Of Winters and Mediocrity

The last thing I wanted to think about was myself.

I hated white noise, the constant drone of which eerily used to scare me. That's why I loved winters - it cloaked all bits of white noise. The stunned silence enhanced the visual imagery created by puffs of mist seen through glass windows made fuzzy with morning dew.

This trip was a sweet revisit to my past. Those irrational paroxysms of energy were back. I would be woken up again in middle of the night by frisson tingling my nerves, and an urge to do something, anything. The biting winter kept that urge in check. Only this time, it came with the realization of my mediocrity.

My not-so-recent history is largely devoid of interactive elements. There lies no mention of social validation, memorable moments, intimate confessions, pep talks or adolescent curiosity. All I remember is the intensity of things. The last thing I wanted to think about was myself. I sought comfort through vicarious means. This was the comfort I felt in the mild susurrus of people's voices.

Like everyone else, I wanted to escape mediocrity. I spent years in high hopes of accomplishing the same. What was it that made masterminds so smart? Maybe they had different neural pathways in their brains. Maybe they had a higher number of active neurons. Maybe they had an extremely efficient feedback learning system that honed their mental acumen every time they evaluated something. The brain, as they say, is plastic. It can be molded. An immediate about-face of perspectives is possible, and a gradual one can be executed successfully.

I grew up to realize I was merely an aberration, that odd glitch in a smooth graph. I wasn't ahead of the curve, but behind it. We lacked the incisive insight of savants, but filled the void with rich experiences and consumption of knowledge. We deluded ourselves with exaggerated positive self-evaluation, and sought validation from our social circle. That's how we dealt with the harsh truth that our lives were engulfed in ineluctable mediocrity.

There was something soothing in the chattering sound of burning wood. The flickering flames of fire were similar to darkness. There was nothing to focus on - everything was amorphous. That's what made it so comforting.

I loved winters for various reasons. My body responded to physical exertions better and faster. I could think clearly. I gained more from my high BMR and suffered less. I had almost forgotten the uncanny feeling of going for a run before sunrise, and watching my shadow quiver in the thick pellets of fog suspended in air whenever a vehicle whizzed past. I loved watching my fingers go numb by gusts of chilly wind. In moments of such extremities, in kicks of dopamine and thrills of adrenaline, maybe I got a taste of how it felt like not being a mediocre. Maybe.

So much for a middling life. 

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Stars, mountains and isolation

I saw the peaks on a clear morning the second day. It took me days before I ventured out for a better view of the Annapurna range. I arrived here with a plan to isolate myself, surround myself in the ether of unfamiliarity and get into a routine. No chitchats, no significant societal interactions and no off-the-cuff decisions. The plan was to create a lifestyle seething with constant consumption and physical exertion. No distractions. The urge to go out and meet people bugged me for the first few days, but it evaporated gradually.

x-x-x

The second time I hiked up Sarangkot, I took a detour to reach the cusp of a neighboring mountain. It offered an expansive view of the Annapurna range. I spent the night on the mountain top. What I saw that night and what I saw the next morning are two most majestic things I have ever seen.

As the place went dead after sunset and the lights went out, the sky opened it's treasure trove of celestial bodies. Standing in pitch darkness, under a sky gloriously spangled, staring into the past, I lost myself. I had transcended beyond my corporeal existence. I was merely a cipher looking at the firmament above. There were no thoughts, no sound and no lights to intervene. Temporal things like making a career or getting fitter seemed like piffling concerns. It was so easy to lose sense of things like time or tactile sensation.

A dog's bark tore through the stillness. I went back into the room.

x-x-x

The process was gradual - first the stalwart peaks began to loom out of darkness. Then the rays of the sun that was yet to rise dispelled all traces of darkness. Then those rays painted the peaks with cerise tinge. Then the sun rose. Heads and cameras turned to the east. The sun turned brighter. The peaks began to gleam.

It was not the aesthetic beauty of those peaks that captured my head. It was their sheer grandeur that was so captivating. It was their insulation that was so mystifying. The peaks were barely thirteen kilometers away. And the whole world changed within that distance - the elevation increased by about seven thousand meters, world's deepest gorge passed through, flora and fauna vanished, surroundings turned white and air became thin. The pattern was visible. These mountains exuded an air of unearthly mystique. It was a feeling that could not be explained. It's hidden vales and unseen grottoes triggered wild imagination and awakened an irresistible urge to visit them.

These mountains are still geologically alive. There used to be life here before two lands collided giving birth to the Himalayas. Kali-Gandaki river carries their fossils, mostly ammonites. 

x-x-x

Being outdoors meant taking long walks to new places, running along bumpy pebbled roads, hiking up the peaks around or having quick meals at an eatery. Being indoors meant devouring contents on my laptop, working out or getting some sleep. There was nothing in between. Life seemed to have stuck at a crest of the sinusoidal boots of energy and motivation. The restlessness was back. And back was my former anti-social self. 

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(Mis)adventures of Overnight Layovers in Airports

Hat Yai is a bad-ass city in southern Thailand where insurgence has militated against all the colorful touristy elements typical of Thailand. Even the airport has been bombed once. As soon as I arrived in the city, I made a beeline for the airport even though my flight was the next day. I snuggled in my newly found sweet spot and fell into a lovely sleep. I was woken up by a policeman with intimidating moustache. He couldn't speak English so he elegantly kicked me out of the airport which was empty now. After inquiring a little more affable lady who, fortunately, could also speak English, I came to know the airport had been closed. Like a restaurant. All my pleas to let me stay fell on deaf pointy ears of the inexorable policeman and his malicious aide. I decided to find a place just outside the airport but the pesky man in uniform balked at the idea. He began to call up a hotel to have me picked up. At this point I uttered with little forethought "No money!!". It was apparent that he understood my words. He mumbled something to his aide who then asked me to follow him. The policeman gave me a very warm smile. I was led to a small prayer room, with a stairway in the corner that led to a toilet downstairs. "Very nice place", he said. I thanked him. He locked me inside and said, "I will open it tomorrow morning. It is the rule." I thanked him again. 

Jinmen is a small, pretty much neglected island that belongs to Taiwan and is a thirty minute ferry ride from Xiamen in China. I spent one night here. I was annoyed to learn that even this airport closes at night. Like a restaurant. With unshakable bullheadedness I decided not to spend money on another expensive hotel. There were no cheap hotels around. In the evening I left for a stroll outside. The slowness and antiquity of the town was intoxicating. I came back at night; the airport was empty, and closed. Fortunately the entrance was open. I went to the security and said "我要去太北明天早上。我想在这里睡觉". The man in uniform said,"沒問題 (no problem)". Sweet! It is a lovely and strange feeling sleeping in such a huge enclosed area all alone.

