| BULLET TO NIRVANA |
Stevan Orescan
The motorcycle fantasy began in 1968 when I was leaving India overland, crossing through
Pakistan on the way to Europe. As I was filling out departure papers at the boarder station three
men mounted on huge Harley-Davidsons roared through loaded down with camping equipment and
the dusty determination one needs to undertake such a journey through the vast and desolate
spaces of the East.
I looked at them with fascination, somewhat like a young boy who has just seen his first cowboy
on horseback and felt totally overwhelmed by the enormity and daring of such a formidable
adventure. Just visiting India for three months over the standard tourist route had been an incredibly
difficult and exhausting experience and I was happy to be on my way home for a much needed rest.
But another side of me felt cheated and I knew that this land of complexity and contradictions
would someday again soon beckon me with her call.
God! That’s the way to do it, I said to himself, that’s the way to really see this country and its
people, this land of mystery and adventure, this boiling stew, this inferno that stretches and pulls
your heart muscles and grey matter into new and dazzling configurations. Maybe one day I will find
the time, resources and physical stamina to undertake such a journey, I said to myself as I boarded
the crowded and uncomfortable bus that was to take me to Lahore for my train connection.
Maybe, someday……
Mr. Singh looked up with large, black dewy eyes. His six yards of blue turban was wrapped
impeccably around his long, jet black heir that was tied in a top knot underneath, and his beard was
tucked into his jali, the traditional net most Sikhs wear to contain and manage the facial locks they
never cut from childhood. A heavy steel bangle gleamed against the dark skin of his muscular right
forearm, a constant reminder, of truth in his dealings with the world and his fellowman.
A fine specimen of young Sikh manhood, I thought, as I took a seat in the cubby-hole office of
Big Mac Clutch Plates which Mr. Singh and his family were the proprietors of.
It is a few years later and I am in Calcutta with time on my hands, a money belt filled with
rupees, a thirst for adventure and a possible exaggerated estimation of my physical powers. But
though the body had weakened a bit these past years the spirit was that of a sixteen year old and I
yearned to fulfill this one fantasy that had been knocking around the back of my head all this time. It
was now or never.
“This machine is perfect” said Mr. Singh, in answer to my enquiry about the motorcycle he had for
sale. “Absolutely perfect, not a thing wrong with it, 8,750 rupees, not one paisa less. I don’t have
to sell it, I don’t need the money. Most people sell their motorcycles when they’re falling apart but
that’s not my reason. I like to have things new and shiny so every couple
of years I trade everything in. I want to get a new one otherwise I would keep it.”
I looked at the bike parked in the narrow passageway leading up to the office. A black 1877
Bullet Enfield, 350 cc, the biggest one India makes, reasonably well taken care of with 17,000
Kilometers on the original engine. I kicked the tires, asked a couple of semi-intelligent questions
and offered him 8,000.
“Absolutely not”, replied Mr. Singh, “8,750 rupees, not one paisa less, look at all these extras”,
and he proceeded to point out certain things that did not come with the motorcycle when new.
“This bike is in perfect condition, I drive it only to and from work, you won’t have to spend
anything on it for another fifteen or twenty thousand kilometers, not one rupee except to change the
oil and periodic servicing.”
I kicked the tires once more, thanked him, said he’d think about it and let him know in a few days.
One week and a dozen motorcycles later I was back in his steaming little office to tell him that I
would buy, what I considered his over-prized bike at the asking price, if it was still available.
Mr. Singh hesitated. Had the price gone up as it often dies in India or had he changed his mind?
“What is the problem?” I asked. I was tired of hassling and anxious to close the deal and get on
with the show.
“No problem, no problem,” he said.
“Then let me give you a deposit so we can get the ball rolling,” I replied.
Mr. Singh was obviously embarrassed and shuffled his feet under his tiny desk. I waited silently
for his discomfort to end.
“I must consult first with my father to obtain his permission,” he said.
“Why, does it belong to him?”
“No, it is mine.”
“Then why must you consult him?” I asked. Mr. Singh was about thirty years old and seemed to
be in charge of Big Mac Clutch Plates.
“Well, you see,” he said falteringly, with eyes lowered, “We Indians believe that anything made of
iron is unlucky and since this particular piece of iron has given me no problems for two years I
should not press my luck by exchanging it for one that might.”
“Do you believe that?” I asked.
“Well, yes,” he replied, unable to look me in the eye.
I gave him my card. “Please consult with your father- or any other oracle, I thought- and let me
know at my hotel when you make your decision.
Some days later as I and Mr. Singh were waiting in the Motor Vehicles Department to locate the
missing registration
papers, I told Mr. Singh that I didn’t quite understand the business ethic of the East - I was still
smarting after being overcharged almost double for the battery I had to replace on my new, and
what was turning out to be, expensive toy.
“Doesn’t this man understand that if he treats me honestly I will come back for more business?
Now for a few dollars, he has lost my business, my trust and respect as well as any business my
friends might have for I will surely tell them that the man is a scoundrel and to avoid him. And he
has also lost a bit of his own integrity, don’t you think?”
Mr. Singh wiped his brow with the back of his hand. It was hot and stuffy and we were standing
in a crowded little ante room that looked into the record office, a huge cavern of disarray where
bundles of dog-eared papers were stacked atop one another, on shelves reaching to the ceiling, on
the floor, overflowing from rickety tables; age-worn and weather-eaten stacks of vehicle
registration and ownership documents tied together with string and bailing wire. At the door sat a
dull-eyed brute of a policeman dressed in a dirty white uniform, bamboo lathi in hand that he used
to usher people in and out with grand and important sweeps. People were unsmilingly moving
about, clutching their tattered papers that more often than not had rupee notes peeking out from
between the pages. Beads of sweat had already reappeared on Mr. Singh’s forehead.
“You don’t understand Doctor Steve, This is a miserable country, life is very hard and everyone
wants to make it easier for themselves, more comfortable. You are a tourist here, you won’t be
back, and that man at the repair shop will never see you again in all probability. And because life is
so hard the only way a man can escape is with money. Money is the magic key to open the door to
freedom and the only way you can get it is to rob the other man. Everybody does it; it’s a way of
life”.
“From the lowest to the highest,” I muttered.
