iv.                Coping with the Monsoon

In my quest for customers for fire extinguishers in Darjeeling, I called at a small establishment which made itself known as a SCHOOL by a plaque by its front door. It was during the monsoon and it was raining and I was dressed for the weather: mackintosh and gum boots. As soon as the door opened and I looked at bare walls and students sitting on the bare floor, I knew there would be no money here to afford a fire extinguisher, even if one were needed.

The teacher was dressed in a flimsy, red cotton, draped like a toga. I thought he might be a Buddhist priest. "No", he told me, he had no need of a fire extinguisher. And added that he ran the simplest of schools and tried to be simple in his life. I replied somewhat pretentiously that I admired the simple life, at which he smiled and asked, "What need for a raincoat and big rubber boots?" I could not take him up on that. Instead we talked poetry and poets. He had studied English literature at one time. He told me he had written a book of poems, which was available at a book store in Darjeeling. I hunted up the book, which had a number of poems on the theme of the spirituality of the magnificent snowy peaks which are the "ethereal" backdrop for Darjeeling.

The teacher/priest had his way of coping with the world and the monsoon rain, and I had my less simple, less satisfactory, and less honest way.