Airports, Continued

Now I’m at the Washington Dulles Airport. I was in a really grumpy mood by the time I finally spotted my suitcase. Too many airports and too many airplanes. Next time I’m definitely only going to one country, unless I’m crossing borders in a tour bus or on a ferry. And my luggage is so heavy—but that’s my own fault, thanks to buying so much in Nepal. On the bright side, I bought lots of gifts. I was doing so well until those last couple days in Nepal.

Because of my flight delay from Kathmandu to Delhi, it was after six when I met up with the driver at the airport, and it was almost seven pm by the time we got to the guesthouse. It was already dark out, even if the weather feels like summer. Not the friendliest of drivers, and he spoke English so fast I had trouble understanding him, but I did mention to him how that I wanted to be picked up again at 4:30 am.

The guesthouse in Delhi was really charming—Lutyens Guesthouse—too bad I couldn’t stay longer and see it in daylight and hang out in the garden. There were lots of seats in the back yard and a garden with a plethora of terra cotta pottery and sculpture and the like. My room was in a little, long building out back, facing the house itself, a white bungalow with a row of numerous French doors facing the back yard. The room would have been like paradise to a college student. It was small with white walls and a slanted ceiling with decorative yellow beams. All the fabric in the room—and there was quite a bit—carried out a blue and green color scheme. The window curtains, the fabric under the glass covers of a couple of small tables, the blankets, and a large pillow, the rug, and the chair upholstery were all in blue and green, mostly stripes. The bathroom was all white, with white porcelain tile, and had a white metal wardrobe that I didn’t use.

I woke at 3:45—that’s when I set my alarm. I did some yoga and got dressed and did what little packing I needed to do—and I rolled up and tossed out the black t-shirt in which I had been sleeping. That t-shirt was the last garment I left behind. Gee, maybe I should go ahead and change my socks for the pair Qatar Airlines supplied me with, even though this is so the last leg of my journey—only one more flight left, and so far it’s on time!

At four in the morning, I heard a bunch of peacocks calling. That was probably the only time I heard peacocks on this trip, and I didn’t seen any. It reminded me of the time I heard so many of them on the grounds of the Taj Mahal.

Was it really just this morning? We were at the Indira Gandhi International Airport at 4:50, and the driver wanted me to pay him, and I said, “Oh, I thought the guesthouse was going to add it to my bill,” and after some argument, I just went ahead and paid it, though I don’t know why the guesthouse would say via e-mail that I didn’t have to pay the driver, if I had to pay the driver. Maybe it only referred to the drive from the airport to the guesthouse.

It must have been about 5 am or slightly later when I got to the Qatar Airlines flight 233 ticket counter. The woman behind the counter said there was no record of my ticket in their system. I asked if she could put the record in the system, and she said she could but she’d need a supervisor and asked me to step back and wait till I was called. So I waited till about 7 am—the flight was scheduled for 8:05 am—and meanwhile I stood and waited and worried and bit my nails. I felt so short-shafted and didn’t even know if I’d be getting on this plane.

In short, I was stressed. Finally after the crowd died down, not to mention after I’d been standing by a trash receptacle and repeatedly thinking, “I was here before all these people,” finally I walked up to the counter and said to a different young woman than the one I previously spoke with, “I’ve been here since five, but your records don’t show me in the system.” Like, I bought the tickets back in October and have records proving it, even exact confirmed seat assignments. Since this was India, I strongly suspected that the word “supervisor” referred to someone male (India, indeed--that’s common in the U.S. too), but this young woman asked me if I had confirmed the tickets, and I said, “No, I don’t think so.” Apparently I was supposed to look up the flight to make sure it was on time and somehow confirm my tickets in the process. I thought confirming just meant you look it up online or on the phone to make sure the flight is on time, but she was able to promptly print out my next two boarding passes. Why couldn’t someone have done that two hours earlier?!

But then I had to wait in the endless immigration line. Then I had to stand in line at security—the electricity wasn’t working or something, and this took some time. Meanwhile a disembodied voice announced that my flight was boarding! I didn’t know if I’d make it on time. I got through security finally, behind a screen with a woman searching me very thoroughly and too slowly with a wand. She had me empty my pockets and was very thorough, as if she knew I was running late. I thought I’d never make it. But I did, just barely! I think I was the last one on the shuttle to the plane.

When I got to Doha, I bought a bottle of water—they only sold those small glass ones—and stood in line for security for a while before a staff member told me I had to go to the other counter and get my passport and boarding pass stamped, so I went over to the counter in question and a guy behind a counter did the stamping in question. I then went back to the line and was almost at the very end of it. I saw the signs concerning bottles of liquid and made a point of gulping down the last of my water and tossing the glass bottle into a trash receptacle; the staff member who had spoken to me earlier noticed this, and she thanked me with a smile. After I got through security, I had to hurry to get on the shuttle on time. Some people came on behind me.

Here in Washington DC, it’s chilly and wet. Not warm and dry like it was in Delhi and Doha. Not cold like in Tibet. Not wet and dark, a week later sunny and warm, like it was in Nepal.

I have just one last flight—it’s supposed to arrive in Kansas City around midnight. I hope I don’t have trouble finding Elaine, and that she doesn’t have trouble finding me. She said she’d be at the baggage claim, and she’s been to the Kansas City airport countless times.

In Kathmandu, strange men accosted me on the street all the time, but they weren’t flirting (with one possible exception, when I told a young guy that I would be going to see a dance with my travel agent, and he did a little boogie in place and said I could go dance with him). Here at the airport in Washington DC, this greybeard with a cane, who’s at least as old as my dad, I swear really was flirting with me, and I found this rather annoying. He first spotted me as he entered the shuttle where I was almost the only inhabitant; the airport is so huge that it has shuttles to take you to different terminals. He said I looked puzzled, or something like that; I had been looking at my boarding pass and feeling so tired but aware that I only had one more flight. After we got off the shuttle, the old guy with the cane asked me where I was going, and I was glad to duck into the woman’s restroom.

I’m waiting at the terminal, and ick, there are a couple of guys talking about football. Toto, I don’t think we’re in the Himalayas anymore.

Return to Delhi

At 12:40, I woke and some guy pulled the curtain away from my feet, reached across me and turned the light on over me. I was pretty freaked by this, but within seconds the light was turned off and the curtain drawn again. It took me a long time to get back to sleep. About a minute or two after that bizarre experience, I heard Rachel snapping, “I’d like to get a good night’s sleep, if you don’t mind!”

I woke in the sleeper train at four in the morning, and around 5:35 or so we arrived at the Delhi station. On the platform in Delhi this morning, Rachel told me that some guy who worked for the train pulled aside my curtain four times and stared at me, till finally she yanked it shut again. He did the same thing to her, and he even invaded Paula’s bunk, getting on the other side of the curtain. It turns out that essentially the same thing happened to at least three people. Sure, we weren’t in the exact assigned benches, but that’s not a good enough excuse. The numbers had been messed up, so that Marsha and I had the same bunk number, so I went ahead and took a different numbered bunk that was available.

Paula said, “That’s invading your space, and at our worst time, when you’re sleeping and you’re the most vulnerable.” Oh, the experience of an Indian sleeper train! Rachel and Paula had said that earlier on the trip they traveled first class and had compartments with a sliding door. I asked if it included a Western toilet, like in the film Darjeeling Limited, but no, it had an Indian toilet. Still, the separate compartment with a sliding door gave them some security. It also reminded me of the Hogwarts Express. I told them that on the pilgrimage last year, we traveled second class just like on this trip to and from Dharamsala.

Be prepared for anything when you ride the sleeper train--Paula had warned us on the taxi ride. I had earlier mentioned to Rachel that last year riding the sleeper train wasn’t so bad, except for when first thing in the morning a guy was staring at me, so I pulled my curtains shut. And then there was the old guy who sat and talked with us, no doubt because he was curious and fascinated by a bunch of Western females. But he seemed harmless.

Our arrival in Delhi at a bit after five thirty in the morning may as well have been five thirty in the evening, considering how many people were on the station platform. Inge told me, “If you look behind you to your right, you’ll see a fellow getting ready for business.” I looked and a guy had vast numbers of shiny silver keys hanging from his white shirt, and over one arm hung large silver chains. Inge explained that he sold locks for suitcases, and that she’d read about this but never saw it before. It sure looked odd. I have very tiny padlocks for suitcases, and they’re very useful if you’re staying in a hostel dorm room with several other people.

The porters carried away our luggage. We got to the littered, disgusting parking lot while it was still dark out (so you’d think I wouldn’t have seen the litter so well), and for the last time we climbed aboard a tour bus. It reminded me of the pilgrimage, during which a tour bus was sort of our mobile home. Jagdish and one of the Davids, as I saw looking out the bus window, got into a motor rickshaw and went separately, but for now everyone else—except the ones with whom we parted in Dharamsala—was on the bus.

