Category: Travel

I have always enjoyed gardens, alone or with company. They are great spaces to muse upon the passage of time and the meaning of life. I’ve enjoyed picnics at Lodhi Gardens in Delhi, the profusion of flowers at the Shalimar Gardens in Kashmir and spent a pleasant afternoon watching ducks at Regency Park in London.

Recently, I visited Singapore to meet two friends from college. We decided to visit the Gardens by the Bay, the popular city attraction. I expected swathes of clipped green grass and neat rows of pretty flowers enticing a kaleidoscope of butterflies. As I entered an enormous building, I realized that the Gardens were more of a technological and scientific marvel than an artistic arrangement of nature’s creations. The Cloud Forest sounded like the magical woods in a Tolkien novel, but when I was actually there it looked more like a scene from Avatar. A tall green tower, girdled by elliptical walkways stood under a checkered steel dome. We took an elevator to The Lost World at the top and walked down marvelling at the ready spread of flowers, plants, leaves, lichen, and tribal totems, the compression of a vast tropical forest around a 115-foot structure. The steady hush of water falling from multiple pipes mimicking a waterfall, mingled with the clicking of cameras and chatter of tourists.

Next we headed to the Flower Dome, the land of eternal spring. The damp warm mist of the tropics was replaced by a dry temperate breeze. Under the largest glass greenhouse in the world, we found natural vegetation and native flowers from South America, California, Australia and the Mediterranean. I felt amazed, informed, and entertained. Yet there was a feeling of disquiet, a sense of confusion. Over the years, we have tried to tame nature, to tease and torture its forces into submission for our survival and comfort, in service to our hubris. Meanwhile our real forests are depleting rapidly, under attack from development. And because we feel the need to preserve them in some form, we have recreated entire ecosystems, reproduced the sounds and sights of nature. We can now walk through a rainforest under the biomes of the Eden Project in Cornwall, or enjoy sun-kissed sands and palm-fringed pools of Tropical Islands resort in Germany.

Despite technological advances that allow us some measure of control over nature, I am still drawn to her raw, authentic aspects. I remembered the thrill of seeing a pug mark on the track during a safari at Corbett National Park. It was more exciting than gazing at a tiger at close quarters at the best zoo in the world. On a walk along a trail in Nainital, I recall the joy of finding a pine cone, polished to a soft brown shine, its woody petals aligned in a perfect geometry. In a rocky pool on the beach at Mahabalipuram, I saw an orange starfish flex its arms. At Oia, in Santorini, Greece, I joined thousands of people and waited patiently for a brief glimpse of the sunset over the seas, even though it was a sight I’d already seen in many postcards and films. In person, these sights afforded me a pleasure that was beyond any price.

As we returned from the Gardens by the Bay, the Supertrees, tall structures that blended wires and vines, came alive and glowed like giant candles. I wondered if we would ever be able to capture the grandeur, simplicity, and spontaneity of nature in the lavish spectacles that we try so hard to create. Humans are programmed for predictability, but long for serendipity. We are delighted by man-made wonders, yet desire that moment of awe when we feel the presence of something great and mysterious. So we build tall buildings that scrape the skies, magnificent gardens that resemble paradise, and yet we yearn to see heaven in a wildflower in the natural world.

Appeared in the June 2016 issue as “Heaven in a Wildflower”.

Seven young Vietnamese boys and girls in bright, yellow T-shirts smiled at us in the lobby of our hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. They were the guides for our group of 7—two families—straining at the leash to embark on a gastronomic journey of Vietnamese cuisine. When they learnt we were from India, one of the boys piped up, “Mera naam Ye hai.” When I replied in Hindi, he grinned,“Hindi nahin maloom.” (I do not know Hindi). It promised to be an interesting evening.

We started by giving Van, our chief guide, a problem to solve: My family was vegetarian; the other wasn’t. No problem, Van said. “First we go to vegetarian place, you eat, then to non-vegetarian place, they eat, then coffee and then dessert, all eat?”

We agreed and hopped on to the taxi-bikes. “Very safe,” the guides assured the more apprehensive members of our group as they handed each of us a helmet. I clutched the seat in front of me as Van zoomed off into the evening. Two-wheelers are a popular means of transport here and soon we were one among many bikes in the narrow lanes of Ho Chi Minh. En route, our chatty guides pointed out important buildings in the city, like the Post Office, Notre Dame Church, and the Opera House, all vestiges of Vietnam’s French colonial past.

