Waxing prosaic in Rishikesh

1700
I'm back to the rock and sands that mark my year. 'Back' is potentially misleading, because this is not a relapse, no coming a full circle...just back in the geographical sense. This is Rishikesh where I was in December the past year, thinking over simple things. Then, after a year of wonderful facts, I'm still thinking, but of things that have mutated into a forcibly greater meaning and context. This is nothing holy or spiritual, just questions arising from my affiliations to the society and present era. India has never seemed this confusing before, and my world has never been this confused about me.


1825
There are only 2 places in Rishieksh worth lounging at: the corner seat at the Devraj Cafe and the last seat at ShivaGanga Beach Cafe. Any place else, and you're either too far from R. Ganga and missing the whole reason of being, or in a place where an unexpected number of goras smoking substances make you feel alienated, cramped and looking for an exit. Right now I'm 'missing my reason of being', since I'm a few seats away from that holy seat at Devraj Cafe. But I'm still overlooking the river, though as a part of a montage of the unpleasant drainage pipes, the dumps, dimly-lit shops and the crackpot sadhus - all this lies right next to the great Ganga (Ganges).

50 minutes later
Gabriella did help unwind a bit. I dug her. She's technically a Lithuanian living in Sweden who claims to belong to no particular country and has her history scribed in Lithuania, Sweden, America and India. This is her 3rd visit to India, 1st to Rishikesh and leaves back for Sweden from Delhi on the 14th morning. Here for yoga - and meditation, which she claims is inclusive - she reminds me of the 'sweet little gone gal' of the 60s beat culture - though a bit restrained and deeper. I and her talk about yoga, its practise, application and expanding its definition, her job, her stay here, her travel with this guy (whom she's taking for a fatherly figure but can't really gel with). And then ecology, conservation, mankind being a pest, mankind being a slave of its own condition - things that I get a better hook on. Been just 6 minutes of her leaving, but I already can't draw her in words now - I'm easily distracted in this place. I don't think that my attempts at expressing my little revealations found much audience in her, but I did get a greater share of her chocolate pastry block which was - really was - too big for her. "You are a big man, you can manage this much!" Wooho! I got free chocolate. It was fate; I was meant to consume you. Talk about taking 'brownie points' literally.

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