I head out early the next morning to walk around the village where we are staying. The houses I find beautiful, carefully constructed with stones and wood and aluminum roofs…children are wandering about, shyly smiling at me. We get our breakfast and head up to Aru, which is 12km from Pahalgam.
The scene at Aru is mind-blowing. Photos can’t do justice to the nature here, which is 360 degrees stunning, from the grass below your feet to the mountains soaring miles into the sky. We go on a little trek, going down to the river, laying about in the fields, chatting with the nomads who cross our path…one of Wahid’s friends is Rujlan, who is one of those bubbly extroverted clown types, who instantly sets in and asks me all sorts of questions and professes his love for me and how impressed he is by my beauty etc etc – Kashmiri men really are the best talkers and you just have to laugh at the ridiculousness of the whole situation, which they are more than happy to join you in giggling about. Nothing like bonding over some chuckles. Rujlan tells me everything in Kashmir is beautiful – the nature, and of course the people. And it’s true. The beauty of these people; their intense way of living, their whole giving nature, their love of affection and smiling and laughter, their dignity, their wisdom…it can only win you over.
I decide that I would prefer to walk back to Pahalgam from Aru rather than go in the car so I start on my way, stopping about every 20m for photos…I put my camera away, and around the next bend in the road I end up taking it back out. The few people I encounter on the road are local shepherds who are extremely friendly. Ominous thunder starts about 5km into my walk, and by 7km, there is sprinkling. At this point every vehicle passing me is offering a ride, and finally as the raindrops become the size of golfballs I jump in a car. I meet the boys in town, have lunch, and back we go towards Srinagar.
I had decided to stay with Bilal and his family who live in Saida Kadil, which is (I think) where Dal Lake meets Niggin Lake. A completely different experience to Chanapora – but wonderful as well. I get dropped off by the boys at a transport area on the highway, go to Dalgate, and then jump in another auto to Saida Kadil where Bilal awaits me. He almost looks Nepali – and he actually did grow up there. We walk through the dark lanes, water all around us, to get to his house. A large, plain concrete structure, where windows on the ground floor have plastic sheets in the place of glass, still. They have just finished building it less than 2 years ago and little by little are working on it. As soon as we walk in the door, the electricity goes off. They have a large gas burner with a flame on top which sort of surprisingly lights up the whole room. Two other guests are there, a girl from Scotland and a girl from England, and they are comfortably chatting away with Riyaz, Bilal’s father. Both these men emanate so much joy and kindness from their eyes and smiles. They are so beautiful. I join the people sitting on the floor and khawa is served. Khawa is saffron tea that is used for special occasions such as weddings – cardamom and other spices may also be added – and I think the khawa I have had over the past week has mostly been without saffron. Who knows. Anyway, it’s delicious and my favorite tea available in Kashmir. So we sit and chat, have a wonderful vegetarian dinner – Bilal is the first and probably only Kashmiri vegetarian I will ever meet! And off we go to bed because we have decided to go on a sunrise shikara trip to see the floating vegetable market.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Srinagar to Pahalgam (June 21-22)
The day after the wedding, I woke up feeling awful. Don’t think I will ever figure out what the cause was, but I vomited, and actually fainted in the house. I was in very good hands, a doctor was called, and I had a 101 degree fever. I slept almost the whole day with just a few minutes of wakefulness. Turns out the whole day was a strike in the city.
Kashmir has been plagued with strikes and curfews consistently since 1989. Just in this past week that I have been here, Monday, Tuesday, and now it has been announced that Friday will also be a full strike. What this means – banks, offices, shops, and schools are closed. Public transport is shut down. Newspapers casually write that when people come out of their homes, if it is a curfew that has been imposed by the Indian government, the police are waiting there to beat them.
So by Monday evening I was feeling much better, and geared up to continue my Kashmir exploration on Tuesday. But then it was announced that it would be a strike on Tuesday…hrmph. I woke up on Tuesday, wondering if there was some way I could get to either Pahalgam or Gulmarg, and was told no. The Khan family has been and is incredibly gracious with me – we spoke about how over the past 20 years people have learned to keep rations in their house to survive for extended periods of time in the event of long curfews or strikes. Currently, this household could survive for 2-3 months without setting foot outside of the gate. Obviously, this kind of lifestyle is unthinkable for me. They tell me with sad smiles that I am stuck with them another day, and we settle into the day…and then we find out that Wahid, one of Raja’s cousins, is headed to Pahalgam with his friends. Turns out that if you’ve got your own vehicle, you can move around and there is relatively little security risk. So Raja asks if I can go with them and they say they are going in a truck – no open roof or anything – what you call in India a ‘Goods Carrier’ – but if I am ok with that, I am welcome to join. So I rush to pack my bag and get all ready to go…and then the whole plan changes.
Within minutes of heated discussion, it is decided that Raja, Roma, Ruhi, Jana, and probably all sorts of other relatives will also go for a daytrip to Pahalgam. There is something pleasant and exciting about this, but it is bittersweet – that they are able to do this on a Tuesday when in reality they probably wish they could be at their jobs, and not live in this volatile uncertainty that is Kashmir.
But we put all that aside for the time being – somehow I have woken up thinking I wouldn’t leave the house gate, and all of a sudden we’re on a family road trip! We go to the wedding house to get the newlyweds and off we go! The ride is supremely gorgeous – I am in the car with the newlyweds and Wahid (a different Wahid) – my favorite of Raja’s cousins…and we pass ricefields, saffron fields (season for this is in October), and finally we come to the gushing Lidder River near Anantnag. Powerful explosive green water is coming straight down from the snow-capped mountains…majestic. We stop to stock up on junk food goodies which they never have in their homes and we continue on.
Pahalgam is given the slogan heaven on earth. I have travelled in dozens of countries and been to places that claim to be the most beautiful this, the most impressive that, the most blah blah blah. To me, Pahalgam lives up to this claim. Every possible shade of green that you can imagine is there. The meadows and fields are neatly manicured by the rotating livestock – mostly sheep and some cows – and are so bright you could almost call it neon. Willows with their pale muted silvery green, all different deciduous trees with all the spectrum of their bright greens, move further up and you’ve got deep dark green conifers, and then – black granite mountains with glaciers galore, and peaks that never lose their snowy icing. It is breathtaking and overpowering.
We have a great lunch at a fancy hotel, and continue to Betab Valley, named as such since a film of the same name was filmed there. More dramatic beautiful mountain scenery. It is packed with tourists and locals alike – but I don’t see a single other foreigner. After this, Raja and the family are ready to head home but I decide to stay the night in the village with Wahid (the first Wahid who originally decided to go to Pahalgam with his friends). So I wander around the village, we head to dinner; they are wanting to have their mutton so I head to a pure vegetarian dhaba run by Sikhs (Kashmir has a small population of Sikhs, still – most of the Hindus left after the political instability began) – and I am so content to have my palak paneer and chapatti.
I head to bed early that night…
Kashmir has been plagued with strikes and curfews consistently since 1989. Just in this past week that I have been here, Monday, Tuesday, and now it has been announced that Friday will also be a full strike. What this means – banks, offices, shops, and schools are closed. Public transport is shut down. Newspapers casually write that when people come out of their homes, if it is a curfew that has been imposed by the Indian government, the police are waiting there to beat them.
So by Monday evening I was feeling much better, and geared up to continue my Kashmir exploration on Tuesday. But then it was announced that it would be a strike on Tuesday…hrmph. I woke up on Tuesday, wondering if there was some way I could get to either Pahalgam or Gulmarg, and was told no. The Khan family has been and is incredibly gracious with me – we spoke about how over the past 20 years people have learned to keep rations in their house to survive for extended periods of time in the event of long curfews or strikes. Currently, this household could survive for 2-3 months without setting foot outside of the gate. Obviously, this kind of lifestyle is unthinkable for me. They tell me with sad smiles that I am stuck with them another day, and we settle into the day…and then we find out that Wahid, one of Raja’s cousins, is headed to Pahalgam with his friends. Turns out that if you’ve got your own vehicle, you can move around and there is relatively little security risk. So Raja asks if I can go with them and they say they are going in a truck – no open roof or anything – what you call in India a ‘Goods Carrier’ – but if I am ok with that, I am welcome to join. So I rush to pack my bag and get all ready to go…and then the whole plan changes.
Within minutes of heated discussion, it is decided that Raja, Roma, Ruhi, Jana, and probably all sorts of other relatives will also go for a daytrip to Pahalgam. There is something pleasant and exciting about this, but it is bittersweet – that they are able to do this on a Tuesday when in reality they probably wish they could be at their jobs, and not live in this volatile uncertainty that is Kashmir.
But we put all that aside for the time being – somehow I have woken up thinking I wouldn’t leave the house gate, and all of a sudden we’re on a family road trip! We go to the wedding house to get the newlyweds and off we go! The ride is supremely gorgeous – I am in the car with the newlyweds and Wahid (a different Wahid) – my favorite of Raja’s cousins…and we pass ricefields, saffron fields (season for this is in October), and finally we come to the gushing Lidder River near Anantnag. Powerful explosive green water is coming straight down from the snow-capped mountains…majestic. We stop to stock up on junk food goodies which they never have in their homes and we continue on.
Pahalgam is given the slogan heaven on earth. I have travelled in dozens of countries and been to places that claim to be the most beautiful this, the most impressive that, the most blah blah blah. To me, Pahalgam lives up to this claim. Every possible shade of green that you can imagine is there. The meadows and fields are neatly manicured by the rotating livestock – mostly sheep and some cows – and are so bright you could almost call it neon. Willows with their pale muted silvery green, all different deciduous trees with all the spectrum of their bright greens, move further up and you’ve got deep dark green conifers, and then – black granite mountains with glaciers galore, and peaks that never lose their snowy icing. It is breathtaking and overpowering.
We have a great lunch at a fancy hotel, and continue to Betab Valley, named as such since a film of the same name was filmed there. More dramatic beautiful mountain scenery. It is packed with tourists and locals alike – but I don’t see a single other foreigner. After this, Raja and the family are ready to head home but I decide to stay the night in the village with Wahid (the first Wahid who originally decided to go to Pahalgam with his friends). So I wander around the village, we head to dinner; they are wanting to have their mutton so I head to a pure vegetarian dhaba run by Sikhs (Kashmir has a small population of Sikhs, still – most of the Hindus left after the political instability began) – and I am so content to have my palak paneer and chapatti.
I head to bed early that night…
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Kashmir – Srinagar, June 18-21
The road from Jammu to Srinagar is gorgeous, with plenty of green rice fields, pine forests, mountain views, and gushing rivers. It is a plentiful land, and the road is full of trucks and buses going back and forth. My sumo – jeep – was full of Kashmiris, and I was in the front seat with a Kashmiri woman. I was exhausted from the previous 2 days, and as I was dozing off she literally held me in her arms for most of the journey. At breaks and meals, she, along with a Sikh woman and a guy from Jammu, invited me along with them and although communication was a problem we had a great time giggling the whole day.
As you head up the valley, the military presence increases. To me, it seems like an awful lot of police and army forces. To locals, this is far less security forces than there has been over the past few decades. Once you cross the big tunnel and enter the Kashmir Valley, the temperature drops dramatically, and there is an unmistakable sense that you have entered a different land. The rhythm seems different…is it the Muslim presence? The mountains? I have no idea what it is, but it is very palpably different.
I arrive in Srinagar and Raja and his cousin Wahid pick me up and take me home, where I shower and am immediately taken to the house of another cousin who is getting married in two days. So many cousins and relatives, all so alive and smiling and full of joy. What strikes me most, perhaps, over the past several days is that the people in Kashmir are peace-loving people and this is so apparent in the family structure and their daily life – and the irony that exists with the conflict situation…I don’t know how to put this in words.
Raja has a beautiful brother, Jana, and a gorgeous sister, Rohi, and his newlywed wife, Roma, who all immediately treat me with the utmost kindness. Their formalities and sort of initial distance to me last about 20 minutes, particularly in the case of Roma, who within a day is leaning on me, holding my hand and shoulder very casually…this is a culture where within gender boundaries, physical affection sees no limits. It’s a bit strange to get your head around if you’re not used to it, but it’s very endearing.
So Kashmiri people…previously, my only contact with Kashmiris are the salesmen who are really the only ones in India that can make me part with my money…they are oh-so-charming, so beautiful, they befriend you with no hesitation and they get you before you know what hit you. A great example is at Delhi Haat, a marketplace in Delhi where there are craftsmen from all over the country…I had not intended to purchase anything…yet at the end of the day, opening my bags, it was hilarious to realize that every single thing I had bought was Kashmiri.
Well, here in Kashmir I haven’t had anyone try to sell me anything yet. I’ve successfully avoided going anywhere where I can spend too much money…but that kind, humorous insistence definitely pervades. Kashmiri hospitality is directly linked to how much they can feed you, and everyday I have several dozen offers for tea and food. Oh, by the way, they drink salty tea. Think Indian masala chai, but instead of sugar, put salt in it. Yeah. Weird. Not totally against it but definitely not my cup of tea.
And, they are majorly carnivorous. Especially around wedding time. 15 sheep were slaughtered for this wedding, and the meals were prepared over two days by a team of about 15 men, stopping for salty tea and hookah breaks.
The first evening is spent at the wedding house, where I am welcomed into the female drum circle and I am just getting used to the size of the houses – since the family structure is such that when the sons of a family get married, their brides move in, and when the daughters get married, they move to the groom’s residence, homes are spacious and often have nice wide open lawns. The Khan residence is no exception, and I love watching Raja’s father water the beautiful roses and variety of flowers, and the garden which is primarily chillis (they dry them, powder them, and then they’ve got enough chili for a year! And believe you me, Kashmiri food is spicy…)
The next day we head over to the wedding house in the morning, but my camera is having some problems so I decide to go into the city to have the camera looked at. We stop at home so I can get my map etc, and am duly intercepted by Rohi who insists that it only makes logical sense for me to have lunch first before I go into town. Given no option to say no, I eat, then I go. After having my camera looked at with no success, I meet Sami, a corporate lawyer who fulfills the Kashmiri role and offers me food and drink. I get Kashmiri cherries, after being told with a sorrowful look that this year, heavy rains have led to a poor harvest so please excuse the cherries that are not as delicious as usual. No problem, they were quite tasty.
Sami’s friend Mukhtar took me around Dal Lake, the once pristine lake in Srinagar that has made the city acquire its famous fantasy nearly mythical status…and we discuss a bit about the political situation and the amazing nature of Kashmir. It’s undeniably beautiful here, and speaking in terms of natural resources, extremely wealthy.
In the evening I head home, and almost immediately after arriving at the Khan residence, we head back to the wedding house. The dinner is delicious – a few people, including Raja, have gone to some trouble to get me an individual plate of as-vegetarian-friendly-as-possible food. The paneer in tomato sauce is mouthwatering. Haak is a very common leafy green vegetable here, almost like a combination of spinach and kale. In Kashmiri weddings and celebrations, people use very large plates and 4 people eat from each dish. There is a huge serving of rice, and on top of that is piled the dishes – usually mutton – and then the cooks come around, one dish at a time, and put it in the middle of the dish. 8-10 varieties of mutton are served in this wedding. Looks delicious.
There are a few Kashmiri things that I really love…the custom of washing your right hand before you eat – this is done with a copper pitcher, plated with nickel, and poured into a bowl…somebody else will pour the water for you…and at the wedding, the gigantic teapot, with two compartments, one for coal to keep the chai warm…these communal aspects of life are what I love about this place.
The wedding day – I dutifully did as I was told and put on the salwar kameez that Roma chose for me from her wardrobe, didn’t move a muscle as she did my makeup, and off we went! So much joy, so much singing, so much food, so much love…wow.
As you head up the valley, the military presence increases. To me, it seems like an awful lot of police and army forces. To locals, this is far less security forces than there has been over the past few decades. Once you cross the big tunnel and enter the Kashmir Valley, the temperature drops dramatically, and there is an unmistakable sense that you have entered a different land. The rhythm seems different…is it the Muslim presence? The mountains? I have no idea what it is, but it is very palpably different.
