photography – ARUNDHATI BASU

Namaste

I am back after more than a month and why, oh why, do I feel like a truant? Friday evening has arrived with smoky blue skies and a kingdom of clouds, so I am feeling it. The frothy state of mind that accompanies weekends. You know, cracking open a bottle of red to dissipate the chill of autumnal evenings walks, followed up with plenty of cheese, pasta al pomodoro, grilled veggies…

Let’s see what have I been upto during my absence here. Mostly I have been working on my writing, without distractions (phone and social media).

But I am a creature of sensory pleasures, so there have been sessions of baking upside-down cakes incorporating the flavours of the season. I have been scoffing a wedge a day.

Meanwhile, the beauty of autumn has me bewitched. The colours have peaked and faded, the leaves are gathered in huge piles everywhere, and the sun has been flaming out every evening over the bay with precision. It is like being part of nature’s gallery of astonishments. To keep up with my beloved workouts, I am notching miles on a Peloton bike. Paired with my evening walks, these gruelling sessions make me sleep like a log (not that I could ever complain about the lack of it, which goes to say that I am loving the extra hour of sleep everyday).

What are long, dark evenings tailor-made for? Devouring books. I have stumbled upon the delicious writing of Marlena de Blasi. Her artistry with words has woven magic into my evenings.

There has been a splash of travelling too. We took off to Boston for my birthday earlier in the month and traipsed around in freezing climes. Found that it did not match upto the images of it I had conjured up in my mind . Yet what a wonderful time I had with my love, examining its old graveyards, pottering around its posh neighbourhoods with their pretty bakeries and antique shops, tasting bread at a celebrity chef’s restaurant that made me shut my eyes and will myself to remember its divine flavours for a long, long time. Oddly enough, I thought I saw a man butt-naked from the waist down, running along with a troop of people dressed up in costumes. I am glad I did not choke on the calamari I was in the process of gobbling down.

On Monday, we travel to Seattle for Thanksgiving with the sister-in-law’s family. The excitement begins now — I love the countdown to a holiday — and continues into the next week. Here’s to cooking, baking, thanksgiving, and some loving with the family.

Now, it’s your turn to fill my ears with your life events, and fill your senses with a few suggestions of autumn’s resplendence.

Nov 22, 2019

Arundhati Basu47 Comments

Paris: The Last Edition

As I sit in the American Airlines Flagship Lounge, bound for Calcutta, with my mug of cappuccino and book (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil), I thought of my last update on Adi and mine few days in Paris. This seems a time as good as any to finally send this post going. Paris seems a world away even though it was just a few months ago.

Another year seems to have brought a new home our way. We just finished moving apartments in the same building. Our bodies are sore, but our souls are satisfied. It comes with the territory I suppose. Where would the pleasure be if we did not have to put in this back-breaking work. After all, man is made of pain and pleasure.

Back to that time when we walked the streets of Paris and swooned at its eternal beauty. There was the afternoon when we met Lulu. It was golden. Apart from that the fact that we had a soft bundle of canine loveliness to bury our faces into. At Les Invalides, a guard shushed me with a smile. Even remonstrations in French sound chic. I saw the reason for it soon. There was a funeral cortege issuing from one of the doors.

We had a gander at the Luxembourg gardens that is somewhere between Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the Latin Quarter. Its sylvan beauty sat within a not-too-overwhelming radius. The waters in the fountain gleamed on that cold winter’s day with unerring beauty. The dappled sunlight, the bronzed sculptures of Greek gods and actors, the bare bones of swaying trees, and the soft breeze. It was one of those moments that you appreciated the effortless artistry of nature, the presence of your beloved, and the loveliness of life in one of the grandest cities in this world.

A white-haired man turned up with his two sons and decided that they wanted a photograph to be taken of them in front of the Medici Fountain. We obliged. He directed his sons to pick up the chairs around us. I thought, now for a grand photo shoot and a hell lot of creativity. What did they do? They simply plonked themselves on the chairs in front of that strip of water. That’s all. A comedown of sorts. But then remember The Hollow Men? This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang. More of a whimper.

A boulevard from the garden eventually led us to the Latin Quarter. The Pantheon with its grandeur and then the quiet hum of life in and around the Sorbonne. People sat in the shadow of the Pantheon braving the cold wind, and meanwhile, we came upon a British pub in the quiet lanes of the quarter. A pint of ale for Adi, a coffee for me. And then, back on the road. For that is the one great love affair in life. The road.

