Log Chapter Three

          Monday early afternoon. Images from dreaming. It’s all the same world I live in, the dreaming world and the waking world, and all that is remembered is simply carried forward, into another day, into another night. I’m standing at a streetlight corner in Albuquerque, Alameda and Rio Grande Blvd. to be specific, with a little girl at my side, eight or ten years old. The changing lights tell us to walk. Her pace moves ahead of mine, but not excessively so, but the walk light timing is short and we must both walk briskly to get to the other side before cross traffic is given the go ahead. We go to a bus stop at the curb next to a field, where a few lime green polar bears are walking slowly through the grass. Seems so very non-sensical. The bus comes to pick us up, and when I get on, I am told by the conductor there are two fares, thirty-five cents for students with IDs, and fifty cents otherwise. The little girl disappears into the not-so-crowded bus, while I fish around for my ID, which I cannot find in my wallet. The conductor says Ok for this time, but you must have it for next time. I find a seat near a window. The little girl has vanished. This is a Madison, Wisconsin bus line. I drove these bus lines for four years between 1978 and 1982, and they are deeply embedded in memory. We’re on East Washington approaching the Capitol Square through late afternoon snowfall. As we pull up to one of the stops on the square, I see the face of a woman I knew but did not know from way back then, thirty-five years ago, half of my lifetime ago. Madison for me in those years between the central part of the city, the Capitol Square, and the university campus, was a sea of familiar faces. As bus driver and all-purpose walk-around guy, I felt there was hardly a face I didn’t recognize from somewhere in this part of town. This tall, lovely, graceful woman was about my own age, and there was a strange chemistry that connected our occasional by-the-way glances, but I never got to know her, and always wondered what our conversation would sound like. As those years went by, her visage receded, and eventually disappeared, as my waking life was absorbed by all of the others in my conversational life.

     Now in this dream, I sit as a passenger in this bus on the square. She stands at the bus stop in the gently falling snow, and we are both as old as we are now, thirty-five years later, and her eyes light into mine like the brightest two stars in the night, with a penetrating affirmation that we have arrived at a mature understanding of who we are and what we are about. Shortly thereafter, I step off the bus, not to approach this woman or meet her, for we have met, and she has disappeared, but to simply walk the sidewalks of the Madison Capitol Square through evening snowfall, as I had done so many times during those years, with a sense of peace and connection with everything around.

     Late morning walk through the front gate to east on the noisy, busy Poonamallee High Road where every motorbike and car with a horn electrifies the air with its warning. Blue skies break through while hot sunlight and humidity saturate the ambiance. Turn left at the light and dodge my way along sidewalk and street to the Airtel hole-in-the-wall shop to inquire about an internet stick. Bit of a language barrier here as the shopkeeper wants to know if I have a Chennai ID. . . . huh? . . Walk back to the guest house, and meet with Ray who fills me in on some basics. First of all, the guest house normally has WiFi, but normal is not an operational word these days. Connectivity is down in many sectors throughout the city . . . for cell phones, for internet, for ATMs, for credit card transactions, and has been especially so since the big downpour last Tuesday. Second, there are two primary connectivity sectors in India, one for the four southern states where we are, which is why I need a Chennai ID, which is something on the order of an address verification, and one for the north, which centers in Delhi. My southern ID would not work in the north and vice versa.

The YWCA can provide the guest house address as my Chennai ID for the time

I spend in the south. How many other quirks there are to getting this function set up and running I don’t know, so I think it best to not be in too big of a hurry and be sure I know what I’m getting when I start handing out rupees for equipment and services.

     In today’s newspaper, I learn that “of the (Chennai) Corporation’s area, the 172 sq. km. of the old city (where I am) have storm water drains while the remaining 254 sq. km. have no storm water drains but only drains constructed by the local bodies that are not connected to the rivers.” In another article, “huge tracts of densely populated areas became completely inaccessible floating islands. As power was switched off to avoid large-scale electrocution, mobile towers, basic telephony networks and internet cables too went kaput, making all forms of communication impossible. So, inaccessible and incommunicado are two words that best described the plight in most people in the state over those scary three or four days (last week).” Today is a short reprieve. More rain is forecast for the next three or four days, and Pondicherry and hard hit Cuddalore are also on the target, so it looks like Ray’s suggestion that I could go to Pondy if I wanted is a bit premature, and wisdom would dictate that staying right here is my only sensible option.

     Besides, Ray has become a shining gem of Light for me here. After clarifying connectivity issues and updating the weather forecast, Ray asks me who is this little girl he sees standing around me all the time. . . .huh? . . He holds his hand out palm downward a couple or three feet above the floor where we’re sitting in the lobby, and tells me there is a little blond, blue-eyed girl who is always near me, and he wonders who she is. Thinking through my friends and acquaintances around the world, I can’t identify who she might be. Some people see things that others do not, he assures me, and of course I know this is true, though I am generally not so forthcoming as Ray with my observations around my friends and family where I come from. Many of them are generally not used to such ideas, and there is little point in bringing these kinds of things up unless I feel that person is attuned to listening. It is simply an insight I can keep in mind as my friends and I continue our everyday conversations about who we are to each other. Ray sees the little girl around me, and I am touched to the quick of my heart. Ray steers the conversation to the Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry and the philosopher, mystic and writer, Aurobindo Ghose, who illuminated the spiritual path that led to the beginnings of the ashram named after him. When I lived for two years in Cuddalore near Pondy, when I was in my mid-twenties, Aurobindo’s writings informed my first encounters with Indian spirituality. I knew the place and some of its residents those forty-five years ago. Ray tells me that his grandmother, when she was carrying his mother, met Aurobindo. Ray and I are not analyzing cause and effect relationship, simply stating the things we see and know, and there is no one to say these things are true or not-true. They simply are, for those who can see, and know how to listen, and sometimes the sharing is right. Ray has given me a Ray of Light. He has a poem he wishes to share, and goes over to the front desk to stand and write it out.

     An Ode to New Beginnings

Amidst busy operations of my day

John Ashbaugh walked my way.

It was an absolute pleasure to see him

Living in love, light and harmony.

Interacting with him

Swept my heart away

Bringing meaning to my mundane day.

When it’s time to go his own way

I will continue to hope and pray

That this love, light and joy he shares

Grows deeper and sharper

With every ‘curve’ life throws his way.

*  - * - * - * - *

Dear John,

In a world of excess it renews my faith

To know that God and Mother Nature

Still take time off to create

Selfless souls like you.

With much respect, love, light and living

Only to serve another day.

Kiran  “Ray”  Amarnath

07 – 12 – 15

Chennai YWCA International Guest House

* - * - * - * - *

     Wednesday evening, December ninth. The city waits now for the aftermath, and hopes that the worst of the deluge has passed. After Monday’s blue skies reprieve, more showers have been expected, and skies over the guest house have been completely overcast, but no water is fallen. The toll so far listed in Tuesday’s newspaper is 427 for the state, including 134 in Chennai, and more is expected as the effects of sickness and disease set in. Unthinkable amounts of garbage and refuse, as well as the rot from animal carcasses – goats, cats, dogs and cows – will add to the festering air, and persons trapped in submerged homes have already been found. Fishing boats and helicopters are deployed to aid in rescue efforts and convoys of trucks try to deliver food packets and aid. Medical staff is overwhelmed, and the effects of PTSD are sure to set in for those who lost, quite literally everything, when their homes were washed away. Here at the guest house, we bear the inconvenience of no internet connection, and watch television images of all that is going on around us.

