and so I return to the Desert.. I have never particularly liked being in the Desert.. but somehow find myself back in it at transformational times in my Life.. first Iraq.. though I have to admit.. it was unlike the deserts I came to know afterwards.. the land there was seeped with so much history that it was like living in a magical realm.. then Arizona.. there it was a splendour.. of nature.. so pure.. so piercingly real and confident in its beauty that I was spellbound each day.. and now the Kingdom.. which quite frankly is the drabbest of all.. and yet when the mind is shut from all obvious influences.. it seeks new ones.. the sea in this case.. unimaginably blue.. and starkly beautiful.. it becomes a very real escape from the land.. which has not too much to offer.. besides dust and endless morose repetition..
that is more than can be said for the obvious appearance of the people.. white and black.. white and black.. endlessly covered in white and black.. there are no obvious signs of humaness.. no skin.. no spark.. just bodylessness.. which probably is for the good.. because a majority are rather rotund.. it apparently is something to aspire to.. having said that I am pleasantly surprised every time I talk to the locals.. they have feelings just like the rest of us.. they have thoughts.. they desire.. they dream.. they want.. and they Do.. well.. that is if it is not one of the several prayer or siestas times on the hour during the day..
as for Me.. a strange ride if there ever was one.. the madness has ebbed.. I feel it is waiting in wait.. for another moment.. another scene.. I have become corporate.. well as corporate as I can be in a land where everything has wheels within wheels.. it has been an interesting transition.. from a sphere where I could express through my physical work.. to one where I must express through speech and making others do.. if that makes sense.. no longer practicing as an architect.. I make strategies and pass edicts..
what more can be said about an existence in a society which I have lived the opposite of all my life.. it is deafening.. if I speak out.. I hear an echo.. the reverberations of which ultimately lull me to silence.. yes there are characters.. yes it is like living in all those books that we read.. yes there is a discovery.. but somehow it pales.. will it make me more worldly.. yes.. but then who wants to be worldly in a closed box..
there is of course the fact that I am part of a machine heralding a gigantic change.. that feeling is priceless.. to transform a nation.. a people.. through ones actions is unimaginable.. but that is what we are doing.. there is no gauge here.. no measure.. just doing.. generations and centuries from now there will be a measure.. for now there is the pure Act of doing.. this in itself is worth it.. I have the most amazing job in the world.. it is like walking out into the unknown.. with no one for company but your own instincts.. and others around who are as lost and as foolish.. and as emboldened as you.. every day is trial.. and error.. and failure.. and success.. like walking along those narrow ice clad mountain paths that I have foolishly done so many times with Bu and Chien.. only to make it.. and keep going.. emboldened by the fact that no one has stopped us yet..
there is certainly an energy.. there is certainly a spirit.. it remains to be seen how far the vision of a few can transform the lives of a multitude.. our City grows by each passing second.. the beauty is the belief in it.. and all belief is ultimately a false hope.. but sometimes it results in a certainly.. and that is the probability that we are banking on..
in the meanwhile.. I have been travelling like a manic.. yes it is escape.. but it is also how I am most comfortable.. to be stationary is to be static.. is to not grow.. my nomadic family’s genes are just not at rest in one place.. in these ways the blood of my ancestors runs strongly..
there is the story of the sixteen caravans that left the fertile valleys of Kashmir overnight because a King caught a glimpse of one of the fair maidens of our tribe and wished to marry her.. rather than risk the dishonour the entire clan packed up and moved southward.. at the Gangetic plane a huge argument brewed up about the direction in which to proceed.. thirteen went one way and three another.. blood relatives and kinsmen and kinswomen separated due to the feud.. it took many centuries and a visionary like my grandfather to bind the two tribes together again.. when my mother married my father.. and the progeny of the sixteen caravans from Kashmir were bound once more..
I was talking about nomadicity.. and then transgressed.. but anyways.. I have know my family to be wanderers.. my grandfather in New York in the nineteen sixties.. and of course our railroad heritage.. which is hard to run down.. a few weeks ago I was in New Delhi with my aunt and she was telling me of her journey from New Delhi to Bombay by train.. both our eyes glazed over simultaneously and in one voice we both went ecstatic about the kind of sleep she must have got in the gently swaying bogie of an Indian Railway railcar.. for us it is the best sleep in the world.. a countless birthdays celebrated in the trains.. on route to Simla for our summer retreat with my grand parents.. stopping on a fancy at the edge of the Himalayan cliffs for an inspection of the rail line.. trains taking off after ‘official time’ because my mother was not ready yet.. on my bunk bed in the Inspection Room of my father’s carriage watching the rails recede into the Indian countryside on a moon light night..vagabonds we grew up as... more comfortable on the road than stationary in one place.. so it is.. it is in the genes.. one cannot escape it..
Mom tells us stories of our great grandfather who was a collector of all kinds of arms.. the house was full of them.. even in the security of his home he found reason to manifest the movement of a battlefield..
In this silence that I find myself.. conventional wisdom says I am supposed to introspect.. but who do I introspect with?.. I have always been used to introspecting with the multitudes of my being that exist in my family and my friends.. suddenly it is only me.. and in this silence I have created my own oasis of comfort.. a world imbued with my own personification of perfection.. it is strange when people come into it.. they inhabit my innermost recesses.. and I can feel every touch.. every fall of a bottom on a couch.. every drop of an excess drop of liquid from a glass on my woden table.. it is disturbing.. and yet at the same time it makes it real.. though these visits are seldom.. they do happen.. and they make for introspection..
I realize that a lot of time has flown till I found the voice again to pen my thoughts.. there is so much in between that will probably find itself here in bits and pieces.. one thing I can say.. I hold steadfastly to the people I know and who know me.. because in this new world.. it is hard to understand the true colours of people one meets.. there are many of them.. there of course times of happiness and energy.. but they tend to be not that of depth.. as moments with all of you have been..
Untoward for now.. I say no more.. and carry my thoughts to another missive.. which I hope shall be soon..
Peace from the Sands of Arabia..
..R
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