Nature – ARUNDHATI BASU

The Scent of a Storm

July is tempestuous. July is bold. July is hot. It begins with the slow staining of the blue summer skies. A hint of dirty blue, daubs of smoky blue deepening and darkening till suddenly the world feels like a place bereft of light, haunted by its own moodiness. The wind picks up, rushing through the thick cover of trees. Leaves and lightweight objects fly thick in the whirling winds. The cherry tomato plant, now about 5″ tall, waves its fuzzy-haired slender branches wildly, releasing a sweet, grassy fragrance that lingers on the fingers, long after I have secured the dancing branches to the stake to prevent them from flopping over.

With some fury, hail comes calling. It is pelting mad. Takes me back to a winter’s noon of being caught dab in the middle of a hailstorm in sweet old Bremen and securing comfort within the portals of a plush old café there, a big slab of kuchen and kaffee for company.

July for me has started with thunderstorms and my husband’s birthday. Both beloved and replete with loveliness. The first day of the month itself, I nipped out to the stores for ingredients essential to the feast I had conjured up in the mind. By the time I was ready with my totes filled with fruits, cream, and bottles of bubbly, my heart was quailing and rejoicing in equal measures at the sight of the wall of rain. I was caught in the middle of a flamboyant storm. Purple streaks of lightning followed by thunderous crashes. A flimsy brolly to carry me through this till I reached the cab that ferried me home.

Then a whole afternoon of cooking and baking, till I had half of what I wanted to put out on the table. Visibly overwhelmed, birthday boy exclaimed, “But it is just our two tummies that has got to tuck it all in. We have the entire month.” Clever hints. Nonetheless, the spread was truly enough. Soon we found that we could not plough through half of it without feeling comatose. The sparkling blackberry-laced cocktails helped the cause and we decided to dance off the rest of the evening. It was a strangely lovely birthday.

I have no idea why, but I have been unable to blog. Words have been spare in my head. I am not trying to say that we have been particularly troubled by this whole business of confinement. To be honest, we have discovered good old-fashioned fun in each other’s company. Adi has taken to running and we have been pounding the pavement rather religiously, winding it off with encounters with a big oaf, a malamute who loves to talk and lean on us. There are always sights for those who are keen to see. We have watched girls and boys, freshly graduated, stream through the park in cars, girls standing tall through sunroofs in tulle dresses, proudly swaying, others skulking inside stretch limos.

On quieter days, we have stood in the wetlands behind our home, where near the tall prairie grasses, egrets and herons come to fish. The gentle wading and poise of the white egret, the prowling of the yellow-crowned night heron with its comical, tufted head, that of the squatter and significantly hunchbacked black-crowned night heron. Nature is entrancing and she continues to soothe our souls.

Jul 6, 2020Jul 6, 2020

Arundhati Basu31 Comments

Spring Fever

I have been thinking of this moment for a long time, clacking on the keypad, drumming up words, letting my thoughts flow. It has been coming long, since the beginning of the new year which has delivered googlies with such precision that I honestly do not know where to start. Should I begin at the beginning with my travel to Calcutta on the first day of 2020? Should I tell you about the disquiet that spilled into my thoughts as I read there about this novel virus making itself felt in China? It was just the beginning. Who could have predicted that this would be the world we would be living in? Let me rephrase that – for there are revelations of foretellers who saw this coming for some time now — and say that I certainly did not think of the possibility. Must be the brand of arrogance human beings are naturally kitted up with.

We are spending all our time at home. The customary nipping to the grocery stores for provisions has been nipped in the bud. The library has closed its doors. New Jersey has set a curfew for its residents – 8pm to 5am. This leaves intact running in the park and walking till our legs feel it — we have been exploring every odd nook of this town we live in.

I am grateful for this. The opportunity to simply step out. Let my brains air themselves out, let the fresh spring air flood the head with serenity. The cells are in danger of feeling stale with the constant barrage of news that is all gloom and doom (I think the most disturbing part is to read about the panic-buying of guns in this country — not toilet paper rolls, cans of corned beef or soup, but Guns).

The trick is to funnel some of it out, however we can. Let the mind slip into meditative spaces through long unhurried sessions of yoga, make way for the imagination to wander through books, of which one cannot have enough, flip through the pages of cookbooks, rustle up new dishes. There’s therapy in routine.

Spring has arrived earlier this year, but at least it has arrived. To channel Rilke: “The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.”

