A paean to the New year

The turn of a date, a month and a year-

What feeble reason for all this cheer!

A day is a day is a day, they claim;

Just as mundane by any other name.

All this ado over the coming of a year-

Parties, resolves and

Peddlers' gimmicks, soulless veneer!

But, nouveau Scrooge, for what it's worth

This first day is but a symbol of rebirth -

Of friendships, of warmth and ill will erased

Of reflection, of inner cobwebs effaced.

The life of a day is that you imbue.

Then, imagine a day when

The zest of all humans accrue!

Dates, inanimate, can scarce life-change .

We englitter of our own, the sweep of an age

by the pixie dust of our Hope and Spunk.

Dreams take flight, old doubts shrunk.

For they who plan to travel afar

Have now and again

To start from tabula rasa.

The coffee of anger

A brimming bowl of the bitterest beans
A savage surge of current: heedlessness
Are all that it takes to
Brew
A frothing, simmering decoction
Of the coffee of
Anger.

The crushing of the roasted beans
And the gnashing of incensed teeth
Lo! bitterness smashed into angry
Smithereens.
Of brittle brown brutish
Grains of sleeping
Rancor.

Which by fierce, flaming water-
Undoused by the voice of reason
Or the sway of temperance is
Piqued
Into caramel espresso: as
The distilled essence of
Fury.

In time, the powdered bean weaned
Off sparks of kindling water
Turns slowly sodden-
Awkward;
Arranging itself into the ash of regret
Of the Coffee of
Anger.

In search of the lost City: travels in Angkor

"The rain god Indra seems to be angry today," said our tour guide, only half-jokingly, leaving me surprised by his ready reference to the Hindu god, as we skirted gathering puddles on the embankment of the moat surrounding the Angkor Wat.

Through my travels in the Angkorian lands, I was to discover how keenly Hinduism and Buddhism alternately waxed and waned across centuries under the reign of the powerful Khmer kings over large parts of mainland Southeast Asia. The Chinese wielded hard power, extracting tributes in return for peace, but the source of soft power was undoubtedly India, exporting culture, religions and folklore to ancient Angkor.

Holding umbrellas aloft, we legged it quickly into the first level of the famed structure to be led into a seemingly endless corridor to inspect the bas-relief on the walls. We joined a group of tourists examining the panels, spellbound by the size and detailing of the marvels commissioned by the Khmer king Suryavarman  II.

On a whirlwind tour, we cruised past a yellow-clad towering Vishnu statue, past panels depicting the Kurukshetra war, the king and his retinue, snapshots from the epics and the past the occasional pock-marked segments of the walls where bullets had once landed.

Finally, we joined the long queue for the ascent to the third and final level. At the topmost level of the temple complex, high above the humdrum of the mortal life of his subjects, the king was thought to receive divine inspiration to conduct the affairs of his kingdom. It was believed that the kings of the Khmer empire were no mere mortals, deriving their authority from god, with even images of gods being modelled after the king of the day in these temples.

After a rather steep climb, I surveyed the environs from a vantage point, at the sweeping views of the temple complex and the jungles beyond, the simple beauty of the carvings around me and I understood why the king had visited this tower to commune with the divine.

High up in the Angkor Wat towers

Soon, it was time to head a few centuries forward to the rajavihara or royal monastery of Ta Prohm, said to be dedicated to King Jayavarman VII's mother.

A Mahayana Buddhist, this king established a welfare state on Buddhist principles and left behind a legacy of a vast network of Buddhist temples. Religious u-turns appeared to  commonplace in this land, with the king of any given time dictating beliefs, swapping Hindu and Buddhist images and sculptures at will.

In contrast to the towering Angkor Wat that spans dizzying heights, Ta Prohm is almost all flat. Where Angkor Wat has been carefully restored by men, Ta Prohm has been left to the artistry of nature. Giant trees have sprung from the laterite walls, with their coiling roots gripping the structures with a firm grasp. The combination of the exquisite ruins and the towering trees lent an ethereal quality to this monument. It has been carefully restored, with attention paid to retaining its quaint atmosphere.

