The Middle Way

Bihar province, in which Bodhgaya is situated, is one of the poorest in India. If I was shocked by the poverty in Kolkatta, I am more so here. I left Kolkatta with warnings ringing in my ears about Bodhhgaya and Gaya, where the train arrives. People will cheat you, I was told. Don’t accept any food and drink, it might be drugged. Watch out for thieves. A friend of mine was drugged and had all her gear stolen in terrible circumstances around here a few years ago so I was a tiny bit nervous about arriving in Gaya at 5 in the morning. The train arrived late so it was light by the time I arrived. Stepping over bodies to exit the station, I got mobbed by taxi and rickshaw drivers wanting to take me to Bodhgaya. I made my decision and got abused by all of them except the one I elected to drive me. It’s been raining here and the whole area is cold and strikes me as a bit sullen.

Bodhgaya is where the Buddha attained enlightenment after sitting under the bodhi tree for six weeks. There’s a descendant of the original bodhi tree still growing here, the Mahabodhi temple, first raised by Ashoka in the 2nd century BC, and temples built by the communities of Buddhist countries. Chinese, Thai, Burmese, Tibetan, Sri Lankan, Vietnamese and Japanese temples sit side by side nearby; there’s also a mosque and a Hindu temple. Bodhgaya is an important Buddhist pilgrimage town and so the foreigner population is slightly different to that in the cities. Sitting at a café drinking tea, I watched a busload of Japanese Zen Buddhists in white pyjamas turn up as Thai monks swished by in saffron and burgundy robes and Westerners wearing prayer beads and windbreakers looked on. Tibetan ladies in bakus and aprons walk past quietly as Indian women hitch up their saris to keep clear of the puddles. You can attend dhamma talks and sit in on Zen instruction and buy tea and Free Tibet t-shirts from the refugee market. A zillion vipassana courses are on offer but as I’m not due for a karmic tune-up just yet, I’m here strictly as a voyeur.

People are watching me too. As a SWF, I’m some kind of target for small grotty children in ragged silks and dirty knickers: they chase me up the street, grabbing my hands and trousers, yelling Money, Madame!, No food!, You buy!, Very hungry!, Nice lady!, Small baby! until one of the street stall holders who wants my custom snarls at them and they move away. I share my coins amongst them and those who miss out start yelling. I realise that I gave the girl with a baby coins earlier in the day and refuse her entreaties, giving them to someone else instead. You have a bad heart, she shouts after me, a very bad heart. It’s a little difficult to maintain equanimity under the circumstances. The kids are more tourist savvy and persistent but they’re by no means the only hungry ones. The quiet hum of chanting around the temples is interrupted by the clanging of beggars’ bowls pushed through the fences as I walk by. Refugees from Tibet who’ve undergone who knows what kind of hell to get here, gaunt locals, hordes of yelping dogs, desperate rickshaw drivers who make you feel like a heel for walking, polite schoolboys hoping you’ll purchase books and cricket bats for them… I can see the benefit of a meditation program here as two-fold: the first, to reckon with the Buddhist concept of life being rooted in suffering; the second, to cloister oneself from the immediate evidence of how wretchedly true this is for the people of Bihar.