Butt End of Winter

Around the corner cometh spring. There’s this treasure trove of gratitude in my heart as I take to the nature trails around us. For all of it, nature’s offerings seem even more vivid on the cusp between winter and summer. Some days the skies turn leaden, swollen with unspent rain clouds. On others, the lightest of blue skies be littered with cotton candy clouds, the trails around us alive with the cheeping and chittering of many eastern bluebirds, robins and mockingbirds, armies of busy, little woodpeckers carrying on with the business of pecking, and geese honking away in strident tones, conducting conversations in a language quite so foreign to this human listener. The boughs are astir with buds, hordes of magnolias promising to show up soon in their showy loveliness with fuzzy silver buds already saying hello to the onlooker. We are in the quiet phase of nesting, having spent most of the year gone travelling and mooching around the globe. Sometimes it may encourage ennui, these days of being at home, but on others, I appreciate the need to live a life of routine. Because more than we know, we need this. Be grounded. Connect with our inner selves. Be playful, such as pretending to be a beaver bringing trunks down (on a serious note though, I could not be as hard working as a beaver — just look at the marvellous job one elusive but persistent fellow has wrought). But that’s how one humours her husband. Or, be all about finishing tomes — my recent rereads including Herman Wouk’s war epics. Or, be mindful about most things on a day-to-day basis, right from skincare to fashion to what I put on our plates. Just the ordinary life, you know, one that feels fulfilling.

Arundhati Basu6 Comments

This Blogger’s Back

I have been away for a year from this space now. Long enough that it feels strange to spill my thoughts into a post. It being a grey morning, a procession of soggy days having preceded it, I can think of no better thing than letting my thoughts run wild as I make my way back (albeit, gingerly) to the blog. In between writing, when I do take a break and step onto our back porch to re-invigorate the senses with the earthy scent of the outdoors, am sent back in with the indignant chittering of the robin who has laid a couple of blue eggs in the nest that has been home to two sets of fledglings last spring. Could it be the same robin? I have no clue. But it knew about the nest skulking under the rafters of the porch. Back at my desk, I ponder. Where do I even begin. You know we live to travel — and well, we have been doing so in the last year, making our across the likes of Sardinia, Tuscany, Portugal, and lately, India. Culling experiences, memories. Alongside, acquiring a new best mate, Covid, as we hop on and off planes.

If I am to write of it in reverse, I should probably start with India. After three long years, we were back in the subcontinent and the senses were overwhelmed. Oh, the food. Oh, the heat. Yet, April was not the cruellest month, for the heat gathers steam as the months pass. I spent a few days in Delhi with my in-laws and caught up with a handful of close friends. It was pleasant – though the pollution was palpable. The bulk of my holidays were spent in Calcutta, tucked in with my parents at home, devouring my mother’s healthy meals and doing yoga. When Adi joined us for a couple of days, he had a treat in reserve for us. He whisked us off for a night to a penthouse in the heart of the city, an experience curated by a tea estate of repute in the Himalayas. We did a double take when we landed up outside a tall building sheathed in blue glass, stationed as it is on a bustling street of Calcutta, home to many an auction house, bishop’s palace and old Chinese dry cleaners. But the lift that opened up into the lobby of the penthouse was a portkey. We had walked into old-world Bengal. Antique colonial furniture decorated every suite, from the four-poster beds and wooden shutters to the chaise lounges and armchairs, their elegance accentuated by upholstery that came in hues of muted green, yellows and whites, kantha stitched cushions, soft cotton quilts with botanical prints. The bathrooms were gigantic. I felt like a queen swishing through them, appreciating the effect of the chequered marble floors, the shutters to screen out the hot sun, the sizeable bathtub and the walk-in shower.

