Now I can say there was that time in Dharamsala, when a people cut off from their country and their families marched for two hours in protest, demanding action, dreaming of home.
India
Travel sketch of the month: March edition.
It was to this view I returned on Sunday afternoon. With the Tibetans’ chants still ringing in my ears (What we want? We want freedom!), I sat down on the ledge, opened up my sketchbook, and turned to the valley below me for inspiration.
A do-it-yourself writing retreat: Or, how to live on a beach in India for $314 a month.
Last week I realized what exactly these last four weeks have been for me – a kind of do-it-yourself writing retreat. I didn’t need to wait for an official fellowship; all it took was me carving out the time to come to Goa and get to work.
Dharamsala or bust: Notes on the wonder of ‘what if?’
What if – there were those two words again, the harbingers of regret. Because as much as I love my home here in Goa, I also knew that three months from now, I didn’t want to be asking myself – what if I’d gone with them to Dharamsala?
Grateful in Goa: Or, the greatest gift we can give ourselves.
And usually it’s right then – as my face is turned to the sun and my arms and legs are moving in great big circles through the Arabian Sea – that it hits me, every day: This is my life.
Travel sketch of the month: February edition.
One of my favorite restaurants here in Goa is called Magic View, and no matter if you’re sat in the front section looking towards Patnem Beach or at a few tables out back overlooking Colomb Bay, the view is indeed, well, magic.
A place to hang my beach towel: At home in Goa
“Let’s take you home,” Hannah said, and I swear to you, I could’ve cried. And after an hour of unpacking and setting out knick-knacks, I did cry, just a little, and they were all tears of big, huge, inexpressible joy.
Bombay in bloom: Inside Mumbai’s Dadar flower market.
It’s in the covered portion of the market that it hits me, what exactly I find so intoxicating about this place. Yes, the fragrance of jasmine and rose blossoms no doubt has something to do with it, but it’s this, too: These are the colors of India.
Consider the pigeon: Notes on taking flight
Pigeons aren’t supposed to be beautiful, I tell myself. And yet I see it everywhere I look – in the outline of their wings, in their iridescent neck feathers, in the wind brushing my face which isn’t wind at all but the result of a hundred birds moving the air at the same time.
Mumbai magic: Happy new year from Bombay!
I fell in love with this city last year; back on the streets of Bombay for a second time, I’m just as in awe of the possibilities they hold. Mumbai, as it always seems to, has worked its magic yet again.