“Yes, from the lowest to the highest. You will pay fifty rupees here with the record people and this
matter will be straightened out in a few days, otherwise it could take months and even end up
costing you more. He gets it from you and you get it back from the next person. It’s a vicious and
endless cycle but there is nothing you can do about it. This is a poor country and money can only
save you from a life of misery.
“I can appreciate the problem but the procedure you go about solving it is lopsided. Do people
steal because they are poor or are they poor because they steal? India bemoans her plight but
continues with the behavior that causes her problem. And this is land of religion. I don’t
understand.”
Mr. Singh smiled like an indulgent father. “You will understand after you have been here for a
while,” he said.
“I hope so,” I replied. “I have been cheated so many times the last few months I was beginning to
think of India as a land of beggars and thieves. No matter where it is there is always an empty hand
in his face or his pocket.”
“You think all Indians are beggars or thieves?” Mr. Singh asked in surprise.
“Well, no, but there sure are a lot” I replied. “Whenever an honest man appears it seems you
either throw him in jail or shoot him. What else am I to think? I walk down the street and my pen
gets lifted from the shirt pocket. I put stamps on my letters and the clerk steals them at the Post
Office. My money is held up at the bank for two or three months to collect interest I never see. The
tea man charges me double, the waiter pads the bill, the dhobi switches shirts on me, my watch is
stolen by a respectable businessman and I’m tricked out of my pay by an Indian corporation I
worked for several years ago whose motto is, “There is no religion higher then
truth”. When we met to discuss the sale of the bike you said everything should be above board, no
conning, yet you wanted to weasel out of the commission you rightfully owed the man that put us
together. You said the motorcycle was perfect, remember? I had to spend a thousand rupees on it
and it still isn’t perfect. Of course I knew it wasn’t, a second hand machine is never perfect, but you
said it was, looked me straight in the eye, too. That’s what blows me away. There is no honor here,
no trust. How can you do business or run a country without trust? No wonder people are hungry
and unhappy.”
Anyway, I mustn’t let myself get too worked up over such things. I realize the reason I‘m
dissatisfied with things around me is because I’m dissatisfied with things within since everything
around me is but a projection of what’s going on inside. My own demon is at work day and night, a
shadow of the demons I see before me and when I dispel the one within the others will drift away
like clouds on a windy day.”
“We always want a little more, always reaching for the sun, a golden coin, how they dazzle us and
we are always so sure it is what we want and need; it’s all out there, all for the grabbing, all for the
taking if you don’t give it to me I’ll get it one way or another, what the hell. I don’t think twice
about stealing a phrase, an idea, a word here and there, turn it around a bit, and make it mine. I’m
also pretty good at turning a fast buck now and then if needs be and I blush at the things I know
down deep I am capable of doing under the guise of necessity, even love. So I too am a beggar
and thief, Mr. Singh, we are all beggars and thieves in the eyes of God if we are honest with
ourselves. And we are just as treacherous in the West, though a bit more subtle and sophisticated,
a sweeter
smelling grease we use on the shaft when we stick it in. It’s rawer here, more out in the open and I’
m not sure which I prefer. Over here I get beat at my own game and I guess that’s what annoys
me. Like you say, I have much to learn.”
I can see this is going to be a journey to realms never before experienced, an adventure into the
unknown, of dimensions beyond the personal cocoon of time and space, a metaphysical escalation
in the struggle to understand who and what our purpose is in this incalculable longitude and latitude
of consciousness that passes through our being. This is the journey; to live out one’s destiny to the
endless and
spiraling and pulsating rhythm of the cosmos and to follow it wherever it may lead. And since the
tiniest atom cannot make a move without pulling the whole cosmos with it, since whatever one does
is going to have some effect, the important things is to do it with trust and a pure heart; the rest will
take care of itself. St. Augustine said, “Love and do what you will,” and that’s I am trying to do.
So I mount my rumbling discontent and am off. India is only the setting; the real battle is taking
place within. Now all I have to do is learn to ride the machine that is going to take me there.
The next morning I roll up my sleeping bag, pick my way through the debris and trot down the
four flights of spiral staircase that wind from the roof to the hotel parking lot below. It is 4:AM and
time to head out after two months of preparation.
The water tap and hole in the floor are free. After a quick splash I walk down the rag wrapped,
body strewn street of rickshaw wallahs, beggar and leper families entwined in each others arms, still
slumbering as the Indian dawn descends from her reverie to allow me these few moments of calm
and stillness, so rare in this country of ceaseless activity and endless people.
I have porridge and tea at the Sikh restaurant around the corner, walk back through the
awakening streets to the bike which was loaded the previous night, say a few last minute
goodbyes to the hotel workers who have watched my preparation in silent amusement, turn the
ignition on, say a short prayer, take a deep breath and kick the starter. Voila! The monster is
awake and trembling, spitting fire and awaiting her master to mount on the very first try.
I get on, put my hands and feet in their proper position, squeezes the clutch, kick into first gear
and ho, ho, ho, away we goes…..next stop Bod Gaya, where the blessed one blew his mind and
achieved perfect understanding.
One hour a bruised and burned calf muscle and a sweat soaked shirt later I am out of the city
proper and roaring across the Vivekananda Bridge that stretches across the holy Ganges and
crosses the Grand Trunk Road which will take me through the state of Bihar and Bengal, to Bod
Gaya and points north. The sun is blazing and I am on fever hooks, knuckles white and tight on the
handle grips as I blast past bullock charts from a bygone era, lorries, bicycles stacked high with
pots, pans, vegetables going to market, cool breeze slapping face and tense body, first gear won’t
engage properly, must fix it somewhere, front wheel wobbling under weight of backpack,
briefcase and typewriter, shuddering with the vibration of every movement; Praise the Lord! It’s out
of the city and still in one piece, scared shitless as I maneuver through crowds of people that appear
suddenly before me, unable to study the sea of faces, the maelstrom of flesh that passes before my
eyes for fear of losing the concentrated effort of focusing all my attention on the myriad and
unfamiliar dials, levers and pedals before and under my hands and feet.
It this really happening, how did I get myself on this loud hunk of hot iron? I ask as I plunge
forward, forty, fifty, sixty kilometers and hour through clouds of black diesel smoke belching from
ancient buses jammed to overflowing with sweating bodies like sardines in a broken tin and trucks
that look like they’re going to disintegrate under their heavy and comical looking loads.
