China? China.

A land unknown. A land shrouded in mystery. Where abounds dark whispers of communism. Rumours of hostility. News of deadly illnesses. Thoughts of all these and more swirl in my head as I prepare to embark on a 10-month voyage to discover the unknown. Evil monsters of doubt knock at the doorstep. Mocking. Questioning. India and China, neighbors for so long… yet, strangers in recent history. For me, through years of suspicion, built on that universal madness that afflicts mankind called war, little is known about this ancient land. Until now. Unknown no longer.

And that is the beauty of travel. It's a journey to discover the truths that lie underneath. To cast aside the facade of knowledge so glibly assumed. And to create afresh through the eyes of the mind that imagination which gently shapes our memories. Memories, which settle, no, subside into the wells of one's mind. And it is to these memories that I turn to in order to express the million forms that life took for me here.

Landing here in China. Bound by some hopes and spurred by some dreams. Those little imps, spoken of earlier, tell me that being in China would end those hopes and burn those dreams. Realization would dawn, they said, onto the futility of dreams and the hopelessness of trying new endeavors. A realization that to veer from the safe path is tantamount to running away from the course of your life. Well… realization when it did strike was not that all. Realization was simply this. All that I can express in the confines of language, all that I have expressed within the limitation of words. Realization is all the above and the below. Realization is all this and that and more. Expressed and unexpressed. Said and unsaid. Sometimes… it's just the yin and the yang. And sometimes its just life.

I came to China thinking I knew myself. I realize I will go back to India knowing that I know so little of myself. I came to China with little boundaries in my mind, dividing the people I have met and would meet into isolated spaces on the basis of religion and nation, culture and language. I will go back to India knowing that these boundaries exist only where I created them. In the mind.

I turn the invisible wheel in the mind, and the film of memories starts to reel.

Part 2: The chaos settling into the calm

this travelogue is part of the subside travelzine
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