We are traveling through the heart of India. Through it vast plains, through its mountain ranges, through its green fields and forests and ravines. Through its sand dunes and barren landscapes. Through its villages and slums, through its towns and metropolitan cities. A travel through the length and breadth of India is a travel through time, a travel into eternity. The ultimate travel (and land) of paradoxes. Indeed even as we are in the train we whiz through stations and inexplicably slow down and stop in the middle of nowhere.
There are hundreds of people in this train. All of them strangers to me as well to each other, yet now one big family. All of them maybe headed to the same place, and like myself, knowing not what awaits them there – a destiny to be fulfilled.
As we pass through farms and wastelands I noticed a recurring feature. Isolated tombs – Yes, graves – with all kinds of religious markings. Some of them close to the edges of fields, some of them lying close to the railway tracks, surrounded by wilderness. Sometimes two or three of them maybe found together, but mostly alone. They are all similar, built with bricks, plastered and painted – white, blue, green. Whose tombs are these? They have all been well built and then abandoned. Why are they here? Maybe they belonged to workers who came from far off to work here in the fields, who having given their blood and sweat, gave their lives as well to the land they tilled. Maybe a compassionate land owner gave a little bit of his land to bury them. Maybe their co-workers gave them an honorable burial.
The tombs maybe of wandering ascetics who had traveled all over India and died here. People buried them close to railway tracks so every man traveling will see them and be reminded of an inevitable journey.
Again these tombs may contain nomads, shepherds (buffalo-herds?), ostracized people and most probably people who lived and toiled all their lives but could not own six feet of land. Now the stone, the cross and the crescent are together – in their abandonment and isolation – alike in sunshine and rain, drought and flood.
When you pass this way again look out for them, for they are showing you a way. Listen to them, for they are giving you a message.
15/07/2006
There are hundreds of people in this train. All of them strangers to me as well to each other, yet now one big family. All of them maybe headed to the same place, and like myself, knowing not what awaits them there – a destiny to be fulfilled.
As we pass through farms and wastelands I noticed a recurring feature. Isolated tombs – Yes, graves – with all kinds of religious markings. Some of them close to the edges of fields, some of them lying close to the railway tracks, surrounded by wilderness. Sometimes two or three of them maybe found together, but mostly alone. They are all similar, built with bricks, plastered and painted – white, blue, green. Whose tombs are these? They have all been well built and then abandoned. Why are they here? Maybe they belonged to workers who came from far off to work here in the fields, who having given their blood and sweat, gave their lives as well to the land they tilled. Maybe a compassionate land owner gave a little bit of his land to bury them. Maybe their co-workers gave them an honorable burial.
The tombs maybe of wandering ascetics who had traveled all over India and died here. People buried them close to railway tracks so every man traveling will see them and be reminded of an inevitable journey.
Again these tombs may contain nomads, shepherds (buffalo-herds?), ostracized people and most probably people who lived and toiled all their lives but could not own six feet of land. Now the stone, the cross and the crescent are together – in their abandonment and isolation – alike in sunshine and rain, drought and flood.
When you pass this way again look out for them, for they are showing you a way. Listen to them, for they are giving you a message.
15/07/2006
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