I landed at Guangzhou airport at night, and I had a flight to catch the next morning. It was a biting winter. I was looking for a tea/coffee shop in the sprawling airport. A tiny man in formal black attire approached me and asked me in broken English where I was going. I showed him the ticket of the flight next morning. "You have to go out", he said constantly nudging me towards the exit. 

"Why?"

"Your flight tomorrow morning. Come tomorrow. Airport closed now."

"But there are people still sitting here inside."

"They have flight now."

A small argument ensued. I was outside the building out in the open now, arguing with him, being a little chary talking to someone in command. He called a shabby van and asked me to get in, "This will take you to a hotel. It's very cheap." Nasty bugger, I thought, he is just a broker. 

"I am going back in." I told him angrily. 

"You can't go back now. It's closed. Go to the hotel."

I tried a few doors operated by optical sensors. None of them worked. "Okay. So I will spend the night here in the open. I am NOT going anywhere. No hotel", I said to him dauntingly. He looked at me for a few seconds. Realizing I was having none of him, he said in a tone of dejection,"Ookayy, go to gate number five." I went to gate number five, and it magically opened. Boom!

I have never seen a city in Asia where real estate is as expensive as Hong Kong. That was one time when I bolted to the airport with a single-minded intent of saving money. And I have never seen an airport where so many people come to sleep overnight. The connection is simple. And the airport security doesn't seem to mind so many people dozing there. 

My overnight stopovers in other airports have been rather uneventful, just the way I wanted them to be. It's interesting how the repetitiveness of even a mundane activity brings forth interesting patterns. And you manage to save a few bucks in the meanwhile!

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Trips that never happened - Sekong in Laos

Aside the regular sightseeing, there were two things I particularly wanted to see in Laos - 

i) the opium fields (that I thought were) flourishing somewhere in hidden vales of northern uplands, and
ii) clearing the land of UXOs.

I didn't read much about Un-Xploded Ordnance (UXO) ridden fields until I reached Pakse. I intended to get some sketchy info on this but soon the topic piqued my interest. I delved deeper and scouring the web became rather discursive as I read about Hmong tribes, coup attempts, Indo-China wars and recent changes in government polities. 

A few decades ago the US rained oodles of different explosives on Laos many of which failed to explode. Some of these UXOs are occasionally discovered by locals who tamper with them recklessly and usually end up grievously injured or dead. The most common of these UXOs is cluster ammunitions or bombies. The touristy areas in Laos have been cleared of UXOs, but the least developed areas of the country still remain blighted with them. 

Sekong is a province in southern Laos - it is one of the most inaccessible areas of Laos, and one of the few areas still infested with UXOs. It hard to dig out much information about the place. Towing the line of generality, a few tourism websites call it utterly beautiful. The area is indeed rugged, rivers and waterfalls sprawl out, and its rustic way of life has hardly been affected by extraneous developments. Most months of the year don't see the road leading to Sekong town, and it becomes a herculean attempt to reach the place in rainy season.

I was in Pakse when I was reading all this. Sekong is a day's bumpy bus ride from Pakse. I was nearing the end of my third week in Laos and I had about a week left before my visa expired. I was weighing my options.

Phoenix Clearance Limited (PCL) is a company from NZ that specializes in clearing unexploded bombs. It has a strong presence in Laos, particularly Sekong. I wanted to see how they cleared the UXOs. Recently Laos government has curtailed the transparency of all UXO related activities. All the volunteering activities to help the victims of UXOs have been terminated. Skimming the web, I came across the account of one brave lady who has been covering the Ho Chi Minh trail and other areas on a frail bike. She writes down her escapades by the name of 'The Itinerant' on Facebook. I don't know how she did it, but I think she volunteered with MAG in UXO clearing in Laos. Other than that, I couldn't find any personal account of someone having been there during my rather perfunctory search.

A little spurred after all this reading, I decided to take a bus to Sekong the next morning. I was sober enough the next morning to think about the practicalities of making such a trip. I talked to a guy while having breakfast. He reaffirmed the route was nefarious in the least. I had to buy inventory to deal with inclement weather and hazardous insects. It was the month of May; it was rainy season at its peak.

I desperately wanted to be there - a world left behind in time, still trying to convalesce from a decades old devastating attack, discreetly cooped in a corner of the country, and forgotten by the world.

Of all the countries that I visited in Asia, Laos haunts me the most. It certainly lacks in creature comforts but its rugged landscape and antediluvian human settlements make up for it. I am not sure if or when I will visit Laos again, but if and when I do, this is one trip I will have to make.

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A night in Hualien

"So your brother worked in India? What does he think of it?" I asked her.

"Umm.. nice, but he told me the people are lazy" said she, "...they would stop working many times."

She was trying to recall a word. I made a guess and showed her the Chinese character for the verb "to go on a strike" on my phone. Her face blossomed into a smile as she said "yes yes .. strike. They would do this many times." I was pleasantly surprised to find someone near fluent in English in the town.

"Well he must have worked in public sector. Most people there are lazy. In private sector, people work very hard", I tried to explain.

She was nearing forty. I asked her why she was still unmarried. She muttered something, but midway her explanation her eyes welled up with tears. I felt bad and stupid. I thought of consoling her but found it much easier to pretend I didn't notice anything. I casually veered the conversation to a lighter topic. I took a few pictures insider her shop and said good bye to her. She didn't seem sad any longer. My heart felt lighter. I left. 

It was around half past nine, and I walked through the cross section of the city towards the railway station.

The station opened to a vast open area with a few benches. It was ten in the night. 

"I am in SWAT. It's in police", he said in broken English. He was fit, and displayed impressive agility and skill as he performed tricks on his mini-bike. The conversation soon began to take place in Mandarin. 

"Is it the same as Wei-an?" I asked

"No, Wei-an is high level. It's in Taipei. SWAT is low level."

"Taiwan is very safe. Do you like your job?" I oversimplified my question to fit it in my limited grasp of Mandarin.

"Some people have handguns. We have to stop them", he replied using the same tone of simplicity.

"What do they do with handguns? They don't rob here", I asked, resorting to use of body language for the latter part.

"They smuggle handguns and drugs..they take drugs, handguns for safety... where do you live?"

"I am going to Taipei tomorrow at 6 am. So I will spend the night here at the station."

"Why don't you go to a hotel? Not very expensive."

I said, "I want to see how it's like. And I want to save a little money." I pointed at his mini bike and said, "Can I try?"

As soon as I stood up to get on the bike, everyone around began looking at me. A lazy stray dog who had been lounging around indifferently sprang up with pointed ears to look at the expected antics of a foreigner. It even howled and a couple of its friends came running from across the road wagging their tails to watch what I was up to.
He taught me two simple tricks. I bungled twice. They practiced for a few more minutes and then they left.

