India - the final leg

Bangalore Airport, Friday 29 April, 6:30 pm.

Am now waiting for my international connection on Singapore Airlines to take me back to Australia. Well – I’m waiting for the check-in to open at 8pm, for an 11pm departure. My fellow travellers, Peter and Gabriel, insisted on seeing me off from Delhi airport even though they then needed to go back into New Delhi for their overnight train to Varanasi before heading to Nepal. I’m sure they pleased not to be carrying my bag anymore, and I am certainly grateful that they did. How could I travel more lightly? Did I really need the 4 sets of hot-weather clothing and the 2 sets of cold-weather clothing? I wore them, and appreciated having clean clothes every day. Did I need the camera tripod? It helped me take some good low light mountain shots, but I could have improvised. Did I need the travelling set of medicines? Some of them were useful.

 

Our final morning we had breakfast in one of the kinds of places frequented by back-packers all over the world, and with much the same sort of international breakfast menu.  We then wandered the narrow lanes in Paharganj, too narrow even for an auto-rickshaw, as store-keepers were opening for the day and small single-room neighbourhood temples were offering the morning puja. We looked in one and I was struck by the atmosphere of calm cleanness. The priest did his best to explain who the deities enshrined there were, while a woman gently and lovingly washed one of the statues.

 

Thursday’s arrival was uneventful. The security in Leh included yet a further frisking while leaving the terminal for boarding the plane. We also had to identify our luggage piece by piece and match it with luggage receipts before it was loaded onto the plane. I was entertaining a number of disasters, none of which eventuated. When Korean friend made the plane reservation there was confusion over my name, and so my ticket had me as CHRISTOPHER /MR. And in the confusion of checking in in Leh my much lugged about bag, labelled in my name, was checked in on one of the Koreans’ tickets. When surrounded by soldiers toting automatic weapons it’s easy to imagine what might go wrong.

 

The flight out was spectacular as we zig-zagged our reverse path out through the mountains.

 

Travel from Delhi Airport to New Delhi Station was in the air-conditioned comfort of the newly opened airport express. A lot of Delhi seems to be under construction, as if preparing for some major international event. Well – if it wasn’t finished in time for the Commonwealth Games last year, then perhaps it will be ready for whatever’s next. Emerging from the metro station there was a total absence of taxi touts. Where are they all we said to each other. We walked a bit further and suddenly they appeared. We eventually haggled our way through a succession of auto-rickshaw drivers, practicing the technique of walking away and waiting for them to follow with reduced offers. Delivered in  Paharganj we found a hotel, haggled over the rate, dropped our baggage and went out exploring. The National Gandhi Museum is not one of the major tourist attractions, but its simplicity and its devotion to preserving the teaching of Gandhi were a powerful evocation of his spirit. It preserved not only his teaching, but also seemingly every item ever used by him. Dentures, sandals, nail-clippers, ear-wax removers and two of his teeth were just some. But the powerful witness was given by the blood-stained clothing he was wearing at the time of his assassination. Nearby, at Raj Ghat, was the place of his cremation.

 

We then decided to walk to the Red Fort. On the map it didn’t seem far, but it was near 45 minutes of walking alongside a busy highway. Even the taxi and auto-rickshaw drivers gave up on us, realising how these crazy foreigners were intent on demonstrating that it was not only mad dogs and Englishmen who would go out in the midday sun, but also Koreans and New Zealander.

 

The narrow lanes of Chandni Chowk, west of the Lahore Gate of the Red Fort, are crowded with markets. The section we explored was the place for dental instruments, fireworks and ball-bearings. The nearby Jama Masjid is a huge mosque, beautifully built by the Shah Jahan in the 17th century. Nearby is a Jain temple, with a bird hospital. (Perhaps we too could establish one at one of our friaries?). The Red Fort is large but nowhere near as impressive as Agra’s Red Fort (also the same Shah Jahan – of Taj Mahal fame). On a hot day we could imagine life here when the many water-ways and fountains were operating, and the shah and his family could bath in rose-scented water. Such thoughts prompted the desire for iced-coffee, and after a frantic auto-rickshaw drive to Connaught Place we eventually found just that, before an easy walk back to the hotel in Paharganj (the word “hotel” perhaps suggests something like the Hilton with crisp cotton sheets, spacious lounges and lobbies, obsequious staff – none of which describe the Hotel Arupat, although it was perfectly clean and adequate, and also popular with many of the backpackers who wash up in Delhi.     

