Diary Excerpt: 05/02/09: Vishwanath

I met probably one of the most interesting people I will or ever have met. Sorry. First, the boat to Ramnaga palace. Nothing much happened. Then I made the decision to hang out more with Viswanath cyclerickshawing (or riska as he calls it) across Varanasi. Life altering. I heard all his stories from Varanasi. About Amitabh Bachchan's visits to Varanasi in a black car with black windows, about Sunny Deol's Ghatak, how people starting insulting Amrish Puri when he slipped on the steps of Raja Ghat, Viswa's bengali friends, that cycle-rickshaw guy I liked. Luvkush, the dinner place. The guy there who was drunk and made a scene, twitching on the face, his friend who kept repeating something in undecipherable hindi, something "woh aapko bool raha hai", the other guy who looked like Anant Nag, mop on the head, worried. Goodnight. This is the time I will spend with Viswanath. Subtext: many cycle rickshaw rides later, I would grow to be a little older and a little wiser.

Diary Excerpt: 05/02/09

Met Somnath Baba after seeing sunrise. Then Saddhu from Bangalore. Chillum after chillum. Sitting on a slope. Inclined. Laughing, talking about the empty Varanasi otherside (illusion and non-illusion), about tourists visiting Hindu holy sites as opposed to the non-touristy Khaba. Why? Hearing about the naga baba penis lock, the key (stick), vibhuti, the 18-year old anti-intoxicant vibhuti-smeared saddhu, the mobile-wielding cool saddhu who told me not to say cheers and say namonamai instead of "bye". Conditions. "We have everything, we got nothing." Time to revise, address these things. Keep wanting. Never stop. This car, that phone, bunch of crap. The cool saddhu asking to keep my fake ray-bans. Meeting Viswanath for the first time, asking him to guess my age and he says I look 60, in Hindi. "Aap tho saat saal ka hoga." Immediate friendship. (subtext: not knowing this would last for years). Then, sitting with Korean tourists in Mona Lisa Cafe. The caucasian sitting in front of me strangely looks like Toshiro Mifune. Class. All that Kurosawa-saddhu-fire (Ran and burning ghat) subconscious shit. There I accidently meet Rodrigo, tabla player from London whom I met when I lived in London when he was busking in Tottenham Court road tubestation. How weird. All this is... And then the japanese pundit...

Lit

It was lit brightly those fifteen days. Everything was clear. The caterpillars inside my brain became butterflies. There was movement everywhere. Every second I saw something new I connected it back to me and my evolution to Man: Stage II. I was the dawn of man. Every morning I listened to Nikhil Banerjee's Sohini. Every morning I greeted the sun with a cigarette in my hand. The days were so beautiful and full of promise. I thought I was living inside a dream. The bubble could break anytime but I never thought it would. The sensation of being the centre of the world's axis was overwhelming but I was in control of it. Or atleast I thought I was. My brain was lit brightly those fifteen days. Everything was clear. Or atleast that's what I thought.