The year bumped me back into attention as I brought all my grey matter in line to Line Produce in Patna. An amiable documentary filmmaker Richard Fung who resembles a character of Wong Kar Wai's Happy Together wanted a local 'guy' to help him shoot the badlands of Bihar.
So I was hired. It was just February! I remember the lovely Tarumitra Ashram where I arranged us to stay. The lovely campus was like a Tropical Jungle. An oasis in the mundanity of Patna. The Laurie Baker Style Organic Cottages. I lived in the Winter Hut, where Father Athikal would brew lovely South Indian Coffee running in and out. A complete charmer.
Then there were other community members and students from Agricultural university from Panama who would make cool Italian Food and Potluck Dinners at the community kitchen at Tarumitra. There over vodkas splayed in mint and ice around a bonfire we'd discuss our lives. Who we were and how we spoke.
My favorite memory is sitting inside the gauzed Verandah and watching Richard and Tim( Richard's partner) walk in the golden sunlight being. Its a picture of them togther that has stayed with me. Its very seldom that you get watch couples who carry that peace around them when they are togther. Richard and Tim had a golden light following them that evening. Just looking at them at that moment brought such profound peace that the picture latches onto my memory as a postcard.
Then in a early morning haze we drove to Bodhgaya. A city of peepul trees. We checked into a hotel that had 5 stars in the Lonely planet guide rating and from my toilet window I could see the Burmese Monastery, A peepul tree with a small Hindu Shrine under it.
It must have been 7pm when I finally entered the Mahabodhi Temple complex, distracted as I was with the antique trinkets from the whole of buddhist universes.
As I walked towards the tall building and the magnificient Bodhi Tree, a strange Deja Vu came over. I had been here before. With my surdy parents? Not likely! Maybe. Not really. Must have been in dreams. Strange then..Just like any person walking to Varanasi cannot really visit it for the first time. You always have memories of it from erstwhere!
There were monks from the yellow Asian world. There were musty smelling converted Indian Harijan monks in there. And they all became a part of the majesty of the Prince who found the ultimate High under this very Tree. There were cameras and prayer assemblies with live telecasts all over to the Buddhist world.
And here was I with my camera clicking like crazy to take home some glory of this magical place. The aura of this divine tree.
The next day I went to the Japanese monastery and tried Zazen. Between a group of young yellow faces and a monk in black robes instructing in Japanese I don't think I got it very right but what the hell. I sat stretched and straight like a penis. It gave me a cervical like pain and made me feel very cool!
I came back in Mahabodhi Express and by the time 2011 had run away!
