While sitting in my favorite street chai place in Kulyipalam, I was able to observe this elderly lady who uses a walking stick to get around town. She appears to have many stops in her day, and one is sitting on the side of the road having her tea from a pot that she was carrying around. She carefully found a place and sat down, pouring the tea from her container.
The dog wandered up beside her. She is old, lame and has obviously been through her share of accidents. Her left hip is damaged and she is starving for food and one suspects affection as well. This is a street dog – there are so many. They must survive on their wits and the ability to scrounge food from wherever. Few live to old age.
On this day, this lady shared her tea with the dog. She poured a small amount onto the pavement where the dog licked it up. She did this twice offering a small token of life to this poor animal.
A few days after this picture was taken, the dog was run over with her leg fractured and bleeding. In poor, rural India, veterinarians are few and far between and street dogs do not warrant such attention. She will simply gradually fade away as she bleeds to death. This is a harsh reality in a country where people are also starving in poverty.
Our Western sensibilities are offended. Life is short and for those left to survive at the margins, people or dogs, there is so little to draw them when tragedy strikes.
This woman gave this dog compassion. Such a gift from someone with so little herself to a life that had so little left in it.
I have been teaching a program here on child protection - half way through it. One of the joys of teaching is how much we really learn from the students. I have become more aware of the complexities of Indian culture. As well, I have come to undertsand how some things which we take for granted as being true in child proetction are not so here.
India faces a major problem with child sexual abuse - government and research estimates are that 53% of children have experienced this. Yet the resources needed to change family attitudes and to support children who need to tell their story are only emerging - particularly in rural areas. There is a need for a major cultural change that will take generations.
I am impressed however, with those who are willing to begin the conversations with families, children and communities. They show a strength and a willingness to be the voice of change. It is in meeting these people that I am most blessed.
Each journey here gives me way more than I can imagine returning.
I spent the morning doing my first day of teaching here with a full week to follow. Thus, I was inside for the morning hours with several ceiling fans ensuring that the air moved and the heat was kept at bay. During the break, we sat with our feet in the pool. Small fishes came up and ate what I suspect are the remnants of dead skin and whatever else may be on the feet. This was a most unusual experience that I could only tolerate for a few minutes – it tickled too much.
Emerging towards the end of the noon hour, I felt the heat for the first time today. It was a blistering hot furnace blast onto the skin as the temperature had climbed to around 40. There was no breeze beyond what you could generate on the motor scooter. I met friends from Bangalore for lunch. Even though we were under awnings that kept us from the sun, sweat rolled across the back like small rivers had suddenly formed on the skin. There was no escaping the reality – it was hot.
It was also a day where it seemed impossible to get enough water on board. As fast as I drank, the skin, in an attempt to keep the body regulated, would let it out through the pores. I tried cold soda and lime, plain water and even a warm masala chai. None broke the heat’s grip.
As the day moved into evening, the humidity built. Surely there would be some rain to break the heat’s back. The gift arrived a little after 8 with thunder that is unlike that at home. This thunder emerges like a roaring lion and gathers steam until there is a cannon blast that surely must be evidence that there is a war under way in the heavens. It crackles across the sky from horizon to horizon leaving no part of the countryside in silence.
And then comes the rain. Or really, nature’s shower. It falls in sheets that are so completely enveloping that the only comparison is standing in a warm shower with the water on absolute full blast. The air begins to cool and the heat slowly dissipates. Of course, you know that tomorrow it will return with a vengeance – ah but tonight you can sleep.
The power is off as the storm has created a pattern where we have seen it come and go over the past couple of hours. It too will return and the fans will run again. But it is less urgent tonight.
The day has been delicious with its richness. Heat guarantees you will pay attention – you cannot just slide through the day unaware. The rain is welcome but it too is omnipresent. The day has texture, feeling, emotion. Such is life in the tropics. My God this is wonderful indeed!
Yesterday, I followed the school bus from village to village not quite sure where I was. My only hope was paying attention to my route so that I could retrace my steps. It seemed obvious that not many strangers go through these villages. Children would run by and wave. The women gave sly smiles wondering what this strange white man was doing going through the village while the men gazed with mistrust of a stranger in their midst.