     Cuddalore district has been slammed, vast tracts are still underwater, and over a hundred persons have already died there. I think of that part of town where my Peace Corps supermarket is. I think of my home at Fort St. David out by the beach. I think especially of Bhanumati’s humble home just a few blocks from the supermarket, and wonder what is become of her and her family. I wonder what will be there when I return to visit, and how long it will be until I can visit, and who will be there to visit, when all I can do now is sit here and wait.

     I have my room with ceiling fan and open window, and the guest house lobby one floor below where visitors come and go, and Aruna and Daphne and other desk clerks answer questions and register and discharge guests. I visit the dining room every morning for breakfast and coffee and sign up for lunch or dinner, but usually not both. I can walk the expansive courtyard and visit the pond and the chapel. I can walk to the light at the corner, turn right and walk another block to the Nilgiris supermarket to buy sundry items, going as much for the walk as anything else. I read in the paper that the sector where the school is still has water and drainage issues. I wonder if Ambi and Shantha are still trapped in their house and how the school is doing. Again there are no classes for a week, and I suppose it’s safe to say that this semester has in a sense, been blown out of the water.

     Ray continues to shine his Light in the lobby and the dining room. He is an ambassador of goodwill to all visitors and guests and has learned a range of simple greetings and phrases in many languages from places he will never go.

We sit sometimes in adjoining chairs at a small round coffee table in the lobby and he tells me some of his stories. He has a Native American name, Thunder Moon, given to him by a Native American visitor some years ago. Along with a long eagle feather. The name is given based on the month of Ray’s birth. Which tribe? The name-giver told Ray that he was of the tribe that told the most stories. Giving names according to the time of birth is akin to the Hindu tradition, and the name Kiran was chosen for this man in that way. As Ray and I sit sharing stories, various guest house personnel are frequently walking over to him in search of a signature of approval. He doesn’t seem to spend very much time in his office, as the world of guest house employees and visitors whirls around him and he weaves the magic of his Light, keeping abreast of everyone’s needs and desires and stories, with quiet, thoughtful, soft-spoken sincerity.

     Thursday, as morning light illumines the room. Begin this morning’s dream with driving the dark two-lane highway towards home from the monthly second Wednesday gathering of poets at the Bernalillo Range Café. As I approach the roundabout intersection with Tramway and the bridge across the river, the road narrows and becomes mucky. I exit my car and proceed on foot, searching through the sloppy water-logged ground for a path to the bridge. Various large highway construction vehicles sit around in idle waiting and various pathways

I venture prove blocked or impassable. A couple of other poets from the Range Café gathering are also here and none of us are having success in our search for a viable path. Until finally another poet, one of the younger women, appears on the scene and leads the way over a small embankment to a clear open path we can follow to the bridge.

     From here I go to my grandmother’s house in the small Illinois town where my parents came from. This is my mother’s mother’s home that as children my brothers and sisters and I visited so many times, a center of extended family community where we enjoyed the company of grandparents, uncles and aunts, and some of the other elders. Everyone is now here socializing in a congenial way. Everyone is of their age when I knew them at their best, while I am pretty much as old as I now am. Someone goes out to check for mail and comes back and says there is nothing for me. On the pretext of taking a walk, I go out to check for myself. I must walk down the quiet street at dusk to where the big metal box sits on a concrete pillar. When I open the latch to look in, I see piles of muck and old rotted leaves, and a few waterlogged pieces of mail that look like they could be addressed to me, but are essentially addressed in gibberish. I reach in to pull all of this yuck out and throw it into the shallow drainage ditch at the foot of the mailbox post. The cavernous mailbox, now free of rotting debris, is clear and serviceable, and I enjoy my walk back along the old street of that once familiar neighborhood as dusk settles into the soothing darkness of nighttime’s first starlight.

     Thursday mid-morning, with my ever-changing plan for the months ahead.

Christmas tree goes up in the lobby this morning and the skies are completely overcast. Newspapers are full of stories of displaced persons trying to recover, trying to survive. Stories of squalor, and sickness and filth. Stories of tragic deaths and morgues filling with unclaimed bodies. Stories of inadequate relief and relocation facilities, and oceans of helplessness and desolation that surround this enclave of normality where I have my choices between corn flakes with milk and sugar, and fried eggs and buttered toast, and puris with coffee or tea or both. And streams of traffic go by outside and I wonder where everyone is going and why.

     Spin the roulette wheel of idle itinerary planning. With each passing day,

I become more settled into the life of the guest house with no sense of hurry to go anywhere, knowing full well that wherever I go, I’ll be looking for what I have here, a comfortable room with amiable company around and time every day to make up my mind about what to do next. From one such place to another I will wander, and I wonder which ones will follow one another and why. I could stay here for the next three weeks till the first week of January, waiting for the flooding up and down the coast to subside and begin to dry out and for the shockwaves of devastation to fade before taking the bus or train to Pondy for a month long visit to that town and neighboring Cuddalore. I could then return to Chennai and catch a plane to the Andaman Islands far out in the ocean west of here, spoken of in the Lonely Planet as a tropical paradise. That would be for February and into early March. Then fly from there to Calcutta and change planes for Kathmandu and spend a month in the valley there. Then take the road across southern Nepal to Rishikesh in Utterakand for a couple of weeks. Then on to Dharamshala for a month. Then on to Srinigar before heading over to Leh in July where I would stay till September. I would have to leave the country again by then, and could return to Nepal for a visit to Pokhara  or the Kathmandu valley again until I decide that it might be time to revisit the USA , or who knows what kind of plan I might be up for by that time. The overland traveling will always be the hardest part of this itinerary, and I hope I can figure out ways to make it as easy on myself as possible. In the end, it always comes down to finding this quiet room somewhere, with a few kindred souls with whom I can share stories, and with whom I can create new stories to carry along to wherever my path goes next. All the while filling my notebook with thoughts and dreams along the way. There can be no hurry to go anywhere.

     I have been telling myself that I came over here to meet somebody. The person I came here to meet is actually myself. Three weeks have gone by and today is day one of week four. There are no poetry readings to attend. There are no art show openings. There are no movies I need to see, and my Netflix account is defunct. I’ll not be attending any shootouts at the pool hall, and I will miss all of the NFL playoffs. I am missing all of the news desk updates for the latest archaeological discoveries of remnants of ancient civilizations, and do not know whether Atlantis has been convincingly discovered or not, or what ancient Egyptian mysteries have been revealed. I do not know who is shooting who in the United States, or anywhere else for that matter. All of the usual suspects, I’m sure! I do not know how many people are outraged, or what they are all outraged about. I do not know what the banking cartels are planning for the next economic catastrophe. I do not know why brother is pitted against brother and sister against sister, in this world where getting along is so much more fulfilling. I do not know who is going to bomb the fuck out of whom next, but I do know that it will happen and that the ravages of war will continue unabated until the last asshole standing thinks he is king of the hill. Pockets if Intelligence will survive in remote corners of the globe, and they may or may not find each other, and it really doesn’t matter if they do or if they don’t. All that will matter will be whether or not two or more people can find love in their hearts for one another. If you are already there, the rest is smoke to the wind, and there is no need to know anything else.