It was half past mid-night. I ambled around the station. I walked past the open area into a small park. I looked around. I spotted him again. I walked towards him and said, "Why are you following me? What do you want?"
"I am sorry if I scared you. I want to speak English with a foreigner.", he said in a meek tone.
"Not now. I want to sleep somewhere. And you are scaring me by following me. Go away please." He left.

I was lying on a bench. A group of homeless people had huddled around a bench a few meters away. One of them saw me and, wondering why one of them was left out, walked to me. He was a little startled to discover I was a waiguoren. I told him I needed to take a train early morning. He gave me a thumbs up and left.

I bought a bottle of water and sat on a chair. Eventually I fell asleep for a few hours.

I was woken up by the first rays of the sun. I came out of the station. The mountains behind the station shone in the fresh sunlight. They looked gorgeous. I took a stroll till it was six. At 6:05 I went to a bike rental shop. The guy had been waiting for me.
"Did you sleep well?" he asked.
"I could barely sleep. But it was a little chilly and windy. I love windy nights. So I had fun. These mountains look beautiful"
"Yes, many people come here to travel."
"I would love to live here."
We shared a laugh. He pointed at my backpack "That's your bag."
"Thanks so much. It would have been very difficult to spend the night outdoors with such a heavy bag."
"Bu hui" he said.

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Lost

It was evening getting darker and darker. Summer had ended and autumn had begun.

I was in a train. It had halted at a station with no people. Streetlamps illuminated two empty seats on the vacant platform.

It had been four hours traveling. My sense of time had gone wonky. All past events seemed to have occurred far back in the past. It was telescopic effect in action. 

I knew no one around me. No one around me knew me. Everything was unfamiliar. Two guys behind me were chatting in a language I didn't understand. The old lady sitting beside me was reading a book I couldn't read. The city I was going to was new to me. I had no friends, no acquaintances.

I had come to find comfort in all this unfamiliarity. I had soaked oodles of it in the past few months. It kept me on the edge. It constantly piqued my curiosity. It kept me awake.

The slight rocking of the moving train, the ambiance outside and humming sound of the engine had created a transporting atmosphere. I saw things in a different state of mind. 

I could see myself begin from level zero. I could create relationships and forge a social circle. I could feel the nascent emotions of joy and fear taking shape. I was imaging a life I could live here. I was reminiscing some good times from my past.

The train was still cradling my chair. I fell into a lovely sleep. 

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Exploring the Creative Fraternity in Asian Cities

I have a clear idea of what the things I like doing are. I have a blear picture of what I will be doing sometime in near future. I keep thinking constantly, getting/creating ideas, building up on existing ideas, gleaning information from different sources but mostly internet. I have my own limitations. I want to evade the corporate juggernaut and I don't want to fixate myself in front of a computer for long hours unless I am doing something really captivating. So this is what I do when I am on my own.

I also meet people - this is where one aspect of all my traveling comes into action. It took me a short while to streamline the process of contacting people. I began with attending a networking event in HK. It creeped every inch out of me. It was strongly suggestive of the stifling atmosphere in typical big firms. There were no meaningful conversations. Everyone was selling themselves. Like a commodity. 

What I do now is much better. In every city I visit, I look for stuff that I find interesting. Then I meet people working on that stuff. It works out in many ways. I don't have to posture to impress others and it's easy to convince what I am doing. The conversations are a lot more meaningful, forthright and sometimes deep too. I try to avoid meeting people in groups. It has rarely worked out. A good chunk of people I meet are expats. 

This quest for interesting pieces of work leads to a low-key, mostly independent section of the economical clockwork - start-ups, entrepreneurs, artists, studios, hacker-spaces, co-working areas and freelancers. A common underlying pursuit of most of these entities is that they want to be heard. Their common theme is that they are not run-of-the-mill, they are not stuck in the groove and they lie on the periphery of comfort zone. This is the kind of people I mostly talk to. 

Some people tend to have one-off conversations while keeping genuineness and interest intact. They never reply to my messages afterwards. It upsets me. It makes me think something's wrong with me. Some of the conversations fizzle out gradually and some of them continue. 

Hackerspaces are interesting spots - they are mostly grungy lab-like co-working spaces where most of the activities gravitate towards geekiness. But the isolation of such little pockets of creativity is a little bit scary. Co-working spaces are much better in terms of being comfy. Art related events are another end of the spectrum - they are more visible, and more diverse. Artists seem to be a happier bunch than where I come from. 

This is a part of what I have been doing for the past couple of months in different cities of Asia. 

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A Hiatus from Wayfaring

After more than three months of an itinerant lifestyle, I have finally taken a small break to visit a familiar place. That doesn't mean I have gone back home or settled for something. No, not yet. After a defining phase of three months during which I was on the road covering various places in Asia, I am back in Singapore on one of my conclusive visits here. I realized (yet again) that I didn't and ain't going to miss this place much. It's exceedingly dull. Most of the human effervescence has been lost in the miasma of materialism.

Localities in Asia are amazing - they pack so much energy in a very complicated and unpredictable manner. There's tons of potential and scores of illogical or irrational things happening around (Taiwan and Korea are exceptions to the latter part). For now I have found my sweet spot in Asia - a place which is aesthetically pleasant and serves most of my purposes well. It's Taiwan. I will be spending a good deal of time there - exploring, volunteering, meeting people and improving Mandarin among the many things I will do here.

I am visibly thinner and darker. I am poorer. I am surer of a few things in life. A lot of people have said how skinny I have become. I hate it - I don't think I will ever compromise my health for anything else I like.

I couldn't make breakthroughs in my fitness - before I set out traveling, I thought I would become a faster runner and learn a few more parkour skills. Thanks to a nasty shoulder injury I found it very hard just to maintain my fitness levels. Throughout my trip, fitness-wise I was only running and doing push-ups. Any other workout caused pain in my gammy shoulder. The last three utterly slothful weeks saw me losing most of my muscle weight bringing me to where I am right now. It's very hard to work out when you are staying in a dorm.

I did make a breakthrough in learning Mandarin though. I had no intentions of learning how to read Mandarin characters - their convoluted appearance coupled with a seemingly endless number of characters made it an overwhelming task. But it happened! I began to look at a few characters around me and noticed recurring patterns (simple radicals, I realized). I learnt a few basic characters (~30). It helped me understand a few more characters. Then the learning process began to work like a snowball effect. Currently my snowball of Chinese characters is pretty small - I can recognize around a hundred characters. But with a little more systematic approach and a little effort I can enrich my repertoire of these bad-ass characters. At least I can think of such a possibility now. And my spoken Mandarin is a lot better.