Our first stop was Lau Nam Chay An Hien, a small, vegetarian restaurant in District 1 (chay means vegetarian). “Everyone thinks we eat only pho [pronounced “fur”],” one of our guides said, adding that there were actually many vegetarian dishes in Vietnamese cuisine. Squished into a long, narrow table on the first floor of the restaurant, our group of 14 waited to find out.

First up were spring rolls that were served in bamboo baskets, like the ones we’d seen street hawkers carrying on their shoulders. The rolls, stuffed with mushroom and cassava, were delicious but better yet, I learned how to eat it like a local. In the palm of my left hand, I placed a leaf of lettuce with basil, mint and perilla leaves. Then, I placed the spring roll on this bed of greens, added a dollop of sweet and sour sauce, rolled it up, and bit into it.

We also had goi hoa chuoi, a banana flower salad eaten with crisp rice cakes, and a hot pot delicately flavoured with lemongrass, red chillies and ginger. Each of us dunked raw pieces of cauliflower, mushroom, and noodles into the broth and after a while, ladled them into our bowls. It was fresh and so fragrant that even the meat-eaters had hearty portions.

Our young guides, mostly university students, were a jovial bunch, keen to tell us about their culture and polish their English. To our surprise, we learnt that the Hindi television serial Balika Vadhu was very popular in Vietnam. My mother watches it daily and cries, confessed our guide Duc. Like the teenagers in our families, Duc and his friends had little interest in soap operas, and before long, they were discussing Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber .

We zoomed off on our bikes to the next stop, a hole-in-the-wall joint that our guides claimed served the best banh xeo (translated as sizzling pancake) in town. “We can’t eat here,” my daughter said, turning up her nose at the red plastic stools and rough tables. “It is like a dhaba!”. “And their food, as we know,” one of the peace-seeking adults quickly added, “is better than most fancy hotels.” At this banh xeo joint, we got to watch, too. The chef poured batter made from rice flour and coconut milk on to a large skillet, sprinkled bean sprouts, a smattering of prawn or squid, and within a few seconds, a hot pancake was ready. It was a world away from the American-style pancakes we’d eaten with maple syrup. Banh xeo is eaten on a bed of greens tossed with fish sauce.

For coffee, we stopped at a café tucked away behind an inconspicuous residential building. “A secret place,” Van told us. The coffee was a dark, viscous concoction served in a cup topped with a stainless steel filter. Some of us added cold, condensed milk to the decoction and one of our guides had it chilled with ice. The children had smoothies. Over coffee, we chatted some more with our guides, learning more about contemporary Vietnam. The older generation still has scars that haven’t healed, but if our gang of guides is anything to go by, Vietnam’s younger generation is full of beans. As Van said, “We don’t look back, only to future.”

Our immediate future held the promise of dessert, though we weren’t so sure we had any room left. We alighted at Che Nam Bo, yet another nondescript place with large boards displaying the items on the menu. “Che” describes any traditional, sweet Vietnamese beverage, a guide told us, and I wondered how different our exploration of Vietnam would be if we weren’t on this tour. We’d eaten delicious food, but we had also learned so much about the city and its people.

Dessert, like Ho Chi Minh City, was quite a trip. We started with something called “cold soup”: layers of longan (a fruit like litchi), jelly, pomegranate, coconut milk, and crushed ice. Then we had a plate of fried bananas topped by sesame seeds and sweet sauce, and finally, a glass of pale jelly with a hint of ginger. (So much for no place.) It was past 10p.m. when we reached our hotel—our stomachs fed and our souls sated.

I stumbled into the museum almost by accident on a cool November morning, as I wandered through the Town Hall in Amritsar, en route to the Golden Temple. There were no hoardings, no queues; only a white board that read ‘Partition Museum’ under a brick archway.

Though my own family was not directly affected by the Partition, no Indian can be fully inured to its effects. I had been living in Bangladesh for the past three years and have friends on both sides of the border. It seemed difficult to believe sometimes that we did not belong to the same place or share the same culture. There was a connection that a boundary line could not erase yet it was burdened by past events and present politics. Curious to know more, I entered the museum with a sense of anticipation but without high expectations.

