About two weeks ago, I noticed the scent of cardamom in the air. I was finally overcoming a sinus infection, feeling sudden strength as my illness passed, and witnessing the end of the Durga Puja holiday.
On the last night of the week-long celebration, crowds of people with red paint smeared on their faces laughed and sang as cymbals, drums, and horns blasted from the big trucks into which they had all climbed and on which they processed through the city toward the Hooghly river, where the painted straw-and-clay Durga Puja idols were ceremonially dumped. Empty of their statues, my neighborhood’s pandals were then dismantled in slow stages, and the once-crowded streets became quiet and familiar again. And the magical, impossible, cool, and evocative scent of cardamom moved in the air – unseen and inexplicable – throughout the city.
Meanwhile in Hong Kong, my friend (and stand-in godfather) Rob was preparing to celebrate the completion of his Master’s degree in Buddhist studies. With permission from his wife Meg, Rob had decided to travel to Bodhgaya, which is home to the Bodhi tree (ficus religiosa) under which Siddhartha Gautama reached enlightenment and became the Buddha. Rob had asked me to join him, and also decided to dovetail his trip to Bodhgaya with a visit to Kolkata.
Rob flew to Kolkata from Hong Kong via Singapore, and his flight touched down at the Netaji Subash Chandra Bose International Airport after ten o’clock at night. Rob had traveled to Kolkata once before (shortly after finishing high school), but it was his first time back after 14 years.
In order to thank me for meeting him at the airport, or simply because he is generous and hilarious and kind, the next morning Rob made banana pancakes using organic wholegrain pancake mix and maple syrup he’d brought from Hong Kong. They were delicious.
After breakfast, Rob and I relaxed and explored the city, starting with Kolkata’s famous Kali Temple. Within moments of our arrival, an opportunistic stranger spotted us and offered an unsolicited tour. Without actually agreeing, we were suddenly being sped from one corner of the small temple complex to another, but not before washing our hands with yellowy water from a crumpled plastic bottle; this was a necessity before we entered the temple itself, our guide explained, and added with authoritative assurance that he was a Brahmin priest.
After stopping to look at the bloody floor where goats and buffalos had been sacrificed, we moved fast to the front of the “not for praying” line; we clanged bells overhead and glimpsed a brightly burning fire next to Kali, the supposedly black-faced red-tongued three-eyed statue that neither Rob nor I actually saw through the elbowing crowd.
More or less satisfied, we left the temple and were led to the slimy edge of a green pool where we washed our feet next to an obliviously bare-breasted old woman, and were then blessed before a white statue of Shiva by our guide, who made a “Brahmin request” for a 1000-rupee donation; Rob handed the man a blue one hundred rupee note, and we left.
That afternoon we ate lunch at a nearby restaurant called Bhojohori Manna and talked about life in Hong Kong and about Rob’s three sons and about Rob’s sister who has tattoos of crows on both her arms. We didn’t rush. It was Saturday.
Very early the next morning, Rob and I taxied to Mother House for breakfast and for Rob’s day-pass to Prem Dan. Rob had volunteered at Prem Dan when he’d visited Kolkata before and was excited to return, but despite searching his vague memories for familiar images and experiences, his morning visit to the hospital was neither nostalgic nor deeply cathartic. I was disappointed to hear him say so, but not surprised; newcomers to Prem Dan often struggle to find a rhythm in their first days, and after fourteen years, Rob was essentially a newcomer (although perhaps a less naïve and more cynical one than before). Truly, Prem Dan had changed, and so had Rob.
That evening, before our late-night train left for Bodhgaya, I invited Rob to attend Mass at St. Teresa’s Church. Predictably, he agreed. I have always known Rob to be interested in spiritual traditions including and apart from his own. And it was an especially meaningful pleasure to share my now-spiritually-integral experience of what Rob called “corporate worship” so many years after he’d witnessed and helped facilitate the formal beginning of my life’s second religious awakening: my confirmation as a Catholic at St. Anne’s Church in Hong Kong. (I also felt a small latitudinarian glee when I realized that Rob was a Lutheran celebrating an extended season of Buddhist scholarship attending Catholic Mass in a Hindu city at the edge of a Muslim neighborhood.)
A few hours after church, our train left Kolkata’s Howrah station for Gaya. We slept comfortably overnight in the air-conditioned train car using the clean pillows and sheets and blankets we’d been provided, and as we slept our train left West Bengal, passed through Jharkhand, and entered Bihar, which is widely considered India’s poorest state.
As the sun rose, we arrived in Gaya, shared a bumpy car-ride with an Irish yogi named Sinead, and were dropped off at Bodhgaya’s semi-remote Root Institute, the monastery-and-hostel where we’d booked a “donation only” room. We were greeted there by three friendly dogs and Buddhist nun with short grey hair; we registered, meditated, ate breakfast, and slept.
