Three robed Buddhist monks walk into an institute. They look foreign and lost. One of them waves a map of the campus at me. I sit up and look at it. Our building is circled and a long inked arrow connects the center of the main campus to our doorstep. Two room numbers are scribbled on the corner of the map. They ask for the library. “The library is in the basement,” I say. “Just take the elevator to the fourth floor and—“
Our administrator walks up behind me and examines the map. “Those rooms are in another institute,” she says, “down the hall. Just walk out the door and head down the hallway, it’s on the left.”
The monk faces swing back to me. “Library?” I open my mouth to respond. “Down the hall,” she says again.
They frown, peeved. They hold up a printout with the picture of a smiling man on it. “Famous Indian man’s statue,” one says. I tilt my head, trying to recall the statues that pepper the campus. There was the giant holed sphere on a stick, the one that looked like a hippopotamus’ ass from every angle… and one of a Sufi sage in the room down the hall. He could be Indian.
I say to try down the hall, just down the hall there on the left. They hold up the picture again, shaking it insistently as if to fan away my ignorance. “Famous man,” he repeats. I shrug and nod. “I think it’s down the hall.” They frown and mutter to themselves. They leave.
Later I Google statues at the university and discover the one that they were searching for—it is the first link to pop up. He was the father of the Indian constitution and the champion of equal rights for the ‘untouchables’ caste—famous. A picture accompanies the news article. A visiting Indian dignitary points happily at the giant bronze head, smiling. I squint at the caption.
It’s in the fucking library.
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