The Partition Museum opened in August 2017 and has seven galleries. We started with a map of undivided India. Through newspaper clippings, grainy black-and-white photographs and extracts from fading letters, I learnt more about the events that led to the Partition. A letter from Choudhary Rahmat Ali, a student in Britain in 1933, urged support for the recognition of national status for the five Northern Units of India: Punjab, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Sindh and Baluchistan; this was the first demand for a separate nation of Pakistan. Twelve years later, the 15 August edition of Morning News announced that India and Pakistan had become sovereign nations.

The museum has TVs in almost every alcove showing stories of people directly impacted by the Partition. I slipped on the headphones and heard veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar recounting his meeting with Cyril Radcliffe, the barrister responsible for deciding the boundary lines at the time of partition. He related the time Radcliffe said, ‘There were no maps, no data, no records. There was no time. I was unfair to India on the Punjab side but I was unfair to Pakistan on the east.” For the first time, I saw Radcliffe not as a butcher who had cut up a nation but a hapless lawyer tasked with an impossible assignment.

In the next room, an installation showed a gigantic saw jutting out from a brick wall. On 17 August 1947, the borders were announced. The Partition saw the largest human migration across two countries. I put on the headphones once again, and heard more stories that brought alive the gravity of the event “My aunt’s family was caught by them. Her one-year-old daughter was thrown up in the air and speared in front of her eyes.”

“We were lucky we reached safely. The train that arrived the next day came with dead bodies.”

“My father was almost killed. They realised that he was the same doctor who performed the cataract operation for their parents. They let him go.”

“We put everything we had in two steel trunks. In the old one, we put our valuables because we thought no one would steal an old trunk.”

“We lost everything. I did not realise that we would never come back to our home.”

Amar Kapur shared the story of Asaf Khwaja, his best friend. They lost touch after the Partition but found each other years later. They continued writing letters: a testimony to the fact that friendship can transcend borders. Sudershana Kumari sang about her beloved broken Punjab. There were objects that had crossed the border—an old Singer sewing machine, a vase, a phulkari coat, a labelled black trunk. There was nostalgia for a life left behind, pain of being a victim of meaningless violence and the confusion of an abrupt transition from citizen to refugee.

From horror, we moved on to hope. The last exhibit, the Gallery of Hope, held a large tree made of barbed wire. Hanging on it were green paper leaves, each fluttering with a message of positivity. There were stories too, of refugees who had not just survived but thrived like Mahashay Dharmpal of MDH masalas, who went from being a spice trader in Sialkot to a penniless refugee to a multimillionaire in India.

What had started as an intellectual exercise in history became a vivid, visceral experience. This is not a museum as much as it is a storehouse of memories. The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting, said writer Milan Kundera. Even though we think of the Partition as a dark spot in our history, we cannot allow the obliteration of its memory. The Partition Museum is perhaps one way of ensuring that we mourn the struggles and celebrate the survival of people who have been forgotten by history books.

(www.partitionmuseum.org; open Tue-Sun 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; entry adults (Indians) Rs10).

Day 1

a.m. Kulchas at Kulcha Land

The kulcha, a flat round bread made of maida and usually stuffed with vegetables, is a local speciality. Kulcha Land at Ranjit Avenue is run by the fourth generation of kulchamakers, and offers hot plates of kulchas with chhole and tangy onion chutney. Their Amritsari kulcha is filled with a mixture of spiced potato and onion. The kulcha must be crunchy on top and slathered with a generous portion of butter. Wash this down with a glass of lassi, breathe gently for a few minutes and totter off to begin your day.

11 a.m. Tall Tales At The Market

Head to the city’s main shopping area, the Katra Jaimal Singh Market, and be dazzled by the variety of small shops selling clothes, pickles, shoes, snacks and things which you don’t need but suddenly seem like must-haves. Wander into shops like Raja Phulkari, where Lucky Singh tells you about the day Raveena Tandon walked into his shop. Dither over gorgeous phulkari suits and saris. If you are lucky, you’ll find lovely material for a Patiala suit. The canny salesman will convince you to get it stitched. He will summon a tailor for measurements and the salwar kameez will be delivered to your hotel that night. Succumb to temptation again at another shop and buy chiffon phulkari dupattas.

