Korea..Kuteness with a capital K

This time’s holidaying took me on an Oriental route and what better destination than Korea (of course, South Korea, silly) to taste the flavours and sights of the Oriental? So I found myself walking into the heart of the K land…the K of drama, of music, of shopping, of swag and cuteness..

And it was just as I imagined - an imagination fueled by the constant buildup of K-drama, K-pop, and Han Kang. The canvas spread out - as pretty and cute as Korean glass skin, and the palette - as serene and regal as the colours of Korean tradition..

The trip started with a true ‘Seoul-searching’ through the streets of Seoul – exploring the Korean way of life and absorbing the K-culture through the myriad subway lines, the food alleys, the exotic cafes and colourful pride of shops and neighbourhoods that make up the little 'cupcake' cuteness called Seoul…

Myeongdong was my first stop and I couldn’t help going back to this shopping mecca over and over again because simply… it wasn’t enough –an unsatiable greed triggered in the streets of Myeongdong and I was in a state of consumer coma… counting Wons (and making little sense of the conversion factor), buying knicks and knacks with no utility or logic but just because I couldn’t let go of the opportunity, picking up souvenirs and the thousand ‘customizable’ things that will greet you only in Korea..

And to wash away the shopping sins, I took an uphill cable car ride to the top of Namsan tower, an epic peak in Seoul where you can see the sky changing colours from evening pinks to night blacks sequenced with crystal lights of the city…an elegant black cape that spreads across the city with its jeweled skyscrapers and bridges…the perfect spot to soak in Seoul and unwind after a long day of walking, spending and climbing..

The next day took me away from the bustle of the city to the coastal town of Busan..the first stop being the absolutely stunning and colourful heritage village of Gamcheon which was originally the shelter of numerous refugees..now the winding roads, the steep and narrow staircases and the little homes breathe stories of struggles, survival and proudly showcase art and heritage in a million colours…

From there I ventured into the traditional market-place of Busan .. another cozy display of shops, fish, hats, bargains and bunches of old women fanning away the afternoon sun .. and here unfolded my first authentic Korean lunch experience at the ‘Sulgodang ‘ – a delectable spread of dishes, flavours forcing me to ditch table manners, the struggles with the chopstick and simply devour the food and the Sikhye (a traditional Korean drink) in record time.. my tummy full and the afternoon sun slowly dipping into Busan’s beautiful skyline, I boarded the ‘sky-bus’ that took me cruising across the blue ocean  - cloudy, windy, scary and exhilarating all packed into this cable car experience …and the day decided to wind down and the sun determined to set into the blue ocean as I packed bags, memories and rushed to catch the train back to Seoul..

Back to Seoul and a bright Wednesday morning took me back in time and into Korea’s history as I excitedly tried on a powdery pink ‘Hanbok’ (Korean traditional attire) and swirled and swished into the Gyeongbokgung Palace..a stunning spectacle unfurling at the palace – a colourful and royal display of blues and reds as the palace guards put up a ‘change of guard’ ceremony, the sun rays streaming through the grandeur of the mountains that surround the palace; into the corridors and shimmering in the golden trims of my Hanbok.. the palace - a pretty preserve of history and culture blending harmoniously with the modern city square and with the towering mountains and together they come alive as a picture of sheer contrast and beauty..

I continued on through the cultural trails of Insadong and Bukchon hanok villages where I was greeted by century-old aristocratic houses, artisan shops, and picturesque cafes …you cannot miss the pride and richness of Korean heritage that glimmers in the streets, the unique roof styles and the architecture in general..a final stop at the Palace museum helped me put all the bits and pieces together to understand the timelines, dynasties and rituals and journey into the Korea of now..

