Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
'What?'
'Shoes,' he said again.
'Well, yes! I have shoes. Back home, you mean?'
'How many shoes?'
'Jeez, I don't know.' I thought, trying to picture my wardrobe.
'You are not knowing how many shoes you are having?' He
found this hard to believe.
'Oh . . . twenty, thirty, maybe.'
The paan wallah looked thunderstruck. He dropped the wad he
had been busily folding, then stood up to get a better look at me.
'Twenty! Thirties!' He seemed somewhat overexcited.
'Yeah,' I replied, defensively. 'Something like that.'
'How is it you are not being sure?' he asked. 'I myself am having
just two - one boy and one girl.'
'Boy and girl?' I inquired stupidly.
'Woh, yes! Two childrens only for me.' He said this with some
pride. I asked what we were talking about - shoes or children?
'Issues!' he squeaked. 'You say you are having too much the
issues
,
isn't it?'
Issues!
The issues of your loins!
The old sadhu coughed, and we both turned, as if interrupted by
some major cosmic event. But he made no more signs.
Faith, I thought to myself once more.
That
is faith. Holding your
arm up there while standing on one leg for a few decades:
faith
. If
someone ever asked what faith was, I'd now know how to answer.
The Tibetan sage Milarepa's spiritual discipline - his faith -
consisted of building houses and then demolishing them. This was
the price of experience according to Milarepa's guru.
This
was faith.
I rebuttoned my shirt. If that was faith, I didn't have it, I knew
beyond any doubt. And I didn't want it. I most certainly didn't want
to take a bath in Mother Ganga and risk ruining a beautiful metaphor
by catching some pretty ugly microbial parasites intent on nesting
in my vital organs. I'd been told only faith prevented this happening.
It was a relief finally to understand I no longer had to pretend I was
a Hindu. Because I
did
have faith in reality, once more - just not
someone else's reality.
Somehow I'd come to the end of a long and convoluted road,