Throughout the week, meals at the Root Institute were invariably excellent. We ate a wide variety of foods including potato tortillas, gingery carrot soup, steamed momos, and cashew-topped chocolate brownies; fresh baked bread was served at every meal, and fresh ground peanut butter was served at breakfast. All guests of the Root Institute were expected to eat in silence (which reminded me of a departmental team-building retreat that Rob and I had attended at a Catholic monastery in Hong Kong, where we likewise ate a silent lunch), and the meals were meaningfully peaceful and introspective, even despite the noisome presence of big black pantleg-penetrating mosquitoes which, in accordance with the Buddhist eightfold path of ethical conduct, wisdom, and mental discipline, we were asked not to kill.
When we weren’t eating, we spent most of our time at the Root Institute reading and meditating. I read small sections of an American Buddhist magazine called Tricycle, and even smaller sections of the opaque Diamond Sutra; we meditated alone and in groups on mindfulness and equanimity twice or three times a day in the gompa: a quiet meditation hall lit warmly and decorated with colorful Tibetan thangka paintings and photographs of Buddhist lamas.
Beyond the Root Institute, we explored the town. We snacked on streetside-vended roasted corn and toured an archaeological museum; we visited Japanese, Tibetan, Thai, and Chinese temples; we admired paintings of demons, statues of Bodhisattvas, and a giant grey statue of the meditating Buddha.
But the main attraction in Bodhgaya was of course the Mahabodhi Temple and the Bodhi tree.
The temple was visible from a distance. A tall stone stupa temporarily topped with scaffolding slowly revealed itself as we approached; walking alongside pilgrims holding strings of wooden beads and wearing maroon or orange or white robes – crowds of men and women with uniformly shorn heads of hair grown out in varying lengths of black buzz – we entered the temple complex and saw the temple, and then the tree, and then the Varjasana – the “Diamond Throne” – which marks where the Buddha is believed to have actually sat.
Rob and I visited some part of the temple complex every day we were in Bodhgaya, meditating on mats with monks and other tourists, reclining on the grass, listening to unending baritone chants, twirling pointed Bodhi leaves, or watching the flight of green birds with long green tailfeathers around the stupa and through the trees.
The day before we left, we decided to visit the nearby cave temples about which we’d heard dubious but intriguing rumors from rickshaw drivers. While negotiating a fare with a driver and his friend, a boy approached us and offered a stack of postcards for sale; we declined as we’d done any number of times with other peddlers already, but the boy lingered and asked if he could accompany us to the caves; he asked with such polite and disarming sincerity that we agreed.
Blasting Indian dance music, we were driven away from the Bodhgaya town-center; as we rattled and bumped through increasingly tiny dusty countryside villages, we learned that the boy’s name was Rahul, and that he was eleven years old. Rahul seemed to know where we were going, but our driver and his cohort apparently did not; Rob and I (and Rahul) exchanged knowing and doubtful glances as our directionless journey dragged on, collectively assuming we were lost, but mostly appreciating the unpredictable fate of our day’s adventure.
After our driver asked more than one smiling villager for directions, we rightly arrived at the base of a small mountain; the caves were halfway up, so we started hiking. At the outset, we were approached by beggars of all ages and in all states of physical breakdown, and when we reached the entry to the caves, we were willingly cajoled into buying offerings for the temple: we bought candles, incense, prayer flags, and ceremonial white scarves called khatas.
The caves were small and our tour was quick. Inside we saw sleepy attendants illuminated by dim candlelight and a statue of the emaciated Buddha, which represented the period of too-strict asceticism in the Buddha’s life during which he realized that moderation – the Middle Way – was best. We lit candles, burned incense, donated money, and left.
On our hike down to the road, Rob and I enjoyed a broadly expansive view of the Bihari countryside; we watched grey monkeys climb trees; we gave ten rupees to a man with amputated legs – he had dragged himself to the middle of our path – and took pictures of friendly giggling girls.
And during the ride back into town, Rahul asked us to buy him a dictionary. It seemed like a modest request, and even though we might’ve been put off in any other context by the boy’s predictable opportunism, Rob and I agreed to accompany Rahul to a bookstore once we returned to Bodhgaya. But before we arrived, Rahul tried to explain something to me; he said he wanted to practice his English with the dictionary, and that I shouldn’t talk to anyone else because the money would be divided; I didn’t understand, but because I was tired and because I was skeptical and because I thought I was doing Rahul a favor, I didn’t try to.
After paying our rickshaw driver, and after being led through town by Rahul, and after being joined by a chatty older boy named Surya (which I had recently learned was also the name of a famous American lama), we finally reached the bookstore where Rahul asked for a new 950-rupee hardbound Oxford Dictionary. Rob and I exchanged a quick look, but we paid for the book without further hesitation; sensing a scam, we encouraged Rahul to write his name in the dictionary and even wrote our own encouraging inscriptions. Rahul seemed genuinely happy to personalize the book, and seemed genuinely happy with the purchase; we walked with him back toward his house, and were followed by Surya and joined by a few of Rahul’s friends.
