Dreaming of Ladakh

Ladakh is a place of distances. Not just because of the time it can take to get from one place to another, but also because it’s a place that can challenge you to expand your mind.

It’s a place of varied vistas — snow, rock, dust, greenery, sand, water. And everywhere, mountains. And the expansive sky.

Once you leave the main settlements — towns like Leh and Kargil or villages like Nimoo and Alchi — Ladakh often feels boundless, perhaps as vast as the universe. But it’s a companionable vastness; a bit like being in a pub full of friendly strangers.

On some journeys you’re sandwiched in a snaking convoy of olive green; army trucks carrying people and supplies across the region. On other roads you can go for an hour or more without encountering another human. Sometimes, it’s unclear where the road is and you decide it’s wherever your vehicle is!

Often, it all feels very profound. The immense never-ending sky, the chortens, the monasteries perched far up the side of a mountain, the ever-present five-coloured prayer flags snapping in the wind, lines of prayer wheels, the Indus or one of its tributaries meandering alongside the road. So much so that you begin to believe that in a moment or two the meaning of life will be revealed to you and that eternity is around the corner.

And then, around the corner, is an egg yolk-yellow road sign that declares ‘Be gentle on my curves’. 

But as Robert Louis Stevenson wrote in a 1878 essay titled El Dorado: “Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.”

So, it’s best to suspend all thought and luxuriate in Ladakh. In its people, food, history, culture and those vistas that bridge distances. 

The bells of St Clement’s

It seemed appropriate. Commemorate the anniversary of my father’s passing in a place associated with aviation — something he devoted much of his adult life to, while in the Indian Air Force (IAF) — that was also a place of reflection and spirituality. St Clement Danes, the central church of the Royal Air Force (RAF), in London was the perfect spot to be in.

I stumbled across St Clement Danes several months earlier, on the website of the RAF Museum, and realised that I’d passed the church several times without noticing it. Perhaps I’d overlooked it because of the scaffolding that cocooned it then. Or perhaps it was its location on an island, buffeted by streams of vehicles, just where the Strand and Fleet Street meet.  

Inside, though, the sounds of modern-day London fade and the hush enfolds you. On a sunny early spring morning, it’s a glorious sight — light pouring in through the windows, including the magnificent stained glass one behind the altar; the white vaulted ceiling with its gilded flourishes; the radiant golden ceiling of the apse; the slate floor inlaid with several hundred unit, squadron and other formation badges stretching up the nave to the altar; colours and squadron standards displayed in various places; and the gleaming pews with cartouches (of various Chiefs of the Air Staff) fixed at their ends.

A church has stood on the site for centuries; with the first one reportedly established by Danes living in the area. The present building, by Sir Christopher Wren, was completed in 1682, but was terribly damaged during the Blitz. By the late 1950s, St Clement Danes was restored and became the RAF’s central church. It is also believed to be the church referred to in the English nursery rhyme “Oranges and lemons/ Say the bells of St Clement's.” And indeed, the church’s bells do ring the tune through the day.

On the floor, as you enter the nave, is a ring of badges of eight Commonwealth air forces around the insignia of the RAF. And one of those eight badges is of the Indian Air Force. Other references to India can be found across St Clement Danes, especially in the unit badges laid into the floor. There is, for instance, the 152 ‘Hyderabad’ Squadron, with a turban in its insignia. According to the squadron’s tribute website, 152 was the gift squadron of Hyderabad and took as its badge the headdress of the erstwhile Nizam of Hyderabad. Formed in 1918, the squadron was disbanded in 1919, but reformed in 1939 and operated in India between 1943 and 1947.

St Clement Danes also remembers those who lost their lives while serving in the RAF through the Books of Remembrance that start from 1912 and continue to the present. Around the church are memorial boards for RAF personnel who have died on various operations and plaques with the names of those who have won the Victoria and George Crosses.

As I emerged from the church, to the rhythms of the Strand, it was impossible to miss the statue of William Gladstone, flanked by those of Arthur Harris and Hugh Dowding, wartime leaders of the RAF. Pausing for a moment in Gladstone’s shadow, I told myself that I needed to ask my mother if she and my dad had ever been to St Clement Danes when they lived in the UK. I never did. And seven months later, she too was but a memory.

