Dumped

DUMPED you do get. The g-chat message said DND. I thought the standard do-not-disturb it must be. As it turned out the explanation was did-not-dump. Took it with a pinch of salt though.

Was flipping through the morning papers. Steve Apple Jobs has six more weeks to live. I-Steve has given more to the world than has taken of it. Yet he gets dumped. And brutally so. Am no gadget freak but have followed Jobs’ trajectory rather interestedly. This is unfair.

Morning papers again a few days ago. Page one anchor: K Subramanyam is no more. The grandpa of Indian strategic environment studies gave in after fighting a cancer for ten years at age 82. Had followed him for over 10 years, sometimes seeing him under the flash bulbs carrying a report in hand, or, at other times, trudging a lonely furrow in newspaper columns. Very consistent. Very prolific. His bespectacled face in the mug shot reflecting the crux of all sincerity carried in each word of the article. He would only state the lesson, leaving it to his audience take it or leave it. Without slightest pontification, littler possession.

And even as I was going through the article, sipping hot water from my Al Capone cup, images flitted through the television screen that was on. It was BBC. The quick movement of frames showed US presidents of past 30 years in succession. Only one constant in the pictures – Hosni Mubarak. Now dumped.

If there’s one person over past four decades who played sheet-anchor to United States in the Arab world, it was Mubarak. Yet one accident and he is dumped. No apology for the Egyptian dictator but comeuppance is one thing, getting dumped another.

Ultimately, we all get dumped. It sounds dramatic. But that’s what happens. Life dumps you without exception.

On way to office a copy of Valmiki's Ramayana is in car. Bharat has gone to Chitrakoot to get Ram back from his forced forest exile. Ram’s reply: “My dear Bharat, under the control of eternal Time, everything ultimately meets with defeat. Thus, no wise man should lament for life’s reversals. Union ends in separation, for as pieces of driftwood flat together and then disperse, family and society meet briefly and then depart for their separate destinations. As solid pillars gradually decay, causing a house to collapse, a man totters into old age and finally meets death. As a river cannot return to its source, everyone must follow the path of his father and forefathers. Why should one mourn for others when he himself is dying? A man’s skin becomes wrinkled and his hair turns gray. What can he do? He rejoices when the sun rises and rejoices when it sets, not thinking he has died a little.”

In other times it could have been dismissed as caramelized pontification. Not when such somber headlines hit in the morning.

POLO-I

IF the idea is to escape from civilization, why not do it when its at its raucuous most? So the journey is fixed. As the city busies itself in Modi-fied kite flying we plan to slip out to a forest. The destination takes some working. We want to go to Gir but as it turns out its a no-go area for a few days as our Union Minister for Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh, is going there for his first rendezvous with the Asiatic Lion.

So we head for the often talked about Polo forests in north Gujarat

First, how to reach there. Leave the NH-8 at Himmatnagar, skirt Idar town dominated by the Idar rocks (of Lava and Granite), and speed through the lush green fields on “Oh-its-like-butter” road to Polo at the tip of Gujarat’s border with Rajasthan. Its just 3 hours since we left Ahmedabad including two stopovers and we check into the forest guest house on the Varaj dam. The attendant staff is ready with food.

Post dinner, we go out to check the moon-lit jungle. The road leading to the top of the dam is through dense foliage. But it is only in the morning when we repeat the track that the full beauty of the nestled backwaters and bedecked hills is revealed. It is already leave shedding time and the reddening canopy is matched by the browned shrubbery below.

Along the way we spot three Hornbills, few Pittas, a couple of large Kingfishers, a small one in the classic pose sitting on a dead root focused on the waters below for fish, a fox sized Pond Heron, a bunch of noisy parakeets, engrossed-in-themselves pair of Treepies. Sunbirds and swifts we don't even count.

The ancient ruins of Polo belong to the 15^th century. The temples are dedicated to Sun (and in a first, to his consort), Shiva and Vishnu from the Hindu pantheon, as well as some Jain deities. The Archaeological department could have done a little better with elaborating the history part.

The scale of settlement suggests of a population that must have been large enough to justify the size of constructions, and not allow this kind of forest to grow at that time. Or, conversely, the population took great care to preserve the vegetation for it to have survived so beautifully.

It was mainly of Jains, and other business communities, which perhaps mass migrated after an unending turf war with the local tribal populace, leaving behind the present day ruins. Testimony, nevertheless, to the once thriving culture that must have been both rich and colorful.

The architecture shows full integration with the rest of contemporary India despite being in the midst of no where. There’s no river justifying the size, and even the present highways miss the Polo region by a good margin through a difficult terrain. Perhaps that explains the short lived nature of the habitation.

To soak in the mood we give up the beaten track and chart our own trail. It takes us through an undulating terrain of dried up waterways that must be cascades during rains, and increasingly dense foliage as we walk toward the next looming hill. Half-a-km into the self made walk we stop and decide to let silence speak. The jungle speaks instead. The air, and the leaves. The water, and the insects. The flora, and the fauna. The elements. All alive and communicating peace.
A monsoon revisit is already being planned.