The monk lived in a small cottage by the sea. It would be an exaggeration to call it a cottage though; it was a small room with slanting tiled roof. But it was the monk’s home and people in the village called it the monk’s cottage. A small green grassy slope from the cottage door led the path to a cliff not too sharp.And below was the Mediterranean sea. Beyond the bend of the sea stood the picturesque village.
Tourists from Monte Carlo sometimes rented a house in the village for its quiet charm. But the monk’s cottage was slightly uphill and the twists and turns of the hill hid the cottage well. This gave the cottage and it’s owner a sense of privacy. The man was not really a monk . He always wore a black flowing cloak type of a dress with a warm cap to cover his head. He grew his beard long. The monk himself had forgotten why and when people of the village had started calling him the monk. He was a private person, nobody knew where he had come from, neither did he share. The old villagers too swore that they had seen the monk live in his cottage since they could remember.
The monk chose solitude over company.He was a man of wisdom. His soft soothing voice had a calming effect on people. The villagers would often walk up to his cottage when they had things on their mind. Sitting on an old log on the green slope in front of his cottage the monk would hear the people talk. He would hear them in patience, burying all their secrets in his heart. A few gentle words from him and the troubled folks would return home feeling more at peace with themselves than when they had arrived. Only the green grass, where they sat, remained a witness to these meetings.
No-one had ever seen the monk’s cottage from its inside. Curious children in groups at times climbed the hill just to take a peep inside the cottage. But they couldn’t see much, through the hazy window panes, they could only get a glimpse of a table covered with books . Once or twice the monk had come up on the peeping children from nowhere, and it had made them run down the slope in fear of the unknown. Yet the monk was not a loud or rude person, it was his silence that the children feared. Every Thursday morning the monk would go down to the market place in the village. He would enter the post office and drop a letter in the box without fail and then he would buy his supplies like any ordinary man. How he managed his money was a mystery like many other mysteries in his life.
One Thursday morning the villagers woke up to the smell of smoke. They came out of their houses and were aghast to see rising flames from the top of the hill where the monk lived. The raging flames and the dark smoke rising from it formed round big black rings of smoke above the deep blue Mediterranean.Word spread like wild fire, ‘the monk’s cottage was on fire’. People started running uphill towards the cottage. The cottage was burning. Someone in the village had dialled the fire department. One fire truck siren could be heard approaching. It took a few hours for the fire to be completely doused. The cottage had burnt to ashes.
The secret indoors of the cottage now lay open for all to see ; though there was not much left to see . One blackened iron bed stood alone , some metal pans and bowls lay on the ground, covered in soot. A few burnt pages of books and fabric were flying in the wind. A long search was made for the monk, even down the cliff where it met the sea. But there was no sight of the monk or his burnt body anywhere inside or near the cottage.
The mystery of the burned cottage and the vanishing monk still remain in the mind of the villagers. A village not so far away from the beautiful city of Monte Carlo will forever remain hidden behind the hills, hiding the blazing fires which burned up a cottage, the monk’s cottage. No one would ever know the address of the Thursday’s letters. No one would ever know the little secrets of the villagers that the monk hid in his heart. Years passed by , but the green patch in front of the cottage leading to the edge of the cliff remained barren. People slowly stopped climbing upto this once beautiful and serene spot, it now held an eerie silence in the air around it. The barren patch stayed barren, the grass had burned to ashes as if in mourning the death of a cottage, the monk’s cottage.
Carrying the mood of merry Christmas in our hearts, Chalk and Cheese entered the heartland of ‘Khamma ghani’. In this beautiful season of sunshine, warmth and dew drops, we were traveling into the deserts. Chalk’s old school friends were having a reunion to commemorate fifty years of their passing out of school. The once school boys were today’s good old men with greying, balding hair but bursting with enthusiasm like a batch of unruly young children.
As the bus was driving beyond Jaipur city I sat gazing out of the window, soaking in the changing topography and the vibrant colours of desert life. The bright turbans on the men’s head, the ghunghats of bandhni anchal covering the faces of women, bright yellow ‘sarso ke khet’ ( mustard fields) and thorny ‘kikar’ trees (babool) along the roads lead us to Diggi. Our home for the next three days would be the Diggi fort.
This seven hundred year old Diggi fort gave me the opportunity to live in the corridors of royalty, to hear the untold stories of the fort and to admire everything beautiful. The fort had the structural splendor of old architectural grandeur and the meticulous restoration work grandly blended the old era with the new. The architects had recreated the sense of style and comfort to match today’s sensibilities of royalty.
Feeling like an ancient queen, I took to my chambers where the artistically done up interiors indulged my senses to gradually drown in the lap of luxury. I was slowly settling down with a feeling like home. For the next two days I mostly kept walking into the interiors of the fort. I did not feel like a tourist or a visitor.
I walked down the corridors, climbed stairs, reached quiet forgotten roof tops. The angans made my imagination run into the fantasy world of bygone days. The Maharaja, maharani, the wives, the concubines, must have all lived in different Mahals of this fort. I imagined the echoing of voices, laughter, the musical jingling of heavy silver pajebs (anklets), along the long corridors bordering the central courtyards. The lattice work or jafri on the outer walls must have hidden the women folk inside; what world did they see with their deep dark khol-black eyes through those little prisms in the wall? Their world was very different from mine. In these grandly curated corridors I will always be an outsider. The lives that were lived within these walls will always remain an enigma.
My mind was recreating a world which must have been a reality many many centuries ago. The moss covered darkened walls on one side of the fort stood in contrast with the present reality. It stood as a symbol of history, it stood like a watch guard of the fort, witnessing centuries turning the needle of time in its predestined manner.
Outside this strong impenetrable high walls of the fort existed the real world. The small town of Diggi. The juxtaposition of life’s contrast on the two sides of the wall couldn’t be seen more starkly than here. Chalk and Cheese decided to take a little round up of this village called Diggi, to see a little more of this small place in the Tong district of Rajasthan. We hired a tuktuk, not before Chalk was completely satisfied with the negotiations of the fare for a forty minute ride. While the Cheese in me was planning to ask the tuktuk wala to let me pose on his driver’s seat and to my surprise he obliged. Perhaps he thought it safer not to argue with a half mad, frock wearing woman of middle age.
