home now … rummaging thru pics… here are the beach ones (non beach pos tmr), goa, then later on varkala way down south… all pleasantly muddled up together…. 10 days or so of loafing about idleness in the sunshine, delicious grub and most of all super company… thanks guys, whether pictured or neigh, was magical! xx
‘The Shape and the Shaping of Wisdom’… Indian Geezer, in a full moon party T-Shirt, comes up to me in a restaurant, whilst I’m guzzling a somewhat delish vegan buffet with Alix and Tim, he says ‘sorry to interrupt, but are you by any chance 1028 milligrammes?’… I just about have enough savvy to appreciate it’s a lsd reference, so presume he’s either trying to sell me some, or wants to buy? anyway conversation trundles along, apparently I am a dead ringer doppelganger for a legendary trance dj… who’d a thunk it… blooming old school hippies!… confusion resolved, turns out in his younger days, our new found friend was a tamil rapper, from madurai… he proceeds to give us a stomping, passionate, nailed on lyrical rap! bravo! on querying the lyrics it’s a conscious spiel, as to how we have to honour the sunshine and the farmers for our food… groovy… nowadays he works with a more jazzy collective and plays us a song off his phone, cinematic buzz… Next talk turns to his youthful adoration of eminem, shows us how he has the same tattoo on his left hand… says that gandhi would have approved of eminen! kinda ‘authentically, living out, and telling, the story of his life’… in the background, his gentle shy wife is holding the baby…. bubba gets in on the act, gurgling and smiling chubby cheeked adorable… quite a presence, for such a small lumpen thing… baby is called ‘Sith Robin’, which means, the shape and the shaping of wisdom… dad then takes a selfie, so, in time honoured fashion, I get him to reciprocate and snap one for me… ‘chinni’, sugar, is the tamil version of ‘say cheese’… before he leaves, as a finale, the fellow sings us the sweetest, most soulful of tamil ballards… a beautiful timbre to his voice, a powerful resonant song
anyway, just thought to share, on the hoof, this travelling vignette, from 30 or so mins ago xx
‘one selfie please?’ invariably accompanied by a broad grin… I beam back in my most robust Brian blessed tones ‘YES Of COURSE’, then more softly add the coda ‘can I take one too’… arms are extended and we jostle within range of the fish eyed lens, this most modern of fandangos, and I do my upmost to look less wrinkly than reality. Indians love selfies, I love selfies, truly it is a match made in heaven. here’s but a few from my collection (was gonna include one of lakshmi the pondy ganesha temple ollifant, but didn’t come out in the collage)
For obvious cultural reasons, its almost invariably a youngish man, or a group of lads out together, usually middle class affluent, with enough English to ask for name and good country, often conversation spirals off into cricket ‘Ben Stokes’… tho in chennai there was a pastor, slicked down, tamed bouffant, white shirt, white trousers and, impressively, white shoes!
Smart phone magic has come to India, the hugest change since 10 years ago… of course it has its uses… making travelling so much easier… I love most the way every tourist place you go there’s a gaggle of youth posed in silhouette against some scenic backdrop, concocting a social media portolio.
… and as I’m clearly in a wafflesome mood…
my fave so far was sitting in the bus footwell, legs dangled over the edge, out of chinglepat… whereas the beachfront in pondy is how modern India wants to see itself, a throng of prosperous middle class families out guzzling both ice creams and samosas, life as a promenade… the truth is the chennai wealth has only spilled over so far… off the obvious track chinglepat is the norm, dusty, glut crowded with people, India, eternal, the same as ever… Chai, Rickshaws, Family, Temples
anyway my travel companion and I bought each other sweet milky coffees… I thought his name was Dougal… but now suspect he was travelling to din-dugal… he spoke almost no english… yet brandishing phone showed me some pictures from his life… his beautiful waif thin wife in a colourful sari… and… mostly… pictures of machines… big industrial machines… he was a mechanic and proud of it… if there ever was a Tamil Nadu equivalent of Bruce Springsteen, his songs would be for and about Dougal!
Mahaballipuram and Tiruvannamalai
Such the lazy life of the lotus eater… already 2 weeks have ambled by since these…
Mahabs was exquisitely carved 1500 year old sculptures, you can stroll across the rock strewn hill and often have a cave temple to yourself, places for pondering, equally as it was Republic day and a Sunday, a cheerful and curious mob of locals would descend. Pool for when too hot
Tiru sacred Shiva fire mountain (Arunachala)… An enormous ancient temple, city within the city (India, bedlam in microcosm without the cars!), 4000 years people have worshipped here… contrasted with the serenity of the Sri Ramana Maharishi ashram, and a barefoot nature walk partway up the mountain to his meditation cave
Shanti Shanti Shanti
Nahmaste… And all that jazz! I’m in India for a month, tis the usual bewildering bedlam bonkers… 10 days in Tamil Nadu so far, huge amounts of fun and some profound-ity. Gurus and Scooters! Splurge more words and holiday snaps when serenity arrives.. In transit today (ie bit bored)… 34 years since I was first here (yikes!)… we’ve both changed and not… Modern, Ancient, Sacred.. Go Gandhi Ganesha! x
peculiar, around town lunchtime, kept on thinking i saw folk i knew, went over, to find it wasn’t them, an uglier version, my friends are much more beautiful!