A long-drawn lunch in one of our favourite old Chinese restaurants in the city, and we were back at the penthouse, ready for afternoon tea on the terrace, framed picturesquely by tall potted plants. Hot as it was, a gentle breeze nonetheless dissipated the mugginess of the early evening as we were sat sipping on first and second flush teas, looking up from time to time to savour the sunset. It was that moment of gloaming when the buttery haze of the evening settled upon the white marbled largesse of the Victorian Memorial, the magnificent of any memorial to a monarch anywhere in the world, and of which I could not help but share a couple of shots. The silhouettes of clumps of trees, the sinking of the sun in slow motion as it bathed the cityscape in its crimson-lavender glow, why, it was a moment of great tranquillity, a moment when you paused willy nilly to take it all in. Over evening drinks later, we chatted at length with the owner of the tea estate, who I had interviewed years ago for a story on coffee and tea plantations. It felt good to put a face to the name and hear about her vision for the penthouse, for it is a remarkable experience in the heart of Calcutta, quite the highlight of my trip. A foray into a world where the contrast between the outside and what lay inside swept me off my feet.

Arundhati Basu8 Comments

The Fellow Nester

I have words today. Some days your head feels like it is brimful of words, like potent potion stewing in a cauldron, and on others, it is not unlike that stagnant body of water, still and smelly, flies buzzing, to complete the picture of listlessness. As a writer, you feel the relief of the former washing over you so gently, as the caress of your mother’s touch when you were young. What am I to do with these words? Possibly, let them float out of my head and onto this dormant blog of mine. In the hope of letting you know that I am around. Yes, still. Hanging on by a thread (to this blog of mine). And yet, hang on I shall. It is too beloved to be let go of just so.

It is a coolish breezy noon, even though the last couple of days, it’s been stewing hot. It stormed all of last evening, the trees swaying and dancing like dervishes, and the temperature dropped. It is a neat 18 degrees, and boy, am I digging it sat outside on my porch, listening to the singsong of the birds, and staring at the spectacle that the nodding green trees make against the cerulean of the skies, blotchy with clouds.

There is a touch of wistfulness here. Beneath our screened porch, in the rafters, an American robin’s built her nest. She had three young ones in it. Adi had been noticing her passage over days. Every time he stepped out, she would shoot out from beneath the porch, and straight into the woods. He went and examined the space beneath the porch — and sure enough spotted the nest that she had built with expert care. I too went and took a look. It is a cleverly built nest. You cannot look in from the outside.

I named mother robin, Mrs. T. I have been feeling her eyes on me. She is always watching. One day, I sat on the egg chair, swinging and enjoying the soft spring air. With her chest, rust red and thrust out, she stealthily hopped across the lawn, staring up at me all the while. She stood there for five whole minutes. On watching her closely, I realised she had a fat worm dangling from her yellow beak. She was wary of making her way to the nest. I spoke to her for a while. And I stayed still. In a heartbeat, she had flown into the nest. And then, I heard the faint chittering of the fledglings. Every now and then, I kept an eye on them by peeping through the slats of the porch floor. And found their tiny selves huddled in together, their maws opening wide every time with hunger. As they gained girth in weeks, they started staring up with beady eyes when I spoke to them. Today, I squinted my eyes and peeped through the slats, as has become my nosy little habit, only to find the nest empty. What a curiously empty feeling it is.

Yet outside the robin continues to sings. She is still around. And as she trills on, hopping around, and scattering the leaves noisily on the floor of the woods, I think of Shelley’s ode to the skylark that he espied upon during an evening walk and feel the beauty of his verse keenly:

“Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest …”

Arundhati Basu33 Comments

ONE WHITE DAY IN JANUARY…

…I decide to resurface. Why, you may ask, after all this time. Truth be told, I have been missing you lot, a lot. And so here I am, sat by the window, writing and staring out from time to time, taking in the vast swathe of a snow-clad landscape, speckled with the wintery rusts and browns of these withered woods that stand around us.

