avail

it's coming down officially now. umbrellas - black, yellow and green, foldable and unfoldable, torn, patched and new, are all out in full strength. i'm digging too. in the far corners of my cupboards for rain gear. and there's a squish in my shoes.

cats, dogs and the odd hippo coming down. you can bet your mummy, it's the end of summer. end of summer equates the first of the annual trips to hampi. the memories in spite of our adled beyond repair brains, are flooding in. ruins bathed in evening yellow. the million goli sodas. monkey hill. sanapur. the boatman with the cool aviators. the itch. oh yes. it's back.

a prayer for the road

all over, perfect squares of red, green, yellow and white mark themselves out against a blue sky. cheap block prints by the millions sending out prayers into the universe. riding on himalayan winds. the almost murmur of prayer flags fluttering in mountain air is a most becalming sound. second only to a pedal type sewing machine.

to get carried away in buddha country is fairly easy. a strong gale, sudden idealism, inexplicable feelings of belonging - the possibilities are infinite. faced with that, some of us weaker souls hang on. desperately to whatever we've known and most importantly - rationalism.

how for instance is this string of prayer flags here? across an impossible gorge. somebody shot the string across on an arrow? maybe the monks have a trained falcon that flew across with the string? a radio controlled plane - you know the type: petrol engine, 2 channel remote? a giant kite? between browne and me, we had a handful of watertight theories. turns out, somebody walked around the gorge with the string.

i'm a believer.

he who shuns the light

the drummers are frenzied. black lean arms blur into the still of the night. lamps flicker. incense hangs in the air. hundreds of eyes expectedly dart around. beads of sweat are wiped. and then the sound of a centuries old anklet rings the night. satan himself is in our midst. mephistophilis. quid tu moraris?

one pulli nest

taktsang - tiger's lair

a very long time ago, one tigress - standard specimen of the genus tigris, although this one could fly - decided to make the trip. from tibet to bhutan. and carried on her tawny back the precious load of saint padamasambhava or guru rinpoche. and the exact spot she chose to touch down, a 300-nugultrum-cabride away from paro is bhutan's ground zero. druk mecca.

all these centuries later, a more incredible sight does not stand. perilously perched on a 1000 ft tongue of rock, is an 8th century temple founded by guru rinpoche who chased away all the pagan spirits and introduced the way of the buddha.

up in the clouds, bhutan's middle finger to vertigo also traditionally promises the easiest channel straight up to heaven. but taktsang itself is nowhere near an easy climb. from 1000 ft above monks and raptors smirk as you begin a painful ascent. almost immediately all those years of smoking creep up on you.

thermal undies are both a good and a bad idea if you're walking up to heaven. it's cold. sure. but around every bend you break into a sweat. so you strip. and then the sweat freezes on you. ladies and gentlemen. we have a vicious cycle in our midst.

as always sheer human will triumphed over nicotine, impractical dressing and what i suspect were the beginnings of altitude sickness. to present the most spectacular holy place on this planet. gives you a big lump in your throat.

a windswept string of prayer flags arches across to the opposite hill face. in between a wooden bridge hops over a waterfall that plunges onward. giant prayer wheels churn away. a strange beautiful red bird shrills the thin mountain air. oh. oh. oh. heaven is on the near.

burn

went for a walk down a long and winding neural connection. turned left after a particularly stinging memory of five days spent starving. and chanced upon this huge fire. how many years ago was it?

chorten chronicles

reliquaries are bound to be interesting places, one can tell. from outside a chorten is a deceptively simple rectangular building with standard royal bhutanese govt. issue doors, domes, spires and buddha's eyes that look out in all directions. but you know from your cheap travel guide that a chorten is build to commemorate kings, saints and monks.

consequently your brilliant deductive mind will inform you that this rather unassuming building is also probably a container for holy relics or the physical remains of a saint - bones, shreds of clothing, etc. and there you have it - mystery. behind the whitewashed walls is the dragon kingdom at its mythical exotic best!

brilliant deductive minds are in supply apparently. and so some brilliant deductive minds got together and robbed a few chortens when we were there. even with buddha watching out in all directions, quick hands, remain quick hands.

gooligan

thaiyyam - chapter uno

 kerala has always been a land of strange incongruencies. two-in-one music systems from dubai compete for shelf space in every house with pictures of grandmothers long gone. literacy rates run neck and neck with suicide statistics. fish is staple and so are doctors and lawyers. and in cannanore (up north), every year gods walk among men.

how thaiyyam evolved is a story i don't want to ever find out. i have fascinating theories in my head that i will never put to rest with the truth, something i fear is far more plain. so what thaiyyam really means is also best left at what i think it means - the dance of the gods. oh. oh. i'm a sucker for my own versions of stories.

