Open Water Certified!

Finally, Open Water Certified!

My forearms burn, like they have rashes and now I know what sunburn means. The end, having completed my OWD requirements and now waiting for certification, feels anticlimactic. So, it had to be said a couple of times in the form of ‘congratulations!’ to let it sink in (haha). I’d been saying it in half serious words that I wanted to get OWD ever since my first dive in 2014. So, it took some real courage, manifested in relatively simple actions - booking a train to go, withdrawing money to pay, sitting with myself poring through the manual, encountering the examination-me emerge from forgotten depths (must get full marks). None of the puns in this post are intended, mostly because so much of talk on land and life is seeped in the metaphors of the sea and navigation. Point is, there was a lot of pressure, mostly internal, much like how the body feels when under water. The liquids inside decompress well but the air cavities need equalizing to release pressure. For those who haven’t dived before, equalizing is a thing you do every few meters as you descend into the water, pop your ears by gulping. The metaphors of pressure are literal in water.
I always liked how the sea or ocean is a force way mightier than any man, so in swimming or diving, the golden rule is to respect your limits and never go beyond them. In a guided recreational dive where they pack and suit you up and as long as you breathe alright, you’ll quickly forget the force of water. Heck, you won’t know what to make of the seriousness of an 18 meter descent or how nitrogen bubbles can fuck you up. Like a child who doesn’t know what fire means. OWD is different, the fishies become secondary. The precise marvel of the silence and, the paradigmatic shift that undersea offers to creatures of land habits and territorial transactions - there’s not so much of that. It’s business. In fact our dives happened in really low visibility and we hardly saw any fish or corals :)
Before I wrap up my emotional “debrief” (:P), partly as a way of appreciating my own recreational choices, I was wondering if any and all sport that requires deep engagement, understanding and respect of natural forces, also makes its practitioner better people - more mindful, considerate and humble🤷🏽‍♀
I’m sure there are awful people who make for great divers technically but the whole concept of buddy-work, the constant awareness of your limits underwater, the amount of backups that a diving system involves - the values designed into diving, I’m full of grateful and kind vibes that make me smile while the certificate is on its way :)
My amazing teacher Mr Praveen BK is wholly responsible for how positive and confident my experience was. I’m so glad I was his first student! If you ever decide to dive or get certified, find him at West Coast Adventures in Kaup, Karnataka!

Series: There's always two of us

Because we rarely see the ground we cover

The thunder thieving

It seems strange to me that lumps in memory only happen to a few of us, at least consciously. For me, a concentrated mulling is the roadblock of the otherwise speeding attention wagon, like water passing through a pipe with lumps of acerbic soluble substances, passing each time, melting a little of that and this, renewing throbbing pain, nostalgia, anguish, little brush strokes in the larger dark daubs of angst. I should not even begin on the German-ness of angst; it turns me into a Greek tragedy conversely.

The beginnings of an Indian summer, although drastically changing with the passing days, still ushers in the usual love-hate with sweet heat and occasional breezes in the 4 p.m. culmination of a not hurried, never occupied day. These days remind me of the “mighty heart” metaphor, huge and bulb like, rising like hopeful dough, deflating in familiar normalcy. Despite the general pleasantness of these surroundings and a color palette of dark browns and ochre of the shedding trees, anticipating little moist spells of air, when I am spiraling down, it’s just further downhill. No self picture of a girl with a backpack and a paper plane in hand, no catching the wind in hair as faint freckled pink turns to sandstone on skin, nor any spontaneous buckling under a greenwood tree and reading some Rilke poetry. It wasn’t always so, of course, not until the newest lump.

