This is an account of a journey made to the temple town of Sringeri in the state of Karnataka which I made in February 2017.
It was an early morning start for the ride to Sringeri as we rolled out of the Tibetan settlement of Bylakuppe at 7.15, heading west on the road through the town of Kushal Nagar and up into the Coorg hills. For this little trip it was me, Anita, Sonam Tashi and his niece Passang Dawa. It would be Sonam Tashi doing all the driving in the black Mahindra Scorpio, a bulky four wheel drive that we had to take us there and back. The reason for going to Sringeri was to see its holy Hindu temple, or math, which lay next to the Tunga River in the hilly Chikkamagaluru district of Karnataka, lying north east of Mangalore on State Highway 169. It was an ancient temple founded by the great Advaita Vedanta teacher, philosopher and saint Adi Shankara in the 8th century, and it has been a place of pilgrimage and spiritual learning more or less ever since, being the seat today of the Jagadguru Shankaracharyas.
Sringeri had first come to my notice when reading a biography of Sri Ramana Maharshi, specifically the early part of his life when he was still a young man yet already fully established in the Enlightenment of the Self. He was living in caves on the holy hill of Arunachala by the town of Tiruvannamalai with a small group of followers, and he had a growing reputation as an exceptional human being in regards to his attainment of the highest level of spiritual realisation that it was possible to achieve. It is stated in the biography that the head of the Sringeri temple math, which was quite a long distance away from Tiruvannamalai, held Ramana Maharshi in great regard. All this occurred during the first decades of the 20th century, quite a long time ago now, and at the time it would have taken at least a couple of days to travel from Sringeri to Tiruvannamalai. This information about the connection to Sringeri had stuck in my mind because Sringeri was in shooting distance of the settlement, and I was therefore curious to see what the scene was like there, which meant if the opportunity arose to pay the place a visit, I would go.
On top of the information contained in the biography of Ramana Maharshi, I had also heard about Sringeri from Teja, a Coorgi acquaintance of mine who lived in Kushal Nagar and who amongst other shadowy things, sold pet fish and aquariums with his wife in a shop on the main road into the town from the settlement. He had once given me a lift to Bangalore to catch a flight back to London when he was jobbing as a taxi driver, and on the way we had stopped for breakfast at a little known Indian restaurant which served up fantastic mutton chops with fresh green chillies. A meal to remember! I had last met up with him in 2016, when he had shown me his collection of guns and a mini temple to Ganapati which he had recently built in his lounge. At the time he had mentioned to me what a peaceful place Sringeri was, how he and his family had recently made the journey there to stay for a couple of days. He had told me that it was especially good to go if the Jagadguru, the head of the math or temple, happened to be in residence. Teja in fact believed that the current Jagadguru was a true spiritual master, that it would be well worth my time trying to seek him out. So all in all it seemed like it was a trip well worth making, and since Anita and I would be later heading across to Tamil Nadu, then on down to Tiruvannamalai in order to stay at Ramanasramam, it might also serve as a useful taster for what lay in store for us further down the road.
Breakfast for the four of us was at the Atithi Comforts on the other side of Kushal Nagar and on the road to Madikeri. Food for me was a perfectly acceptable plate of iddlys and vadai served up on a very clean tray with a small cup of hot fresh coffee which I hoped would give me a kick start, fully wake me up to another day on the road in India. After breakfast at the Atithi it was now a drive into the hills of Coorg on the fast road to Madikeri through Sunticoppa which lay about halfway between Madikeri and Kushal Nagar. In the lower parts of the hills, beside the road to the west of Kushal Nagar and just past Atithi Comforts, was a proliferation of tourist shops selling local spices and supposedly homemade chocolates. The truth was however, that the chocolates were quietly brought down from the town of Ooty in the hills of Tamil Nadu and passed off as local Coorgi produce. Ooty, or Udhagamandalam as it is now called, is famous for chocolates, unlike Coorg, so it was all a bit on the naughty side to say the least, possibly deceptive. Whatever the situation, there was no doubt that there were more than enough of these shops or shacks to ensure that the market was now well and truly saturated. In truth the whole scene smacked more than a little of desperation, a few years ago there were hardly any of them, now they were all over the place. It was over the top in other words, just like things in India could sometimes be, with there being plenty of people looking to make a quick buck now that the domestic tourist market had begun to boom. Punters from the cities of Bangalore and Mysore now had cars, and who would think nothing of heading off on six hour rides up into the hills of Coorg, all in that somewhat elusive search for some kind of satisfaction and happiness from what life had to offer them. No point in me getting wound up about it however, it was just the way things were, and anyway, wasn’t I more or less doing exactly the same thing? Yes, of course I was!
