P told me how after her husband had passed away, for many days, a Robin appeared in her room. It kept coming back, especially when she was struggling with some hindrance in daily living. I asked if it had showed up here, on the walk, around 2000 kms from Milan. She said yes, each day on her walk she had sighted a Robin. Faith, and its physical manifestation.

We walked on, like the Magi Eliot writes about:

the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices.
A hard time we had of it …

The villages were not hostile or unfriendly. Eliot is a poet, he writes with intensity. I was just witnessing closure from villagers when they had nothing to offer. D was a riot. Happy, confused, asserting to herself it was ‘my Camino’. We didn’t talk too much, we walked alone, each of us, and together. I found myself receiving chocolate bars. Dark chocolate is sheer energy. We crossed Jo and she said, ‘You need not walk alone. You can also walk for others.’

After that, for a few steps, or for half a kilometre or more, I recounted someone or the other who had crossed my life in the past and I walked along with them. In my head we talked, we went over the happy and sad times we had both encountered together and separately.

I remembered when I had held a hand, when I had left it. I recounted the reasons I had left the hands I had once held. Again and again, the reason came back to ‘faith’ that I or he/she had lacked. A mismatch in faith.

Faith. That is what you need when you have already walked 15 or so kilometres, it is 2 in the afternoon and the signposts to the restaurant in Salceda you have been looking at for the last two or more kilometres leads you to a garden in an opening between trees, with wood benches and a font of water but the doors turn out to be closed. Your stomach does not allow you to take another step. But you sit down, rub your legs, drink some water, and get up and walk again … Chocolate helps as does the knowledge that today the walk is not as long as the previous day.

You get food but for that you take a detour but now you are looking at Arca do Pino. As you reach there you find a Santiago Information Centre. It took me all these days to find it! I wanted one in Sarria. But if I could reach until here without one, I wonder why has this appeared now? They tell us Pino is full.

‘Thank you, f*** you!’ I didn’t say anything. My calves were lead, my feet immobile, my back ached from the weight of my clothes. I had been discarding shirts the past few nights, but they were still too many. I had packed too much.

The lady says, ‘A few kilometres ahead, you will find Pedrouzo.’

I was tired and also getting angry. ‘Promise? If we do not find shelter there, we are coming back right here and sleeping in the office.’ I know I can’t. I can’t walk back that much. The nights are chilly, one has to have a shelter. ‘Take right from next T point.’ No more conversation. No promises made.

We walked, we had no choice. We reached a long unending road through fields and found more people standing. All confused. No one knew where we might find shelter. A woman was coming back from the road ahead. ‘No room. I went a couple of kms, I did not find anything.’ Another man is coming back. ‘No room there. We have to find something in the village Pino we left behind.’

Now it was a choice, a real choice. Pino was behind, we knew it was full. The woman at the Information Centre had not promised anything but said there is something ahead. P was tired. D was weary but smiling. I knew I did not want to go back but had no strength to go ahead. E’s admonition came to mind. ‘Walk! Don’t stop’. We started walking and reached another road cutting in perpendicular the one we were walking on.

Crossroads. Now what? Only one direction could maybe take us home, other three were misleading. We did not have enough strength left in our legs to spread out and converge again. We had done as much walking today as we did in the last few days. The detour for food and moving away from Pino. Must be another 31 kms. We knew the road that crosses ours is the highway to Santiago. Cars whizzed past. They will cover the next 20 kms in 15 mins. We had a night to consider. we could not spend it in a jungle. It was 5 PM. Soon it would be dark. We were alone, the group we met did not restart with us. Others went back to a full village. Now what?

A Robin lands near us. It flies away. P smiles, D and I smile.

We take the path to the left. We can’t see very far on it because the road curves towards us. We step in faith. It was all real, the roads, the shelters, the people, but we were ignorant, we didn’t know what to do and so we stepped in faith.

Lo and behold! We are at Pedrouzo.

I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
…
I should be glad of another death.