We passed the Red Fort, which around six in the morning was a dark silhouette backed by a dark blue sky. Soon Shantum took the microphone and gave us a bit of a tour/history about Delhi, by which time, as he explained, we were in New Delhi, unlike the Old Delhi location of the train station and the Red Fort. Shantum told us that Delhi has been the capital of India five times, and the first time was in ancient days when it was Indraprata, the setting for The Mahabharata. The emperor Asoka also made it the capital, and Sha Jahan five hundred years ago moved the capital from Agra to Delhi, and of course New Delhi was the capital during the British Raj, and it continues to be now after independence.

Ashok Hotel
As the bus pulled into the driveway of what looked like a majorly fancy hotel, Shantum said, “Friends, we have arrived.” We were at the Ashok Hotel for breakfast and for parting. When we stopped in front of the regal columned entrance to the fancy Ashok Hotel, named after the Buddhist emperor, I not only noticed the water fountain and the fancy burgundy uniforms that the doormen wore, a concoction involving gold-trimmed Nehru jackets and burgundy turbans topped with a sort of fontage—that is, a fan-shaped piece of silky fabric. But what truly caught my eye was a skinny little grey striped cat. It was the first cat I saw on this trip! On the bus I exclaimed, “There’s a kitty!” as I saw the cat move around the fountain and disappear behind a column to the left. After we got off the bus, I snooped around at the potted plants where I thought the cat went, but it was nowhere.

We left our suitcases at the front, and Shantum said they’d be guarded. Then we entered the posh hotel, where the enormous front lobby was decorated, among other things, with bodhi leaves in yellow, red, brown and orange painted on parts of the walls. The lobby split off to the right, forming a sort of very large hallway with cushy chairs and couches, and beyond that were the restrooms and phones. We went straight, eyed Hindu sculptures, and went down a corridor, past a shop with shawls and other pretty things in a glass display case, to have breakfast in a corner of the restaurant.

I sat with Arturo and Jeff for the first time. They were both Kashmir Cottage people and I’d scarcely spoken with Jeff before, but at least I’d had a good talk with Arturo once in a taxi. I’ve had quite a few good talks in taxis on this trip. Coming to think of this, I guess we spent a lot of time in taxis. Jeff is a tall and skinny older guy from Rhode Island. Everyone is either from the east or the west, and I live in the middle—or rather dwell in the middle. But not for long!

Anyway, we talked about our meditation practice. I said that I practiced vipassana or Theravada. According to Jeff, samatha is calm abiding meditation, which goes along with vipassana; I’m so concentrated on metta that I don’t remember reading about samatha, but I probably have. Vipassana is mindfulness meditation, samatha calm abiding, and metta is loving-kindness. Because of my situation with poisonous relatives, I have focused almost exclusively on metta for the past four years.

We had a choice of continental breakfast or a breakfast that involved eggs, and I chose the continental breakfast: fruit juice, papaya, and your choice of different breads, including sweet rolls, muffins and croissants, besides sliced bread of various colors. I returned to the table with Jeff and Arturo, and we talked about sanghas and where we’re going and all that. I told Jeff about the rather disappointing sangha in Lawrence, Kansas. I particularly talked about how the group turned me off with their anti-vegetarian conversations. He used a good word choice when he described them as “too opinionated.” Returning from a trip to the buffet, he also added that solitary practice is better than getting with groups like that, because “they’ll want you to do things their way.” Good point! His saying this helped me to no longer feel ashamed of the aversion I’ve developed toward that sangha, or perhaps that’s too strong a word—certainly I’ve experienced very strong disappointment in that sangha. No, aversion isn’t too strong a word.

After we all got back to the tables in the far corner of the restaurant, Shantum spoke to the group about a few things, namely about how we would be parting and the gifts that he had for us, wrapped in newspaper like last year. He mentioned that after parting with the sangha he’ll be checking his e-mails for about five hours.

It’s hard to believe Shantum would devote that length of time to reading e-mails! I doubt he read any of the ones John and I sent the sangha last year, but I shouldn’t assume that just because he never replied.

Meanwhile, Shantum performed the moli ceremony with each of us who was at the hotel. He did this at the end of last year’s pilgrimage, but this time we were in a restaurant with lots of background noise. I think I was the last one, since I had slipped off to the restroom. Before Shantum approached me, I pulled up my sleeve slightly to display last year’s string around my wrist, and Marsha, among others, asked me about it. The string, which had started out as bright red and yellow wrapped around three times, was now one pathetic, ragged pale pink string. Shantum walked up to me with a smile and explained to Marsha “Yes, that’s from me last year,” referring to the faded old string. She was astonished that it had lasted so long.

Shantum pressed his palms together, and I pressed my palms together. He unrolled a long red and yellow string and as he wrapped it around my left wrist said, “I’ll tie them together,” and wrapped the new string around the old ragged one. Wrapping the moli around my wrist, Shantum said, referring to the number of times it was wrapped, “One for the Buddha, one for the dharma, one for the sangha, and one for the journey.” I smiled. I didn’t feel blissed out as during the pilgrimage. We shared a mindful hug like last year, although it wasn’t really like last year. I felt a certain melancholy, in contrast with the transcendent happiness I felt during this ceremony last year.

I wasn’t feeling terribly emotional through all this; I had a sense that I should mention the book again, but time was getting short and it was noisy with so many people around. I meant to say that I’ve been thinking maybe my pilgrimage memoir will stand by itself without including Shantum's storytelling, but I’ll nonetheless have to at least summarize why such-and-such place was important to the Buddha. I’ll just have to see how it works, copy and paste the manuscript into a new document and give it a try. Really, I didn’t mean to be a nuisance. If I had broached the subject—and I’m terrible at broaching subjects—I probably would have burst into tears right there in front of everyone, so it’s just as well that I didn’t mention my book.

The sangha had a big farewell. I don’t feel like I spent enough time with this sangha, but at least we’re sharing e-mail addresses. I exchanged hugs with Sheila, Samaya, and Inge. I also, in addition to the hugs, had some conversation about safety in Kathmandu. Marsha said that I might, as I had suggested earlier, be better off just staying in my hotel room. Samaya told me about a friend of hers who owns a sweater shop in Kathmandu, in the Thamel district, and that if I meet her I should mention Samaya. She said that if there are bombs or anything, I should be willing to have a change of plans for my safety. Also, Marsha gave me a hug and said, “We’ll all be praying for you.”

Actually, I haven’t felt so nervous about it since talking with Gary again—he had earlier been describing a protest against the government and said I should be OK and that they love tourists—even the Maoists love tourists. I had asked him specifically, “Will I be safe walking around Kathmandu with a camera?” He replied in the affirmative. We left the restaurant, walked down the hall and into the lobby, and went out the grand front doors.

We went down the front steps, Shantum ordered taxis, and we organized our luggage. The whole group formed a circle and did some touchy-feely singing before we split up. I didn’t put much effort into trying to sing with the group. Marsha had told me that she, David, and I could take the same taxi, because they were going to the Radisson Hotel, which is close to the airport. We got the third taxi that stopped in front.

David, Marsha, and I rode a taxi to the Indira Gandhi International Airport. David sat in the front seat and Marsha and me in the back seat. Marsha and David were going to stay at the Radisson near the airport, and I told Marsha about the unbelievably posh Radisson we stayed at in Varanasi last year. I made the comment that it’s bizarre to stay at such a shamelessly fancy hotel when the streets are full of beggars and there is so much poverty and squalor. Marsha explained that this is what people in Asia assume Westerners expect in hotels: they think we expect hotels to be extremely fancy. I guess it’s their perception of Westerners—I guess they think we’re very spoiled and wealthy. I’m glad I requested budget hotels in Tibet; I’m curious to see what they will be like, and I’m imagining cigarette burns in the carpet, and a squatting toilet and bucket bath in my room. But that’s OK; it’ll be part of the Tibet experience.

On the street, a book wallah had a handful of guess what, books, and I jotted down one of the titles: The Argumentative Indian. It sounded interesting because it was an anthology of essays by Indian authors, but now I don’t remember anything more about it. It seems likely that it would include Arundhati Roy.

In the taxi, Marsha point out that Shantum did this rather secular tour (that most of the group was in) and will continue doing secular tours because he has kids now and has to support them; he wants to put them through private school.

I said my farewells to Marsha and David when I got off at the airport. They were going on to the Radisson, very close the airport, but guys who came to take my suitcase also wanted to take theirs. We had to explain a few things. I stood in line and an employee, a slender young man with an official name tag hanging from his neck, asked me which gate I needed, and so I told him, and he led me to a different door, where I proceeded to stand in line. I thanked him profusely and smiled, and both as we were walking toward the proper entrance and after we got there to the line, he said, “250 rupees.” I seriously thought I was supposed to pay him 250 rupees, but when he took the money, he sneakily and quickly slipped it into a pocket. The cheating bastard! It was only about five dollars, but that's not the point. I was only on my own for a minute, and I fell for a scam artist! Jagdish would be so disappointed in me; he had told me last year that there are beggars who have jobs and therefore have no need to beg, and here I was fooled by one of them. I was glad when the jerk walked away.

