LUCKNOW
... Lucknow seemed a good place to start, so we started there. To most, the city represents liberation of a different sort, one that was nearly pulled off during the Rebellion of 1857. The city is bustling as tomorrow is the start of Diwali, the streets crowded, the movement ceaseless beneath the crumbling faces of the Raj. There are more Ambassadors here, all in very good shape, many sitting in queues leading to petrol stations. We drive to the old British Residency, now just a park dotted with piles of bullet-flecked brick. I tend to equate brick with Queen Victoria, and much can be seen throughout, namely in the grand clock tower. The open square from which it extends has dictated the building styles of the modern city, where some massive out-of-scale structure has been plonked down amidst an area of vast space. The boulevards that bisect them are broad and traffic free, and upon one of these we head east, into the regions historically related to the prince who became the Buddha...
SRAVASTI
...the ruins are circled by monks from four countries. The group of Thais include laywomen, and with their designer bags and sparkly bling they would certainly win the best dressed award. Their men show no respect for chants or prayers and will step directly in front of people to get a good photo. Two monks with iPhones exchange gassho, phones pressed between their phones. A group of monks is lined up in meditation along the ruins of the Jetvana monastery, the begging bowl of the youngest and cutest piled the most high with the overflow of cash. Lay people affix gold leaf to the bricks throughout the park. One man holds his head to the stone, eyes closed, quiet. Other monks sit in the morning sun. Begging boys greet people in Chinese...
...I climb atop the ruined stupa near Angulimala's cave and am asked to takes a dozen or so photos with a group of Indian tourists. They eventually depart and I am left with the sun and the maroon robed Burmese chanting on the steps below. When they cease, all we can hear the soft voice of a girl with a baby, who sings beautifully as she pumps her harmonium...
...The lineup of Thai, Burmese, Sri Lankan monasteries. In front of one, a monk chases a dog with a stick. ("Does a monk have Buddha nature?" Smack!)...
KAPILVASTU
...sitting beneath a large ficus near a group of monks who are receiving a sermon in its shade. At first I meditate but the heat and the soft lilt of the teacher's voice make me sleepy, so I lay back to doze. After they drift away, I move toward to ruin of the stupa baking in the afternoon sun...
...brick workers live in homes made of thatch. A Muslim village, one man sits reading in a plastic chair. A goat kneels in the dust nearby as if in prayer. There are children around, following their parents as the prepare for Diwali, the traffic through these market towns slowing due to the stalls selling flowers and sugary food, which have extended into the road . (Nearly everyone we'd meet in India would advocate having only a single child, but then again most of those were of a certain demographic. That said, I never failed to be amused by the prevalent signs for Staylong Condoms.) Cows were indeed gods, their proud heads raised and oblivious to traffic...
... Route 1A leads us east, kissing the border along the way. It can hardly be called a road at all, rutted as it is. It's as it it had been paved in 1956, then forgotten. Some of the most unkept buildings are the biggest and most beautiful. One of the nicest buildings I saw in India was an old school in Sravasti, colorful yet shuttered and abandoned...
NEPAL, LUMBINI
...at the border, an immigration officer fails to return a smile, and begins to examine more closely the contents of his nose. Maybe if he freed his hand for some actual work, he might clear some of the trucks waiting at the border, stretching south for three or four kilometers...
...the houses are bigger just over the border, but as we get deeper into the countryside, the poverty begins to show itself. Small tea lights begin to appear at dusk. A crowd is gathered in a grove, surrounded by stone elephants. All is quiet, less chaotic on this side of the border. Even the drivers appear more mellow, less speedy and aggressive. A ditch-digger has a T-shirt that reads, "More Money More."
...the serenity of our bungalow at the edge of the large garden as the sun rises. Melted tea lights anoint the bases of all the trees, the garden having been awash with light for Diwali the night before. I could spend a week in this oasis...
