Zen Bowl to Royal China

En route to New York, I returned to Thailand, where I had spent my formative years as a child, and stayed with a Princess at Suan Pakkad Palace, a collection of charming traditional houses that had once been royal. I was quite terrified of her Royal Highness Princess Chumbhot of Nagara Svarga, far more so than the indulgent Japanese pottery teachers. And with good reason, for she had been raised in Victorian splendour in England and had mind as sharp as anybody. There was something decidedly Katherine Hepburnish about her (a personal screen idol).

The Big Moment would be at the dining table: would she sense with her psychic vision that I hadn't used proper silverware for many monsoons? If she knew my currently preferred method of dining was by wooden bowl, would I be banished to the patio in disgrace, only to gaze at the royal china from afar, and be deprived of her marvelous company? Yet on the contrary, the Princess' powerful charisma was always infused with wit and compassion and the Big Moment never came, and I would listen to her for hours on end with undisguised awe. I'm sure she thought I was a complete idiot. But who could help it? One was not only in the presence of a great personage, but an extremely entertaining great personage at that! Fortunately Princess Chumbhot had adored my father, who had been her favourite American Ambassador to Thailand, and no doubt in a moment of weakness promised to tolerate all his children and allowed each of us to live with her, some for months on end. As he had passed on, she probably considered us pitiful orphans and her royal responsibility, and me most of all as I am the baby in the family.

It didn't hurt that my genius elder brother Steve quite literally stumbled upon the Thai discovery of the decade, if not the century. He tripped on a tree root at age 18 in the Thai countryside, noticed some unusual pottery staring placidly back at him that his fall had unearthed in the loose soil, and was instantly on high alert: someone in the distant past had also taken their ceramics very seriously indeed; beautifully shaped and adorned with the spiral, cyclical patterns typical of early agricultural communities, Steve had discovered the neolithic pottery site now known as Ban Chiang. 'Our young hero' as he is so described, immediately shared the discovery with Princess Chumbhot, and in her wisdom, she founded the Ban Chiang Museum at Suan Pakkad to protect and preserve these precious artifacts for generations to come. There is even a diorama of Steve in the Museum, permanently facing heavenward, arms outstretched in in mid-fall.  On a recent trip to Thailand with Sri Chinmoy, Tooriya and I took Nandita and Nayak Polisar of Seattle, who had also lived in Thailand, to Suan Pakkad, and Nandita in particular really enjoyed that diorama.

With such illustrious family connections, Princess Chumbhot and I survived quite nicely. She had rebuilt an enchanting Laquer Pavillion on her grounds and let the peacocks wander at will. In the evenings with the golden sun setting on marvelous green lawns and meandering streams, it was simply breathtaking. And there I would quietly meditate, evening after evening in blissful solitude, trying to dive deep within and absorb ever more of Sri Chinmoy's teachings. The waters were ever still, silently mirroring all that is ancient, timeless and serene in this vast universe of ours. If you ever get to Bangkok, and the sooner the better, be sure to visit what is now known as the Suan Pakkad Museum and stay until closing and breathe in that marvelous meditative silence radiating from the Laquer Pavillion at sunset. The Princess may just be hovering about and bless you with her sparkling wit. As soon as I can locate her photograph, here it will appear. Hers was a hidden oasis in the heart of Bangkok.

Next: Asian Mystique