“…Then, a few seconds before the first drop, we suddenly smelled the oncoming rain. The dancing stopped. Mangla leaned out the window laughing. Sweat gleamed on her back. The monsoon broke out heavy but silent, without clap or lightning. As if arriving, with British punctuality, at a predetermined rendezvous. It hit the train hard, as if trying to slow it down, and drops sprayed all over the compartment, whirling in the air and outright soaking our already wet clothes. We spent the rest of that journey exhausted, mesmerized by the dampness and the humming of the rainfall. Sleep on that train felt deep and hot. Like sleeping beside another body.”
In August 2012 I wandered around India. I travelled with a backpack, and my only reading material were a Lonely Planet Guide and an Introduction to Hinduism I came across in Delhi. This book is an album of encounters. It tries to bring the faces from that journey back to memory. Not just the real ones, but also those that are nothing more than delusions of a contemplating mind. In other words, this is a traveling novel which, set against a journey to India, brings to life all the people I encountered in my way; their stories and the traces they left on me.
Nefeli, 2014, 260 p
