The day being a Muslim made me proud!

As a practicing Muslim I've always been very proud of my religion and have tried to abide by the basic tenets, praying whenever and as much as possible, abstaining from alcohol and other sorts of addictions, traveling and exploring the world (and eventually Mecca) and so on.

My proudest moment in being a Muslim though came on a recent trip to Shanghai, China.

I'm not a big fan of solo trips but I had to make this one for our outbound travel company, V3 Travels, as we were invited to attend the International Luxury Travel Market in Shanghai. So I went ahead for it and just like every other work trip extended my stay by a few days to explore Shanghai.

Now obviously a trip for me cannot be complete without doing some of the walking tours and I had signed up for a Ghost Walk on a Friday evening of my stay. Since I knew that I'd like to go and read namaz in the afternoon and also check out some interesting mosques of Shanghai.

So I made my way to the Huxi (pronounced 'who she') mosque located amidst high-rises in an otherwise very sterile part of town. My friend Noshir's imitation of a Chinese saying 'Assalam Walaikum' with a thick accent and squinted eyes was the image that brought a smile to my face. I did not know what lay in store for me.

I arrived at Changde Lu in the northern Jing'an area and was completely mesmerized by what I saw. The entire section of the street around the mosque was taken up by food stalls - just like back home. :-)

The dominant community selling food, fruits, halal meat et al were the Uyghurs of the Xinjiang province. An area marked by being in the news for all the wrong reasons. But having been to Kashmir a couple of years ago I knew that there's always another reality on the ground than what governments or media project.

The amazing thing was that these Uyghurs did not look very Chinese but rather like an Uzbek friend I had. I went to one of the stalls serving kababs and nang (which looked and tasted the same as the Indian naan) and sat down to order. Before I could a couple of really big black guys came and sat next to me with a huge amount of food. They looked towards me and gestured me to partake of their food. I politely refused saying that I'd go and order my portion. But they insisted and exclaimed, 'You Muslim brother from India. Eat.' I was so impressed by their generosity that I did not have the heart to resist any further and started eating with them. We kept finishing seekh after seekh and kept ordering for more. While eating they told me they were from Sudan and the company they worked for sent them to Shanghai.

Before long, two young Chinese Muslims joined us. They were from outside the city but lived and worked for a software company there. They bought tea and brought it to the table for everyone to share from. Beautiful aromatic Uyghur tea. It was becoming quite a magical meal already.

As we were on the last morsels of kebabs along came two very handsome looking old'ish men in their 50's. They said they were from Turkey and had brought some fruits, namely apricots and apples, to share with us. We sat there eating, chatting, laughing, making jokes about each others' countries for a long time after - all bound by one common thread. The common thread of belonging to one religion. Of following one book. What a beautiful day it was.

We dispersed only when the muezzin called and it was time for prayers.

I still get goosebumps when I think about that day. My warmest experience of a city robbed of it's warmth by rapid modernization and uncontrolled urbanization. By far it was the most magical and most proud moment of my entire life as a Muslim so far.

The Chinese brothers that got us tea.

Sudanese brothers who bought me the food. 

The great looking Uyghurs have fabulous food to offer.

The Turkish guys buying fruits. 

This Uyghur man sold the best watermelon I've had in a long time. His family in the background.

Santanu-shaped hole in my life.

I've been down with Falciparum Malaria the last few days and much as I tried no happy post ideas were coming to me. Finally I decided to write about my buddy Santanu - a beacon of joy and happiness.

Santanu's is not an ordinary story though it has all the trappings of the ordinary mundane pursuits of everyday life. His was a character that shone through. We met in college, his major was Chemistry and mine was English. There was absolutely no reason for our paths to cross but cross they did and we hit it of like a tree on fire from the moment we met.

We had similar yet dissimilar interests. Similar enough for our friendship to deepen and dissimilar enough for it to be interesting. Let's say that college would not have been a memorable part of my life had it not been for him.

