Wednesday, April 3, 2013

A Pilgrimage to the Past

I am sitting in the front passenger seat, as the car honks and swerves its way through the dusty and chaotic Calcutta streets. Traffic, I am told, is usually much worse. Its Good Friday today, a national holiday. The streets are nearly empty by Calcutta’s standards.  Empty, isn’t the first word that comes to my mind, while witnessing the bustle outside. It just goes to show how long I’ve been away…
The last time I was in this city was 20 years ago. Back then, Calcutta was the closest thing to what I could call home. Its where my fondest memories of childhood were made. It’s the last place I remember being innocent.  The circumstances that led to me to leave Calcutta were ones that would, in many ways, shape my quest for self-discovery over the next 20 years. Up until that time, I had had no reason to question the imperfection of the world. My life had been an effortless continuum of experience, filled with love and adventure. I had lived and laughed without any doubt: about myself, about people and about life. Yet, the fragility of one’s own perception must eventually cause it to shatter. It is one of those unavoidable inevitabilities of life…

The chauffer exhibits a zen-like focus as he steers the car within inches of vehicles, humans and livestock. Blinking, in this kind of white knuckle traffic, is a luxury few drivers can afford. Cyclists, mini-buses, taxis, scooters, pedestrians, rickshaw-wallas and bullock carts, all compete for every inch of road available. In this city you don’t just move forward, you earn your way forward.
We are on our way to St. James’s: the all-boys school I attended as a child. Memories of weekly mass at the campus church, Monday morning inspection, buying treats at the tuck shop during lunch, goofing around with friends during class and getting regularly caned for forgetting to do my homework, are as alive in my mind today as if they had happened only yesterday.
The car pulls up to the front gates of the school. They are closed. I tell the chauffer that there is a second entrance further up the road, through the cemetery, that is usually kept open. 20 years later, my mind is able to recall this little detail without effort.  
The entrance through the cemetery is open as I predicted. I breeze by the perplexed watchman, with an air of authority that makes it appear as if I actually have some business being there. I have learnt that the only way to move forward in this city is by capitalizing on the hesitation of others. I know that if I falter even for a moment, he will ask me why I am there at which point any heart-warming story of revisiting my childhood would be met with an unsympathetic smirk followed by a request to abandon the premises. So instead, I stride forward with a stern sense of urgency which communicates to him that he had better have a darn good reason to waste my time. The ploy works and I leave him behind looking a little confused. From the corner of my eye I notice him follow me for a few steps before he changes his mind and decides to resume his post instead…
Within the grounds now, I find myself immersed in an infinite sequence of déjà vu. Returning here all these years later is surreal. The school grounds are quiet and eerily empty. So is my mind. I can hear my own breathing as I take one step at a time into my past. The presence surrounding me is palpable.  The air has a sacred quality - as if I have entered some ancient and holy ground. I feel a deep sense of reverence wash over me. Only now am I aware of why I had to come here. I have come to pay homage to myself.
This journey of the last twenty years has really been a pilgrimage. It began the moment I doubted my own existence and subsequently embarked on a quest to justify its purpose. That journey took me to places in the world I craved to experience, places in my mind I didn’t know existed and places in my heart I was too afraid to acknowledge.
No pilgrimage is complete until the pilgrim returns home. It is always the journey forward, to meet our gods that we consider the most virtuous and filled with promise. But little mention is ever made of the journey home, which is often less glorious because it seems to serve no great purpose. And yet, the gods we find along the way are only figments of our minds, which keep us searching endlessly onwards. The truly divine is what you find awaits you when your path brings you back to where it first began.
As I walk through the school grounds as if in a trance I am able to see how much everything seems to change. And how little it really changes. The day I left this city, I had little idea that I would only return when my pilgrimage was complete. Standing in the great courtyard of the St. James’s school for boys, it becomes clear to me that I never really left.