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Phnom Penh: The original not in my name

Posted on April 18, 2020 by Samar 5 comments

The boy from Babhnan knew that this encounter was inevitable, that there was no escape. One has to fight his demons, after all. He had braced himself up. Yet he could not take it when it really happened.

He was standing in front of the Killing Fields, slightly out of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The execution centre of the Khmer Rouge regime that ruled the country from 1975 to 1979 and killed around two million Cambodians, almost one fourth of the total population. This is where the purged from party cadre imprisoned in the Security Prison 21 (S-21) were brought to get killed. Often with all of their family. The boy had been to S-21, a former school converted into first prison, and now a Genocide Museum! What a sad journey!

The Killing Tree: Khmer Rouge used to kill kids by banging them against this

The trip had started on a positive note. The boy was there to participate in a United Nations workshop on rebuilding the rural communities. The days were filled with the discussions of hope, of looking ahead. The evenings with real yummy street food- though he could dare try one of the most famous of them all- red ants chutney! Early part of the nights was even more hep and happening- exploring many night markets that dot the capital. Phnom Penh Night Market was his favorite despite the jury preferring the Russian Market more. By the way, you can buy almost anything in the Russian Market barring a Russian! It got the name not for selling them, but because at the height of cold war, Soviets, the biggest, and welcome, expat community in Cambodia visited this market.

It was also about long walks by the Mekong Promenade and dining in one of the myriad of Indian restaurants. The ‘vegetarian’ boy from Babhnan was ‘culinarily’ home in the South East Asia for the first time. He thanked the UN which had taken over the country- along with the Vietnam backed liberators for rehabilitation in the post Pol Pot era. They brought Indian curries, the reverse, cuisine colonisers of Europe with them. “Indian” restaurants followed.

There was only a limit to which the boy could delay the inevitable. So there he was. In front of the Choeung Ek- the killing field with Sophary, his colleague.

The Monkey God: A Constant from India to all of the South East Asia

It was a revolution gone horribly wrong and revolutionaries gone paranoid. It was a dream shattered. Not in my name, the boy could hardly tell himself.

It is not your fault, said Sophary, gently holding his hands.

Being in Cambodia is like time travel. A country stuck in times gone by, running decades behind the most of the world. It had to be- after the year ZERO, or 1975 when Pol Pot led Khmer Rouge snatched the country from a US puppet regime. They abolished the currency, evacuated the cities and ordered everyone back to the villages. Four years of mayhem ensued. Mayhem that included US carpet bombing against the communists in Indochina- Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam killing millions. Communist Khmer Rouge added another million to the tally.

Ironically, the latter had their own completely understandable reasons for getting paranoid. US led forces were not only bombing Indochina to get rid of the Reds, they were also killing communists with CIA made lists in the countries with allied governments in the region. Indonesia, for instance, had witnessed the killing of half a million members of communist party!

Ironically, once communist North Vietnam supported forces defeated the Khmer Rouge and ousted them, US immediately allied with them and kept supporting the Pol Pot led government in exile as the legitimate representative of the country in the United Nations! It ended up sheltering him too, where the UN indicted war criminal finally died peacefully!

Yeah, truth is far more stranger than imagination. So is history! History that changes Tuol Sway Priyala School into the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, the Choeung Ek orchard into killings fields and a die hard communist Pol Pot into an American protegee!

Later, resting at the steps of magnificent Wat Phnom, Sophary told him that the younger generations of the country hardly remember the horrors their parents and grandparents lived with. This gives me hope, she giggled, hope that nothing is beyond redemption. It also scares me, she sombrely added- we need memories to guard us from falling in the same pit again.

They agreed and went on the memory trip: the Royal Palace, the Wat Phnom, both night markets, the National Museum.

And being friends with locals, a gem unknown- a RO RO Ferry trip to the other side of the Mekong- at least 30 years back in time! Don’t miss the last one!

Hong Kong: Home Coming to a Harbour

Posted on April 9, 2020 by Samar 14 comments

It was a beautiful, sunny, and oh not so humid morning of March 2007 when a bright streak of light woke the boy from Babhnan with a start. He looked out of the window and it felt like the plane was about to land on water! He looked around, a little startled, saw everyone composed and so did he. A red eye flight, his first international one, he had taken 7 hours ago from Delhi had brought him to Hong Kong, the city he would soon call home.

Camping near the Tung Lung Chau Fort at the island by the same name.

Hong Kong. That was a full 6,000 years after humans first set foot in the territory. 2200 years after it became part of the Chinese Empire for the first time. 500 after the first European came here, Portugese Jorge Álvares.

