Penetrating heat and my gaze is towards the ocean. There’s this scent that incorporates India as a whole. Everything, everyone, all experiences from this dazzling subcontinent. It’s a scent from ancient times, filled with rich history and uncountable stories, a scent of past lives and bittersweet love stories.

India penetrates my soul every time to its core. India is not for the weak since weakness is immediately felt and targeted. You are forced to show up tough and hard on the outside. The core however, is meant to be untouched and soft. No love stories are so innocent and pure as in this culture.

The difference between in and outside, between a family’s home and its appearance, between his words and his feelings, between the overwhelming noises of a city and the quietness of a temple, is tremendous. It shakes me, confuses me, provokes me. I feel foreign.

And it’s because I come from another world, that we were never meant to be. As much as you showed me your heart, I did not understand your language. Not even the language of your heart. And you did not understand mine. But oh boy how did you expect me to stay, when you closed your heart and I was left with nothing but empty words?

I find the most truest form of the language of my heart in foreign cultures, yet it’s this foreignness that seems to forbid me to make it lasting too. Somehow, I think other cultures seem to comprehend that more than my own. Our egoistic, individualistic way of thinking, makes us believe that the concept of ‘we’re all one’ is enough to make two worlds merge. But they will never merge. That is said without judgment. They’re not meant to merge.

They’re meant to stay foreign and unknown, so that even the language of love will not be able to support a union. That been said, I will remain open for life to prove me wrong.

The universe is expressing itself in different characters. I am the one who explores, but never settles. Who understands similarities and differences, but has no one to explain them to. The one who’s seen the most beautiful and the most underdeveloped in consciousness. The one, who integrates it all within but gets more and more misunderstood from outside.

The more I see of the world, the more I feel foreign. The more I open my heart, the more I return to myself in solitude. The more I understand cultures and people, the less I understand the world dynamics. The more I seek, the more I get lost.

I know I’m not meant to settle, I know my life is breathing in and breathing out with little of a retention left. Yet every time I need to release, I refuse to understand the necessity of it. Why can’t I bear to be alone? Until now, nothing has been more challenging for me than the task of letting somebody leave my heart.

The horizon is blurry due to high humidity. Thoughts from Cafe Sarwaa are always taking me far. The midday sunlight is turning every wave into a spectacle of lights and reflections. This foreign scent brings me back into the present moment and I’m feeling the provoking heat on my body. Change is the only constant.