On my return trip, an elderly man waved me down in the way hitchhikers do here. He hoped on the scooter side saddle and off we went. Some twenty minutes later, we entered his village. Out came his hand signaling I should stop. Off he got and headed into a side street. He spoke no English and my 5 words of Tamil offered nothing in the circumstance. Simply 2 strangers who shared a ride. Wonderful.
Having spent 3 months here earlier this year, we found ourselves coming back to meet with old friends. The amas who look after our place, cook our meals; the massage therapist; the people who live here that we ran into. Its sort of like being back home. I think this place is much friendlier than Calgary - a statement that will no doubt land me in trouble back home.
One of the interesting things about traveling here is meeting people from various parts of the world who roam the world. At lunch today we met a Canadian who hasn't lived there for 20 years but rather lives in Japan but travels a great deal through Asia. Then there was the Brit yesterday who has no particular place that he calls home - rather it is dependent on what visa he presently has that permits him to travel wherever. He picks up work teaching English here and there as he requires money. One meets these characters daily.
Then there are the people who look for ways to volunteer during extended breaks from work. These people you meet daily as well. They have taken 3, 4, 6 and even 12 month leaves from work while they travel and volunteer. One chap I met spent a month on an organic farm in rural India with virtually nobody able to speak English - he thought it was marvelous.
Then there are the people who just pack up and leave home settling here permanently.
This guy, a permanent resident, ensured we behaved on our walk and stayed off his territory
Back in Canada, we don't get a lot of exposure to people so possessed with wanderlust. Yet, they are such fascinating individuals with stories of far away lands (well not so far away here) with hidden mysteries to be uncovered. But in it all, there is the greater mystery of self that unfolds in unexpected ways as you are faced with customs, manners and cultural behaviors that are so different. How will you adapt or not? How will you welcome the strangeness or reject it? What will shift you completely outside your comfort zone and how well can you handle that? What is predictable is that it is all unpredictable. Such is the joy of travel!
Arriving back in India has been like coming to visit an old friend. As soon as we stepped off the plane, there were the smells, the noise and the crowds – and this was at 0345. By the time we cleared immigration and found our baggage, it was 0500 and we were still a three hour taxi ride from our destination in Auroville. Fortunately, we were met by the smiling face of our now familiar driver, Chakrapani.
We are settled on our 100 cc scooters (that seem so small compared with what we are driving at home) and managing to get about.
We are again at Sharnga Guest House where we have enjoyed relations with quite wonderful staff. It is like coming back to old friends. The cook knows that I really love Biryani, a wonderful rice and chicken dish – so I was welcomed back with that for dinner. Nothing like food to make you really feel like you are in the right place.
Some rather interesting issues are being debated here. There is a fear that President Obama is about to take steps in the USA to stop outsourcing. The papers talk of his attempts to have the work done at home including the design and manufacturing of various goods. The worry here is that this will mean fewer growth opportunities for a country that has been steaming along while many in countries in the West are seen as having floundered in dangerous waters.
Another odd discussion here is that people should not follow the way of the Buddha. I was surprised to have someone tell me of this debate but he is being portrayed as a poor family man. He left his family on his spiritual quest so what kind of a role model is that? Hmm indeed. I wonder what power agenda is behind that.
The arrival of the summer monsoon is being awaited. Water levels are apparently pretty good here as there has been good rain over the past few weeks but more is sought.
I will have much more to say over the next few days now that I am beginning to convince my body that we are in a different time zone – although I note that I am writing this brief entry at 3 a.m. – the result of too much napping during the day I fear.
As we approach the mid point in July I am looking forward to my return for the first 3 weeks of August. I will again be back in the Auroville area. In particular, I am excited to be able to meditate again in the Matrimandir. Then of course there is the food.
Given that we have had horrible weather incluidng hail the size of eggs, I also look forward to the weather. I will again be posting regualrly. See you soon!
