arrival.

Making a conscious attempt to draw thoughts and emotions from the mind without curating it. To document as is, was.

A day before I left to Kotagiri, I came across a photo essay by Janice Pariat, part of which I’ve pasted below. There was so much longing in my heart for a place that was not a city, for a home that I could make my own. I am here now, it is raining hard, the sounds amplified by the sheet roof above me. I feel a cold breeze preying on my feet and I know nothing will make me feel warmer than the two layers of clothes I have on and a bunch of photos reminding me I have arrived and I am here, to be.

The only way to love a place is to walk through it. To step your feet upon the ground. To enter into its rhythm, its breathing. To know its gradations with your soles. The shape of its river stones and pebbles, the squelch of its mud, the tripping of its roots, the tickle of its grass, the rustle of its fallen leaves.

JANICE PARIAT

The song of the birds can tell you the time of day. From laughingthrushes to sparrows and red-vented bulbuls, I am familiarizing myself with the auditory landscape of the hills. If I walk by too fast, the song is gone, I have to learn to linger. Linger, lightly.

Light tea, I was drinking in a shop yesterday, listening to a safari guide show his friends the new binoculars he purchased and the sort of distance he could now cover with his new pair of eyes. His words were a mix of Kannada and Tamil, a language that sounded strange yet so familiar to me. I do not know the syntax but I know all the words of this tongue. I gave him a smile and in turn he asked where I am from and I told him. He said welcome.

I found a picture that can encapsulate a city folk’s transition into this town.

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I have been absent for many months on this blog, moreover I haven’t been present for my words, I haven’t been writing them down and so many things are lost to the void of my mind. This is my attempt at getting back to the practice of writing and not polishing it too much.

Linger.