Sunday 2 March 2008

Tuesday, February 22, 2008




Tues. Feb 22, 2008 - MAYAPUR, WEST BENGAL, INDIA
I had been out of commission for three days. My back had been thrown off. The excess travel, perhaps too many hours sitting in chairs, the bone-shattering four hour drive from Calcutta to here on a poorly maintained road, the cold draft of air in the middle of the night - any of the above or all of the above are the cause. The usual jackals yelp in the night. For anyone not accustomed to their nocturnal cries you would consider their screams to be nothing short of eerie and hair-raising.

Yet this dhama or pilgrimage place, the birth place of Chaitanya, known as the father of chanting, is all rather transcendental; doves, cuckoos and other exotic birds grace the morning with their songs. Walking is put to the bare minimum and with that, it means leaning on to a companion’s shoulder. I can only commit to a small amount of time for drama practise and hope that to and fro from my room to the Samadhi auditorium I will catch an acquaintance. The rest of the time is in bed. Fortunately an excellent massage therapist who resides in the complex, Osadhi Mantra, is giving me treatments and so I’m back to recovery.
It is humbling being confined to a small place. It is a far cry from being on the open road in a place of wide open spaces. Being anchored by a bed is the way to recovery. In life we are all warriors and all warriors must retreat from the battlefield when severely wounded and heal before making another attack.

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