Journey(s)

Journeys. Much is made of the word and its’ associated meanings by the Indicorps brigade. At this point, any further attempt by me is certainly certified clichéd. And as I sit on this train and journey on, this time towards Nagpur, it all seems fittingly framed through the horizontal metal blue bars across the window.

Some of the paint is chipped, some of the dust is still settling, but it all keeps moving. I see the traffic of the city flowing by, kinda insane, but at the same time normal. The city lights pass, as do the slums. The heaps of garbage, the congregations of rag pickers next to the pristine walled-in green, green lawns. Soon the urban landscape fades and it is back to the khet – and rural India. This time in the plains, far away from the villages I know in that corner of Himalaya.

And so the recurrent conversation of this year (or is it this lifetime?) returns – of journeys, and understanding, or rather struggling to make sense of it all. Of wealth and privilege, and urban and rural, and where I’m coming from, and truly where I’m going. Not simply Anandwan or Sewagram, but where will it all lead? When do the answers come? And where do we go to find them when questions only become a little sharper? Cut a little deeper?

The moon is full. It shines light down on the setting below bearing witness to the journey. The singular and the plural – weaving in and out of one another, like the strands of a double helix. Connecting and disengaging. And I told you so. Totally, certified clichéd.