Career-wise I am pretty sure what to do. And the best part is all these months of traveling and meeting people across diverse backgrounds and situations have given me a strong confidence. The future looks promising, not scary. I relish the prospects of empowerment and freedom in my uncertainty. The latent fear of failure hardly bothers me. 

I experienced highs and lows while traveling. But the undue stress which was scraping my heart and soul each day of my life is gone. There are seldom bouts of loneliness when I feel extremely down, unwanted or purposeless. There's not much I can do about it. A quick intense workout calms down my senses and works like a temporary reprieve.

I can speak a lot about how much I have learnt and changed during all these months of traveling. I will save most of it for later posts. I will continue traveling, but the next leg of journey will be a lot more about experimentation. When I say experimentation, I mean it in various aspects of life - career, way of living. societal interactions and new ideas. I will write about it if and when I get somewhere interesting.

Right now I am looking forward to my next trip. 

(A little bit of background)

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The Naughty Boys of Chungking

Chungking is a word that sends shivers down the spines of most people in HK. Chungking Mansions is inarguably the most infamous and dingy place in Hong Kong. Almost all the inhabitants of this seedy building are people originally from Indian and African subcontinents. Well, they live like a boss. To hell with embracing the local culture of HK; to hell with the rules; to hell with civic sense; to hell with rationality. Enter the building and you embrace absurdity with open arms.

I was one of the backpackers staying in one of the many guest houses here. People from Indian subcontinent speak Hindi/Punjabi so I could understand every word they said. They are hilarious. Even before you enter the building a couple of them try to sell you stuff you will never buy in life even if you are paid for it. As you enter the building many of them pounce on you with unattractive offers of dingy rooms, calling cards, extensions cables and can openers.

They are annoyingly persistent. Marketing lessons are for social retards. Logic is mere intellectual spool. They believe in policy of brute force. As you fight past them to reach the lift lobby, you bump into a queue of people. The amount of time it takes for the lift to come is long enough to turn them into zombies. As you enter the room you realize it's hardly bigger than the lift you were in a few seconds ago.

Sorry I digressed.

The people: 

The people here are VERY insulated from the rest of HK. They hardly do anything that carries a local influence. I used to go out in a very casual attire. It helped me blend in - they thought I was one of them and didn't hassle me. The downside - I couldn't talk at all to the fellow backpackers. They took me for one of the peddlers.

One day there were two Indian guys in the lift, one of them quite new in the city. He wanted to know where he could find white girls in the city for "boom boom". The other guy claimed innocence when he said, "मैं यह सब नहीं करता (I am not into such stuff)". The newcomer's reply was brilliant - "तुम बहुत सीधे हो, बंगाली हो क्या? (you are very naive. are you from Bengal?)". I brazenly burst out in front of them.

On my last night in Chungking, I wanted to see what goes on after-hours in the area. I dashed out of my tiny room in excitement at one in the morning and went to the ground floor, the hotspot of all naughtiness. A few "import-export" shops were still open along with a few internet kiosks. This was one time when I saw African people outnumber the people of my race. I took a roundabout route to the exit. There was police outside questioning an inhabitant - a pretty common occurrence. As I strode away from the exit, I saw an Indian guy still hassling all the passers-by to buy suits or watches. They'll never give up. I think such a thing has now ingrained in their blood. They never think consciously about what they are doing, what time it is, how can they improve/change things or why they are doing it.

A few steps ahead two guys were gawking at a woman in dodgy costume standing across the road. One of them said to the other, "वो तुझे देख रही है  (She's looking at you)". The face of the other guy lightened up as he fixated his gaze on her. I went ahead across the road where an African lady was squabbling with a convenience store owner loudly. The owner had apparently called the police who was trying to pacify the not-so-happy lady. I watched the scene for a few minutes when I got bored and decided to go back. En-route the main entrance, I saw the guy still standing there enamored by the lady in dodgy costume, still staring at her. 

In the lift, an African man was talking to someone recounting the incident of her friend having a brawl with a convenience store owner. I ask him why she was fighting with the guy. He said, "She was fighting with the person." I asked him why. He repeated the same thing. I grew a bit impatient. I raised my tone slightly and asked, "But why?" The guy apparently didn't like the rise in my pitch. He assumed a grave look and said in loud clear words to me, "... because this is Hong Kong, this is not your country." I could sense copious amount of hostility in the air. I said "OK good night" and ran to my room like a hare hopping into her lair. 

The decors:

The extreme inadequacy of elevators forces you to use stairs very often. The stairway is dingy and stinky. The walls are mottled with paan stains and other noisome stuff. There are two narrow alleys flanking the building. They are strong prototypes of a dystopian cityscape. They are choking on trash and the water dripping from above always keeps them wet and smudgy. It's much better inside the building, but the environment looks very sketchy. What's surprising is in spite of a large presence of Africans, there aren't many shops selling their goods whereas you can find every desi stuff from pirated CDs of kitschy Hindi movies to गृहशोभा here.

The positive non-negative side:

Not everything is bad about this place though. The place has got amazing Indian food at a very affordable price. The people at the reception were very hospitable and helpful to me. Not all of them are illegal immigrants. There have been reports of murder and rape in recent past but the place didn't look so unsafe to me. Security has been beefed up. It just has a very strong sketchy character. Certainly a lot of underhand dealings occur on a daily basis but they are not as insolent as some articles claim. I didn't come across anyone who tried to sell me drugs or other dodgy stuff. But would I like to go there again? Probably just for the food. 

[This place has been mentioned in various well known magazines and websites like Time and CNN. It's shady dealings and sketchy character was shown remarkably intact in a very well made movie 'Chungking Express'. Watch the movie if you haven't yet.]

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Northern Laos - Mekong and the mountains

Those rivers were more than just masses of flowing water, and those mountains were more than just inanimate limestone erections.

It was beauty in its most rugged form, untouched by placid strokes of nature and unharmed by human civilization. It didn't have the smoothness of those sloping hills covered with rows of pines. It's creation was planned by disorder and shaped by chaos.

I took a boat ride from Nong Khiaow to Muang Ngoi - both sleepy touristy villages snuggled in lush green foothills of giant mountains. I could only watch in awe the towering mountains as our boat paced irregularly on the choppy waters of Nam Ou. The chugging sound of engine echoed in the mountains that flanked the river.

Sunset as seen from Muang Ngoi

Mountains near Nong Khaiow

The landscape did more than just holding you in awe. It piqued your curiosity and triggered your imagination. The mountains were riddled with caves and covered with forests. It insulated from our mundane existence a hidden world full of deep dark secrets. It was a world where sprites dwelled and dervishes danced, where wisents still grazed and humans still hunted. Whatever there was beneath those trees or inside those caves, it was something that could only be seen in figments of your imagination.

Stalwart peaks inVang Vieng, There are numerous caves and creeks inside.

