on the road again, ancient caves, human markings, the boats that can see, musical meditation, endless pursuit, a mother and her son, and the joy of creating.
I am typing this letter from a hotel room on the east coast of India further up from Pondicherry. I am in Vishakhapatnam, a city that is so fast that by the time you decide to drive through the gap between a cow and a buffalo many other cars have sped by; where lunch meals are so huge and abundant four women rush around refilling the banana leaves of a room full of hungry people; where national parks lay empty apart from the couples who express their love behind the bushes; where no one looks at you for the second time; where if you ask for RO filter water, heads nod in negation and you are given mineral water bottles; where the ocean is turquoise and the mountains have a white globe upon them (which is what I am yet to figure out).
Finally, I drove out of our room in Pondicherry to get onto the road again. We spent ten months in Pondicherry: two and a half in Pondicherry city and the rest in the community Auroville; and it was time we packed what we got from that world and moved onto new shores.
From Pondicherry (Tamil Nadu state) we crossed into Andhra Pradesh. On the highway, driving past coconuts and banana and betel nut plantations, finding tea shops and local food restaurants, listening to the rain beat against the car windows, seeing the golden sunlight turn into scorching beams finally letting the cool moonlight take over, under the village of silver white clouds, many thoughts have birthed in my mind. Here they are in no particular order.
Our lives and their lives, they might look different. But they are different only in their appearance, like the clothing we wear, like the masks we put on everyday to look normal. Inside, at our core, all our blood, flesh, skin, bone, suffering, joys, grief, struggle all are the same.
At the ancient Undavalli caves near Vijaywada city in Andhra Pradesh. Cut out of a rock mountain, the caves had carvings from as early as 7th-8th century.
The uptight coconuts and the fluttery banana plantations, Andhra Pradesh has its love stories, too.
On the highway
Now I don't need to wander into every alley. Fly over every city. Look under every tree. I know more or less things are the same everywhere.
On the shores of Pondicherry
Near a canyon in Pondicherry
At a local Kabaddi match in Pondicherry
Auroville Library
Undavalli caves
Auroville, Pondicherry
A very very old cave from 7th-8th century. A rock mountain. Bats hanging upside down. Carvings such as I have never seen. Modern human markings on trees. And the need to leave our name behind, ever persistent.
Undavalli caves, Vijaywada. Andhra Pradesh.
At the feet of Vishnu.
the caves as seen from outside
the view from the top of the Undavallli cave mountain
Varaha, an avatar of Vishnu, with mother earth on his thigh. (If you want to know more about the story of the rescue of earth, please visit my friend Chitra’s blog here.)
God Vishnu in a giant avatar in the caves
holding onto the cave mountain, a tree marked with modern human names
I was feeling lonely so the sky started raining and told me, see, I am also crying alone. Don't you worry.
Amongst the many definitions, I call Personal Improvement not running behind others’ goals and clasping to our own sticky notes. My long narrative on Personal Growth and why it matters is the one I refer to frequently to remind myself what is self-development and how to go about it.
One day I heard a song that suffused me with life. A voice sang its loneliness to me from the times gone by and sparkled on me like the light of a star shining upon us from millions of light years ago.
Here's Klaus Nomi asking us to live while we are alive.
“Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” — John W. Gardner
“Purpose is the place where your deep gladness meets the world's needs.” — Frederick Buechner
“We are on tiny islands on this vast ocean that is our earth. But we came here by sailing the deep seas. What is it that we fear then? We have, literally, crawled out of those fathomless depths, lived on ice, slept on trees, hunted with our own bare hands. What is it we fear then? It is ourselves we are the most afraid of. What will we do in the face of this and that? But that moment isn’t here yet and we forget that we are endowed with enough strength, courage, and knowledge that we will know what to do when the time comes. And we cannot know better than what we know when the time comes. The journey is, after all, the endless pursuit of all we want right now in this moment.” — Yours Truly
What I’ve Been Reading
I’ve been reading short stories, books, articles, and so much more. I can’t possibly list all what I have read in the past week so I’m putting down the things I found most relevant and worthwhile.
Beautiful reads from the week,
Elephant Country by Dhruba Hazarika — What a story this one is! Read for the joy of reading.
He felt calm then, not really a sensation or even a feeling, but just a giving-in, of something that comes when treading helplessly through great danger. It is not just fear in itself. It is the helpless intoxication that fear offers which makes the moment pulsate with life. It is when the mind stops working rationally as we know it. That is what occurred to him, but not just then.
“Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.”
What Am I Missing? by ¡Hola Papi!, a Substack newsletter — A real and vulnerable read on what will it take for us to be considered alluring.
"No matter how full and vibrant and loud we make things, the quiet always finds us. In those moments, it’s important to be able to affirm, without anyone else’s eyes on us, that we have what we need. That we are what we need.
Thirty years later, how a son helped nab his mother’s rapists by Newslaundry — I could consider this a sad story but I want to remember this narrative as a hopeful one. Because,
The 12-year-old girl who was repeatedly raped by two neighbors had a child. Two decades later that son, whom she had given away due to societal pressure, urged his almost 40-year-old mother to file a police complaint. He said, “What if you were not the only girl? Why are we suffering for no fault of ours?” The mother was scared of what their relatives would say. But the son said, “Which relative has given us half a kilo of rice so far? Everyone has turned their back on you. So what are you scared of now?” The mother knew the son was right.
And many videos on Newslaundry (a user paid news media) and Soch (Soch's aim is to empower Indians with fact-led information on issues that matter to our society but are either ignored or accepted with little questioning. Through this channel, we tackle sensitive issues using extensive research.)
And for all my Wanderlusters.
I have shared many stories, thoughts, and pictures above. So closing in with a couple more photographs and ideas.
National parks in Andhra Pradesh. Ant hills, long winding paths, name tags, and silence. Most of the space was happily occupied by couples looking for privacy. But I did find an eagle and a noisy lapwing.
The Colorful Vishakhpatnam
The Andhra meal place I had lunch at.
A kind of hut I would like to build for myself one day.
Auroville, Pondicherry.
My writer's desk. The joy of creating silences everything else.
Thank you for reading.
I hope you have a thriving end of the week. Take good care of yourselves :)
Let me know you think about this newsletter. Just press reply.
Yours,
Priyanka
Some housekeeping… This email may end up up in the Promotions tab of your inbox. If you don’t find the newsletter during the week, go to your Promotion tab and move this email to your Primary inbox. Looking Inwards letter will be in your inbox every week from then on.
