Friday, April 13, 2007
Beautiful ThoughtA legend is told about the origin of a certain mountain in Asia:
Once, there was a young king who lived in a magnificent kingdom with his queen. He was a very amiable and magnanimous leader. His queen, on the other hand, was pompous and demanding. Nonetheless, the king loved her very much. One day, the king asked his queen what she wanted as a gift. He told her that she could have anything her heart desired. After much deliberation, the queen said, "My king, I want a mountain to be beside our palace! It would make our kingdom much more majestic! Also, the sight of the sun rising over the mountain each morning shall give me endless joy." Without hesitation, the king set out, bringing with him 10,000 of his finest men, 1,000 of his finest steeds, and 500 of his strongest elephants.
What seemed like a journey of conquest was actually a journey of devotion. The king's idea was to travel to the largest mountain in the land and use his forces to puch it back to the palace for the queen. And so, upon arriving at the site of the mountain, the king wasted no time in assembling all his men, his horses and his elephants to push the mountain back to the kingdom.
Meanwhile, back at the palace, the queen had plotted this from the beginning. Knowing such a feat would be near impossible, she figured the king would be gone a long time and so, expressing her hidden aggenda, she began to seduce the king's brother and ended up committing adultery all the time the king was away. Also, she began ordering around the king's subjects, amassing more and more of her desires and wants selfishly.
Back at the mountain, the king and his men were having a very difficult time making the mountain move. But soon enough, with much desperation and effort, they were successful, inch by inch. Entire months were spent to push the peak single inches. Soon, the king's men began to die off, one by one, due to lack of resources or of extreme exhaustion. Years went by and the number of men and creatures the king had to help him push decreased, while the queen, who was the sole reason of such, continued her infidelities and her atrocities.
After a very long time, the king was the only one left to push. Everyone else had died. The only thing that kept him alive and gave him strength to continue pushing the entire mountain himself was the thought that his queen would be happy upon seeing the sun rise over it. Each day and each night, he pushed, unwavering and strong. The mountain is now situated some thousand miles off the Tibetan mountain range, a lone mountain, somehow strangely similar to the formation of the former. Some say that the king is still pushing the mountain now, and each decade, the mountain can be seen a few inches from its original spot. One beautiful thought gave one man the power to move mountains.
**
We take things as they come and improvise if it ends up not exactly how we pictured it. And that happens a lot. It's human nature. We never end up where we though we would. All these things that we want, most times, they just never come. You close your eyes and have a perfect vision of it, so lucid that you can almost taste it. It's so much more difficult when it's something you really want; want more than anything, and it just doesn't happen. Only a few things in this world are more painful. It's hard when a thing of this magnitude is taken away from you. Something that gives you hope, makes you strong, keeps you alive. You fight so hard for this ideal because you believe it will make you happy. You believe that this will be worth it. You believe that soon, everything will fall into place, that someday, you'll look back at everything you've been through and have nothing else but a smile on your face, and softness in your heart. Such a thought is noble. Such a thought is beautiful. And quite frankly, that's what this has always been. That's what this is, and that's what it'll remain. The dream I awake from. The life I'm not living. A world I wish I were in. You'll always be my beautiful thought.
(By the way, the legend isn't real. Haha.)
the adventure ended at 11:07 PM
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
HomesickFor the one week that we were away in India, I swear I have never been that homesick my entire life. Truth be told, I don't think I'd wanna go back there. I mean, it IS an interesting place. But besides the fact that it's interesting and that it's a "whole new experience", there's really nothing to it. Quite frankly, I didn't like the place. To add to it, I'm really, really sick right now. I've got a fever, LBM, a nasty cold and recurring migranes. We went to India with my sister having a cold and since I was in such a close proximity to her the entire trip, I caught her cold and for some reason, mine got worse and worse. The LBM? Food poisoning maybe? Which would increase the likelihood of fever. Thus... Here I am, half dead. Haha. Last night, coming from my friend's place, I had to have my friend drive me and my car home and have him picked up at my place since I was too weak and sick to drive or walk (or stand for that matter). I hate being sick.
