From Hampi To Mumbai
The view of Hanuman’s hood
Lately I’m seeing more than photographing, thinking more than writing. Yesterday I just walked through the paddy, fed a goat water from my hands. Before I watched the sunset with a beautiful girl, the light refracted more perfectly through her eyes. I’ve been reading Hesse, Ramayana verse, the Art Of Travel. I’ve been talking with people that don’t know me and tend to tell the truth. I like it here. I also miss home.
I’m supposed to be following the Ramayana. So far I’ve spent more time hanging out in Bangalore and Mysore than anything else. I dig the lotus but one has to stop eating at some point and get back on the road. So I took the bus to Sai Baba’s town to crash for the night. Sai Baba is supposedly God himself. A man at the German Bakery said he was omniscient, omnipotent and something else. Omnivorous? I went to morning darshan but didn’t catch a glimpse.
I took a bus to the checkpoint and got off in the hot highway heat. Chartered a three which promptly filled with about eight villagers, plying this obscure road to this obscure temple. Rumor has it that Ravana killed Jatayu the eagle here. I hear the same rumor about a few other towns, all hundreds of kilometers apart.
Afterwards I disappeared into the paddy and sunsets of Hampi, catching a brief glimpse of Hanuman’s hometown Anegundi. Strange. He could build a bridge to Lanka but there’s no bridge across a 10 meter river. I had a lovely time, more conversation than destination. Now I’m on the train to Mumbai, where I hopefully won’t get moored too long. I need to get to Nasik, where Lakshman cut off Suprakarna’s Surpanakha’s nose.
This isn’t much of a post, more to note that I’m alive. It’s a big world out there and I’m finding I can fit less and less of it into screens.
Surpanakha (Sanskrit for “sharp, long nails” or “lady with chopped nose”)