Adi and I set up house in Upstate NY. A house with room for a couple – and their friends and family when they visit. As it goes for me with most anything, it has been named. Gulls’ Nest. Because two wonky gulls live here. It has been a wholesome feeling, the process of dressing it up day by day. Naturally, it makes me wonder aloud — why had we not done this before now. Then again, as is my wont, I answer my own dilemmas. Every little thing in life comes into its own at its own given time. We humans just gotta to give in, once in a while, and go with the flow. Talking about which, I must confess that I decided to strike at the flow of my own life and make a change. I have taken up a full-time job in an industry that I have known nothing of before now. Every day is a new day and I am in the process of learning new things. The brains are engaged and energised. There are good days, there are bad days, as it would happen in any job. But I am growing into these new shoes.

It will be three months soon, of trying to fit in everything that I want to do, within the scope of my waking hours. Like getting in some artwork. I have been working on a large watercolour of ballet dancers for the last three months, and it frustrates me that I am not getting it where I want it to be. But that is the challenge of working on watercolours. They rarely behave. On the writing front, I want to start work on a new book. I have half-baked ideas. The challenge is to make myself write some every day. The one constant in my new life, that I have clung to like a limpet, is reading. I fear I would lose my sanity without having a book to fall back upon, when I am sat by myself in the break room for the designated half-an-hour of lunch.

Thus goes this new phase, which I am getting used to, by and by. The most rewarding part of my days are the early mornings when I wake to some of the most glorious sunrises I have ever witnessed. The skies start off on a rosy-cheeked note, till slowly a streak of red appears, and it keeps spreading till the whole horizon seems like it’s on fire. These for me are moments of quietude and wonder, of counting my blessings. And watching the wanderings of a family of white-tailed fawns that roam our patch of land, trying to forage through the cover of snow that coats the grass. They nibble on our rose bushes and I let them. Only once a while, I play. I walk out and ask them to sod off. At which they trot away, looking almost guilty, like little ones told off. And so life goes on for me, with the refrains of nature on repeat, sounding the gong of each day.

Arundhati Basu30 Comments

THE ACADIAN EFFECT

An early September’s day, four hundred and seventeen years ago, a Frenchman’s curiosity landed him in trouble in the waters around Maine.

Having spotted smoke rising from an encampment of the Native Americans, off a cove in coastal Maine, French explorer Samuel de Champlain brought his ship closer to land but fell prey to the vagaries of the sea. Namely, a rock formation that could not be avoided in time. The hull of the vessel was quite badly off and the French had to disembark and spend time at the cove in order to repair the ship. To be succinct, this is how the French came to be the first of the explorers who landed in the area, pre-empting the arrival of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock 16 years later. Naturally in those days they referred to the land as ‘New France’, before the British arrived and the epithet of ‘New England’ stuck for good.

Champlain was an intrepid character in that he made several voyages to North America and Canada, establishing settlements in Quebec and Acadia. I am fascinated by the zeal of these original adventurers. As explorers and colonists, they “yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down”, belonging to a tribe who dreamed big, who wanted to establish new colonies, who reaped profits from the new lands they came upon and imposed their own culture wherever they went while also imbibing the new, in the spirit of give-and-take that is the very fundamental premise of venturing beyond familiar territories. And they lived life kingsize. No apologies necessary. Champlain was no different, as one of the ilk who was “always roaming with a hungry heart”. For posterity, the man left behind a map that he drafted, having been a cartographer too (how many hats did these men wear, you wonder). In it, he clearly demarcated the capes and bays, islands, rivers, and settlements of the Abenaki (the Algonquian people) along the coast of Maine.

In his journal, Champlain had noted: “The island is high and notched in places so that from the sea it gives the appearance of a range of seven or eight mountains. The summits are all bare and rocky…I named it “l’Ile des Monts-deserts.” The name ‘Mount Desert Island’ stuck, ‘desert’ being pronounced as “dessert”. Is it because it is as comely as a well-presented dish of dessert? Who knows, but we were charmed to find ourselves in the town of Bar Harbor, which we drove into for a spot of lunch, and about which experience I banged on about in the previous post. The time we had in Bar Harbor was astonishingly brief. Minus the time we spent labouring over lunch — consuming food dripping with butter is tardy business — I chose to natter with an artist who was sat painting by the waters. Much to the annoyance of Adi, who was robbed of an ice cream as a result of this impromptu (and long) diversion.

