White Rann, Dark Hues

The Indian travel bug manifests in ways paradoxical; we yearn for a getaway and yet perk up when we hear of a “happening” place. It is as if we wish to have our choice of destination confirmed for us by others. That said, it also takes a certain kind of destination to capture the spirit of the prevalent zeitgeist. One that we hear trumpeted often these days is the Rann of Kutch. It is a landscape like no other in India and has few comparisons in the world at large. In fact, the word landscape must be used cautiously with the Rann for it wasn’t land not so long ago. It still continues to be seasonal marsh and wetland during the monsoons and dries up later. This gives it a shifty character. Tourists, geographers and geologists can’t seem to make up their minds as to its nature. The last group is a divided house when it comes to the Rann. Some say it used be a marine gulf 2500 years ago. There are others who maintain it was a drainage basin for the revered duo of Indus and Saraswati. Tectonics and faults form the undercurrents of this geological hotbed; it is a seismic zone nonpareil in India. If there was ever such a thing as a geologically “happening” place, the Rann of Kutch is it.

One thing we do know is that the retreating waters in the aftermath of the monsoon leave behind an enormous salt flat. Here we encounter the geography conundrum. The largest single stretch of salt flat in the world is the Salar de Uyuni of Bolivia, beyond doubt. As to the question of the largest salt flat in the world, the Rann of Kutch trumps its Bolivian counterpart and the Makgadikgadi (pronounced by Westerners as Mac-Cady-Cady) of Botswana comfortably at nearly 9000 Sq. Miles. This is not contiguous however, and is often resolved neatly, for geologists and tourists alike, into the Greater Rann and the Little Rann. The spectacular white salt flats that a global traveller would be familiar with through the Uyuni are primarily a feature of the Greater Rann while the Little Rann has a smattering of the same.

As for tourists, I think an account of a trip undertaken to the Greater Rann of Kutch with friends a month back will help lend some character and substance to the schizophrenic personage that the Rann has been made out to be. Mind you though, we met Jekyll, the placid, respectable gentleman in a shimmering white coat to boot. Despite assurances that Hyde was a monsoonal monster, we may have had the mildest suggestion of what lurked beneath when we lingered long enough to scratch the surface ! 

We were three at Bandra - Sonal, Vikram and I. Dressed for the long haul, we were joined by Vikram’s girlfriend Binu who, as is her wont, thoughtfully gave him the only snack items anyone bought on the trip. A junk-free trip is a rarity given the ubiquity of packaged foods today and the tendency to munch on them till kingdom come. On a fast train to Bhuj, the nerve centre of Kutch, we were joined by Yash at Ahmedabad six hours later. Having napped and tossed around alternately, we eventually awoke well into the train’s perpendicular into Kutch. The few remaining hours until Bhuj were part fulfilment of a long-held wish amongst us: the lot of us on a train; part fulfilment because we were only four. The wondrous marriage of the comfort of a living room to the mobility of the wheel is, I suppose, the continued appeal of trains. Here we were in lazy repose, chatting away like we would in our rooms, and yet we were being borne ahead.

Around 1 PM, we alighted at Bhooooj - an exaggeration I supplied inadvertently; one that the others duly exploited for humour. It’s Bhuj with the shorter sound. In a cab within minutes, we were heading north to White Rann Camp, among the many clutches of tents laid out amidst the large nowhere between Bhuj and the Rann, and our place of stay. On the way, we encountered the sort of signboard that is symptomatic of India - “Tropic of Cancer is passing here”. Perhaps the choice of tense was deliberate; the authorities probably wanted passers-by to stop and pay respects to the imaginary line of yore and legend. As a response, I couldn’t help but think of Richard Hammond’s tongue-in-cheek remark in the Bolivia special of Top Gear – “We can’t be passing through the Equator; you’d see a big dotted line somewhere!”