which of course raises the preposterous notion that somewhere out there there is a beautiful version of me.
oh and the hanuman pic, groovy bright pic for a rainy eve!..after dance, i found a hanuman amulet trinket thing on my car seat… which isn’t that odd, as it was one of many i got in haridwar
love these memory jolts… of swimming in the fast flowing ganga at vishnus footsteps (during the mela!), the joyful palaver, which combines the vibe of a family trip to the sea side, with powerful ancient religious ritual, head shaving and floating flowers and galloshers of incense!
to be honest i know nothing of hanuman, i’ve always been much more fascinated by female spiritual power.. and think the more of that there is in the world the healthier we all are
… but, theres also something lovely about the male energy of hanuman too, powerful, strong, loyal, wise, loving and above all direct. yep, i’m rather enjoying being a bloke at the mo!
First indian photo, nagababa, a snake baba
yesterday i ended up sleeping at Triund (about 3000m) high above the snow line, a place with a fantastic view of the local mountain range,
the 3 biggest being Moonpeak, something unutterable and the Matterhorn(!?), possibly not!
these are somewhat tiddlers (5000m or so) compared to the mighty Annapurnas of last year, but none the less, not to be sniffed at!
as ever, rather an accidental Himalayan adventure, a leisurely breakfast and i thought, well maybe i’ll just go for a stroll up the gorge…
and one footstep leading to another, just kept going
beautiful scenery, Rhoddedenhdrons, a view back to Mcleod ganj, as the path zig zagged higher and higher
but the mountains still shyly hidden, tantalising, tucked down behind the ridge!
then i was amongst the snow, in places it was a bit dodgy, a lot dodgy!
but tip toed extremely carefully, you always have to when your walking alone
i met a few other tourists coming down and they told me how amazing it was up top, but also, that the lodge was open.
hmmm why not!
with a final heave ho and a huff and a puff, i was up at the top
gorgeous! gob smacking view!
there was a chai stall and the owner said i could stay in the lodge, it was already getting somewhat late for traipsing back down
there were 5 blankets, couldn’t be that cold? could it?
having become somewhat neurotic about falling off the cliff, on the way up, fear is a very versatile thing, i now began to think ‘just me and the chai bloke up here, maybe he’ll murder me in the night! chuck my body into the gorge’
It was a sumptous sunset! tinge of pink on the peaks, finally softening further, nestling to purple, then black
.. then the chai shop bloke said he too was going down, he was missing his fanily.. and would be back in the morning
click your fingers, instantly my mood changed, he was now my only friend in the entire world! thinking ‘aargghhh don’t go, don’t leave me here alone, not with the ghosts, monsters and demons’
but off he toddled
a curious night, just me and the mountains and the stars.. sitting outside around a tin with a small smouldering fire in it, raking up the embers, huddled right up to it, sucking up every last iota of warmth
trying very hard to be alone and not lonely
the stars were incredible, the moon but a few days old, laggardly tarrying, chasing after the sunset
then the big slow wheel, the reel of the stars overhead… Orion… as ever
even in the dark, i felt loomed over by the immense sky straddling bulk of Moonpeak
a very chisel jawed, sculpted rugged mountain
strange to think that the next human being was 2 hours walk down, at least a 1000m lower from me
you’d think the mountains would be utterly silent at night.. and mostly they were, but every creak and whistle had me wide eyed staring about, peering
at night, the light from snow and reflected starlight has a peculiar quality
sound muffled, yet bounced
in bed at night i was totally frozen, couldn’t sleep for the nagging quality of the cold
then halfway through the night. rustle crackle
yikes! what be that! i turned on the torch, to find a mouse!
he was a bold little brown thing, big ears, rodent twitchy
busy guzzling away on one of my biscuits! sneaky.
aren’t mice supposed to be scared? run away at the light? well not this one, he hopped up close for a further rummage
i gave him a biscuit and was really rather pleased to see him. a living creature!
eventually i slept
woke in the morning, survivor, with the light, and a lot of shouting and hooting
outside 4 tibetan monks having a snowball fight! they’d got up very early and trekked up, to hang a few new prayer flags, or so
in an exuberant mood, kids at the seaside, they gave me tea and took an awful lot of photos
all the tibetans seem much wealthier than the local indians, better educated, better clobber, not quite sure why!
anyway after brekkie, the slow trudge and snow slide back down!
