Whoever Sees God…: Gagan Gill

 
Sit in some corner
and meditate
as if you were a wounded animal
– A Buddhist prayer

2.

 
Whoever sees God, dies. Dying is one way of seeing God…

Nirmal had translated these words by Maurice Blanchot for my book ‘Andhere mein Buddha‘… These and many others. Maurice Blanchot was our favorite author, those days…

How was I to know that one day I’d repeat this sentence over and over again?

Dying is one way of seeing God…

Would Nirmal have seen God?

I will never know.

Do my prayers even reach anywhere?

I will never know.

*

I want to go to Kailash.

You cannot go unless you have been called. Everyone says that.

And I have felt the call for so long now. Then why am I not able to go?

–        So you are ready to go?

Dr. Ankit is asking me. My physiotherapist. For the past three and a half months he has been treating my frozen shoulder.

Why did the suitcase have to fall on my shoulder? Eight months on, there is still no respite. The slightest movement can still draw out screams. Even changing has become daunting.

–        I knew of the heart’s ache. I never knew the body could hurt like this…

I say, one day, unable to take the pain anymore.

Amar Jyoti is a rehabilitation center for the disabled. They are used to hearing screams. Still, they look away when they hear my words.

For the last few days, I have been playing a secret game. When the doctor twists my arm, I step out of my body and go to the valleys of Kailash and the Himalayas. I feel as if it is not the doctor but Mahadev Himself tugging at me, as if I’m not a human but a kite that wants to fly… just one tug, and I will be in the sky…

–        So you are ready to go?

The doctor knows I want to go to Kailash.

–        If He calls me with a stump of an arm, I shall go with a stump of an arm…

–        Don’t worry, you’re much better now. After this, your hurt will have to find its own way to healing.

I cannot wait anymore…

Meanwhile, Murakami, my Japanese friend, sends me pain-relieving patches. He’d seen me suffering in Delhi.

–        Mami ji, I’ll put ointment on you.

Ruby says.

She and her husband Pankul, Nirmal’s nephew, will be my co-travelers. A young couple, fond of trekking. Not sure yet if they are believers. We’d planned this trip last year.

If we go in May, during their children’s vacations, then we can all go together. If I can put up with my shoulder, then we can all go.

I’ve been wanting to go to Kailash for so long.

The hurt will have to find its own way to healing …

3.

 
Brahma lives in Brahmlok, Vishnu in Vaikunth and Shiva on Kailash.

No one can go to Brahmlok while alive, or to Vaikunth. Only to Kailash.

Going to Kailash means entering the story of a God… it means visiting His abode…

Going to Kailash means entering one’s primordial memories…

One comes across it in our ancient texts, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. After Arjuna did penance here, Shiva granted him the weapon Paashupat. This was the heaven that Yudhishthira entered with his mortal body. It was here that Ravana prayed to Shiva. Later, on finding out about his demonic powers, the task of revoking the boon fell to Parvati and Ganesha. The episode of Bhasmasura took place here. Shiva had granted him the power to turn things to ash by touching them, and the demon wanted to use it on the God Himself! The artless God ran around these very mountains to save himself. Even today, Mansarovar’s twin lake is called Raakshas-Taal, the demon-lake.

The people of Bharatvarsha have been worshipping this mountain, this lake, for thousands of years. The ancient ‘Bharatvarsha’ that was much larger than the present political entity called India…

For centuries people have been circling around it. Climbing up and down the mountains around it. But never setting foot on Kailash. This year, a foolhardy Swiss team took special permission from the Chinese government to scale Kailash. Later, keeping in mind the sentiments of people, the permission was revoked…

How did our ancestors find out that this mountain was venerable, that no one should ever set foot on it? Surely, Kailash wouldn’t have told them ‘I’m a God, worship me’!

Ancient texts tell us of our veneration, at least five thousand years old. Indians never had to seek permission to go to Tibet, to go to Kailash. They went to Tibet the way they went to Nepal. Rahul Sankrityayan’s travels in Tibet during the 1920s were in that era. But things are different, now that the region is occupied by China. If you’re not traveling in a group, it is not even possible to get a visa.

*

–        Are you really going?

My friend, the poet Kailash Vajpeyi, is on the phone.