Hong Kong: a jungle of concrete and grass. Where the East meets West. The financial capital of the world. And the Disneyland and the Ocean Park.

Local tip: If you must, go to the Ocean Park, it is so much better than the Disney.

This is an aerial view of the Ocean Park, the best theme park in Hong Kong. — An Aerial view of the Ocean Park.

The village boy was a little nervous, but he was armed with his most trusted weapon: a well rehearsed abandon bordering on disdain. Whole buildings of glass, so what? It is just the glitter. The Khadi kurta, rugged jeans and Hawai Chappal- the JNU uniform that got him many stares- from immigration to immigration was part of that abandon, a carefully rehearsed one, though.

He followed the crowd running to the immigration, pretending he was not, as if he had been clearing immigration since he was an infant. A faint smile ran through his cheeks. The memories of entering glass buildings when he had first come to Delhi were back. That careful look- on people behaving ‘normal’ and imitating them.

That was the only nervousness the boy would ever have with this city.

Hong Kong was nothing that those cinematic ‘establishing shots’ made it to be. Yeah, Victoria Harbour is beautiful, but it was only as much the city as is India Gate Delhi. The Peak too, only as much Hong Kong as Gateway of India was Mumbai.

Victoria Harbour during the symphony of light: the mandatory 'establishing shot' for HKSAR. — Victoria Harbour during the symphony of light: the mandatory ‘establishing shot’ for HKSAR.

Yeah, the ‘heart’ of Hong Kong is all glass and concrete. Provided you could call that place, always in flux with people moving in and out as they would from any financial hub Hong Kong in the first place. No one calls Dubai airport’s transit area Dubai, right? That glass and concrete part is only that much Hong Kong. People come here, mostly on short time assignments and go. Without even knowing the city.

Iconic Star Ferry Pier from the Hong Kong Island Side

Beyond that exist well-knit communities in villages 300 to 400 years old still farming. Many of them are still walled in a throwback to the times gone by.

The village boy immediately belonged here, settled in the first he took as home with windows looking at sprawling bonsai mandarin plantations on one hand and a lush green hill behind. It was not love at first sight, but a lifelong romance had begun.

The BOnsai Mandarin plantation right out of the window of my bedroom

A romance that would take him to the Tai Mo Shan- a hike traversing over 5 waterfalls, largest over a 100 meters in a row, in a single hike! Startled? The boy too was- only till he took a nice long swim in the natural pool in the third one. Or to the Tung Lung Fort built in 1722 to guard against the pirates. Or the Bride’s Pool- another waterfall combined with a beautiful valley praying for the wife who lost her life while crossing the waterways, after whom the waterfall took its name.

Bride's Pool Waterfall — Bride’s Pool Waterfall

Or the stilted villages like Tai O with their unfolding bridges taking you straight to further south east- Vietnam and Cambodia.

And the villages with their centuries-old traditions living on for centuries- the dragon dances, the bun festivals in which a very rustic looking person sees you and you being the only non-Chinese there starts explaining the history and the ritual. And then that he is Vice President or this and that in HSBC or again, this or that!

Preparation for the Dragon Dance in Pok Fu Lam village

And yeah, the small bunkers, now shrines, dug by the Hong Kongers who resisted the Japanese during World War II with all their might, often making the biggest of the sacrifices. And the sprawling parks in the middle of the city with retired elderlies playing Mahjong all day, often also babysitting their grandchildren as both the parents would have gone to work.

Hong Kong is now home. Yeah, I often feel sad seeing a few of the fields in front of my house disappearing every year, yet, happy that forests make for them. Yeah, forests cover over 26,400 hectares of the total area of Hong Kong, about 23.8%- much more than during the World Wars.

Come, visit my home. But please please please, not on those 2 nights 3 days packages. I can share with you some best-kept secrets for a longer and better rendezvous with this harbor I now call home.

Babhnan Boy: Milestone Zero

Posted on April 2, 2020 by Samar 7 comments

Aboard a ro-ro ferry on the mighty Mekong river, the young man thought of Manvar, a small rivulet 4,800 kms away, seeing a small boy swimming in it decades ago. Stupid, no?

Circa 2010: The small boy from Babhnan aboard a ro-ro ferry in Phnom Penh

No. Be they in Bombay or Beijing, small town kids never go anywhere alone. Wherever they go, they go with their homes lost behind in their villages, Kasbahs or small towns. You can see that in their eyes- that sudden wetness that gives them away with all their longings and belongings. They might be proud of their journeys or disappointed with themselves, they would suddenly look away, seeking refuge in the same lost villages they grew up in. No matter what exiled them- be it hunger, war or career, their lost homes are the cross they carry alone.

