where are women?

One of the mysteries you encounter in India at the early stage of your trip is that there are many more men out in the street but not so many women. Station, downtown and normally anywhere in the city street is occupied with men, men and men. From what I saw, maybe not so much in Delhi, but it was indeed very obvious in local city.


In fact, in India sex-selective abortion is still carried out because of the conventional preference for sons due to cultural views of daughters as financial burdens largely because of the dowries required before marriage. It has led to huge imbalances between male and female population and study even says that in 20 years there will be 20% more men than women in India.

On the train, Jaipur to Jodhpur

Ithaca

Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.

--- Ithaca,Constantine Cavafy ---

*******

Travelling is my most passion. I'd always love to pursuit something which hasn't discovered yet in my life. Like we never truly understand how warm the inside of your house is in winter unless you experience the snowstorm outside, one can only learn his/her true-self by crossing the unknown. So I keep travelling, and that is why I don't hesitate to set my foot into the country where I have to muster out 10 times of my normal energy just to get on to the right train.

India wasn't always kind to me this time either. The journey was all about wandering away from my initial itinerary. From some point, however, I've started embracing what was happening in front of me instead of trying to fix it all.

An Indian friend often referred to the word without any doubt.
" You know, it's karma, destiny."

Vanity Fair

Standing here, looking down where everything is doubtlessly perfect, I feel so fake.

I feel as if I have everything I want. I feel as if the world is brimming with peace.

I live in reality but this is so not real.

Discarding my vanity and vulnerability,

now I only need a truth.

Clair de lune

Deluded,lured and lost.

I, however, never stop searching for hope beacuse we know that

even an immense darkness could never extinguish a thread of light.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

---The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost

you are my miracle

It was a miracle. My heart quivered but somehow it didn't surprise me at all. I knew that you and I were meant to meet here because I felt as if I've known you for a long time. At that moment everything became all clear within me.

I learned what I turly seek for my lilfe as well as what I need to leave behind.

"Choosinng one path means abandoning others- if you try to follow every posible path you will end up following none."
---Paulo Coelho

***

Back in Tokyo, I thought India was a twinkle of dream. But my spicy chai brought everything back to my floated mind and convinced me that I was there, with you.

you are beautiful

He was aleady a great salesman. He made me buy two sets of postcards for 80Rs but I think I paid those 80Rs more for his great persistence and charms than for postcards.

Jugnu, my auto-rickshaw driver in Agra. He always cared the back sheet and asked me " Are you okay?" When we were caught in a sudden rain he brought me a cup of warm chai.

School kids whom I met at Agra Fort. They curiously looked at my camera and asked me " Photo?"At the end, they waved to me forever.

I love to travel. Because it always reminds me how beautiful our humans are.

Drive to you

During the trip I travelled with auto-rickshaw (same as tuk-tuk) almost all the time. It was a cheap and convenient means of transportation in India and above all I could feel and see the life of people so close.

you stay with me

"Humans can withstand a week without water, two weeks without food, many years of homelessness, but not loneliness. It is the worst of all tortures, the worst of all sufferings"

----Eleven Minutes, Paulo Coelho

She embraces everything

Puja ceremony at Ganga River. It was magical, divine and out of the world.

Mother Ganga

There were only life, purity and goddness.

"Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together."

---Mark Twain