Anyway, the main point of this entry is of India. So I'm going to share to you some of the highlights of our India trip:
a) The Heat - The unforgiving sun can cause a great deal of discomfort and, in this case, piercing pain. Yup, at 43 degrees celsius, you'll do well to bring bottles of gatorade, sunblock, and, if you're filthy rich, a portable air-conditioner. The heat in India was simply unbearable. (It's almost like a hot day in Ateneo. Hahaha.)
b) Bakals - You know how in the Philippines, we have stray cats and stray dogs? Well, in India, they have stray cows! Yes, you heard it, cows. Bakals. Bakang Kalye. Get it? There are hundreds of them. I mean they're just everywhere! They're in the middle of the road, laying on the islands, walking the sidewalks, joining in human conversations, and generally just chilling. They are the epitome of "chill." No rush, no hassle, just living life. Hahaha. And get this, they're actually protected by Indian constitution. If you kill a man, you can get a maximum sentence of 14 years. If you kill a cow, you can get a maximum sentence of 20 years! Imagine that. So nope, no Quarter Pounders in their Mickey D's.
c) Indian Food - I'm a big fan of spicy food. I mean a BIG fan. But Indian food? Different story. Unless you're eating at a Five Star restaurant, you'll do well to just eat the can of Spam you packed for the trip. We had authentic Indian food at this fancy tancy restaurant care of my dad's friend the Ambassador, Mr. Gauri Gupta. The food was amazing! Spicy food galore. None of my other family members enjoyed the food. I did. A LOT. But of course, sadly, the universe dictates a law of balance and order. Besides that meal, Indian food (or at least absolutely everywhere else we ate - hotels, rest stop restaurants, mickey d's, airport restaurants, etc.) gives a a whole new definition to the term "Pang laman tiyan lang." Yes, you eat the food just so that your stomach doesn't eat itself up. You eat the food to get full, not to enjoy the taste, not to enjoy the dining experience. (Ooh ooh. They have this yogurt that tastes disgusting. Parang basang kilikili. And they actually enjoy it.) Oh, and everything EVERYTHING tastes like curry. For some reason, even their Coke tastes like curry. Anyway, I have this theory that maybe my LBM came from a late (really late) negative reaction to some of the food we ate in India. But that's just me.
d) "5 star" Hotels - Since we knew that the standards of hotel accommodations would be a lot lower in India, we decided to book in 5-star hotels. Sure they weren't the Sheraton's or Hotel Intercontinental's, but we were assured that the hotels we were staying in had top-of-the-line accommodations. Sigh. Wishful thinking. The hotels we stayed in (in 5 nights, we stayed in 4 hotels) were.... Interesting. One was artsy-fartsy, trying a little too much to be post modernist. And a couple of them, were a bit too scary. Do you know those really, really big houses (or in this case, palaces) that have a lot of rooms that they convert into hotels? Yup. Those. With room keys that look like they're from the Victorian period. Hence, mumu-an was in order. I couldn't sleep in those hotels thinking that something (
something) was keeping me up. Hahaha. Oh, and one thing these hotels had in common, they all had really, really, REALLY crappy breakfasts.
e) What's that smell? - I'm sorry to say. I'm not racist or anything, but seriously, a lot/most of the people we encountered in India do need a little lesson in hygiene. They adhere to the British influence of not taking a bath everyday. It would be a good thing if it was cold and unpolluted where India is, wouldn't it. But the heat, the pollution, the manual labor that prevails, that could really stink you up. To add to that, what they eat affects how they smell and since they're all into that curry and all that spicy food, well, maanghang din amoy nila. Try having a four hour trip from Agra to Jaipur with a driver who smells really funky. Wow.
f) Pee - Oh, one thing I HAVE to mention. We were in one of the palaces we visited (you see one palace, you've seen them all) And this guy just pulls his pants and undies down, I mean all of his pants and undies, and starts to pee on a wall right in front of everyone. For all the people and all the tourists to see. I know we, Filipinos, do that too, but we don't pull down our pants down to our ankles, do we?
g) Taj Mahal - ... and oh, we got to see the Taj Mahal...
h) Camel Ride - ... and ride on camels. I had no idea how HUGE camels were. I always thought they were as big as horses. But no! They're twice the size! I had to climb a ladder just to get on one.
Anyway. I hope I'm not forgetting anything. Hahaha. All in all, though it wasn't exactly as picture perfect a trip as one would think, it's still quite memorable, stink and all.
Pictures to come in my Multiply.
the adventure ended at 9:43 AM
