New Delhi to Bir, India (September 5, 2011)—Delhi has become familiar. I arrived in the late morning and took a prepaid taxi to Inderpuri and stayed for three nights. I didn’t take a picture of the bed because I’ve stayed so many times. By the point arrival, I hadn’t slept in two days. I went straight to Dr. Soni’s clinic and had one of my nerves sanded out (isn’t that what a root canal entails?). It was strangely painless. In the afternoon Nanette appeared and it was so good to see her.
.
Rinpoche was there too, and several others arrived. We went to Suresh’s and conducted auditions for his next film, me only as an observer. Again, I didn’t take any photos. Sorry. Later, we had a dinner and the topic of a very passionate conversation was the Samdrup Jongkhar Initiative. I was surprised at how invested Rinpoche is. And grateful for it. This is what I’ve been spending all my energy on. This is why I’ve returned. I needed to hear his strong words of encouragement.
.
On day three, we all took the Rajdani Express from New Delhi to Patankot, on the border of Pakistan. Chime, Suchin, Tashi Colman and I shared a first class compartment, Rinpoche had a double down the corridor. I had the bottom bunk, Chime was up top. We had more SJI meetings there and then tucked in for a night of sleeplessness. The conductor was a horn hound, tearing up the Himalayan foothills with his elbow on the noisemaker all night long. None of us slept much because of it. Pawo greeted us and we drove in two cars for four hours, finally arriving in Bir a little after breakfast.
button