He and many others laugh, or dismiss with a “not-again” groan, when I often mention of my cruel ‘love-spots’. Of love I have much to say, but that is reserved for wittier days. Love spots are typically those ‘Alchemist’ spots where “the whole universe conspires for you to fall in love…”In my case,music moves my cheese. In the last remains of my romantic imagination, there would be a spot, a situation and a song in the background that would all ‘enable my access’ to love, like a bomb blast in the background and a Faiz recital in the side wing or a sulky Darbari song. Less dramatic, to wake up and march in the lobby to Bjork or walk through a loaded day with Fiona Apple and get drunk and lip-sync to Portishead. The list goes on and love-faces could be many. But, basically, one needs a background score to the play of daily life! This should answer my parent’s persistent surprise at teens with headphones.

The more I realized this, the abysmal lack of possessing one became. An i-pod that is. Or any music player, I am not an Apple snob. Switching over, after months of losing it to you, oh nameless thief of a commodified market, I weep silently every noon. This is where the impersonal industrial society pokes me in the shins and this defines oppression for me. Not burgers and colas and sky scrapers.
There used to be a roaring cloud above the head with ears stuffed beneath. The thief stole all my thunder away. Gone far away.

Of Pushkar and towns

These are pictures of the Pushkar fair that happens in Rajasthan every year. You can find more pictures on my facebook album. In the month of travels, the next destination was Pushkar. This was almost a photography trip, eight people armed with seven SLR cameras only to reach and find another thousand odd camera loaded curious tourists around. However, this is not only about Pushkar. The inklings of the experiences I am about to narrate started in Gokarna and Hampi, a couple of months ago. Little kids running about offering to pose for photographs, women swaying their colorful skirts nod, heads slanted, perfect play of light and shadow, camels decorated so elaborate and their owners curling their mustaches. You almost want to rush and talk to them, how is it to live in a desert? How do you cook and what do you eat? Sigh, if you could only speak their tongue. Or, maybe not, what would you like Sir, Madam? Deutsche ou Francais? Hablo espanol, even better I am fluent with Hebrew, will that do? Tired of our local food, would you like some falafel or Malawach or Fatut? How about some peach flavored iced tea under the mud thatched roof?
To the unsuspecting Indian tourist, this might just look like a film set. Backdrop of giant wheels, bubbles in the air, turkish pants in the shops and one exotic photo for only five rupees pliss pliss
This is not to scowl or mock the exotic tourist extravaganza on which these places survive. Rather it is for those who like me realize late how the rural to semi rural spaces that used to define the essence of India are holding on to those huge colorful placards of charming Indian-ness while adapting to urban consumption underneath. The language of consumption is so skewed and firmly performed, managing to serve daal baati churma and Scotch in the same wink clearly shows things have changed so much.
Again, this is not to make a point or argue for some colonial dips that keep circus artists and camel riders in Pushkar and such towns alive. It's queer, almost unsettling, how the longing, aloof sand dunes that I was so eager to sleep on are a mere construct, towns of cardboard and nicely placed dolls. I move along, munching on Bruschetta, sipping on lemon tea, my embroidered jhola drags along.

The Taj hugging story

For those who wonder where I have been, I was off to Agra to meet the dead queen :P
Quite literally this month has been the most apt definition of adventure, not necessarily pleasant though. With a weekly record of losing almost everything valuable, including a phone (and hence no communication for days now on) I have done it all. This trip was with the Mumbai friend who had also (like many of us) not seen the Taj Mahal! Back when I was a little girl, my mother showed me pictures of her first trip after marriage ( I won't say the word!) and there she was, standing as tall as the Taj Mahal and touching its tip with her fingers! The photo caught my fascination and ever since I had been wanting to make "the" trip to Taj Mahal. We also visited the ruins of Fatehpur Sikri. A small advertorial note: choose youth hostel if you know not where to stay!
But, all the minute travelogue details apart, I have been asking myself, why write a travel entry? You would surely find a million others on famous places as such and once they are old, the information obsolete. Also, I have realized that increasingly, my travels are not about the place, they are about places within. Astonishingly how, while reprimanding a wicked bus conductor or bargaining with a guide, frowning at the fellow tourist or laughing as you eat aloo tikki in Taj ganj, every street, every wall, each man's two eyes and every woman's pocket holds just one little thing out to you: mirrors. They keep reflecting facets of you that come out, or are born in not-so-ordinary circumstances.
Coming back to this trip, as we walked patiently entering gate by gate to see the white marble monument of love and grandeur, people's voices kept ringing in my ears. Many told me how I'd be disappointed,how places don't live up to their hype. For me, it wasn't true. It was so gorgeous that we circled it for almost two hours before we even touched a brick of the main building. Almost postcard-ish in memory.
Such was the romance of the dead silent place it continues to ooze in bits and pieces, I can hardly visualize it entirety. While leaving, as I hugged it, I donated two beats of my throbbing life to the slumbering queen inside.

