After I got back from my second trip to India in 2008, I started writing The So-Called Book, trying to combine my impressions from both the first and the second visit combined.
It's turned out to be a bunch of my thoughts really, which felt weird since they didn't make much sense to me anyway. I was writing a lot and it literally poured. I couldn't write fast enough. Nevertheless, when I started typing it from the notebooks on to the computer, I never managed to get past the second chapter, since it was just too painful to re-read the whole thing and get reminded.
Maybe this will make me get on it. So, here goes...
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Zero
It all started with Dr. Marten's. They were huge before and they were still quite big then. I met her at the university cafeteria when she made some comments about the mentioned shoes. I didn't like her at first and I think she didn't like me either, but somehow she became a light spot in my life.
We'd run into each other at university and sip watery coffee while waiting for lectures. We'd drink bad coffee, chain-smoke and talk about the usual stuff: travelling, photography, languages, scholarships... But never Dr. Marten's. And this is approximately where the whole story starts.
I had seen an application form for a scholarship in India and when I saw her the next time, it was the first thing I blabbed out. If I can remember correctly, she was already in the process of fixing up the necessary documentation and trying to figure out how to spell her name in devanagari.
From then onwards, everything seems like a chain of events that enriched and in a way, which now makes perfect sense, changed my life. To good and for good.
My thoughts were with her all the time, and with that envelope on the way to Asia. My head was thundering with thoughts about what might happen and how it could all turn out. It never, not once, hit me that all of this would occur.
So in a way, the one to blame for this whole avalanche of actions is her, and maybe a scholarship obsession we shared at that time.
She was emailing me from India on a regular basis, which is technically way more demanding than one might imagine and by the time she got back, my head was already full of information. Although India was nowhere near the top of my wish list, we started thinking about going to India somehow.
I was in a rather stressful period, stuck in between university, work and life-concerning issues and I felt like I really needed a break. Not pondering upon it too much and getting into way too much debt, we booked the flight and not long after we were ready to hit the road.
Visas, vaccinations and all the official stuff had been sorted and one morning we were on our way, with two of our friends waving as us from the platform at the Central.
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भारत एक विशाल देश है|
This is me, riding a saikil down south, blissful as a warthog, 2004
You can also check India (Take Two), India (Take Three) and Gotta Love Airports for some more stories.
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