Kashmir Part1

The drop was hanging at the tip of grass twig. Reflections projected inverted in animated suspense of matter hugging itself in a sphere of diamond shimmer. The place is generally quite but it`s seven in the morning. I bet it couldn`t be more silent. For a place that has been documented as the most beautiful place on planet I couldn`t agree more with my luck line. The air was crisp, a breath from gods if I may say so. Tinge of lavender, a whiff of lemon grass, the deep rounded perfume of pine trees melted with the mist rolling from far away mountains. Chill of oxygen gently filling my lungs. Each breath slightly bigger than the previous one. I stood there, transfixed watching early morning sunlight illuminating smoke particles. Projecting streams of white filtered light through tall trees in a distance. The season is turning a voice proclaimed inside. The chinar tree that stood tall with soft golden green was now all coloured up in darker tones of rust colours. The red now spoke to orange and yellow ran through the leaf veins.



Surrendered to the water droplet the world was in stasis till a piercing sound came through. BALL! Someone shouted and brought me back to my senses. I was third in line on the second hole of this magnificent golf course. Sure, I stepped aside, a perfect swing, the metal on the club head moved approximately at the speed of jet liner during takeoff. In pure definition of connection the metal touched the ball and next second the dimple white golf ball flew with a soul of its own. I followed the trajectory in pure bliss. There are few experiences in world that matchup to a perfect golf hit. Carved on the foothills of the Himalayan ranges this course is a beauty now popularly known as Royal Springs golf course.





The sun was now warming up painting a pink sky and my mind was a drift from the game back to the details that covered each nook and corner of this magnificent place. After all someone had actually summed it up hundreds of years back. "Agar Firdaus Ba-Roohe Zameenast Hameenasto Hameenasto Hammenast..." which translates to if there is heaven on earth, its here, its here, its here.


KASHMIR: A word that defines the house of my soul. To truly define Kashmir I guess one needs a different landscape of words and paper.

The sun set
Kashmir for me is a collection of visions that I carry with me all the time. Memories running back in time. Clock hands slipping past each other. A whisper of a beautiful sun set. Memory of being spell bound by the power of a single colour. I had never been so over whelm with a single frame of life as that day when the star downed the earth and lucky me I had the camera to capture the eternity of a moment. Divya and I were back spending time with Mom and Dad in Kashmir for the spring. The rim of the tea cup was no more white. It had a tinge of bluishness reflected from the sky above. I checked the time and a perfect symmetry of 5:30 pm stared back at me. May be today could be our lucky charm. It`s our first day and the sky had been playing well. And much like a choreographed play all puffy clouds just vanished. The invitation extended from the rim of the cup. A last sip, a clean sweep of the camera and crazy heady drive realizing that when the star melts it melts fast over the horizon. The window of nuances is limited in perhaps no more than 10 minutes.

Dal Lake (the popular lake that sits in the middle of Kashmir valley) or Dal as it is popularly known has been sitting here before you and I were here. Perhaps before humans stepped onto this place. It has been here for thousands of years. And reflects the deep sense of calmness that Kashmir has imbibed from it. The sun sets on the far side of this lake behind the highest imaginable Himalayan ranges. These far off Himalayan mountains are generally covered with thick clouds and one rarely gets a clear vision of sun setting onto the peaks of these mountains. More over if by chance these mountains have clear weather the local clouds from within the valley obstruct the vision and hence makes clear sun sets a rare gift during spring time.
But then when least expected rare coincidence happens. And chosen ones get a chance to capture the most beautiful splendour of every 24 earthly hour.

So here we were. Our eyes focusing miles away trying to spot the opening up of weather on ranges that were at least 200 kms away from us and perhaps freezing at -45 degrees. The valley was clear only if the mountain weather cleared up just for the time being. Anyways we wont know if the weather has opened up until the sun hits the peak as it tries to settle behind them so there was no point searching for it. I relaxed for a while, settled the camera on the parapet and noticed that the camera lens was searching for the same vision as our eyes. The wide open lens zoomed to the max looked back onto the horizon without blinking even for a sec.

