Kismet, Karma, And One Nursery Seat

This post was featured on the first page of Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.in/anubhuti-krishna/kismet-karma-and-one-nurs_b_6523086.html?utm_hp_ref=india

2569. 3251. 3257. 2567. A smiling, suit-clad gentleman pulled out small chits of paper bearing four digit numbers from a cardboard box. He, somehow, happened to be the only one smiling in the room of more than thirty people; the rest sat holding their breath, clutching on to their chairs, crossing their fingers – and in some cases toes as well. The tension was palpable; the silence deafening.

I have imagined myself doing several things – climbing a mountain, rowing a boat, bungee jumping, even writing books – I had, however, never imagined myself sitting in a room full of strangers waiting anxiously for my number to be called out – not even after the toughest job interview. But age – and parenthood – does strange things to you. It makes you cold – as I was now, shivering in a comparatively warmer room – just as it reduces you to a bundle of nerves for something as trivial as your toddler’s nursery admission.

I had not been so edgy the first time around; in fact I had been far too relaxed. Being a rebellious mother of a rebellious daughter I had declared it to everyone – including the soft, yet prodding voices of our neighbours in Bangalore – that my child will not go to a big school until she was big enough. And she did not. It was her luck, or destiny, therefore that she found the only vacant seat in a fairly good school when it was finally time for her to graduate to a proper school.

Five years and another child later, things were different. With experience I had realised that sometimes there is merit in flowing with the tide rather than against it. I was a little more settled with the thought of a three-year-old being sent to a proper school. I suspect there were other covert – and overt – elements too: the outgoing, talkative, hyperactive girl whose energy levels I find hard to match, the teacher at play school who constantly talks in incorrect English, and, most of all, the need to get some time to myself after seven long years of incessant mothering.

So, while most people were vacationing – or nursing a hangover – on the new year’s day, and many days afterwards, I was driving from school to school in blinding fog, jostling my way through long queues, pleading with the snooty security guards, and cursing myself for all those times when I had judged, mocked, even sniggered at parents getting worked up for their toddler’s admission (in my experience, one often ends up doing all that he laugh at others for).

If getting the forms was a back breaking, hand numbing exercise, filling them up was nothing short of a nightmare: some forms were to be filled in black ink, some in blue; some schools needed passport sized picture of the child, others wanted stamp size pictures of the entire family; some required immunisation card, others wanted a wellness certificate from the paediatrician. And yet others demanded us to list our three-year-old child’s achievements.

Submissions were another story altogether. The otherwise deserted kiosks at the schools resembled a beehive with parents of all shapes, sizes, and class stinging their way through the crowd to reach the coveted desk only to find out that they had a missed attaching a document or attesting the ones attached. Then there were schools that insisted everything be done online – only their websites would not work for hours, even days.

But writing the exam is one thing, waiting for the results is quite another. While writing the exam you usually prioritise, think of what all you can complete in the stipulated time and do your best; in the time between the exam and the result however, you introspect upon what could have been done better – and how.  

In the week between submission of the forms and the draw of seats (so much for lottery being banned in Delhi!), I had been introspecting too.

In the last three years that my elder one had been going to school, we – my husband and I – had visited her school several times. We loved the place, trusted the teachers and agreed with their style of functioning (trust me, it is very hard for us to collectively appreciate so many things) and were certain that the younger should go to the same school too. But there was a problem: we had never made out of turn polite conversations with the teachers or the principal. When most parents would stay back after the PTM to say their hellos to the Principal, we would quietly leave. We did not send them New Year’s greetings or Diwali wishes even. And now I was worried about its repercussions: what is they found us too egotistical?

I had been trying to get myself used to the idea of her going to some other school (if she got a seat, that is), when the call came. It was from the school. They wanted to check if we could attend the draw for the sibling category (siblings have a separate quota, thankfully). It was not mandatory, they added. My first instinct was to not go – it was far too cold, plus I trusted them to be fair. But the mother within me pushed me: what if our presence – or absence – becomes a deciding factor?

So here we were, sweating under the arms on a freezing morning, sitting with other expectant parents (no pun intended), with a hope in our hearts and a prayer on our lips. The seats were seven, the applicants fifteen. Five numbers had already been announced and only two were remaining. 

