Maduari - the Kali and Gandhi Tango

Today has been a fantastic day. After a week of super budget hotels, I treated myself to two days at a $30 mid-range hotel. Its amazing what seems deluxe when you're backpacking India. A/C, some soap, sheets, and no roaches. I think I've died and gone to heaven. I had been feeling a litle sick after two weeks of traveling and am happy I decided to take care of myself. Though the place is kind of like Motel 6 quality, tonight it feels like the Ritz. Perspective shifts like these are one of the things I love about traveling.

This morning I went to the main temple in Madurai - Sri Meenaskshhi Temple, a 6 hectar temple complex that stands tall over the acient bustling city of 1.2 million people. The Temple is amazingly well-kept and colorful. Though the fish-eyed consort of Shiva resides at the center, there are altars to many deities in the halls making it somewhat of a Pantheon f sorts. Hindus from all proclivities gather there and worship the deities of their choice. I found my first Altar and Kali statue here covered in red sandalwood, holding her trident. I knelt before the temple and again prayed for help on the path of enlightenment. Chanting - Krim Hum, Krim Hum. I asked for her to manifest for me as the benevolent mother and gently cut away those obstacles prohibiting me from being a realized being performing my Great Work in the world. My heart and mind filled with aspiration as I thought of my entrance to law school next year and all that I want to do in the world. I prayed that I be truly ready by this August. Sitting before the red-hued Goddess the destructive forces of the universe who leaves slayed demons in her wake, i felt ready to give up all parts of myself not aligned with the accomplishment of my True Will. I felt at home next to the other meditatees and wondered what they were praying for in their own lives that brought them to Kali.

I love the integration of the spiritual and material in India. Watching Hindus in the temple find their deity and pray touched my heart, and I felt a deep sense of the sacred. I've always been able to sync up with other peoples religions easily asmy personal spirituality is based on love, tolerance, service, and unity through embracing diversity. I joke that I can get along with and blend with all the ecstatic spiritual paths in the world be they hare krisha, Sufi, or Franciscan. I'm a bhakti-oriented spiritual girl and the times I am happiest are when I am performing service for the greater good of the world. I would love to see inter-faith temples in each town in America - places where people from all walks of life can come, light candles, and pray. I'd love to see temples to the ideals we hold sacrosanct - liberty,equity, love, justice.. What would our country look like if every day each person lit a candle in honor of those values? How would it change our actions in daily life? I guess I'm devout in my own way. I meditate and contemplate the mysteries, try to live a tempered life in accordance with my values. I just find Truth in all religions. In a country to steeped in tradition, I wondered if the turquoise sareed. gold-bangled woman next to me, ever contemplated different truths and religious perspectives or whether she simply accepted the faith handed down to her from her parents. It's hard to know but I wanted to ask. I've read the Bhagavad-Gita but not any of the other vedas. I'm hoping to download a few once my new Kindle comes in so I can steep myself even more in the religious philosophy of India. Despite our differences in faith and perspective, I felt really close to my turquoise next door meditator for in prayer -- we were one. Heart to heart, minds focused on coming into contact with something greater than ourselves to achieve something greater than we have.

1/17/2011 Gandhi and the Bloody History of Colonialization
After spending the morning in the temple, we decided to walk a couple of miles to the Gandhi Museum. Crisscrossing our way through colorful cloth bazaars, aromatic spice markets, stinky trash piles, and clinquant trinket stands, we finally found our way to the tall white building that housed the Museum. The first half of the museum displayed the long and bloody history of India's fight for Independence from the British. It goes somethingl ike this: smart educated people in India write and speak, the people get agitated, the British kill them. Repeat for a few hundred years. Depressing yes, and inspiring too to see the faces of and read about so many brilliant freedom fighters. The second half detailed Gandhi's life. Though I knew who Gandhi was , I definitely learned more about his history and all that went into India's independence. I also was happy to learn abuot many of the other people fighting for India's freedom at the same time and their deep impact on the realization of that common dream. I have to admit I wanted to stab the eyes out of the English by the time I was done..but like all things that warrior side of me quieted down. Thank goodness I am going into law where I can put that side to good work. ;)  I thought of my conversation with a local in Saint Kitts earlier this year who told me about their fight for Independence from the British and the the British fought back there as well. In that case, the British won only to turn around and abandon the island when it became cheaper to grow sugar in Asia leaving the place destitute and after a century or so of monocropping - the soil depleted of nutrients. Nice. Colonialization..the funny thing is most of this was still happening throughout this last century. We don't think of it as recent history but in the case of India and Saint Kitts these things occurred in the last fifty years. People alive today remember those times and countries all over the world are still affected by them having been changed completely.

