an idyllic india

The five days I spent in India encapsulated perhaps the most profound moments of my life. For three days, I lived in a rural village called Dakshina Chitra. The village is a non-profit community service project aimed at promoting and preserving the cultures of the diverse people of India. It was there that I took part in a three day art of living course. The art of living is a world-wide organization that can’t really be described in words. For three days, 25 of us meditated and talked and learned more about each other and ourselves than any of us ever imagined possible. On the first day, we traveled by bus to the village. We stopped at three different ancient temples along the way where we were swarmed by beggars and people trying to sell us small statues and paintings of gods. Some of us gave our food away to the starving children and others bought things we didn’t want so that a family could eat that night. Mostly I just tried to avoid the rabid dogs and random stray goats and cows that roam freely all over India. When we arrived at the village, we had a two hour introduction to mediation and the art of living. Then the women made us a big feast which we ate with our hands off of banana leaves. After dinner, an actress came and told us a story about what life was once like for women there and how some of the ills they suffered are still applicable today. At this point, we were all extremely exhausted so we headed to our rooms. After three hours of staring at the ceiling fan and praying that it would cool the room down even a little bit, I fell asleep. Even though we were some of the lucky few who had netting on the windows, sleep was short lived because at 5am the electricity went off (which means that the fan stopped spinning) and so I sat and listened to a rooster and various other farm animals until 7am when it was time to head back to the yoga pavilion. After two hours of yoga and meditation, we ate breakfast and took a break. Then it was time for sudarshan kriya- a breathing and meditation exercise that is supposed to be a purifying action to get the right view of the self. This one yogi who came to visit with us said [your life is there, you just have to clear the dust off of it] and that’s exactly what I did. It was a really crazy experience that again I can’t explain but basically all of us agreed that we felt like new people by the end. It not only gives you time to just be with yourself, it clears your mind and drastically reduces stress and anxiety. Later that night, we broke up into groups and told one another our life stories. It was so insane to hear such personal and intimate details about the lives of people you see every single day on the ship but have never talked to before. It made me realize how important compassion is because every person has their own story. It was also really shocking to learn how wrong my first impressions and judgments about people were. It’s so important to give everyone a chance, like I’ve said before: we are all just people trying to survive together on this planet. The whole thing really made our group bond a lot and we all hung out that night like we had known each other for years. It was really amazing. The next morning, we got up at 6:30am for some more yoga and meditation and sudarshan kriya later in the day. After lunch, an Indian family came and played us music and we all danced around and sang along. We did another bonding activity that night that I don’t want to try and recount because it wouldn’t do it justice and then we had dinner. By the time dinner was over, we couldn’t believe that it was time to go. We all hugged Ron (who ran the whole thing) and packed up our stuff. We thanked all of the people who worked so hard to make our stay as comfortable as possible, especially the women. I was so sad to leave my little room behind- ants, spiders, lizards and all. We all piled onto the bus and took a moment to appreciate how bad we smelled (three days with no shower in India is like 10 days anywhere else) and how close we all felt. For more about the art of living go to www.artofliving.org. There is a center in NYC on 52^nd and I really think anyone who can should go and check it out.

In sum, these are the philosophies that I walked away with and have already been trying to apply to my life:

*accept people and situations for who and what they are

*don’t look for intentions behind other peoples’ mistakes

*the more you resist something, the more it will persist

*unrealistic expectations reduce joy in our lives

*we all put people above and below us based on assumptions about who they are (don’t do this)

*you are not taking responsibility for yourself when you are complaining

*we want attention from others but we rarely give it to ourselves

*laugh often (this is something I also learned from Desmond Tutu)

*BE HERE NOW

be here now
no other place to be
this whole world keeps changing
come change with me
everything that’s happened
all that’s yet to come
is here inside this moment
it’s the only one

(these song lyrics really describe the way I felt when I was in India and I’m posting them because I’m not yet ready to write creatively about the experience myself)

What be here now means for me is that I can’t live in the past or the future, I have to live in the moment. I need to learn how to not perpetuate my present by telling myself that once this/that happens then I will be happy. There’s no guarantee that I’ll wake up tomorrow so I HAVE to find happiness in each day and every moment of living. I have to help myself because if I don’t, no one else can or will. I need to do what I need to do to find fulfillment in my daily life because that’s the only way I can be happy today and tomorrow and every single day after that.