I stood in line a lot, before I got into the building and after I got into the building and went through a security fiasco. Since Jet Airways only allows for one carry-on rather than the usual two, I wanted both my suitcase and my backpack to be checked. Both pieces of luggage when through security, but for whatever reason an employee only put the “Security” tape around my suitcase and not my backpack. After I approached another employee, I had to go back to security, put my backpack through again, and wait for someone to put tape around it, before I checked in my luggage. To think the Indira Gandhi International Airport had seemed so efficient and organized the first time I arrived in it!

While standing around in line and whatever else I was doing at the airport, I noticed tall white panels marking airport construction display the rather amusing lines: “We are upgrading to serve you. Inconvenience is regretted.” An American airport would have had the words “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

Dharamsala, by the way, is a fascinating and wacky town. It probably has many odd characters—it’s the sort of town that would. I saw at the Dalai Lama’s temple a tall and skinny white boy who had somewhat spiky hair that was too long for a monk’s, besides a punk look; and yet he was dressed just like a Tibetan monk, whether or not he was one. His upper arms were tattooed with Buddhist symbols such as the endless knot.

Oh, yeah, at some point I ran into the Kashmiri shopkeeper on the street, and we recognized each other, though he wasn’t wearing his hat. That was possibly when we gathered in the square and Jagdish stopped at the little shop below Mc’llo’s and got himself a luscious chocolate birthday cake and some other snacks for all of us, which we ate high up in the Himalayas.

I’m in the hotel in Kathmandu. It’s shortly after 4:30 am. But I’ve been in bed for hours—I have a virus (as in hacking up yellow phlegm), I woke in a sleeper car at about 4 am, I have a slight touch of altitude sickness that I didn’t even notice till the middle of the night, and I’m afraid I’m a bit in shock—here in Nepal on my own, where people apparently don’t speak English as clearly as they do in India. But maybe I’m generalizing. Maybe I’m just so used to how Jagdish and a few other people speak English; Shantum and the Raj speak it with a British accent, and the Rani almost had a British accent. I’m sure it doesn’t help that my ears are congested.

Delhi and the Sleeper Train

We went to Shantum’s house, introduced ourselves and sipped mango juice. It’s an Indian tradition to offer guests mango juice, as I discovered last year on the pilgrimage. Shantum led a short meditation first, because members of his regular sangha didn’t know about this group of foreigners, and so they showed up for meditation practice. Afterwards, Shantum talked to the group while his younger daughter climbed into his lap and sat there looking cute.
“If you come with too many expectations, you suffer. So you may as well just go with it,” Shantum said in his garden.

“In your introductions, you can be whoever you want, with whatever past you want,” Shantum said before we went around in a circle and introduced ourselves, like last year.

During our introductions, Premo Seth, Shantum’s dad, said that with such a wonderful family, “with such a son, and another son and a daughter, and with such grandchildren, I don’t need religion. I am content.” He certainly has a point: if it weren’t for certain nasty relatives, I wouldn’t have gotten as into Buddhism as I have. John Lennon had a point when he sang, “God is a concept by which we measure our own pain.” You might want to replace the word “god” with the word “religion.”

During the scrumptious dinner at the Seth house, I approached the circular table in the dining room, and it did not immediately sink in with me that the little old lady in the silk sari was the Leila Seth, Shantum’s mother and more importantly the first female high court judge in India. We had basmati rice and a variety of dishes. Gitu had requested of the cook that the dishes be colorful. I enjoyed an eggplant dish that was Leila Seth’s recipe, a yummy pumpkin dish, a yellow potato dish, a mostly green spinach and cottage cheese dish (paneer), a soupy sweet tomato dish, and green fried bread. I don’t know why the latter was green, but it tasted good anyway. Leila Seth explained the dishes to two other guests and me. On the side board was a pitcher and glasses of water. I took my dinner into the garden and had some interesting conversations, including the one about Etiel considering going to Tibet with me; she traveled from Israel to India and doesn’t have a return ticket.

Another conversation I had was with a white-haired guy named Gary (actually, there’s a lot of white hair in this group!) who has just been in Kathmandu. I knew that the king has stepped down recently and the Maoists have joined the government, but I was hoping things were better rather than worse, and I have to wonder after listening to Gary. Maoists who used to be terrorists are now garbage workers and in the army. The place is in chaos. People were marching to Thamel with sticks. On the streets of Kathmandu, you can see soldiers carrying machine guns. I said I’d be stopping in Kathmandu for about a day and a half, to and from Tibet, and Gary said, “This is not a good time to be in Kathmandu.” Great. Strangely, I didn’t feel scared but felt obligated, for dramatic reasons, to act a little alarmed. Maybe I should have felt genuinely scared. Maybe I’m crazy.

“Just take it as it comes,” Shantum said after talking about the sleeper train. I was getting mental images of the train we took last year, and that certainly is an appropriate way of looking at it.

When it came time to depart for the train station, we piled into a tour bus. It stopped on a dark street and assistants and porters—the kind who were red kurtas--unloaded luggage onto trolleys there at what to me looked like the side of a street, although technically we were just outside the train station. It was after dark, and I was simply sticking closely to the group. We walked the rest of the way to the station, to an area where buses are not allowed. I walked with Rachel, one of the English members of the group, and we nearly got lost because the group was a little too spread apart and people ahead of us went around a corner. But soon we were all gathered on the train platform, and Shantum was telling us all which train we had to climb on and where our individual bunks were located. We had to get onto Train A2, and my bunk was # 23. We would be riding the sleeper train overnight, just like on last year’s pilgrimage.

I reached my bunk and found a bundle of dirty laundry. Jamie was coming up behind me, and I said, “It looks like I get the dirty laundry!” and Jamie laughed. However, a skinny little guy who worked on the train wasn’t so amused, and as soon as I put the laundry bundle on the upper bunk, he hastily took it down. While I made my bed, Shantum was walking in the aisle and checking on us. He asked Gill (or maybe it was her sister) if she was there, because the curtain was pulled around her bunk. I heard an older woman with a British accent say, “Yes, I’m here, and I’m changing into my pyjamas, you naughty boy!” Suddenly I’d been transported into a British sitcom.

Shortly after the train started moving and we were waiting for the blankets and sheets, Shantum sat down next to me (I was on my bunk, cross-legged, writing in my journal) and I pulled my new red coat off the bunk across the aisle and onto mine.

“Is that yours?” Shantum asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I got it three months ago, when I read your brother’s book From Heaven Lake and realized what the Tibetan climate is like.”
“That coat isn’t warm enough for Tibet.”
“It is compared to the one I was going to wear, a lightweight wool frockcoat I made ten years ago.”
“Tibet’s very cold,” Shantum said.
“I’ll be wearing lots of layers,” I said.
Sheila, across the aisle, said, “You’re going to Tibet after this?”
“Yes, for one week. I’ll be there on Tibet Uprising Day! It could be ugly.”
“Tibet Uprising Day is much more interesting in Dharamsala than in Tibet, where the Chinese are watching,” Shantum said.
“Have you been to Tibet, Shantum?” Sheila asked. Sheila and Samaya are friends who came together from New Hampshire.
“Yes, I’ve been to northern Tibet, not Lhasa,” Shantum said, and he went on to explain that he went there illegally in 1981 and was in the same area that Vikram visited. But he didn’t speak a word of Chinese. The police stopped him and kicked him out. “It was illegal to be in that part of Tibet.”
Samaya made a comment about how bad Beijing is—actually Shantum said, “Beijing is smart,” referring to the government’s ruthless dealings with Tibet.
Samaya said, “You think they’re smart?”
“Ruthless,” Shantum said.
“Do they really think that will make them happy?” Samaya asked Shantum.
“That’s not my idea of smart,” Sheila said.
“Being cruel and torturing people isn’t my idea of smart,” I said.
“The Chinese are nasty,” Shantum said. Even a Zen Buddhism teacher can be blunt.

One guy came through with potato chips and “biscuits” (cookies, in American lingo), and another came through with a big cylindrical metal container full of chai, and with little white paper cups. I wasn’t enticed, but Etiel soon stood in the aisle with baggies containing a couple of enticing snacks. She offered me dried mango slices and dark chocolate chips, and although I had eaten heartily at the Seth house, I didn’t refuse and took very small portions of each. I took just a little bit.

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.

New Delhi and Old Delhi

Heritage Inn (guesthouse)

I’m finally here! I’m confused and don’t know where the guest house office is located (although I suspect it’s through the front door) and have several questions to ask but feel hesitant to cal the front desk, especially since I’ll likely have trouble understanding what they’re saying over the phone and they’ll probably have the same problem with my awful voice…but at least I made it to Delhi!

