The Streets of Taipei [Series: Incomplete blogs]

There was nothing peculiar about that evening when the rain came lashing down. I wouldn't have gone out but I had to. Grudgingly I left home; I walked along the edge of the street barely keeping myself under the shelter of pattering tin sheets.

I am reminded of a random night in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong when I was cornered by a sudden downpour. I vividly remember the almost instant bloom of umbrellas followed by hurried footfalls. It was a weird place - I could never understand how their individuality interfaced with the society. It was loud, it was claustrophobic; yet nobody seemed to have any willingness to talk to each other.

I was in the MRT now, bound to 劍南路站。When it rained, the streets of Taipei looked like stills from a Wong-kar Wai movie. Colorful neon boards jutting out from lackluster buildings reflected off wet roads. Smoke wafting from roadside food-stalls dissolved into the droplets of water dripping off tin sheets. The road was covered with a series of reflections of headlights and streetlamps.

There was a sweet charm in getting lost in the narrow tortuous alleys of this city. The city had pockets of old neighborhoods interlaced with narrow lanes and flanked by dull facades of 公寓. These neighborhoods were the best part of this city. Every morning a swarm of chirpy little breakfast places took birth in random parts of all streets. These breakfast stalls would disappear gradually before afternoon or sometimes evening.

I reached 劍南路站。It had stopped raining and the sky had cleared up. The air smelled of earthy freshness. This place was teeming with swanky malls and upscale showrooms. A mountain guarded the view on the other side. I handed over some stuff to my friend. My next destination was 輔大 located in extreme west part of New Taipei City. I had recently started going to a bouldering gym there.

The neighborhood around 輔大 was pretty much dead in nature. Once you veered away from the highway, all noises disappeared into the stillness that reigned the place. There were no 公寓s, no cozy stalls or night markets. It was a string of large warehouses and small factories - the kind of place that seemed to lack charm.

There were unremarkable turns with badly marked addresses between badly lit, poorly managed warehouses. I took one of those turns, dodging a small pool of water and walked toward a big building with tin walls. The wonky walls of its interior were speckled with motleyed blocks. That was my place.

It was just this little place in middle of nowhere that made me love the entire neighborhood. It was as if the charm of this place was intensified by the lack of it outside. I made numerous trips to this place. I got hooked to it.

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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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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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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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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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वो ...

वो माया से विरक्त था, वो रुका हुआ वक़्त था
वो पल जो कोई पल न था, जहाँ का कोई कल न था
वहां कोई दिशा न थी, उषा न थी निशा न थी
न मुझे कोई प्यास थी, न किसी की तलाश थी
वो भूत था भविष्य था, वो एकता का शिष्य था
..
..

वो निर्जीव न था, उसके हर अंश में प्रान था
वो यथार्थ न था, वो एक स्वप्न का वितान था

वहां गुरुत्व न था, किसी कोटि का अनुमान न था
कोई अभाव न था, किसी अभिलाषा का प्रमान न था

वो समय न था, वो हर बिंदु पर समान था
न भूत न भविष्य, बस दीर्घ वर्तमान था

वो मौलिक थे, मेरी कल्पना के पात्र नहीं थे
हम उसके अवियोज्य अंश थे, अतिथि मात्र नहीं थे

न कोई ध्येय था न कोई राह थी
मैं था तुम थे फिर क्या परवाह थी

मैं मैं न था तुम तुम न थे 
वो हम न थे वो कोई और थे

हम हम न थे हम कोई और थे
वो हम न थे वो कोई और थे

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चेतना और स्वप्न

पवन-गत रजनी में
हरी घास पर लेट कर
उस विराट अंतरिक्ष की गहराईयों में
मैंने जब अपनी चेतना को खोया है,
मैं भूल गया हूँ अपनी काया की परिधियों को;
और समय की परिधिओं को भेद कर
मैंने देखा है तारों को आपस में बात करते हुए;
..

..

और कभी कभी
हवा की फुसफुसाहट के बीच
मैंने सुने हैं वो स्वर मेरे अतीत से आते हुए|

 

आकाश के गहरे अन्धकार में मैंने देखा है
एक काली परछाई से धुंधले और अपूर्ण
 उन चेहरों को मेरी ओर मुस्कुराते हुए ;
और जब जब मैंने माँगा है उनका परिचय
एक रहस्यमयी हँसी के साथ,
और फिर आने के वादे के साथ
वो विलुप्त हो गए हैं| 

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Hallucinations

I remember when we were so close that I could hear you breathe. Your fingers would touch my palm for a split second whence intense sparks of intimacy would run through our bodies. You were not a body but an intensive trigger controlling my hearbeat, the flow of my blood.

I vividly remember how coherent the flow of hormones in our bodies was. I remember how I longed to render that moment perpetuity. Running through that time still sends frisson through my veins. I still have eidetic flashes of those curved eyelashes, of that tuft of hair covering your cast down eyes, of the soft touch of those cushioned hands, and of those intimate moments.

I don't remember your face as a whole, but neither do I wish to connect the dots. Your vicarious presence still captivates me; and I get drifted away until I am woken up from the dream. I realize it was a dream.

I don't know whether you were a dream, a figment, a repressed memory of past or a vaticination. But I know that some active neurons of my mind conjured you up; that you were there and will ever be.

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A gem from a Hindi poem

अक्सर आकाश गंगा की
सुनसान किरणों पर खड़े होकर
जब मैंने अथाह शून्य में
अनंत प्रदीप्त सूर्यों को
कोहरे की गुफाओं में
पंख टूटे जुगनुओ की तरह
रेंगते देखा है
तो मैं भयभीत होकर
लौट आई हूँ |
-धर्मवीर भारती

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