Vishakhapatnam – Mountain and Sea

What an exciting train ride it was from Puri to Vizag. The train is cancelled because of heavy rains. A six-hour journey ends up twice as much and it we reach destination by midnight.

From Puri, with me for company are some college boys and girls from a neighbouring village who travel to and fro everyday. There are about five boys in the compartment age barely 18-20. One of them sitting next to me insists on the occasional ‘accidental’ brush even though the whole berth is empty. Finally, I pounce at him. He apologises indifferently. I pounce again – not enough to say sorry, you need to be aware. All the boys apologise and the rest begin to make conversation – where are you from and where are you going. The boy in question looks sheepish and does not utter a word. They are impressed when I tell them I work in the media in Delhi. They get off at the next station.

At the next station the train is cancelled as tracks ahead are broken due to heavy rain. We are told to hop onto another train which is following. The Guwahati-Secunderabad train arrives, I park myself at the first empty seat I see. With me for company is an Assamese young man and some middle-aged Assamese men and women. A young Marwari couple who have also hopped onto the train join us.

The Assamese young man is into IT, travelling to Hyderabad for a job interview. After two days of being in the train, he is bored. The Marwaris belong to Kolkata, went to Puri for darshan and are headed to Vizag where they now live and do business. The woman, barely 20, says she misses Kolkata – ‘Vizag doesn’t have chaat’; she doesn’t speak Telugu but that is no problem because she only goes out with her husband who speaks Telugu. Her husband cannot hide his shock at my single status – how and why, he wants to know. His wife wants to know if I have brothers and sisters, if they are married, and if they have children and looks evidently relieved when I say, yes. An 18-year-old engineering student from Bhubaneswar is headed back home to Vizag for Diwali on a surprise visit. Barely three months out of home, first time away from home, he says he misses home food in the hostel. I happily empathise with him when he complains about the blandness of Oriya food. ‘Andhra food is so spicy and you must sample the variety of mithais here,’ he says.

By the time we reach Vizag, it is close to 11 in the night. The student helps me find an auto; it is scary ride to the YMCA – the roads are dark and there is no traffic. Thankfully, I have a booking. The white bedsheets look as inviting as ever and I sleep like a log.

Next morning, the breakfast table at the YMCA restaurant gives me a gorgeous view of the sea. Add to that a table, chair, pen and paper, fair amount of silence, coffee – it does not get any better to fuel inspiration!

From one place to the next, it has only got better. From home I land at the Ramakrishna Mission and fall in love with it completely. My room at home isn't as perfectly suited to my needs as this: A bed, a couch, a study table, two chairs (one for clothes), a cupboard, bed headstands such that I can be in bed and read, enough space to spread out my Yoga mat. A window, a clean attached bathroom, a phone. In Sunita's house in Kolkata, loved the décor, the comfort, the colour. After Spartan RMIC, this was restful and aesthetic. In Puri, the almost 180oC view of the sea from the balcony made up for everything else – cramped room, run-down place. In Vizag at the YMCA, the room is wonderfully airy and spacious, on the third floor with a balcony, from where I get to see the sea across the road.

There is a time of the day for everything. Nature sets the rules and also abides by them. The magical moment of daybreak when a sudden coolness envelops and we know night has ended and day has begun. To be one with the mysterious magnetic forces at play at dawn is to know one precious moment that seems to contain much. Like birth and death, daybreak is one precious, potent, moment. The morning sun of hard work, energy, learning. Time for work. The noon sun indicating time for pause. The sultriness of the afternoon, the silence of dusk, followed by the magic of a velvety night.

Exploring Vizag on day one I decide to roam around a market. The woman receptionist at YMCA sends me to the equivalent of Lajpat Nagar. What a disappointment. I am not the shopper, I am the window shopper looking for the nice hang-out place with a bit of character.

Meanwhile, it's been a day of turmoil back home in Delhi. I first come to know about bomb blasts in Delhi, train accident in Andhra Pradesh, from Dana's SMS. I am scared, I also understand the importance of information. I have no idea about the details; confined to my room, I don't even want to come out. All of previous days chattering in the train has exhausted me completely. Catch the news on the radio on my cell just in time to know what I need to know: They targeted the high density areas bustling with pre-Diwali shoppers at peak evening time. A definite attempt to kill the festivities. In terms of television time, once again they get the maximum.