Several incidents have reminded me of Sarah MacDonald’s memoir Holy Cow. Like at the Doha Airport after we waited in line to get to the gate, we went down an escalator to a very small waiting room, and as the shuttle came to the open sliding glass door, the crows was anxiously pushing forward, and I was afraid I would be trampled. That was definitely a Holy Cow moment. As all these guys (most of the people were male, and just about all were Indian. On the other side of the door, a guy in a navy blue uniform was looking at each boarding pass stub before letting passengers get on the shuttle that would take us to the plane. One guy cut in front of me and held out his boarding pass, and the uniformed guy, who was stern and unsmiling and therefore a bit intimidating, told the guy who cut in front of me, “Wait your turn! Let the lady go first. Have some common courtesy.” I smiled at him and said, “Thanks!” He looked at my boarding pass stub and let me get on the first shuttle. I was almost the last person to get on it.
At the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi: More pushing and cutting in line at the money exchange place. Crazy. Again, only males did this, but it was a bunch of them! I must have waited there fifteen minutes. Finally an Indian guy urged me forward and told a guy to stop cutting in front, and he commented to me how they tend to do that. So I finally got my turn and I thanked the guy profusely. Really, I wanted to laugh.

There was another incident that reminded me of Holy Cow. The plane arrived in Delhi, and people were undoing their seatbelts and getting up and reaching for their luggage…while the “fasten seatbelts” light was still on. It started the very second the plane stopped moving, perhaps seconds beforehand, like people had springs in their bottoms and suddenly popped up.
OK, I called the office, and the phone was staticky and all, and the manager asked if he could come and talk to me in person, which was a relief. So he knows about the cat—12:30—he said I could even have a couple extra hours. They do have an Internet computer, and I can use it, but there’s no scanner and the fax machine doesn’t work—he commented that people don’t use fax machines so much, they’d rather use e-mail. Yes, I certainly prefer e-mail. I don’t know why Tandem, the company I work for, doesn’t ditch the fax machines and switch to scanners.

There’s I think an ashok tree right outside the open French window in my guest house room, but I’m not sure if that’s the right kind of tree. Long, very skinny leaves with ridges. I might have it confused with the sal tree, the kind under which the Buddha died.

The ride from the airport was interesting. I sat in the back seat of a white car, and I had trouble understanding the driver; he had a thick accent, or maybe it’s because I’ve only just gotten here and haven’t adjusted to Indian accents yet. And he had trouble understanding me. I have a speech impediment and after this journey I’m less coherent than usual. Dry mouth and all. I gawked and gawked at the scenery. It’s good to be back! The derelict, dingy buildings; the crazy honking traffic; the rickshaws and weird green motor rickshaws that look like something a little kid assembled in a shed; the pedestrians in bright salwar-kamiz or pale kurtas and pants (really, Indian women generally wear prettier clothing than men); the dogs lying on the sidewalks, even right outside the airport….

I saw plenty of apartment buildings with balconies, across which people had strung laundry to dry including towels of a wide variety of colors. I saw walls made of red brick plastered in white—and could tell there was brick underneath because the plaster had come off in places and exposed the brick. Before I noticed this, I assumed the walls were mud. We passed through the embassy neighborhood, like last year, and I noticed one building with lots of police and security vehicles, and we passed an intimidating police station. At some point, I saw behind a fence a mound with a soldier walking on top of it.

We turned a corner, and straight ahead was an elaborate red wall and behind it I saw an impressive red (sandstone?) structure with a huge dome. The driver said, “Do you know what that is?”
“Is it the Red Fort?” I asked dubiously.
“No, it’s the president’s house.”
“Wow! It’s gorgeous!” It makes the White House look like a ranch house. “I didn’t think it was old enough to be the Red Fort.”

It wasn’t long before we saw a high red stone wall with quite a bit of detail work, and beyond it was a huge red stone structure with elaborate little cupolas here and there, and the driver confirmed my suspicion by saying, “That is part of the Red Fort.” Soon we were going past a lot more of the Red Fort, which does indeed look much older than the president’s house, which can’t be more than two hundred years old (and I didn’t mention—the parliament house is near the president’s house, and though it’s Neoclassical it’s circular). Anyway, there was a white structure or series of structures along one wall of the Red Fort, with curving archways filled in with white grillwork. The walls around the Red Fort have curvaceous crenellations. It was all very Mughal-looking, which of course it is. And the red walls went on and on as we went through crazy traffic, and I stared open-mouthed.

When I thought of the Red Fort before the trip, I remembered the story about the emperor who fell down a flight of stairs and died, so I decided to walk mindfully around the Red Fort; it doesn’t look like I’ll have that opportunity. Much as I fantasize about living in India for a year or two, is that ever really going to happen?

Now I’m worried about getting to the Gandhi Smriti on time. The manager said he’d call when the computer’s up, but it’s a quarter after 12, and he confirmed with me that the cab would come at 12:30, if I don’t check my e-mail, that isn’t as important at this stage. I should have asked if someone would bring down my suitcase, and if I should be waiting out front for the cab. All these simple little things, and I just don’t have a clue.

Still at the Washington Dulles Airport

At last, I’m at Gate B37, and I used an Internet computer and got confirmation from Bina that someone from the guest house (Heritage Inn) will be at the airport to meet me at 6:45 am on the 22nd instead of the 21st of whatever month this is.

No, I’m not exhausted, not at all. At least I’m calm now that I’ve gotten to the gate and communicated with Bina. I also heard back from Karma, the travel agent; she said that Nepal is having power problems, and that’s why the fax wasn’t going through. Both of them said it’s best to scan my passport—I think that means I’d be able to send it by e-mail. Coming to think of it, I’m not sure, never having used a scanner before. Even if I had read the e-mail while I was still in Kansas, I wouldn’t have had a scanner, but since I didn’t see that e-mail till now, I’m thinking they didn’t send those e-mails that long ago. I am exhausted and stupid. In hindsight, I could have gone to the Fed Ex/Kinko’s place downtown, although they probably didn’t open till 10---they’re not open 24 hours like in St. Louis. And it’s too late now, anyway, so there’s no point in worrying about it.

If the guesthouse does have a scanner, someone will have to show me how to use it. I’m not the most technologically savvy person.

Off To a Rough Start

I'm at the airport in Kansas City. Well, I’ve made it this far. I thought the security guy was suspicious of my Tibetan prayer wheel, but he searched my bag because I forgot to take the little Ziploc bag full of toiletries out. I can just see someone suspecting me of wanting to beat up a flight attendant and pilot with my Tibetan prayer wheel. Not good karma.

Yesterday I did some errands after work, and they included dropping off Cheetah at Aunt Ethel’s house (and petting the dog and cat, of course). Cheetah wasn’t happy and sat staring around with huge yellow eyes and hissed, while the dog Zoe sat in an armchair and wiggled her butt and wagged her tail in excitement. Cheetah didn’t even want me to pet her, but I think she’ll be fine after a week. She’s been there before.

Anyway, without a single cat in the house yesterday evening, I lay down to take a nap at the ridiculous hour of 7 pm and I didn’t wake up till after midnight. No cats were there to wake me. I checked my e-mail at about 1 am (after taking a steaming hot shower). Bina had sent me an e-mail saying that I needed to fax a copy of my passport to a certain fax number, because my passport info wasn’t sufficient for the airline. So I sent her an e-mail saying I’d go do it at my workplace first thing in the morning.

I was up till about 2:30 and awake past 3:30, lying in bed and mindfully breathing. I had my alarm set for 6 am but woke at 5:50 and got up—did some yoga and felt so cold that I sat in bed to comb out my hair in order to wash it in the morning, after the visit to Tandem. I absolutely didn’t want to show up at my workplace before 6:30, because I wasn’t sure anyone would be there earlier. I showed up at about 6:45, and people reacted as I expected, surprised that I was there.

Elaine showed me how to use the fax machine—you type “9” and “1” before a long distance number, and then the number. I did this, and the first few times received a print out with the message: “No response/ Busy.” The next two times, the machine acted as if I were using a phone, made the tone for a wrong number and a machine said, “We’re sorry, your call cannot go through…” Elaine suggested that I call the fax number on the theory that it was really a phone number, with her phone card, which requires first dialing an 800 number and then another number before the one you’re trying to reach. By doing this, I learned that you have to dial 110 before an international number, so I tried that on the fax machine. I again got a print-out saying “No response/ Busy.”

Finally, I decided I’d make another attempt with a fax machine at the guesthouse in Delhi, where I’ll also check for an e-mail from Bina. I numerous times again attempted to fax before I made this decision and gave Elaine back her phone card.