–        Many years ago I lost a dear friend, Professor Yudhishthira, to Kailash… Now you are going. I have been worrying since morning…

–        It’s no surprise that a Yudhishthira didn’t come back from Kailash!

I joke with him. But his old sadness is not dispelled.

He says over and over again, be careful.

I have been single-minded throughout the preparations. Then, as I am about to leave, a shadow – What if I really don’t come back?

I stop to write my will, sending one copy to mother and leaving another on my table. I feel lighter.

Before a voyage or before suicide, as far as possible, one must leave things clear…

4.

 
A year ago I had hoped to go to Kailash during the festival of Saga Dawa. Saga meaning Shakya. Dawa meaning moon. Shakyamuni’s moon! Buddha Purnima.

Because of a difference of one month between the Indian and Tibetan calendars, Saga Dawa is celebrated in Tibet exactly a month after Buddha Purnima in India. A festival expressing gratitude that lasts not for a day, but a month! The whole month is holy. Prayers and circumambulations are performed, especially of Kailash. For Hindus and Buddhists, going to Kailash is auspicious. More so, during this holy month.

We’d informed the travel agency a year in advance that we planned to visit during Saga Dawa. When the time came, though, we were informed that we didn’t get a permit. There were already too many pilgrims and foreign tourists because of Saga Dawa. And the weather had turned bad. Now, no permits would be granted till they all cleared out. The Chinese government was never too keen on the Indian groups coming by way of Nepal.

The world knows that our relations with China are too bitter to be diplomatic.

After making many rounds of the travel agency and pestering them over the next ten days, we lose hope and decide to return when Hemant ji calls.

–        Are you ready to leave tomorrow morning?

If you have been called, who can stop you?

*

In the midst of all the confusion and half-preparations, I call up Rinpoche. Somewhere I believe that if I get to talk to him, everything will turn out alright…

–        I’m leaving for Kailash tomorrow.

–        Really?

Suddenly his voice is full of tenderness. Tibet… His country.

He had to leave it when he was barely twenty. So many people go to Tibet, he cannot. He is leading a Satyagraha against the Chinese government. The day His Holiness returns home, every Tibetan will follow him.

Will that ever be possible?

Such is the heart of exiles. Praying for something almost impossible to attain. They fast, they demonstrate… sometimes, they even self-immolate.

–        For Nirmal ji…

–        You must go…

He knows what I want to hear.

–        May your journey be successful, may you see Mahadev ji and Uma ji!

My heart starts beating faster.

–        Is that possible?

–        Why not? But it is up to you, whether you recognize them or not.

–        Please pray, then, that I recognize them…

–        Certainly!

After a pause, he says, take with you something that Nirmal ji had used…

–        Yes.

He says nothing more. He knows that, if I’m going, I must be prepared…

*

This is the most difficult hour.

Taking out the shirt Nirmal wore last. The doctor had to cut it with a scissors and separate it from his body…

Nirmal…

2 o’ clock at night. I am sitting alone, holding on to the shirt. As if I haven’t fully let him go yet. And now the time has come to finally part…

–        Please, let him go… Don’t make it harder for him to leave.

The doctor had said. A year and half ago, that night…

I’d keep my hand on his heart again and again, praying, and his sinking blood pressure would rise a little. All indicators on the monitor were blank. Only a little blood pressure remained.

–        Please don’t do this… Do you realize what you’re doing? You’re not letting him go, and his body is not letting him stay…

*

Nirmal…

I’ve kept everything in a separate pack. Nirmal’s last garment. And Father’s. It still has his smell… Ma’s chunni. A page from Kanu’s notebook… My name is Tanupreet Kaur, she had written. Sixteen years have passed… the child’s handwriting is still the same.

God, protect them!

And Rinpoche?

Who will do this for him?

The biggest pilgrimage for Tibetans… They go circling around so, so many times.

And he will never ask anyone.

How he’d escaped from his country. At times on foot, at times on horseback. Stealthily, through the mountains for a whole month before he could see the Indian border. And still the anxiety that the Chinese would catch up with him, capture him, kill him…

Do I have something of his, which I can take along?

Yes, I do! Years ago I’d asked him for a shard of his broken fingernail… It is lying in the cupboard, safe as a jewel.

I take it out and keep it in my purse, wrapped in pink paper.

Bless this journey, God…