I arrive in Srinagar and Raja and his cousin Wahid pick me up and take me home, where I shower and am immediately taken to the house of another cousin who is getting married in two days. So many cousins and relatives, all so alive and smiling and full of joy. What strikes me most, perhaps, over the past several days is that the people in Kashmir are peace-loving people and this is so apparent in the family structure and their daily life – and the irony that exists with the conflict situation…I don’t know how to put this in words.
Raja has a beautiful brother, Jana, and a gorgeous sister, Rohi, and his newlywed wife, Roma, who all immediately treat me with the utmost kindness. Their formalities and sort of initial distance to me last about 20 minutes, particularly in the case of Roma, who within a day is leaning on me, holding my hand and shoulder very casually…this is a culture where within gender boundaries, physical affection sees no limits. It’s a bit strange to get your head around if you’re not used to it, but it’s very endearing.
So Kashmiri people…previously, my only contact with Kashmiris are the salesmen who are really the only ones in India that can make me part with my money…they are oh-so-charming, so beautiful, they befriend you with no hesitation and they get you before you know what hit you. A great example is at Delhi Haat, a marketplace in Delhi where there are craftsmen from all over the country…I had not intended to purchase anything…yet at the end of the day, opening my bags, it was hilarious to realize that every single thing I had bought was Kashmiri.
Well, here in Kashmir I haven’t had anyone try to sell me anything yet. I’ve successfully avoided going anywhere where I can spend too much money…but that kind, humorous insistence definitely pervades. Kashmiri hospitality is directly linked to how much they can feed you, and everyday I have several dozen offers for tea and food. Oh, by the way, they drink salty tea. Think Indian masala chai, but instead of sugar, put salt in it. Yeah. Weird. Not totally against it but definitely not my cup of tea.
And, they are majorly carnivorous. Especially around wedding time. 15 sheep were slaughtered for this wedding, and the meals were prepared over two days by a team of about 15 men, stopping for salty tea and hookah breaks.
The first evening is spent at the wedding house, where I am welcomed into the female drum circle and I am just getting used to the size of the houses – since the family structure is such that when the sons of a family get married, their brides move in, and when the daughters get married, they move to the groom’s residence, homes are spacious and often have nice wide open lawns. The Khan residence is no exception, and I love watching Raja’s father water the beautiful roses and variety of flowers, and the garden which is primarily chillis (they dry them, powder them, and then they’ve got enough chili for a year! And believe you me, Kashmiri food is spicy…)
The next day we head over to the wedding house in the morning, but my camera is having some problems so I decide to go into the city to have the camera looked at. We stop at home so I can get my map etc, and am duly intercepted by Rohi who insists that it only makes logical sense for me to have lunch first before I go into town. Given no option to say no, I eat, then I go. After having my camera looked at with no success, I meet Sami, a corporate lawyer who fulfills the Kashmiri role and offers me food and drink. I get Kashmiri cherries, after being told with a sorrowful look that this year, heavy rains have led to a poor harvest so please excuse the cherries that are not as delicious as usual. No problem, they were quite tasty.
Sami’s friend Mukhtar took me around Dal Lake, the once pristine lake in Srinagar that has made the city acquire its famous fantasy nearly mythical status…and we discuss a bit about the political situation and the amazing nature of Kashmir. It’s undeniably beautiful here, and speaking in terms of natural resources, extremely wealthy.
In the evening I head home, and almost immediately after arriving at the Khan residence, we head back to the wedding house. The dinner is delicious – a few people, including Raja, have gone to some trouble to get me an individual plate of as-vegetarian-friendly-as-possible food. The paneer in tomato sauce is mouthwatering. Haak is a very common leafy green vegetable here, almost like a combination of spinach and kale. In Kashmiri weddings and celebrations, people use very large plates and 4 people eat from each dish. There is a huge serving of rice, and on top of that is piled the dishes – usually mutton – and then the cooks come around, one dish at a time, and put it in the middle of the dish. 8-10 varieties of mutton are served in this wedding. Looks delicious.
There are a few Kashmiri things that I really love…the custom of washing your right hand before you eat – this is done with a copper pitcher, plated with nickel, and poured into a bowl…somebody else will pour the water for you…and at the wedding, the gigantic teapot, with two compartments, one for coal to keep the chai warm…these communal aspects of life are what I love about this place.
The wedding day – I dutifully did as I was told and put on the salwar kameez that Roma chose for me from her wardrobe, didn’t move a muscle as she did my makeup, and off we went! So much joy, so much singing, so much food, so much love…wow.
Bharmour to Jammu, 16 June 2010
I originally planned to go from Bharmour to Manali to Leh to meet the Ghosh’s, who are arriving in Leh on June 27. But, Manali and Leh have been having heavy snowfall (2.5 feet!! In one night!) and I am not appropriately dressed for this…and the Manali-Leh road is closed…
So I decided to go to Kashmir. What do people imagine when they hear the word Kashmir? Majorly contrasting things…some may think of kashmiri shawls and scarves, some may think of Hindu Kush marijuana, others may think of the political violence that has shattered the region for 21 years…
Well, it’s all that and more.
My journey from Bharmour was utterly flawless. I had no idea how connections would go, I just knew I was headed in the direction of Kashmir. I arrived in Chamba and there was a bus 20 minutes later to Pathankot, a major transport hub in Punjab. I arrived in Pathankot at 8.50pm, suspecting I might need to spend the night there, but a Sikh guard came over and immediately offered to help me, directing me to the bus on the other side that would leave in 10 minutes for Jammu. Wow! Oh wait – Jammu – do I want to arrive there at…midnight? Alone? Hmm...oh well.
So I jump on the bus, I’m almost the only woman on the bus, men shuffle around yelling at each other instructing me to sit…a man named Raj is next to me, speaks good English, is from Delhi, and is very friendly. I discover that this bus, after stopping in Jammu, will continue to Katra. This is the site of the Vaishno Devi pilgrimage. Indian tourists come to the state of Jammu and Kashmir for 2 major pilgrimage reasons…Vaishno Devi, and Amarnath Cave. The boys on the bus get all worked up and tell me it’s some sort of divine sign (umm I doubt this ; ) that I have ended up on this bus and say I MUST go to Katra with them, they’ll take care of me and I should do the pilgrimage to Vaishno Devi before continuing to Kashmir. A once in a lifetime opportunity etc etc. So we arrive, 1.30am, my body is shattered, and we wander around the streets of Katra until we find a place to stay.
Vaishno Devi is a 14km walk each way, a very well-paved path leading up the mountain where people are chanting Jai Mata Di, and various other mantras associated with the goddesss(es) residing there. It’s true Indian style – lots of kitschy souvenirs on the way, drinks stalls every few hundred meters – this is how Indians holiday. Combine nature, religion, and entertainment. Why not?
The walk was scorching and I was exhausted much more from the heat than from the
physical demands of the hike…but sunset from the top was amazing. And the energy emanating from the temple where we receive Darshan from the goddess…pulsating.
We finally made it back down to the bottom almost at midnight, exhausted, had some dinner, and slept a few hours before I continued on my way up to Kashmir.
So I decided to go to Kashmir. What do people imagine when they hear the word Kashmir? Majorly contrasting things…some may think of kashmiri shawls and scarves, some may think of Hindu Kush marijuana, others may think of the political violence that has shattered the region for 21 years…
Well, it’s all that and more.
My journey from Bharmour was utterly flawless. I had no idea how connections would go, I just knew I was headed in the direction of Kashmir. I arrived in Chamba and there was a bus 20 minutes later to Pathankot, a major transport hub in Punjab. I arrived in Pathankot at 8.50pm, suspecting I might need to spend the night there, but a Sikh guard came over and immediately offered to help me, directing me to the bus on the other side that would leave in 10 minutes for Jammu. Wow! Oh wait – Jammu – do I want to arrive there at…midnight? Alone? Hmm...oh well.
So I jump on the bus, I’m almost the only woman on the bus, men shuffle around yelling at each other instructing me to sit…a man named Raj is next to me, speaks good English, is from Delhi, and is very friendly. I discover that this bus, after stopping in Jammu, will continue to Katra. This is the site of the Vaishno Devi pilgrimage. Indian tourists come to the state of Jammu and Kashmir for 2 major pilgrimage reasons…Vaishno Devi, and Amarnath Cave. The boys on the bus get all worked up and tell me it’s some sort of divine sign (umm I doubt this ; ) that I have ended up on this bus and say I MUST go to Katra with them, they’ll take care of me and I should do the pilgrimage to Vaishno Devi before continuing to Kashmir. A once in a lifetime opportunity etc etc. So we arrive, 1.30am, my body is shattered, and we wander around the streets of Katra until we find a place to stay.
Vaishno Devi is a 14km walk each way, a very well-paved path leading up the mountain where people are chanting Jai Mata Di, and various other mantras associated with the goddesss(es) residing there. It’s true Indian style – lots of kitschy souvenirs on the way, drinks stalls every few hundred meters – this is how Indians holiday. Combine nature, religion, and entertainment. Why not?
The walk was scorching and I was exhausted much more from the heat than from the
physical demands of the hike…but sunset from the top was amazing. And the energy emanating from the temple where we receive Darshan from the goddess…pulsating.
We finally made it back down to the bottom almost at midnight, exhausted, had some dinner, and slept a few hours before I continued on my way up to Kashmir.
Manimahesh “Pilgrimage” and Grimar (June 14-15)
Manimahesh is one of the many imposing, breathtaking mountains you can see from anywhere in Bharmour. It is the site of a major pilgrimage in the month of August when roughly 80,000 people come from all over India to go to Shiva’s home. We decided to head up to see as far as we could get on a daytrip in mid-June ; )
So 7am, we pack our gourmet food from Swarna – paranthas and scrambled eggs with mixed homegrown veggies – and off we go to Hadsar. It was raining when we left Bharmour and we joked about how we were taking enough food for 2 days with us, and we would get there, be stuck in rain, and turn right back around. But miraculously, the weather cleared up as we arrived in Hadsar. Perfect walking weather. A bit cloudy but dry, and that fresh scent of the earth just after the rains…
We had the mountain entirely to ourselves, practically. We came across 4 Chinese/Singaporean trekkers who were pretty hardcore, bouncing ahead…and lots of nomads who live in these hills, who ebb and flow with the snow, rockslides, glaciers, and divine spirits that reside here.
It was breathtaking, at times no peak views above us so we were gladly forced to focus on the wildflowers bursting at eye level – yellows, purples, pinks, and blues…the tastiest wild strawberries I’ve ever had in my life; Tashi collecting them by the hundreds, his pockets bursting with them and insisting that we eat – joking that he had nearly 1kg and we could sell them in Bharmour…
We came into close contact with several glaciers, massive structures of permanent ice that feed the rivers that eventually become the delicious water bursting from pipes all over Bharmour…
The nomads here are friendly, content, at peace within themselves and their universe, and very very beautiful. They were happy to be photographed and we made very faulty attempts at communicating in Hindi with them, but so many smiles and laughs were exchanged.
We decided to turn back at around 1pm, when the rainclouds were gathering, we were reaching the cloud line, and the temperature was dropping dramatically. Tashi has a tendency to try out new roads and explore, and I am happy to follow…but this time…oh this time…
We had seen a path winding up across the way from a cluster of nomad tents we had passed around 2.5 hours up from the bottom. It looked well-maintained, and we saw a few nomads speedily going up the path. So when we came to it on our way down, Tashi and Krishnan agreed it would be a good option to try to go down that way. I obliged.
Turns out it was a road that is currently being built. How the mechanical equipment to pave it has arrived up there, I have no understanding of. So, there were huge sharp rocks that we were walking on – thank goodness I had my good shoes on – but Tashi and Krishnan were both in sandals. No worries. Then we came to what has got to be the scariest path I have walked on in my life – maybe 8-12 inches across, teetering at the edge of a drop that goes straight down into the valley. Magnified by the fact that there is a gushing river with lots of white spray shooting up just asking to be fed. Ahh!! So I tried really hard to go down it, after awhile Tashi grabbed my hand and I was leaning against the mountain with the other arm, after awhile I reached that point of being frozen, one of the nomads tried to get me to go with him, I freaked out. Then they decided it would be much safer and faster and easier to…get a piggyback ride. Yup, 26 year old grown girl carried down the mountainside by a Tibetan monk. Hilarious. As I was about to jump on his back, we erupted in a fit of giggles and he said, “Please, Yuri, you can’t make me laugh (giggle, giggle).” “Ok (giggle), I’ll try not to.”
But when I did get on his back, we were both silent, and I shut my eyes. The feeling of being terrified beyond words, holding on so tightly to someone that it was like we were one being, and feeling so intensely the erratic drops and curves of the path…exhilarating. I have no idea how far he carried me; it can’t have been very long – maybe 150-200m? But it felt like lifetimes. When he put me down, we both rolled over laughing and laughing like insane people…ahh I love this team…
The rest of the walk was comparatively a breeze, more wild strawberries, Tashi teaching me a beautiful Tibetan song after much refusal due to his childlike shyness (which of course makes me just tease him more since I’m evil like that ; )…wonderful.
We effortlessly got a ride back to Bharmour, rested, and had another amazing meal at home.
Tashi asked permission to come with us to Bharmour and his monk leader said no. Then he asked his friend to cover for him for a few days and he escaped and joined us. But it really was getting to be time for him to head back. We thought he would take the night bus the following evening…
But I woke up the next morning and he said he was leaving at 8am. I was shocked. A surge of sadness came up so strongly from deep inside of me…this idyllic perfect holiday where we had become like what we idealize as family was coming to an end. So we took him down to the bus stop, waited with him, and it was like…I don’t know what. Tashi, thank you so much for sharing yourself so fully and openly with us this week. Thank you for being a mirror in the best way possible so that we can see what possibility lies within us.
Krishnan and I decided to do the easy hike to Grimar, a village 7km away from Bharmour. As is typical of us – “It’s the journey not the destination” - Krishnan and I took 2 detours before arriving. The first one led up up up through gorgeous pine forest until we realized that we were in fact on the jeep road for Bharmani Mata…and then we went up up up into a village that we thought was Grimar until a beautiful elderly lady told us this was not the right village, we could refill our water if we wanted, and Grimar was further on…
So lots of giggles later, we did arrive in Grimar. From this village you get gorgeous views of 3 valleys, including one that is on the other side from where Bharmour faces so it was our first time seeing this. An elderly man invited us to come into his home. Himachali homes are elegantly, carefully constructed using a combination of bricks, stones that are in their natural form, and carved rocks. We sat, smiling, totally unable to communicate but just being. He sent his granddaughter to milk his goat for us (we heard the goat…) and we had fresh goat milk chai. Out-of-this-world.
We wandered around a bit more before heading back down to Bharmour and making our obligatory dhaba stop…relaxed in the afternoon and our last dinner with Shiva and Swarna…I would leave the next day for Kashmir.
The next morning we had breakfast at home, hung around the temples a bit and finally headed down to the bus stand. My bus left at noon…the week in Bharmour with these lovely people was like a rejuvenation, restoration, inspiration, and refreshing beyond belief. Breathing the clean mountain air, being in the Gods’ home, eating homegrown organic vegetarian food cooked with so much love, getting up early and walking 15-20km a day…there’s nothing this can’t do ; )
Thank you…
So 7am, we pack our gourmet food from Swarna – paranthas and scrambled eggs with mixed homegrown veggies – and off we go to Hadsar. It was raining when we left Bharmour and we joked about how we were taking enough food for 2 days with us, and we would get there, be stuck in rain, and turn right back around. But miraculously, the weather cleared up as we arrived in Hadsar. Perfect walking weather. A bit cloudy but dry, and that fresh scent of the earth just after the rains…
We had the mountain entirely to ourselves, practically. We came across 4 Chinese/Singaporean trekkers who were pretty hardcore, bouncing ahead…and lots of nomads who live in these hills, who ebb and flow with the snow, rockslides, glaciers, and divine spirits that reside here.
