|
There's something ludicrous, of course, about taking a guidebook
along on such an adventure - like carrying your daily Planner
with you on an acid trip (with notes reminding you to put
your pants on before you walk downtown). One of the charms
of India is that it incinerates your agenda - leaving in
its place like some sort of vestigial organ of efficiency,
a handful of illegible hieroglyphics scrawled on the backs
of tattered airmail envelopes. In India, as in life, there's
no way of predicting where your teachers will show up. You
may think you're going to a yoga institute to perfect your
practice of Downward-Facing Dog Pose - only to find yourself
trekking up a Himalayan trail, ice tipped peaks slicing
the sky around you, tracing the sacred Ganges to her source
in a glacier the shape of a cow's head. You may plan for
months to be in Varanasi for Shivaratri, the holiest "Night
of Shiva" - only to find yourself on that mystical evening,
stalled in a broken-down train in the sweltering plains
where (shivering with fever, with amoebas throwing their
high school prom in your gastrointestinal tract) you find
yourself staring into the face of Shiva in person. This
kind of derailment is part of the magic of India, where
plans often need to be discarded like excess luggage. ("What
was I thinking?" you wonder, looking, bemusedly, at your
laptop computer, your three extra sets of yoga leotards,
your breadloaf-sized tub of spirulina). As many travelers
learn the hard way, the things that you don't let go freely
may well be snatched from you.
| 
Top