A brook near one of the caves

I kayaked in Nam Song the shores of which serve the town of Vang Vieng. Mountains here weren't as dense as in the north. Vast plains separated the vertical cliffs but their magnificence didn't diminish against the distance. These mountains were riddled with numerous caves, many of them massive. Most caves had a rivulet in proximity where it was possible to swim. At many points the banks of the Nam Song were several feet higher than the water level which tunneled your vision. It was a cloudy day. All I could see was the weak currents of river and cloud capped cliffs.

View from one of the rooms I stayed in, Vang Vieng

When I was in Luang Prabang, I spent all of the evenings walking/sitting along the banks of Mekong. The river sprawled wide in Luang Prabang. Its immutable flow of water made no sound. A few minutes after sunset darkness gobbled up the whole river. Green mountains turned into dark silhouettes. Faint lights from obscure houses on the mountains shone like sequins on a dark cloth. Mellow buffets of wind caressed the water which made the reflection of those lights quiver on the surface. Time came to a standstill. There was nothing to worry about, no past grudges, no future commitments. 

Things were more than just physical things. I was more than just a human being. Those rivers were more than just rivers. Those mountains were more than just mountains.

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Bangkok - start of the Thai inning

Densely packed buildings, dingy hotels, congested thoroughfares.
Flashy neon lights, variegated signboards, sloppy makeshift shops.
Roadside squatters, touting peddlers, carpetbaggers.
Knockoffs, novelties, curios.

It is Khaosan road, a backpackers' ghetto in western part of Bangkok.

It is a world in itself, totally disconnected from rest of the city. You can indulge in a quotidian activity like eating or shopping, or get a tattoo done, get your hair dreadlocked or buy a fancy machete, knife or taser. The drawling calls of masseuses can be heard everywhere.

It was a refreshing change from the quiet of Laos, though short-lived. Everyone wanted to draw my attention; for a few seconds I was the epicenter of their lives. 

"You look Indian. Come have Indian food", calls an Indian guy aggressively. Ignoring him I go ahead, wondering if he is Indian or not. A few minutes earlier I had met some people who talked and behaved just like any Indian. They were Burmese! A docile Burmese lady working at a bookshop told me about how a lot of people migrated from Nepal and India to Burma a long time ago, and how Bollywood movies still keep alive the Indian-ness in them.

The place is filled with foreigners, and it's almost impossible to spot a Thai visitor. It certainly has a character to it, but it doesn't deserve a visit longer than a couple of hours. Khaosan is one of the worst victims of commercialization overdone in Thailand, and the accretion of touristy geegaws just doesn't seem to stop.

Having spent a night near Khaosan, I moved to an chic but affordable hostel located in a totally non-touristy area. The locality is full of swanky condominiums. Thailand has a knack for commercializing any good place (in a bad way) and it's none less than a quixotic adventure to find a good place that is untouched in this country.

I don't think I will visit any of those most visited places in Bangkok. I will tour the neighborhoods on foot, buy a good book, visit the malls and eat in different places. The city in itself is quite interesting. It feels great to relish urban luxuries after spending more than three weeks in Laos. Life is good.

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Southern Laos - pockets of nothingness while in transit

[Rather than detailing a spectacular view or an unforgettable activity, this is an attempt to share my experience of transiting between two places while traveling in Laos. It's certainly not as glamorous as bountiful descriptions of well known touristy hotspots but it deserves a place somewhere as it occupies a lot of your travel time and more often than not gives you a better toehold on local life.]

The mountains have vanished and the landscape outside is a constant drone of level land. Hot and sunny weather intensifies the humdrum of journey. I am traveling from Thakkaek to Pakse, a distance of two hundred kms which will be covered in eight painstaking hours. Three days ago I had arrived in Vientiane - arguably the dullest country capital in the world, to apply for Chinese visa in the embassy there. In the morning I had decided to move to a cleaner and better hostel; in the next two hours I was sitting in a bus bound to Thakkaek. An hour was enough to check out the flight prices, sketch a new itinerary to visit China and Taiwan, and get out of Vientiane as soon as possible. 

Thakkaek: Skimming the web about this place gives you an idea how unremarkable the place is. It's upshot is lack of cheap and clean places to stay, but the situation turned out to be grimmer than expected. With a few other tourists, I went to this particular guesthouse a little out of the town. Shaking our heads disappointedly we left the place to find something better in the town, only to come back after a couple of hours, tired and battered. The receptionist pointed at us and laughed hard before he let us in. 

The town is situated on the bank of river Mekong, and riverside is a beautiful place to spend evenings and nights. While we were having dinner on the riverside, the city on the other side of the river looked brighter, busier and well constructed. We later realized it's Thailand (Nakhon Phanom to be precise, formerly a part of Lao). For a long stretch Mekong acts as a border between Thailand and Laos. As I expected, intrusion into Thailand from Laos is very common. A local guy sitting at the reception recounted some interesting incidents of the frequent incursion. People carrying cheaply obtained weed wade across the river and slip into Thailand where it's sold at a higher price. Intruders are occasionally caught and sent back to Laos after getting a nasty beating on their patootie and paying a bribe. If they are caught with narcotics, they're (unsurprisingly) jailed. Dissembling as a Thai, the guy himself had worked illegally in Thailand for six months.

Thakkaek acts as a base for the Motorcycle loop and Kong Lor cave. Like Vietnam, traveling from A to B in Laos is expensive and tedious. So I quelled my desire to visit the magnificent cave and decided to go cross over to Thailand the next morning. 

The next morning: I am in a bus bound to Pakse, a big city (by Laotian standard) which acts as a base for exploring Bolaven plateau. Shelving my plan to leave Laos, I decided early morning to cross the border from Pakse after visiting much praised Bolaven plateau. Southern Laos is less craggy than Northern Laos and while a few places might possess staggering beauty, traveling across cities doesn't offer sweeping views of landscapes. So here I am, witnessing a prosaic countryside sitting in a bus driven by a person who is not intent on arriving at the destination at all. He doesn't hesitate to stop at every other bend or shop, and the bus trundles down the road most unwillingly.

Laos is a small country but with ill-equipped and limited transportation, journeys consume a lot of your time. And in my experience, you meet more people during traveling than you meet staying in a hostel. A  vast majority of travelers are European/American students who have graduated. It doesn't happen very often but I feel a quick connection when I meet someone who also quit his/her job to take a break from work. And even less frequent is when you meet someone with whom you can have a conversation that goes deeper than just sharing itineraries and exchanging extended introductions. And it's a delightful detour from the generalized idea of backpacking when it happens. 

