Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 O B S E RV E R 06to sit beside these or under a bodhi tree, as they were religious places,an appropriate place he felt for us to be. They were also public placeswhere anyone could approach us. This time, however, it turned out tobe a private shrine, and so I was sitting there thinking we would neverbe offered food in such an out-of-the-way shrine (we had only got jaggerythe day before because we had stood at the wrong place, by theroad talking to some youths), when the man whose land it was cameand invited us to his house. He was an older Brahmin of about sixty withgrown-up children, and he spoke English well. We sat on his verandaand, as we waited, he told us about his family history, which was tingedwith sadness.Their family once held the post of local agent under the British Raj.This combined being the local magistrate with the collecting of taxesfrom the surrounding area and, as it was such a position of influence,their family prospered. With independence, things changed, and ourhost lost his inheritance. Indian agents like his father were not lookedon kindly by the new rulers; his father’s position was lost, and most ofhis lands were taken away. All he got when his father died was two acresand the buildings that now surrounded us: barns, a big house, officeswhere his father had presided, and the temple. It was now a sleepy backwater,the buildings gently falling apart with two small fields sandwichedbetween them. He explained that he could not afford tomaintain the buildings, having spent all the money he inherited on hischildren’s education.His great sadness was that his eldest son was now at home with himagain. The son had failed to find a job, and now his son’s wife had lefthim to return to her own family. What was he to do? How could his sonfind a job, and without one how could he ever get another wife with justthe income from the little land they had? The son was brought out tomeet us as if we could do something. All we could do was empathise.We spent a couple of hours there talking to the two of them, and ourvisit did seem to alleviate the air of despondency. We talked about our7 3