Shantaram

Looking at the dog-eared, weather-beaten copy of Gregory David Robert's Shantaram i have on my travel shelf (bought in Varanasi for 450 Rs), alongst other memorabilia like my bottle of Lao rice whiskey and a Cambodian krama (silk scarf) draped over my assortment of worn guidebooks and travel literature, i never fail to be reminded of India. The many places i have been to - colonial Madras, cultured yet humble, the sea wind, laden with salt, blowing in from the Bay of Bengal in French-flavoured Pondicherry, sitting by the beachside promenade on the evenings and joining the hundreds who come out to take a stroll and enjoy the evening breeze, the light fading fast across the ocean, and later joining the queue for a 10 rupee bowl of bread with potato curry at the line of makeshift stalls opposite a huge statue of the Mahatma, Ghandiji. And sun-drenched Mahabalipuram, visiting the famous stone carvings at the Five Rathas and the Shore temple on a rented bicycle, later road tripping to nearby Tirukalikundram where Dravidian temples rise colourfully amongst verdant paddy fields and the organised chaos of concrete dwellings, telephone wires, heaps of rubbish, wandering cows and crazed traffic. And Delhi, Amritsar, Attari-Wagah, Agra, Varanasi... All those memories, those places i have been to, those days of my life i have spent there...

I feel a strong affinity to these places - where i feel at once so much a stranger, sticking out like a sore thumb, yet so much at home, and especially now, missing these places where i've spent time, made friends, laughed, been squeezed like sardines on buses zooming across the expansive, lonely Indian countryside, chased trains, slept at railway stations.... It's like Gregory Robert's Bombay, the effect India has on me. My India. It feels at once so much like home and so new, so exciting, so enthralling. I will, in fact i think i have to go back to India one day. Its gonna be like going home. I miss India, barely 3 months after crossing the border at Sunauli to Nepal, another country which i absolutely loved and will always remember with fond memories.