It was breathtaking, at times no peak views above us so we were gladly forced to focus on the wildflowers bursting at eye level – yellows, purples, pinks, and blues…the tastiest wild strawberries I’ve ever had in my life; Tashi collecting them by the hundreds, his pockets bursting with them and insisting that we eat – joking that he had nearly 1kg and we could sell them in Bharmour…
We came into close contact with several glaciers, massive structures of permanent ice that feed the rivers that eventually become the delicious water bursting from pipes all over Bharmour…
The nomads here are friendly, content, at peace within themselves and their universe, and very very beautiful. They were happy to be photographed and we made very faulty attempts at communicating in Hindi with them, but so many smiles and laughs were exchanged.
We decided to turn back at around 1pm, when the rainclouds were gathering, we were reaching the cloud line, and the temperature was dropping dramatically. Tashi has a tendency to try out new roads and explore, and I am happy to follow…but this time…oh this time…
We had seen a path winding up across the way from a cluster of nomad tents we had passed around 2.5 hours up from the bottom. It looked well-maintained, and we saw a few nomads speedily going up the path. So when we came to it on our way down, Tashi and Krishnan agreed it would be a good option to try to go down that way. I obliged.
Turns out it was a road that is currently being built. How the mechanical equipment to pave it has arrived up there, I have no understanding of. So, there were huge sharp rocks that we were walking on – thank goodness I had my good shoes on – but Tashi and Krishnan were both in sandals. No worries. Then we came to what has got to be the scariest path I have walked on in my life – maybe 8-12 inches across, teetering at the edge of a drop that goes straight down into the valley. Magnified by the fact that there is a gushing river with lots of white spray shooting up just asking to be fed. Ahh!! So I tried really hard to go down it, after awhile Tashi grabbed my hand and I was leaning against the mountain with the other arm, after awhile I reached that point of being frozen, one of the nomads tried to get me to go with him, I freaked out. Then they decided it would be much safer and faster and easier to…get a piggyback ride. Yup, 26 year old grown girl carried down the mountainside by a Tibetan monk. Hilarious. As I was about to jump on his back, we erupted in a fit of giggles and he said, “Please, Yuri, you can’t make me laugh (giggle, giggle).” “Ok (giggle), I’ll try not to.”
But when I did get on his back, we were both silent, and I shut my eyes. The feeling of being terrified beyond words, holding on so tightly to someone that it was like we were one being, and feeling so intensely the erratic drops and curves of the path…exhilarating. I have no idea how far he carried me; it can’t have been very long – maybe 150-200m? But it felt like lifetimes. When he put me down, we both rolled over laughing and laughing like insane people…ahh I love this team…
The rest of the walk was comparatively a breeze, more wild strawberries, Tashi teaching me a beautiful Tibetan song after much refusal due to his childlike shyness (which of course makes me just tease him more since I’m evil like that ; )…wonderful.
We effortlessly got a ride back to Bharmour, rested, and had another amazing meal at home.
Tashi asked permission to come with us to Bharmour and his monk leader said no. Then he asked his friend to cover for him for a few days and he escaped and joined us. But it really was getting to be time for him to head back. We thought he would take the night bus the following evening…
But I woke up the next morning and he said he was leaving at 8am. I was shocked. A surge of sadness came up so strongly from deep inside of me…this idyllic perfect holiday where we had become like what we idealize as family was coming to an end. So we took him down to the bus stop, waited with him, and it was like…I don’t know what. Tashi, thank you so much for sharing yourself so fully and openly with us this week. Thank you for being a mirror in the best way possible so that we can see what possibility lies within us.
Krishnan and I decided to do the easy hike to Grimar, a village 7km away from Bharmour. As is typical of us – “It’s the journey not the destination” - Krishnan and I took 2 detours before arriving. The first one led up up up through gorgeous pine forest until we realized that we were in fact on the jeep road for Bharmani Mata…and then we went up up up into a village that we thought was Grimar until a beautiful elderly lady told us this was not the right village, we could refill our water if we wanted, and Grimar was further on…
So lots of giggles later, we did arrive in Grimar. From this village you get gorgeous views of 3 valleys, including one that is on the other side from where Bharmour faces so it was our first time seeing this. An elderly man invited us to come into his home. Himachali homes are elegantly, carefully constructed using a combination of bricks, stones that are in their natural form, and carved rocks. We sat, smiling, totally unable to communicate but just being. He sent his granddaughter to milk his goat for us (we heard the goat…) and we had fresh goat milk chai. Out-of-this-world.
We wandered around a bit more before heading back down to Bharmour and making our obligatory dhaba stop…relaxed in the afternoon and our last dinner with Shiva and Swarna…I would leave the next day for Kashmir.
The next morning we had breakfast at home, hung around the temples a bit and finally headed down to the bus stand. My bus left at noon…the week in Bharmour with these lovely people was like a rejuvenation, restoration, inspiration, and refreshing beyond belief. Breathing the clean mountain air, being in the Gods’ home, eating homegrown organic vegetarian food cooked with so much love, getting up early and walking 15-20km a day…there’s nothing this can’t do ; )
Thank you…
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Manimahesh “Pilgrimage” and Grimar (June 14-15)
Manimahesh is one of the many imposing, breathtaking mountains you can see from anywhere in Bharmour. It is the site of a major pilgrimage in the month of August when roughly 80,000 people come from all over India to go to Shiva’s home. We decided to head up to see as far as we could get on a daytrip in mid-June ; )
So 7am, we pack our gourmet food from Swarna – paranthas and scrambled eggs with mixed homegrown veggies – and off we go to Hadsar. It was raining when we left Bharmour and we joked about how we were taking enough food for 2 days with us, and we would get there, be stuck in rain, and turn right back around. But miraculously, the weather cleared up as we arrived in Hadsar. Perfect walking weather. A bit cloudy but dry, and that fresh scent of the earth just after the rains…
We had the mountain entirely to ourselves, practically. We came across 4 Chinese/Singaporean trekkers who were pretty hardcore, bouncing ahead…and lots of nomads who live in these hills, who ebb and flow with the snow, rockslides, glaciers, and divine spirits that reside here.
It was breathtaking, at times no peak views above us so we were gladly forced to focus on the wildflowers bursting at eye level – yellows, purples, pinks, and blues…the tastiest wild strawberries I’ve ever had in my life; Tashi collecting them by the hundreds, his pockets bursting with them and insisting that we eat – joking that he had nearly 1kg and we could sell them in Bharmour…
We came into close contact with several glaciers, massive structures of permanent ice that feed the rivers that eventually become the delicious water bursting from pipes all over Bharmour…
The nomads here are friendly, content, at peace within themselves and their universe, and very very beautiful. They were happy to be photographed and we made very faulty attempts at communicating in Hindi with them, but so many smiles and laughs were exchanged.
We decided to turn back at around 1pm, when the rainclouds were gathering, we were reaching the cloud line, and the temperature was dropping dramatically. Tashi has a tendency to try out new roads and explore, and I am happy to follow…but this time…oh this time…
We had seen a path winding up across the way from a cluster of nomad tents we had passed around 2.5 hours up from the bottom. It looked well-maintained, and we saw a few nomads speedily going up the path. So when we came to it on our way down, Tashi and Krishnan agreed it would be a good option to try to go down that way. I obliged.
Turns out it was a road that is currently being built. How the mechanical equipment to pave it has arrived up there, I have no understanding of. So, there were huge sharp rocks that we were walking on – thank goodness I had my good shoes on – but Tashi and Krishnan were both in sandals. No worries. Then we came to what has got to be the scariest path I have walked on in my life – maybe 8-12 inches across, teetering at the edge of a drop that goes straight down into the valley. Magnified by the fact that there is a gushing river with lots of white spray shooting up just asking to be fed. Ahh!! So I tried really hard to go down it, after awhile Tashi grabbed my hand and I was leaning against the mountain with the other arm, after awhile I reached that point of being frozen, one of the nomads tried to get me to go with him, I freaked out. Then they decided it would be much safer and faster and easier to…get a piggyback ride. Yup, 26 year old grown girl carried down the mountainside by a Tibetan monk. Hilarious. As I was about to jump on his back, we erupted in a fit of giggles and he said, “Please, Yuri, you can’t make me laugh (giggle, giggle).” “Ok (giggle), I’ll try not to.”
But when I did get on his back, we were both silent, and I shut my eyes. The feeling of being terrified beyond words, holding on so tightly to someone that it was like we were one being, and feeling so intensely the erratic drops and curves of the path…exhilarating. I have no idea how far he carried me; it can’t have been very long – maybe 150-200m? But it felt like lifetimes. When he put me down, we both rolled over laughing and laughing like insane people…ahh I love this team…
The rest of the walk was comparatively a breeze, more wild strawberries, Tashi teaching me a beautiful Tibetan song after much refusal due to his childlike shyness (which of course makes me just tease him more since I’m evil like that ; )…wonderful.
We effortlessly got a ride back to Bharmour, rested, and had another amazing meal at home.
Tashi asked permission to come with us to Bharmour and his monk leader said no. Then he asked his friend to cover for him for a few days and he escaped and joined us. But it really was getting to be time for him to head back. We thought he would take the night bus the following evening…
But I woke up the next morning and he said he was leaving at 8am. I was shocked. A surge of sadness came up so strongly from deep inside of me…this idyllic perfect holiday where we had become like what we idealize as family was coming to an end. So we took him down to the bus stop, waited with him, and it was like…I don’t know what. Tashi, thank you so much for sharing yourself so fully and openly with us this week. Thank you for being a mirror in the best way possible so that we can see what possibility lies within us.
Krishnan and I decided to do the easy hike to Grimar, a village 7km away from Bharmour. As is typical of us – “It’s the journey not the destination” - Krishnan and I took 2 detours before arriving. The first one led up up up through gorgeous pine forest until we realized that we were in fact on the jeep road for Bharmani Mata…and then we went up up up into a village that we thought was Grimar until a beautiful elderly lady told us this was not the right village, we could refill our water if we wanted, and Grimar was further on…
So lots of giggles later, we did arrive in Grimar. From this village you get gorgeous views of 3 valleys, including one that is on the other side from where Bharmour faces so it was our first time seeing this. An elderly man invited us to come into his home. Himachali homes are elegantly, carefully constructed using a combination of bricks, stones that are in their natural form, and carved rocks. We sat, smiling, totally unable to communicate but just being. He sent his granddaughter to milk his goat for us (we heard the goat…) and we had fresh goat milk chai. Out-of-this-world.
We wandered around a bit more before heading back down to Bharmour and making our obligatory dhaba stop…relaxed in the afternoon and our last dinner with Shiva and Swarna…I would leave the next day for Kashmir.
The next morning we had breakfast at home, hung around the temples a bit and finally headed down to the bus stand. My bus left at noon…the week in Bharmour with these lovely people was like a rejuvenation, restoration, inspiration, and refreshing beyond belief. Breathing the clean mountain air, being in the Gods’ home, eating homegrown organic vegetarian food cooked with so much love, getting up early and walking 15-20km a day…there’s nothing this can’t do ; )
Thank you…
So 7am, we pack our gourmet food from Swarna – paranthas and scrambled eggs with mixed homegrown veggies – and off we go to Hadsar. It was raining when we left Bharmour and we joked about how we were taking enough food for 2 days with us, and we would get there, be stuck in rain, and turn right back around. But miraculously, the weather cleared up as we arrived in Hadsar. Perfect walking weather. A bit cloudy but dry, and that fresh scent of the earth just after the rains…
We had the mountain entirely to ourselves, practically. We came across 4 Chinese/Singaporean trekkers who were pretty hardcore, bouncing ahead…and lots of nomads who live in these hills, who ebb and flow with the snow, rockslides, glaciers, and divine spirits that reside here.
It was breathtaking, at times no peak views above us so we were gladly forced to focus on the wildflowers bursting at eye level – yellows, purples, pinks, and blues…the tastiest wild strawberries I’ve ever had in my life; Tashi collecting them by the hundreds, his pockets bursting with them and insisting that we eat – joking that he had nearly 1kg and we could sell them in Bharmour…
We came into close contact with several glaciers, massive structures of permanent ice that feed the rivers that eventually become the delicious water bursting from pipes all over Bharmour…
The nomads here are friendly, content, at peace within themselves and their universe, and very very beautiful. They were happy to be photographed and we made very faulty attempts at communicating in Hindi with them, but so many smiles and laughs were exchanged.
We decided to turn back at around 1pm, when the rainclouds were gathering, we were reaching the cloud line, and the temperature was dropping dramatically. Tashi has a tendency to try out new roads and explore, and I am happy to follow…but this time…oh this time…
We had seen a path winding up across the way from a cluster of nomad tents we had passed around 2.5 hours up from the bottom. It looked well-maintained, and we saw a few nomads speedily going up the path. So when we came to it on our way down, Tashi and Krishnan agreed it would be a good option to try to go down that way. I obliged.
Turns out it was a road that is currently being built. How the mechanical equipment to pave it has arrived up there, I have no understanding of. So, there were huge sharp rocks that we were walking on – thank goodness I had my good shoes on – but Tashi and Krishnan were both in sandals. No worries. Then we came to what has got to be the scariest path I have walked on in my life – maybe 8-12 inches across, teetering at the edge of a drop that goes straight down into the valley. Magnified by the fact that there is a gushing river with lots of white spray shooting up just asking to be fed. Ahh!! So I tried really hard to go down it, after awhile Tashi grabbed my hand and I was leaning against the mountain with the other arm, after awhile I reached that point of being frozen, one of the nomads tried to get me to go with him, I freaked out. Then they decided it would be much safer and faster and easier to…get a piggyback ride. Yup, 26 year old grown girl carried down the mountainside by a Tibetan monk. Hilarious. As I was about to jump on his back, we erupted in a fit of giggles and he said, “Please, Yuri, you can’t make me laugh (giggle, giggle).” “Ok (giggle), I’ll try not to.”
But when I did get on his back, we were both silent, and I shut my eyes. The feeling of being terrified beyond words, holding on so tightly to someone that it was like we were one being, and feeling so intensely the erratic drops and curves of the path…exhilarating. I have no idea how far he carried me; it can’t have been very long – maybe 150-200m? But it felt like lifetimes. When he put me down, we both rolled over laughing and laughing like insane people…ahh I love this team…
The rest of the walk was comparatively a breeze, more wild strawberries, Tashi teaching me a beautiful Tibetan song after much refusal due to his childlike shyness (which of course makes me just tease him more since I’m evil like that ; )…wonderful.
We effortlessly got a ride back to Bharmour, rested, and had another amazing meal at home.
Tashi asked permission to come with us to Bharmour and his monk leader said no. Then he asked his friend to cover for him for a few days and he escaped and joined us. But it really was getting to be time for him to head back. We thought he would take the night bus the following evening…
But I woke up the next morning and he said he was leaving at 8am. I was shocked. A surge of sadness came up so strongly from deep inside of me…this idyllic perfect holiday where we had become like what we idealize as family was coming to an end. So we took him down to the bus stop, waited with him, and it was like…I don’t know what. Tashi, thank you so much for sharing yourself so fully and openly with us this week. Thank you for being a mirror in the best way possible so that we can see what possibility lies within us.
Krishnan and I decided to do the easy hike to Grimar, a village 7km away from Bharmour. As is typical of us – “It’s the journey not the destination” - Krishnan and I took 2 detours before arriving. The first one led up up up through gorgeous pine forest until we realized that we were in fact on the jeep road for Bharmani Mata…and then we went up up up into a village that we thought was Grimar until a beautiful elderly lady told us this was not the right village, we could refill our water if we wanted, and Grimar was further on…
So lots of giggles later, we did arrive in Grimar. From this village you get gorgeous views of 3 valleys, including one that is on the other side from where Bharmour faces so it was our first time seeing this. An elderly man invited us to come into his home. Himachali homes are elegantly, carefully constructed using a combination of bricks, stones that are in their natural form, and carved rocks. We sat, smiling, totally unable to communicate but just being. He sent his granddaughter to milk his goat for us (we heard the goat…) and we had fresh goat milk chai. Out-of-this-world.