Pakse: I get off the tuktuk in Pakse and the first thing I spot is an Indian food restaurant. I have come to believe there exists no place on earth that is touted as a tourist hotspot and doesn't serve Indian food. Traffic lights and coffee shops are signs of a well developed place. Mountains can be seen  struggling for existence far away in the backdrop. There's hardly anything to do in the city itself but it has a certain positive vibe and is a good relief from monotony of Vientiane and unremarkable character of Thakkaek. I have found a good room at a reasonable price. 

It's finally begun to rain after a hot and ridiculously humid day. I am going to give a premature ending to this post to enjoy the weather outside. The loamy odor from the first few droplets wetting the ground is too inviting to resist. 

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Nong Khiaow - a tropic beauty

Imagine a place nestled in mountains which has all the ingredients of an idyllic landscape - a river snaking its way through foothills of magnificent thickly forested hills, a small village that's little more than thatched or tin roofed houses, and a pace of life that almost drags to a standstill. Add a few creature comforts for tourists and that's Nong Khiaow for you.

A stalwart limestone crag fronts my room, the grandeur of which never ceases to hold me in awe. As I write, I can see clouds wafting slowly below the cliff's peak, rubbing against its furrowed exterior; some of them have snuggled into the cliff's crevices and nooks. At its foothill is river Nam Ou that flows incessantly without making even the slightest sound.

In the snail paced way of life here dwells oodles of peace and calm which relaxes your mind and caresses your senses like the salving effect of an emollient on a parched skin. It feels as if you have been put back in the rhythm of nature, as if the elements that keep your body ticking have found  resonance with the elements of nature.

Evenings here are just magical - the soft evening sunlight compounds the beauty of this place. It feels you are viewing the world through shades of sepia and sienna. The golden tinge adds to the antiquated look of the village and it's not hard to feel nostalgia creeping in. The river tinsels in sunlight as the sun rays sway over running waves of water. A boat leaves a gentle wake behind as it elegantly chisels the water surface, and sun rays twinkle when they are reflected from the backwash as if cheering in happiness. As you watch the setting sun cast a shadow of craggy mountains on Nam Ou, you wish that you could bring time to a stop.

Sunset (as seen from Muang Ngoi)

Nights here are mystic - there's hardly any trace of human activity after ten. On a clear night the sky turns into a treasure trove for stargazers and offers profound glimpse of the astral bodies that spangle it. Stars are visible till as far as the horizon. It only needs a little power of imagination to connect the dots into any desired shape. The pitch darkness absorbs all mellow sounds of wind, rustle or clatter. Geckos cry, crickets shriek and unknown birds shout in strange voices which pierce the darkness unabashed.

It's days like these when all you do is attend to your very primal urges of hunger and sleep yet you feel most civilized, when you think of nothing yet you understand everything, and when you do nothing at all yet it's a time of your life very well spent.

[I have spent probably the laziest days of my life here. The place is very cheap and has incredibly good food (even for a vegetarian like me). Even more surprisingly, in the little known place in the middle of nowhere, a place so small that it can be covered on foot in less than twenty minutes, there are three Indian food restaurants. I spend my days eating, reading, writing, taking long walks, staring at the landscapes absorbing the vibes and occasionally working on my fitness. Afternoons are very hot and probably the least pleasant part of the whole day. And only in the afternoons do I feel a little bit down. For those looking for some kind of activity, this place offers various tours and activities, but not a lot of people opt for it. Unexploded ordinances (UXOs) are a common sight here - they serve as flower pots, chisels or just souvenirs of a sad past, aptly decorating the gardens or people's backyards. I can foresee this place will lose its charm soon as it transforms into a touristy haven. There's a very similar place nearby called Muang Ngoi which is as beautiful, but a little more congested. I have gone into a state of tranquility and serenity here. I have spent four days here and plan to spend a couple of more. It will take a while before I even feel like I might get bored in this place.]

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Prelude to the end

In two days I will end my job and leave Singapore. Dulled by the drudgery and corporate rigmarole, I decided to take a break from work. I believe one should think of other things in life than just career (if one can afford to). I plan to travel, take my fitness up a notch, improve my Mandarin and learn whatever new things I can learn that might help me shaping my career. 

Singapore is an amazingly organized, clean and safe country; it acts as a good springboard to visit other countries and it has an atmosphere conducive to fitness enthusiasts and entrepreneurs. Still, the rigidity and inwardness of people here, and lack of countryside (or any natural landscape for that matter) takes all the spice out of your life. It's very easy and natural to get stuck in the groove if you live and work here.

After a long time something has made me excited. I don't know what lies next; uncertainty looms over my head, but most of the time the idea of all that I am about to do makes me very excited. I do get scared sometimes, but such instances are few and far between.

It's time to live a little more impulsive and a little less pragmatic. I hope at the end of it I end up somewhere better. Amen.

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To Darkness

You are something that has added more character to my indulgence in any activity I have done.

I have loved the feeling when my eyes have lost their focus into you. Staring in your voids, I have seen faces of people I have lost and people I would have won. I have seen nebulous distinctions of faces long forgotten delineate into clear features and sharply demarcated contours.

You have compounded my involvement in any activity, intensified the auditory sense, amplified the subtle luxury of tactile sensations, tested my spatial visualizations and laid bare the incoherence of my five senses.

In darkness I have had many a thoughtless nights, and many a thoughtful nights sitting huddled into a corner staring at the bright rays of light slashing through the chinks in the door. 

In motion at a high speed, I have spent hours staring outside at the distant flickering lights. Walking along roads lined with whirring vehicles with trailing headlights, my brain has tried to come in rhythm with the sinusoidal sounds of cars passing by. Running along the beach on a breezy night, I have seen myself too tired to process anything but the wheezing sound of air trying hard to get to my lungs. 

I have enjoyed surrendering my reality to your realm of nothingness stretching far and wide, where my imagination has run free like a soaring bird and where my thought process has taken a pause after a long engagement in drudgery. 

I know that if all else fails, you will be the one that will exist.

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Of loneliness and little thrills

[This post stands out of the common theme most of my other blog posts follow and is nothing more than negative, egocentric gibberish meant to vent out a little bit of frustration.]

Loneliness gnaws at my head, and the relentless ferocity of it rankles me. I hate and regret how a seemingly harmless habit of seeking a bit of solitude devolved into a curse of chronic loneliness. I hate how I have spent the prime years of my life depreciating myself with self hate, which grated my confidence and brought me a good deal of frustration absolutely needlessly. 

People are ever ready to give their cents on whatever they are good at, but it's not the nicest feeling in the world when you lose the basic faculty of speaking and looking like normal like a majority of people do. The only things you get to hear about yourself are negative. These things aside, there are a few moments and a few activities which give me that kick of joy under any circumstance.