All grumbles and scowls were however promptly relegated to the back seat as we left behind the twee cottages of Bar Hrbor and made our way up the road that looped around the Acadia National Park. Being short on time, we were robbed off the chance to explore the trails that called out to us from within dappled sunlit forests of spruces and firs, the forest floors matted with ferns and a dense understory. All I wanted to do was get off the car and run through the trails, hugging those awfully tall pines and cedars. The senses were enveloped in the heavenly fragrance of the woods as we wove our way through at a relaxed pace. Do you like the way forests smell? It must be one of those intangible things that just feel precious.

The views all along the park were cinematic. From the glistening blue waters, patches of conifer-laden islands jutted out from them, introducing a contrast in green — and somewhat relieving the eyes from encountering a monotonous sheath of blue. At places we observed the land claw its way into the waters. Chunky tablets of granite sculpted shaped by the elements stretched beneath our feet. In places, they were stacked up, examples of nature’s installations. Eroded by the waters and gouged by glaciers that have over the centuries scoured the land, this tableaux was at once primitive and it made me feel so very small. The play of light and shadow as the sun progressed into its journey westward, introduced a further dramatic twist to the scenery, and we were transfixed as we stayed awhile by the waters. The roads entwining the park rewarded us with more. A close look at pines, their trunks bloated by rust; whole rows of pines that were bare and bleached; rocks that looked like vast bubbles atop which people stood, tiny as ants, and then the startling sight of trees that blazed red. It was thus on the way out of this Arcadia that we had a bit of a head start on autumn.

Artist at work
Artist turns around for a chinwag
Otters Point
The hum of autumn
The hills have pines

“A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.”
Herman Hesse
“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth.“
Herman Hesse

Arundhati Basu19 Comments

A DROWNING IN MELTED BUTTER

It being Labor Day weekend, the equivalent of what we know as May Day except that the American version takes place at the beginning of September, Adi and I packed our bags on Friday morning and set off for a long drive to New England from New York. Before this, my beloved sprang off to the hot dog stand opposite our apartment (much to his utter delight) and promptly inhaled two frankfurters in quick succession, putting me in mind of the worthily beloved and now deceased Labrador of his, Tuktuk. You see, Tuktuk did not believe in mastication.

With a maniacal grin pasted on his face at having started the holiday on a bright note and having strengthened the lining of his stomach with the much-vetted local ‘delicacy’, my husband was ready to tackle the long winding roads through Vermont to Maine, and come what may. A remarkably serene drive followed, punctuated by the verdant hills of Vermont and dramatic series of thick clouds that billowed along a sparkling blue sky with all intentions of smothering it. I was not complaining. The clouds are my friends when I go on a holiday.

Invariably, half my camera roll is filled with snaps of them. I merely wished for a while that I had my pots of paint at hand and could dab a piece of paper with colours to capture the transient nature of their beauty. Then also re-thought the entire wish thing given the hullaballoo that would ensue if I did happen to colour the various parts of the car alongside the paper. Anyhoo, this is how we rolled into the fine city of Portland on the finest of evenings in September, and found ourselves reaching out for our jackets to combat the bite in the air.

This was the beginning of a four-day holiday in the city that’s perched on the coastline and renowned as a hipster hotspot. More of which, I shall come to by and by. Because one cannot dump everything in one post, for the cause of trying one’s own patience — after all, I am not writing a novel here — and also for the sake of getting to the nub of the post. For, I did allude to drowning in melted butter, did I not? Now however much it did not take place literally, for you can imagine the limited joys of taking a dip in a vat of butter, it did take place in a manner of speaking.

One afternoon, we drove to the Acadia National Park, before reaching which our hearts sank at the sight of innumerable strip malls in a town at the gateway to the park. I have never understood America’s intense obsession with strip malls. They must be the worst inventions ever (along with electric chairs and gas chambers). This token symbol of ghastly capitalism having caused a setback to the general atmosphere of jollity, our spirits were greatly revived upon arriving in the small town of Bar Harbor. The lovely quaint architecture of the coastal town did the trick. But finding a parking spot was monstrous. After a solid hour of driving round and round town like whirling dervishes on speed, we managed to bag a spot with a short window.

