a few months back, i went on a trip to hyderabad. you know how these trips usually are. theres an elaborate plan where everything, right from where we will sleep to what we will eat to what poses rinku and tinku shall give in ramoji city are decided. everyone is fretting for days in advance, about what toothbrush to carry, going over the daily usage list a million times. it would seem that going on a vacation is more hard work than getting through the daily grind! well this time was different. we just packed our bags, put it in a car, and went on a road trip.

theres nothing, absolutely nothing like driving down to a place. its just amazing to see how the soil changes colour, and how the dhoti's worn in maharashtra slowly unwind into lungi's as you head towards andra pradesh. plus, it was by the virtue of this road trip that we realized how chaotic hyderabad actually is, as far as traffic is concerned! its traffic is like a scene from one of those animated movies where everyone is going everywhere, but miraculously not banging into each other. by the end of it, you always get a feeling of getting out of an extremely nasty roller coaster.

while any guide will give you the synopsis of what all is worth seeing in hyderabad, or any other place for that matter, i think they may have gotten it all wrong. the real beauty of visiting a place isnt just visiting 1000 yr old monuments and new techno parks, punctuated with that occassioanl visit to the malls. all such visit yeilds, apart from of course the precious moments spent together, is a great, exotic looking photo album, a truck load of merchandise and the feeling that you seriously had a fun time. the beauty of visiting a new place lies in feeling it, breathing it.

while most people flocked golconda to see the light show, we jumped on the tricky stairs, listening to a old hyderabadi regale us with tales of the nawabs ( not most of which are necessarily known), while the city tour bus zipped from one location to another, we spent our time getting lost in hyderabad, so that we had visited every destination at least twice, but yet not seen it. yet, it was a lot more eye opening than the educational excursion, probably because we could walk on the streets of hyderabad like a hyderabadi. the driver, frustrated at being the best driver in the city, even drove like a hyderabadi.

even now, my best moments from that visit include our frustrated cries at being lost once again, at goin to the snow dome and hitting each other with snow till e had really bad colds, roaming around golconda, listening to that man tell us a story so old, and singing on one end of the wall so we could hear it from another. it was trying to find the atm and circling the roads that were basically constructed in circles, asking directions to people, who would then tell us to go straight, following them and landing on the same place again. it was visiting the hi tech city and seeing the mighty squires of corporate achievement. it was running from one destination to another, trying to see all that we could, then screaming in frustration after failing to, and then going out to try find food at unearthly hours as we had forgotten all about it. some of the best moments of that trip are standing in the hyderabad rain, viewing the lakes and the city, and getting lost on streets that we had seen a hundred times. after all thats the essence of travelling to a any place,loosing our way everytime, yet, ironically, in the end, finding ourselves. heres to more such real travelling. bon voyage.

FIELDS OF INNOCENCE

Through the oceans of pain
My infant eyes see a dream
The fields of innocence are past me
I am standing near reality’s stream

They tell me waters flow here
In directions they were never supposed to be
And the shadows of foliage form
Shadows we must never see

They tell me its all dark here
The stars never come, sun never shines
All you see is an engulfing vacuum
That washes over streams of blood pristine

My little heart squirms aloud
At just these descriptions of reality
Let me go back to my fields of innocence
Where lay my ignorance and sanity

There is no stream worth crossing
At the cost of my silver fireflies
There’s no tenor worth hearing
At the cost of those unabashed cries

I look at that stream now
Its as placid as it is cold
I see my reflection all distorted
And laugh and realize its just too old

Too stagnant to run,
And hence called vile
Too caught to rush free
Its labeled senile

I laugh at that stream of promise
That the world so fears and hopes to ride
While it lays sighing and squirming
It doesn’t need all that blood, just a tide

My gait returned, my path so clear
To my fields of ignorance I must go
As they form my fields of innocence now
On the strength of which the stream of realities flow

copyright 2006 shruti bhutada

people claim that innocence is but a childhood epidemic, and u grow over it like polio. that the real world of adults is big, bad and nasty, where there is no room for innocence, or purity of thought, and that people having such qualities are usually exploited and used and abused in the real world. this poem is my answer to all such people....