[17:57 @ Rm.12, Bandhavgarh Jungle
Lodge]
Last
night, I got a knock on my door at 02:00.
Upon opening the door in my bath robe, with tussled hair, I found Jemru
standing there with an unfamiliar young man who said, “Bandhavgarh,
Bandhavgarh. Go now.” My first impression was that they caught
wind that I was about to be arrested and wanted to get me out of there real
fast. So I quickly brushed my teeth,
etc., got dressed and went out to get set for loading my luggage, and found the
whole lodge still asleep. I went to the
roofed parking area, and indeed saw a white Tata Sumo there with the two
Gypsies, but no driver. Then I heard a
sound, turned, and saw Jemru sitting there in a chair, wrapped in a poncho,
apparently serving his night shift duty as if nothing unusual was
happening. I went to him and asked
about the driver and he just replied in Hindi.
Finally, I went to knock on Faiyaz’s door, woke him up, and asked him
what was going on. He yelled, “Jemru!”
in the usual Tarun “Deleep!” way, which brought Jemru shuffling hurriedly
over. Upon questioning, Jemru said that
they thought I was the only person going to Bandhavgarh, and for some reason,
the driver thought it was for a 02:00 or 02:30 departure. So I just got back to bed and hoped for some
sleep. Talk about Indian time.
So,
second round. We were supposed to get
going shortly after 06:00. Everyone got
up at 05:30, was assembled by 06:15, ready to go, at which point Tarun
recognized the driver as one who’d had a history of accidents. According to Tarun, one of the park guards
he once hit is still paralyzed, and several people had been killed. So Tarun sent him back to Baihar for an
exchange of driver, and the new driver did not come until about 08:30. So, finally, we (Tarun, Faiyaz, Anne,
Sucheta and I) got on the road after 09:00.
Sucheta is supposed to take the Umaria train back to Delhi this evening,
Faiyaz will go to Delhi to his sister’s on March 26th, and I will
take a car to Khajuraho on March 28th, from where I will take a
plane to Delhi. Tarun and Anne? I’m not sure, and I don’t think Anne is sure
either.
When
the vehicle was exiting the entrance gate of KJL, I, from my left rear window
seat, saw Kiran sitting at their Manjitola village booth across the road from
the gate, with a baby in her lap. I
have never seen her there before. She
gazed at the vehicle longingly as it pull away, but I doubt that she saw me,
since the rear windows were tinted. In
front was Tarun at the front window seat and Faiyaz in the middle, and they
spared her not a glance, but Anne saw her and waved, and after the Sumo had
shifted on to high gear, she gave me a surreptitious yet knowing glance. I thought about Kiran off and on along the
way, and was haunted by a sense of melancholy.
If it was for her, it would only be for an hour or two, but if it was
for Kanha, which includes her, it would last the rest of my life. If I succeed in persuading WCWC to drop TT,
I may never see Kanha ever again, and of course her.
It was Anne who lifted me out of my personal sadness. “I’ve been thinking. About how many atoms in my body belong to me – none. I am but a configuration maintained by the atoms and molecules amongst themselves during their temporary stay in their temporary totality I call my body. When I die, my atoms and molecules will disperse, and my configuration will dissolve, leaving nothing.”
“Except
the changes you’ve made to the world while you live,” Raminothna
said, “which, I hope, will continue far into the future, even after humanity
itself has ceased to exist.”
“Like
the changes Anthony has made to Kanha and MP, even if he never comes back,”
said Faiyaz.
Tarun
turned around and gave me a thumbs-up sign.
I
reached forward and gave each of their shoulders a pat.
“I’ve
been thinking too,” said Faiyaz. “The
Transcendental Integration Spiral is in fact a DNA-like double helix, whose
yin-yang sides are consciousness and matter respectively.”
“Finally,
Faiyaz! At least up to the Planetary
level, the picture is complete.
Congratulations!” I took the opportunity to teach him the
high-five.
We rolled into the Bandhavgarh Jungle Lodge parking lot around 15:30, just when three Gypsies were about to roll out of camp to the park, one driven by lodge manager Pushpinder and another with Bandhavgarh’s Tiger Trust officer Vivek Sharma in the passenger seat. Vivek and I had a good working relationship back in 1997 and 1998, but when he shook hands with me, he did not smile and looked slightly apprehensive. In the Gypsies were about 10 middle-aged to older Caucasian tourists. Pushpinder invited me to climb on board his Gypsy on the spot. Having had enough of vehicles for a day, I gracefully declined. “Tomorrow,” I said. Tomorrow, Bandhavgarh, here I come!