Acknowledgements

I'd like to thank all the heros and extras in my journey. It was a great show and I am glad it was set out for me. Id like to thank mom and dad for supporting me and taking care of my weary bones once back. Id never get tired of thanking Davið for his help and courage. Id like to thank Chopper for I found myself repeating his words to taste the power of a Manc believer. Id like to thank the Swiss policeman Michel and the Spanish diver Miguel for scooping me up from the streets. Id like to thank Alessandra for her help with the insurance and her patience with my mom. I thank Doctor Chandra Sen for his wisdom. I thank Baba for his teaching and friendlyness and I hope he is doing well. I thank all my friends, close and far away, for being my friends. Big it up!
M.

The answer is blowing in the wind

These boots were made for walking and that is what they did. These pair of shoes were ideated by that genius of Chuck Taylor, I assume they were made in Vietnam or thereabouts, purchased in the US, donated to me by Mr. Eli Cohen in Svalbard, assisted a fokking graduation in engineering (my own), walked me through the streets of Amsterdam, then brought me to Iceland, they supported me in my quest to get a place into an English drama school, walked me back and forth between school and home for a year, saw me happy and sad, brave and coward, served as brakes when my bike hadnt got any for months, led me to India, absorbed the piss and shit of half India through the holes in their soles. Their canvas got so sticky it was unreal. This pic was taken on Marine Drive, Mumbay, the day before I left the subcontinent. I didnt throw them into the ocean (although it would have been consistent with the Indian custom altogether), I didnt throw them into a bin. I just left them on Marine Drive, resembling a man watching the Arabian Sea in its dazzling beauty. Im back home now. I have got some annoying health issues to deal with and most of my memories are entagled with each other and blurred in these days. My body is a temple and I must take care of it as well as my inner soul. It will take time. It will take the right amount of time to be ready for the killing again.
But I am grinning.

The Beginning

And Marco Polo replied to the Great Kahn: "The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is already here, it is the inferno we live in everyday, that we form by staying together. There are two ways not to suffer from it. The first way is easy for many people: to accept the inferno and to become part of it until you cannot distinguish it any longer. The second way is risky and requires attention and constant learning: to look for and be able to recognize who and what, amidst the inferno, is not part of the inferno, and make it last, and give it space" (The Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino).

Mumbai, early in the morning, tha cab is running...even my asshole is grinning.

Past the last richshaw. Past the last million of richshaws. Past the last incence scent and the last fruits stall. Past the last temple, the last reassuring Ganesha image and the last fat brahamin. Past the last sari which allows you a glimpse of the perfectly carved spine of a woman, past the last colourful queue, the last stained tissue, the last family preparing their beds for a starry night on a city sidewalk. Past the last hustle and the last incomprehensible honk. Past the last puddle of urine and the last filthy kid. Past the last filthy soul in a stainless body and the last stainless soul in a filthy body, past the last pair of worn-out feet in a worn-out pair of chappals, past the last mystery and the last doorless train, past the last nonsense and the last pain, past Baba selling flowers for the devotees at the temple, past his smile and my gratitude, past the last last cup of chai, I leave India.

And a smiling face remains printed in my mind because, in the end, people can find joy everywhere.

the bill, please.

There is a new energy in my veins today, and it doesn't come from Doctor Chandra Sen's pills. I'm going home. I don't care. I'm just going home. I'm tired and fed up. I'm somehow fearing that the Indian spell did not happen to me, that I have not learned anything from this journey, from these people and this culture. I was looking for peacefulness for my mind but my head is a twirl of thoughts. My soul is aching and bleeding. It is bleeding for what I do not understand and for what I do understand too well. But somehow I know everything is here, like in Brahma's dream. Something had happened. It's deep, like a massive millstone which has turned. It needs time, time and courage. It takes courage to be alive. And I cry and I get ecstatic. The search is not over.

So you think you've learned the mysteries of the world? I'll take you to a place full eastern taste. So won't you come? Won't you come? Say the magic word and we can fly away. I do believe in the eastern palace. I'm sure it exists. But once you can get to the East, you know you can go further East, that you can get further undressed and more free. So I need to stop just for a minute. I need to observe my breathing just for an endless minute and quieten my mind. I am just sensations. And I am equanimous to them. Then, fearless, I set myself off. The search is not over.

