Last Times

Tuesday I went to Sankat Mochan for the last of many almost-weekly visits. It was the same as always, jam-packed full of women in colorful saris with babies gaping out of black-kajal eyes, men in well-ironed button-up shirts, and energetic children drowning in the sparkles and frills of their Indian kids clothing. Monkeys chased each other across the corrugated fiberglass roof where devotees sit to put their shoes back on, the sweet counter was bustling with business selling innumerable kilos of laddu and perda, Hanuman ji’s favorites. None of the surroundings had changed, but this Tuesday there was something different about me. Even though I will be in India, and much of the time in Varanasi, for the next two months, the impending departure of my companions had made the awareness of “last times” weigh heavy in my mind: the last time I walk with Shashank ji from the program house to the temple, the last time I watch baby monkeys fight over hibiscus flowers on the bush in the entrance way, the last time Champa didi offers me hot chai while the sweat from my walk to Kaivalyadham Colony is still glistening on my forehead.

As I walked past the long men’s line waiting to offer their prashad, I felt like I was watching myself through a sound-proof glass window. I held a small box of sweets for Hanuman ji protectively to my chest and allowed myself to be absorbed into the throng of women all straining their necks to catch the glance of Hanuman ji’s enormous benevolent orange face. There was so much noise I heard nothing, and so many people I felt all alone. The hot bodies pushing and shoving on every side were like a bear hug from the universe. I stood a full head above most of the women surrounding me, and in a false sense of blending in I watched from above as one pushed in front of another to get closer to Hanuman ji, the woman behind her protesting and trying to push the intruder back where she came from. Another woman, holding a tiny baby, cradled her child’s head as she tried to burrow through the crowd, tugging her dupatta behind her as it got caught between the bodies which closed on the space she had left like water fills in behind a wader. Relaxed in a way I have only learned to be in the last few months, I let go of any feeling of control over my body that I may have felt outside, and let the flow of the pack push me towards the hand railing where the priest carelessly threw some tulsi leaves in my box, a spoonful of water in my hand, and moved on to the next worshippers shoving me out of the way. Raising the water to my head before drinking it, I asked for some inspiration to myself and the people of this nation to save what precious clean water they have left. Sipping from my palm, I was expelled from the crowd.

Yesterday the first of our College Year clan departed for home. Ed must be in Madison by now. Our conversation before he left was all excitement and fear. Excitement to see family and friends who we have all missed for so long, to feel the cool air of spring, and to walk on the quiet, orderly streets of Madison, and fear to see family and friends in a new light, fear for oppression of contrived orderliness. When we came here we called Varanasi Narnia. Now, the idea of clean, organized streets full of well-off students sipping 16 oz lattes feels more like a movie set than the real world. In the real world there are sounds and smells and tastes in the air, there are rich and there are poor, and not everything is fair.

It’s just like all the cliches go. This year has changed us, and one of the most valuable parts of that change will be seeing what has always been truth through new eyes. The scariest part is not really getting used to all the new, adapting to the heat or the dirt or the culture. The scariest part is seeing truth again, and realizing that it isn’t true anymore.