CULTURE, LEARNING and TEACHING

I awoke in the morning feeling very enthusiastic about my plans for the day which were to go to Sabarmati Ashram where Gandhi lived for several years. I got ready to leave the hotel when I was told that because of a rally all the city streets were closed to traffic. Why is that surprising? After all, I am in Gujarat, a state in which ethnic unrest is not uncommon. This day marks two significant events – the anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition several years ago when a Muslim mosque was demolished in Ayodhya; and it is also the death anniversary of Dr. Ambedkar, India’s champion for the downtrodden scheduled castes and untouchables.

It’s intriguing that here I am in a city where Gandhi lived and spread his message of peace for about 15 years and yet the place is marked by the violence of riots, rallies, and deep-rooted discrimination. Gandhi’s influence, though secular and tolerant, inadvertently resulted in an intense feeling of nationalism; and although he stood for non-violence much violence does occur in the name of his teachings. Thus Ahmedabad, when it should have been a serene and peace-loving city, often morphs into a volatile space where the streets are deserted and dead, like the calm before a storm, and the only movement on the curfewed streets is the occasional police car rolling by surreptitiously before all hell breaks loose and arrests are made...

It's been long since I have had this experience of not being in control of time and yet feeling a sense of relief in not having to go through a series of schedules: just being and flowing on the currents of time as it passes me by in this hotel lobby where I hear snatches of Gujarati conversation interspersed with piped English music. We, the people in the lobby, busy ourselves with what we can do: I write in my journal and the hotel staff dust, arrange, and re-dust the furniture in the lobby…Sometimes I must surrender to forces that blow in unannounced from out of nowhere, learn to be patient, and learn how to let go of plans. There is an old Sanskrit saying: Welcome what comes and let go of what goes. Interestingly, this attitude would be viewed as rather slack in the Euro-American West where, in a cultural worldview based upon efficiency, punctuality, staying on schedule and meeting deadlines this can be a challenging expectation.

The Sabarmati ashram or Gandhi ashram or Satyagraha ashram - three different names but one space where Gandhi’s memory and his spirit still live on and his voice still echoes in the words of the slogans posted in the museum and in the imagination of those who want to hear him. There is profound silence and peace to be found in the compound as I move from his meditation grounds on the banks of the Sabarmati River, toward his house, and to Vinoba kutir. It is like going back in time, back in history, and being able to imagine and sense the political climate within which my grandparents and parents grew up…

Ahmedabad is an amazing city –colorful and textured. There are so many layers superimposed over each other: symbols of play over symbols of worship over symbols of sustenance and entertainment, poverty and urbanity, stillness and unrest…

February 9, 2010

More than my fear of heights is my fear of being under water. And so going for my first deep sea dive was somewhat of a milestone for me. I have never been inside the sea except in calf-deep waters along a beach on a calm summer day. But even from the safety of the shore I have been deeply aware of the might of the ocean under the mirror-like calmness of its still surface. I have always feared its heaving force, its mysterious depths, its deepest secrets, the unpredictable direction of its rage.

Not only am I nervous of the sea but I am afraid of having my head under water and not being able to breathe through my nose. My years of yoga practice have trained me to take deep slow breaths through my nose. Now my diving instructor was asking me to breathe only through my mouth. For me to stop feeling the breath in my nostril was akin to not breathing at all. I found myself not only having to unlearn one breathing technique but learn a new way of breathing in just a matter of minutes. And I had to learn it underwater.

So today it was all about trust and surrender at so many different levels – trusting and surrendering to the ocean, my diving instructor, and most of all to myself. There are no words to describe what it took for me to make that first practice jump; to take that first step off the boat and fall into the sea and trust that my universe would still be in order when I surfaced; to put on the regulator and breathe underwater for the first time without letting my nose feel the breath. There were moments when I felt I wasn't going to be able to do it...

But I did. And I found myself under water along a coral reef of incredible beauty on my left, and a deep ravine where the sea bed fell down to over 40 meters on my right. I can only say that as a first time diver this underwater experience felt so unreal that I thought I was seeing the amazing coral, fish, and other marine life as though in a film.

As with the ocean, so it is with life,
Look beyond and further,
And you will surely find
Much more than your eyes can see
Much more than your hands can touch
You may see anew a world
You thought you knew all about.

It was there in the watery depths that I was rediscovering, redefining, and seeing anew the world of my own thoughts, feelings and emotions...

February 5, 2010

At 6 am the world is such a canvas of tranquility. Outside my Malè window the calm pale blue seas stretch as far as the eyes can see; the skies blush with a hint of rose in the east; and azure ripples waltz gently with the white of light surf, speckled with the gold from the just-rising slant of sunlight.

As on all mornings the music to this beautiful backdrop is provided by the melodious call of the koel in the solitary mango tree that grows underneath my hotel window. I can’t see the koel but I can hear her. The plaintive sound cuts through time and space and takes me into childhood’s backyard when I heard a different koel sing in a different mango tree; and when lazy days were spent in a cloud of comfort that came from just knowing that I was loved beyond all else. The koel’s song this morning unearths those memories which speak of happy times and yet still manage to evoke a feeling of deep sadness - for the loss of childhood, the loss of innocence, and the loss of those who loved me. Yes, the koel’s song is beautiful yet fringed with pain.
 
Another sound that I have become used to is the call for prayer. Here in Malè there are mosques everywhere – in blues that match the sea and sky, and golds that match the light of the sun. There is a mosque right by my hotel and every day I hear the call for people to come to prayer – to remind them even in the midst of busy diurnal schedules of the bigger force that permeates the universe. Again there is that plaintive quality to the sound of the call – a promise of bliss in whichever form you might be searching for it, a promise of love and hope but also a reminder of loss and pain.

Joy and sorrow – the basics of human emotions - without one we can’t appreciate the other. In journeying through life we perhaps strive for both in our need to know both – just as in this moment I find myself listening for notes of love and loss in the song of the koel and the call of the muezzin.