Be it distress migration for the poor ones or chasing dreams for the more fortunate, the small town kids are destined for exile. Just like that young man aboard that Ro Ro Ferry in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

The school in Babhnan in which I studied till 8th grade now

They know that despite all the speeches by the great leaders promising them the moon, they don’t get even proper roads that can connect Delhi with their villages. They know that they are the past of the country, running behind the metros by decades. They know that bridges don’t connect the past with the future, they only make fortunes for those promising these bridges!

They know that they would have to go, leaving all the memories behind and chase their dreams in places that could be anything, but would never become home.

The small boy from Babhnan knew this. He knew that every passing year is another year close to exile, that began at 12, just 12 when he was sent to a boarding school in nearby Gorakhpur. Home was no longer home, it was just a holiday. Holi, Diwali, Dussehra, Summer Vacations. His own agricultural fields were no longer his playfields where he would steal tractor rides. The “Middle School” Cricket ground in Babhnan that seemed like the biggest possible in the world had suddenly changed to a joke, a tiny joke on that, on the name of a cricket ground.

Slowly, the small town kids’ school bags would start getting heavier and their ‘holiday visits’ fewer. Gorakhpur for secondaries would change to Allahabad for grads, Allahabad to JNU for Research, Delhi to Hong Kong for work. With every dislocation changing friends, acquaintances, neighbors, everything.

Ironically, exile was never the saddest part of the story. It was the small boy from Babhnan not knowing that this a one way road- a point of no real returns. That those who fail and return would looked upon for their lives. That those who ‘succeed’ would have hardly any time for returning- for taking that stroll on the railway station that once defined their lives: that set them on the path of chasing their dreams as far as those trains could go. The same one from which this small boy from Babhnan started dreaming of traveling the world and telling the tales.

His friends listened to him with rapt attention about the places they had never travelled to. The places this small boy hadn’t either, the places whose details he pieced together with the: names of the trains and where they go with information he got from his parents, their colleagues, newspapers, name it.

So success or failure, these kids would be sort of jinxed, of not returning. Mahesh would better become Mat and work as a cyber collie, Lalita as Linda, is she was fortunate enough in a patriarchal society to be allowed to chase her dreams, they would dread to return.

And when they would for the occasional visits- nothing would be the same. The most promising kid in their class would have become a grocer they would have nothing much to talk about. The best batsman in their team would be selling medicines. And they both would be uncomfortable with the small boy from Babhnan’s success, the small boy with loss. Of the home. Forever.

Only mercy? He would be taking Babhnan to places, making that nondescript mofussil town, a mere blur on the map of the country known around, even if in his own smaller circles.

At the Babhnan Railway Station, this January

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उस लड़के ने अंगकोर वाट पे सूरज उगते देखा है!

Posted on June 12, 2018 by Samar 7 comments

दूसरी बार आए हैं यहाँ- आप्रवासन अधिकारी ने पूछा था।

हाँ, 8 साल बाद- मेरे जवाब पर वो हँस पड़ा था। और मैं सोच रहा था कि ‘स्टेट’ कहीं की हो, सब जानती है! पिछला पासपोर्ट ‘एक्सपायर’ हुए ज़माने हुए, इस वाले में वो वीज़ा नहीं था। फिर भी.

ख़ैर, उतरते जहाज़ से बाहर दिख रहा नज़ारा बता रहा था कि फ़्नोम पेन्ह (या नामपेन्ह? कुछ ख़ास नहीं बदला है। नीचे अब भी सड़कें बहुत कम थीं, मेकांग अब भी उतनी ही विशाल दिखती है, और सामने दिख रहे शहर में बहुमंज़िला इमारतें अब भी गिनी चुनी ही थीं- 2008 की पिछली यात्रा से शायद बस दो तीन ही बढ़ी हों।

कमाल ये कि एयरपोर्ट के बीचोंबीच अब भी एक छोटा सा तालाब है- ठीक वैसे जैसे पिछली बार था- शुक्र है टैक्सीवे के बग़ल, रनवे के नहीं। और हवाई अड्डा अब भी उतना ही छोटा था जितनी पिछली बार, जिसे देख तब भी रायपुर हवाई अड्डा याद आया था! (आज भी नहीं समझ आता कि रायपुर ही क्यों याद आया, कोई और छोटा हवाई अड्डा क्यों नहीं दसियों पर तो उतरा हूँ मैं! और कमाल- हवाई जहाज़ से सामान निकालने के लिए अब भी ट्रैक्टर ही था। अंदर अब भी वैसे व्यस्त नज़र आते अधिकारी थे जैसे व्यस्त केवल आप्रवासन अधिकारी ही नज़र आ सकते हैं। इमिग्रेशन से 10 मीटर से भी कम दूरी में नज़र आती कन्वेयर बेल्ट्स थीं, और अगले 10 में ख़त्म हो जाता अराइवल लाउंज!
हम फिर से कंबोडिया आ पहुँचे थे.

