3rd Installment

Chapter 4 - Beware all ye who enter here

With barely a perceptible wink Kerala had abandoned us, or we her. The night of the world was upon us dear reader and its name was Tamil Nadu. The extremities of our consciousness has been wrested from warm embrace. This is India friends.

Mamallapuram is a haven for New Agers. Immediately upon entering this wretched village the air became thick with cordiality and suspicion. It's a paranoia akin to drifting through the Trafford Center and wondering if one fits in. Contrary to a jaunt through a shopping center however the eyes that spy you here are happy to extinguish their desire and replace it with a blank piety. I would be lying if I wrote that the psychic dynamic had not changed, it had and i was glad of it, for a time. But to be embroiled with people for whom you care little can be tiresome. Lost in a half world between a traveling community and the home-stay staff who seem intent on making you feel neither at home nor making you want to stay. The boisterous hospitality of Kerala now seems a lot more than a 16 hour bus journey away. The perimeter is not secure, repeat not secure. Gaseous toxins have permeated the ego.

At a meeting of the high council (with the exception of the Honorary Member for Dudley South) it was decided that we must plunder Pondicherry in search of our sanity, tomorrow we ride. The plan had been decided upon. An early morning evac was the only option. Leaving the rat in alcoholic slumber we hit the road jumping the bus South. I slipped in and out of consciousness as the vast expanse of paddy fields and palm trees merged into a tangerine blur punctuated only by the crimson and black flag of Tamil Nadu. The flag stood still in the breeze. Staring back at us with ghostly silence, a single black strip of the Tamil flag presided over a portal to a void of space and time. In our Universe the question remained, why is there something rather than nothing? Through that gateway neither something nor nothing could be heard, spoken, written or thought. A non space and time before the universe was torn open with the tears of man.

Chapter 5 - The events surrounding the absence of The Honorary Member for Dudley South in the Mamallapuram evacuation

As we decided on the early morning evac, news filtered through from the young Tamil men that worked in the home-stay that the young Dutch lady staying two doors down was, and I'm paraphrasing here, "A cockicidal maniac".  As Mick and myself laughed this off and packed our bags for a smooth exit Craig's hangover mysteriously became worse and he decided to remain an extra day. As i write this somewhere in the Tamil wastelands between Mamallapuram and Pondicherry we do not know what fate has befallen our Dudley compatriot or perhaps of more concern is the fate of the young Dutch lady.