So I’ll check with the guesthouse if they have a fax machine—they should at least have an Internet computer. I should do this before I go exploring Delhi. And if all else fails or I’m not sure whether the fax went through, I can give Bina the photocopy of my passport, which I have with me, along with the index card on which I wrote the fax number.

I definitely wasn’t feeling Buddha-like while this was all going on, but at least I have a cunning plan. I said to Karen, who sits by the fax machine, “I thought this was all going to be simple and straight-forward and I’d be done with the fax machine in five minutes.”
She said, “These things are seldom simple and straight-forward.”

2
I’m still at the KC airport. When it was almost 5:30, my alleged departure time, I was really suspicious and went to the desk in the center of the gates. The digital sign behind the clerk or flight attendant showed the number of my flight, 7367, but it gave a departure time of 7:40, not 5:30! I was kind of trying not to panic. Let’s face it: I was very nervous. I waited in line and asked the clerk about the situation, since the flight from Washington, DC, was supposed to leave at 10:25 this evening. She confirmed that I wouldn’t make it in time and said I need to go back to the ticket counter and rebook my flight. So I went back to the ticket counter where I had gotten my boarding pass. I ended up sticking with this delayed flight—now it’s scheduled for 7:55 tonight. And I have the same times and flight numbers for the other two flights—to Doha and to Delhi—but twenty-four hours late! I asked if the airport has an Internet café, and the guy behind the counter said it does not. I was freaking out, hoping the Washington airport would have Internet access.

Latest update, at 6:45—the departure time is now scheduled for 8:20. Arrival in Washington Dulles at 9:40?!

Then, as I went ahead and took the tickets and headed back to gate 10, I thought of all those people sitting with notebook computers. If I could summon the courage to accost a stranger and ask them to let me use their computer, then I could contact Bina immediately.

I got back through security, being very flustered and making an ass of myself—I forgot to take off my glasses, forgot to take my watch and glasses case out of my pockets. Without putting my hiking boots back on, I went to the restroom, carryon luggage and all.

After I returned to Gate 10 and sat down, many more people were seated in the rows of black vinyl seats. Feeling very nervous and wondering how on earth I’d contact Bina—I was thinking about how someone was supposed to meet me at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, someone from the guesthouse, and there’s no way they’d wait twenty-four hours for me! A guy was seated across from me, diagonally one seat over, and he had a notebook computer open in his lap. It took me several nervous minutes, perhaps ten, to just summon the courage to ask him…but I did! I said, “Excuse me, does your computer have Internet access?”

He smiled slightly and said, “Yes, it does.”

“Are you logged onto it right now?”

“Actually, I just logged off,” he said, and smiled again.

I said, “Oh. Could I please use it? My first flight was delayed, so I’ve had to rebook and I’ll be landing in Delhi, India, an hour late. I mean, a whole day late!”

He logged back on and asked me what my Internet provider was, and I said AOL. After a wait—it was a wireless connection but not as fast as you’d expect—he handed me the computer. I thanked him profusely, and holding it on my lap and feeling instantly less nervous, I typed up a message for info@buddhapath.com:

“Hi, Bina! My first flight has been delayed—it’s the same flight number—and I’ve had to change my other two flights. I’ll be leaving Washington for Doha flight 52, departure at 10:25 pm on February 20 and arrival 7 pm on February 21. The flight from Doha is # 232, departure at 12:50 am, arrival in Delhi at 6:45 am, terminal 2.”
“And I’ll be arriving in Delhi exactly a day later than planned. Can you contact the guest house so that someone will be waiting for me on the morning of the 22?”

I sent the message. By the time the screen said, “Your message ‘Flight Delay’ has been sent,” I felt a great deal of relief and let out an enormous sigh. I clicked on the X at the top right corner to get off the Internet, and with a smile passed the computer back to my helper and thanked him profusely again. I added, “I can buy you a bottle of water!”

He smiled and said, “That’s all right.” Actually, he had to get in line to board his flight to Denver shortly after that.

I just hope Bina doesn’t assume I brought my notebook computer with me! Actually, I don’t think she knows about my new computer. Anyway, I’ve contacted her on time; now it’s 7:09 pm here, so it’s about 7:30 am tomorrow in Delhi, and she reads her e-mails promptly.

I’ve been at this airport since 3:20 in the afternoon, and now it’s 7:22 pm. Good thing I brought plenty of reading material. I just got my second big bottle of water, and the Indian sales clerk cheerfully asked, “Are you still here?” I told her about the flight delay and gave her a tip.

I’m going to camp out at Dulles Airport in Washington, DC. I hope that airport has an Internet café and a food café or two. On the shuttle to this airport, I listened to some of the conversation between the driver and the passenger in the front seat, and the driver mentioned flight delays and people spending the night at the airport. Now I remember the train station in Lucknow, India, where people were sleeping on the floor while they waited for their rides, and I’m thinking I’m not alone. It makes me feel better that many people have had similar situations.

While My Sitar Gently Weeps

Shantum moved down the aisle and sat next to me during the bus ride, and it now was my turn for the farewell ceremony called moli. Shantum pressed his palms together and closed his eyes, and I did the same. I breathed in and out and attempted to concentrate exclusively on my breath rather than on the string he would tie around my wrist; I anticipated it, since I saw him do this with Peter in the Jetta Grove. I totally didn’t think about the fact that I would depart soon. Shantum placed his praying hands over mine and my mind continued doing what it had already been doing. I opened my eyes by the time he held a bright yellow and red string, and I held out my right wrist, but he smiled slightly and pointed to my left, so I held that out instead and watched as he wrapped it around twice and knotted it several times. It would remind me of him as long as it was on my wrist, and over time it would fall off, just like the Three Jewels strings that a Tibetan monk had tied on my right wrist.

Shantum said, “Thank you for being with us.”

Slightly tongue-tied and not sure what to say, I said, “Thanks for having me!” We exchanged a hug and somehow I refrained from shedding any tears and instead was blithe enough to smile.

He smilingly said, “You are a wonderful person and have a great deal of exuberance and personality behind your shyness.” This was overwhelming, and I smiled slightly and tipped my head downward, finding it hard to make eye contact under the circumstances. My poor ability to take compliments doesn’t usually get in my way, since I rarely receive compliments. I was truly tongue-tied this time, unable to articulate anything.

Shantum told me a story about a previous pilgrim. A few years ago, another young woman’s father noticed how much his daughter transformed after going on this pilgrimage, and out of curiosity he went on the pilgrimage himself the following year, even though he was a businessman who wasn’t into Buddhism. He also found the trip transformative. I grinned and said, “I’ll tell my dad that story.”

Later on the bus, when we were almost in Delhi, Shantum said, “As my friend Pico Iyer has said, ‘The last destination isn't the final place on the itinerary, but what happens when we get home and try to make sense of it.’” He added, “Whenever you go to another country, it expands your outlook.” I mentally repeated that a couple times; I had thought my consciousness was global before I went to India, but this was the first time I had ever set foot in the opposite side of the world.

The first place we went to in Delhi, or rather in the vicinity of Delhi, was Shantum’s house, which technically is in a suburb called Noida on the other side of the stinky Yamuna River. The bus parked on a somewhat wider residential street around the corner from the house. Shantum said, “The house has nine bathrooms, because Indian houses have bathrooms attached to each bedroom.” Gee, if you wanted to run a bed and breakfast, you wouldn’t have to renovate.

We wheeled the suitcases up the street, and I nearly had another collision with a bicycle. It seems like I’ll never be able to judge which way to dodge. The stylish black wrought iron gate outside the front door of the Seth house was ajar, and Erika and I slipped in. I dumped my suitcase next to Erika’s on the patio; quite a few were parked there just outside the front door, which was open.

I entered a part of the house that I didn’t recognize, a white-tiled little hall, in which I ascended a few steps and where to my right was a staircase going upstairs; otherwise the room contained some artwork and a side table. Shantum’s younger daughter, Animika, stood nearby and looked at me; a woman in a sari, presumably a nanny, held her hand.

I smiled at the kid and followed Erika through the door straight ahead of me and instantly recognized the next room. The Seth family, as I’m sure I mentioned before, lives in a beautiful house decorated with antiques and books and both Hindu and Buddhist art. Leila Seth’s law books are there in abundance, and one back corner room has a desk that displays a long white block with her name on it. The room I entered after the little hall contained floor to ceiling bookcases packed with books, a grand piano, and luggage on the floor.

It didn’t take me long to spot, on a long and low dark wood piece of furniture like a sideboard, two stacks of books: multiple copies of A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth and multiple copies of On Balance by Leila Seth. I took a peek inside the top books, and both titles were indeed autographed. What an amazing family; Leila Seth is the first female chief court judge, Vikram is a world-famous novelist, Shantum is a Zen teacher who gives Westerners pilgrimages, and Shantum’s sister, Aradhana, is a scene designer for prominent films, such as those directed by Deepa Mehta. It seems not all families are dysfunctional and unsupportive.

