Sevagram: A reminder of Gandhi’s forgotten ideals

Despite all my issues with parts of Gandhi’s politics . . . despite being aware that it is not in vogue today to admire something related to him, today when invariably I notice that bookstands have put My Experiments with Truth on the back shelves to make way for Godse's Why I Killed Gandhi, I am sharing my memories of Sevagram that have stayed with me over the years, whose temporary peace I have sought in many places since. I believe trouble occurs when we make heroes out of people whose work we admire. We start worshipping them, and the minute they make a mistake they fall from our grace. It is so much simpler to put our faith in the word done and in the ideals followed, for their significance goes much beyond the people who espoused them. If a leader, for example, fights against corruption, and is then caught in a corrupt act himself, it is not as if the idea of fighting against corruption is to be let go of (unless we are looking for an excuse to be corrupt ourselves).

A visit to Sevagram (Wardha, Maharashtra), where Gandhi moved in 1936, is like coming back to the very best of what the people’s leader had come to represent. Being in Sevagram was a complete antidote to how I felt living in Delhi: the capital city that triggered feelings of stress, anxiety and inadequacy. Sevagram, on the contrary, calmly signifies that less is more and reminds one of the power of determined marches over frantic runs. Originally a village brought to prominence due to Gandhi’s stay there, Sevagram is still making up its mind about whether to behave as a town or a village. Luckily for tourists, this perplexity offers them the best of both worlds. It has the quiet of a village and yet manages to provide the amenities of a town, from varying modes of conveyance to cyber cafes. As I disembarked at the Sevagram railway station and stopped at a bookshop to buy some (now rarely found) books in Hindi, the bookseller shared his guilt about not having visited Gandhi’s ashram and made me promise that I would not follow him in his sin.

It is true that the most rewarding treat of staying at Sevagram is a visit to Bapu Kuti. One does not have to be a Gandhi devotee to be able to appreciate the austere beauty of the ashram’s premises. Gandhi is said to have shared these thoughts about who should consider residing in the ashram: “He alone deserves to be called an inmate of the Ashram who has ceased to have any worldly relation - a relation involving monetary interests-- with his parents or other relatives, who has no other needs save those of food and clothing and who is ever watchful in the observance of the eleven cardinal vows. Therefore he who needs to make savings, should never be regarded as an Ashram inmate.”

The hut which welcomed Gandhi and his many visitors is nothing short of a museum. A quaint bath, an elderly, dignified telephone box and neat little alcoves shyly peeping from the walls, all serve to create an inexplicable nostalgia for a past that we were not even a part of. The kitchen contains the flour grinder Gandhi put to use occasionally. His cot and massage table have also been retained. The sacredness of the place is defended by the several sombre trees that have themselves withstood the many ravages of time. The practice of daily prayers in the open continues till date. The campus has all the humility carried in the name of the village ('a village for service').

In fact, the last bit is true of all the places I have visited associated with Gandhi (including Gandhi Smriti in Delhi) where he lived or worked. There is no splendour or grandeur usually expected of heritage sites. There is a bare, undecorated beauty in these places, one that accepts itself and all its visitors unconditionally. It is this all-embracing calmness that humbles and overwhelms me each time, leaving me moved and inspired.

In 1982, a yatri nivas (where I had the good fortune of staying) was built across the road by the government so visitors could stay or organisations engaged in socially productive work could use the venue for their meetings and retreats.

But for all its austerity, Sevagram does not suggest that we slip into primeval times. It boasts of housing the first rural medical college, along with an engineering institute. The road down Bapu Kuti leads to many small cooperative societies named after the legend and doing good business. All of this makes one reconsider whether the only way to meet development is to cartwheel into it headlong. And it makes visitors have second thoughts about slotting people as heroes and villains, instead of finding the good that we can in them, learning from it, and moving on.

First published in thREAD, The Hindu, 2 May 2018.

गंतव्य

चलती ट्रेन
पायदान पर बर्फ पांव
खिड़की की छड़ों पर सुन्न उंगलियां
छत पर पेचीदे आसनों में उलझे कूल्हे…

ये सब
आखिर कहीं न कहीं पहुंचने के लिए.

क्या वाकई
कोई नासमझ मान सकता है
खुद को पहुंचा हुआ–
बगैर सफर किए?

First published in Sadaneera, 21 Apr 2018.

Travel & the female body: Tripping in Thailand

I bought a glass of cold coffee at a small coffee shop in Bangkok and walked to the bus stop on the road. There was nobody about and I sat on the bench. I am not a huge coffee drinker but for the next forty minutes I sat there and sipped my cold beverage like it was an elixir and watched the Thai world pass me by. Many would find nothing remarkable in this. But for me it was extended exhilaration. I was in a hot air balloon that gaily floated about for much longer than expected. Not many things matched up to my feeling during the next few days of my stay and travel within the country. Because if the intention of travelling was to see a new world, mine was unfolding within my body right then, right there. To wear a dress and have leisurely coffee on the road and not to be stared at or bothered in any way was as much of a New-Man as any Paul could become for me.

