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Showing posts from February, 2012

The warmth of unprejudiced smiles

To travel is to escape.... My mind was completely empty and my body was cold. It was an early summer afternoon in Leh and i was sitting by the steps of a monastery. I was an empty shell with big eyes, simply intent on taking in all that was there; and there was so much beauty and peace there to take in: Colorful fluttering flags, old women chatting conspiratorially at the other end, monks gesticulating to each other furiously, an India soldier checking out his camera pics, two young women talking to someone else on their cell phone and laughing secret laughs... A monk passed by and suggested me to come see the monastery from inside. I had a bag with me and needed to keep it somewhere safe before i enter. That's when i noticed the person sitting just 2 steps below me, with the intention of keeping my stuff there under his watch. I thought it was a young white boy. I tapped his back. a little too forcefully perhaps, because it was actually a french girl. i did an 'excuse