A Coimbatore TamBrahm in a Habsburg court

The sun is out in all its blazing glory! Exactly two weeks after it staged its disappearing act. I’m light at heart and high in spirits!

For the last three weeks, I’ve been letting the sights of the city sink into my eyes. This is a beautiful city, there can be no doubt about it. Even on the greyest of days, and in the face of the dullest weather, this is a fact one cannot gainsay.

However, I’ve really not done any sight-seeing. Struggling to come to grips with the sudden onset of cold, wet weather, I’ve allowed myself to be led by the nose by automatons. Of which, two have become surreally close buddies. Tram 52 and the U4. Every morning I mutely coast along a longish length of Linzerstrasse, followed by a turn into an almost equally longish stretch of Mariahilferstrasse. In the evenings, I mutely coast back. Except on some occasions, when I take the underground. But every journey is a journey undertaken in muteness. To be in a land where you cannot speak the language is some experience. But traveling by tram is relatively better. Because it travels over the ground it gives you a sense of life.

But yesterday, disgusted at myself for turning up for work for the third consecutive Saturday, I allowed a brief appearing act of the sun to give me an excuse that let me march out onto the streets of Vienna. I traveled to the St. Stephan’s Cathedral and walked down the old city. Briefly I peeped over the banners of an anti-Israel demonstration and lent my solidarity. I marvelled at the wares of itinerant artists and the music of indigent violinists. I took wistful rides on the horse-driven carriages. And walking down the streets of the old city I wondered what the Austro-Hungarian Emperors would have made of me, a puritanical TamBrahm, lounging in a Habsburg courtyard.

In circumstances such as these – alien language, alien culture, an excessive sense of order (as may appear to an Indian whose exit amidst much jostling and queue-breaking at the New Delhi airport is followed, upon touchdown, by a bewilderingly sanitized and agonizingly empty environs) and self-imposed poverty – it is perhaps inevitable for a sense of loneliness and longing for company to sprout. One of the first people I was introduced to was MT – and I took an instant liking to her. We talked academics, Austria and India; shared Indian food, cake and coffee, and in the process, found common interests. The conditions were ripe for one’s heart to mellow. One was taking it day-by-day, looking forward to some sunshine in the midst of the depressing weather, wondering all the time whether there was a possibility of anything more than what met one’s eye. And one fine day, not very long ago, words were dropped about a boyfriend, so that with a sharp stab of pain and a dizzy spin of the head, the roller coaster drew to a halt, bringing to an abrupt end one's little would-be romance!

But the bright spot so far has been the cooking! Unencumbered by a loving grandmother, who felt that the entry of a male – no matter that it was her grandson – into the kitchen implied a shirking of responsibility on her part, I have been engaging in some interesting culinary experiments. My pongal is a stepbrother of khichdi, and I eat it with rasam. Last week, my sambar turned out watery (my mother advised me to use rice flour, an ingredient missing from my limited pantry, to thicken it) and the cabbage curry burnt. But elation stemmed from small achievements: fine tomato rice, puliyodarai, rasam and chapattis!

For consolation, I brace myself with the hope that padhai na sahi, ladki na sahi, Hindustani dhaba hi sahi! In the worst event perhaps, I can open an Indian eating joint. ;)

Well, so long, till next time!

Lustlos!

I'm writing this in a long overdue bid to rescue a collection of cyber-writings slipping ever deeper into the dustbins of trivial history with every passing day. To the left of my keyboard lies a desultory pair of glasses over a sheaf of papers claiming to unravel the secret of institutional change. To my right, there's a mouse. (Well, what did you expect?) The weather outside has slipped into gloom once again. I am in an alien land, far from the delightful, sunny landscape on the outskirts of my hometown. And for no particular reason, with nothing even remotely resembling the emotions they describe, I'm humming these lines in the mind:

Perhaps I had a wicked childhood, perhaps I had a miserable youth

But somewhere in my wicked, miserable past, there must have been a moment of truth

For here you are standing there loving me, whether or not you should

So somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good

Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could

So somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.

No, I’m not bored. Just listless!

Guess where I am?