NOVEMBER 11, 2010
OOTY
I took the overnight train from Chennai and arrived in Mettupalayam, Sunday, November 7 at 6 a.m. Babu, the taxi driver was waiting for me. In his taxi were a blanket and a little cloth bag with mango juice, an apple and a Nature Valley™ Crunchy Granola bar, which Karen had given to Babu for me. I was touched by her thoughtfulness, especially as it was a one-and-a-half hour drive up the Nilgri mountain range to Ooty and I was a tad hungry.
It was chilly so I was glad for the warmth of the blanket. The drive up the mountains is beautiful as there are breathtaking views of forests and tea plantations.
Karen and Geoff and her three children are cousins of sorts as Karen’s father is my first cousin. We’ve never met before although we’ve spoken on the phone. Having spent time with her parents last year in June, in South Africa, I very much wanted to meet this branch of my extended family.
They’ve been living in India for two years. Geoff is an educator and Karen is a social worker.
It’s autumn and the monsoon season is just coming to an end. It’s been raining all day and I’ve had to borrow warm clothing from Karen and am sitting in front of an electric heater. Am rather enjoying the colder temperatures after all the heat and dust of the last five weeks.
NOVEMBER 15, 2010
My cousins’ home and their warmth and generous hospitality have provided a wonderful respite for me. It has also given me time to reflect more about my travels in India, especially the last journey that brought me here.
Naturally, rest and home-cooked Western food has done marvels to restore my body and my mind back to some sort of balance.
When I arrived here, I felt somewhat defeated by my journey from Udaipur to Pondicherry. But I now realize that out of all my travels over the last seven months, it has had the greatest impact on me. It forced me way way out of my comfort zone. I can feel that a fundamental shift has occurred that I can’t yet articulate other than to say I feel strengthened by the experience.
Travelling by local busses that stop at trees, shacks, stalls and small hamlets and towns all along the way, gave me an intimate view of the very basic life people lead in the rural areas far from large cities and towns. Survival is a struggle. I now understand why Hindi rituals and festivals are celebrated with such fervor and abandon. Joy must not be easy to come by.
Staying in the better hotels (not like the awful ones I’ve experienced form time to time) that are mostly frequented by Indian tourists and business people gave me an opportunity to engage in conversation with them which I would not have otherwise had. These conversations came about because people were curious about me as I was frequently the only European in residence.
In Auroville, at the Quiet, I met J, a lovely 40ish woman, who has her own executive recruiting business. She is single and has a sweetheart. She had come to Quiet for a much-needed break from her stressful life as a professional woman in Mumbai. She explained to me that single women rarely travel for leisure on their own. Normally, when she and her friends travel, they do so as a group.
J added that she came to Quiet because it is out of the hustle and bustle of the tourist track and she knew she would not be hassled by others because she was on her own. In more frequented tourist places she would’ve been constantly approached by Indians and also bombarded by questions, the primary one being why she was alone. “Most people would not understand,” she said.
J also explained the significance of the Karva Chauth festival I had the fortune to witness in the Sharma household in Udaipur. I had had difficulty understanding the raison d’être of this festival at the time because of my lack of Hindi. J clarified that it is an annual one-day festival when women fast from sunrise to moonrise and to ensure their husbands’ good health, longevity and prosperity!
I had wondered if young women are continuing this tradition today. She assured me it is and if a young married woman was not inclined to do so, her mother-in-law would ensure that she did! Mothers-in-law rule the roost when they live with their sons and daughters-in-law. She added that among her generation and those following her, it has become a more romantic ritual and husbands nowadays will fast with the women too and be there to offer them their first sip of water and a sweet to break the fast when the moon rises.
I had understood it occurred seven times a year. I stand corrected!
Dear daughter of fire, river's charge, far flung headlong into dirt and durgas,
ReplyDeleteI just read into late last night all your entries for November, so far...I, too, am exhausted by your journey, just reading of it conveys the stress, and a kind of powerlessness over the juggernaut which appears to be the norm of every Indians' lives. You find perspective from the respite and, yes, must heed your body's complaints and guard health at all cost...
In reading all of your entries I am reminded of Irina Tweedie's book, Daughter of Fire, about her initiation and training with a Sufi master in India...she was a European noble woman who found herself compelled to India's spiritual riches and there met with brutality from the Sufi master and India...now, reading your account, I wonder how much of what she experienced was a purposeful spiritual disorientation and fragmentation brought on by the Master's purposeful powers or, post-your-account, just the assault of the hardships of India physically, economically and sociologically, an ordeal for a Westerner to endure, for sure...but to be a European noble woman from wealth, education, and "effete" society, with even an "effete" spirituality, Eastern in flavor, imported to the West but without the cultural, physical, sociological, economical hardship of India, Tweedie was set up whether she knew it or not for culture shock which, perhaps, maybe, the sufi master used to break her ego and entitlement down to dusty ground. India ITSELF was Tweedie's guru who perhaps provided her a meaningful context derived from centuries of Indian history; from such suffering she painfully realized that she is not special at all but just another one of the swarm who like every living creature seeks to warm themselves beside what is imagined to be the comforting fires of god but which turn out to be personally apocalyptic flames.
The West has made religion too, too sweet and lite...India has it differently, and light when it is light is all the lighter from the very real darkness of incarnate existence...both light and dark are the "two hands of god" which are not a "charming tour" but a duty demanded in certain cultural hard contexts, exacting non other than one's egoic investments.
Hold back your skirts, my dear...the flames are reaching for the hems.
You can't always get what you want
but you get what you need!
Much love,
Warren of the Wasteland
Get Tweedie's book, Valerie, and read it as you travel further...perhaps Tweedie and Bhai Sahib can provide you a real, REAL context for the "refiner's fire" which is your experience of India.