‘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
I was back in Granada last week… long waffly post warning
…………. Such an ancient, powerful, spiritual place… where beauty and history are so preposterously tangible. First time I’d returned since living there in the caves for 3 months, ooh mbe 23 years ago where i went after prague, before south america and all the life changes that flowed from those adventures
chasing the ghost of my younger self, the uncanny feeling that i’d turn a corner midst the muddled streets of the albaycin, enter a square and there i’d be, sitting on the pavement huddled amongst friends, laughing, drinking… dogs, juggling, guitars, djembes and indeed not that much has changed, around sunset, gatherings galore in the plazas, the spanish anarchist look will always be dreadlock mullet, drizzled with copious quantities of black garb crusties and colourful pantaloons! this thing of beauty!
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this time i was just there for 2 days, the first day a tourist amble around the beauties of the alhambra… never been in autumn before, the burnished colours of leaves then the next day, a slow mosey up through the albaycin… a menu del dia in plaza lago… heart of the gitano quarter blaring music, kids arriving on scooters, being scolded, then leaving, everything a soap opera, community, stories played out on the streets. Onto the next square, cafe con leche, beer, a game of chess in the sunshine whilst listening to a rag tag busking band, the dipping and quirky almost arabic rhythms, the fiddler, he was like puppetry dancing, smoking whilst he played, a huge column of ash jauntily dangling from the end of his fag finally, for sunset, the slow climb up the hill to the church
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a haunting and powerful sense of place, our stories somehow written on, absorbed by the landscape, there goes Rhona, dragging her wheeled granny shopping trolley, a scratched parched dry path, cutting up and across the valley, past gnarled dog eared cactii, off to fetch water from the fountain at the church, high on sacromonte else sitting in a plump red chesterfield, outside K&R’s cave in the shit valley, fire blazing, Rasta, their dog, tongue lolling, persistently panting up and down the hillside after a stone, whilst claire squawks some cheerful story now, lying on the bed, thinking long on muddled memories and the far flung shores of yesteryear
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elegaic, i tell many stories about the caves, and that time, broad strokes, colourful, chaotic… too much borracho, the reality of it was much more complex for me, Granada always has a strong, dark energy… Sacromonte, only holy fools would dare to live on the sacred mountain mostly, thinking back, i am happy for such crazy adventures, for the heart connections… and grateful to all the lovely folk who looked after me
so it was, this time, at sunset, as we came down, winding our way along the goat paths, the alhambra glowing on the hill opposite, the snow capped sierra nevada mountains behind, lights starting to come on in the city below, the distant, somehow soothing, beep of horns i stopped to look for claires cave, within 100 meters, but couldn’t quite say which one? familiar, home… and very much not further on the hole in the wall, gateway to the valleys beyond, blocked up now, ‘ojo ladrones’… ‘look out, bandits’ then on the spur of a hill, a man stands alone, agitated, angry, he is bellowing at everybody walking along the path below, screaming at the sky, at the mountains…Maricon! Pueta Madre! all this amidst the manifest beauty , the subtle fading light. Granada
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leave it here? ha… should get on with work, wallow on, till fade out what are we? but the triangulation of all our human relationships? the social ties that tether us, i doubt it what are we? put your ipad on shuffle all songs, the spool that comes out? nope rather, somehow, we are all the people that we love, when you turn to a friend, begin to tell a story, a story a thousand times told.. yet your own voice summons a goose bump excitement, the thrill, catch fire, as sweet smelling Roses endlessly blossom and entwine with our words Granada ………………. ….. oh and pics couple from last week, and a tiny sample from the one film of kirsts that somehow survived xx
ooh eclipse in oz (g’day cairns!)… reminds me of the one i stumbled upon by chance in bagan, myanmar.
2 old pics by simon who kindly dashed about giving out cut up x-ray paper to protect the eyes of the locals
i was perched atop one of the ancient temples all on my own, majestic, powerful, profound stuff!
for this one apparently we’re best off with rituals in watery subterranean places (sea life center?!)
i’ve had a mega busy week, doing loads of interesting amazing things, but also struggling with some of both my own and other peoples darkness (possibly the same thing?!)
not really for facebook tho, which usually best when kept frothy and fluffy!
but wishing you all peace, insight, a gentle opening to the forces which engulf us… and of course love x
ha. mid 90’s, drive away extravaganza, new york to miami, hurtling along thru the kaleidoscope of leaves on the appalachian sky way, plummeting to the sunshine, then dog legging up to san fransisco via.. er.. south america, a punk extravaganza in austen, alburqueque, sunrise at the grand canyon… and .. and… AND… adventure ..and.. and taco bell quite often… thanks to mel for exhuming the pic — with Richard Pendry.
ha! just spent a very enjoyable hour rummaging through some of my old travel letters home, mum, bless, kept all my bewildering correspondence and handed them back to me last year!
i haven’t found the enthusiasm to re-read many of them yet … till now. but their hilarious! i have exactly the same wonderful pompous florid style, but scrawl handwritten, page after page after page, amazed and rather pleased to find i haven’t evolved one jot.
mostly though the letters are lovely, for their ability to summon the faces of old friends and the flavours of long forgotten adventures… today at least. hurrah for the past!!!
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Richard Basgallop oh and pic is 86, ko samuii? or mbe ko sammet? me scrawny from india and hengist a bonkers viking in a thong, who was determined to introduce me to mushies, moon parties and ozzie women… top bloke!
Nicky Guy I’ve just done the same String! I’ve got two big boxes full of old letters and photos and it’s hilarious looking through them! I’ve got some of your old letters too! Plus all the letters I wrote to Mum and Dad from every trip I’ve been on. …and a couple of travel diaries. Some great stories that I had completely forgotten :))
Richard Basgallop he he, enjoy your wallow! good fun ‘eh, i was just thinking how lucky i am, i got to write letters to my folks (and even my grandparents!) friends, sometime lovers and then on my past few trips to my kids. amazing!
slightly tempered by finding out that Finn, then age 13ish never read any of them to S, soulless, surly teenage brute! x
Richard Basgallop oh and feeling generally wafflesome… one of the letters i read was from hungary, and turkey! me and flaps hitching across europe, trying to get past the baffling kafka bureaucracy to go on the trans siberian express, strip searched by german customs, and a lift from a bored eccentric oxford uni drop out, 5hr around the bodensee, he meant to take us only 10 mins down the road, he was suffering from a mystery illness and insisted on stopping to play frisbee every 5 mins!
Richard Basgallop the other letter was from an abandonned log cabin halfway along the triglav trail in the slovenian mountains, me and shiv breaking up the furniture to cook spaghetti (al dente!) in a huge hail storm
Richard Basgallop ?… and most marvelous to keep on having new adventures too!!!
