In Lands Beyond the Sea

Three forms of transport now- bike, boat and foot. Three elements- the road, the river, the forest. These I have pushed through, I have sliced through. These I have crawled over. And along the way there are faces and there are sounds and the hum of the rural landscape and I am witness to it all, I am also humming. We ride, we row, we follow the contours or push up and over the mountain slopes and there is always the opposing flow; the women with their children pass, the moonshine sellers with their burdens, fresh from the forest and the high plateau, they pass too with tired legs and the elders lean on canes with almost a century in their eyes. The waters too, high from cyclonic surges pass by; the flooded fields of rice, the matted canopy above our heads. Rugged green gives way to the well trodden path and I am witness to it all. And we are witness to it all.