Eagalic Music

I spend the rest of the day floating around with the family, taking tea, reading, resting, digesting everything that has happened the day before. Later in the day, despite my previous resolve, I start on the exercises given to me by Ali Moosa but only after first promising myself to do them just once a day, not five times and to conclude each meditation with my own informal one.

I notice that Karen has rubbed coconut oil into Nika’s hair which has given it a bedraggled, greasy look and my mind leaps from this thought to the image of a young sadhu I noticed in the streets several times during the past few days. I had seen him again a few evenings ago having tea with a middle-aged Swedish lady in the coffee shop at the Janpath Hotel. For a sadhu he was extremely well-dressed, in a long Indian-style coat that somehow offset the oily look of his long, black, shoulder-length hair which might have seemed unkempt but for the look of his clothes.

Karen and I remarked that he was speaking English to the lady and that it would be interesting to talk to him. We felt the opportunity however, would not arise.

After a long afternoon nap, I wake and begin to read the paperback copy of the Sri Aurobindo biography that we’d picked up second hand and which had been silently beckoning to me. After this, we go out for a ride on a bicycle rickshaw through the darkening streets up to Connaught Circle.
more…

We are back outside the gates of the dargah.  Karen is armed with a bag of samosas and another of bananas, determined this time to successfully feed the beggars.  Whether it is because she is inwardly prepared this time and therefore more circumspect or whether it is just the phase of the moon, she is more successful. This time, people politely wait to be offered food and when there is no more, neither are there any more people in line.

Once again, we have to ask directions to Ali Moosa’s house in this Arabian Nights labyrinth of streets and alleyways, even though we were here only yesterday. We are welcomed this time by Ali Moosa, his wife Margaret and a visiting cousin Meena, who is just about Karen’s age.  They hit it off like soul sisters, unabashedly declaring their undying love for one another and exchanging spontaneous gifts of jewelry.

Meena places a moonstone ring on Karen’s finger and their eyes are wet with tears but she will not accept Karen’s new Tibetan mala in exchange.  She hands them back with sweetness and gentleness saying “I love you.”  There is such openness between them that I am awestruck at the beauty and natural innocence of their encounter.  more…

We are standing, once again at the end of the rose-scented lane, near the entrance to the dargah.  Karen has decided to do something to help alleviate the misery of the beggars who are gathered at the gates, palms outstretched and beseeching. She buys about twenty nans from a baker in an open stall, in full view of the beggars.  Then with an air of great determination she begins handing out nans. 

There seems to be a moment of awkward hesitation, as though no one can really believe what they are seeing.  Then, there is a sudden rush of bodies, the outstretching of thin, claw like fingers, pushing, shoving and shouts of protest.  In seconds Karen is stripped of all the nans and is being confronted by more angry faced beggars who felt they have been cheated out of their share.  Suddenly, she is shaking, not believing what she has just witnessed. 

I am immediately reminded of our confrontation with the angry monkeys at Elephanta when Karen and the children had tried to feed them.  Poverty here is a real issue. 

more…

We are looking out the window of our Bombay Hotel room, overlooking a leafy green park and congratulating ourselves on our good fortune at having found so elegant a setting at so reasonable a price. 

We have only just arrived in Mumbai after negotiating the streets near the waterfront around India Gate, at first depressed by the numerous seedy looking hotels and aura of poverty in such close proximity to the grandeur of the waterside drive.  We are planning to stay only a day or two and then return to Delhi, a prospect that pleases me greatly since I have felt so comfortable there to begin with.

The first item on our agenda will be to find a restaurant and with this in mind we set out into the streets, free of baggage and with a renewed sense of the euphoria of being on the journey.  There is still nothing so comforting to me as finding a safe haven after running the gauntlet of doubtful cheap hotels.

After a few blocks we find ourselves in the cinema area where once again I am reminded of how much the English affected the structure and look of the city, this area looking like a copy of Picadilly Circus.  Two blocks later the illusion vanishes and we are in the thick of a Bombay marketplace, teeming with bodies, open-fronted cafes, sidewalk vendors and the exotic aromas of singeing spices mingling with a cacophony of sounds.

more…

We are seated at the back of a modern Indian bus, having elected to try a different route back to Bombay. We are being rocketed, buffeted, bounced, jostled and rattled as the bus careens over the rugged inland roads on the 18 hour journey.

At the front of the bus is a video screen on which an East Indian film is playing. A friendly man is seated next to me, translating the dialogue of what seems to be a modern romance based on an old legend. The fact that the film takes my mind off the discomfort of the long journey is not the least of its appealing traits.

The children don’t seem to mind the raucous ride but my back is killing me, my legs are cramped and the journey seems endless. At nightfall we spread a blanket on the floor between the seats, despite the press of the crowd and try for a few hours rest but because the floor takes the impacts of the road directly we only doze minutes at a stretch. The bus stops at regular intervals for the passengers to stretch their legs. Nearby bushes and walls are the only toilets to be found and blessedly, Nika has decided on this night to toilet train herself, waking me up so that she can pee in a plastic basin. I empty this at rest stops, throwing the contents off into the bushes.

Tavel on an Indian bus or train is no solitary affair and we are thrown into the life of the other passengers, sometimes literally. Once again the children draw an excess of kindness from fellow travelers and there are always offers of food or shared information with the least of introductions.

more…