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Parting at Ashok Hotel
I visited India and Nepal for the first time on a Buddhist pilgrimage led by Shantum Seth in 2007. The following is from my 2008 trip to India, Nepal, and Tibet. After 2 weeks in Dharamshala, India, many of us returned to Delhi.
As the bus pulled into the driveway of an extremely posh hotel, Shantum said, “Friends, we have arrived.” We were at the Ashok Hotel, for breakfast and for parting.
When we stopped in front of the regal columned entrance, I not only noticed the water fountain and the doormen wearing burgundy uniforms, a concoction involving gold-trimmed Nehru jackets and burgundy turbans topped with a sort of fontage — that is, a fan-shaped piece of silky fabric.
But what truly caught my eye was a skinny little grey striped cat. It was the first cat I saw on this trip! On the bus I exclaimed, “There’s a kitty!” I saw the cat move around the fountain and disappear behind a column to the left. After we descended from the bus, I snooped around at the potted plants where I thought the cat went, but it was nowhere.
We left our suitcases at the front, and Shantum said they’d be guarded. We entered the posh hotel, where the enormous front lobby was decorated, among other things, with bodhi leaves in yellow, red, brown and orange painted on parts of the walls. It was appropriate, since Emperor Ashoka revived Buddhism and had…