Tasting Travelling

I've started putting into practice the concept of myself as a starving, growing animal. 
The kind that likes her teas alone, and books tickets before the dreaded changing-mind-stigma-stodginess sets in. This year has sufficed. So far. And there's Bhutan to look forward to, in the next entry.

Why travel
because it isn't enough without
unless i do.

Because i want to physically feel something
new and bright 
that hurts my eye.

i want to always close my eyes 
and lie flat on my belly in Morjim
when it's most deserted
and no one else is holidaying except retired couples
and the lone woman beached like a whale
baking softly in the sun.
the sunlight is white
i can taste salt and warmth and you.

i want to lose my way over 
and over again
making a new friend to meet the Maha Kumbh mela
and walk barefoot on silver sludge
silver sky.
orange robe are walking by in hundreds
because every one is leaving,
it's over.
the humans are gone,
this is the end and goodbye.
i've only just arrived here.
(i know there's a we somewhere,
i just can't seem to find it.)
we're wearing three days worth of rain-soaked
mucky yucky
clothes on us,
layered like stodgy iyengar bakery cake
because the bus from Ghaziabad to Allahabad
dumped us in Kanpur and we walked a mile
at 6 am in jacuzzi rain.
putting on lenses like a pro at the deserted bus stand.

i'd really like to pour my savings 
into another spur-of-the-moment
Leh trip.
and never think twice.
eat a fat red chunk of melon flesh
and breathe deephardfast
as the Stok range looms around me.
Mordor could be right ahead,
and the Shire's already
a distant basecamp memory.
(i wish i had legs like a donkey.
you can't feel pretty on a high-altitude trek anyway.)

Rough,crusty beach of broken shells
at Bekal.
This is another way of seeing Kerala.
Shedding inhibitions
 and hugging myself underwater.
Swinging on a wooden bed
above the backwaters
but smelling salt.
Walking alone,
walking in the rain.
Gobbling kozhi rasam because
ohgodyes
I still don't feel the Malyali connection
in my blood.
(I do feel something else though
rushing.)

Either the food is a strong connection or
i'm a livingbreathingmass 
which could travel the earth on fours 
to taste something 
new on my tongue.

Hello Lover

Hello mouldy old blog
I've missed you so
You keeper of teenage angst
strongly brewed feelings
and well-developed adult harping
Reminder of how there are corners in my house that never get swept
and somewhere the sharp waft of all the new mouldy cheeses I've been trying out lately.

This was always my space to speak out more clearly; words weaving together smoothly and cleanly in a way that my normal fastfumblinglyvague conversation would sniff at with derision.
aaah xjhjsa dtcr3l3, #$%1, haan. 

The past six months haven't been a whirlwind, so to speak. I'd really love to use the expression 'whirlwind'. It's dramatic and breezy and very feminine to the core; of dashing skirts and lifted chins and sudden entrances into the room. Things I'd rather read about, than be.

The past six months have seen a new start in this city which is my third home, my forgotten home, the home I never really lived in and always wanted to live in for some self-forsaken reason. I closed some chapters, edited others and simply opened a few new ones.

Bangalore is beautiful and exhausting and just as comfortable as an old coat. I haven't worn it very often, but shelved it carefully in measures. The childhood memories I have here are clean and well-folded. Each weekend was an adventure, and I tried to forget that I'd have to return to another reality of steel scales, snipey eleven year old classmates and empty obligations that were only four hours away.

I'm working here now, and learning more about myself every day, and suddenly loving this amazing fact: that after nearly twenty five years in this universe, I've got so much more to learn. I want to devour every thing around me. In a parallel universe, of course, I'm painting my nose blue and writing some reallycrazyimportantintelligentstuffs. These universes always collide. I'm not very worried about the grass being greener thing.

My writings gone rusty, there are bits I want to chop off and fumble with to make them click and hum. I'm probably more aware of how my brain functions now, so this would be a great time to share what I have to say. Either here or another channel. Once in a full moon (that's not so bad, not at all) someone unexpected comes up to me and mentions this dusty space on the internet. The connection is stronger, the moment felt more deeply than anything I've designed or drawn for the past few years. We're full of emotion, apparently. So someone said. Without shame or regret, we're vessels. Pomegranates stuffed with solid ruby gimlets, packed against our skin.

I'm travelling more and connecting slightly more frequently with the ocean. There may be mountains in my near future, some crazybeautiful lifealtering ones. You just need to decide that something will alter your life, and feel it in your bones, and go ahead breathe deep. That's what I think.