Solo Trips, Serial Killers and Goa

And just like that, once again we are under the power of Covid-19, the virus that has been screwing up our lives for the past couple of years. Can someone tell me why China has no cases of coronavirus? Or are people dropping dead but nobody is allowed to tell?

So here I am, once again spending most of my time indoors. Thankfully last year I finally went ahead and indulged in some home improvements, so at least my apartment is a nicer place to hang out in. The plan is to make some additional improvements but I no longer have faith in plans.

This morning I was going through some old pictures and came across a bunch from my solo trip to Goa in August 2015. On an impulse, I had booked myself an Airbnb in South Goa, not completely remote but still very serene. It’s a part of South Goa that has mostly 5 star hotels and I was most definitely not in one of them. Instead I had an entire apartment to myself. A fairly large, almost spooky place on a quiet residential street, surrounded by trees and about a 5 minute walk from the pristine beach. 

Landing into Goa late afternoon, by the time I reached my living quarters for the next few days, after an almost 2 hour scenic cab ride, the sun was starting to go down. I quickly changed into my shorts and rushed to make sure I wouldn’t have a single ‘beach-free’ day. The white sand and the golden sunset was a sight to behold. There were a few couples walking around and as always I ended up playing photographer at their request. 

The gold and ....

The silver of Goa

As it started to get dark, I began heading back to my apartment, took a quick shower and walked over to a little restaurant across the street. The plan was to drink a couple of beers, have a fish dinner and turn in early, after having had a long day. 

The restaurant turned out to be larger than it looked from the outside, was nicer than I expected with some al fresco seating. I picked a small table in the outside section for myself, the sea breeze feeling good on my face and ordered a chilled beer. Just a few minutes later, a man, probably in his mid 30s came and sat at the table in front of me. We nodded at each other and I began looking at the menu. 

“I recommend the calamari,” he said. 

I smiled, put the menu away and responded that I would take him up on his recommendation. 

“I quit my job a few minutes ago,” he said out of the blue. He put his hands behind his head and stretched out his back, like he was trying to relieve all the stress from his body. “Oh man it feels so good to say that. I almost can’t believe I finally quit!”

“Sounds like I should be saying congratulations,” I replied.

“You’re the first person I’ve said this to,” he laughed. 

Now I was even more intrigued, invited him to my table and offered to buy him a beer to celebrate his recent state of being unemployed. 

So apparently he had been working at one of the big hotels close by as a sous chef, absolutely hated the management and had been thinking about leaving for a while. After exchanging some unpleasant words with the Executive Chef, he just wrote out his resignation and walked out of the place.

“Sounds very dramatic,” I said.

He laughed, harder and longer than I would have expected. “It totally was!”

The laughter continued for a bit and he was wiping tears and nodding his head. I figured it was the relief, the finality of something he had been wanting to do for a while, but didn’t have the courage to, until now. 

After about an hour of discussing life, food (especially sea food), travel and being free spirits, he asked if I would be interested in getting out of the place we were at and visiting some of his favourite restaurants. Clearly, I didn’t need to be asked a second time. 

So instead of having dinner by myself and going to bed early, I now had a chef guide who was introducing me to places I would never know about. We went to 3 different restaurants, all charming, small, local hideouts, places that were big on taste and small on hype. The delicious tiger prawns, the king fish and even some lobster that I would never have tried if I hadn’t made a solo trip to Goa, run into someone who became a friend and took a leap of faith that this friend in actuality wasn’t a serial killer.

Photographs aren’t just about sceneries and people. They’re also reminders of stories that are behind them. Stories that make our lives a little more special and interesting. 

I’ve always believed that friendships can be lifelong or just for a day. That was the only time I met Rajat. Although we did exchange numbers and a few texts the next couple of days, neither one of us made any effort to meet again. Six years later, I can barely even remember what he looked like. I had almost forgotten about that evening until I came across the photos from the trip. 

This third viral wave has made me extremely restless. I want to be out there, adding more stories to my life, without having to worry about infectious diseases and social distancing. While I probably have a repository of stories to tell from my life, I am greedy for more. 

This is a poem I wrote that some of you may have seen already. It's about the serial killer that has been hovering around our lives the past couple of years and seems appropriate to end the piece with. 

Live in joy or live in fear

Omicron why did you come here?

The choice to stay at home

Should be made by us alone

Not by an annoying bug

Who disapproves when people hug

Twenty twenty two please set us free

Covid nineteen go climb a tree

2018 - The Year that Was

Each time we enter into a new calendar year, we tend to reflect upon the one that just went by. Or at least I do. And my verdict for 2018 is that personally, it was a pretty good year for me. I ended the past year with my friends in Kolkata, with laughter, food and travel and began this year with a minor surgery, left over from the accident I had a couple of years ago and something I had been putting off for a while. 

