Time Travel

An exercise in memory. Words and photography by Lila Theodoros.

I am terrible at keeping a travel journal. Everything starts off great – there are copious notes about terminals, waiting for flights, expectations, culture shock, a few early sights and experience. And then it simply becomes keywords ... 

Auto

Horn

Monkeys

Chai

Rooftop

Squat toilet

But I never stop taking photos, hundreds of photos. On trips before digital I would carry bags and bags of film rolls, fiercely guarded through airport scanners, held close on dusty bus trips, literally chained to me on overnight train rides, waiting to see what beauty I had captured when I eventually got home.

It’s been fifteen years since I first travelled to India. So much life happened in between and memories of that trip slowly faded. Adventures were placed lovingly in a photo album and forgotten. Now it’s 2020 and we all yearn for travel and adventure – that one thing we can’t have right now. So I pull out the dusty photo album, buried under piles of winter clothes at the bottom of my cupboard, looking through photos from that trip and slowly memories return.

I remember moments, stories and tales that, over time, I have retold a hundred times. Their mythic legend grows, warmth and love surround them. They are more precious to me than the written word – kept inside my heart, waiting to be remembered. A photo triggers that moment, that memory …

My photos are never worthy of National Geographic, but they are beloved captured visual moments. If this photo could talk … but it doesn't need to. From decades back, I remember the smells, temperature, the tastes, the people, the laughs, the fears, all jumbled together and captured in this one photo.

Pushka, Rajasthan, India, Dec. 2005

Pushka, Rajasthan, India, December 2005.

It was my first trip to India. A place I had dreamed of visiting my entire life having grown up immersed in Indian culture through my religion. It was a place I felt was in my heart, a place I had to be.

We had already been travelling through the north – seeing the Golden Triangle – and our last stop was Pushka in Rajasthan. Looking through my photo album to write this story, I start with a jumble of memories:

Sunsets over a sacred lake ...

The best Aloo Jeera of my life ...

Heavy garlands of flowers, draping ...

Monkeys staring, waiting, from rooftop strongholds ...

A snake that ignored its charmer and exploded out of the basket, coming straight for me! Caught, just, by the tip of its tail. A monkey smells fear, jumps from its high post, aiming for my back but just missing as I run screaming. Later trying to dissect the meaning. What was the universe trying to tell me? Or were animals just jerks sometimes ...?

We took a camel safari, of course. Pushka is famous for its annual Camel Fair, so if you are going to ride a camel, it may as well be through the deserts surrounding Pushka. We arrive at the meeting point for our safari and are allocated our camels. I meet Rama, a giant, proud and strong camel, decorated with all sorts of finery. He is slow, grounded, proud. My husband meets Julie, a wiry, nervous camel who does not want to be ridden. And my husband agrees ‘Of course she doesn’t want to be ridden, nothing does!’ He is battling a long held fear of riding after having fallen off a horse when he was a teenager and losing his memory for a scary moment.

But the safari must go on. I climb onto Rama, trying to remember the seemingly overcomplicated instructions … was it lean forward when they get up or was it back??

Gripping on to Rama with every ounce of strength I possessed we are up and away, onwards into the desert. We ride with new friends made on this trip, all adorned in our specially purchased Safari Hats, found in a market the day before. My hat is red with the most beautiful and delicate golden embroidery. I feel like an adventurer, astride my camel, exploring the beautiful mysteries of the desert.

And then Rama needs the bathroom. The reality of a camel ride is often left out of the travel guides – the air is thick with the smell of urine and camel gas; there is a lot of cross grunting and spitting; and riding is hard – your bum takes a beating!

After what seems like hours atop our mighty steeds, we arrive at our destination: the middle of the desert. At first it seems like there isn’t much to see, just gratitude to be off the camel and resting our bottoms. But then I notice the quiet and the stillness, the savage beauty of this desert stop in Rajasthan. Where the light hits the rising heat of the dunes, I wonder if I will see a mirage, a magical oasis. We are fed the most delicious chapatis, served with pickle and chutney, all washed down with a steaming hot cup of chai. We don’t stay long, we have to ride all the way back to Pushka.

Climbing back onto Rama, feeling dusty, sore and a little tired, I glance out at the desert and cannot believe I am here. This is a moment I will remember for the rest of my life. At least until time begins to work its inevitable magic and the memory fades. But then, fifteen years later, sitting in my home in Northern NSW, I open our photo album, flip through its pages and it all comes flooding back.

Writing this story was an incredible exercise in memory. Finding an old photo and spending time with it brought back much loved moments, adventures and stories. With international travel suspended in time right now, this was a magical way to feel like an adventurer again. Why don’t you try it and see where your memory will take you?