The Great Indian Motor Bazaar, the drama of the Grand Trunk Road, it wasn’t like this for
Kipling’s Kim I think as I look down at the on rushing highway through grease smeared glasses, the
leaking petrol tank causing a moment’s concern as we careen between a pothole and a large white
cow chewing her cud, “look out Mother Nandi, here we come!” squeeze clutch handle hit brake,
tromp into second gear, back into third, a perfect synchronization, a ballet of muscle, mind and
metal as we surged forward, a frail bag of protoplasm atop a speeding bullet whizzing through
limitless space like some antediluvian monster struggling to find its wings so it can leave its
earthbound prison and soar heavenward to freedom.
The roar of the engine becomes a deafening OM, the full range of sound, enveloping me totally in
its vibration, a grand symphony, the all inclusive sound of the universe, the eternal energy of the
cosmos emanating underneath me at the turn of the wrist, at the touch of the fingers, at the wave of
the baton, the majestic maestro on a speeding podium pulling the Loving Word out with
mechanized wand.
The road, a glistening ribbon stretching to the horizon, unwinds itself before us. Not bad I think,
for someone who didn’t now one end of a motorcycle from another two weeks ago. It’s coming,
slowly but surely, the interval between thought and action is getting smaller, reflexes are becoming
faster, becoming surer of myself, more in charge of this strange animal between my legs. The
biggest problem is starting and keeping balanced when stopped but that will come as I develop
those muscles and the feel, the knack of ascertaining her temperament, her mood, the knack, as
Mr. Singh said, of discerning that fine line between heaviness and nothingness that only comes from
the pain and suffering one must endure and accept and finally feel comfortable with as in any new
relationship.
Solidly mounted on my steed, I hit a long stretch of empty road and sink into thought. This
motorcycle is definitely a full time meditation, no time to mind trip, constant awareness every
moment even on the highway when there are no people or animals around. Hold on and be
attentive, stay in the moment and everything will be okay. The first day is always the worst, like the
first day of spring practice after which you fall into a dead sleep, throbbing muscles and nerves that
have
reawakened after a year’s rest and thrown violently into consciousness, a constant reminder of ones
human frailty and impotence when brought face to face with the brute strength of a seemingly higher
order. But it feels good too to be out of my head for a while, a pleasant change from the confines of
a room, the cloistered hotel caves of the long distance traveler that shrouds you with ideas,
thoughts, glimmerings, dreams, bursts of ephemerality but leaves you just as tired at the end of the
day as any laborer or office drone dragging his body back from the pits of meaningless activity that
the world refers to as an honest days work.
My mind flashes back to that first week of school at the age of six when I realized, to my horror,
that they were going to try to make to make me into a copy of themselves, these people who were
in charge of molding my young mind and character so I could fit into their machine that I didn’t
understand nor wanted any part of. How that realization paralyzed me, how it shook the roots of
my pure innocence. I remembered with clarity of the man walking to the gallows, his life flashing
before him with the vividness of a thousand suns, every nuance, every gesture, thought, action,
every breath there before his minds eye, emblazoned in the gray matter of his being with the red hot
iron of fright, despair and total helplessness. God, how I made it through these first eighteen years I’
ll never know, swimming in the confusion of the conceptual world trying to name, define and
understand my place in it and close the wound, extinguish the roaring anxiety and rumbling of a soul
that finds itself, upon awakening from a long fitful sleep, in a madhouse of some diabolical demonic
force that points to the exit of freedom then slams the door in your face as you reach the threshold.
Getting to that door, that magic opening that leads to uncompromising freedom has been the focus,
though stumbling and erratic, inconsistent and confusing, of my life since that first glimmering, that
first ideational obsession with “I”, what it was and meant, who I was and what my presence on this
planet meant, if anything. Of course I couldn’t get any straight answers from anyone for not only did
I not know how to formulate and express those thoughts and questions but there was no one
around that could answer them if I could, there wasn’t anyone around that spoke the language
much less understood what I was going through at such a tender age. Get in harness, I would hear
them say between the lines of their verbal and non-verbal obfuscations, and I would shudder and
run from the hopelessness of my inability to communicate. But very early I saw that there was a
world of light and a world of dark, a world with fetters and a world without and I was determined,
even if it killed me in the process, to live without fetters and in the light, that I wasn’t going to part of
a world that I considered insensitive, compromising and inhuman, that I was going to listen to my
own inner voice and to hell to rest of them; to duty, country, job, property, all being the babble of
idiots who feared the world and themselves and the constrained and constricted boundaries they
encapsulated in.
Somebody I read once said there were only two kinds of people in this world - the quick and the
dead; those who steered toward the light and cultivated the spirit, and those who lived in darkness
and attached themselves to the world of confusion. That’s what I felt when I was a kid, when I
used to
say I was different. I didn’t mean that I thought I was better than everyone else, what I meant was I
thought most everyone around me was living in confusion and even then, though I didn’t frame,
couldn’t formulate it in words, knew I was steering towards the light.
I can remember sitting on a rock on the side of the road one day hitchhiking to the fancy country
club where I went on the weekends to caddy, how self important and fatuous these people seemed
who passed him in their Cadillac’s and Lincolns, how self-assured and confident they were in the
roles they were playing - most of those guys were big-shot Washington politicians on their way to
play golf, their weekly eighteen holes - and I wondered where I would be at that age, where I
would be not only physically but in my head as well, and how little money I would need to carry out
my life to completion. I saw myself at that age living high up in the mountains somewhere while the
world below consumed itself with the confusion I saw all around me, well ordered and inviolable
though it seemed at the time. And it’s happening pretty much that way. The world hasn’t consumed
or blown itself up yet but it’s getting closer and I’m not completely up in the high mountains yet but
I’m getting closer each day. And as I look down from my perch, my ivory tower, or chance upon a
newspaper or current magazine, my boyhood visions are irrevocably confirmed; the world is truly a
madhouse populated with unhappy, greedy lunatics who are intent on blowing it all up.
