As a mother of three and a primary school teacher, there are days when I don’t want to see another child and just find some space for myself. In one of those quiet spaces I read DHARMA SUTRA and found it inspirational and a revelation that life can truly begin when we reach middle age. Curiously I found myself drawn to comic strip artist, Jeffrey Dharma rather than his headstrong wife, Sylvia. Jeffrey seems to have given his life over to a career he believed he wanted but found only disillusionment. He is a frustrated adventurer and what adventures he has had are confined to the drawing board. He appears to have had little support from Sylvia, yet she expects him to endorse her move to West Africa. In his position I to should have happily taken off for India in search of self-fulfilment, how many of us who didn’t have the courage or resources to take a gap year when we were young, wished we had done so? Jeffrey shows us that it is never too late, from the time he walks away from his drawing board, his life becomes one long gap year. The Hindus have a name for this time of life, Vanaprastha, gradually withdrawing from responsibilities. I’m not sure if the Hindus allow their women to follow this path but as soon as the last of my lot goes to university, I’m off.
I’ve actually looked into going to Dharamsala myself to teach English to the Tibetan refugees. I think I have found the charitable trust that Jeffrey calls Cho; I’m going to see if I can contact David Pugh, the author, to ask if he can confirm this. I see he’s on Facebook as David Sannyasin Pugh, Sannyasin being the contemplative last stage of life. From what I can see from his pages, he has a Fan Page from his own comic artist days; he has far from settled down and is now writing the third Jeffrey Dharma novel. I don’t think the second book The Transfiguration of Jeffrey Dharma is in print but I shall buy it as soon as it is released.
I have reread the first novel three times; there is so much insight and wisdom about the truth of existence that I couldn’t absorb on first reading. It has turned my view of the universe upside down, though I don’t think the universe has a North and South Pole. The universe that Jeffrey Dharma shows us has an infinite number of levels, populated by humans, transhumans, ghosts and spirits all created by our massed imagination.
I loved the Star Child, Tenshi Tengoku, an aborted child who is spirited away by angels and grows up in the School for Stolen Children, only to return to our world by the need to satisfy her teenage sex drive! She is a magical character, a Puck like sprite who has a sense of wonder for the glory and fragility of humankind. A friend of mine reluctantly went through a termination, I read to her the relevant chapters explaining Tenshi’s existence and she cried at the beauty of the thought that her child might also be having a happy and magical existence beyond our small world. Had the child survived and grown, her life on Earth would be nothing more than endless pain from intrusive operations and without sight or hearing, her stimulation would be very limited. Better to think of her child being educated in the truth of existence in the School for Stolen Children and perhaps returning occasionally to give her mother comfort, like Tenshi gives to Shizuko.
As a teacher I find myself compelled to write a conclusion to this little critique, not easy without lapsing into cliché. It’s a must read and it has honestly changed my life for the better, I look at the world with new eyes and I am filled with hope, that the best time of my life is still to come.