The Kudle Bubble

by Jithin Sujala (India)

Making a local connection India

A drop of tear rolled down through my right cheek. Some study says if the first drop is from the right eye, it is out of happiness. I'm not sure if it is true or not, but I was already expecting a river of joy to flow down. The air column in Eric's Bansuri continued to resonate with ethereal tones. Listening to the waves of music notes dancing in the air from a piece of bamboo, sitting at that hidden temple with a gentle breeze from the sea passing through the bushes, I felt this is the closest I had ever experienced the presence of God, in person. Every day around noontime, Eric practices sitting inside an almost dilapidated temple, a few meters away from the seashore, well hidden from the 'uninitiated' tourists who pass by Kudle beach. Kudle is one of the beaches in the long shorelines of Gokarna town- originally a Hindu pilgrimage center but now an increasingly popular beach destination, situated in the coastal southwest India, which is marketed as the best alternative to the crowded Goan beaches. Come Friday, the Indian-weekend-travelers from nearby major cities swarms to the beaches of Gokarna looking for some chill time. Eric, on the other hand, isn't one of those travelers. To begin with, he is not even Indian. This long white-haired Swedish guy who has creases on his face either from smiling all the time or from the age, along with many such regulars, come and live in Gokarna for an extended period of time, making India their second home as a yearly affair. This forms an invisible tight-knit community of multi-cultured, multi-ethnic residents of Kudle beach. Kudle Buble, it was first introduced to me by a long term resident of this special beach, who goes by the name Kalki- the name of the avatar who ends the dark age as per Hindu Puranas. I met Kalki through a common friend at Indian Capital city, Delhi. We were sitting on the rooftop of my friend's apartment, talking about spirituality, the topic that connected all three of us. I soon realized that Kalki has gone through some extreme spiritual experiences which were way beyond my comprehension. His accounts of traveling to other realms, meeting and conversing with angels, spirit guides and other practitioners in a different world that I knew nothing of, got me hooked right away to his way of living. My curiosity and quest to learn more about these different realms made me visit Gokarna, where Kalki was going to stay for the next half of the year, after spending the summers in the Himalayas. Kalki, on my first day at Gokarna, told me about the 'Kudle bubble'. "Kudle is special and it teaches you many lessons. But not everyone gets it. Only those who are ready to receive will. You will find many such souls here on this beach who live in the Kudle bubble." I felt privileged that I got insider access to this special place where only the 'initiated souls' can reach. This so-called invisible imaginary Kudle bubble was full of special people. Kalki who teaches spiritual practices, Eric who plays music all day long, Manuel who juggles with fire, Ingmar who makes new friends and Talia who teaches floating are just a small percentage of it. As an uninitiated city-dwelling Indian, my biggest question was how do they make a living, when all day every day what they do is chilling at the beach. I guess, the very question explained why I needed the entry to be given into this inner circle. The incense stick - lighted at the door of the temple by the only daily devotee of this hidden temple - had finished, indicating Eric that it'd been almost two hours and its time to wind up. When the heavenly music came to an end, we could faintly hear the shouts and shrieks of the weekend warriors who came to 'experience' Gokarna. For most of them, Gokarna means some beer at a beach, a possible 'scoring' of some good weed, a hopeful match on tinder and a pseudo escape from their regular life. I wondered, will they ever be able to find the Kudle Bubble.