Wednesday 29 February 2012

My Totally Radical Indian Adventure- Day 1: Transit

Approaching Abu Dhabi, I opened the blind- carefully at first, all previous attempts having left me dazzled by the sun. After this failed to blind me, I went for it. Closing my eyes and flinging up the flimsy plastic shutter with enough force to jolt man behind me from his noisy slumber. I’m not sure if he’d agree, but it was certainly worth it. As I gazed through my tiny peephole in the middle of the sky, I was staggered by the fullness of the Arabian sunset. All along the horizon a blood red band magestically lay, haloed by lighter shades of red, orange anfd finally green.  As if resting on the sun’s solid foundation, the night sky  rose up light blue emerged from the bruise green shades in bands, gradually getting richer and darker until nearly purple.

I was reminded of the Egyptian myth, where Shu the sky god, rested on the Earth’s (Atum) back and in turn supported the heavens (Tefnut, Atum’s sister). Right then at that moment the story made perfect sense. I was looking at a sight which had given birth the first myth, from whcih all others grew. An ancient and unwritten of people must have been the first to translate this from vision to though form and passed it forward in time; The Egyptian, Sumarians, Mesopotanians, Babylonians, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans and Arabians. Each spreading their truth (which started as the sun setting over an ocean or shimmering desert air) to the lands they conquered- mixing and matching as they went along, appropriating intriguing deities and Holy days (what is your Ishtar egg really about?) until the world (Western at least, although I imagine Eastern thought has a similarly simple beginning) could be split into different belief systems that have the same beginning.

The moon was in a crescent but resting on it’s side, with Jupiter directly above it- exactly like the flag of Mauritania. Venus was shining (brightly!!!) below. Lucifer is what the Romans called her,translating to Morning Star (another example of our cultural hodge-podge one size fits all watering down of mythic language). She is held by the sun on a tighter leash than ours making her only visible for for a few hours before dawn and a few in the early evening before following The Master into unknown depths of darkness (which was later discovered to be the Americas)

Back on earth after 7 hours of uninterrupted philosophical musics, Abu Dhabbi airport made me feel uneasy. There is little to write about it except as an ornate temple to consumerism. A mosaic dome covers stalls selling overpriced goods.”New Smirnnoff gold, with real edible gold. Please try, sir”. From the rather striking ceiling hung at least ten camera, you ARE being watched. As I logged onto the wifi connection a warning came up making me aware that accessing any material viewed which is illegal in theUAE law will lead to the fullest extent of prosecution. All around me, men and women flailed in panic as they realised they had forgotten to close the Live Jasmin window that had popped up when “browsing” on their phones the previous night.

When I boarded the next plane, Venus was gone. I’d see her again in Thiruvananthapuram.




This is a song I heard on the plane.

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