On tht note, the museum housed the loincloth Gandhi wore when he was assassinated, bloodstains and all. You would think this relic of history would be being treated well and cared for as befitting its historical status but like the other museum in India - its sitting in a non-climate controlled room with a non-climate controlled glass box slowly deteriorating. The historian in me wants to move it to a first world country where it can be properly cared for but the activist understands why its important to keep it in India. If I ever become a millionaire - I want to donate money to the museums of 3rd world countries so they can keep their own history but take care of it properly. I think about all the obscene wealth held by India's elite and was appalled for them at their lack of donating funds for India's clearly impoverished historical museums but I guess with so many people starving - history seems like a lofty concept in comparison to a hungry child.

And so it is.

Technology and the Nature of Attachment

Today I officially gave upon my netbook and purchased a paper journal at the Vivekenanda Rock in Kanyakumari. Getting a journal at all was a very fortuitous experience as my current travel buddy Kristi said they are very hard to find in India. I have to admit it was the first one I had seen in my travels. To catch people u on my technology saga.. I've had numerous technology problems on this trip and have had to really let go of a lot of expectation regarding access to and reliability of technology. When I started my preparation for my RTW journey, I had a great plan of focusing the journey on reading, writing, and meditating. It seemed like the perfect trifecta for personal transformation. I did my research and decided on a combination of Kindle 3G Global and Toshiba netbook so that I could fill my mind with amazing thoughts and write about them. I purchased my netbook in late December and in true Veleda fashion dropped it. : / This voided the warranty (it had a small scratch on the corner where it dropped but that is enough) and broke my netbook. After beating myself up about it for awhile, i took it to a repair shop and was told the only damage was to the LCD screen. I ordered a new screen and off I went. I've been here for two weeks and now it doesn't turn on at all. I started by simply not booting randomly though it was still mostly usable in the first week. This second week it started booting less and i would have to try to boot it for 30 or 40 times to get it to start up at all. This morning it just died the way of the dodo bird. The power light is on but the hard drive light is not. I had planned to do most of my writing on this netbook..envisioning many hours of quiet contemplation  at cute internet cafes across the world.HAHAH!! It's been a significant struggle not being able to write as I used to writing every day in order to clarify and order the flow of ideas in my internal universe. It was oddly liberating to accept the fact that things are the way the are. I could get upset and waste an entire day being upset or I could let it go and move on with creating a beautiful day for myself. Much of my experience in India has been about releasing expectations and attachment and learning to quickly return to a state of happiness after things don't go my way. Traveling the 3rd world is by no means a vacation. Nothing fully works in India: electricity, water, roads, public transport. Add to that a language barrier, a gender barrier (women are still very much 2nd class citizens in India), and a tourist barrier (people want to get all they can from you) and you get a series of insane experiences, of which, the proper and only worthwhile response is to laugh your ass off and go with the flow.

Today marks my official 2 weeks on my trip and despite all sorts of frustrations, it has been a truly glorious life changing experience. It's like pulling the blinders off of my pampered American life and seeing how things really are for many people. It's enlightening and incredible but not in the least bit relaxing. Well..the day I spent rejuvenating at Kovalam beach in Kerala was relaxing. Being a bay area girl, oceans always soothe my soul. I've accepted I have no idea what the fate of my lappy will be. Sita, my new friend from Mumbai, is calling her friends in Delhi (the biggest city next to where we will both be doing humanitarian work) to see if she can get a referral for a repair shop. We'll see if that pans out and if it does whether its even repairable. I find myself delightfully unattached. If I need to i will pay to gt a new part, get a new one, or simply fill out loads of paper journals.

