Yala is a call for meditation
Yala
is about wildlife. That’s the story. It is not incorrect. I first went
to Yala in 1971. Family trip. I remember seeing peacock and jungle fowl,
deer and wild buffalo. And of course elephants. The next trip was in the
late eighties. Friends. All of the above and leopard too. Sure, there
were birds and butterflies, trees and flowers and the odd wild boar and
crocodile, but it’s mostly elephant, deer and peacock. I had different
eyes then and possibly better vision too. This time it was different and
not just because of changed ecological, social, political, cultural and
economic contexts.
I have the deepest respect for the natural world; just don’t claim to
know much about it. I like photographs, but I am neither photographer
nor photo-critic. I like to watch animals, but neither have the means
nor the knowledge to appreciate them the way I am sure a wildlife
enthusiast would. So this is not an essay about wildlife in Yala.
Colour variation
Yala National Park. Picture courtesy: Google |
There were more people in Yala than there were animals, or so it
seemed to me. Perhaps it was the wrong time of the day or wrong time of
the year or perhaps because there were too many vehicles on the dirt
tracks in the park but we saw very little wildlife. Didn’t upset me.
I went with family. A big party of people. Lots of children. Stayed
outside the park. Governor’s Camp is a nice place. Lots of space,
cleans, neat, comfortable and thankfully none of the trappings of the
usual tourist hotel/lodge. Abeysinghe and Ranjith, the two man staff,
did the work of 10 people and I was told they had not had any rest since
the beginning of December.
They cooked, cleaned and in my case provided excellent conversation
about all kinds of topics for free. That itself was your-money’s-worth
in my book, but the place offered much else besides.
This is rain-time in Yala (and almost everywhere else in Sri Lanka!).
That was a big difference from what I remember. Things were green. Not
just not-brown green, but all-shades green. A roll of gaze from left to
right would in one sweep give me such colour variation that I wished I
was a painter. Or photographer.
Goldmine
One didn’t have to move around to find things that fascinate eye and
provoke meditation, I found. Well, that’s true of all places, even the
most congested road, crowded market place or a garbage dump can ‘give’
in like manner; but these tidbits for the eye came clothed in a
pollution free wrapper made of birdsong, breeze, brick-less surroundings
and uninterrupted play of light and shade. Made a difference.
I suppose everyone takes something and hopefully leaves nothing
behind that is not biodegradable. There’s a lot one takes from empty
spaces and a lot from places relatively untouched by human beings. Yala
is a goldmine. Sorry, every square inch of that place is a goldmine.
This is not the moment or place to draw a map and mark in detail the
treasure-filled spaces. Indeed, I am not a surveyor equipped with
relevant tools to do justice to such a project. I will just write a few
paragraphs about what made this trip different.
Stone. On the beach. From the finest grain of sand through pebbles
crafted by the fingers of three accomplished artists - wind, sand and
water - to the mighty sentinels that have greeted sunrise from who knows
when and meet in silence the touch of the elements, the whip of wave and
storm as well as caress of spray and breeze. My most worthwhile hours
were made of these. No, not at Yala, strictly speaking, but a few
hundred meters from Governor’s Camp.
Safari-jeep
The universe and the eternal verities were all mapped out and etched
on these entities. The story of life, the vagaries of emotion, the
ambiguities of the human condition and the timeless wisdom of the
Buddha’s discourse on impermanence I saw in flashes of illumination as
my uncrafted eyes dwelled on and moved from signature to signature,
those chiseled over aeons in the peculiar union of moment and century
with sun and rain and sea and wind.
I’ve heard that the universe is contained in a grain of sand. I can’t
say that I saw universe or really saw grain of sand, but from my perch
on rock, bathed by sky, sun, the arc of bay, wide expanse of water and
the myth that is horizon, I figured that all things constitute a call
for meditation, an invitation to get off the particular safari-jeep
(metaphorically speaking) that we are loathe to leave and stand still.
Yala is made of wildlife. Yala is not made of wildlife. Yala is
located at the Southeastern corner of Sri Lanka. Yala is not in the
Southeastern corner of Sri Lanka. Yala is a rock that is right in front
of your nose, in your pocket, in the eye that catches your eye and the
entwined gaze such encounter produces.
I wished I was a photographer. A painter. Or a poet. It is something
that I want to share, this experience I mean, but I lack word and wonder
also if it would matter to others. Perhaps I should say, ehi passiko,
(‘come, see’), the invitation to contemplate the Dhamma as expounded by
Siddhartha Gauthama, and leave it at that.
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