Tuesday, January 20, 2009


And in the five minutes waiting to check in, I meet you, so far away from distant Oregon; you ask if the air is as hazy, a brown fog, all over India, but see-I don’t even notice the haze. You tell me you’ve come to find your calling, your life purpose, to meet your spiritual leader. God speed and good times be with you, I say; as I wonder if I’d ever have the courage to go halfway around the world to seek, drawn purely on whimsy chance. You tell me your new name, I’ve never heard it before- it’s a name you created for your new life, a name you’ve legally taken. I stare and wonder- at stories past, at profiles in courage.

From the plane window the river twists and turns, a lazy serpent with a shiny glitzy skin as the sunshine shimmers in tiny waves, the canal cuts straight and narrow past the tiny brown and green patches in shapes not rectangular that I don’t know what they’d be called.

Now I'm back. For now.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

reqd: a bird's eye view of life too :)

shiv said...

They say Happiness lies within you. they say Happiness lies in attaining what you want...to each one his own... Read Maugham's Razor's Edge? To each his own journey .. yours could just be a journey within, and believe me that takes more courage !!!

austere said...

manuji: stop recycling comments! ok perhaps you have a point.

Shiv- possibly! Good to hear from you again, doc. How are you?

Arunima said...

Aren't you a published author yet?

Anonymous said...

Hi Aust,

Reading Arunima's comment...remember when you get your book out... I get to do the cover page art ok?

Cheers,
Sathya

Anonymous said...

forgot to ask ... Oregon traveller would be from Rajneeshpuram?

Anonymous said...

Write! write now. write a book we say!

- heretic

austere said...

arunima- "from your mouth to God's ear"- how do you say that in Manipuri? Thank you. Someday, someplace.

Sathya- oh yes! Thank you. Someday, someplace.

Heretic- hoe do you say that in Tamil? Someday, someplace.

Sathya- she was going to Trivandrum, to Amma.

AmitL said...

Quite an interesting 'airy' encounter.:)