Escape to Bodha gaya

Am I enlightened?I wish I was!! Of course I sat under the progeny of that peepal tree under which Siddhartha manifested to Buddha !! At least I had an experience of walking in the places where the Great Buddha could have once done!!My long felt dream of visiting Bodha Gaya was realized last week end. I traveled from Birgunj to Patna by night bus and from patna to Bodh gaya by Patna tourism bus and landed there by noon.The road to that place was good and as I reached the enclosure of that sacred place , I felt very calm and excited too!The place is such a contrast to the otherwise Bihari sights of filth and poverty( sorry I am still thinking like a novice).I spent a quiet two days .. just trying to take in the sight and silence of that places . Wondered why our places of worship are so noisy and cluttered.

The place around bodhgaya, is so desert like, and many scenes there still echo the unbroken past. excepting of the mobile towers that shoot up here and there. Sorry, the Buddha in me rose only to the extent that I looked at them all without feeling guilty and being surprised at the resilience of human kind.Yes,it takes a Buddha within all of us to rise up and think or act ,It
is not easy .But it’s a pity that the great thoughts were over powered by what I see now as ritualistic (so called )hinduism in practice!!( I don’t know how the scene would be different today if Buddhism was allowed to flourish. ).Maybe fatalism has its own merits!!
I visited Rajgir and Nalanda too.The latter has a unique memorial in the name of Hieun tsang..built by Chinese architects…the Bronze image of the traveler / piligrim is a master piece and even are the copper engraved plaques and paintings that depict his tour ( I did not know that he left china in stealth to visit places connected with Buddha)to India and Afghanistan( to see Bamian Buddha ).I felt like walking all over those places without thinking of the morrow….. well I am still not ready for it!! ( more so cos I am a woman??)
When once the roads within the couhtry are free from strikes then I shall be able to visit lumbini .. and kapilavastu….with the Government in chaos..security is a maor issue.. .no wonder I went to Bodhgaya ..and I may land up in Darjeeling or Sikkim soon!!