Tag: India travel

India stories: I Heart Rameswaram

by L. Valdez Karl

Writing the last post made me think of my own India stories. I leave for Spirit Rock this weekend and will be gone for 15 days so I decided to re-post one India story a day for your reading pleasure.

I entered these stories in a travel writing contest sponsored by a travel website (I didn’t win so I’m not mentioning the name!) The grand prize was a trip to Machu Picchu and the other prizes were bags — I would have been happy with a bag! I wasn’t bummed out when none of my stories were selected because I know they kick ass anyway.

India is definitely not for everyone, but it must be in my DNA because as soon as my foot hit Indian soil (my first overseas trip, alone, at the delicious age of 51), I felt like I had come home. There has not been one single day since 2005 that I have not thought about Ma India. Not one. Not even when I returned from my third trip in January 2008 with virulent salmonella food poisoning. I flew 18 hours from India sicker than a mangy Indian street dog — I almost passed out in the Chennai airport before I even got on the plane.

I used to be a moderator of the best India travel website in the world , a site with over 30,000 members, each one with their own story about India, and most, I’m sure, with a love/hate relationship with India. Last year one of my teachers told me that I’m a native now — that the first time you go to India you’re a little scared and apprehensive; the second time you love it and you want to stay forever because nothing is ever wrong; the third time you begin to see things as a native does — the good, the bad, the horrible, the indifference, the enthralling, and the enchanting. India in all its glory. Last year instead of people asking me “what country, madam?”, people asked me, “do you live here, madam?” Ahhhhh….I had finally arrived.

In an old post I wrote: “India has her hooks in me like an old lover — an old lover who you’ve told yourself that you never want to be with again but who keeps re-appearing like a hungry ghost tapping on your shoulder, and no matter how fast you run you can never escape him because he is a part of you forever. You know this and you hate it but you love it all at the same time.”

India nourishes me and I need to visit Ma India as much as I need the air to live. One of my favorite bloggers once wrote: “…if I don’t follow my Heart, I will lose a piece of my aliveness. It doesn’t take too many compromises to become a walking dead person…”

So these stories are not about your India or her India or his India. This is MY INDIA and I count the days until I am in her arms again.

Shanti.

_________________________________________________________


I arrived in Rameswaram about 3 pm on a Saturday after a 7 hour car ride from Kodaikanal. The ride was interesting as I watched India flash by. . .caught in a cattle crossing, eating lunch for 10 rupees at a tiny restaurant in the middle of nowhere where the proprietor took me in his kitchen to show me what he was cooking since he did not speak English. I can’t remember what it was called, all I remember is that it was delicious. I was starving and inhaled the meal as all four people in the restaurant stood around my table with big smiles watching me eat.

I arrived at the Hotel Tamil Nadu, showered, and took a nap. I woke up about 5 pm and planned to walk to the temple and find dinner. The phone rang and being alone in India, getting a call was shocking. A man told me “if you want to see the temple, I can take you.” Still groggy from my nap, I thought how did he know that’s what I’m going to do? I babbled something like who are you, who’s calling, where are you, whaaaat….? The man said he was downstairs at the desk, and I said, yeah, whatever, and hung up.

I got downstairs, still trying to wake up, and the clerk was behind the desk with another man. I had my torn out page from the Rough Guide that said “R. Kannan, who can also be contacted through the Hotel Tamil Nadu, happily gives foreigners advice, even if they do not use his services.” I asked the clerk if he knew R. Kannan, and he pointed to the man who appeared to be waiting for me and said, “this is Kannan”. Wow. He materialized out of nowhere. But how did he know exactly what time I was going to leave? Ah…delicious serendipity. No….most likely he got the call, “feringhee in da house, come on over!” I stood there, thinking go with the flow, whatever happens tonight, happens.