Since I had lodged at an Albergue before town, the walk to Ribadiso was longer than the scheduled 25 kms. I had also started late, so by around 5 kms or so I realised that I had not covered much of the distance for the day. I sat down for a cigarette break. Along came N, she did not stop, but waved to me and said, ‘When I reach, I will pop a bottle of champagne.’ That cheered me up and I followed.

Yet, the distance was long, very long. It was almost 11 AM and I had just done one-third of it. I reached Leboreiro and had a brunch of Jamon Ham sandwich and salad, it was my standard fare with hope that the meat would support my pig headedness. Why did I choose to walk? What was the point? I realised my mind was playing games with me. I was onto meta questions about the activity and existence, instead of looking for simple food and counting my steps. This is how it happens, I realised. This is how doubts creep in when the going gets tough. I started the march I had learnt as an adolescent boy in a military school: Left, Right, Left, __. When that took me up to Melide, I looked up and saw an Italian Mother-Daughter who looked like sisters. We smiled at each other, introduced ourselves. The Mother, P, did not know any English and I did not know any Italian. D, the daughter, worked overtime. I was just grateful that I had found someone who was at around the same leg as me.

But I crossed them and weary that I was, I started soaking in the scenery. The lush forests, the green trees, the winding path, the hills and farms spreading out on the side, the brooks I crossed and realised I had shifted to giving myself the count from my own religio-cultural upbringing: Eik Onkar Sat Naam (God is one, truth). It was fuller than the blank I was leaving earlier. It made me feel steadier in my tired steps. A jap can take one places. It became 5 PM when I saw the next ‘Casi’. I stopped at an inn and asked for a room. It was going for Euro 40 for a three-seater. But I was single. Then P and D came over and I asked them if they were interested.

They told me we were still 2 kms from Ribadiso and suggested we walk more to save ourselves the longer walk the next day. We walked in silence. D started telling me about her boyfriend who did music and how they were both interested in India. We stopped for a coffee and when we reached Ribadiso we learnt that no rooms were available. The matron said, ‘Another three kms and you may find something in Arzua.

I buckled and asked P her age. She was more than 15 years older than me and I considered how I had abused my body all these years: loneliness, sadness, drinks, cigarettes. How weak my body was, how steep the walk was. It had to be bloody uphill. The mind, the mind, how it evokes your Achilles Heel when you want to find strength. We reached a pension which was up for Euro 65 for a three-seater. We walked on. Now, we finally reached an Albergue. We didn’t even see how the interior looked like. But when we entered, it was divine. The washroom so clean and the shower and lights did not turn off automatically.

That night my body was exhausted. 31 kms in a day. But now I was 3 or 4 kms ahead of my scheduled stop. Santiago was closer. This is not a race! We talked the little I know about fires: the one that burns us down and the one that makes us leap in faith. I told the story of Shiva playing the dumroo and Parvati burning her palace because she doubted the sound to be one of imminent disaster.

My mind had repeatedly evoked possible failure, my faith had taken me to a warm bed and hot food. At home, Casa.

I walk. I Walk maybe 8 kms and meet Joy, 71 years old, from Scotland. Frail looking Joy, but with strong legs. ‘My husband passed away last year, he wanted to do this walk. I am also walking for him.’ We walked a kilometre or so and reached breakfast at an inn. Her friend, another senior lady, had blisters and was walking slowly.

I resumed my solitary walk; a young girl was walking ahead of me, singing. I followed her for two or more kms, listening to the song, walking to its pace. Then I crossed her, didn’t want to seem like a stalker. She turned to me and asked: how many days? I was a little not so confident because I had been there just a day. E said, it was her 27th day. ‘I got left behind, met a guy. Now plan to catch up with my mates.’

‘If this is your second day, then walk with me. We’ll talk.’ It was already the 15th or so kilometre. After that we walked another 12 kms. E, a born Jew from the US, who speaks seven European languages, told me about herself, she plans to go back to medical school: ‘Surgeons are also artists, they work with human bodies.’ We crossed a blackboard with Buen Camino greetings and E wrote her guy’s name on it and said: ‘Well, this may perhaps be gone by tomorrow.’ I took a picture of the board with the guy’s name on it in bold and recently sent it to her. ‘Second and third days are hardest. No sitting, no breaking for coffee. Just walk!’

