flickering pictures

While I get things up and running around here, I thought I’d post my India notes, scribbled and scrawled with love, inspiration and revelation during the five weeks I spent scurrying around India last year. They should give you an idea of the flavour I’ll be trying to create here. Sorry for the redundancy if you’ve already seen them on Facebook.

-mark

________________________

12:20pm Wednesday, Jul 18

Sorry for not posting again last night like I promised - I seem to have worried a couple of people. By the time I got back from dinner I really just wanted to get a couple of hours of sleep to fight this stomach bug before getting up at 2:30 to catch a 4am redeye to Mumbai.

But the story from yesterday!!! I was in the Gaggal airport - the nearest one to Dharamsala, in the mountains. I was really starting to feel miserable - my stomach was killing me, I was incredibly thirsty with no safe water to drink, and as beautiful as the sights are, the smells of India were really starting to get to me… I know that last part sounds strange, but even in the best neighbourhoods I can’t walk down the street without being assailed by choking exhaust (no catalytic converters here), cooking smoke, the smell of feces everywhere - both human and animal - and a host of other unidentifiable smells that blend into a potpourri that I have come to think of as the smell of India.

My eyes can’t get enough of this place, but my nose is taking a lot of abuse. Even the soap is sickly sweet, lingering on people all day and overpowering in a way that is almost worse than the dirt it washes away. Also I’m craving safe Western food like you wouldn’t believe - I think I’d kill a man for a tall glass of milk right now. And water - there’s a strange psychological effect when something as basic as water is not safe, when you’re constantly wondering how a fruit was washed, or how a soup was prepared. When you can’t open your mouth in the shower, or brush your teeth without mineral water, or head for a water fountain when your thirsty. When people in Mumbai are dying of leptospirosis because of animal urine in the rising tides of the monsoon water. Most food isn’t safe. Most water isn’t safe. Diseases like cholera, dysentery and leprosy (who still gets leprosy?!) are common and you’re forever wondering if washing your hands in contaminated tap water is better than living with whatever germs are on your hands. (Apparently it is, so I do.) But even then your hands are contaminated, you can’t touch your face, and there’s no way to be really clean. I mean really clean. Zestfully clean.

(Ed. note: Re-reading this eight months later, I’m amazed at how paranoid I was at the beginning of my trip in this strange new world, especially considering how deeply in love with India I was when I left)

As I’m sitting with my stomach ache and my childish little why-me thoughts, I notice half a dozen or so Buddhist monks in crimson robes waiting, like me, for the plane to Delhi. I’m not surprised, since they are all over Dharamsala and probably these ones have come for the Dalai Lama’s teachings a few days before, and are now going home. All of a sudden, the monks and the other dozen or so waiting travellers get very excited about something. Another monk, a very old one, is pushed through the main doors in a wheelchair. Everyone starts swooning, bowing, touching his robes, and it’s clear that this is an important man but I don’t realize right away just how important. As luck would have it, his entourage of monks and his two students - Portuguese Buddhists who sold their companies to travel with him - help him out of the wheelchair into a seat across from mine in the lounge. Hindus, Buddhists, a Sikh policeman and even a couple of Western tourist-types go up to him to ask for blessings, but with my thick head I still I don’t get it. When he has blessed most of the crowd, he points straight at me, and through his translator, strikes up a conversation.

One of the Portuguese students tells me that he and his interpreter are Rinpoches - something like the highest rank of Tibetan Buddhist teacher - and that the older one, at 84 years of age, is the principal teacher to the Dalai Lama: Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche. One of the students tells me later that I was incredibly lucky that he would choose me of all people to talk to. He blesses me twice - once by touching my head as I bow with folded hands, following the example of the swooning monks all around me, and again by touching my head with a prayer scroll.

We talk for maybe half an hour about my family, my work, my country, my romantic life, Buddhism, love, responsibility, freedom… Quite a conversation, with a lot of laughing and him slapping me on the back in a friendly grandfather sort of way…. My mom will get a kick out of this part: he tells me that we must have done something in a previous life to build the necessary karma to bring us together here today, having this conversation in a lonesome isolated airport in the mountains. This man is incredible; he radiates a love and a joy and a presence that defy description, and at one point I actually have to fight back tears…. Those of you who know me well know that I’m not exactly the teary-eyed type… I’m told later that he often has this effect on people, and then I don’t feel so bad for my little girly display.

I had questioned my decision to take an expensive flight from Dharamsala to Delhi, instead of returning the way I came - by bus - but between my churning stomach and my random meeting with this incredible man, I’m awfully glad I didn’t opt for another bumpy 15-hour bus ride!

I spoke later with the other Rinpoche, who gave me his e-mail address - it turns out that he teaches once a year in Montreal, and I may be able to attend next time around. I’m really not considering turning Buddhist, but I would love to hear what this man has to say.

(Ed. note: He did indeed come to Montreal about a month ago, and delivered a really interesting lecture at the Centre St-Pierre.)

In spite of this incredible experience, I was still sick to my stomach, and was a little dehydrated with no water and only the tempting but very dangerous water fountains in the airport. The minute I mentioned these things, one of the Portuguese men ran off to bring me one of their water bottles. Later, after Rinpoche (the older one) went to eat his meal, he sent one of his entourage back to me with three butter biscuits, - to settle my stomach, he said. Some of the passengers had obviously been following our long conversation in the lounge, trying hard not to look like they were eavesdropping, but afterwards a kind Indian couple came up to me with pills for my head and stomach… For the first time in India, I was starting to really feel miserable, and then out of nowhere all of this comes along….. And suddenly I remembered why I had come here - to experience the culture shock that was starting now to wear on me, and to get as far out of my comfort zone as I can manage. This all all certainly uncomfortable, but wow, what an experience so far.

When they hear that I didn’t yet know where I would stay in Delhi, the Rinpoches take me to their Tibetan guest house in the city’s Defence Colony neighbourhood - about as upscale as third-world Delhi gets. They book me a room and even arrange my 3:30 a.m. taxi ride to the airport for me. If living the message of love is what makes a person holy, than these people are saints…. Any attempt to thank them is shrugged off or ignored altogether, as if they’re ashamed to be thanked for doing something that should come naturally to all of us. I find out later that some of the monks had agreed to bunk together, to free up a room for me…

I knew you guys wouldn’t believe all this, so I asked Rinpoche if it would be very rude to take a picture. He laughs, nods his approval, and slaps me on the back yet again. One of his students takes my camera and snaps four or five shots - I’ll post them as soon as I can find an Internet cafe in Manipal with a camera card reader. You’re not going to believe them.

I’ve got to run again, but I’m safe and sound in Manipal, a small college town near Mangalore where my friend Sumi is studying medicine. My hotel is nicer than the concrete-and-tin guest house in Bhagsu, but I find myself missing the mountains already. I’m feeling better than yesterday too. I’ve got to run - Sumi’s waiting for me and I think I can stomach a meal now, so I’ll give it a shot. Thank you for all your comments, e-mails and facebook messages, and I’ll write again soon!

Take care,
Mark

• plug this post
  
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Furl
  • NewsVine
  • Reddit
  • Technorati