Checkposts

I named this section. I chose the words. Spirit, travelling, all mine. Yet it is now that the words fail me. It is now, that I must own up to the deed. Yes, it was me. No, it doesn’t help. Names, ideas, possessions, all have been stripped away to tell you this, right now. There is only one life, one truth, one journey, one moment, one choice that defines the one you in this time and space. Fortunately for me, all five wrap up neatly in what is, to travel.

So what was it, that I searched in the violet dawn that breaks at 16,000 ft of the mighty Himalayas or in the big orange fish I spotted in the depths of the Indian Ocean? What was it that intrigued me in the dense mangroves of the Andamans or the more festive annual flower show in Gangtok?  Who was that girl, looking at me from behind the vibrant mirrors of her veil as my feet dug into burning dunes of sand? And what did the old man see in my future, as he squinted hard at my palm over bread and qahwa? Was it Vlad with his bright red bobble hat, who cornered me into skiing down from the highest gondola stop? What book was I reading with my feet immersed in the cold morning-waters of the Ganges? Did bhaiyya manage to fix the car stereo which played Bhojpuri versions of popular Bollywood songs, as he drove the spiritual to Kushinagar? Why are the first showers of the blue Kumaon mountains forever etched on my skin? Why can I still summon the prayer wheels from the monastery where young boys in red and yellow, had sat down to perfect their Tibetan? Would Muskaan be taking the ferry to school as I write? And how long can one revel in the love-affair that was the City of Lakes?

The questions go on, quite akin to how I imagine myself extending infinitely in spherical dimensions. To travel, then means to reach out and seep into the cosmos. To travel, then means to be everything I can, in a time and space.

Do I sometimes seek for a centre, an anchor to keep me safe? Do I keep track of my affections and the objects they pick? Do I crave for a home, a place to call my own? Of course, just like those who never moved outside their quaint townships, never did quite leave.

It lingers, just a little too long, before I pack my bags and hit the road again - something old, something new. To really express gratitude and dance to the sunshine, the wind, the skies, the rain, the sounds, the bonfires, the woods, the snowflakes, the colours, the stars, the dirt – to not have a home, to belong to them all. Some faces have lingered - the glee that knew no fear, the dreams in those eyes, the silent words she mouthed. Some promises made, some jars broken, some secrets revealed, some buried. 

Trust that instinct, stake what's yours, roll the dice - lose. 

Tell me then, won't you repeat?

Blue-Blue Skies

3 years and many-many grey-scales later, I find myself absent. From my own life, from my own time, from my own space, from my own aspirations. And if not here, where am I? Lithium in my system seems to slow everything down so now I am a part of everything, I see everything, I hear everything, I sense everything. But I am not here, so where am I?

The Good In Goodbye

There are some moments in our lives that remain imprinted in the depths of our memories, like the vivid strokes of a master’s brush, every colour; every trice of the painter’s anguish clearly visible on the canvas of thought. I wrote about snowflakes, but the truth is it never does snow where I stay. My vivid moment wasn’t painted in colours, but loud voices and shrill thoughts.

Togetherness doesn’t always feel the greatest. The people we choose for ourselves will do the unpardonable, the unfathomable, the ‘shocking’. But if we did choose in our honesty, honesty to ourselves at the very least, our choices will require us to show courage in the darkest hours. So when tomorrow comes and the dawn breaks, we have someone to watch the sunrise with.

Those on the faraway ship will then drown, to which we will just turn our backs and walk the white sands - glad to be ashore, glad to be home. 

One

Look for the stars
And I’ll spin you a dream
We can walk through the winds,
And kiss in the rain,
And burn with the skies,
And dance in the dirt...

Let me up close, to your abyss
So we can spin, and then spin some more
As we shed away these clothes,
And leave behind this wretched skin

Oh, dear lover, don’t close your eyes then,
Don’t find your feet or the ground
For we left that world, a long time ago
When we had swayed to the sacred songs
Of love and loss and hurt
And the Gods themselves had stopped to ask,
Who were those two, or was she just one?
That blessed mortal, who with her lover spun,
Who with her lover, lived.