I dropped my backpack and mirrorwork bag onto the floor and admired the artwork around me and wandered around, noticing people setting out plates, silverware, and food on the dining room table. I listened to snippets of conversation and sipped masala chai. When I saw Premo Seth, Shantum’s dad, I pressed my palms together and said, “Namaste!” He smiled and did the same.

At Shantum’s request, we gathered into the living room and sat down for gift giving. Shantum said, “It is true that we’ve celebrated two people’s birthdays, Dean’s and Erika’s, but everybody has a birthday, sometime, so everyone gets presents.” He announced that Nandini would dance for us, and she came into the center of the living room and began to dance, while people pulled out their cameras.

Shantum placed a large quantity of “In the Footsteps of the Buddha” pilgrimage brochures on the coffee table and said, “You’re welcome to take as many as you want. This is an advertising segment.” I took a few, thinking I could deliver them to the Zen Center in Lawrence, Kansas that I have yet to visit, and also to a dharma center in Kansas City that I found out about shortly before the pilgrimage.

The first gifts to be passed around were the calendars, inspired by the upcoming film adaptation of Thich Nhat Hahn’s novel Old Path White Clouds, like those Dean and Erika already had. Shantum also brought out gifts wrapped in newspaper and smelling faintly of sandalwood; they were taped together in a neat stack and include a tube, which Dean, sitting next to me, identified as the pilgrimage poster Shantum had mentioned. The presents also include a strangely shaped big package, and a package the size and shape of a music CD. I thought Shantum’s generosity was amazing; he had already given us handcrafted gifts at the beginning of the pilgrimage.

It was time to pass out the envelopes containing tips over to Mukesh and Jagdish. Previously, Shantum had calculated appropriate sums and written them on envelopes, and we had placed the tips in the envelopes and passed them around. Sangha members gave Mukesh and Jagdish speeches about what a wonderful job they did and what a help they were. Mukesh was quiet and sort of cast his eyes down while he was being praised, and Yvette to my left murmured, “He’s shy.”

Mukesh said, “Your love, praise, gratitude and appreciation are enough. I don’t need the money.” He stepped forward, placed the envelope on the coffee table, and backed away. Wow, I don’t think I could have done that. Liz suggested the money go to the Ahimsa Trust, the organization that Gitu founded.

Jagdish’s envelope was passed down to him. He grinned and said, “I’m keeping the money!” Everyone laughed, and he said it’s for his son.

Next it was Shantum’s turn to receive a praising speech for all he has done for us. Jennifer was sitting next to me on my left, and the group wanted one of us to deliver the speech. Jennifer has a powerful voice and unlike me is good at projection, as she’s proved often enough when we needed someone to read aloud. Several people urged me on, to my surprise, and Dean described me as an “eloquent speaker” and used the phrase “great orator.” I smiled and said, “I’m a writer, not a speaker.” I couldn’t remember saying anything particularly eloquent on the pilgrimage.

Thus the speech was up to Jennifer. She praised Shantum highly, and highly deservedly, and her concluding words stick in my head: “You are so full of love. In my next life I want Erika to be my mom and Shantum to be my dad.” That struck me as delightful and brought a Big Smile to my lips. And it would be wonderful indeed to have Shantum for a dad. And for that matter Jennifer for a sister, though I think I’d rather have Erika as a sister than a mom. Oh, heck, the whole sangha could be One Big Happy Commune in our next lives.

Some minutes later, after the ceremony was over and the house filled with a cacophony of conversations and people moved around and drifted into other rooms, I spotted Feroza crossing the living room. I took this as an opportunity to speak just to her, since I’m squeamish about speaking in front of many people. While we stood in the center of the living room, I said, “I wanted to say: I agree with Jennifer, except I want Feroza to be my mother in my next life.”
Feroza chuckled, said, “Ahh, that’s sweet,” thanked me, and gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. The living room was still full of people, and Shantum was seated on the couch between two other pilgrims. Feroza turned to him and said, “Shantum, you have to listen to what Susan just said.” I repeated it to Shantum, and we exchanged beaming smiles.

I took my gifts to the back room and somehow managed to squeeze them into my firmly packed luggage, while most people already started eating. I had to detach the three wrapped gifts from each other in order to pack them separately, since my suitcase and backpack had so little remaining space. I had packed mostly old clothing and left almost all of it behind throughout the pilgrimage, but my suitcase was full anyway, thanks to the silk, shawls, books, and statues I had purchased. Hopefully I’ll practice more restraint on my next pilgrimage and be less like a typical tourist.

I went to the dinner table and put basmati rice and small scoops each of each curry on my plate while talking with Bina and Mukesh. Bina asked me, “Has Mukesh told you that he’s a journalist? You have writing in common.”
I smiled and said, “No, he didn’t mention that!” I turned to Mukesh and added, “My dad was a newspaper journalist, and he just retired.”
“What newspaper did he work for?” Mukesh asked.
“Just a local Indiana paper called the Post Tribune,” I said. I didn’t mean to trivialize my dad’s job, but he didn’t work for a huge internationally known paper like the Chicago Sun Times, about which Mukesh might have heard. Now as I write this, it dawns on me that I didn’t ask Mukesh what paper or magazine he worked for. Oh well, the pilgrimage hasn’t stopped me from continuing to be flaky. On the other hand, plenty of nonfiction writers are freelance and send articles or essays to numerous publications.

The rice and curries were scrumptious, but I chose not to overdo it: I didn’t want to gorge myself before waiting around at an airport and sitting on airplanes for many hours, so I only ate small portions. Although I knew I was one of the people who were supposed to be at the airport at eight forty-five, it had not registered with me, and I didn’t feel rushed. Everyone was either eating and talking or bustling around and getting ready to go.

Immediately after I showed up at the house and was in the big room with the books and the grand piano, for a short moment I saw a guy who I rather suspected was the world famous novelist, Vikram Seth. He disappeared into another room. I knew the extended family lived here and Shantum had said that his brother arrived in India on January twenty-seventh and would therefore possibly be available to autograph the books for us. The moment Shantum had mentioned that his brother, who usually lives in England, would be in the country, I had wondered if we could meet him. Yet according to Buddhist teachings, one shouldn’t care about fame. This magical pilgrimage would be quite enough without meeting a famous novelist.

After eating dinner, I wandered back into the living room, and Vikram Seth was seated in a corner of the couch and talking with a few other members of the pilgrimage. Dean and Valerie were there, and so were Rick and Dornora. Across the room from Vikram, I sat in the armchair I had occupied during the gift exchange. Dean was taking a picture of Vikram, and Rick said, “Hey, that’s a good idea,” and got his camera out. I had been seated for maybe a minute.
I jumped up and said, “I’m gonna get my camera!” I scurried off to the back room, pulled out my camera again, returned to the living room, and took a couple pictures of the world famous writer sitting and talking with Dornora.

Vikram came across as quieter than Shantum, but of course he’s a writer, and Shantum comes across as more like an actor. It came up in conversation that Rick is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and it turns out that Vikram had gone there for a book signing. Vikram also speaks English with a British accent, and quietly. He looked around and asked if any of the rest of us were from around that area, and I said, “I’m originally from northern Indiana, and that’s pretty close, like maybe a ten-hour drive away.” And I’m afraid that’s all I remember of that conversation. I wasn’t about to blurt out, completely out of the blue, “I’m a writer too!” It would have been fine with me if the opportunity to talk about it had come up in conversation, like if someone else had mentioned that I’m a writer.

Some people had to leave earlier via taxi, because their flights were earlier, and Dean and Valerie were leaving later. A lot of hugging and saying of farewells soon took place, and although I’m normally not at all touchy-feely, it didn’t bother me now, and I hugged everyone. Jagdish walked up to me, and in a forlorn pouty voice I said, “Oh, are you leaving too?” and he said, “Yes, I’m leaving too,” and gave me a hug.

The next time Shantum entered the living room, those riding the taxi had already left, and only four of us remained in the room. “We’re all bawling in here,” Erika told Shantum, who stood beside me, and I laughed. I wasn’t bawling yet but felt like I could start any second. Strangely, I was sniffing only because of my cold and the tears didn’t come.

It was time to part, and Shantum put his arms around me and gave me a long-lasting hug. Normally if someone hugs me, they’re lucky if I hug back with one loose arm, but in this case I hugged him back with both arms, as though he were my purring cat Atisha. Tears started up in my eyes again, but they didn’t fall. I was still living in the present moment and not looking into the future.

Shantum urged me to return to India, and I said, “I’d love to. Actually, I’ve been thinking I’d like to go to Dharamsala and Tibet on the same trip.” It happens that Shantum takes a group to Dharamsala each year, to attend an important teaching of the Dalai Lama’s. Shantum said he knows people who take pilgrims to Tibet, so I could attend the teachings with him and go to Tibet with his friends. Wow, now that’s something to look forward to!