 

 

Leh to Delhi

Thursday 28th, 7am

We went to Leh airport yesterday morning for our Air India flight back to Delhi, but the flight was cancelled because of a pilot strike. We were re-scheduled on Jet Airways the following day. An extra day in Leh rather than the noise and chaos of Delhi was no loss. Now we are waiting for our departure, already delayed from 7:25 to about 8:00 am. Check-in was pure chaos, mixed with intensive security screening (2 separate x-ray checks, 3 personal scans and frisks), bureaucracy (each scanned bag individually tagged, numbered  and written by hand in a register) and a check-in procedure which took about 10 minutes for each of the three people in our party. Jet Airways had a poster for their staff, but in full view of passengers, exhorting their staff to make eye contact with “guests” since “eye contact exudes warmth and sincerity”. How about trying warmth and sincerity itself? And what’s wrong with us being called passengers?    

 

The last day in Leh was a gentle wandering round the markets. Lunch at a multi-ethnic restaurant with a menu including Tibetan, Nepalese, Indian, Korean, Chinese, Italian, Russian and Israeli food. The proprietor was Nepalese, and his uncle married to a Korean woman. Always ready to try Korean food as it takes shape in different countries I ordered sujebi (it’s a soup of small dough strips or shapes), which came with the hottest kimchi I’ve ever encountered – made with a locally grown radish, cabbage and ginger).

 

We seem to be ready for boarding.  

 

 

Leh - final day

Tuesday 26 April

 

The final full day in Leh – and stricken down by a touch of Delhi belly (or whatever the local equivalent is) I have been resting all day. It’s spring here and people are preparing for summer crops; digging out gardens, watering the soil. Store keepers are cleaning and painting their premises, preparing for the summer influx of tourists. But I prefer it like this, quiet and with most of the tourist traps closed. But next time I should have warmer clothing.

 

The skies have been perfectly clear, dark clean blue, bright sun. This afternoon some cloud came in and a sudden gust of wind blew up a dust storm.

The first day it was a struggle to climb up to my second storey guesthouse room but with 24 hours rest I was able to get about and by yesterday morning sufficiently acclimatised to be able to start walking and even climbing without getting short of breath. Leh is on the side of a hill, and so any walking involves going up and coming down. We had an early morning climb to the Shanti Stupa, built by Japanese monks as part of a movement for world peace; then after wandering round the market took a taxi up to the vertiginous heights of Namgyal Tsemo Gompa and then a slide down the mountain to the Leh Palace.

 

People here are certainly fit and clamber round as agilely as mountain goats.   

 

The “Oriental Guest House” is a friendly place, run by a large family who spend the day pottering round – cleaning, preparing the garden, carrying children, cooking. And a grandfather who occupies himself sitting in the sun, spinning his prayer wheel and generally keeping an eye on things. It sprawls over three traditional style houses. We are in the cheap rooms – about $5 per night with shared bathroom promising running hot and cold but more usually dribbling warm and very cold. But that’s no hardship when you can lie in bed and look out at the Himalayas. In any case, water is scarce here and we shouldn’t waste it. In the same ecological spirit we are offered the use of a traiditional Ladakhi toilet – a hole in the floor, falling into a chamber below – open to the outside and from where the farmers take their manure.

 

From here we fly tomorrow to Delhi, back to noise and chaos.    

Leh

Sunday April 24th, 4pm.

We flew into Leh from Delhi, crossing increasingly jagged mountain peaks and making a landing which required zigzagging over mountain passes. Here it’s 3500 metres above sea level – the highest I’ve ever been except in a pressurised aeroplane of course. Spend the first day resting is what the books tell you and they are right. Even the effort of walking up 2 storeys to get to my room in the guest house is more than enough exertion and leaves me short-breathed. There’s a lot to see just by walking round here but for now the magnificent views from my window of the Himalayas are plenty enough and call for no more exertion than keeping my eyes open.

 

Leh is a popular back-packers destination in the summer season, but now, in early spring, the streets are deserted, and most of the restaurants and guest houses still “closed for winter”.  It’s easy to greet the other tourists you see in the streets  since the same faces keep coming round.

