When there is no place to go, but into the pool of your eyes, a dirt floor, an open
door, clouds dressing up the sky, a thin veil of sweat on my skin. I want to escape
my body, yet I can't but enter it and follow the meanderings of the snake in my spine,
in my tongue. There is no place to go but here, between leaps of silence and mountain
sides, at the edge of dark, licking my fingers tipped in juice of honeydew. I want to leave
my tears to shed them into a golden ball, let each of them bloom into a pearl glowing
in my eyes. There is no place to go but into the rhythm of my heart, in the steps of my
feet, unquesturing the road to follow. There is no place to go but in the present wind.
I may ask you to not clap in between if you are okay with that. Thank you. God's world.
The sign says no honking, yet it never stops. Lives are cheap on the dirty streets, dogs
sleep next to men peeing in line on the sandy rubbish covered ground, next to the overloaded
asphalt, trucks, buses, cars, rickshaw, motorcycles, honking and honking and honking. In the blaze
of morning pollution, a man brushes his teeth in a brown puddle next to a woman who empties
her bowel next to the vegetables she has displayed for sale. The smell of human shame
neighbors gas-exhaust. A man shouts pounding on the white cab that ran him over, then yonks
the passenger out. The windowless bus leaves before the fight starts. An old show, nobody
cares. And everywhere the honks and honks and honks. The bus stops in every place, bags
of goods and flowers on the shaved rubber floor, along with oil, muck and dark leathery
feet. The driver honks, every driver honks, always necessary as keeping one foot on the
gas pedal, important as gas in the tank, present as the heartbeat of the traffic. At 8 a.m.,
it stinks, it is loud, it is dirty, and the day has just begun like every other day, honking
and honking and honking. Stone after stone. Slowly, up Mount Arunachala, pilgrims walk,
coming a song everyone seems to know, as if their feet knew each stone stepped on. Stones
telling tales of etched faces, of howling monkeys, of Shiva's erupting fire. Butterflies
mingle with laughing birds, sharing colors, black, orange, sometimes red. The breath of
the earth can be heard like bells of crickets, like sweat dropping from my skin. Far off
a puja plays a chaotic song, amplifying the beauty of silence between leaves and stones,
between heat and lips. I have asked you, I have asked for you for so long, I will never
let you go.
Unspoken. The peacock walks on the roof, as quiet as Hassan in his shop. He comes from
Kashmir, a beautiful place, he says. He would have loved never to leave. Scars crowd he
his forearms, snakes in his flesh. Each soft, brown eye, deep as a mirror, dark as a riddle.
Younger than he looks, he speaks a few languages, softly hidden under his beard like small
wonders. He sells for a living. He paints for his heart, sun, skies, flowers, beautiful
things that make him happy. I am a Sufi, he says. I don't paint enough. What has he seen?
What does he silence? Like the peacock, he walks gently on the edge of a roof, away,
far away from home, close to his soul, in a split world of human requirements. You'll
know her smell. The smell of India saturates my hair, earth and hay in a tingle of sweat
between dirt and sea in a shade of musk, clinging to my skin, salty, sticky under the
sun, rope-like in the day of meandering. In my pores, it melts like smoke on the side
of the street, rising from the garbage piles swept by a few twigs in the woman's hands
at sunrise. It sings in my being like an old, recurring dream, life after life in the
gold-colored sky. A smile in my womb, salt in my mouth, it whispers a hush of straw under
my bones. Between rowdy trains and buses, within crowded streets, in the silence of
mountain path, it swells and I drink every bit of it. As a bird soon to be living on
a long journey, I need something to remind me where I have been. The smell of India saturates
my hair and for a moment, I become part of her soil.
Anantapuri Express. Blue plastic seats, yellow tinted windows, AC blowing cold, too cold,
mild smell of sleep and piss. Like a dated postcard, the landscape passes behind the
yellow shade, peaked mountains, skirted with palm trees, ending in three merging seas,
train rocking a lullaby cradling souls through the wind. Blue, blue and yellow, synthetic
curtain and red cotton shirt in front of tinted landscape, still and moving, temples, ruins,
mountains, bricks and people everywhere. By the window, a bottle of water, a newspaper
written in Tamil curly print, the only sound of wind, the blowing AC. When the train stops,
the sound of feet slowly walking through life slips between seats. The underlying smell
of piss prevails, there is no place to hide.
