Since I'm no longer painting for the meantime I went ahead and watched To the Ends of the Earth, the fourth and last part of the BBC documentary In the Footsteps of Alexander The Great. It is set in India, then thought by the Greeks to be "the end of the earth". Dionysos was believed to have been born on a mountain here, "far in the East" of Greece, and Alexander successfully conquered this land where Hercules is believed to have failed. As in the other three parts of this documentary there are many shots of beautiful locals, whether they are in the foreground or in the background. India must have been exotic to Alexander as it can be to anyone today. There is a a brief feature of "pagan" Hindus, reminding us that there are "pagans" to every religion.

We are taken up and down mountains, and I thought that I would rather be a host than a cameraman at any time. A few episodes are shown from the black-and-white, 1941 Hindi movie Sikander, proof of how advanced in the art of film India has always been. Love that quaint, apothecary shop and that oil painting made on ceramic tiles! Also love those embellished flutes and musical instruments, and those crudely made boats and rafts!

I am not sorry I bought this documentary set. This is a cleverly written and cleverly made project, as documentaries written by the hosts themselves are. It should be watched, however, without any distractions, because, compared to other contemporary documentaries, it will come across as drab to jaded viewers, since it is not a commercial, entertaining project that employed know-it-all, atchay consultants.

In the end, Alexander obtained 21 serious battle wounds, the lethal one being from a poisoned arrow that pierced his lung. To me he died a lonely man. Conquering the world, indeed, can never spell out one's happiness if it means losing everything else.