"The Palace of Bundi, even in broad daylight, is such a palace as men build for themselves in uneasy dreams-the work of goblins rather than men" Rudyard Kipling
I tuck into a book and a masala chai, aroma of lunch lofting in the air, the city below alive in the midday sun, buzzing.
Walking backwards, through blue streets, faded colors spewn like fireworks, doorways adorned, women cloaked. Children clatter, smiles, genuine smiles, practicing their simple emglish, their hellos ringing, enthusiasm in fleeting glances, the maze reverses.
The medevil fortress towering overhead warrants merely a glance, offset against this bright human landscape. I'm in a place I want to be, I smile at ease, feel in touch, feel free, unburdened, so easy to find, and stay. The bus is arriving a the station, me, crushed next to the dusty window, a small crowd around me, flexing their small English muscles, intensely happy in eachothers company, smiles and nods filling the large language gaps. I drop a few rupee coins in the blind mans silver bucket, the sound they give seems amplified, as my ears maybe hear as his for a quick moment, then he is away, boarding the bus, trying to fill his stomach , hopes high on this new morning, how hard his life must be, but still so dignified, I cannot grasp.
Walking towards the bus depot, only a name in my mind of this distant place im heading towards, overheard in a cafe some days before, taken note of, stored in the back of my mind in an afterthought. Bundi, the couple says, a special kind of place.
In Pushkar, I stroll amongst flocks of tourists, flocking liek flocks do, everyone seeming to find comfort in the Indianized version of home, minus me. The comforts do not excite or entice me, they dull, they bore, I yawn, rack my brain for somewhere to excape this tourist excape. There is a place, I remember, that sounded special. So easy to change directions when the road is home, and the only one to answer to is oneself, too easy perhaps, one can travel in circles and never arrive, but freedom is precious, one of the great attributes of the road.
"The land was sacred. but it wasnt political history that made it so. Religious myths touched every part of the land outside colonial Goa. Story within story, fable within fable; that was what people saw and felt in their bones. Those were the myths, about gods and the heroes of the epics, that gave antiquity and wonder to the eart people lived on."
VS Naipaul, India: A Million Mutinees Now