As is customary at frontier areas that are the primary concern of the Border Security Force, we had to complete a security process at an army check post before we could move ahead. The BSF has practically made Ladakh what it is and here too, they remain as the rest of us come and go. It must be an odd thing to be so intimately privy to regions everyone else considers exotic and outlandish. While it is inevitable that they will regard the manning of these far-flung corners as “part of the job”, it is disturbing to think that some may eventually come to detest them and associate with them, everything that is wrong with their worlds. It is a feeling I can scarcely empathize with despite efforts to do so. How those who stood guard at Yellowstone and other wildernesses in the American west over decades in the late 1800’s, reconciled the treasures at their beckoning with the daily monotony and duty of their jobs is a similarly intriguing idea for me! Perhaps it is a consideration worthy of someone like Ken Burns (maker of the landmark 2009 documentary – The National Parks: America’s Best Idea).

At the White Rann Camp, we settled into our tent. It is India’s latest addition to its tourist cupboard. Suddenly it seems tents are everywhere, made available with relative ease and at fairly reasonable charges. The clincher perhaps is the dissemination of the knowhow on putting together a makeshift washroom as part of a tent. There are truly natty arrangements that surprise first-timers (my reaction on a trip to Rajasthan) who have been conditioned to expect the worst from India’s outdoors. With the result, these trips cease to be what the mind has envisioned for the body as insurance and end up being a different kind of comfort, as opposed to the lack of it. Everyone seemed to be voicing something to this effect.

Nearly four hours after disembarking at Bhuj, we were finally on our way to the salt flats, White Rann. To begin with, we were concerned about how the landscape (soil, vegetation etc) didn’t seem to be gradually seguing into our hazy idea of what we thought we’d see. Instead the prickly shrubs continued until it appeared as if they must abruptly stop at some point. Also, there was no sign of losing the fairly ship-shape tarmac. It got worse, in spectacular fashion. Just when we felt we ought to be losing the last vestiges of civilization, a vastly bigger congregation of tents, flags, stalls and shamianas loomed ahead. We were looking at the massive tent city put up by the Gujarat Government to accommodate the increasing numbers that descend upon Kutch in December and January. The numbers owed to something they had started, the Rann Utsav, a festival celebrating all that was Kutchi.

Soon the horizon flattened out and there was no sign of vegetation. Tarmac remained though and convoys of cars, jeeps and buses dotted the panorama, many off the road. Eventually they all piled up in a row, as if standing against a massive rally. We stopped and got out to our first glimpse of what seemed like various shades of coffee with a swirl of cream. The number of people thronging the edge of the White Rann gave the whole place the air of a vast beach for it is sand that eventually gives way to salt crystals. Just as one can wade into deeper waters and lose the masses at a beach, one can lose people at a fairly rapid rate here too. It also helped that we were here for the long haul when compared with the decidedly crepuscular intentions of most people. It had been an hour since we had come and eventually the sun set. Following suit, the crowds all but vanished.

It is at this juncture that I begin to make the acquaintance of White Rann and I suspect it isn’t any different for the others. To that effect, when I try and write about it, it feels more immediate and present than the events leading up to it, which are more distinctly in the past. Reliving it, I might be walking through the Rann now. It is getting darker by the minute. The white surface is no longer a nuanced mosaic of brown, clay and white. It is more a single thing and lends an eerie calm to the approaching night. There is something else here though, or rather something elemental that isn't here. I am unable to tell what at first. Right on cue comes a faint abrasive sound when the foot chafes the ground, a hint that the surface is less a sheet now and more an agglomeration of salt crystal clusters. It is the wind or the lack of it ! There is curiously little by way of a gust or a breeze. Perhaps it is that kind of night. It is a vast canvas dreamed up by nature, devoid of sound. 

In this here and now, my friends feel more immediate. Perhaps it is the abstraction of white and silence that cajole me into taking them in with far more detail than I would in a city that is a melange of distractions. The contours of a smile seem more complex, unresolvable into simple adjectives like cute or beaming. Irises reveal a depth robbed of them by the muted attention spans of city rhythms. Movements register in delicate ways, as if I were looking at new-borns. It is amazing how the lack of life around can make one notice it in ways previously unimagined. 

