a bad word whispered echoes a hundred miles.

I had a cup of tea with my dad on the weekend. ” What’s new I asked?”  Well, he answered, I have just booked  a trip to India. My eyebrows raised, just a tad. India?

He has had a passion for India for quite some time. He took up Hatha yoga and meditation years ago, and has provided my siblings and myself, with a few humourous conversations, as he has a whole room in his home decked out with cushions on the floor for meditating, cashmere shawls, Ganesh, and god knows what else….oh incense. Have we set the scene yet?

He’s been there before of course, twice in fact, and stayed in the ashram, giving back, as he recieved. He’s had delhi belly as well as met baba.

And I must say, I admire him, at 80 years of age, he’s going to head off to this hot, dirty country. He’ll risk the food, the water and the uncertainty of another country.

I asked if he was excited, and he said that excited wouldn’t be the word he would use, A bit puzzled, I asked what he hoped to achieve, he said that he didn’t know, but that India had always had a fascination for him, ever since as a boy when he’d read Rudyard Kipling.  He could have done a trip up the west coast of Australia, but for the same money he could go all the way to India.

Thinking on this a bit later, I thought, what if? What if he has a heart attack over there, what if?…….lots of what if’s………But then I thought, what if he stagnates in the retirement village, and gets dementia?? What if……….. No really, its fantastic, that he is so focused on what he wants to do, and I’ll be here waiting when he gets home to hear what impressions have been made, and besides, he may be able to do me a bit of a favour whilst he is over there………..You see there is this call centre, that keeps ringing me at tea time………………………………………………….