On the plane a lady kept resting her arm on mine; Indians must feel lost when their skin is not touching another’s. A super fat man was on the other side of the aisle, I find it farcical I have to pay $45 for an extra few kilos of luggage when such a man can steal space and weight free of charge.
Let’s get this out of the way for the sweet sense of accomplishment. My dreams of late, for this whole trip really, have been so pleasant. On four occasions I have dreamt I am at home, with everyone; I know I am meant to be overseas. In my head I'm enjoying the company but am thinking about the cost of the flight to get back to India, to continue the plans. Another dream I have had more than once, my other reoccurring dream, a better writer would have said. I am in a movie, or I am writing for a show. I can feel the ecstatic joy and jubilation in doing so. One movie I was in was a blooper real for a comedy that had Ben Stiller and Will Ferrell. I was in a scene with Ben (first name basis) and I was the one laughing with him and saying things that made us both laugh. It is now a great memory and thanks to the dream realm, maybe I will get to experience it again. My alarm ended a dream where I was talking about Chandler from Friends buying a smoothie maker. The writers I were with could not stop laughing and I had that feeling you get when you laugh properly. I think that is the best feeling ever. When I get it, afterwards I get sad. I think that is how the devil must feel all the time. The falling angel.
Maybe that is the emotion I am always pursuing, a true laugh. Often, you can only attain it when you're broken. So what is broken, but open?
The alarm that woke me was to get a taxi to the Airport at five am. At the airport I got into trouble. I didn’t calculate for the extra day in May and overstayed my visa by a day. It was going to cost me $50 American dollars. That was fine, but they told me to sit on a seat and someone will look after it. The man that sent me continued checking passports. Ten minutes past and everyone pretended I didn’t exist. I got that feeling again, the worst feeling, where you are invisible. You feel your body get offended. All that pain to exist and you don’t. After twenty minutes I felt like doing something bad. Like jumping the partition or kicking a security guard. I was close to losing my cool but still didn’t and I'm proud of that. After thirty minutes I laughed and wished I had someone to laugh with. Eventually they got me and I paid. The man didn’t know how to use the machine and I had to show him. I was in awe of the overall incompetence and felt like a frustrated CEO that gets off on efficiency. On the other end of the flight, in Varanasi, I again watched a system that could be fixed thirty times faster by a fool like me. On the plane a lady kept resting her arm on mine; Indians must feel lost when their skin is not touching another’s. A super fat man was on the other side of the aisle, I find it farcical I have to pay $45 for an extra few kilos of luggage when such a man can steal space and weight free of charge. Because I was held back in Kathmandu Airport I didn’t have time to transfer my money, the taxi in India told me they will take me to a money transfer on the way. The guy ripped me off $20 and the taxi dropped me off a thirty-minute walk from my room, and I didn’t even know where it was. A jolly young chap asked me if I needed help and then he walked me all the way to the café I am staying in. I was short and a little rude to him because I was expecting him to rip me off, but in the end he didn’t, maybe because I was short and a little rude. The place I am staying is closed because of the heat. So I walk into what looks like a heroin house and say, “Hello… Namaste,” to the faces who sit in the heat and the darkness.
There is a mouse in my room, I tell myself he is a reincarnation of Ralph and that makes me love him.
Tired and hopeful, I walked as far as I felt I could beneath the 43-degree heat of Varanasi, the city of god, the city of death, the city of Riley Dyson.
I couldn’t be fucked, so I went back to my air-conditioned room, got high and watched 2001 - SPACE ODDYSEY. It’s exactly what I wanted to do, and if this place is so magical, then the magic will find me on my bed watching a movie six hundred years before its time. I did some other stuff that day, but it’s not interesting enough to write.
I woke up at 4am and got to the river before the sun did. The heat never left. The power on the street was bouncing between phases. So the Aircon and the fan in my room were turning on and off intermittingly. I laughed at that too.
Meditating on the sand in the holiest place of the world was alright. A dog touched me when my eyes were closed and scared me. Its mangey and infested skin also scared me. Then I felt nice; nice that my energy in such a place still attracts the love of dogs. Then he laid beside me as I continued to meditate. Another dog did the same thing. I am the king of dogs.
You feel death in the air the way you feel the sun in the sand at night. I walk bare foot along the river and it is easily the most random and interesting place I have ever been. It’s like looking inside my head whilst on mushrooms. I saw a five-year-old girl meditating on a mat by herself. My wave made her smile. For the next twenty minutes I fantasised about adopting her. You have to stay on your toes; there’s so many new things that a bad one wouldn’t stand out. You can see a naked man covered in paint, a chicken, a corpse burning, a child with his head shaved meditating, a man asking you if you want a boat ride, a lizard, four men sitting and sharing a Chillum (bong), A bull, A goat, Monkeys jumping from the trees, People riding Camels on the sand on the other side of the Ganges, An Albino Indian lady, an Indian man with blue eyes, a baby behind its older brother who is missing a leg and in front of her mum who is asleep on the stone, and of course a six foot sexy Australian moping along. The most beautiful sights with the most revolting smells of shit, burning flesh, piss, fear, excitement and the sweeter scent of acceptance.
A man held my hand and started to massage it, “Where you from?”
“Australia.”
Off he went. It turned into a full body massage, on a raised rock that had a plastic mat on it. My cheek went numb laying. It was a surreal experience. To be there, getting a massage, almost falling asleep in the midst of every beautiful nut job that made the journey.