Yash's way of moving, with a gingerly grace wavering between concern and disregard, seems vague and specific at once. Some people move more for themselves while there are those whose motions suggest that they wish to be noted. He is of the former ilk. Here, his constant fiddling with his phone make his inwardly directed movements seem more thus. Any little concession he makes to be noticed is so slight that I eventually learn to discern it rather well.   

Vikram is all purpose and poise. The latter inevitably mirrors the former to the extent that even his laziness has a purpose; as if he were announcing his intent to be idle by slumping more comprehensively than would be necessary. Economy is not usually his chief consideration. Oddly enough, here I am more mindful of the quick glimpses of transition from one purposeful act to the next. True to form though, his body language is up to the challenge of conveying a firm sense of indecision too in these windows.

Sonal's countenance reveals a dilemma; she seems torn between the impulse to burst out with an observation and the self-imposed discipline to sustain the quiet. Walking ahead, she turns back every now and then in quick jerks. The silence seems threatened. Acknowledging this, she makes a series of rapid hand gestures to shush us into a quietness quieter than the present quiet. Through her posture alone, she appears to be saying that this new quiet is a consciously shared one, and that we better maintain it ! We do. Moments later, unable to contain herself, she cries out, I want to remember you guys here, just like this; willing herself to a mental snapshot. With this, the reverie is broken and an exercise in impressionism is over. 

Presently, as I glance up and about, the biggest casualty of urban life dawns on me: the night sky. Stargazing is perhaps the most human of activities in that it encompasses two distinctly human traits – hope and imagination. It is a forgotten romance for metropolitans, however. We are delighted at spotting Mars, Jupiter and Neptune. Ursa Major is discernible in its full glory. Sitting down on the surface in huddled postures, we might have been in a time more removed from ours except for the immutable fact that Google Sky had aided significantly in the stargazing. 

This is the White Rann I get to know in the hour immediately past sunset. Perhaps it is the other way around. It has provided the time and space for me to get reacquainted with aspects of my own self and those of the others.

By now it is pitch dark. The Rann is now a veritable moonscape with the white having acquired a decidedly other-worldly bluish tinge. The onset of dark is one thing; the dark itself quite another. The primal sensations they evoke are different. Barely minutes ago, sure of the secure embrace of the white blanket of the Rann, I was drunk with impressionistic and introspective excess.  Now a dark and unfamiliar landscape looms ahead, with a foreboding air about it. It also arouses the curiosity; it might be more thrilling to pace ahead now. Leaving the others behind, I walk onward. Unsure though, I keep turning back to check if the coordinates we have established for ourselves hold true. After a hundred yards or so, I can barely hear my friends. The only hint of other people on the Rann are the various silhouettes afoot at various points on my visual.  They register in the deliberately hazy manner of photographs and videos substantiated as proof of the existence of cryptids. They might have been groups of Bigfoot.

As I venture deeper, for the first time, there are signs that I seem to be treading on less tenable ground. Each footstep is met with a crunchy sound followed by a quiet grab of the foot by the ground. Soon, the grabs grow rather disquietingly. Eventually my foot goes right into the ground and I stumble to pull out of what is clearly a different surface now. Salt crystals line the bottom of my jeans up to two inches above the ankle. The Rann seems to be exacting an unspoken part of the bargain between us from me ! Within moments, I am no longer sure about my bearings. It seems as if the seduction, should it be allowed to go on, might prove dangerous further ahead. Rather grudgingly, I return with the others. Everything now feels different. When you encounter a potential point of no return and decide not to press on, the appeal of the place changes. I feel grateful for the encounter and would rather not have it marred by anything more. Places can be just like people. 

Journeying In Gujarat

Pronouncing Jamnagar involves opening with the eponymous syllable that evokes the grandeur of the Ja’am Sahibs before settling into the rather mundane Na-gar. Jaam-na-gar. Rise-Thud-Thud. I found the mundaneness first.

