A Cracking Pace

The white lilies in the man made wetlands were opening as the mist rose off the artificial wetlands. A line of 100 or more monks in their orange-brown robes walked single file along the far edge, to the gate of Buddha’s birthplace. They kept up a rhythmic beat on the drums they were carrying.

At the gates to the World Heritage site a group of Chinese devotees in grey robes proceeded to place five and ten rupee notes in each of the monk’s begging bowls.

“Make your life a garland of beautiful deeds,” read one of the small blue and white signs quoting the Buddha.

The signs were posted throughout the compound.

On either side of the dirt track stretched the Sacred Gardens; densely planted.

The public toilets stank, even here.

As the sun struck the wetlands and the half open water lilies mist rose off the water’s surface; drifting like film set smoke.

Hose down the asphalt; make everything look brighter, lighter, better than it actually was.

In the previous days he and the heir had been seemingly everywhere.

They sat for hours in companionable silence on an arced bridge over the canal which was one of the central constructions in the Buddha precinct.

Two large speed boats which looked they belonged in an old James Bond movie ferried German tourists up and back the length of the canal.

From where they sat they could see the entire wide esplanade on either side of the canal.

“Not many people,” the heir commented. The sun was setting. There was one sole person walking along the stained brick walk; a testament to greater hopes and better times.

Around the area hundreds of houses were marked with one distinctive theme: pillars of concrete with their iron support struts poking out the top.

Building had ground to an almost complete stop.

One day they visited the old Hindu temple where Buddha’s father used to pray – more than 2600 years ago.

A fig tree had grown over the tiny temple; its roots intertwining with the old bricks.

Inside was dark, reverence for something he could not see.

Among the elephant statues set outside its front were two statues of some demonic hell dog, or mythical creature of old, pushing themselves into present from the dark.

They had just been to the local museum, a rundown affair which cost foreigners about 10 cents to enter.

He stared at bowls and fragments from the 2^nd to the 8^th Century BC, all of which had been found from excavations in the local area. Outside a group of men lounged around, doing apparently nothing. They certainly weren’t taking care of the grounds, which were rundown and over-run. Scattered through the museum compound were little structures housing remnants from the nearby palace where Buddha grew up. Some of them had been broken open, most of them were still intact, their locks rusting.

If Buddha had been an untouchable rather than of noble birth would anyone have followed him?

There are flocks of sheep and goats being herded along dusty tracks. More than a third of Nepal’s population is under the age of 15. He’d given up protesting when they called him grandfather. He had given up protesting about the moniker. While he came from a family whose members often lived to be a 100, here he had already reached what they saw as an impossibly ancient age. Old man, old man. Drunk in a small café, the heir leaned over and kissed the cheek of a villager who, although clearly used to such attention, promptly roused on him for the public display. He laughed. The sun was rising into the sky; and all was well again.