Celebrating Tree Walk

An early memory is of scrambling halfway up the guava tree in the backyard of our house in Bangalore. And of the joy and sense of accomplishment that came from making it that far up. I didn’t realise it then, but I was fortunate to belong to a generation of urban Indian children who had unfettered access to trees, yards and the outdoors.

Trees are especially on my mind because Tree Walk Thiruvananthapuram celebrated its eighth birthday last week. It was on 12 May 2012 that the first tree walk was held along the city’s Vanchiyoor ‘green corridor’.

Exploring the city's Museum complex

While it’s often described as an “environmental collective,” I’ve always seen Tree Walk as a group of people who are interested in and care about trees. A group that comes together to observe, understand, protect and document Thiruvananthapuram’s tree cover. 

Membership of Tree Walk is largely informal, and sometimes transient, but at its core is a committed group helmed by Anitha Sharma and her sister Santhi. Set up in memory of botanist and tree-lover Dr C. Thankam, who was also Anitha’s and Santhi’s mother, Tree Walk traces its roots to Harithakootayama, a group that was formed in 2008 to discover how people in the city viewed trees and the equation between trees and road development. For in the early 2000s, Thiruvananthapuram — like many cities across the country — embarked on a ‘development’ journey focused on bolstering built infrastructure; a journey that often hinged on cutting down trees.

Early on, Tree Walk was largely about walks to understand and explore trees in different parts of Thiruvananthapuram. Most of these walks — over a hundred till now — were on Sunday mornings in the city’s public green spaces such as parks and along roads, but also in semi-private areas, including school and college campuses.

Preserving the city’s green pockets has always been a part of Tree Walk’s raison d’etre. But this aspect took on a special urgency in 2013 when the city authorities decided to take over a large part of the Attakulangara Central High School campus in the heart of Thiruvananthapuram to construct a bus terminal and shops. A project that would require scores of trees to be axed.

Handout from a walk in the East Fort Heritage Zone

This action saw Tree Walk evolving into a pressure group that worked with other civil society groups on a spirited campaign to save the school — established in the late 1880s — and its green campus. Across several months, the group organised various activities, including several walks and a tree survey to create awareness about how the planned bus terminal would obliterate a significant slice of the city’s irreplaceable natural heritage.

Ultimately, sense prevailed within the State Government. The bus station project was redesigned and the decision to use the school’s land was scrapped.

Alongside, Tree Walk also embarked on several other projects — a butterfly garden on the premises of the State Central Library or Public Library, special walks for school students, collaborating with nature clubs in the city’s schools to document the biodiversity on school campuses and, just a few months ago, an intervention to ‘heal’ a badly mutilated jasmine tree that stands outside the Saphalyam Complex on the city’s arterial MG Road.

Early this year, during the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters, Tree Walk held a series of walks designed to introduce the lit-fest’s authors and speakers to some of the city’s special trees. A friend I’d recommended the walks to declared, “It was a fabulous experience.”

Thiruvananthapuram's natural and built heritage harmonise in East Fort

And that’s a sentiment I can relate to. As I wrote in National Geographic Traveller some years ago, I’ve found these freewheeling walks to be a great way to discover facets of the city that would otherwise pass right by us.

As Tree Walk embarks on its ninth year, it is a period of uncertainty; a time when humanity is facing an existential crisis of the sort that no living person has experienced. Even in the midst of this gloom, I can’t help but hope that this crisis we face will give us all at least a sliver of understanding about how vital the natural world’s health is to our own health and wellbeing.

And since I haven’t been on a tree walk for many months now, I look forward to a Sunday — any day for that matter — when we can embark on one. For Tree Walk is quite simply one of my city’s gems; not always in the public eye, but a gem nonetheless.

Beginnings and endings…

… or endings and beginnings? Or both?

Discovering Fromagerie Marie-Ann Cantin

I’ve never been very fond of Camembert. But earlier this year I rather tentatively nibbled on a wobbly sliver of Marie-Anne Cantin’s Camembert de Normandie and I changed my mind. It had the bite I associate with Camemebrt, but it was a mellow bite that was slightly fruity and creamy. The rind was chalky, but tolerably so. 

