Wide Eyed in India - Part I
Listless....lethargic even....I'm not supposed to feel this way. Depression and doubt begin to cripple me once again. Old enemies I've fought for far too long keep rising from deep wells in my soul to rage on through my being. Hours pass on in stillness, eyes staring unblinking at walls fading into dusk....
If this seems an odd interlude to my trip, imagine my own surprise at feeling this way.
Long have I held this first adventure in my thoughts, and even longer has this enemy of mine plagued me....but why now, when it has the least reason to rise forth? Perhaps it is not for me to know...at least not now, when it's still so fresh in my mind. Perhaps time and distance bring answers, or perhaps the answers are much more simple than I wish to make them out to be.
I am forever a divided being though, and the fits of darkness that so utterly drain me do not hold me forever. So as night fell and the lights of the city flickered into existence the most hopeful part of my soul began to rise with a vengeance.
It swelled to occupy my mind so fully I thought of little else than light and hope and wonder through the coming weeks of travel. Determination and ambition even pushed their way into view in such a seldom seen way that only seems to occur when in situations that push me beyond my means of existing.
It was with this backdrop that I walked into a thoroughly singular evening genuinely worthy of occupying a permanent space within my memory....
I walked out onto the hotel patio to find Louis, the male half of the couple I traveled to India with having dinner with a Blackberry IT executive, a Bollywood singer, and the head chef of the hotel restaurant.....a dinner that he'd walked back into the kitchen and cooked himself. The shared camaraderie of such a disparate group of people was perfectly fascinating... so thoroughly unexpected and somehow still completely natural.
Our conversation lasted into the wee hours of the morning, and was engaging enough that I left the evening unphotographed. I knew just from this little encounter that I would have numerous opportunities yet to come....
|| To be continued ||