The tuktuk driver took us to the major attractions of his town, namely the Kalyan ji temple, the bus stand, the four dharamshalas and the Vijay Sagar lake. At the lake I saw women and young girls washing clothes. The scarcity of water must be pulling them to this only natural water body in their town. To my surprise I found the temple premises very clean and serene, here I learnt that local people walk from Jaipur city to this pilgrimage on special days and months of the year. When the riches of life draws a line of divide between people, faith strangely draws an equalizer; bringing the King and the pauper at its gate on an equal pedestal.
I always find myself swaying between the dualities of life, I often get lost in the search of the right road. Chalk my guide comes forward in such times and pulls me back into the party zone of life. Here too I see friends and strangers sitting side by side enjoying an evening together. I shrug off my own thoughts on dualities, of ancient times and dive in the party scene of the present moment. The singer has a melodious voice, we join in humming along with him as he sings “Yaadon ki baraat nikli haye dil ke dware, sapno ki shehnai bite dino ko pukare, dil ke dware…” What an apt song indeed for a reunion of friends .
After three days of living with friends like a big joint family Chalk and Cheese return to their silent home. When I ask Chalk if he feels the silence too, he calmly replies ” silence is golden “, well everything appears golden to Chalk after the golden jubilee celebration! But I am Cheese, I can’t remain quiet for long. Virginia Woolf once wrote ” It is a thousand pities never to say what one feels”, and me being Cheese, I feel a lot and I love putting them in words for myself. I will be back again in the same place, with some other chain of thoughts for myself and my friends. Till then, “Khamma ghani” from me to you.
I did not marry a chocolate cream soldier. Chalk does not understand flowers, chocolates or gifts unless told to do so! For him, the essence of any strong relationship is mutual respect, loyalty and responsibility. I too value the more meaningful aspects of life than the frills. And somehow life without the fancy frills makes it more easy at my age. As for romance, I am Cheese the romantic, I can do double shift romance, both for Chalk and myself.
For Chalk and Cheese special days are usually no different from everyday, but their children feel differently. They want to celebrate their parents anniversary and won’t listen to any of our arguments. Last year we were in Pittsburgh with our son and he had made his parent’s anniversary extra special .This year our daughter, aka Kessari was in London with us. She had meticulously planned the day, keeping in mind what Chalk and Cheese liked, but most of it was her secret, to be revealed gradually. It was almost like a parents day out kind of feeling for us.
“London has to be seen with the ‘London eye’ ” ; Cheese had said this to her daughter at some point and the daughter had remembered! The first surprise of the day was tickets to the London Eye. Chalk, Cheese and Kessari Iined up in drizzling rain for the ride. The wait was long, the wind and drizzle added to the chill. A panoramic view of London slowly unfolded as the giant observatory wheel completed one circle in thirty minutes. For thirty minutes we sat in a capsule looking down at The Big Ben, Westminster, St.Pauls Cathedral, the majestic buildings of London and the river Thames reflecting the city and its skies like an old trusted friend.
Our trusted Kessari had made plans of taking us for shopping . We followed her to the The Harrods department store. The cursory visit was more out of curiosity than necessity. The merchandise were mostly very steeply priced. My choice was clear, between empty pocket and empty hand, I preferred the latter.
A friend had recommended the store Fortnum and Mason. The store was established in 1707 as a grocery store, it has ever since gained in reputation and inventories and now stands as a luxury brand in London. It is heard that the Queen Elizabeth ll, visited the store personally and that the store has been the royal grocer for a century. Kessari, my genie for the day was making me feel nothing less than the queen. So the queen mother of Kessari entered Fortnum and Mason holding her daughter’s hand. Fortnum and Mason was indeed a beautiful store at every level. It had a winding staircase leading on to different floors. The interiors were elegantly done up, there were delicate glass wares on display, teal coloured tea sets, napkins, bags, and so much more. I felt adequately tempted to buy almost the whole store.
A visit to these landmark stores was definitely not about filling the shopping bags. Cheese was melting with other emotions. My daughter was holding my hand and taking me through the different sections of the stores , as if I was the child and she was my mother. She kept asking me whether I fancied anything in particular and with choked emotions all I could do was nod. I already had my world with me, holding my hand and walking along, how could I possibly fancy anything more precious than this moment .
Chalk and Cheese had started getting a little tired after all the store hopping, they wanted to sit for a while. On any other day we would have loved to find a bench at Trafalgar Square or Covent Garden, but this day was different. Kessari had hidden surprises at every turn. She had booked a table for afternoon tea at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.
The wide staircase with a red carpet welcomed us into the interiors of the theatre, almost like royalty. The tea room gave vibes of an old Victorian drawing room, an ideal place to sit back and enjoy a cuppa of English afternoon tea. But there was more on the platter than just tea. Elaborately layed out tables with the finest of tableware and delicate flowers had already set the mood for the evening. With touristy mode footwear (screamingly out of place ) Chalk, Chesse and Kessari settled down to an evening of style. Tea was served along with three different courses of delicious savouries. The service and courtesy of the staff was impeccable, they also got us a cake for our anniversary . Keeping to the Coronation theme, pastries were shaped like the crowns of the King and Queen. Sitting in the heart of England, your Indian Cheese was biting into the sweet taste of the crown! What a magical moment indeed.
After such a stylish experience of afternoon tea, I felt my London trip was almost over. But the daughter had yet another special treat waiting for us. The celebration continued with a theatrical extravaganza at the Piccadilly Theatre London. As we took to our seats the curtains were still down but the artists were amongst us, gyrating in slow motion, enthralling us, captivating us; titillating the imagination of the audience till the curtains raised to the dazzling show ‘Moulin Rouge The Musical’. The colours, sparkles, glitters were as much on the stage as on our minds. The delightful performance of the actors and the craft of story telling got embedded in our minds.
It was certainly the perfect romantic fairy tale ending to our anniversary date. The curtain had drawn on the stage of “Moulah Rouge” and finally it was time to draw the curtains on our celebrations for the day. A beautifully packaged gift of love from our children, a day filled with wonder, grandeur and dazzle. Chalk and Cheese themselves could not have planned it any better.
