Connecting the dots

While in Palolem, in Goa I saw a man one day practicing with a bow and arrows, on a target made out of a tree stump. As our eyes met, he did a Namaste and asked me where I was from. That's a question not many outsiders ask I thought and I smiled wondering if he would understand if I told him from where I was, or where I was not and if at all it would make a difference. To my surprise he elaborated you see India is a big country and every part has something to add to the whole picture. I asked him where he was from & he said he was from Norway, staying in Goa for 6 months now, trying to find himself and his God and practicing archery while at it. He says that here, in spite of being so many or perhaps because of being so many, you have not lost your way..

I mused to myself and told him that while, outsiders often come here looking for God, for a way, many of our young have lost that way and in fact look at the west for 'upgrading' themselves. He looked at me quizzically and said "perhaps in this haze of drugs, of spiritualism, of diverse people, I shall find something..or maybe when that haze lifts..it shall be emptiness, till that time I shall try."..I asked and said, "like your arrows trying to break the block of wood to find more wood?"..he smiled and said, " See, you are one of the dots that join & it is precisely for this, I am here"..Spooky, Philosophy, ..India?

( Image courtesy Google)