Pens and Pages

Diary Entry : 21st April 2022 I had a feeling I wanted to go check out Deer Park Institute in Bir, Himachal Pradesh. I booked the hostel closest to it. I ended up extending my stay for one day and then for another and so on for a week. I am lucky to find a good dorm-mate here. She is 24 years old and a fellow traveler with a backpack. No, we are not tourists devouring each and every place we have to see. We are doing what we are supposed to be doing and that's "be"-ing - simply being. "Il bel far niente" - Italian for the beauty of doing nothing, also called "dolce bel far niente" - the sweet beauty of doing nothing. We are never not doing anything though. We are visiting cafes, working, writing, meditating, talking, joking, teaching and learning. A new discussion arose yesterday and it's a personal favourite enough for me to talk about. In a nutshell: "We want everything that the rich people have but our roots and surroundings are middle-clas