...one of the first things I see in the morning is a woman kneeling Thai-style in the shade at the side of the road, flanked by a Thai flag and a picture of the late king. The mystery will be solved later when we are told that a member of the Thai Royal Family will be visiting the birthplace of the Buddha. Yet each person who tells us this gives conflicting information: Is it the King? The Queen? A Princess? At any rate, we are at first refused entrance, but are able eventually to talk our way in. But the usual tongas won't be running, so we have to walk in the rising heat. It isn't far to walk anyway. I wander over to a small golden statue of the baby Buddha that had been donated by the Thai royals on a previous visit. It reminds me of Billiken, the "The God of Things As They Ought To Be,” which is about as un-Buddhist as it gets. I return to the main temple and am told I have less than 10 minutes. I take a quick look at the sacred tree, and go meditate awhile beneath the living Bodhi Tree, putting it between me and the group of worshipers gathered beside the pond where the Siddhartha's mother washed herself after giving birth. Above me, a rainbow of prayer flags flap in the light wind...
KUSHINAGAR:
...The ugly architecture of Shakyamuni's grave. Buddha in a tin can. Vietnamese monks chant as they circumambulate with a long yellow cloth that will replace the one currently enshrouding the reclining Buddha statue within. Another set of Vietnamese, lay people this time, chant another set of sutras as they sit ringing the statue itself. Local kids play in the ruins around the site, some looking homeless...
...At the cremation site nearby, a dozen or so Sri Lankan monks are hints of maroon amidst the the grassy green of lawn. They stand at intervals that are almost too perfectly irregular to be random, taking photos of themselves and each other. Does a monk have selfie nature?..
MOTIHARI
...into Bihar proper now, which I've been dreading somewhat due to the extreme poverty and infamous violence. But things have calmed with a drastic change of political regimes, and the new order has brought paved roads, free education, and less crime. Still the poverty here is pretty extreme. Not as hellacious as the urban poverty of Delhi's slums, but of a milder rural character. Which brings the question: Where else but India could a doctrine like Buddhism arise, with its suffering worn so openly on its sleeve?...
...I ask for a detour to Matihari, to see Orwell's birthplace. None of the townspeople seem to know where it is, but my guide stubbornly keeps asking street vendors and people who had absolutely no contact with tourism. I duck into a western-looking hotel to ask, but no luck. The guide lends me his phone to check. My guidebook says that a museum is being built, but I am unable to find it. I pull up to the neighborhood that at least appears on the GPS. Unfortunately the car quickly gets bogged down in the bardo of post-holiday traffic, when everyone in the city seems to be heading out shopping on streets clogged with temporary stalls. The guide and I jump out and flag a tuk-tuk which can dodge the traffic, but soon it too is snarled. We sit sweating in the back, and the incessant honking of a hundred cars blends and overlaps to become a single tone. I get out, wandering onto some quiet side street to flag another tuk-tuk that is at least in motion. We arrive in the vicinity of the Orwell house, arriving eventually to see what is nothing more than a shell of a building in the shade of some trees, beneath with some sketchy looking guys are doing some sort of business. Nothing to do but burst out laughing. Another tuk-tuk runs us back in the general vicinity of the van, but they aren't where they should be and the driver isn't answering his mobile. He and the guide had been fighting earlier, and I worry that there is some sort of skirmish going on. Eventually they turn up. LYL and Tania had hoped to go buy saris while I went on my mission, but they had been stuck in traffic the entire time. The mood is sullen as we head south again. I feel stupid and guilty, and remember the conclusion I came to during a visit to China 20 years ago, about how travel in these types of places is about diminishing returns, and how going out of your to see something never seems to work out. You're generally pretty lucky of you can fulfill 3/4s of your intentions...
KESARIYA
... A Tibetan monk suffering in the heat, pulls his robes up over his head. Another does prostrations in the grass, a few more squat in the shade of the stupa. I greet them with a "Tashi Delek" and one of them breaks into song, repeating that same refrain. Near the Shiva temple around back, a man leads me away from the stupa and out onto the parched earth, then turns me around to show me the headless Buddha statues higher up...
...ample signage promoting education in Bihar. And more newly paved roads. They are obviously putting a lot of money into the infrastructure here, after decades of rampant corruption that kept the state in crushing poverty. But the symbols of old India still exist here. The country is changing fast, and I suppose I've been lucky to not have seen and experienced things I''d read about, or had heard from friends who had passed through even as recently as ten years ago. Though it feels a little less romantic. (That said, I'm sure that things like dysentery on an 18 hour bus ride rarely feels romantic at the time.) Until Bihar, I have been travelling through nicer, or at least more polished parts of India...
...cow herd stops to pee on a wall, and meanwhile his animals wander into the road and create havoc with traffic..
