The most awaited storm

HE MOS AWA I E D

S ORM

Dedicated to , Mom, who taught me to smile & Dad, who taught me to think...

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Mom...I was a piece of dust too..

Couldn’t you have swept me off, on that afternoon When I was curled down on floor...

Now, I find that it’s a bliss to wander this world Seeing and sensing life around.

Look at me Mom... you’ve swept off every bit of Dust around me...

When they made walls around me, even the wind Doesn’t touch me anymore and I am lying down here, on this frozen floor.

Mom... Do you know what I dream these days...?

A Storm...!!

Now, I know it’s already there and is blowing its Way to me from all four sides...

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6 Jump

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Faces

Home

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22 4

Doubts & Conflicts

Adventure

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1. DOUBTS & CONF LICTS N.HUNGER. O I S N E T .

FEAR H.CIGERETTS.PEO

FOOD.HOME

NG

.FRIE H PLE.SH H H NDS O ES.ITS.ALL.PA AME. .STR TRAP Y RT.OF ANG .THE S.ALCO .GA HOL .THE ME .LO .ITS OK .BO RI .L .TO IVE

.IN

.SA

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W

OM E.D ISC

e don’t think about the sights beyond the boundaries when we live in the safest circumstances. Many of us would not even realise about the boundaries. The love, care and presence of peer, partner and parents build that comfort zone. We will have peace. And, yeah! We believed peace is happiness....

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NCE R IE XPE

.AN IMA LS.I

RETU

.WI

.WIL L.I

.MY.G OD

A D .

N .DOUBTS U .HARD.TO.BELIEVE.R

Y M .

LL.MISS

ROU B

ES.E ZON AFE

S.S TAR VIN G

OM.O H

EME MBE R.MY SELF .T

TRA NG ER

.HO ME.

LAN G UAG K.O E.M F.S

RN.H

GER S.

FO M O

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! !

E L

LIFE.IN

.CHA OS !!

E. .

.THE. .T LEARN

L I M S . .

S RKNES

!!ADVENTU RE.

F

T IGH !! .BACK

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There are lives of strangers beyond the boundaries. There are sights which we never saw. There are roads which we never travelled. There are troubles which we never experienced. There will be things happening which teach us happiness is not just peace or life is not just being happy in our small circle. There are much more emotions left.The night before the trip is always like this. The brain will collect all the thoughts of every single neuron and mix it up to make the juice of doubts and conflicts. Every journey starts with doubts and conflicts.

What makes this trip special is that it is my solo journey. But I have enough of people living inside me. And I have books and a laptop full of movies with me.

The trip was born in the name of craft documentation, a college project. But for me, it was undoing the seat belt and looking for trouble. A learning to live in insecurities.

The doodling done just before the day of trip.

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2. JUMP

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J

ump! I love to call it that way. I have read somewhere that; we need a courage to start a journey. And then, it will take us with it. So I like to call that courage, jump. A jump without fearing about the consequences.

My destination was Kutch, which is about 2140 km away from my home. Sure, the journey wouldn’t be that easy. Moreover, I didn’t have any slightest clue of the language that people speak in Kutch or Gujarat. The food, climate, people!! Yeah. the trip

will be full of adventure.

Now leave everything. The train is here. The huge clock in Calicut railway station shows the time 2 am. I got into the train and kept my bags safe. And I came to the doors of compartment, just to look mu hometown disappearing into a tiny dot. A perfect perspective distortion. Watching this, I always had this strange feeling that I am a boomerang which is flying high in very speed to return back in more speed! Yes, I think I am very much attached to my roots, emotionally.

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3. F ACES

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T

he best thing while travelling in a train is that I will never get bored. It is a chance to meet new people, different faces, plenty of stories. Every person who enters of exit the train is coming or leaving with a thread of story. I see them as some characters in a new movie. I try to predict their stories, their thoughts… May be I am also a character in someone else’s movie!

From the next morning, my mobile starts receiving messages from the respective mobile towers in every state, saying that I am roaming! Those messages literally gave me that feel of adventure. Yes, I am moving out of my comft zones.