Art Nouveau lamps and my handsome fella on Pont Alexandre III

La Tour Eiffel from the gardens of Les Invalides

Nutty tart at a café in the Saint Germain district

The 17th-century Luxembourg Palace and its grounds were inspired by the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens in Florence because Queen Marie de Medici was from that Italian city of unparalleled architecture and beauty.

The Pantheon shows up in the backdrop of Jardin du Luxembourg

A pint at a British pub in the Latin Quarter

Lofty scenes. Fountain of Saint Sulpice.

Scene captured at The Church of Saint Sulpice where you had met Lulu earlier. Looking at this man who was so oblivious to the passage of time and people, I thought to myself, there should always be time to sit, shut your eyes awhile, to bathe in the liquid warmth of the winter sun. If there isn’t time or the intent, you realise with a shock, why, you are not in Paris!

Apr 3, 2019

Arundhati Basu36 Comments

Love, Loaf and Hugo

If you asked a Parisian, what love is, he would thwack you with the golden loaf in his hand, and say, ‘Why, it is this, you numskull?!’ Here you would roll your eyes, and say, ‘Oh com’on, the baguette is such an overworked stereotype!’ Yet every time we stepped out on the streets of the city, there it was. A slender baton of crusty goodness staring back at us, tucked within the elbow of the old man in the long overcoat and beret, or sticking out of the tote of the young woman as she walked ahead of us. We even saw an old lady nibbling at the end of hers — probably best to have it fresh even before the day has waned. Lest the Parisian forgot this essential chunk of his daily diet, they have a Bread Observatory in Paris. It trots out the daily reminder, “Cou cou, tu as pris le pain?” (“Hello, did you pick up the bread?”). Now if that is not love, my darling, you tell me what love is. If you need further proof, just head to the nearest boulangerie. Finding yourself in a queue is an inevitability.

If we are talking about love, I would have to pipe in about the walrus with his fantastic pair of long, white tusks and grey, fluffy beard. My eyes fell upon this thing of rare, portly beauty in the window of a boutique, whereupon the batting of my eyelids made my husband acquiesce grudgingly. So that now this walrus sits pretty at home with my family of stuffed animals. This love however was eclipsed by far when we came across an elderly woman in the shadows of the Church of Saint-Sulpice. She was old but chic, in just the way an average Parisian is (must be the baguette). Even to walk their dogs, Parisians dress well. This lady was out with her 6-month old Cocker Spaniel pup, Lulu, who was the belle of the ball I thought, till I realised that Lulu was a tiny male with velvet soft curls. The love that shone in the woman’s eyes for her Lulu was palpable and touching enough that it remains in my mind as a radiant moment wrapped up in the soft sunshine of a December noon.

Be as it is may that we were in the 6th arrondissement when we met Lulu, I would actually like to whisk you into the 3rd and 4th arrondissements where lie the Marais quarter of Paris.

Charm and amour co-exist in Le Marais like an old married couple. What were marshes (hence Marais) in the early times, from land left over when a branch of the Seine dried up, is de rigueur today. But let me also describe to you how the day built up to lend itself to the laidback beauty of Le Marais.

We reached Le Marais after time spent dawdling at Shakespeare and Company, rifling through ancient books written by unknown authors, sniffing the scent of those old books (that’s how love smells), buying wedges of cheese from a Christmas market outside the Notre Dame, looking up dusty music covers and magazines that the line-up of Bouquinistes in their big fur hats and heavy coats sell along the Seine.

Twilight was gathering around us. Bang in the middle of a bridge — I believe it was the Pont Saint-Louis — a man sat playing his piano. The cadence of his music conjured up an ethereal quality to the evening when in the half light of it we stood by the bridge, a soft and cold breeze caressing us, lights glimmering across the Seine in the grand old buildings of Paris. It seemed fitting that we should walk into Le Marais right after, the afternotes of the performance playing in our heads as an amuse bouche of sorts.

