When I flew away from Bhutan last Sunday, I felt that I had been sent away from paradise. Not a tropical paradise of my imaginings, but a real life paradise that comes from feeling content – at home.
Now, here I sit in an Ahmadabad hotel room in India, the constant beeping and screeching of traffic, a constant reminder that I am no longer in paradise.
My trip to India and Bhutan has been momentous in a lot of ways – spiritually uplifting, emotionally satisfying, personally overwhelming, but also calming and reassuring. I felt at home in Bhutan. When I left and went to Bodhgaya, every time I saw someone in the familiar Bhutan costume, my spirits would lift and I would think, “Someone from home!” Indeed, when I met someone working on a floral display at one of the temples, I asked where they were from, and when they said, “Bhutan”, I replied, “So am I!” It certainly felt that way.
But out here, away from my sense of home, all I want to do is go home. Since I can’t come back to Bhutan, it’s Australia I shall return to. Back to the familiar.
Back to having 15 different kinds of butters to choose from – butters that spread, instead of ripping the bread apart; supermarkets that are all shiney and have shelves groaning with selections; being able to post a parcel without it being a half-day exercise in frustration; seeing my dog, well-fed and secure, knowing that she doesn’t have to worry about where she will sleep warmly at night (because she sleeps on my bed); back to beautiful ocean breezes over a crystal clear ocean; back to feeling like I belong.
I had that in Bhutan – a feeling that I belonged. I have it in Australia, because I do belong there. I haven’t felt it in India – India has enough people. And besides, I know I couldn’t live in a place as chaotic. I doesn’t know how to deal with that kind of experience.
Maybe I’m being unfair. It makes me scream with frustration and laugh at the same time. I’ve posted two parcels from India and both times I came away with a headache. The post office wants you to post it in a cardboard box, but can’t tell you where to get one. I had to find a shop to get the cardboard box, a material shop to buy the cotton material necessary to sew the cardboard box up in, a tailor’s shop to actually get it sewn together and then a fruit vendor, because, of course, the scales at the post office don’t work!
Gross National Happiness, with Mahatma Gandhi’s vision is a good place to start a system that doesn’t give you headaches.
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