Quietly I shed my pack, sat beside it, and shook my head. Inside of me a part of my soul wanted to burst into delighted laughter. The India I'd spent the past week crossing was not at all the India I'd been expecting or, perhaps I should say, "worrying about." The increasing filth and crudeness I'd passed through in eastern Pakistan had seemed to promise a
continuation of the same across the border in poorer India. And even less encouraging had been all the scenes of ugliness placed in my imagination by other travelers.

My route across northern India, through Delhi to Calcutta, is along the plains of the Ganges River, the world's most populated region. So much squalor did I envision to be packed along the 1,100 miles of the route, that it was fully my intention to walk its length quickly and sternly and to avoid much close contact with the people, and certainly not to risk my health by eating the food any of the poor should offer me.

The manner in which I'd had to cross India's first state, the Punjab, had done little to dispel my anxieties. Though closed to foreigners ever since the turmoil following Prime MInister Indira Gandhi's assassination, it is now possible to cross the Sikh-dominated Punjab overland on only three days each month, and then only by riding in a convoy escorted by heavily armed policemen. To prevent any close look at the situation in that military-controlled region, the convoy departs from the Pakistan border area at dusk and speeds through the supposedly dangerous no-man's land in the blackness of night.

It is, of course, quite against the rules to disembark from the convoy before it reaches the next state, Haryana. "To do so would be quite risky to one's peace of mind," assured the convoy's potbellied sheriff, who had thrown back his star-studded shoulders and given his over-sized turban a sharp tug for added effect.

But, as the old saying goes, rules are made to be broken. Thus, it would be that an American missionary with whom I hitched a ride across the Pakistan-India border "inadvertently" deposited me onto Punjab soil in the middle of the night some 50 kilometers shy of the Haryana welcome sign.

What transpired during the 150 kilometers, between the next morning's tentative first steps and the stroll up the dirt lane leading to the little temple, was not at all what everyone had me expecting. Rather than danger and tension, I found a great tranquility and natural beauty. For the first time since France, I felt a deep and real sense of spiritualism, of being in an almost ethereal world of holy spirits and dwellings. There was an almost uncanny manner in the way the people lived: so at peace with each other, the land, and the many wild and domestic animals, which they believe to contain the reincarnated souls of former persons.

Because so many of the people I passed depended entirely upon the animals and the land for everything they have, including the mud and reeds for many of their homes, they had a profound respect for their surroundings. So little was allowed to go to waste. Just as the forests were completely clean of any dead brush and branches, no cow or buffalo dung lay untouched for more than a few hours or, in some cases, more than a few seconds. For many women and girls, the collection and making, by hand, of dung into patties for heating and cooking fuel was a full-time chore.

A sudden, dull clang from inside the temple snapped me from the laziness into which I had been lulled by the warm sun and the fragrance of incense and roses. From the temple's dark interior emerged an older woman walking slowly backwards and bowing toward the temple door. On the side of her nose facing me gleamed a tiny gold pendant connected by a gold chain to a hairpin of gold shaped like a fan. Around her ankles, thick bangles in the shapes of snakes crowded together like the folds of droopy silver-colored sock tops. Fine steel and brass or copper bracelets covered much of her forearms.

After a final reverent bow to the cow statue, she turned and approached me. Her cupped hands extended out and down to my surprised figure. Nestled inside them were some tiny sugar candy balls. I was at a loss for what to do. Part of me wanted nothing to do with that icky mess she was offering me.

"Please to accept her prasada?" came a kindly voice from off to the side.

I turned to face a wrinkled, stick-like figure wrapped in coarse cloth and propped up by an ancient walking stick. It was the old man. I'd not seen him move from his spot in the sunlight.

"She has offered the treats to our God, Bhagawan, and now wishes to share them with all she meets. Such food blessed by God we call prasada," he explained softly, a look in his eyes hinting that it would be most unkind to turn down such an offering.

I tried my best to look quite honored and let her push several of the sticky things onto my right palm. She grinned broadly and gave the rest to the old man, who promptly passed them on to me.

"Please, you drink tea?" he asked.

I followed him to a two-room, cinder block hut that was his home. On the way he paused long enough to show me the inside of the temple. In its unlit, closet-like room stood, simply, a plain pedestal in the center. Set on top of it was a paint-streaked rock in a large bowl of flower petals and smoking incense. On the walls were several old calendars topped by faded posters of the flute-playing Hindu god Krishna and other deities, some sprouting many arms and one, an elephant trunk where his nose should have been. Resting peacefully at their sides were many of the animals familiar to India, particularly the cobra and the cow. Suspended from the ceiling, at the end of a long rope, was a small bell. The old man gave it a nudge. It made the same dull clang I'd heard earlier.

"It is for calling down God," he said, with what I'd have sworn was a touch of jest.

As it turned out, he was a monk and the religious caretaker of the temple. Hunched on the dirt floor of his hut over a tin pan of boiling tea and buffalo milk, he explained much of his lonely lifestyle. He was paid nothing to be a holy man, he said, adjusting the twigs flaming beneath the tea. He subsisted entirely on the charity of the temple's worshipers. Like monks thousands of years ago, he still spent each morning wandering from village home to village home knocking on doors and asking for food with which to prepare that day's meals. His knowledge of English came from the 37 years he'd served in the army, from which he received a small, almost negligible, pension.

"You please stay for lunch?" he asked. "It is our duty to feed and give rest for free to any monks who pass by our temple."

"But I am no monk," I replied.

He rose and placed a cup of sweet, milky tea on the bench beside me.

"Ah, but I think you are," he replied with an odd grin.

He sounded as if he'd been reading some part of my inner soul, of which even I was unaware. I stole a glance over the rim of the teacup. He was smiling more than ever.

"You can throw them into the fields if you want," he said with a nod toward my right hand, which was clenched tightly.

The prasada...groaned a voice inside me. I stared down at the sweaty lump stuck to my fingers. Now it was my turn to smile, even if it was an embarrassed one.

"What's for lunch?" I asked quickly. "Maybe more prasada?"

He laughed. "The families today had much buffalo milk to give away."

He paused, as if to think that over, then added with a sigh, "As usual. . ."

The thought of so much raw buffalo milk made me a bit hesitant, too. But just then, as if a sort of omen, the bell inside the temple rang unusually loud and sharp. I involuntarily sat up straighter.

"When do we eat?" I asked without further delay.

Then, I cast aside all my foolish worries and sat back to enjoy the sweetness of the meal's first entree: the poor woman's sugar candy.

Steven