I didn’t want any part of it then and I don’t now even more so. Of course one must step out into
the stream, into the onrushing world of experience and get battered around a bit to
find out what it was all about, but I wasn’t going to worry and wasn’t going to let it beat me down
and make me into a miserable wretch like those I saw around me, frightened and screamingly
content in the snug boxes of complacency and apathy they let themselves be herded into. II also
knew I was tough and resilient and could take anything they might throw at me, that I could hold
out through all the flak I knew they would throw and come out okay. I knew that on the inside I
was as delicate as the softest flower and free as the wildest bird because I had been gifted with a
quick spirit and strong and stubborn will and would fight them to the death if needs be. I didn’t
realize at the time that I had a mind, as well as a unique lens that I viewed the world through, the
recognition and appreciation of those didn’t come until later when I got out into the world and
tested myself with a broader spectrum of fellow-man; then I just thought of it as being different and
to my dismay unacceptable to the world at large.
I wasn’t interested in what everyone else was interested in, what everyone was supposed to be
interested in. I didn’t know what I was interested in but for sure knew what I wasn’t interested in.
There were so many thing going on out there in the world how come I had to pick one? I thought
that was a really odd way to do things because I wanted to experience as much as possible, stretch
my mind, test the temper of this thing called me, take it all in, grow and expand, and it seemed that
confining one’s life to a single endeavor was not only a waste of time and precious resources but
absurd as well since it was restricting the one thing that was important, the spirit and the joy inherent
in that spirit that was every ones right to possess. It was also boring as well. Only a dim-witted
nincompoop, or a Buddha, could do the same task over and over again for twenty or thirty years
and not go bananas, completely bonkers, and I can’t say I’ve changed my thinking on that score
either or met any Buddhas. Maybe that’s why the whole world is bonkers, it had to burst
somewhere, sooner or later, there had to be an explosion. Anicca, as the Buddhists say, all is
impermanence, destruction and creation, in and out, the ceaseless breathing of the universe, you eat
and you shit, what goes in must come out, what comes up must come down.
The loud blast of a horn slaps me from my reverie and I look in the rear view mirror. Two
humongous troop carriers swollen with smooth-faced, khaki clad defenders of the faith are trying to
pass me and my Lilliputian machine. Size definitely has the right of way on the highways of the India
and no way do I want to fool with those guys. I down gear put pressure on the foot brake and
move over to the far side of the road to let them pass in a cloud of dust and diesel fumes.
There they go, conditioned and mechanized robotized warriors, the nations finest proudly holding
their gleaming tools of destruction; children most of them, children of darkness who will be crucified
for a vague ideal they neither know or understand so their children can create new covenants, new
laws, new governments and new chaos and thus start the endless cycle over again without having
learned from the last. What madness. For the sake of the machine human life becomes so much
cannon fodder, more food for the awesome dragon of destruction to discharge through his
sacrificial and impious asshole.
I wave at them and several on the last truck wave back. So long, fellas, onward Christian soldiers,
or Hindu, or Muslim, or whatever your particular conditioning is, I’m sure the gods are on your side
so shoot ‘em up good and have a nice frolick. As for me, I’m heading for the mountains where I
can weep and watch it all from, as well as laugh at the wise little men in Parliament who take their
game so seriously.
I slows down to about twenty kilometers per hour, letting them get out of sight before I resume
normal speed. I’m not interested in being near or hanging around to participate in any way the
mission their wise elders have sent them on, or be splattered by it as it reverberates throughout the
world in the guise of freedom. The world ends when I die but no need to rush it.
There is nothing but god in every particle of our being. His mind and my mind are making it all
happen, both the son and father, they are each primary actors in this play of life and the one basic
actor plays all the parts. We are not separate from him, we are him. We are all god but we just don’
t know it and any ideology, plan or blueprint for the world that doesn’t take this very simple and
basic truth as its underlying premise is just so much illusion. Or that’s what the ancient wisdom says.
I pull into Bod Gaya in the late afternoon. The town is quiet save for two old French Dharma
bums and two young hippies sitting in an outdoor cafe drinking tea. I inquired about a place to stay
and they directed me to the Burmese Vihara about ten minutes out of town. Very beautiful, groovey
monks and okay to smoke they informed me.
It was very beautiful, small cottages set around a large pool that contained lotuses, water lilies and
a few other flowers that I couldn’t identify. Two ducks glided gracefully across the water, a perfect
picture of tranquility. Off to the side was an old administration building that contained the library and
the living quarters for the three or four monks that managed the place. At the other end was a large
temple that was under construction.
I was given a cottage next door to a rather intense Israeli who spent his time doing mathematical
equations and brooding about the political situation in his country. The space was small but
adequate, a plank for a bed, a chair and small table for writing. I unrolled my pad, arranged my
books and writing accoutrements on the table and within five minutes I was right at home. What
else does a poor monk need?
India attracts many young people from Israel as the living is cheap and the drugs are plentiful.
Most of them have recently been cashiered out of the army and have a pocket full of money. They
are generally quite dirty and sullen and affect an odd combination of colorfully clashing clothing.
They seem to spend most of the time listening to the loud and monotonous beat of trance music and
smoking endless chillums while playing a kind of finger flicking checkers game called carrom and
arguing with each other. The women are large breasted, masculine and walk with an military gait,
the men exude an imperious and somewhat scornful attitude that belies the insecurity of belonging to
a group of people ill thought of throughout the world.
The Jews first appear in history around 1400 B.C. They were a barbarous nomadic people that
drifted into Palestine which was then under Egyptian control and subsequently put into slavery.
They first invented the myth that only one religion –theirs-could be the true one and they conceived
of themselves as being the “chosen ones” and hence did not feel a mission to convert the world.
They lived with the fervent expectation that some great decisive event would be the definitive
solution to their problems and have harbored that expectation to the present as we see in the
expansionist policies of the state of Israel. The Messianic idea, the determining factor in Jewish
history and in their faith of historical fulfillment survives in Christianity and together they advance on
the world stage to bring those expectations to fruition in partnership with the current fundamentalist
US administration.
These “people of the book” have little, if any, interest in the philosophies and religions of India.
They come only for a cheap vacation. The Indians tolerate them because they spend money but
they are not well liked either by the local people or the other foreign tourists. The locals say that
they must be nice to them for fear of returning in the next life as an Israeli.
There has been a resurgence of Nazism in India, Mein Kampf is evident in many book stores and
Hitler is considered to have been a great warrior in spite of those atrocities which are endemic in
every war. Killing, raping, burning, and beheading are standard procedure in the East when their
armies take up the sword and India has been no exception, not only in it’s historical past but in
recent communal conflagrations between Hindu and Muslim and Sikh. War is hell as they say and
the armies of Rome, Stalin, Tojo, Genghis Khan, Pol Pot and George Bush are not much different
in their savagery. We love to kill each other…..
