Bodhgaya

OM MANI PADME HUM OM MANI PADME HUM... Si amigos, estamos en la ciudad de peregrinacion budista mas importante del mundo, y este es el mantra que se repite por todos lados. Fue aqui, mas concretamente debajo de su mas famoso arbol, donde el principe Siddarhta alcanzo el Nirvana, o Buda la iluminacion, como prefirais decirlo. Y ahora se celebra un festival porque fue justo por estas fecchas (eso dicen) los tres dias con sus tres noches que Buda paso bajo el arbol hasta alcanzar tal iluminacion.
La mayor atraccion del lugar es la visita de templos, hay uno por cada pais donde se practica el budismo, y son muchos! Hemos estado en Vietnam, Butan, Tailandia, Tibet, Birmania, Japon... la verdad es que es un ambiente exotico, y estamos aprendiendo un poco a diferenciar los diferentes uniformes de los monjes. Hemos visitado los diferentes sitios donde Buda paso semanas meditando tras su iluminacion, hemos rodeado una estatua suya de mas de 25 metros, hemos tomado lecciones rapidas de meditacion zen, a que no parece que estemos en India?

Por otro lado, estamos en el estado de Bihar, uno de los mas pobre de India, y se nota. No todo es exotismo y colorido, hay mucha pobreza, muchos mendigos, muchos ninyos sin apenas un trapo con el que taparse, muchos afectados por la polio que se mueven a apenas medio metro del suelo... Hace unos dias una ninya iba al lado de una de nosotras, Adriana... Yo le sonreia, ella a mi, me pedia dinero, comida, yo le decia que no, no se puede alimentar a medio pais, intentas insensibilizarte un poco... le cogi de la mano y con eso se conformo un rato al menos y estaba contenta, y al poco se saco del pliegue de un trapo inmundo que llevaba como vestido una manzana, que podria ser perfectamente su primera comida del dia, dio un bocado, y me ofrecio... no os puedo expresar la punzada y la emocion que senti en ese momento, como podia ser que esa ninya de unos cuatro anyos ofreciera un poco de lo unico que tenia sin conocerme? esta sociedad no esta sana, a la vista esta, las castas, la pobreza estructural y normalizada, epidemias... pero la nuestra tampoco lo esta, ademas de que todos somos uno aunque intentemos obviarlo... en fin, no voy a divagar, solo se que este es uno de esos momentos especiales que llevare conmigo, aunque duela. Desde ese dia por las manyanas compramos unas manzanas o galletas y las damos a los primeros afortunados, no queremos fomentar la mendicidad, pero es que es tanta la injusticia!. Amparo tiene un pequenyo fan que se parece mucho a Aladino, es el que mas se rie, nos lo llevariamos!

Ya tenemos los tickets para nuestro siguiente destino, Sonepur, donde se esta celebrando el festival/mercado de animales mas grande de Asia!

OM MANI PADME HUM OM MANI PADME HUM... Yes my friends, we are in the most important place for the buddhist pilgrims in all the world, and this is the mantra that we hear everywhere. Was here, under the Bodhi Tree, were the Prince Shidarta found the Nirvana, or Buddha the ilumination, as you prefer. And like always we are lucky, now there is a festival because is the anniversary of the three days that Buddha spent under the tree, until he got the Nirvana.
The main attraction are the temples, every country with buddhism has his temple here, so we have been in Vietnam, Bhuttan, Thailand, Tibet, Birmany, Japan... everything is exotic, and we are starting to learn the differents kinds of monks' colthes. We were in the places were Buddha was "meditating", we walked around a big statue of him, 25 meters, we had a quick lesson of zen meditation... this doesn't look like we being in India, don't you think?
In the other hand, we are in Bihar, one of the poorest states in India, and we see it every day. Not everything is colourfull and exotic, there are a lot of poverty, beggers, children with no colthes to cover properly, people with polio that can't walk properly... The other day one girl was walking with one of us, Adriana... She smiled me, I smiled her, she asked for money, food, I said no, we can't feed half country, we tried don't think too much about it... I grabbed her hand and she was happy for a moment, and suddenly she took an apple from the dirty and broken thing that she was wearing as a dress, bit the fruit, and offered it to me... I can't explain what I felt in this moment, how this little girl that not even know me can offer me the only thing she has? This society is not healthy, we can see it, castes, poverty, epidemics... but ours is not healthy either, besides all of us are one, althought we try to deny it. Well, I don't want to disgress, I only know that this is gonna be one of the special moments I'm gonna have with me always, althougt is painfull. From this day every morning we buy apples or cookies and give them to the first lucky children. We don't want encourage begging, but the injustice is so huge!! Amparo has a little fan who looks like Aladdin, he is always laughing, and we want to take him with us!!

We have the tickets for our next destination, Sonepur, where they celebrate a festival with the biggest animal market in Asia.