The sun started its journey towards the lower half of our world. The sky moved from deep tones of blue to tinge of orange. And as seconds moved in my watch the sun moved. With each tic the blue surrendered to the growing power of orange. Orange was more young , more impatient. It wanted to dominate, it wanted to live its short life. On the contrary blue was more quite. More mature and humble. He knew that for the larger length of the day he lay claim to the sky and not the orange. But now was the time for orange and as blue retreated into the blackness of the night orange came out shinning yet softer. It enveloped everything. From water surface to the shimmer of the ripples. It coloured Kashmir in monotone and what power it had. The world surrendered and in that bliss the gates opened up onto the far off Himalayan ranges. The outline of the sun nestled in between two peaks clear from this far away distance. I realized that since childhood when ever some one asked us to draw a scene we invariably drew a series of peaks with the sun nestled perfectly in between two peaks in our drawings. I never realized that our casual depictions were so close to the real show down.















Early spring: Permafrost had just melted. The soft patchy landscape was smoothening up. The hush of spring was clear yet the temperature was dipping by night time. This is too early for spring a voice proclaimed inside as the aircraft descended from the cloudy patch into the valley. It was the baker who said “Sahab apney Tulips dekhey” . I was so happy. I`v always wanted to do this but was never around this time in the valley. So the next morning we were there and what a sight it was.



Tulips is a real beauty with an individual entity







To be continued..

Common Wealth Games 2010 Opening Ceremony

Vaishnav Jan to taynay kahyeeye, Jay peerh paraayee janney ray( One who is pure Knows the pain of others). There is something far deeper in those words than what one reads. We all sat at the edge of our seats with eyes wide open perhaps hazed by the emotions. These were not emotions of sorrow but a swell of realization what it meant to breathe and live a concept called India. What it must have been 60 years back and where we are now. Two billion people connected in an instant but for the 60 thousand of us in the JLN stadium the moment was bigger. Trust me if anyone would have asked us where we were the unanimous answer would have been “At the centre of milky way”. India stood up in the afterglow of Bapu and perhaps saw the true meaning of his words “Believe in yourself and the world will believe in you”. Those words gave this nation freedom and in that split second again freed all from the negative vibes of CWG. India is here and India is ready were the soft words from Dr. Manmohan Singh. It was around 4pm and I had been busy with my laptop. The sun was softening up. Whitish light was now amber with the hue of orange and yellow filtering gently through the curtain. The phone rang and Divya`s voice sounded softer than the amber sun light “I have a pass for the opening ceremony”. I was out of the house with UD in next 10 minutes. WOW! We are gonna see the opening ceremony. What luck! Little did I realize that by the end of the day this luck and experience would be so amazing. Getting closer to stadium took me back almost 28 years back. It was 1982 games and the same venue. I still remember watching the bright lights of the stadium visible from our house balcony. Sound perforating the air and a part of me staying silent felling a bit left out. Not any more, the time moved on and here I was “2010”. Walking with my kid on my shoulder to the same venue. I instantly felt like travelling back in time and reaching out to my balcony. Meeting my self as a kid and telling him “Don`t feel bad you will see this in a much bigger arena”. The stadium looked awesome. The visuals were alluring and steps moved faster. The invitation was in the air and people realized it (60thousand people travelled from all over Delhi to be there). We stepped in and the first word out was WOOOO!! It was like opening up Pandora’s Box. Bright, colourful, pulsating with a kind of energy that is rare to experience. A huge balloon (actually it`s a complex floating platform called the aerostat with six internal chambers complete with sensor based air flow and gyroscopes) about the size of half of a football field floated mystically above and claimed to the sky for the evening. The aerostat doubled up as the floating screen projecting Kaleidoscope of India. Drops of rain gently touching green grass, flowers unfurling and the sights of India distributed from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. The mirrors on the aerostat projected the amalgamation of colours. The purple which softened up with a hue of red as dancers stepped out. The pattern changed with the video of incredible India and the green now touched the heavens of blue. The entire stadium looked like a pearl now. A ray of light escaping the edge of a cloud projected. The burning of a coal leaving behind the touch of coke and the space of time all floating in sight high above on the surface of this magnificent balloon. The lights went dim in the tones of hue separations. The video dominated the balloon with the words floating calling out “Incredible India”