We hurried off to grab lunch and almost immediately found a small hip joint where outdoor seating was near a tree trunk that shot up through the patio. The tree hugger in me was content. We ordered up fish tacos and lazy man’s lobster. While waiting for the food to arrive, I could not help eavesdropping on a conversation going on behind us, between the waiter and a woman with a little coterie of small dogs. It revolved around sizes of various breeds. And the waiter’s own big bonny baby, an American Akita who weighs a mean 120lb. Small dog lady seemed suitably impressed. This strain of sentiment however could not be sustained. The waiter went on to proudly narrate a story of when he went camping with dog in X place. In the camp grounds, Akita meets Black Lab. Lab growls at Akita. Akita tears off Lab’s ears. Akita and Akita’s father are evicted from the grounds. Akita’s father is nonplussed and rather proud of this little feat, as evinced by his tone. Result: A few horrified listeners.

Having done his job of sending small dog lady packing, the waiter resumed his job of fetching our food. What arrived made my eyes bulge. A gondola of bright orange butter with big chunks of lobster swimming in it. This then was your quintessential lazy man’s lobster, which as the name suggests means that it is for the lazy man or woman. You do not have to pry open the shell and forage for your meat, nor do you have to reach for the bib. An East Coast classic through and through. The butter oozed down my throat as I chewed on fresh chunks of lobster, perfectly pink and tasting of sunny summer. This heart-attack inducing meal could not have come on its own lonesome self. Piping up from the sidelines was corn on the cob doused in yet more butter and sour cream, along with a sizeable cup of clam chowder, and a hillock of chips. By the time I was done with half the chowder, the lobster and the corn, I could feel my arteries swelling up in indignation and gearing up to hold a protest march. Yes, yes, it was a wholly unholy alliance, but at least I was halfway there with Lord Byron’s edict. That one about a woman never being seen eating or drinking, unless it be lobster (salad) and Champagne.

Arundhati Basu14 Comments

EMERGING FROM THE MISTS OF TIME

Once in a while, I disappear from the world of socials. I don’t know what prompts the urge to burrow myself in a vat of my own thoughts, but this involuntary exercise makes me feel whole again. The mind is purged of a thousand distractions, as you can well imagine if you too know that feeling of disappearing down a rabbit hole every time that you open up your social media feed and emerge from it an hour later, knackered from the effort of updating yourself on the lives of others. While I get a whole load of inspiration from seeing people’s posts, it does takes me away from things I should be doing, and want to do, in real life. From time to time therefore, I switch myself off the socials for extended periods of time. I can then write with complete abandon, or as is the case nowadays, paint with my entire being focussed on say, getting the whiskers of a lioness in place, experimenting with ink and pen, playing around with values, studying the great masters. There is a whole lot to be achieved and not enough time in a day to get anything done in. More so, if you are tempted to spend hours staring at the spread of the green woods in front of your eyes and watch people sat at a beer barn, devouring hot dogs and crisps every afternoon without fail.

When I last blogged, I had emerged from the mists with my book, Ramblers in Cornwall. It was an overwhelming time because I had privately printed my book and was rather anxious about its performance. Being an author is not an easy job by half. You inhabit a world filled with words and it is a lovely head space to be caught in, but that said, it also tends to siphon off your peace of mind. There’s that thought nagging and poking you — are you doing enough to promote the book? But then, what is Enough? I suspect I would be terrible at Enough.

As a result the fact that we have made a move could not have come at a better time.

