The Guru Who Almost Was

A few days ago, during my sporadic Ill Wind housecleaning, I stumbled upon an orphan post from July 2010, never published.  The post, re-printed below, begins to spin a yarn about what seemed a serendipitous encounter with just the sort of ritual practitioner of Ayurveda that I was hoping to connect with during my Fulbright year in Kathmandu.  Events played out a little differently than I was expecting when I began composing, however, and the piece lay there unfinished.  Without further ado, then, an artifact from the archives:

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A rainy morning in Kathmandu, finally proper monsoon downpour.  I've been up since dawn, squatted on the toilet for a while in the grey light, taken a bracing cold shower, and meditated a scant, distracted few minutes before sweeping out the door with a Chinese umbrella and a plastic bag of fruit, down the alley and up the street through fresh rivulets and growing pools.  At the next alley I turn right and duck into a little doorway next to a neighborhood Ganesh temple, a simple aniconic stone decked with flower garlands and vermilion.  On the wall next to the doorway is an old handwritten poster with a mantra to Hanuman, the brave monkey king largely responsible for the rescue of Sita from the clutches of Ravana and purveyor of courage and strength.  Under the mantra is a simple descriptive advertisement printed out in Nepali for the services of a baidya, or healer, named Padamnath Agasti.  It lists cures for "gastric," "sugar," and "pressure," as well infertility, jaundice, and a host of other ailments extending beyond what Americans consider the role of a doctor.  Remedies are achieved with herbs or by  tantra and mantra and the shamanistic technique of jharphuk (brushing and blowing).  The baidya here is a Hanuman bhakta (devotee), and his cures are by the grace of the monkey king (who, Padamnath-ji will soon insist, can be found living in a cave in South India).  It is this man I am here to see.  He has offered himself as my teacher.   

Life is funny like this.  In 10 months here I wanted nothing more than to meet an embodiment of the living tradition of Ayureda who was willing to pour some of that nectar into my vessel.  Perhaps my vessel wasn't empty enough; it seemed at the time that no one was willing to teach.  The hoped-for doors weren't opening.  When I met Keshab Kavi Baidya, one of the lasta rasa shastra alchemist-pharmacists in Nepal, it was too late.  He was already sick and no longer had any laboratory space in which to make the important bhasma medicines.  I found out after I left, almost exactly a year ago, that he died shortly after my last visit.  All in all, circumstances conspired against my delving deep into that particular ocean.  My 10 months here accomplished plenty else, if I recall that at the beginning I had ideas about pursuing anthropology.  I'm no longer interested in objectivity, if indeed I ever was, nor in theory divorced from practice.  Which is to say, I now fancy that I'll eventually transform myself into some sort of baidya myself.  That gets ahead of me, however: I don't think I had realized a year ago how much of a transformation it would be.

A year later, I return to find Kathmandu much the same as ever, except maybe for larger private vehicles on the street (VW SUV's?!) and infinitesimal progress on the Japanese-funded road project connecting Bhaktapur and Kathmandu across the width of the Valley.  The place hasn't changed much, but I find that I have.  A reaction has been set in motion, the result of time ripening and of a catalyst.  Old paths through the city, literal and figurative, no longer hold the allure they did, and new doors are ajar and ripe for exploration.

This particular passageway between Ganesh and Hanuman I stumbled onto through what Michael Gruber calls (in referring to god's work) a "conspiracy of accidents." A poster in a tea shop down the street from our guest house, a whim.  Following the directions on the poster I found the baidya seated in his room with a client (though that word, along with "patient," rings false here), rubbing her down with a mala of rudraksha beads.  I explained quickly that my companion and myself were well and had come to chat, and he beckoned warmly for us to sit.  Soon, to my surprise, he was telling me what he could teach me...

different paths.  crossroads.  I ching omens.  Hanuman and indications of the need for a warrior spirit.  strength for what is to come.  paths leading to paths...highway?  patience.
paths or windtrails on the sea?  paths we make

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11/29/11

So that's what I found in the bowels of this blog's archives, and that's how it shall stand; perhaps reading my recently deceased father's old journal has instilled in me a reticence to alter the historical record, even in such a trifling way as this.  I didn't finish the original post, I think, because the story I was spinning took a couple further left turns and ended up petering out--no mystical apprenticeship or Ayurvedic secrets forthcoming from this charismatic ritualistic physician.  I can't remember the content of the "I Ching omens" referred to in the last fragment; Hanuman and the warrior spirit are clear enough (who doesn't need some of that? Especially given the turbulent times that were to follows.) Anyway, what ended up happening in those early monsoon season weeks in Nepal the summer before last was this:

I met with the baidya in question a couple times but balked slightly when it became clear his teaching was to consist primarily of spiritual practices and pursuits.  I was most interested in techniques, quick and dirty, from the toolbox of esoteric Ayurveda; he wanted to whisper a secret mantra in my ear, to have me adopt a particular set of mantra and visualization, to take me on as spiritual son. He was a compelling man, dedicated, and pure in his intentions as far as I could tell.  I was mighty tempted to jump what seemed a fortuitous opportunity with both feet; after all, an awakened interest in spiritual pursuits was in large part what had brought me back to Southasia less than a year after I'd left.  It was partly the fact that I was expecting to deepen my engagement with Buddhism, not Hinduism, that held me back--all roads may lead to the mountain, as I've heard Indians say about comparative religious practice, but it helps to stick with one path at least 'til you know where you're going.  Moreover, I had the sense that in gleefully adopting a sexy new practice from my very own, private, Kathmandu-back-alley guru, I would be turning my back on the less glamorous but honest meditative work I'd been cultivating for the previous several months.  And much as I would have loved to learn how this guy treated people, just what the mysterious, shamanic brushing-and-blowing of the jharphuke baidya was all about, I was prepared neither to commit to the pre-requisite devotional practices nor to try and bluff my way through them in the hope of catching a glimpse of something either therapeutically or intellectually interesting.  So I met with Padamnath Agasti one last time and mumbled to him (my rusty Nepali feeling especially inadequate in contrast with his highly Sanskritized, thik speech) about my hesitation.  He must have let me off the hook.  I remember telling him that I was leaving for India but would be back in Nepal in a few months to show my mother around; he replied with a hitherto unseen fierceness that people who didn't treat their own mothers well were the lowest of the low.  I agreed with as much vehemence as I could muster. Then he asked me if I could spare some money for some sort of temple building project he was involved in.  I gave him, I believe, 1000 Nepali rupees--neither enough to make any substantial contribution nor little enough for me to forget about this intrusion of business into the spiritual realm (as if they were ever separate to begin with). I left him with a slightly funny taste in my mouth, a taste which only got funkier during my subsequent months of travel, and when I met my mother in Kathmandu I never did take her to that back alley in Pakhnajol to meet my once-upon-a-time would-be Nepali guru.