There was also this dark sense of comedy that hit us. Like this twin headstone, of a husband and wife. The wife appears to have died a year before the husband. For some reason, the wife’s epitaph states “Loved by Many”, but the husband’s reads “Loved by All”.

But both rr and I fell in love with a rather simple one that had the word DEAD on it, but no name or date. The sheer simplicity and anonymity of that grave was compelling. Like some person’s last joke. And another, which had us giggling, making us look extremely inappropriate – Gordon Bell. (Middle name Ernest, though he placed no importance on it).

The headstones of important people who died in the 19th century – or the first half of the 20th century were covered with platitudes. A good husband, great leader, member of so and so council. Line after line. But the more recent the grave, the simpler things got. For instance, the one for Douglas Adams has nothing but his name on it. But the most visible one is the memorial for Karl Marx. For some reason, the head bust looks extremely unpleasant.

The overwhelming essence of the Gothic touch has a macabre feeling about it. Well, I guess no cemetery is cheerful. But as the headstones go green with moss and tumble one over the other, the place almost feels like a woodland. We even spotted a fox – furry and plump sitting and staring at us.

And for some reason that brings me to the idea of Legend Tripping. Which sounds so marvelous. Even as a phrase.

How can one visit ruins, and not marvel at the life inside. Apart from the customary mynahs, sparrows, ring doves, rock pigeons and lazy dogs, the parrots breathe a certain madness into old structures. Their blinding green colour, and screeching calls make you laugh. One is so used to seeing parrots in cages, that they somehow become vulgar birds in the head. As though they consciously don’t desire freedom. It’s a cruel assumption, but how often have you seen parrots actually fly about in the sky. In Delhi’s monuments, they do. Their head turning antics are adorable, and you suddenly see them as they are – happy birdies and not ornamental creatures.

This time, wandering through the monuments, I was struck even more by the birds and the dogs. Unable to resist comparing these ruins with the well preserved structures in the UK. The monuments in the UK feel like big museums. Everything is dead, flat and labeled. And behind a glass case.

RV Smith, the Delhi lover par compare, wrote a lovely article in the The Hindu last year, on the flocks of pigeons in Delhi.

The pigeons have been among the few constant features of the masjid ever since the time it was built in 1656. Pigeons like to dwell mostly in historical buildings where nobody interferes with them.

The belief that they are sayyids, who like to be present at all the five prayers is part of the myth that is associated with birds in most religions. The neelkanth may be a symbol of Mahadev and the dove of the Holy Ghost but what do the pigeons in St. Mark’s Square in Rome or the ones at the Town Hall in Delhi symbolise?

As you drive around in Delhi, you see large numbers of pigeons sitting in one corner and then suddenly take off, all together, drawing one vast parabola after another as they fly, and come back to peck at their grains. I then think of the pigeons in London, so overweight and so used to walking that they appear to have forgotten to fly. Either way, I only hope that a flying pigeon’s shit doesn’t land on me.

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In fact, on Jet Airways, their strategy for ensuring a peaceful flight basically involves stuffing you with food every two hours. That way you are either quietly munching and are feeling less aggressive because the four extra “snacks” make you feel so much more obliged towards life in general.

Landing in Delhi, it took me a day and a half to come to terms with the humidity and the heat. Here’s the deal though. If you “foren-returned”, you dare not squeak about the temperature. One word about how hot it is, and people turn around and tell you’ve gone “soft” living abroad.

And while I am in Gurgaon/ Delhi, customary shot of a semi-ruin. Semi-rescued by ASI. Agrasen Ki Baoli which is curiously close to Connaught Place. A stepwell that’s completely dried up. The last time I saw water in it was in 2001 during monsoon. The cluttered, uneven skyline of Connaught Place looms somewhere. But in that quiet enclosure, squirrels run and pigeons poop. Somewhere, the tiny screeching noises of bats are heard. Yes, I suppose Delhi is a drama queen.

Just like me.

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Yay! Such jaay!

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My camera, incapable of anything wide angle couldn’t quite capture how lovely the station was. But the convex surveillance mirror caught a large part of the station on its shiny surface. While flipping through the photographs, I was struck by how much this particular photograph reminded me of MC Escher‘s art.

I have said this before, but the character of ruins in London is very different from the ones in Delhi. They are not deserted or crumbling. They are either listed buildings or heritage buildings. Which is all very joyful for a history loving heart, yet, they seem “unruined”. Almost as though the ruin is constructed. The little piece of graffiti at the station appeared to bring to life its history and age. In a way that careful fences and souvenir shops cannot.

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At the Rajpura Cemetery, we were greeted by a forlorn looking archway. At the Lothian cemetery, we felt like we’d stumbled on a large open air toilet. All these places, where some memories of 1857 reside, are flung away. Delhi doesn’t like memorials I think. Perhaps they don’t make good picnic spots. And so 1857 is sort of relegated to text books. And myths that surround the ruins. The few memorials that are usually for those who lost their lives to the “native forces”. You keep hunting for something that marks the memory of the “natives” who died. And just wring your hands.