Chalk and Cheese are now back in India, settled in the comfort of home and the routine of everyday life. Writing this series of Chalk and Cheese European trip would not have been possible without the support of my friends and dear readers. Your encouragement kept me going. I cannot end without thanking my son for constantly nudging me to continue writing. He has been my cheer leader and one man technical support team in this entire series.
It is time to wrap up Chalk and Cheese tales for now. With a promise to come back with Chalk and Cheese when we travel again, signing off, your’s truly ….Cheese.
Waking up to London mornings, waking up to a wonderful feeling of anticipation of a new day, in a new city was slowly drawing towards its end. This would have been our perfect family holiday only if our son could have joined us. But perfection is an ever changing concept at its best. So Chalk, Cheese and Kessari made the best use of this vacation time by packing in as much as they could in the space of the given time. We traveled to places unknown; we saw what was unseen, and a lot more always remained unseen. The abundance of history, nature, people, culture, and much more could not ever be put into a box of a package tour. For me, each day ended with a tired body, yet a mind filled with so much wonder that dreams had no space to knock.
Reality looks like a dream when we walk through places we had never envisioned before. To stumble upon old traversed roads amidst lost forgotten forests, to find ancient monuments, or simply a church hidden at the bend of the road, such tranquil sights warms the heart and once more it reiterates, joy is in the journey alone. We drove through picturesque English countryside to reach the Warwick Castle and Windsor Castle.
Castles in the medieval period played a military role, battles were fought from here to protect territories. Castles were also the residences of noblemen. They were the epicenter of power of the ruler and a show of his strength. Warwick Castle was built by William the Conqueror near a meander of the river Avon. The proximity to the river helped to maintain good trade links as well as served as a tactical advantage point in battles. The high impenetrable stone walls of a castle guards the secrets of an empty barren world within . As tourists we enter this world to fill it with our imagination.
Windsor Castle (in the county of Berkshire ) is different from other historic castles. Windsor Castle has been home to royalty for over a thousand years. It is a working royal palace. Royalty still live here. Buckingham palace is the home of the King in the city and this is his home in the county. One section of the castle is open to tourists. We walk through the different rooms, the dining halls ( formal and informal), the meeting rooms , the room where the queen used to meet her visitors and so on. The grandeur and opulence of the place truly reflects the life of the royalty.
There is a doll house in Windsor castle which was built between 1921 and 1924. It was built for Queen Mary, wife of George V. The miniature doll house is a fascinating work of art. It is a miniature representation of the real rooms. The intricate detailing from furniture to crockery was absolutely amazing. From playing dolls to ruling a nation ,the royal life leaves their impression on our mind all the way.
As a testimony of buried centuries Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain stands amidst what seems like endless green fields. They are big vertical solid stones, set in a semi circular formation, and are prehistoric in age. Archeological research have different explanations to these remains. But to a clueless visitor like me ,they looked like massive stone pillars placed there in a symmetrical pattern. There are many variations to stories of how they came to exist in the present location, some mythical versions, some more research based. Stonehenge stands like a mystery of why and how but not eclipsed by the march of time .
As we followed the river Avon we reached the ancient city of Bath nestled in the river valley. Bath was built in Roman architectural style. The Roman Baths in England was once a religious spa where people came to worship the Goddess Sulis Minerva and bathe in the natural thermal springs. Bath is a beautiful city and deserved a longer time of stay to experience it in its totality. But alas, we were no more than passing tourists through a place which was centuries old.
As we drove out of Bath, Jane Austen was on my mind. Every house here looked like her house to me. In reality she had lived here for six years. I made a mental note to re read ‘Persuasion’ ( the novel was largely set in Bath ) once I got back home. Sometimes pages of a book tell us more about a place than a what we see as a tourist in a few borrowed hours.
“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players : They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.” William Shakespeare.
We were playing our part of a tourist, a traveler. We were not here to live forever but to carry the visions in our mind, forever. The bard was calling. We couldn’t come back from England without seeing Shakespeare’s birth town and his house in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Shakespeare’s childhood house was a small and simple house. Trying to understand the great bard’s life with one walk through his house was impossible. Reading an author is the only way we get to know them and also to understand a part of the world they lived in. Shakespeare’s plays were written for his time, for the Elizabethan stage but there timeless universal appeal makes Shakespeare and his work immortal.
The poets, novelists, playwrights who were born in this country through the span of many centuries, who wrote large volumes of work under these skies gave England and English literature a pedestal to stand tall in the world of literati. The universal appeal and everlasting relevance of great writers is measured by their work and not by the boundaries of the world.
Our Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, wrote a poem on Shakespeare to mark 300 years of his death. Tagore wrote in praise of Shakespeare that though born in England, his writings were for the whole world. Greatness and genius recognizing each other. In Shakespeare’s house we walked into that section of the garden where the bust of our Kabi Guru Rabindranath Tagore stood amidst trees and flowering plants. We spent a few minutes in reflection, paying homage to both the Bards in heaven.
The Oxford Dictionary and the Oxford Book Store in Kolkata was the closest I had ever got to the word Oxford. And then, there we were entering the campus of the prestigious Oxford University, the university of dreams for many scholars.
Of course, we were still wearing our tourist shoes which meant our time here was limited. The daughter had been to Oxford earlier, so she once again got into the role of Kessari tours. Chalk and Cheese followed her around like two young graduates.
Those precious few days in London city and around English countryside seemed like a kaleidoscopic vision of multi-coloured pictures. At a whirlwind speed, we roamed from one place to the other. So many times we lost ourselves in the beautiful maze of panoramic views, of history, of culture, of people and their lives. My attempt at recollecting and putting my thoughts down in words and photos is my way of preserving memories for a longer time.
Chalk and Cheese had their Anniversary celebration in London. A beautifully curated day by our darling daughter Kessari, and that my dear readers will be the last chapter of this series.
I entered London with my own baggage, the baggage of my Indian origin. From East India Company to the British Raj and then the Quit India movement, till 1947 August 15th the stories are endless. The first East India Company that set foot on Indian soil for business was a Dutch company, the rest followed them. But it was the British who stayed back and the rest is history. Socio political history always leaves back a mark on the generations who live through it and also on the generations who come after.