So there goes part 1 of my three part plan. Writing. Luckily - I now I have a journal and it works. :)

For reading - I had purchased a Kindle 3G Global. I hopped on the plane in San Francisco on 12/31 and took out my kindle to read My Name is Red, which is the current book for my book club and much to my chagrin, it didn't work. Luckly, amazon tech support has been a dream and is sending me a new kindle..but with internal mail it is going to take a month to receive it and its quite an adventure to get it as i have to send it to one person, have someone else pick it up and fly it to the Barsana Eye Camp. I don't know what i would have done if not for the wonderful network of awesome people I have met through the humanitarian work I will be doing. So there goes reading.

Luckily - Meditation doesn't require technology and I've had lots of opportunity to meditate, pray, do ritual, and otherwise contemplate the universe.

We have a lot of expectations, often unconscious, about our lives. I thought wifi would be fairly easy to get at hotels and that internet cafes would have access to the internet (the internet goes down all the time for hours, and many cafe's have antiquated and often broken computers). This is probably themost off the grid I have been in the last 13 years of my life. It's strange and different to be so out of touch.

Communication in general has been difficult. I've finally figured out how to dial internationally on my local fun but dialing in India is quite difficult. The country is changing from 3 digit to 4 digit area codes and most of the printed material i have lists four digit area codes and most of them don't work. I find myself laughing a lot as otherwise I would be crying. In fact, I don't think I've laughed this much in ages. I was wanting to have a pina colada while at the beach to rejuvenate from the crazy and it was warm coconut milk and rum. No pineapple juice, no ice. nothing. this sums up my experience. you never know what you are going to get so you just have to learn to be happy with what comes.

I think I will come back a saint or a mad woman.

After releasing my worries about my netbook, I went to the Vivekenanda Memorial Rock and meditated in their meditation hall. It was kind of hokey with a glowing Om symbol and Vivikenanda chanting om over and over..but that is part of the Hindi way. Hindi consciousness must be seeping into my brain a bit because I prayed to Vivekananda and his Guru and line of enlightened beings to bless my trip and ease the path towards my enlightenment. I'm not so into Gurus as a concept, its a concept foreign to me as a Westerner..bu that day it seemed appropriate. I came out of the meditation hall feeling a deep sense of non-attachment and peace so something worked. When I came out, I found a journal and all has been well since.

pss: I've been accepted into U. of Illinois and Indiana. No denials yet. Neither of them have great social justice and environmental law programs..but its good to know my 'safe' schools are safe schools .. not giving up hope for Berkeley yet. Keep your fingers crossed.

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Heart Connections -- the Tip of India

Everything about the trip to Kanyakumari was magical. We decided to take a local bus from Trivandrum so it would save us $10 whole dollars. I can live for a day on that if I'm super frugal. The public transport system in India is both awesome and definitively an epic fail. It's overcrowded, chaotic, and disorganized to the extreme but somehow everyone gets to where they need to go. People press against each other like sardines, fresh-faced inquistive teenage girls,an the ubiquitous roach here or there, hanging on for dear life as I was situated in fron of the door which was open the whole time on the curvy bumpy road...these are memories I have of this four and half hour bus ride. Oh India. You are one of a kind. Two of the teenage girls took an interest ni my Western self and we chatted in spurts throughout the bus ride. The girls liked my princess leia inspired hairdo thinking I was a lady of high fashion. I laughed thinking I was a Geek and hardly what could be called high-fashion by anyone. Still, I blushed and it felt good. I told them that that self-adornment was a universal human trait and people all across the world love to dress up. Yep, that is me trying to start a philosophical conversation with some 6th graders on a bus in India. Classic. They laughed and I pointed out their matching bangles and pink and blue outfits. And so it was throughout the bus ride. It was a total blast.