As it turned out, I spent four hours with Kannan that night. We went to the Gandhamadana Parvatam, where I took pictures of a beautiful sunset, and to the Nambunayagi Amman Kali Temple, where I saw a man with a pet egret, and sat with him as he fed it worms he dug out of the sand. Kannan and I planned my weekend all within one hour — I was to spend it with him.

As we were driving back, Kannan asked me if I wanted to see the children dance — of course I did! We stopped at what looked like a school, the yard filled to the brim with people — local business people, politicians, parents, and children. The little girls were dressed in their beautiful South Indian dance attire, their hair and makeup perfect. One little girl was so beautiful I wanted to take her picture, but there were so many people, I got pushed along with the crowd. We ended up at the back of a long, narrow lot.

So many people, and me, the only westerner, once again. But the difference between where I was now and Kodaikanal in the morning was amazing. The energy, the attitude, the graciousness, was totally different from Kodaikanal. I did not feel claustrophobic here, even in this crowd of people.

We sat down and after a number of speeches, the show began. Little girls and boys dancing beautifully, carefully, with a few missteps that added to the charm, music that blasted my ears. Unfortunately I was sitting too far back to take any decent pictures. Then one group of kids dressed in street clothes started dancing to music I recognized from a Vijay movie. The only Vijay movies I had seen were on the Lufthansa flights from Germany to Chennai, but I know who Vijay is — a very popular Tamil actor. You’ve heard of Bollywood? Tamil movies are Kollywood with their own set of popular stars.

There was a group of boys sitting behind me and as soon as the Vijay music started, they got up on their chairs, and started clapping and dancing, hooting and hollering. I got up and started to take pictures and of course that started a riot. “Madam, Madam, take me, take me!” I yelled “dance like Vijay!”, and put my hand to my forehead in the gesture Vijay uses in his movies. All their eyes got wide and suddenly I was in the midst of hip shaking, pelvic thrusting Vijays. It could not have been choreographed any better. As soon as I took a picture, they ran over wanting to see it, then ran back to dance again. I loved it. Kodaikanal was already a distant memory. The people in the immediate area weren’t watching the stage anymore, they were watching all this commotion and laughing.

We all sat down again to watch the show, and by this time of night, I was exhausted. Kannan asked me if I was OK, and I said we should go back, since I was dead on my feet, and we had an early morning walk to Danushkodi the next day. We started walking toward the front, but people were sitting on the ground, shoulder to shoulder. It was packed and not an inch of space between them. There was no way we could walk out through the front without doing major damage to someone’s hand or foot on the ground. It was also hard to see because it was pitch black with only the lights on the stage.

We turned around and Kannan asked, “can you jump?” “Jump?” “Yes, climb and jump,” and he pointed to the brick wall topped with three strands of barbed wire that was our enclosure. “Sure, why not, what choice do we have?”

Kannan jumped over the wall and I threw him my camera. The wall was about four feet high with barbed wire on top. This woman of a certain age is very flexible so I put one foot on top of the wall. Suddenly I heard a low “ooooohhhhh” coming from all the young Vijays. I grabbed a corner pole as I pulled myself up and put the other foot on top of the wall, straddling the barbed wire. A louder “ooooooohhhhh” now, mass rumbling coming from the Vijays. Louder and louder whispers in Tamil. How often did these boys see an American woman straddling barbed wire on top of a brick wall? Making sure my salwar kameez would not catch on the barbed wire, remembering that I had my tetanus shot, and hoping that I would not land in a big pile of whatever, I lept over and landed on my feet in a beautiful squat on the other side.

The young Vijays exploded. Laughing, clapping, cheering me on, fists pumping in the air yelling “Yes, madam!”, as the music blared and the little girls danced on stage, swirling around in a rainbow of colors.

I turned around, curtsied, and ran into the Rameswaram night.

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upon first seeing the temple

by L. Valdez Karl

Brihadisvara Temple, Gangaikondacholapuram, Tamil Nadu, India, January 2008

“Yoga is a generic name for any discipline by which one attempts to pass out of the limits of one’s ordinary mental consciousness into a greater spiritual consciousness.”
–Sri Aurobindo

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one more blog award goes to…

by L. Valdez Karl

…Sindhu for her blog Flower Girl’s Rural India

I wrote about Sindhu’s blogs here so read all about them.