If there is a time for everything, this must be ours to set up our very own nest. Both Adi and I have craved it for a while now. Since we got married, we have moved across continents and apartments, and the time is nigh that we should have a bit of permanence till we decide to move somewhere else. As it would happen, we had been to Saratoga Springs during the first year that we had moved to the States. We were wooed by it. Imagine my thrill then at the fact that the dream has come to fruition. As it turns out, the universe does conspire to bring your ardent wishes to life. We are to be Saratogians after all. There is a curious sense of fulfilment and along with my lovely husband I am embracing it, for if this be the affair of life, to move on and make new starts, I am all in.

Alongside, as always, is wistfulness for what we have left behind. A quote I read recently reflects this well, so I shall leave you with it. The words are by an Italian writer called Aron Hector Schmitz, better known by his nom de guerre, Italo Svevo.

“Every time my surroundings change I feel enormous sadness. It’s not greater when I leave a place tied to memories, grief, or happiness. It’s the change itself that unsettles me, just as liquid in a jar turns cloudy when you shake it.”

Arundhati Basu12 Comments

NOTES ON SELF-PUBLISHING

Tuesday is carrying on with the hum of the usual weekday chores. Except, for a while, the skies grows darker with clouds heavy with unspent moisture and the wind is sharp and cold, rushing through the trees in their tender green covers. As the treetops sway under the onslaught of the winds, the ambient white noise putting me in mind of sitting by the ocean somewhere and listening to the sound of the waves, I feel relief. Not travelling anywhere for such a long time now has been a drag on the senses. But it has been a conscious decision between my husband and I. We had discussed about it at length and decided that we would take all possible care and wait out the storm. Travelling will only feel that much more pleasurable when we finally catch that first flight to some place far out or even if we simply drive down in a car to a place nearer home. We have not been anywhere since March in 2020. That for us feels like a long, long time because we are so used to being on the road. Then again, everyone is fighting a battle of their own, most on the mental front, while plenty others are involved in fighting it on the physical front. Some are cash-strapped, trying to survive somehow in a strange new world in which work has completely dried up. On the other hand, there are those who are learning to love their own body, those who are fighting on a daily basis for their unborn children, some are dealing with diseases, and many others are coping with losses of their loved ones. When life seems overwhelming, you find yourself wondering how to keep your head above water.

The struggle/s of the mind is no new phenomenon for the writer. One is used to doubting everything one puts on paper. Because sometimes every word seems out of place. Ever since I have been writing, I have been bogged down by doubts, but the magnitude of it hit me like a locust storm when I undertook the job of writing a book. If you are not a writer who has written a book or is in the process of writing one, you really cannot imagine what self-loathing and self-recrimination is and how those two devils can really do a number on you. There are many more emotions thrown into the mix, but those two were the main ones I dealt with as I worked on finishing the book and then arriving at the crucial decision that I wanted to publish the book on my own. It helped that I came across an Irish writer called David Gaughran, reading whose books on self-publishing and watching whose videos on the subject gave me hope that I could do it privately.

If you had asked me previously about this indie effort of mine, about the alternative world of publishing out there, I might have turned down the thought with alacrity. After all there is a certain snobbishness about the entire affair, a kind of stink if you will. But reading Gaughran I was convinced that it was what I thought that mattered at the end of the day, especially if I was determined to have my book out there and not be dependent on the whim of some agent. Sure traditional publishing is the well-established route to fame. But I am not hung up on fame; I would rather run in the other direction. I have an Instagram account of roughly six hundred followers. That is telling. I do not court the numbers because it is a rabbit hole of desperation and despair (if life does not deal us enough of those emotions already). All I wanted was for my book to be read by those who love reading for the sake of reading.

Now to return to the whole endeavour of privately printing the book, I was enthused by the story of Virginia Woolf and her husband, Leonard Woolf. They set up their own publishing company in 1917 and called it Hogarth Press after the cottage they lived in, in Richmond. Though they made no money off it, they continued printing books by authors such as Katherine Mansfield, Sigmund Freud and T.S.Eliot, for the passion of the business of printing. In 1901, Beatrix Potter published The Tales of Peter Rabbit on her own because she had failed with the traditional route. Using her personal savings she printed 250 copies to begin with.

