Meeting the New Sangha

Entrance to the Crafts Museum in Delhi, India

The taxi driver from the guesthouse didn’t know the way to Gandhi Smriti. I had explained to the guesthouse manager that it’s near a certain hotel, and he explained this to the taxi driver, who didn’t speak English. We went around in circles and passed the rather prominent and regal-looking hotel a couple times, and eventually the taxi driver resorted to pulling over and asking people if they knew the way to Gandhi Smriti. I’m a bit surprised, since it’s a major landmark: it’s Mohandas Karamchan Gandhi’s final home and where he was assassinated in the garden.

On a busy street, kids approached the taxi and tried to sell magazines through the window. They were school age and probably desperate; perhaps their parents insisted that they go work on the streets because the family needs money right now and is too poor to wait till the kids have an education and could therefore have jobs that would pay much better. I felt sorry for them, but I was completely not tempted to buy magazines like Cosmopolitan. Yuck.

As we took a wide street, a clan of monkeys ran across the street in front of us, and I laughed like a little kid. To the right, a painted elephant carrying passengers slowly walked in the opposite direction. I grinned and thought, “I love India!” I was living in the moment and trying not to worry about the fact that we were lost; the worst thing about that, in my view, was that I was holding up a group of people with my tardiness. It occurred to me that they might give up waiting for me and drive off.

I saw a mud wall with some vehicles parked in a row in front of it, and some food stands at the side of the road—the typical Indian shop made of sticks—and on one section of the wall I saw the engraved words “Birla House,” which I recognized as the former name of Gandhi Smriti. I exclaimed, “That’s it! Now I wonder where are the people I’m supposed to meet up with?” We sat there idling on the other side of the street, while I looked at the row of vehicles and noticed that they included more than one tour bus.

A guy in a yellow shirt ran into the street, calling to the driver, who stopped. The guy in yellow climbed into the taxi and sat down next to me and said, “Susan, how are you!” Jagdish gave me a one-armed hug.

I said, “Jagdish! It’s good to see you!” I grinned from ear to ear. Soon I saw Bina in a purple and dark grey salwar-kamiz and waved back at her. She was by a blue tour bus. It turned out that everyone had been waiting just for me! The group was at this stage approximately only a dozen people, but we would be meeting up with others elsewhere. As I got out of the taxi, I looked at Bina and said, “I’m sorry I haven’t scanned or faxed my passport yet!” Bina said that it’s fine and I don’t have to worry about that, they’ll give me my tickets when I get to Kathmandu. Whew, what a relief!

Bina said, “You look great! Have you lost weight?”
“I’ve lost thirty-five pounds, so far,” I said.
“That’s almost a whole person!” she said smilingly.
The taxi driver was about to drive off, and I anxiously tapped the trunk roof and said, “Oh, my suitcase!” But it turned out that Jagdish had already taken it out of the trunk and put it on the bus.

Delhi is even more chaotic than I remember. Looking out the window at the traffic, I had trouble refraining from laughing. It’s like I’m a different person when I come to India.
We all got out of the bus at a restaurant, the Taj Mahal Restaurant, where we had a South Indian dinner, or lunch rather, with metal dishes and little pots of various spicy goopy things to dip pastry-type things into, and some of us drank laasi. I ate a generous portion and remembered how, on the pilgrimage, I had pigged out at first and later developed enough discipline to eat smaller portions from the buffets.

The lunch conversation involved where people live, and I mentioned that I currently live in Kansas and want to move to the west coast, particularly Berkeley. Some of the tour members, at least two, live in the San Francisco Bay area and talked about what a great area it is to live in. After I mentioned that I’m probably going to move to Oakland or Berkeley, Etiel mentioned that they’re too congested with traffic for her. I could always live in Berkeley for a time and then move somewhere that isn’t as congested with traffic, but I have no intention of contributing to urban sprawl: I imagine staying in a small apartment and possibly reaching a point when I don’t own a car but only walk and use public transportation.

A guy named David is from Florida and he’s a novelist. He’s written speculative fiction that is however neither science fiction nor fantasy, and he is currently working on a horror novel.

Somebody asked Bina if she’ll be with us in Dharamsala, and she said no, but “Shantum will be there, and he’s wonderful.”
“Oh, he can’t be as good as you!” someone said.
“Yes, he’s much better!” Bina said.

Not long after that, one bunch of white people, the rest of the group, showed up, and Shantum was with them, at a table behind us. I didn’t think he saw me; he was behind our table and talking with someone. He came to the head of the table, stood next to me, and made an announcement, and he spoke of already knowing some of us. He looked at Etiel and said, “I know you.”
“Oh, you do?” she said. They hadn’t met yet after all, but I was tempted to say, “In a previous life.”
When Shantum greeted me, I said, “Hey, glad to see you! I mean Namaste!” and I pressed my palms together.
Shantum asked me, “Are you doing well?”
I said, “I’m doing great, since coming here.” I didn’t think to ask how he was. Typical.

Shantum put an arm around me and said, “This is Susan, and I’m glad you’re back!” and he gave me a kiss on the forehead. I was grinning like a Cheshire cat. A bit later, when he told the group that I’ve been on the pilgrimage, he gave me another hug and a kiss on the forehead. Somehow I refrained from asking him to adopt me. Ever since Jagdish hopped into the taxi with me, it has felt like all is right with the world, and that I have a place in it. That’s a highly unusual feeling for me.

After lunch, we went to the Crafts Museum; this was a great coincidence for me, because it was one of the places I meant to visit on my own, if only I hadn’t arrived in New Delhi twenty-four hours later than originally planned. Outside, to the left of the building, we passed terra cotta figures, some life-size, some larger than life. I found them breathtaking.

Inside the museum are many glass display cases full of sculptures, puppets, dolls, and textiles.

Inside the building are sections of an old aristocratic Rajasthani house with squirrels scampering around, and I kept hearing birds.

I left the wall and found where just about everyone else had gone; they were out in a courtyard behind the museum. Vendors and musicians performed on the square; one dancer was dressed like a Hindu deity, in many bright colors and with fake hands. The dancer was accompanied by musicians, one of whom played a loud bleating wind instrument.

After I stepped back outdoors, I noticed a stone wall, several yards long, was completely covered with little, elaborately carved stone archways, typically about two feet wide by three or four feet tall. They looked ancient and very beautiful with all the detail. The arches were typically scalloped and reached a point above a nook that might have contained a Hindu deity at some time; perhaps they were all shrines that archeologists collected and brought to the museum.