Feb 20, 2010
Fireflies
“Deliriously joyful”.
I feel this way often. It happens sporadically, and each time, I think I have never been so happy, so content, so satisfied. Every time, radically different than the last. Every time, startled. Every time, sure it will never happen this way again. Every time, wrong.
Today I went into the city early to run some errands and such. I hung out with Gounder, got coffee and a dosa-of course. We looked at music and dvds for awhile. We got juice and hung at Java City for a long while. It is a really nice stoop that everyone congregates on. It is perfect. Gounder and I talked a long time about a lot of things. Refreshing, to be asked questions you have never pondered, questions you have never been able to answer, questions that maybe don’t have answers at all.
With good timing, I found myself at the ATM with some girls I know, all who would be attending Fireflies in the evening. I had not made a decision on attending, and was leaning towards no due to the 40km trek from the city, and the sacrifice of sleep for the night. Rima called, however, and I jumped into an auto headed towards Majestic.
The trip to Gokarna left me completely frightened of the bus station, and convinced that I could never travel alone. Today, I found out otherwise. The driver dropped me about seven blocks away from the station, and hurried as I was, I weaved through the people while keeping an eye on the ground in hopes of preventing a hard and embarrassing fall to the ground. The bright lights of the shops flew by, and the shop owners questioned “miss?”, upon nearing their store.
I arrived at Majestic, overwhelmed by the numbers walking in, walking out, selling food and trinkets. I followed the crowds, crossed an overpass, which I recognized from the last trip, and arrived on the platform level-full of buses and people. Platform 12 was as crowded as the rest, and I searched for two familiar faces- which found me very fast. We hoped on a bus after talking to the driver-a nice, air-conditioned Volvo full of others who appeared to be going to the same place.
We had to take yet another bus and then walk 3km to the place. On the way, however, a pick-up pick(ed-us)up, dropping us off at the gate. We were greeted by trees lit with green from below and crowds of hungry people standing in line for food, coffee, and water. We walked through the woods to an amphitheater that was booming with sound and crawling with people. We forcefully pushed ourselves through the crowds and up to the front row where the rest of Srishti sat. Lots of people from my batch were there, and many others. I split my time between VCD402 and Kris+friends. I would go down to the stage to dance, and up to the seats for recouping and relaxing a bit. Time flew by. Before I knew it, it was 3 am, and I had yet to feel any form of exhaustion. After 3 it began getting harder, but I got food and the music turned to some bands that the audience went wild for.
These bands were much more Indian (in my perspective), and everyone was dancing. With the beginning of each song, the crowd went wild, there was insane dancing and people up on the stage. The enthusiasm was startling, and the fact that this music got everyone up and dancing, was great. I am very envious of cultures with a strong emphasis on music and dance; a song comes on and everyone knows it, screams it, dances.
Sleep came into the mind. Exhaustion creeped into the body, and upon sitting on the stone of the amphitheater, I acknowledged the immediate desire to lay down. Fighting it off, for its clear victory over my consciousness, I continued dancing. Others gave into sleep, where ever possible. This guy slept among old coconuts and straws. People threw their coconuts into the pile around him morning.
The sun came up while we were walking out of the place. At first, just a miniscule vibrant pink glow over the horizon. It rose very rapidly as we walked past fields of crops with an occasional scarecrow, oozing its insides-out. We passed cows, roosters, homes. We were tired, and began attempting to stop every car that passed. After many rejections, we succeeded, and the seven(?) of us got a ride to Bangalore, making the trip much easier and shorter. Upon reaching home, I immediately showered, and made breakfast before falling asleep for a bit
.
At Fireflies, they had a few speakers. One just happened to be Vandana Shiva, an environmental feminist who I have learned about in every Environment class I have taken thus far. Neha had come up, telling me about her new class, and how the woman they are learning about was here. I asked the name, and we ran down to the stage and pushed to the very front. We successfully followed her off stage to get a photo. It was great to have someone as excited about it as I was.
The stars were incredible. The moon has been growing in the sky, and I have been told that when the moon is growing, its superstition to look at your money and then at the moon, and it should grow. Preferably a bill greater than 5rps if we are talking about the most for your money here.
During my periods of consciousness today, I really missed home. I looked at pictures and missed a lot of things that come with home. I love home, and I have to acknowledge that if I were here with the prospects of spending the rest of my life here, my attitude may be different. As much as I am in love with the place in this moment, in the back of my head, I know I have my family and friend(s-haha) at home, Torch Lake, and Romeo to see upon my already-scheduled return.
a really long flight later 