Bringing in the new year with friends

This information was shared with you, not to get sympathy or attention (honestly!) but to talk a little about how working on my mind the past 2 years has helped me to treat the entire hospital episode as just another day (or two) in my life. Of course, the fact that it was a minor surgical procedure helped but it’s never fun to be in an institution where everyone is broken or ill. Or being under the knife. Thankfully I stayed calm through the two days earlier this week, slept like a baby (without aid) and enjoyed the surprisingly good hospital food!

Now going back to last year - it really was a landmark year of sorts for me as I officially got into the ‘feeding’ industry. When I met Ranjeet almost exactly a year ago at the Kolkata airport, I honestly did not think that I would be running a brand new cafe, with so much of ‘me’ in it. While I’ve always enjoyed cooking, feeding and taking culinary lessons, it was always treated as a hobby. In 2018 it became more than that.

Close to my heart - Terra Bites

Cooking for family and friends, and cooking for strangers who are paying for their meals, is like night and day. The former will always appreciate whatever you lay out in front of them, many people from the latter group will try and find fault with everything. Believe me when I tell you that it’s really hard to be judged constantly. 

Thankfully and knock on wood, the response by and large has been fantastic. There will always be some I won’t please, regardless of what I do but as long as I’m seeing happy faces leave the cafe, many of who are returning often, I am nothing short of thrilled. That’s all I’m going to say about it right now because although I’m working on eliminating fear from my mind, I am still afraid to jinx it!! 

Besides the cafe, the year also had me being involved in a story I had written that a friend of mine, Aditya, wanted to turn into a short film. Writing the screenplay together and then being a part of the shoot was an experience that has made me understand films from a completely different perspective. Hopefully the movie will be released for all of you to watch sometime in the early part of this year. 

Coming soon - Fingers crossed!

Although I travelled a fair amount, it took a little bit of a backseat due to these other activities. After three years I went back to my favourite place, Ladakh, and got close to the mountains that I so dearly love. A trip to Varkala during the devastating floods in Kerala, made me realise once again how vulnerable we are to losing our lives. 

Ah Ladakh! How I had missed you

And I have to thank this vulnerability, that I experienced all through 2016, for helping me turn my life around. To do the things I kept putting off, where I can proudly say that I’ve mostly overcome this disease called procrastination. Where into my middle ages I feel like I’m starting life once again, being thankful for every opportunity to learn, grow and enjoy from what life throws my way. My goal for this year is to forget the meaning of fear. 

Once upon a time, when I was a young boy, my dad had my palm read by an ‘expert’. While I have no recollection of what he predicted from those lines, the one thing that (strangely) stayed with me was that I would become famous in the food industry. I’ve always wondered why this piece of information made such an impact, even at that age, that I never forgot about it. And although I have no interest in fame, I think I would like to feed more people and have them appreciate and enjoy what comes out of a kitchen that I may run. 

None of us know what’s in store for us this year, this month, tomorrow or even the next moment. I’ve given up making plans for the future and have never believed in having a bucket list. The future is now and the bucket is going to get kicked in any case. Make the most of the present and have a rocking 2019!

Death of a Stranger

I’m sure that some of you will not want to read this piece or after going through it, wish that I hadn’t written it. I debated about it in my mind but then I can’t pretend that life is fluffy and fun constantly, as much as I would like it to be for all of us. Sometimes it’s also dark and depressing and many of us have been in that place for some reason or the other. 

On June 8th, just a couple of days ago, Anthony Bourdain was found dead in his hotel room. More shocking than his passing was the news that he had killed himself. 

‘That can’t be right. Why would Anthony Bourdain, the man with such a fantastic life, envied by so many, commit suicide?’ was the first thought that came to my mind. 

As I’m very certain it came to most people’s minds that were in some way affected by his death. Especially since people who were close to him, including his mother, could never have imagined that this is how his life would end. The rest of us were just fans of his shows on television or his books. And it was his life that was the envy of every food enthusiast.

This morning I received a text message from a friend who had gifted me one of his books recently. Here’s what the message said verbatim:

2 days later - I am still wishing it’s not true. And I have not watched an entire episode of any of his shows. Just excerpts. He makes me doubt a lot of my unending bucket list. It hurts me at a level I did not expect a stranger could. 

I wrote back to her saying that I felt pretty much the same way (besides the bucket list part, since I don’t believe in having one). It’s not possible that Mr. Bourdain, the man with the seemingly perfect life, would take this step. Except that he did. 

So what about the rest of us, with such ordinary lives in comparison? Are we better off? I’m not so sure.

