wayfarer: in search of nothing

the town that i thought of in rural India is clearly not rural enough. every couple of days we feel the need to find nothingness.. it's harder than i'd ever imagined. but in a country of over a billion people, it's not surprising that we've found refuge in going on our walks. we had gone on bicycle rides, but last week we really had a chance to explore. gautam suggested he would take us to a temple that was in the middle of the forest and near a river. we had off that day, so we had the whole afternoon and it had just rained the day before, making it a beautiful warm day. the walk was about 1 km to the temple.. and it was straight through a sugar cane field. we walked down a road until we came to a few small temples (for gods shiva, krishna, etc.) grouped together and decorated with various offerings (candles, flowers, incense) from visitors. all of us sort of scattered once we got there.. looking around. melanie was listening to music and gautam got a phone call.. anna and i had to pee. we walked along tiny irrigation paths along the side of the sugar canes and found what we thought was a good spot. we both were mid-pee w/ our pants down next to one another when about five women carrying baskets were coming towards us to go tend the field. we all started laughing as the women when past giggling something in hindi to each other. anna had the idea to follow the women and explore. so we kept going... anna was sure there was a river about half a mile up ahead and that we should go. we figured it wouldn't take long and that we could come back for gautam and melanie. i'm so glad we did.. we walked through what seemed like a long time through tall stalks of sugar cane, and arrived at the bottom of a small hill that was lined with hundreds of tall eucalyptus trees. at the top of the hill there was a calm wide river down below. it was so beautiful.. so desolate. we started walking back since we knew that gautam and melanie would probably be wondering where we went. and sure enough, about halfway back, we heard them coming our way through the cane fields yelling out for us. once we told them about our adventure and how we found a river, we took them there. we sat at the bank of the river for a long time, talking about coming back again and even camping there. we walked back a different way.. along the river and eucalyptus trees to a main road, biting into sugar cane that we got from a farmer on the way. gautam and i took pictures as melanie and anna walked ahead.. the sun sank over the horizon, leaving bursts of warm color on everything, my favorite time of day. now that we know this place, we go on walks a couple of times a week in search of nothing.