Here you go, thankachi, display this award proudly on your blog….”thankachi” is “younger sister” in Tamil, the language of the Indian state that I visit.

I won’t be back in Ma India for another year and I miss India everyday — whenever I want to re-visit My India I go to Sindhu’s blog.

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Ma India, take me home

by L. Valdez Karl

As I’ve mentioned time and again on this blog, ever since I returned from my first trip to India in 2005 there has never been a day that I do not think of India. it can be a child’s face that flashes through my mind, or something I learned in my yoga classes there, or a smell that makes me remember where I was when I first smelled that smell. a soap or a spice will bring me back. even the clothes that I bought in India still smell “like India.” I brought back a supply of my favorite shampoo and sometimes I sit on my bathroom floor, open up a bottle and sniff…sometimes I cry on my bathroom floor.

I came across the blog of a professional photographer — the photographs of India and Indians are beautiful, so I’ve posted this video he took in Chennai in 2006. I’ve been to Chennai three times and I’ve never visited Marina Beach. I’ve been on the beach in Pondicherry and Rameswaram but never Chennai….next time.

I want to, need to, return to India so badly. now that I am going through some rough emotional times I think even more about being in India, maybe for 6 months out of the year. India is the only place that heals my soul. an Indian friend told me that my heart is calling me to India because I am missing something here that I need very badly.

a regular reader of this blog and his wife will study yoga at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram for one month later this year and then travel to my favorite temple towns. email discussions of their itinerary make my heart ache — I was in Tamil Nadu in January and I can still feel the temple ground beneath my bare feet, the sun on my bare arms, the smell of jasmine in my hair, and the touch of shakti all around me as I sat in temples. even though I returned from India this year sicker than a mangy Indian street dog, I was home less than a week when I started dreaming those Tamil Nadu dreams.

I want to go home. jai Kali ma, take me home.



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I WILL be back

by L. Valdez Karl

As I said on my sister blog, I’m taking a summer hiatus, just like your favorite TV show. and as I said here, I wanted to make myself healthier, and I’m getting there.

insofar as physically healthier, I’ve cut out (mostly! sometimes I still cheat a little) wheat and dairy. and I’m taking thyroid meds twice a day now so my energy has returned. I’ve concentrated more on my own yoga practice instead of thinking about my classes, thinking about what I’m going to teach. frankly, when I teach, I channel asanas, hard to describe I know, but that’s me. of course a teacher still has to think about how they will run a class, but if you don’t feed yourself first with your yoga, how can you feed your students?

my back issue that I’ve been dealing with since last October is being resolved through the work of an awesome chiropractor I found who is not your typical bone-cracker. I’ve never been down with the whole chiropractic idea of someone cracking your neck and everything will be fine. my chiropractor deals with the soft tissue first, so my back right now is about 60-70% better after 5 visits.

and in two weeks I leave for Spirit Rock Meditation Center for the second retreat of my Mindfulness Yoga and Meditation Training. I can’t wait because it is such a fabulous program and I feel blessed for being a part of it. talk about being fed. we got an email that Judith Lasater will do two days of teaching on restorative yoga. she is only one of the great teachers that I will experience. so you know I will have to blog about that.

however, before I get to Spirit Rock, I’m spending about 4 days with my California gal pal. she’s picking me up at the airport and we’re immediately hitting an Indian restaurant for breakfast and to pick up food for our sojourn in the Carmel valley. she got us a room with a kitchenette in a funky little motel that is Sideways style. she has scheduled us for massages at Esalen and we’re hitting the hot springs at Tassajara and we’re going here for some cool shopping. all along the way, we’ll do a little wine tasting, a little art viewing, and talk a lot about Ma India since my friend will be making her 8th trip in the fall.

