Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 T H I R D M O O N 06move to do anything with us. Eventually I went out and tried some ofmy limited Hindi, “Breakfast?” “Food?” “Parotha?” but got no understandablereply. When Ajahn Sucitto tried his Hindi he got nothing better.The day was warming up and we wanted to get under way. We hadhoped to get to Gaya that day, as we now had somewhere to stay there.So I produced ten rupees and tried again. “Breakfast?” “Food?” With theslightest movement of his head he took the proffered money and left.After a while we were taken back to the police station where thepolice officer came by to tell us that we were to have breakfast at hishouse. We were waiting again on the bench on the police veranda whenthe orderly eventually found us an hour later. He had a tray full of steamingsavoury pastries that he must have bought in the market. AjahnSucitto had to explain that we did not need them now and that he couldtake them back. Without the slightest flicker of surprise, he turned andcarried them away again.It was nine o’clock by the time we were facing an enormous pile ofthick parothas, oozing ghee, in the garden of the police house. The officer’swife had been cooking us breakfast all along. We should haveknown; the delay was because the duty of feeding us was being taken soseriously. Around the parothas were plates of bean dishes, vegetable curries,chutneys, and curried eggs. Afterward we stopped at the station toget the report, so it was not until eleven that we were on our way again.The parothas lay heavily in our stomachs. We had missed the pleasantpart of the day for walking, and if we were to get to Gaya we would haveto walk through the midday heat. As we trudged along, wanting only tosit down in the shade and fall asleep, we agreed that next time we wereoffered breakfast we would turn it down.A J A H N S U C I T T OA meaningless trudge along a long straight road in the heat. It was latemorning, and Gaya was thirty kilometres away, but that didn’t mean2 6 0