 Ta Prohm - unshakeable Nature vs. frail man-made structures

We left Ta Prohm for Bayon, another temple of the same period. On a smaller scale than Angkor Wat but no less impressive, the Bayon temple was said to have had 54 towers originally, with giant faces carved on to each of the four sides of the towers. The impression, on arrival, is of being greeted by a serene army watching over the city of Angkor Thom from all directions. We walked through the winding corridors, encountering apsaras, garudas and scenes from mythology, under the benign gaze of the multitude of faces.

Were the faces those of Brahma of four faces? Or of the Boddhisattva Avalokitesvara? Maybe both- to push religious transformation in a non-disruptive manner, according to our guide.

 At the upper levels, I looked closer at one of the faces, fascinated by its stoic expression. Our guide drew my attention to another face, saying, “Doesn't this look like the face of a lady?" Of course. Then another, "Doesn't this look like a demon?" Sure enough, there was a foreboding expression on the one indicated. Despite being unable to peel eyes off these images all along, I had not noticed differences in their aspect. Suddenly, from an army of identical faces, the towers had been transformed into a horde of distinct sets of people. He pointed to yet another, this one calm and intriguing like the others. I felt the spell descending upon us again, and all faces seemed uniformly alike once more.

Faces at Bayon

I left Bayon, just as mystified and fascinated as I had been when I had arrived. As the tuk-tuk whirred out of the city gates, I shook myself off my reverie to hear the guide say, "This is the gate of Angkor Thom. Bayon is exactly at the centre of the city. And these," he waved to the human sized figures along either side of the causeway, "are the devas and asuras churning the ocean!" And indeed, the figures were holding what appeared to be a gigantic snake, evoking the well-known tale of the gods and demons churning the ocean for nectar.

And yet again, I felt a familiar thrill upon finding a well-known cultural reference thousands of miles from home in this lost city.

Falling, Staying

 

Falling in love

A tequilla shot.
A fleeting, intoxicating high.
Exciting. Finite.
Pebbles on a seashore.


Staying in love

Spring water.
A steady, unsung bliss.
Colourless…Bland…
The bedrock of life…

If cities were colours...

If cities were colours, Moscow would be a solid brick red, St.Petersburg a delicate mint-green.

Or so I mused, as I stood next to the towering Alexander column at Palace Square, awed by the beautiful mint green-white-gold exteriors of the Winter Palace, the home of the Tsars, and now part of the expansive Hermitage Museum.

Or wait…let me start from the beginning.

Our train rolled into St. Petersburg just as we had polished off the last morsels of a breakfast of blini (Russian pancakes) and kasha (buckwheat porridge) in our compact coupe on the Moscow-St.Petersburg Express.

An imposing bust of Peter the Great greeted us as we crossed over to the city metro from the train station and embarked upon the mini-adventure of procuring day passes.

Sankt Pieterburkh under Peter the Great, the Tsar who built this city of canals from the marshes of the Neva river after the Great Northern Wars with Sweden.  Petrograd during the Great War, when the people rejected the old German-sounding name. Leningrad under the soviets, to celebrate the father of their newly-adopted political philosophy. St.Petersburg to the rest of the world. Or just Piter. All of these names evoke heard memories of endless White Nights. Of fairytale castles and Tsars and princes (usually called Ivan) who rise to save the day. This Western end of the old Tsardom has seen more than its fair share of excitement in its (relatively) short history.

