subject i have to write on that reminded me of an old poem i once wrote.
A few of you may now become aware of my true identity.
The Beggars’ Gift
Nestled in the highest mountains of Serendip is the sprawling town of Nuwara Eliya. You may know the more familiar names of Serendip - Ceylon or Sri Lanka - but may not know the other name for Nuwara Eliya: A place I once called “home”.
It was late in the year 1979 – a year later made famous by the Smashing Pumpkins in a song of the same name. American president Jimmy Carter was dividing his attentions between the Iranian Hostage Crisis and his brother Billy’s homeland antics. Certainly he was too busy to be in Nuwara Eliya. “The Empire Strikes Back” was in production as well, making the cast and crew far too unavailable to drop by my little town for a visit.
In fact, on the one day of which I now impress upon the page, no one was around, save the bare bum of an old, homeless beggar that greeted me in the chilling fog of morning. At the other end of this buttocks lay a reclining vertical smile – and a consequent lifetime of effect – which I will convey to you in order of appearance. But first, allow me to introduce you to the setting.
Nuwara Eliya sits beside a small, peaceful lake and surrounds itself with steep tea plantations and rounded, muddy mountains. Fog rises and falls like a vaporous tide, rendering an etheric quality, then replacing it with the hard lines of reality. On the peak of the highest mountain, Pidurutalagala, one may enjoy the mutual pleasure and peril of standing on the edge of the Earth, as land abruptly terminates and cloudy sky begins.
The smell of woodsmoke, rice and curry prevails in Nuwara Eliya, with dashes of diesel following each of the many buses spiderwebbing the village and area. Radios blare, as is normal in the tropics, it seems, interjected in volume by the many abused horns of passing vehicles. The horn is used by the driver as an invisible steering wheel of the pedestrian.
All around, everywhere you look, people are wearing saris or sarongs. This is important to my story – already the victim of much digression – as it is quite commonplace for men to have their sarong as their sole unit of clothing. Bear in mind that attitudes respecting public nudity are considerably unfavorable, thus one may find it prudent to tie their sarong with an equivalent of a double knot.
This certainly would’ve been a good idea for the poor young man who decided, as many there do, to step off of a moving bus at one of its so-called stopping points. The problem was, his sarong disagreed with his disembarkment, attaching itself to some protrusion at the doorway of the bus. “Ating! Ating! Ating! Ating!”, he shouted, pounding on the bus against the roar of its diesel engine. What choice he had was epic in nature – public nudity or severe scuffs and scrapes. He would select the latter.
Message received by both driver and this onlooker: Stopping the bus was of utmost importance. Despite all other surrounding indicia, the situation was apparently not at all funny to the star attraction himself. With his ego bruised among the laughter and attention, and his scuffs and scrapes to retell the story for years to come, he angrily stomped from public view and into anecdote. He taught me just how much a Sri Lankan may value the privacy of their privates: They may undoubtedly value them over life and limb.
Which leads us back to the old mans bum.
Sort of.
I was on my way to work that day. A day indistinguishable from any other. First to attend my piping hot cup of sickly-sweet and creamy morning tea, drank at a pace otherwise only seen at chug-a-lug competitions, then to the bus leading me to my work, high on the nearby slopes. I rarely took the bus back, favoring a barefooted slide down the steep, greasy, moist clay furrows at the sides of each plantation. One had to be alert when “tea-skiing”, as a run was usually truncated by a paved road, which would approach at an alarming rate of speed. One’s life, when tea-skiing, is entirely dependant on the judicious use and precise control of their bum. It is, a tea-skier knows, an end to a means.
The beggar did not apply his rear in such a way, but it did work for him, however unintentionally. You see, as I was about to walk into the teahouse on that chilly morning, destined for my unusual day, there it was, as if staring right at me, the prone bum of an old man – a greeting to end all greetings. I tittered my way into the shop and hastily lapped up my morning brew.
But as I stepped out, ready for a rejuvenation of my laughter, there he was again, but this time awake and begging for food. “Bat kan”, with a voice barely above a whisper, uttered the dirty, rippled puddle of a soul; his hands speaking in unison a standard gesticulation of food and hunger, pinching imaginary rice into his mouth. “Podack inneh” I replied, awkwardly telling him to “wait a minute”. I had an idea.
I went back into the teahouse and asked for a “Special Chocolate Cream Bun”. This was no ordinary treat. This was wrapped with the care afforded by only the best-of-the-best chocolate cream buns. A royalty of desserts far out of the reach of the ordinary patron.
I presented his gift – a gift I was afraid would go misinterpreted: The gift of being served by another; the gift of dignity and respect. For this moment, this man would be king. Not ignored, nor derided, but actually treasured. He who only possesses one mere, dirty, threadbare sarong and nothing more, will be served breakfast "in bed".
A rich, warm smile divided his face into two parts – perhaps as large and toothless as the one on his buttocks – as my message was received beyond my greatest hopes. He would impart a far more lasting gift upon me. The countless emerging folds of his face suddenly flashed a simultaneous library of tales, unhinging my mistaken belief that he was in need of dignity at all. Quite the contrary – it seemed he had done all he could to rid himself of it. His smile was that of one who was already happy.
You see, in the few minutes I had taken for my morning tea, I came to precisely half of an epiphany. I thought about how cold the old man would need to be in order to leave his backside exposed, favoring the coverage of even more susceptible parts. He did not have cushioning against the cold, hard cement that was his bed. He was precisely one sarong from having absolutely nothing in this world but himself.
Perhaps I should note that Sri Lanka is not only largely Buddhist, but that it is so very Buddhist that it represents part of its proposed constitution. Buddha even spent some of his time there, leaving various parts of his physical being in what are now shrines. Buddha also had a goal – to rid himself of desire and possessions; to embody nothingness. It occurred to me that this man was a short step away from being everything Buddha believed achievable for a living human. He was evidently more Buddha-like than any monk at any monastery I’d ever seen.
But the other half of my epiphany would come from this mans smile, burned into my mind for over two decades now. How such a relatively small and temporary token could make one so completely happy would serve to remind me that to be without desire is to be infinitely rich – one has all they desire. To be so humble as to be without pride or dignity at all – finding offerings of these to be gifts – is to be resilient to any form of abasement or humiliation the world may cast toward one. His wrinkly bum, spoke not of a tale of the withering decline of an old man, but of the power one may have over expectation and desire. No room for shame, fear or disappointment, no need to cast stones or enlightenment: A simple, perfect, living example of the Buddhist doctrine in beggar form.
I came away from that day the richer of the two of us. It would steer my attitudes towards many things, perhaps the most enduring is a tradition I have at Christmas: To spend the day thinking about what I already have, and to give not by giving things but by giving meaning.
Since that day, so long ago, I'd often thought "If only he knew of his impact on my life..." – but then again, would he really need to know…?