With five seats already gone, I was now thinking of the way ahead -- will she continue to go to the play school, to a teacher who speaks incorrect English? Should we try some other way to get a seat (I had no idea what the other way would be though)? Is her luck so hard that she will not be able to go to a good school? Does all our good karma amount to nothing --  when I saw the husband smiling at me. It must be stress, I thought. “Done!” He whispered. In my nervousness, I had not heard the sixth number being called out – it was ours.

That party isn't over yet!

My piece in The Hindu today: http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/the-tudor-england-celebration-of-the-twelfth-night/article6753827.ece

Christmas has come and gone, and the New Year has already arrived; the holidays are coming to an end, and it is time to hang up your party boots – and that little black dress – until the next season. Or not quite.

According to tradition, the season of Christmas is yet to get over with the final – and the largest – feast remaining to be celebrated on the night of 5^th (or 6^th) January, a celebration that has been pared to a great extent with the passage of time but is far from being extinct.

The custom of celebrating the Twelfth Night traces its roots to Tudor’s England, when it not only symbolised the end of Christmas but also the end of winter that was supposed to have set in with the All Hallows Eve (now Halloween). The night was marked by a large community feast where everyone – the king and peasant alike – would gather; gifts were exchanged, music was played, and the roles of the society were reversed. The king, and the other nobles, would assume the part of the common man and would serve and wait upon the commoners; the commoners meanwhile played nobles for the night. There were also instances of men and women cross dressing for the revelry.

The evening began with the cutting of the cake especially made for the feast. The cake fortified with dried fruit, nuts and alcohol, was baked with a bean in one half and a pea in the other. It was then decorated with a thin layer of sugar icing and a holly spring. The guests, as they arrived, were served with a piece of the cake each – the men from one half and the women from the other. The man, who got the piece with the bean in it, became the king for the night and the woman who got the pea, his queen. Together they would preside over the evening full of dance, music, food, and wine.  

But fun and revelry were not the only elements of the celebration. Like every festival there was an element of religion too – or twelve: the feast was preceded by twelve days of Christmas, each signifying something special. Christmas, the first day, for example, signified the birth of baby Jesus, while the eighth day signified the beginning of a new year. The rest of the days were dedicated to various saints, and the final, or the twelfth day, was dedicated to the three wise men (who had travelled to bless baby Jesus); these twelve days culminated with the most extravagant feast of the season on the night before Epiphany.

With the passage of time however, especially after the reformation period (when the puritans abolished most of the practices of the Church), the feast began to lose its value. Without the religious element it became a playground of mischief and was no longer the happy amalgamation of classes. In the nineteenth century after the Queen officially abolished Twelfth Night festivities, the focus shifted to Christmas as the primary day of celebration, which it remains to date.

In the modern times the festival is subtle and mostly symbolic. It is usually celebrated in small gatherings with wassail, a mulled, spiced cider drink, and tortell, a ring shaped cake stuffed with marzipan. It is also the night when the Christmas decorations are finally taken off.

Although Twelfth Night longer is what it used to be few hundred years ago, but it still seems to be a valid excuse to party one last time, until next holiday season. 

Up There In The Clouds

My piece in The Hindu today: http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/how-to-use-cloud-function-with-a-smartphone-or-a-computer/article6748835.ece

A few weeks ago, on my birthday, when my husband walked into the house sullen-faced and empty-handed, I was worried. Not so much about the hands being empty, for he had already bought me presents (although I could have done with a few more), but more so with the glum expression. After all, it is not everyday that your wife turns thirty-five – and cooks the entire birthday meal by herself. My questions to him yielded no response and he remained listless through the evening. Only after the guests left was the reason revealed: husband, who loves order to the limit of obsession, while clearing his phone of an unwanted picture, had accidentally deleted the entire album. Given that he, like most people, only uses the camera in his phone, he had ended up losing almost five hundred pictures, which included the ones from his South India trip, and the recent Himalayan expedition.