Once we reached Madikeri it was then a question of negotiating the bends on the hill roads as we made the descent down to the town of Sulya, a good couple of hours away in the direction of Mangalore. I have got to say that the rocking around in the Mahindra certainly did make me feel more than a little sick, but when it came to driving fast through potentially dangerous terrain Sonam Tashi simply took no prisoners. It was a journey that I had made with him a couple of times previously, the last occasion being three years ago on a trip to Goa in the monsoon season, so I knew more or less what to expect, but that didn’t really make it any easier. I was beginning to regret having tucked into my breakfast so heartily at the Atithi, the fact of the matter was that I should have known better, shown a bit more self control when faced with the plate of hot delicious food they had served me, especially when I knew what lay ahead.
Since we were going to Sringeri, which was quite some way from the settlement, up towards Chikkamagaluru, Anita set the GPS on her phone to give us a hand with the directions. Otherwise we just had a Karnataka road map, one I had bought the other day from Sapna Book House in Mysore and those road maps, as I knew from past experience, could be more than a little unreliable when it got down to the finer details. Nevertheless I was surprised to see that Anita’s GPS indicated something like a 1.20 pm arrival in Sringeri which meant the journey was going to take quite a lot longer than what I had originally thought, a hell of a lot longer if truth be told. I had been hoping for a mid-morning arrival but now it looked like I was going to be way off in my estimate. That was how things sometimes went when on the road in India, it was just so damn easy to underestimate the distances to places that were involved, especially when one or two dodgy roads were thrown into the deal as well. Guess in this instance my underestimate in regard to how long it would take to get to Sringeri was a case of wishful thinking. I was hoping it would not take too long so as to not inconvenience too much the others in the car, who at the end of the day were only going to Sringeri because it was me who wanted to go there. Yes, that’s right, they were simply coming along for the ride.
We were currently on Highway 275 which would take us to Sulya, after that it would be on to the town of Puttur which we would by-pass in order to join the main Mangalore to Hassan road and then stay on that for a few miles until we got to a place called Uppinangadi. This was exactly what we did and it was after we rode through the busy town of Uppinangadi that we stopped for a roadside tea and snacks in what was now the bright hot mid morning sun. It had been a good 3 hours or so since our breakfast at the Atithi Comforts and we had been driving ever since, trying our best to eat up the distance to our destination. When we pulled over to the side of the road I was pretty desperate for a piss and had to nip behind the tea shack in order to relieve myself. The thing that stuck in my mind was that when I took that piss it turned out to be one of the longest pisses in my life. Don’t know why, it must have been those three straight hours in the Scorpio after the Atithi, where I had drunk a couple of coffees along with having some swigs of water with my food. I must have been holding it all in for a lot longer than I thought. I knew I had wanted to go for one as I sat there in the front seat of the Scorpio whilst gazing out over the Coorg hills scenery, but I hadn’t realised I had wanted to go that much, that was for sure, and I was stood behind that tea shack doing my stuff for what seemed like ages and ages!
After our roadside break, which consisted of hot chai and spicy samosas which were a little on the greasy side, we were all feeling suitably refreshed once back on the road again. We were now on Highway 118 to the town of Gerukatte which, to all intents and purposes felt like it was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, then from Gerukatte it was Highway 37 until it linked up with Highway 169. This last one ran up into the hills from out of Mangalore, all the way to the district town of Chikkamagaluru, and this was the road which would finally take us to Sringeri. All in all there were quite a few roads we had to go on, and sure enough time got eaten up bit by bit, so much so that it seemed like Anita’s GPS was going to be pretty much spot on, that it would indeed be something like 1.20 in the afternoon before we reached our destination, a good six hours after we had set off from the settlement. It was not as if the roads were bad, far from it in fact as they were relatively empty with surfaces pretty good, almost new in many places. No, it was just that it was a long way to Sringeri.