There are so many examples out there that I fear this might become a thesis if I delved into the lot of them. What I want to tell you if you are an aspiring author, is that embrace those fears you had and don’t look away from self-publishing. Sure, you might not get the kind of attention you want, but at least your book will be out there for readers to read and decide if it passes muster or not. And it is okay, if some do not like it. Remember, your book cannot and will not please all.

However that said, before you decide to trip down the indie publishing path, do make sure you have a bang-up product. Get a professional book editor to shape your book, make sure the content is not plagiarised in any form, give proper attributes to other writers where you have quoted them, read the proofread copy as many times as your need to make sure there are no errors in it, format it properly, and invest in a cover designer who will reproduce your vision for the book on the outside of it. And you shall be golden. As for marketing, I am still learning the ropes of it. Honestly, I am terrible at it, having realised I do not even know how to host a giveaway. Yeah, lots for me on the learning curve yet, but hey I persevere.

The biggest joy at the end of the tunnel has been this that Ramblers in Cornwall is finally out there and enjoying its moment in the sun and for that I am so very grateful. All those times of being sat at the desk, worrying if all of it would come to naught, has finally been soothed away by the hands of time and I can finally bring myself to quote Kerouac without faltering. “One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.”

Leaving you with a groovy song from Hurrah for the Riff Raff for your listening pleasure. Peace out.

Arundhati Basu14 Comments

SPRING RUNNING

When I run, everything feels better. It truly does. I write thoughts in my head when I am running, if that makes sense. I make lists. I think of a thousand things I want to paint. I watch the angler stand for hours by the bay, patient in his endeavour of a good catch. I stare at the ducks and wading birds that glide by in the bay and I wipe away dark thoughts if and when they prey upon the mind. When I feel troubled, for the mind is such a cauldron of thoughts bubbling away, I run longer and harder. Let’s put it this way: I literally pound away all my frustrations. Running has been a great tool to keep my mind engaged all of last year, except for that awful period right about this time in 2020 when I took a tumble and skinned my knees. But the sorer my body feels, strangely enough the more alive it feels. This does not however mean that I recommend running one’s knees out. As in everything, I believe in listening to the body. I do not believe in weighing myself on the scales and feeling awful. Instead, I simply let my clothes speak. And these days my clothes are being mouthy, so I am trying to curb my insatiable appetite for all things baked.

Anyhoo, as I was out today morning, trotting in the cool loveliness of this hump day, I saw that the boughs were thick with blooms. The magnolias have blossomed though some buds are yet to unfurl, and this promise of tightly curled-up beauty makes my heart thrill even more. The heart’s eyes (because I believe that the heart can be persuaded to see) are filled with the sight of pear tree blossoms thickening away in clusters of white, daffodils winking prettily in patches of gardens alongside carpets of sweet droopy bluebells, and I am filled with wonder all over again. How the seasons march on relentlessly and how the beauty of each goes down a treat in the face of life’s challenges! And because every feeling of joy is almost always balanced out, it seems, with a tinge of pensiveness/ wistfulness/solemnity, I am irked by the thought that my running locale shall change by this time next Spring. What will I do without the bay, the vast sparkling swathe of water by which I run and watch the migration of the birds from the sidelines? The heart stumbles. It feels as it did a few years ago when I had to leave behind the mighty Racecourse. But then I had this beautiful park in Bayonne to soothe away the heartache of leaving those beloved trails behind. Who knows where I shall be running next Spring. But maybe it will not be all too bad. Maybe I will be quite alright. After all, it is the one constant in life. Change.

P.S.: The books have arrived and I am excited to announce a few giveaways soon for my readers.

If you would like to participate, do pop by later this weekend, and it should be up.

Happy Hump Day! ❤️

Arundhati Basu13 Comments

Spooked

Towards the beginning of the year, Adi and I were house hunting. While it is a most enticing prospect to find a house that you will want to live in and call yours, the search is exhausting. But this post not being about the house hunt, I will take you right away to Lambertville, a small town filled with antique stores by the Delaware river. It was one of those chilly February days when the wind pierced your bones and thoughts. It made you ache for home, to be wrapped up in a cosy throw with a book. But we were out. Following an early morning of property viewings, we took leave of the estate agent and I suggested to Adi that we step into Lambertville for a spot of browsing. We could do with some distraction.

