Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 F I R S T M O O N 06too attractive to thieves. I had cut things down to bare essentials—except, that is, for Ajahn Sucitto’s water purifier. This weighed a goodkilo with the spare filter, and although I felt it was not needed—surelywe were never going to go through the laborious process of pumpingevery glass of water we were offered—he still wanted to bring it along.There being no room in his pack it was now in mine, and I hoped to beable to ditch it soon.The other stop was the Khadi Emporium. In England I had decidedto get my clothes for the pilgrimage in Delhi, remembering the wonderfulKhadi Emporium in Connaught Circus in the centre of NewDelhi. Much of New Delhi had changed since my visit sixteen years previously,but the Khadi Emporium was still as crazy as I remembered. Setout as an Indian imitation of a large Victorian department store, it wasfilled to overflowing with jostling crowds. Khadi is the movementinspired and begun by Gandhi to base the Indian economy on traditionalIndian village crafts. Although most of Gandhi’s ideas were ignored bythe new republic, khadi manufacturing was encouraged, and stores builtin cities and towns across India sell the village products. As with so muchin India, they immediately fossilized, never developed any further, andremaintothisdayastheyweresetup.Theproductsarewonderful,handspun,handwoven, hand-dyed material sold as bolts of cloth or made upinto clothing (again in the villages) for sale very cheaply in the store.The stores, however, are a nightmare. There were counters sellingeverything from white cotton shirts, very thin and long for summer,through hats, traditional sleeveless jackets, embroidered shawls, andsaris to large, thick woollen blankets for wrapping oneself in on coldwinter nights. All made of lovely earthy materials. The trouble was,none of it could be seen, as each counter was engulfed by people pushingand shoving, reminding me of an English jumble sale ten minutesafter opening. I had to fight my way to a counter just to find out what itstocked, and then, when I thought I had the right one, try to get one ofthe harassed assistants to help me, only to be sent elsewhere. When I did1 8