young men their eyes red from lack of sleep, hair in disarray too pick up a cup. They aren’t homeless. It is the economy, stupid. 

An old man is talking while two young women with blue clipboards are jotting down notes. Someone laughs. The sky is clear blue. A man walking his pug goes whistling by. For an instant this could have been a picnic in the park, but it isn’t.

*

We had decided to meet at a street corner. It is only fitting as for years that is how it has been. Always meeting at places where two paths converge. Where the paths began was immaterial. What mattered was where they met and where they went on from there.

*

Walking back home, a flash of red and yellow in a window catches my eye and I walk right in, into a gallery in Soho. The exhibition is titled "Miro–Calder". A lifelong friendship formed in Paris and continued across continents consisting of lots of exchanged letters and postcards with playful drawings but not a word on the art movement, or about what they were working on.

Perhaps the reason why their friendship stood the test of time.

*

On 7^th Avenue an elegantly dressed woman wearing dark glasses, probably in her late 60’s seems to snap out of her reverie. She looks up, spots me and smiles. I am not quite sure she smiled at me even though at that moment no one else was walking behind me.

*

On 16^th street I climb up the stairs of High Line Park. I know it is a bad idea. Two lines in single file are crawling slowly in opposite directions. Most are tourists. The rhythm is altered. Most faces wear a familiar expression– you know how it is, we’ve all been tourists at some point in time. Many seem to be placing this city before their eyes over the one reproduced countless times in pages of books and on our screens. Some in the abandonment that comes from being a stranger in a strange city for a short time, openly stop and stare inside apartments rising up on both sides of the park. Curiosity is insatiable; especially when one is standing before something one felt certain one knew well since forever.

Stuck in pedestrian traffic, unable to maintain my regular pace I surrender to the inevitable.

 *

The windows of the building on the east end of the street are burnished in gold. The sun is rising in New Delhi.

Smiles of a Summer Day

Sunday

A blue, blue sky to sail on for ever after.

A fistful of clouds–to blow on, blow off and blow in again.

Timed to a sparrow's gentle serenade.

Sprays of grass–summer's sweet scent.

A butterfly's invite to siesta and sun-kissed dreams.

A wreath of wildflowers for the greatest glory of them all.

The breeze carries the hymnal–The ocean whispers Amen.

Wonderland

In my room, the world is beyond my understanding,
But when I walk I see it consists of three or four hills and a cloud.*

For Virginia it was a pencil. For me a pint of milk, a freshly baked baguette and a box of cherries (that almost elusive fruit, a few days late and you miss its short and sweet season) are a good enough reason for putting on your shoes and going out for a walk. The art of writing maybe becoming redundant but food, especially good food, never will. Two blocks and a short climb up the hill is all it takes to reach the local co-operative. But it seems like journeying into another world.

To the tamed eye it is nothing but some modern apartment buildings, a handful of independent homes, a couple of restaurants and lots of cars parked on the roadside–a staple in American cities. However, it’s not quite American suburbia with all its attendant horrors. It is the 21st century version of big city living, with a glimmer of hope.

To the untamed eye it is, well, a walk to remember. After saying hello to the neighborhood pugs, all three of them, one takes a left under the watchful eyes of our resident crow and past the blooming rhododendrons and walks right into a wonderland- two “unkempt” gardens playing host to all sorts of wild things. There are masses of blue, white, yellow and orange wildflowers dancing cheek to cheek with giant peonies and poppies. There are bees, butterflies and hummingbirds darting from plant to plant. The house sparrows are feeding their young; the robin comes to take a look-see and whistles a tune. The chickadees are heard but not seen. The worms are busy digging and the creatures too small to be observed by the human eye are doing what they do best. Ten steps are all that it takes to move in and out of this world. Timed well it is ten steps enough.

Further ahead smoky-white clouds hang above the mountain tops that dwarf downtown's towers. Two young girls are picnicking over a bowl of salad on a patch of grass by the roadside, pink and yellow ribbons tided to their bicycle's handlebars. Stapled onto the wooden pole is a poster of a man with a ukelele held before his face. A little girl is discussing, what one supposes are, her big plans for the summer with her grandma, as she pushes her wagon along. A couple walk by hand in hand carrying a pot with a flowering tomato plant. The graffiti on the petrol pump wall reads PREPARE. For the end of oil the mind adds. There's a party on the second floor across the street. A kid on a skateboard swerves to the right. The cashiers from Trader Joe's are splitting a can of beer while the homeless man straightens his dog's bandana, smiles and asks, how's it going? It's 5:16 PM. The sun is at it's highest position in the sky and a walk is always well worth getting out of the house for.

*Wallace Stevens, Of the Surface of Things

Walking in Delhi

(To learn more about walking in Indian cities click here)

To ask someone to walk in Delhi sounds preposterous and is often dismissed with a laugh. That was the reaction we got from our friend when we walked for the last time in Delhi. It was 2004. The event wasn’t so momentous that we’d record the date but it so happened that we left Delhi after a few months. So the stroll from Saket to Aurobindo Place Market on a winter afternoon is the last time we walked purely for the pleasure of walking in Delhi. The soft afternoon sun, the smell of roasting peanuts, small thelas piled with cheap woolens, even the languidly moving traffic seemed to add to the pleasure probably because we could navigate it so easily and quickly. We would have loved to say that the skeptic friend became a convert but in reality he too remembers the walk for precisely the same reasons as us.

Another memorable walk was some 10 years earlier when the IIT U special didn’t turn up and the three of us, all girls, decided to walk to Pragati Maidan from Pandara Road to catch the Noida special. That too was winter and Delhi looked so beautiful in the liquid sunlight that we ended up walking all the way to Miranda House for we were only nineteen and Sociological theory wasn’t something we looked forward to first thing in the morning. And what a wonderful walk it was. There were a few strange looks but for the most part we completed our journey unmolested, which is commendable considering one can’t walk a few steps without fending off unnecessary comments and unwarranted glances these days. The fact that we had clearly demarcated space to walk for the most part too helped. We tried to recreate the journey in the opposite direction but it was monsoon and that year safety of women was a major news item. So we caught the bus back home from ITO.

Having lived for over 12 years in Delhi we walked in all kinds of weather for all kinds of reasons. Along ruins, in gardens among chrysanthemums and roses, under Peepul trees with their leaves turning pink, up and down the Delhi University campus eating bhelpuri, on Prithviraj Road with bats for company, in Sanjay Van with the twisted Vilayati Keekar creating a mini Mordor, along roads densely packed with cars honking and the auto rickshaw we had abandoned getting swallowed by the smoke, on Kamraj Marg when the Amaltas colours the sidewalk gold, in Tughlaqabad with the moneys watching us even as we watched them, in JNU under the trees singing in the rain, to Khan Market to Aurobindo Place. A million walks in a city that seemed to be best explored on foot to enjoy its timeless beauty. But that was before Delhi became the city of a million roads and nowhere to go.

The only regret. Never being able to enjoy a walk along the Yamuna to truly appreciate the city that was built beside a river.