पर एक बड़ा फ़र्क़ था इस बार. वेलकम टू कंबोडिया- स्टैम्प के साथ पासपोर्ट लौटाते हुए इमीग्रेशन ऑफिसर ने कहा था और भागते ख़यालों को पल भर का ब्रेक लग गया था और एक नया सफर शुरू हो गया था!

This is just before the sunrise…

अबकी बार की यात्रा अंगकोर वाट के लिए थी. उस अंगकोर वाट के लिए जो दुनिया का सबसे बड़ा मंदिर परिसर है, जिससे पहली मुठभेड़ यूपी बोर्ड की छठवीं की हिन्दी की पाठ्य पुस्तक ज्ञान भारती (या सातवीं की? या आठवीं की?) में हुई थी, जिससे जाना था कि ये भगवान विष्णु के लिए 12वीं सदी में बनाया गया था. भारत के नक़्शे पर धुंधलके भर तक न दिखने वाले पूर्वी उत्तर प्रदेश के उस बड़े से गाँव में पढ़ते हुए तब कुछ नहीं पता था कि ऐसे मंदिर को देखने पर कैसा लगेगा!

तब तो खैर ये भी कहाँ पता था कि भगवन विष्णु के लिए बनाया गया ये मंदिर बढ़ते बढ़ते बौद्ध विहार हो गया था. हाँ, धान और गेंहूं के खेतों के रास्ते स्कूल जाने वाले उस गंवई लड़के तो तब भी ये पता था कि एक दिन उसे अंगकोर वाट देखना ही देखना है. कैसे भी! पर बस, देखना है!

और अब बहुत पतझड़ बाद वो लड़का नाम पेन्ह में खड़ा था- अंगकोर वाट से पहली डेट को तैयार!

लड़का दोपहर की फ्लाइट से उतरा था, देर रात नाम पेन से कुछ 6 घंटे दूर सिएम रीप (या सियाम रीप?) की ‘स्लीपर’ बस लेने को. लड़के के भीतर के शातिर बैकपैकर ने सालों की ऐसी यात्राओं में ऐसे करतब सीख लिए थे जिनसे कम पैसे में ज़्यादा घूमने को मिले। ऐसे की दिन भर वो नाम पेन घूमें जहाँ दशक भर बाद आये थे, और जिससे पहली मुठभेड़ ने उस वामपंथी को भीतर तक हिला दिया था. हाँ- नाम पेन से पहली मुठभेड़ उस लड़के की ‘मेरे नाम में नहीं’ वाले भाव से भी पहली मुलाक़ात थी, इस भाव के सोशल मीडिया पर हैश टैग बन जाने के सालों पहले!

पर इस बार लड़के को अपनी कंबोडिया से डेट को उदास नहीं करना था! इस बार चाओ पोनहिया यात हाईस्कूल, यानी तुओल स्लेंग जनसंहार संग्रहालय, उर्फ एस 21 बनने के पहले के स्कूल का नाम और किलिंग फील्ड्स दोनों को आखिरी दिन के लिए रखना था! पिछली सिहरन अब भी याद जो थी! स्मृति में ठीक-ठीक दर्ज है कि पांवों ने तब उस इमारत में घुसने से इनकार सा कर दिया था, कि खुद को लगभग घसीट कर अंदर घुसना पड़ा था। दिमाग में बस एक बात चल रही थी- न, ये कत्ल हम वामपंथियों के नाम पर किए गए हैं। कि भले हजारों किलोमीटर दूर एक दूसरे देश के वासी सही, इन हत्याओं में हमारी भी भूमिका है! खैर, न जाने कैसे खुद को खींच के में खींच लाने पर पहला स्वागत कब्रों ने किया था। उन लोगों की कब्रों ने जो खमेर रूज सरकार के पतन के चंद रोज पहले मार डाले गए थे।