Le Marais is timeless. Here there was no trace of Haussman’s wide boulevards and neoclassical facades. Here you still found a chunk of the old Paris, the narrow winding streets and medieval house fronts, interspersed by Jewish delis, tea salons, herb shops and hat shops, hole-in-the-wall curiosity shops, art galleries, hip bars and boutiques. There remains the impossible grandness of the city hall (Hôtel de Ville), and the opulence of the private townhouses, or hôtel particulier, which were built for aristocrats during the 17th century. Now, it would be entirely amiss of me not to take you to the oldest planned square of the city, Place des Vosges, that sits within the Marais quarter. Not only do I have memories of buying a beautiful blue cloche from an old man there in the autumn of 2016, but because it is also the location of one of my favourite museums. Maison de Victor Hugo — where I dragged Adi because a) it is free, and, b) it feeds the imagination to see how a writer of means lived in the 19th century.

Before I go, I wanted to draw your attention to that pair of aged nuns. They are hobbling across a cobbled courtyard and will gradually disappear into the shadows of the temple. Faith awaits them. And, did you notice the bride-to-be? She is trying on her wedding dress, looking a bit unsure. Then she catches your eye and casts a brilliant smile. All’s well there. As for the baker behind the till and his goodies displayed in the window, the less said the better. There lies defeat in the faces of endless slices of gateaux. It has been a fair amount of gawking and walking, so if your feet perchance feel worn, dear reader, take a cue from Hugo who had famously observed that to loaf is Parisian — and pause for that carafe of wine in one of those cafés where they serve enough popcorn to make it worth your while.

These winding streets lead to baroque churches

The 17th century Church of Saint Sulpice

Place Saint-Sulpice and its church of the mismatched towers. You will probably know it better if I mentioned Da Vinci Code. It was shot here.

A golden ball of fur charging towards her human

Photobombed at the Notre Dame. It’s inescapable.

Feb 14, 2019

Arundhati Basu47 Comments

We Were in an Apartment in the Air!

To start with, I wanted to tell you about the terrific manner in which one may travel nowadays. Think beyond Business. As a frequent flyer informs me, ‘Forget it, everyone flies business nowadays’. The thing is that one can actually have an ‘apartment’ or even lord over a ‘residence’ in the air. Here I see you rolling your eyes and thinking, ‘what on earth’, before proceeding to inform me that it has been around for some time. But in 2014 Etihad amplified the definition of luxury in the sky. This made the first-class cabins of European and American carriers look like old fogeys. The first-class suites of Singapore (the old ones) and Emirates were suitably snubbed too.

On each of its double-decker Airbus A380s, Etihad introduced nine first-class suites that are known as Apartments if you will and a hoity-toity affair called The Residence.

I would be a pretentious twat if I said that I was not overwhelmed. That my senses did not go into a tizzy at the sight of a whole suite to myself on a flight. That I did not want to run the whole length of the plane, to and fro, like a crazed creature. That the dapper butler with his fine accent did not make a difference.

‘A butler! Did you just say there was a butler on board?’ I hear you ask. Damn right, sistah. Downton Abbey-style. A younger, handsome version of Carson. To this, bung in a chef too.

Three days before Christmas, we were leaving behind the city of immeasurable charm, Paris. Along with that a delightfully relaxed celebration of our wedding anniversary (to think that we have been married for seven whole years already). When we boarded the upper deck of the A380 at Charles de Gaulle that would whisk us into Abu Dhabi in a matter of 7 hours, it took off the edge of the sting (a part of it anyway) of leaving Paris.

The suite was splendid. Its latticed doors came together with the consistency of butter to slide shut. The beige armchair by the window could accommodate three of me in its cushy Italian leather seat. Opposite it was a swivel 24-inch flat screen telly and an ottoman that would be transformed into a twin-size bed, long enough to fit Adi. The making of this bed would naturally be taken care of by the flight attendant because remember you are a helpless ninny, to be cosseted and cared for. Why should you have to lift a finger for your cake?

What got me going was the discovery of Bose headsets (so nickable, but cannot be) and a full-size vanity mirror. Then the fact that I could slip in my book, travel journal and kindle into a drawer (this proved to be my undoing) and stow my bags into a space beneath the ottoman (I hate putting my bag into the overhead bin because I always want to fish out something from it).

Adi was adjacent my suite. A partition halfway between the two suites could be lowered when we were in bed.