The next day, Lucknowite friend Bobby says he was 100 metres from the Paharganj blast site. ‘Don't know what kept that life saving distance,’ he says. Got to see television visuals of relatives fighting over bodies charred beyond recognition. These were obviously very gruesome. In Vizag, everything is peaceful. Delhi is nerve centre that is why they choose that – attack at the nerve center and you paralyse the nation.

A day or two later newspapers reports say things are resuming normalcy in Delhi, people want to show they will not be intimidated and are back on the streets. Similar to what television said post the London bombings last July. I am not so convinced about this theory somehow, at least in case of Delhi. A newspaper quotes a spiritual leader (Ravi Shankar) that this return to normalcy so quickly is worrisome – it is not a sign of courage but of lack of empathy – that if something doesn’t affect you directly, life goes on.

Vizag is a port city and a major naval headquarters. The Kurusawa Submarine alongside the beach road has been converted into a museum. Such immense education to be able to see what a real submarine looks like from inside, learn how it works, get a sense of how it must be for sailors on board. Apparently, this museum is the only one of its kind in India and perhaps the second in South Asia after Singapore.

Enter Andhra and the food turns hot as ever. The spicy sambhar, chutneys, pickle, tamarind. You cannot go wrong with the idli and dosa and coffee in the south. I got to sample the famous hyderabadi baigan too. There is the Hot Chips store that sells all kinds of chips – from banana to jackfruit and various kinds of potato chips –chili, tomato, mint, ginger, you name it. The custard apple is excellent here and very cheap too.

After small-town Puri, I am glad to find Pizza Corner and Café Coffee Day. And why are pilgrim towns so lacking in infrastructure. According to Lonely Planet, Puri has the pilgrim, the Bengali traveler and the Western tourist and they rarely cross paths. Excellent observation, and since I belong to neither of the three groups I found myself at a loose end.

The backpacks become conversation pieces. In the train, the Assamese young man said he thought I was from the Army and it intimidated him. Then as we were to alight, the whole compartment watched me strap it on in wonder. Probably because backpacks are unusual here, we don’t see Indians using them often, much less Indian women. Even the day backpack singled me out. An old man on the Vizag beach road said – ‘Madam are you a foreigner?’ No sir, Indian. ‘You speak Telugu?’ No sir, Hindi. And then, why are you here, how long, where are you staying, are you married, do you have children, and the rest of it. Yes, yes, I said, in this case not because it was unsafe in anyway, but just that I learnt that people like ‘regular’ people, they don't like the odds. So lying has begun to come easy. I decide to give the day backpack the go by and choose a more traditional bag instead.

Trust Café Coffee day never to let us down – iced tea, couch to sink into, and a decent toilet. Add to that local newspapers. A good coffee shop must have a view and natural light else it is no good. All the CCDs score on that. Interesting speaking to the partner of the Café – a 30-something man who says business is picking up – people are still getting used to the Rs 35 per cup coffee when the regular joint charges Rs 5. It seems popular with the young people, though.

Back home, Andhraite friends had recommended the Araku valley and the Borra caves as a must-visit so I make that trip. The Valley is beautiful, the Borra caves nice and spooky, the stalagmites and stalactites bringing alive geography lessons from school. But I am tired. I notice the mind is exhausted by the ‘sensory overdose’ and I need a break. Perhaps it also has to do with spending a lonesome Diwali and the bad news from hometown Delhi. Mum and Dad cancel their plan to join me in Pondicherry, trains to Chennai are getting cancelled as heavy rains continue. So I decide to take a break and head to Delhi.

When Akshay spoke of watching the moon and the spirits, it sounded a bit looney. Now I can see it so clearly. Waxing moon – energy builds, full moon – energy at its fullest, waning moon, waning spirits. No moon – exhausted. Counting Ganeshpuri and Lucknow prior to Kolkata, it's been a month on the road. The fatigue is beginning to set in. Until the outside becomes a reason for the inside, it has no meaning. Great to be homeward bound – two days in the train. Home is rest, back to the familiar. Sometimes we long for the new; at other times we yearn for the cocoon. Outside, there must be constant mindfulness; at home, we chill.