Taiwan-Taipei: Part I (The travel)

There, made it. Crossed the seas and got the stamps. Ran around and seen all the gigantic airports. This is of course quite unlike the well cherished 'first overseas trip' dream I ever harbored which included the entire family crying and waving goodbye, garlands and some fancy overcoats (drama is essential). Before I start on how this trip is turning out so far, you all unknown thousand faces must know, I will try my best to update everyday, for four days at least, sort of live blogging, with pictures.
Now, philosophically, beyond the realm of yummy duty free swiss chocolates and a purse full of money, waiting for you to spend it, there lies a larger sigh. There is always some respiration in between a lot of action. This particular deep breath was a nostalgic realization that people are shaped by their pasts. Everything that we do is usually motivated by our past experiences and while occupied at the surface level with this exercise,we are also simultaneously creating the present of the past (like Schlondorff's 'Ten minutes...") And that is why, the oh-so-existential self seeks oils and spice in the midst of lush south Indian cuisine, and the moment it migrates to the ever desired dreamy north India, it runs to the nearest 'Sarvanna Bhavan'. There, while eating the last morsel of butter masala roast dosai, I realize the past is changing too, the present's filling it.

Now, for the Formosa isle, or Tai-won! It rarely occurs that I board a flight/train early. I ran again, almost missed it. Here I am posting some pictures of the "much" coveted Hong Kong airport that I could hardly see, given the rush and some Taipei street photos. The food, yes, boiled vegetables and rice, some awesome canned orange and jasmine tea and a few chopstick battle hours later, the digital native is breathing online :P Tomorrow should be fun, the workshop starts and so does the city tour! Will post, as the promise is made. Only to remember that they break real fast :)

The ambitions of the station side maid

As I start on these ways every morning, wading through scattered left-overs of the party at house number 70, the night leaves letters on the road, adding to the hang over of the 'baithak' at Sharma Sahib's. The screeches of inebriated men and women, high on power and pomp, mirth and recklessness, drip down the rain spattered hoardings of these mum shops and stores. It is difficult to make a living out of so little and yet feel any dignity for self. When always the dreams are powered by petrol but the house still runs on fire wood, its a shame to boast to the mirror. But then, I have been plagued by dreams of grand dark milky ways and slant angled free ways and most importantly, dreams of perfect people, almost myth like. The one that sways lily like yet unrooted gentle yet strong with potent cloud swallowing prowess and yet like how, such ordinary black lush curls. So on... Till then it is play, the mind that lives through body waits a spell of rain to clear the old ones who could never live an epic, a making of a big self inside their heads. The heady pompous cocaine drug of life keeps flowing as I watch each day, an exhibit of hundreds of lives parade in the trains that slither past. I feel the throbbing heart of my country in my soles as they tread tracks.

(ps. these are random excerpts for now but I hope to bind them up in a play or something, once character sketch is done)

Cloudy obsession

I have discovered that clouds are the most beautiful things to look at. Also, while I look at them, I very conveniently walk past all of you. :) I also hear rains wash the places and bring new ages. So, the red filtered clouds.




Another:

Krishna and the snake

I drew this picture when I chanced upon the poem by Narsinh Mehta that captures the confrontation of Krishna and the snake in the water.

Momentary betrayal

What does a mass of eels copulating and growing into a grayer, bigger ball, levitating, floating in the middle of a hollow skull feel? All violating images of you with magnified eyes through bottle glass and fleeing tired eyes that just rest on me. I bite my lips off there.

From the bureau of my very very infected dreamy buns,like an almost ecstatic moan of my very very rabied heart, I love the idea of violating you, an act in untying and denying, as you inch wider and the gaps grow, into the far reaching abyss of your speaking flower, the shrieking invitation from the moist 'u' pockets between your thumping rubber stamp toes.

After feeling so foolish, I sometimes wish there was a bag called universe/space/whatever and while I speak things that I know just before speaking should not be spoken, I could say them inside that bag. They are said, yet not. That would save me a lot of betraying emotions and further shame.

Once you leave, this is how I recuperate.

Experience and time

Experience is temporal. So is growth. To grow, is to bathe in time, ceremoniously. Let stream, drop, mugs and froth, all pour gradually, slide down and once gone, you know what growing means. Similar is experience, to throw yourself into something that you already know is not going to be extremely enjoyable or pleasant, for instance, to cheat on someone, or to wake up in all consciousness to keep an appointment; all are experiences that one must, while in their temporal space, endure. Look around while you inhabit them because that makes you a mere experience-r, not the inflicted/victim/perpetrator. Why do people find it so difficult to tone down their emotional responses to situations? I can almost 'ask' myself not to feel excited or disappointed. Performance, the more subtly you accept, the better it feels. Of course, for death, love, poetry and other such huge gusts of demanding impulses, one may give away a moment or so, but otherwise, in retrospect, to feel the untainted emotion in an experience is boring. Simply tedious and boring. Can't possibly go back to fall in unconditional, exciting love. So much energy and so many gestures.
And, then while swinging such in an empty park on a not-so-important sunny day with no one around, one may not feel the need and the consequent lack of anything at all.