When fear hits you during middle age that’s the time to rage at the machine. A rooming house, a turd laid on the floor a good metre from its target. Time to get out of this shit fucked town. It was cold and wet and I was staying at the Nunnery , a backpacker joint in Fitzroy. A man came to the door soaked through to his skin carrying a large garbage bag. His name was Farouk. He thought this was a place of refuge when he saw Mother Mary’s statue out the front . He was down on his luck, maybe even a little crazy but I liked him. I let him use my bunk as I was leaving in the morning. They threw Farouk out like he was a piece of trash. So much for the enlightened backpacker of the world. I was alone except for my alchemist friend so next morning I took off. India was my direction and I was a dharma bum from desolate winds. Eccentricity follows me down as the plane landed in Trivandrum on a rainy day in November without luggage off to Dubai for the holidays. Haunted I made my way to the seaweed hotel not far from the beach , hippies, rave parties, mad dogs, fat Americans in Hawaiian shirts smoking even fatter cigars, a mengarie of misfits, all sad and lonely, and all looking out to the Arabian sea, and beyond the beyond of what was once something called life. My luggage was there over the horizon. At the hotel I was greeted by Ganesh my remover of obstacles who showed me to my room, here on the edge of the world I drank myself into a stupor , beer in a teapot, a chillum to smoke , my luggage and me lost. I had come as a spiritual tourist but first stop was here laying on a beach lounge , sunglasses, kingfisher beer and mango chapatti. The spiritual path is difficult as I laid there a white whale my Moby dick lusting for the flesh of ignorant hippies. Three days in and finally my luggage had arrived . I gave Ganesh a statue of the god and with that I waved goodbye to sand, sea, and surf and took off for Tamil stars and holy men.