I’ve come across suicide a few times in the past year. Not people I directly knew but people who were close to people that I’m close to. Just one degree of separation, which isn’t very much at all. Recently a friend of mine confessed to me that he had attempted to take his life twice in the past few years. “Couldn’t even do that right,” he said with a smile. This is a man who I constantly share laughs with when we meet - we don’t see each other too often but when we do, it’s always a riot. I never had any idea of what was going on in that head of his and that his mind had been in such a dark place. 

Not to say that my mind hadn’t been in that dark place either, when I had convinced myself after my accident that I would never walk again. 

Why Anthony Bourdain took his own life, may always remain a mystery. I suspect that the media will continue to look for clues, to speak to people he was close to and write about possible reasons for him to have taken such a step. Eventually it will all be speculation because the only person who can tell us what was really going on in his mind when he used the belt of the hotel bathrobe to hang himself, isn’t around any longer. 

Another friend of mine posted something on this subject on social media that is food for thought. 

She talked about how agonizing Anthony Bourdain’s life must have been in the instant that he decided to end it. 

Would you and I ever think of his life being agonizing? The man who traveled the world just to eat at the most interesting places?

She questioned if someone who had lived with such boldness and autonomy deserved the right to say when their time in this life was over.

Our lives are not what they used to be in innumerable ways. With the stresses that we put upon ourselves, are we getting to a point where suicide will not be frowned upon? 

She ended her post saying that withering long past your ability to enjoy life, growing fragile, lonely, fearful, dependent and merely hanging on in purgatorial misery holds no mobility. 

Anthony Bourdain lived his life as he pleased and left on his own terms. Who are we to judge?

If we really want to, we can maybe justify Anthony Bourdain, Kate Spade and Robin Williams (all celebrities with supposedly enviable lives) killing themselves. However, I would like to believe that there is no darkness so strong, that it can withstand light passing through forever. I would like to believe that tears will always stop to make room for smiles. That there are always more reasons to live than there are to die. 

I would also like to believe that my next piece will be inspired by a happy event.

My Varanasi Trip in Pictures

Last year in November, my friend Vinod and I decided to make a trip to Varanasi. I had been there once a few years earlier and something that I can't explain kept calling me back. It was the first time for Vinod and I knew that with him being a devout Hindu, I would be experiencing and learning about things that I wouldn't otherwise.

Being the oldest living city, Varanasi attracts hoards of tourists from across the world. Hindu's go to this Holy city to wash away their sins and offer their prayers at various important temples, Kashi Vishvanath being the holiest of all the Lord Shiva temples. Most foreign travelers include Varanasi in their itinerary because a trip to India would simply be incomplete without it. 

Whether it's religion or curiosity that draws you to Varanasi, almost everyone I've encountered agrees that it's a place like no other. Both times I was there, I took literally hundreds of photos. Here are just a few to give you a glimpse into my last stay.

What better way to start your day than with prayer. Mornings in Varanasi are really my favorite time, beginning with a beautiful sunrise, the waking up of the ghats, boats floating gently in the Ganga river and temple bells in the background. 

Mornings are also a great time to go for a boat ride. Feeding the birds is optional but so much fun.

Its time to eat! On all four days, breakfast consisted of kachoris and jalebis (see bottom), which is probably as unhealthy as one can get. Never went back to the same place and we saved the best for our last day, which was a 20 minute hike from our hotel. A brisk morning walk followed by consuming a million calories!

This photo with 5 humans and a dog clustered together makes me smile. Is personal space overrated? Does sharing space actually bring us more joy? I encounter a lot of loneliness amongst the more affluent. Have we forgotten how to share our time, our space, our joys and sorrows in the real world because we're so busy sharing our lives on social networks?

Hindu's believe that bathing in the Holy Ganga river will wash away their sins. These two are unabashedly having a great time. No sins to wash so let's just have some fun!

The choreographed Ganga aarti (evening prayers by the Ganges river) is spectacular and Vinod and I looked forward to it every evening that we were there. Varanasi gets a large number of foreign tourists, one of who from the UK confessed to me that it was this evening aarti that had brought her back for a second visit. 

Man or animal, there's a lot of introspection that happens in Varanasi

Your head finds so much that is wrong with Varanasi. Your heart, on the other hand, just chooses to look at everything that makes this oldest living city so incredibly special.

Varanasi can never be explained. It can only be experienced. You either love it or you hate it and I completely understand both emotions. The love that I have for it, sometimes even takes me by surprise.

Shortly before heading to Sarnath and then the airport,  I decided to walk around the ghats one last time. It was late afternoon, strangely quiet and I was trying to absorb the sights and sounds that are so unique to Varanasi. Even though I had been there for 4 days, I knew that there was still so much that I was leaving behind to discover in my next visit.