Pakistan on the way to Europe. As I was filling out departure papers at the boarder station three
men mounted on huge Harley-Davidsons roared through loaded down with camping equipment and
the dusty determination one needs to undertake such a journey through the vast and desolate
spaces of the East.
I looked at them with fascination, somewhat like a young boy who has just seen his first cowboy
on horseback and felt totally overwhelmed by the enormity and daring of such a formidable
adventure. Just visiting India for three months over the standard tourist route had been an incredibly
difficult and exhausting experience and I was happy to be on my way home for a much needed rest.
But another side of me felt cheated and I knew that this land of complexity and contradictions
would someday again soon beckon me with her call.
God! That’s the way to do it, I said to himself, that’s the way to really see this country and its
people, this land of mystery and adventure, this boiling stew, this inferno that stretches and pulls
your heart muscles and grey matter into new and dazzling configurations. Maybe one day I will find
the time, resources and physical stamina to undertake such a journey, I said to myself as I boarded
the crowded and uncomfortable bus that was to take me to Lahore for my train connection.
Maybe, someday……
Mr. Singh looked up with large, black dewy eyes. His six yards of blue turban was wrapped
impeccably around his long, jet black heir that was tied in a top knot underneath, and his beard was
tucked into his jali, the traditional net most Sikhs wear to contain and manage the facial locks they
never cut from childhood. A heavy steel bangle gleamed against the dark skin of his muscular right
forearm, a constant reminder, of truth in his dealings with the world and his fellowman.
A fine specimen of young Sikh manhood, I thought, as I took a seat in the cubby-hole office of
Big Mac Clutch Plates which Mr. Singh and his family were the proprietors of.
It is a few years later and I am in Calcutta with time on my hands, a money belt filled with
rupees, a thirst for adventure and a possible exaggerated estimation of my physical powers. But
though the body had weakened a bit these past years the spirit was that of a sixteen year old and I
yearned to fulfill this one fantasy that had been knocking around the back of my head all this time. It
was now or never.
“This machine is perfect” said Mr. Singh, in answer to my enquiry about the motorcycle he had for
sale. “Absolutely perfect, not a thing wrong with it, 8,750 rupees, not one paisa less. I don’t have
to sell it, I don’t need the money. Most people sell their motorcycles when they’re falling apart but
that’s not my reason. I like to have things new and shiny so every couple
of years I trade everything in. I want to get a new one otherwise I would keep it.”
I looked at the bike parked in the narrow passageway leading up to the office. A black 1877
Bullet Enfield, 350 cc, the biggest one India makes, reasonably well taken care of with 17,000
Kilometers on the original engine. I kicked the tires, asked a couple of semi-intelligent questions
and offered him 8,000.
“Absolutely not”, replied Mr. Singh, “8,750 rupees, not one paisa less, look at all these extras”,
and he proceeded to point out certain things that did not come with the motorcycle when new.
“This bike is in perfect condition, I drive it only to and from work, you won’t have to spend
anything on it for another fifteen or twenty thousand kilometers, not one rupee except to change the
oil and periodic servicing.”
I kicked the tires once more, thanked him, said he’d think about it and let him know in a few days.
One week and a dozen motorcycles later I was back in his steaming little office to tell him that I
would buy, what I considered his over-prized bike at the asking price, if it was still available.
Mr. Singh hesitated. Had the price gone up as it often dies in India or had he changed his mind?
“What is the problem?” I asked. I was tired of hassling and anxious to close the deal and get on
with the show.
“No problem, no problem,” he said.
“Then let me give you a deposit so we can get the ball rolling,” I replied.
Mr. Singh was obviously embarrassed and shuffled his feet under his tiny desk. I waited silently
for his discomfort to end.
“I must consult first with my father to obtain his permission,” he said.
“Why, does it belong to him?”
“No, it is mine.”
“Then why must you consult him?” I asked. Mr. Singh was about thirty years old and seemed to
be in charge of Big Mac Clutch Plates.
“Well, you see,” he said falteringly, with eyes lowered, “We Indians believe that anything made of
iron is unlucky and since this particular piece of iron has given me no problems for two years I
should not press my luck by exchanging it for one that might.”
“Do you believe that?” I asked.
“Well, yes,” he replied, unable to look me in the eye.
I gave him my card. “Please consult with your father- or any other oracle, I thought- and let me
know at my hotel when you make your decision.
Some days later as I and Mr. Singh were waiting in the Motor Vehicles Department to locate the
missing registration
papers, I told Mr. Singh that I didn’t quite understand the business ethic of the East - I was still
smarting after being overcharged almost double for the battery I had to replace on my new, and
what was turning out to be, expensive toy.
“Doesn’t this man understand that if he treats me honestly I will come back for more business?
Now for a few dollars, he has lost my business, my trust and respect as well as any business my
friends might have for I will surely tell them that the man is a scoundrel and to avoid him. And he
has also lost a bit of his own integrity, don’t you think?”
Mr. Singh wiped his brow with the back of his hand. It was hot and stuffy and we were standing
in a crowded little ante room that looked into the record office, a huge cavern of disarray where
bundles of dog-eared papers were stacked atop one another, on shelves reaching to the ceiling, on
the floor, overflowing from rickety tables; age-worn and weather-eaten stacks of vehicle
registration and ownership documents tied together with string and bailing wire. At the door sat a
dull-eyed brute of a policeman dressed in a dirty white uniform, bamboo lathi in hand that he used
to usher people in and out with grand and important sweeps. People were unsmilingly moving
about, clutching their tattered papers that more often than not had rupee notes peeking out from
between the pages. Beads of sweat had already reappeared on Mr. Singh’s forehead.
“You don’t understand Doctor Steve, This is a miserable country, life is very hard and everyone
wants to make it easier for themselves, more comfortable. You are a tourist here, you won’t be
back, and that man at the repair shop will never see you again in all probability. And because life is
so hard the only way a man can escape is with money. Money is the magic key to open the door to
freedom and the only way you can get it is to rob the other man. Everybody does it; it’s a way of
life”.
“From the lowest to the highest,” I muttered.
“Yes, from the lowest to the highest. You will pay fifty rupees here with the record people and this
matter will be straightened out in a few days, otherwise it could take months and even end up
costing you more. He gets it from you and you get it back from the next person. It’s a vicious and
endless cycle but there is nothing you can do about it. This is a poor country and money can only
save you from a life of misery.