We met Jo, sitting on a stone. She waved to me, talked to E. They knew each other – fellow road warriors. As we approach Palas De Reis she shows me written next a yellow arrow: Casi. ‘It means ‘almost’.’ Since the town was taken by pilgrims I took a bed in an Albergue before town. I washed and went in to town. She had left me there and gone in search of her friends. In the town square I heard someone call my name. It was E, she had met her friends. We popped a bottle of wine and sipped from it.

They all said: you might be the only Indian on this walk.

I said before I left for dinner: Then they should make a statue of me. Simple, easy, fresh laughter.

On a walk, you meet a soul, who helps you walk. You may never meet again, but you do 29 kms in a day and it is your journey. ‘Don’t sit, don’t stop!’ E removed her shoes, all her toes were bitten by blisters. She did not care. She walked, I walked, we all walked, and laughed.

Casi! Almost!

In case you missed the Santiago pictures see …

As I finished my coffee, I met Jo from Canada who was finishing her cigarette. She is a fellow writer/editor. ‘I want to visit India.’

‘Two visits, at least,’ I said. ‘South for ashrams and Yoga, north for spirituality.’ I felt strange breaking India down as simply as that.

‘Is it expensive?’ she asked.

‘Not really, let me know when.’ We exchanged email addresses. ‘All that is expensive is the time you can take to make the visit. Keep three months or so for each one.’

‘That vast?’ she asked and smiled.

I continued down the mountainside. Around 5 kms before Porto Marin I was exhausted and toyed with taking a bed in an Albergue, even checked it out. It was nice, but per the road planner I knew I had to move farther. I remembered from my program management classes: the bigger projects get delayed, one day at a time, a few hours at a time. I sat down on a stone wall near fields, other pilgrims crossed me. I massaged my feet and kept going until I reached the town. Once there, I saw two roads going up a hill. I was like, no! A car stopped and a beautiful woman got down. Her man was on the wheel. I asked the woman: English? She replied: French, but I can speak English. I realised the name of a language is also a question of nationhood. She checked with two horsemen and pointed the road to me.

The church in Porto Marin is an elegant flat roofed building. It reminded me of Lorca’s Yerma, her rooted self-belief and quest, standing boldly in the middle of the town formed around it. Federico Lorca did travel and write in Galicia. In the market nearby, between Spanish and English incomprehensibility, a matron guided me to a restaurant that served dinner: bacon and fries – an English breakfast for dinner in a Spanish town. I wondered what does one do with the button shaped bones at the end of the slices of bacon.

The Albergue was nice. Good clean washrooms, a comfortable night and next morning my ankles felt rested. I left my previous day’s T-shirt in the dustbin along with a few more clothes Carry less, I said to myself. It was still dark when I came out to smoke a cigarette. I noticed around 70 per cent of the people had left. I asked a fellow traveller. ‘Where have they gone?’

‘On the Camino.’

‘But it is dark still.’

‘It is light.’

‘It is dark, the sun isn’t up yet.’

‘It is light.’ He said.

To be continued …

For same Santiago pictures see …

‘This is not a race,’ said Michael to me as I got down at Sarria station early morning in the middle of September 2010. I nodded, we had coffee together and he said, ‘All you need to do is follow the yellow arrow marks.’ he told me about the Passaporte every pilgrim needs to carry and get stamped on the way to Santiago. A Wiki article said the distance was 112 kms, the road planner he was carrying broke it up into 130+ kms and the woman at the coffee counter provided me a blank Passaporte. I was all set.

But no. The mind, it plays games. I stepped into Sarria and wanted to find the Informatio Centre. Why did I want to find it? Because I thought someone needs to give me directions. But I had directions. Can’t be that simple, my mind played with me and I did a couple of kilometers in the light rain. Thank God! JJ had asked me to use Cargoes instead of Jeans which would have been wet by now. I knew so little. Edith had given me her smaller bag; still I had stuffed in too many clothes. I was learning. After a few kilometers of wandering I realised that I was making a fool of myself. I remembered: this is not a race, follow the yellow marks.