We wandered around a bit more before heading back down to Bharmour and making our obligatory dhaba stop…relaxed in the afternoon and our last dinner with Shiva and Swarna…I would leave the next day for Kashmir.
The next morning we had breakfast at home, hung around the temples a bit and finally headed down to the bus stand. My bus left at noon…the week in Bharmour with these lovely people was like a rejuvenation, restoration, inspiration, and refreshing beyond belief. Breathing the clean mountain air, being in the Gods’ home, eating homegrown organic vegetarian food cooked with so much love, getting up early and walking 15-20km a day…there’s nothing this can’t do ; )
Thank you…
Bharmour, 10-13 June (Written 13 June 2010)
Bharmour is the former capital of the kingdom of Chamba. The claim to fame of this magical village hidden away in the foothills of the Himalayas are the Chaurasi temples, the main one being a breathtakingly gorgeous Shiva Linga. I had never heard of Bharmour, there is very little foreign tourism here, and it is the one hidden gem of India that I have found. There is no car honking; people are friendly and there is almost no visible poverty; the food is phenomenal; the scenery changes by the hour; am I still in India?
We arrived on the 10th at around 5pm and we were pretty exhausted so we decided to spend a night in the first place our driver took us to. We checked in and went wandering to the main town square where the Chaurasi temples are. From the films and literature I have been exposed to, this town is what I imagine somewhere in eastern Iran, or Afghanistan, or Pakistan. Emerging onto the town square, children play cricket, skillfully avoiding running into the 84 Mahasiddha Lingas. Older men with their folded hats sit with their canes, chatting away. Water flows all over the place, pipes bursting with the freshest, most refreshing glacial river water I have ever tasted. So the first evening we simply wander, and end up at the Chaurasi Hotel and Restaurant for dinner. The place looks totally abandoned, and as we enter there is a man whom we ask if we can eat, and he thinks for a minute and says yes. We order two different dals, a shahi paneer and a mixed veg and wait. And wait.
Meanwhile our hot drinks come out one at a time, and there is a bit of shuffle as they leave to buy some of the ingredients – a true sign of freshness. And it is so worth the wait. And it is cheap. 70 rupees a person for proper restaurant food, and lots of it. I like this town already. We head back towards home, but get stuck in a traffic jam. Yes, I said there is no honking and no traffic in this one-road town. But there are sheep! And so there must also be sheep traffic jams. Two shepherds in wool sweaters and hats whistle at their flock of about 300 sheep as 4WD vehicles patiently wait. This is the rhythm of this land.
The next morning, we head down to the dhaba for breakfast. Piping hot Chana Masala (chickpea curry) and mixed vegetables with paneer – the paneer in this town is hands-down the best I have had in India. It is such a perfect consistency, solid but moist, and it has a lovely flavor of mild milk – often paneer is so tasteless and either too moist and crumbly or too hard…then the paranthas arrive. These are basically chapattis that are stuffed with different things – in this case we are talking about aloo parantha, so potato. Perfectly crisped in the tandoor, they are lightly brushed with ghee and an assortment of herbs. If you dissect the lovely bread, inside you find whole cumin seeds, black pepper, a healthy dosage of coriander, and chopped fresh green chili. Mmm.
Fully inspired by breakfast, we head up to the Bharmani Mata temple after we change hotels. Tashi had gone exploring to find room options for us, and he came upon Shiva and Swarna, a lovely farmer couple who rents out rooms in their house. This one and a half hour walk takes us first through orchards full of apples, wheat, barley, apricots, and plums, alongside wild marijuana plants, and then we wander up through the village. Almost every household has at least one cow, and the cows here are the healthiest-looking I have seen in India. People are drying wheat in their courtyards. Colourful laundry hangs, framed by snowcapped mountains. We go further up and then it becomes terraced green fields. There are white-icing granite mountains almost 360 degrees around us. We finally reach the temple which has holy water flowing alongside it. After awhile, we continue up and split with Tashi, who can barely hide his excitement at going off wandering into the hills. He has spent the past twenty years between Dharamsala and his monastery in Karnataka, South India, and he is totally straightforward about how much he loves this place. It reminds him of home – eastern Tibet with rolling green hills and snowy mountains – his parents are barley farmers, and you can see his childhood coming back every moment here. It is beautiful.
So Krishnan and I sit and just enjoy the breathtaking scenery before slowly heading back. The architecture here is wonderful. Homes are carefully constructed using combinations of wood, stones, and shingled roofs which seem to perfectly blend functionality and aesthetics. We head down to the dhaba for lunch, and head back to our rooms where we find Tashi arriving. He says he fell down twice, but he is saying this with a huge beaming smile. He rolled down, just a few rotations like somersaults, he says. He is proper mountain goat style, hopping from boulder to boulder, kneeling to drink from the river alongside the cows.
In the evening we head up to the temple square, and watch life unfold. Sorry for the blasphemy, but if I was a God and if I had a temple, this is the ideal way I would want my abode to be used. For people to convene, simply be together, play, laugh, and live together.
We head home and have the delicious home-cooked meal prepared by the family. Most of the food in our meal is homegrown, organic, and you can taste the love in the meal, and the food tastes so alive. It’s simple, dhal, an okra sabzi, a simple salad, but the chapattis in this town are so full-bodied. We go to sleep, totally satiated in mind, heart, and body and are ready to face the next day.
And the next day is supremely gorgeous. We had decided to set off early since it seemed that weather gets worse in the afternoon. Swarna had packed us a lovely breakfast of aloo paranthas, and so we headed towards Tennali. This was a much easier walk than the previous day, as we headed 7km on the paved car road eastwards. We passed a few waterfalls, a few Shiva and Hanuman temples, and a big herd of sheep, maybe about 400. As I was photographing the sheep, one of the shepherds mockingly indignant, asked me if the sheep were more beautiful than him, since I was only interested in photographing them. I got an awesome portrait of him.
Finally, we came to the village where we were supposed to turn off the main road and go up, up, up to Tennali. What strikes me about this area is how much the scenery changes. In this case, everything seemed normal until we turned one corner and all of a sudden we emerged on eye-level height golden barley. The layers between the terraces were a deep green, wild deep blue chicory flowers were everywhere, as were wild strawberries, and an array of yellow, pink, and purple wildflowers – and don’t forget, this is all under the watchful eye of the snowy peaks. We continued up through the immaculate houses to the top of Tennali. Friendly locals, including lots of kids, came out of their houses to greet us.
On our way down, Tashi lingered behind us and all of a sudden erupted into joyous song. Krishnan and I chuckled and Krishnan said, he’s deliriously happy. And he was. And we all were. When we reached the main road, we found out that there was a path to get to the riverside. So down, down, down we went, for about an hour. The scenery changed yet again. Now it was pine forest, a landscape of boulder-strewn meadows and rich dirt. Then we reached the river, where we crossed a swinging bridge, and the water gushed by with great ferocity, gathering the green color from the limestone that it has slowly but steadily been eroding for centuries. I am still very much working on my fear of falling and heights so we all had a laugh as Tashi strolled down without even looking down, Sara and Krishnan walked down, and I scrambled on all fours down to the river. An impromptu picnic of mangoes, nut mix, and Tashi made a pine-cone fire and roasted some barley for us. Just like home in Tibet. Ahh. We split up at the river and all found our own little spots to just be. Sadhguru came to me so strongly here. Just watching the creation, the simplicity and complexity of the scene unfolding in front of me, the butterflies, the trees, the boulders, the powerful river, the perfect blue sky and the perfect huge mountains…you melt.
We made it back up to the main road just as the rain started, and the walk back to Bharmour was joyful, as we were refreshed and rejuvenated by the sprinkling water.
We reached the dhaba, famished and enjoyed every morsel. To live with this intensity as we have been doing here in Bharmour – to me, that is one of the many goals that I am working towards. Thank you.
When it rains here, the temperature drops quickly and dramatically, so we took hot showers and had deep, blissful naps. Dinner was served in the boys’ room, and was again delicious.
And today…breakfast at the dhaba, then we went up for a puja at the Bharmani Mata temple. A totally different side of the temple, and the walk up of course was an experience, with dozens of kids running around us and local women in traditional dress, which consists of one huge nosering in the left nostril, and elaborate headscarves. Beautiful. Tashi and I decided to leave the pooja a bit early and took an alternate route back since we had already done the path a few days earlier. We started on the jeep road but then Tashi decided we should go down the path in the fields…this Tibetan monk has stolen my heart. As we descended (“Take your time Yuri, we come for enjoy, we come to go hiking and walking and to be with nature and we are not in rush today, we are here for enjoy”), we talked a lot about Buddhism and the values put forth by HH the Dalai Lama, by the spiritual teachings I follow (or aspire to follow), about so many things…one of the things that amazes me is how he speaks of the Chinese invasion and how he genuinely can put a positive light on it.
One aspect of this is that as a result of the invasion, the Dalai Lama has actually become much more accessible to Tibetans, especially those that are not from Lhasa, like himself. The Dalai Lama has been given a lot of international support to travel and give teachings all over the world, which may never have happened if Tibet was allowed to continue its existence in peace. As for Tashi himself, he was never given the chance to have any education in Tibet since he lived in a small village far from Lhasa, so escaping to India has given him a world of opportunity. He is literate in Tibetan and English now, and has come into contact with so many people, ideas, and his world is so much bigger than what it would have been if he was in Tibet in his village. This is just a glimpse into the comprehensive, compassionate view of the world which Tibetans, not just the monastics, embody through people like Tashi. Wow.
I spent some time teaching some origami to Tashi and he loved it. He spent the whole afternoon trying to wrap his head around the crane, and the sheer joy and satisfaction at finally getting it, was of course gleeful but the whole process was full of so much presence, involvement, and bliss. It’s the journey, not the destination. Thank you Tashi.
Another lovely dinner, this time with corn chapattis (Oh my goodness, think Mexican corn tortillas, I almost lost it…) and this is just another day in paradise.
We arrived on the 10th at around 5pm and we were pretty exhausted so we decided to spend a night in the first place our driver took us to. We checked in and went wandering to the main town square where the Chaurasi temples are. From the films and literature I have been exposed to, this town is what I imagine somewhere in eastern Iran, or Afghanistan, or Pakistan. Emerging onto the town square, children play cricket, skillfully avoiding running into the 84 Mahasiddha Lingas. Older men with their folded hats sit with their canes, chatting away. Water flows all over the place, pipes bursting with the freshest, most refreshing glacial river water I have ever tasted. So the first evening we simply wander, and end up at the Chaurasi Hotel and Restaurant for dinner. The place looks totally abandoned, and as we enter there is a man whom we ask if we can eat, and he thinks for a minute and says yes. We order two different dals, a shahi paneer and a mixed veg and wait. And wait.
Meanwhile our hot drinks come out one at a time, and there is a bit of shuffle as they leave to buy some of the ingredients – a true sign of freshness. And it is so worth the wait. And it is cheap. 70 rupees a person for proper restaurant food, and lots of it. I like this town already. We head back towards home, but get stuck in a traffic jam. Yes, I said there is no honking and no traffic in this one-road town. But there are sheep! And so there must also be sheep traffic jams. Two shepherds in wool sweaters and hats whistle at their flock of about 300 sheep as 4WD vehicles patiently wait. This is the rhythm of this land.
The next morning, we head down to the dhaba for breakfast. Piping hot Chana Masala (chickpea curry) and mixed vegetables with paneer – the paneer in this town is hands-down the best I have had in India. It is such a perfect consistency, solid but moist, and it has a lovely flavor of mild milk – often paneer is so tasteless and either too moist and crumbly or too hard…then the paranthas arrive. These are basically chapattis that are stuffed with different things – in this case we are talking about aloo parantha, so potato. Perfectly crisped in the tandoor, they are lightly brushed with ghee and an assortment of herbs. If you dissect the lovely bread, inside you find whole cumin seeds, black pepper, a healthy dosage of coriander, and chopped fresh green chili. Mmm.
Fully inspired by breakfast, we head up to the Bharmani Mata temple after we change hotels. Tashi had gone exploring to find room options for us, and he came upon Shiva and Swarna, a lovely farmer couple who rents out rooms in their house. This one and a half hour walk takes us first through orchards full of apples, wheat, barley, apricots, and plums, alongside wild marijuana plants, and then we wander up through the village. Almost every household has at least one cow, and the cows here are the healthiest-looking I have seen in India. People are drying wheat in their courtyards. Colourful laundry hangs, framed by snowcapped mountains. We go further up and then it becomes terraced green fields. There are white-icing granite mountains almost 360 degrees around us. We finally reach the temple which has holy water flowing alongside it. After awhile, we continue up and split with Tashi, who can barely hide his excitement at going off wandering into the hills. He has spent the past twenty years between Dharamsala and his monastery in Karnataka, South India, and he is totally straightforward about how much he loves this place. It reminds him of home – eastern Tibet with rolling green hills and snowy mountains – his parents are barley farmers, and you can see his childhood coming back every moment here. It is beautiful.
So Krishnan and I sit and just enjoy the breathtaking scenery before slowly heading back. The architecture here is wonderful. Homes are carefully constructed using combinations of wood, stones, and shingled roofs which seem to perfectly blend functionality and aesthetics. We head down to the dhaba for lunch, and head back to our rooms where we find Tashi arriving. He says he fell down twice, but he is saying this with a huge beaming smile. He rolled down, just a few rotations like somersaults, he says. He is proper mountain goat style, hopping from boulder to boulder, kneeling to drink from the river alongside the cows.
In the evening we head up to the temple square, and watch life unfold. Sorry for the blasphemy, but if I was a God and if I had a temple, this is the ideal way I would want my abode to be used. For people to convene, simply be together, play, laugh, and live together.
We head home and have the delicious home-cooked meal prepared by the family. Most of the food in our meal is homegrown, organic, and you can taste the love in the meal, and the food tastes so alive. It’s simple, dhal, an okra sabzi, a simple salad, but the chapattis in this town are so full-bodied. We go to sleep, totally satiated in mind, heart, and body and are ready to face the next day.
And the next day is supremely gorgeous. We had decided to set off early since it seemed that weather gets worse in the afternoon. Swarna had packed us a lovely breakfast of aloo paranthas, and so we headed towards Tennali. This was a much easier walk than the previous day, as we headed 7km on the paved car road eastwards. We passed a few waterfalls, a few Shiva and Hanuman temples, and a big herd of sheep, maybe about 400. As I was photographing the sheep, one of the shepherds mockingly indignant, asked me if the sheep were more beautiful than him, since I was only interested in photographing them. I got an awesome portrait of him.
Finally, we came to the village where we were supposed to turn off the main road and go up, up, up to Tennali. What strikes me about this area is how much the scenery changes. In this case, everything seemed normal until we turned one corner and all of a sudden we emerged on eye-level height golden barley. The layers between the terraces were a deep green, wild deep blue chicory flowers were everywhere, as were wild strawberries, and an array of yellow, pink, and purple wildflowers – and don’t forget, this is all under the watchful eye of the snowy peaks. We continued up through the immaculate houses to the top of Tennali. Friendly locals, including lots of kids, came out of their houses to greet us.
On our way down, Tashi lingered behind us and all of a sudden erupted into joyous song. Krishnan and I chuckled and Krishnan said, he’s deliriously happy. And he was. And we all were. When we reached the main road, we found out that there was a path to get to the riverside. So down, down, down we went, for about an hour. The scenery changed yet again. Now it was pine forest, a landscape of boulder-strewn meadows and rich dirt. Then we reached the river, where we crossed a swinging bridge, and the water gushed by with great ferocity, gathering the green color from the limestone that it has slowly but steadily been eroding for centuries. I am still very much working on my fear of falling and heights so we all had a laugh as Tashi strolled down without even looking down, Sara and Krishnan walked down, and I scrambled on all fours down to the river. An impromptu picnic of mangoes, nut mix, and Tashi made a pine-cone fire and roasted some barley for us. Just like home in Tibet. Ahh. We split up at the river and all found our own little spots to just be. Sadhguru came to me so strongly here. Just watching the creation, the simplicity and complexity of the scene unfolding in front of me, the butterflies, the trees, the boulders, the powerful river, the perfect blue sky and the perfect huge mountains…you melt.