     Friday morning. Begin this little dream standing amidst the flotsam and debris of my past life, this life I have led this time around. Piles of accumulation in no particular order and I feel the strong sense that something is incomplete. I’ve been putting something off that needs to be done. Like I need to take one more college course to complete my degree, and I am somewhere in the middle of this course and need to take some exam but have been negligent and am woefully unprepared. I owe some work to my art school professor, and am so far behind that if I don’t turn something in soon, my eligibility for graduation will expire. I look for some clothes and all that I find is dirty and grungy. I’m watching a group of college students, amongst them some beautiful young sorority types, laughing and playing a game of tug-of-war amongst themselves, but I cannot go to join them for I must be on my way to take my test and complete my degree. I drive my car over to somewhere near a campus, park on a side street and begin walking in search of the building where I must go to prepare for and schedule and take my test. This sprawling campus is an amalgamation crossover between the West Texas A&M and the University of Wisconsin – Madison campuses that I spent so many years at, and it seems the further I walk, the larger it gets, classroom buildings multiply in every direction no matter which way I go and I am feeling hopelessly lost. Classes let out and mobs of young students fill the walkways and I seek a direction away from them, and am continually unsure about which way to go. Evening light begins and I come to an outdoor assembly of ROTC students all dressed in their uniforms seated in a huge amphitheatre like the curving end of a football stadium. They are all paying attention to what is going on at the foot of the amphitheatre, band music and fireworks and speechmaking. I see that I can climb the steps on one side of the amphitheatre, no one will pay any attention to me and I can arrive at a high point overview of this sprawling, confusing campus terrain and get an idea for where I am at, get my bearings for where to go.

     When I get to the top tier of this amphitheatre, there is a doorway into a very tall tower, which I enter, and begin to climb a spiraling staircase that eventually leads to a metal runged ladder that becomes narrower and more precarious the higher I go, but I continue to the topmost rung where I can look through a hole-in-the-wall window to an airplane height view of the capitol square and isthmus and university area of Madison, and I can follow with my eyes that network of streets I walked through for so many years of my life. That landscape-cityscape then blends on one side into the West Texas A&M campus in Canyon, extensive and grassy and less urbanized. This is truly an awesome overview of this combined Madison, Wisconsin and Canyon, Texas terrain, and now I begin climbing down, rung by rung, this precarious ladder, and must be very careful not to lose my grip from this wavering height or I will surely fall tragically to the bottom of this tower I am trying to slowly descend, and I awaken in awestruck wonder of the overview I’ve just had, and in trepidation of the height I so precariously hold onto.

     Twenty-six years between when I was thirty and arrived in Madison to when I was fifty-six and moved from the West Texas town of Canyon to Albuquerque. Two campuses, lots of time going to school, innumerable hours reading through countless books in the library stacks, three art degrees and all kinds of hours in English linguistics, . . . that whole middle chunk of my Life. What was that all about? Open my eyes and stare in awe at the three-winged ceiling fan slowly turning. How many words do I have for that story? And for whom is the story to be told? And what exactly is it that I need to understand?

     Violette is native to Chennai and lives and works as a paralegal in New York City. Diminutive in size and nearing sixty, she visits her family here from time to time and takes special interest in her nieces and nephews. She is interested in my poetry book and says she is working on a book of her own poetry and hopes to get it published. She introduces me to her forty-two year old nephew Dominic yesterday after lunch. We three sit around a small coffee table in the lobby. Dominic is a handsome young man but somewhat disheveled and has a horrendous wound to his left shin, broken in a motorcycle accident. It is all scabbed over and there are some bandages but no cast and he walks with the help of a four-footed cane. The story that comes from Violette is that Dominic needs to seriously get his act together. He’s got a drug problem with ganja and hashish and has been hooked up with a woman for the last fifteen years whom Violette feels is a bad influence on Dominic, siphoning off whatever money he comes into and doesn’t spend on drugs. They’ve got a fourteen year old son together. Violette wants Dominic to leave this woman, get off his addiction, get a real job and straighten out his life and I sit here and listen to her get on his case, which she says she’s been doing for years to no avail. Dominic is a quiet and courteous young man and listens compliantly and attentively, but given the circumstances and history Violette describes, I can’t help but wonder if anything will change. For one thing, he needs to keep off of his leg and give it the months of restful healing it looks like it deserves. Violette feels like all of her prayers and admonishments and attempts to help have been fruitless, wasted efforts, and she asks me to give a few words of advice and wisdom to this young man, and he listens respectfully while I tell him that his aunt and family love him and want earnestly for him to lead a fulfilling life, and that if he doesn’t take very special care of this wounded leg, it looks like it could be lopped off at the knee. How much can anyone say to someone about making smart choices, knowing full well that those choices are ultimately up to that person alone? For as long as the next few days that Violette will be here, she’ll be trying to steer Dominic into a sensible direction, despite her near sense of futility and despair, and all I can do is lend my ear and encouragement to her plight.

     Saturday morning, December twelfth. The floodgates of dreaming are lifted as one vignette follows another and as unresolved relationship issues find new understandings. I’m an apprentice to a team of professional car mechanics, and am faced with the task of lying on my back under a car trying to loosen some intractable nut from its frozen condition. Without damaging anything in the process of course, and if I succeed I will be accepted into the brotherhood of mechanics. Through trial and error and effort, I finally succeed, and when I roll out from beneath this car, I look across the bays of this garage and see my own white ’93 Ford Escort LX, my companion on the road for the last sixteen years, lifted up on the rack with all four wheels off, undergoing inspection and necessary maintenance for future driving capabilities. When updates are complete and she’s brought down road ready, my newfound maintenance companions and I head out for a test drive east on Alameda avenue as this surly, good-natured crew and I keep our eyes out for a place to buy beer for a celebration. I’m driving, and riding shotgun is a version of Daffy Duck, I kid you not.

     Switch to the mostly empty rooms of my Corrales Road hacienda, where I’m crash-padding amidst the left behind disarray. No one knows I’m here, until there appears seated on the floor, leaning against the wall, a mature younger woman whom I’ve never met, in a very sexually suggestive and receptive position, but not urgently so. She is crash-padding in one of the other rooms, and is here to help me tidy the place up, and the idea for developing intimacy is certainly here.

     Wander over to one of the other rooms which morphs into the central bedroom of the Rose family house, the home of my childhood friend Jim, and his three sisters Grace, Pat and Donna, all of whom were my boon companions of our childhood neighborhood. I’m still in the cleaning up and sorting out mode, and come to some small boxes of trinkets amongst which are some gems I select for safekeeping.

     Finally, in some manner or another, I come to a room in another venue where I meet a woman I’ve known, clothed in a simple but elegant dress, wearing a pair of glasses, and I’ve never seen her wearing glasses. The better for each of us to see each other with, I hope, my dear, for our brief but promising encounter just three years ago, crashed in a series of misunderstandings, and I’ve wished ever since that we could get back on an even footing, and know in my heart that we can. She manifests elegance in artistic and musical refinement, and in this dream, I see so clearly her sensitive reaching out. So now I must wait, until we can sit at her table again and share another bottle of her rare wine. Patience, Kiran observes, is the art of knowing that there is an unknown path towards the realization of a desired outcome, and of waiting for that path to make itself known.

