Every holiday has a story

A torn backpack even before I boarded the connecting flight was the extent of my worries when on holiday to Sikkim. Then the earthquake hit.

Yes, I felt it and yes, things shook.

Shopping in Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim, that Sunday evening, I later learnt that I was just 64 km from the epicentre of the earthquake that measured 6.8 on the Richter scale. A day later and we might have been at the very same spot.

Someone said later that it went on for about 35s. It felt like a minute.

It was loud. A-cement-mixer-outside-your-window loud. Even if you ignored the screaming.

I wasn't screaming. I was being dragged out of a souvenir store by an alert friend - the best person I could have shared a quake experience with, thanks B! - while saying something about not having paid for the pretty coin purses that I seemed to have run out with.


Mobile phone networks died before the world even stopped shaking, but data services stayed reliable, tweets, IMs and emails were dispatched. "All fine."

People ask me if I was afraid. After the fraction of a second it took to realise that I wasn't going to be buried in rubble (yet), I really wasn't. Adrenalin, a boringly practical instinct, the remarkable - if misguided - conviction of one's invincibility, and a pocketful of cash are perfect for situations like this.

Expunge oneself of the souvenirs that never were: check.
Call Dad, ping friends, email editor with an offer to be available for information: check.
Stock up on water, a torch, biscuits and chocolate: check.
Get ready to spend the night out on the road: sure, can do.

Running through this mental checklist, all I could think of was how when I got home, I should blog about the pressing need for universal mobile phone charging stations and public telephone booths. With time to readjust my personal lines of right and wrong, I was convinced I would be justified in breaking into an electronics store if the situation got any worse.

It didn't, and I met too many nice people in Gangtok to be guilty of misdemeanor or have to to live on the street.

A couple of hours later, safe inside a new friend's home that was warm in so many ways, I realised just how shaken we all were. (I blame two aftershocks, a dying phone and the sight of broken photo frames.) I felt I ought to be reporting this, but wasn't sure I wanted to. I found my legs unusually unsteady, clutching onto a water bottle was stupidly comforting, and I wasn't sure I wanted to take off my shoes and jacket just yet. What if we had to run out again? Even two days later at the airport, the sound of every plane taking off made me jump.  

Surprisingly, maybe because I was watching much of it unfolding with a sense of distance, I ate and slept very well that night. It was as if I hadn't a concern in the world.

M.G. Marg, Gangtok, the morning after. 

Maybe I didn't. Things could have been so much worse.

Shoebox memory cull

I threw away my Bon Jovi poster. The first love of my life is now lying with his pretty face in old news print. 

It was faded, frayed, spotty, stained, and ... old. It had been an indulgent gift from caring friends that I treasured almost as much as JBJ CDs. The poster was about shared fantasies, dreams, conversations, and stories with friends. But it was dusty and so were the memories.

It all started exactly a month ago when I packed all my life's possessions and moved continents. Besides the 46kg + 8kg hand luggage (+ laptop bag), I was dragging with me enough memories and, some would say, emotional baggage.

So when I first began emptying my room, every little ticket stub and visitors' information booklet was carefully packed away. But during the period of wanderlust that followed, and before I landed up at the next place I would call home, the memory cull had been ruthless. "I can't lift so much stuff," might only have been an excuse to shed carefully collected tokens of memories and shared experiences, left behind as I continued onwards on my travels.

A first restaurant bill was just a piece of paper and my security-blanket t-shirt really didn't have another wear in it. Bin 'em.

Finally back home, the things that once defined My space didn't seem that important any more. For one, Jon was already off my wall, rolled and left in some cupboard.

Out went Jon, old textbooks, old stuffed toys (the cow that went moo was put in a plastic bag and stuffed in a cupboard nobody can reach, at least till the next cull), papers, bags, clocks.

As did old birthday gifts, friendship tokens, thank-you/ happy-new-year cards...saved text messages from three years ago.....

I'd like to think that I can get rid of some of this stuff because my relationships have moved beyond names signed on restaurant tissue (yea, we did that) and an awful drawing that sprouted one particularly boring class. These people are still in my life, I'm making new memories with them all the time, and I hope I can show them I care in ways that don't include hanging onto a present from seven years ago.

But I can't escape that some of these things are just dust-gathering-junk, the stories behind them aren't that special any more, and the people or the experiences are from a past that was wonderful, but now well past.

I still love JBJ, I'm pretty sure I always will.

But there's only so much that a shoebox can hold, and we need space for the new.

Excuses for limited blogging in August

1. Free culture - Creative Mind project - the website I built as my final masters project and the purpose of my existence since April.
Still trying to fix IE formatting issues. (Any web developers reading this know where I'm going wrong?)

I've had some great feedback, I've met more smart people and my Twitter feed is getting hard to keep up with.

2. Various distractions.

Sleep....

Erm....

....

Well...

Oh! And Brighton - Travelled far to see the Kissing Cops by celebrated street artist Banksy. For no particular reason. Except that it was there. You think he painted it because the wall Was There?

There it was, preserved from potentially overzealous councils and profiteers. While some might dismiss Banksy very distatefully, it was Art, standing by trash cans and restaurant leftovers. The graffiti around was as, if not more striking; but those remain blotches on the city walls, relegated to being examples of public nuisance and anti social behaviour.