 

Time to rest again.

 

Agra - Delhi

Sunday 24 April, 3am

(and I’m totally confused where I should be liturgically here – perhaps halfway between those who do evening vigils of the resurrection and those, such as at Stroud, who do dawn ones.)

 

Our arrival in Agra at midday the usual confusion of railways – touts, beggars, grannies with bundles of luggage, railway officials. We decided to change plans and hire a taxi for the day to take us round the planned itinerary of lunch, Taj Mahal  and Agra Fort, then drive us on to Delhi airport, rather than muck about with individual taxis, a late night bus, and the uncertainty of getting an honest taxi drived to deliver us safely from the Delhi terminal to the airport. Our taxi driver included the inevitable craft markets for inlaid marble and hand-woven rugs. Sadly we disappointed everyone, and certainly our driver who I am sure gets a commission on those sales.

 

A change of driver and car gave us air-conditioning for the 4 hour, 30 minute ride to the airport. He dropped us off at the domestic terminal – we were catching a domestic flight after all – and sped off into the distance before the security guards told us that we were in the wrong terminal. Kingfisher domestic flights go from the new international terminal. Obvious really. It’s 6km away but fortunately there was a free shuttle bus – even at 1am. So we are now checked in to the 5:20 flight right up to the far north of India, to Leh in the Ladakh region. It’ll be refreshing to be out of the 40C temperatures of the last few days; but I hope I have enough for the chilly nights.

 

Agra – well every tourist in India washes up at the Taj Mahal sooner or later and it really is worth the hassle of heat, tour guides insisting that without them you’re totally wasting your time, postcard sellers, and the purveyors of the ultimately unlike scene – the Taj in snow. It really is magnificent and nothing like the former public conveniences in downtown Wellington, nicknamed the Taj. Photos to come later when I get a better internet connection.

 

And the Agra Fort, especially round twilight, was a memorable end to the day’s sightseeing. It would have been more remarkable if the water still flowed in the fountains and cisterns, but easy enough to imagine the beauties of its former days. And of course it gives a splendid sunset view of the Taj.  

 

In a few hours I’ll be at an altitude of 3500 metres and resting and acclimatising to the thin air, no doubt marvelling that this also is part of the same India I’ve been seeing the past few days.  

 

Somewhere in the State of Uttar Pradesh

Saturday 23 April, 10:30am.

Nearing the end of another 20 hour rail journey – this one from Mumbai to Agra. The usual chaos of families, children, vendors, ticket inspectors. The landscape is mostly flat and rocky with little green life apart from some spindly bushes and a few trees. Mountain ranges in the distance and the occasional village, cattle sheltering from the heat under the trees.

 

Mumbai was busy and chaotic and our time there too short except to see a little of the Colaba district – around the Gate of India and the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. Our plans to have coffee there were thwarted by the news that the coffee shop didn’t open until 4:30pm Or at least that’s what they told this rag-tag group of backpackers. The leafy streets behind there are full of decaying imperial splendour – 4 or 5 storey houses now rotting back into the ground.

 

In 2 hours we arrive in Agra and join the queue to see the Taj Mahal.   

 

 

Bengaluru to Pune

Where to start writing in the few minutes available online? Travel by bus, crowded, noisy, chaotic, from Krishnagiri to Hasur, then another bus (the same) to Bengaluru. A chaotic auto-rickshaw journey to some market area to eat lunch, then another auto-rickshaw trip - the three of us crowded in the back along with luggage (principally mine) - to the railway station where we boarded our nearly 24 hour journey from Bengaluru to Pune.

We were in air conditioned class fortunately - although at times in the evening when the air con was excessive I was grateful for the layers of clothing in my luggage. Accommodation was in a curtained-off 6-berth compartment, one of many along one side of the corridor. Arranging the bunks a feat of co-ordination as the other 3 passengers (travelling with huge suitcases which first had to be lifted down from the top bunks) plus ourselves lifted up the backs of the seats and hooked them into position to form the middle level of bunks. Getting up in the morning an equal feat. And without everyone ready to get up at the same time and rearrange bunks into seat backs a lot of waiting about. Still - in a 24 hour journey there's nothing much else to do other than wait for the coffee or the chai vendor to come along.