Probably a little too much to do in a single day if truth be told, especially when I was really not that sure what it was going to like at the end of it all, apart from hoping that it would be pretty interesting. Never mind, there was no turning back and at least the scenery was good, in fact it was mildly stunning as we made our way up Highway 37 along the edges of the Kudremukh range of hills which lay to the right of us. By the time we got to Highway 169 it was well past midday but there was still some way to go before we were to reach Sringeri. The road had emptied out almost completely, it was a new road as well, and we began to climb through those hills of the Kudremukh, gradually going higher and higher. There was deep rich red coloured soil in banks beside the road and green paddy fields in high valleys, cut through with rivers where the water was low. It was bit by bit turning into a different scene from what was usually found on the plains; the air felt cleaner, fresher, life in those hills seemed to move along at a slower pace.
We finally arrived in Sringeri at 1.15 pm and there was that usual sense of disorientation which was such a common experience for me when rolling into Indian towns for the first time. Soon enough I got my bearings however, as Sringeri was hardly the biggest town in the world, in fact we parked up pretty much right outside the Adi Shankara temple, which was also called the Sringeri Sharadamba Peetham. It was the very place that I wanted to go, as it was home to the Jagadguru Shankaracharyas and had been there since the 8th century, which when you thought about it was really quite a long time. The first thing we did on getting out of the car however, was head for the Guru Prasad, a pure vegetarian restaurant which lay just opposite the temple and where we had lunch. Sonam Tashi had been behind the wheel for over 6 hours and despite having had acouple of snacks on the way, he was sorely in need of a good meal. He needed to sort his stomach out by way of filling it before he did any walking around in the bright hot sun, and there was no way I could argue with that, in fact I was pretty hungry myself.
We all had Indian vegetarian set meals at the Guru Prasad and most highly delicious they were too, no doubt about that. There were different vegetables in that part of Karnataka compared to what we got down Mysore way that was for sure, and very tasty too. As usual in such situations, I washed my food down with a bottle of cold fresh lime soda which, with the bright heat of the afternoon waiting for us outside, went down very well indeed, being all so very, very refreshing. Sitting in the restaurant, although I was enjoying my set veg meal, I was also somewhat anxious that we didn’t miss the opportunity to see what we came for, to see what we had just travelled the last six hours for through little known roads in western Karnataka, namely the Adi Shankara math, the Vidyashankara Temple, the Sringeri Sharadamba Peetham. Now, it would have been practically impossible for us not to have seen it, but there was a childish part of me which still existed and manifested itself on arrival in new places through an impatience to see things right away, no messing around. This no doubt stemmed from the fear of missing out, the dread of losing the chance to have a memorable experience, a form of impoverishment for sure. It was ridiculous really, an immaturity on my part which meant at times I struggled to go with the flow, and instead just wanted to impose my own wishes on people and situations so as to ensure I got what I wanted. In this case we were only talking about an ancient Hindu temple pretty much out in the sticks, off the beaten track and up in the hills of an obscure part of Karnataka. Nevertheless that wanting, that need to see it was still there, and a part of me doubted if I would ever be able to shake it off, so ingrained in my character it seemed to have become.
Sure enough after our lunch at the Guru Prasad we made our way outside and into the extensive grounds of the Sringeri Sharadamba Peetham, which was in fact far more than just a single temple. It was a temple village comprising numerous places of worship and learning plus other buildings for the purposes of administration, accommodation and the provision of food for visitors. There were also wide open spaces between the buildings which at some points led to a series of steep steps going down to the Tunga River, where offerings could be made to what looked like holy river fish. Fact of the matter however, was that it was coming up to 2 in the afternoon, the sun was damn hot, and things were made more uncomfortable by the fact that we had to walk barefoot in the temple grounds and the stone slabs beneath our feet were burning. It meant that it was more like a hop, skip and a jump rather than a leisurely dignified stroll, but since this was India and coming up to the hot season it was hardly something new for me to experience. I had been there before, so to speak. Same old story in other words, a mixture of over anticipation and midday confusion had already left me in a mild state of bewilderment whilst I tried to figure out just exactly why it was I had dragged everyone out of the settlement on a six hour journey along a number of unknown roads up to Sringeri. Back to square one again, still so many lessons that had to be learnt, of course India was a constant teacher for me in that regard, and the main lesson in this instance seemed to be for me to try to understand just why had I bothered to come? Was there ever really a plan or was I just flying blind, hoping to wing it and miraculously find something fantastic at the end of what was little more than a shot to nothing?