So an expedition to Fromagerie Marie-Anne Cantin on rue du Champs-de-Mars is on my list of must-dos in Paris. What’s wonderful is that a range of her cheeses including Comté, Tomme de Savoie, Saint-Nectaire and, of course, that Camembert de Normandie are available in select Monoprix supermarkets.

Memory: Wayanad

Getting to Wayanad can be an experience in itself. The first hour or so of the journey from Kozhikode is relatively unremarkable. Just the endless games of chicken, that are the new normal on roads in Kerala, by an assortment of vehicles. And to spice things up, the odd carcass or two of vehicles that have lost a game of chicken.   

Where things start to get really interesting is at the base of the Thamarassery churam, or Thamarassery mountain pass, through the Western Ghats. Here, the narrow road to Wayanad starts snaking up, often doubling back on itself. The traffic can be pretty crazy here too, but then there’s always the view to focus on, which is mostly appealing and often breathtaking.

You will, like me, probably be a little short of breath when you scramble up to the entrance to the Edakkal caves, about 1,200 feet above sea level. At a moderate pace, it takes about 40 minutes to walk from the base of the hill to the caves. They’re not quite what comes to mind when you think of a cave, but the engravings on the inner walls of these stone structures take you back across the centuries — all the way back to the Stone Age. And if you go very early in the morning, just when the caves open for the day and there aren’t too many other visitors around, you can, for a fleeting second or two, feel a tenuous connection to the early humans who sought shelter there.

There are more reminders of the inhabitants — early, but also more recent  — of the region in the Wayanad Heritage Museum in Ambalavayal. It’s a useful introduction to the area’s history and culture, including that of its large tribal population.

There is, of course, much more to experience in Wayanad. But for me, the caves and the museum were a tasting menu, just about enough to take in on my first visit. More fetching was the prospect of heading back to the wonderful Pepper Trail — cocooned in a coffee and spice plantation — with its 140-year-old bungalow and soothing views, all cloaked in solitude embellished by birdsong. 

And that’s just what I did; luxuriate in silence serenaded by the call of a hornbill.

Memory: Our Lady of Paris

When I first got to Paris, it was twilight on a warm Saturday in July. A delayed flight, a missed connection and the detritus of a cold had left me drained. All I wanted was a shower and a bed. But as RER B swept from Charles de Gaulle airport to Gare du Nord, it was impossible to miss the Eiffel Tower, suffused in blue and gold, in the distance though my weary mind didn’t quite process it then. 

The next morning, as we exited the Metro onto Quai Saint-Michel, there was Notre-Dame de Paris across the Seine. My first proper sight of Paris or, to be pedantic, a Parisian landmark. This, perhaps, is why for me Notre-Dame immediately spells Paris; as much as the Eiffel or the Arc deTriomphe or the Centre Pompidou does.  

Crossing the road and the Pont des Coeurs we were soon part of the jostling line of visitors entering the cathedral. And on that Sunday, even as we walked in and looked around, we were reminded by the soaring voices of a choir celebrating Mass that we were in a living, breathing place of worship. A place of beauty, but also one that offered tantalising whiffs of timelessness; the sort of timelessness I sometimes felt in the sanctum sanctorum of Trivandrum’s Padmanabhaswamy temple in the quiet, un-crowded hours before dawn. 

Since that first visit, we’ve been back a few times, browsing the artists’ and booksellers’ stalls along the Quai Saint-Michel and the Quai de Montebello, scanning the racks at Shakespeare and Company on Rue de la Bucherie or just watching the world go by along the banks of the Seine, and Notre-Dame was always a reassuring presence, exuding grace.
 And that’s a presence we’ve carried with us. For Our Lady of Paris watches over us from the walls of our home, even as her gargoyles crouch on another wall, keeping an eagle-eye on me as I write this.

New York memory

New York is a city of possibilities; infinite possibilities. And for me, nothing captures that feeling more perfectly than a view of the city from up above.

 

Whether it’s a leaden morning, with almost no memory of the sun, or a day stuffed with sunshine and blue skies, the city mesmerises from above. And to round off the year, three favourite aerial views of New York, a city that’s grown on me; well, sort of.  

Making cheese at Beecher’s

A version of this piece is in the July issue of National Geographic Traveller India.