A drab highway cut across arid plains. Saurashtra stretched ahead. An industrial behemoth would appear every now and then - an ugliness of pipes and tubes - a product of the infertile soil. Hot air pelted the face. Blazing heat bared everything even as it forced shut the eyelids. Existence seemed a weariness. When it seemed to wear on forever, the car veered off the highway, depositing me firmly into a two-month internship. Engaging work held me six days out of seven. The gloom of the seventh loomed as the week neared its end. I fled each time, returning to the highway, seeking new places. I found them in various corners of the peninsula.

I saw the uneasy truce forged between land, river and sea at Dwarka. How illusory was the concept of ground beneath one’s feet! If ever there was credence to the frequent mythological refrain of land being reclaimed from sea, here was living proof. A land so precariously perched amidst the watchful eyes of predatory waters that have enveloped it many a time in the past that an encore always seemed imminent.

Somnath, rather inevitably given its history, had acquired the air of a defiant bastion. A quality prized by any nation-state entity; the Government had wasted no opportunity in championing the place as a metaphor for the state itself. Stateliness pervaded the approach to the imposing Shikara. Just in case the scale and significance did not register, the mighty figure of Sardar Patel stood to the right of the pathway named after him with a gaze firmly affixed on what he’d commissioned. There was no trifling with this institution, everything seemed to be saying.

Spurned upon my first approach to Gir, I was obliged the second time. What I saw and heard hinted at considerable duress. The guides cited numbers of attrition - “Kaafi marte hain har saal trains ke vaje se” referring to the Junagadh-Delvada railway line that scythes across the forest. There was talk of imbalance in the fragile food chain. The Maldhari community that lived in the forest, historically amicable with the lions, had recently been reporting more than the odd skirmish. Among the success stories of Indian Wildlife Conservation, it seemed Gir still wasn’t immune to the maladies gripping other sanctuaries and national parks.

At Modhera, I saw timeless beauty both concealed and heightened by the commonplace around it. Like its more famous sister in the east, Konark, the Sun Temple here was also a victim of rapacious advance but to a lesser degree. Modhera, however, was not the beneficiary of a well-laid out introduction which meant that it just appeared at one juncture. As I lingered, the vision became more and more real. What gained lasting permanence though was an idea I’d been introduced to at Pattadakkal – stone has matchless eloquence.

Spurred on by what I’d found every time I’d journeyed with an open mind. I ventured Jamnagar itself. Despite the many industrial encroachments that have sprung up in its outskirts and lent it a name on the industrial world map, Jamnagar town itself remained quite untouched by this. The old had not made way for the new here. A walk through the town, its many alleyways and lanes was an exercise in piecing together the erstwhile Nawanagar through its many dilapidated edifices, arched darwazas, turrets, minarets, havelis and the Darbargarh Palace.

Jamnagar’s most recent evocation of the past, the statue of Maharaja Kumarsinghji Ranjitsinghji commanding centre stage of the panoramic sweep of Darbargarh Palace, had me longing for another statue elsewhere that froze him in the nonchalant audacity of his leg glance, for Ranji (as he was known in cricketing circles) was also the first Indian batsman extraordinaire. His shot-making may have had a long-lasting influence on the development of the batting aesthetic itself in cricket and thereby shaped the vocabulary that has been handed to us. From a tribute by that doyen of cricket writers, Neville Cardus, one may glean this and more: “Before him English cricket was English through and through … but when Ranji batted, a strange light from the East flickered in the English sunshine”.