We managed to go inside the busy Sharadamba Temple but we only had ten or so minutes before it closed at 2 pm for a couple of hours. This went for the rest of the buildings in the temple complex as well, as basically the hours between 2 and 4 were when the temple people laid low, took a rest, sat in the shade, maybe even got an afternoon sleep. This meant that we had timed things rather badly because, after having had our lunch at the Guru Prasad, we really just wanted to get on with it, see as much as there was to see. We knew we had a six hour return journey to make, a few hours of which would most certainly be undertaken in the dark, which in turn would mean a late evening arrival back in the settlement. Problem was we did not have that much else to do in Sringeri if truth be told, when the main temples, including the ancient Adi Shankara temple, the Vidyashankara Temple, which as yet I had not had a chance to go in, were closed for the next couple of hours.
It was a case of not really knowing what the form was of the place that we had arrived in, of being left feeling a little bit high and dry in the bright afternoon south Indian sun during what was coming up to the hot season. I sat for a while with Anita and Passang Dolma in the shade a big open mantapam within the temple grounds, whilst Sonam Tashi went back to the Mahindra to have a nice long snooze. All we could do was sit in the shade, counting out time for a little while, then trying to figure out what it was we were going to do next. On the walls of the mantapam were the portraits of previous Jagadguru Shankaracharyas, as well as the current one who just so happened to be out of town. One of those Jagadgurus was the one who’d had so much respect for Ramana Maharshi over 100 years ago, and just like all the other Jagadgurus depicted there, he appeared a formidable yogi who had obviously pushed himself to the limits in his own quest for spiritual knowledge. That you see, was the kind of territory we were in.
After a little while we ventured out of the temple grounds because it was so sleepy there, so still and so hot with not much going on. It felt better to keep moving along in order to avoid that sense of the whole trip fizzling out by way of just sitting around and slowly nodding off, dozing and waiting for 4 pm to come along when things started up again whilst time slowly stretched out before us. So we took a walk along the main street of Sringeri which contained the usual small town Indian fare, a shoddy selection of various shops and places in which to drink and eat. We stopped at a tea shop with a decent selection of cold drinks, including some nicely chilled locally produced herbal water packed full of natural mineral ingredients and which the three of us decided to try; that is me, Anita and Passang Dawa. Suitably refreshed from our mineral drinks the three of us took a walk to the edge of town in the afternoon sun, to the Tunga River where a foot bridge led us across to the other side. Walking on the foot bridge enabled us to take a backwards look at Sringeri and the ancient temple which sat on a curve on the river and which for the first time revealed itself to me in something approaching its full glory. Fact of the matter was that with the back drop of the Kudremukh hills behind it and the river winding its way through the valley, it was easy to see how in centuries gone by the Adi Shankara math at Sringeri must have been an incredible place to come to. Seekers would have made the journey to Sringeri from all over India, although it wouldn’t have been known as India back then, and it seemed to me that if they had such a view on arrival they would not have been disappointed. It still could be an incredible place to come to as far as I knew, but definitely in the past it must have been a site of great spiritual knowledge and learning, you could tell that by the location alone. In the afternoon haze, from a slight distance, there was a power to it that was simply undeniable.
Things were different now of course, because not too far away from that ancient temple sitting by the side of the river, were some typically ugly concrete buildings right in the middle of Sringeri. They were most likely accommodation blocks for pilgrims who no doubt descended upon the town in great numbers when there were big events happening at the temple. There was also a pretty large open space just the other side of the footbridge for some dirty exhaust fume belching tourist buses to swing into and pull up in, and for their weary passengers to then disembark. Things like that would simply have not been there before, although of course nothing is perfect, and there would surely have been other dangers and perils in times gone by which do not exist now. Sometimes it is too easy to focus on the negatives of what we have, of what there currently is, to idealize the past out of all proportion, whilst completely forgetting all the bad stuff like diseases of the body for which there was then no cure. Suffice to say that the outline of the ancient Adi Shankara math right in the middle of the scene before us, with the Tunga River flowing through the middle of it all and the south Indian afternoon sun shining high in the sky above, was certainly a memorable one and which will stick in my mind for some time to come.