Royal welcome
I was born in a free India but to parents and grandparents who had lived part of their life in the pre – partition and pre-independence India. Our history has not bound us to bitter memories alone, it has also shaped us in many ways than we would like to admit. Since then we Indians have resurrected our country to another level, keeping the sacrifices of our freedom fighters in mind. We have reconstructed our country and moved on with time. As I entered England for the first time, I held on to this feeling of being an Indian very strongly, lest it gets snatched away! But no, that cannot be. I carry my roots, my culture, my skin colour, my heritage , my passport, my identity with pride and dignity.
Black cab
Moving on to Chalk and Cheese journey, our train pulled into London Station on a bright and clear spring morning in the month of May. Chalk and Cheese stepped out of the station and in grand style Chalk hailed a hackney carriage for his lady. No matter how much I would have loved a horse driven carriage but it was not to be. The black cabs of London were also called hackney carriage. Lady Cheese was learning a few new things in this English country trip.
Chalk and Cheese were extra happy on reaching London for a very special reason. Our daughter, our ‘chalk-o-cheese’ was waiting for us in London. She was visiting her friends in Cambridge and Oxford and had planned to join us in London. Chalk and Cheese were excited like two children who have finally been united with their parent ! Roles were reversed. When your children start parenting you in their small little ways, there is something soothing and comforting about letting go of the reins in their hands.
Letting go has its pros and cons too, specially when you have an over enthusiastic girl guide and two semi tired parents. My little girl gave us exactly ten minutes break at the hotel to catch our breath and then commanded “let’s go”. She had reached London five hours before us but behaved like she had been a Londoner all her life . She was wearing an oversized orange coat, a pair of well worn out walking shoes, a sling bag around her neck and a big big smile on her face. Sprinting ahead of us in her orange coat she looked like our Kessari tour guide. Chalk and Cheese started following their darling Kessari travels through the streets of London.
Primrose Hill with Kessari
The daughter, aka.. Kessari travels takes us to The Regent Park and makes us climb up the Primrose hill. A panoramic view of London greets us at the top. William Blake the poet who lived in London had written: “I have conversed with the spiritual sun. I have seen him on Primrose hill.” We sat there for sometime, not conversing. In silence, we looked into the skyline, the London skyline. Come tomorrow and we had plans to see London city and more.
The closest we got to royalty
The Queen was gone, the new king had taken his throne, coronation week was over and London city was getting back to normal. Our tour guide (an elderly lady and a devoted fan of everything Victorian) shared a royal secret with us. She told us that we were very lucky because all the royal jewelry had been brought back from the Royal palace after coronation and would be on display for tourists in the Tower Of London, adding that only she knew about this piece of information. But standing in a very long queue to enter the Jewel House it seemed that a lot of other people were also privy to this royal secret!
Chalk, Cheese and daughter entered the Jewel House to see the display of royal jewelry, The Kohinoor and The Crown. Everything glittered, the gold, the rubies, sapphires, emeralds and intricately cut diamonds. But we are Indians, our eyes thirsted for The Kohinoor. We cannot ever forget how Maharaja Ranjeet Singh had parted with the Kohinoor, our Kohinoor. Every Indian sees a sparkle of India’s glorious past in the twinkle of that one piece of diamond. We also stood in front of the Kohinoor for those few extra minutes, trying to see the glimpses of centuries in those fleeting minutes.
A city is so much like a book. It has its own story. The roads, alleys, buildings, people, food, travel, all of them are like individual characters telling us a story. The more you walk, the more you learn about a place. We walked from Big Ben (not before standing there, craning our necks to look up in amazement at the big clock tower) … to Trafalgar Square. On our way, 10 Downing Street made us stop in our path for a while, after all we do have an Indian connection in there, don’t get me wrong, I was only thinking about Sudha Murthy!
Later in the day met a very dear girl from India who lives in London now. It is very impressive to see how happily young people make a new place completely their own. We had dinner together at ChinaTown. China town because Chalk and Cheese were craving for some good chinese food, that familiar sweet and sour taste which would strangely give us home food comfort.
Like a typical tourist I entered random shops picking up souvenirs while impatient Chalk and Kessari waited outside. We walked around Trafalgar Square, we combed through Covent garden markets. Sometimes we got lost, sometimes we were happy to find a red bus back to the hotel. We were very impressed with London’s public transport system. The underground metro and the red double decker buses were certainly very convenient mode of traveling. Our dear Kessari made us walk, travel and eat like locals.
Sightseeing cruise on Thames took us along the city and under the, London Tower Bridge, Waterloo Bridge and Westminster Bridge. The British don’t pronounce Thames like you and me do. Their H is silent. I learnt to pronounce their Thames their way, and now I want them to pronounce Ganga the way we do at home and not call it Ganges! Seeing the London Bridge our age old nursery rhyme is bound to play through the mind …
“London Bridge is falling down… Build it up with gold and silver, My fair lady. Gold and silver we’ve not got, We’ve not got, we’ve not got, My fair lady. “
This nursery rhyme revolves around the dilapidation and the rebuilding or repairing of the London bridge time and again. Wonder where they went in search of gold and silver? Anyway, my story is about our travels with our dear Kessari. Chalk, Cheese and daughter were yet to see the castles of England, the Roman remains of Bath, buried centuries at Stone henge, a visit to Shakespeare’s house in Stratford-upon-Avon. Our anniversary was coming up, and the daughter had planned a day for us. All this and more in the next London chapter.
Packing completed, Chalk and Cheese bid adieu to Amsterdam, its canal houses , its tulips and head out for Scotland. All through the journey Cheese struggles with a suitcase which has suddenly developed a personality of its own; it simply refuses to walk along her side . Cheese is bending at an odd angle, pulling a reluctant suitcase like an unruly toddler. Chivalrous Chalk is walking much ahead of her, ignorant of her plight, for he is carrying the heavier burdens of the journey ! Lesson learnt , do not ever carry an old suitcase for travel, go ahead and buy a new one.