With regard to Jamnagar’s cricketing legacy, Ranji was not all however. In his wake, came the nearly-as-brilliant Duleep, his nephew. Two decades after Duleep, Jamnagar produced an all-rounder matched since only by Kapil Dev. Mulvantrai Himmatlal Mankad or Vinoobhai as he was known in typical Gujarati fashion was India’s star for a decade after independence. Fittingly, he will always be seen poised in his delivery stride at Mankad Circle, Jamnagar. I was excited to find cricket in such healthy and unexpected doses in what had seemed like some outback of India. Furthering the analogy about pronunciation, I’d done away with Nagar first and was now relishing the upswing of Jaaaam. Curious points of trivia and amusement on this ascendant were things like India’s only extant Ayurvedic University with courses and programmes in learning the ancient healing system, and a Bala Hanuman Mandir which currently sits in the Guinness Book of Records for having featured non-stop chanting since 1967.

One evening, I visit the temple and find it tucked away in a corner on the avenue that retains a sense of quietude despite the chanting inside and the chatter outside. Around the sunset hour though, neither is a match for the twitter from the true inheritors of Jamnagar – the birds. The avenue and the lake transform into an avian spectacle as parakeets, egrets, pond herons, spoonbills, flamingos, pelicans, swallows and thrushes descend upon the setting. A quiet town suddenly seems abuzz with activity as hundreds of birds flit about from one tree to another. This seems to stir people out of their general torpor and infuses the scene with energy. The twilight lasts an hour after which the lake, the avenue and the surrounding areas settle into a dullness of Chaat outlets, sugarcane vendors and other hawkers. The birds have left and they appear to have taken back that which they bestowed upon the scene.

That Gujarat is a birder’s delight is in itself a well-kept secret. That Jamnagar should be the state’s representative in this regard is perhaps not known at all even to travel aficionados in India. In 2010, the town hosted the first Global Bird Watcher’s Conference (an initiative of the Gujarat Govt.) at Khijadiya, a part-marshland part-grassland ecosystem with freshwater lakes and saltwater marshes. It is a birding haven much on the lines of Bharatpur (near Agra) only without similar status from the Ramsar Convention (protects wetlands in the world). Khijadiya in winter provides a transit to rare migratory birds from Russia and Central Asia like the Demoiselle Crane, the Bar-Headed Goose, Eurasian Wigeon and many others. This year (2013), the GBWC is scheduled to be held at Dhordo (gateway to the Greater Rann of Kutch).

Much of this owes to Jamnagar’s unique location on the lower shore of the Gulf of Kutch. The placid waters adjoining the entire shoreline of the Jamnagar district and the islands that dot the coast are collectively designated as a Marine National Park. Some of these islands are accessible from Jamnagar, easiest among them being Narara Bet. A trip to Narara had proved elusive during my internship stint in Jamnagar.

On a later visit, it happens in fortuitous fashion through a random query directed at a cabbie about directions, information and the like. It turns out that he belongs to a family that had been staying at the entry point of Narara for over 30 years, in what I later find to be a middle-of-nowhere with not even a shack for miles. As awareness about the place grew, the powers that were had swooped in to take notice and soon recognition followed. The family had stuck to their place however and were now the unofficial caretakers of a vast and unique seascape. I say recognition with some reservations however, since Marine National Park is still not likely to feature in the average conversation about flora and fauna in Gujarat. Gir, Blackbuck and Rann of Kutch would be the dominant names.

Such relative anonymity serves someone looking for a quiet interaction with environs quite well as the place bears the air of an untouched paradise. One can wade through waters that graduate from ankle deep to thigh deep and observe marine life in the company of a naturalist. Crabs abound, holed up in the shelter of rocks. The spider crab with the many thorns on its skin is a prickly creature to hold in one’s palm. The withdrawal of the sea anemone into the soft seabed upon touch is a wondrous thing to behold. Corals, in addition to being such an important cog in the ecosystem, add glitter and pattern to the water surface. Wading proves immensely addictive and we zone in on an octopus the size of a hand after two hours of journeying further into the gulf. It seems to gain in colour once out of water. Its release of colour upon being released into the water again is a natural science lesson at close quarters. Only exhaustion after a four-hour excursion in these waters proves a detriment to further exploration. I return sated.

