Shanti Shloka

15 days spent in Sikkim.
I went there in search of peace.
and I found it. In every drop of rain.
Mist that erased mountains.
In Silence.
In sunlight.

To yellow walls.
to our bodies that we underestimate.
To remembering divinity.
and the absolute.
and love found not in fingertips
but every thing that shimmers.

much much more later.
Sacred lakes, Monks, Peace, Art, Hollowlands.
Simplicity.

Oranges and Tea- Cherrapunji

When we got there the sun was setting and all was a dull orange with its juices dried up and spilling onto the sky.

The sky's a fancy purple shop where clouds can now buy wings.
Everything is coloured like oranges and tea.
There was sky. there were clouds. and all of us were swimming in this strange little town.
the wettest place on earth.We were in the clouds. IN the clouds. Walking down the winding streets of this village proved to be difficult because We couldn't see what was two feet ahead of us.
Through the mist children would emerge. Smiling with little red umbrellas in their hands. They wave and giggle as I take their pictures and give them bracelets from my arms as gifts. By the end of the walk I had given away all my coloured glass beads from my wrists to them. Rainbow wrists no more.
They lived in little houses with small square gardens filled with flowerpots and ponds (with frogs in the ponds one small girl told me in broken hindi).I want children I realized.Hah. I want to live in a small bluewoodenhouse in the hills with many little children with a pond in the garden with frogs in it where everything is wet and one walks out of the door and onto a cloud. Or by the sea in a sandcastle with a little girl with flowing hair and I'll collect shells with her all day long and make more sandcastles only so they can be destroyed again by the crashing waves.
Beh. In my artclass there's this little girl who I show glitter to and tell her I've scraped it off a rainbow and she believes it. and she sits on my lap in everyclass and cries on my shoulder if her painting isn't the way she wanted it to be as I stroke her hair and tell her its beautiful.
I think I should keep her.
I want too much. too fast I think.

Back from dreamsequence to Cherapunji. I bought a red raincoat at a small ramshackle shop.

Its plastic and its translucent and its wonderful.
like the one I owned when I was young.
By the truckload 'they' cautioned us along the way to remember poor Hansel and Gretel Who got lost in the woods and other feelings we could wear no more: miniature labyrinths we could no longer find our way back into. I shoulder my disguise and try to capture the rain in the palm of my hand.
May 2007
'wind in
and the smell of your hair
i hit as hard as i can
with my nose
jumping into a puddle
wearing no boots
completely soaked (dripping wet)
wearing no boots'
sigur ros,Hoppípolla

obscured by clouds- meghalaya part 1

from calcutta we find our way to guwahati,
Guwahati is paan-chewing men
with red mouths
that lick their lips when a woman walks by
Escape from this city. this weary-washed-out wasting city.this broken jaw of our kingdom.
To a greener place, a softer world.
Everything is green.
Greener than apple.
Greener than sea.
Greener than envy, than eden. than sky.
The hills start to appear and I'm tongue tied and twisted.
Its starts to get colder. My toes are cold again. I've missed this feeling.
The air is sweet. I buy strawberries, a mango, 4 bananas and litchies for lunch.
Four hours later we're in shillong. Shillong itself is over-rated. Like Shimla or ooty main towns.The next morning we shake dreams from our hair and explore shillong a little. walk around whatever part of the city is walkable and then go to a butterfly museum. This made me happy but we wanted more from the north east.
Let down and hanging around.
Ten minutes later our bags are packed and we're in a taxi to Cherrapunji where we'll stay with the taxi drivers aunt who has an extra room she'll rent out.
So we leave this city with its blue windows and small eyes.

The Ride to Cherrapunji is surreal. Like Sigur Ros or dali painted these landscapes with their soundwaves or a brush and ink.There are clouds here that try to swallow me. Swallow this little village that has never been mapped out. This topographic tale that was never written down. This hill that was ignored when the kings or fools came down from their thrones to own the land. It rains. and then it stops. It rains again. and ceases. again. There are trees. She is sleeping next to me and we are still driving to our destination but I tell them to stop and go for a walk in this forest.tall trees with their branches sticking out in right angles like arms and I look up. The sky is an unbelievable blue, like the requisite technicolor surreal dance number in some musical.
It starts to rain. Big blue drops of water this time. And each drop licking the leaves before falling on my head. I sat down and wrote sentences down with a purple ink pen and liked how my carefully thought out words dissolved as drops of rain fell on the page.
Drenched to the soul/bone. The trees shuddered. I shiver. And find my way through the trees back to the car parked by the side of the road
We start moving again through the rain, through the clouds and I fall asleep.
In my dreams I'm in a forest surrounded by trees. I can see some words etched into a tree..i see a light. the light illuminates the words from the back. The light reflects off whisps of brown straw, green blades and gray reed. Like a negative on a light table. The color is intense. It's twilight.The ground is dull, but the words glow. I wake up before I can read what it says.
There is land. Stretched out everywhere like sky.There are clouds. and more clouds. We drive through them carefully afraid that somewhere in that mist is a truck waiting to crash into us.
There are graves. Crosses sticking out of the hills like hands and fingers thrust up from the earth. Reaching out to the sky. There are little temples with pink dried up flowers at the entrance. And there is cold.
There is always cold.

And so I'm back
from outer space
rocks don't do well when it comes to balancing a camera on self timer.
We were in the clouds.where does this story begin?
(it was the day the sky was falling in)
need to sort through alll the pictures
more will come.