We reached Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland on a wet and damp day. As we set out of the hotel, rain hits us hard. Against the strong winds and gushing rains, my dainty umbrella turned turtle within minutes. I search for some shelter and luckily find the National Museum of Scotland across the road. Chalk on the other hand, with smug pride for his sturdy umbrella from Decathlon was behaving as though he had plans to cover the city of Edinburgh on foot, come hail or storm. However, we entered the museum ( free entry ) and spent an hour sheltered from rain and cold. To see some more attractions of the city we climbed on a hop-on hop-off bus. But soon realized that hop-off was not the best choice. The heavy rain kept us boarded on the bus. Sitting in the bus, with the rains blurring our vision, we caught glimpses of some impressive buildings belonging to the period of medieval architecture, adding much character to the city.
The next day we went in search of the hiding monster in the Loch Ness lake. The drive to the lake was long, through the scenic highlands of Scotland. The lake was quiet , big and peaceful. There are so many beautiful lakes in my own country, but we are not always capable of keeping it that way for long. We spoil our environment with our own doing. And here I was in a foreign country, sitting by a lake, feeling the silence all around me and thinking where we fail in our responsibilities when it comes to “Mera Bharat Mahan.”
We stayed in picturesque Scotland for four days. We traveled through Scotland by trains and buses. Learning our ways in a new country, finding new rail stations, bus stops, not losing our way through this zig zaw seemed like a mini adventure to Chalk and Cheese. Chalk was the map reader and Cheese was the observer. Journeying on unknown paths ,we were each other’s compass. The winding roads, lakes, green countryside all around, dotted with grazing sheep, the whole scenario felt like a motion picture. A cinema where the camera was rolling without any interval.
Nestling in the lap of stretched out lush green meadows, smokey lakes and undulating hills was a kingdom that I had seen in my imagination all through my childhood. This was a world straight from of the pages of the books we have grown up reading in our school days. Right from the beginning of nursery rhymes to those wonderful illustrations on the thick silky smooth pages of Radiant Readers; the pictures have always stayed back. Then we were introduced to volumes of romantic poets and novelists , pictures were no more a necessity . By then our minds had learnt the art of imagination. Words alone could paint a scenery and fill it with the colours of life.
Silence
From the first generation of Romantic poets like Coleridge, William Wordswoth and William Blake to the second generation of romantic poets Lord Byron, PB Shelley, John Keats, they had all lived in these surroundings and had been inspired by these unending landscapes. For me to behold the same intricate canvas of nature felt very surreal. The settings of Scotland brought to life the images of my imagination right in front of my eyes.
We traveled to Windermere from Edinburgh by train with one change at Oxenholme. Windermere has one rail station, connecting it to other parts of Scotland. William Wordswoth had opposed to the making of this rail station fearing it would spoil the beauty of his beloved Lake District. Our hotel in Windermere was perched on a small hill with a breathtakingly beautiful view of the meadows and lake. This hotel gave me the luxury of time, space and beauty. I sat there for hours in a contemplative mood looking out , reflecting on these fairytale days of life.
We were in Scotland on the coronation day of the King Charles lll. Social issues of the two countries Scotland and England can be different but their sovereignty holds them together.Though King Charles is the monarch of the United Kingdom we felt an altered narrative between the two countries. The English people, specially the senior English people had devoted sentiments towards their late queen, Queen Elizabeth , and were happy to see her successor on the throne. Whereas the Scotish people swayed between scorn and indifference about their monarch and his coronation. My summation comes from what I generally heard and saw amongst the everyday regular people of the two countries. It certainly has no political connotations whatsoever.
Since the ceremonial jubilation of London had not crossed the borders, the roads were not blocked, traffic moved unaffected, tourists did not feel it different than any other day. We peacefully moved around Scotland riding on Mountain Goats ! Ofcourse not literally, the bus company we had booked with was called the Mountain Goat. In a country where I saw more sheep in the meadows than people on the streets, this name seemed to fit so perfectly. The green landscape and grazing sheep, miles after miles, a few houses here and there, this world is surely fit to be a kingdom!
Scotland seemed to be whispering in my ears to stay on for a while. I was weaving unforgettable memories that would last me for a lifetime. We were driving through the English Lake District, stopping by to see William Wordswoth’s house in Grasmere village. We had time to stand and stare at the hills where he had seen ” a host of golden daffodils ” We tasted ginger bread from Wordswoth’s favourite bakery which still bakes the same bread. Amidst the fields I could imagine “the solitary reaper” bending at her work, ” to stop here or gently pass” was certainly a thought that will stay with me forever.
What is love I ask myself ? Is it not the pure emotions of joy and pain mingled together that I have nursed in my heart for years. The seed of romanticism, the seed of poetry , the seed of loving nature like a lover, were all planted years ago in my heart. With such happy thoughts and a content heart I move forward from one country to the other. London calling, will be the last chapter of this journey of Chalk and Cheese.
A Dutch painter, some Dutch tulips, A house where Anne Frank lived and A district named De Wallen, and when they all come together they tell stories of different hues. Cheese loves stories and she will happily spread them around. Chalk will support Cheese with his firm , no nonsense attitude lest she loses herself in this labyrinth of fairy tales.
“Dekha ek khwab to ye silsile huye, duur tak nigahon mein hain gul khile huye…”, I have hummed this song so many times in my life ; but never had I thought that one day I would be running between endless rows of tulips, singing this song aloud. Oh so filmy , you might say. And yes, I accept, I am Cheese and I am a foolishly romantic and filmy person. My romance is not with an individual in particular, it is with nature, myself, my reading, my feelings, in short with life itself.
Tulips first bloomed in the mountain ranges of the Himalayas in Central Asia and the Alpine Himalayan belt of Turkey. The Sultans of Turkey used to put a tulip on their turban, and the name of the flower came from the Turkish word , turban. In India, the Mughals grew tulips in their gardens. But I did not go to any mughal garden to see the tulips. One Mr. Yash Chopra had shown us in his film Silsila ( 1981) the Tulips of Holland with Amitabh and Rekha singing a love song ..”Dekha ek khwab”. I went chasing that ‘ khwab’ or dream all the way to a country called Netherlands. The big screen had left its magical mark in Eastman colour and what I saw in those fields matched with that memory frame by frame.
