My First Passport

Sankalpa Basu

I thought it was excessive when I first heard about it; yet another ID! There were already too many IDs, one for work, one for the library, one for the gym (not that you would ever find me there) and a bright blue store card that gave me a few points every time I shop there.  I also have a Voter Identity Card, which I hope to use someday when I find someone worthy to give my vote to. I have a PAN card too; I don’t know of what use it is to me. Now I had to get myself an Aadhar Card.

I tried to snap out of the negativity. After all, it wasn’t something I could do without. I would need this card to buy a flight ticket, a railway ticket, to open a bank account or even to get money out of the account. I heard that it would be linked to my PAN card, my bank account, my phone number and the progress report of my grandchildren. It was after all just another ID.

We didn’t need IDs in DM School. You knew who you were and I knew who I was. Things have changed; children going to UKG are being tethered to their IDs by colourful lanyards, God knows what they need their IDs for. I didn’t get an ID card in before I went to BJB. I didn’t need it even when I was voting in the student union elections. Thinking back I don’t see what would have been the point of having an ID. Everyone I wanted or didn’t want to know me seemed to know me. The manager of the canteen where my friends had managed to build up a debt knew me and looked at me accusingly, my neighbour from whose garden I stole flowers before daybreak could recognise me from my silhouette and complained to my dad, Hajari sir could recognise me from my fingerprints when I drew hearts on the dusty window panes and pulled my ears. There were of course some who showed no sign of recognition, but then girls will be girls.

Somewhere down the line I applied for a job in UK and for a passport, I expected to get neither. Do you remember how long it took to even get a LPG connection those days? It was an amazing moment when the passport arrived; I imagined of seeing new lands, meeting new people and making new friends. I went and joined the queue before UK embassy in Chanakyapuri for the visa, there were so many people there, all clutching their paperwork like me. It was a cold foggy morning, probably a portent of the weather I was going to see a lot of.  

Passports and farewells go hand in hand; with it in hand a man leaves his own country and seeks challenges in another. Friends raise toasts to the future and reminisce as the so-called dreams come to fruition.  Somehow it feels so much better to have a drink with your old friends, you don’t worry too much about getting blotto and there is always someone to take you home, or you end up taking them to a place of safety.  I experienced some serious bonhomie; embraces, tears, songs, a bit of dancing and everything else before leaving. Would I ever again have friends like this? I didn’t know. I was going to an alien country.

I am a bit sick of the whole ID business. I would like people to be free like flocks of birds as they go to different countries, giving each other company and nest next to each other, and not to be burdened by pieces of paper when the falcons give them chase.

My first passport looks quite old now, its pages are rumpled and stamped, reminding me of all the places it took me to, it is cancelled now and no longer my ID. I looked for it when I heard about the Aadhar card. I look so young and different in my first passport. My first passport is no longer a proof of who I am; it has rather become a reminder of who I was.

Mehfil-e-Musings

Sorry about the tacky title for this post. Social media tends to bring out the different avatars in us - some we are aware of; but mostly ones we have no clue about. Well... some of us were exchanging innocuous conversation (on WhatsApp) about what we were doing - for those in the US it was a Saturday morning and for our pals in India, it was Saturday evening. Need I stress (to give you some context for what is to follow here) - a weekend evening? As this information on a weekend's potential dos and actual shouldn'ts unravelled, a couple of us exchanged a few verses in Hindi-Urdu; not quite shayari, but kinda shayarana musings(if you will)... Here let me share those few verses and a part of the inspirational conversation -

Person A: Hi.. anybody there?
Person B: Teri tanhai
Person C: ...aur tu
Person C: Relaxing at home, B?
Person B: At a friend's place. Having Satyanarayana Puja prasad on a Saturday night :-(

Sipra: 
Tanha ka tha alam
Alarm kahin baji
Aur kahin thi shaam
Kuchh dost, kuchh yaar
Wahan bhi the
Par mehfil to bas yahin hai.

Sid:
Ye tere do labz
Zindagi taaza kar gayi
Viraaniyon me mehfil
Ruswayi mein thandak layi
Ay dost tu aise hi shaamil ho,
Mere caravan mein,
Yeh meri dua hai

********************
Ab aage aap kahiye...

PRAGUE - A PILGRIMAGE... OF SORTS

Sipra Pati

I am in Prague. Hubby takes a picture of me alighting from the tour bus – he understands my emotions; the near-pilgrimage I am on. Pilgrimage yes, but with no points to touch but the city itself. You see... this is the city where my Dad spent two years of his abbreviated life - a life I barely got the chance to get acquainted with. Needless to say, the sole reason the city held a special place in my heart.