Arrived in Pune at midday and now settled at the Christa Prema Seva Ashram - the buildings formerly occupied by the Christa Seva Sangh which was instrumental in forming one of the strands of SSF.

Time for dinner and to go offline.

Passage to/in India

Not so much my passage to India, because that was by plane, and, inside a plane, indistinguishable from the passage to anywhere else, but the beginning of a passage in India. What began as a suggestion that I visit a Korean friend currently working in a children’s home in Krishnagiri in Tamil Nadu State will be a journey from here to the far north of India. The itinerary looks exhausting. Some of the “accommodation” will be on overnight trains or buses; but at least we’ve booked sleepers and are not travelling on the roof.

 

I arrived last night in Bengaluru (Bangalore) and was met by Hee Kyung who then took me back to the Trinity Children’s Home in Krishnagiri. Our driver wove his way between container trucks, regarding any more than a metre’s clearance as wasted space. At one stage when he was tired of doing that on his own side of the motorway he popped over to the other side to do it with the oncoming traffic. We arrived at about 2:30 am and I finally got some horizontal sleep, until being woken by all the sounds of neighbourhood life from about 5am. Our own establishment made its contribution with loud gospel choruses through loudspeakers at 6am, followed by the exercise music which used to be played loudly in Korean schools, offices, factories, villages - pretty well everywhere – when I first stated living in Korea in 1995, but which I hadn’t heard for a few years. I felt I should have been out in the yard doing jumping and stretching to the shouted out “one two three four” of the exercise instructor on the recording.

 

This is Holy Week and instead of the usual community religious exercises I’ll be on trains, or sightseeing, saying my offices as best as I can while on the go. I miss the experience of being in community this week, but will be forming a different sort of community with Hee Kyung and another of his fellow missionaries from here. I told the brothers at Stroud I would be like St Clare who, when prevented by illness from being present at Christmas midnight mass one year saw it all as it happened in a vision and was able to tell the sisters what they had experienced. (For which she is patron saint of television). So in my mind’s eye I will see them at Stroud going about the daily office and the liturgies of the Triduum.

 

Hee Kyung (or Peter as he has adopted as his name in India) has been a friend for a long time. He was one of my students when I was teaching English at Sungkonghoe University in Seoul, and since graduating from there in social welfare has entered a Presbyterian seminary and is taking a year in India as a mission placement. We’ll be joined for our travels by another of his fellow workers from here, Gabriel.

 

We depart tomorrow – and about 24 hours later arrive in Pune.

 

 

Canterbury again

After several days catching up on important things such as uploading the last 6 months of photos to my flickr album and getting over jet lag I am ready to go up the hill to the Franciscan Study Centre to see if they have a supervisor available for my dissertation. The topic generally is the Franciscan identity of SSF. Exploring the question of how we get to be franciscan without following the official Rule written by Francis.

Research in several areas: reading popular English language Franciscan literature of the early 20th century to understand the perceived image of Francis; reading minutes and early documents of SSF and its predecessors - especially Christa Seva Sangha in Pune; and listening again to some oral history interviews with some older brothers.

In Flight Movies

"The Last Train". Great acting. Does it get to the real Tolstoy or not? But for me the point is the tension between the man with the vision, and the movement founded on his ideas - or rather the imagined construct of those. The icon they made of Tolstoy - and very different from the reality he was. The tension between greatness and those inspired by greatness.

"The Guns of Navarrone". Never to late to see great movies of the past. Among the many achievements is Richard Harris acting an Australian airman with what is arguably the worst ever attempt at an Australian accent in film history. Not bad. Bloody strewth mate.

Blogger in Transit

Friar's Balsam is in transit. An indeterminate state of existence. Actually Changi Airport en route to London and thence Canterbury.

Random thoughts in transit.

The subway trains in Seoul have arctic levels of air conditioning in the summer. So much that you need extra clothing to keep warm in them at times. However as a special concession they have a few cars in each set with slightly less cold. They are marked with a snowflake logo. The ones which are less cold. Does that make sense?