Sample Junction. Squire of water and coconut trees in matching
grain. Crooked stone stairs, older than the wood and missing tile roof of the gadzebo
rotting by the irrigation tank. Boys swimming, white tooth smiles next to men sitting, bathing,
talking, laughing or religiously washing their bodies, their loincloth, pounding the soaked
fabric on the stone, rubbing and cleaning, slapping the dirt out of the thread out of
their lives. Boys repeating the elders gestures in the ritual of cleaning the body, the clothes,
cleaning the heart, the soul in a mundane act of beauty before drying in the sun and
going back for another swim. Present in the swimming, present in the washing, present in
the moment above and under water, between the twisting of the clothes and the layers
of covered and uncovered manhood, the undress, the godly selves living their souls to shine
under the holy glow of daily life. Man among men, among boys, among fish, unfettered, unhiding,
smiling and praying in the womb of the water, the body of the mother, sacred, free, cherished.
Then shut up the express. Music in the train station, nobody's dancing, 7 a.m. badminton
game on the grass, two men. Rick shows didn't come despite two reservations, only three
hours to Ernakulam, not six, train relentlessly blowing its horn, ants everywhere, everywhere
and yet so small. Masaladosa was really good. Letting go of shawl and everything else, train
probably late. No, not probably, certainly. Yellow tinted windows. Coffee, coffee, coffee,
chai, chai, chai. Train full of Indian men, no women. Not true, too. Moving on is easy,
making the decision is hard. Muslim call at 5.15 a.m. Ants ate dead bug. What's the deal
with the Kashmiri boys? They are younger than they'll look. Accurate smell of wood and sandal.
You never know the real price of the things you buy. The end seems to be the beginning.
I feel like I never arrived. India makes me cry. India makes me cry. Beautiful and dark,
resembling a one-legged crow tending her wand with a sharp beak. Washing bodies in petried
water, walking bar food on cobblestone. Clean roads never last long. In the morning, fish
sold next to garbage piles on fire. Which smell is stronger? Smiles are open and genuine
until they turn into hassles. In a split second, everything changes, always, relentlessly,
like a coin turning on a marble floor, looking for the crack that will bring its fall onto
the choice of the moment. At times, everything merges and becomes magnificent, like the heart
of the one-legged crow went fed by her companion, their magic mirror dance returning beauty
into her leaping gate. Anna Malayar temple. Up and down the stairs, between carved walls
and Shiva lingams, pilgrim walk purposefully. Their shoes left at the entrance, asht and
covered in red clothes. The clap hand at special darshan, twenty rupee next to Ganesh. Man
walk hand-in-hand. Others lie in prostration. Woman sit, pointing fingers in so many directions
only they know why. Smell of soap trails in the air fills my nostril. My bar feet, sandy
black among others, affirm life like the ones of the blessing elephant from one foot to
the other, left and right in the natural swing of the body with a memory as whole as the
world. Painted flowers fade under the many feet, a city within a city, a world outside
the world. The sun sets behind the mountain. Everything moves, yet is still. Only the monkeys
will. Schoolgirls in uniform stop by. What is your name? Where are you from? They ask,
proud of their English. Smiles bright as sunrise on their lips. Their feet as bar as
mine. Every day. At night, the ocean's horizon shines with hundreds of lights emerging like
villages. Fishermen clustered under the star dotted sky. On the shore, the waves break
like small thunder. In the morning, hundreds of black and yellow butterfly flew to north.
Men sharing traditions, centuries of doing in their hands, pull the lines. They are old.
The young one went fishing for other future. Pulling and pulling, twenty men on the sand,
more in the water, bodies shoving bodies, water against shore, loincloth against loins,
where seeds hide life and death. A white ebith walks on the wet sand. The black crows squawk
in the coconut trees. The waves rush to the dark on a skin. The net comes closer and closer.
Every day, under the invisible wind, the natural rhythm of ebb and flow. Bodies heave together,
passing in the water, pulling work and food. On the path to Ramana's caves. How easy it
is to expect enlightenment. Walking up the stone covered path, between greens, rocks
and birds. Imagining the peacefulness of a happy ever after or the sudden change that
would keep the world away from my deepest fears and sorrow. On the top of the mountain,
I sit, gazing at an Amalaya temple. Butterflies, orange, brown and yellow, will the air. Wind
hushes through the thick leaves. I listen to the maddening cacophony of the city transformed
into a meliodious song. I wonder, maybe, there is nothing more than now.
