Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 L E AV I N G H O M E 06We stopped in the shade of a tree: a ploughman came over and squattedbeside us. I started some tentative Hindi phrases, he shared a handfulof roasted grains with us: there was sharing and smiling and parting.Around ten o’clock we came to a roadside village. I arranged my almsbowl under my robe, put all thought of food out of my mind, and wanderedthrough the winding network of backyards and paths with chickensand great slow-moving buffaloes and half-naked children. A littlethrong clustered questioningly behind us as we made our way slowlythrough the earthen dwellings and eventually came into a clearing witha small shrine. The throng produced one or two better-dressed men, andmy feeble Hindi sparked off a sputtering conversation.The man in the clean white dhoti asked us about food and beckonedus across the clearing to his house, a large properly built dwelling. Twocharpoys (string beds) were brought out for us to sit on; hidden womenfolkwere told to produce a meal. After the meal, I glimpsed one of thempeering shyly through a crack in the window shutter at us; she instinctivelypulled the hood of her sari across her face and disappeared. Thismale–female business is such a strange act. You’re either running after,hanging on, or pushing away; there just doesn’t seem to be a peacefulabiding place.There was one more woman to come on this journey around theBuddha’s home ground. Taulihawa, three kilometres before Tilaurokot,was where Bhante had advised us to seek out the Bajracariya familyas one of the few Buddhist families in this predominantly Hindu area.Mr. Bajracariya was an ardent supporter, who would be delighted toreceive us, we were told. But it was dark by the time we arrived at thetown, and with no address it looked unlikely that we would locate thisphilanthropic gent. As it turned out, it would have been more difficultto avoid him: a throng accumulated around us, following us eagerlythrough a few winding streets, before a youth who spoke some English(almost incessantly) insisted that we follow him. We didn’t evenget a chance to explain about Bajracariya. And so our little entourage5 3