IndigOranges

The thing about travel writing is that words can never capture the smells and sounds of the journey and that of the places where our feet take us. How does one begin to describe the ethereal sight of rain swollen paddy fields arising out of the dawn mist beneath the foothills of the western ghats? I left bangalore for gokarna on diwali day, a few hours before most parts of the city erupted into a war zone. The intent was to escape for a couple of days at least, to a place that in my researched imagination, offered a refuge to spend some time by myself in quiet reflection. The twelve hour journey kickstarted from the s.r.s. travels terminus in majestic. And apart from a very unintentionally hilarious kannada flick called 'sringara kavya' the journey was quite uneventful and comfortable. The tickets cost us 400 one way per head.By city slicker standards, gokarna is a tiny hamlet, centered wholly around its ancient temples. The town, if I can call it that, is easily covered on foo

Specks of light, weightless, formless, floating through the infinite of space, driven by motivations unknown and compulsions unexplained, manifesting themselves in bodies many, one succeeding the other, spanning centuries, millennia, and epochs. Bodies that are merely the external casing, or rather the visible interface to a world made physical to the touch through the collaborative efforts of other infinite light beings, each brought to this moment by a pre-destined combination of events controlled by entities beyond our educated understanding. Infinite beings of light, luminous, transient, and constantly in a state of perpetual flux, each embodying within its physical envelope, their own set of beliefs and contradictions. Beings of light, who travel through space, time and beyond, strangers to each other as they pass each other in the all enveloping ether, finding and recognizing their companions and soulmates through their physical vessels. Inconceivable and unexplainable are the gu

A sense of deja vu pervades. This onam brought with it a set of events that brought me back to a state of mind where i was in the begining of last year. Certain decisions that cannot be held pending any longer. Experiences that have made me more aware of the world around me,and mistakes that i keep commiting in spite of learnings from the last time. in a way, i'm back to square two, with a little more knowledge than from the last time.

The last hours of the year gone by saw me sprawled out on my mattress, the result of a relentless menu of chicken and chitra bannerjee's books. The first day of the new year saw me trudging through the deserted alleys of bylakuppe at 5 in the morning with my comrade in distress, Arun. And just to give you an idea, the next day saw me bumping around like a bag of apples in the last seat of the village bus squashed between shiny schoolkids and dusty farmers from madikeri. I wanted to go around coorg, and what better way than to rough it out first thing in the new year. And thats how the first night of the new year saw me and Arun at the mysore road satellte bus stand,trying to keep awake and catch the 12 pm bus to kushalnagar (400 Rs for two). Why kushalnagar, because according to yours truly, that represents the staring point for anyone starting on a exploration of coorg and the sorrounding vistas. And that's how we endded up getting down in kushalnagar at 4 in the morning. We w