Things I do

For Suttonese People -

Hers and His birthday cards.

The Meal

This illustration wasn’t created to depict my hosts as a rhino and a bird, that would be far too simplistic an explanation. Instead, what I am trying to show in this picture is how much of a divergence into the strange my experiences in Montreal were for me, somewhat like stumbling into a forest full of unusual creatures and vegetation. Of course like most urban Indians who have traveled and are brought up on a diet of Western films, the settings of Montreal were familiar, however actually partaking in rituals within those settings made me sometimes feel like an aberration. I should have been outside watching this on screen.

Montrealers, at least all those kind and lovely people I met, went out of their way to introduce me to their culture. The question I was asked most often was: Do you like it? There was my friend B who looked at me anxiously while I partook my first artichoke, ‘do you like it?’, there was my loony Montreal flatmate who handed me Maple syrup poured into a spoon, ‘do you like it?’, there was The Mushroom Hunter who watched me cautiously try squeaking cheese and asked  ‘do you like it?’, my friend J gave me  green smoothie one morning and asked ‘do you like it?’, there was my kind proprio, benevolent as always, who handed me something, one of the many things she handed me while she asked ‘do you like it?’ Everyone showed me something, handed me something and always asked me anxiously, ‘do you like it?’ while I, new immigrant, utterly, totally overwhelmed and bewildered by it all, never knew what to say…

Letting Go

There is something scary about letting ourselves go. It means that we will screw up, that we will relinquish the possibility of perfection. It means that we will say things we didn’t mean to say and express feelings we can’t explain. It means that we will be onstage and not have complete control, that we won’t know what we’re going to play until we begin, until the bow is drawn across the strings. While this spontaneous method might be frightening, it’s also an extremely valuable source of creativity. The lesson about letting go is that we contain our own creativity. We are so worried about playing the wrong note or saying the wrong thing that we end up with nothing at all.

~ Jonah Lehrer, Imagine: How Creativity Works

When I read a quotation like this, I cannot help thinking how beautifully the author talks about the process of letting go, how well it is put into words and how good it is to read it; somewhere someone else has gone through something that is similar to what I am struggling with. Yet the frustrations, dilemmas and emotions that actually accompany the process of letting go of an outcome can be terrifying and confusing. When I took that leap full of faith and hope and as much research as possible into Montreal, as careful as I was,I inched forward for a while and finally crash landed into a mountain of dirty brown snow and sank down into the bottom. Now I am simply going through the motions of desperately crawling out. As another wise man once said, ‘it is easier to be philosophic when things are going well’. Indeed it most definitely is.

These are scenes from this year's Montreal winter. It was the coldest and worst winter since 1889. After four months of bitter cold, it is still snowing outside; giant trucks carry loads of snow outside the city which they pump into enormous white mountains; I am still wearing my Canada Goose; I still experience acute homesickness when I see pictures of flowering trees from a Bangalore summer. As a newcomer, I feel I am running through an endless labyrinth which leads nowhere... It is excruciatingly difficult to be an immigrant during a recession and a soul-killing winter, alone in a foreign city which speaks a language other than what I am fluent in.

But to try and end this post on a positive note, before I came to this city, I corresponded with an artist who wrote me these words that I've never forgotten: ‘The warmth of the people makes up for the cold temperatures...’ How much those words ring true over and over. If there is just one redeeming feature about Montreal and its endless winter, it is the kindness of the Montrealers and the warm friendships I have made here. It reminds me that there were other seasons too and that I still have memories of Montreal that look like this - 

But while the fleeting summer and autumn in Montreal were ephemeral, it is the winter that is eternal and so my drawings of Montreal will always be of bare branches and snow ~

Immigrant Journals

A Pretty Coffee Shop @ St.Laurent

Here are some pictures of a pretty coffee shop we stepped into while exploring Boulevard St.Laurent in Montreal ~

Coffee and Mushrooms

If I were asked about my happiest moments in Canada so far, I would say that it was outside of Montreal in a charming little village called Sutton. My visits there contained all of my favourite things – coffee, chocolate, mushrooms, forests, autumn leaves, cats, superb food...and my lovely angel-faced Quebecois hosts who always made sure my stay was memorable. The picture above is an illustration inspired by those wonderful moments and below are a glimpse of some of them.