Working on a closed network – and laptop – in office, and having a MacBook at home (syncing an android phone with an Apple is a task in itself) had ensured he had no backup either. Obviously he was heart broken (wife’s birthday happens every year but a journey into the depths of Tamil Nadu and heights of the Himalaya doesn’t). The rest of the night was spent trying to undo the damage. Every single person who knows anything about phones and technology was contacted but the pictures could not be recovered. What he did find out however was that the loss could have been prevented had he hosted the pictures on a cloud.

Now I do know a thing or two about cloud computing. I also know how it is used and where. But I was clueless about individuals having access to cloud space. Apparently in the years that I had stayed away from technology, clouds had become personal spaces too, and were now accessible to all and sundry.

The tradition that started with Google, when it came up with Google drive – a network storage space for Gmail users – is now being followed by Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and many others. All you need to do is to sign up with them. You can chose to access the cloud through your computer or smart phone, store all your data, pictures, music and files, and access it from any device in the world. Even if the primary device is lost or damaged your data will be safe and accessible.

What we also discovered was that husbands phone, a Samsung S4, had come pre loaded with Dropbox, one of the most popular cloud for personal usage, only he had been too busy – or ignorant – to notice it.

Setting the application up was a breeze, even for technology novices like us: log in to the app, download it on your computer through the link they mail you, and in just a few minutes you are good to go. To access – and control – your account, you just need to click open the tiny icon on the top of your screen (bottom in case of a windows OS). The pictures from the phone are synced instantaneously; the documents however have to be dragged and dropped into the box. You can share the data, organise it the way you like, save semi-finished files – and access them later – and even pause the syncing if you want. And you can access it from any machine through their website, if not the app.

The free account that comes with the phone gave him 2GB space; he had an option of buying more space for a fee, or to refer others and earn more space as a reward. Husband, presumably preferred the latter, spamming every possible mailbox (even converting a few people like my father) and earning 48GB of extra space, taking the total to 50GB.

Since the time, he has been advocating cloud usage to everyone he comes across. Even though he claims to have noble intentions (he does not want others to suffer like him), I highly suspect his intent (free space for ever referral, remember?). On his part, he has backed each file, contact and picture and has been checking it from time to time for his satisfaction.

And so, last week, when he dropped and damaged his phone beyond repair, he did not seem perturbed at all. “I can always buy a new phone,” he said, “as long as my pictures are safe”. Sitting in the clouds they indeed seem safe.

Where did the time flee?

It was just yesterday that she was born,
White as snow and round like a ball;

Did not take her long to make her presence felt,
My room, my bed, my clothes, oh! how sweet they smelt;

In a blink she was walking,
In another she was talking;

And then began the ego war,
On who will open the door or shut the drawer;

But she still was my stubborn little jerk,
Sleeping in my lap, after a hard day at work;

Suddenly she reaches my shoulder, tomorrow higher than me she will be;
And I will be sitting here wondering where did the time flee.

Tales of a Christmas Cake

The evolution of the plum cake from porridge and pudding, to what it is now. My piece in today's Hindu: http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/Food/evolution-of-the-plum-cake-from-porridge-and-pudding/article6725141.ece

The story of the plum cake begins in medieval England, where it was a popular tradition to observe a period of self-denial, fasting, and abstinence from every kind of indulgence in the weeks leading to Christmas. The abstinence and occasional fasting was supposed to prepare the body for the overindulgence and excesses of Christmas. 

According to custom, on the eve of Christmas, a rich porridge was cooked and eaten to “line the stomach” for the upcoming feast. The porridge, said to have been made with oats, dried fruits, spices, honey, and sometimes even meat, can be called the grandfather of the Christmas — or plum cake.

With the passage of time, and as more ingredients made their way into the porridge, it started to resemble its current form. It is believed that sometime in the 16th century, oats was replaced with flour, and eggs and butter were also added to the mixture. (The meat had already been taken out of it and was prepared in other forms). This batter was then bound in a muslin cloth and cooked in a pot of boiling water for many hours. What came out was a heavy, dense fudge also referred to as cannon ball. In the richer households that owned an oven, the mixture was baked and not boiled. Every family had a different recipe depending on the preferences of the lady of the house. This rich cake, or pudding, was made a few weeks before Christmas, usually at the beginning of advent, when the period of abstinence began, and was saved until the twelfth and final day of celebration. It was served upside down, garnished with a sprig of holly, after the final celebratory meal. 