Sariska and the travel birthday:Fish, tigers and age

I sat again, fretting at the edge of the epic twentieth birthday, it will JUST be another birthday of 178 facebook wishes and 20 twitter mentions, 10 calls and millions of handshakes and hugs. It is me, my birthday! How could it possibly not be big, fun etc? And, enter Chandan Gomes and his prized silver Santro car. *drum rolls*
Sariska, the tiger reserve in Rajasthan happened, a drive, yes. Exhausting, yes. But, exciting-typical-Noopur birthday? Yes!
The night started with baked cheese cake and other chocolate cake and ended in... McDonalds! I realize over years, McDonalds has stood for me, many things. It stands for the face of consumerism, the shiny place of eternal advertisement poster happiness that I never participated in my childhood in. It stands for all the Barbies I never had, all the remote cars I watched from afar and all the Super Marios I played only at a chance relative house visit. My romanticizing of McDonalds must irk you, make you laugh too maybe.
The morning too began with the same. We did not spot tigers, I doubt there are any, but we pretended to be very interested in clicking pictures of Peacocks and monkeys, all other tourist followed us, making the most of their trip :) Come le dejeuener, hunger growled like a tiger from the depths of our stomachs and we landed at this haven of food, not only food for body,but food for thought! The picture do the job, though I'd allow myself some space to describe "The Quest" cafe in the middle of Sariska town/village, its walls etched in "Free Tibet" slogans and wind chimes, surreal!
The walls dripped of poems, painted with fish, wouldn't you think this is some dreamy destiny moment, for me to encounter wall full of fish and sweet word nothings and Buddha mentions on the wall! This is what birthdays should be, a moment of crazy crazy delight. I couldn't get over it the entire day, of course. Hence, the fish eye pictures too! :)
Thanks much to all the cats, fishes, Pablo Nerudas, friends, frenemies and unknowing, unsuspecting display picture admirers, birthdays like these ease the anxiety of turning 20 (or 47, as many would agree). To celebrate the larger travel of life, by the metaphor of the car travel, it was a literary moment of joy!

Picture, lens curtsey: Chandan Gomes

Bah-bye Taiwan- Day III and return

Anecdote one:
Perched at the edge of the Shi'lin market road, as she munched harmlessly onto some veggies, a taxi driver harkened in the background, collecting all his English words with great effort, an unmatched prowess to convey: "Eu... Eu...ahr a rabbit!" Huh, what! And,then came the aha moment, well yeah, I was munching on a carrot. He wasn't the only one, almost every third passerby was slightly amused at a carrot muncher, so was the shop keeper who broke into genuine hundred percent laughter. Of course, even you would, if 95 shops in your market sold every variety of meat possible, and the other 5 had fruits (rose apples that leak and burst in your mouth!). This was the story of every lunch and dinner in Taiwan, the vegetarian grumbling and fussing drones in the air, "NOT meat, not chicken, not beef, not pork, not fish, not salmon, not eggs...ve-jee-tay-rean". This baffled most people there, there remains little to eat, though you can always resort to rice cakes, tofu and bean pastes!

