Blinded by a dot

Emptiness. Filling the void with random sensations. Different temporary sentiments at a given time and then, back to emptiness. A secular perspective of surroundings, and the realm of self is scarcely grasped. Limited views as the means of an ending of satisfaction, but beleaguered until its achievement, at every stage. Losing the cadence of the physical, mental and spiritual, giving in to outer influences. Those influences devour my universe, engulf me into acting against my natural state. A single thought. A minute creation becomes bigger and bigger, eventually turns into a parasite and will not leave the mind. Affixed, infatuated, emptiness is gone. Anxiety takes over until its realization, joy and then calmness. Having the ability to lose one’s mind. A gift. Today, I’m going to lose my mind. I will not have to act logically, or follow a certain customary pattern because my mind is lost. Can the mind be moved to the chest area? Or to the genitals? Its controlling powers are overwhelming. How can I take control of the mind, since it is probably the mind that controls I? Conscience is the awareness of a moral or ethical aspect to one’s conduct together with the urge to prefer right over wrong. Consciousness is the state of being awake and aware of one’s surroundings. Without the mind, "i" cannot experience consciousness or conscience. If one lost one’s mind, no emptiness would be experienced? Stuck on a single point. The tiny dot becomes bigger than the sun until you’re blinded by everything else, and that is all you can see. Shunya.

Apu!!

Nupul wears shoes twice the size of his feet. The shoes are badly torn. When I asked him why his hands were green, he motioned that he had been painting. You’d think he is really quiet, but when he gives a hearty laugh, everybody stops to look at him, and when he gets comfortable, he won't stop singing. Last Tuesday, he walked to the park and saw some people doing some weird movements. Some were even doing acrobatics. He joined in and started imitating us. His coordination was a little off, but his acrobatics were a lot better than some. He quickly quit the work out, and instead got more interested in the music being played. He spent the rest of the class playing with the speakers (and unfortunately, ended up breaking them) until it was time for the hoda, when he joined the Capoeira maestra in the middle of the circle and did a perfect negativa…
I saw a big smile on the maestra the next day when she walked in the park with Nupul following her. Is he going to become a regular? He asked us at least 10 times when would be the next class.
The most amazing thing about Nupul –
Ana shared a sandwich with him at the park. And when he finished eating, he took the paper plate from Ana, got up and walked all the way to a dustbin and threw the plate inside. This may be a small act, but in my millions of worthless thoughts, this is huge. Huge, huge and huge. It gives a whole different perspective about things here. Sweet hope.
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A few days ago, I had the hiccups and couldn’t get rid of them. I had the computer in front of me and decided to google a cure. And I stumbled upon this in wikiHow:
“The Indian Method:
Close your eyes.
Think of a popular Indian character (Gandhi, Apu from The Simpsons, etc) and envision him in your mind very clearly.
Attempt to channel their voices through yours.
Speak gently and quietly.
Bob your head very slightly, side by side, making sure your eyes are still squeezed shut.
Lick your lips and say, "Did you order the chicken tikka masala?"
Slowly open your eyes and count to ten in Hindi (Google this beforehand if you don't know how.)
Your hiccups are gone!”

Apu is the second most famous Indian on the planet!???
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Yesterday, a rickshawalla suddenly pulled off the ray-ban sunglasses he was wearing, handed them over to me and asked me “how much do you think they are worth?”... i respond that my knowledge of sunglasses is crap, but if they are real, he would probably get a good deal for them. He showed me the cover (that's when i knew that they were fake), and assured me they were originals. I decided to play along and didn’t tell him I thought they were fake. He told me that a customer had left them in the rickshaw and since he started wearing them, girls started looking at him. He then went on a rant of girls wearing tiny skirts and how he once tried to put a paper on a girl's butt cheek who was riding on a bike, just because she was showing. “And if they wear such tiny skirts, they probably want us to look, then of course I’ll oblige. I bend all the way down to get a better peek!”

