Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 T H I R D M O O N 06newspaper that the snacks had come wrapped in; here a crushed emptymatchbox; here the mangled stub of a candle. Indian hotels never havewastepaper baskets. You just throw the rubbish on the floor and someonesweeps it up every day or so, or when you leave. It’s hard to throwthings on the floor, the mind is so used to setting things apart—this isvaluable, it goes here; this is rubbish, throw it away. But here there is nothrowing away, because there is no “away.” In India, it’s all here. All rubbish,all sacred.And so with the perceptions and memories. What makes up a pilgrimage;what do you put in a diary? The gritty grey stone shower stall(water was available when no one else had a tap on); the two men wearingNehru caps slouched in armchairs behind newspapers in the foyer;or between Vaishali and Hajipur the traditional graffiti-like paintings onthe sides of the houses; or on the bund huge banyan trees, often with asimple shrine: a stone, a swash of red paint, a strand of dead flowers; orsome more momentary ripple—a white ox shaking its dripping muzzleat its feed, the light scattering through the drops of water, or the groanand clatter of a pump where we squatted to wash, or a small boysolemnly talking about Charles Dickens as he walked along with us. Orthe smoky sunsets that we lumbered through as people withdrew intohuts and houses and women’s voices murmured through the walls, andthe chilly evenings, two mats around a tree somewhere and a falteringpuja to introduce us to the spangled night’s darkness.So many wavelets of memory; so many fragments borne on thetide—on, but not onward. When I caught some and put them in thediary they became so much debris. All rubbish, all sacred. I doubtedwhether Nick’s hundreds of photographs had done much better. Youmight as well try to net a river.But even a poor man has to have his treasures. Later in the afternoon,I returned to the gurdwara. Ram Rattan Singh took me around to hisroom: maybe two and a half by three metres of space, containing hissmiling wife and four sparkling-eyed children; a bed, a stove, a cupboard;1 8 2