30. FRIENDS

My young friend marries

Soul brudder and I at his vegetarian food stall raising funds for charity.

This soul brudder on the floor has no backbone. Our next get-together will be at his place on Christmas Eve. As he lives like a sadhu, we will have to throw our carcasses on the floor. He has just 3 chairs, 3 plates, 1 teaspoon and we are a group of about 10! I can't wait.

At another Indian friend's house - with our French friend who chants in Tamil. He has lost count of the number of times he's been to India. Most of these friends I made as members of The Theosophical Society.

Soul Brudders - one from the North, the other, South - get together in one of their homes for a favourite Singapore pastime - meet, greet and eat. The Chinese lad is one of my several computer consultants when my dinosaur of a PC stutters and collapses. These young fellas are on broadband, literally, figuratively, I'm on dial-up, figuratively....but heck, we get along like a house on fire.

Friends are like my new family. My clique get together every few months at home where we kick off our shoes, put our feet up, eat and chat the evening away.

Food is always vegetarian - no eggs, no liquor, at one home - no tea or coffee. Too tame for most folks - no booze? no sex for afters? no way!

I enjoy the company of this clique. All the non-Indians have spent time in India. We are fellow pilgrims on this journey call 'Life.' We came from different paths and met at a common intersection - The Theosophical Society.

We have our personal experiences to share regarding our different Masters. Our meditation techniques may differ. Not all are vegetarians, not all are into community service. We may not meet or talk for months but when we get together, there's much warmth, goodwill and love.

As I watch my friends chatting, our carcasses sprawled all over the place, I visualise us as travelers of old, who at dusk, would break journey at a country inn or farmhouse. They would have hot soup with bread, sit around a fire and talk about their travels. What brought them to these parts? Have they been drawn to the country in search of their Master?

In days when there were no borders nor checkpoints, people moved freely, traded barter trade, slept in barns or stables along the way. I imagined the country folks to be kind and compassionate towards weary travelers, gave them some bread and soup and a place to sleep in the back. In return, the travelers may have shovelled the horse's poo and worked in the fields.

When I traveled across Egypt, the landscape was like something out of biblical times. Folks traveled across sandy stretches of desert land on donkeys and camels, people lived in tents and sailed in small boats with woven white cloth sails. I felt like a time traveler.

On another trip, in Phnom Peng, Cambodia, there was a performing dance troupe and musicians comprising elderly but spritely folks, who performed at a buddhist ceremony to honour the Singaporean who built a school, orphanage and clinic. The troupe had traveled 2 days to get to where we were.

At the end of the ceremony, they were invited to eat with us. When it was time for bed, they pulled out their woven hammocks, strung it here and there in the school canteen and spent the night there. Just before lights out, the troupe, suspended in their hammocks and fanning themselves, chatted the evening away with the staff. When people are homogenous, they connect right away.

Watching my friends, my mind took me back to those times and how, essentially, the human mammal is a nomadic creature - a traveller. From his/her travels, the pilgrim may come to the realisation that the ultimate trip is made by journeying within.