It is not clear, however, how it came to be called the plum pudding, or plum cake. Some believe that raisins, or currants, were also referred to as plums (or plumb) in England. The recipe was abundant in raisins, hence the name. Yet others believe that dried plums, or prunes, were the main ingredient of the original porridge, and were gradually replaced by other, more exotic dried fruits. Whatever be the case, the name stayed. 

The cake stayed too, even though it was very close to being lost in the reformation period of the late 19th century when Queen Victoria banned the feast of the twelfth night. The confectioners (by now it had become a commercial exercise as well) who had stocked their pantries up for the twelfth night celebration decided to use their stock and bake cakes for Christmas instead, lest they suffer losses. The tradition caught on.

Around the same time, families of men working in British colonies in Australia, America, Canada and other parts of the world began to make their cakes weeks, or even months, in advance and send it to them as a part of the Christmas hamper along with wine and presents. And that is how the first plum cake travelled out of England. 

In the last two centuries since it first travelled out of England, the plum cake has reached every corner of the world. Every country, region and family has a different version of the recipe. Some are made with nuts soaked in rum, some are fed with sherry or brandy for weeks after being baked, and some have no alcohol at all. Then there are those made up of cream cheese and whipped cream, and those containing minced meat (although they are more of a pie than a cake). 

And yet all of them have one thing in common: none of them contain plum.

Penning the holiday spirit

My piece in The Hindu today: http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/penning-the-holiday-spirit/article6704668.ece

December means different things to different people. For some it is the time to celebrate the year gone by and look forward to a new beginning. For others it is the time to introspect, to look back with fondness – or regret – to long for the time lost. And to some, like me, it is the time to indulge in nostalgia. 

Whichever category one might fit in, there is no denying that December brings with it things that make us smile. The faint sounds of carol practice at the neighbourhood school, the bright colours of Christmas at a nearby mall, the misty mornings, the sunny afternoons, the never-ending evenings.

For most people who, like me, grew up in the pre-mobile and pre-internet era, December also brings with it the faded memories of a long forgotten practice of writing to our loved ones.

Come December and my father, like every one else’s, would bring home a big bunch of greeting cards. Sometimes blank inside, sometimes with his and mother’s name printed in them, the cards would be a source of much amusement for us. Over the next week or so he and my mother would diligently write to each one of our family members, relatives, friends, and acquaintances (we were always moving cities and the list grew longer every year), that we had not met many of them in years, or written to them in months notwithstanding. After the cards were written, addressed, and envelopes marked with ‘Book-Post’, we, the lowest in the chain, would get the responsibility of pasting stamps on each one of them. The activity would take days to complete and would fill our afternoons with unparalleled excitement.

Sending the cards however was only one part of the story. The other – and more rewarding – part was receiving them: the joy of discovering an envelope in the letterbox, the anticipation of tearing it open, the thrill of finding one from that special friend (and sliding it into a book). Weeks were spent in opening, reading, counting and displaying the cards. Some liked to put them up in their showcases, some would display them on the top of their refrigerators and some, who had far too many, would string them together on a ribbon and hang them about. (I would put my share of the cards on a soft board, along with the birthday greetings and was super proud of my enviable collection).

Then, somewhere along the line, we discovered the telephone. We could now talk to whoever we liked, so what if we had to wait until 11 PM for the pulse rates to go down? Calling a loved one, listening to his voice, and wishing him personally was far more gratifying than writing and waiting for a response (the telephone exchange even replaced the dial tone with ‘Happy New Year’ on the new years day).

When the mobiles came in, the calls were replaced by SMSs: it is far more convenient to write a message – or copy someone else’s – and send to everyone at once rather than calling everyone. There was no need to peep into our letterboxes anymore; the love and wishes were now delivered directly into our inboxes. And now we have Facebook and Watsapp.

Thanks to technology we can wish all those who matter to us at one go, and can even share pictures, videos and voice messages. Unfortunately though the love that comes along with the wishes can no longer be displayed on the refrigerators or show windows of our drawing rooms, neither can the messages be strung on a ribbon and hung about the house. They either remain locked in our smart phones, or get deleted to accommodate a few more selfies.