     Who is this journal for? And how much of what I write here will I wish to share? While in my heart, I feel it is so necessary to write these things down!

As close to the heart of my feelings as I can get.

     Saturday afternoon, going back to yesterday afternoon when I spend three hours from two-thirty to five-thirty with Ray in his office. On the one hand, watching him interact with the various employees from the various sectors under his purview, who come to him with pieces of paper to sign, seeking directives and advising him about difficulties they face that need resolution. The glassed-in room has a full view of the reception desk and lobby, and the sense of a captain at the helm of his ship prevails.

     Ray is thirty-five with significant experience in this role. He’s only been here a couple of months and has ideas for upgrading this guesthouse into a more competitive position in the Chennai guest house market, but feels he is faced with a committee of conservative overseers unable to see how the establishment can and should evolve. He will soon be coming up for evaluation for contract renewal which is not the shoo-in I can see that it should be. He’s concerned for the outcome but not excessively so for he knows he can find a role in a more progressive institution. And he really does want a place somewhere where his ideas are appreciated. Meanwhile, requests keep coming in and decisions are always in order, and if there is anyone who can turn this place into an efficient operation, here he is.

     A man of unpretentious wisdom, Ray is clearly one of the people I came to India to meet. He tells a story of meeting with the Dalai Lama five years ago. He was with a group over in the Bangalore area, where there is a Tibetan monastery, relocation center and settlement, and he was not at that time even exactly sure who the Dalai Lama was. He was sitting in the back of the room nodding off when His Holiness gestured to single him out and beckon him to come forward. Dalai Lama asked Ray to ask any question, and Ray asked, how can you know if you have a loving relationship? Dalai Lama asked Ray if he was sure he wanted to ask that question of a monk who had nothing to do with women in that way. Ray answered yes, and after bowing his head in contemplation with a smile, Dalai Lama raised his head and spoke and told Ray, when the relationship is based on loving for one another, and not needing one another. Dalai Lama looked down again for a moment, then looked up and said, your grandfather has already told you this. And upon reflection, Ray recalled that indeed his grandfather had told him something like this when he was a little boy.

     Here in the YWCA guest house in Chennai, I meet a man who received this wisdom teaching directly from His Holiness, and feel very connected to the network and web of wisdom that touches the lives of all who seek for the truth of the underlying reality in the Heart we share. And signatures are sought after, and requests for a day off must be approved, and at one point an elderly couple comes down all in a rage about their internet connectivity problems, and their shouting and insults directed at Shri, the IT man whose office is next to Ray’s, are an awesome display of fire and brimstone and disrespect one would not expect from mature educated people. Yet here they are, unconscionably unreasonable and one can only wonder about what in their lives has brought them to this level. They leave in the rage they came down with, not having looked for a solution in the first place, but only a venue on which to vent the sadness in their hearts. Such is part of the world the manager and his trusted and competent assistant must deal with.

     Forgiveness . . . is the scent that a violet sends to the boot that has crushed it.

And it is only humans who tell their young Not to do things. Animals do not tell their young Not to do things. They only show them what to Do. By the time a child is five years old, its parents will have told it what Not to do a hundred and seventy-eight thousand times. What do you think the child will want to do?

     Monday morning, December fourteenth. In the top floor apartment of a very tall building, the interconnected rooms are residential and sparsely furnished, with a bit of the sense of storage room facility about them. The floor plan between the rooms reminds me of the word layout of an evolving scrabble board game. All the rooms have large open windows and breezes blow through rustling leaves of notebook paper and newspapers on the tables. No single room has any specific function, much like a series of interconnected guest house rooms similar to where I am now staying. I walk from one room to another, closing windows to shut out the disturbing, disruptive breezes, wondering how many rooms there are, and eventually come to a room with a table where a packet of Nepali rope incense twists are lightly smoldering. I feel that left unattended, they might start a fire, so I gingerly extinguish them, and return to my exploration of these mysterious empty rooms. A man appears in a doorway, a landlord or owner, and tells me he will let me stay longer for a reduced rate if I will look after the place. I tell him I’m not sure and will think it over since I do in fact feel somewhat confined here and feel the need for a measure of freedom to explore the outside surroundings at will.

     So here I sit in my guest house room and another day goes by, and another day of wondering when I will leave, where I am going, and why! Clearly, Pondy is next, perhaps the day after Christmas, which is still twelve days down the road. Plenty of nice, quiet streets for walking there, with comfortable coffee shops, restaurants and book stores and such, all with the ocean’s horizon nearby. In the right guest house to stay, I can visit for a couple of months, and my erstwhile urge to visit the Andaman Islands now seems like a needlessly expensive lark. From Pondy, I can return to Chennai in March, and take a flight directly to Kathmandu and hope they don’t have another earthquake there.

     Meanwhile, my stay at the guest house here is becoming an ashram-like existence, which is really all well and good. All that went by during my last four years in Albuquerque since I retired from teaching at ITT is brought into reflective focus. All of those people I met whose lives I became a part of, and they a part of mine, are set into a mobile, interactive diorama, along with all those other worlds I passed through during my last fifty years on the stage. I can call it something and say it had a purpose and a reason, and I can reminisce about all of those people who gave me cause to feel, and there are a lot of them, and every day they pass by, one after another, in my memory, from many years ago, or from one year ago, all memories have equal footing, and then I wonder anew, about who I will talk with today, and tomorrow, and for the next twelve days here, and for my time in Pondy, and for wherever I go after that. An endless river of conversations, going where, and why, I can hardly imagine. And imagine I surely do, knowing full well that all of these imaginings are like the clouds floating above in their continually changing formations.

     Tuesday morning, December fifteenth. Return to that multi-roomed apartment from yesterday only this time it is a dark and murky basement with rotten support beams and gaping holes in the wooden floor boards. As I explore this next best thing to a sewer for a home with my high school friends Frank and Bill, scanning rooms and hallways with dim flashlights, I come to a place where I can exit into the daylight above and advise my friends that I am going in search of some kind of help. After some wandering about, I meet one of my high school teachers, a member of an order of Catholic brothers who were not only scholars, but rational disciplinarians, emphatic without severity in their advice and guidance to our emerging teenage minds. He wants to know what me and my friends have been up to with the implication that it had better have been something worthwhile or else we are in trouble. I’ve no choice but to lead him back to the underground hovel not exactly sure that he will be satisfied. We must enter from ground level through a hole in the roof. He leads the way and we come to a room where my friend Frank has been industriously and productively making bricks. There are scores, nay hundreds of freshly made silver colored bricks lying about in various stages of drying, and Frank is putting the finishing touches on a barbeque pit he has made from some of these bricks. In addition, a large swathe of the floor has been laid out in preparation for a concrete pouring, and we are simply waiting for the mix to be prepared. Clearly, my right hand man has come through with flying colors.

