Sadness and Nonsense

Puja for my mother

Early this morning, I met Lama Jamyang in the monastery's temple to do a puja for my mother's soul. The temple was empty and the morning sun entering through the door, picked up the gold from the wall paintings and cast gold rays that banned the usual gloominess of the place. The Lama sat down, motioning me to sit behind him. 

He started chanting. I closed my eyes and focused on my breath as in meditation. I thought of my mother. How I loved her and she loved me and yet neither of us felt loved by the other. How we had a fight the last time I saw her and I walked off declaring to my sister that I would only return for her funeral. The shame of that memory still stings because I did only return for the funeral. I remembered her when she was full of life and when the cancer and grief sapped all her life energy away. I said a thanks for my sister for the love, care and comfort she was able to give to my mother.

The Lama prayed that my mother’s soul does not suffer, that she is  incarnated in human form and that through her every successive life she builds good karma, finds the path to Dharma, breaks the cycle of samsara and becomes enlightened.

I wonder what she would have thought of all this. Would she have declared it rubbish? Would she have found it offensive? Or would she have accepted it in the spirit that it was offered: The sincerest  wish that wherever she may be, may she be at peace, with no pain and no fear.

At the fortune teller's

I welcomed the day this morning  at 6.30am with great relief.  Throughout the night, apart from trying to ignore the snores of my roommate, I was worried about the little pouch of rice with flowers and a coin that I had under my pillow. Would mice and cockroaches be attracted to it and I would wake up to the horror of being nibbled by some undesirable creature that I would not want to kill on account of my karma? My paranoia was not helped by the dikdikddikdik noise emanating from my other roommate's bed frame.

If you are wondering why the eccentricity of a pouch of rice under my pillow, let me enlighten you.  It is a divining aid specified by the fortune teller I was seeing today. 

Mid morning, I found myself with Didi (the housekeeper) and Mingmar heading to the fortune teller's house. Thinking it was nearby when Didi asked if I would prefer to walk or take a micro, I opted for walking. Big mistake! 30 min later we were still walking next to the busy, polluted road. Didi laced her arm through mine and kept gigglimg with excitement. Eventually we got off the main road and in the next 20 minutes we managed to collect Didi’d best friend and her two big sisters. Unbeknown to me, we were ALL going to the fortune teller together. 

So, here I was, in a gaggle of 5 very gregarious Nepali women, arm in arm from both sides (which completely obliterated any notions of personal space) , walking through narrow, dusty streets wondering what I was getting myself in for. If only I knew...

The obligatory big dog on a chain barked viciously at us once and then settled and a small man in a Newary hat and a dirty white sleeveless jacket ushered us into his home; a small room with orange flaky watermarked walls, two wooden cots and a two-ring stove in the corner. Pictured of Hindu deities, in technocolour pinks and baby blues, adorned the walls and a vegetable basket carried spinach, lettuce and cauliflowers.

We sat down on a plastic mat covering the gray worn linoleum. Next to us on the floor was a Ganesh statue, pots with various powders, a bowl of pebbles, pieces of string twisted in various widths, murky looking liquids in small bowls and a bunch of small twigs tied together.  The praphernelia of his business I guessed. Incongruously above all this, stuck to the wall, was a carton with pink roses and a cheesy greeting card poem along the lines of: my day is more beautiful when I see you because your face makes my beauty shine and makes me beautiful too.

I sat next to the fortune teller and surreptitiously observed him while he was talking to Migmar and the other girls. Dark skinned,bulbous nose, bushy eyebrows and greasy dark hair. Big hairy hands with weirdly fleshy finger pads. Around 40 I would guess. I had high hopes that his appearance belied his clairvoyant capabilities.

He asked for my birth date and then my age. Ehm, can't you calculate dude? He converted my birth date to my horoscope and we went downhill from there.“Cancer”. “No, Gemini” . " Taurus". “ No, Gemini. Twins." He got an almanac out and I pointed to Gemini. 

Having got that straight, we moved to the hour of my birth which proved a little more problematic. “1:45 am” I said. "Aha! But Cyprus time. What is the time difference? Must be exact" he quipped.  I texted my sister who responded instantaneously to my grave and urgent request. I wouldn’t want to be listening to someone else’s fortune after all!  

The man then switched on his pc. He was  going to add this information to some programme that would convert everything to Nepali fortune telling data. Of course the computer was not working and every time he clicked on the drop down menu for Cyprus we got Czekoslovakia (how old is this programme?!) or Ghana. 

The man was fuffing, the 5 girls all chattering at the same time, everyone was grabbing at the mouse and I started getting irritable.Willing myself to calm down I asked for his name. Guru Hari Paudel. Guru my ass! Still, I demanded of myself to remain open to the possibility that this was a great fortune teller. 