We made it back up to the main road just as the rain started, and the walk back to Bharmour was joyful, as we were refreshed and rejuvenated by the sprinkling water.
We reached the dhaba, famished and enjoyed every morsel. To live with this intensity as we have been doing here in Bharmour – to me, that is one of the many goals that I am working towards. Thank you.
When it rains here, the temperature drops quickly and dramatically, so we took hot showers and had deep, blissful naps. Dinner was served in the boys’ room, and was again delicious.
And today…breakfast at the dhaba, then we went up for a puja at the Bharmani Mata temple. A totally different side of the temple, and the walk up of course was an experience, with dozens of kids running around us and local women in traditional dress, which consists of one huge nosering in the left nostril, and elaborate headscarves. Beautiful. Tashi and I decided to leave the pooja a bit early and took an alternate route back since we had already done the path a few days earlier. We started on the jeep road but then Tashi decided we should go down the path in the fields…this Tibetan monk has stolen my heart. As we descended (“Take your time Yuri, we come for enjoy, we come to go hiking and walking and to be with nature and we are not in rush today, we are here for enjoy”), we talked a lot about Buddhism and the values put forth by HH the Dalai Lama, by the spiritual teachings I follow (or aspire to follow), about so many things…one of the things that amazes me is how he speaks of the Chinese invasion and how he genuinely can put a positive light on it.
One aspect of this is that as a result of the invasion, the Dalai Lama has actually become much more accessible to Tibetans, especially those that are not from Lhasa, like himself. The Dalai Lama has been given a lot of international support to travel and give teachings all over the world, which may never have happened if Tibet was allowed to continue its existence in peace. As for Tashi himself, he was never given the chance to have any education in Tibet since he lived in a small village far from Lhasa, so escaping to India has given him a world of opportunity. He is literate in Tibetan and English now, and has come into contact with so many people, ideas, and his world is so much bigger than what it would have been if he was in Tibet in his village. This is just a glimpse into the comprehensive, compassionate view of the world which Tibetans, not just the monastics, embody through people like Tashi. Wow.
I spent some time teaching some origami to Tashi and he loved it. He spent the whole afternoon trying to wrap his head around the crane, and the sheer joy and satisfaction at finally getting it, was of course gleeful but the whole process was full of so much presence, involvement, and bliss. It’s the journey, not the destination. Thank you Tashi.
Another lovely dinner, this time with corn chapattis (Oh my goodness, think Mexican corn tortillas, I almost lost it…) and this is just another day in paradise.
Dharamsala to Bharmour, 10 June 2010
One week after I arrived in Himachal Pradesh, I was back on the road again. To be frank, Mcleod Ganj had its negatives, so much traffic; it somehow seems incongruous to think of the Dalai Lama in his temple and Tibetan monks in the road while there are full-on Indian style traffic jams – think incessant honking (or horning, they call it here). But so it is. There was also such a mix of energies, ranging from the serenity brought in by Tibetans, especially monks and nuns, all the way to Israelis who were there to smoke marijuana and chill out and have sex, and then the Kashmiri merchants, and I was ready to get out. Krishnan and I had already been discussing some possible trips away from Mcleod, and it seemed almost like a choiceless decision to go to Chamba Valley. Very little information is provided in the guidebooks about this region, and Krishnan was ready to dish out for transport to Chamba. I said if we were going to head out that way, I wanted to go all the way to Bharmour. Instinct. Thank goodness.
The team: the oddest combination of people ever to be seen in Chamba, perhaps. Krishnan, 49 year old half Indian half Chinese, British citizen, professor of literature in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has been at Amma’s ashram for the past year, is extremely well-read, extremely physically fit, and full of corny jokes. Tashi, 36 year old Tibetan monk who escaped his family, perhaps even more so than the Chinese, when he was 15 and came to India to join monastic life. Krishnan and Tashi met in an English class that Krishnan was volunteering at in Mcleod Ganj in November. Sara, a Mexican girl I met in Amritsar who had been teaching in Jaipur. And me, the half-Japanese half-Chinese, Indonesian born, American-raised, pretending-to-be-Brasilian who constantly gets thought to be Tibetan when I’m in this part of the world. Only adventure and constant laughter could have awaited us, no?
The road from Dharamsala to Bharmour…unearthly. Perhaps because I had no expectations whatsoever, it just blew me away. I assumed we would be seeing more of the same scenery as Dharamsala, namely pretty pine forest with the occasional snowcapped peak behind. Wrong I was. Terraced fields started very soon after we left Dharamsala, which sort of reminded me of the Inca landscape in Peru, except the pine forests just didn’t fit. And snowcapped mountains, so jagged and dramatic.
We arrived in Bharmour and found a place to stay for the night…
The team: the oddest combination of people ever to be seen in Chamba, perhaps. Krishnan, 49 year old half Indian half Chinese, British citizen, professor of literature in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has been at Amma’s ashram for the past year, is extremely well-read, extremely physically fit, and full of corny jokes. Tashi, 36 year old Tibetan monk who escaped his family, perhaps even more so than the Chinese, when he was 15 and came to India to join monastic life. Krishnan and Tashi met in an English class that Krishnan was volunteering at in Mcleod Ganj in November. Sara, a Mexican girl I met in Amritsar who had been teaching in Jaipur. And me, the half-Japanese half-Chinese, Indonesian born, American-raised, pretending-to-be-Brasilian who constantly gets thought to be Tibetan when I’m in this part of the world. Only adventure and constant laughter could have awaited us, no?
The road from Dharamsala to Bharmour…unearthly. Perhaps because I had no expectations whatsoever, it just blew me away. I assumed we would be seeing more of the same scenery as Dharamsala, namely pretty pine forest with the occasional snowcapped peak behind. Wrong I was. Terraced fields started very soon after we left Dharamsala, which sort of reminded me of the Inca landscape in Peru, except the pine forests just didn’t fit. And snowcapped mountains, so jagged and dramatic.
We arrived in Bharmour and found a place to stay for the night…
Monday, June 21, 2010
Karmapa and Norbulingka Institute, 8 June
The Karmapa lineage in Tibet currently is in the 17th incarnation – that is to say that it could be interpreted as older than the Dalai Lama’s lineage which is currently in the 14th incarnation.
I had never heard of the Karmapa or anything about him or the lineage, until Krishnan invited me to go to the public audience on Wednesday afternoon. So on a stunningly clear Wednesday afternoon, we took a rickshaw winding downhill through the backroads of Dharamsala and down a small alleyway we arrived. A structure framed by snowcapped peaks, the monastery is in immaculate condition and the central temple invites you magnetically to come see what it holds in store.
We registered with our passports and went to sit in the hall, which had maybe 300 people, a mix ranging from blond hippie types, Tibetan families, Buddhist pilgrims from all over Asia…typical for Dharamsala, I suppose. I sat down and started to meditate, and was instantly taken over by what I can best describe as electric shocks running all through my body, up my spine and spreading through my arms. The energy was so potent, strong, pure, and it felt so old. I don’t know how to explain. It didn’t inspire the type of bliss that I have experienced with Sadhguru. More closely, it inspired some giant thunderbolt exclamation mark and a simultaneous question mark. HUH?!
There was a flurry of movement as 3 or 4 monks came in, and arranged themselves in the front of the room. People scrambled up and got in line, which moved very quickly, offering the traditional white scarves (faux pas we didn’t have them), and then receiving a red thread from the Karmapa – who, I didn’t even know who he was because he didn’t distinguish himself from the others in any way on the physical level, honestly I could only guess who he was because he was the one in the middle with the red rope. And as quickly as it started, it was over. We had presumed there would be some sort of talk given – we wondered whether he would speak in English or Tibetan – but no such luck. So in the midst of this confusion and speed, we stuck around for awhile. I was stunned speechless. What the hell was that, and what did it mean? I found it very hard to speak for several hours.
Good thing we went to Norbulingka afterwards. This is a breathtaking, instantly calming, peaceful institution also located in Dharamsala. A cultural institution dedicated to preserving all aspects of Tibetan culture, they have workshops on woodcarving, textiles, and of course a gorgeous temple. All this is interwoven through GREEN foliage and water running everywhere…something so Japanese about the ambiance. I felt at home. Despite all the imperfections I see in Dharamsala and McLeod Ganj, and of course the whole Tibetan situation overall, I am so grateful that there is some hope for Tibetan culture to survive to some extent in this refuge.
I had never heard of the Karmapa or anything about him or the lineage, until Krishnan invited me to go to the public audience on Wednesday afternoon. So on a stunningly clear Wednesday afternoon, we took a rickshaw winding downhill through the backroads of Dharamsala and down a small alleyway we arrived. A structure framed by snowcapped peaks, the monastery is in immaculate condition and the central temple invites you magnetically to come see what it holds in store.
We registered with our passports and went to sit in the hall, which had maybe 300 people, a mix ranging from blond hippie types, Tibetan families, Buddhist pilgrims from all over Asia…typical for Dharamsala, I suppose. I sat down and started to meditate, and was instantly taken over by what I can best describe as electric shocks running all through my body, up my spine and spreading through my arms. The energy was so potent, strong, pure, and it felt so old. I don’t know how to explain. It didn’t inspire the type of bliss that I have experienced with Sadhguru. More closely, it inspired some giant thunderbolt exclamation mark and a simultaneous question mark. HUH?!
There was a flurry of movement as 3 or 4 monks came in, and arranged themselves in the front of the room. People scrambled up and got in line, which moved very quickly, offering the traditional white scarves (faux pas we didn’t have them), and then receiving a red thread from the Karmapa – who, I didn’t even know who he was because he didn’t distinguish himself from the others in any way on the physical level, honestly I could only guess who he was because he was the one in the middle with the red rope. And as quickly as it started, it was over. We had presumed there would be some sort of talk given – we wondered whether he would speak in English or Tibetan – but no such luck. So in the midst of this confusion and speed, we stuck around for awhile. I was stunned speechless. What the hell was that, and what did it mean? I found it very hard to speak for several hours.
Good thing we went to Norbulingka afterwards. This is a breathtaking, instantly calming, peaceful institution also located in Dharamsala. A cultural institution dedicated to preserving all aspects of Tibetan culture, they have workshops on woodcarving, textiles, and of course a gorgeous temple. All this is interwoven through GREEN foliage and water running everywhere…something so Japanese about the ambiance. I felt at home. Despite all the imperfections I see in Dharamsala and McLeod Ganj, and of course the whole Tibetan situation overall, I am so grateful that there is some hope for Tibetan culture to survive to some extent in this refuge.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Gu Chu Sum, 7-9 June
The next day the only thing I did was go to volunteer at Gu Chu Sum. Where to start with this? Tibet has been in my heart since I visited in 2004. Dharamsala has since then held some mythical place in my heart, knowing that it was the home of the Dalai Lama. The real blanket overview story is that Tibet was atrociously invaded by the Chinese government in 1959 and since then, at least 100,000 (a huge proportion considering the entire population is roughly 6 million) Tibetans have been killed, and hundreds of thousands more tortured as the Chinese forcefully take control of the country, in what can only be interpreted as greed, wanting control of precious natural resources, including rivers, minerals, and strategic location. Many thousands of Tibetans have come to Dharamsala, fleeing Tibet, and they have unthinkable stories of walking from Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, all the way to Nepal (from personal accounts I’ve heard the average journey time is 25-30 days of walking through the Himalayas, often times at night, sleeping during the day so as not to be seen), and then they still have to make it to India. This situation grows more complicated as Maoist troops are put in Nepal to prevent them from coming across.
So – Gu Chu Sum. The organization has a program which I helped out with, which takes former political prisoners and puts them through a one-year program in which they are given housing in the center, have intensive studies of English language/grammar, Tibetan language/grammar, computers, Tibetan history, and philosophy. I helped out with the English language portion of the program for the remaining days I was in Dharamsala, and I fell in love instantly and repeatedly with the participants.
My heart connection was with Zonkyi, a nun from Lhasa. I arrived with Sara, a Mexican girl I had met in Amritsar, and she beckoned us over, putting down two cushions for her. She launched shyly, yet eagerly, into her introduction talk, saying how she was involved in the one-year program, and that English was very difficult for her, especially grammar. More students arrived so Sara paired off with another one, but I stayed with Donkyi. She wound so skillfully between all her life stories, telling me of her fateful day at the Jokhang when she was involved in a 15 minute protest in 2001 which was cut short by Chinese troops who beat the nuns (and many civilians) in the street, and resulted in 3 years of imprisonment in Lhasa. The violence, suffering and injustice was interjected with stories of how she has little or no desire to ever again climb another mountain, of how the duties at the nunnery involved carrying things back and forth when their nunnery was being rebuilt, and it was so important to be first because then you could carry something big but light, and if you were late you would be stuck carrying the heavy things. And climbing up ladders with these heavy things, her facial expressions of sheer terror but always with a spark of humor and joyful playfulness.
She spoke of her fellow inmates in prison, in particular a Chinese woman who was falsely framed for stealing from the electronics company that she worked for. When the Chinese lady first arrived, the other inmates, all Tibetan nuns, thought that the Chinese lady turning away from them, refusing to acknowledge their presence, was due to her disgust and hatred for Tibetans. But then the next day they were able to start communicating with her and mutually comforting each other, and then a beautiful friendship formed. When the Chinese lady was released, she came regularly to the prison with her father, bringing food and visiting her Tibetan cellmates, now friends.
And then of course the journey from Lhasa to Nepal. It is something that breaks my heart to know that way too many people in the world know the feeling of not knowing whether you will make it to the other side, to leave everything behind in the sliver of a hope for something better, but no guarantee to survive the perilous path to get there. To be able to tell stories like this with humor, to inspire compassion and laughter simultaneously, is something that I find Tibetans do with great skill. Her walk took 27 days, there were 24 in her party, and 3 did not make it. There were two children, orphans, whom she still keeps in contact with. They are in school in Dehra Dun. She spoke of how heavy her bag was, because it was filled with food and books, and how as the journey went on, from exhaustion she was forced to abandon her precious Buddhist literature, and the food supplies dwindled.
If two people can connect in just two hours – if they are both willing and open-minded and hearted to allow it to happen – if we all did this every day, what would the world be like? This is precisely what the Dalai Lama teaches. Can we practice this? I struggle like hell, despite having experienced countless cases where it does happen for me...day by day, little bit at a time...
So – Gu Chu Sum. The organization has a program which I helped out with, which takes former political prisoners and puts them through a one-year program in which they are given housing in the center, have intensive studies of English language/grammar, Tibetan language/grammar, computers, Tibetan history, and philosophy. I helped out with the English language portion of the program for the remaining days I was in Dharamsala, and I fell in love instantly and repeatedly with the participants.
My heart connection was with Zonkyi, a nun from Lhasa. I arrived with Sara, a Mexican girl I had met in Amritsar, and she beckoned us over, putting down two cushions for her. She launched shyly, yet eagerly, into her introduction talk, saying how she was involved in the one-year program, and that English was very difficult for her, especially grammar. More students arrived so Sara paired off with another one, but I stayed with Donkyi. She wound so skillfully between all her life stories, telling me of her fateful day at the Jokhang when she was involved in a 15 minute protest in 2001 which was cut short by Chinese troops who beat the nuns (and many civilians) in the street, and resulted in 3 years of imprisonment in Lhasa. The violence, suffering and injustice was interjected with stories of how she has little or no desire to ever again climb another mountain, of how the duties at the nunnery involved carrying things back and forth when their nunnery was being rebuilt, and it was so important to be first because then you could carry something big but light, and if you were late you would be stuck carrying the heavy things. And climbing up ladders with these heavy things, her facial expressions of sheer terror but always with a spark of humor and joyful playfulness.