Now as soon as we were on board, we were offered the customary welcome drink of Champagne and dates — and a change of clothes accompanied by an amenity kit in a beautiful yellow leather bag from Acqua di Parma. ‘I am going to change into mine straight away,’ I announced to Adi and hopped off to the loo which turned out to be oh so lovely. It had a shower. The entire affair was so swanky with beautifully lit interiors that I kept thinking it was all a dream.

Before the flight took off, a chef appeared in my suite and offered anything at all. He could customise dishes outside of the menu. Maybe I should have come up with something ridiculous but I just went with whatever was on the menu, simply because there was enough to choose from. Next he enquired if I would like a hot shower — they need notice so that they can prepare a shower for you. Of course, you have to take a five-minute bath. I was too lazy, but for those who travel longer distances it is a blessing.

Later, Adi and I dined together in his suite. A retractable table was unfolded for us and the food was exactly as I would find in a fine-dining restaurant. With the best of Champagne and service. This was followed by the flight attendant making up our beds in some time so that we could slide our doors on the world outside — and let me say this that I would have never believed the decadence of it all till I stepped into the Apartment.

P.S.: I came back with four lessons from our stay in the Apartment.

The importance of using miles. A single ticket would have cost us anywhere near $8,000 for a long-haul flight between Paris and Abu Dhabi. This is where Adi’s banking miles with American Airlines rewarded us. Etihad has airline partners and American Airlines is one of them. Each of our ticket could be booked for 65,000 miles.
Take a super-long flight to avail of the luxury of such experiences. For us, 7 hours seemed way too short.
Never slide the contents of your bag into the drawers. If you are as scatty as me, you are bound to leave them behind even when your husband asks you twice if you have collected everything. I have just received my Kindle back, but lost my book of Love Poems from Shakespeare & Co. and my beloved journal. Whoever nicked them has taste.
The Residence which is the pinnacle of grandeur on board, can cost upto $32,000 (above 2 million miles) for a single ticket for long-distance flights. I found it meh given the astronomical figure it demands. Our butler took us in when Adi asked if we could peep in. The only differences I found significant were that you could queen over your private loo and a double bedroom (but the bed was mighty tiny, like the ones those old-time kings and queens slept in).

Helpfully I have reminders in hand if my head gets detached and starts to float. Midway through our dinner, Adi looked at me over a glass of bubbly and said with a gentle smile, ‘I hope you are not getting used to it. If the Apartment is for our 7-year anniversary, for our 10th, it will be the Shatabdi Express.’

2019-01-08 09.31.41 2.jpg — Etihad’s First-Class Suites

Processed with VSCO with a6 preset — The delighted miles hoarder

2019-01-08 09.31.41 1.jpg — Preen away at this vanity mirror

2019-01-08 09.31.27 1.jpg — Your personal mini bar

2019-01-08 09.31.27 2.jpg — My precious, now lost, commodities in the drawer of my suite

2019-01-08 09.31.40 1.jpg — The Apartment’s coat rack

2019-01-08 09.31.38 1.jpg — Self-explanatory

2019-01-08 09.31.37 1.jpg — Chickpea soup

2019-01-08 09.31.33 1.jpg — Lime sorbet as palate cleanser

2019-01-08 09.31.34 1.jpg — Mezze platter

2019-01-08 09.31.31 1.jpg — Prawn biryani

2019-01-08 09.31.31 2.jpg — Grilled black cod

2019-01-08 09.31.31 3.jpg — Profiteroles

2019-01-08 09.31.30 1.jpg — Cheese and crackers

2019-01-08 09.31.32 1.jpg — When you peek out and let your jaws drop at the beauty of nature after you have had a measure of the beauty that man can create.

Jan 24, 2019

Arundhati Basu46 Comments

Sweet Autumnal November, I Was Waiting For You.

I have a natural affinity for November. I was born on the 9th day of the month. With the passing of this day every year, I spot tangible changes in myself. Physically and mentally. It is a bouquet of mixed emotions. Wisps of grey hair, fine lines upon the forehead, a wistfulness that the years are going by in a jiffy, the recognition that I am changing as a person too. Subtle changes. Like how I used to love being social. Now I am content in the company of my husband, the geese and the squirrels (they who have taken the place of the English sheep and horses). The gulls have started arriving too. And it would be terribly amiss of me if I did not tell you about Yah Yah, the shaggy Great Bernese I meet almost every other day when she returns like a frisky girl with the wind in her black and white locks, her tongue lolling out a cheery how do you do. If you believe that canines could beam, Yah Yah does as she presses her big beautiful body against mine, and I coo to her as I proceed to gather clumps of her hairs on my running gear. Could I have any quibbles with life?