I tried to talk to new people in my broken Hindi. But it didn’t really work the way I imagined. I couldn’t build that interesting conversation between two strangers which we read in a book or watch in a movie. It is all writer’s fantasy. I convinced myself!

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But when I started doodling the faces in my sketch book, I saw some turtle heads coming out if their blanket to see my drawing. We exchanged smiles wholeheartedly. Some wants to see my sketch book, some wants to know my name, where am I coming from, what do I do etc. Now I realised that I was wrong about the writer’s fantasy! A connection could

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be made with any stranger with a simple smile or a little doodling.

I didn’t really like the food in train. So biscuits were my main intake while travelling.

The train reached Ahmedabad station at 8.30 am. It’s been two nights and one day in the train. I never opened a book to read or laptop to watch anything. I was just reading the people... faces... it’s amazing!

The doodled faces from the train.

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4. HOME

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F

or me, the idea of home is a place of good company.

It demands unlimited individual freedom. Home is not a space within four walls. It is a place where I am more close to my inner self.

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The Ahmedabad city was running in hurry. I called my old college mate, Arjun who is doing post-graduation in Ahmedabad. He helped me to book an UBER taxi for drive.

I need to go to his place, Paldi which is about 9 km away from the Ahmedabad railway station. The taxi driver was a very young guy and he was talking about the “uttarayan”.

It is the ethnic festival of Gujarat, known a s

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kite festival in the other parts of India. The uttarayan of 2017 was going to happen in that week.

The streets, people, vehicles, language... everything was strange to me. The climate too was very cold. One thing strikes me was that unlike in my place, the people of Gujarat didn’t throw stones at dogs. Instead they feed them with biscuits.

Kite rope making in Ahmedabad streets

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The car stopped in front of National institute of design, Paldi where Arjun came to pick me. I hope my driver was very happy with my ride because I saw a smiling face while giving the money. He may have had the pleasure of teaching me a little bit of Hindi during our conversations. Yeah! He was my ‘pehla guru’. (As I told, it really worked!!)

Arjun’s room wasn’t

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strange to me. I could see our old college hostel room in the cigarette ashes and finished old monk bottles on his room.

I met his friends, went to his college, saw their creative

works. Busy days faded into nights of intoxication!

From the very busy markets, strange crowd, I got a

feeling of home. Thousands of people around me who are totally unknown to for me... they don’t know me, my language, my culture... being an alien in that place gifted me a strange freedom to speak without shyness, to act to make people understand the things I wanted to say. Home is also a space where we explore more of ourselves. Ahmedabad was beautiful! Street food is at its best!

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5. ADVENT URE

mmereraa nnaaaamm aarrunun hhe e aa mmemem k kereraal laa sse e aaaayyaa hhu u aa mme e iiddhhaarr ppaaddnne e k kel eliiyye e aaaayyaa hhe e mmuj ujhhe e hhiinnddii 22

K

utch is the largest state in India, located in west Gujarat which shares its borders with Pakistan and Rajasthan. They speak Kutchi and Gujarati which don’t have any resemblance with Hindi. The place is around 300 km away from the Ahmedabad city and I don’t have any friends there.

Plus, I am going to the local potters to interview them and to document their craft. Now that is the adventure!

I stayed with Arjun for 4 days. The fourth day night, I took a bus to Bhuj town located in the heart of Kutch. The only hope is a craft resource centre near Bhuj, called Khamir

craft resource centre.

The bus departed from Ahmedabad at 10 pm and reached Bhuj at 5 am in the morning. It was literally freezing in Bhuj. There were hardly 10 people in the whole area. I walked to a chaywala and while he handover a glass of tea to me, people had a funny expression in seeing my hands trembling in cold. I sat in the bus stop waiting for the sun to rise and shine. After 10 minutes a bus stopped in front of me and a boy walks into the bus stop. I smiled at him. “iuuhckjabdsckj jdbbccsudboi jdcojnlkkn” he asked.

Obviously, I didn’t understand. “can you speak in English?" I replied.

k cbbk jss c kaaj k b b c c s s j j a a k k b b c c j j s s a a k k caa nn kc lssk kl lk jaa ssl kj jbbnnk ciij lu u aaaa ssddc nnaahhii mmaaaal 23

Now he didn’t understand.