My gloved hands feel a trifle wobbly. The large crumbly cream-ish loaf I’m cradling weighs only a couple of kilos, but the thought of flipping it over makes it feel like a tonne. It looks easy, but I’m worried I’ll make a hash of it. I take a deep breath and flip. The loaf emerges unscathed; I flip another and another.  
I’m in the glass-walled cheesemaking kitchen of Beecher’s Handmade Cheese in Seattle’s Pike Place Market. And I’ve been helping to cheddar cheese — cutting curds into loaves, then stacking and flipping the loaves multiple times to drain out all the whey.

For as long as I can remember, cheese has been an integral part of my life. The first cheese I tasted as a child was probably a cheddar from the now shut Koshy’s department store in Bangalore. Since then, I’ve discovered and enjoyed cheeses from around the world, developing a special fondness for Roquefort and Mimolette from France and Kikorangi from New Zealand.

And then, in 2013, I nibbled on a sliver of Beecher’s Flagship Raw Milk and fell in love. It tasted like no cheese I’d sampled before. Creamy and nutty, with a sprinkling of magic, there was something comfortingly elemental about it. It was heaven in a wedge — the taste of home. It was also the beginning of a quest to learn more about this artisanal cheesemaker, visit its cheesemaking facility and, of course, sample more of its award-winning cheese. 

On a hot summer morning, two years and many emails after my first bite of Beecher’s, I’m in the heart of Seattle’s Pike Place Market all set to spend a day at Beecher’s Handmade Cheese. My wife and I are early for our 9 am appointment so we wander through the market, famous for its fresh produce and interesting handcrafted goods. We dawdle in front of the fishmongers’ stalls with their eye-catching displays and the flower sellers’ tables. Framed in a window between two stalls is a swatch of the cerulean waters of Elliott Bay.  

The Beecher's cheesemaking kitchen in Seattle.

As we watch, people line up in front of the Beecher’s store-café eager to breakfast on its Mac and cheese or grilled sandwiches. Others peer through the glass walls of the adjoining cheesemaking kitchen.  

We enter the store and luxuriate in the heavenly burnt-butter aroma of sandwiches on the grill and tangy vapours of tomato soup bubbling in a pot. While we wait for Sharif Ball, then the company’s head cheesemaker and production manager in Seattle, I think about the Beecher’s story. It begins in 2002, with food entrepreneur Kurt Beecher Dammeier leasing space in Pike Place Market and deciding to make great cheese, fuelled by childhood memories of local cheeses and a passion for pure, fresh, wholesome and flavourful food.

Today, the Beecher’s store, café and cheesemaking kitchen in Seattle is a Pike Place institution that draws tourists and turophiles or cheese lovers alike. The company also has a second facility in New York’s Flatiron District and cafes at Seattle-Tacoma airport and in Bellevue near Seattle.

Escorting us into a cramped office next to the long, rectangular kitchen, Ball points us towards lockers where we stow our bags and change into smocks and trousers, pull on boots, arm guards, masks and caps, and wash our hands with warm water and soap. Just inside the kitchen, there’s a further cleansing ritual as we pull on gloves. I feel like I’m entering an operation theatre, but understandably, hygiene is an obsession here.

The kitchen itself is all gleaming steel — vats, pipes, trays, shelves — broken by swathes of white of the milk and curds. Cheesemaking in Beecher’s is an almost 24-hour operation, beginning with the milk being tested and pumped into the large vats very early in the morning. The store in Seattle processes about 18,000 litres of cow’s milk, free of additives, hormones and antibiotics, sourced from dairy farms near the city, every day. So it comes in fresh, says Michael Staley, one of the company’s expert cheesemakers.

Beecher’s pasteurises the milk that goes into most of its cheese. The pasteurised milk is then pumped into an open vat where microbial cultures and rennet are added causing curds and whey to form. This mixture is repeatedly cut, ‘cooked’ ­ — stirred and heated — and pumped into another vat where the whey is drained and cheddaring by hand begins. Salt is added and the salted curds are packed into moulds called ‘hoops’ and loaded into a cheese press for 8-12 hours to drain out more whey. The cheese is then cut, vacuum-sealed and aged for several months or years depending on the type of cheese being made. Of course, not all cheese made by Beecher’s is a cheddar and the process varies accordingly.

