An anthology allows you to taste fleetingly, sample and move on if you will, nice knowing-you, no commitment and no hard feelings. Sometimes the words strike a chord and resonate, sometimes the words cleanse your neurons of the gunk accumulated and force you to sit up straight.
Like Salinger, and well, Bananafish.
Like Ruth Praver Jhabvala and that incredibly intricate abstract in Mirrorwork.
Links to a Jhabvala story from the New Yorker archives here:http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2008/07/28/080728fi_fiction_jhabvala?currentPage=all#ixzz0fyou6x2M
Sunrises on clear morning continue to enthrall. Pink and white and a tinge of orange, a dash of clouds overhead; and the eucalyptus tall and proud, each individual leaf outlined like a mughal miniature. Dew trembling at the edge of bamboo leaves and the bougainvillea rushing mad in its generosity.
Amit, thanks for the Beautiful blog award, and I shall do this tag in bite sized pieces, for to write an entire post would be completely too much.
Baroda? The warmth of home and the sadness of old places past their prime. Kalyan shabby and faded, resigned to its fate; empty and without a chaat counter, no bhel, what a sacrilege for a spot once famous for this comfort food. The ASE premises now rubble on a vacant corner lot, once upon a time the country’s best, most modern, shining steel and technology-proud pharma plant occupied these vast lands. The malls that line the corner seem a mockery. Once upon a time I’d interned here.
5 comments:
Yes, reading about the old places fading away makes me sad....memories attached to Kalyan, and so many eateries... long time since I have been there, God alone knows how much my city has changed...
Hi,Austy-will read the Jhabvala story later(it's long,and need to be in the right mood to read peacefully.Now,if it'd been your article,it'd be a different matter,and it'd be read at once..:))
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Will wait for the tag post..I can understand what you mean @ 'bite sized pieces'.
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Hey, I know-going to Kalyan in those days used to be reserved for 'special treat' days...now, with the competition looming all round, it's 'just another eatery'-pity is,they don't really do much to change things.
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The same goes for the ASE-feels sad to see the rubble.I did read about some major complex coming up there. And,do you recall Alembic Glass-(Still there)-buying Yera glasses used to be a craze..:)
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But then, for every 1 such sad part,there're many great parts-like,the Aurobindo Memorial in Dandiya Bazaar,the Shiva Statue in Sursagar, Canara Coffee House-still continuing valiantly and doing booming business at decent prices,et al...Did you ever visit East & West Bookshop in Dandiya Bazaar?:)Ahh-can't stop talking of Baroda,once I start.:)
hmm, never managed to finish Mirrorwork.. shall revisit :)
I understand the feeling you get when things change - my town in India is slowly changing too. The city where I live now here in US has a small museum and it displays pictures of olden days and things look way too different. Sometimes changes are signs of progress too right....but yes at times we'd prefer things didn't change.
Shiv-- maybe you'll revisit the city some day... but please for God's sake avoid Kalyan.
Amitl- thanks. Did you read it finally? SHd I send you a word file?
Kalyan was where memories were made-- we'd save up to be able to go and eat there.
East and West is a pity too. Wont go there again.
Manubhai-- you own a copy? What did you think of Rohinton Mistry's fine story?
PQ- change as a sign of progress yes, but decay and dust? That was like a personal loss.
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