Seoul continued to woo and charm me with such a melody of experiences, sights, sounds, tastes and colours that I was swept off my feet in true K-drama style..a park of pink flowers, a magnificent library that left me speechless, a cozy tea house nestled amongst the trees and a Buddhist temple, Hongdae and its festive moods and Kpop performances, a variety of aromas erupting from breads of a thousand varieties, a library dedicated to ramyon, the delicacies served on the streets with pretty smiles, an ‘atypical’ design plaza that stands out and leaps forward into the future and I can go on…

In all the ten days I spent in Korea, there was never a dull, ‘eye-sore’ or colourless moment, and I slipped and fell into the K fantasy world with a spring in my step and a smile on my lips…just missing the soft background score that was literally playing in my heart..

Of course like all beautiful episodes and journeys, this too had to end …As I touched down in Bangalore, the sweetness lingered, the cuteness terribly missed, the memories turned vivid, and I nibbled into the last few rice cakes I had saved up from the trip, trying in vain to relive and keep some semblance of ‘K’ ness in my world..

'canaled', cheesed and charmed in Holland

Wonder what the Dutch connection is, but I keep going back to Amsterdam through my adolescence and corporate avatars over and over again, and yet I never get enough of the place..It is everything I love and adore bundled into a tiny little country – the cheese, the canals, the countryside, the cows and all the charm that a country can whip up..

This trip offered me a week of work interspersed with laughter, the warmth of the Dutch sun and the gaiety of the  European to-be summer! The days were beautifully bright, lovingly long and my dinners and late ‘night’ walks were strangely bright sunny times and I needed to wear my sunglasses late into the night (errr can you call it a night when the sun shines bright?)…

The city was my ‘go-to-place’ after work to unwind, to maze through the myriad lanes where canals, curio shops and the air of ease and energy egged me on until my legs howled for help , but my heart refused to relent and I kept admiring and exploring into the 'night sun'! I immersed into art and history at the Rembrandt house (one of the many fine houses in the city),  satiated my cravings for cheese, Stroopwafels, fries and the calory rich delicacies that entice you at every corner of the city and dug deep into my pockets striking deals at a vintage market and admiring and taking in the symmetry and class of the Amsterdam houses …

Switching from the city to the countryside, I took a bus ride to the quaint villages of Edam famous for its cheese and charming neighbourhood, to Volendam where the pier winds into cute shops, yet another string of awe-inspiring houses and a few quiet dinners in the silence and symmetry of Dutch pastures and the solitary church!

Holland and its city and countryside offers a democractic something for everyone – whether you are seeking the quiet of pastures and waterways, or culture, history and art flowing through the museums, or the decadence of cheese, waffles and more or just the pleasure of bargaining at a vintage market for Dutch blue knick-knacks and clogs- you can have it all in this little place!

I was not willing to choose one over the other and finally the greed of taking it all in took the better of me as I overdid the eat, explore and repeat routine, was left overdozed with jealousy for the picture perfect houses and my mind turned into a warehouse of colours, the sounds of the cycle trings and the pretty sights…

A few more dinners and walks by the city canals and a few evenings of unwinding into a coffee and observing the Dutch as they cycled and 'lived’ every moment…the little dread of departure arrived and stung me hard, and the jealousy for the beauty and time that Dutch seem to have aplenty even harder.. so the sojourn ended on a sweet note as I tried the melting Stroopwafel with coffee routine one last time before returning home a little more ‘present’ and of course a little more chubbier (thanks to all the cheese)!

 

This summer of hot, heat, warmth and a Kochi trip

There is a different summer that emerges when you are not scrambling for visa appointments, googling ‘a thousand places to visit in a day’ and ticking and crossing packing lists that start a winter earlier!It's a summer where the weather, social calendar, and mood (swings) determine your itinerary.

The spoilt 'bratish' heat of Kerala was as spoilt as spoilt could be..relentless and sometimes cruel in its onslaught but yet we summered and vacationed a small trip...a ‘lets go to Fort Kochi’ mumble was heard somewhere and before we know it, we were on our way to Fort Kochi – agenda-less, expectation-less and hearts full of abandon – to just let the old town ‘surprise’ us and carry us into the floaty tales of the Arabian sea..