“Mere videshi dost se milna” – Meet my foreign friend

In Siliguri, as I waited for my bus to Kolkata, a boy looked at me with a mocking smile. When his friends emerged from a street shop, he looked at me and then at them, and said those words.

I’m a foreigner in my own country.

Not looked at as an Indian by Indians, not as a foreigner either, since I’m not a gora, and my ration card and my tax returns confirm that I’m not an NRI. What am I? Fuck knows. A bad speaking Hindi Indian. Probably, the best description.

Aside from the people who try to pull off a scam (and the obnoxious ones), most of the people I meet while traveling are incredible. The more I meet, the more I see, the smaller I feel. And understanding? Forget it. I don’t understand shit.

From Kerala, up to Rajasthan, across towards West Bengal and Sikkim.

In the last chapter of “Travels with Herodotus” by Ryszard Kapuscinski (thanks Yona!), the author writes the following about Herodotus, other travelers and probably about himself:

Such people, while useful, even agreeable, to others, are if truth be told, frequently unhappy – lonely in fact. Yes, they seek out others, and it may even seem to them that in a certain country or city they have managed to find true kindred and fellowship, having come to know and learn about a people; but they wake up one day and suddenly feel that nothing actually binds them to these people, that they can leave here at once. They realize that another country, some other people, have now beguiled them, and that yesterday’s most riveting event now pales and loses all meaning and significance.
For all intents and purposes, they do not grow attached to anything, do not put down deep roots. Their empathy is sincere, but superficial. If asked which of the countries they have visited they like best, they are embarrassed – they do not know how to answer. Which one? In a certain sense – all of them. There is something compelling about each. To which country would they like to return once more? Again, embarrassment – they had never asked themselves such a question. The one certainty is that they would like to be back on the road, going somewhere. To be on their way again – that is the dream.
We do not really know what draws a human being out into the world. Is it curiosity? A hunger for experience? An addiction to wonderment? The man who ceases to be astonished is hollow, possessed of an extinguished heart. If he believes that everything has already happened, that he has seen it all, then something most precious has died within him – the delight in life. Herodotus is the antithesis of this spirit. A vivacious, fascinated, unflagging nomad, full of plans, ideas, theories. Always traveling. Even at home (but where is his home?), he has either just returned from an expedition, or is preparing for the next one. Travel is his vital exertion, his self-justification is the delving into, the struggle to learn - about life, the world, perhaps ultimately, oneself.

Turtle boy

A turtle boy plays with a flat volley ball on the edge of a cliff
A kite flies over him, attached to a string, barely visible
He flings the flat ball towards the sky
Soaring high, it can only challenge gravity for a while
Detached, how can the kite defy the pull?
Turtle boy jumps to catch the ball
Climbs a tree and takes an apple from his pocket
Mr. Apple, does egoism exist in you too?
Mr. Apple reigns in supreme silence
A big bite of apple keeps 1/10th of a doctor away
A display of aurora sky and all land becomes white with snow
Angels lie on the ground and flap their wings
From a wooden house, the smell of hot red wine in a cauldron
Seeps into the clear night
Purple, green and red hues spray their magic into the sky
Turtle boy draws a rainbow on a paper
Folds the paper into a plane and hurls it into the coloured heavens
“I now have a rainbow kissing my northern lights”, he whispers
Mr. Sky, does egoism exist in you too?
The colours change to pink, blue and magenta
There must be some egoism in the sky too, thinks the boy
It satisfies its vanity as the earth is its mirror
A star flickers, wink wink, says Mr. Sky
Turtle boy buries the seeds of the apple under the snow
Spits on the snow and dances around the buried seeds
He chants to the heavens and ceremoniously worships the small seeds
May my self-centeredness become as small as the tiniest seed
And may my conscience grow as big as a miraculous gigantic apple tree wrapped by dancing northern lights