Anecdote two: KFC is home
So, after a satisfying shopping spree for 2.5 hours, hunger screamed from the deepest corners of my stomach. This is how I thought of food in Taiwan: Hunger-food-daal-rice-not-vegetables-fruits-mcdonalds-all non veg-despair-hunger-apples-sigh. But, I thought to take my chances, to go to KFC to eat vegetarian, yes, something a normal Indian vegetarian would never do. Of course I found nothing, but I desperately bought a beverage. As I sipped on it, the familiar taste, of at least something tasting the same made me feel so good! For people who scream hoarse at these capitalist food chains, there are certain experiences that only KFC and McDonalds reproduce anywhere you go. Thank God for that.

Story of the city, workshop and scrubbed clean solitude:
The workshop to begin with, was good, very vague but, a lot of food for thought. The people I met, never had imagined meeting someone from Kyrgyztan or Moldova, but I did and loved it! The city, yes, how American! All clean, large 'freeways', less people, the modern buildings, typical urban imagination, tall and shiny. Maybe its just a scared little girl's first time in the foreign lands, but it was so different than where I live. Not only do cows and dogs stay out of the picture, but also the personal space seemed larger. The freeways to me, seemed hopelessly alone, or maybe I am just very uncomfortable with halogen lamps and buzzing cars. These are the fleeting impressions of Taipei, though something remarkable to leave you all with: the way the people thank and welcome anybody at all. Shie shie, for all the warmth.
Bah-bye (head tilted at 45 and hand shows peace sign) :)

Taiwan-Taipei: Part II (The Digital Natives talk back)

Day 2 in Taipei:
Set the alarm for 6 (IST) and wake up to 9:36 a.m. Taiwanese time, rush hour. Made it in the nick of time, talking back starts. Flash talks, presentations, keynote speeches, activity, lots of drilling, questioning, talking it through to the extent that this digital native begins to doubt her own focus/aims/agenda etc. Confusion is healthy (at least on the first day). The evening follows with an equally packed entertaining city tour. The Shi'da night market! Trust me, this has to be one of the most intercultural (hah, I had to use that as a foreign delegate :P )experiences I've had: vegetarian Greek food in Taipei on the Chinese Valentine's day! Yes, it was the valentine's day (or a similar legend) here and the menu had pink hearts (I sound like a journalist now, this daily blogging destroys my obscurity techniques).
So, the highlights of the day, things you might want to do if you too get a free unexpected trip to Taiwan:
Stinky Tofu!!! As the name suggests, this food stinks horribly, almost (mildly disgusting) but you should eat it, worth an experience. True, it grows on you, like beer. (I am not the faint hearted, mind you!)
Jasmine tea: Iced tea with jasmine flavor, I tried the orange and Jasmine before that, tea is something I've learnt to appreciate here.
Of course I owe the pleasure of a head dive into Taiwanese peculiarities to Nishant and Zona (shie shie!).
Now, that all the worldly details are done with, the parallel universe of the mind and the eyes are discovering the place bit by bit, open spaces, fewer people, vacuum nothings happening around and giving some temporal space to gulp the surroundings in. Sleep evades me, rightly this city doesn't make me want to curl up and snore. There are few pictures with this post, of the food, street, people at conference.
(ps. the waiters are really cute and earphones really funky :P)
Goodnight world, too soon for India, too late for Taiwan!

Taiwan-Taipei: Part I (The travel)

There, made it. Crossed the seas and got the stamps. Ran around and seen all the gigantic airports. This is of course quite unlike the well cherished 'first overseas trip' dream I ever harbored which included the entire family crying and waving goodbye, garlands and some fancy overcoats (drama is essential). Before I start on how this trip is turning out so far, you all unknown thousand faces must know, I will try my best to update everyday, for four days at least, sort of live blogging, with pictures.
Now, philosophically, beyond the realm of yummy duty free swiss chocolates and a purse full of money, waiting for you to spend it, there lies a larger sigh. There is always some respiration in between a lot of action. This particular deep breath was a nostalgic realization that people are shaped by their pasts. Everything that we do is usually motivated by our past experiences and while occupied at the surface level with this exercise,we are also simultaneously creating the present of the past (like Schlondorff's 'Ten minutes...") And that is why, the oh-so-existential self seeks oils and spice in the midst of lush south Indian cuisine, and the moment it migrates to the ever desired dreamy north India, it runs to the nearest 'Sarvanna Bhavan'. There, while eating the last morsel of butter masala roast dosai, I realize the past is changing too, the present's filling it.

