040217 - Placelessness

Placelessness..  I thought I would delve into the

depths of it.  So I have been for the last few

months..  as if New Delhi.. Rajasthan..  Bombay..

Colombo.. London were not enough.. I became so in New

York as well..  I have been homeless for a while now..

 within the City too I move from home to home.. 

living in a myriad of neighbourhoods..  and

circumstances..  out of the proverbial Box.. as they

say.  It comes full circle this karmic cycle.. 

whatever you turn you nose up upon comes back to bite

you..  I actually lived in the uppermost tip of

Manhattan..  in that land mass to the east they call

Brooklyn..  and might have to in that scariest of

scaries.. the nowhere land to the west they call

Jersey..  Did not Buddha or the Like say something to

the effect that it is only when you give up all your

pretences that you achieve Nirvana..  well going by

what I am going through I am definitely on the fast

track there..  I just hope it goes fast because I am

loosing my patience and mind and sanity..  what use of

achieving this Nirvana if you are a vegetable when you

acquire it.

How does One describe an existence which if one were

to read about it would seem rather odd..  I think I

did a lot of justice to that aspect of it through the

lens..  my camera was a very capable chronicler of

this time..  specially in India..  and if you are

interested I would be happy to send you the site which

holds images from the trip.  India..  boggles the Mind

and the Senses and the Soul..  it turns so intensely

erotic at one time.. so crude the next.. and so

obscenely erudite the next..  needless to say I was

overwhelmed yet again..  strangely, this time I was

experiencing it as an alien-yet-not-one..  I mean I

belong to it..  and yet everything even remotely

mundane was new and mystically alluring (thus the

millions of cow and cow dung photographs)..  I was an

alien in my own land..  connected to it.. yet from a

million light years and thought processes away.  My

parents and brother would not let me go and make so

much as a dinner reservation on my own or buy a bar of

soap..  I was not capable..  I had crossed some

invisible Ganga to someotherland where I needed an

individual with me all the time to help me negotiate

the price for the crossing.  At one point I simply

became a mute..  nodding my head to everything that

was said and done..  a silent spectator to decisions I

would have been loath for anyone to take for me in

normal circumstances..  Even though one tries to play

down the accent and mannerisms..  one cannot escape a

very simple aspect which lies beyond..  the underlying

Instinct of every human to Know the others place..  so

much for being a Citizen of the World..  I think we

still have a long way to go before we achieve that.. 

thankfully.  Not to say that the experience was

unnerving..  actually it definitely Was..  but I am

really glad that there are places where one is alien..

 even if it happens to be my own homeland..  it gives

rise to Adventure..  which I am sure is a building

experience.  

In the meanwhile the weddings I went for were truly

spectacular and precious..  my younger brother got

engaged in a ritual which involved a frightfull amount

of chaos and good taste which we were only too ready

to give but the takers were not too worthy of..

..and my best friend got married in a frenzy of a

whole convoy of cars bearing highly bejewelled

cousins, aunts, grandmothers, uncles (yes..  even the

uncles are bejewelled in India) breaking down en route

to the wedding in the middle of a shantytown on the

outskirts of New Delhi..  rather than being mugged by

the populace.. they pushed-fixed-polished-blessed our

vahans (cars)..  and we were on our way for our tryst

with the strikingly beautifull maiden from Bombay

(albeit reaching in true Indian Standard Time (two

hours late)).

Colombo turned out to be a taste of absolute

serendipity..  an island of tranquility in an

otherwise very crowded trip.

and then London..  with the dollar the way it is right

now it is a wonder I did not walk from the airport to

my sister’s place..  you see the greenbacks disappear

faster than a New York minute..  but then London is

the perfect transition between India and Columbus’s

almost India..  Heathrow has probably just as many

Indians as New Delhi Airport..  is just as chaotic and

dirty..  and London has just enough curry to make it a

perfect sleep over.

Not to say that India was anything near sleepy this

time..  it was renewed India I saw.. vibrant and alive

and roaring..  it was like a bejewelled, aristocratic

decaying maharani had suddenly turned over  in her

opulently decaying bed to display all her cards..  and

pictures they had on their faces all.  It really was

as the government sponsored propaganda machine

proclaims ‘India Shining’..  a land which holds the

promise of the future..  I cannot wait for the next

hand to be dealt out.

Continuing in the tradition of nobelese oblige I was

mugged twice.. in Stockholm earlier on in the year and

then in our very own New York..  I feel rather blessed

to be contributing to the general welfare of the

worlds have nots..  but I wish they would mail back my

wallets of which they will never appreciate the true

worth..

Since I have returned to the City.. every weekend has

been a snowboarding adventure with a SnowGuru called

Bu..  a nazi on the slopes (we went to Lake Placid

last weekend) .. and to whom I blame all the assorted

bruises on my body..  plus my striped tomato face.. 

but it is pure freedom itself..  every minute away

from the slopes is torture..  my computers cache

memory is clogged with snow associated data and

paraphernalia.. 

The candle is almost at its ebb (you wonder do you

not.. where I am living right now..)..  let me say

goodnight to a host of amazing souls who have offered

me hearth and home and continue to do so..  

there are a lot of stories and reminisces..  but I

shall wait till we meet again to unburden them all

lest you grow weary of this never ending barrage of

words I put you through..  and I am sure when we meet

we shall create some of our own..

Be well