One Pen, One Chair, One Cult

“One pen?! You have one pen?!”

Walk through any village or town from the high mountains of Nepal to the island of Sri Lanka and unless you look Indian or somehow very frightening, children will come running up asking this. It’s almost a chant.

Emily had enough of it during her years in Nepal that she seems a little annoyed or at least indifferent when it happens.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I always have a pen in my pocket – ideally an American-issue PaperMate black, medium point. I flip them in my fingers when thinking and just as a nervous habit. My pen supply is limited and not for distribution. So, I somewhat selfishly go along with the no-pen policy.

Emily assumed that it was something that children in Nepal wanted because of limited resources for school supplies.

The other day as we were coming back from town, a beautifully dressed ten-year-old girl down the road from our resort approached Emily. The girl ran off from her family – all dressed in their best – on their way to attend a festival. These were not poor people.

In clean, clear, crisp, well-spoken English the girl asked Emily’s name, where she was from, where she was going – the girl was excited to talk to an American woman. Her family up ahead was getting in a boat to sail across the lake to their destination and the girl had to go. She said goodbye to us, started running to catch-up with her family, stopped, turned back toward us and said, “one pen?!”

Huh?

What is the origin of this “one pen” phenomenon and how did it come to span a sub-continent? It had been on my mind before, but I had no one to ask. Then I realized, we have someone now – George.

Our resort manager, George not only gets along with us so well, but he loves to tell stories and explain things. George is probably in his early 60’s and after a business career in Calcutta, this is his “retirement job” back in his hometown. George takes everything in stride and absolutely loves to enlighten people on Kerala and India in general.

“You people (meaning foreigners) have a high tolerance for dogs. You like them. You feed them. There was a woman sitting over there who just a month ago was sitting, sharing her food with a dog. Then, when you go, we can’t get rid of them so easily. They stay. They always remember and want the food,” George began.

“The British and the foreigners, they used to bring gifts for the children. It would be too expensive to give out other things, so they just bought pens and gave them out. Now, everyone remembers the pens and thinks all of you will give them pens.”

“All over India, Nepal, Sri Lanka – all that space?” I asked.

“Yes. All over now. Even me – I like the foreign pens too! People come and leave a pen from Britain or Europe – they are very nice pens. I like to use them.”

George pulled a blue Pentel ballpoint out of his pocket and pointed to the front desk where the gentleman there gathered pens that were lying around. Sure enough, they were all from other countries.

I couldn’t allow America to go unrepresented – so I contributed a PaperMate and advised them that it may not be their most expensive pen, but it will last. How can we be out-penned by the Europeans?!

I felt that George did a good job answering my somewhat unusual question, so I came back to him to start working on our list of unresolved questions.

“George, you know so much, can I ask you another question? I see little girls always with very short haircuts. Why?”

“Ah, this is our tradition. Until the age of ten, we give girls boys’ haircuts. Then at ten, we let their hair grow long. Cutting it when they are young makes it grow better when they are older. It is also useful for checking for the little things…like bugs….I don’t know the word…”

“Lice?”

“Yes, lice. We can check for them easily and if we see one, just pick it out with our fingers right then and there and…” George mimed pinching and destroying a louse egg with his thumb and forefinger. Not that I needed that to get where he was going.

He assured me that it was nothing religious and in fact, often spans the religions – as lice does.

My favorite George explanation of late has to do with the chair that was on our porch. When we came back to Keraleeyam yesterday, the fantastic deck-chair that leans you back so comfortably and is almost impossible to get out of, was gone. Our neighbors stole the chair from our bungalow in the day we were gone.

Emily was not pleased as she has spent much of the last week and a half in that chair. She asked one of the guys if there was another somewhere. They scoured the grounds looking – but the stolen chair was the only one.

George felt badly and ordered a new one to be delivered today. He seemed mildly annoyed at the chair thievery too. Then he explained the chairs to us.

“These chairs are too comfortable. In my house, we have one small one – but the children were never allowed to sit in it. We call these ‘lazy chairs’ because they make you lazy.”

“Do you sit in it?” Emily asked.

“These chairs are very dangerous and you have to be careful with ‘lazy chairs’.” he said. “Only the head of the house can sit in these chairs and old people who need to be comfortable and sleep.”

“Are you head of your house?”

George laughed. He said, “Look at me,” pointing to his gray hair, “I am the head. I sit in the chair sometimes, but then I can’t get up.”

We know so much more now because of George.

In the meantime, Emily has other curiosities about India that are beyond what George can offer. An hour and a half down the backwaters is the ashram of Amma – which means mother. She is a guru who is noted for hugging. Amma gives out hugs which people claim have deep spiritual value. Her large, pink ashram houses 2,000 devotees and offers lodging and meals for 150 rupees a day – which is roughly $3.30.

We recently made friends with an Australian couple about our age who have been staying here intermittently between house boating and local activities. Nathan and Anita decided to go to the Ashram, check it out, spend a night and come back tomorrow.

Emily had been interested in seeing the hugging cult – as I think of it. The idea of 2,000 people in a giant ashram fascinates her. She had been toying with a day trip for awhile since two of her schools are on break this week. When Nathan and Anita said they had chartered a boat to take them down to the ashram and invited us to come along, Emily couldn’t resist.

I have work to do and really have no interest in the hugging cult. Given that she has good company with which to travel and a cell phone, it seems like a good opportunity.

So, my wife has gone off to join a cult for the night. Amma travels the world giving hugs, but is apparently at the ashram right now. Emily may well get one of the famous hugs. My hope is that I don’t have to go over there, rescue her and have her de-programmed. After all, it could be that one of those hugs is like sitting in the lazy chair….

** Because Emily ran off with her camera before blog posting time, the blog has no photos today. I’m sure we’ll have some good ones tomorrow.

Sent from my iPad