Theme for my Dream

Last night I played with a friend's daughter and bought her some handmade toys. A few nights ago, I was at a railway station chasing a train. I had reached a few minutes too late and my non existent running skills could do nothing to salvage the situation. Some weeks before that I was at a friend's book launch, feeling important and smug in the company of erudite men and women. A few years ago I had accidentally shaven my face, and had grown a beard, but not before being chased by a full bodied python on the streets of Jaipur. These of course are the rendezvous I remember, there are many others which have faded -- or have been forgotten -- with time. 

Funny, scary, pleasant -- dreams are sometimes entertaining, sometimes intimidating. Science describes them as 'a series of thoughts, visions, or feelings that happen during sleep', it also says that one usually dreams when the brain activity is high, 'resembling that of being awake'. There has been extensive research on interpreting dreams; there are books, websites, specialists, and sometimes forklore, that help you decode your dream. In India, for example, dreaming of a snake is supposed to bring good luck, and dreaming about some body's death is supposed to add years to his life. Then there are the other common ones -- missing a train, being chased, drowning, falling, dying, marrying -- each of them having their own interpretations, often influenced by the local cultural and religious beliefs.

Dreams intrigue many, I am no exception. I have tried to look for what they could mean and how, if at all, they reflect my subconscious. I have not yet found the answer (what could have shaving my face meant, really), although I have observed a pattern. Sometimes they reflect my current state of mind; sometimes times they reveal my deepest darkest fears or desires. It is usually pleasurable to have your desires manifested in your dream, but facing your fear is not easy. Unfortunately we can not always control what we dream of unless of course we are day dreaming. 

 

Day dreaming is often associated with the romantics. For some it is an occupational hazard (writers, poets, philosophers), and for some the route to a life they otherwise cannot have: a job of their choice, or a lover who they can only fancy. One can sit at his office desk, saddled with work, and yet be in another place, another time, with another person. We might not be able to control the activity of our subconscious minds, but can surely chose whatever our conscious mind dreams of and make impossible possible, at least for that moment.

Sometimes such dream also come true. When I was in college, I would often dream about sitting in a plush office, working late nights, drinking coffee in a smart black mug (it somehow seemed impossible at the time). By chance -- or by design -- I was doing exactly the same a few months down the line (down to the black coffee mug). Lately I have been dreaming a lot about sitting on a large teak desk, lit by the warm glow of the lamp, in a cozy hill cottage, writing my book with a beautiful fountain pen. I only hope this dream also comes true someday.

Love thy Neighbour -- Or at least know him.

This piece appeared in The Huffington Post on 19th Feb, 2015: http://www.huffingtonpost.in/anubhuti-krishna/love-thy-neighbour-or-at-_b_6652334.html?utm_hp_ref=india

Some weeks ago, Mishti, my older one, went missing. There was another girl with her; together they had gone to collect money for a raffle and had not returned until late in the evening. The other child's mother called me to check if I knew where they had been. Although I had no idea where they were, but I was confident they would be fine: what can happen to them inside the confines of the housing complex? But the other mother was worried: they are girls, what if something happens to them? The girls are, by the way, only six years old. But I cannot blame her, with how things are, it is only natural for one to worry about the child's safety.

Mishti came home about an hour later – happy and excited. I found out that she had been in a neighbour’s house for the past one hour getting her nails painted, having Maggi and indulging in her favourite chocolate. The lady, who I don't even know, had found the girls so interesting that she had insisted they stay, gave them things to eat and painted their nails. I wanted to admonish her for being irresponsible and greedy. But then I remembered my childhood. 

As a little girl in Kanpur, I spent most of my time at our neighbour's house. I called the lady of the house dadi, and her children bua and chacha. I ate with them, played with them, even slept at their house. And I was not an aberration; it was natural to do that in those days – at least for children. 

When I was growing up, neighbours were family – a set of people always available for you – and you for them. Women spent long afternoons at each other's houses, kids spent all evening with each other. You watched TV together, borrowed space in their refrigerators, shared utensils, ingredients, even clothes sometimes. Your more affluent relatives called you on their number, your friends spent evenings at their terrace. Then there were the weddings – or deaths, or births – and the neighbours would not only lend you a hand, but also their homes.