Most importantly, I learned something about responsibility in the sense that responsibility=power. When we blame others for our circumstances, we become weaker. We also tend to take responsibility for the people who belong to us (family and friends). We need to widen this sense of belonging in a global sense so that we can all start taking responsibility for the whole world. If each person felt responsible for the planet and the existence of each person on it, we would be living in a very different world. So in the spirit of responsibility, I ended up spending the rest of my cash in India for several reasons. I felt so compelled to give money to every single poor person I saw but I knew that this was not a very good idea. Instead, I bought things from small family owned stores and huts in the markets because I figured that gifts I give to everyone at home should be more like an exchange of wealth. Yes, now I have beautiful things to give to all of my friends and family but at the same time, a lot of people are going to be able to eat because of it. I’m all set with trips in Malaysia, our next port of call, and I don’t think I will need to spend any money there so I guess I won’t worry too much about my lack of assets until Vietnam. If I have to go without so that a few people can eat, then I’m okay with that.

On the fourth day, Katie and I explored Chennai. We found a taxi driver to take us around to the different markets and show us the sights. When we got back to the ship, I decided to go out to dinner with some of the kids from the art of living because I already missed them. After dinner, we went to a bar/restaurant called Zara. There were tons of other SAS kids there which would usually bother me but I actually had a really great time talking to everyone. We all decided to head over to this club in a hotel (there are basically no bars in Chennai and everything closes at 11pm except for the hotels) where there was a DJ spinning. We had a really fun night and then 8 of us jumped into one taxi to go home because a lot of people were staying out and it was already 2am. That night my friend Anthony and I ended up talking for a while about our experience at the village (he was there) and about this boy he likes (who had been out with us and he was wearing a skirt which we thought was awesome because he was really embracing the culture- yes, some of the men in India wear skirts and they’re really cool). Anthony is a really amazing person and friend and I’m so glad that we got to spend time together in port because usually everyone is doing different things and it’s hard to coordinate stuff. He’s also from Staten Island believe it or not. The next day we woke up and went to the Indian version of a mall. We bought the rest of our gifts (including some chili powder for those of you who expressed an interest) and then went to go see an Indian movie. Let me just say that going to a movie theater in a foreign country is a very absurd experience. Apparently you’re not allowed to take pictures in or around theaters in India and I had to apologize and beg this woman not to take my camera away. Then, we sat through a three hour movie- none of which we could understand. There’s also intermission during movies in India so we found someone who spoke English to explain what was going on to us. After that, we really enjoyed the rest of it.

On top of everything else, I learned so much about what life is like for women in India. It was mind blowing to drive through the streets after the sun went down and see virtually no women…anywhere. Packs of men spilled out onto the sidewalks from stores and restaurants, but no women. It’s a country run by men in a cultural sense. Even though women have made strides and have gained more freedoms and rights, there is a deep sense of tradition instilled in the way of life in India. This 2,000 old culture has so many unspoken fundamentals that I don’t think will ever change. Poverty also perpetuates this problem in addition to environmental degradation (the pollution is out of control, black filth comes off of your skin when you wash your face). Most people drive motorcycles that look more like mopeds and a few drive small cars. I would say that maybe 20% of these are operated by women, even though the number could be less. When a woman and man are on a bike together, the woman sits on the back sideways, never with one leg on each side. These little things really stood out to me. Especially the fact that the beggars were never just women- they were women with their children. I didn’t see one man begging with a child. The gender roles in India are so clearly defined. This is not to say that there aren’t exceptions, of course there are exceptions. But I think that what got me was the fact that this was the least westernized country that we have visited so far. I felt very aware of the fact that I stood out both in terms of what I was wearing and what I looked like. There’s so much more that I want to write but I can’t because most of it can’t be recalled. Instead, certain moments will remain buried in my mind- there only for me to remember. I can say though that I can’t wait to go back to India.

Oh and I got to drive a rickshaw. Look it up.