But to get to this ‘queen of Arabian sea’ as it is called, you have to navigate through the ‘other Kochi’ - the one that tries to boast of IT parks, multi cuisine restaurants, gigantic malls – trying to be yet another ‘booming metro’ where all the city vices greet you- a choc-a-bloc of upcoming apartments, traffic snarls, barricades & metro works..But once you cross the bridge, the streets are narrower, the vehicles limited, the people no longer ‘hurried’, and that’s when you know you have arrived at Fort Kochi..

I was smitten and scorched by the experience that awaited..a rainbow of colourful mansions, churches, synagogues, tiny shops that try to commercialize Kochi’s history into fancy cafes, stay options and a variety of knick knacks that are priced and catered to the European explorers who still visit the shores of Kochi for the spices, sun and culture.. Fort Kochi uncorks an abundance of history, influences - you can witness the streets, churches and architecture sometimes whispering Dutch conquests and sometimes of Portuguese explorers .. the old ‘Bazaar’ street buzzing with tiny establishments that stand as a proud testimony of the spice merchants and the trade routes with Arab and Chinese lands.. the Pardesi Synagogue a reminiscence of the huge Jewish settlement that dwindled over the years..

I must say that even as a Keralite I was totally lost in the vibrant haven.. photo-opps at every corner of the streets, cafés transforming me into a sloth and what could be better than a ‘water metro’ that you can hop on/off coupled with dolphin-spotting in the sparkling sea ……And so I learnt my own history, touristing in my own state and forgetting that I am one amongst them.

And as I sipped my last coffee and slowly wove out of the old town - a few farewell tears of rain slowly tricked down and there she sat..the queen of the Arabian sea.. telling tales of the past, distant from the modern IT park urban jungle that is growing a few metres away, showing us artifacts of the past – the Chinese nets, the Jewish crochet works, the Kippah….like she has nothing to do with the urbanization exploding in the Cochi central district.. but the screaming honks of city traffic brought me back to the urban reality called Kochi that is young, throbbing and waiting to explode into the global scene.

And the summer slowly started slipping through my fingers… packing, unpacking, buses, trains, drives…a festival here, a wedding there,  a burst of people …and then came the lull of just being home…home to the mangoes, to tulsi teas and chats that dissolve into the twilight of amma’s porch..

 

Let me be

A woman of butterfly dreams
Fluttering in a thousand shades and prints

A woman of childish whims and fantasies
Invigorating and ebbing like ocean tides

A woman of shea butter self-love
Waxing the milky vanity and goodness

A woman of firefly fury
Burning injustice and blasting irrational expectations

A woman of ghoulish solitude

Silencing howls of societal jackals

A woman of “mundaned” nothingness
Couch 'potatoing' to pulp and gluttoning indulgence

A woman of parachuting explorations
Leaving behind strings and landing into unknowns

Let me be
Break out or shut down the emotional drama
Scream or silence the bedraggled thoughts
Carve out of accumulate the resentments
Smile or drown in the tears of self-pity

I choose the verb, the noun and the adjective
I choose to be
One heartbeat here, one 'womanday' there
 
 
 

Dosa, coffee and the gopurams

 I found my ambrosia in Tamil Nadu…drinking like the gods, into the cultural and historic splendors of Tamil Nadu…indulging and getting drunk on the experiences that Thanjavur and Chettinad regions of Tamil Nadu threw up for me in the my recent trip.

The short but eventful trip started on a good note at the Thamayur fort overlooking the lush greenery and straight charcoal roads of Tamilnadu that slice through the symetrical patches of agricultural spaces. And then into the Athangudi region; famous for its floral and colourful tiles that adorn the athangudi mansion and beautify its floors and open courtyards. The wooden pillars, open coutryards and colourful array of ceilings and floors do release a whiff of history and you could almost imagine a motley of cousins playing hide-and-seek in that large space of peace, history and love.