Till I actually started studying history in undergrad I knew so little about 1857. Perhaps it has something to do with huge time lag between 1857 and 1947 – the lost years in which the official memory was different from “native” memory. Perhaps we were never really allowed to build our own memorials. In Dover last year, I spotted this – and felt a strange melancholy. The Mutiny, or Uprising is long over, but the battle over memories rages un-quiet in various circles and sites.

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Then there’s the issue of the “tasteful” souvenir. There’s the loud T-Shirt, and sometimes the more subtle artwork. The well seasoned travelers are very precise in their arrangement of souvenirs. They take great care in placing souvenirs from disconnected places together. Like a cowbell from Switzerland next to a stone sculpture from Bali. This careful arrangement draws you towards reading into their supposed “globalness”. The souvenir isn’t supposed to speak as much about your destination, as it is a reflection of your nomadic innards. They’re telling you about their blindness to geographical destiny. That in their living room, Japan and Uganda are less than five inches away.

In Paris, I was reminded once again, of how you no longer take away a piece of the city, instead you take home miniature versions. A two-inch long Eiffel Tower. A paperweight model of the Arc De Triomphe. Sometimes they become caricatures of the original. The souvenir is not supposed to be faithful to the original. It isn’t a copy. It isn’t a fake. Some shops even display a bold greeting – “We sell only original souvenirs”. You wonder what is a fake souvenir then.

Like wearing a I [heart] NY shirt. What kind of a souvenir is it? What is it a replica of? What is it supposed to evoke?

We are told in advance about most cities not in terms of what we may find or see there, but what we must feel when we are there. We must feel overwhelmed by New York’s lights and speed. We must feel awash with romance and love when in Paris. We must feel history in our sinews in London. It’s true that each city perhaps has its own character. Even so, a visitor’s dehumanization begins in that minute. We must submit ourselves to the city. If we don’t, then we are not perceptive, and our humanity is not capable of spreading itself and touching others’ experiences.

I haven’t been to Disneyland. They say it’s a theme park. But it appears more like a city. It has its own transport, it’s own symbols. A mottled history of characters and cartoons. Last night, I found myself searching for Umberto Eco’s essays on Travels in Hyperreality from the Faith in Fakes collection. Disneyland is probably a country into itself. At the entrace, a plaque supposedly reads “Here you leave Today and enter the world of Yesterday, Tomorrow and Fantasy.”. This extends to most tourist-driven cities. You must leave yourself behind. You must submit to the city’s vision of itself. You must strive to become its memorabilia. You cannot make a memory of it. You are the memory itself. Everything is a set. At Disneyland, they don’t call their costumes – uniforms. It is supposed to be real fantasy. Not imagined fantasy. Do not attempt to look beyond the sets. At the wires or foundations.

Champs-Élysées is beautiful. But in its backlanes, a Paris that isn’t meant for its visitors sits simmering in its graffiti and brokenness. And even that can be packaged as part of the elaborate set. I looked at this abondoned bike resting against a tree. And wonder if it’s street art or a ride gone horribly wrong. But I am in Paris, and must only submit to its romance. I am not supposed to imagine its other lives.

Umberto Eco wants us desperately to believe that Europe doesn’t create fakes. Not to the extent of America. From the same collection I referred to:

How can a rich man, a lover of the arts, recall the emotions he felt one day in Herculaneum or in Versailles? And how can he help his compatriots understand what Europe is? It is easy to say: Put your objects all in a row with explanatory labels in a neutral setting. In Europe, the neutral setting is called the Louvre, Castello Sforzesco, Uffizi, Tate Gallery (just a short walk from Westminster Abbey). It is easy to give a neutral setting to visitors who can breathe in the Past a few steps away, who reach the neutral setting after having walked, with emotion, among venerable stones.

But in California, between the Pacific on one hand and Los Angeles on the other, with restaurants shaped like hats and hamburgers, and four-level freeways with ten thousand ramps, what do you do? You reconstruct Villa of the Papyruses. You put yourself in the hands of the German archaeologist, taking care he doesn’t overdo; you place your busts of Hercules in a construction that reproduces a Roman temple; and if you have the money, you make sure your marble comes from the original places of the model, that the workers are all from Naples, Carrara, Venice, and you also announce this. Kitsch? Perhaps. But in the Hearst Castle sense? Not exactly. In the sense of a Palace of Living Arts or the magic rooms of the Madonna Inn? The Venus de Milo with arms? Absolutely not.

Umberto Eco of course doesn’t see what perhaps someone who grew up in India can see. That sometimes entire cities become museums. Everything in Paris – already has a memory. Hemingway drank his shots here, Marie Antoinette lost her head at this very spot, Victor Hugo said this about Notre Dame, this is the grave of Jim Morrison. The ground that you tread on is sacred because of its history, not because you are there. Submit yourself. Submit. Submit. (But Paris is beautiful, so you submit to submission without a squeak.)

Scrolling up, I see I have ranted a bit pointlessly. But, oh well.