It is common for people to say that Santanu met friends like sales targets. He knew his time was limited and connected with friends every given opportunity he could. If he wasn't meeting or helping someone out then he was on the cellphone making plans for the next meeting or helping the next soul. Now that doesn't mean that he was all 'give' and no 'take'. As a matter of fact he was the second most demanding person in my life, after the wife of course. But he demanded from select very few and I was honored to be in that list.

He divided his friends in what he called 'circles' long before Google thought of it. And he often stated very clearly that I had the fortune and misfortune of being in the innermost circle. Though he threatened to throw me out every given instance, and he said that I had to work hard to stay in, I knew I had no choice.

Our experiences of growing up, traveling and experiencing life together would fill a book but that does not mean that he was the be all and end all of my life. On the contrary my life was complete without him, he was a most beautiful addition to it. If I did not meet him for months on end or didn't speak to him for days nothing changed. Nothing seemed to break the continuity of our connection.

Santanu met with a road accident in Bangalore last year, took me a day to rush to his side to see him lying in the hospital unconscious. No amount of coaxing, cajoling and praying did anything to bring him back to life. He was on the ventilator and refused to let go. After about four days of trying in vain his father, a broken man, asked me to leave and said 'Go, or he won't.'
So I left and he did too.

It did not stop life for me. It did not alter my everyday routine in any way. But it left a big gaping hole in my heart which I'm still trying to fill and hope that it never does.

A life like his taught me many things. Things that we all know and read about but hardly apply in our everyday lives.

Time is limited.
Santanu knew that and that was the reason why he slept less than 5 hours a day and spent the rest of his time either studying, working or socializing. The last part being the most important for him. He had tens of friends in every corner of the country and the world and he stayed up to speak to someone in a different timezone. He invested in his friends heavily and was heartbroken if someone failed to meet his expectations. He was Carpe Diem personified.

Love is as much give as it is take. 
Santanu loved his family and his closest friends with great ardor and had them all prioritized in a list. Literally.
He did not let anyone he loved take him for granted nor did he do the same to you. He was out there demanding things and giving in to your demands. He had once forced me to fly to Bombay to see him there as he was feeling lonely. As soon as I met him at the airport he took out a file in which he had an hour by hour plan of my entire stay there. It was backbreaking but oodles of fun. He invested in his friends and demanded the same out of them. Some of them at least.

You may have a thousand friends on Facebook but if you don't have one on call you have nothing.
Santanu never really understood or made use of social networks. I guess he didn't need to. He was Facebook incarnate and yet I knew that f I ever needed anything in life this was a rock solid fellow I had as a support system. And he made me aspire to be the same for him.

His last email to me a few hours, before he met with the fatal accident, was a comment he made when I invited him for a documentary viewing. He said,
'I like these things you do. They're very classy and go a long way in building the brand.'

His love for me and faith in everything I did was a strong driving force for me.
His story will stay with me for life.
And I would like to believe that my life is complete without him but know in my heart of hearts that it will never be.

Miss you brother!

An introduction!

After careful consideration and due deliberation (both unlike me) I've ventured on to this platform to blog about what I think and feel (which I don't as often as I'd like to but do nonetheless).

This blog is going to receive posts periodically and will contain all sorts of things I encounter in life. Including what I work on, which includes my businesses calcuttawalks.com and walksofindia.com. My love for Calcutta and India is only surpassed by my love for travel - be it geographically or historically. Unearthing small hidden nuggets of information from the annals of history - specially the living continuing history - is a passion I have successfully converted into a business.

As a relatively 'good' Muslim I have to follow the basic tenets which include 'no alcohol' and 'halal' food only. Being of Rajasthani stock gives me access to the Marwari language and culture while at the same time being born and brought up in Calcutta makes me an honorary Bengali - and gives me the excuse to work less and talk more. An amalgamation of all these makes me a confused urban Indian with inherent contradictions.

Thankfully more posts will not be about me but about everything else in life but it is important for me to provide a basic introduction so you know where I'm coming from.