WHR March 2008, Part 2

One hundred and eight steep and arduous steps for dropping sins and

for seeking enlightenment at Karla cave temple, Maharashtra, India

In the small hours, my friend and I finally found ourselves arriving at an enormous estate where everything was already dead asleep. The two hours of taxi ride from the Bangalore airport was madness itself but should not detain us here. The estate turned out to be far more than a mere oasis. It was more like a paradise on earth. I thought I heard Shah Jahan’s enraptured voice saying, ‘It is here! It is here! It is here!’, referring to Taj Mahal. The following morning I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was actually even more than a paradise.

saezuri ya/yo no shizukesa ni/sudeni ari

the silence of night,

already filled with expectations

of spring dawn chorus

The estate was called The Art Of Living Ashram. It was the location of the 9th World Haiku Festival organised by the World Haiku Club. It was planned and executed entirely by Indian haiku poets led by Kala Ramesh, WHC’s Director responsible for the event. She formed a core team with A. Thiagarajan and Vidur Jyoti and under their leadership all other haiku poets also did their bit to bring this memorable event to a resounding success. As Chairman of WHC, I greeted all the participants, paid tribute to the organisers, conducted my workshops and delivered a speech or two. I discovered that Indian haiku poets provided a very promising scope for distinctive Indian haiku to develop and to make a positive contribution to the enrichment of world haiku. One such example:

being bored at heaven

a shooting star

jumps into death

by Raju Samal, Mumbai

The three days at the Art of Living Ashram were to me literally ananda (joy, bliss) itself and provided me with one of the happiest moments in my entire life, except, that is, for one thing. I am very fond of Indian curry but in England where I live, I eat it only once in two or three weeks, which will keep me sweet and spiced up until I become desirous again of the next visit to a different Indian restaurant as a special treat. One of the true reasons why I initially hesitated to visit India was the prospect of having to eat curry three times a day and seven days a week. The inevitable did happen in spite of the fact that I was armed with over forty different medicines and up to the neck with several jabs into the bargain. My stomach, small intestine and all ascending, transverse, descending and sigmoid colons staged a ferocious revolt comparable to the uprising of the Tibetan people. My inside was on fire and instantly became unstable magma. My mouth and posterior turned into active volcanoes.

tabi ni yande/ shun-min no yume/ mizaru yoru

sick on a journey…

no time for a dream

of spring night

My traveller’s tummy or Delhi Belly developed into painful piles. I had not suffered from this affliction since my operation twenty years previously. I had to do in India, among other things, my demonstration of Japanese calligraphy for local poets or students.

An essential prerequisite for a successful calligraphy session is the saika-tandenSaika-tanden is located in one’s tummy about an inch below one’s navel and has been thought to be the centre of one’s physical and spiritual existence, i.e. the most important place in one’s body, and soul. This is where ki (or chi in Chinese) emanates from. Weak saika-tanden means a failed performance.

I felt my saika-tanden was the weakest in my calligraphy sessions. I therefore had to take the last resort, which was to use kiai. Kiai, or the meeting of ki, is like a Zen shout, a loud ejaculation of determined and powerful utterance, which would give one courage, confidence, integrity and incredible strength. Maori’s war cry is similar in terms of the sound and purpose. Samurai used to give out such kiai when they cut an opponent into half with Japanese sword. I gave out a lot of kiai in my calligraphy sessions in a desperate attempt to prevent myself from disintegration but somehow it did not go well, in my own estimation. It must have sounded to my audience like a moan or groan rather.

haru-kaze ya/ Basho mo jishitsu/ kakae ori

spring wind blowing…

no consolation that Basho too

suffered from piles

(to be continued)