And there are the colours at their ripest best outside the windows, drying away in sunshine so liquid, as I write. Suddenly autumn has unleashed her uncommon splendour upon us. I noticed it last weekend when we drove into a town called Monteclair at the foot of the Watchung Mountains, which might be called mountains, but are really low-lying volcanic ridges covered with thick vegetation. In this town which the British settlers from Connecticut adopted for their own in the mid-1600s, and in which the Dutch arrived eventually, buying land off the Lenape Native Americans who hunted there, we had exquisite Thai food and shivered in the wind as we walked about its streets lined with old Tudor facades, now-desolate theatres framed in timber and episcopal churches with medieval touches in stone.

Closer home, the trees along the avenue on which we live, have turned colours. With all the wind that the gods seem to breathe our way, they are shedding leaves in twirls of golden yellows and russets. It is a most heartwarming sight. Kicking those piles of leaves in the air, even more so. Then, bringing bunches home to Adi’s amusement, to be pressed into the pages of books, and some to curl up at leisure on the dining table. Simple are the pleasures of life on this earth and I could ask for no better.

A sea of clouds bound for somewhere and touching upon us on the way

I bring to you some vignettes from the parks of Bayonne

Scenes from Montclair, a New Jersey township…

Nov 8, 2018

Arundhati Basu72 Comments

Upon the Snow-Laden Slopes of the North Cascades

The loveliness of the Pacific Northwest enveloped us from the moment we passed through deep forests of evergreens, beneath rows and rows of firs, cedars and hemlock. Through their thick outgrowths of needles, sunlight filtered in to rest awhile upon branches coated with moss which bathed in the glorious sunshine, seemed to have a life of its own. The forests looked like they have been around for a long, long time. Scattered log cabins showed up, framed poetically by all those evergreens and the snow-covered peaks of the Cascades. The Nooksack River popped up in places and it flowed gently gathering creeks along the way. Who knows if the Nooksack tribes still live around it, hunting and fishing, and generally, living off the land.

There is irony in the beauty of the Pacific Northwest, for the tectonic forces that have given birth to it, can reduce it to rubble. The region is edged by the Ring of Fire, a belt of volcanically and seismically active sites. All those mountains that rear their heads majestically — Rainier, Adams, Baker, St. Helens and Glacier Peak — they are actually active volcanoes. It never ceases to amaze me that nature holds such great power over our miniscule lives. That a thing of beauty is not a joy for forever. One day it shall pass into nothingness.

Farms and ranches, horses and vast tracts of land rolled by, with hardly a human being in our field of vision for miles, till we stopped at a local brewery for lunch and pints of chilled beer. There the fortune cookie revealed that in my stars was a road trip. What are the chances?

When we got back on the road, the scene started changing slowly at first, patches of snow peppering the woods. Then we were passing through walls of snow, out of which road signs stood out as if to declare proudly that they had held on despite the barrage of snow. Here there were only dark evergreens standing stark against the thick cover of snow on the mountains. Mount Shuksan stood dramatically in front of us, dots of skiers to be seen along its slopes. And there was this world of beautiful silence to be inhaled at that moment, the roads ribboning below us into swathes of evergreens.

The plan was to drive high up into the meadows, right up to Mount Baker, but the road was closed with this fresh onslaught of snow. Instead, surrounded by mountains with tickling names of the likes of Triumph, Despair, Fury, and Terror (evocative of the emotions of climbers who would have scaled them, I would imagine, but then I am wrong because the surveyor who had named them had not climbed these bad boys), we trudged up snowy hills clad in pristine snow, so thick that it was powdery on top, and in places where I sank into waist-deep snow, the indents revealed an icy-blue base.

I can report that there were snowball fights thrown into the mix, dodging and hurriedly hurling clumps of snow, training our cameras on all that beauty. And there was the intense urge to lie flat on the snow, to just stare for hours at the blue skies above our heads and the white, white world around us, as skiers and snowboarders swished past us, leaving criss-crossing trails in their wake.