I started in the general direction pointed to by locals who knew no English and yet were smiling and helpful. The sidewalk had ceramic tiles in the shapes of the Compostela, the Pilgrim’s stick, and I reached an old bridge on a creek where two yellow arrows beckoned me. They were clumsy, their paint had dripped, and I thought that is how I will walk, slowly, clumsily, but since it is not a race, I will reach at some point. I had enough days and I was planning about 20 kilometers a day.

The walk started with an uphill climb of about 8 kms. At the wood shack we self stamped our Passaporte and I met N who was with a friend and had been walking for almost 25 days, a total of 500 kms. She said she was from Luxumberg. It rang a bell, I knew the name of the country or city from Geography text books, but I could not place it in my mind. I moved on and might have covered another 7-8 kms before a Cafe Bar showed up. I was just ordering fresh coffee and sandwich when Michael showed up again.

‘Archangel Micheal, you got late?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Been having problems with my bag. Too many wet clothes.’

‘How are you doing?’

‘Holding up, but beginning to get tired.’

‘The hard part for today is over. Now it is downhill.’

‘I consider you Archangel. Do you mind?’

He smiled and wished me, ‘Buen Camino’.

To be continued…

For Santiago pictures see …

Wonder if Luigi Pirandello knew that one day his title of the famous play Six Characters in Search of an Author would be put to this use. I saw them once on the square in the inner city Nurnberg in front of Saint Lorenz church: a couple, in dark brown paint, looking like miners, standing absolutely still, bent over each other. They were statues, like the figures on the Peter Henlein and the Ehekarusell Fountains, but their eyes moved. When I came back from the visit to the Castle, after a couple of hours, they were still there, in a slightly different position. Muscles ache. A few coins in the small, battered box in front of them. A small girl in blue skirt next to them, her mother taking a picture. A T-mobile advertisement behind them.

I saw them again in Barcelona on Las Ramblas. Many such: Jack Sparrow, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Marilyn Monroe in the famous balloon skirt costume, Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland, Cat Woman … Ramblas almost never sleeps. The characters take turns, their places marked on the boulevard. They are human. I saw them getting ready for the freeze show. Their girlfriends, boyfriends, partners helping them dress up. Get their act together.

Then they take position. Like soldiers, staying still, only smiling when someone wants to click a picture, not saying anything, not even breaks for nature’s call. No urgent messages, no mobile phones, prisoners of an anonymous audience, in chains which can’t be seen, without the script that has birthed them and then left them mid scene, to walk into our lives, our understanding of Barcelona, Nurnberg. A friend tells me they stand like that in Hollywood too. It is not related to recession alone, it is a much longer profession.

It is not unusual for a character to burst out of a script. Sometimes one falls out of the pages we are reading lying on the bed and gives us company through a night, many nights. Another leaps out of the pages and goes to our door, beckoning us to follow. We take one out of the movie hall to give us company on a lonely evening, or to laugh at our jokes when the world seems to not understand us any longer. Characters are live beings, they live in the texts and in our hearts, but to see them in physical form like this: silent and immobile, on the roadside, waiting for a few coins in their bowls and the hours of the clock to chime. Makes me wonder if I care enough for those I create or know or, once created, do they find a life of their own and even make their independent choice to wait, to wait patiently. I know what happens to them in a text or script, but I do not know what happens to them in real life.

Came across this article on a friend’s post: the use of madness. If this can be a result of madness, I would rather be this. What trust! What ability to be and let go of inhibitions! And then zoom … That Which Does Not Kill Me Makes Me Stranger

A hard book to write. The author confronts her other in a most intimate manner. Thief by Maureen Gibson. Read review here:

You know you want to read a book when you are laughing out loud by the time you turn the first page. That is what Daman Singh’s The Sacred Grove does. Here is my review.