E-Paper
Unlock Diaries: I shall get the hearth going by Nazes Afroz
An inveterate traveller learns to appreciate the miniature wonders of his back garden
When the lockdown was imposed at the shortest of notices, I told my friends and family jokingly that I had been well prepared for such times since 2013. That was the year I quit my job at the BBC in London and returned to India, choosing Delhi as my home. But I had never lived here except for a short stint of three months about a decade before. As a result, I did not have a large social circle. For the last seven years, my existence in Delhi has mostly been about working from home, and enjoying my solitude here.
But as much as I loved my solitude, my already itchy feet grew itchier in this period. Almost every month, I packed my bags to disappear into the forests of the Terai and the Himalayas, closer to home, with my rekindled interest in bird watching and wildlife photography; or I made forays into distant lands of the permafrost of the Artic circle in the winters chasing the aurora borealis, catching fish through holes on frozen lakes in Lapland, driving through the megaliths of the white deserts of the eastern Sahara, wandering along the ancient souks of the Maghreb in Africa, travelling by public buses along the narrow valleys of the mountains in the Balkans, marvelling at the dazzling architectures of Samarkand, Bukhara, or the earthy forts and palaces of Khiva in Uzbekistan, standing on the shores of the last remaining waters of the Aral Sea, climbing the Gandum Beriyan plateau – the hottest place on earth – in the Lut deserts and visiting the shrines of Hafiz and Saadi in Shiraz in Iran or sitting inside the tomb of Rumi in Konya in Turkey.
It is difficult for one, who has been leading such a peripatetic life, to come to terms with such a sudden grinding halt. I had to accept that I could not consider any form of travelling in the near future and make do with whatever I have around me. The back garden in my housing complex and my kitchen became my refuge.
I am among the lucky few who can see the Delhi sky properly. Two balconies of my second floor duplex corner flat open out to an unkempt garden dotted with bushes and big and small trees – neem, fig, acacia, ashoka, peepal. With the infamous Delhi air pollution practically lifted, I could sit in the balcony at dawn in the wafting sweet smells of neem flowers, watching the birds, butterflies and bees growing hyper active in the late spring. The air has never been so clean; the azure of the sky never looked so pristine.
I photographed 25 species of birds – from house crows to the Blyth’s reed warbler, migrants from Europe – fleeting in the aloe vera undergrowth, and the passerine nomadic rosy starlings on the way back to their habitat of Central Asia at the end of their winter migration. House sparrows were conspicuously absent. Squirrel kittens learning to climb the trees or the adventurous mongoose pup running excitedly among the bushes became a common sight.
James, my young friend, now works with the forest department in Ladakh after finishing his degree in forestry. He has sent an open invitation to visit him with the offer to take me to the wilderness of the high Himalayas for wildlife photography. This is an invitation I cannot wait to accept but I am not inclined to go into two weeks of isolation after taking a flight there. I will go for the next best thing – a walk to Sanjay Van, one of the four city forests, only three-and-a-half kilometres from my home. The jacobin cuckoos -- chatak in Bangla or papihara in Hindi – the messengers of the monsoon will surely have arrived there by now.
My kitchen has always been the most important part of my home. I grew up appreciating food and that eventually turned into a passion for cooking by the time I had my own home. Besides, my travels mean that I bring back new tastes, new dishes and new cuisines. This long lockdown has unleashed my imagination, leading me to recreate my grandmother’s dishes or perfecting those I have relished across four continents.
The children’s literature I grew up with was full of the indelible imagery of the warm hearth around which people who loved each other shared their meals. That was also how my grandmother served us around her coal-fired oven in a small town in West Bengal.
I am waiting for the first chance when the youngsters, who have become like my children over the last few years, can travel safely from other parts of the city so we can sit around the hearth with food from far and wide, both savoury and sweet, cooked by me; and there will be stories, loud laughter, singing and happiness.
A journalist for over three decades, Nazes Afroz has worked in both print and broadcasting in Kolkata and in London. As a senior editor with the BBC, Nazes was in charge of South and Central Asia for many years. A passionate photographer and a compulsive traveller, he moved back to India in 2013. Currently, he writes in English and Bengali for newspapers and magazines. He recently translated In a Land Far From Home: A Bengali in Afghanistan by Syed Mujtaba Ali, published by Speaking Tiger.
