Samuel Benoit

(Journey North Begins, Paris to Bangalore to Dharwad, Dharwad to Belguam to Panchgani, Panchgani to Mahableshwar to Pune to Ajanta)

Like a kid in a candy store.  After the monks ran out of ideas they started to build the same thing in different sizes.  The above two photos should make an optical illusion that is blowing your mind right now.   

If the last leg was the Samuel Benoit Sentimental Tour of India  this one would be the Anis Sobhani Sentimental Tour of Old Buildings in India.  The morning brought the news of Benazir Bhutto, an event that we saw straight away solidify the general opinion among Indians that Pakistan is a basket-case.  Grieving aside, we had the Ajanta Caves to see.  But are they really caves?  I thought I had seen caves; these dark, wet little holes in the ground with broken beer bottles in them and “x + y= ♥” written on the walls.  Buddhist monks two thousand years ago apparently missed the point and dug a bunch of palatial mansions for Buddha in the side of a mountain.

REAL CANADIAN CAVES                                 FAKE BUDDHIST CAVES

The monks lived by the simple words “you can never have enough Buddhas” and carved away using spoons and bread knives until they eventually found they had enough Buddhas and took off.  Along with other epic works of ancient civilization I have seen, like the Angkor Temples in Cambodia and the Terracotta Warriors in China – this whole site was somehow forgotten about for hundreds of years until it was found accidentally by hunters.  Tell me, how do you forget about something like that?   

That night we backtracked to Aurungabad and Pune, and rushed to Mumbai to catch our early morning flight to Jaipur, The Pink City.  We spent the afternoon at the City Palace, looking at the architecture and exhibitions of paintings, carpets and more weapons than the curators know what to do with. 

The next morning we somehow got totally captivated by an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger  starring the legendary Chuck Norris  which literally made us late for our next appointment.  Our next appointment being the Nineteen Day Feast in Delhi.  While we bussed into the city, my father called and suggested from his recollection of visiting ten years ago that we might be able to see the Baha’i House of Worship on the way into the city.  Alas, without Nuri’s x-ray vision, we were unable to see past the overpasses and apartment buildings.  It was a unique Feast for the presence of so many youth from around the world serving at the House of Worship and the challenges the community discussed that are unique to a Baha’i community that is growing at an intensive rate. 

After the Feast we spent time with some of the youth and made arrangements with Justin Scoffield, a Baha’i youth from my very own Ottawa, to get let into the House of Worship despite the Monday holiday.  Another highlight from that night was riding on Delhi’s brand-spanking-new Metro.  After spending nearly two weeks travelling together through the seething ball of chaos most people simply call “India”, we felt transported by the clean, efficient, high-tech subway system. 

We checked into a horrible hotel called Western Palace (in case anyone is Googling it) with stained sheets, towels that smelled like burning, insufficient blankets  and this truly ornamental telephone with a severed wire.  That night all I could dream of was reuniting with everyone I had ever met in my whole life and asking them if they could please bring me more blankets. 

The next and final day was for the object of our journey, the Baha’i House of Worship.  The Lotus Temple is among the eight Baha’i Houses of Worship spread over the continents, and is arguably the most impressive.  Anis and I wouldn’t have known it from our visit on a Monday (when it’s closed), but according to some sources it is the most visited building in the world with tens of thousands of visitors daily. It took awhile until we finally saw it and in our excitement and confusion we did an accidental circumambulation around the site, finding ourselves on the wrong side of the fence of a park neighbouring the temple.  Had Nuri been with us, we could have simply followed his built-in temple radar, but the experience was rewarding none the less.

We made it to the gate and Justin let us in past the disappointed would-be visitors and took us first to the Information Centre where he works.  Volunteers there have the amazing job of being able to stand around what is essentially a museum of the Baha’i Faith and engage with visitors on the history, teachings and social and economic development work of the Baha’i community.

After some peaceful hours of prayer and meditation… PHOTO SHOOT!

That night Anis left me for his arctic waseland home (Winnipeg) and I shifted to the guest house at the Baha’i National Centre. There I met the Manfool children who I took to the temple the next day, or I should say they took me. Being New Years Day, the temple took in what may have been a new record number of visitors. To manage the hoards, the Information Centre had to be closed to put all the youth volunteers on crowd control. It was moving to see so many visitors to a place that is of such personal importance to myself and so many of my friends back home.

My 38 hour train ride back home was uneventful for that I finally read Life of Pi, and that I learned that I have developed an obsession with dietary fibre.  This happened when I found myself pulling out all the items I had just bought (like cereal, fibre-enriched protein shake, digestive biscuits, orange juice and yes, prunes) from a nearby grocer who was stocked with all sorts of items unavailable in Dharwad, and showing off to the fellow across from me the amount of fibre per one hundred grams each item had.  Not having a confirmed berth I later slept with that man like this:

As to the plan, that is what it remained.

All the photos from the trip can be found, in order, in this new flickr photo set.