Opening secrets

An April's week this year was spent with my grandfather, Nana. Days were spent going off in delightfully obscure lanes and chasing peacocks. Nights were spent lounging around and listening to Sufi and Pink Floyd. I found something which has always been my little quest wherever I go - a place to write. It was a huge rock on the periphery of a deserted playground, with a single bare tree and lots of scrawny bushes scattered around. I roamed around, answers elusively tingling my head but appearing like ellipses.

Ahmedabad is a fascinating place for people forever in search of something. The Sabarmati Nadi runs across the city, roughly marking a time divide. Its eastern bank is New Ahmedabad, riding high on bright billboards about home loans and weight-loss programs. The western bank is Old Ahmedabad, its shops yawning and waking up to animals and people. Walking through this part of the city feels like you're revisiting New Ahmedabad's childhood. If there was a place which could be similar to the smell of nostalgia between the pages of a forgotten novel, this place is it.

But Old Ahmedabad isn't timelocked. Time behaves like a curtain of separation which sways and folds, every now and then. There are old blankets worn soft with age, coloured with splashes and flashes of flouroscent modernisation.

Pink carbon paper.
Bajaj scooters with very shrill horns.
Beds of woven jute, or khaats.
Old men, sitting and smoking pipes.
"Yeh, Akashwani hai. Ab aap Salonika Dalal se Gujarati mein samachar suniye."
Torn kites.
Kids playing with WWF cards.
Pyarelal ki Halwai.
A paan shop every 100 metres.
Bhajan ringtones.
Melody, Poppins and Gems.
Verandahs.
Bottles of Old Spice.
Goats, pigs and bulls on the streets.
Stationary shops selling small notebooks lined in red.
Loudspeakers screaming "Shri Ram, Jai Ram, Jai Jai Ram"
Sridevi-Rishi Kapoor songs.
T-shirts about "Amrika".
Giggling girls, when you smile at them.
Women carrying pots of water on their heads.
Open doors.

Most people can be likeable, but there aren't too many people who can be deliciously out of reach. They inspire a sense of admiration, tinged with a grasping inquisitiveness. My grandfather is a personification of this quicksilver enigma. Nana is a mesmerising person. He's extremely well read, has a curiously ethnic sense of aesthetics and a deep sense of music. The best thing I like about him is the gentle, atmospheric mystery he exudes. He's almost like a mystic; the only difference is perhaps that he works for the government too.

The wonderful thing about mystery is the chase. It could be trying to understand people, places or simple puzzlement over a word-game. I remember trying to solve a word-game I had come across during Techfest with my friend Sharan at college. We were sitting in the canteen, quite literally breaking our heads over a word-jigsaw. Suddenly, the answer popped into my head like a fingersnap and I was instantaneously transported to the Olympics. The finish-line ribbon was floating around my waist and I was running across to the spectators, my limbs flowing in slow-motion. The exhilaration was so complete that I just sat there, grinning myself silly.

I think real mysteries never let you go. They are always there, teasing you, a neuron's spark short of enlightenment. It's always gratifying when you have it clasped safely in your hands, but darting after it, and shaking off its shadows is the real charm of a mystery.

(Photograph courtesy: Crowolf)