India Journal
Benares, India 6.2.11
Kites twisted in the dusk air,
their motions jerking, spiraling, diving, climbing, reds, purples,
superimposed against the pale blue sky, the late afternoon stillness,
filled with the sound of muezzins calling their faithful to prayer,
the sounds wailing from countless minarets dotting the ancient skyline,
beginning, sparking, like brushfire;
I pondered both the kites and the calls,
the former so simple, ingenious, ancient, relavent; to hoist into the sky, to send
prayers up to the heavens, such a simple pleasure in this manic, distracting age;
the mosques, their faithful, in this most holy of Hindu cities, a badge of tolerance
in this patchwork land.
Some randomesque quotations from personal inspirations...words worth a ponder, a dance in the mind...Theroux speaks of Rimbaud, as in Arthur Rimbaud, the 19th Century French poet, who, at a young age, in the prime of his career, left the ease and pomposity of Paris literary life for an existence of hard travel, settling and becoming a simple trader, nobody aware of his fame, his past, in northern Ethiopia, in the ancient town of Harar, where several crumbling buildings still mark his transitory presence....Rimbaud's words haunt the mind...a man so far from home, denying his past existence , living amongst strangers in a strange land, finding ease amongst hardship, contentment amongst the unknown...Rimbaud said, “I am used to everything. I fear nothing.”
“Other cultures are not failed attempts at being us, but they're unique answers to
a fundamental question -what does it mean to be a human and to be alive?”
-Wade Davis
“You go away for a long time and return a different person-you never come all
the way back. You think, 'I is someone else,' like Rimbaud.”
-Paul Theroux
“Hindu civilization is the only great classical culture to survive intact from the ancient world, and at temples such as Madurai, one can still catch glimpses of festivals and practices that were seen by Greek visitors to India long before the rise of Ancient Rome. Indeed, it is only when you grasp the astonishing antiquity, and continuity, of Hinduism, that you realize quite how miraculous its survival has been.”
-William Dalrymple
“A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
-Albert Einstein
11.
Calcutta, India
Walking the old lanes of Calcutta, life is lived, laid out bare, in front of one's eyes. There is no shame in this act; it is simply life, simply survival, but something more resonates; laughter and joy echoing from the men sharing their morning bath at the community pump, this scene played out on every street, on every block; there is nothing self conscious in this act; simply life, dancing its dance; the denizens of the streets, sleeping in their makeshift lean-tos, sidewalk camping, if you will; they sleep, curled up in nuclear and extended families, which people pass, the busyness of life not seeming to notice, their ears calloused to the outside world; again, nothing self-conscious, no shame, simple life; the workers from the tall towers, names emblazoned, the corporate titans of the next century, crowded on the street outside, eating simple lunches with their hands on tin trays, jostling, crowded, never solitary in this city of so many souls.
