Memorable moment: Goodbye India

I’m sitting in a bus on the way to Somnathpur. Bob Marley is in my ear, the hot Indian sun burns outside but I’m inside the cool dirty bus, feeling lucky until time dumps me off at Mysore.

At Somnathpur is a beautiful temple constructed in the Hoysala style. It’s been abandoned by all but tourists such as myself who come to gape at intricate carvings and imagine the magnificence of a bygone era. The past always looks so rosy in retrospect.

In retrospect, I shall remember my year in India fondly. I shall miss the Indian sun that burns so brightly, the Indian people so full of life that they shout when talking would suffice, the Indian cows and stray dogs that are permanent occupants of all roads. I shall miss seeing picture postcard images such as that which is before my eyes now.

A field mostly brown with thatch from a recent harvest, but a quarter of it is green with intact stalks of ragi that graces a lot of Karnataka. A boy, younger than I am, bare-chested and black in the white sun, standing on a wooden bullock cart, urging his cows through the thatch - no where else have I seen cows treated with as much respect or put to as much use as in India.