That Moment when you love your bun but then find out your roots are out grown xD, This is from last winter when I came home from Uni xD the oversized sweater is from forever XXI Leggings and tanktop are from Charollette Russe
This post is about to be a long one. It describes an exhausting afternoon rife with stupid decisions and brilliant conversations, and I am particularly fond of these memories. So hear (read?) me out.
Pondy is essentially a sleepy seaside town. Esha and I wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t committed to learning surfing, and by committed, I do mean committed.
We’d wake up at the buttcrack of dawn (the snooze function on the phone well weary of our early-morning disdain), so we’re out the door at 6:30am, and in the water before 7.
This particular Wednesday began just like all the other mornings in Pondy. Up, out, and well into the water by sunrise, engaging in the usual rough-and-tumble of sand-scraped knees and ingested sea-water.
But given the disciplined consistency of our mornings, the sister and I decided it was time we looked to the anarchy of touristing through the afternoon. And so we scouted off to Auroville - “a universal city in the making in south-India dedicated to the ideal of human unity”. (Don't ask.)
Auroville is an idyllic community close to Pondy, dedicated to capital-T Truth, meditation and New Age Science, populated by the sort of Westerners who subsist on kale, birdseed, and the deep-breath-in-deep-breath-out variety of yoga.
It's your regular tourist pit-stop, right? You expect little of the location itself, but the aftermath of your visit promises a story for parties, another lengthy blog-post, a new Facebook album for friends, family, and distant almost-acquaintances to FOMO over.
And so our story begins.
We drive up to the Auro, as far as our Toyota Innova can take us before coming to a halt in a dusty parking lot outside the city walls. The rest of the exploring is to be conducted on foot.
It is ten o’ clock.
The entrance to the city is laid out with pretty lawns and fairy lights and lanterns swinging from the trees. Ambling crowds move through tree-lined avenues, stopping at cafes and at jewelry stores. Tadpoles wriggle restlessly in the sort of lotus ponds that are cleverly designed to look rugged and indigenous.
Esha and I spend the first hour and a half perusing the stores – classic tourist fare, with a hipster edge. Everything is ridiculously overpriced, so, logically, I end up buying a pack of eco-friendly panty-liners anyway. They are reusable and made of cotton. I have spontaneously decided that I want to reduce my carbon footprint. Or is it my waste-generation? Are they the same thing?
We amble. There is no hurry.
Esha-the-sibling and I each use the lavatories. Comment on the absence of soap. We then notice, accidentally, signs pointing to Matrimandir - a shrine of sorts that is located in the middle of the actual Auroville (we have realized that we are not yet in the “actual Auroville”).
Matrimandir is a goodish walk from the shops and from the toilets and from where we’re standing, but I leap to the challenge, enthusiastic at the prospect of more selfies. Esha, seventeen and anti-normcore, is less exuberant. Ugh, what’s the point? she asks, nihilistic as ever.
I coax her as only an older sister can, alternating threats with guilt-tripping.
Onward and forward.
We leave the alcoves and lawns to follow a marked path to the city. It’s essentially a desert. Thorn bushes line either side, and dust lies underfoot. But Matrimandir is should be close enough, around the corner, practically. We pass by sexagenarians and toddlers walking back down the way we’re walking up, the best indicator of geographical proximity to a scenic spot. I am optimistic.
The weather, though, is less cheerful. The sun is hot in a way that wasn’t as obvious when I was trying on hemp pantaloons in the climate-controlled changing-rooms. I can feel my face get greasy with humidity. My armpits feel mildly sticky, and I am reminded that I didn’t shower or deodorize after the morning’s surf.
Esha whimpers slightly.
Shade is sparse, and we stir up tiny sandstorms with every step. Dust weighs the air down in our wake. For some reason, there’s no one else walking towards the city, but several people walking back to the parking lot. Esha and I speculate on why that is.
- Perhaps the temples closed?
- Perhaps everyone behind us is dead.
- May be we’re walking so slowly everyone behind us is moving faster than the speed of light and we can’t see them.
I stop to consider this. Physics is not my strongest suit, but I make a stab.
- Then why can we see the people walking back from there?
Sanity is gradually escaping us.
Progress is slow. The path onwards is marked with large, irregularly interspersed boards bearing the names and images of local flora, accompanied by elaborations on the random (as far as we could tell) virtues these flora depict.