During my wedding, as in many others', we solely relied on our neighbours to lend us their rooms, halls and terraces. As a new bride I spent the week at my hometown-in-law living at the neighbour's house, sharing the bedroom with their scooter. (But during my brother's and sister's weddings, that happened recently, we had to book plush guesthouses for our discerning guests lest they be embarrassed to share beds, rooms, or bathrooms).

When we shifted houses – and we shifted an awful lot of houses – our new neighbours gave us food and shelter. There would be a steady flow of tea and biscuits, even meals, until the kitchen was set up; post which we were invited – or would invite them – home. With every house we changed, our friends multiplied.

And then something changed. Neighbours became nameless, faceless people who we know nothing about.

They might live next door, but we cannot knock at their door to ask for milk, or sugar, or potatoes –we now have home delivery. We no longer need to borrow their dosa tawa or oven, for we have everything of our own. We don't need them to pick our children or look after them, because we have live-in house helps. Their houses, beddings, or folding cots are not needed for our guests, nor are their scooters for running an errand, or their fridge to store our ice cream. We don't get to know if there is a wedding, birth or death in their family. We might share the corridor, or the lift, but we no longer share our lives with them, for that we have our facebook friends. 

P.S. I just met the lady in the elevator. I have seen her many times before but never knew it was the same person who indulged my girl so. While she was animatedly talking with the children and inviting them home, I could barely manage a polite smile, and a Thank you for holding the door of the lift for us.

The Fault In Us

My piece in today's Hindu. 

These days I often find myself checking on my daughter on what and how much she eats; I nag her to come with me for a run, play with her friends and move around more often. Although she is a fairly healthy child with no signs of being overweight, I still fear her getting there sooner or later. And my fear is not unfounded; after all, she is her mother’s daughter. 

I was born a tiny baby to a petite, undernourished mother and as if to compensate for my size, I was overfed by everyone. The trick certainly worked, for I grew up to be a fairly plump child. At the time, however, being plump was not normal (it never is, actually); most children around me were skinny and I stood out like a sore thumb. By the time I was six or seven, I was being called a fatso by everyone — some used it out of affection, some out of contempt — and it became my identity. Initially the jokes hurt, then they became a part of my life. 

If this wasn’t enough, I went on to be an early bloomer too — at 13 , when most of the other girls were still figuring out their bodies, I was already a young woman. I now had to take care of the lecherous remarks and the intrusive gaze too. 

All this ensured that I grew up with several complexes and severe bitterness about the world. By the time I hit my teens, I was a rebel without a cause (something that I can see only now). Things changed only marginally when I started to work, at the age of 22. The actual reason for the change was probably not work, but my losing several kilos by starving myself for months.

It was only after I met my husband that I started to feel like a ‘normal’ girl. He made me believe that there was so much more to the world than my weight, he gave me the confidence to be myself and helped me get rid of my bitterness. Nevertheless, my complexes were too deep-rooted to go away so easily and I continued to starve myself when he was not around. 

Although there were no visible signs of the starvation on my body (I never lost weight), the effects of it came into play when I lost my first child mid-term and could not nurse the ones I eventually had — both results of a severely undernourished body. But I still hadn’t learnt my lesson, and was soon back to starving myself. The result of three pregnancies, two babies and lifelong starvation had now started to show: I lost my hair, my sleep and my concentration. I felt weak and tired, sometimes unable to even complete the basic chores. A visit to the doctor confirmed that I was vitamin-deficient, anaemic and my bones had weakened. It was a wake-up call — I had to decide between being healthy and being thin.

And so, for the last few years, I have been trying to accept myself as I am. I have also been trying my best to see that my complexes don’t trickle down to my daughter. 

Every now and then I suddenly find myself checking to see what she eats and telling her never to be like me. But then, I also tell her to love herself no matter what because as long as she can do that, nothing else matters.

With Our Heads In The Clouds

A piece very close to my heart, about a place very close to my heart. Published in The Hindu dated 11th October 2014.