Now, for the Formosa isle, or Tai-won! It rarely occurs that I board a flight/train early. I ran again, almost missed it. Here I am posting some pictures of the "much" coveted Hong Kong airport that I could hardly see, given the rush and some Taipei street photos. The food, yes, boiled vegetables and rice, some awesome canned orange and jasmine tea and a few chopstick battle hours later, the digital native is breathing online :P Tomorrow should be fun, the workshop starts and so does the city tour! Will post, as the promise is made. Only to remember that they break real fast :)

Allo, one photo please!

These are the most frequently occurring utterances that I heard as I traversed along the western coastline from Hampi, much inland to Gokarna and then Goa. Deck up in some mismatched bright clothes and carry a big fancy camera, keep pointing it to people and you will know how both of them interact: some serious lens talk with those beautiful village made photogenic visages ready to pose as exotically, bringing out each emotion in every young wrinkle, depth and curve. Quite amusing, how people in public spaces get affected by camera lenses. The idea of being watched through a lens, as I hypothesized and kept speculating throughout the trip across varied reactions from people including the upfront refusal to be clicked and the sly sliding into the imagined frame, all of this generated some curiosity as to what these people be thinking of getting their photo clicked by someone who is not even going to give it to them, what happens of this picture, do people think it is safe or does it glorify them?
So, I take some space to narrate some anecdotal camera encounters (camera almost transforms into some magical parrot character!) and the above pasted pictures are also of those curious clever street models who very willingly got etched into visual history by me :) As we strutted in Hampi, so touristically well pruned and marked, boards spit recommendations of the 'Lonely Planet' and in a conservative town of ruins, streets spill out uber bohemian libertine dresses, you meet little Indian angels all clad in modest third world attire. The moment they see your camera, their eyes light up, the tidied expressions act much as the rouge, they know how to pose, they know where to stand, such composition friendly muses positioned all over!
While clicking old to young, white to black, tiny and big, the traditional Lambada tribe people and others, we met a shop owner in Gokarna who sells temple stuff. And as I clicked his picture, he fished out a tiny verbal memoir of his previous encounters with the camera, a 'URL' where you could see his photo and he also suggested how to best take his picture! On the other hand, old 'ajji' clad in Lambada costume promptly recited: "Allo, fifty rupees photo!"
As speculated, it is perhaps the tourism driven daily happenings of the place that translate clicking pictures into the acts of being published in some medium, also an appreciation of the 'exotic' value imbibed by the people of the place. Also, there are some who shy away, the panoptic gaze, feeling of being surveilled, of being shot to some undetermined limelight and put in front of thousands of unknown eyes somewhere else, the lack of control over the act.
To sum up, the past few days of lens talking have been delightful in the least, to plop yourself in the middle of the busy market, watch as some stop, some pose, some smile, the others squirm suspiciously, walk out of the frame, some plead and the rest start hollering in excitement, as if all those are waiting for one attempt at being celebrated and all you need is, "Allo, one photo please!"

The French connection

This is about the trip that is just over. A trip to Pondicherry (Puducherry). All those streets and those houses that were yellow and gray and blue. All streets named in French. So many people who spoke french. I was bummed. I cannot and am too exhausted to romanticize about the place but there is a beach between auroville and Pondy where I went at night. It was a fantasy, like some ancient African dance to beckon the moon hiding behind the clouds and the waves roaring, invading the land slight by slight. There are not many pictures of the place because it was birthday party scene and most pictures are of people. Still, I have just put some visual memory for color. It was a beautiful trip because I could still confidently speak french and connect to the french way of thinking and gasping about typical frivolities.
Je me disais que c'etait fini, que c'etait l'histoire. Mais les sentiments sont bien preserves, meme aujourd'hui. C'est comme un grand sac dans lequel il ya des mots pour la meme image mais dont la description la rend completement differente.

