Landed yesterday in a time bubble, a house built in 1847 by Sir Henry Ramsay in the #Binsar forest sanctuary, a drop away from the #Himalayas. Ramsay was a British general who was spellbound by the giants, and had a knack in subjugating the locals to his quirks. His servant ghosts still parade the property with a fairly punctilious attitude, that makes sure the heating is on only between 7pm and 9pm, for instance. At precisely 9pm the ventilator makes a gentle "blub" sound, leaving the half a dozen guests here no option but to wrap themselves in triple-layered thermal insulation (you're not supposed to touch the thermostat settings on your own, for fear of retaliation). If this is what Ramsay laid out in 1847, then so be it. The trails here have no signs, and Google map is at least half a mile off even for the main road. For #hiking you're on your own. The two or three locals that you may come across a 20 square mile property all have the same answer to visitors who are lost in the forest, like I was yesterday. "Simple. Go down that way." It's probably the one English they know, because the trails alway bifurcate or trifurcate, or quadfurcate, with Vegas type odds of making it out of Birnam before it gets dark. This is what Westerners have to accept, after centuries of imperial plundering. At the end of the day, the cold, the colonial ghosts, the signless paths, and even the mildly aggressive wild boars (that are the size of bloated ponies), are no match to the energy that flows from the ground, through the spine and up into the crown, turning even the limpest sausage into a vibrant, electric cowboy. It is no wonder that the hills are scattered with temples and holy men. Even the monkies here go #tantric, rather than wham bam. Love in the mountains is a sacred act, designed to spin new, higher forms of fuel, more precious than even mini bananas. It may very well be that it was the erotically charged electrons that got the #Victorian Ramsay hooked. He was dealing with energies he didn’t fully get, hence the fixation with rules and thermostats. (at Binsar, Uttarakhand, India)