We parted ways at the intersection of the main road and the road to Rahul’s house; he asked us to follow him, but the day had been long and we were eager to enjoy one last delicious silent dinner. So we said goodbye and headed home, feeling good about what we’d done.
It wasn’t until a few minutes later – when we saw the boys cutting through a farmer’s field to intercept us – that we started to realize what had been happening.
Rahul was crying; his friends led him by the hand; Surya was close behind. Sensing that they’d been fighting, and that Surya – who was larger and older – had been the instigator, we sent him on his way. He reluctantly left, and we soon understood that Surya had tried to force Rahul to return the book to the bookstore and give him half the money. And I suddenly understood what Rahul had been saying in the rickshaw: he was being bullied.
I felt little twinges of sympathetic sadness as Rahul and his loyal friends walked with us to the Root Institute’s gate, but was comforted by the support the boys showed Rahul with their presence, their conversation, and with their exemplary flying jumpkicks.
We saw Rahul the next day selling postcards at the entrance of the Mahabodhi Temple, and because his friends were there with him, I believed – whether the conflict with Surya had definitively ended or not – that Rahul had the support he needed. We shook hands and said goodbye.
In Gaya that night, Rob and I drank beer and ate peanuts for hours at the Siddhartha Hotel restaurant before leaving Bihar for West Bengal. And after we boarded our train and found our beds, we laughingly exchanged playlists on our iPods and prepared for a restful night. But unlike our deluxe trip away, we returned to Kolkata in a regular sleeper car, which provided neither air-conditioning nor bedding; the weather was fine and cool, but we struggled to sleep on the sticky plastic mattresses using our backpacks as pillows. The few times I fell asleep I was woken by the train’s loud rattling or by the problematic passage of alcohol through my guts or by the man with white hair and white clothes on the bed across from mine who – in the train’s clacking flashing darkness – muttered midnight prayers and seemed to be fingering mala beads or freakishly chewing a string.
Not very long after our early-morning arrival in Kolkata, Rob left India in the evening. It was hard to say goodbye. I was still dazed from the train ride, still tired and mildly hungover, and still processing my subconscious emotional shifts. And of course I was going to miss Rob’s friendship, the value of which – as I realized how much more open and talkative I’d become that week – I’d started to remember and more deeply understand.
But in the week after his departure, and during concurrent celebrations of just-Kolkata’s Kali Puja and all-India’s Diwali, I started contemplating Rob’s visit in a broader context. And my perspective – along with my neighborhood – transformed once again.
For Kali Puja, new pandals featured frightful statues of Kali, the same destroyer-and-protector goddess who was represented in the Kali Temple. But in the pandals she was plainly visible; she had long black wavy hair, black skin, red hands, and a jutting red tongue; she wielded a curved sword overhead and stood upon the body of her husband Shiva; she wore glittering golden jewelry and a necklace of severed heads.
And for Diwali, the festival of lights, colored candles and little clay oil-pots filled vendor’s stalls, bright light strings and candles glowed in the streets, and fireworks whistled and boomed and crackled.
I’d objectively appreciated the foreign revelry, but it wasn’t until my friend Ip Pui – who is married to a Kolkata native – invited me to celebrate Diwali with her husband’s family that I started to realize the festivals’ connection to the week I’d spent in Bodhgaya.
After arriving at Ip Pui’s house, and before eating dinner, I sat with the extended family facing a small altar. The central figures were tiny statues of the gods Ganesh and Lakshmi, and one-by-one each family member – including the servants – dipped a leaf in water and sprinkled the sacred space; they flicked red powder at the gods, tossed them flowers and little sweets, and finally swirled a flaming leaf-shaped clay bowl of oil before the altar.
I watched the ritual in reverent and joyful silence, but only when I observed the family eating and talking after the ceremony did I finally feel an overwhelming sense of human interconnectedness. Overhearing discussions of Hindu theology, of city character, and even of the American President’s visit to India, I imagined my own family and our traditions, and saw very clearly how we are different – and how we are the same.
On the ride home after the party, sleepy and stuffed full of delicious Bengali food, I noticed white lights lining the streets and blue lights in the trees. And I noticed the lingering and mysterious scent of cardamom.
It was then and in the short time that followed that I started to feel deep gratitude for the intimate experience of traditions that are not my own; I started to feel the silent and unspeakable revelations that come during meditation and prayer; I started to feel as if the edges of all things were touching the edges of all other things, and as if the distinctions between foreign and familiar were suddenly blurred, irrelevant, or nil.
I started to feel the universal power of friendship, ceremony, family, and faith.
…And despite the sad reality that my family and closest friends are far away, I started to feel grateful for my past, and hopeful for my future. In particular I looked forward to my mother’s upcoming visit to India, and to my own upcoming visit to Hong Kong; I looked forward to reconnecting with beloved families and close friends, including Rob and Meg and their three sons; I have already met Caleb and Eli, but I have yet to meet Rob and Meg’s youngest son who, unlike his brothers, does not have a biblical name.
His name is Bodhi, and he’s my godson.
