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"That's what moving about, travelling, is; it's the inexorable glimpse of existence as it really is during those few lucid hours, so exceptional is the span of human time, when you are leaving the customs of the last country behind you and the other new ones have not yet got their hold on you.

A new country, other people around one behaving rather oddly, a few little vanities gone, some conceit or other now without its raison d'etre, its lie, its familiar echo, and that's all that's needed; you head spins, doubt takes hold of you, the infinite openness for you in particular; a ridiculous little infinite it is, and you tumble into it."

Celine - Journey to the End of Night p 187 (Penguin)

"Travel is the search for this nothing at all; this little moment of giddiness for fools. . . " same as above.

Children's games run in rigid cycles. During the winter kite flying. This suddenly stops though there is still wind, and tops appear. It's as though some all-commanding force decides after today no more kites may be flown, tomorrow everyone must spin tops. During the past month it has been marbles which still continue. But a new game has started. I have noticed several groups in the past few days playing it. There are two teams, a line drawn down the middle separates them. One person from one side gingerly flits over the line muttering continuously 'Puticka Puticka Puticka Puticka', constantly in movement, he attempts to touch a member of the other team but at the same time he must be wary for they are allowed to capture him, if they can keep him from touching or getting to the other side of the line. A touch or capture results in the player being put out. So the teams alternate each sending a man to the other side

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to try to put a man on the other team out. This game is played with great action and high spirits. The Indian boys play it with grace and roughness. I have seen older teen-agers play it, sometimes using their feet to make a touch. The repeated chant of Pu-tic-ka-Puticka (an incantation against harm and for the power of victory?), adds that touch of Indian charm. Pu-tick-ka actually is a nonsense word meaning nothing but it has mantra overtones for me.

Sept 14, 70

It is not shouted by spoken softly out loud as though to oneself for one's own protection. Therefore it takes on the mantra cloak.

Shave. Sitting cross-legged on the floor. The Barber sinuously seated right in front of you, your knees almost touching. His face as he works about six inches from yours. A condition of closeness. A relationship of dentist, doctor, mother and child, or lovers assume. To have someone's face so close to yours, to be able to inspect with magnifying glass minuteness: the contour of pores, the growth of separate hairs, the miraculous moving eye in multitudinous detail like some exotic inset under the microscope. The texture of closeness but with detachment. A certain tenseness on your part on being so direct in physical contact with another face. He equally intent on yours but with no uneasiness, his hands routinely manipulating your face, pulling the skin taught with one hand, shearing the growth from your body with the other. The sensations of touch without the sensuousness.

Sept 20, 70

Ramanagar. At a tin stall two men talking. One says the Maharaja will not be able to afford his private palace guard, now that the privy purses have been taken away. The other man vehemently denying this, saying the Maharaja is a direct descendent of Vishnu so his guard could never be taken away, it is divine right.

Sept 22, 70