Indica. A journey

‘As you depart for Indica,
hope that your journey is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery’.'

’thus would be the sound my own poem, audaciously re-adapted after that of the celebrated Greek poet C.P. Cafavis (Ithaca). When he wrote it, he certainly had in mind Ulysses' ten-year long journey back home to Ithaca. Mine, lasted ten months. Fix one year ago, I was embarking with a scholarship, to reach India in one of the longest journeys I've ever undertaken, one in quest of knowledge. Initially based in Pune, my learning objective was to become fluent in Sanskrit, and uncover manuscripts never seen before, on VaiÅ›eá¹£ika system, a rather little researched Indian philosophical school. There were numerous teaching classes, both with academics, and a pundit, which I had to find deep in a remote tropical ‘jungle', as Indians do like to call their forests. A very attractive place, but where I could also unmistakeably see big snakes roaming around. On the way, I witnessed Diwali celebration, among thousands of Indians, all exhilaratingly jumping on a Bollywood disco kind of music, with bodies all covered in red powder. Of course, I couldn't escape unscathed.

When I had left Pune at the monsoon's break, the destination was Rajapur, a traditional pathasala by the banks of small river (South Maharashtra), where together with some pundits, we tucked away some manuscripts, chaotically preserved in some dusty cupboards, while up into the roof, in more than fifteen bags. Long, because to reach Pondicherry, I didn't expect to break three pairs of shoes in less than three months, to travel more than 2000 km by bus, train, motorbike, jeep, rickshaw, to cross mountains at dizzying altitude, fragile bridges prone to crack at any time because of floods underneath, to meet monkeys and elephants, chase dolphins and parasail, to dip my feet into river even against the clear warning of crocodiles. Sometimes I have been forced to go deep into the forest to seek advice and scholarly attention. Other times I found my refuge among the smallest Indian villages to breathe in fresh air. There life fights its toughest enemy: the life itself. I had crossed India from its Western to its Eastern coast. I saw earthly paradises, beaches of an extraordinary biodiversity and witnessed the noisy monsoon breaking and vanishing. There was something very charming in the vast dry Deccan plateau and its small mountains at Hampi. Those red rocks covered in green bushes, banana trees and coconuts gives one a feeling of timelessness and liveliness at the same time. Even stones speak here; even these have life here. There is nothing more pristine and fresh than an Indian countryside.

At first, India is a shocking country, but that is only an illusion. Gradually you realise the calm of it, the comfort, and the humane superiority of its people in the face of the harshest challenges. It is not a country for faint-hearted, for ‘visitors'. Don't try to understand it too soon (never go into towns first). Never go into its heart; approach it onto the margins, the shores, and step by step you realise how homey all feels here. Wherever you go, you feel part of the family; the more you travel the less stranger you become, and more congenial you feel. It is an endless journey, one that leads infinitely to the infinite. Though, in Indian philosophy, time is a permanent and infinite substance, because nothing exists beyond it, regardless of its own cosmic and dramatic cyclicality, the only one set to escape it is the spirit, the human one, whose unsettled nature will one day reach the shore. The climax of it is not its destiny, but destination. As Cafavis would put it: ‘And if you find her poor, ‘Indica' won't have fooled you. Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you'll have understood by then what all these ‘Indicas' mean'

Ionut Moise, 2016.

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