     Now we go to a long, drawn out scene at a pond where a big fat toad sits mostly submerged with only his eyes and nostrils, the top part of his face, protruding from the surface of the still waters. On a rock on the shore nearby, a predator of the toad toys with and teases its prey and the toad stays its place and watches. The predator gets brave and more careless in its approach and gets right up under the toad’s chin. Slowly, the toad’s fat, sticky tongue emerges, and wraps around the clueless interloper. The toad opens its jaws wide and lifts this fresh meal into its cavernous mouth, where this still clueless creature, now recognizably a box turtle, cooperatively turns and walks right on into the throat of the toad, disappearing into the darkness within. An eye-opening image this morning for how patience and waiting can reap its reward. Through the act of doing seemingly nothing, the prey has consumed its predator.

     Another day at the guest house opens before me, and there is seemingly very little to do. Walked over to the supermarket last night, something on the order of a large American convenience store, and bought a box of twenty-four colored pencils. Lots of colors to play with now.

     Mother India. Eyes patiently watch across the still waters while I dance my dance, and query and question, and tease and surmise, and suppose and propose, and gesture and suggest, until, as I rest beneath her unwavering gaze,

She enfolds me in her embrace and takes me gently and entirely into the innermost sanctum of her comfort and understanding.

     

Log Chapter Two

     Monday, November thirtieth. Morning is here, I’m ready for school, and some character in government garb has decided to call it all off. It rained last night, no doubt, and puddles are scattered about, and hundreds of thousands of students and their teachers in this city, will be staying home today. Even right now, the rain does not fall, and one wonders why the official is making this call. Like it or not, the stage has been set and all of the actors wait in the wings for what will come next.

     As many days have been lost already, as there have been sessions actually held. I’m prepared for my role, yea, overly so, and have time on my hands to chase wandering thoughts as they travel from one choice to another. Yesterday, Sunday, I stepped through the gate of the Annexe, and walked up the street, past shops, and stalls, and stores of many a type and demeanor. I found new colored pencils, and blank paper for notes, and sandalwood incense to lighten the air in my room. Herbal tea bags for flavor, paper towels for cleaning up messes, and a cloth to wear round my waist when I am at leisure. Dodging puddles and cars, and cycles and buses, while yesterday’s sun was bright on my forehead.

     Another day is here now for musing on what is to come. I get the idea that my host and hostess have more plans for my role. This week, assuming classes are held a sufficient number of days, will be spent in concert with my teachers of the English department. So far, I’ll be getting a sense for students in every standard from the sixth through the twelfth. Somewhere along the line, I’ll be given my own class or classes. I read a few paragraphs from this morning’s English language newspaper for Shantha, and she is enthralled with the idea that I will be performing the role of American English pronunciation maestro. All of these classes with the English department teachers are leading me towards this objective, which I am completely fine with, and I truly appreciate this breaking-in period for getting used to the system and the students. Meanwhile, I wait in the wings to be called on stage, and so far I am little more than an extra with a brief speaking part. The plans are evolving and I’ll be finding out what I need to know when I need to know it.

     As for longer term views, Shantha makes it clear that Mi Casa Su Casa applies here at the Annexe for the rest of my life. My only question for myself is where do I take it from here. This academic quarter goes till the end of March. Of course, I will want to visit my original neighborhoods of Pondicherry and Cuddalore, south of here a hundred miles. I will want to visit some of my favorite places from my visit and tour four years ago: the beaches of Goa, the Ganges at Varanasi, Rishikesh in Utterakand, and Dharamshala in Himachel Pradesh. The Kathmandu valley draws me to Nepal. All of those, just in themselves, are a lot of places to be visiting, without even thinking about how long I might spend in any of them. Any number of serendipitous encounters might magically appear along the way, and the journey itself will be the destination.

     On the horizon of my wishful thinking gem is the town of Leh in the district of Ladakh in the northernmost state of Kashmir. Any visit I might make there would have to occur between June and September, for it is snowbound in winter and colder than any place that I have ever known. There are those of my friends and family who would ask why I would want to go to such a place, and there are others who would understand perfectly well. I can find Tibetan culture in Dharamshala and Nepal and other Himalayan regions. Leh in Ladakh is further away from everything I have ever known in a way that rings a chord that has no explanation.

     When I lived in Madison, Wisconsin in the mid-seventies, there came a moment in 1978 when I had a two week vacation from my ongoing life there. I unfolded a map of the USA, and followed the lines that led to Taos and through northern New Mexico to the Canyon de Chelley, and that is where my partner at that time and I drove. There was a music in the direction and a music in the places we visited that rang a tune true to my heart. I knew I would someday go there for a longer time, and I settled in that area in 2000 for what came to be fifteen years, and now that time is behind me in many ways.

     There is another voice that whispers in my ear and calls to this other place

I have never known. Hard to say how long it will take to get there, or via which path I will take, or whom I might travel with along the way. All of those mysteries are here, and what or who I hope to find there is impossible to say. There is simply a sense that says that’s where I’m going.

     Meanwhile, in this huge coastal city in South India, I have a role to play, persons to speak with and know, hearts to understand, voices to listen to, things to learn. All of which begs the question, where does the USA fit into this plan?

     Start off with four full months at the school, December through March.

Last day of class is Saturday, April second. I then have about six weeks for traveling or whatever I want till I must leave the country by May 18. I’ll go first to Pondicherry and Cuddalore, then Goa and Varanasi, and then cross the border into Nepal. Stay there a couple or a few weeks. Take the bus to Pokhara, and continue west across southern Nepal to the border crossing at Mahendranagar. Re-enter India, take the hiway to Haldwani, to Hardiwar, and the short road north from there to Rishikesh. Rest stop. Then Rishikesh through Dehra Dun to Shimla, through Mandi to Dharamshala. Rest stop. Then to Pathankot to Srinigar. Rest stop. Long road from Srinigar to Leh. Looks like Kargil would be a good halfway point for a rest. High point between Kargil and Leh is Fotu La at 4147 meters, 13,602 feet. Leh is at 3520 meters, 11,545 feet. No need to rush, as I will wish to ascend slowly and avoid Altitude Sickness.         I think this old body is in pretty good shape, I’ve got a good pair of lungs, and am at least used to New Mexico altitudes. Nevertheless, this is not New Mexico, and I’d like to return and visit my friends.

     Will likely leave Leh mid-September, returning to Srinigar, and from there likely return through Dharamshala. Might also go through the Kullu Valley to Manali, where I visited for a few days in 1971 during my travels after my Peace Corps assignment was finished.   

      Head down to Delhi, and catch a plane to the USA. Go through my medical procedure for my inguinal hernia and have my skin doctor look me over for cancer. Cop a hole-in-the-wall apartment in Albuquerque for as long as it takes to reconnect with friends, and do whatever all seems appropriate and necessary. Hopefully will have enough cash to get some kind of car. Check in with my contacts who might be interested in my paintings. Visit Missouri family and friends, and San Diego family. Perhaps Christmas in San Diego.           

    Once all of those things are settled, perhaps by the spring of 2017, I can pack up and come back over here for wherever I want to be. I really don’t think I’m going to want to teach school here again. This four month stint here will be plenty enough of that for me. It’s fine, well and good for what it is right now, and will be the final chapter of my professional teaching career.

     Those six months from the beginning of April through the end of September should give me enough perspective on options for redefining my life here on the subcontinent. I am now rather locked down between the school and the Annexe, and will be doing my level best to keep myself creatively engaged.  Yo!           