The soaring spire at
Ss.Peter & Paul Cathedral

Moscow was born at the wooden fortress that occupied the current Kremlin site, and St.Petersburg at Rabbit Island out of which was built the formidable Peter and Paul Fortress. A bright summer morning found us at Zayachy (Hare) Island, exploring the cathedrals, boathouse, workshops and guardhouse – many of which now house museums. The Fortress, ironically, was never required for the defence of the empire from a potential Swedish invasion- instead it became infamous as a political prison. The entrance to the fortress, St.Peter’s Gate, hinted at the very European nature of the structures that were housed inside. The Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul was our first stop:  the cathedral itself designed by Italian architects, but the icon screen, of course, could only be the work of expert Russian woodcarvers and gilders. Flags and banners, relics of the victory in the founding wars, were slung from the walls inside. As I craned my neck to look at the spire soaring high into the cloudless sky, it was only too easy to believe my audioguide which informed me that the spire was an easy target of German airstrikes in World War II, and consequently had to be camouflaged to avoid detection.

We took the seats conveniently placed right outside the cathedral and on cue from those around us, settled down to enjoy the warmth of the lovely summer afternoon, the sweeping views of the fortress bastions and the audio guide telling us of the various uses to which the fortress had been put. Apart from serving as a tomb for the royals, a high security prison and the site of Tsar Peter’s naval experiments, the fortress, we were told, was once home to a laboratory that saw pioneering moments in Russian rocket technology. So off we went to the museum that stands at the site, to trace the growth of Russia’s journey from experiments in gas dynamics to the search for the perfect space fuel. An entire panel was devoted to the space theorist Tsiolkovsky, whose ideas on space exploration put forth in the late 19^th century were, we discovered, far, far ahead of his time. For context, he developed a theory of jet propulsion in the 1880s, and wrote a book titled ‘Exploration of Outer Space by Means of Rocket Devices’ long before the idea of the commercial aircraft was even conceived and inspired many later day rocket pioneers such as Robert Goddard.

Next up was Nevsky Prospekt, the arterial road of the city, which counts amongst its impressive lineup centuries-old malls and stores, picture-perfect cathedrals, parks, monuments and the characteristic bridges that serve as gateways for tours of its canals. After a visit to Kazan Cathedral, built in the likeness of St.Peter’s at the Vatican, we headed towards the Church of our Saviour on Spilled blood. 

Church of our Saviour on Spilled blood

As we crossed the Griboedov bridge to catch our first glimpse of this landmark structure, we were struck by its resemblance to St.Basil’s. As a monument to Tsar Alexander the Liberator, this church, of course, had to be Russian in its design. Built at the site where Tsar Alexander was mortally wounded by an anarchist, this church stood out for its Russian style that would be more at home in Moscow. A shrine studded with precious stones marks the precise site of the assassination. Alexander was known for his reforms, particularly for freeing the serfs in 1861. More famously, it was he who sold Alaska to the States in 1867.  We were dazzled by the interiors swathed in mosaic work- every inch of the walls, pillars and ceiling was wrapped in the most intricate and strikingly colourful mosaic painting representing many Biblical scenes.

Mosaic art at the Church

Not for nothing is St.Petersburg called the ‘Venice of the North’. Filled with hundreds of bridges and embankments, criss-crossed by a network of canals, water to St.Petersburg is almost as essential as it is to Venice. A tour by its canals is most rewarding in the white nights of its literally never-ending summer days, we had been told, and we proceeded to make the most of the late summer evening sunshine by getting on to a boat at the Anichkov most (bridge) on Nevsky Prospekt, spending an enjoyable hour drifting from island to island, spotting cathedrals, palaces and gardens.

Where Moscow is all office blocks and essentially Russian onion domes, St.Petersburg is all classical palaces and European spires. Moscow is as old as Russia itself, and certainly older than its Tsardom. St. Petersburg is as old as the Romanov Tsars’ fascination with Europe and with empire-building. Moscow is an amalgam of many kinds of Russian-ness across the ages. St. Petersburg is a window to Europe, to nostalgia of an imperial past. If cities were colours, Moscow would be a solid brick red, St. Petersburg a delicate mint-green.

Mint-green and white and gold: Winter Palace

Or so I mused, as I stood next to the towering Alexander column at Palace Square the following day, awed by the beautiful mint green-white-gold exteriors of the Winter Palace, the home of the Romanov dynasty, and now part of the expansive Hermitage Museum.