She spoke of her fellow inmates in prison, in particular a Chinese woman who was falsely framed for stealing from the electronics company that she worked for. When the Chinese lady first arrived, the other inmates, all Tibetan nuns, thought that the Chinese lady turning away from them, refusing to acknowledge their presence, was due to her disgust and hatred for Tibetans. But then the next day they were able to start communicating with her and mutually comforting each other, and then a beautiful friendship formed. When the Chinese lady was released, she came regularly to the prison with her father, bringing food and visiting her Tibetan cellmates, now friends.
And then of course the journey from Lhasa to Nepal. It is something that breaks my heart to know that way too many people in the world know the feeling of not knowing whether you will make it to the other side, to leave everything behind in the sliver of a hope for something better, but no guarantee to survive the perilous path to get there. To be able to tell stories like this with humor, to inspire compassion and laughter simultaneously, is something that I find Tibetans do with great skill. Her walk took 27 days, there were 24 in her party, and 3 did not make it. There were two children, orphans, whom she still keeps in contact with. They are in school in Dehra Dun. She spoke of how heavy her bag was, because it was filled with food and books, and how as the journey went on, from exhaustion she was forced to abandon her precious Buddhist literature, and the food supplies dwindled.
If two people can connect in just two hours – if they are both willing and open-minded and hearted to allow it to happen – if we all did this every day, what would the world be like? This is precisely what the Dalai Lama teaches. Can we practice this? I struggle like hell, despite having experienced countless cases where it does happen for me...day by day, little bit at a time...
Friday, June 18, 2010
Dharamsala; Triund, June 6
Triund. I first heard of Triund from the Ghosh’s in Delhi, when we spoke about Dharamsala. It’s the most popular one or two day walk from the area, and I headed that way with Krishnan on Sunday. We had hearty breakfasts at the Green Hotel, and off we went, spinach quiches packed up with us.
Uphill. Lots of it. Like 3 hours of it. But breathtaking views, along with confirming inspirational conversation, made it fly by. I am so grateful for Krishnan’s presence in my life. I really didn’t expect when we first met at Amma’s ashram in January that we would end up seeing a lot more of each other. What really sticks with me from the walk that day is how much I didn’t realize that what I said to him was really how I think, feel, know, right now. I found so many stories and quotes from Sadhguru coming out. Forced to speak about my past, highs and lows, amongst many other things made me really see things clearly. And I am so grateful to be exactly where I am right now in my life, in every way – physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. I am totally lost in a lot of ways, having just left career, the concept of home, and relationships – but I am having that settled feeling of knowing that I am exactly where I need to be. Thank you.
To be able to have the financial freedom, and not have responsibilities that bind me to a place, people, and things, is of indescribable blessing.
What also strikes me is how really, truly difficult it is to embody and practice the simplest concepts of spirituality. I really appreciate His Holiness the Dalai Lama for this, because the majority of his teachings are so simple they can be understood by a kindergartener. But the reality is that love and compassion really are that simple; it is hard to wake up every day joyfully, to pay more attention to the love and compassion within us than the incessant noise and negativity that the mind creates; if we can treat each sentient being as such and acknowledge the fundamental desire for happiness, and the end of suffering, that every being in this world has, we can grow exponentially. But it is oh-so-hard.
Sadhguru says so many things that drove me crazy the first time I heard them, more likely than not because I recognized the incontrovertible truth of them but didn’t want to admit them – if we really want to live, why do we say we only want to live to be 80, rather than 160 like the actual maximum lifespan of human beings? How can we claim to love God, some unknown being above, if we can’t love the person next to us? Would God make you/me/one perfect, and mess up on the rest? We see ourselves as perfect so all of creation must be so…there is so much more. I have not delved into Sadhguru’s works so much, perhaps because I recognize that the little I have been exposed to is more than enough to digest and try to have reflect in my life.
Anyway – we made it to Triund, rolling green meadows framed by snow-capped peaks behind - had amazing spinach quiche, and came right back. And then I got so sick.
I really don’t think I ate or drank anything my body couldn’t handle, so it was either sun poisoning or some sort of internal cleansing (Kali/Durga) for the next 24 hours – that horrible simultaneous vomiting and diarrhea…
Uphill. Lots of it. Like 3 hours of it. But breathtaking views, along with confirming inspirational conversation, made it fly by. I am so grateful for Krishnan’s presence in my life. I really didn’t expect when we first met at Amma’s ashram in January that we would end up seeing a lot more of each other. What really sticks with me from the walk that day is how much I didn’t realize that what I said to him was really how I think, feel, know, right now. I found so many stories and quotes from Sadhguru coming out. Forced to speak about my past, highs and lows, amongst many other things made me really see things clearly. And I am so grateful to be exactly where I am right now in my life, in every way – physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. I am totally lost in a lot of ways, having just left career, the concept of home, and relationships – but I am having that settled feeling of knowing that I am exactly where I need to be. Thank you.
To be able to have the financial freedom, and not have responsibilities that bind me to a place, people, and things, is of indescribable blessing.
What also strikes me is how really, truly difficult it is to embody and practice the simplest concepts of spirituality. I really appreciate His Holiness the Dalai Lama for this, because the majority of his teachings are so simple they can be understood by a kindergartener. But the reality is that love and compassion really are that simple; it is hard to wake up every day joyfully, to pay more attention to the love and compassion within us than the incessant noise and negativity that the mind creates; if we can treat each sentient being as such and acknowledge the fundamental desire for happiness, and the end of suffering, that every being in this world has, we can grow exponentially. But it is oh-so-hard.
Sadhguru says so many things that drove me crazy the first time I heard them, more likely than not because I recognized the incontrovertible truth of them but didn’t want to admit them – if we really want to live, why do we say we only want to live to be 80, rather than 160 like the actual maximum lifespan of human beings? How can we claim to love God, some unknown being above, if we can’t love the person next to us? Would God make you/me/one perfect, and mess up on the rest? We see ourselves as perfect so all of creation must be so…there is so much more. I have not delved into Sadhguru’s works so much, perhaps because I recognize that the little I have been exposed to is more than enough to digest and try to have reflect in my life.
Anyway – we made it to Triund, rolling green meadows framed by snow-capped peaks behind - had amazing spinach quiche, and came right back. And then I got so sick.
I really don’t think I ate or drank anything my body couldn’t handle, so it was either sun poisoning or some sort of internal cleansing (Kali/Durga) for the next 24 hours – that horrible simultaneous vomiting and diarrhea…
Amritsar to Dharamsala, June 2 2010
Actually all wasn’t golden at the temple. I lost my phone on June 1st…I still don’t know and will never know how exactly. The most likely thing happening is that it fell out of my pocket on my way to or from the bathroom…anyway, the response of the guards and the other pilgrims was overwhelming. The temple has dozens (could be hundreds) of guards, most of whom are wearing deep blue turbans and white robes – and a good portion of them carry around huge spears, or giant swords worn at the waist. Most speak broken English but are somehow hilarious and their kindness transcends language barriers. It took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to say thank you (Shukriya) in Punjabi. Anyway, I communicated about my phone being lost, they frantically called the number, and we set out in a search party of about 10 people for the 100 meters between the dorm and the bathroom. To no avail, but they kept on asking me and calling my number with me over the next 12 hours.
I woke up the next morning, dazed, still worried about the phone…it was my birthday!
And then Thomas appeared. And everything changed. I was already in a beautiful head and heartspace, and then what I really understand as Bhava Spandana, BSP, happened with him. Basically, the concept of BSP is that when two things in nature are vibrating at exactly the same frequency, it’s not 1+1=2, but it’s an exponential explosion. And that’s what this lanky, absurdly gorgeous Brasilian man and I experienced this past 4 days together.
It’s difficult to put into words…I woke up, was sitting on the bed when he comes in, asks me if I know about buses to Dharamsala, and I tell him that I am taking the bus at 12:20 and I have a rickshaw getting me at 11:30, and that he is welcome to join me. Then I ask him where he’s from, he says Brasil, and we pretty much leave it at that. We go our separate ways and meet back. When I came back to pack and shower, he was speaking with an English guy and went to buy bandages for his sprained ankle. Turns out they’re complete strangers but he was helping this guy out. This seems to be an insignificant but huge detail to me…I don’t know how to write about Thomas because there is no way I can do justice to the essence of his being…we get on the bus to Dharamsala, he’s got sparkles (ahh as purpurinas) all over his hair and face that he has no clue how they got there…and so this 7 hour bus ride through insane traffic jams on country roads, bumpy butts, and dry heat as we started the ascent into the pine forests that is Dharamsala, somehow transformed into a dissolving of myself.
Litchis in the bus, sticky hands, pouring water onto a napkin – peeling litchis for me so I didn’t have to get sticky…the cheesiest jokes – Urublue, jacared, yellowphant…buying coconut cookies, complaining that they’re artificial and eating the whole pack…trying to figure out whether the estimated 7 hours travel time already accounted for the major traffic jams on tiny country roads…the whole day I kept talking about mangoes and I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to find mangoes in Dharamsala…at the end of the day I brought up star signs and he is a Scorpio, and I told him I’m Gemini, actually it was my birthday that day.
We arrived in Mcleod Ganj, Krishnan came to find us, and we made our way to Hunted Hill Hotel. A lovely birthday dinner and birthday dessert, and that was that. The next day we had made plans to go on a hike to a waterfall that everyone talks about, but it rained like crazy in the early morning so that got cancelled. The next 2.5 days passed in a haze, where we seemed to be doing so much but really nothing at all. Just being, and enjoying each other’s company. But really intensely. As S puts it, “intense but relaxed, one hundred percent involvement...” We covered every topic imaginable from vegetarianism and raw food to ethnic genocide in Botswana to tofu types in Japan to dental procedures…
The day after we arrived, we moved to Bhagsu, which is somewhat of a nightmare for me (at the time I didn’t know it would be that way)…a hippie traveler/Israeli enclave…it’s a fine (or not so fine) line between a chilled-out, laid-back place that is welcoming to travelers, and then there is way over the top, no resemblance whatsoever to the original culture(s) that exist there, and a rambling, thoughtless development that is simply put, garish. This area isn’t the worst I’ve ever seen no doubt, but it really wasn’t the Shangri-La I was expecting. But put the negativity aside because as I was swept off my feet in Tibet in 2004, I have learned that anywhere where anything Tibetan by association exists, has indescribable beauty and bliss.
Anyway, on the 3rd we were looking for the Dalai Lama’s temple, got completely lost, and were helped by this American woman nun who has been in Dharamsala for 9 years now. A hilarious personal tour as she grumbled about the false information that the Indian guides give, she told Thomas not to point at deities and offerings, and then he captured her on camera pointing at a cat (but so sweet, she stopped to chat with every single animal we encountered on the way to the temple…)
More meandering in the afternoon and finally around sunset we arrived in Bhagsu, looking for the nameless guesthouse where Manuela’s friend/boyfriend was staying. That proved to be a humorous endeavor, and finally we were all settled in.
Throughout the day he had been going in and out of little food shops and I had no idea what he was buying – I asked a few times and he said “vou fazer um experimento” – I’m going to do an experiment…so we go to dinner, and then – agh! My teeth fell out! Eating pizza…why am I not surprised? ; ) so anyway, I’m mortified, realize that the support on my left side of the bridge has totally broken off, am panicking thinking maybe I have to go to Delhi to get this taken care of, and we decide to go home. At which point Thomas comes out from behind the restaurant counter, candle lit on a cake! I was so shocked. I had zero concept whatsoever that this was happening – from his ingredient shopping I thought he might be making something but the last thing I was expecting was a raw coconut mango birthday cake! I melted. Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you.
The next day was spent running around to and from the dentist for me, and for Thomas much of it was occupied helping an elderly man. Well, let me recount about the dentist. India is so funny; going into Dr. Tandon’s Dental Clinic you don’t really expect anything horrible or fancy...in true Indian fashion, the walls are cracked, paint is chipped, bad lighting...the usual. But then he opens up the cupboards and there are these shiny brand new boxes of dental tools and equipment, the majority of which I deduce are made in Germany…so that was that. A few x-rays and a quick procedure (interrupted by an electricity cut, yup, we’re in India) and my teeth were fully restored! For 1850 Rupees! (Roughly 40USD) While I was dealing with my oral drama, Thomas was stopped in the street by an elderly American man who had great trouble just walking. What a heart of gold. He spent over 2 hours while I was running back and forth speaking to this man, about healing and healers all over the world, helping him into a café and literally spoon-feeding him. It was heavy for him in many ways and I hate to sound shallow but my dental stuff was quite draining for me, so after our Thai green curry and somewhat Enchilada-y lunch I headed back alone to Bhagsu to decompress. Thomas was going to go shopping – side note – I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a shopper as indecisive and meticulous as this boy…he was looking for Tibetan singing bowls, it was a good practice for me to accompany him and it was also a nice way for me to interact with shopkeepers without any pressure of buying anything.
So I made it back to Bhagsu, and almost immediately after I got back and got ready to head out to a Classical Indian Music concert, this enormous thunderstorm started, with purple lightning lighting up the whole sky, illuminating the mountains. So I stayed in, and wondered how on earth Thomas was going to make it back in one piece. He came in a few hours later, positively dripping on the floor, and after he got in dry clothes we decided to go eat despite the fact that neither of us were hungry.
Hello to the King. Apparently Hello to the Queen is a common and hugely popular dessert in India – I’d never heard of it! Sliced bananas, Bhagsu cake (OH MY GOD! A thick buttery shortbready crust, a layer of thick caramel just like dulce de leche in Argentina, and dark chocolate on top…insanity), vanilla ice cream, and all sorts of other delectable delights…mmm. Afterwards, we poked around to find a tool to play the Tibetan singing bowls, and back we went. These instruments are so powerful. The vibration they create goes so deep within you, reverberating and unquestionably healing you. Sort of reminds me of the electric charge tools that acupuncturists use. So off I went into bliss-land, and next thing I knew it was sunrise.
Thomas’s last day in Bhagsu. It felt like we had just met, but spent lifetimes together. We finally sucked it up and made it out to the waterfall – totally worth the effort. The trail there is forested, winding in and out of views of the surrounding hills, and when you reach the destination, you are rewarded with stunning green water backed by high limestone cliffs. Lovely. We laid around on rocks, each made painfully shocked faces as we jumped into the instantly numbing water, ate mangoes…bliss. We made it back and headed for lunch at the vegetarian Japanese restaurant which supports Gu Chu Sum, a NGO that supports former political prisoners from Tibet. Our lovely Tibetan waitress used the menu to copy lemon soda onto her pad of paper, adorably self-conscious as she realized I was watching her do it. The focus, intensity, and love with which she wrote out those simple letters was so moving. Stomachs full of agedashi tofu and Japanese style potato salad, warm from miso soup (first Japanese meal since I left Japan 1 month ago), we headed slowly through shops back up towards Bhagsu. How to describe the feeling as we parted ways at the bus terminal? First and foremost, it was an extremely settled, stable, firm grounding. It’s difficult to explain – but it felt like it was time and the time that we had been blessed to share was so auspicious and I had no doubt that each of us was so grateful for the past days together. As is always the case when we part ways, we never really know if we will see each other again. But in this case, I had this certainty that we would meet again, or rather, that we weren’t even separating because we will carry each other within us forever.
Obrigada por tudo querido, desde o fundo do coracao…
I woke up the next morning, dazed, still worried about the phone…it was my birthday!
And then Thomas appeared. And everything changed. I was already in a beautiful head and heartspace, and then what I really understand as Bhava Spandana, BSP, happened with him. Basically, the concept of BSP is that when two things in nature are vibrating at exactly the same frequency, it’s not 1+1=2, but it’s an exponential explosion. And that’s what this lanky, absurdly gorgeous Brasilian man and I experienced this past 4 days together.
