Watching my shoegaze sunset of pink peach and purple. I wish I could pick it up and take it with me and give a piece of you (you as in the personification of all the yous out there right now) but I can only photograph it.

Now watching the lights come on. I'm glad I came. I just wish it were my own house I was sitting in, instead of a guest house. The trees have grown and look great. Nashpati, mango, kapoor, wild roses, dahlias, creepers growing along the walls. Ma and I are making plans to live there next year for a bit and do things ourselves. Haven't for like 5 years.
The doli-arthi song that the driver is listening to, damn morbid, about a doli and an arthi crossing paths and discussing their similarities and differences, he thinks it's really deep. He's been making us listen to some Khatu Shyam bhajans, for example the ones set to Munni Badnam and Tinku Jia the whole way here.
We go up to the village and say hi to our neighbour, the fiesty old lady and her niece who is visiting inquires about our lives and jobs and tells us gossip about the Aama's family intrigues. Aama gets into a squabble with fast talking Kailash over who will take grass from our land? - it's just neighbourly resentment the niece tells us.
There's a good looking bloke in cut off shorts and sleeves about my age and height (who also looks like he could be related to me....maybe I've been watching too much Game of Thrones). In the morning I watch him as he idles, outside his jhopdi. I take pictures of him with my Diana, afraid of being seen. Because that's what I do. I hide and watch people like a voyeur, I always keep a healthy distance. Downstairs when he sees me, he looks at me straight on, because that's what he does, that's the only way he knows to look at people, not lecherously but just looks straight on, taking it all in (you can't lie to people like that) and I look away as usual.
After the sunset I'm still up here, with another camera, peeping into his hut and the goings on. I see a woman's soft and plump arms working at something. I see him and his siblings building a fire outside. His sister says "daju, lakdi dena", his brother talks to a friend on the phone and I take pictures from up here like I'm in fucking Rear Window.

 I have some strange fascination for the banalities of other people's lives. Maybe it's the act of watching. This is why I'm suited just fine to apartment life, because I love watching people through their windows. I'm always looking for something too, though I don't know what. Once I spent half an hour watching a family in the building opposite pack for a holiday.

Recurring images - azaan, cicada, distant head lights.

Older people scenes. Booze and fish fry, fish egg pakodas from the lake. Stories about my relatives. Giving a drunk man a gun is not a good idea, or giving any Joshi a gun isn't a good idea. The moon is a little sliver that hides in the trough between valleys.

"Usne apne dacoit cousin se baat kari, meri shaadi mein madat karo" S. Mama is talking about daku-zamindar reciprocity/nexus. 

My imaginary boyfriend is laying under a 45 degree angled tin sheet on a charpai in his cutoffs. I can't see the starts because of the lights I can only see beetles. 

 

"My dad was a big boozard and bacche were singing 'lekar prerna apse' and we were like - dad se prerna lekar inka kya hoga" V. Mama was being looked at to marry the daughter of the principal from whom he stole the class 8 half yearly papers [why not the final papers, is what Ma asks]

"Usne ek goli khayi aur kaafi khilayi", the first time dad has talked good of V.Mama "He was a good shooter"

Ma's sarcasm is lost on my father 'brevity is the soul of wit' she says.

Day 2. Sat tal. The'adventure sports' looks like a Dothraki D.U student and the exchanged looks are so obvious I feel like I'm on a campus or in Route 04. The lame kid [a member of our party's son] is rappeling so I sit and indulge in what the old folks would call "nayn matakka. Even across the bridge the checkin' continues. 

Punjabi family - blonde hair, fake red nails, her husband in pink hotpants and popped collar, younger brothers identical in oversized tshirt and shiny loose shorts and shaved heads. This place is fucking crowded and depressing and kids are accosting us asking if we want kadi chawal/shikanji/to go boating/horseriding and there's no one to look at but the Khal here so we go take a walk around the lake, the shit trail. I spend 15 minutes washing [human] shit off my vans in the lake and there's more where that came from. 