The royals had lavished Italian architecture on this palace, studded it with sculptures and decorative arts from across the world, and bathed its walls with paintings by every known master. What Empress Catherine II had begun as a collection of paintings over 200 years ago has now expanded to include every form of collectible (art, coins, books, tools, banners) from all corners of the world housed in palace bulidings whose spectacular architecture vies with the displays themselves for attention.One of the most arresting features of the palace was the abundance of the towering sculptures of Atlantes, or pillars in the form of men that appear to support the ceiling.  As we fanned out across its large spaces, going from Roman heroes to Greek temples, from Egyptian relics to Russian pavilion halls, from Italian loggias to Buddhist frescos, from massive urns and vases to majestic stairways, I felt exactly as I had at the Louvre, overwhelmed, exhilarated, doggedly keeping up my spirited venture to take in as many great gulps of its vast array of exhibits as I could in the precious little time spent inside. 

Hermitage - the world in brief 

After walking many miles through these seemingly endless caverns, imagine our astonishment on finding out that this was only a fraction of the collection, and that there was much, much more kept aside in the Hermitage Storage facility in another part of the city!

 Imagining an eventful past at Palace Square

When we could walk no more, we came back to the late evening sunshine of the Palace Square, surprised by its near-emptiness, where I gave myself to imagining that day in a long ago December when demonstrators were shot down as they surged into a square in protest. 
Or that day in this very square when a mob swept in to capture the Winter Palace, tossed out a monarchy, shrugged off a War and flung the country headlong into Revolution.   
Or those 900 days when a down but definitely not out Leningrad willed itself through a siege by collective superhuman effort, valiantly refusing to surrender.

Old head on young shoulders, indeed.


.

The Moskva chronicles- Part Odno

“Two tickets to St.Petersburg.” He articulated each syllable slowly, hoping to make himself clear. The lady at the counter nodded doubtfully, and asked a question. Both he and I turned blank faces to her, and then looked at each other. She repeated her question. “Sankt Pieterburg,” I answered in the deepest tone I could muster, hoping that my faux accent would somehow get the message across. Then we realised that she was asking us for the date of travel. He wrote it out on a piece of paper, and slid it under the counter. She looked at it for a long time. I glanced back anxiously at the queue building up behind us, wondering how long it would be before the murmurs of impatience began, as the locals wearied of the stuttering tourists at the counter.

We had landed at the Domodedevo airport at midnight, blurry eyes scanning the still-unfamiliar Cyrillic script, joined an amorphous huddle that we later understood to be the queue at the immigration counter. An hour later, we were taking an hour-long taxi ride to the hotel, whizzing through the Moscovite pre-dawn darkness.

Now, after 35 minutes of testing the patience of the lady at the counter, we left the Kievskaya station with our tickets, marvelling at the forbearance of the people in the queue. We were ready for our day at Moscow.  

A country but almost a continent, European but almost Asian, insular yet surprisingly warm, a land of fairytales that turned to realism, of Orthodox Christianity giving way to atheist communism, a history of tug-of-war with the Western European powers: a country of many, many paradoxes. Fiercely nationalist, possessed of a steely determination and spirit that would prefer to let the capital burn than fall into Napoleon’s hands, that could survive a near-3 year siege laid by Hitler and live to tell the tale. A kaleidoscope of cultures, ethnicities and a (mostly) shared history. How can a traveller dare to make sense of this whimsical being in a matter of days? 

Cathedral Square

Resurrection Gate, Red Square

We set out  later that morning to find out what being Russian was all about- apart from displaying infinite patience while in a queue.  If you want to look Russian, pore over an e-reader on the train. Or a book. Or play chess on your smartphone – or that’s what we found out on our short Metro ride to the Biblioteka Lenini stop. We spent the better part of the morning winding our way through the pristine white, golden-domed cathedrals of Kremlin, the mammoth Bell from Ivan’s Bell Tower, getting our first impressions of Russian ikon painting and of the many unique elements of Eastern Orthodox Christian architecture. The Iconostasis, a stand of religious paintings,that was placed to separate the altar from the rest of the church reminded me of the veil that is usually drawn across the sanctum sanctorum of Hindu temples.

