Ordinary Blessings

Down the winding mountain to the Dharamshala/Kangra airport, and back to the intensity of Delhi for a one night stay at the Cottage Ganga Inn before heading out to the very nearby New Delhi train station for our 14 hour overnight Second Class AC sleeper to Gaya. We arrive at 4AM and are dutifully picked up by Chandan and cousin Navin, both teachers plus whatever else they need to do, and driven by comfortable private car to the Tara Guest House in Bodhgaya. I thought then, and I'll admit it now, I do clearly enjoy being picked up and whisked away by car to our various destinations. Not having to find a ride, or fend off porters and drivers of various types of vehicles, or negotiate a fee, or simply deal upon arrival with this aspect of traveling in India, although it clearly costs more, is worth the few dollars for the comfort and ease it provides, especially at 4 in the morning.

But wait! I'm getting ahead of myself. While in Delhi for our one day/night stay, we decided to take a walk in the Paran Ganj neighborhood of the hotel. No destination, no agenda, just strolling through the traffic and grime and hordes of humanity to see what we would see. Oh. Sorry. We did have an agenda. We wanted to buy some gum and sucking candy for the train ride, and we pretty easily found those. But then we found, or were found by, something else. 

This time following my musical ears, we moved closer toward the sounds of drumming and clanging and chanting, stepping a little tentatively through a gate and into an alley off the main street. The previous days had been a week long celebration of the Goddess Durga in India, and what we were hearing was one of the final pujas, being celebrated by a small group of locals in their back room temple, complete with statues and incense and flowers and offerings and attending to the Goddess figures, and, of course, the music.

As we drew nearer to the source of the music we were immediately invited in and welcomed to witness the proceedings, which of course we did. After a few minutes of respectful witnessing I asked if it would be OK to take photos, and the path was cleared to do so. I will publish a short video of this puja, along with some others, to Vimeo, my new hosting site for videos that Google won't allow on the blog because they're a bit too many megabites in size. Alternatively, I'll learn how to limit the size of my videos so that they will fit into the blog itself, or discover other means of making these short videos available to you. (The internet connections in India have been surprisingly slow and spotty- I thought of India as one of the hi-tech capitals of the world, and hence assumed it would have good wifi - and so uploading videos is impossible, largely, and even photos are a crap shoot. I expect this feature will have to wait until we get to Thailand, where I hope the speeds and the reliability are better.) Vimeo video link

 This is the sort of thing, not the puja per se, but the serendipitous encountering, the being open and receptive to, and the coming upon, that I'm so happy to be enjoying these days. Whether it's paragliders in Bir, or monkey's at Sherabling, or back alley pujas in Delhi, or drivers throughout India or, as was yet to come, a Chinese contemplative musician,

or an extended family and a dedicated French woman
 with an outstanding commitment in Bodhgaya, we're so grateful to be able to be gifted with the ordinary depth, richness and blessings of everyday life away from “home”, and to be able to share some of this with you as we go.