When I first saw the sea

One of us, she saw the sea for th first time ever in Manipal. The trip was fun. We walked and jumped and spoke and ate and travelled. I had a weird feeling standing at the brink of the sand dispersing in water and was so tempted to write. No camera could pan the whole sky, the sea up till the horizon and the stretch of white sand that my eyes were feasting on. Blue wisps of liquid hit my white pearly walls. Plastic, oil and sand were gracing my scalp cream. Rub some slick ash on the border of my vision, the Sun has already friend my pink, deep golden. Smoothen the waves and curves of supple margarine bosom,brush red mud off my soles and wave my hand to little clusters of tadpoles. I breathed air. I had fun!

Pikters skipters

Wanted urgently!!

Standing on a fleeting train is the most fun a girl can have in the absence of a camera. I was comiing back on the train via Launda-Meeraj route. It was so liberating that it could untangle knotted life strands in seconds. I saw the most beautiful Ghats that I see all the time. Then, I decided. I want to work for 8 months a year, for the rest 4, I will travel, eat, cook, click, meet and pass the self through shredding machines of popular culture, collect various whoa artefacts and be happy. All this sounded really fun until I realised I would not like to do it alone. But, I am very particular as to who I may not want along. But, I really want someone, girl/boy to come on this journey by trains, buses, planes, feet,cycles, rain, sun,night, day etc.I do not have too much patience and bag packing is not required for this stuff. So, just whisper if you wanna come along. I ll buzz you when I run away. Something very motorcycle diaries minus the life changing,world improving ambitions.

The Gujju Colonizer

I goes to Kerala, full thoughts in mind about "mallu" insects swarming the land and sweat and coconut oil flooding the place. Been a long time I wrote I know. Actually I did have not photus to add. I still do not of real pleicuz in Keraylaa.
See, honestly the trip was no different. It does matter not whether young Werther goes to Kaashmeer or Kerayla. All peoples looks same only. All foods we carrying along iz Gujjuice only. So, for ten days there I eated Gujjuice foods and I drinked coconut water ( which is by thee way cheaper in Gujarat). I see Elephants with big big trunks and two two teeths outside eating grass. Aunty with big big goggles said " Oye, I see more fat elephant in aapnu Amdavad! and *snigger* Pinky finded pani puri in Kerayla." What fun, no? Everywhere in India, Gujjuice brand is international! We menace poor natives, we brings our own bags loaded with theplas, we shout out loud, we wear flamboyant clothes and we make fun of any bloody pagan sounding unfamiliar word!
Of course, of course, we are the only civilized, fun loving rich peoples around!
So, I am posting one of the happy memories photo. Later will come more "scene-scenery" photos.

In the train, icicles on bile bag

Collect spontaneous outbursts of iggle-oggle creativity. Sad face Pa,I am leaving again. And the face turned 180 only to bare buckteeth. Then started off the 1600kms with Binah, Abana, Sekhmet and Ms.Lilo dally. Around those oblong elliptical silhouettoes and bulging bile bags consuming ever more, burping sounds from a distant universe. You just want to hush em off and empty your bile bag. Or-kid-ium all around, icicles rubbing up against the skin, a rough wry pimply wrinkled face and the train still jerks on. It moves a little, shakes you, rocks the cradle, balances the timely falls and moves on. Enough you all morons around feeding attention to a pack of cards! I marched out. Beyond the travelogue frame scenes of green and brown, the eye fixates on patches of blue. Blue in the sky, water and then turning grey, some blue spattered suddenly on your hand, in the crevices of those black nails. You see fluid, plasmic, orgasmic, color! Bursting peals of laughter around as the feet long to live the becky dream of running on the black soft mud. Imagine winkle, if orange peels grew on olive creepers and cried indigo tears all day... Flaming red brittle strands all wet in an inundation of sheer heathen ignorant joy... Hop on a train and jump before the destination. You ll feel like me! A run away!