Walking on these cobbled streets of the historic part of Prague makes me feel that I am in all probability walking where my father did... approximately sixty years back. I would be naive to think the city stood still just for me to experience precisely what my Dad had. But then this is the part of Prague built centuries back  – the Royal Castle, St. Vitus Cathedral, the cobblestone alleys, and the Charles Bridge. These monuments have been around since medieval times and underscore the very essence of the city of Prague or Praha, as the Czech call it.

I look around – immaculate blue skies with tufts of white clouds, the hushed chitter-chatter of scores of tourists and the shuffling of their shoes, the shadows of the medieval buildings, the palace guards in crisp grey uniforms and designer aviator shades, people dressed in medieval costumes and posing as statues, World War 2-era roofless cars carrying tourists. I am in the thick of tourist land. I take a deep breath – inhaling the summer air and letting the ‘I am in Prague’ envelop my being. I wonder if my Dad, some six decades back, stood in the square in front of the Royal Castle (as I am) and looked out over the stone parapet absorbing the breathtaking view of the city and its rather grey river. Perhaps he walked down the cobblestone stairway (as I am) into the alleys below and thought back to the alleys in his hometown. Maybe he leaned on one side of the Charles Bridge (as I am), peered into the softly heaving ripples of the Vlatava river (Moldou, in German) and thought of the Kathajodi in his hometown. Perhaps he had then turned and look at the aged-by-time, yet timeless, spires of the St.Vitus cathedral and had wondered about the temples in his home state. Maybe, as he raised his camera and peered at the church through the lens, he promised himself to someday capture the facades and magnificence of the temples dotting Bhubaneswar. Perhaps, when he lowered his camera, he saw a young couple crossing the bridge hand-in-hand, and his heart wrenched a little as his mind went to the young woman he had married and left behind at home in Cuttack. Perhaps he shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers, walked to the other side of this medieval bridge and contemplated over his reason to be in Prague. His walk back to his rental apartment must have been selectively punctuated – by some camera work. Had he longed for his favorite pan-fried ilisi as he looked at the Czech beef goulash being served in the sidewalk cafes of the historic district? Had the delectable Trdlo reminded him of khaja and other sweets from his home state? Had the golden swaying grass in the countryside outside Prague sent his mind back to the swaying paddy fields, lush green against the backdrop of ominous grey monsoon clouds, in his home state? I wish I knew. I wish I had answers to these questions. What I do know is that he wrote regularly to my mother, as he did others; he bought Bohemian crystal-ware, Czech porcelain dinner and coffee sets, and tiny dolls dressed in intricately embroidered dresses – filling their first home with the very flavor and essence of the land he had called home for two years. It is time to break the sanctity, I tell myself – and read those letters.

Time is beginning to run out – hubby and I have to head back to the tour bus before its scheduled departure for Vienna, our base for this trip through Europe. I feel restless; incomplete. I yearn for something – not quite a souvenir (which, thanks to my Dad, our home had more than its fair share of Czech handicrafts); a something I cannot quite put my finger on; a something that would perhaps make me (a rather foolish thought, I admit) feel this city was reaching out to me acknowledging my Dad’s presence all those years back; a something that would make me feel this was more than a whirlwind tour of Prague. Ten minutes in hand before we needed to start our walk to our tour group – and I see this enclosure of beige-colored bricks – each painted in different hues, art, flags, and more. They are just stacked – no cement or concrete holding them in place. The makeshift kiosk next to it solicits passers-by to paint a brick and donate six euros to an organization working with Czech children afflicted with mental health issues. In the past they had used these bricks to build the driveway in one of the organization’s children’s homes and a side of the building, the young girl manning the kiosk tells me. They were not sure what the bricks would be used for this time. To me this was the city throwing me the “here’s your something” ball. All I had to do was cup the ball in my outstretched hands. Five minutes, hubby gently reminds me. I start painting a brick as hubby handles the payment. Paint brushes and I have never had a very compatible relationship; yet I manage to write my Dad’s name on it; add the Indian tri-color to it, and three stars – one each for my Mom, my sister and me. I place it on the un-cemented yellow brick wall in the center of this beautiful city where my Dad had lived for two years. I look at the paint on my fingers and nails, and then at my watch. No time to wash it off, I surmise looking at the lengthening queue at the little street-side water fountain. Time to go, says hubby after taking that last photo. I look at the brick wall one last time, do a little 360 degree turn as I inhale deeply - a whimsical attempt to fill my lungs with the essence of Praha, my Dad’s Praha, intertwine my fingers with hubby’s outstretched ones and will my feet away.