I left Chalk and the group with the tour guide talking about all the how’s and why’s about tulips. I walked a few steps away , to be with myself in search of solitude ! Aah, solitude cannot be felt so easy. Soon the cameras would start clicking and people talking. But in those few stolen moments, I tried to immerse myself in the magnificence of colours and beauty of a simple flower named tulip. The vision of the brightest red, pink, orange, yellow under the sparkling blue skies of May was arranged specially for me as a gift from the heaven’s above.
From the tulip farms ,we went to the famous Kaukenhof Gardens to see more tulips. The garden was curated to hold the visitors in absolute awe with its spectacular beauty. At every turn there was a fresh bed of tulips in amazing colours. In the fields the tulips are grown for their bulbs, so the flowers are headed off at a certain time. Where as in the Kaukenhof Garden the tulips are not cut, they are grown for display alone. Therefore the variety of the tulips, their size and the mixing of vibrant colours were unparalleled.
From the bounty of nature’s pallet, Chalk and Cheese take a turn to see the painter’s pallet in the Van Gogh Museum. Vincent Van Gough ,the famous post-impressionist painter who has left behind a school of thought, of learning and experimenting with the brush and easel, was born in southern Netherlands. His work includes landscapes, still life, portraits and self-portraits. A visit to the Van Gogh Museum to see his paintings was on the list of things to do for Chalk and Cheese. But when we entered the museum our ignorance hit us hard. Each painting stopped us in our track, to admire in reverence, an art form about which our knowledge was so limited yet each frame so immensely intriguing.
This museum is a place to see, read, think, imagine, feel, understand and admire the man called Vincent. Through his paintings, the artist has left behind a story of his life and made it immortal. We see the man, his loneliness, pain, chaos, experimental phase, blissful state, and so much more, all taking shape and form in colours . Van Gogh’s self portraits had a story too, getting a model to pose for portraits was an expensive business, therefore Vincent found his own mirror image the best way for him to practice and learn portraits. Van Gough kept on painting despite his mental illness. Painting was his release or escape in a world where he would not be misunderstood or plagued by doubts. His use of bold colours and brush strokes, at times using the canvas itself as his pallet to mix colours, were all in some way, foundations of modern art.
His famous painting ‘Starry Night’ is kept in New York’s Museum of Modern Arts. Paintings of trees with flowers filled the painter with hope and joy. We saw his two other famous work the ‘Sunflowers’ and ‘Almond Blossoms ‘ at the Van Gogh Museum. Chalk and Cheese left the museum soaked with the powerful colours of life, sprayed by a man called Vincent Van Gogh.
The scarlet or the colour red was the last colour we would see on our final evening in Amsterdam. As Chalk and Cheese set out for their evening stroll along the canal, they reached the infamously famous district of De Wallen. It was around eight in the evening. In full day light the roads and houses looked just like any other canal-lane roads and houses. Only difference was the gathering public around the pubs on the street. Chalk and Cheese were in two minds, whether to wait awhile or return to the hotel. But I guess curiosity got the better of us, we waited.
Around nine in the evening the street lights and the red neon lights on the windows started glowing all at once. The red curtains were pulled to a side and behind each window stood girls wearing bright, glittering fancy clothes , posing and looking directly into the eyes of the onlookers. The popularity of this street amongst tourists is perhaps because, everyone can walk these streets. The life of these sex workers is not an unknown story, there is no discreet alluring of sensuality, it is all in the open. A profession which has existed for centuries, hidden behind closed doors and hushed whispers, had at last raised the curtain, for the show to begin. You can be scornful, lustful, and yet these women will look straight into your eyes, almost daring you to turn your back. Chalk and Cheese did turn back, but this time in contemplative silence.
No matter how well one plans , some wishes still remain unfulfilled . And that is the way of life. It is not necessary that every door you knock will open for you. I knocked the doors of Anne Frank House , but in vain. The tickets for this house are available only online and had to be booked much in advance. I learnt my lesson to make peace with disappointment. I sat outside the house for sometime, remembering the book I had read when I was in school. Years cannot erase all memories, and a good book leaves impressions for life. Perhaps some memories are best left as it is, untouched. Let Anne Frank House stay in my mind forever, just the way I had imagined it to be years back as a young girl. A house where that young girl lived in hiding for two long years, let it remain hidden from the curious eyes of visitors like me.
Chalk and Cheese travel from Kolkata to Abu Dhabi, and then Abu Dhabi to Amsterdam. Flying across countries and continents is a matter of fine balance ! As the pilot keeps the aircraft in balance, the passengers and crew do their own balancing act inside the aircraft . Firstly, to hold on to a sleepy head on the shoulders ,searching for a good pillow in vain ; then using the washroom just when turbulence begins ; and lastly balancing Chicken Tikka masala – Hindu non veg meal, ( I like how my identity is attached to my choice of meal ) from a tiny box straight into my mouth, very deftly,…. all this and more is nothing but lessons in perfecting the balancing act. Every long haul flight leaves me feeling very balanced and almost begging to get grounded !
Airport ordeals makes me feel that I have just finished a hurdle race of some kind. The security checks, delayed flights, long lines, endless terminal walks, hours of waiting at the boarding gate, after clearing all the above hurdles and just before reaching the finishing line ,I find myself standing in front of the immigration officer. We are both smiling at each other and I am trying desperately to prove that my finger impressions are mine only ! Chalk waits behind the yellow line looking in a different direction, pretending he is not with this dubious passenger.
Finally we line up at the baggage carousel. We wait and wait, staring at the belt , for our suitcases to manifest first, but that would be nothing short of a miracle . There is no chance for our suitcases to show up so soon. There are four or five other suitcases lazily doing the rounds on the belt on a repeat mode ; almost teasing our eager eyes waiting impatiently for “Mera wala black, Mera wala red with Mera wala tiranga ribbon”. Chalk is as patient as a monk and Cheese’s impatience can match that of a monkey , together we wait for our luggage, one in meditative silence and the other pacing to and fro like a …you got it .
At long last when we exit the airport we are greeted by our driver David. Now, after having spent almost twenty hours with my silent mode Chalk on the journey ,I am literally thirsting for some chit chat. Also, me being Cheese, am already feeling quite at home and happy in the Dutch land of cheese. With undisguised enthusiasm I start talking with our driver David. Towards the end of the ride David and I are chatting like two old friends. I have given him an idea to open a website with a DDD logo (Dutch Driver David ) and start a tour company. He on his part has enlightened me with knowledge of Tulips to tram rides , red light street to Royal palace road, in short, he has conveyed his willingness to be our driver for the next few days. We had to disappoint driver David as all our rides were already prebooked, thanks to our excellent travel curator.