...a boy sleeps on the street, using a campaign poster for his mat. I try not to disturb him as I step into the shadow of a crumbing wall to pee. Boars and piglets play peek-a-boo through the gaps, as they explore the ruins of a house giving way to jungle. My ophiophobia quickly appears...
...half built building and bridges all over the country . Are they in the process of construction or destruction? Only Shiva knows...
...crashed trucks simply abandoned in front of houses...
VAISHALI
...walking through a small village to the ruins. Stalls selling pomelos and Buddhist bangles. There is little to see at the ruins itself, a dead hulk amidst the life that continues to pulse through the artery feeding it. Life is suffering, but life somehow goes on...
...people out in front of their homes in the crepuscule, enjoying the last of the light before retiring into darkness...
...the dread of driving the back roads of Bihar after dark, something I most wanted to avoid. Up until recently, bandits killed travellers on these roads. Even our driver seems anxious. Tania, a very large blonde, chooses this particular time to sit in the shotgun seat, and asks that the internal lights be turned on so as to video something or other. I think of anglerfish, and predators, as we ride on like a beacon in the dark...
PATNA
...pulling into the city on a Saturday night over the Gandhi Setu, the longest river bridge in India. The passage is an anxious one, as entire sections of the opposite lane have crumbed into the waters. Arriving safe in the city, to a world of colorful and bright, after days in the dark of the countryside. It is the final day of Diwali, and Christmas lights hang everywhere, draped over the highest apartment blocks in alternating strands of blue and yellow. Traffic clogs the streets, bringing up yet again the eternal India question: "Where are all these people going?" It all throbs to the music of intermittently placed DJs . Speakers in India rarely go below "11." Young men celebrate by dancing behind a statue of Lakshmi being pulled by a tractor. They've all taken great care with their hair and fashion, quite reminiscent of Halloweens parties in the Castro. Except that the dancing is far worse. They don't dance as much as pulse, in herky-jerky movements of head and body that suggest the odd time signatures of more classical Indian music...
...a serene Sunday morning with hundreds of cricketers in the park. Further out in the villages, boys play the game with makeshift equipment in the jungle...
NALANDA
...the road into Nalanda is a dusty affair, rubbish strewn along its entire length. The ruins are some of the most impressive, towers and stairwells that defined this once great university. Its labyrinthian turns couldn't keep out the invaders who burned what was possibly the largest library in the world at the time. Funny how ignorance seeks its own level. The guide we hired here is a personification of the opposite, a former professor whose depth of knowledge can't mask the man's suffering in the heat...
RAJGIR TO BODH GAYA
...I set off alone to explore the baths of Rajgir, being led by a Brahmin in white lunggyi toward a pool that is more a flooded brick basement, open to the air. It is filled with sari-clad women and I don't want to intrude. But the heat is apparent from the steam, which isn't exactly welcome on such a hot day. More sensible are the kids playing in the pools next door. Due to the heat, we opt for the chair lift to the top of Vulture Peak, rather than walk. I feel disappointed later to find that I'd sailed over the cave where the Buddha had sat prior to giving his sermon here, a place visited by my Beat heroes a half century ago. Still I suppose it was a consolation to see all those older sari-clad woman as they rode the chairs up the hillside. Not as pleasant are the monkeys, especially the one that aggressively charged me. I move over to some graves at the edge of a drop, one of which is for a former Japanese priest here. I meet his successor in the temple itself. He is at first surprised by my Japanese ability, and before long we are complaining about Abe and the current political climate. I am amused that this fellow, who has spent decades living atop this mountain is so informed. But of course the internet will have changed that, and no place is really isolated anymore. It, and social media in particular, truly make us one with everything...
...the motorcycle mafioso at the Devi Maa temple caves outside Gaya frighten us off, as we are flanked by a dozen riders when we try to walk toward the hill atop which the Buddha sat before finally coming to the conclusion that such austerities weren't necessary. At least he wasn't surrounded by aggressive biker touts...
...the marvellous landscape leading toward Barabar Caves, the low hills like dozens of elephants lying on their sides atop the dusty plains. They were almost sculpted these hills, none more so than at the Caves themselves, the walls inexplicably smooth, like polished marble. The refraction of sound is less like the roar of what we heard in David Lean's A Passage to India, but more like a deeper echo that builds upon itself. I try out a round of Om's which loop and invert like a cosmic Row Row Your Boat. Some kids enter and begin to chat with me, the voices of the four of us grows to be like the murmur of a crowd. A shame I didn't try to say "walla," but that has a different meaning in India...
