《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 40 (86):印度除夕夜

My arrival coincides nicely with the arrival of a new year. I have barely one day to get myself oriented to the Ashram, and then it is already New Year's Eve. After dinner, the small courtyard starts to fill with people. We all sit on the ground—some of us on the cool marble floor and some on grass mats. The Indian women have all dressed as though for a wedding. Their hair is oiled and dark and braided down their backs. They are wearing their finest silk saris and gold bracelets, and each woman has a brightly jeweled bindi in the center of her forehead, like a dim echo of the starlight above us. The plan is to chant outside in this courtyard until midnight, until the year changes over.

我來的時候正好碰上新年到來。我還沒搞清楚道場的東南西北，就已是除夕夜。晚餐後，中庭已開始擠滿人潮。我們大家坐在地上——有些人坐在涼爽的大理石地板上，有些則坐在草蓆上。印度婦女身穿彷彿參加婚禮的裝束。她們的頭髮上油，烏黑，綁成一條辮子垂在身後。她們穿上最好的絲質莎麗，戴上金手鍊，每位婦女的額頭中央都有個珠光閃耀的“bindi”，有如星辰的暗影。大家打算在中庭內吟誦，直到午夜，年度交替之際。

Chanting is a word I do not love for a practice that I love dearly. To me, the word chant connotes a kind of dronelike and scary monotony, like something male druids would do around a sacrificial fire. But when we chant here at the Ashram, it's a kind of angelic singing. Generally, it's done in a call-and-response manner. A handful of young men and women with the loveliest voices begin by singing one harmonious phrase, and the rest of us repeat it. It's a meditative practice—the effort is to hold your attention on the music's progression and blend your voice together with your neighbor's voice so that eventually all are singing as one. I'm jetlagged and afraid it will be impossible for me to stay awake until midnight, much less to find the energy to sing for so long. But then this evening of music begins, with a single violin in the shadows playing one long note of longing. Then comes the harmonium, then the slow drums, then the voices . . .

我不喜歡用“吟誦”一詞來稱呼我深愛的活動。對我而言，“吟誦”含有某種單調誦唸的可怕含義，彷彿一羣僧侶繞着犧牲儀式的火堆做的事情。然而我們在道場的吟誦，是一種天使般的歌唱。一般說來，是以一呼一應的方式誦唱。一羣嗓子優美的年輕男女開始唱出一段和諧的句子，然後我們其他人重複一次。這是一種禪修——把注意力集中在樂曲的進行，讓你的歌聲跟鄰座的歌聲交織在一起，最後大家像一個聲音一樣齊聲而唱。我有時差，擔心自己昏昏欲睡，撐不到午夜，更甭說有力氣唱得久。然而這一夜的音樂響起，一把小提琴在黑暗中奏出 一長聲的渴望。接着是小風琴，而後是慢鼓，而後是歌聲……

I'm sitting in the back of the courtyard with all the mothers, the Indian women who are so comfortably cross-legged, their children sleeping across them like little human lap rugs. The chant tonight is a lullaby, a lament, an attempt at gratitude, written in a raga (a tune) that is meant to suggest compassion and devotion. We are singing in Sanskrit, as always (an ancient language that is extinct in India, except for prayer and religious study), and I'm trying to become a vocal mirror for the voices of the lead singers, picking up their inflections like little strings of blue light. They pass the sacred words to me, I carry the words for a while, then pass the words back, and this is how we are able to sing for miles and miles of time without tiring. All of us are swaying like kelp in the dark sea current of night. The children around me are wrapped in silks, like gifts.

我坐在中庭後方，和所有的母親坐在一起；這些印度婦女自在地盤腿而坐，她們的孩子像膝蓋毯似的跨在她們身上睡覺。今晚的吟誦是一首催眠曲，一首哀歌，意在感激，“拉格”（raga）曲式，表達悲憫與虔敬。我們以梵語誦唱（在印度已然絕跡的語言，除了用作禱告和宗教學術研究之用），一如既往，我嘗試做領唱者的聲音鏡子，接收有如一道道藍光的音調。他們將神聖的歌詞傳遞給我，我接過歌詞，過一會兒再把歌詞傳回去，使我們得以源源不斷地吟唱，卻不覺疲倦。我們大家好似夜晚在黑色海潮中盪漾的海藻般搖來晃去。我周圍的孩子們裹在絲綢裏，猶如禮物。

I'm so tired, but I don't drop my little blue string of song, and I drift into such a state that I think I might be calling God's name in my sleep, or maybe I am only falling down the well shaft of this universe. By 11:30, though, the orchestra has picked up the tempo of the chant and kicked it up into sheer joy. Beautifully dressed women in jingly bracelets are clapping and dancing and attempting to tambourine with their whole bodies. The drums are slamming, rhythmic, exciting. As the minutes pass, it feels to me like we are collectively pulling the year 2004 toward us. Like we have roped it with our music, and now we are hauling it across the night sky like it's a massive fishing net, brimming with all our unknown destinies. And what a heavy net it is, indeed, carrying as it does all the births, deaths, tragedies, wars, love stories, inventions, transformations and calamities that are destined for all of us this coming year. We keep singing and we keep hauling, hand-over-hand, minute-by-minute, voice after voice, closer and closer. The seconds drop down to midnight and we sing with our biggest effort yet and in this last brave exertion we finally pull the net of the New Year over us, covering both the sky and ourselves with it. God only knows what the year might contain, but now it is here, and we are all beneath it.

我很疲倦，卻未丟下小小的藍色歌曲，我不知不覺地進入某種狀態，我想我或許在沉睡中呼喚神的名字，或者只是跌入宇宙的深淵。不過，十一點半的時候，管絃樂奏出吟誦曲調的拍子，激發成純粹的喜悅。衣着華美、手環叮噹響的女子拍着手，整個身子隨鼓聲起舞。鼓聲猛烈、優美、激動。隨着一分一秒過去，感覺就像我們同心協力把2004年拉向我們。就好似我們用音樂系住它，拖過夜空，猶如一張巨大的漁網，網中裝滿我們未知的命運。確實是一張沉重的大網，載着一切生、死、悲劇、戰爭、愛情故事、發明、變動、苦難，專爲每個人未來的一年而準備。我們持續誦唱、拖網，手拉手，一分又一秒，歌聲不斷，愈來愈近。分秒在午夜落下，我們盡己所能地吟唱，這最終的努力使我們終於將新年的網蓋在自己身上，覆蓋天空和我們自己。唯有神明知道這一年將由什麼組成，然而此時此刻，我們每個人都在此地。

This is the first New Year's Eve I can ever remember in my life where I haven't known any of the people I was celebrating with. In all this dancing and singing, there is nobody for me to embrace at midnight. But I wouldn't say that anything about this night has been lonely.

這是我這輩子頭一次和陌生人一同慶祝除夕。在舞蹈歌唱當中，沒有人讓我在午夜時分擁抱。但我要說，這不是寂寞的夜晚。

No, I would definitely not say , Pray, Love

肯定不是。