I read the front page while he was in the next room consulting with his colleagues. He came back and sat down and I put the paper back on his desk. I looked at him with tears in my eyes and shook my head. He returned my gaze and the gesture, also wordlessly.

So much death, but it is everywhere. Last night, being driven to my current abode, the well-worn New Delhi YMCA, I was enjoying the breakneck pace, fluid lane markings and the honking and light flashing communication which seems to make it all possible, when there was a slight slowing down of traffic to avoid a police barrier. Looking out the window, I saw a couple of cars, a few bystanders, a police officer, and a dead man lying in the road. Some unidentifiable part of him lay a few feet away, a bloody mass. There was no recoiling within me, just sadness and an observing voice saying, "Welcome to India. This is not the Abbey..."

This morning, embarassingly, I set out to see if I could find the train station on foot, thinking I might walk there with my luggage when it was time to move on. Ah the stubborn pride of the idiotic foreigner! Within twenty minutes, I was forced to stop and consult the hopelessly hard to read photocopied map I had been given at the Y. A passerby did his best to send me in the right direction, after asking, somewhat incredulously, why I was walking at all. Not done, it seems. Moments after thanking him and heading back the way I had come, another of the swarms of '3-wheeled motorized taxi thingies' (as I had labeled them) pulled alongside me and offered to drive me to the tourist office which my previous helper had suggested I start by visiting. It seemed to be time to stop being so stubborn (always good to know when that moment has come!) so I got in the 'took-took' as it is called (also known as a motor-rickshaw) and off we went.

After the tourist office, where jam packed trains meant a change of route and the decision to go by car to Agra and from there by train to Varanasi, my driver, who had waited for me, took me sightseeing. Thus I spent the rest of the morning careening through Delhi marvelling at the audacity of the took-took drivers, second only to that of the many, many motorcycle and scooter riders, with periodic stops to look at things like the India Gate (a large war memorial) and the parliament buildings. As we were pulling away from the latter my driver, 'Bubul', noted over the roar of his machine, that they had been built by the British. My reply, "they like things big" roused a chuckle from him.

Next he took me to a large handicrafts store, undoubtedly a stop on every took-took driver's itinerary when carrying foreign passengers who admit that this is their first day in India. There I was sweet talked, served green tea, flattered and charmed into spending money I shouldn't have, on things I don't need. Hmmm...note to self...being susceptible to flattery is a trait we might want to work on!

So, this is Delhi, for the alone and uninitiated. I keep wanting to cry. I keep simply noticing that I am here, which seems an impossibility. Just while writing this, I had to stop a few times for the tears to pass, as the understanding welled up, that my dependence on others here is fairly complete, and that I feel very well cared for

PEOPLE I SAW THIS MORNING.

The waiter who brought me bottled water.
The took-took driver I said no to.
The family camped on the median of a busy street.
The woman sweeping up leaves and garbage.
The man who stopped to help me.
Bubul, the driver I said yes to.
The travel agent who served me chai.
His friends who came to see him.
The vendors at India Gate.
A real live snake charmer?
Small boys doing acrobatics for money.
Some smiling monks in saffron.
More people sleeping on medians.
Guards with rifles and machine guns.
Security men who replied to my "good morning!" with "welcome to India!" and smiles.
The leper begging on the sidewalk.
The handicraft salesmen, who are very good at what they do.
The cleaner here at the Y who noticed I was spacily leaving the stairs at the wrong floor and said "this is two, madam, and you are on three."

The death toll is now at 80,000. It is time to just go ahead and cry.

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A TOURIST IN AGRA - Dec 30 2004

The trip from Delhi by car was, of course, not really necessary. But the tourist office is in the business of tourism and so the helpful gentleman there provided me with the opportunity to visit the Taj Mahal, a tourist must-see, at the same time as he arranged a day's work for a driver, at premium prices. He also knew well that once in Agra, I would need the services of a guide to interpret forme the wonders I would be seeing, (while the driver kept an eye on my belongings in the car) and to be sure I was led to all of the finest shops in town. I am beginning to see how all of this works!

The 4-hour drive from Delhi to Agra was an education in itself, with little said by my driver Ansar or I. Ansar wwas very polite and had a good enough car. More importantly he was possessed of the 3 gifts from God he told me all drivers need. Horn, brakes, good luck; all three of which he needed along the way. Somewhat amazingly we drove four hours through a veritable cahos of trucks, cars, took-tooks, mottrcycles, scooters, bicycles, pedaled rickshaws, bullock carts, horse carts, hand carts, cows, dogs, sheep, goats, and men women anc children, without witnessing a single accident.

Before one reaches the Taj MAhal one stops at another mausoleum, and this is where Ansar turned off at last. No sooer had we left the road, than a young man appeared at the driver's door and exchanged a few words with Ansar. The we drove off again in search of a place to park. As if by magic once the car stopped again, there was the same young man. This was parvez, and he offered his services as my guide to Agra. I decided to play along, and after a look at this building we were off to the main attraction. At the risk of offending all the Muslims in India, I must say I found the Taj Mahal somewhat anticlimactic at first glance. I am such a bad tourist. Whcih is not to say there was no enjoyment in the visit. Parvez, having noted my shaved head and odd garb, asked if I were a follower of the Dalai Lama.