As tourists one is always pressed for time, every day, every hour is important. After our check-in formalities at the hotel gets over, our body longs to stretch out on the soft white bed and sleep off the fatigue of travel. But Chalk and Cheese quickly change clothes, shrug off all tiredness and step out onto the streets of a new city, for a new adventure to begin.
Amsterdam is a city with an elaborate canal system and houses are built along the canals. There are big boats leaving the ferry (close to the Grand Central Station ) every thirty minutes to give tourists one hour cruise along the canals . Every canal cruise , river cruise , in different parts of the world is unique in its own way. The stories that the banks unfold are different.
As we start sailing, the canals become like narrow lanes with colourful narrow houses on both sides .The canal houses of Amsterdam are its landmark. They stand out for their structural uniqueness . The windows of these houses are mostly made of glass. The ground floor has one big door and long windows and with each floor rise the windows get smaller, giving an optical illusion of a tall building. Some houses have black tar roofs , tar was used as a cheaper alternative to tiles in the Eighteenth century, but in present times they have become a style statement.
The Egelantiersgracht canal in Amsterdam’s Jordan area, showcases the most beautiful houses. Though the name sounds like a tongue twister but every house along this canal made me twist my head again an again .These beautiful canal houses in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth century were originally used for storage of raw materials for trade , also doubling up as residences for the artisans or tradesmen. In today’s date and time, the famous and wealthy people live in the canal houses. These houses attracted me so much that during our four days stay in Amsterdam I made it a point to take a small evening stroll along the canals almost everyday.
Pedals in tricolour
Amsterdam is also a city of cyclists, which the locals jokingly call the ” killer cyclists” because the cyclists don’t stop for you and me, instead we need to look out for them and stop for them with either fear or respect, the choice is ours . I don’t know how to cycle or else I would have loved to pedal along the canals and the bridges of Amsterdam. But so what if I can’t pedal, l will walk , run, take trams, trains, boats and traverse through some beautiful countryside of Netherlands. Tulips, Van Gogh museum , Cheese factory, Wooden shoe stories, Windmills, were some of the attractions of Netherlands that we had put on our itinerary. We planned to begin our next day with the Cheese factory tour. After all I am Cheese, and I was eager to know how Cheese tasted differently in different countries.
At the cheese factory in Volendam, there was actually nothing to see because it was not a factory, it was only a shop. At the shop a pretty lady wearing a traditional dress and a pretty apron shared with us her beauty secret, which was …drinking whey everyday. Imagine telling Cheese about the potency of whey ! How do I tell her that I am cheesy Cheese, and I swim in whey all day ! In my country we call it “chhanar jol”, a diet for the sick and recuperating . We have been drinking whey for years. The trip was not a complete waste because we ended up tasting various types of cheese and buying some too.
Volendam disappointed Cheese with cheese but otherwise it is a beautiful small village type town. I had the best fish and chips of my life at a small restaurant. I was sitting by the lake, looking out at the fishing boats sway, as the pitter patter rain drops made music. This quaint scenery was almost picture perfect and so serene. Sometimes you make the best memories from the simple nothingness of life.
The colourful wooden shoes of Holland are known as clogs. We brought back some as souvenirs , but of course Cheese will always have a story to tell. In a small town called Marken we saw demonstration of how a shoe is carved out from a block of pre-soaked wood. These wooden shoes were worn in the Netherlands because they protected the feet from wet and marshy lands during farming. They were also worn by fishermen and factory workers. These shoes could stand all weather conditions. They were surprisingly very light in weight and comfortable to wear.
All this information made perfect sense to me, but what I couldn’t understand was Chalk’s extreme fancy for clogs. Chalk loved these shoes so much that he actually wanted to buy one pair for himself. Cheese had to threaten him that if he walks in wooden shoes then she would stop matching steps with him. However once we get back home I will search for a “kharaun or kharam” and gift it to him, he can then have a Made in India wooden shoe !
Windmills at Zaanse Schans
Wooden shoes or not, Chalk’s other wish was soon fulfilled. We went to see the beautifully preserved wooden wind mills of Netherlands . The four or five ancient windmills at Zaanse Schans stood amidst lush greens and blue waters. The Miller himself gave us a small guided tour of his windmill. What impressed us was how they have kept them in working condition even after hundreds of years.
The winds blew, and the windmills turned very slightly. Life here seemed to be moving at a slow pace keeping the wind on its side .We stood there admiring, smiling, thinking in tune. The winds played with us, it gently touched us like a friend, it reminded us how far we have traveled together, literally and figuratively. We marveled at life and its blessings. For a small moment Chalk and Cheese were on the same page, they were thankful for what life was offering them in this vacation and beyond.
The beauty of holidays is that every new day comes to us carrying a fresh bouquet of flowers. We do not know the roads we will take, the people we will meet and the places we will see. Something new adds on to our life forever. As I stood that night looking out from the window gazing at a beautiful full moon and a Church in the distant, tears of gratitude blurred my vision. I went to sleep, so that I could wake up to see in the light of a new day the colourful Tulips of Amsterdam and Van Gough’s famous Sunflower painting.
“Travel is a fools paradise” , and what a beautiful paradise it is indeed ! To set out of home in search of paradise time and again is like an utopian chase in many ways . A world within our world and yet so different from our self created boundaries of routine, work, and comfort. To travel is to subject oneself to constant change. Every minute something new can happen and our body and mind has to be in tune to adapt to that change easily. And then the rewards flow in. All our senses get consumed soaking in the unknown myriad of experiences. The unknown slowly turns to familiar, it teaches us, enriches us and never fails to fill up the album of life with more beautiful pages.
In preparation to our travel, four suitcases ( two big and two small ) were brought down from the loft of our house a week before travel began. Chalk and Cheese popped out of the suitcases and grinned widely at me. What else did I expect, whenever and wherever I travel with the husband, Chalk and Cheese has to follow. I started the game and now I have to play along. With age our distinguishing personalities of being Chalk ( the husband) and Cheese ( the wife ) is mellowing down a bit. We are at last ( albeit , very late in life ) learning to give in to each other’s ways and choices, nonetheless Chalk and Cheese travel stories continues. We travel with Chalk and Cheese in toe, for they do not need a visa or passport to travel, they simply come and go in my imagination as they please.