last but not least, I’m planning my 4th trip to India and I’m putting my intentions out into the universe that it will be a 6 month trip. it’s part of my unending, soulful need to migrate home to Ma India (thanks for those words, sistah sita!) I returned from my last trip sicker than an Indian street dog, but as soon as I started to regain my strength I was dreaming those India dreams again.

the first month will be spent studying yoga therapy at an ashram outside of Mumbai, then after that….I blow with the wind. whatever happens, happens. I’m a woman of a certain age and I try to live my life by asking myself, “if not now, when?” the trip will culminate in the Kumbh Mela at Haridwar in 2010. me, and 40 million of my closest friends all caught up in the power of shakti.

life is good. in the meantime, enjoy the buddha cat.

peace out.

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Gandhi: the movie

by L. Valdez Karl

For those of you who loved the movie Gandhi — or those of you who have never seen it — there is a 25th anniversary special edition DVD. it came out in 2007 but I just found out about it! the 2-disc set has interviews about filming in India, about finding the right actors, along with archival footage, plus the picture and sound have been digitally remastered.

from the reviewing website:

Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, a labor of love that took nearly 20 years to make it to the screen, is one of the last true epics that spans decades yet keeps you tied to an emotional, human anchor. That anchor would be Gandhi himself, Mohandas Gandhi or Mahatma “Great soul” Gandhi as he was referred to later on in his life by the people of India.

Winner of eight Academy Awards including Best Picture (1982), Best Director (Attenborough) and Best Actor (Ben Kingsley as Gandhi), Gandhi has been released for a second time on DVD, this time however as a glorious 2 disc set celebrating its 25th anniversary that has to be one of the best DVDs released in 2007.

The film chronicles the leader of the nonviolent resistance movement against British colonial rule in India during the first half of the 20th century. It opens with an appropriate statement from Attenborough stating, “No man’s life can be encompassed in one telling…least of all Gandhi’s….”

I have never been to north India where Gandhi spent most of his life. but what many people don’t know is that he also spent time in Tamil Nadu, the state that I travel to in India. I have been to Madurai twice, the last time just this past January, and I always make time for the Gandhi Museum. It is a place where I find peace in the riotous city of Madurai. the exhibits tell the story of Gandhi’s life in south India and how important Tamil Nadu was in the India’s struggle for independence. the last exhibit is in a room that is painted black — it is a glass case that contains the dhoti that Gandhi was wearing when he was assassinated and it still contains his blood stains.

I can not describe how much I love spending time at the museum, just walking around the grounds, visiting the bookstore, buying chai from the chai seller, who can’t speak English but always has a big smile for me when he gives me free pictures of Gandhi.

During my 2006 trip, on the train ride back to Chennai from Rameswaram (a 17 hour ride), my compartment mate was a businessman who started a conversation with me when he saw me reading Gandhi’s autobiography that I had bought in Madurai. It was the first time that I heard about how some Indians hate Gandhi. It really surprised me. I asked him why and he said that many Indians blame Gandhi for the Partition: “The partition of India left both India and Pakistan devastated. The process of partition had claimed many lives in the riots. Many others were raped and looted. Women, especially, were used as instruments of power by the Hindus and the Muslims; “ghost trains” full of severed breasts of women would arrive in each of the newly-born countries from across the borders.”

The Partition is still a very sensitive subject for many Indians. my compartment mate told me that many Indians hate Gandhi the same way that many Americans hate George Bush. those of us who know how much Martin Luther King, Jr. admired Gandhi will find this sentiment shocking.

some photos of the Gandhi Museum, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India….






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"you are all Gandhis"

by L. Valdez Karl





Pongal festivities were in full swing when I arrived in Madurai in January. India has thousands of festivals and Pongal is an important one in Tamil Nadu. it is a harvest festival and I had read in the paper that it is similar to the American Thanksgiving because it is a time to give thanks and hope for a bountiful coming year. wherever I went in Madurai people would wish me “Happy Pongal!”

