Mapi Bazzaarr!

Hampi. Karnataka. A stunning guesthouse with a large open space for eating, drinking and meeting. There is no shortage of tourist culture in this place, this "oldest living world heritage site." My immediate reaction is: "I love this place!" Bombay was intense. Goa was cheesy. But Hampi... Hampi is just right. One finds oneself obsessed with trivialities, however. The focus of my attention has recently been absorbed in the blockage of my ears, not to mention the associated pain. I attribute this to my swimming in the ocean and letting sham ear cleaners have a prod in there with their bicycle spoke. I no longer believe that phlegmy crap came out of my head, quivering like a 100 rupee bill in the wind. The gunk i flushed out this morning did not boast such a smooth matt finish, nor take to sculpture with the grace and ease of playdoh. No, i got stooged. But not anymore. Yesterday i interrupted a guided tour of the nearby village and temples (i could have road my bike around that village all day... it was awesome!) to duck into a government sponsored medical clinic where they shone torch into my skull, then handed me some alcohol based drops and said: Ina morn, ina day, ina night. Is free. Namaste." The ears are better, but still on the mend.

One feels a little weird when they realise their own bodily functions, needs and sites of tension, are able to distract, indeed, to dominate ones experience - even when you're surrounded by icredible natural beauty and the scattered ruins of the greatest ancient Hindu capital. And i will be the first to say it: Those ancient Dus knew how to put chisel to stone. The ornate attention is evident in the detail of the mosaics. Monkeys are everywhere here, and squirrels sit atop the templs chewing incessantly. And yet, i feel a strange guilt in my stomach. It presses upon my lungs as small boats nudge one another in the early dawn. I recall feeling the same when i was a young child, when other children would share a joke or refer to something funny, and i would laugh as though i shared their humour. As though i understood. As though i felt the same. It is the heaviness of pretense, of a failure to be authentic. At first one works hard to connect with the mystery of these ancient monoliths. I take time, and feast my eyes upon the individual slabs of stone, the statues, the dark corridors and pillared halls. But my eyes only seem to become tired. They are rendered hungry and desperate. Then one starts to grow impatient with the temples, the ruins, the endless rocky crags. Why do these wonderous images not dazzle me? Why do i not feel more? This inevitably turns to self reproach. One begins to hate the temples. One externalises their own sense of failure. Failure to get it. Failure to feel more! I grow impatient with life in these moments.

Goodnight my friends.