My body’s flashcard stored no such memory it had relished back “home” in the city of Delhi where I lived. As a college student, I had once been heckled by a stranger in a twisted combination of outrage and mock politeness: “Button your shirt, ma’am.” The sense of entitlement with which the man had expressed anger over the clothes I wore had in turn created an anger in me white hot enough to make blurry the memory of what had happened after. What I do remember is reporting the incident to my friends, and I had probably added that in the confrontation that followed I had ended up hitting him. I don’t think that had actually happened, and in later years when I looked back on the incident I felt surprise and guilt at my own lie. It was not something I usually did. Probably the sense of violation in me had been so steep and the desire to retaliate so strong that I had started believing in it myself. Without that bit of fiction, possibly, there would have reigned in me a helplessness that would have been too humiliating to live with.

With a history like this, to be in Thailand with a girlfriend spending with pride and caution our nest eggs, and not to be constantly reminded of my gender while being outside, was the best kind of tripping I could ask for. Encouraged by my friend and finding the place a haven for first-time try-outs, I wore a two-piece swimsuit on the island of Koh Samed and for the first time as a grown up, that much of my skin rendezvoused with sun, wind and water.

My heart warmed up when at night in Ayutthaya, the old capital, we saw a bunch of women going around on motorbikes much after the markets had closed. They didn’t become handicapped at dusk; the streets belonged to them and they were the lights.

When returning from Ayutthaya to Bangkok on a train, my friend had a can of beer in her hand. She initiated a conversation about the country with the guy sitting next to her and at no point did she have to face judgmental remarks or fend off unsolicited invites from him.

A lot of this can appear laughable or naive to people depending on their gender or context. But living in a world where I get reminded of my gender before, and sometimes without, it being acknowledged that I am a person, I do not have the luxury of taking these things for granted. Women in Thailand have their own struggles and it is not as if gender hierarchies, or crimes, for that matter, do not exist. World Nomads, a popular website for travellers, has this piece of advice, or rather, admonition, to dispense about being in the streets or back lanes late at night in Thailand: “That’s as silly here as it is in your home town . . .” But just like Maya Angelou had surmised about people (“At the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel”), with places too, what I end up remembering is how they made me feel. This was a place that had its priorities right, that helped me feel like a person again, without constantly tagging my gender.         

First published in The Quint, 24 Jan 2018.

                                                                              

Timing

You were so brave that night, I'll never forget. Single-handedly you took on the driver of the 'shared' auto to assert that the correct fare was five, not ten rupees. An icy bead was frozen at the tip of your nose, your wrinkles subtly frowning at it not to act up in front of strangers, withholding it within their folds. 'This is what I always pay,' you said. I looked with awe at your mouseholed monkey-cap head that remained proudly erect while saying it, 'This is what I always pay.' You stood your ground, not moving away till you had made your point, though you could have moved away, now that you stood on your own ground.

The rest of us sat quiet in the auto, breathing a bit easier in the vacant space you had left behind. It was soon going to descend on us that the cold would also bully us worse, finding us weaker by one. Till an hour ago, we had not known of your presence. Now we found it hard to make do with just the memory of you. We missed the easy intimacy our knees and shoulders had established with yours, discovered in the rhythm conducted by the auto. I had become related to you when I had inhaled the bonfire ash of your clothes and had make-believed warmth.

And now that you were out there, the 'out there' we had all been saving ourselves from, we did not even dare to unshawl our faces lest they got slapped by the wind. We did not know whether we should commiserate with the plaintive driver in his losing battle, who was whining, 'If this is what you always pay, you should've said so in the beginning.' We did not know if you needed us to be with you, in an already won but long lost battle, at least sharing your triumph if not your struggle.

By the time the frustrated auto restarted, I was glad of one thing. I was relieved that you said so in the end ('This is what I always pay') and not in the beginning (good for you). I am glad you did not say it any earlier, when you could've been left behind by the auto driver (though it would have been pure business, nothing personal), between a lonely village and an urgent town (Date: 13 January, Time: 8.26 pm) with hardly any other vehicle around to bail you out, neither for five rupees nor for ten.

First published in Anti-Heroin Chic, 14 Aug 2017.

McLeodganj

Same same? Sure

But different, yes, learn to spot the difference

Indo. Tibetan. Chinese. 

Before becoming the beatific Buddha, try being the laughing lama.

A meal in a bowl

Why fuss

About laying the table?

Keep a light head about your shoulders, find it in the clouds 

Queer coloured umbrella rainbows all around, when you can see through the clouds

Cars learn patience

Stomping mountain bulls and goats unite

Some incorrigible neighbour will get his just deserts today

Get out of the way.

Tease the schoolboy playing in his mother's shop and he'll spit at you

No, they don't have the miniature buddha you wanted.

Don't be fooled into thinking that the road you went down will be the same one you go up 

And watch out for the hairpin bend.

First published in Muse India, Nov-Dec 2015.