The Kohinoor Restaurant welcomes you with a large blue and white sign board overhead the entrance and which is visible to its patrons, new and old alike, along the M.G Road from quite a distance. The first time I went there I knew that this was one of the oldest addresses in Pune. It houses two floors, one for ladies and families and the ground floor, which is ever so lively. It has a big space with low ceilings, four sturdy pillars, big open glassless windows, which makes sure that the fans are not required and seats about one hundred people at a time. The waiters in deep yellow shirts and the cleaning boys in colonial blue move around swiftly in perfect synchrony. Even the waiters won’t ask you what you want have. They present the menu to you and you have to do the talking.  They don’t speak much only quickly pass on the orders to the kitchen and rattle the total to the fat chubby smiling spectacled man behind the counter.
I come from the hills and well, I am naturally soft spoken (because of the clam and cold weather I suppose), so one time when I had seated myself comfortably in one of the cushioned benches of the restaurant, after ordering a cup of tea, a group of Marathi men, in their early twenties came and shared the seat with me. They sounded excited and were engrossed in their lively conversation. One man, seated in front of me shouted an order for tea known as ‘cutting chai’, a very popular form of tea drinking. An exhibition of both brotherhood and economy where a cup or a glass of tea is shared by two or more people (if it is enough!!!).
So teas came and one was shared by two people. However, I was not amused because I had ordered for a cup of tea before they came and they were served before me. It wasn’t a touchy thing but just that things like this are not really funny. So I voiced my displeasure, in Hindi.
The man in front of me looked at me and asked, ‘you speak Hindi?”
“Of course I can and pretty well too”. I replied in Hindi
“You ordered for a cup of tea?”, he asked me
“Yes I did”,
“Ok” he said, “…maybe you didn’t do it the right way”, he continued

I looked at him not sure whether I understood him right. Then he yelled at the waiter in Marathi and looked at me and said, “…these people don’t understand kind words. You have to shout at them”.

Traveling in a sleeper class compartment is never boring. It is really like a gathering of tribes. Introductions are frequent and bonds are formed, even if for temporarily. Sometimes addresses are exchanged, photographs taken for memories and the whole journey becomes an extension of our very own private lives. And when the train stops at the last station and the goodbyes and good wishes are exchanged and you suddenly find yourself among the coolies, the touts and the taxis, the journey would have already etched a fine memory in your mind which you shall recall at some point in your future as you do your routine, mundane chores in your life like reading a newspaper in the toilet, or watching some boring news on sitcom or having those familiar conversations with familiar people whom you see everyday in your life.
I looked outside the window to witness the day, the trees, vast rice fields which some economists around the world argued were the future of the country and all things stable, pass by in rapid motion. And suddenly amongst the now constant hum of the chattering of passengers there, resonated a loud but very melodious female voice. It was the voice which enraptured the listening ears. I looked around the compartment to check the speakers but was pleasantly surprised to see two women clad in colorful saris make their way in, dramatically from the aisle of the coach.  The chatter inside the compartment came to an abrupt halt and as if by the power of music, everyone inside, for once, had ears. One woman had a microphone in her right hand, the other hand held the cord. The second woman had a small cubical amplifier on one hand and the other hand stretched out for alms. The singer sang on an uninterrupted note, voice flowing, melodious and confident.

The Himalayas is a mystic adventure for many people especially from the west and the far-east. Grand white mass of mountains, dark forested hills, beautiful waterfalls…the list of rhetoric are endless. They all seem to attract the discerning travelers as the bees to flowers. The memories are sweet nectar.

My 3 hrs hike to Taktsang Monastery in Paro, Bhutan was one that transported me to an era that I thought existed only in a digital studio in some corner of Hollywood. Bhutan has always prided herself in the ‘Thunder Dragon Kingdom’ ruled by a benevolent King. So, it is a surprise not to experience that in Paro, a truly picturesque valley. There are many things to do in Paro…from admiring the Dzongs to lounging in discos. Since I am not a party animal I took the path that gradually takes one through the blue pine hills never dropping in altitude until one has the view of the unbelievable work of art resting heavily on the mystical Buddhist legend. It is so powerful…that you accept the translation ‘The Tiger Nest’ probably as immediately as Yeshey Tshogyal had transformed herself into a Tigress on whose back Guru Padmasambhava flew to the grand rocky edifice in Paro in the 8^th Century.

He stood on the bridge over the River Mutha.

‘Oh, how cruel this world is, how thoughtless we are! How silently you bear!

Oh, how beautiful you are still. I wish I could be of some help. Oh, how insignificant I am!’

A man approached the bridge with a heavy plastic bag. He hurried along the pedestrians’ walkway and emptied his bag containing trash over the railing. The plastic bag with all its filthy contents poured down the river. The papers floated, the dirt plunged and the dust played with the warm breeze.

The traffic over the bridge concentrated only on the traffic lights. Hundreds of people passed by and no one said a word. Scores of people walked over the bridge then, no one said a word. The man walked away after emptying the bag and throwing it along with the dirt.

He opened his mouth but no words came. He looked at the plastic bag slowly settle on the river current and float.

A woman walked on the bridge, stopped suddenly and fiddled inside her handbag. She took out a small crumpled paper pack and emptied the content over the river. They were grains. The grains quickly scattered on the river currents and became invisible. Further down a flock of birds and ducks played on the shallower part of the river.

He smiled.

Life is here and it is now. There is all the time in the world where you live in but to use it with judgment is the answer to all achievements. But life also depends much on luck. I believe it is the key to the doors of all the answers. But the key does not belong to the one who simply asks questions. It belongs to the one who looks for it. There has to be an action involved. I believe luck is with everyone, sometime it just takes a little more time. It is like looking for a needle in a haystack. You’ll find it sooner or later. It may or may not take time but find surely you’ll because it’s in there. Those who have found it earlier are not luckier that you are. Nor are you unluckier. The time they use or waste after finding it more than covers for the time that you spend looking for it and having finally found it, the joy is the same…the time is right. And the ones who have found it earlier just have had nothing to do while you have spent it wisely by default. So, never stop looking.

It is not the journey or the destination that is important because neither of the two comes to a stop in one’s lifetime. The days and nights are inevitable, so are movements or thoughts…or life. Both are processes of living defined by the rotation of the earth. But we become tired because the process of growth is extraordinarily elusive. It doesn’t matter how far you have traveled or how many lovers you have had in your lifetime or how much money you have earned. Satisfaction of mind is the justification of the luxury that we own. Life is cloned. Life is repetitive. What we do today is not anything different from what others have done before us or will do after us. The picture is different but the process is the same, the enthusiasm is the same, the achievement is the same…the feelings same. Life is not a mystery. Nothing in living is a mystery.