but this is not a story that can be told. this one deserves to be seen, heard, smelt. common men don war like face paint and strange almost-costumes fashioned from coconut and whatever else your average ingenious malu could find. they then go into theatrical trances and see through rituals bordering on bizarre with meticulous detail. and eventually they make the jump from man to god. a mutation announced through the neighbourhood to the accompaniment of old fashioned gun powder going off. your every last sense is under assault. and before you know it - there you are. staring wide eyed at a god. in the flesh.

chickens are beheaded. people faint inexplicably. gooligan (seen here) pirouettes endlessly. followed in enchanting circles by his reed skirt and long flowing black hair. and then passes out. before he's rushed to an ICU. this is not a story that can be told.

the last shangrila

out east, the most curious changes happen over the shortest distances. plains make way for hills, big brooding rivers twist into a million drains and rhinoes move over for bongs. but in jaigaon (or joigaon), your average border town - dusty and dirty, an almost magical drama unfolds. across one drain about 6 feet wide, plains, dust, trucks, shanty slums and india squeeze together and switch to mountains, 4-wheel drives, gushy streams and bhutan. across that drain, in phuentsholing behind the traditional roofs of the immigration offices, hotels, apartments and 'privacy discotheque', the himalayas climb steeply. away from the plains and the dour lives and into bhutan - the land of the thunder dragon.

the full story. coming soon.

behold a baul

every single time
i see or hear a baul
i want nothing more
than to hare it.
for a life less fettered.

joan of the jhatre

mondays remind me of sundays. and these are from a jhatre (a local festival for the uninitiated) many a sunday ago. eunuchs have perenially fascinated me. from misplaced fear on a pune bound train many years ago to jocular conversations now, it has been quite a ride. i look around and wonder if the 'different' are our mutants? are they the new order? will she take over the world? and strike down upon us with the vengeance of the sidelined? more pertinently why do we frown upon deviants? do we really have pineapples for brains?

the feet fete. again from the jhatre. school girls in surprisingly well rehearsed moves drew imaginary triangles, circles, squares and octagons on the hard floor with arched feet fettered in rented anklets. any co-ordinated movement these days brings back stinging memories of drills from back in school. when an old balding p.t. teacher would bark out instructions at us - little kids under a telling sun - from the shade of a gulmohar. "baatchit karna", he'd yell. "mana hain", we'd yell back.

ze mall rats

all words as a rule are stimuli that trigger distinct responses. and for me, 'mall' is followed naturally by pavlovian thoughts of crowded escalators, neon lights, bright shop windows, sneakers squeeking on overpolished floors and the general din of humanity. in essence 'mall' for me has always meant - trauma. so why were we traveling some 6500kms across land, water and mountain to rendezvous with pearly j at a mall exactly?

my worst instincts were partially vindicated when at the appointed hour we arrived at the mall. some 8000 people were gyrating to the sounds of o-bey thy master! master! master! curious coincidence. but we'd just walked into the closing act and the ensuing brouhaha of the annual darjeeling carnival.

when the dust did settle a few hours and many misadventures later, i discovered 'mall' according to the dictionary alternatively means a public area set aside for pedestrian walks. in darjeeling they mean this and not that (forum, garuda, sigma, etc. on another note have you noticed the mall special BMTC bus?). here it's a biggish round clearing flanked on one end by a string of shops that show off overpriced trinkets and on the other by a deceptively gradual slope that disappears into the fog. trees poke out of the fog and red cheeked boys and girls run about when not giggling.

the mall is the best place to do the darjeeling do. that would be - nothing. sit around. sip on another cup of tea. hide from the world behind your newspaper. fight for more space on the standard government issue park bench. and think profound deep thoughts as you watch the cutest ever kid discover the simple joys of a skipping rope.

my first and last memory of darjeeling is of the mall. it will forever reside in a special place in my head. it's where you'd dig your hands deeper into your woolen gloves. contemplate another cup of tea in all earnestness. watch the horses trot across with another load of bong tourists. stretch your mountain weary limbs. yawn with the dogs.
you've arrived.

peekaboo

one more face from god's own country. it's a new day for me.

when in danger or in doubt...

make a face.

when joe sat

memories trigger memories. another concert tonight dug up old ochlophobia. from there a hop skip and jump till joe sat. and finally settling with a pleasant evening spent surfin with the alien. it will be ok.

roadtrippers unlimited

pleasantly reminded of our first evening in bhutan
of a cheap imported heater that saw us through sub zero nights
and the thrills and spills
that go with being as disparate
a bunch of roadtrippers that we were