Sunday, December 16, 2007

पानी /pani/water

Swim in it:


Don't drink it.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Rewalsar Lake

I decompressed from my month in Tibetan exile land with two days in Rewalsar, a holy lake half-way from Dharamsala to Delhi. I stayed at a monastery, climbed a mountain, and had my first coffee in two weeks.


Primary observation: you know it's winter in India when everyone in Himachal is huddled around fire pits made out of old ghee containers.

Still, the statue of Padmasambhava continues...


This 12-foot high spiritual monolith is intended to be gold when complete. I hear it's quite sunny in Rewalsar in the summer, so may logic grant it to be matte.



In circling the lake (monkeys, prayer flags, dogs); you pass temples of three distinct religions, like little points on a triangle: Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist. I vote for the red goompa.


The mighty climb up the mountain (loose the lake landmark, use the rice patty landmark, regain the lake) leads to a the cave where Padmasambhava meditated - remove your shoes.


...mind the spiderweb of prayer flags.


Yar.

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Ramblin' Man

Contrary to my initial belief, India's ubiquitous 'STD' signage has nothing to do with sexual awareness. Instead, it signifies a booth that enables one to make national phone calls...I'm still working on the acronym.

This linoleum number is my favourite one yet.


A deduction: if India is the center of the world, which it is in more ways that one, 'STD' slammed everywhere could very well by a Freudian slip for the nation's general sexual repression.

Har.

In otherworldly considerations: assistance is welcomed in regards to this tricky puzzle; as initiated by the song's inclusion amid another stunning playlist put forth by my iPod (on) shuffle.

Ahem...my incomplete attempt at mapping out Ramblin' Man by Lemon Jelly:

Paris
Tibet
Sydney
Naxos
Rangoon
Rotterdam
Runcton
Cayman Islands
Malawi
(_)
Haight-Ashbury
Patagonia
Kingston
(_)
(_)
Ko Samui
(_)
(_)
Valmorel
North Pole
Brixton
Antwerp
Gujarat
(_)
(_)
Uganda
Sheddington
Sudbury
Sri Lanka
Ecuador
Edinburgh
Stockholm
Abu Dhabi
Lexington
(_)
Tokyo
Harlem
Ipa Lima [? - epilimnion*]
Nikaseer [?]
(_)
San Jose
Damascus
Mandalay
San Francisco
Atlantis
Adelaide
(_)
(_)
Amsterdam
Munich
Rwanda
Kyoto
Manchester
Toronto
Prague
...

Judging by the inclusion of countries, cities, islands, neighborhoods, states and intersections...the boundaries seem to be limited to places that are proper nouns and not establishments. Fallen empires are not excluded. I am unaware to the geographical locations of the places with question marks, should they exist at all. There was simply a point where I couldn't ignore the phonetic clarity.

In traveling alone there's a lot of time to be disposed of in rooms or floating transport bubbles, all without available internet connections.

-Tara

*potentially 'the water layer overlying the thermocline of a lake', though this defies the proper noun theory