Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
thrive on these spiritual tourists, who constantly replenish holy
hangouts with more people eager to perform religious duties they
may neglect back home.
Renunciation is also common late in life. A man who has fulfilled
his responsibilities as husband and father retires from his job and
sheds all worldly possessions, heading for the open road, never to
return. Indians fully accept that the last stage in one's life should
ideally be devoted exclusively to God: we'd call it Alzheimer's
Disease.
Such spiritual wanderers as these, old or young, are not usually
holy men, but seekers. They have nothing to teach. There are,
however, many accounts of the renunciant attaining enlightenment
and getting promoted to guru status or better. The Buddha, for
example, left his family without saying goodbye, to search for truth.
Swami 'Papa' Ramdas, a postal official all his life, ended up as one of
the most revered gurus in the South.
When a clod of earth, a stone, and gold become alike, serenity is
achieved.
-
Bhagavad Gita
Embroidered with gold like a wedding sari, the sky above
Tiruvannamalai around sunset had weight and substance, and
almost undulated in the breeze above the huge carved gopura of the
temple. I easily found the part of the bazaar that specialised in pots
and pans. Kerosene tapers burned like flecks fallen from the flaming
yellow banner fluttering over our heads, throwing off a thousand
reflections across the walls of copper tureens, jugs, and woks, and
dancing around a hundred steel
dekchis
, chappati irons, and rice
double boilers. A faint aroma of
bhang
hung in the air, along with a
dozen spices, incense, and woodsmoke. Shadows clustered in the
gathering gloom, and in these, men in lungis and undershirts
conspired, puffing beedies, gossiping. Housewives, proud in rustling
saris of Kanchipuram silk, strode from stall to stall, finally
hammering out deals for frying pans, or ladles, or aluminium
saucepans large enough to serve soup to multitudes. Huge-eyed
girls with skin like molasses, with fresh flowers in oiled and plaited