The toilets in T3 at Changi are very clean and well appointed. The urinals have a small picture of a bee on them at the spot to aim for. Why a bee? The Latin for bee is apis. (As in apiary). I wonder if the public decency police of Singapore know they are using such language :)

And I have found nirvana. It's advertised in today's Straight's Times, Home section , page B24, sandwiched between "In Memoriam" and "Money Markets". The Nirvana Memorial Garden in Singapore is a 6-star columbarium "possessing the characteristics of serenity and elegance", not to mention oozing more gold plate and crystal chandeliers than any hotel lobby you ever saw. And who wouldn't want a columbarium with such excellent fengshui as to bring "great fortune, propserity and abundance to descendents."? What is more, by buying a niche or two in advance, not only can you "pre-plan for the afterlife", but it's a great investment because "demand will exceed supply."

So my time in transit is filled with such thoughts.

My next thought is to the inevitable use of the subjunctive in airport boarding announcements. "At this stage we would ask passengers with small children or needing special assistance to board first." Would we? But will we? It's a flight to London so the passengers will queue and follow instructions. There's no use bothering with such annoucements on flights to Seoul.

Back in Canterbury

The Friary (and Master's Lodge)

Night time view from my room

And in the daytime, from my room

My 14th Century attic room!

Am back in Canterbury for another term at the Franciscan Study Centre and staying at the friary in the city centre. And once again kick starting this blog.

The study is two papers: Writings of Francis; and Franciscanism in the Contemporary World. So far so good although there are essays to write for each and a lot of reading. I'm the only student in both classes so there is no back row to hide in and no one else to make intelligent comments when my brain is mush.

The friary has, since last time here, moved down the Stour River to the Master's Lodge of Eastbridge Hospital (Austin is the Master - hence our living in the Master's Lodge)

SSJE in Korea

My present community in Korea is actually the third time there have been Anglican male religious in Korea.

The first was in the early mission days in the 1890s when new and largely unformed members of the Society of the Sacred Mission struggled to maintain some form of community life despite the needs of an overstretched mission field. The lay brothers mostly left - both Korea and SSM - while the priest brothers mostly remained in Korea but left SSM. An exception was Fr Henry Drake who remained in SSM and later returned to Korea when Mark Trollope (ex SSM) was bishop.

The Society of St John the Evangelist in Cambridge, MA, was also involved. Recent correspondence with Fr David Allen SSJE has reminded me of this history and he has supplied the following information.

Fr. Walter Perry Morse, SSJE, died March 23, 1976, in Cambridge, MA, in the 84th year of his life, having been flown by medical evacuation from Taipei, Taiwan, 9 days earlier.

He and Fr. McDonald SSJE were both in Korea 1922 to 1924. Fr. McDonald took his life vows in 1924 in Korea while he was still there.

Fr. Morse was also in Korea 1930 to 33, then in Japan 1934 to 37, and in China 1937-41, when he fled over the Himalayas. He returned to China in 1945, but soon had to move to Tibet, where he stayed until 1952. After a short return to the USA he went to Taiwan where he remained, except for short visits to the SSJE houses in Japan, until he was evacuated in 1976.

Fr. Raymond Thomas McDonald, SSJE, died July 27, 1973, in Boston, MA, in the 80th year of his life. He was in Korea from 1922 to 1924, but he carried an abiding love for Korea in his heart. During his final illness, using a Korean dictionary, he taught some Korean to a close friend so that they could recite the Lord's Prayer together in Korean when she visited him. After he left Korea most of his ministry was in the USA, a few years in San Francisco when the SSJE was in charge of the Church of the Advent of Christ the King, the rest of it was in Boston, and finally in Cambridge until he was hospitalized in 1972 in Boston.

===================
Thanks to Fr Allen (who had a substantial part of his ministry in Japan and who still keeps an interest in Asia) for the information and for reminding me and others of this layer of history, which is now in some way part of the foundation for what has come later.

Gifts

Gift giving and receiving is very much part of life in Korea.

Last week I gave the dentist and his staff some candles I had made. (He is giving me a generous discount - since he's an ex-Anglican). On the way back to the friary I filled the car with diesel and the service station gave its usual gift of a small pack of tissues. I stopped at the post office to post some letters and they had a gift for me - two tubes of gift wrapped toothpaste.

The heating oil people give us either a larger box of tissues (usually diesel scented since they've been sitting round in the cab of the tanker) or some refill packs of washing up liquid.