At the beginning of the ride, I had no place to put my bags as it was standing room only and they offered to put them in their area. I had a moment of hesitation as I heard of child thievery rings, but decided to take the risk. There is an old saying "trust God, tether your camel" I decided to reword it as "trust people, don't be an idiot". Most people are basically good and it comes down to trusting one's intuition (something i struggle with as a victim of abuse but which I clearly need practice on). I wonder how it feels to be a resident of a third world country and have a bunch of Westeners come and treat everyone like their a would-be thief. I'd be pretty offended. I don't want to send that kind of message to the world, I want to be an ambassador of my country showing good faith, compassion, authenticity, and a sense of humor. This doesn't mean I need to be an idiot. I should lock my luggage, not walk alone at night in dark alleyways or accept food or drink from random strangers..but it does mean being open to receiving help, connecting to different people, and treating people like people. If someone isn't trustworthy, odds are you'll have an inkling of it.

Visiting a 3,000 year old temple dedicated to Durga is just well..awesome in every way. It's living history. I lucked out and it was Tamil New Years so there were all these black, gold, and red clad Durga pilgrims in town. What a site! I haven't seen that much concentrated black since I left San Francisco. :: wink :: I loved it. After buying offerings and shuffling through the dark stone carved temple (sorry no pics allowed) through beautiful intricate colored sand drawings and carved statues, i came face to face with Kanyakumari, one of the 108 forms of Durga, and the Goddess that rules over the Southern tip of India where the three oceans meet. I gave her flowers, red cloth, nuts, oil, and fruit. I felt a bit rushed as they like to do that where everyone goes quickly through the temple, but I was satisfied. 

After leaving the Temple, I met a local woman at the bazaar who seemed to really like my black, red, and white outfit. She decided I was a devotee of Durga like her. She didn't speak much English, but I'm finding a lot can communicated between broken English and gestures. She had lived in Kanyakumari all her life, been a devotee of Durga since she was 15, survived the 2004 Tsunami (with many scars to prove it). She left for a little bit and came back and gifted me with a durga bead, similar to the one she had on a red string on her left arm.. presumably for left-hand path? It was awesome. I felt again touched by authentic connection with people in a culture so disparate from my own.

That night my heart radiated with love and I felt a strong sense of connection with this crazy country. I'm colorful, chaotic, friendly, mystical, insane, and wondrous too.

1/1/11 -- London


The first thing I want to say is that I definitely recommend a trip into London for people on the 8-hour layover. There seemed to be a difference of opinion on whether it was enough time to do anything but I found it quite sufficient. I got a daylong underground pass for 7 pounds which was handy. Due to the time crunch, I chose to spend most of my day in and around Westminister. I saw a bit of the New Years London Parada, Westminister Abbey, the House of Commons, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Victoria Monument, Hyde Park, and the Scotland Yard. As it was New Years, unfortnately, I was unable to go inside either Westminister Abbey or the House of Commons but I would have had time to choose one of those and spend a few hours there. I stopped at Alberts Taverns for some quintessential fish, chips, and ale for lunch and in the evening went to "Winter Wonderland" which is a christmas-themed temporary amusement and craft park in Hyde Park Corner where I had roasted chestnuts, peanuts, and the like. All this was fun and good, but I found myself thinking that I doubt I would go back to London as a tourist though I could see myself working in London fairly easily.

The best part of my stay in London was conversing with strangers. I met a Chicago college student who was meeting his online match girl from Russia midway in London. They were "very cute". I met a old couple of Leicester in town for the parade. Best of all I met a couple from Croyden (sp?), a suburb of London they tell me, who were on their way to Winter Wonderland and invite me. In the "It's a small world after all" theme of traveling. The man, was Hindu from Kerala, living in London, and has spent two years living in Concord, California for work a number of years back. Yes, Concord, Ca like...my home town. Hilarious. We talked about Hindu, English, and American life; the relationship of cities and suburbs, and just generally connected. It was sweet and I realized a few things about myself. Dont get me wrong, I totally loved seeing the architecture in the area but my favorite memories came from interacting with people. As I continue this journey -- keeping myself engaged in the hearing people's stories is going to be one of the key features in how I experience a country's culture.

