On Sugar Paper

I have realized that I love travel. I especially enjoy journeys. They are the truest free moments of one's life. One is right in the middle of two places- the one you have left behind and the one you are supposed to be at. There is no place you are supposed to be. Road, rail, flight- I enjoy all of them. I have been taking the chance and travelling at every opportunity I get, here in Malaysia. The first few weeks, every place I went to was new and thereafter, I deliberately made plans to visit new places. The Bird Park at KL, the Museum, Sky bars (that deserves a long post by itself) and later on Malacca, Ipoh, Gemas and my latest was Penang. I have been to Penang before hence Penang is the first foreign place that I have visited twice. (Woohoo!) With my travel buddy Jimena, I have been discovering and learning. My trip to Penang, a few days ago has to be one of the best trips of my life. I rediscovered Martin, my guardian angel. Thanks also to Jimena. ...

Discovery is magic. It is. Think of another word to describe the word discover and I am not sure if anything comes closer to convey the emotion of the word other than magic. As a traveller, one is a discoverer. The person has embarked on a journey to find something- a new place, a new flavour, a new person, an experience or maybe just some peace. Every single step of that process can be a new lesson. Take for example, my first ever trip to US. It was the first time I was being abroad and there were a thousand things that were going to be my first. In an email that VM wrote to me just before I was about to leave and on knowing that I was terribly nervous, he said, that I should enjoy every bit of it. My first trip to the international airport, the first time I would be interviewed by the immigration department, the first time on an international flight and the list went on. I think discovering that the word ‘keluar’ means ‘exit’ in Malaysia, or that ‘tandas’ means toilet is also par...

The first butterfly I ever reared from pupa stage to first flight was Mishka. This was in mid 2013 and when Mishka finally flew, I felt like she was leaving me a message- she wanted me to learn something. All of us at home got very emotional when Mishka left. I think she made everyone think something. I have had so many butterflies after Mishka that I have lost count. I would run short of names when I had to name them and there are so many who have left without me seeing them. But Mishka was different. Maybe because she was the first ever. A butterfly's life cycle is used as inspiration. There are so many lessons that one can derive from metamorphosis- the value of struggle, perseverance, the promise of potential and so forth. For me, all these were stories (incidentally, the first lesson I ever taught as a teacher was 'the hungry caterpillar') but witnessing it was something else. I am 'flying' on Sunday. I have been at home and working from home for two yea...

I want my wedding to be special. I want everything on my wedding day to have meaning. Sue had to meet the students for whom her organization conducts sessions. After a long session in a dingy madarassa, we decided to take a walk in the community. The community is a settlement of weavers. They weave sarees on power looms and handlooms. One uncle who sat through Sue’s entire session, invited us home. He has been a weaver since the time he was a little child. His daughters sat in the house and decorated a saree. Uncle showed us some pieces of cloth and forced Sue to keep one. She refused to take it and I wondered if it was a good thing to do. She explained that it hurt her to take something that requires days to make, for free. I reasoned that, when someone gifts us something, we elevate the position of the giver by humbling receiving. Finally, Sue relented and accepted the gift. They also packed a separate piece for me! I received it humbly and greedily. I am a sucker for freebies! ...

I have been hanging out with some foreigners who have been in India for a while. I definitely like their company but I have been terribly put off by their nasty comments on India. I know that India can be an annoying country especially some of the men (I remember I was standing to cross the street with a foreigner friend and a man on a bike made a rude remark when he saw an attractive white woman and I said in my mind, India- I hate you sometimes) but I have been exasperated by these generalised statements that they have been making. I sometimes think they are racist, derogatory and I am very often tempted to tell them to go back. I think I am turning into a xenophobe. When I was in Gurgaon for work, a lot of my colleagues were terrified of venturing out in the night, told the guards with complete paranoia not to open the gates for anyone, and conjured up possibilities of danger that I never even thought were possible. I asked my friend who is a resident of Delhi (and works in Gur...

The Achieve Together Conference had just ended on Saturday and my team and I left Gurgaon in our colleague’s car to Delhi. We had a train to catch at 4.40 pm and the car was filled with lots of material that was left from the conference. Six of us were crammed in her car along with standees, banners, leftover gifts and pieces of luggage. It was raining in Gurgaon- Delhi. It was also Raksha Bandhan. This meant that scores of families were on the road to meet relatives to celebrate the festival. I think there is no culture of carrying rain gear in these two cities. Susan and I, true blue Mumbaikars carried our umbrella and raincoat. We also wore our rain shoes. Sue all dressed up. With her god child. And an Umbrella. All of us in the car watched people on the street getting completely drenched and wondered how they managed. At a traffic signal when we halted, our eyes fell on a girl on a bike. She was completely wet and her white thin shirt turned transparent and clung to her. ...

In a few weeks I am going to visit Varanasi, one of India’s holiest cities for the first time. I have been to Agra in Uttar Pradesh, just for a day and also on another occasion visited Fatehpur Sikri. My friend, Sue, also works for a not for profit and was asked by her organization to assist in conducting career guidance workshops for children in observation homes. I am tagging along. While she takes the session, I will be taking in the city. I have heard a lot about Varanasi. The recent central elections had two powerful contenders fighting for the same seat. The river Ganga’s cleaning, the population, the weavers were all words and phrases I kept hearing. A while earlier, during the Kumbh Mela, although being held in Allahabad, the river Ganga’s plight was much in focus. Images of priests, the devout, lamps floating in the rivers and smoke arising are what I carry as identity of Varanasi. Once in a History class, I shared with my students, that when Shivaji was proclaiming himself...