Before a map of Russia

I started reading "Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea" by Teffi. It's basically an autobiographical account of Teffi, the (as I understand) the really popular (my Russian advisor could not recognize her but his wife did) Russian author of old who escaped Russia during the Bolshevik revolution. It's a really interesting read and I may write about it in some detail later. I had to buy the book because I was instantly intrigued by its first page which had this beautiful poem:

"Before a map of Russia"

In a strange house, in a faraway land,
her portrait hangs on the wall;
she herself is dying like a beggar woman,
lying on straw, in pain that can't be told.

But here she looks as she always did look:
young, rich, and draped
in that luxurious green cloak
in which she was always portrayed.

I gaze at your countenance as if at an icon...
"Blessed be your name, slaughtered Rus!"
I quietly touch your cloak with one hand;
and with that same hand make the sign of the cross.

---TEFFI

This is just such a gorgeous poem. I feel like Teffi took my thoughts about India out of my head. This painting hangs possible nowhere but in my head.

The world has changed so much. Are those poor people in Russian villages Teffi describes still living without basic water and sanitation? Russia is just such a strange place. I can imagine. The cold Russian winters. Pack of cigarettes. Grimy coats and broken teeth under Ushankas. Wretched boots wading cumbersomely in the slush of beaten snow and broken paths leading to nowhere. I'd like to go back at some point and visit my childhood school in Moscow. Will it be the same old? My parents said that a Russian flower-seller gave them a free bouquet because she was so happy to see an Indian couple for the first time in her life; otherwise she'd only seen them in Indian movies. Raj Kapoor was a thing back then among Russians. I was even asked about Raj Kapoor by an old Russian man on the bus in Boston once. And another one once asked me about Ravi Shankar. The Soviets used to have a thing for Indians, naming their streets after Nehru, Gandhi. But things are different now from what I understand. That closeness is a thing of the past. For now, there only remain tenuous links through language. My experience may not be as it was of my parents. So who knows how it will be?

Tow-Path

Towpath. Not toepath. Apparently it's a thing. First, I thought that this particular path near Carnegie lake in Princeton was called by people `the toepath'. "Did you go on the toepath yet?" Well of course I did, it runs next to my home. 

Then I got to know that the `toepath' is a universally accepted name for any path on which people can walk on their TOES. "There is a nice toepath next to the Charles in Boston, right?". Me: "Oh, yeah, yeah."

But in fact, the toepath has got nothing to do with toes. It's actually a towpath, as wiki just taught me. It's like the moment you realize that it's not "wet your appetite", but "whet your appetite". Moment of clarity which ends up making less sense than it did before. 

The towpath near my home is especially pretty and conducive to running. I wish I was amazing at this running thing, because this one runs all the way down to Delaware. So I could run a marathon on this, if I was good enough to do so. 

An uncle. Oops. A nice old middle aged person (I wish the Americans would adopt the usage of the word uncle, it's so convenient; my Canadian co-postdoc approves) is seen taking a photograph in the picture. This person (that just sounds so impersonal), rather, this uncle showed me a bird, and I realized that it's the same bird that visits my office tree every other day. It's called a `downy woodpecker'. Now I know the name of the bird that I've been searching on the internet all this while. Unfortunately, he could not explain why the squirrels on my office tree like to tear up the bark and chew on it. He suspected the bark had some nutrition. I told him that I'd read on the internet that pregnant squirrels do it to de-stress. He didn't buy that so I continued my run. 

Some ducks. 

It is important to reach home early enough, especially if you've been watching too much of American Horror Story recently.

 Other good things about New Jersey: Indian food and indian grocery stores. All the full fat yoghurt I can bring home. All the ghee. I mean, it's insane. In Newark, you can even get fresh Paan; how much I've wanted to eat fresh paan here after a meal. 

The paan chewing reminds me. My co-postdoc who is Canadian seems to have only Indian friends and he introduced me to some of them here in Princeton. They were all south indians and we somehow got around to talking about the development in various states, which is a conversation anyone from UP of all places would like to avoid. So my friend Panji's wife then turns around and tells me, "you know, UP may suck in general, but you guys have culture, man. And what's up with the politeness? So much `aap'". That just made my day so much. Yes, we are shitty and poor but we are a polite people. I got this from a Pakistani couple as well when Saloni and I were in Hawaii. They were from the sourthern part of Pakistan, abutting Rajasthan, so they spoke Hindi in the Rajasthani/Gujarati way, like Saloni, using `tu' for you, which a lot of us in UP consider an indecent/uncultured way of speaking. Heck, even my grandfather never once addressed me with `tu', not even `tum', always `aap'. After Saloni told the couple that my parents are from UP, she said, "ah, that's why you speak with such an Urdu accent", which is basically another way of saying, "ah, that's why you speak so politely". 

Another good thing about New Jersey, I have some family: 

This cute guy better start showing that he's also got Indian blood at some point. 

Little birdie

Little yellow birdie,
whachu thinking?

Perched atop a sun-kissed shrub,
you crane your neck and gaze ahead,
with a frenzied, manic intensity,
well whachu thinking, little birdie? :)
Underneath that feathered head,
are you the general, of this warbling fleet,
set on orchestrating the next great siege,
from bush to shrub, and sometimes fern,
down in the trenches where it all begun?

Or are you, in fact, seeking out,
your philandering husband, on his return route,
from, and you'd bet your mortgage on it,
the pudgy blue-tailed wench,

to whose home curiously all roads tend, 

especially for that son of a bitch, 

who cohabits your bush,
in ways more than one, you shall admit.
You've even seen him size her up,
much like the other cockfolk too eager to coo,
which makes you think,
"fuck this shit, I gots better things to do."

Or maybe you're just thinking?
Contemplating the subtle mechanisms,
by which time flows, and chaos grows,
and space-travel may not be so far,
birds may colonize Mars,
thusly expected,
but before that, it would be nice, wouldn't it?
if you had your morning coffee,
a nice shower, a bagel,
topped with the most dewy worm,
the Grasslands could serve,
so you can go back to beaking the shit
out of whichever tree that grinds your nerves!

Little yellow birdie,
whachu thinking? :)