It’s difficult to put into words…I woke up, was sitting on the bed when he comes in, asks me if I know about buses to Dharamsala, and I tell him that I am taking the bus at 12:20 and I have a rickshaw getting me at 11:30, and that he is welcome to join me. Then I ask him where he’s from, he says Brasil, and we pretty much leave it at that. We go our separate ways and meet back. When I came back to pack and shower, he was speaking with an English guy and went to buy bandages for his sprained ankle. Turns out they’re complete strangers but he was helping this guy out. This seems to be an insignificant but huge detail to me…I don’t know how to write about Thomas because there is no way I can do justice to the essence of his being…we get on the bus to Dharamsala, he’s got sparkles (ahh as purpurinas) all over his hair and face that he has no clue how they got there…and so this 7 hour bus ride through insane traffic jams on country roads, bumpy butts, and dry heat as we started the ascent into the pine forests that is Dharamsala, somehow transformed into a dissolving of myself.
Litchis in the bus, sticky hands, pouring water onto a napkin – peeling litchis for me so I didn’t have to get sticky…the cheesiest jokes – Urublue, jacared, yellowphant…buying coconut cookies, complaining that they’re artificial and eating the whole pack…trying to figure out whether the estimated 7 hours travel time already accounted for the major traffic jams on tiny country roads…the whole day I kept talking about mangoes and I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to find mangoes in Dharamsala…at the end of the day I brought up star signs and he is a Scorpio, and I told him I’m Gemini, actually it was my birthday that day.
We arrived in Mcleod Ganj, Krishnan came to find us, and we made our way to Hunted Hill Hotel. A lovely birthday dinner and birthday dessert, and that was that. The next day we had made plans to go on a hike to a waterfall that everyone talks about, but it rained like crazy in the early morning so that got cancelled. The next 2.5 days passed in a haze, where we seemed to be doing so much but really nothing at all. Just being, and enjoying each other’s company. But really intensely. As S puts it, “intense but relaxed, one hundred percent involvement...” We covered every topic imaginable from vegetarianism and raw food to ethnic genocide in Botswana to tofu types in Japan to dental procedures…
The day after we arrived, we moved to Bhagsu, which is somewhat of a nightmare for me (at the time I didn’t know it would be that way)…a hippie traveler/Israeli enclave…it’s a fine (or not so fine) line between a chilled-out, laid-back place that is welcoming to travelers, and then there is way over the top, no resemblance whatsoever to the original culture(s) that exist there, and a rambling, thoughtless development that is simply put, garish. This area isn’t the worst I’ve ever seen no doubt, but it really wasn’t the Shangri-La I was expecting. But put the negativity aside because as I was swept off my feet in Tibet in 2004, I have learned that anywhere where anything Tibetan by association exists, has indescribable beauty and bliss.
Anyway, on the 3rd we were looking for the Dalai Lama’s temple, got completely lost, and were helped by this American woman nun who has been in Dharamsala for 9 years now. A hilarious personal tour as she grumbled about the false information that the Indian guides give, she told Thomas not to point at deities and offerings, and then he captured her on camera pointing at a cat (but so sweet, she stopped to chat with every single animal we encountered on the way to the temple…)
More meandering in the afternoon and finally around sunset we arrived in Bhagsu, looking for the nameless guesthouse where Manuela’s friend/boyfriend was staying. That proved to be a humorous endeavor, and finally we were all settled in.
Throughout the day he had been going in and out of little food shops and I had no idea what he was buying – I asked a few times and he said “vou fazer um experimento” – I’m going to do an experiment…so we go to dinner, and then – agh! My teeth fell out! Eating pizza…why am I not surprised? ; ) so anyway, I’m mortified, realize that the support on my left side of the bridge has totally broken off, am panicking thinking maybe I have to go to Delhi to get this taken care of, and we decide to go home. At which point Thomas comes out from behind the restaurant counter, candle lit on a cake! I was so shocked. I had zero concept whatsoever that this was happening – from his ingredient shopping I thought he might be making something but the last thing I was expecting was a raw coconut mango birthday cake! I melted. Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you.
The next day was spent running around to and from the dentist for me, and for Thomas much of it was occupied helping an elderly man. Well, let me recount about the dentist. India is so funny; going into Dr. Tandon’s Dental Clinic you don’t really expect anything horrible or fancy...in true Indian fashion, the walls are cracked, paint is chipped, bad lighting...the usual. But then he opens up the cupboards and there are these shiny brand new boxes of dental tools and equipment, the majority of which I deduce are made in Germany…so that was that. A few x-rays and a quick procedure (interrupted by an electricity cut, yup, we’re in India) and my teeth were fully restored! For 1850 Rupees! (Roughly 40USD) While I was dealing with my oral drama, Thomas was stopped in the street by an elderly American man who had great trouble just walking. What a heart of gold. He spent over 2 hours while I was running back and forth speaking to this man, about healing and healers all over the world, helping him into a café and literally spoon-feeding him. It was heavy for him in many ways and I hate to sound shallow but my dental stuff was quite draining for me, so after our Thai green curry and somewhat Enchilada-y lunch I headed back alone to Bhagsu to decompress. Thomas was going to go shopping – side note – I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a shopper as indecisive and meticulous as this boy…he was looking for Tibetan singing bowls, it was a good practice for me to accompany him and it was also a nice way for me to interact with shopkeepers without any pressure of buying anything.
So I made it back to Bhagsu, and almost immediately after I got back and got ready to head out to a Classical Indian Music concert, this enormous thunderstorm started, with purple lightning lighting up the whole sky, illuminating the mountains. So I stayed in, and wondered how on earth Thomas was going to make it back in one piece. He came in a few hours later, positively dripping on the floor, and after he got in dry clothes we decided to go eat despite the fact that neither of us were hungry.
Hello to the King. Apparently Hello to the Queen is a common and hugely popular dessert in India – I’d never heard of it! Sliced bananas, Bhagsu cake (OH MY GOD! A thick buttery shortbready crust, a layer of thick caramel just like dulce de leche in Argentina, and dark chocolate on top…insanity), vanilla ice cream, and all sorts of other delectable delights…mmm. Afterwards, we poked around to find a tool to play the Tibetan singing bowls, and back we went. These instruments are so powerful. The vibration they create goes so deep within you, reverberating and unquestionably healing you. Sort of reminds me of the electric charge tools that acupuncturists use. So off I went into bliss-land, and next thing I knew it was sunrise.
Thomas’s last day in Bhagsu. It felt like we had just met, but spent lifetimes together. We finally sucked it up and made it out to the waterfall – totally worth the effort. The trail there is forested, winding in and out of views of the surrounding hills, and when you reach the destination, you are rewarded with stunning green water backed by high limestone cliffs. Lovely. We laid around on rocks, each made painfully shocked faces as we jumped into the instantly numbing water, ate mangoes…bliss. We made it back and headed for lunch at the vegetarian Japanese restaurant which supports Gu Chu Sum, a NGO that supports former political prisoners from Tibet. Our lovely Tibetan waitress used the menu to copy lemon soda onto her pad of paper, adorably self-conscious as she realized I was watching her do it. The focus, intensity, and love with which she wrote out those simple letters was so moving. Stomachs full of agedashi tofu and Japanese style potato salad, warm from miso soup (first Japanese meal since I left Japan 1 month ago), we headed slowly through shops back up towards Bhagsu. How to describe the feeling as we parted ways at the bus terminal? First and foremost, it was an extremely settled, stable, firm grounding. It’s difficult to explain – but it felt like it was time and the time that we had been blessed to share was so auspicious and I had no doubt that each of us was so grateful for the past days together. As is always the case when we part ways, we never really know if we will see each other again. But in this case, I had this certainty that we would meet again, or rather, that we weren’t even separating because we will carry each other within us forever.
Obrigada por tudo querido, desde o fundo do coracao…
Monday, June 14, 2010
Delhi to Amritsar, May 29 to June 2, 2010
I did BSP (Bhava Spandana, an advanced program at Isha Yoga Centre near Coimbatore, India) and it was intense and deep and I think that it will only become apparent in the coming weeks how much it has affected me…I flew back up to Delhi and stayed with Iona, which was a gift – one of those instant friendships – and our Saturday night was spent dancing frenetically, completely sober and in pure ecstasy, to reggae DJs (wow, how far can you get from an ashram where you can’t show any skin? Haha) – and eating yummy street delights. On Sunday we lazed and in the evening I headed to the Ghosh house. I love them…this totally liberal progressive Bengali family…so spent a few days in their lovely home that really feels like home, catching up and regrouping before the next leg of my journey…
On Tuesday morning I headed on the Shatabdi express, considered one of India’s best trains, and went to Amritsar. Amritsar is home to the Golden Temple, considered the holiest pilgrimage site for Sikhs. In January I travelled with lovely Darlene for a bit – Canadian girl – in Kerala – and it really stuck with me that she said even though she didn’t consider herself spiritual or energetically sensitive, the Golden Temple for her was a very powerful place. I also did really want to go, because of the Sikh association with Kundalini Yoga (long topic, perhaps another day…) but anyway, there I was. My 20 hours at the Golden Temple hit me. Hard. In the best way possible.
What does religion mean in the modern context? Unfortunately, from what I see and my personal experience, it is often completely the polar opposite of what it sets out to be – speaking of generosity, love, and devotion, but there is more often than not an overtone (or undertone) of superiority, a mentality of you’re either with us or against us, and often obscene amounts of money going in and vagueness regarding where the money goes. Well, the Golden Temple threw all that out the window for me. Before I go into it, let’s put it in the correct context of contemporary India (I apologize in advance for my limited knowledge and experience of India, and if I am making offensive statements here) – what I mean to say is, India isn’t usually an easy place to be. It’s not easy to find things offered for free (this is speaking about public availability, not by any means referring to the overwhelming hospitality and generosity I have had offered to me by many individuals during my journeys here). The Golden Temple has free accommodation – yes, free – donations accepted – for visitors. I arrived and all the beds were already taken, but we were able to communicate that since I was only staying a night I would be more than happy to just put a sheet on the floor.
The place is vibrating, pulsating, with a strong energy – almost like the workings of some sort of factory or ant farm or something…constant buzzing…pilgrims come and it’s 24 hours around the clock activity as they sleep for a few short hours. The bhajans, devotional songs, are broadcast throughout the entire temple grounds…and what really gets me about the Golden Temple, and if I’m not mistaken on this hunch, Sikhs in general, is this complete acceptance of others and their paths, whatever that may mean.
And I know I won’t be surprising anyone referring to the food…but this is really where the temple hit me. Langar is a Sikh term for communal meals that are given for free to anybody – again, regardless of caste or creed – and the Golden Temple has food available 24 hours a day – 24 hours a day, yes – for free. It’s said that they serve 70,000 to 80,000 people a day. Everything in this establishment is done by volunteers, and all funding is by donation. The dining halls are huge, and people line up in rows, seated on the floor as volunteers whiz by piling things on your metal thali plate.
I was invited by some young boys to check out the kitchen facilities which was such an amazing experience. They have a chapatti machine that makes 3,000 chapattis per hour. Then they have about 50 people handmaking chapattis round the clock. An estimated 200,000 chapattis a day are consumed. The pots of curry are the size of small swimming pools…the storeroom houses thousands of kilos of pulses, rice, and spices…incredible.
So my 20 hours at the Golden Temple made me rejuvenated, awe-inspired, and ready to go on to the next adventure!
On Tuesday morning I headed on the Shatabdi express, considered one of India’s best trains, and went to Amritsar. Amritsar is home to the Golden Temple, considered the holiest pilgrimage site for Sikhs. In January I travelled with lovely Darlene for a bit – Canadian girl – in Kerala – and it really stuck with me that she said even though she didn’t consider herself spiritual or energetically sensitive, the Golden Temple for her was a very powerful place. I also did really want to go, because of the Sikh association with Kundalini Yoga (long topic, perhaps another day…) but anyway, there I was. My 20 hours at the Golden Temple hit me. Hard. In the best way possible.
What does religion mean in the modern context? Unfortunately, from what I see and my personal experience, it is often completely the polar opposite of what it sets out to be – speaking of generosity, love, and devotion, but there is more often than not an overtone (or undertone) of superiority, a mentality of you’re either with us or against us, and often obscene amounts of money going in and vagueness regarding where the money goes. Well, the Golden Temple threw all that out the window for me. Before I go into it, let’s put it in the correct context of contemporary India (I apologize in advance for my limited knowledge and experience of India, and if I am making offensive statements here) – what I mean to say is, India isn’t usually an easy place to be. It’s not easy to find things offered for free (this is speaking about public availability, not by any means referring to the overwhelming hospitality and generosity I have had offered to me by many individuals during my journeys here). The Golden Temple has free accommodation – yes, free – donations accepted – for visitors. I arrived and all the beds were already taken, but we were able to communicate that since I was only staying a night I would be more than happy to just put a sheet on the floor.
The place is vibrating, pulsating, with a strong energy – almost like the workings of some sort of factory or ant farm or something…constant buzzing…pilgrims come and it’s 24 hours around the clock activity as they sleep for a few short hours. The bhajans, devotional songs, are broadcast throughout the entire temple grounds…and what really gets me about the Golden Temple, and if I’m not mistaken on this hunch, Sikhs in general, is this complete acceptance of others and their paths, whatever that may mean.
And I know I won’t be surprising anyone referring to the food…but this is really where the temple hit me. Langar is a Sikh term for communal meals that are given for free to anybody – again, regardless of caste or creed – and the Golden Temple has food available 24 hours a day – 24 hours a day, yes – for free. It’s said that they serve 70,000 to 80,000 people a day. Everything in this establishment is done by volunteers, and all funding is by donation. The dining halls are huge, and people line up in rows, seated on the floor as volunteers whiz by piling things on your metal thali plate.
I was invited by some young boys to check out the kitchen facilities which was such an amazing experience. They have a chapatti machine that makes 3,000 chapattis per hour. Then they have about 50 people handmaking chapattis round the clock. An estimated 200,000 chapattis a day are consumed. The pots of curry are the size of small swimming pools…the storeroom houses thousands of kilos of pulses, rice, and spices…incredible.
So my 20 hours at the Golden Temple made me rejuvenated, awe-inspired, and ready to go on to the next adventure!
Kerala, May 2010
How to describe the past week? How to put Kerala in words? It is the wealthiest state in India, with a history of communism. The people here (in my experience) are dignified, some of the darkest in India, the women are known for their meticulous care of their hair with coconut oil and their robust bellies…the men for the most part still wear longyis……scenically, it is a shockingly green landscape, with coconut trees towering over rice fields, cows with healthy shiny coats lazing around in the fields…walk through any village and it seems that every plant growing in the roadside gardens has a purpose…black pepper, papaya, coconut, guava, tulsi, ginger…and it is definitely the place that I have been to with the most amazing coconuts, and they are used for just about everything imaginable: coconut oil for cooking, hair oil, body lotion, coconut water for drinking, leaves for making crafts…the smell of coconuts wafts in numerous times daily, its presence dominating Keralan cuisine (a great thing for me!) After Shoonya at Isha, I decided that instead of staying at the ashram for the week between Shoonya and BSP, I wanted to leave to get a little headspace…and I think it was a good decision. I had been wanting to get back in touch with Narayanan since I left Tiruvalla in January, and so I called and he instantly said I could come anytime. So I arrived on the 18th at 9am at Thiruvalla, and he had to go to a different village that day to teach yoga so I was left in the loving hands of his family, whom I couldn’t really communicate with but that didn’t seem to be a problem. In Kerala, and definitely at his home, it seems that time stops for me. We spent the next two days built around our yoga sessions at 7am and 4pm, he and his family showed me all sorts of Keralan tricks in the kitchen, from the coconut grating device to all the different spices and oils. We visited his Ayurvedic doctor friend who is a major Amma devotee…the neighbors took great interest, the lovely 4 children who sat on the neighboring rooftops to partake in our yoga sessions, laughing delightedly at every movement and antic…I took a 36 hour break to go to Amma’s ashram, and the morning of the 20th Narayanan took me to the bus station and waited with me in the rain until I got a bus to Kayamkulam…leading up to it, I kept asking how much I should pay for the yoga classes and my stay at his house and he kept saying he would tell me when it was time. And he threw me on the bus and wouldn’t accept any money…
It was a great idea to spend some time at Amma’s again, get an energy recharge you could call it…I view it as sort of a love and heart energy recharge and boost, and a foolproof way to have insightful conversations with likeminded people. Didn’t fail this time –met Chloe from Aix-en-Provence and we had many great chats and laughs over Amma’s pumpkin bread, butter jam cookies, and ginger oatmeal delights (!! Why is it that Amma’s and Sadhguru’s ashrams have some of the tastiest food in India?! Lure me into spirituality yes!) Also great to reconnect with Krishnan who I’ll spend some time with in Dharamshala in the coming weeks.
