Matt Davis Trail

It started with a filled stomach and a curiosity of how it would be inside and how the pictures would come with my new Lumia 1020. The entrance was a small wooden bridge and then it was like a walk to an old abandoned garden. Nothing magnificent or breathtaking. It smelled of old wood and dried leaves. 

It was mid-noon and the sunlight and trees were playing light and shade. The game where part of the tree would be in sunlight and the rest in shade and the light would try to catch up with the shade. There was webbing on the edges of the branches that glowed in sunlight. We wasted quite a while to grab snaps of things around like a teenager using Instagram in a new restaurant. Karl kept saying that we needed to move quickly.

We strolled amidst broken twigs and rocks and after what seemed like an hour, I asked Karl how much distance we covered. He opened a map and showed where we were and where we were supposed to reach. It seemed we have not even crossed 1/8th of the distance. I asked, "At what point do we decide if we continue or go back". Jag marched to the place we sitting like a soldier and said, "You have taken the blue pill. There is no turning back". Well, Jag was the guy who wanted us to eat lightning and fart thunder.

We started moving quick taking breaks only for a sip of Gatorade. I spotted a small snake on the way rushing into the bushes. Slowly, I started noticing huge trees that seemed to be either broken or cut. Those cuts looked like they were made by a machine and logs pushed aside to make the path for the trail. Chirping of birds here and there was the only other sounds we could here besides our footsteps and the others' who seemed dedicated to do the hike. Then came an open area will dried grass. The trail was around the edge of a hill. It was tortuous. Being very sunny, it was easier to take photographs amidst the dry grass.

Me: "Hey Jag, go climb to that top, Peter will take a pic from here"

Jag: (After climbing and after Peter taking photo, keeping his pose intact he started saying) "My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions and loyal servant to the TRUE emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next."

Then he turned left and kept walking. After a min or two of discussion among ourselves

Me, Karl: (shouting at the top of our lungs) Hey Maximus, turn back, we are not going that side.

We reached a view point from where we could see the downtown to our left and the sea line to the right. There we took rest for a while and continued with our walk. To break the monotonous activity of walking, I asked Jag, "What would be your course of action if I tell you we are lost". Jag replied, "I never lose". I think that was the last question I asked him.

The last quarter of the trail was path through densely grown trees. The way appeared to be forcibly made out, where there was none. Fallen tree trunks, logs, smell of old books and diluted eucalyptus. The sound from a small creek of running water was dominant all around. We saw two artists who sat near the creek and were painting something, either something they saw there or were just sitting there because it was easier to concentrate. It was meditating to listen to the sound of flowing water with no other distraction. Being mostly downhill we had to restrain our feet from giving in to the forward movement. That part had a little painful effect on my legs.

 We took more time than what was mentioned online, to finish the hike. So it grew so dark at one point that we had to use our mobile flashlights to find the way. That further slowed us down. Just before the last 0.5 miles of the trek, we reached a place from where we caught a glimpse of the orange sun setting into the blue ocean. It was a splendid sight but we were very late. A peek was all we could get. The sky around the horizon stayed in the color of vermilion after the sun disappeared into the ocean. It resembled the forehead of a devotee. There were streaks of sunlight that appeared like traces of the light beams hit from beneath the clouds. Nice scenery for silhouettes. 

We took some pictures and then rushed to the point where we parked our car. We started late and took much time to finish the hike so we had to complete it as soon as we could before it grew too dark. We started jogging and as we neared the beach, the wind grew chiller. The day long walking made the chill bearable till we reached the parking arena. 

I felt once in a while we need to go on such a hike.

Time

She is strict, she is punctual, she is disciplined and diligent. She teases, she taunts, she warns and she haunts.
At times she comes to me gracefully, tempting me when I am in high spirits and runs away quickly without me realizing it. How I wish she stayed for some more time and let me enjoy the moment but she is the master and I have to abide by her rules. I wonder and propagate what a lucky person I am to have her in this beautiful form. She arouses envy in others, when I am happy with her. She laughs and regales me however it seems for a very short span.  I am so lost in the euphoria that I realize late of that she is gone too soon.

There are also those times when she stays with me , when I am in a foul mood. Anger or frustration or irritation or depression. She never leaves me alone. But she doesn't bother to invite me to involve with her as she moves along. In such states, I sit and mourn and she plays in front of my eyes running along as she wishes. She stares at my inertia with cold eyes mocking me, blatantly stating that she wouldn't budge so soon. If only she ran along unnoticed, I think I would have some relief.