I tried it in Hindi. Then he smiled at me and sat near me. We talked till 8 am in the morning. That was Lovme, an engineering student and a Kutchi boy. I could see his excitement when I said him, I am from Kerala. He told me about the great white sand desert of Kutch and I told him about the backwaters of Alappuzha!

Even though the sun was little shy, hiding behind the fog, the Kutch was lighted up by 8 in the morning. I got a shared auto to the Kukma road where is the Khamir craft resource centre is located. I met the authorities and they shared me the details of pottery crafts and about potter’s villages.

Every potter village is located in at least 40 km distance between each other.

They will neither speak English nor speak Hindi. There is no bus service to those areas. Only shared auto, jeep or camel carts. The craft resource centre also offered me a dormitory to stay in the night. Yeah! More adventures waiting...

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Highway connecting Ahmedabad and Kutch.

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6. T EARS

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L

ife is a gift box someone gifted to us. We don’t know what is inside that box but we are obliged to live that life. Gift boxes not always carry smiles and happiness. Sometimes it is full of tears and sufferings. Life is unfair for many people.

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I travelled to remote villages in shared autos, tempo travellers, jeeps, motor cycles etc. The potter’s villages where Lodai, Bhuj, Anjar, Gundiyali, Ratadia, Tuna and Khavda. In those villages, people lived in houses made of stone and mud. The roof of those houses were finished by old clothes and jute sacks.

Unlike our houses specification, they only have one single room in their houses. The single bulbs in many houses were so sad to live alone.

The condition of the streets, houses, people... everything made me discom-

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fort. I thought of my place where people climb the mount everests of luxuries and here people are fighting with lives to survive. The most painful sight was to see a handicapped child lying on the mud floor of a house with full of flies around him. Nobody cares about him as it was like a routine. It was the condition of people in most remote areas of Kutch. But they are full of innocence and love.

I returned to the dormitory in the evening after finishing the first day of documentation.

A kid from potters family of Lodai village.

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7. LONELINESS

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B

eing alone doesn’t have a proper definition in my dictionary. Sometimes it is the best feeling I can get and sometimes it can be the worst. The taste of loneliness, whether it is sweet or sour is decided by the circumstances. Being an only child in the family, loneliness gifted me many incidents of self-realisation.

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In Kutch, the dormitory where I was staying was an extension of craft resource centre. I reached there by 6.30 pm. It was freezing cold at that point of time. I walked from Kukma road to craft resource centre, thinking about the other people in my dormitory. Probably there won’t be any south Indian. How do I chat with them in my little knowledge in Hindi? maybe I can learn more from them. I walked up to the mountains of thoughts. I went to Dhanji bhayya, who was the cook and care taker of the dormitory. He took me to the dormitory. The door was locked.

He opened the door and there were 12 beds in the room. It was very neat and clean. And I came to know that, the other people in the dormitory vacated the room in that afternoon.

So I am totally alone in here, tonight.

Somehow I managed to bath in that cold water and had my dinner bread and butter. I closed all doors and windows of the dormitory due to heavy cold wind. The time was moving very slowly. When I felt too bored, I put on 2 shirts, 1 jacket and pulled out 1 blanket from the bed to roll around and opened the door.

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Sign board of Khamir craft resource center near highway

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I could see the craft resource centre campus in absolute moon light. I looked up to see the most beautiful sky in my entire life. The sky was full of stars and the moon was too shining and too big. I felt universal loneliness at that point of time. Except me, Dhanji bhayya and few dogs there was nobody in the radius of few kilometres. I desperately want to sing a Malayalam song. I sat on the staircase and sang, “anuraaga gaanam pole..."

The two dogs sleeping on the last steps of the stair raised their head and looked at me. But I refused to stop my song. They stood up and came near me. More dogs from the campus walked to the staircase and sat around me. I think they never heard a Malayalam song and they liked it. They were listening it very patiently and I sung more songs for them.

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A Kutchi dog

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8. HAP P INESS

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I

t is true that Gandhi once said, “the soul of the nation lies in the villages." They are not polluted as the cities in terms of people and environment. The signs of innocence in people and purity of nature is perfectly visible in t h e Kutch.