Today, I find it both appropriate and odd that I had to discover the delights of the town I was in after having wandered the rest of Gujarat. In travel, the truism that familiarity breeds contempt finds its most pressing reinforcement.  

In the Mumbai, all over India …….. Part 1

My first and second visions of Mumbai were through the tinted glass windows of an Indica. During the monsoons, what one sees is a murky, salty city crowded with nameless buildings jostling for space. They were worn-out in a way that seemed specific to Mumbai. Here, even the newest construction seemed fatigued, as if it had sighed wearily at the battle ahead with the elements and settled into a permanent languor. Perhaps, the fatigue was my own. Having to wake up at 2 am, offer oneself to the dank air that prevails in the hills of Lavale (home to Symbiosis) and be driven in a car packed with hopefuls was no way to prepare for an interview later in the day. Any efforts to recall the verve that had mushroomed at the end of my preparation were futile. Sleeping on and off during the journey didn’t help either. In effect, I had nothing remotely close to the soaring ambition and confidence that, I thought, were needed upon encountering this megapolis.

My third tryst with Mumbai involved the onset of the monsoon the year after. I flew into stormy skies on a six-seater Dassault whose insides, so calm and plush while in Gujarat, were transformed into a light and sound show upon descent in Mumbai. Even a pretty girl facing me, looking on with increasing trepidation with the “what is happening!” nod from time to time didn’t help. Uninitiated, I found it easy to blame Mumbai again. Two months of satisfying interning experience, touring and a warm friendship in amiable Gujarat found their denouement in a crazy ride into the cauldron that was Mumbai. I hated it already, looking ahead with dread at the impending doom that was the flight the next morning to Bangalore. Worse was to follow.

A simple meeting with friends in Andheri became a series of misadventures. I took the wrong local from Chunabhatti and ended up in Vashi instead of Wadala. When I doubled back, the train stopped midway near King’s Circle and I dropped my phone into knee-deep water. After more misses, I somehow managed to meet a friend from Wipro. On the way back, things had calmed down in Mumbai but I wouldn’t have it. Unsure of its tenability (or sure of its untenability) I imagined an imminent apocalypse in the making. A childhood fetish for dreaming up large mega-tsunamis at beaches (something that Goa cured) returned.

As a gloating ha-ha counterpoint, I began envisaging idyllic Bangalore. Bangalore wouldn’t throw violent tantrums; she’d welcome you with a genial embrace. The prospective weather alone was enough to send me into the throes of a pastoral fantasy. As if to prove a point, the flight was a breeze after the rough take-off phase. When the captain announced “a pleasant 25 degrees outside” upon landing, I beamed, relieved that I’d escaped Mumbai. Now the krakens beneath could wreak havoc upon the city, the waves could swallow everything in their wake. It wouldn’t matter. I was home.

Highway Hues

For four years at BITS Goa, I stepped out of the campus gates and found myself on the highway. There are immediate inferences to be drawn from this arrangement, particularly so in reminiscence. A location on the highway is precisely that - hazy and devoid of specific coordinates. It is opposite nothing. It is not the fourth building after you turn left. It's just there somewhere. In this case, about 10 minutes from the Dabolim airport. About is the operative word. This quality of BITS Goa probably transferred itself onto its students. It certainly did to me. With the result, what endures today is a sense of having spent four years without a mooring point. I don't recollect developing any ideals or viewpoints that endure today. It also made me more of a wanderer than a traveler, a backpacker more than an itinerant.

One of the defining features of SIBM Pune is that it is off the Mumbai-Pune expressway. Perhaps I read too much into it!

Three days into my internship, I find that my work location is smack on a pristine Gujarat highway that cuts across Saurashtra from inland Ahmedabad to coastal Dwarka. This time though, I'm determined not to be a drifter. An MBA internship doesn't allow you to be one anyway but every time I walk from Reliance Greens (township) to the refinery, I find the highway hues from my engineering days creeping up on me. Thankfully, it manifests solely in the form of a desire to leave home and explore. I indulge this desire to its fullest.