Stop for mathri—a crispy, deep-fried snack, on the street. Step into a shop selling ‘papar warian.’ Score some mango or red chilli pickles, packets of papad and waris—deep-fried balls of lentil paste which can be used in a variety of dishes. See a jooti shop selling the handcrafted shoes and dart into it just to see. End up buying a multicoloured phulkari jooti as a souvenir.

1 p.m. Lunch at Kesar Da Dhaba

Head to the famous Kesar da Dhaba located in a nondescript side street near the Telephone Exchange. It has been serving authentic Punjabi vegetarian meals since 1916. Order gobi parathas accompanied by their famous dal makhani, boondi raita, pickle and chhole. For dessert, have a dish of sweet firni—saffron-flavoured rice pudding served in an earthen bowl.

3.30 p.m. Different Sides Of Wagah Border

Drive about 30 kilometres from Amritsar to the border for the flag-lowering ceremony performed by India and Pakistan. Arrive by 3.30 p.m. for the ceremony that starts around 4.30 p.m. General seating is free and on a first-come-first-served basis. VIP passes for seats closer to the border gates must be picked up in advance at the BSF post in Khasa by showing proof of identification.

As you wait, amuse yourself by chanting Vande Mataram and humming patriotic numbers from Bollywood movies blared over the loudspeaker. Try to listen to similar songs from across the border. Join in the cheering of the soldiers from the Border Security Force wearing red turbans that flare up like a rooster’s crest. First, a pair of female soldiers swiftly march to the gates from either side. Then, the Indian soldiers goose-step across to the gate and shake their fists at the Pakistani soldiers in their black uniforms who shake and kick with equal ferocity. Marvel at this bizarre and bold display of patriotic machismo by soldiers from both nations..

Day 2

8 a.m. Breakfast Of The Streets

Head to the renovated Golden Temple Complex. At the beginning of the road near the Town Hall, discover a sweet shop near the Longa Wali Devi Ji Mandir which serves a tantalising array of pure ghee sweets and plates of hot puris, chhole and tangy potato curry, all for Rs20. Ask for a dollop of halva and wash it down with lassi..

10 a.m. At The Golden Temple

It is time to feed the soul. The Har-mandir Sahib is set amidst the Sarovar pool whose waters lap gently against the marble steps. Volunteers sweep the floors and offer water to the devotees as you soak in the serenity that pervades the temple despite the crowds. Get in the queue that leads to the sanctum. Listen to the gurbani, the soulful yet energising hymns, and be slowly propelled by the crowds. As you near the inner sanctum, gently lower your forehead to the ground and pray in front of the holy book. The grand floral carvings on the walls, the plush rugs and gleaming lights make you feel that you are in a truly mystical place. As you exit, accept a spoon of the sacred offering, the kadha prasad, glistening with ghee and goodness.

Head to the Langar Hall—the world’s largest free kitchen. Over 80,000 people eat here every day; it’s a way of being a part of something grand and experiencing an egalitarian atmosphere. All the cooks, cleaners and servers are volunteers who offer service or seva. Take a steel plate, spoon and bowl, sit on the ground with other devotees and savour the simple roti, dal and rice kheer. Give thanks for all the blessings in your life.

3 p.m. Sites Sombre And Hopeful

Jalianwala Bagh was the site of the horrific massacre of innocent peaceful protestors by General Dyer in 1919. Now it is filled with tourists taking selfies. Walk through the garden and see the brick red memorial monument shaped like a long tear drop. Notice the walls with bullet marks now enclosed in a white square and realise that a monstrous tragedy occurred in that same spot. Peer into the deep dark well into people more than a hundred people jumped to escape the bullets. Make a note to look up your history book. Spend the afternoon at the Partition Museum, located in in the Town Hall a few yards away. Browse poignant exhibits, and watch refugees relate their experiences on the TV screens.

7 p.m. Bite of History

After the emotional journey of the day, it is time to get back to basics. Head to Bharawan da Dhaba near Town Hall, which opened in 1912. It offers Chinese and Continental food, but it is best to stick to local Punjabi delicacies. Order the winter specialty sarson da saag with makai roti. Wash it off with the last lassi of the trip. Leave Amritsar with a full heart, a full stomach and an overflowing suitcase.