After we were done with our walk across the river and the view it gave us, we wandered back to the maintemple complex, once more visiting the Sharadadamba within the grounds as now it was 4 and the whole place was opening up again. There was the sound of Om chants at the Sharadadamba which Anita and I sat and listened to before walking up to the priest by the shrine in order to receive his blessings. There was a calm, knowing expression on his face which meant he was a very pleasant figure to look upon. We sat in the temple shadows observing him bless the constant stream of people approaching the shrine, and with those Om chants powerfully resonating in the background it made feel there was some kind of truth there, even though I might never have been able to explain what exactly it was. The ancient Adi Shankara math temple, the Vidyashankara Temple, was to remain closed until 5 and since we had a long return drive back to the settlement ahead of us, we decided to give it a miss, not wait until it re-opened in other words, simply make our way out of town. Guess it might conceivably be a reason for returning to Sringeri again at some future point in time if the opportunity ever arises, because there is no doubt that I would have liked to have taken a look inside it, but I felt bad for the others, that the Sringeri scene might just be turning into a bit of a drag for them. So Anita, Passang Dawa and I left the temple grounds for the last time and caught up with Sonam Tashi who looked suitably refreshed from his afternoon sleep in the Mahindra, whilst being more than ready to hit the road again.
A part of me felt that I hadn’t quite hit the mark as far as the whole purpose of this trip to Sringeri was concerned, but then again another part of me simply asked myself, just what did I expect to find inside the ancient old temple anyway? Apart from the fact I could safely say that it was another place I could tick off on my list, which of course didn’t mean much at all. That sense of having missed out on something but not knowing quite what, was compounded when I learnt that the Jagadguru, or head of the temple, would be giving an audience to devotees in Sringeri the next day. Of course the next day was too late as far as I was concerned, by then I would be once more out of the hills and back in the settlement on the edge of the plains. Yes, it might have been nice to see him, the Jagadguru, to sit there in his presence, to feel the vibrations of peace which Teja told me so effortlessly emanated from him. But it was not to be, simply not to be this time around. If things had been more on my side, whatever that was supposed to mean, then I might have found myself face to face with the Jagadguru, basking in his vibes, the depths of his inner realisation. All within sight of the ancient temple as well, but as it so happened, none of those things were to come to pass. No Jagadguru audience for me, not even close to one if truth be told, no mystical depths to dive into, my head full of wonder. So yes, we had made the 6 hour plus ride to Sringeri only to find that the ancient temple was closed for most of the time we were in town, the main temple that we had come to visit, also that we were one day early for the arrival on the Sringeri scene of the Jagadguru himself. Just the way it goes, could have been different, our time of making the journey might so easily have been just one day later, when of course everything have been a whole lot more exciting with the Jagadguru in town, but no, it was not to be. Karma I guess is what you might call it.
Nevertheless despite these little disappointments I have to say I was still glad I had made the trip, and dragged Anita, Sonam Tashi and Passang Dawa along with me as well. This was because there was no doubt that the out of the way town of Sringeri did enjoy a special location, being right in the middle of a little known range of hills on the Western Ghats somewhere between Mangalore and Chikkamagaluru. There was also the fact that the Tunga River meandered its way through the valley and on its banks the temple sat, which made the whole scene really rather beautiful in an ancient Indian kind of way. It had been easy for me to project back in time, to imagine what it must have been like in centuries past, before the concrete, before the buses, before the crowds, before the fumes, before the choke. To imagine how it might have been to be a pilgrim reaching Sringeri after many weeks travelling across the hills and plains, to walk into its temple grounds and bathe in the purity of the Advaita Vedanta philosophy which had originated there, which must have been taught to generation after generation of students without a break.
We had a bit of trouble making our way out of town, Anita’s GPS was playing up this time around, leading us down roads which were clearly not the ones we came in on, and on one occasion it more or less took us up a dead end street. But we managed to work our way through, to get back on Highway 169 for the return ride out of the hills on what was still a relatively deserted road but one which was in excellent condition, with the deep red earth of Karnataka beside it, accentuating the black strip of new tarmac empty of traffic. By now it was late afternoon and we were speeding along, Sonam Tashi fully settling into his driver’s seat and pushing the Mahindra as fast as it would go, which happened to be pretty damn quick. Yes, no doubt about it, we had a fast descent out of the hills, those deep green hills of the Kudremukh, and the faster we went, back on down to the plains and Highway 37, the sooner we once again reached Gerukatte where we stopped for tea and snacks in the middle of the town. Busy Gerukatte in the late afternoon, a nowhere town in a nowhere part of Karnataka, or at least that was how it seemed to me, all the same there were people and there was traffic in whatever direction you happened to turn your head.