Marco Nanetti's 7th dream

The diarrhoea has not stopped, yesterday while walking in the streets of Jaipur my limbs went numb, energy left my body all of a sudden. Made it to the hotel where my mates from meditation were and asked to rest in one their rooms. Had to take a train yesterday night and I missed it. Felt awful. They got a hotel room for me. Today they got me to a clinic. The doc said I have a severe bowels infection. When I got there I had 40 degrees of temperature and I was very dehydrated. I got 5 big sacks of fluid into my veins and sweated like a pig for 5 hours. Now I am feeling much better but tomorrow I have to go back to know the results from the blood test. Thanks to Michel, a Swiss police officer, and Miguel from Madrid I made it. Otherwise I think I would have collapsed somewhere in the streets. Less than a week is left for me in India. India is a dangerous country. I dont know what other surprises are left for me but the right time to go back home has come. This travel has all been about the right times to do things.

Vipassana

Like a speleologist I descended into the big cave of my own self for ten whole days. It is over now. Im back into town, a noisy spinning world. I left the monkeys, the peacocks, the jungle where we guys were meditating. 12 hours a day for 10 days, sitting on a cushion with my eyes closed. Waking up at 4 or 5am (for the lazy ones like me) and going to bed before 9:30pm. It took ages before I could even hope to harness my mind for more than ten minutes in a row. The technique is called Vipassana. It is Buddha's pure teaching somehow handed down from generation to generation until today. It teaches the self observation of your own body sensations and how not to react to them, with the consciusness that everything is temporary and impermanent. So simple, so hard to practise. But I can see myself changed a little already, calmer, more peaceful. We broke 10 days of noble silence just yesterday at noon and it was awesome to talk to people, expecially Indians. Everybody was smiling and wishing each other happiness. The real challenge is to keep practising and proceeding on the path to liberation from your own misery. In the meanwhile I got sick and had a strong diarrhoea which didnt help to ease out the process. The food wasnt the best (to say it was shit) and I could not get myself to eat much. Once I had just beaten rice cause I could not eat more. I sat in the dining hall eating plane dry beaten rice out of a metal plate. I felt like a fucking pigeon. I imagined it tasted like beef. I worked for some instants. I have a week left to reach Mumbai, meet Baba, exchange some words with him, get the last presents and leave the continent. I have met people who have done the most incredible things. There is no boundary to people's horizons but your own boundaries. It is just a statement, no particular judgement attached to it. Years back I was sitting in front of the fireplace at Lollo's. We were talking about Africa. Stefano, Lollo's father, a man who has seen the world he needed to see was remembering old adventures and his eyes were shining at those thoughts. But yet he was telling us about how important is to have a "life plan". At the time, I could not really get him. I thought he was being prudent. Now I do understand better his advice. The time for choices has come. It is now. For me at least. What my dad used to call "having the world in your pockets". A time for acceptance of the consequences will follow. Which is good. Which is good. I gotta go now, with hands and feet. M.

ocus phocus

Asia is a camel. When Asia is pregnant of another Asia, it carries it in India. I am there. I am right there where the conception has taken place. All I can hear are the movements of this universal phoetus. Liquid movements. A creation moving in a womb. I am in a desertic area off Bikaner, Rajasthan. I, a guide and a boy. For fourty minutes I've thought they'd leave me here to sleep alone , but they are back now. If the boy shuts up, I'd be glad. The camels are two sleeping sphynxes. I have my thoughts, good or bad, it doesnt matter. I am as complicated as the entire creation. I am Marco, and I am here. I've cut a pineapple with the favour of the night. I've pierced the skin, deepened my knife into the pulp like a thief of vitamins, sucking up the warm juice and the yellow colour. In the desert I've laid down and looked at the deep blue sky. White clouds forming up. The noise of a continent has disappeared. In the desert I dont need to think. I need to close my eyes and let my mind graze on this beloved mother earth.

For the first time I took off my shoes and sockes and walked proudly into the temple. It happened like that, after more than a month, let alone in the dirtiest of all places. Thousands of rats running around and people feeding them. Holy creatures. Giant bowls of milk for the rodents to quench their thirst, rats smelling each other's ass, climbing up gates, running after someone else's tail. I prayed into the rat temple.

Today, I have bought a turbant. A flash pink turbant. I should wear a vest along with it.