Hmmm... I see that somehow over three months have passed since I've made an entry... how could this be, I wonder?? Although I know that it was Europe that did it...
When in India one has so much more time to write, it seems... and now that I am back in Asia, swapping India for Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh / Saigon), and I seem to be stuck in this internet cafe while the monsoon buckets down in the street outside (very interesting - this is the first time it's hit and I haven't been trapped inside a hotel room. I'm interested to see that there are still motorbikes around, although the riders seem to be more often than not covered head to toe in some kind of blue plastic...), it seems that the time to write again has... arrived!
So how shall I begin? I have no idea whether I'll be able to capture the events of the past three months now that they are well and truly in the past... but I might touch on a few things. It seems fitting to write about how I left India all those months ago (... three...) and how the world I was in started to change right in front of me.
Early July. I reluctantly leave the Bhagsu valley and all its nurturing late night jam sessions and take the usual shitty night bus to Delhi. Particularly shitty I remember as it leaked on a couple of Portuguese travellers I met there, and the drivers did nothing but laugh for the first hour and then begrudgingly sellotape up some cardboard... but what to do? This is India...
Anyway, I had expected my one day in Delhi to be the usual hot, bored day of somehow surviving the humidity, catching up on sleep and late minute shopping. I never meet anyone in Delhi - why should this day be any different? But, ever since what I consider a definite 'soul-evolution', for want of a better word, in the Himalayas this year, it seemed that life just didn't work in the same way anymore. A bunch of Bhagsu-ites that were all flying out the following day were congregating in the aptly named 'Nirvana' cafe so we spent a good few hours reminiscing about the place, swapping a wee bit of gossip (tis true) and preparing ourselves for the culture change in front of us. Someone mentioned that like it or not, Europe (where most of us were headed) was going to knock this peace out of us eventually and from this conversation onwards I became determined not to let this happen. I mean, it's all inside of us, right? Surely we can't cling to the bosom of India forever... there comes a time when we have to step back into the world, and I chose to do so whole heartedly.
Anyway, regardless of my determination to hold my peace, I couldn't argue that things were starting to change before we had even left India. It turned out that one of the Bhagsu-ites was on my flight so we shared a cab to the airport at around 2 in the blurry-eyed morning and actually had a great airport experience together. Normally something I do alone, like the last day in Delhi, my world was changing and I was finding I didn't need so much alone time anymore... anyway, there was a point where I realised that we were leaving India before we even left India so to speak... I'll just retrive my journal entry from the time in order to convey it better...
"Your pending balance 340"
Oh, my final impressions of India.
I sit with Adam in the super bland "Costa Coffee" and drink the shittiest and most expensive chai I have EVER had! Just a teabag in water with some frothy milk and no masala to speak of. I am aware that we are about to re-enter the world of chains and brands, which modern India seems to be trying to emulate in the worst way possible. I want to take it by the scruff of its devotional neck and beg it not to change, but I know it will. I know there will always be the chai walla on the side of the road, which has been my reality for the past three months, and we joke about the unlikelihood of one of these guys setting up shop in the Delhi International airport, serving their sweet milky spiced chai out of little clay cups as a kind of Indian farewell, bit we both know it will never happen.. they would never afford the rent for starters! Such a shame. Airports are so soulless and culture-void... so bland, so monochromatic.
And this world is where I am going to, but I am determined to hold my own in the midst of it. I sit and look at the fading henna on my hands - a chessboard pattern covers much of my left palm while vines grow up the fingertips. My right palm is much darker and here a small flower adorns the centre with lacey patterns emerging in bright henna orange all around it. I wonder what people in Europe will think of this... but I don't care. I am bound for another world... and although I welcome it, I know that it's gonna be a change that won't always come easy.
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