Calm writer home from heaven

There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar,
I love not man the less, but Nature more.

Lord Byron

Writing this fresh from memory is not easy. The images are still cascading, still trying to find their place in the huge jigsaw puzzle that will eventually be my reference for my Coorg trip. I am sitting right now on a cold floor, the sludge from the hills still not dry on my knees, and the keys on the keyboard look like enormous mountains, every single one of them. Enormous, mist-covered mountains.

Just ten hours ago, I was standing at this crossroads. The path behind led to a deeper and darker part of the bamboo forest all around me. The path to the left led further down upriver towards more trees. The squiggly line of dirt to my right disappeared around a boulder that had a velveteen sheen to it thanks to the moss. Straight ahead was the river, muddy and fierce. I stretched out my arms and let the scene wash over me, drenching me to my very core that was already drenched by the steady but mild showers. The rain brought alive the forest, making it look like an Amazonian dream. The whole region was so sensuous that even the clouds seemed to be ejaculating constantly.

Among all the TV commercials that captured my imagination when I was a kid, the best probably was the Old Spice commercial with these clean-shaven men bravely and joyously rafting down a churning white river. That, to me, was adventure. It was the high-point of any happy, balanced life. The kid-me knew then that if I ever rafted down a river, I would be going the right way. Cauvery had always been the river I associated with religion and festivals and temples. And though I knew Cauvery river-rafting was happening, I could never work that into my image of Cauvery that always flowed past temples in maroon and white and where brahmins did their sandhyavandhanam. That notion was happily shattered and sent into oblivion as I paddled vigorously against the rapids, dodging the boulders. Pity I have a beard.

What has nature to teach me? Was nature ever a teacher? Why do visions of mountains and streams and forests move my inner being? Being there felt like coming into my inheritance. Travel is a sound - a desperate cry resounding throughout the umbilical cord I share with the earth.