27/02/12
Yesterday I was sitting under a tree at the Darma centre. It was so tranquil. Well, at least for some time. There I was, lying down, reading, sitting up, drawing, in beautiful harmony with the old trees and the still pond. A cool breeze made the hot afternoon feel like a tiger balm. You know what I mean? When it is warm and soothing? Birds were singing in the trees. The cuckoo kept on going coo-coo and I wondered if it has flown from home or is going to go home for Bihu. I mean overall it was like a very meditative scene. And at the Darma centre too.
But alas! Like Budhdha says (or does he really?) happiness like other emotions in life are momentary. What he did not say, I think, is that the moments can travel at break-neck speed in some and particularly urban settings. Hardly had I finished drawing the trunk of the tree that a monk started preaching on the mike. I admit he was no where near shouting (like the hindu and muslim bastards when they get their hands around a mike) and he sounded like he was saying meditative things. All in Thai. I swear I did not mind this meditative drone added to my background at all. But somehow my mind would try to pay attention to the words. I also thought maybe I will be able to learn high Thai from listening to preaching. Fat chance! At some point I thought I heard him distinctly saying the words – ‘lucky draw’. And things went only downhill from there. In a slow deteriorating order.
Then came the cleaning girls. No, it is not their fault. Thai people are really clean. Why only the other day in our class the person in charge of running things has to make an announcement that people must take showers! Well, this is another story. But I am coming to that later. So the Thai people are really clean. This huge city of Bangkok must have more than a million eateries. A whole lot of them on the street. But there is no garbage thrown around. Somehow, living in India, it is almost like an implausible dream. Every Sunday, the university gets cleaned. They sweep the pavements, clean the water bodies, water the plants and do all kinds of things to shine the campus weekly. While walking to the Darma Centre I saw them getting up on the shade over the pavement (yes, they have that too) to clean the leaves off the roof! So it was only a matter of moments that they would come to clean the exact spot where I was sitting. It was a shady sport between 2 old trees. Naturally under the trees there were leaves. They made a nice soft bed to spread my sleeping bag on. But it is Sunday and the trees need cleaning too. So came the cleaning girls, smiled at me and politely shifted my belongings one by one to an already cleaned corner. Since my interest on the Budhdhist discourse in Thai had increased intensely after hearing the words ‘lucky draw’, the dislodging was of some irritation. I did not want to miss a word of the discourse least I missed an opportunity to win some lucky draw. But my latest philosophical enlightenment is that not many people care about what I want or not want. Sigh!
So I settled on the other side of under-the-tree and tried not to lament my lost chance at a lucky draw. I told myself cleaning is good, for the person sitting next to you in a closed van and for your soul. I started reading the book on Thai culture and society with hope that I will learn more about taking showers, using Thai toilets and winning lucky draws when I noticed a neighbour. I raised my eyes to have a look at him and down dismantled all my prejudices about Thais being clean people with all my belief in that classroom instructor of ours. For I could smell the alcohol breathe mixed with sweat from a distance of 5 meters. It also bothered me that suddenly I had company. The presence of this man in my life was like a quickie of learning and de-learning. Although he dismantled my notion of Thai cleanliness, he did reconfirm my view that Thais are extremely polite people. He smiled at me, did a wai (a namaskar in Thai) and started talking to me in Thai. I had a feeling he was somehow concerned about my sitting alone under the tree. (This is another one of my latest philosophical grasp that random people seem to be concerned about me. But this too is another story. I save it for later). As I tried to explain to him that I do not speak Thai and I do not want to be disturbed, slowly, I realised that my moments of happiness, tranquillity and meditation for the day are over.
But then, Budhdha has many stories and none of them linear. When I was trying to explain to him that he must not disturb me in my creative pursuit of pretending to be creative, one of the cleaning girls came to my rescue. She sat 5 meters away from both me and the man forming a triangle. The man now naturally started talking to her. I started preparing for my departure. But the man frantically said something to the girl and walked away fast. The girl told me to wait. Thoroughly confused by now and annoyed that I am unable to understand Thai after being here for whole of 2 weeks, I slowed down my process of packing my numerous unBudhdhist belongings. In a few minutes, the man returned with two cool drinks in his hand. He offered one to me and the other to the girl. She took hers and looked at me. I accepted mine and took a long drag at the straw. Just as the liquid passed by thirsty throat, I remembered a word of warning from some random free advisers who are generally concerned about me – do not accept food or drink from strangers. I looked around me, the Darma Centre stood in its calmness, the old trees were enjoying the cool breeze, the birds were playing next to me by the pond, children were cycling around, groups of people had come and sat around, the sun was about to set, the evening light is filtering through the clouds to the leaves. But my chains from Babylon drag me back, into the world of suspicion and fear, of warning and advice, of fleeting moments of confusion. I wonder what the Budhdha said about that. Is this my Karma?
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