Reaching town we grabbed cups of coffee, and cowering in the face of the cold, scurried into one of our favourite antique places in town. It is a big store with three levels filled with old junk, mostly European antiques sourced by the owner from his travels through Europe. Every time we enter the store, I feel like I am in a curiosity shop. I am filled with wonder at the kind of objects that existed once, and have now in this age been delegated to the status of mere curiosities. We were browsing, me rifling through pages of old books that begged to be taken home, when I overheard a woman comment to her companion as they were on their way out. “Where did the time go? I never realised it was so late,” she said. I smiled. Whoever enters the store falls through a rabbit hole.

Climbing the store’s creaky wooden stairs, we found that the store had curated a small museum-style experience. However, the difference was that one could buy items from the collection. My eyes were immediately drawn to a Victorian hallstand, dark mahogany and heavy of make, as most furniture from the yesteryears are. The hallstand had the patina of age. I spent time examining it, then proceeded to check the paraphernalia around. “Come on over,” I said, whispering and beckoning Adi to join me in checking out a small table that belonged to Arthur Conan Doyle. No ordinary piece this. We beheld a ouija table. Adi took a peek and grew pale. Having been exposed to a barrage of horror films over the years, he has been conditioned to my (bizarre, according to the man) fascination with eerie stories. For the sake of honesty, let’s say almost conditioned.

The table came with a note along (with a price tag of $7,500). It was bound to have a story given that it belonged to Dr. Doyle. He was a founding member of a research society in Hampshire and known for his fascination with spiritualism. Doyle collaborated with a fellow mystic in a research on poltergeists in Devon. When his son died of pneumonia in the mid 1900s, the bereaved author was even keener to believe in another realm of existence. He embarked on a collection of talking boards in an attempt to reconnect with his son. His daughter Jean, a British military officer, sold the talking boards to an English antique dealer, who in turn donated it to the Lambertville store for its museum.

“This is too creepy for words,” said Adi.

“But I am getting the hatstand, just so you know,” I told him seriously. One’s gotta rise to the occasion when one needs to needle the husband. And it almost always elicits a reaction most precious from my beloved.

Around the corner, Gothic memorabilia awaited us. For the most part, it was vampire-themed stuff. A plethora of long wooden trunks, beautifully made and kitted up with hinged lids, which opened to reveal wooden stakes and mallets, pistols and crucifixes, vials of garlic powder. Vampire hunting trunks. I wondered about it. Whoever might invest in them? Maybe ones off their rocker? But the truth is that travellers did purchase these trunks that were made in the 1800s for wealthy people on a voyage to Eastern Europe, specifically Transylvania, enthused by the myth of blood-sucking creatures after Bram Stoker published Dracula. One of the travelling vampire kits from the 1870s that we saw, belonged to the Spanish actor Carlos Villaria who played the role of vampire in Dracula, the 1931 version.

If that was not enough, we found more ouija boards, hand-carved, religious wooden sculptures of angels, stakes, holy water bottles, French vampire-hunting oak cabinets circa 1837, an alcove full of puppets with chains barring the way, even a chair that was used to perform exorcisms in Germany in the 1800s. Now all this was way too much for the husband to handle. At one point, he just gave up. He sat himself on a bench and refused to indulge me by looking at anything else in this small museum of strange objets d’art. For my part though I found it highly engaging, and am thinking I shall convince him to give it another go, another day. Wish me luck!

The Victorian hall stand that Did Not have my husband’s attention.
Vampire hunting cabinets
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s ouija table
A French vampire hunting trunk, circa 1880s.
More ouija tables
The vampire hunter’s preferred weaponry
Alcoves stuffed with puppets and dire warnings. Stay away.

Arundhati Basu14 Comments