We arrive in Bhubaneswar in the evening, and have some trouble getting to the guest house we have so cautiously looked up in the tourist guide. When a persistent rikshaw driver follows us too long, I step right in front of him and look him in the eyes, silently. Natural alpha-male behavior, and it makes the weasel creep away. The guest house is simple and we will later experience some black-outs, but what am I writing here? About a guest house? Some place to sleep in central India, Orissa province, Bhubaneswar? Interesting for the readers, wow. No, this is not working. We visit a little temple the name of which I have already forgotten, the sculpturing is very crafty and inside there are a few people taking a nap.
Any good causes here? Where to start? No English. Wasting time. I have to learn to enjoy tourism, to enjoy seeing certain stones in certain configurations. Or some object everybody has to find very special and relevant. A bird is circling when I am writing this, weeks after the stay in Bhubaneswar, it’s the bird of winding down. Winding down again, it has been sufficient. You climbed up all the way to see the vanity of it all. Now slowly let go and spiral back towards the earth. It’s not about a magnificent opus and the veneration of later generations, it’s a simple little pebble that throws simple little ripples in a pond. Oblivion. Start coming down from here, start unlearning all the fancy theories, all the eloquence in expression, and drift back towards being a simpleton-singleton who says “awh”.
March 19. Bhubaneswar.
