I'm Thinking of Somewhere I Want to Be

Something I probably should have mentioned earlier is that I have a travel blog. I haven't updated it in quite a while because I haven't traveled anywhere worth mentioning in quite a while, but I hope to remedy that shortly.

The blog, in case you care to read it, is www.indienne.blogspot.com and has some pictures and anecdotes from my trips to India, Tanzania, London, and Paris. Some of my most memorable and beautiful moments have been spent abroad and my feet are really itching to wander again, the sooner the better.

One regret that I have from the last few years is that I haven't seen Sanchi in a long, long time. Sanchi, which is a few miles away from Bhopal, my birthplace, is a place that I think of fairly often. It seems odd to me that hills, which are generally roundish tracts of land covered in grass or some herbaceous being, look different in India than they do in the US. I don't know why that is.

In Sanchi, especially, there is something especially beautiful about the rolling hills, the Buddhist relics, which are called stupas, are supposedly the oldest Buddhist relics in the world. The time I went, there were rolling grey clouds and light misty rain. I was with my cousins, aunt, uncle, bhabhi ('sister-in-law', or as much as one as an only child can have), and mom and a few other people. There were some random wildlife as well, perhaps most notably a little calf that my youngest cousin liked to run after.

For some reason, I felt very peaceful at Sanchi. It's designed to be that way, but I can't understand why. What is it about the crumbling stone, the round stupas, and maudlin day that was so comforting? I can only assume that it's because that's all there is there. I don't remember any raucous restaurants nearby, or crazy internet cafes, or loud huge trucks beeping the way only big Indian trucks can beep.

Somehow, the distance from all that insanity makes Sanchi feel sacred. Even if you're not Buddhist or Indian or ideological in anyway, Sanchi is a beautiful open-air monument. It forces you to meditate, slow down, and breathe in.

By the way, the picture above is of a stupa. I didn't take this picture and don't know who did, so I apologize for not giving appropriate credit.