Even as Staley takes us through the process, I’m struck by how physical cheesemaking is, with the effort involved in cheddaring and the hours spent on your feet. One of the other cheesemakers quips that it’s a good way to stay fit.

I also notice how involved in the process Staley and the other cheesemakers are, working with an effortless expertise, cutting the curds one minute, washing the equipment the next, all the while checking on the temperature, acidity and moisture levels of the milk and the curds and keeping track of the time each process takes.

The Seattle facility makes about 1,800 kg of cheese every day, Ball says. Much of the cheese produced is the company’s immensely popular Flagship, though it makes several other types. There is, for instance, the buttery but spicy Marco Polo with lightly milled peppercorns blended in and the smoky No Woman, infused with Jamaican Jerk spices that pack a punch. The Raw Milk Flagship I fell in love with, though, is made just a couple of times a year, with special precautions since it involves unpasteurised milk.

The Beecher's store-cafe in Seattle's Pike Place Market.

While we talk, I look out through the kitchen’s glass walls. It does feel a little unnerving with the curious onlookers outside, their faces and cameras pressed-up against the glass. Yet the glass walls bring the market’s bustle and colour into the kitchen, giving it a shot of energy.

What is it that makes Beecher’s cheese special, I ask Ball. Pat comes the reply: “Attention to detail and quality.” He thinks for a bit and adds: “Everyone here wants to make delicious cheese. A lot of love goes into it.”

As we leave the cheesemaking kitchen and head to the café where a Beecher’s grilled cheese sandwich awaits, I think about that. Food made with love and joy. No wonder the cheese tastes like heaven. 

The vitals                                   

Visitors can watch all the action in the cheesemaking kitchens of the Beecher’s store-café in Seattle while enjoying a meal (1600 Pike Place; 9 a.m. -7 p.m. daily; mac and cheese from $5.02 and grilled cheese sandwiches from $5.94). Some Pike Place Market tours, including Savor Seattle, stop at Beecher’s for tastings. www.beechershandmadecheese.com

Celebrating Concorde

In the picture to the right, is the most famous nose in the world. Well, perhaps I should have added a qualifier like ‘arguably’ or ‘possibly’ or ‘perhaps’ in the previous sentence, but the Pinocchio-ish nose of Concorde is rather distinctive. Of course, Concorde itself is unique for it is one of only two supersonic airliners or supersonic transports (SST) to have flown commercially. 

The rather distinctive nose (and the body behind it too) in the pictures in this post is of the Concorde referred to as ‘Alpha Golf’, with the registration number G-BOAG. Now on display at Seattle’s Museum of Flight, Alpha Golf was the plane that operated the final scheduled Concorde flight on 24 October 2003. 

It was 12 years ago today that Alpha Golf flew from New York’s John F. Kennedy airport to London’s Heathrow airport. Or to put it a little differently, it’s been 12 years since ‘Speedbird Concorde 002’ operated from JFK to LHR, executing a Canarsie climb on take off.  

For 27 years, Concorde operated by British Airways and Air France almost put ‘time in a bottle’ as they flew faster than any airliner before them or since. They could, for instance, fly from London to New York and back in the time it took an ordinary aircraft to fly one way. As the British Airways site says: “Concorde’s fastest transatlantic crossing was on 7 February 1996 when it completed the New York to London flight in 2 hours 52 minutes and 59 seconds.” And the Concorde flew for many more years than its rival, the Russian Tupolev Tu-144. 

I came face-to-face — almost, since it towered over me — with my first Concorde at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia a few years ago. My more meaningful Concorde experience was a recent tour of G-BOAG. Among the most striking aspects of this aircraft that defines the age of glamorous and luxurious air travel is just how cramped its cabin is.   

Besides operating British Airways’ last Concorde schedule, Alpha Golf also has another record under its wings. On its very last flight to The Museum of Flight in Seattle, on 5 November 2003, Alpha Golf set a New York to Seattle speed record of 3 hours, 55 minutes, and 12 seconds. 

There’s some talk of getting Concorde flying again. I’m not too sure if that’s going to pan out.

I know, though, I’ll never fly on Concorde, probably. And yet, I can’t help wishing I had, for there’s something about this aircraft. Even something as ordinary as a recording of the final conversation between Kennedy air traffic control and the pilots of Concorde feels special. That’s the magic of Concorde.