Sensing my annoyance, Mingmar thankfully asked him to do something else until the computer was ready. 

He opened the bag of rice, the one that gave me the nightmares the night before, and took out a small pinch  of rice and threw it on the floor. He separated the grains in pairs very carefully and counted them. He set them aside and took another pinch of rice. Separated those into pairs and counted them too, before he piled them onto the first lot. Taking a third pinch of rice, he repeated the process. Once he was done, he poured all the rice back into the sack. Then without a word, he took my pulse on both wrists. He was emphatic and very animated in his diagnosis. Here's the gist of it: 

"Your nerves are unbalanced. Because you  travel all over the place, ghosts are plaguing you and causing the imbalance, causing you weak health and you can't think clearly. Your body is weakened by these bad spirits and you feel the need to be alone all the time”. (Excuse me?)

 For some reason, that pissed me off. How does he know I travel all the time I demanded from poor Mingmar that was translating. 

"The rice and your nerves told him through your pulse” she interpreted. 

He now returned to fuffing with the computer that still wasn’t working and my irritation increased. My nerves, evil spirits, my ass...

Leaving the pc again, he took my palms in his hands and palpitating my hand with his weird finger pads  he proceeded to tell me the following stunning gems of clairvoyance:

You will always have less money than you expected, although you'll always have enough (Oh, well..)

Your knowledge on the other hand is very high (What?)

You are a very helpful person (And?)

You have an ideal mind (Que?)

You should change your aim and re-do everything again in your life (Excuse me? Come again)

 It is not clear now but in the future you might have 2 sons (LOL)

Your 2^nd marriage will be very strong (Phew! Aren’t you glad too to hear that Frank?)

You will live longer than 75 years of age. ( Yeah, damn right! I"ll need to if I have to re-do everything)

You have minor health problems that you have to research (Thanks for reinforcing my hypochondria)

Your future life will be better than your previous life (That's good then! hem, are we talking this past and future or karmic past and future?)

People from the East are jealous of you and people from the West are very good for you (Now, that’s a  a tad inconvenient since I live in the East)

You have the ability to attain fame through your talents. This apparently is evident from the Sun rays in my hands and the fact that my index and third fingers are, very unusually, almost identical in length. (Yay! This blog first, Hollywood next!)

You are a spiritual  and religious person. Very calm and patient and non-aggressive (No heckling please!)

Your husband is very patient and kind and you need to boss him about (Ok…the "need" bit is my addition)

You will reach your aim but first must overcome hurdles (Pff! Besides, didn't he say I have to change my aim?)

By now, the computer was ready  so we moved on from this spectacular palm reading session and turned our attention to high- tech astrology. The programme required that we input the following information: 

Gender: female

Name: E

Date of birth: 1963 06 07

Category:  Important (Of course!)

(Drop down menu options were: Actress, Sports Star, Political Leader, Business Man, Friend, Important, Doctor.  He chose Important).

The computer programme produced some astrology charts which he expertly interpreted. At least he was consistent the issues of money and the need to do things twice to get them right. As a bonus to the bargain, he  threw in interesting titbits like "If you go into the metals business you will be very successful". 

While this was going on , the girls behind us having appropriated my camera kept snapping away and laughing their heads off.

Having had enough nonsense, I was ready to bolt when he asked if I wanted the evil spirits plaguing me sorted out. I hesitated. It is nonsense, right? But then again...just in case...Nothing to lose, right? I said "Sure! Let's blast these devils".  

He produced a booklet full of mantras and asked me to circle it over my head and fan it in front of my face whilst asking the evil spirits to go. Then he started chanting the mantras, page after page after page. All of a sudden, he picked up the bunch of twigs, dipped it in a jar of disgusting looking water and splashed it over me. I gasped with the surprise of the cold droplets and the horror of the lurgy in the water! 

He continued chanting and  flicking the "holy water" in my eyes, lips, forehead, over my head, on my feet. I carried on grimacing, covering my face and squealing to the delight of the girls who were falling about with laughter. 

I was so busy with flinching that I was completely unprepared for his forcefully blowing air in my face and clicking his fingers at me.  He seemed pleased at my freaked out reaction. “Yes, devils go away”. 

He carried on chanting and asked me to tap the top of my head, my forehead, my eyes, lips, chest, stomach and soles of my feet. I dutifully did all that and sighed with naive relief, thinking the drenching and blowing was over, when another wave of blowing in my face, finger clicking and holy water flicking ensued. 

After 15 minutes of this, he made a bracelet of multi-coloured threads around my wrist and  promised that tomorrow morning I will wake up feeling soooo much better. 

My only thought whilst I beat a hasty retreat was SHOWER!!!!!!!!!!!