From Brahma to Buddha, Spring 2011

me. It's really easy. It'll be Darjeeling. I'm probably going to do yoga and fast and write alone in a cheap guesthouse until something really easy happens like I get invited to go chai lounging or stumble into a momo shop and have identical orders with some dreamy hunk. Kidding, kidding, trying to make laughs. Nah, i'll just get englightened. And then spell it wrong. Uhhhgghghgh did I mention it's hot.

It's like yes, i am missing real and bitter and stimulated rationale and the right, of course i have to make money, shut up, grow up. Dont start with yourself Amanda, it's stupid. Buuuuuuut right now, being here, the 'planning when I'll be there or anywhere' thing is another world, again, point repeated. It's like yes, I am romanticizing things but maybe I just experience the world more romantically than everyone else or just most people. I see that. Don't give me that Billy Downing.

But the moment that I put a fat old inky mental stamp on and racked my brain to keep a vivid memory of came when we were walking down the local tacky-shit road and saw a windy little alleyway that people were shoving themselves in and out of and was the shadiest looking place around. It was like kind of damp and smokey and got crazy fast. And we were just funneled into this shoulder-to-shoulder movement of saree bargaining and spinning chai cups and banging plates into shape and measuring spices and holy bells ringing off the walls of this upsidedown, like, creature. and it was all beneath the cover of these batik tarps and sheets and the dampness of the humidity in the shade was like fuel. So we were getting lost in this labyrinth where turning around was never the way out and all of the buildings felt like they were falling in on us and of course there were monkeys on the walls like stratling the air and stealing food and we turn a corner to see a smooth and huge tree trunk weaving through the buildings down one of the like, tunneling black holes. And the leaves were in windows and branches were shooting through the sheet metal roofs and this whole entire section was shaded by the invasion of this tree. But we kept winding and asking and looking for a light at the mayhem's end and finally popped back out on a different street probably an hour later and only a half kilo down from where we'd entered.

The interaction with India-India is coming to a slow halt. But there in that maze for that one moment the contact between us and it was almost aggressive it was so full. Although it's all softening off at the edge of this journey, I never cease to be amazed. Richness is something this culture will never be short of. The sparse and visceral permanence, our impermanence, it makes these pieces of the world and our lives so hard to let go of.

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Hitting up the Mango Duet stand....our new obsession in the blazing 115 degree heat