Pale pink Rosebud Cherry blossoms. Deeper-hued Sargent Cherry blossoms. Saucer Magnolias. White Wild Pear blossoms. Yellow wildflowers. Fuzzy catkins of Pussy Willows. Portly squirrels running around bushy tailed, nuts clutched in tiny paws, pausing occasionally in your path to see if you have anything to share (drat people who think that animals in the wild depend on them to be kept). The Canada geese and gulls slowly taking their leave. Plump robins flying in. Fresh clumps of grass. Tiny leaves so delicate. Buds unfurling. Sweet spring. Let it work its magic on this overworked state of mind.

Mar 17, 2020Mar 17, 2020

Arundhati Basu49 Comments

The Sublime Winds of May

The winds are in a hurry to get somewhere today. Their whooshing sounds permeate the insulation of these glass windows and there is this suggestion that they are feeling rather spunky. That’s all there is to it. Just the suggestion. No nannies and tots floating around. But there is this romantic feeling that sets in upon the senses when the wind whistles outside and the skies are smothered with clouds.

Now, the last time I last wrote here, I was in Calcutta, on a spontaneous visit to my parents. My father had just had an angioplasty then and I thought it was imperative to have a look in on them, if not for anything else, for the mind to stop concocting grim scenarios.

On the way to Calcutta, I flew Cathay Pacific for the first time. I was won over on two counts. The service was simply splendid and the food so healthy and flavourful that by the time I reached Hong Kong airport for a few hours’ layover, even after a 15-hour long flight, I was brimming with contentment.

I headed to The Wing, Cathay Pacific’s flagship lounge in Hong Kong, where I bathed in the shower suites. Minimalistic and neat inside, each suite was sheathed in beautiful dark stone and the fixtures carved from bamboo wood. Kitted up as it was with the fresh-smelling lux cleansers and shampoos, I came out feeling spiffy and ready to take on the world which as it turned out was not too tough. It was but a pillowy world of fluffy baos, you know, those big Chinese buns filled with vegetables and meat. The Chinese woman at the counter barely smiled and she understood no English, something that is rather common in the city of Hong Kong if you saunter into its flea markets and street food stalls, but all that mattered was that she doled out a platter of baos. Now these were proper bad boys. You could fashion them into pillows and sink into them, really. Except that the teeth would rather sink into them and make quick work of the matter at hand. This took place in the Noodle Bar which was one of the three sections in the lounge.

There was the Long Bar too where you could sit and catch a drink apart from making a beeline for the buffet, but this was kind of boring, it being early morning in Hong Kong, so I wandered into the third section, a Coffee Loft. Ooh now there was the real deal following a heartwarming breakfast. Shots of espresso and traditional pastries. My pick was the Chinese Wife Winter Melon Cake. Names get me. Just like books with smashing covers and titles. Who says I am not superficial? To get to the heart of the pastry, it was flaky, and if I were a bard, there would be sonnets on Chinese melon cakes. This beauty was rich (you cannot go wrong with pork lard shortening) and it dissolved in the mouth in a beautiful symphony of melon and spices. As usual, there are enough stories behind the name, but I will tell you of two of them.

One goes back to a man’s love for his wife who sold herself as a slave to get money for her father-in-law’s treatment. The man conjured up the idea of this cake as a street snack. His plan was to get his wife back once he had enough money. The other is about a Guangzhou chef who worked at a teahouse. He initially took some round pastries home as a treat for his wife. Her feedback: They made it better in her hometown, with winter melon paste. The chef reworked the pastry with melon paste and gave it a flat shape.

Dear men, it is thus easy to draw the conclusion that good things come to those who listen to their women.

When I landed in Calcutta late at night, the wind was knocked out of me. It was sultry. The real feel was often 49°C during the day and I was dissolved in the heat every morning I headed out for a run. Summer had blustered its way into the city. But in a few days swept in Kalbaisakhi. The season of thunderstorms when the skies grow dark, so suddenly that you do not have the time to even cuss. Smoky blue clouds mushroom in armies and hang ominously above your head, like dark devils with a mission. They then proceed to let loose upon you with all their might. These are accompanied by dust storms, which are not kind on you if you happen to be walking on the roads like a daft creature out to court trouble. Naturally, I had the thrill of being caught in one. I had forgotten how it all was since in the last few years I have been going back to Calcutta during winters when the weather turns all mellow and lovely.