The Champa is for Honesty
The Lesser Jasmine is for Courage
The Elder Hibiscus is for Endurance
The Yellow Pond Lily is for Sufferance
I begin to suspect that the assigned attributes aren’t random virtues, but specific recommendations for elements of behavior I might benefit from on this journey to nowhere.
My armpits are, at this point, limpid pools nurturing some virtuous flora of their own. The sun is at high noon; I have begun to be able to smell myself.
- We should give up, says Esha.
- But we’ve come so faaaar, I insist.
- Quicker to leave now than later, she retorts.
I pause. Shit, I say. We have to walk the whole bloody way back.
This awareness has just struck on me.
We walk on regardless.
- Why are we even doing this?!
- Because, I say.
- I don’t want to go, and you don’t want to!
- We don’t even care about it!
- And it’s hot, and we can go back into the car, and it has air-conditioning!
Good points, all. Esha is wise beyond her years.
- But, I reply, We can’t tell people we failed!
My point is valid too. Esha is seventeen, I’m twenty-two. We are at the prime of our health. We cannot stop now, with grey-haired pilgrims and dragged-along rug-rats and kale-munching hippies making this walk as easily as I make my hourly trip from the couch to the refrigerator.
My ego is a tender flower! It is eggshells and butterfly wings. My ego is the frailest thistledown.
Esha rolls her eyes.
- I think I’m going to die, she says.
- Death by dehydration is the noblest death of all, I reply.
A pause, and then, Oh for fuckssake.
On the road ahead, there’s a lady sweeping the dust floor for no reason I can discern. Imagine this – imagine it with me - we’re walking on an endlessly dusty path, next-to-no-one around, and there’s a lady sweeping the dirt floor. The lady sweeps, dust flies up, dust settles down, the lady sweeps some more. It seems like a metaphor for this journey we’re making.
But next to the lady, a promising sign – an arrow pointing ahead, “Matrimandir” painted on its dusty side. Have I mentioned that there is a ridiculous amount of dust everywhere? And heat?
But – focus, Manasvi - the sign is here, right here, which evidences that we’re nearly there, almost there, it’s right around the corner, this big golden dome. This temple, this Matrimadir, this place of quiet solitude, glorious background for my facebook selfies, foreground for my Snapchat stories. I am so excited that even Esha is growing less indifferent.
I ask the lady sweeping how much farther we can expect to walk.
“Three kilometers,” she says.
Three kilometers? Three kilometers! Three kilometers! I’d expected something like Just two minutes, or Right around the corner, but three kilometers?! And, and, because X, therefore Y, reaching Matrimandir would involve walking three kilometers to the temple, and three kilometers back to this very spot.
I say to Esha, We have to walk the whole way back!
I say to Esha, OK, swear you won’t tell anyone we gave up.
I say to Esha, Three damn kilometers?!
I say to Esha, Tell no one. Tell. No. One.
I look around and Esha is already making her way back.
I trot over to catch up. No one, I reiterate.
- Fine, she says.
- We liked it, I say. It was pretty.
- Gold dome, she asserts.
- Yep. Great view. So nice.
- Peaceful. Green.
- Why don’t we have any pictures, then?
- … So peaceful. You can’t disturb the peaceful.
And just like that, we have an agreement. We intend on lying to everyone.
My admission of the fact, that I went all the way to Pondicherry and never once glimpsed Matrimandir, on this blog, is evidence that I don’t believe anyone actually reads this blog. Thank you for your time.
The next time we meet, ask me about my trip to Pondy.
As winter winds down, it is time for you to start taking a lighter approach to your outer apparel and what better way to do it then with a trench and a pair of tights sans boots? If you are still experiencing more cold than warm air masses as spring continues to remain elusive in your neck of the woods, pairing any of three trench coat influenced looks with a sweater or a pair of riding boots and you will be comfortably set to greet the less than balmy breezes. Either way you choose, you cannot lose by embracing any of these uber stylish looks. Winter will soon be a distant memory, so be patient lady while you are waiting for the first blooms to arrive and still look stylishly seasonally appropriate to boot.
A cursory glance at weather models into the somewhat distant future shows a consistently strong signal for above normal temps across the west and central US for the foreseeable future. With the foreseeable future being almost to March — one has to ask “Have we just started Spring and not even realized it?” (more…)