The next stop was the heritage streets of Chettinad – yet another aesthetic corner of the country where colours, weaves, pillars and mansions will greet you at every corner of every street in this heritage village. I ticked all the boxes including exploring Chettinad mansions, shopping for Chettinad weaves and sinking my teeth into Chettinad cuisine and yet I felt like there was more than what I experienced. Like a coil of unexplored history, untold tales lay there at some corner of the street, like the corridors wanted to whisper more stories of yonder and as if the streets wanted to speak out..but I moved ahead promising to return for more exploration..

The journey continued as it took me to the monument that I was eagerly waiting for – the magnetic pull of the “Periya Kovil” in Thanjavur. Literaly meaning the “Big Temple”, there can never be a more apt name for a monument…it was monumental and gigantic in all senses – the façade, the gopurams, the designs, the expanse of space and the grandeur of the idols and carvings aplenty!

For the “hardly religious” me, the first sight of the imposing façade of the temple ramparts took me to a step closer to humility, towards subservience and a perhaps to the true sense of “godliness”. For what can explain the sheer size, skill and the marvels that was built thousand years back and still stand tall and strong despite the attacks and natural events of the centuries that the temple has witnessed?

I was almost cockeyed in the mission to take in every carving, every sculpture, trying to size, capture, imagine and admire all in that few hours at the temple. That little morning was perhaps as close to divinity as I could ever get – the breeze nestling into my hair, the silence cleansing me and this godmotherly structure towering and soothing me into an era of monarchs, perhaps gods and marvelous cratfmanship..

Unchartered walks through Thanjavur city was next on the agenda – where the delicious food of Ariya Bhavan (since 1964 said the board proudly) and the must-have coffee fueled me onwards..Of course I had to pick up the nimble wobbly Thanjavur doll to add to my menagerie and dig into my  “Chennai Tamil” with the autodrivers. And finally the triumph of getting into a local bus and getting a free ride (being a woman has perks in Tamil Nadu I guessed) was one of the many treasured moments that I would take home from Thanjavur!

I was not yet ready to bid goodbye and so there was yet another trip back to the temple but at dusk when the city twinkled and the temple shone bright and beautiful..some more walks and some more peace and I refused to let the trip end ..so we headed back to the little “square” and yet again indulged in the “dosa coffee” routine before heading back home…the last image of the magnificent gopuram blurring into the rearview mirror staying with me as the picture of Thanjavur…my heart richer and my mind calmer – the  magic of dosa, coffee and gopurams!

Aroha for the mountains

 Let the mountains happen

Responsibilities and liabilities of housekeeping

Disappear in the mist that engulfs

Drumming noise of mundane chores

Dissolves in the silence of the mountains

Potpourri of things to do and achieve

Drowns in the saphire blue of the lake

Stink of urban callousness

Swept away by the aroma of the meadows

Confusion of myriad thoughts

Escape into the blue expanse of the sky

Seriousness of urban life

Mocked away by carefree sparrows aplenty

Complexity of adulthood

Simplified by rules of farm living

Life is slow

Life is good

Just let the mountains happen to you

 

 

The independence we love

The independence that we celebrate

Not the half-price sale in the consumer kingdom

Not the white and saffron kurtas that tumbles out the closet

Not the long-weekend frenzy on the highways

Not the lip-service speeches of a long-forgotten history

The past that broke us free from slavery

The memory of queens that ruled and reigned sans reservation

The rationality and literature that filled our conversations

The decisions where logic and information was the foundation

Not the price tag of a silky tricolor flag

Not the one-day honor for our cape-less heroes

Not the pride of a miniscule billionaire club

Not the desperation to divide and sub-divide

The unity that transcended beyond the lines drawn

The diversity that came with actions not words

The equality that was equal at home and beyond the courtyard

The country that we inherited free, strong and forward!