After two weeks, I returned home to Bayonne, having spent time in Calcutta schooling and scolding my dad — also feeling relieved that all was fine with my folks for now. When I got back, I found to my delight tiny leaves upon the trees and cherry blossoms about to bloom. It was still nippy and the days were starting to warm up. On days, when it rains, it all looks like a beautiful painting. And with the change of seasons, there are children now in the park, yellow dandelions matting the grass in the parks, waiting to turn into those airy fairy balls of seeds, flowers everywhere you look. It is so happy and joyous that I can feel my heart bloom along with them. So that it is also time for me to stop prattling, leave you with some random photographs, and pop out for a wind-in-my-hair-and-a-song-in-my-heart kinda walk.

1970-01-01 06.30.00 1.jpg — I had forgotten how scenic the landing is in Hong Kong.

1970-01-01 06.00.00 2.jpg — Bamboo wooden vibes of the Noodle Bar at The Wing, coupled with suspicious lady.

1970-01-01 08.00.00 1.jpg — Baos stuffed with pork and cabbage, sweet lotus, and the third was a plain mantou, a bao made from wheat dough. Teamed with the scallions and chilli and peanut sauce, these were the formidable three.

1970-01-01 08.00.00 3.jpg — Above-mentioned, Chinese Wife Winter Melon Cake.

1970-01-01 08.00.00 2.jpg — Flaky pastry to swoon over

Moonlit night in Calcutta on our terrace

Back in Bayonne, the green is so fresh and young, as the trees shrug back into their clothes. Nature’s fashion is effortless.

Well hello, long time! What, no peanuts? Must have been waiting for a little booty since people here insist on feeding them.

Cherry blossoms with their brief and intense spell of beauty

And, that’s a wrap for today from Bayonne.

May 9, 2019

Arundhati Basu62 Comments

Cades Cove

The hunting grounds of the Cherokee people once, Cades Cove is an isolated valley of supreme beauty within the Great Smoky Mountains. The Cherokees called it Tsiya’hi. Translated, it means Otter Place, hinting at the fact that otters did abound here before European settlers arrived in the 1800s to dispossess the tribes of their land. They say that Cades Cove was named for the wife of a Cherokee chief, but no one really knows how it came about.

The road to the cove was straight out of my dreams. I have a weakness for those that curve through old forests, where the trees tower and look like they have a trove of stories, of the way the landscape has been moulded by the passage of time, of the generations of men that have come and gone. Limestone cliffs, creeks riddled with rocks, and from a sudden spell of shower, the roads gleaming green beneath the shadow of the trees. This had to be the naturalist’s definition of paradise.

At Cades Cove, the humidity was unbearable. We could not brook the thought of a hike despite the lure of seeing a bear. There are so many black bears in the area, roughly above 1,600, that you apparently could not, would not, miss a sighting. But here’s the thing, we did (no surprises). There are cherry trees and fields of blueberries, huckleberries and blackberries in the meadows. Plus there are people landing up with picnic hampers. Irresistible enough for bears to turn up from time to time.

As a result of this promise, every driver turns into an oaf on the 11-mile scenic loop that gently winds through the valley. It is a one-way paved road that follows an old logging railroad track. The traffic here crawls. We spent not less than 3 hours on the loop, well-stewed apples by the end of it if you will, wondering when we would be done with the sight of the driver ahead sticking his feet out of the window, and generally, behaving like a certified jackass.

The only way to let off steam was to take these off-road trails that led us into log cabins of the first settlers and ‘primitive’ churches as they called them in the 19th century. The white log frames of the churches with austere, dark wooden interiors suggesting that they existed to serve the basic purpose of disseminating faith among the few families who lived in and around them. They must have had dirt floors and fire pits inside to begin with.

Within an interval of a few minutes there were three Methodist and Baptist churches, emphasising that life in this Southern Appalachian community must have been harsh. A world where men and women would have needed the crutch of faith to carry on in the wilds. Their reality would have been made up of temperance societies and Sunday schools, of gatherings at general stores and swapping stories. Books have been written by the children and grandchildren of these settlers — they tell of a time when spotting a red ear of corn in a pile of husks was a prize for a young fella, a sign that he could kiss the woman he had been eyeing for some time; they talk of the mettle of children who kept themselves entertained by inventing their own toys, such as fashioning balloons from pig’s bladders. Not to distill (and dismiss) it in the matter of a sentence, but it seemed to me then that those folks paid the price for simplicity as much as we city folks pay the price for modernity.