Just when I thought India had thrown me for a loop this third time around —

a stolen necklace in Chennai…
a four hour bus ride from Thanjavur to Madurai watching cheesy Tamil videos from the ’70s played at full blast, tissue stuffed in my ears all the way…
an Indian cop who wanted to take my swiss army knife I always carried when I tried to re-enter the Meenakshi Temple on one side when I was allowed to enter with it on the other side —

something wondrous happened. that’s what always happens to me in India — my best experiences are born from serendipity.

I had hooked up with a regular rickshaw driver for my stay in Madurai and we were driving through the slums along the river. somehow I always get drivers who know I am not afraid to go off the beaten path into the places that tourists usually don’t go.

We drove past a small school where I saw children in a doorway dressed in their dance clothes. the little girls were beautiful and I told the driver to turn around for a quick photo. of course, as soon as they saw me stop about 10 kids ran outside and surrounded me. some of the teachers came out to see what the commotion was. I saw a stage inside and a woman talking into a microphone. I apologized to the teachers, I said I did not mean to cause such a ruckus and disturb their show by taking a photo.

A male teacher came up to me and said “no problem, madam” and he invited me in to celebrate Pongal with them. he said they had planned a special celebration and it would be their honor if I came inside. I tried to beg off because I knew the commotion my presence would cause and I’m not one to have people fuss over me, but the children grabbed me and the teachers insisted. I had planned to sit in back and watch quietly, but I was led to the stage steps. I stopped and turned around and there had to be at least 100 kids sitting on the floor, all eyes glued to me, big smiles on their faces. I was stunned, and I kept shaking my head no, but the teachers kept pushing and pulling me until I was given the guest of honor seat, between the principal and the head mistress. I felt like a rock star.

The teachers asked where I was from and what I did. they introduced me, telling the children that I had come all the way from America for them, then they asked me to get up and say a few words. I was still in shock so I mumbled something about “stay in school and get a good education” and that got a huge round of applause.

it is the Pongal custom to boil a pot of rice and when the rice boils over the sides, that signifies a fruitful coming year. as the Pongal pot of rice was boiling, the teachers presented me with a Pongal gift — a towel that they draped over my shoulders. the price tag was still attached and it said 20 rupees which is about 50 cents, but to me it was priceless.

as the children danced on stage the teachers told me that these were slum children, that the school gets money from the government to educate them. there are about 600 kids in the school and they are taught English, computers, reading, and math, among other subjects. one of the teachers took my camera and took pictures of the dancers for me. when he returned my camera I took the perfect Pongal picture — a picture of the pot just as the rice started to boil over. serendipity.

finally, the teachers wanted me to say some last words to the kids. by this time it was over an hour later and I was composed enough to say something intelligent. I spoke and it was translated into Tamil….

I told them that I had read in the paper that morning that Pongal is like the American Thanksgiving and I explained a little about what Thanksgiving meant, about giving thanks, having gratitude. after wishing them Happy Pongal, I told the children that their teachers teach from their hearts and to never take their education for granted. I told them that they were the future of India and with their education they could change the world, that they could be anything they wanted to be. I told them, “you are all Gandhis, never forget that.”

When I finished I saw some of the teachers dabbing their eyes and I thought about how some upper caste Indians would look down on these children and down on me for even being with them. I thought about how so many people in my white bread suburban community have no idea, or worse, don’t want to know, how the rest of the world lives. here I was in a slum school half-way around the world and I felt blessed to be with them. all things happen for a reason, there are no coincidences.

a teacher then told the kids how it was their privilege for the American yoga teacher to visit their school today. I said, no, it was MY privilege to be treated with such graciousness, a total stranger. The principal took my hand and said I was a gift from God for them…and that’s when I started to cry.

