I wanted to update my impressions of places I'd visited over a decade ago, while looking at them through the eyes of my novel's 29–year–old protagonist, Amanda: Rishikesh, the Himalayan town where Amanda goes to find a yoga master and get over her breakup with the cheating boyfriend she's vowed never to see again. I'd come on this trip to do some last–minute site research for the novel I was just finishing- Enlightenment for Idiots, the tale of a young American wannabe yoga–teacher looking for awakening while floundering through her increasingly disastrous love life. But then, "No problem, madame," the phone–wallah said-and handed me his personal cell phone. The Buddha himself left a young son behind to meditate in Bodh Gaya. Letting go of personal ties is part of the spiritual path, I reminded myself as I struggled with my disappointment. Hijacked by homesickness, I logged off and tried to call Skye, but the rural phone lines wouldn't let the call through. Inside, at a computer topped by a garlanded shrine to Ganesha, the Hindu god of new beginnings, I pored over pictures of my six–year–old son snorkeling with his dad in Hawaii. Outside, a pony pulled a cart emblazoned with an Airtel ad past a group of Tibetan monks shopping for Nikes. The revelation came as I checked my email in the Vishnu Internet Café in Bodh Gaya, a pilgrimage town in rural northeastern India, where an ancient temple marks the spot where the Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment while meditating under a tree almost 2600 years ago. Two days into a recent trip to India, I realized just how much had changed since I last backpacked through there a dozen years ago, as a footloose young traveler researching an ashram guidebook.
India has changed a lot since my last visit.
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