A picture is worth a thousand words, it is said, but sometimes no camera can capture what's in front of me. I climbed a hill, or rather I started to and instead of gong to the top sat down on a rock only 20-30 feet up. With about 20 degrees of descent still ahead, the sun is bright and warm, flowing over rows of rectangular lakes that reflect the lingering clouds towards the horizon, but tinted with rows of green rice plants, which in just a week have replaced dark brown mud and dry stalks.
A rocky dirt road cuts down the middle, arriving to dive into an expansive line of palm trees that partially block the view of the river-bed beyond, which at this time of year is more bed than river. Colored huts with low, thatched teepee roofs make up the underbrush, guest-houses for the many tourists of Hampi. Beyond the river rising skyward is the big gopuram or tower of the central and old-but-not-ancient temple of modern Hampi. Surging beyond that are just a few of the countless rock-hills that make up a magnificent world cultural heritage site of which I have seen relatively little.
On the road below me pass motor vehicles of varying wheelage and purpose, but generally small, and folks from near and far. Two of the kitchen staff from my guest-house have just now arrived to dump and burn some garbage only ten feet off the road, 30 feet in front of me. Alas, this is just India, and how much can I worry about such things. Surely, as I read from another blogger (LINK?), the shock value of almost everything slowly diminshes in time.
This morning I awoke to symptoms of heinous food poisoning and spent a few hours purging bidirectionally. I consider it a successful endeavor as after taking sleep, liquids, Pepto-chews, and two medium bananas I am recovering swimmingly. Mm, a swim in the river would be nice. Is there time before the big, Italian, home-made tagliatelle dinner we will be served at 6pm, which I probably won't eat? Another thing I didn't quite get to here. Still, I haven't had a whif of illness or indigestion so far, one month (one third) into this expedition, so I can at least cross that off my list. Also bought some postcards, so email me your address if you wan't to connect snail-style, even if you think I know it.
I often feel, in what little down-time we have, especially if I can use that time to really come down, quite out of place in the Italian group. More recently it has felt the opposite of lonely, that I want to be alone, that I want to stretch out my wings, my presence, and just be, me, in India, for a few moments. Perhaps when the project ends and I still have 5 weeks ahead of me, I will indeed be glad to be heading off on my own. Tomorrow we will do a bit of performance in town across the river before our overnight bus to Mysore, likely sleepless. Two more intense weeks there, and then we'll travel to Rajasthan and Varanasi, mostly in travel and not workshop mode. Guess its time to start planning that travel. At least now I have an Indian friend, Pramode, our visiting native scholar, to visit in Mumbai on my way out. My way out.
