I am recently returned, as strange and as accurate as that sounds, to Ukhimath after approximately two months out of station. Kaliphat is an old name for this area: it means the area surrounding the Kali river. Now the same river is generally called the Mandakini. The main events of my sojourning were the marriage of my friends Kate and Paul and, already being in Britain, research about Kedarnath at the British Library (see previous post). I even squeezed in a quick trip to America.
There has been a lot of nomadism, recently. Now that I think about it, I have not slept in the same room continuously for more than two weeks since the end of the season in Kedarnath. In such situations I seem to develop inner, instinctual antennae that search out ways by which other kinds of continuity, non-locative ones, could be established. I’m usually not so successful, but I try. The clearest example of what I mean involves the film Ghost Dog. Early on during my time in Britain I heard the phrase “Ghost Dog” thrown out, perhaps on television, in a context utterly unrelated to the film. However upon hearing the phrase I was suddenly possessed, viscerally, with the need to see Ghost Dog again. For those of you who are not familiar with the film, it is Jim Jarmusch’s homage to the sub-genre (of which I am very fond) of hip-hop martial arts films. Forest Whitaker plays the protagonist of the film, a modern-day, unlooked for samurai/assassin who lives on the roof of a building with his pigeon flock and owes his allegiance to a Mafioso who saved his life several years before. The pacing of the film, cinematography, and soundtrack are phenomenal. So I downloaded the film, and watched it. And then watched it again, with a friend, in Delhi. And then again, with another friend, in Ukhimath. I am not quite sure what in me needed to see this film so many times, but there it is. Perhaps I want to see my life as an art film with a good soundtrack. Who knows? Other instances of continuity establishment involved watching bits of an old Raj Kapoor film in an airport hotel in London and in Ciraag Delhi. And perhaps beyond continuity and into the realm of meta-continuity, was a successful attempt at a profoundly stirring musical juxtaposition as I walked across the Thames at night, fighting the wind at every step. I started with a recording of a local Garhwali jagar singing the story of the rakshas Banasur and the marriage of his daughter Usha to Aniruddh. Many of the pilgrimage priests of Kedarnath consider themselves to be descended from Banasur and the Lamgondi area where many of them live is understood to be his area. I then shifted right from the jagar to Limelighters by Aesop Rock. The power generated individually by both songs and even more so by their juxtaposition and eerily powerful musical continuities almost took me out of my body for about 5 minutes.
These days I am in Ukhimath, with upcoming trips scheduled for Garhwal Srinagar, Lamgondi, and possibly Pauri Garhwal. I am trying to learn more Garhwali, and work through data I have collected, prepare for the beginning of the 2008 pilgrimage season, and plan my re-entry.
