No writing for days, hours, minutes until it’s the only thing i can do. The only thing i have to do. Nashik always messes me up, always plays with my mind, always fuck’s me over big style. My second visit in four years and her power is overwhelming. She always makes me feel like i have had enough. Not of India as i am re-refreshed, nor of travelling but of me, of life, my existence and the human condition.

Swimming in the Ramkund ( Devotees gather here to plunge their beloved’s ashes on the strong belief that it will help the dead to get salvation) seems like an end to me, not a beginning, not salvation. An end so powerful that i am overcome. Overpowered.

Dressed in lungi’s i paint Tilaka above my eyes and hit the streets, dodging all that India throws, heading downward, toward the hill, towards the tank, towards the pilgrims, towards the steps, the steps.

I submerge, one, two, three. Nose blocked, eyes closed, then swim. Buy the lit cup of flowers and send them on their way. I drip onto the slimy steps as  my dead filsl all that i am, focused on the flame. As it drifts i remember.

A moment later my insecurities invade. I only have three weeks left in this life, this period, this lifestyle which even now, still existing feels miles away.

Three weeks to go and i must make them mine. Forget about a meter around my skin, my sensors and just sink sink sink. I owe it to myself. Warn out from giving. Inhale.