2018-04-22 06.37.27 1.jpg — Scenes from around the Mt. Baker Highway

2018-04-22 06.37.28 1.jpg — Farms and ranches along Mt. Baker Highway

2018-04-22 06.37.24 1.jpg — The brewery where they brew beers in small batches. They are delicious, so I vouch.

2018-04-22 06.37.10 1.jpg — Catching the sun on a wonderful spring noon

2018-04-22 06.34.00 1.jpg — Roads that wind through thick forests of deciduous and evergreen trees

2018-04-22 06.33.44 1.jpg — Around the creek are snowshoeing routes running alongside the Nooksack River

2018-04-22 06.31.57 1.jpg — Mount Shuksan

2018-04-22 06.33.42 1.jpg — Glaciated mountains around Mount Shuksan

2018-04-22 06.31.48 1.jpg — Chalets in the Mount Baker ski area

May 8, 2018

Arundhati Basu76 Comments

This Spring of Contrasts

I had my first sighting of the leaves. Tiny green leaves are sprouting on the smaller plants in fits and starts all over the park. But the older trees, they are stubborn. They are holding onto status quo. This is a spring when we have had snatches of days that could not have been more at odds with each other. If there have been days of liquid sunshine with skies to match, snow has coated the boughs on days, and then there was that day when the fog was thick and heavy, it sat upon my eyelashes as I went out for a run. And the sunsets, let me not even get started about their exquisite beauty as they flame out into the skies.

The squirrels have started showing in greater numbers. They look suitably plump after their hibernation with possibly a decent reserve of nuts. Oh, and there are robins too! Now I have heard that it is a misnomer that robins appear during spring, but oh they do. There are whole bunches of them hopping up and down the slopes of the park, pecking and looking delightful with their breasts of red. As I felt this spirit of joy quickening in their sudden presence, I remembered my mother’s obsession with the cuckoo who lives somewhere in the coconut trees in our backyard in Calcutta. She gets great pleasure from telling me in detail about its odd timings for calling out, till I start zoning out, and the other day, I realised (with a tinge of horror and amusement) that this apple has fallen not too far from its tree.

Apr 10, 2018

Arundhati Basu58 Comments

Dartmoor National Park: Into the Wild Landscape of Devon

A man with his riding crop sat astride a horse that trotted down the country roads and in his wake, a stream of cars crawled, waiting for the traffic in the opposite direction to ease before they could contemplate taking the jump and overtake the horse. Such are the sights that are common on the winding lanes and roads in the English countryside. It is remarkable by the very absence of any tooting of horns. You might waggle your head here, and remark in an offhand manner, tut, but it is the British politeness at work here. Or, it could be the rigorous driving tests that have felled many an able driver. Who knows, but there we were pootling along the roads that led from the Dartmoor Zoo into the national park within which it sits.

The Dartmoor National Park, at the very heart of the county of Devon, is sprawled over 368 sq. miles. Picture tracts of vast moorlands, honey gold in parts and russet with peat in others. Upon it, incongruously enough, a batch of evergreens show up, like they were planted overnight upon the moors for some purpose which escapes you. And then ancient woodlands, round-backed bridges, country lanes that are flanked by tall hedges and roll into gentle hills criss-crossed by pastures and thickets of trees stripped off their leaves. An inescapable part of the scenery in the park are strange granite outcrops known as tors. They look primeval, and from far away, they put you in mind of the nuraghe, stone structures that show up in the wilds of Sardinia.

The entire length of the drive was a reel, a reel of gentle shots that built upon each other, till you felt that the heart would burst with the beauty around you. First off, there is this Pantone green hue to Devon’s countryside. A fresh neon shade that seems to reflect off the landscape.

Then there are those familiar sights. Narrow B-roads, boxed in by meadows that are surprisingly lush in winter, meandered through tiny villages. Roads that threw up comforting sights. Square towers of medieval stone churches, chocolate-box cottages with their thatched roofs and pleasantly pastel personalities, dense networks of bare branches smothered with moss and lichen that reached across the roads to link their digits and made natural arches. The wild moor ponies, the sheep bundled up cosily in their winter wool, fingerposts that pointed their fingers at villages like Princetown known for its forbidding 19th-century prison and literary heritage — Arthur Conan Doyle had conceived the Hound of the Baskervilles around its boggy moorlands.

