Back from Orchha. To 12 degrees C in Dilli, which is par for the course. I don't know quite what to make of the trip. There was no obvious joy, except certain moments, no feeling the weight fall away, feeling rejuvenated. The mind felt like a solid, stationary block. There were the moments of remembering F, the other tangible feeling apart from the joy, when I doggedly set myself to read Ian Rankin. Oho, how can I not mention the high notes of the trip: annoyance, irritation and occasional anxiety about my travel companion and disappointment that Orchha turned out to be this little piss of a place without any buzz and that I had completely missed the mark in choosing the right place for a 5-day getaway.
The joys:
The panels at Laxminarayan temple and Raja Mahal: the rich colours, the details, the dark-skinned people in many of them, the Indian dogs, the plethora of animals, both real and mythological, the birds: parrots and peacocks, for the most part. The physical energy and the discipline with which I went through them, also that the extended number of days meant not having to rush through them and feeling compulsive and resentful.
Sighting the colony of long-billed vultures at the cenotaph on the first day, showing them to G and counting them down together, both of us rushing to take their photos, being egged on by G to photograph them mid-flight.
Eating the shahi thali at Bamboo Hut, with tomato soup and french fries
The walk in the 'Orchha nature reserve' on the last day: the mechanical-ness of putting one foot in front of another and eating up distance.
Sitting on a stone with G on another, my feet in the water, lying down on the stone with the sun on my face and no one around, standing in the water and staring for long moments, knowing that for once, it was okay to do this, relief that G was not in a fug for a change.
Discovering still green lips of the Betwa along our walk, like something out of another country.
Spotting my first darter here.
Drinking in the mustard fields which rushed past (crawled past, rather) us on the train journey back: spotting 1-2-3! peacocks in one field.
Spotting the lone peacock during the walk.
Finding a Huge eagle/ kite feather during the walk, which I've brought back.
Cows, another thing introduced to by G.
Crunchy aloo parantha with amla aachar at the shack.
Watching bits of Where Annie Gave Them Those Ones with G at the fag end of the long train journey back and laughing uproariously.
There was F too, most often at nights. I woke up in the mornings with disturbing dreams, and read Ian Rankin. Rebus, like House in an earlier year, gives me strength, hope, spirit.
About the opaque block that is my mind when I try to think what I am feeling, I think this travel has to be done with some discipline. I would like to think that this trip, with a very good balance of laidback-ness and disciplined old-stuff watching and photographing, the many birds I saw, did unwind me the way I was hoping it would, though I don't feel any of that textbook breeziness I would like to.
And a word about Orchha. It's dirty as hell, with cow dung and gutkha-laden spit littering every available surface of the road, and complete apathy about it. The architecture is massive and grand, and those panels are some of the richest I have seen, and they are all all going to ruins.
At Laxminarayan, there are several series of waist-level panels, beautifully-detailed, of etchings. At many of these, the faces have been methodically defaced. At others, the whole thing has been cleared out and replaced by, say, 'Pinki and Sonu'. The murals are falling apart, you can see remains of what would have been entire painted ceilings. The repairwork often falls far short of the delicate symmetry of the original, as we saw with the replacement latticework at Laxminarayan. The engineer in charge apparently visits once in a while.
The joys:
The panels at Laxminarayan temple and Raja Mahal: the rich colours, the details, the dark-skinned people in many of them, the Indian dogs, the plethora of animals, both real and mythological, the birds: parrots and peacocks, for the most part. The physical energy and the discipline with which I went through them, also that the extended number of days meant not having to rush through them and feeling compulsive and resentful.
Sighting the colony of long-billed vultures at the cenotaph on the first day, showing them to G and counting them down together, both of us rushing to take their photos, being egged on by G to photograph them mid-flight.
Eating the shahi thali at Bamboo Hut, with tomato soup and french fries
The walk in the 'Orchha nature reserve' on the last day: the mechanical-ness of putting one foot in front of another and eating up distance.
Sitting on a stone with G on another, my feet in the water, lying down on the stone with the sun on my face and no one around, standing in the water and staring for long moments, knowing that for once, it was okay to do this, relief that G was not in a fug for a change.
Discovering still green lips of the Betwa along our walk, like something out of another country.
Spotting my first darter here.
Drinking in the mustard fields which rushed past (crawled past, rather) us on the train journey back: spotting 1-2-3! peacocks in one field.
Spotting the lone peacock during the walk.
Finding a Huge eagle/ kite feather during the walk, which I've brought back.
Cows, another thing introduced to by G.
Crunchy aloo parantha with amla aachar at the shack.
Watching bits of Where Annie Gave Them Those Ones with G at the fag end of the long train journey back and laughing uproariously.
There was F too, most often at nights. I woke up in the mornings with disturbing dreams, and read Ian Rankin. Rebus, like House in an earlier year, gives me strength, hope, spirit.
About the opaque block that is my mind when I try to think what I am feeling, I think this travel has to be done with some discipline. I would like to think that this trip, with a very good balance of laidback-ness and disciplined old-stuff watching and photographing, the many birds I saw, did unwind me the way I was hoping it would, though I don't feel any of that textbook breeziness I would like to.
And a word about Orchha. It's dirty as hell, with cow dung and gutkha-laden spit littering every available surface of the road, and complete apathy about it. The architecture is massive and grand, and those panels are some of the richest I have seen, and they are all all going to ruins.
At Laxminarayan, there are several series of waist-level panels, beautifully-detailed, of etchings. At many of these, the faces have been methodically defaced. At others, the whole thing has been cleared out and replaced by, say, 'Pinki and Sonu'. The murals are falling apart, you can see remains of what would have been entire painted ceilings. The repairwork often falls far short of the delicate symmetry of the original, as we saw with the replacement latticework at Laxminarayan. The engineer in charge apparently visits once in a while.
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