Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 T H I R D M O O N 06turned around and jolted back up the street. Nick and I looked at eachother and at the manager, who continued shaking his head. “Police ...not good. What ... do? Go to vihara. Come....” I had landed in India.My brain, hitherto suspended, was suddenly all action—why hadn’tI acted earlier? Standing around in a noncommittal way was an inadequateresponse to the energy of confusion and irritation at the policestation. The young sub-inspector was having a difficult time with hisuncooperative officers—perhaps he was new to the post. He had mentionedin a regretful aside that the driver of the jeep was about to retireand no longer obeyed orders. On top of that he had found himself havingto cope with two Westerners expecting things to work like they didin England. Caught in the dilemma and bound by duty, finally themounting tension had snapped him. A demon had rushed in, thrownfive armed policemen, the manager, and a boy in the back while compressingthe sub-inspector, Nick, myself, and another policeman intothe front of the two-seater. A timorous recommendation for cautionslowly oozed and coagulated in my brain, but by the time I could readit, it was too late.Two men walking side by side had appeared through the windscreenwith their backs to us—I glanced over to the driver—his attention wasoff the road, getting Nick’s knee out of the way of the gear stick. A crymoved up my throat as my foot stabbed the floor; but it was too late.Now they were bouncing a writhing body off to the hospital in BiharSharif. Even if he survived, what about his family? And I felt sorry forthe sub-inspector. He shouldn’t have been driving; it had been our impatienceand agitation that had goaded him into it. And the drivershouldn’t have wandered off, and the police force should be run moreefficiently, and Nick should be more patient—and I should have saidsomething. But however it should have been, that’s how it was.“Where were you?” nagged the imp that lives in my brain. “You couldfeel things were going out of balance ... Always hanging back, not wantingto be involved...”2 5 0