It is so damn easy to fall under this spell of the countryside in Britain, is it not? And echo Kazuo Ishiguro in The Remains of the Day as he notes: “…it is the very lack of obvious drama or spectacle that sets the beauty of our land apart. What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, of its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it out.”

Mar 14, 2018

Arundhati Basu65 Comments

The Return of the Squirrel

I can feel the march of spring. Could be a flash in the pan though. Smoky blue days making way for sunny ones replete with the network of bare branches and portly natives returning to scrounge nuts. But then there are hardly any, so with bushy tails fanning above their backs they scamper right up to you and rear upon their minuscule hind legs just like the comical meerkats you cooed over in Dartmoor.

Feb 21, 2018

Arundhati Basu54 Comments

Pest to Buda: The Road to Yesterday

From the busy bohemian affair that is Pest, Buda is a world away. It is as if the Danube which bisects these two cities injects the air with a change that is palpable as you make your way to the capital of medieval Hungary. The good Welsh folk would declare us tup to have opted for a walking tour on a morning that proceeded to get distressingly foggy and frigid. But we will run with Kurt Vonnegut here. That “bizarre travel plans are dancing lessons from God.”

There was drama on the square outside St. Stephen’s Basilica. A bomb scare. Police arriving officiously and dawdlers scuttling equally hastily. We had left behind the grandeur of old buildings reminiscent of the golden age of the Austro-Hungarian empire, caryatids and brawny males holding up doorways, ornate moldings, some Art Nouveau architecture spicing up the mix, when we came upon Freedom Square. Memorials laced with irony. For there’s the memorial to the Holocaust in the form of an eagle, representative of Nazi Germany, attacking the Archangel Gabriel symbolic of the victims, when you know that the Hungarians colluded with the Nazis. And then there is that of the Soviet liberation of the country during WWII, a stark obelisk with the commie star crowning it. There is American president Ronald Reagan too caught in mid-stride facing the American embassy, as an acknowledgement of his role in ending the Cold War (“Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”), leading to the welcome exit of the Soviet regime from Eastern Europe.

You know when not to talk politics I suppose even though the mind might be brimming with points you want to make.

What you do instead is gasp at the grandeur of the Hungarian Parliament which on the dreariest of days knows how to cut it even as you stand by the Danube and feel the icy fingers of the breeze pierce the barrier of your warm clothing, your feet doubling up as numb blocks that keep moving because they have to.

Sixty pairs of bronze shoes lined up along the banks of the river. Grisly memories of Jews shot along the banks of the Danube by the anti-semitic party that was ruling the city after the Germans had toppled the erstwhile government in the mid ’40s. Heartbreak. A city filled with heartbreak that time cannot wash away.

Just as we had crossed the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, Vee abandoned us. He could take the cold no more. We carried on, toiling up stone steps, buoyed by visions of warm cafés awaiting us atop the hill. It is a matter of gravity that when we did reach the top of the hill, dreams were shattered. What was this? An open-air bar called Budapest Terrace. The temptation to be a stick in the mud was overwhelming, to throw a proper fit. We exchanged that urge for steaming cups of hot chocolate. Shiver and sip, sip and shiver, nose tingling, cold misery threatening to bog us down. But misery did have the panoramic company of the Danube and the moreish flavours of the best hot cocoa I have had in years.

As dusk gathered beneath the dim lights of wrought-iron lamps, we tread uneven cobbles, coming upon bronze statues and listening to Alejandro, the tour guide, narrate medieval stories of ambition and greed, the arrival of Renaissance art in the palace when a king wed a Beatrice of Naples, the Ottoman Turks and then the Habsburg queen Maria Theresa. Vee joined us again after warming his insides with pálinka. He had carried a bottle for us to swig on. It did its job as did the combined glory of hearty goulash (which you cannot get away from here), fried potatoes and chicken paprikash at a traditional Hungarian eatery.

Then it was truly dark and I cannot tell you how exquisite Buda was. Ludicrous baroque beauty that renders all adjectives redundant. The Fisherman’s Bastion, St. Matthias Church which was the site of many a coronation, old Roman excavations in the basement of hotels, the view of the parliament from across the Danube. We let it all come together in deserted Buda on a freezing December night and weave a mesh of golden spell upon us then, this golden city called Boodahpesht.