Not long after Gerukatte it was back on Highway 118 to Uppinangadi with another south Indian dusk fast approaching. It seemed a completely different scene, coming back down from out of the hills, to when we went up just a few hours before in the light of the late morning brightness. Somehow it was now more alive and suddenly it made me want the ride to go on forever, bombing along through those small Indian towns and villages, many of which I would never know the names of and most probably might never see again. Sitting in the front seat of the Mahindra next to Sonam Tashi, who had seriously put his foot on the gas, pushing the big black car to its limits, to go faster and faster with all windows wide open, letting in the twilight to bathe us in its sweet mystery. After Uppinangadi it was once again Highway 275 and the towns of Puttur and Sulya, both very busy now, and which we sped through as the light left the day and it became evening time Indian style, which of course meant darkness at bang on 7 pm. As usual with early evening Indian towns, there were scenes of great intensity within them, with it feeling like everyone was out on the streets in what was the busiest and most colourful time of the day now that the sun had gone down.
I thought that I had done so many trips like this in India through the years, been damn lucky to have had the chance to as a matter of fact. This time around all I did was sit in the front of the Mahindra looking out at what was before me, wanting to see more of those scenes as we passed them by, with it seeming like I would never be able to get enough of it, this thing called life. There was something about the land I was travelling through I would never understand, and I guess it didn’t just apply to India, it was more universal than that. It was early evening time, with that feeling of being out on the road and having some vague sense of destination, some kind of satisfaction of knowing that I was out there embracing it, almost as if in those times I felt invincible, felt like it really didn’t matter if I got killed right there and then. My mind, soul, spirit was somehow in the place it needed to be, so it had greater acceptance of whatever circumstances came along, be they good, bad or indifferent. It did not matter as long as we were moving, getting further on down that road.
I realised when going back up through the hills to Madikeri on Highway 275 that it was in fact a pretty safe one to be on after dark, with plenty of clear road markings, cats eyes brightly shining in the middle of the highway making sure you knew what was what. Things were coming on these days in India, no doubt about that, no more dusty winding tracks which took hours and hours to reach the end of. Fast motoring was now the order of the day, with all the supports in place to make sure as little time as possible was spent in getting from A to B if you had the right set of wheels. There were plenty more lorries on the road now, transporting goods from the country into the towns and cities of that part of South India; places which due to space and issues of pollution they were banned from entering during the day. Some of those lorries were pretty slow moving as they crawled their way up into those hills of Coorg west of Madikeri, on their way to Mysore and even Bangalore, both of which lay a few more hours down the road until they eventually rolled into them at some point deep within the early hours.
By the time we got back to Madikeri I was pretty hungry again, and if the others had been up for it there would have been nothing that I would have liked better than to have gone and tried the new Dominos that had recently opened up in town, advertised by way of huge bill boards by the side of the winding road as we climbed through those hills. Unfortunately for me no one else wanted a pizza, not even a slice of one, which was a damn shame, so we ended up instead in some busy joint on the edge of town before our descent back down to the plains. We sat there and had a couple of chappatis each and some dhal which was OK at best, but nothing like as tasty as what a Dominos vegetarian farmhouse feast would have been, that was for sure. Oh man, I could have killed for a Dominos pizza that evening, if truth be told! I should have had enough presence of mind to have left the others at that roadside chop house and gone back to get one in a takeaway box, which I would have then quite happily murdered in the Mahindra as we bombed back down from Madikeri to Sunticoppa and then on to Kushal Nagar.
Guess the fact that I didn’t do it was par for the course as to how the whole day trip had panned out. Not exactly missed opportunities but missed connections, not quite getting things right as far as hitting the mark was concerned. A few hints for sure, but really nothing more. That was OK though, just the way it sometimes went at the end of the day, not much that could be done about it, other than reflect on the fact that if things are meant to be, the stars will be lined up on the right side of the equation rather than on the other. Still, no matter, I gave thanks to the gods when we got back into the settlement at around 10 in the evening, with yet another journey into the vastness of Karnataka ending with a safe arrival back home. As far as India was concerned, that was most certainly something which could never be taken for granted, should never be taken for granted anywhere in fact, no doubt about that!
sharadamba
why do I go ahh?
why do I go hum?
got to give it my best shot
drop a microphone
between the sound of a drum
which beats alive upon the dance spun
in the light of a life incredible
did I chose it or did it chose me?
well, what in this space is the I
and who with this face is me?
strip it down to the core spatial
rest upon a heart finger
hung in the place of the upside down
not within, not without
just awake to eternity
with an open eye, sweet as a honey bee
TracelessTrails 