I said "Yes, I am a Buddhist", at which point he declared me to be a Sadhu (holy person) and said he would try to have the admission fee to the Taj Mahal reduced from the tourist rate to that charged to residents of India for me. He did manage to wangle this somehow, although not without having to argue back and forth about my authenticity. I stood by trying not to look like a total fraud. Before we got that far though, he helped me wend my way through the endless hordes of beggars and vendors outside the gates.

He warned them away with a few brusque words ending in "sadhu!" Thus he proved to be a protector as well as a guide. There were glimpses in Parvez' demeanor as he described the Taj Mahal to me, of something beyond the pretty surface. He gave me a hint of the place of this monument in the heart of a Muslim. As a remimder of a past glorious age of Muslim rule, and as a holy place of remembrance of the power of love. He insisted I have time to walk slowly once around it, without his chattering presence. And he had me sit and admire it from a number of vantage points. From his heart to mine, it became a wonder indeed.

The rest of the day was spent eating a lovely lunch, and being swept along on involuntary shopping trips. I will spare you the details except to say that in the last store I visited the salesman seemed far more intent on selling me Allah and the Koran, than any of the merchandise. The ace up my sleeve after listeingin patiently for five minutes was to smiel and tell him that my own mother is a muslim by choice. That stopped him in his tracks, and as he sputtered a reply I slipped away with a wave. (Thanks mom!)

At three o'clock or so Parvez saw to it that I got stocked up on snacks for my train ride and then after accepting his recompense for his services he went on his way. That left Ansar and I alone again for the 45 minute ride to the train station. As we were about to head off he looked back at me and said "Agra is a big show!" I replied somewhat drily "yes, I noticed." He laughed and sais that right then I looked and sounded just like his grandmother. Ha Ha Ha, he found this very amusing...

At the station a porter immediately aproached the car to help with my bags. Ansar asked if it were ok for the porter to take it from there and I said sure and thus we parted company. The porter and I had gone maybe a hundred yards when I heard someone running from behind shouting "grandmother! grandmother!". Ansar was chasing me, waving a packet of cookies I had meant to give him but had forgotten on the back seat of the car. Grandmother grandmother indeed! So, like any good granny I told him the cookies were for him and sent him on his way.

Such a nice young man! *toothless grin*

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VARANASI - Jan 3 2005

I have been three days now at the Sandhya Guest House in varanasi. I have managed to escape the high pressured bubble which surrounds affluent and unwitting tourists in India and settle to the level of students and seekers spending months at a time here.This is a much more comfortable and friendly world. It is one in which I still rely heavily on guide and drivers, but they are employees or friends of the guest house and somehow more easy going, and family-like. They are more willing to just go along if all I wan to do is visit temples and walk along the Ganges. (No shopping, please!)

My first day here, I visited Sarnath, where the Buddha first turned the wheel of Dharma. My took-took dribver Subhas took me first to a Tibetan temple. This was a mall sudden oasis of peace. I am not sure what it was really which so moved me about. It could have been the sheer prec\sence of the 30 foot standing Buddha statue inside, at whose feet I stood sobbing quietly. But it might have been simply that I found myself on familiar ground again for the first time in what felt like weeks, but had in fact been only a couple of days.

From there I went to Deer Park, the place where the Buddha first taught. There I met a western monk named Gyurme, from Toronto of all places. He confirmed a runour I had heard elsewhere, that the Dalai Lama will be coming to Bodhgaya in the next couple of weeks. I walke slowly three times around the large stupa and explored the excavated areas where many ancient monasteries have been partially exposed. It is possible to walk right up to the spot where the Buddha himself is reputed to have liked to sit in meditation. There are no words for how it feels to do so really, so words like wonder, awe, devotion, gratitude, stillness, love, immense connectedness, will have to suffice.

A couple of evenings later I went to one of the Hindu Ghats (gate temples) along the Ganges, to see and evening puja (offering ceremony). It was humbling to see the roots of the rituals I am familiar with in what I was watching. I offered flowers and a candle to the river, again overwhelmed by unnameable emotions.

A final highpoint of this trip to Varanasi was the time spent in the large Hindu temple located at the university here. The culmination of some sense of homecoming was seeing, inlaid in marble, alongside passages of the Hindu Gitas, the words of the Buddha, taken from the Dhammapada. The very verse I murmur each time I put on my robes, up on the wall, in Sanskrit and English.

In the evenings here I enjoy sitting in the rooftop dining area, waiting for my dinner, or relaxing after eating. I listen to the pedaled riskshaw bells in the street below, playing their symphony, accompanied by the many kinds of horns, by dogs yelping, and at some point, the call to prayer resounds from mosques in three or four different directions. It is almost unbearably beautiful.