I stole a moment and looked back. Almond eyes looking up, a smile gentle and sustained. UD sat there and through him I wondered what he must be experiencing. Perhaps for him much like for all the young ones it was only natural to see life colours played out in real world. For the grown ups though it was different and perhaps for most it was the first and a unique experience. 50,000 watt moved air waves and the voice introduced the games, the people and culture. The sound was familiar yet very distant. Opening up with the oldest instrument lama`s played the 1500 year old legacy and sounds of Dung-chen followed by deep notes of bass drums. The reverberations were spiritual. The music had no definition except it belonged to the deep tones of Himalayan foot hills. One could just close the eyes and see the Kanchanjunga. Clouds layering each slope in subtle tones of bluish grey. As if some one knew this vision while creating this piece the lights came out in perfect coordination. The intro lasted for about 10 minutes and when it ended the cheer was louder than the music. Hariharan! The deep sound, the colonial cousin from the past walked into the limelight. Swagatam beautifully rendered in the drops of literati. The waves of sitar notes flowed and the mellowness of the opening ceremony was felt. The pose was captured. Performers in ocean blue waved as if eyes were reaching them in complete detail. The distance of the stadium was only in the space and not in the being. The energy displayed by the performers reached out clear and deep. The soft rythm and performance settled for a bit of a silence and one voice came up. INDIA clap clap clap INDIA clap clap clap. The power of our connection is evident in moments like these. In our diversity lies our strenght. In our hope lies our future. In our resembelance lies our identity. In our background lies our memories. In our moment of this chanting lies what this nation demands “Find your connection of being one. Find your purpose and not your process. Find the meaning of stripes and not the colors. Find what it means to be an Indian and I as a nation would find your place in this world.” The music picked up, the voice spoke of the spiritual understanding, the initiation of our journey that starts from out side and ends within. The composition reflecting the nuances of sun kissed beaches to rain forest of deep north eastern regions. The bass pulling the strings from brahmaputra and depositing the fall in genlte flow of safron fields in Kashmir. Can a diverse land speak the same language of inner discovery. Is it any different was the question. The golden fabric displayed the art and the questions answered on the way. And as the music flowed through the astrostat came to life. A towering human figure apearing from the land of yoga and reaching up to the discovery of seven chakras of enrgy, peace, discovery, creativity, conciousness, freedom and divinity. The blueness of light mingled with the towering human figure as if it had its consciousness spread out to all that were present there. Railways? What? Was my question. The voice just declared the next performance would role out from the Indian Railways. And I was searching for ideas in my mind as to how they would present and what will they present. Suddenly we heard the loud whistle of a train and the Bollywood number Chainya Chaniya. In a typical bollywood grander than life approach. A beautiful illuminated rail on wheels with the great Indian tamasha rolled out. And it just kept coming. It was like India was packed up in details and just poured out of the gateway hall on to the main stage. From Mumbai dabba walla to the brick maker, to the Chai stall to the cut outs of Amitabh`s coolie , Shah Rukh Khan`s open arms to thief chasing police van. It was all out there and people just rolled. I am sure if those barricades were not there half of the stadium would have ended up onto the stage. The evening was closing in. The time moved faster and the fervour just wished more of it. The anticipation was high. Eyes searching for the Magic. A true wizard of notes and symphony. The music and notes eagerly awaited. Dilli meri jaan said the air and the stadium turned to a mega Rock Show. Groovy moves, hand slams and climbing onto the seats was natural. The groove of the song was upto the jive.. Man this was getting better and better. The voice came over once again and said “And now ladies and Gentlemen please welcome the one and the only A. R Rehman. Jeet lo! And almost all knew the words followed in the same tone. This was followed by Jai Ho. Pure delight not only for the native but for the global citizens. Jai Ho was the call of the moment. The moment moved in physicality and sound. For tomorrow would be another day and the spirit of games shall prevail. The 11 days of competition and a place called Dilli meri jan was born in a ceremony we will call the CWG 2010 opening ceremony now and what an evening it turned out.