Malvika's Ramblings

Travel Internships

Dreaming of travel internships...

Where one can be the helper on a ship, battered and tossed in Scandinavian seas; the type where huge calories are burnt per day and can-food is shoved down to keep the body going. Or a 1 month something in Cairo. Or the itinerary-planner plus something in a hut-resort in Pondicherry or Andamans. Or a copywriter for 1 month in Buenos Aires, another in Barcelona. But not a cook in China.

Not just dreaming actually.. the copywriter bit seems v v possible. But dirty jobs sound nice too.

Sitting North

Found this written in a notebook from long ago -

Do you remember that oily uttapam and syrupy sweet coffee high up in Auli... We sat on the ice-cream tip – the real north – high up on snow mountains; the plains with rolling rivers and the south with banana plantations below. This was the top; where we sat and relished Mr Iyer’s cuisine.

Here the rivers did not roll or meander, they shot down arrow straight, tripping n skipping, hurtling over stones and obstacles like a savage army of guerilla warriors with war cries and bloodshot eyes. They only knew how to proceed on the offensive, never on the defensive. The rivers and jagged mountains contrasted with the soft, milky, rosy, petite people of the area. It was a reversal of things as they were where I came from, where rivers went around, the terrain was mild, yellow and malleable; but the people were aggressive and determined not to be cheated, not buckle down, not end up signing a clause in small type.

So, sitting up there with the world turned upside down, we were frozen by snow, blinded by the sun and intimidated by the utterly fit ski instructor. Like tourists we complained about consumerism, globalization, homogeneity and pollution as we drank in nature and silence. And then we cut short our 3 day trip to 1 and returned to Delhi with a painful knee. To parties, continental sizzlers, PVRs, wide roads and shops with trademark signs!

Nizamuddin Dargah

Last night I visited the Nizamuddin Dargah; never knew such a place existed in Delhi. So green. So Muslim. So another world of Aladdin, Ghalib and Khusrau. It was very humid and Corinna vowed that she lost 5 kgs of weight just sweating.

We entered the Dargah through a long series of lanes, a maze, a labyrinth with blind turns – with shops just large enough to hold the shopkeeper; flower-sellers whose wares spilt at your feet; butcher shops where the carcass hung right in your face; ill-fated goats tied to posts; eunuchs who passed by with a haughty sway; men with skull caps, women with covertly covered heads, mothers jostling with sweating babies, many old men with saffron beards, blackened eyes, blue check lungis and long kurtas. And it was all so colorful! Green majorly, some orange and golden gota.

Doodles by Rijuta, fellow explorer. Khacha Khach Khacha Khach. Madam, Madam flowers?

Meat Smells

At the Dargah, people walked freely where the tombs lay. The needy, handicapped and destitute sat begging for alms. Life offered a new perspective as I saw an old beggar, lying on the sticky floor like a forgotten rag, singing heartily.

We stuck together, a group of five girls, with our elbows right next to our bodies. A large assembly of men bowed flexibly in the evening namaaz, in the open area after the tombs, and after a marble jaaliwork (lattice) chamber. After the namaaz came the moment we had come for - the sama mehfil.The music session with qawwali, resonant Sufi music that one could sway to. Trance spelt by an Urdu combo of Islamic music and Hindu folk style. The music group seated themselves in front of the main shrine to sing directly to Allah. One of the older men from the group walked around saying “Allah ke vaaste bait jaao, pankhe se hat jao” (For Allah’s sake sit down and don’t block the fan). He pushed people sitting in the wrong places at the back and nicely led ladies to sit to the left of the qawwals.

The music, the singing I shall not describe. It has to be experienced. The superlative quality of the men’s voices has to be heard.

The qawwals belted out songs with poetry by the legendary Mirza Ghalib and Amir Khusro. Khusro was the most favourite disciple of Saint Nizamuddin Auliya; both are buried at the Dargah. Auliya had once said that if religion allowed it he would like to be buried in the same grave as his pupil and stay with him even after death. People stepped forward and dropped money before the singers. The head singer, with a protruding mouth and paan stained lips would get up and kiss the hands of the money-givers at times. Some pankhawals (fan-men) walked amidst the sweating crowd, waving large fans and providing much required breeze. The tall, gaunt wind-makers looked like they were built to be royal bodyguards, with aristocratic mien, but had fallen on hard times.

As the qawwals sang, my friend noticed a young smiling man standing alone in the crowd holding a single rose, lost in pleasant thoughts. Next to us, in the lattice chamber a man flung himself against the wall. His roars of anguish were mostly drowned by the music. His body twitched and jolted. The boys sitting next to me explained, quite matter-of-factly, that the holy lattice chamber exorcised malignant spirits and evil magic that had possessed a person. A little disturbing but easy to get accustomed to. Corinna and Tanavi, two from our group, enjoyed the experience but were pissed off by lusty guys brushing past with feigned inadvertence.

A great experience, with ostentation (ornate chandeliers hung right next to naked CFL bulbs) and a kind of immaterial happiness.

Bright Indulgent Chandeliers hung;preceded by CFL bulbs…!
‘No Ladies’ seen almost all over. Shops less wide than my arms outstretched.

C S

I have a home. It’s just four walls and some furniture. I have a world.

You have a home. You have sneakers and a couch. You have a world.

The world is static. We are moving, living people – alive with enthusiasm, adventure, curiosity and peripatetic tendencies. Homes and houses, furniture and pads are just nodes to keep us in, to shelter us, a pillow to sleep, a meal to eat. No Check-in, no check-out. A seamless journey. New people. A couch.

I love this idea of couch-surfing.