On Road To The Rann Of Kutch

I jotted down these on Google Keep on my phone while on a road trip last month from Calicut, Kerala to the Rann of Kutch, Gujarat.

Inertia.

I met this word for the first time when I was in school. It was a physics class. Newton’s Laws of Motion. Since then this word has become a stain on my life. I used to experience it several times. Painfully, sometimes! I will continue in it to infinity unless otherwise an external force exerts on me, as Newton discovered. Last week, I got a push, a never-before one. Now I am on the road, in motion, with my friend Ragesh towards Bengaluru to join Vaishakh and Praveen. Roads will unfold for us in the coming week.
#ThamarasseryChuram

Wayanad.

I’ve been travelling these hills since my childhood. Perhaps the place I visited the most. This time in a state bus filled with people and cool air. The sun seems a little bit closer outside, brightening everything: the road, buildings, busy bazaars, hoardings, the nameplate on the policemen’s uniform controlling the traffic, the red, orange and yellow flowers along the roadside, golden paddy fields, nude peaks and the distant greens; everything that makes Wayanad.
#SulthanBathery

…

For the inhabitants of the woods, each tree is a place to hide. Every time we travel through the woods, we anticipate an animal coming out with its eyes open and hungry. It may harm us. Does it stop us from gazing at the trees? Never. Instead, it fascinates us.

Within all fascinations lies fear. The fear of getting hurt. Yet it fascinates us. Forests continue to fascinate.
#Bandipur

…

In the city where people from all parts of the nation nest in honeycomb-like homes. They buzz in a language all understand. A language of the future. In the smoky streets, dashing vehicles, sky-riding metro trains, dimly lighted bedrooms, fast-paced offices, cafes and pubs.

A modern metropolis is being built around the science of an invisible particle; the electron.
#Bengaluru

Benne Dosa.

Leaving Bengaluru early in the morning, empty-bellied in Vaishakh’s hybrid-powered Invicto, our first destination was Devangere to have Benne Dosa. A taste elevated with butter slathered in abundance to be chewed with pale green coconut chutney.

The taste of what we have been seeing since dawn; a greyish city slowly waking up, vast agricultural lands, huge wind turbines, lush arecanut plantations and the river Thungabhadra.
#Devangere

…

In 2017, I and Anu decided to get married. We wished the nikah to be as simple as possible, including our attire. She bought a blue cotton churidar and I bought a maroon kurta and began searching for complementary footwear.

Two days before the nikah, while roaming around shops in a shopping mall in Kozhikode, I found the exact one waiting for me — a red-coloured leather Kolhapuri chappal. Today, I find myself travelling across the place from where that footwear design originated.
Kolhapur, Maharashtra.

Pune.

For me, this city is synonymous with cinema. India’s prestigious film institute and the resourceful archives stand tall here, despite the recent controversies. The institute has given birth to legendary filmmakers who redefined my understanding of cinema.

An understanding that will continue to inspire me to approach life and works of art with a different perspective.

Leaving Pune with three movie buffs who breathe cinema every day.

Mumbai.

An amazing maze where human beings walk, run, ride and drive through countless skyscrapers, snake-like overbridges and split roads, to make their lives better.

…

Millions of words have been written and spoken analyzing, criticizing or praising him. Even after he was shot dead in 1948, he engages with us in one way or another. In government offices, courtrooms, heated arguments and currency notes.

No other leader in modern India could have such a binding presence in our everyday lives. No other mass leader in India would have the courage to write My Experiments with Truth. Whether Mahatma or not, he was a phenomenal leader.
#SabarmatiAshram

…

What is the value of common salt?

Over 2000 kilometres, 4 days and one week off work.

That’s how Nature calls you.

At Rann of Kutch, the salt desert.