“I can appreciate the problem but the procedure you go about solving it is lopsided. Do people
steal because they are poor or are they poor because they steal? India bemoans her plight but
continues with the behavior that causes her problem. And this is land of religion. I don’t
understand.”
Mr. Singh smiled like an indulgent father. “You will understand after you have been here for a
while,” he said.
“I hope so,” I replied. “I have been cheated so many times the last few months I was beginning to
think of India as a land of beggars and thieves. No matter where it is there is always an empty hand
in his face or his pocket.”
“You think all Indians are beggars or thieves?” Mr. Singh asked in surprise.
“Well, no, but there sure are a lot” I replied. “Whenever an honest man appears it seems you
either throw him in jail or shoot him. What else am I to think? I walk down the street and my pen
gets lifted from the shirt pocket. I put stamps on my letters and the clerk steals them at the Post
Office. My money is held up at the bank for two or three months to collect interest I never see. The
tea man charges me double, the waiter pads the bill, the dhobi switches shirts on me, my watch is
stolen by a respectable businessman and I’m tricked out of my pay by an Indian corporation I
worked for several years ago whose motto is, “There is no religion higher then
truth”. When we met to discuss the sale of the bike you said everything should be above board, no
conning, yet you wanted to weasel out of the commission you rightfully owed the man that put us
together. You said the motorcycle was perfect, remember? I had to spend a thousand rupees on it
and it still isn’t perfect. Of course I knew it wasn’t, a second hand machine is never perfect, but you
said it was, looked me straight in the eye, too. That’s what blows me away. There is no honor here,
no trust. How can you do business or run a country without trust? No wonder people are hungry
and unhappy.”
Anyway, I mustn’t let myself get too worked up over such things. I realize the reason I‘m
dissatisfied with things around me is because I’m dissatisfied with things within since everything
around me is but a projection of what’s going on inside. My own demon is at work day and night, a
shadow of the demons I see before me and when I dispel the one within the others will drift away
like clouds on a windy day.”
“We always want a little more, always reaching for the sun, a golden coin, how they dazzle us and
we are always so sure it is what we want and need; it’s all out there, all for the grabbing, all for the
taking if you don’t give it to me I’ll get it one way or another, what the hell. I don’t think twice
about stealing a phrase, an idea, a word here and there, turn it around a bit, and make it mine. I’m
also pretty good at turning a fast buck now and then if needs be and I blush at the things I know
down deep I am capable of doing under the guise of necessity, even love. So I too am a beggar
and thief, Mr. Singh, we are all beggars and thieves in the eyes of God if we are honest with
ourselves. And we are just as treacherous in the West, though a bit more subtle and sophisticated,
a sweeter
smelling grease we use on the shaft when we stick it in. It’s rawer here, more out in the open and I’
m not sure which I prefer. Over here I get beat at my own game and I guess that’s what annoys
me. Like you say, I have much to learn.”
I can see this is going to be a journey to realms never before experienced, an adventure into the
unknown, of dimensions beyond the personal cocoon of time and space, a metaphysical escalation
in the struggle to understand who and what our purpose is in this incalculable longitude and latitude
of consciousness that passes through our being. This is the journey; to live out one’s destiny to the
endless and
spiraling and pulsating rhythm of the cosmos and to follow it wherever it may lead. And since the
tiniest atom cannot make a move without pulling the whole cosmos with it, since whatever one does
is going to have some effect, the important things is to do it with trust and a pure heart; the rest will
take care of itself. St. Augustine said, “Love and do what you will,” and that’s I am trying to do.
So I mount my rumbling discontent and am off. India is only the setting; the real battle is taking
place within. Now all I have to do is learn to ride the machine that is going to take me there.
The next morning I roll up my sleeping bag, pick my way through the debris and trot down the
four flights of spiral staircase that wind from the roof to the hotel parking lot below. It is 4:AM and
time to head out after two months of preparation.
The water tap and hole in the floor are free. After a quick splash I walk down the rag wrapped,
body strewn street of rickshaw wallahs, beggar and leper families entwined in each others arms, still
slumbering as the Indian dawn descends from her reverie to allow me these few moments of calm
and stillness, so rare in this country of ceaseless activity and endless people.
I have porridge and tea at the Sikh restaurant around the corner, walk back through the
awakening streets to the bike which was loaded the previous night, say a few last minute
goodbyes to the hotel workers who have watched my preparation in silent amusement, turn the
ignition on, say a short prayer, take a deep breath and kick the starter. Voila! The monster is
awake and trembling, spitting fire and awaiting her master to mount on the very first try.
I get on, put my hands and feet in their proper position, squeezes the clutch, kick into first gear
and ho, ho, ho, away we goes…..next stop Bod Gaya, where the blessed one blew his mind and
achieved perfect understanding.
One hour a bruised and burned calf muscle and a sweat soaked shirt later I am out of the city
proper and roaring across the Vivekananda Bridge that stretches across the holy Ganges and
crosses the Grand Trunk Road which will take me through the state of Bihar and Bengal, to Bod
Gaya and points north. The sun is blazing and I am on fever hooks, knuckles white and tight on the
handle grips as I blast past bullock charts from a bygone era, lorries, bicycles stacked high with
pots, pans, vegetables going to market, cool breeze slapping face and tense body, first gear won’t
engage properly, must fix it somewhere, front wheel wobbling under weight of backpack,
briefcase and typewriter, shuddering with the vibration of every movement; Praise the Lord! It’s out
of the city and still in one piece, scared shitless as I maneuver through crowds of people that appear
suddenly before me, unable to study the sea of faces, the maelstrom of flesh that passes before my
eyes for fear of losing the concentrated effort of focusing all my attention on the myriad and
unfamiliar dials, levers and pedals before and under my hands and feet.
It this really happening, how did I get myself on this loud hunk of hot iron? I ask as I plunge
forward, forty, fifty, sixty kilometers and hour through clouds of black diesel smoke belching from
ancient buses jammed to overflowing with sweating bodies like sardines in a broken tin and trucks
that look like they’re going to disintegrate under their heavy and comical looking loads.
