so turns out the world is a sphere after all .
i know so .
and not cuz of galileo or kepler .
i saw it .
i saw it standing on a 50 feet tall cliff of one of the small isles of the andaman and nicobar archipelago , and findin water everywhere, as long as my sight took me. the horizon forming a perfect circle .
oh btw , i went to a & n (ok, i wasnt allowed to enter nicobar and only 10 percent of andy was accessible to tourists ). but i still got to experience wat life is like on island(s) ... tat are actually caps of mountains within the sea , more than a 1000 kms frm d mainland ; tat create a 3d image of all tat u read in jp and lost world (sans the dinos) ; tat can teach u the basics of anthropology in 3 days ; tat is inhabited by essentially immigrants from all over india and is the home to around five indegenous tribes, few of which ve never contacted the world outside their isles ; tat has been meddled around wit, by the british, the japs ,indians and very recently by tsunami !
i ve experiences to tell . the adventure ride on an overloaded dongi(small wooden boats), moving slowly on the backwaters, possibly ( most definitely) infested wit crocs and snakes, wit not a single soul to be seen in either direction, and surrounded by jungles inhabited by the (possibly) hostile tribes; the trek thru the real jungles; the exploration of the ruins of an abondoned british island township; walk thru the corridors of one of the most torturous prisons of all times; the ride on the ferry; meetin the semi clad jarawans wit bows and spears and the eye contatct wit the patriach of the group; eating in a village inhabited by the descendants of slaves brought by the british , who still almost live the way their forefathers did in their homeland before bein brt here 300 yrs back; fingering the ejections of a mud volcano; floatinn in sea water staring at an uninabitted island , with the blunt afternoon sun glistenin on the water ; discovery of a dog on an isolated island ( ?!? how ?! ); the corals; the jellyfish; the clear water; the realisation tat earth indeed is sphere !!
but i guess tat will take too much time. so i'll focus on one experience. the high point of the trip. it happened wen i was standing on a cliff overlooking the placid inner-sea seperating my island from the one on the horizon, wit a single hauntin & almost naked tree growing frm the sea ,and the sound of the soft passive waves splashing on the colourful rocks below and the chirpin of an unknown avian species filling the silence . silence like i had never heard or not heard !
i realised for a moment tat i was detached . detached from the world . i experienced wat alcoholics call, a moment of clarity!
i was away .
away from the crowd, meaningless education, comic politicians, mindless traffic, pollution, schrodingers wave equation , signal processors, sharma aunty and her ques abt MS-MBA ,creativeless IT companies, TV wit a zillion channels , bullshit consumerism wit huge billboards & celebs & witless ads , carin to ve some guy's name on ur underwear !
away frm all the crap .
i wonder why i live in the world i live in .
i wish of, the life of a simple sraight man, on this island. part fisherman, part farmer, part hunter, part architect and interior desiner, part engineer, part doc.
jus me and my woman .
and wen i say me, i mean a me wit six pack abs , ralf nadal like arms , wit awesome swimmin and huntin skills .
and wen i say my woman , i expect no-one less than brooke shields.
so ya , me and my woman . we wake up to te risin sun. we eat figs n fruits for breakfast in our organic hut made of bark,wood n leaves; overlookin the green island a lil away and the calm sea seperatin us. then do everyday chores, tat are simple and easy to picturize and ve notin to do wit electrons and deutrons and their freakin frequencies. den i go fishin wit my harpoon and come bak wit a huge game . i make fire while she dresses the hunt. we ve smoked fish together on earthern plates , under the bright moon and stars , wit its brightness not attenuated by polluton . and den we ...u know ... dot dot dot , all nite ( and i din mention earlier but also, sometimes in the afternoon after lunch ) .
simple everday goals. simple life. happiness all around.
wish , we humans werent so smart . or wish we had taken a diff path durin evolution and stayed happy like the jarawan tribals i met in the tribal reserves of middle andaman !
comin back , andamans is the perfect "get away" . it's not rockin like goa. def not a party place. but the site of the green mountainous islands , the color of different layers of the sea , the miniature white beaches , the forests , the breeze .
they beat the massage by d best masseuse in d best spa on d planet !
wish i could explore more . go to havelock and nearby islands, the nicobars, and the sentilese islands. try not gettin killed and see how ppl there live. see wat they eat (provided tey are not cannibals). find out their take on economics , technology, religion and see all tat nature has to offer .
andy , i m comin back !
