Back from Varanasi.
Still soaking in the spell of that place. But whilst I marinate in the rich, lush peace that I have returned with, thought I would scribble something I have been mulling about.
When we reached Varanasi (that airport has such a doll-house quality to it, especially if you are traveling from a city where you jostle for space on the last shuttle to the plane), we strolled into the airport and waited for our luggage.
A family with a couple of kids were waiting close by. As the luggage came on the carousel, the mom and dad started reaching for their suitcases. This distressed their little son.
He didn't understand why they were picking up the same bags they had dropped off in Mumbai. He kept pointing to other bags and suggested that those looked nice. How about they take those? The father laughed and said that those didn't belong to them. They would have to take the same bags they carried. The son insisted that they were in a different city now. So why should they? At this point, the parents had given up.
The little boy was given his Spiderman backpack and they were on their way out.
I spent a few days in the city. It has symbolism of epic proportions. And 'epic', for once, is not used hyperbolically here. You hear the casual references of Tulsidas writing the Ramayana on one ghat, you hear the fervent bhajans at Kashi Vishwanath, you see the Ganga, you feel the rolls of her waves on your fingers, you see a child flying a kite, hopping nimbly across boats, you feel the weight of a million hearts at Manikarnika, you feel the empty weightlessness seeping in through bhaang... it's impossible to not feel the endurance of eternity. But it's not as if my life has changed drastically after the Kashi visit, nothing is easier. I returned to the keys of my home getting stuck. And not being able to receive emails. But something is altered.
I think of that little boy at the airport.
Maybe it is inevitable to have some baggage as you travel...after all, there is a body to take care of and a world to live in. But maybe you do get a chance to pick a different set of baggage once in a while.
And maybe that's what makes all the difference in this trip we're on.
Comments