Thoughts

There is a want, there is a wish. 

There is something to be more than what it is. 

The routine seems unavoidable but still it is the only path brightly lit. 

When the light outside goes out and the one from the bed lamp shines brightest, I hear doors from different worlds creak open. Inviting, intimidating. Explore, remember, avoid. It is all a choice. But what for? Bringing out fiction, putting thought and pouring out letters on the page where they would wiggle their ends looking at each other as if enjoying some inside joke on what is being filled in the paper. Waste of ink? Waste of paper? But thought doesn't take the blame. Its a busy traveler crossing the mind without forcing to be introduced. Just to be entertained maybe even without accepting it. It feels that everything has been seen what is to be seen and everything felt what is to be felt. Is it the shallow mind that narrows the awareness or is it the truth that changes its guise and appears at different places in different forms? Is it the plenitude that demands experience to be variegated? The rainbow ultimately is single entity with different opinions each representing only part of the totality. But the colors attract. No matter how far you go with one, it is just a shade, a part of the entirety. Each color evokes a different feeling, demands a different expression, a different opinion. But in the long run it seems tiresome when destination is reached where all color amalgamate showing there always was and is a single source. This puts the purpose of any creation in simple terms of 'desire for existence'. It desired to be and so it is. 

Rationality doesn't approve that explanation. It needs clear lines between the dots to complete the picture and appreciate the beauty. However dots can only be connected in hindsight which implies the flavor at each stop is not new and tainted with experience. Clouded with old feelings conjured by the memory. No wonder memories force the experience as they are created based on one. Ink falls on the paper and splashes forming multiple small blots that continue to do the same and all is left is a shaded paper. Once trapped, once recorded, the reach of the ink is restrained. But how else would it be propagated? The completeness is never reciprocated between two minds. When it is, then there are no two minds - they become one. Nevertheless, desire dwells in every mind. Every color tries to shine and depict a picture. Sometimes, it is not enough. Desire is not quenched and the craving finds a new partner and copulates to form endless chain of minions constantly working to reproduce. Saturation of mind halts this chain only from one source. The chain reaction was set in motion at the time of creation and only at the destination, where everything becomes one, it is halted. Alas, it would only be a calm before the storm. This is bound to start again to form an endless loop. The search for a meaning to all this is meaningless but at the same time it is discouraging to discard this exuberance. 

जा सनम ..

The song starts playing and 
I look towards the sky
eagerly searching for the moon
I tend to gaze in its eye

It turns into a known face
digging my heart with spades
Pulling out buried old memories;
With every thought my heart aches

Every line of the song slowly
and surreptitiously recreates
A world out of the incidents and
hidden feelings of those days

I wonder at the innocent desires
plans and promises that were made
The anxiety and adrenaline I had
The path I have taken & the one I laid

And as the song reaches its end
I sing along the lines wiping a tear
Treating every word that comes out
As an orphaned wish and a silent prayer.

---------------------------
song: जा सनम 
movie: ना तुम जनों ना हम 

...शायद कभी कहीं तुम्हें ,
मेरी मिले खबर ,
कर लेना याद बस मुझे, 
मुमकिन हो ये अगर..

post from the past

from the diaries of Tanvi

Out of the blue, if I tell you that I miss you, will you really realize how much?

Sometimes I think about you all day and feel why I missed something that I feel so

important. And sometimes your memory flashes in my mind like a butcher’s knife.

With one swing tearing apart my heart and going away, leaving my body to feel

the tremors. No matter what, I want you to know that I think about you and I

miss you. I don’t know if the feelings you have or I think I have towards you

are the same as they used to be. Even then, I think there is something still

remaining in me that feels bad about not being with you and having to live on

memories that become the needles used by a poor acupuncture therapist. They

hurt more than they heal.

what do I do? Like Boyzone says, words are all that I have! In a time where the value of

words is depreciating, I doubt mere ‘miss you’ can portray the entirety of my

anguish. That doesn’t mean I have to abandon my means. I use these words, which

when not felt the same way, become empty shells. But believe me, these are

heavy. With the weight of the tears gushing through my eyes and the depth of

the hollow pit formed in my heart. Don’t discard these as useless marks of ink,

they sting as they pierce out of my heart with a hope that your response would

fill the holes formed. If not my heart would remain as a netted veil covering my

memories.