Sounds like a plan.

     Tuesday morning, December first. The rain is falling, the rain is falling, the rain is falling again. What do you do when the rain is falling? You sit, and pick up your pen. One hand’s breadth wide, one hand’s length long, this ancient booklet, brown-leaved manuscript, holds within a treasury of classical English verse from ages long gone by. Fables and stories oft forgotten and rarely told, wait silently for inquiring eye, to give voice to the words within, give music to the listening ear, and fill the sails of imagination with winds that have traveled from faraway places. From lands across the seven seas these stories are told, conceived and written from those long ago times before the world we know became electrified. When the wind and the wave were the sources of sound, and the pattering of raindrops told us what the weather would be today. When how far you could see was the breadth of the world, when messages were carried on slips of paper from one mind to another. Faster and faster our world accelerates, our treadmill spins at the speed of light. The reason of Rhyme is lost in the maelstrom, and dizziness takes the helm. All are awhirl in trying to catch up, and the anchors are lost at sea. Our ship is now driven to the crags under the waves, and the splinters we grasp will be held most dear, until we are cast upon the soft shore to find our footing again, where the sound of the wind and the patter of rain will keep us company once more.

     Heavily and steadily, the rain has been falling all day. Now eight in the evening, and there is no sign for abatement. From my doorway, I’ve watched the puddle grow from ankle deep, to calf deep, and now knee deep, whenever one of the grounds crew or servants or drivers wades by. My floor is raised from ground level by a few shallow steps, and I’ve watched them disappear beneath the waves, one by one. I wonder where the cars are at. I wonder what is going on at Ambi’s house, since his floor level is closer to ground level than my apartment. I wonder what the streets of the neighborhood look like. I wonder what the school grounds look like, since this entire section of the city between the Annexe and the city are pretty much level. Om Prakash has moved his bed and belongings into the anteroom of my apartment and will be sleeping here tonight. Electricity for this apartment went out a couple of times today, an hour or so at a time. Night has fallen and the rain just keeps raining. Little black frogs the size of my thumbnail are hopping around on my kitchen floor, half a dozen or so of them so far. For now, the floor of this apartment is an island in a deepening lake of water fallen from the sky. This morning when Selvan was walking by in the ankle deep water, his comment to me as he lifted his arm to the sky was “three days.” If that is an accurate forecast, at this rate, the floor in this apartment will become ankle deep, easily. Jason the gateman is also moving into one of the rooms in this network of rooms my apartment is a part of. Om Prakash tells me that Ambi and Shantha have moved up to the second floor of their house. From the air, this section of the city, and the entire city for all I know, must look like Atlantis sinking into the sea. Whatever passes for a drainage system in this city no longer passes. Will there be a morning newspaper tomorrow to tell us what is going on and what to expect?

     Wednesday morning, the rains have slowed to a drizzle, and the surrounding lake holds level at knee deep in the driveway. Electricity is out in my room - no fans, no overhead lights, no re-charging for my laptop. All I have is the light from the cloud-covered sky through my window. The internet stick I was given by Kesavan has expired, so I will be sending no messages out. Om Prakash tells me the cars are over at the school where the flooding is not so deep. The electricity in the anteroom where Om Prakash slept works, but not the bathroom and the room where Jason slept, so the problem is somewhere in this building, and an electrician will need to be brought in.

     Find out last night that Jason the gatemen is from a village in the same district in western Nepal as Om Prakash’s village. So now I’ve got two western Nepali’s keeping me company in this flooded city in the south. Have got the entire day ahead of me now in this island of a room in the middle of the monsoon lake to plan, revise plans, and then plan some more. Like beads of a necklace, Luna and Jupiter in Leo, and Mars and Venus in Virgo align. Sun-Surya with Saturn holds close in Scorpio, and Mercury is close behind.

     Here I now sit in the waiting room. Waiting for the skies to clear. Waiting for the Lake to subside. Waiting for the school to reopen and classes to resume. Waiting to walk down the stairs from my doorway. Waiting for my electrical outlets to power up and the lights to come on. Waiting for lunch. Waiting for my next cup of tea. Waiting for the Light to shine through the dark corners of my mind. Waiting for colors to brighten the shadows in my thought. Waiting to decide which decision to make. Waiting to know what my options are. Waiting to find the key to the lock. Waiting to open the door to tomorrow. Waiting to know when to speak. Waiting to find my Voice. Waiting to know whom to speak with. Waiting to know what to say. Waiting to walk through the mountain pass. Waiting to swim through the ocean’s breaking waves on the beach. Waiting to listen to the voice within tell me what I am waiting for. Waiting to return to where I came from, so I can begin again. Waiting to find the depths of emptiness, so I can begin to fill it again. Waiting to remember what today is all about, what yesterday was about, and the day before, and all the way back to my first word for the world. Waiting to understand meaning, Waiting to understand you. Waiting for you to speak of who you are, so that I may know more than before. Waiting to watch you smile and hear you laugh. Waiting for you to brighten my day. Waiting to follow the stars through the night and wonder where they are going.  Waiting for the light to shine forth from every person alive on this planet. Waiting for the hardness of heart, where it is, to soften. Waiting for empathy, compassion and wisdom to shine forth from every person’s heart. Waiting for swords to be melted and recast into ploughshares. Waiting for the flags of mistrust and division between peoples to fly no more, and for all border crossings to open. Waiting for the gods of anger and fear to fall by the wayside. Waiting for the voice of humanity to awaken to its higher calling. Waiting for ignorance to subside. Waiting for hypocrisy to disappear. Waiting for the Arts to flourish. Waiting for release from the bondage of selfishness, greed, and war after war after war. Waiting for all of the armies and navies to be disbanded. Waiting for cooperation to replace competition. Waiting to work together for the common purpose of well-being for all. Waiting for the stewardship of the Earth to replace exploitation. Waiting for men and women everywhere to stand side by side in mutual respect and admiration, and through the balancing of insights and strengths, to mutually enhance one another. Waiting to play my role for whatever needs to be done. In the wings, I am waiting.

     I have arrived at the South Indian version of monsoon madness. There were occasional light showers yesterday and last night, nothing like Tuesday’s continuous downpour that created this lake in which I’m marooned. And the waters do not recede. If there is a municipal drainage system for this part of the city, which I am beginning to doubt, it is obviously dysfunctional, and I must begin to wonder how long this vast puddle will be keeping me company. Till it evaporates? And if another continuous downpour comes around, how much deeper will this lake become? The waters are now just below Om Prakash’s knees, so have receded perhaps three or four inches. I am not about to roll up my pants legs and wade through those murky waters, which are not exactly of swimming pool quality. And I shudder to imagine the quality of the waters in the streets and neighborhoods on the other side of the front gate. And of course the effluvium of that soup cannot help but seep through and find its way into the waters on this side of the gate. Moisture and dampness pervades in the air and the prospect of creeping mold does not brighten my frame of mind. Om Prakash and Jason slept in the anteroom last night, refugees from the flood. In fact, all three of us are refugees from the flood on this block of concrete above the waters. Rumor has it from Om Prakash that an electrician will come by today to restore electricity to these rooms. Strange how of all the rooms in the interconnected set of rooms of this building, only the anteroom has a currently working electrical connection, with a working overhead light and ceiling fan, and a workable re-charging outlet. It certainly would be nice if this as-yet-to-materialize electrical technician could restore my overhead light and ceiling fan into functionality.

