Beauty in the Backyard

I sit quietly in the beautifully decorated shrine room of a monastery - its walls and floors are painted in crimson red and golden, the rows of cushions on the floor spotlessly Covid-cleaned, while the main altar makes me wonder whether the awe is because of the meditative spirituality it evokes or the artistic splendour. There are three Buddhas in increasing size, representing the past, present and future; they are flanked by other solemn guardians, fearsome warriors, and seven storied wooden pagodas whose artistic intricacies would take your breath away. It is a quiet sunny afternoon, and outside, the magnolias and camellias swish with the gentle winds of winter. I sit back quietly, the only worshipper in the room, and continue to look at the meditative Buddhas who seem to tell me, I have come to the right place. 

Every once in a while, a Taiwanese nun comes around and checks if I am really a worshipper - the bodhisattva in me forgives her: she has not seen many Indians around and wonders if I am a heretic. Well, maybe I am - by religion, but once I talk to her passionately about my pilgrimage to Bodh Gaya, the seat of enlightenment of Buddha himself, even I am convinced that neither teacher nor student need borders of books or beliefs. True lessons, learned in life, transcend religions or for that matter any segment that unites or divides. 

The nun leaves me alone, and I go back to my state of peaceful alone-less, gravitating between the peace of the Budddhas and the craftsmanship of the pagodas. But something else gradually reveals itself inside my head. I realise that I have been staying in the suburb for over five years now, yet it is now that I visit this oasis of peace. I chide myself at first for robbing myself of hours of soothing peace had I been here years ago. But the Buddhas come alive, and seem to remind me of the four noble truths. Yes, all life is suffering, but that suffering can be avoided. I smile, and then avoid my guilty suffering by reminding myself that at least this visit happened today.

I then sit back and remind myself of a bigger revelation - that in the last 12 months, if there’s one thing I did right in the Covidian exile, it is that I explored my backyard more. You can say I literally combed my backyard, and I can easily take visitors on very well-guided tours in my own suburb, an impossibility even a year back. Yes, intercontinental flights that would make us a Columbus over a weekend are gone; even intra-state travel, if they happen, are laced with apprehension and lockdown fears. But if we get the luxury of moving out of our houses, without endangering others, there is not a bad prospect in exploring one’s own backyard - something that we always relegate to other big league stuff in the bucket list. With fewer places to go to, I have, over the last twelve months, ticked off many an exhilarating bushwalk, riverside walk, hill-climb, along with visits to lesser known, yet brilliant museums and monasteries. I have seen shipwrecks right in the middle of a bustling metropolis, I have learnt about the stratigraphic geological composition of my city in a kilometre deep brick-pit, I have seen pink bubble-gum lakes reminding me of world famous lakes in the outback, that I have always fawned over in glossy magazines, I have seen migratory birds from northern Asia in the midst of jade green wetlands, I have stumbled upon memorials from the days of the Great War, as well as plaques that celebrate the Olympic games from two decades back. I have even discovered a hilltop that takes me back in time to the heights of Borivalli - overlooking the city and a meandering river, it is my pensive point today whenever I seek solitude and solace. To add to this long, long list, I have found a quiet little monastery that brings me peace as much as it stirs up my wisdom to enlighten myself, all the while reminding me of rock cut monasteries on trade routes of the Sahyadris far away.

Yes, there is so much to find in one’s own backyard - those little treasures that are too small to feature in any Lonely Planet yet big enough to shine of their own accord. Every city or town has its own secrets - it just needs a true spirited explorer to find what is already there. Go that extra mile, and who knows what you may find -  a pink flamboyance of flamingos beyond an industrial dump-yard, a Portuguese fortress from three centuries back or a dazzling golden pagoda in a copy of Myanmar’s world renowned Shwedagon Pagoda - or hold on, how about an old British era church with a 200 year old organ, and a version of the Bible from two millennia back that mentions ‘India’? Or how about a derelict museum housing coins traded into India from the Roman Empire even before Christ? These are just a few of my own experiences from walking down the hidden and lesser known gullies of Mumbai, Calcutta and Coimbatore. That too, with the ever present distractions of catching an air-conditioned bus to Goa or a flight to Darjeeling. Imagine, then, how much of the treasure trove is still brimming with the gold of El Dorado, waiting for the right explorer to come by.

Even if there are no UNESCO heritage site labels, there is a lot to see in your own city. If not anything else, it will make you see your own hometown differently, creating a sort of special bond meant perhaps for strange times as this. Perhaps it is one of many lessons we are being forced to learn - that we need not look far to learn something new, to find an iota of peace, to be happy. It is perhaps closer than we thought. I smile in the present moment, the Buddha in front seems to nod in agreement with the current times - there is suffering, but we can find ways to evade suffering in our faulty human ways. 

We often lose ourselves in the everyday walks of life. Perhaps, we can find ourselves there too…. 

2nd June, 2021