When we finally left behind the last of those homesteads beneath its canopy of thick vegetation, I could not shake off the image that rose in my mind. Of a lachrymose man upon its porch, in his overalls of faded grey, a pipe stuck in his mouth, strumming a banjo that must have seen better days.

Sep 27, 2018

Arundhati Basu55 Comments

Snippets From Wears Valley

The road below the cabin dipped alarmingly. So sudden was this drop that it felt like rolling down a playground slide in tar. This road then led us on a serpentine drive up and down the mountains, past burnt-out trees, skeletal and stripped enough that it was a surprise they were standing at all. Half-built cabins too. A reminder that all it takes is a wildfire for every effort of man to be laid to waste (but here we are, creatures of toil and industry). The green was so very green, the hills with their stubbles of bluish-green startling, the sky thick with batches of clouds who could not make up their mind if they wanted to stay or go. Some settled atop the peaks to catch a breath before they dissolved into tears. The fancy of the clouds. In the Smoky Mountains, you will find that there is no guarantee. The rain clouds, they gather upon your heads in a jiffy. Before you think of the shortest swear, they let loose, and when they do, you’d better find a roof of some sort.

Before I get ahead of myself, we found ourselves in Wears Valley that runs parallel to the Smoky Mountains. Once a theater of squabbles between the Cherokee tribes and the first European settlers, and named for a Revolutionary War veteran, Samuel Wear.

It was an idyllic place. Isolated farms composed of old log houses and barns and sheds, mom-and-pop groceries with old biddies behind the till pointing out to basic tuck shops for tasty sandwiches and local fare, modest chapels and churches, mountain stores where they sell local concoctions of jams and jellies. Just an outpost of the old Appalachian culture with autumnal hoards of pumpkins and squashes as harbingers of this ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ that is finally upon us.

Sep 25, 2018

Arundhati Basu47 Comments

A Cliffhanger of a Cabin on Old Smokey (Beloved of a Mamma Bear)

A band of cicadas serenaded us as we got off our Outback Subaru. Their singing seemed to intensify as we hopped off the car, me casting nervous glances at the cliffs and trees around us, the thought running through my mind that a welcome committee of bears might be awaiting us in the dark.

The drive from North Carolina to this chalet in Tennessee, built into the hills of the Great Smoky Mountains, had been one of unimaginable beauty. The sky, riddled with billowing clouds earlier on in the afternoon in Winston-Salem, was suffused now with a crimson glow that continued to intensify till it dissipated in pastel hues. The hills loomed large in front of us in the gathering gloom, clouds rushing in to envelop us at intervals. At others, they rose from the silhouettes of trees in wraiths of wispy white.

And then the spell was broken. We had reached Gatlinburg. Rows of flashy souvenir shops, ‘wine-tasting’ kiosks that doled out free fruity wines guaranteed to give one an unbearable insulin rush, barbecue diners, the crowds …I wanted to think, but I could not. Adi helpfully supplied the words, ‘It’s like Skegness on steroids?’ Skegness is a seaside resort town on the east coast of England – the lesser said about it, the better.

Gatlinburg’s flashiness evaporated as we drove higher and higher up into the mountains. How impenetrable the darkness seems in the hills. It presses in upon the mind. The desolate hairpin bends brought us at the foot of a road that shot up at a 35° incline, and lo and behold, there stood our rented chalet. No curtains inside to draw across the bay windows in the living room? I was unsettled. But there was nothing to do but stash my paranoia away.

The chalet was a two-bedroom affair built in wood — to withstand the winds that sweep through these mountains. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had rhapsodised about ‘the winds that blow through the wide sky in these mountains, the winds that sweep from Canada to Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic’ to ‘have always blown on free men’ at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that he declared open for the public in 1940.

Where Nature gives, she takes too. And man, he survives despite the odds. The cabin being proof of this indomitable spirit. The previous chalet had been gutted in wildfires towards the end of 2016. Yet here it stood, well-stocked and utterly homey with its rocking chair, hot tub and wraparound porch, rebuilt after the fires. There were pots and pans and everything we could hope for if we wanted to rustle up our own meals (how cosy it must be to hunker down within its warmth during the cold months).

In the morning, we woke up to views. The windows, which in the dark hours had given me the heebie jeebies, in the early morning hours opened up to a vision of smoky blue mountains and clouds rolling off their peaks (there are photos below to confirm that I do not exaggerate).