Unreality

Crowded cafes, beautiful people, green hair, red cups, I set time backward...I am turning the pages of a glossy magazine I am inside photographs watching unreality around me. Shops sell diamond salt from the mines of Kashmir, there is a Papier-mâché table before me, black chandelier above me, person in front of me eating a donut, he dissolves into an artist in Mont Royal eating pumpkin cheesecake who crumbles into an architect from Mile End drinking cappuccino, they have silver hair, their faces are paper white, they wear coal black, they look alike and multiply...then their faces melt, like pumpkins after Halloween, there is a deer skull on the shelf.

Autumn. Flowers like my dreams at night retain their structure, the desaturation button moves slowly, slowly to the left.

The Mushroom Hunter

The thoughtful amongst you might think that this serene picture is one of a poet out for a walk in the woods in search of inspiration, at one with nature, in touch with his inner soul. But think again discerning readers, look again! This picture has a far more chilling undercurrent to it than what seems apparent on its warm, dappled surface; clutch your hearts and hold your breath, this here is a picture of a hunter, the most lethal of them all – A Mushroom Hunter.
Before I detect the slightest smirk on your faces allow me make my point. Hunters of wild beasts saunter around the jungle with large guns and upon sighting prey in the distance, merely lift their guns and pull a trigger, BANG, the prey staggers and dies, the hunter walks up to the bloody carcass, takes a selfie with her foot on the body, drags it over to the jeep and drives away. Yawn. Anybody can do that. It is The Mushroom Hunter who is far more dangerous. One moment he is merrily driving along peaceful country roads chatting about graphic novels and ground coffee and the next moment he screeches the car to a halt much to the surprise and consternation of his passengers, “Good heavens! Is something wrong? Why did he stop?” And that is the instant when you see a Mushroom Hunter in action. He darts across the road to an empty field, unsheaths his sharp, special mushroom dagger, swoops down with a yowl of delight on helpless, quivering little shaggymane mushrooms huddled together, swiftly chops off their heads and places them in his trophy basket. If that isn't chilling enough there’s more mind you! A mere walk in autumn woods is fraught with action. You might have had a meditative stroll in mind, that moment of getting in touch with your Shakti that your Guru so recommended, that you were so eager to experience, you are admiring the colors of the trillion, zillion autumn leaves on the forest floor, you are just about to attain nirvana through peace and happiness when the Mushroom Hunter screeches to a halt before you and plunges his dagger into gazillion leaves on the ground and comes up with a teeny weeny quivering mushroom which he is ecstatic about and which he holds aloft before your bewildered eyes. “See? See!” And then as you sit trembling in recovery at the dining table, these mushrooms are fried in butter and brought before you to be eaten. No blood and gore of animal killers mind you, just swift, lethal, ruthless decapitation and dinner. Takes nerve to be the guest of A Mushroom Hunter I tell you. Phew!

And yes, well, here is the photograph of one of them.

Heart

Long ago I watched an Antony Bourdain show where he was invited into the home of an Inuit family in a remote part of Greenland in Quebec, Canada. They killed a fresh seal, brought it home, gutted the seal on the floor and proceeded to eat the innards of the seal. Then the host reverentially handed over the seal’s  eyeball to Bourdain who partook of it. The raw seal eyeball was delicacy, the best part of the seal. It was given to the guest as a gesture of friendship. The point was not so much in whether Bourdain ‘liked’ the eyeball or not but that he accepted that gesture. The offer of the delicacy and its acceptance was a bridge across cultures, a symbol of respect and friendship.

Here in Montreal, a lovely couple invited me, a newcomer, to their beautiful home. The hostess had earlier been to Marche Jean Talon and procured fresh food for the meal. She had also thoughtfully bought for me a particular food that I had once mentioned I had never eaten before. There on the balcony, in the soft evening light, over wine and beer, she placed plates of this food in front of us and showed me the unusual way of eating it. When I thought I’d finished eating I was told that within the remnants lay the best part of all – the heart. Then my host took my plate, helpfully cut up the core, speared something on a fork and handed it over to me.
“Here it is” he said, “Here is the heart”.
At that moment I remembered Antony Bourdain being given the seal's bloody eyeball. Because I was in Montreal I was given to eat an unusual flower with a heart in the centre, in another country erm, part of Quebec, I would have been offered something quite different. But whatever it was that was offered to me that evening, it was a beautiful gesture of friendship, a bridge between cultures and an invitation into a different world.

An excellent blog by a Montrealer >