Caribbean mysticism

James replied:

Hi Babloo

Thanks for the narrative of your journey. India has its mystical, ethereal existence which shares space, casually, with the other world of commerce and politics and fast food. Something like Platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross Station in "Harry Potter" (which my 8 year old eldest daughter begs me to read- she's read all 4 volumes, twice!). I could see your Tagore experience occurring only in India; I mean, occurring in the way that you described.

In the Caribbean, there would have been the perfumed scent of the bored American wife, on holiday, enjoying some local action. She would have been standing at a bus stop, not a train platform (here, we have no trains) and there would have been some reggae music playing in the background. Now the white woman leans temptingly into her black companion and a young black girl adjusts her skirt, wondering about her place in this small island world. She has her moment of "satori" too, gilded from the fingers of seaweed and the bright eyelashes of coconut palms, seducing more than the waves. The Tagore poster is replaced by a McDonald's advert, and the poems by the loaded repartee between the black girl and the young man.This is our "mysticism". It is forged out of landscape and escape, confinement and limitless earthy/sensual imagination. The vocabulary is decidedly different.

I would have both, if offered both, but if asked to choose, well, I would have problems.

The woman at the bus stop turns her eye to me. I pierce her with Mediterranean scrutiny. Excuse me, I must be going. The blasted bus is late and the woman is smiling.

::::::::::::::::::::::>>>>>>::::::::<<<<<<<<::::::::::( waves crashing on shore)

James