The Great Indian Motor Bazaar, the drama of the Grand Trunk Road, it wasn’t like this for
Kipling’s Kim I think as I look down at the on rushing highway through grease smeared glasses, the
leaking petrol tank causing a moment’s concern as we careen between a pothole and a large white
cow chewing her cud, “look out Mother Nandi, here we come!” squeeze clutch handle hit brake,
tromp into second gear, back into third, a perfect synchronization, a ballet of muscle, mind and
metal as we surged forward, a frail bag of protoplasm atop a speeding bullet whizzing through
limitless space like some antediluvian monster struggling to find its wings so it can leave its
earthbound prison and soar heavenward to freedom.
The roar of the engine becomes a deafening OM, the full range of sound, enveloping me totally in
its vibration, a grand symphony, the all inclusive sound of the universe, the eternal energy of the
cosmos emanating underneath me at the turn of the wrist, at the touch of the fingers, at the wave of
the baton, the majestic maestro on a speeding podium pulling the Loving Word out with
mechanized wand.
The road, a glistening ribbon stretching to the horizon, unwinds itself before us. Not bad I think,
for someone who didn’t now one end of a motorcycle from another two weeks ago. It’s coming,
slowly but surely, the interval between thought and action is getting smaller, reflexes are becoming
faster, becoming surer of myself, more in charge of this strange animal between my legs. The
biggest problem is starting and keeping balanced when stopped but that will come as I develop
those muscles and the feel, the knack of ascertaining her temperament, her mood, the knack, as
Mr. Singh said, of discerning that fine line between heaviness and nothingness that only comes from
the pain and suffering one must endure and accept and finally feel comfortable with as in any new
relationship.
Solidly mounted on my steed, I hit a long stretch of empty road and sink into thought. This
motorcycle is definitely a full time meditation, no time to mind trip, constant awareness every
moment even on the highway when there are no people or animals around. Hold on and be
attentive, stay in the moment and everything will be okay. The first day is always the worst, like the
first day of spring practice after which you fall into a dead sleep, throbbing muscles and nerves that
have
reawakened after a year’s rest and thrown violently into consciousness, a constant reminder of ones
human frailty and impotence when brought face to face with the brute strength of a seemingly higher
order. But it feels good too to be out of my head for a while, a pleasant change from the confines of
a room, the cloistered hotel caves of the long distance traveler that shrouds you with ideas,
thoughts, glimmerings, dreams, bursts of ephemerality but leaves you just as tired at the end of the
day as any laborer or office drone dragging his body back from the pits of meaningless activity that
the world refers to as an honest days work.
My mind flashes back to that first week of school at the age of six when I realized, to my horror,
that they were going to try to make to make me into a copy of themselves, these people who were
in charge of molding my young mind and character so I could fit into their machine that I didn’t
understand nor wanted any part of. How that realization paralyzed me, how it shook the roots of
my pure innocence. I remembered with clarity of the man walking to the gallows, his life flashing
before him with the vividness of a thousand suns, every nuance, every gesture, thought, action,
every breath there before his minds eye, emblazoned in the gray matter of his being with the red hot
iron of fright, despair and total helplessness. God, how I made it through these first eighteen years I’
ll never know, swimming in the confusion of the conceptual world trying to name, define and
understand my place in it and close the wound, extinguish the roaring anxiety and rumbling of a soul
that finds itself, upon awakening from a long fitful sleep, in a madhouse of some diabolical demonic
force that points to the exit of freedom then slams the door in your face as you reach the threshold.
Getting to that door, that magic opening that leads to uncompromising freedom has been the focus,
though stumbling and erratic, inconsistent and confusing, of my life since that first glimmering, that
first ideational obsession with “I”, what it was and meant, who I was and what my presence on this
planet meant, if anything. Of course I couldn’t get any straight answers from anyone for not only did
I not know how to formulate and express those thoughts and questions but there was no one
around that could answer them if I could, there wasn’t anyone around that spoke the language
much less understood what I was going through at such a tender age. Get in harness, I would hear
them say between the lines of their verbal and non-verbal obfuscations, and I would shudder and
run from the hopelessness of my inability to communicate. But very early I saw that there was a
world of light and a world of dark, a world with fetters and a world without and I was determined,
even if it killed me in the process, to live without fetters and in the light, that I wasn’t going to part of
a world that I considered insensitive, compromising and inhuman, that I was going to listen to my
own inner voice and to hell to rest of them; to duty, country, job, property, all being the babble of
idiots who feared the world and themselves and the constrained and constricted boundaries they
encapsulated in.
Somebody I read once said there were only two kinds of people in this world - the quick and the
dead; those who steered toward the light and cultivated the spirit, and those who lived in darkness
and attached themselves to the world of confusion. That’s what I felt when I was a kid, when I
used to
say I was different. I didn’t mean that I thought I was better than everyone else, what I meant was I
thought most everyone around me was living in confusion and even then, though I didn’t frame,
couldn’t formulate it in words, knew I was steering towards the light.
I can remember sitting on a rock on the side of the road one day hitchhiking to the fancy country
club where I went on the weekends to caddy, how self important and fatuous these people seemed
who passed him in their Cadillac’s and Lincolns, how self-assured and confident they were in the
roles they were playing - most of those guys were big-shot Washington politicians on their way to
play golf, their weekly eighteen holes - and I wondered where I would be at that age, where I
would be not only physically but in my head as well, and how little money I would need to carry out
my life to completion. I saw myself at that age living high up in the mountains somewhere while the
world below consumed itself with the confusion I saw all around me, well ordered and inviolable
though it seemed at the time. And it’s happening pretty much that way. The world hasn’t consumed
or blown itself up yet but it’s getting closer and I’m not completely up in the high mountains yet but
I’m getting closer each day. And as I look down from my perch, my ivory tower, or chance upon a
newspaper or current magazine, my boyhood visions are irrevocably confirmed; the world is truly a
madhouse populated with unhappy, greedy lunatics who are intent on blowing it all up.
I didn’t want any part of it then and I don’t now even more so. Of course one must step out into
the stream, into the onrushing world of experience and get battered around a bit to
find out what it was all about, but I wasn’t going to worry and wasn’t going to let it beat me down
and make me into a miserable wretch like those I saw around me, frightened and screamingly
content in the snug boxes of complacency and apathy they let themselves be herded into. II also
knew I was tough and resilient and could take anything they might throw at me, that I could hold
out through all the flak I knew they would throw and come out okay. I knew that on the inside I
was as delicate as the softest flower and free as the wildest bird because I had been gifted with a
quick spirit and strong and stubborn will and would fight them to the death if needs be. I didn’t
realize at the time that I had a mind, as well as a unique lens that I viewed the world through, the
recognition and appreciation of those didn’t come until later when I got out into the world and
tested myself with a broader spectrum of fellow-man; then I just thought of it as being different and
to my dismay unacceptable to the world at large.
