Bhaja retreat centre is at the end of a wide valley with high basalt cliffs all around with the ancient buddhist caves cut into the hillside to the east. The retreat centre sits on a spur of land 30 or 40 feet above the valley bottom with the steep cliffs behind rising up to a 16th century fort, once occupied by the great Maratha leader Shiva-ji, who for Maharashtrians is what King Billy is for the Northern Irish protestants! The broad spur on which the centre sits is now thickly wooded, in contrast to the open paddy fields stretching beneath us across to the road and railway and then across to the high cliffs on the other side of the valley 4 or 5 miles away. There are some beautiful big mango trees and it was one of my delights in arriving here before the rains to be given a basket of top quality mangoes from our own trees, the famous alphonso mangoes. I gorged myself for a couple of weeks eating three or four a day until there were no more to be had. Before the monsoon the landscape is parched because the hottest period of summer comes just before the rains. Everything seems asleep. With the first drops of rain greenery appears everywhere and some plants grow inches overnight. Fauna too wakes up. Maitriveer had an amorous frog in his bathroom which lived somewhere in the drain beneath the basin and at night would give the most raucous series of squarks and clucks and shrieks and clicks, delighting in the amplification afforded by the drain and then the hard tiled surfaces of the bathroom. Maitriveer found sleep rather difficult! Even I a room away had to resort to earplugs. We tried everything. Flushing the drain, poking it with bamboo rods, but to no avail. Eventually we hit on the expedient of plugging the drain with a piece of wood. For a couple of days the frog kept trying but clearly the limitation of his amplification was disappointing to him and he ceased, no doubt finding another hall in which to give his recital. Once the rains begin to fall the snakes begin to come out, seeking dryer lodging no doubt. There are a number of extremely poisonous snakes quite readably visible at Bhaja retreat centre. Just yesterday Krisna, a worker from a neighbouring village who is pretty much the person who runs the retreat centre, was cutting grass and found himself with a Russell’s viper in his hand, whose bite is certain death within 20 minutes. Several snakes have come and peered through our windows at the teachers hut and I found a small but poisonous snake climbing up the pebbledash around my door one night as I was on my way to call Dhammarati and the international council. I love to watch the snakes, albeit with a prudent circumspection. They are living creatures of such a different kind to us that one cannot help being drawn to them, with their flickering forked tongues tasting the air, and their extraordinary agility without limbs. Maitriveer and I watched a four foot slender specimen delicately climbing up into the trees reaching its neck and head a foot up until it found a branch to wind itself round and slowly draw its coils through the leaves.
Posted on: Thu, 17 Jul 2014 08:49:33 +0000
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