Day 1: Mumbai

It was the easist first day and I give thanks to the soft transition I am being allowed in Mumbai. I spent the whole day in the temple. Palika, the temple mother, helped me get settled in, fed me, and made me feel warm and comfortable. I was outrageously tired so fell asleep early.

I saw the slums of Mumbai and was less shocked then I had expected given the reports. Though everything was piled several stories high

Everything screams life in glorious colors, smells, sounds, and sights.

My thoughts on "Eat, Pray, Love" and the footbridge of peace

So when I saw "Eat, Pray, Love" on the free movie section of my flight, I decided I should watch it so at least I have a witty and informed response to people when they bring it up. Though I agree with the movie reviews that it was at best mediocre and the main character flat, I found there were moments where I deeply related to aspects of the movie. Ultimately, its about someone deciding they were unhappy with their life and doing something to change it. It could be anything someone is unhappy about and it could be anything they do. I think the movie is about taking a leap of faith. This trip for me is a leap of faith. I have had to ask myself numerous times why am I doing this? The answer is different each time.


There is a part in the movie where the main chracter is in India at an ashram and someone asks her what she is looking for and she answers "peace". It rang for me with a tone that was deep and pure like a church bell or a singing bowl. It rang with the clarity of simple truth. Ultimately this quest is a quest for peace. I may call it enlightenment but that's a broad term often misused. I'm not looking to see G-d as I've been meditating for twenty years and I've experience the divine many times. I'm not looking to find my passion as I've already found it. I'm not looking to embrace the dark parts of myself as I've sat in silence and accepted the totality of my being. I'm not looking to re-discover my sense of wonder as I've never lost it. I am, after all, a California girl. What I am lookng for is peace. I'm not sure I've ever experience it.

In the movie, the main character doesn't know what the word of her life is and her quest is to find that word. If I had to choose a single word to express my life it would be "Passion". I've always been the girl consumed and enlivened by challenges. I've had so many amazing experiences in my life and yet contentment and peace elude me. I jump from challenge to challenge always questing for that which pushes me further. When I succeed, instead of savoring my success, I simply move to the next "Big Thing". I love that feeling of stretching myself in every capacity and I don't want to lose that but I don't want to "need" it to be happy. I am as active as I am in part because rest and relaxtion tends to make me uncomfortable.

It's fitting that I would choose such a crazy jam-packed adventure in which to find "Peace" and soe of my friends have asked me whether the course I've set for myself is a fitting one. I think perhaps there may be a different understanding of what I am looking for. I don't want to change the nature of my narrative. I love a life of challenge, passion, and creation. I've always loved a good fight and it's part of my life path to be a word warrior. I don't want to simply go to one ashram and spend six months learning to be peaceful only to re-enter the world and discover the skills don't translate. I want to find peace within the wild chaos of life. I want to shift the way I interact with the world and I realize doing this will shift things but I want to keep much of the content in my life intact.

I love my life. I love my friends and family. I love my book club, my writing club, my philosophy club, my art collective. I love my home and my housemate (bless his soul for letting me run off on this crazy adventure). I love the San Francisco Bay Area. I love my artistic and spiritual practices. I love doing humanitarian work. I'm not leaving my life behind because it makes me unhappy. I'm leaving things behind because I sense there is something wrong with my relationship to the fruits of my labors and I hope somehow by detaching myself from the world I can find that thing and that it will bring me the sense of peace I seek.

I want to look at the happiness I have found and create daily in my life and feel content. Will this trip bring me to such an illuminated state? Will visiting some of the most holy places of the world teach me how to better appreciate exactly what I have in the moment without wanting more? Enlightenment is like an onion. You keep peeling back layer after layers but the onion barely decreases in size. I got a tarot reading before I left and it said..this is just another step in the path. I thought to myself, yes, you are right. If I am lucky enough to find "peace", I will return with a different and beautiful quest that will be my next step in law school and I can't predict that quest yet because I'm here, crossing the footbridge of peace (both within and without).

Where are you? Are you in the jungle? a desert? a footbridge? a gate? What is the nature of your quest currently?