After a cloudy morning in the Kremlin cathedrals, I was walking past triangular-domed spires of the Kremlin towers, when, with a suddenness that took the breath away, I found myself staring straight down the jumble of shapes, spires, domes and colours that make up the iconic St.Basil’s Cathedral. Peaked domes, onion-shaped swirled domes, prickly domes, multiple arches, gilded ornamentation, golden spires and colours of every imaginable hue made it a visual spectacle too complex for the brain to process in a few moments.  It looked like a church, a multi-coloured bonfire, and a fairytale castle all rolled into one. It took a few minutes to take in its intricate details, the fact that there were really ten churches of various shapes and sizes interwoven into that extraordinary structure. The cathedral’s interiors were as unique as its external appearance. Apart from the abundance of medieval-style painting, gilding and iconography, we were treated to a performance by the Russian Men’s Choir as well. Like many churches in Russia, St.Basil’s Cathedral was built to commemorate a military victory- this one was for the defeat of the Khanate of Kazan, an event that spelt the beginning of the end of the Mongol-Turkic dominance and affirmed the power of the Russian Tsardom under Ivan the Terrible.

St.Basil's Cathdral

Up close- St.Basil's 

The State Historical Museum, where we had our fill of Russian history, was more detailed than we could have hoped for – ranging from prehistoric artifacts and ancient scrolls, the age of the Khans and the Tsars to the present day.

Mayakovskaya station

Reaching for the planes (not stars!)-  mosaic art at the Metro

Up next was a free (almost) course in Russian art and history through its fascinating Metro stations. No two stations were alike, and each successive one was more splendid than the other in its concept, art, architecture and manner of execution. The pink rhodonite-and-stainless steel arches of the Mayakovskaya station competed with the beautiful ceiling mosaic art representing 24 hours in the Soviet day. The themes in these mosaic panels were mostly built around rockets (zooming past the red ruby star of the Spasskaya Tower of the Red Square), planes (that a child in the arms of its mother was reaching out for), parachutes and other such images that reminded one of the age of the great Space race. We got off at station after station, passing porcelain figures depicting Belarusian life (Belarosskaya), large bronze statues depicting people in the Soviet (Ploschad Revolyutsii), stained glass panels representing (Novoslobodskaya) the intellectual professions, palatial spaces with vaulted ceilings and ornate, gilded mosaics (Komsomolskaya). All around us, as we stood around gaping, and clicking pictures, busy commuters walked briskly by, through the weekday evening rushhour, unmindful of the art galleries that they have to walk through to and from work everyday.

By now, my instincts had led me to pick up the bits of Russian script essential for survival, and as we stepped out of the Smonlenskaya station, I breezed into a restaurant, identifying the now-familiar sign that I transliterated into “pectopah” and settled down to coax vegan names off the menu.

Desert Verse

Like shifting grains of sand upon a wind-blown dune

Sprightly golden deer fleet in these yellow lands

Peacocks of vibrant hues startle into view

As I ramble through this boundless expanse

Dunes I traverse as I clamber onward

Soon drift away, melting into the arid air

Only to storm together into a newer herd

Evermoving scapes, now filled, now bare

Humped beasts plodding docile, slow

Flick the sands off their luscious lashes.

As dirt jeeps lurch clamorously through,

Cleaving paths in this sandy wilderness

In this unending sea of remorseless heat

I cast my mind upon warriors of old

Whom this desert could scarce impede

From forging a majestic, stately world

Their invincible fortresses - to your drifting dunes

Their scorching valour- to your ferocious heat

Their palaces of splendor - to your flitting illusions

Ah dogged desert, your match you thus meet!