I wasn’t interested in what everyone else was interested in, what everyone was supposed to be
interested in. I didn’t know what I was interested in but for sure knew what I wasn’t interested in.
There were so many thing going on out there in the world how come I had to pick one? I thought
that was a really odd way to do things because I wanted to experience as much as possible, stretch
my mind, test the temper of this thing called me, take it all in, grow and expand, and it seemed that
confining one’s life to a single endeavor was not only a waste of time and precious resources but
absurd as well since it was restricting the one thing that was important, the spirit and the joy inherent
in that spirit that was every ones right to possess. It was also boring as well. Only a dim-witted
nincompoop, or a Buddha, could do the same task over and over again for twenty or thirty years
and not go bananas, completely bonkers, and I can’t say I’ve changed my thinking on that score
either or met any Buddhas. Maybe that’s why the whole world is bonkers, it had to burst
somewhere, sooner or later, there had to be an explosion. Anicca, as the Buddhists say, all is
impermanence, destruction and creation, in and out, the ceaseless breathing of the universe, you eat
and you shit, what goes in must come out, what comes up must come down.
The loud blast of a horn slaps me from my reverie and I look in the rear view mirror. Two
humongous troop carriers swollen with smooth-faced, khaki clad defenders of the faith are trying to
pass me and my Lilliputian machine. Size definitely has the right of way on the highways of the India
and no way do I want to fool with those guys. I down gear put pressure on the foot brake and
move over to the far side of the road to let them pass in a cloud of dust and diesel fumes.
There they go, conditioned and mechanized robotized warriors, the nations finest proudly holding
their gleaming tools of destruction; children most of them, children of darkness who will be crucified
for a vague ideal they neither know or understand so their children can create new covenants, new
laws, new governments and new chaos and thus start the endless cycle over again without having
learned from the last. What madness. For the sake of the machine human life becomes so much
cannon fodder, more food for the awesome dragon of destruction to discharge through his
sacrificial and impious asshole.
I wave at them and several on the last truck wave back. So long, fellas, onward Christian soldiers,
or Hindu, or Muslim, or whatever your particular conditioning is, I’m sure the gods are on your side
so shoot ‘em up good and have a nice frolick. As for me, I’m heading for the mountains where I
can weep and watch it all from, as well as laugh at the wise little men in Parliament who take their
game so seriously.
I slows down to about twenty kilometers per hour, letting them get out of sight before I resume
normal speed. I’m not interested in being near or hanging around to participate in any way the
mission their wise elders have sent them on, or be splattered by it as it reverberates throughout the
world in the guise of freedom. The world ends when I die but no need to rush it.
There is nothing but god in every particle of our being. His mind and my mind are making it all
happen, both the son and father, they are each primary actors in this play of life and the one basic
actor plays all the parts. We are not separate from him, we are him. We are all god but we just don’
t know it and any ideology, plan or blueprint for the world that doesn’t take this very simple and
basic truth as its underlying premise is just so much illusion. Or that’s what the ancient wisdom says.
I pull into Bod Gaya in the late afternoon. The town is quiet save for two old French Dharma
bums and two young hippies sitting in an outdoor cafe drinking tea. I inquired about a place to stay
and they directed me to the Burmese Vihara about ten minutes out of town. Very beautiful, groovey
monks and okay to smoke they informed me.
It was very beautiful, small cottages set around a large pool that contained lotuses, water lilies and
a few other flowers that I couldn’t identify. Two ducks glided gracefully across the water, a perfect
picture of tranquility. Off to the side was an old administration building that contained the library and
the living quarters for the three or four monks that managed the place. At the other end was a large
temple that was under construction.
I was given a cottage next door to a rather intense Israeli who spent his time doing mathematical
equations and brooding about the political situation in his country. The space was small but
adequate, a plank for a bed, a chair and small table for writing. I unrolled my pad, arranged my
books and writing accoutrements on the table and within five minutes I was right at home. What
else does a poor monk need?
India attracts many young people from Israel as the living is cheap and the drugs are plentiful.
Most of them have recently been cashiered out of the army and have a pocket full of money. They
are generally quite dirty and sullen and affect an odd combination of colorfully clashing clothing.
They seem to spend most of the time listening to the loud and monotonous beat of trance music and
smoking endless chillums while playing a kind of finger flicking checkers game called carrom and
arguing with each other. The women are large breasted, masculine and walk with an military gait,
the men exude an imperious and somewhat scornful attitude that belies the insecurity of belonging to
a group of people ill thought of throughout the world.
The Jews first appear in history around 1400 B.C. They were a barbarous nomadic people that
drifted into Palestine which was then under Egyptian control and subsequently put into slavery.
They first invented the myth that only one religion –theirs-could be the true one and they conceived
of themselves as being the “chosen ones” and hence did not feel a mission to convert the world.
They lived with the fervent expectation that some great decisive event would be the definitive
solution to their problems and have harbored that expectation to the present as we see in the
expansionist policies of the state of Israel. The Messianic idea, the determining factor in Jewish
history and in their faith of historical fulfillment survives in Christianity and together they advance on
the world stage to bring those expectations to fruition in partnership with the current fundamentalist
US administration.
These “people of the book” have little, if any, interest in the philosophies and religions of India.
They come only for a cheap vacation. The Indians tolerate them because they spend money but
they are not well liked either by the local people or the other foreign tourists. The locals say that
they must be nice to them for fear of returning in the next life as an Israeli.
There has been a resurgence of Nazism in India, Mein Kampf is evident in many book stores and
Hitler is considered to have been a great warrior in spite of those atrocities which are endemic in
every war. Killing, raping, burning, and beheading are standard procedure in the East when their
armies take up the sword and India has been no exception, not only in it’s historical past but in
recent communal conflagrations between Hindu and Muslim and Sikh. War is hell as they say and
the armies of Rome, Stalin, Tojo, Genghis Khan, Pol Pot and George Bush are not much different
in their savagery. We love to kill each other…..
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