the principal and I walked off the stage as the Pongal lunch was being served to the children. we went into her office and she asked me to write in their guestbook so I wrote what I said at the end of the program, about changing the world. I was also given the special Pongal lunch, as was my driver, and the principal told me more about the school. before I left I gave her a donation and said she should use it for whatever they needed, food, books, anything. the principal told me she would make sure that each child got a pen, so I bought about 600 pens that day. you have to travel in india to know the significance of the question “one pen, madam?”, so when she told me she would buy pens I thought it was a very appropriate purchase.

the principal wrote the address of the school for me and told me I am always welcome to return. I told her that I had a beautiful time with them and that I would always remember them as long as I live. I got back outside and into the rickshaw as children and teachers came out to wave goodbye to me. the driver started his rickshaw and we left, and when I turned around about a block away they were still waving goodbye.

this is the India that cracks open my heart and makes me count the days until I can run back into her arms and lose myself all over again.


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the new official transportation of this blog

by L. Valdez Karl

Back in October I wrote a post about what the official transportation of Linda’s Yoga Journey is, i.e., the ubiquitous Indian autorickshaw. here is the post so you can read all about it.

However, since returning from my third trip the rick has been replaced by the lovely bullock cart. yes, friends, I am in love with bullocks and the carts that they pull.


(view from atop a bullock cart)


(bullock decorated for a Pongal celebration)


(proud bullock owner)

I attended a village’s Pongal celebration (Pongal being a holiday like our Thanksgiving, which I will write about later) and I had the great fortune to be given a ride to the village on top of a bullock cart.

You see working bullocks all over Tamil Nadu and for the most part they are placid creatures. Their eyes always seem to say that this is their lot in life so why get upset about anything.

The ride on the cart was very relaxing but I was very tempted to tell the driver “faster, faster!” so I could experience a run-away bullock cart. I wanted to pretend I was on a run-away stagecoach like in an old Western movie. what can I say? ever since I was a girl I always wanted to push the envelope. But it was a slow, easy ride where these kids were my bullock cart partners:

this was one of my wonderful tamil nadu days that I so achingly miss right now as I look out my window and watch the snow come down. we are supposed to get a foot of snow here in chicagoland and ever since I returned on January 23, this weather has been a total shock to my system after being in south india for a month!

When I returned from india so ill, I told myself that I would give india a break in 2009. but the missing is palpable and it is like an ache in my heart.

oh well….to paraphrase Louis Armstrong about jazz, if I have to explain, you wouldn’t understand.

the dichotomy that is India

by L. Valdez Karl

“In some ways, India is like another home. There’s a familiarity of myself here. It’s the rawness of life that resonates with me, in its myriad forms – beautiful, grotesque, otherworldly. The systematic stripping away of distractions and compulsions; attachments that keep us from being fully present.”

This is what Barbara Raisbeck has to say about India in her blogs The Daughters of India and India in Stories. Go to her blogs to read the rest of the above post and her other powerful stories. When I got her email with this post the above words resonated with me very much because I feel the same way. I’ve said before that as soon as I put my foot on Indian soil in 2005 I felt like I had come home.

Barbara is another woman I’ve come to know online through the website IndiaMike.com although we’ve never met. She is in India again right now doing research for a book on dowry brides.

My trip this time was a very mixed bag. As I said previously, one of my teachers told me that on your third trip you become a native, seeing India for what it is, warts and all. Well, I saw plenty of warts, my own included. India is always the country that attracts and repulses you all at the same time. Just when India drop-kicked me in the head, another wonderful moment occurred just because I happened to be in the right place at the right time (I’ll write about it later.)

I read a story before I left about a baby elephant that was rescued. A baby elephant had fallen into a pit in the forest and the mother and the rest of the herd tried to rescue him. After awhile the herd left, but the mother stayed there trying to rescue her baby, with “tears streaming down her face” the article said. The villagers saw this and called the Forestry Department who sent a working elephant and a vet. The mother elephant would not let anyone near her baby, who by this time was not moving, so the working elephant with her mahout kept the mother away while the baby was pulled out of the pit. When the vet treated the baby, it was discovered that the baby had also been stung by a scorpion, that’s why he was not moving. The article said that after treatment the baby would be released back into the forest. Definitely a feel-good story.