...Sunday is market day in Gaya, creating a bottleneck, vehicles passing inside and out, creating a 6 lane juggernaught of unmoving hulks. When we finally did move, I noticed the bobbing heads of a busload of foreigners a few vehicles up. LAter, i see that the police have arrived to create some sort of order. It's all like life, everyone racing after their own self-interests until someone shows up to sort things out...
...Siddhartha Gas Stand on the final stretch to Bodh Gaya. Lone Tibetan monk walking the dusty highway. A man in the distance with arms stretched out like he's doing Tai-Chi, but a closer look reveals he is cutting a switch to herd his goats. Truck driver does his morning tongue cleaning exercises amongst the rubbish heaps of Gaya. Long thin prickly pear cacti raised from the dry earth like the head of a cobra. Better dressed men sit in plastic chairs before their shop, reading newspapers. A beggar squats in the dust, reading his own. Young girl in a dress kneels beside her house, shaping cow pats. Advert for Iceburg 9000 beer which can no longer be legally sold in the dry state of Bihar. (The only icebergs to be seen are the empty plastic bottles clogging the rivers.) Cows begin the morning shift, standing with self-importance at the side of the road, tails whisking flies...
BODH GAYA
...I awake to see a dozen government vehicles in the hotel carpark, which hints at why we were suddenly asked to change rooms the night before (which we refused to do as we'd already settled in). A boy at breakfast is dashing about, off leash, amidst people carefully balancing their trays as they come from the buffet. He dodges and feints like a basketball player, nearly knocking into me and my hot coffee...
...on the drive out of town to Senani, where Siddhartha was given milk by Sujata. A car has tumbled off the road into a rice field, long ago now, and it's rusting hulk is being used to post adverts. ( I'll later see a truck similarly overturned.) People walk across the bed of the Falgu River, now dusty and near dry. School is letting out and I circumambulate the stupa in conversation in Japanese with one of the teachers, whose brother lives in Yokohama...
...playing connect the dots with the temples of town. The massive and powerful Tibetan monasteries. Crowds at the Japanese Big Buddha. The faded history of the Sri Lanka Temple of Anagarika Dharmapala, whose efforts not only restored the Maha Bodhi temple to its glory but also could be said to have inadvertently created the market circus just outside its gates. The empty and silent Bhutanese temple, an oasis shared only with multicolored lions...
...woman chants a sutra, and upon completion, turns to spit on the ground...
...meditation at sunset beside the Maha Bodhi temple. There certainly is a power here, and I drop in nearly immediately, lost to the crowds that are rapidly fading into the dark...
...circumambulating the Bodhi tree, a leaf drops nearly into my hands. Others scramble for leaves as they fall. Groups of devotees like sports teams, each distinctive in their respective traditional garb. Many sit on the ground beneath trees. Westerners prefer the low wall that rings the temple. Many have tattoos with Buddhist iconography, and one is done up like a Goth Buddha. Priests chant through loudspeakers in a half-dozen languages, the words overlapping and unraveling into nonsensical sound. There is more peace to be found in the grassy area between the temple and the Muchalinda Pond, which a group of Indians attempt to destroy by roughly tossing coins onto a stone basin. On the other side of the temple, there is the brute physicality of the prostrating Tibetans, thrusting themselves forward again and again across rough wooden boards laid over the stone floor. Amongst them sits an old Thai monk, sitting quietly, peacefully, his back stooped from a life-time of meditation...
...a return to sit at dawn. Again, the sitting is solid and steady. But ultimately all the movement overtakes me, and through my half closed eyes I begin a meditation on passing feet. The chanting is quiet this morning, the microphones silenced, and as the light comes into the sky the only sound is the roar of birds, awakened in the expanse of branches in the Bodhi tree above...
... I've heard it said that Buddha was born in Lumbini, but Buddhism was born in Bodh Gaya. But this is wrong, a Buddha was in fact born in Bodh Gaya, and Buddhism was born with his first sermon in Sarnath...
On the turntable: Grand Funk Railroad, "30 Years of Funk"
On the nighttable: Richard Ford, "Canada"
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