सो लड़के ने एक बार जोर से सर झटक ज़ेहन को वापस अंगकोर वाट खींच लाने की कोशिश की, जाकर बस कंपनी के ऑफिस में सामान रखा- और फिर निकल पड़ा- वापस उस मेकांग के किनारे घूमने जिसे उसने सालों पहले देखा था, जहाँ गंगा से अपना नाम लेने वाली इस नदी पर उसे अपनी मनवर याद आयी थी! वहाँ से निकल फिर रसियन मार्किट जहाँ रसियन भले ही एक भी न मिलते हों, कंबोडिया खूब मिलता है! उसके बाद रो रो फेरी से (वही जो मोदी गुजरात चुनाव जीतने के लिए लाये थे पर जो चली आज तक नहीं) से सिल्क आइलैंड जाना, वाट नाम (नाम मंदिर) जाना पर इन सब पे बातें अगली किसी पोस्ट में! रात के साढ़े दस बज आये थे, लड़के को सिएम रीप की बस पकड़नी थी.

देखना था कि अंगकोर वाट पर उगते सूरज के जिस दृश्य ने ट्रेवल बुक्स में लाखों पन्ने गला दिए वो सच में उतना शानदार है या फिर ये बस ऐसे ही एक और जुमला निकलेगा! अपनी आँखों से ये देखने का वक़्त आ गया था!

और यकीन करिये, जब देखा तो पलकों ने झपकने से इंकार कर दिया! तिकी रहीं, एकटक! 800 साल से ज़्यादा पुरानी उस भव्य इमारत, दरअसल इमारतों को काले अँधेरे से सुनहली चमक में बदलते देखने के बाद उतना सुन्दर कुछ शायद नहीं ही देखना था! कभी नहीं! या फिर देखना था- है! वापस इसी अंगकोर वाट में किसी रोज़! कहते हैं कि अंगकोर पे हर मौसम में अलग सूरज उगता है. सबसे सुन्दर बारिशों के मौसम में! तब जब सब हरा हो जाता है.

लौट आयेंगे किसी बारिश में फिर, लड़के ने सोचा था!

Hindi

I have seen the sun rising on the Angkor Wat….

Posted on June 11, 2018 by Samar 6 comments

Second time in here? Asked the Immigration Officer at the Phnom Penh International Airport (អាកាសយានដ្ឋានអន្តរជាតិពោធិ៍ចិនតុង in Khmer).

The Glory of Dawn

Yeah, I replied. Smiling. Another travel was about to begin with the stamp announcing the beginning of another travel and this time it was for Angkor Wat, world’s largest temple complex originally constructed in 12th century as a Hindu Temple but slowly becoming a Buddhist one over the years. With no idea about what to expect when I finally meet this behemoth of a temple decades ago in the small mofussil kasba I grew up.

This is just before the sunrise…

Yeah, it was there in the Hindi Text Book of class 6th of our UP Board, formally the Board of High School and Intermediate Education, Uttar Pradesh. Of course it was there in Gyan Bharti sans the information of it having slowly become Buddhist, something I was to discover later on. What I did know even then, back as a lanky kid who went to school via wheat and paddy fields that one day I have to go there and see Angkor Wat for sure. Whenever, but definitely. And there I was, many a autumns later- all set for my Angkor Date!

I had landed in Phnom Penh in early hours of the afternoon with a late night sleeper bus to Siem Reap, around 6 hours away from the capital city. The shrewd backpacker in me had made this plan with design- the design of using the time to roam around in Phnom Penh, a city I was visiting almost a decade after of the first one which has shaken me- a fiery Leftist from within. Yeah, that was my first encounter with Not In My Name feeling, many many rains before the times it took the social media by a storm.

And there was no way I was going to let anything ruin my date with Cambodia. So there I went, dropped by luggage at the Bus company’s office and of it was to walk by the Mekong- named after the Ganga, to Russian Market (which had no Russians though), Wat Phnom and so on.

Walking by Mekong and crossing over to the Silk Island on a Ro-Ro ferry is an experience in itself- but more on that later. It was already 10.30, the time to take the bus and start for the Temple Date!

And of course for the famed Sunrise over the Angkor Wat! Yeah, the sight is so famous that the Travel Books have burnt tonnes and tonnes of trees to debate if it is really worth it or a mere hype. I was to find it out on my own.

And believe me, I was floored once I saw it. I have never seen anything even remotely close! Never means never! Sunrise at the Angkor Wat- that’s a sight to die for. I am going there again, for sure. Perhaps in all seasons- they say that rainy seasons are the best to see Angkor Wat getting taken over by greenery so may be in the rains!

Here are the pictures of that sunrise!