     All of which leads me to another set of questions. Perhaps it is time to revise my plan and abandon this notion for teaching at Ambi and Shantha’s school for the next four months. These very kind and generous friends have settled into a way of life that centers around their school and their home at the Annexe. I’ve expected some level of regularity in the program, but now that I have become embedded in it, I’m beginning to find it uncomfortably confining. For one thing, there is my feeding schedule. One cup of morning coffee brought over by Om Prakash at seven. Breakfast at eight, either here or at the school. There is no menu or choice and I get what is set before me. Lunch at twelve-thirty or one, always the same, rice and sambar and rasam and curd, seven days a week, whether here at the Annexe or at the school. One cup of hot chai with milk at four. Dinner at seven is set before me, chapattis and the dish de jour, whatever it happens to be, chosen by whom I don’t know. I am not exactly enthralled by the clockwork regularity of the virtually predictable menu. It is all well prepared and tasteful, but my choices are zero, both for timing and for what it will be.

     Then there is this room I am given to call home, and the way of life I see evolving around it. I don’t mind the simplicity. One large and one smaller table, two chairs, one cot, a floor fan to supplement the ceiling fan, and some shelves for books and folded clothes. It’s the scheduling of my way of life and inaccessibility to the outside world that shall prove to be my undoing if I try to continue this for the next four months. So far, I’ve had two days of classes with my English department teachers, and I pretty much feel like I’ve got the idea for how a day at school works. I get in the car with Ambi and Shantha at eight and the driver takes us to school in five minutes. At the end of the day at four or five or whenever Ambi and Shantha decide, we pile back into the car for the drive home. They go to their home and I go to my room to wait for my meal to be delivered. What then? Preparing lesson plans for next day’s classes and reviewing my day in this personal notebook. I can amble around the courtyard and residential grounds, or, as I did Sunday, venture forth into the street of shops, which I can see will soon become of very limited value as entertainment.

Parts of Chennai are no doubt culturally and artistically vibrant, but none of us are in our twenties or thirties anymore, and getting to and cultivating those sectors would be an exhausting task. Ambi and Shantha are not there anymore, and I can’t do it alone. The only way for me to sustain my equanimity in my home would be to don my monk-ish garb, and I’m really not sure I’m up for that for the next four months. I savor long and vigorous walks and exercise, and so far I feel like I’ve been little more than a conduit for rice and sambar and chapattis. Visions of bird cages and jail cells dance through my brain, and I turn the pages of my Lonely Planet guidebook looking for places to go where I can cop a room, and take long walks and sit in a restaurant whenever I choose, and sip as many cups of coffee or chai as I wish whenever the fancy suits me.

     At the moment, I’m looking towards Pondicherry, a hundred miles to the south, a town by the sea I know well. Of course, I’m sure they’re getting slammed by the monsoon just as hard as we are here, and no telling what conditions on the ground are like there right now. Meanwhile, the waters of the lake surrounding my room are calm, and I’ve seen a ray of sunlight peek through the cloud cover to reflect for a fleeting moment on the gently rippling waves. Will not be going anywhere or making any announcements until after the waters recede. Where’s my canoe when I need it?

     Saturday morning, December fifth. There comes a point when more than enough becomes too much, and the body sends the message. Start off with a round of diarrhea at eleven Thursday night, followed soon by some heaving and vomiting. A mild headache visits the frontal cortex accompanied by a gentle fever. All of this continues through the night while I’m reading up on symptoms for ailments in my Lonely Planet guidebook. Are these the symptoms for on setting Typhoid? Huge Bummer! Or simply some other parasites that have decided to visit my gut and chomp around on my brain? Still a nasty idea!

I really did not come over here to die, and know that a lot of my friends and family would be very disappointed if I did. All in all, things are going well in my life and I think I have a lot of good to look forward to. There’s a whole bunch of people over there I want to keep talking to, and to have that all cut off for some very stupid reason is not a part of my plan. As dawn rolls around, I write out a message for Ambi for Om Prakash to deliver. I would like to go to a hospital for diagnosis and treatment, and would he please find some vehicle, perhaps one of the school buses, that could drive through the lake and pick up and rescue me. Ambi responds via Om Prakash with a packet of rehydration salts and the promise to get Kesevan right on the task of getting a vehicle. Within an hour, there is a vehicle waiting in the street at the front gate. Om Prakash lends me his flip-flops and leads me through the almost knee deep lake of the courtyard to the gate. There is a graded dip in the ground level  between the street and the driveway into the courtyard, which is why the courtyard water is so much deeper than the ankle deep street water. Driver takes me over to the school. There are rises and dips in the street level along the way with alternating stretches of pavement and puddles. Pavement is clear at the entrance to the school, but I can see that further inside the grounds is what looks like an ankle deep lake. I’m transferred to a car with driver Selvam, who takes me over to Kesevan’s house not far away. We drive around through various streets of this part of town, some waterlogged and some not, to the homes of some doctors Kesevan knows but nobody’s home. We finally settle for a visit to Rakshith hospital where the consulting physician listens to me describe my symptoms and assures me this is not Typhoid. That’s a relief. I hope he’s right! Looks like some nasty bacteria have found their way into my gut, and he prescribes three sets of pills to annihilate those critters and replace them with some more friendly types. Some mineralized rehydration drinks are also in order. On our way back to the Annexe, we stop at a pharmacy and Kesevan fills the order. As we’re driving towards the Annexe, I make it clear that I want to be returned to the YWCA guest house. By now, it’s about ten a.m. and even the concept of returning to the room I’ve lived in for the last thirteen days feels like a death sentence. Kesevan visits with Ambi to deliver my wish, and Ambi and Shantha come out to their water-logged porch to wish me bon voyage for where I need to go. Selvam takes Kesevan  back to his home near the school, then drives to the school to pick up another of the company drivers, so these two between them can figure out how to get to where I want to go, for the guest house is really an incredible distance from the school and road conditions between here and there are anybody’s guess. To me, the streets of this city are a Gordian knot of twists and turns and I get the tourist’s view of waterlogged and half-submerged neighborhoods. Neither my stomach nor my brain are in their happy places while Selvam and his partner are making decisions about which ways to turn along the way. We arrive at the guest house. Oh, happy day! At the desk, all that is available are the more expensive AC rooms, and I take one sight unseen. Bid a thankful adieu to my road warrior drivers, then go to my room and fall on the lifeboat of this fresh bed. It is noon but I’m passing up lunch, and sign up for the seven-thirty dinner. A fresh wave of fever washes through my body, but I feel confident that it will subside as the afternoon passes. Fresh hot shower in the sparkling clean bathroom helps this body feel like it is heading in a good direction, along with most of a liter of mineral water. Go down to the dining room at four for a cup of hot chai with milk and an egg sandwich to accompany my first pill. The fever has begun to subside. Stick with the milder dishes at the seven-thirty dinner, and sleep through the night like I’ve come back home.