Shantum said, “See you in March!”
Dean, overhearing, said, “Oh, you’re coming back in March?”
I laughed and said to Shantum, “How about next year!”

I believe the reason I didn’t cry during our farewell was not because I was squeamish about people seeing me cry, but rather because I didn’t consider this the end. I shall communicate with the sangha by e-mail, and in a way it’s a beginning because this has been a healing and transformative experience. The pilgrimage, Shantum, and the sangha have affected me deeply and will continue to influence my life. To what extent the pilgrimage will affect how I feel in Topeka and react to the negative and psychologically unhealthy environment, I don’t as yet know. And how long-lasting an effect it has, I shall see. But as Christine pointed out, I’ve taken the Refuges and the Mindfulness Training, and that is a big step and a positive sign.
Shantum said during our parting: “I’m really glad you took the Five Refuges and the Mindfulness Training.”

“I’m glad too,” I said. It wasn’t the most expressive response, but I think it’s safe to say that he understood what I meant.As Shakespeare put it, “Parting is such swe

Hanging Out With the Zen Crowd

I stood waiting for my turn at the front desk, and around the chairs and couches I saw a group of people, most of whom were white and in Western clothes, so I suspected they were the travelers with whom I was to meet. I attempted to listen in on conversation and came to the conclusion I was probably correct. I fidgeted enough that the guy behind the counter must have thought that I was impatient rather than worried about being abandoned, because twice he politely said, “Ma’am, I’ll be with you in a moment.”

I considered introducing myself to the group by saying, “Hi! My name is Jet Lag!” I have a theory that I shouldn’t talk to anybody for the first twenty-four or so hours of each trip, because I turn being scatterbrained into an extreme sport and make a complete ass of myself, not the first impression I care to make. I anxiously sidled over to the group, and an Indian woman in a beautiful batik blue and purple salwar-kamiz and scarf said, “Bina.”

I smiled and said, “You’re Bina? With ‘In the Footsteps of the Buddha’?” She smilingly replied in the affirmative and said I must be Susan.

“Wow! How’d you know?” I asked, amazed that she figured that out and wondering if she used telepathic powers. Maybe she practiced some form of Indian mysticism.

“I’m going by age,” she said with a smile. That made more sense than telepathic powers or mysticism. It also suggested to me that I am one of the younger people on the trip. My e-mails, coming to think of it, are pretty youthful, and most people think I’m younger than I am. I figure artists are supposed to be a bit childlike, anyway. On the other hand, I probably gave my age on the application for the trip, but I could already tell some of the people in the group were approximately retirement age.

I said, “I still have to finish up at the front desk, but I was anxious about being left behind.”
She reassured me, “You won’t be left behind.” What a relief!

I returned to the front counter and eventually paid for my indulgences from the bar. I returned to the group, this time pulling my wheeled suitcase behind me, and I spotted an Indian guy in a blue kurta and white scarf who was about my age and had a contagious kindly smile, and I smiled back. I later learned that his name is Mukesh.

I am getting the hang of this smiling stuff: I don’t think I’ve smiled or laughed much since moving to Kansas. Sometimes I was even afraid I forgot how to laugh, but it seems I was simply saving my laughs and smiles for India. It’s very easy to do here.

I didn’t stand like a wallflower for long before another Indian guy, who was close to my height, turned to me and gave me a really charming smile. By Western standards he would definitely have looked eccentric, and I suspected even by Indian standards. He wore a light blue cotton kurta, white trousers, a white scarf, a dark brown Zen-looking jacket with big patch pockets, a pair of black-rimmed glasses on a cord, a diamond stud in one ear, and an ecru Afghani hat that reminded me of the Italian Renaissance because it was shaped like a beret but with a padded roll for a brim. He looked something like the guy on the brochure, so I decided he must be Shantum Seth, and I was correct.

Like Bina, Shantum knew I was Susan before I even said so, and this seemed kind of uncanny. Maybe it was telepathy or mysticism after all. In his crisp tenor voice with a high-class British accent, he explained in the most flattering way possible, and with another charming smile, that my e-mails showed that I have a great deal of energy and enthusiasm. I was struck speechless and realized I must have been showing a great deal of “energy and enthusiasm” right there in the lobby. But he said it like it was a great compliment. At most two minutes after meeting him, I thought, “Wow, what a guy.”

Normally when people comment about my energy and enthusiasm, they’re contemptuous, critical, and in some cases even bite my head off. But likewise, if I act deadpan and try not to show any emotion, which I’m likely to do in order to avoid criticism, people chastise me for behaving that way, for not smiling or laughing. It’s reminiscent of the Buddhist story about the grumpy guy who approached different monks, and he complained because one of them said too much, but he also complained because another hardly said anything. There’s no pleasing everybody, and for me it usually seems like there’s no pleasing anybody.

“Aren’t you the girl who asked your father to pay for the pilgrimage?” Shantum asked, and I nodded and laughed.

“I hemmed and hawed a lot before I resorted to that,” I explained hastily. At some point in our conversation, I mentioned that my alarm clock is broken and I overslept, and I asked, “Do Indians do wake-up calls?”

Shantum smilingly said, “Yes.” So it was yet another thing about which I need not have worried.

2
Now our suitcases are in the back compartment of the tour bus and we’re riding it for the first time. It stopped and a guy stood on the meridian to our left and yelled at the driver. A crowd gathered, and a boy brought a large basket of fruit. Ann, one of the New Yorkers in our group, observed with a laugh that the fruit seller must have figured that with this many people gathering, he may as well set up shop. Eventually someone explained to the rest of us that the agitated noisy guy thought we hit his motorcycle. Or perhaps he wanted to convince the driver that we hit his motorcycle so that he could make a few extra rupees.

A reddish-blonde woman sitting across from me, whom I would later know as Valerie, said, “Do you feel like you’re on a pilgrimage yet?”

I said, “When I think of a pilgrimage, I picture Tibetan nomads trekking across a barren landscape and spinning prayer wheels.”

We went to Shantum Seth’s house and garden for an orientation meeting, or perhaps I should call it a house party. First we entered the living room through a sliding glass door, and a servant with a tray offered us bright orange mango juice in little glasses. Shantum introduced his aunt, his dad, his wife Gitu who wore a gorgeous green silk sari, and a friend of the family and member of Shantum’s sangha, while we sipped the yummy juice. The décor is lovely, with old Buddhist and Hindu artwork all over the house and big bookcases full of books. In one tall cabinet with glass doors, I noticed numerous books by Vikram Seth, recognized the novelist’s name, and suspected he might be related.

Shantum called us out into the garden, where along with his dad and Bina we formed a circle by sitting in a variety of chairs and benches and a swing, and we took turns introducing ourselves. The temperature was in the seventies and weather was lovely, with a very slight breeze and a bright blue sky, and for a few seconds I remembered the snow and ice I’d driven through in the past week and was glad it was all behind me. We were a larger number of people than I had expected, because the brochure claimed the groups are ten to fourteen, and yet we are a total of twenty-one. We include numerous Americans, three Canadians, several Brits, and one pilgrim from the Netherlands.

We ate a scrumptious and entirely vegetarian lunch that was cooked by a professional cook. I could hear people in the kitchen attached to the dining room; the Seth family actually has servants, a rarity in America but apparently it’s normal in India. The food was set up on the circular dining room table and included several curries, basmati rice, and pappadums; I took a small sample of each dish, even the one that Gitu warned was really spicy. I took my plate out to the garden by trees and a black metal fence.

We would travel on a plane in the evening, and the Indian airline is picky about how much carry-on luggage passengers bring, so after I selected my gifts and got everything except the mat and the cushion into my new bag, I handed them all over to a guy just in the hallway with numerous gigantic duffle bags, and he put my stuff in there. I went back downstairs and wandered around.

I wore new black sandals I had ordered online for the trip, from a vegetarian shoe company that doesn’t use sweatshops. Shantum’s dad, Premo Seth, liked my shoes. Bina explained that he is retired from the shoe industry, so he really knows shoes. I’m no fashion queen and mostly set my own styles, but I was delighted to get the Shoe Aficionado Seal of Approval.


On a door in the living room, I saw a framed New York Times article about Vikram Seth and his novel A Suitable Boy and, brimming with curiosity, walked up to it. I discovered that Vikram Seth is Shantum’s brother. In the center is a big picture that shows the family, including Shantum, and the article dates back to the early nineties. Premo saw me reading it and pointed out Shantum in the center and said, “He had a lot more hair then.” This conjured a giggle out of me.

I said, “I’ve heard of Vikram Seth. He’s a famous novelist!” Premo Seth agreed. Six months before, I made a list of Indian authors, and Vikram Seth was on the list, but he was one of the authors I hadn’t read yet, unlike Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, and a few others. If I had known that Vikram Seth is Shantum’s brother, I certainly would have read something by him before the pilgrimage rather than waiting till afterward.