I woke up at 8 o clock next day morning. The dogs who were my yesterday’s company were sleeping next to door till that morning. I wished them good morning and some wished me back by moving their tail. I need to meet Neeraj bhayya before going to the villages. Neeraj bhayya is a product design graduate whom I met yesterday. He promised me to give me his camera to me for my documentation work.

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While waiting for the auto I met Bharat bhayya who was working in bus service in Kutch. He offered me a lift in his bike, to Neeraj bhayya’s place. They all wanted to know about the Kerala and do we have similar climate here in Kerala. I told them, “its gods own country, welcome to Kerala!” I met more people from the villages of Kutch. The people shared much love and care towards me, that made my eyes wet while leaving from every village. What made me happier in those tears was, it wiped off all the prejudices that I had in my mind about the people outside my circle. They are not

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thieves, murderers or rapists.

They are more innocent and closer to nature as compared to us.

I think they care their women more that we do. Here it is very hard for a man to give away the seat for a lady in any circumstances. There, when I was travelling to Lodai village in a jeep, I saw the men moving to sides and upper portion of the jeep when the women are getting into the jeep. After a few stops, except me, all were women in the jeep. The driver asked me to sit on the top of the jeep when a women stopped the jeep at next stop. It was another exciting experience f r o m Kutch!

A lady from potters family of Bhuj village.

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9. SURP RISES

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I

always felt that, my life is full of surprises. Surprises in the sense, nothing has never come out as I planned. Every time, I plan something but life opens a new surprise box.

And I never refused any surprises that my life gifts to me.

I believed it as an act of losing control, and that made me stand here in the Kutch right

now. After the craft documentation work, I returned to Ahmedabad. It’s been two weeks that I left home. I was planning to return. Now the surprise box opened! My cousin who was living in Punjab called me and asked me to take a train to Ambala (Haryana).

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“Let’s spend two weeks here" The captain ordered. It was one-day journey to Ambala cantonment from Ahmedabad. The next day morning, I opened my eyes to see the sky of Ambala. Cousin came to pick me from the station. We drove through the golden wheat fields of Punjab to reach the army quarters in Patiala. The two weeks in Punjab was luxurious for me. The past two weeks, I compromised in my food and was literarily starving to save money for travelling to the villages. From Punjab, we were experimenting on different styles of cooking! I regained my weight which I sacrificed in last weeks.

We went to the palaces, forts and malls in Patiala and at the end of the first week, we went to Amritsar to visit golden temple. It was raining in Amritsar. The climate was too cold in Punjab either. After visiting the golden temple, we had one of the best lunch ever in my life from Brothers dhaba, Amritsar. We had Punjabi kulcha and a curry with mushrooms and corn. It was super delicious. We also visited Jalian wala bhag ground and Waga border before we leave Amritsar.

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An illustration of Golden temple done from Punjab

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10. BOOMERANG'S RET URN

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I

t’s been a month of travel. I exchanged n number of smiles and words to n number of people around India. I started missing my home. It is the fate of a boomerang to return to the hands which threw it. Again the train and its whistles came to my dreams!

I was searching for the trains to Calicut and seat availability. Now the cousin opened the another surprise box. “Do you want to fly back to Calicut?" he

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asked. I was overwhelmed and couldn’t say anything. He booked the flight ticket for me to Calicut. The flight was taking off from New Delhi.

So I have to take a train from Ambala to New Delhi.

Cousin’s driver dropped me in Ambala cantonment station next day and I travelled to New Delhi in Jan shadabdi. The metro train carried me from New Delhi railway station to Airport domestic departure terminal. The airport and flight journey was first experience for me. The New Delhi airport was huge and one of the silent airport.

I reached to my departure gate after doing my security

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check. I met a Keralite passenger from departure gate who was also an army man.

We waited together for flight bus.

I got a feeling of butterflies in my stomach, when the flight took off. After 5 hours I landed in my home city. Yeah!

Finally, after 1 month of travel I landed in my Calicut.

I looked up to the sky. I accomplished land routes and air routes of India, from Calicut to Ahmedabad to Kutch to Patiala to New Delhi to Calicut...!!!

Ooohhhooiii!

Me with the Kumhars of Kutch

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