I went back to Narayanan’s place after visiting Amma’s, since it felt right. So two more days of the yoga, wandering around the lush green fields near his house, drinking tender coconut water…amazing. Gayathri, the 10 year old granddaughter constantly appearing with smudged Kajal, a very smeary sticky black makeup made from ashes if I understood correctly – a big fan of origami. Tangamani, the elegant wise grandmother, always with a content calm smile. Everyone trying to feed me something every two hours. Narayanan’s childlike joy as he tried to use chopsticks (72 years old and he’d never seen them in real life before).
Also, it was a great opportunity to let the recent experiences of finishing up Japan and going directly to Shoonya sink in.
It was a great idea to spend some time at Amma’s again, get an energy recharge you could call it…I view it as sort of a love and heart energy recharge and boost, and a foolproof way to have insightful conversations with likeminded people. Didn’t fail this time –met Chloe from Aix-en-Provence and we had many great chats and laughs over Amma’s pumpkin bread, butter jam cookies, and ginger oatmeal delights (!! Why is it that Amma’s and Sadhguru’s ashrams have some of the tastiest food in India?! Lure me into spirituality yes!) Also great to reconnect with Krishnan who I’ll spend some time with in Dharamshala in the coming weeks.
I went back to Narayanan’s place after visiting Amma’s, since it felt right. So two more days of the yoga, wandering around the lush green fields near his house, drinking tender coconut water…amazing. Gayathri, the 10 year old granddaughter constantly appearing with smudged Kajal, a very smeary sticky black makeup made from ashes if I understood correctly – a big fan of origami. Tangamani, the elegant wise grandmother, always with a content calm smile. Everyone trying to feed me something every two hours. Narayanan’s childlike joy as he tried to use chopsticks (72 years old and he’d never seen them in real life before).
Also, it was a great opportunity to let the recent experiences of finishing up Japan and going directly to Shoonya sink in.
Kochin to Thiruvalla - and Kerala (Written January 2010, I know I'm so late...)
January 1, 2010. Soni came at 10am to get me from the hotel he had arranged for me. Not quite sure what exactly I was expecting, but Soni certainly wasn’t it. I was introduced by my father to Sajan, Soni’s brother, in New York. Sajan is a slim, very smart looking, glasses-wearing, economist type guy. Soni is a bit rounder ; ) bursting with laughter and from the short time I was with him, enjoys life to the fullest. We went on a whirlwind tour of Fort Cochin and in the evening I got on a train to Thiruvalla.
I was registered to do a one month Hatha Yoga Teacher Training Course at Tulasidalam Ashram in Thelliyoor, near Thiruvalla, Kerala. This is a tiny village in the middle of a magical jungle; it felt like a mystical place that I could call home. I came across the program when I was in Delhi, searching like crazy for a program and this jumped out at me. I felt really good about it when I signed up. As the days went on, however, I felt very strongly that I was not going to stay the whole month there. I didn’t really know what I was looking for, and what I was getting from the program. I had emailed a few times asking what would happen in terms of payment if I forfeited the program and had gotten no response. My last days in Goa, I felt really good to be with Tamara and Dorian, so had considered not going. But I felt like I had to go.
So, I went. There were two other students – two women from Luxembourg in their 40’s. initial reaction was oh my god I’m going to be stuck with them in the same room as them, in the same intense classes all day as them?! I mean, it’s eating, drinking, sleeping, learning, all with the same people. I felt initially very good with the teacher.
About two days into it, I was overswept by a wave of confusion, irritation, and frustration. My mind was telling me it was my co-students. So I separated myself, did a day of silence, and tried to let my inner voice tell me what was going on. It turns out, the woman running the course was really not the guru I was looking for. We may be able to twist our bodies into imaginative postures, and we may be able to eloquently speak about Patanjali and the Bhagavad Gita, but unless we live yoga, embody it, it is meaningless. That is the lesson I (re)learned at Tulasidalam. This was intensified by the presence of our asana workshop teacher, Narayana. This man, 70 years old, who has been practicing Hatha Yoga for 57 years, is pure embodiment of compassion, joy, and stillness. He walks in the room and you feel it. He leaves the room and his essence is still there. He doesn’t talk about philosophy, he seems to have a simple conversation with you, but when it ends, you realize you’ve learnt about Keralan politics, environment, nutrition, which of course can be related to the whole world, and you realize, this is yoga. Yoga means union.
Our teacher is a brilliant lecturer, very very intellectual, and quite simply put, I’ve never had anybody lecture as well as she does regarding the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. But she doesn’t live it. Simple things we spoke of jumped out at all 3 students in terms of seva, responsibility, love, compassion. And so I decided to go.
The 2 days before I left were really magical; the 3 of us just really gelled and spent beautiful days discussing, experiencing, feeling, and it really seemed that the universe was opening up to us and we were entering a new dimension. Yes, I know, some people reading this are now going to think I’ve gone off the deep end and have been brainwashed or lost my mind or something. But it is true. We took Apu, the lovely dog for many walks – he is normally encaged the whole day – and all the villagers were just coming out to connect. Animals followed us around – things were vibrating with a different frequency (actually we were more attuned to the real frequency of things perhaps).
The day I left, the teacher disappeared and didn’t come back. I spoke to Narayana and asked him if he could be my teacher if I came back to Kerala, he agreed, and all the blocks and doors that had been put in by our teacher released and a flood came forward. The ashram has the most beautiful staff, the secretary and the cook. They came with me to my rickshaw, everyone was crying…I cant put this in words. But it felt like the right decision, and although I struggled a lot that week, I learned a tremendous amount and it was clear that I had to be there, and it was also part of the big picture that I leave early.
When I was contemplating my departure, I remembered that isha foundation near Coimbatore was doing Inner Engineering Programs Jan 7-10 and 14-17. I called one day when we were outside the ashram and there were two spots left for the program from Jan 14-17. I registered. I got in touch with Darlene, the lovely Canadian I had met in Udaipur, and she was headed to Kerala. We agreed to meet for the houseboat in Alleppey. It gave me 3 nights free. I had planned on going to Amma’s ashram at some point during my stay in India, so it made sense to go there from the yoga course I was abandoning. A place where I could just put my stuff down, and hopefully fall into some sort of schedule structure.
So I left, sobbing, and finally got on a bus to Kayamkulam, then a rickshaw to the ashram in Amritapuri. Who is Amma? Amma means mother in India, and well, that’s who she is. She is widely considered a saint, and she truly deserves the title. I won’t go into it, but go to www.amma.org and you should be convinced pretty quickly. Her darshan, or blessing, is to give hugs and over the past 3 decades she has given more than 30 million hugs. And contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to humanitarian efforts in India and beyond. The ashram is quite big, with about 3000 permanent residents, supposedly. For 150 rupees a day, which is roughly 3 US dollars, you get a shared dorm room and 3 Indian meals and 2 chais. If you prefer, there is an Indian canteen, Western canteen, and a café with ridiculously delicious baked goods, pizza, veggie burgers etc. I’ll be perfectly honest, I didn’t do all that much meditating, I just explored the buzz of the place. Hundreds of people from all over the world and all walks of life were at the ashram. I spoke to dozens of people every day about their experiences with Amma (or not, since many had never met her but came for a variety of reasons – like myself). I went to a harmonium class that resonated so deeply within me, I would really like to pursue that. A harmonium is similar to a piano in that the notes and the keyboard are the same, but you play it only with your right hand ,using your left hand to pump air into the instrument like an accordion. It’s a very powerful, moving instrument.
Key characters during my stay at Amma’s place – in no particular order…
Heidi from Toronto, on some sort of ashram/guru/yoga search in India, we connected a lot on hatha/vinyasa yoga teachers in the west (and kirtan/chanting!)
Joe from Rio de Janeiro who has spent the past 2 years travelling, and more than 7 months at the ashram in the past 3 years.
Visnu (spiritual name) from Reunion who has spent 6 months annually for the past 3 years at the ashram.
Renee from Haiti living in DC who has never met Amma but in India for some spiritual path.
Virginie from France, living in Canada and also in India to try to figure out what next to do with her life.
Krishnan, half Indian half Chinese, living in Santa Fe and taken a year off to stay at the ashram.
I’m not going into their stories and personalities, it’s just an effort to show how global the place is.
4 blissful days at the ashram…and off I was to Alleppey to meet Darlene. It was great to see a familiar face, and Darlene had also picked up Marie, a German girl, and the plan was to go on a houseboat, the Kerala must-do. They had met Praveen Das who had a variety of boats, and my oh my was he quite the personality. A great salesman, he won the ladies over and we booked an overnight trip on the boat. The rest of the day was spent searching for playing cards and toilet paper (yes, in India this can be a 4 hour endeavor).
The next morning, we took off on the boat and it was simply marvelous.
I was registered to do a one month Hatha Yoga Teacher Training Course at Tulasidalam Ashram in Thelliyoor, near Thiruvalla, Kerala. This is a tiny village in the middle of a magical jungle; it felt like a mystical place that I could call home. I came across the program when I was in Delhi, searching like crazy for a program and this jumped out at me. I felt really good about it when I signed up. As the days went on, however, I felt very strongly that I was not going to stay the whole month there. I didn’t really know what I was looking for, and what I was getting from the program. I had emailed a few times asking what would happen in terms of payment if I forfeited the program and had gotten no response. My last days in Goa, I felt really good to be with Tamara and Dorian, so had considered not going. But I felt like I had to go.
So, I went. There were two other students – two women from Luxembourg in their 40’s. initial reaction was oh my god I’m going to be stuck with them in the same room as them, in the same intense classes all day as them?! I mean, it’s eating, drinking, sleeping, learning, all with the same people. I felt initially very good with the teacher.
About two days into it, I was overswept by a wave of confusion, irritation, and frustration. My mind was telling me it was my co-students. So I separated myself, did a day of silence, and tried to let my inner voice tell me what was going on. It turns out, the woman running the course was really not the guru I was looking for. We may be able to twist our bodies into imaginative postures, and we may be able to eloquently speak about Patanjali and the Bhagavad Gita, but unless we live yoga, embody it, it is meaningless. That is the lesson I (re)learned at Tulasidalam. This was intensified by the presence of our asana workshop teacher, Narayana. This man, 70 years old, who has been practicing Hatha Yoga for 57 years, is pure embodiment of compassion, joy, and stillness. He walks in the room and you feel it. He leaves the room and his essence is still there. He doesn’t talk about philosophy, he seems to have a simple conversation with you, but when it ends, you realize you’ve learnt about Keralan politics, environment, nutrition, which of course can be related to the whole world, and you realize, this is yoga. Yoga means union.
Our teacher is a brilliant lecturer, very very intellectual, and quite simply put, I’ve never had anybody lecture as well as she does regarding the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. But she doesn’t live it. Simple things we spoke of jumped out at all 3 students in terms of seva, responsibility, love, compassion. And so I decided to go.
The 2 days before I left were really magical; the 3 of us just really gelled and spent beautiful days discussing, experiencing, feeling, and it really seemed that the universe was opening up to us and we were entering a new dimension. Yes, I know, some people reading this are now going to think I’ve gone off the deep end and have been brainwashed or lost my mind or something. But it is true. We took Apu, the lovely dog for many walks – he is normally encaged the whole day – and all the villagers were just coming out to connect. Animals followed us around – things were vibrating with a different frequency (actually we were more attuned to the real frequency of things perhaps).
The day I left, the teacher disappeared and didn’t come back. I spoke to Narayana and asked him if he could be my teacher if I came back to Kerala, he agreed, and all the blocks and doors that had been put in by our teacher released and a flood came forward. The ashram has the most beautiful staff, the secretary and the cook. They came with me to my rickshaw, everyone was crying…I cant put this in words. But it felt like the right decision, and although I struggled a lot that week, I learned a tremendous amount and it was clear that I had to be there, and it was also part of the big picture that I leave early.
When I was contemplating my departure, I remembered that isha foundation near Coimbatore was doing Inner Engineering Programs Jan 7-10 and 14-17. I called one day when we were outside the ashram and there were two spots left for the program from Jan 14-17. I registered. I got in touch with Darlene, the lovely Canadian I had met in Udaipur, and she was headed to Kerala. We agreed to meet for the houseboat in Alleppey. It gave me 3 nights free. I had planned on going to Amma’s ashram at some point during my stay in India, so it made sense to go there from the yoga course I was abandoning. A place where I could just put my stuff down, and hopefully fall into some sort of schedule structure.
So I left, sobbing, and finally got on a bus to Kayamkulam, then a rickshaw to the ashram in Amritapuri. Who is Amma? Amma means mother in India, and well, that’s who she is. She is widely considered a saint, and she truly deserves the title. I won’t go into it, but go to www.amma.org and you should be convinced pretty quickly. Her darshan, or blessing, is to give hugs and over the past 3 decades she has given more than 30 million hugs. And contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to humanitarian efforts in India and beyond. The ashram is quite big, with about 3000 permanent residents, supposedly. For 150 rupees a day, which is roughly 3 US dollars, you get a shared dorm room and 3 Indian meals and 2 chais. If you prefer, there is an Indian canteen, Western canteen, and a café with ridiculously delicious baked goods, pizza, veggie burgers etc. I’ll be perfectly honest, I didn’t do all that much meditating, I just explored the buzz of the place. Hundreds of people from all over the world and all walks of life were at the ashram. I spoke to dozens of people every day about their experiences with Amma (or not, since many had never met her but came for a variety of reasons – like myself). I went to a harmonium class that resonated so deeply within me, I would really like to pursue that. A harmonium is similar to a piano in that the notes and the keyboard are the same, but you play it only with your right hand ,using your left hand to pump air into the instrument like an accordion. It’s a very powerful, moving instrument.
Key characters during my stay at Amma’s place – in no particular order…
Heidi from Toronto, on some sort of ashram/guru/yoga search in India, we connected a lot on hatha/vinyasa yoga teachers in the west (and kirtan/chanting!)
Joe from Rio de Janeiro who has spent the past 2 years travelling, and more than 7 months at the ashram in the past 3 years.
Visnu (spiritual name) from Reunion who has spent 6 months annually for the past 3 years at the ashram.
Renee from Haiti living in DC who has never met Amma but in India for some spiritual path.
Virginie from France, living in Canada and also in India to try to figure out what next to do with her life.
Krishnan, half Indian half Chinese, living in Santa Fe and taken a year off to stay at the ashram.
I’m not going into their stories and personalities, it’s just an effort to show how global the place is.
4 blissful days at the ashram…and off I was to Alleppey to meet Darlene. It was great to see a familiar face, and Darlene had also picked up Marie, a German girl, and the plan was to go on a houseboat, the Kerala must-do. They had met Praveen Das who had a variety of boats, and my oh my was he quite the personality. A great salesman, he won the ladies over and we booked an overnight trip on the boat. The rest of the day was spent searching for playing cards and toilet paper (yes, in India this can be a 4 hour endeavor).
The next morning, we took off on the boat and it was simply marvelous.
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