At eleven in the morning, the railway station is as quiet as it is beautiful. Not that you expect a quaint little place like this to be noisy. The town of Haldwani is quiet too, as if recovering from the heavy footfall of the summer vacations, which have recently ended. Soon we are in a taxi, driving towards the hills that beckon us from the horizon. Along the road I spot some familiar buildings: the dilapidated house with tall wooden windows; the old post office, freshly painted in white and red; the forest office at the corner – time indeed stands still in small towns. The familiarity and the peace gladden my heart, but the happiness is short-lived.

One of the reasons for me to have avoided the hills for past many years, is my discomfort with the curvaceous mountain drive. The very thought of it puts me into panic mode. Today is no different. Ten minutes into the drive, my head starts to spin and stomach starts to churn. I try to distract myself by looking at the lush green mountains and lovely little cottages, but the view only worsens my condition. Thankfully the drive to Nainital, where we are headed this morning, is short and we reach just before my system gives in.

The sickness vanishes at the sight of the white pillars and the long corridor of our guesthouse. I have, like many others, spent many a summer vacation in the town and have stayed at the same place every time. The guesthouse therefore, is like home, only that I am coming home after ten, long years. The little traces of fatigue that remain disappear as we stand in the balcony, sipping tea and looking at the sparkling water of the lake with 67 boats bobbing on it (yes, we counted them). By the time we finish tea, the sunshine has given way to fluffy clouds that flow from in front of our balcony and cover all that comes in their way.

Over the years that I have been visiting Nainital, I have built a rapport with the place, which is much beyond that of a tourist. The focus is never on boating or strolling at the mall, but to get a local flavour of the town, especially the food (we always eat home-made food that the caretaker cooks for us in the guesthouse) and bazaars (the markets of Tallital and Mallital, the two ends of the town), for it is in these little things that you find the real essence of a place, its culture, its people.

The bada bazaar at Mallital, on the northern end of the town, is where my husband and I walk to this afternoon. Climbing the steep slopes of the market, lined with tiny shops on the ground floor and tinier houses with pretty balconies on the upper floors, we pick up some small-town things: a pair of blue and white bathroom slippers; a packet of chalk and slates for girls; some freshly made savouries; and bal mithai – a chewy brown barfi covered in sugar balls. The misty afternoon transforms into a clear bright evening; we spend most of it standing in our balcony appreciating the large, bright full-moon that has risen from behind the hill and is hanging on a midnight-blue sky, between two tall deodar trees.

The morning comes in early bringing the clouds back into the town. The air this morning is not only pregnant with moisture, but also with the sounds of hymns from the church nearby, and the gongs of the famous naina devi temple, at the far end of the lake. Although popularized by the British in the nineteenth century as their summer retreat, Nainital is believed to be much older. Legend has it that while Shiva was carrying Sati’s charred body back to the Himalayas; her eyes had fallen off here, making it one of the 64 shakti peeths (sites where Sati’s burnt body parts and ornaments are supposed to have fallen). The town, the lake, and the temple borrow their names from the legend (naina, meaning eyes in Hindi).

On the lazy Sunday morning when most tourists are still asleep, we walk through the clouds into Narains, an old bookstore at the mall, where my husband gets talking to the proprietor. Among other things, the proprietor, a soft-spoken, middle-aged man, tells us how as a young boy, Jim Corbett, who was born and raised in Nainital, would regularly spend long hours at the shop. While we are still talking about Corbett, an elderly gentleman joins us; the octogenarian reveals how the legendary hunter and conversationalist taught him at Sherwood (a famous boarding school) and hosted his group of friends to breakfast whenever they landed at his doorstep after hiking in the hills. We spend the next few hours browsing through their rich collection of books and listening to many more stories. It is almost afternoon when we leave the store, which is now full of Sainik School boys who are out with their parents on what looks like a visiting Sunday.

At the mall, the tourists are up and about: a few newly-married couples, who cannot see much beyond each other; a large Punjabi family haggling with the boatman; young parents struggling with their toddler; a few groups of youngsters, laughing and back-slapping; some families at the games parlor. There are some locals too, making the most of their Sunday afternoon by indulging in an ice-cream; sitting by the lake on the low, wooden benches; sipping beer at the club; sailing their colourful yachts. They seem to be as happy with their Nainital as we are with ours.