Taking a summer vacation to sway in the breeze with the Tulips of Amsterdam, to drive through the meadows of Scotland and finally to set sail on the Thames and see the iconic Tower Bridge of London; this was my simple plan! There is always so much to see, but one has to choose from this bounty of travel box and see what suits the time, mood and most importantly, expenses of the individual. Chalk never says no to a good idea, and ( bless his enthusiasm) he promptly started making the flow chart of the journey on his black board !
Strangely enough as the day of our journey came closer, I started feeling a sense of anxiety and tension. A reluctance or fear to leave the comforts of home and venture outdoors. Though the worries were baseless and quite ridiculous but in my mind they were real. I shared my insecurities with my children, telling them about my endless ‘What ifs’. “What if we missed the connecting flights” ; “What if all my plants die in my absence?”; “What if I don’t have enough stamina to cope with the demands of travel?” ; “What if I do not understand the British accent ?” these endless questions went on and on in my mind. To my utter dismay my daughter instead of showing any empathy to my anxiousness, told me in a cold voice, ” Ma don’t behave like you are about to board a space ship and travel to outer space to meet aliens. You will be very much on this planet itself, please gather yourself.” The son had a more gentle approach to my worries. He was like ” Ma if you have your passport and money in place , all else will be automatically taken care of. Relax and start enjoying. ” Quite a practical advice by the young man. I promptly packed all the euros and pounds I could lay my hands on in my wallet. I double checked the passport and tickets, and told myself : ” Go Cheese, go, all is well”. Chalk of course was absolutely oblivious of my Cheesy state, his full focus was on the plan sheet, hotel vouchers, bus vouchers, etc etc.
We travel to run away from the routine and yet it is the same routine and monotony of everydays’ predictable life which binds us to a comforting cushion around us. And then to step out of this cushioned walls sometime feels quite an insurmountable task. No wonder, I call myself Cheese, I am always spreading myself in the warm arms of comfort ! Thankfully I have an absolutely dependable Chalk as a partner. He is a trained soldier to the core. Chalk knows not much about the softer feelings and cushions of life. Even if he feels anxious, ever, he doesn’t show it outwardly. I try to throw all my questions and anxieties into a box and shut it with a TSA approved lock ( in case I feel like worrying in a foreign land, later. ) and forget the combination number for a few days.
I am a meticulous packer. I carry all small and big items which I feel I may need during my travel period. I have this uncanny feeling that if I forget something I will surely end up needing it desperately. I know that it is easier buying stuff than carrying them around. But I am a very choosy cheesy person, I pack the way I like. I carry safety- pins to band-aid. I carry medicines that can suffice to run a mini pharmacy ! I never forget chargers, different socket points, umbrellas, plastic bags, pen, paper, books, kindle, iPad, sanitary pad, wet tissue, dry tissue….whew. In short, I travel with a mini home which I manage to fit in my share of one and a half suitcase.
Chalk on the other hand is a last minute packer. My tension multiplies as his shopping bags from Decathlon keep piling up one on top of the other. He remains calm, he can pack in an hour or less time. Whereas I need an hour just to pack my toiletries.
Chalk and Cheese are different in every possible way, and so are we, the husband and wife. Chalk with full good intentions goes ahead and pre books our seats on the flights to and fro from home. I am in total shock ! He has not booked even one window seat in any of the flights. Who spends money to sit in the middle and aisle seats, I wonder. Chalk has a simple argument, there is nothing to see from thirty five thousand feet above the ground , the sky looks more or less the same. Spoken like a true pilot, yes Chalk is also a pilot, besides being a firm chalky soldier. But Cheese is an artist at heart, mind, and soul. I stare at him in disbelief. He doesn’t know that the sky changes colour, from deep magenta pink to scarlet orange , from crispy blue to darkening gray. He doesn’t know the land below looks amazing during take off and landing. That the fluffy clouds floating besides the airplane always invite me to float with them into the far horizon, all this is unknown to Chalk. Chalk has robbed me from the only joy of air travel, gazing out of that tiny oval window. Now all I have to gaze at is at a screen in front of me , seeing one movie after the other. With a long sigh Cheese becomes cold and a little sad ; Chalk may call it ‘Much Ado about Nothing’ but Cheese knows better. She will certainly create her own paradise no matter wherever you make her sit.
Our day of departure finally arrives. We set out for the airport in the middle of the night, Chalk and Cheese and their four suitcases. After long hours of waiting at the airport, when our flight took off , my City Of Joy was dimming the night lights, preparing for another dawn. And we flew westward in search of new places, to make more beautiful memories.
Solitude, you are the lone bird above, soaring high, You are the caged bird, desiring to reach the sky, You are the first drop of rain, on a parched piece of land, You are imprisoned, in an hour glass, like a grain of sand.
Solitude, you are in my mother’s eyes, waiting tirelessly for me, You are in someone’s broken heart, weeping alone, by the sea, You are in a little boy’s smile, when he sees the shooting star, You are in the old man’s stride, walking homeward , very far.
Solitude, you are in the midnight silence,of a busy city street, You are in those countless waves, thrashing at the rock’s feet, You are in that crimson light of dawn, waking up from sleep, You are hiding like a tiny tear drop, lost in the ocean’s deep.
Solitude, you are with a lone soldier, on guard, near the fence, You are in a sailor’s heart, searching the shore with his lens, You are on a poet’s mind, amongst the hills and meadows, You are a silent prayer by the night, with a grieving widow .
Solitude, you are in the echoing chants of Gurbani, by the day, You are in the evening azan, welcoming the evening to stay, You are in the shlokas , flowing like music in a melodious voice, You are sitting within the Chappell, tuning to my inward noise.
Solitude, you are in my absolute silence, you are in my chaos, You are in my joyful reverie, you are laced with pathos, You are in my drama, you are in my shameless fall and peak, Solitude, you are my treasured companion, it is you I forever seek.
sangeeta chakladar 