Panna tal, I convince everyone to go here for a bit. It's way quieter. It's missionary land so no commercial activity and building allowed.  There are some local lads havin a laugh there, swimming, fishing, drinking, swearing and if I were not a woman and have bodyparts that hold some bizarre and compelling interest or mystique I wouldn't have to be jealous and could join them. "Joshi, jaldi aa bhenchod, gaand jam rahi hai. Abbe kai se bach ke bhosadike" 

I sit on a tree and look into the emerald water for a bit. My dad is getting a fish pedicure in the lake, it feels funny and ticklish to feel them nipping at my feet. 

 Return. Eat at Bhimtal, cray pahadi style chicken curry, my fingers are still stained yellow from the haldi. Ma sneaking me drinx under my father's nose all the time. Now sitting looking at NKT, nice breeze, shades on, gentle sun, paraglider floating through mist.

Day 3. Jageshwar. Today is a holier than thou day, the adults want to go to various mandir type places. Louis Garrel lookalike, same hair, nose and way of smoking. I'm an incorrigible lech, I won't even spare the young pandits. There's a gorgeous new buari [bride] at the mandir with a full pichoda and giant nath and grey eyes. Her dewar has one of those intense eyed pahadi faces. "Handsome young man" my dad says, I know, right? Another one of those is standing selling malas. This entire trip is just my brain going on some sorts of swayamvar type trip of ogling good pahari boys, mother would be too pleased, though not so much if I marry a chaiwalla. 

 In the empty Dandeshwar mandir. These two are called Tom and Jerry because they were playing a pakdam pakdai type game with a song about Tom and Jerry being sung throughout.  

    

Almora district is really bare. And my "motherland" is now an overcrowded town that I've never even stayed in. That was I'm glad NKT is still green, even with the million fucking resorts that have popped up [and no, I haven't been to the goddamn festival]. Bhimtal is so dry this season that there are cows grazing on it. There are landslides, narrow rodes and forest fires everywhere. I saw a fire on the opposite hill that had been raging for so long that the smoke looked like a giant cloud. What is it with fires and our country this summer? It's all pine trees so it's like a tinderbox.

In the Chitayi Mandir. The popular local god here is Gollu devta, he's a nyay devta so people have this custom of writing him letters about their problems, including civil service entrance exams [with roll numbers etc] and property disputes [with stamp papers attached] and if your problem is solved you tie a ghanti, there are thousands here. 

On the way back we saw a bunch of thakur baraati [probably from the border side between Nepal and India, judging by clothes and accent] dancing at a hotel near the mandir [weddings take place there] dancing away. I love the guy wearing converse. 

Ma tells me the story of the late Goyal ji in her office. He came every year to her to take new year diaries and used to smilingly pester her till he got them and never used them. He said he'll use them when he retires....he died 3 days before he retired. He didn't like his job much but liked doing "chaprasi" work - running around between people, making chai, even the actual chaprasis would siphon off their work to him. Kalicharan, a Bihari chaprasi of some tribal origin used to tease him all the time and make him buy him lunch , come up from behind and throw and arm over him, "Main tere against discrimination ka charge laga doonga, chal samosa khila". Goyal always opened his tiffin at 1pm sharp, everyday. 

My parents are as usual trying to talk Kumaoni to me and fighting over who is to blame that I don't speak it. I can understand but am too unsure to speak. Too damn drunx right now on white wine I had to finish and several snuck in rum and cokes. I can still hear sweet ol' Jag da talking pahadi on the phone. I entered the kitchen earlier, his bro was singing "Na jao sainyan chura ke bainyan" with a turban tied over his head while Jag da cried chopping onions. He asked me if I spoke the language and from then on spoke to me in it. He's good looking too, but in a brotherly way, but he's a little bit of a bhyas and can't cook for shit. How is it possible to burn omlettes? Even I can make that. Earlier today we had amazing bhang ki chutney, kheera raita and alu ke gutke in Kainchi. Still drooling thinking of the chutney.

I was so drunk that I don't remember how or when I changed and got into bed. 

The ride home was hot, butt achingly tedious and soundtracked by our drivers Best of Nadim Shravan and Altaf Raja tapes, anything else would make him sleepy. Thank god for headphones.