A Few Handpicked Letters #6
Of Cities, Fires, Rains and Calm Amidst the Chaos
Dear Reader,
It is a beautiful Saturday morning and here I am, sitting with a warm cup of coffee, looking at the woods through my window, watching two white butterflies playing with each other, bringing you your regular dose of calm. The Canal behind my house is now filled with Giant salvinia, making it look like a body of land, filled with greenery. I love it when this happens; when the water joins the adjoining land and all you can see is an expanse of greenery.
How have you been since I last wrote to you? Have you been kind to yourself? Have you been drinking enough water? Have you been scrolling through social media and has that cloud begun to form, wherein you feel like everyone is more accomplished, happier and sorted than you are? Perhaps, you even tried doing things like some of them, and it didn’t quite work out for you. So here is a gentle reminder that social media is not even one-fifth of a person’s actual life. There are all kinds of people with varying degrees of problems in their lives using Instagram. But all of them post only the happy bits from them. You cannot decipher how sad a person is from their Instagram profile because they never show it. Then how can we assume that they are happy all the time? We are all in various states and degrees of well being, on different days ranging from low hanging, scary dark clouds to rainbows.
We are all in various states and degrees of well being, on different days ranging from low hanging, scary dark clouds to rainbows.
Did you hear of the fire that broke out in the Bramhapuram waste plant in Kochi? The garbage mound spread over 60 acres caught fire on 2nd March 2023, and could be brought under control only on 13th March 2023. Kochi that was already melting with the onset of Summer, had to bear the poisonous smoke emanating from the waste plant for days. We don’t stay very near to the waste plant. Yet, for a few nights, the mild whiff of burning plastic, spread through our home. I assumed that someone had started a fire nearby to burn waste. But the Apartment association informed us that it was the smoke from the plant and that we had to keep all the windows closed. Thank God we closed them when we did! A friend messaged me saying her house was filled with smoke and that they couldn’t close the windows anymore. Many residents had booked Airbnbs and hotels on the outskirts of the city until the fumes reduced. During those days, when you looked towards the horizons of Kochi, you could see the faded city behind the smoke in the air, a vision of a city that was vanishing.
But 3 days ago, grey clouds formed in the Kochi skies and it poured. There were warnings everywhere about the oncoming rains that would be poisoned from all the fumes; Acid rains, they said. I was wary of it. But that light chill it brought with it after the hot days, was similar to the first gulp of water you have when you have been thirsty for hours. I walked with a friend, after the rains, through the deserted streets of the Stadium Link Road. And as the cool breeze played with my hair, memories came flooding back. Sharp deja vu that would leave me sleepless that night. I missed Bangalore.
For those of you who don’t know, I lived in Bangalore for the last 5 years and shifted back to Kochi in January 2023. You may think that the weather in Bangalore has been hyped up. But for someone living in the hot and humid coastal belt, that weather is like a fizzy drink on a hot day. I had gotten used to my fizzy drink for 5 years. That night, I opened all the windows to let the cold in, I switched on the fairy lights in my room, and wrote in my journal until 5 am.
The best way to explore Bangalore was to go to a neighborhood and walk. Of course! That is the way you explore any city. But the weather in Bangalore adds a little bounce to your walk! I used to live in a beautiful neighborhood in Sector 6, HSR Layout. On my walk to work, I would pass two parks that housed a wide variety of shrubs and trees, with a well maintained lawn. The street was lined with trees that blossomed during March, and carpeted the ground beneath with their flowers. The greenery, the vivid colors, the cool breeze and the sun behind the clouds made me feel like I was in a movie frame. Since there were many cross roads that led to my PG (Paying Guest facility), I would take a different route every day as I walked back from work. The yellow street lights would trace the shadow of the trees onto the ground. A car would pass by and pull into a driveway; someone back home after work, reunited with their children. On some days, it would have just rained. The air would smell cool and rainy, the water droplets would drip on me from the trees and I would pull my jacket a little closer to my body smiling.
If cities were apartment associations, Bangalore would be the rich, posh one, adding those extra effects and comfort to its residents, and I have been lucky to have experienced that. And it was time for me to move on. You can have all the varieties of expensive, posh, multinational cuisines, but the solace that you find in homemade food, you can never find it elsewhere. That is Kochi for me. But that is for another day.
If you have read so far, how do you feel? Do you experience a sense of calm having read about my daily walk through the streets of Bangalore? If you like my writings, I write a lot more on my Instagram (@afew.handpickedthings) and in my blog, A Few Handpicked Things. Below are this month’s posts:
Women Through Strangers’ Eyes - I wrote this to emphasize on how we have a judgmental perspective about women, we don’t know. We look at her, or listen to one thing she says, and we think we have her figured out in the most stereotypical way possible. I have explained this with my experiences and real life examples. Do read and let me know what you think, and share with people who need to read it.
Nurturing Your Creativity - I have given some guidance as to how as creators, we can nurture our creativity. There are some gentle tips that many of my friends resonated with when I held the #ShowingUpForMyArt in February in Instagram wherein a group of us decided to work on our art for just 5 minutes everyday. Do follow me on Instagram for more on art, writing, travel and creativity.
I leave you with a piece I wrote on Tea, the first part of which you can read below. Do let me know your thoughts on my letter, so that I can improve them going forward. Until next time, sending you tight hugs and kisses.
Love,
Ranjini S
