Bangalore, 30th March 1997, 1.30 pm. My father and I took an auto from Majestic circle and crossed the portal of IIM Bangalore for my IIMA interview. I didn’t even know where or what Bannerghatta Road was, much less that a leafy paradise existed there. Entering through those gates, all the anxiety about the upcoming interview fled as I gaped at the imposing stone structures, the skylights, the slatted slate-grey roofs that let in fresh sunshine even in cool Bangalore weather. We walked through green corridors and pergolas, lawns and gardens inside the building so that it seemed that we were in the verdant outdoors even when we were inside. Many years later, I watched an interview with its celebrated architect and learnt that he had been inspired by the 16th century complex of Fatehpur Sikri.
We walked up a stairway to reach my interview room, where my nervousness returned with renewed fury as I watched men and women dressed in formals sitting outside the various classrooms, their expressions mirroring my own.
Getting into the IIMs had been a theoretical exercise thus far, the good showing at the CAT only serving to boost morale and ego, and I had not thought much about whether I actually wanted to study at this hallowed institution. Gazing out at the emerald green juxtaposed against the muted grey stonework, trying hard to drown out the muted conversations around me, I realized that more than anything, I wanted to spend 2 years in this building and these serene environs. I wanted to walk these hallways, recline on this grass under the trees, drown in books in that stately glass-fronted library.
The IIMA interview was a disaster. Perhaps, subliminally I did not want to get into IIMA, now that I had seen IIMB?! Whatever, I walked out rather less disappointed than I should have been and determined to crack my next interview. The rest, as they say, is history.
By the time 1999 rolled around, the dramatic campus that I had drooled over, became the customary background. No longer did I marvel at it. Life became an unending mosaic of classes, grades, assignments and caffeine. When friends from the outside world visited, they would gape as I once did, at the beauty around us and I would preen as though it was my intellect that had conceptualised these buildings, my minds’ eye that had conceived that perfect amalgam of space and light.
In the years since then, I’ve seen the dreaming spires of Oxford, punted on the Cam, strolled through the halls of Harvard and many other august institutions. None captured my imagination as powerfully as my alma mater did, that summer day in 1997 (perhaps because I was no longer a romantic 21-year-old with stars in her eyes)!
Often I wonder, at the random events, these rolls of dice, upon which our lives turn. If I had not been mesmerised by the beauty of that campus, if I had not messed up my IIMA interview, if I had chosen to accept one of my other IIM admits, if my parents had not wanted me to stay close to my hometown Chennai……how differently this life could have played out. Instead, I met my husband, made some wonderful friends, spent 2 very happy years working toward an MBA degree I had no interest in! My destiny led me there, to that time and place, that shaped everything that came afterwards. Sometimes, when life feels baffling and mysterious, when I wonder what I am doing and where I am going, I hold on to that thought, simultaneously dispiriting and hopeful, that there is a grand design into which I fit. I can stop trying to interpret and comprehend individual events. They don’t mean anything, but the great tide that sweeps me onward knows where it going and where it will come to rest.
And sometimes, just sometimes, good things come out of being shallow and judging something by its exterior beauty!
The swing creaked, makeshift and lonesome;
rough twine lashing it to sturdy tree.
It gazed at the rambling house,
all wooden shutters and rattan chairs,
the very picture of tropical leisure.
The mansion, proud of its substantialness,
and consequence, lay suspended like the swing,
amidst straggling flora, sun-baked grass;
the gardeners’ hose spluttering and competing
with the twitter of birds, croak of frogs.
The jacaranda bloomed,
scattering indigo carpet on the mud.
Inside the house, rooms sprawled
hither and thither…
Enticing simian intruders into their sleepy corners,
or into the kitchen with its cornucopia of goodies.
They monkey around, jumping from tree branch
to tree branch, swinging and gibbering.
What divine hand fashioned this beguiling abode,
this enchanting Arcadia, I wonder….
To me, urban child, sadly accustomed
to traffic, crowds, chaos;
this was unaccustomed paradise.
My few days there stolen from my other life;
suspended, like the house, and the swing
in that bucolic other-world,
in that ethereal eternal summer.
A poem on all the fauna that inhabits and passes through our backyard :)
The fox saunters, nonchalantly;
a daub of red across lawn-green,
White tail-tip flashing.
He (she?) looks up at cerulean blue sky,
where another flash of red flits past.
A red cardinal alights on a branch,
alongside his drab-hued mate.
The squirrel is an old friend, atleast she thought so,
as she decided to move into my attic with her little ones.
I wasn’t really ready for this new phase in our relationship.
Scampering, scooting, rustling,
they made themselves at home
and invited their friends over.
Soon the patio and yard were filled
with merrymaking chipmunks,
fighting for first dibs on the bird feeder.
Amazon claimed it was squirrel proof;
A spurious claim, for it crashed to the ground
as the squirrels dangled from it.
The blue jay waits patiently for his turn,
flitting from branch to branch
and swooping down to peck dropped seeds.
I watch a baby hare from my window,
as it creeps towards the treeline.
My heart is in my mouth, as I watch
fearfully, for cruel predators.
It scampers off, seeing a groundhog
who serenely sniffs the ground, black nose twitching.
What does he smell, I wonder?
Grass roots and earth, detritus
from last fall and winter.
I wish the deer would chomp my weeds
as they move across the yard, all light and grace.
Doe-eyes scan the house….
They are poised, ready to dart away
with the faintest sound of my blinds.
I meditate to the music of the songbirds,
the rustle of the leaves, the lilt of the breeze.
The chimes I have hung where the birdfeeder used to be,
tinkle against the twit-twit of the cardinal.
I stare up at the cumulus, willing myself
to tuck these sensations into my being;
insert these sounds and sights
into the appropriate slots of the brain.
May they rest there forever, just not ephemeral
like the fireflies that twinkle briefly
only in the summertime twilight.