At the festival seasons gift-wrapped sets of cans of spam are popular gifts. (Spam - the canned meat - remember it? It's very popular in Korea)

Gift-giving can merge into bribery easily. Not the kind of gifts we receive - I cannot be bribed for a pack of smelly tissues~ but politicians and businessmen and others with power easily and frequently exchange gifts with the stated purpose of thanking someone, or expressing friendship, but usually with the real hope of receiving some favour.

silly teeshirts

Korea is a country of teeshirts with fairly random collections of English words on them.

Seen today in Chuncheon: "Do you like hurt? Love drug 21 makeup"

And "Swedish pleasure".

Back in Korea - and Messiaen's birds

Back in Korea and still feeling the effects of suddenly moving from mid-summer to mid-winter.

Trying to re-establish my life here, pick up whatever routines are helpful, and not get saddled with things I'd rather avoid. Just starting up life here after nearly 5 months away. Some things have changed (there's a new postulant with us) and some things haven't (the friary is still operating on the summer timetable for some reason).

From my reading:

A review in the Church Times by Peter McGeary (5 Sep 2008) of a book about listening makes the point:

This year is the centenary of the birth of the composer Olivier Messiaen, whose music is peppered with the tunes of countless birds. I am told that much of his birdsong music could not now be written, because the tunes are no longer sung: mainly because of the noise that human beings have created, the birds cannot hear one another; so they cannot learn their songs from one another. The variety of their song is being diminished, because they learn by listening, and if they cannot hear, they cannot learn.

Christmas in Stroud and flying to Nelson

Christmas at Stroud was easy and relaxing. The crib (above) is made in PNG bush house style with Australian animals made from bottle brush. No angel or star on top but a koala.



Then over to NZ for time with family in Nelson - and particularly for my father's 80th birthday (photo above).

Other than that not much to write.

Finishing in the library

Am finishing the current batch of work today. The next can wait till I return here in September.

Came across a book of prayers Praying Through the Christian Year by D. W. Cleverley Ford. No old fashioned stuffy piety here.

From a prayer when a car doesn't start:

Lord, I am frustrated,
I went to the garage
and the car wouldn't start.
Such a silly thing,
such a small thing,
but it knocked me off balance
all the day long.

I could give you a summary of St Paul's theology.
I could offer a fair outline of Church doctrine
and something about Aquinas, Erasmus and Calvin, too.

But of what use are all these trappings of religion
when my car won't start
and I am out of gear?

Sensible Evelyn Underhill

That great Anglican spiritual guide Evelyn Underhill may have been an expert on mysticism but she was also very practical. In The Mount of Purification (our edition here is the Longmans' 1960 reprint) she writes about the three chief factors in developing the life of prayer in the parish. The first is a parish priest who prays:

The priest who prays often in his own church, for whom it is a spiritual home, a place where he meets God, is the only one who has any chance of persuading his people to pray in their church. True devotion can only be taught by the direct method.

The second factor is:

the parish church, considered not as a convenient place for Sunday worship, but as a House of Prayer, a home of the Spirit, a place set apart for the exclusive purpose of communion with God; and therefore an abiding witness to His reality, His attraction, His demand.

The third is:

the formation of the praying group. I do not mean by this a hot-housy association of pious ladies, whose extreme exhibition of fervour too often tends to put everyone else off. This should be avoided at all costs. But there is surely no parish where it is quite impossible to find a few people, preferably quite simple and ordinary people, who care for their religion, and, if asked to do a bit of real spiritual work for it will respond.

She was one of the spiritual giants of the earlier 20th century.

more from the library

And today - from the "other" Brother Roger - Br Roger Castle of the Community of the Resurrection in his book of aphorisms about prayer So Easy to Love (London: Longmans Green, 1957). [nearly as old as me!]

Do not bother about the past; it is past. And leave what is to come to God. The present moment is your concern. See that it is a part of the splendid orderliness of God.

The present moment is always an infallible indication of what God wants you to do now. It is possible he may only want you to be undecided. (p. 26)

We must be soaked in the Gospel. You should have a copy of at least one of the gospels in your pocket or in your bag. You can read the Penguin Four Gospels anywhere, and no one will know what you are doing. (p. 34)

What clear forthright advice. (The Penguin Four Gospels is an interesting translation by classicist E.V. Rieu - published 1953).