Waking up after a long siesta to the brilliant masterpiece by Edward Shearmur transports you to another world. It calms down the process of your getting your bearings. Those few moments when your mind is blank, and when all it has to process is the auditory sensation that this piece creates, are so full of energy and focus that they enable you not to let any of the mundane activities around hit you. It takes you to a place where you are powerful, righteous, unregretful and happy.

In the evenings after an intensive run or a workout which usually consists little more than lots of push-ups, when your body is so tired you can't do anything, lying in the bed in the dark room is another feeling you can only enjoy. In a couple of minutes you fall half asleep, and in the state of grogginess you feel as if your body is floating.

Sadly, I don't have any other thing that gives me a feeling of joy on a regular basis. Quoting Travis from Taxi Driver 'All my life needed was a sense of someplace to go. I don't believe that one should devote his life to morbid self-attention. I believe that someone should become a person like other people.' The only reason I am jotting it down is that I can't ignore it anymore and that writing is therapeutic for me. Holding it in and writhing in it's plight is of no help. Extrication is the key to calm.

I saw this movie (Taxi Driver) when I was in college. Lame as it may sound, I identified myself a lot with the protagonist. I found things in common with the character eerily which are rather uncommon in people. This is also a movie with one of the best quotes.

Quoting another of my favorites from this movie (and which sums up the last ten years of my life to _some_ extent) 'Loneliness has followed me my whole life. Everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man.'

Caught in the labyrinth walled by my own delusions and negativity, I can only wait to leave this place. They say that brain is plastic - that it can be fashioned into something totally different. I hope this fact exists beyond just theory. I need new people in a new place. It about time. 

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Cycling: Singapore to Desaru and back

A friend of mine and I went cycling to Desaru where we stayed overnight, and backtracked the next morning. Over a period of two days, we cycled around 120 kms at a slow pace. 

The plan and the partner
My original motive behind this trip was to give my legs a muscle shock by cycling a long distance at a fast pace without much practice. It's a fast and effective way of building durability and strength. I (unintentionally) did this when I did my impromptu first half marathon, with having run no more than six kilometers before, and clocked a decent timing of 2:05:35. I invited my friend who also shares my sense of adventure and fitness to come along, and he readily nodded. He is big and powerful, and has above average stamina.
             But his slothful patootie took over him when he put his foot down and said that he would take the whole damn thing easy and enjoy the nature, the sea breeze, the beach and the mountains. We weren't speaking the same language, but he had a point - the route is scenic and worth taking a few breaks. And it's fun to have a funny guy like him along, so with a gasp and a few swear words I agreed to take it slow. Well, my muscles never got the shock but my butt definitely did!

Highway J52: A couple of kilometers from Pengerang. The beach was inundated as it was high tide.

The Route

Singapore (Changi ferry terminal) -> Pengerang (Malaysia) in a small ferry:
Typical waiting time is two hours and the journey takes another hour. There's no queue at Pengerang ferry terminal when coming back to Singapore.

Pengerang -> Desaru on a bicycle:
Highway J52 to Sungei Rengit (~ 16 kms), highway J92 to Desaru (~ 35 kms). J52 runs along the beach and is more or less level. J92 has moderate traffic with vehicles buzzing past at high speed. Another route (highway J90) from Sungei Rengit to Desaru runs along the beach and, from what we heard, has less traffic and slightly bad road.

Getting the bikes

We didn't have bikes. We rented bikes for two days from a rental shop in Pasir Risk Park on the same day and cycled to the ferry terminal. They didn't look like racing bikes from any angle but were far better than hefty MTBs. We cycled from Pasir Risk Park to Changi Ferry Terminal using the PCN for most of the part. Distance - 7 kms

Level of toughness

Pengerang to Sungei Rengit is a cakewalk since the road is level. The highway connecting Sg Rengit to Desaru is a continuous string of uphills and downhills which makes the ride challenging. When we cycled, there was constant wind blowing against us but that's a conditional thing. Coming back was much easier since the wind favored us.

Taking a break

We had our first stop at Sungei Rengit - a small coastal town with many restaurants and hotels, where we had lunch. Most people living here are Chinese. The road from Sg Rengit to Desaru passes through green mountains, palm forests and nothing else. Make sure you are hydrated and have enough resources before you leave Sg Rengit. We only found a small restaurant about 5 kms before Desaru  and it was the first sign of human civilization after Sg Rengit.

Public beach

This bit is unverified, but there is a public beach about 1.5 kms after Desaru Damai resort - a run down badly maintained resort we stayed in. You are allowed to camp at the public beach overnight.

Highway J92 - Sg Rengit to Desaru

The ride back...
... was awesome! It was raining hard when we began, and we had to take shelter under a bus stand for about twenty minutes. We then cycled in drizzle and cool wind which was an experience. Contrary to our expectations, we were much faster. We hardly had any Malaysian Ringgits. We took a stopover in Sg Rengit again, exchanged currency and had lunch in the same place as the previous day.

How tiring is it

If you cycle at a slow pace (~15 - 20 kmph), it's not very tiring. We had hardly done any cycling before, but both of us were reasonably fit guys. We cycled all the way on non-racing bikes without getting tired but ended up with really sore butts!

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Running after a hiatus

Running at ECP has been one of my most favorite activities in Singapore. Running along the beach, where cacophony of the city gets absorbed in the vastness of sea, is probably one of the best feelings you can never get tired of. There's something magical about being in motion, the dynamism of which lifts up your spirits and alleviates your worries. There is something liberating in the openness of the area and vastness of the sea. A combination of both gives you a kick that can only be imagined. 

When I run, I don't look around at the people playing at the beach or cycling on the road. My eyes stay focused on the track as I thread my way through fellow runners or strollers. But the ambiance does contribute significantly to my spirit and motivation. 

Today was the first time in 2013 I ran at ECP. No doubt I was excited. And the evening was particularly beautiful. Dark clouds loomed overhead but the western edge of the sky had cleared up as the sun was setting. So the evening was a little darker with western part of the horizon strikingly effulgent. The surroundings had assumed a cerise tinge which added to the crepuscular charm. 

I ran against, and then in the direction of wind. The relatively long break from running did not affect my speed at all. I ran the same distance I run every time. Maybe it was the ambiance, or maybe it was the feeling of familiarity I got to relish after months of soggy life at desk.

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China trip #2

Occasion: One of my friends' wedding

Continuing my last post on China, here are a few more conclusions about China coupled with less bitter and more sweet experiences.

How this trip was different: It was hardly touristy. I went to a small town in a somewhat remote location. Insulated from the touristy hubbub, the town is ensconced in a valley of the Wuyi mountain range. Due to its secluded spot, it gets the luxury of cleaner air and water. I also did a few other things in a more 'Chinese' way.