Compare that story to the one I read about a Chennai hospital that was being investigated because they threw a patient, still connected to tubes and IV bags and a urine bag, out into the street. Imagine walking along and seeing an old person in hospital clothes still connected to tubes and bags just lying in the street outside a hospital. The article said that the patient was indigent, that no one claimed any responsibility for this person. In other words, the hospital was not going to be paid for treating this person, so they threw the patient literally onto the street. The article said the hospital was being investigated but I noticed there was no mention of what happened to the patient, whether he had been taken to another hospital or what.

Over breakfast one morning I read another story about 13, 14, and 15 year old girls being raped by their husbands. In the Chennai area there are still tsunami camps, refugee camps where people still live despite the tsunami happening in December 2004. Mothers fear for their daughters in these camps so they think if they marry off their daughters, the new husbands will protect them from the unwanted advances of men. However, given that these young girls know almost nothing about sex, they refuse the advances of their new husbands, so their first experience with sex is rape. I read how one young girl was drugged into unconsciousness so her husband could have sex with her. These girls of course become pregnant and have babies at these ages, in a refugee camp. And the cycle continues. Lovely breakfast reading.

For every story like the first one, there are two or three of the other.

There are still people who think India is the land of yoga, incense, and spirituality, some romantic place where one only needs to travel to the Himalayas to find their guru and nirvana and all their problems will be solved. If you read an Indian newspaper every day I can assure you that your rose-colored view of India will change. I am reading a book right now called Children of Kali and the author says that India is very good at exporting spirituality and gurus, but doesn’t have the guts to look at its own problems.

Like anywhere else, India has its angels and its devils. I’ve met the friendliest and kindest and most gracious people in India but I’ve also met the most arrogant and the most rigid. I’ve met people who could not think outside the box to save their own lives.

But the thought of never returning to India kills me. I came back this time sicker than an Indian street dog with the thought that I will take a break from India for a while. But as soon as I started to get my strength back, I started having Tamil Nadu dreams again.

What keeps drawing me back? I can honestly say that I don’t know. Maybe it is the rawness and the grotesqueness that Barbara writes about that keeps bringing me back. Maybe it is those 4 hour bus rides through the Tamil Nadu countryside that I said I would never do again, but that I achingly miss right now. Maybe it’s those fleeting moments of human connection with a total stranger, no words spoken, but completely understood via a smile and hand gestures and the eyes and the head wobbles that have settled deep within my heart.

India has her hooks in me like an old lover — an old lover who you’ve told yourself that you never want to be with again but who keeps re-appearing like a hungry ghost tapping on your shoulder, and no matter how fast you run you can never escape him because he is a part of you forever.

You know this and you hate it but you love it all at the same time. I have no answers, but Barbara comes close….

“The only way I can answer is, in suffering, in our own or being a witness to it, there is an opening that occurs. That opening can consume or liberate us. Or both. Consume, then liberate. And just at the moment that we think we’ve been liberated, the consumption starts again. The suffering doesn’t just end, even when we beg it to. But I have learned that to observe it, allow myself to feel it, hold it, accept it, I can then let go of it. Not completely since our wounds leave scars, but enough to help me out of the fire and into the awareness of the lesson, that will, when I am ready, appear and show me a way through to the other side.”

look at this child

by L. Valdez Karl

this was one of those serendipitous moments when my auto rick stopped and this boy came out from his hovel in the alley to look at me, and then smiled. notice that he is playing with garbage and then think of your own child.

this photo that took all of 3 seconds to shoot says a lot. it was one of those fortunate moments in india. not because I got a perfectly framed shot of a boy living in an alley and a half-hidden girl that in itself makes a statement, but because when you connect eye to eye it changes you forever. and I am grateful for that.

the rickshaw pulled away just as he was about to take 10 rupees from my hand.