Next morn 4.00 am dawned worse. Dense fog/ smog , visibility less than arm's length, no electricity, no hot water in the geysers. I felt my way to the group meditation hall guided by the beacon of a single light glowing dimly aloft. I am a veteran of 6 courses and was still woeful; my sympathies were with the nubile first timers ( including 3 foreigners)- who bore everything- and resisted the temptation to jump the wall and run away!
Not to forget the swarming hordes of wasps that had home in the premises. During the afternoons they would buzz and hum in hordes. I refused to leave my room the first afternoon. But for the dhamma sevika ( a policewoman from delhi police- made of tougher mettle)- i would have barricaded myself in my room. She persuaded me to brave the wasps and rush the distance from my room to the dhamma hall. With the passing days i learnt to ignore the chitinous creatures. Inside the dhamma halls with the glass windows closed up against them, the humming could still be heard and the occasional insect would bump against the glass. In the quiet, golden afternoons I imagined being up against alien invaders on a deserted planet.
The first 3 days of ana- pana meditation were painful hell for me. I was so exhausted at the end of the first day that i was dozing off due to sheer exhaustion during guruji's one hour satsang that evening.
After ana- pana, vipassana starts on the fourth day and suddenly my lethargy just disappeared. I was alert, pains reduced, the mind stabilized and i was able to sit through most addishtanas without much self- torture. My neighbours squirmed, snored, coughed, sneezed, sighed, farted, and made other innoucous/ offensive (-perception depending on your state of spiritual evolution) ambient noises. The most hilarious were the musical farts - aided, lengthened and rendered fragrant by the mooli ka salad that should never have been served for lunch.
I did break shila when i brutally murdered three of the bloody wasps which got into my room and couple of blood- fattened mosquitoes. I asked guruji for forgivance... but in hindsight i think i should have managed with meeta. After all, the police lady used to just gingerly catch the wasps in her shawl and throw them outta the dhamma hall- a feat i watched with much trepidation and much admiration...But i have no compunction about the mosquito murders....
We girls had a blast the last day when moun ( silence ) ended. There was this Russian lady who had married a Jat in the merchant navy, migrated to india yrs ago and has now learnt to speak hindi with a russo- haryanvi accent. She was hilarious. She told us how she had peeked over the parapet that separated the male and female living areas. She had concluded that only one of the entire pride of 40 odd men was washing his clothes; " Sab suar ( pigs) hain" was her foregone verdict which alternated with describing all Jats as " yeh jat bade kalakar hote hain" !
One of the nubile young things was busy mimicking what the rest were doing. She had a graphic rendition of the police- lady's emphatic response( bordering on an epileptic fit of negation) to the foreign girls' request to bear- hug our dhamma teacher ( shri Ram Dass Bharadwaj) . Another rustic lady took a liking to me and wanted so badly to meet the fauji - my bitter-half. Chettoo disappointed quite the bunch of ladies who were so looking forward to seeing him
But then - as guruji said - everything is anicca- anitya hai! anitya hai! my take- home message this time.
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