The shady side: People trying to trick you into overpriced stuff. At Guangzhou airport, I was driven out of the airport by an intimidating man in uniform who kept insisting that I couldn't spend the whole night in the airport. It was only after he forced me to sit in a van which was ready to take me a a 'cheap' hotel that I realized he was nothing more than a broker. After firmly saying no, and telling him clearly I would rather spent the night outside the airport under the open sky than go to a hotel, he gave up and allowed me back into the airport. One of my friends whom I met at the wedding unfortunately fell for the nasty Shanghai 'tea scam'. 

What's not cheap in China: Public transport. Bus and train fares are fairly high. The trains are clean and well maintained, but the buses are just about as dirty and uncomfortable as in countries like Indonesia or India. But the fares are high! Food and accommodation are cheap.

NOT staying in a backpackers hostel: Hospitality of the hotel staff makes the stay pleasant. A backpackers hostel almost always comes with an added convenience of English speaking receptionists who will help you in everything from planning a trip to booking a ticket. For the first time I stayed in a hotel where English was as alien as the vanishing Bikya language. The staff could hardly speak any English but was super friendly and very willing to help me. I was smattering Mandarin, and the staff would soon resort to using an online translator whenever I gave up on my spotty knowledge of Mandarin. The most important thing to remember is such hostels have no signboard in English. You will find their English names while booking online through well known sites like hostelworld or agoda but in reality they are just literal translations of their Chinese names which occupy the outer walls or billboards of the city. Always note the Chinese name and the address of the place.

Chinese hospitality: I have oft repeated the welcoming and curious nature of Chinese people. During my sojourn in the small hill town, I was touched by the warmth, energy and willingness of people to ensure our well being. The way they treat guests and their endearing hospitality is yet another similarity to India.

Curiosity about India: It's kind of rare to find an Indian very interested in China's daily affairs and the culture. But it's not rare to find a Chinese person very interested about India. I met a guy who did punting on the Jiuqu Xi (Nine Bends river in Wuyi mountains). In spite of having a low income and limited access to media, he had seen a couple of Indian movies, knew about the latest gang-rape case in Delhi and had (rightly) formed a notion of India's lopsided outlook against women in society. In Guangzhou, I met a girl who read a lot about Indian culture, knew about Gandhi and had even tried vegetarianism for a while (she had to give it up as it was something very hard for her). Another lady in Guangzhou asked me why Indian men just explode after a certain age and why I was so thin and not fat (I told her I ran regularly). On my way to Nanchang, I met a soldier who worked in the PLA. He and my friend (who had no knowledge of Mandarin) kept conversing with the help of on-the-run translation using smartphones. After my friend went to bed, the guy came to me, handed me his second smartphone as I didn't have one, and started a mute conversation with me. He was a soldier in a communist army. But he answered yes when I asked him "Should democracy be introduced in China?". We reached Nanchang at about midnight. He made sure that we went to our respective destinations safely; he bargained for us, saw us off and gave each of us his as well as police's contact before departing. 

Site specific tips/trivia:

Bamboo rafting at Wuyishan: A must do. Winter is probably not the best time to do it, but the surroundings are just beautiful. I did it in Jan when the temperature was almost zero, and by the end of the trip my jaw had gone numb. Nevertheless it was all worth it! I didn't get a chance to hike but the place has got some amazing mountains and hiking trails.

Guangzhou: It's a massive urban jungle that sits pompously beside other urban behemoths Shenzhen and Hong Kong. There is not much to do in this city and it's similar to Singapore in more ways than one. After Beijing and Shanghai, it is the third largest city in China, but it has mingled with Shenzhen and formed a massive mega-city. Like in Shanghai, most (young) people can speak English and the city is equipped with an efficient metro system. For reasons I could not fathom, the city is even more expensive than Shanghai, which in turn is more expensive than Beijing. Canton Tower is quite a sight during nighttime! But you have to dip in your savings to go up the tower.

Speaking Mandarin: Before I conclude, I want to share the amazing feeling of empowerment you get when in an alien land, you converse in an alien language and get by :)

I flagged down a cab, negotiated and went to the airport without using any sign language. I swapped seats in the train with another guy to sit with my friend. I had numerous very small chit-chats with people in and around the airports in Nanchang and Guangzhou. All in mandarin. And that's an amazing feeling!

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Govind Nihalani: An unsung hero of Indian Cinema

A majority of movies that Indian cinema churns out are just pathetic. Many of them are stereotypical flicks which only tow the line. Most superstars rise to fame with movies that employ little more than tawdry action sequences and threadbare dialogues. There is a huge audience for such movies, and the movie makers happily pander to the demand. 

Mani Ratnam and Anurag Kashyap are some of the few names that shine in the dust. But there is one person - extremely talented - whose entire array of movies is adorned by nominations for, and in most cases has been awarded, the prestigious National Film Award, and yet is an unknown name to most people. The guy's name is Govind Nihalani.

It really appalling how such a great movie maker is unknown to most people of this country. I do prefer non-masala flicks and generally rely on nominations for National Film Awards to know about the good movies which the audience doesn't care to appreciate. And that's how I bumped into his name. 

His movies are a bold slap on malfunctioning and corrupt Indian machinery and the ills of society. He gifted us gems like Aakrosh, Ardh Satya and Tamas. Almost every film of his has won at least one National Award. After a hiatus of about ten years he came back with Hazaar Chauraasi Ki Maa which, again, won a National Award. And this was the time when Directorate of Film Festivals used to put a genuine effort to recognize and award good movies (last time I heard a farcical movie named Dabangg was given this prestigious award). Even his lesser known movies have something daring, visionary and innovative. 

This is a tribute to a man truly ahead of his time. 

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Grid Space

Grid Space is a collection of 41 mathematical puzzles aimed at people having knowledge of high school geometry. It consists of geometric puzzles, graph puzzles and logic puzzles.

Puzzles can be graded from easy to hard but they are not ordered in a definite manner. They can be broadly categorized into following categories -
- Identification of mathematical shapes
- Triangle properties
- Circle properties
- Quadrilateral properties
- Visualization
- Logic
- Graph

There are four demo puzzles to give the user an idea of how to approach the problems. 

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dCrypt - Support URL

dCrypt is an innovative app for learning Mandarin characters. 

It uses logic, character background and etymology to make the learning as logical and easy as possible. 

Different sets of puzzles will train your mind to understand and analyze characters. 

- You will learn how characters combine to form new meanings. 

- You will get acquainted with different patterns visible in Chinese characters. 

- You will see how different components acquire different meanings depending on the context.

The best part is all the characters have been presented as puzzles that you will be decrypting based on given hints.

The app teaches traditional Chinese characters but in fact a lot of characters included here remain the same in simplified Chinese.

Total number of characters: 342.

I will add more features to it in future if the response is good. Please leave your comments and rate the app. Thanks.

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