Our second travel highlight entry this year is from Heather Hackett and is about a city close to my own heart.
India Dawning
Floating downstream past the ghats of Varanasi at sunrise is leisurely and mystical, the shoreline of the City of Light softened in the fine haze left behind by the day before. The rabble on the ghats fades into timeless echoes from another reality. The wailing of a sitar, real or imagined, pours out all the joys and sorrows of life in India across the cosmos. And I am just a privileged onlooker, stirred for a moment by passion for a people and a country where both the ancient and the infinite are mutually inclusive concepts.
Floating downstream past the ghats of Varanasi at sunrise is leisurely and mystical, the shoreline of the City of Light softened in the fine haze left behind by the day before. The rabble on the ghats fades into timeless echoes from another reality. The wailing of a sitar, real or imagined, pours out all the joys and sorrows of life in India across the cosmos. And I am just a privileged onlooker, stirred for a moment by passion for a people and a country where both the ancient and the infinite are mutually inclusive concepts.
AUTHOR BIO
I have spent most of my life, over 40 years of it in fact, searching for meaning in our often insignificant and trivial lives. I’ve searched across three continents, mostly in Asia, and found various forms of spiritual fulfilment, some very powerful and life-changing. I’ve experienced some awesome highs and some wretched lows. I’ve known scarcity and prosperity in not-so-equal measure, and I’ve learned how precious life really is. My current work in progress is a memoir of all my experiences, hilarious and pitiful, gained while dragging my sorry ass and my two young kids up and down the Himalaya, through the monsoons of Asia and along the bike paths of Europe.
I have spent most of my life, over 40 years of it in fact, searching for meaning in our often insignificant and trivial lives. I’ve searched across three continents, mostly in Asia, and found various forms of spiritual fulfilment, some very powerful and life-changing. I’ve experienced some awesome highs and some wretched lows. I’ve known scarcity and prosperity in not-so-equal measure, and I’ve learned how precious life really is. My current work in progress is a memoir of all my experiences, hilarious and pitiful, gained while dragging my sorry ass and my two young kids up and down the Himalaya, through the monsoons of Asia and along the bike paths of Europe.