We did what any sane person would do — tuck into a huge breakfast and sit staring at the drama of the clouds and the mountains, wondering if mamma bear (previous visitors to the cabin had mentioned her repeated visits in the logbook) would eventually turn up with her cubs. But were we to be so lucky? Naturally, we decided to do what could be done next. We headed out, chasing bears and clouds in the Great Smoky Mountains.

Sep 19, 2018

Arundhati Basu56 Comments

Late November Goodness

The Happy Holidays banner has been strung up across the streets of Bayonne. Mini snowflakes and golden balls, trees wreathed in fairy-lights are making the evenings a little festive on a certain stretch of Broadway where I pop down for my regular fix of coffee. I am suddenly reminded of the sight of Oxford Street, glittering with dozens of sparkly snowflakes dripping like ornaments upon the busy streets of London where people huddled in their long coats and boots would be clacking down the pavements past windows displaying the best of their Christmas booties. Then onwards to a bar, a gourmet pub to grab a few drinks and then a lovely, hot dinner. The gigantic Christmas trees twirled with shiny strings of fairy lights winking back at us from the fresh market square in Northampton and the one that stood tall and proud before the grand old All Saints’ Church. Let’s see what New York City has in store for us.

Meanwhile the evenings are cold and windy. On days I feel like the wind can lift the scalp straight off my pate. There are a handful of lunatics like me who brave it and continue their daily jogs around the park. A few days ago on the windiest day of all, I took Adi along the Hudson, who refused to give into this strange madness, huddled into his jacket and scarf and cantered home with single-minded determination to get back to the cosy warmth of it.

I have not seen late November so beautiful and golden yet in my life. These are the mixed blessings of life, in Bayonne. My heart fills with some unknown emotion as I lay my eyes upon the trees in the park across from my windows. They are still flaming red and golden, possibly because they are late bloomers who might not have been showy starlets in the early stages of life but later on do startle others with their quiet elegance.

Bands of smoky blue clouds with silver linings, flaming sunsets, quiet sunsets, streaky sunsets, lens flares, gulls gliding in the icy winds above the Hudson, learning to crochet, undoing long woven strips to get this caboodle of knitting in place, reading books on covering fashion in Paris, slipping into Diana Gabaldon’s alternate world of reality through the Voyager, roasting meats and veggies, letting the lemon and verbena candle perfume the air in the rooms, … these are how the November days are slipping by in a harmony of solitude, colour, light and warmth.

Nov 24, 2017

Arundhati Basu64 Comments

Chasing Clouds

Billows upon billows upon billows of clouds hung in the morning sky yesterday. We were in a Gainsborough painting. Driving through the Cotswolds and staring at the sky. Of course, I reminded Adi to keep his eyes on the road too or we would be looking down upon the countryside from the clouds. A bit too early for that. To keep his eyes in place was the yellow vista that comes up in April with timeliness. The rapeseed fields that spring up along the roads leading into the Cotswolds. They shall turn uniformly yellow in some time so much so that you cannot spy a speck of green amongst the sheets of yellow.

2017-04-01 01.16.00 1_1.jpg — **“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky.” Rabindranath Tagore**

2017-04-01 08.05.03 1_1.jpg — **“I know that I shall meet my fate somewhere among the clouds above; those that I fight I do not hate, those that I guard I do not love.” William Butler Yeats**

2017-04-01 08.04.57 1_1.jpg — “When I look up and see the sun shining on the patch of white clouds up in the blue, I begin to think how it would feel to be up somewhere above it winging swiftly thought the clear air, watching the earth below, and the men on it, no bigger than ants.” Eddie Rickenbacker

2017-04-01 08.06.28 1_1.jpg — **“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.” Edward Abbey**

2017-04-01 12.19.35 1_1.jpg — “Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” John Lubbock

2017-04-01 08.06.35 1_1.jpg — **“There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.” Gilbert K. Chesterton**

And before I leave you, I cannot make Sunday complete without browsing through the postcard collection, so here are a few below. Are you having a good day? I would love to hear about it. I am sitting in front of the telly (’tis the noble day to be a couch potato), munching on spicy French Toast, catching up with the final instalment of The Voice, a reality show, and wondering what to rustle up for dinner.

Baptistery of San Giovanni Florence.jpeg — Baptistery of San Giovanni, Firenze.

On that oomph-y note, till tomorrow then, my lovelies.

Apr 2, 2017

Arundhati Basu61 Comments