     Meanwhile, the city around me is an ongoing disaster. For the most part I cannot make out what the Tamil television in the lobby is saying, but the images are quite clear. It’s like I’ve arrived in New Orleans in the middle of Katrina. Occasionally, captions are in English. One million persons evacuated. A hundred thousand rescued. Umm. I wonder, where are these people evacuated to? Rescued and put where? Chennai hospital oxygen fails and fourteen people die in ICU. There are no newspapers in the lobby. Fishermen’s boats are being brought in to aid the evacuations, and fifty-six thousand food packets have been delivered. The Chennai airport is closed due to flooding, and there are images of passenger trains standing idle at the station. Chennai and neighboring Kancheepuram district have been the hardest hit in this monsoon. The idea of trying to go anywhere from here seems ridiculously insane. I’ve told the front desk people that I’d like to sign up for the first available non-AC room, and that I really don’t know how long I might be staying.

     The idea of teaching at La Chatelaine has now evaporated into the realm of impossibility. I am searching for a way of life and it will not be found in that environment.  My teaching days are behind me, and I will not be returning to the Annexe except to wish Ambi and Shantha my very best. I will want to bid Adieu to Kesevan and Mani and Vasala and the English department ladies. I will want to give my hearty best wishes to Om Prakash and his robust, good natured companionship through my thirteen days in the guest house. Everyone there has been over-the-top kind with their attentions, but the facilities and the situation are simply not a match for the way I want to live. I’ve now got my eye on Pondicherry, but the monsoon season could last well through December and into January. At the moment, I’m simply waiting for a non-AC room to open up for an extended stay at the guest house and will explore whatever shops and entertainment I can find within walking distance. Breakfast this morning of cornflakes with milk, fried eggs and toast and some rice cakes with two cups of coffee and one tea, and the stomach says ok.

     Sunday morning. Not every dream merits recording, but here is one. I am sitting near the driver of a very large tourist bus who is performing the delicate maneuver of guiding a corner of the front bumper of this monstrous machine into gently nudging a corner of the rear bumper of a rather small parked car. I don’t see how he can see, from his elevated driver’s perch, where those street level bumpers are, but he manages to do exactly what he intended. Then switch to outside the bus and entering a large box of a room with white walls with splotches of artist’s paint scattered about on those surfaces. An abandoned artist’s studio. This is one of those “naked in public” situations. The other people in the room are mostly minding their own business, although we are all part of the same group. There are a few piles of old clothes lying about, and I search through them for something to wear.  After I find some underwear, I come upon an old khaki vest decorated with boy scout pins and badges and decide to wear it. I cannot help but be fascinated with the idea that this old artist’s studio space could be resurrected. The others in this room, my erstwhile companions, feel a need to be moving on to somewhere else, and I know I should be going with them, to where exactly I do not know, but they’ve already left and I must hurry down a hallway to catch up. I take a quick turn around a corner, and find myself going down a child’s sliding board. I hold onto the side rims before going very far down, and see that this slide has a very long and steep and curving descent into depths I cannot see. I cannot turn around and go back up the slide to where I got on, and the only way off would be to leap over the side into a depth where, at this point, I can at least see a bottom. This is still a precarious height and I harbor a measure of trepidation about making this leap. Then, on the edge of a nearby cliff, a white stallion appears. He looks to me and then leaps into the emptiness and descends into the depths of a canyon far deeper than that which I had been facing. I watch him fall with my heart in my throat and lo and behold he lands on all four feet as if he had been taking a stroll in the park. And the drizzling rain falls through the leaves of the trees at the guest house while the traffic picks up on the street outside.

     Through the lobby and dining room area of the guest house everyday walks a well-dressed, heavy set though not overly so, man with a gentle look to his face. Sharp trousers and collared shirt and necktie with YWCA pin. He speaks quietly with front desk attendants and kitchen staff and is clearly a man in charge at some level. Yesterday evening at five as I was visiting the lobby before going for tea, he addressed me by name. Mr. John, will you be taking dinner tonight? I reply No, I’ve had lunch today and that will carry me through, and I will wait for breakfast tomorrow. He’s sitting in a lobby chair somewhat apart from the TV area. I sit in a chair next to him, and we begin our conversation. How long I’ve been here, how many times I’ve been to India, and what are my plans. He tells me I could go to Pondicherry if I wanted, that the roads are not so bad in that direction. I could even rent a car if I wanted, and that the drive is scenic, often in view of the ocean. He tells me what he knows about Pondy and Auroville, and a certain group of foreigners who are building a cooperative sustainable community which even generates its own electricity by having members take shifts pedaling a bicycle mechanism. I tell him I’m looking for a place to call home in India and that Pondy is one possibility. An alternative would be Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh in the far northern part of the country. He was born in Chennai and lived here all of his life, has done some traveling through Tamil Nadu, and north through Bangalore to Mumbai. He is, in fact, the manager of the guest house, and has of course spoken with visitors from many countries, listening to their stories of where they have come from, why they have come to India, what they plan to do here. India is the Mother, he says. She is Mother India to many who come from abroad seeking for something that is missing from their lives in their own countries. He tells the story of a woman who told him that when her plane landed in Delhi, she began to weep uncontrollably for some sense of inner joy that she had returned home once again. Mother India is the spiritual home for so many of the Earth’s people, he says, and some, for whatever reasons, chose to be born in one of their reincarnations in one of those foreign countries, and they are called back, and when they return, they know they have come home. All I can say is, I know the feeling well. His name is Kiran, and he says I can call him Ray. Kiran is a Ray of the Sun’s light and can be used as either as a man’s or a woman’s name. This Kiran is a Ray of Light to those whom he meets in this world, and if he can be that Ray of Light to at least one person every day, he is fulfilling his role and the meaning of his life. He tells me to write of my travels and experiences in India, and show the Light of this culture that I see to those of where I come from in those far away places. He assures me that he is very happy to know me, and that I must always think of the YWCA guest house as my home, my hacienda.

     Sunday morning newspaper is here, with continuing stories of flooding and population displacements in many parts of the metro area. A map on the front page identifies all the areas of the north, the west and the south of the city and surrounding areas that are most sorely affected. This guest house is located near the central part of the city which is least affected, perhaps because the ground in this area can soak up the water more easily. Perhaps for other reasons, but not because it’s not raining here. The army and other relief organizations are sorely pressed, individuals drown trying to help others in need, the airport might soon resume limited operations, but certainly no international flights for the next three days. Television images of people wading through waist deep and chest deep water follow one after another, agricultural crops in the outlying areas are ruined, and Cuddalore, my home town to the south, looks like they’ve got it as bad as anyone around here. Relief supplies can’t seem to be coming in fast enough to keep up with the needs of those who have been displaced. The train station stands idle, and outside my window, a little black kitty gingerly hops between puddles looking for somewhere to go.

     Have now established a reasonable and workable beachhead for this visit to the Tamil country as I am transferred to a non-AC room. Down from $26 to $15 per day. Who needs AC in this kind of weather? Open my windows and turn on the ceiling fan, and, thank you Shiva, for the quieter side of the building. I can stay here forever for $450 per month and get all my meals and three cups of tea per day from the marvelous kitchen and dining room here for another $150 per month. I can watch the rain fall and revise my plans every day until the stars come out and tell me which way to go next, here at my Chennai hacienda.