We climbed aboard the bus, by which time I was in a euphoric mood and smiled while I looked out the bus window. Some kids were trying to fix a bicycle down below, at the side of the road, and one teenager looked up at me with such big and pathetically pleading eyes that I stopped smiling and felt ashamed for feeling blissed out when someone nearby suffered.

Soon everyone settled onto the bus, and Shantum picked up the microphone. The first time he used it, while standing at the front of the bus, he smiled and said into the microphone, “Breathing in… breathing out.” My smile returned. During the drive from the house, we crossed the mostly dry Yamuna River plain, and Shantum explained that it’s only flooded in monsoon season. I saw rice paddies, bright green crops partially under water. The river smelled like a sewer as we crossed it.

We passed the Old Fort, an enormous red stone building that the emperor Sher Shah Suri built in the 1500s. He replaced the Mughal emperor Humayun and scared off Mughals with this imposing chunk of architecture, but Humayun came back after Suri kicked the bucket. He moved into the Old Fort and died after falling down a flight of stairs. Watch your step. According to rumor, the Old Fort is at the location where the Mahabharata takes place.


We drove past a huge elaborate building that I thought must be a palace, and several people asked Shantum what it was. He explained it was a temple built by followers of an extremely popular guru, and if you look closely at a particular tower you can see a statue of the guru that looks a lot like a Buddha statue. Someone asked Shantum what he thinks of this building, and he animatedly replied, “I think it’s an ecological disaster, because nothing should be built on this flood plain.” I was glad he had such an ecological consciousness and spoke frankly about it. I visualized the enormous building sinking into the ground.

Another landmark Shantum pointed out to us was a group of one-story white buildings called Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. The buildings are large and impressive and look something like stucco, yet Shantum said they are all built from mud. Sophisticated buildings in India can be made of mud without looking like pioneer’s sod houses. I suspect that many walls and buildings in India are made of mud, including many I’ve seen in Delhi. They look mighty impressive and are generally painted white, peach, or yellow.

Gandhiji’s Ashram

A tall white wall encircled the ashram, Gandhi Smriti, the last house where Gandhi lived and where he was shot and died. Outside the mud walls around the ashram stood shabby-looking little booths where merchants cooked and sold food. Stray dogs lurked around as if they were waiting for something, perhaps food from the cooks.


Shantum explained that Gandhi slept in the room at the back of the house and that he lived at the ashram during his last fourteen days. Shantum said, “Gandhi is the closest to the Buddha we have seen in this lifetime.” Hearing that gave me a warm fuzzy feeling and brought a smile to my lips. I have been reading Gandhi’s autobiography a little bit at a time, and Shantum’s comment made sense to me.

We first entered a nearly empty room that contained to our left a low bed with simple white cotton sheets and a huge cotton tube. The tube was gathered at each end, nearly two feet tall, and at least three feet long. In response to a question, Shantum explained that it was a type of bolster pillow. If you were quickly cleaning house before guests arrived, you could stuff plenty of dirty laundry into a pillowcase like that. Very tall arched windows without curtains circumscribed the room on three walls. The white plaster walls consisted of almost as much glass as wall, no doubt an advantage in a hot climate.

The second room was as small as the first but with fewer windows. The inner wall included a white tile fireplace, perfectly clean and devoid of any logs or fire tools. To the right of the door, a glass display case was attached to the wall and contained Gandhi’s last possessions. This only included about seven items, such as two walking sticks, a razor, a pair of wooden shoes, and a rock that, Shantum explained, Indians use in lieu of soap. I suspected I’d get a rash using a rock like that.

Seeing these simple possessions, I thought about the paraphernalia that I accumulate so easily and that clutters up my messy house. Gandhi’s system seems so much better and less complicated, and sometimes it occurs to me that if I had fewer things, I would have fewer problems. Yet I suspect I shall have a lot more than seven possessions when I die.

Among the items by the simple bed is a brown wooden sculpture of three monkeys lined up in the parable: See no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil. Shantum told us that a Buddhist monk gave this to Gandhi, and he thinks it’s a strange thing for a Buddhist to give someone. The parable does not come across as a particularly Buddhist attitude, given the focus on seeking truth and confronting it even when you don’t like the truth. But Val pointed out that perhaps it’s in this case about using mindful speech rather than, say, spreading rumors.

Beyond the display case is a very tall casement window that almost extends to the floor. Shantum pointed out this window because, as a sign outside indicates, Gandhi stepped out of the window and followed a red brick path outdoors. He was headed for the prayer meeting at which he was shot.

Inside the museum I lagged behind the group and wandered through the hallway and rooms that contain many framed pictures, quotes, and placards; the latter gave a detailed account of what happened during Gandhi’s last days. Every room in the house had white walls, and all the doors and window frames were made of dark wood. I read some of the quotes and some of the story about the end of Gandhi’s life, and Rikki asked me if it’s known who killed him, but all I remembered was that the assassin was a male Hindu, so we searched for the name and description of the perpetrator. I learned that the murderer shot Gandhi earlier than he had intended, because it was easy to get him point blank while he walked on the path with his nieces.

Staff members were young people dressed like Nehru in white kurtas and pants and maroon vests. They approached the few remaining visitors and said it was five o’clock and closing time. I looked around and realized that everyone else in our group had probably already gone outdoors. A young woman dressed just like the guys said to me, “The exit is this way.” I didn’t want to hold them up and rushed down the hallway in the direction she indicated. The door I saw to my left was closed, so I hurried past it, but the young woman called me back and directed me to that door. I turned around, laughed, and headed for the large, dark wooden door she stood by. Fortunately, she took it well and smiled amusedly back at me. That seems to be common here; Americans don’t necessarily smile back at you, and they’re likely to be brusque and even rude.

The exit led to a path in what looked like a side yard, and I wandered around admiring lush plant life. I came to the enormous World Peace Gong, which stands in a pavilion and is covered in painted flags from all over the world. I think many people must have funded the making of this gong, and it is comforting and encouraging to know that large numbers of people are serious about world peace. Ironically, it frequently seems as though the sane people are treated as if we are foolish, naïve, or crazy because we believe in peace and even know what it is. Anyone who comes to Gandhi’s ashram can see this World Peace Gong, get some inkling of what Gandhi was talking about if they didn’t already know, and become more conscientious about waging peace.

I wandered back into the garden and soon spotted the exterior view of the window through which Gandhi had stepped. Along this path are beige clay footprints that stick up a few inches from the sidewalk. They are shaped like traditional Indian sandals, complete with a circle carved into the clay indicating where a knob would go between the two biggest toes. Centered in the path, the steps lead to the shrine out in the garden and stop where Gandhi was assassinated. When walking along a parallel brick path approaching the column shrine, I gawked at the shrine, which is a very small white marble pavilion encasing a white column engraved with Hindi script. Shantum and some of the others stood before it, palms together.

Shortly after I removed my sandals, I stood on the green path near the shrine while Shantum spoke to the group, and I caught sight of a calico cat walking along a decorative brick outer wall of the garden. The cat looked up at a tree full of agitated noisy birds. Its ears pointed straight up and forward, its tail twitched, and it crouched as it stared up at the birds. “Cat! Cat! Cat!” they shrieked. That’s my translation.

In another tree, I could see a couple of bright green parrots, or rather parakeets, Shantum called them. He gently said, “The time is now 5:17,” and finally had my full attention. “That was also the time when, ten days before today’s date, Gandhi was shot.” The garden, Shantum explained, was like it is now, with the same trees and the same type of parakeets, so it was basically the same setting. I found this a bit disturbing, really, given that it was where Gandhi was shot. It was like a time machine.

Walking on the garden path at Gandhi’s ashram, Shantum was ahead of me and said, “The world wasn’t ready for Gandhi’s message and is only just starting to understand it.” I smiled faintly in agreement, aware that he put into words something I have vaguely thought a few times. Now I thought: the world had better understand it soon, rather than die in nuclear warfare. It is so weird when people who are so obviously not pacifists mention Gandhi, such as when a book about him shows up at my workplace; so many people have heard of Gandhi and know he was a famous Indian, but I’m not sure what else they really know about him.

Later Shantum said, “Buddhists don’t like Gandhi, because he wasn’t anti-caste.” He pointed out that while Gandhi believed that Dalits, or Untouchables, should be treated with some respect and called them “Children of God,” he didn’t actually say anything about putting an end to the caste system. I found this astonishing. But obviously this dislike toward Gandhi doesn’t apply to all Buddhists. Shantum admires Gandhi, and I realize he was certainly not perfect, but since he was such an advocate of ahimsa and practitioner of satyagraha, I’m willing to overlook things like that, even though nobody could be more anti-caste than I. The caste system is a blatantly hierarchal social structure that totally conflicts with egalitarianism and social justice. Regardless, it’s useful to read up on Gandhi’s nonviolent methods for inspiration.