India: Pune, Mumbai and the Great Divide


The bus trips between Pune and Mumbai were quite an experience. Why on earth did I even remotely imagine that it might be like a Greyhound bus ride? I was told that the Volvo bus service is the best and so looking forward to a luxurious and comfortable bus ride (even hoping that there might be Wi Fi like the kind you get on the Bolt bus) I got onto the bus at Wadia College in Pune…
 
I was in for a surprise: No reserved seats, no specific bus stops, getting on and off at random points on the highways, hauling your own suitcases across streets and over ground where there are no streets, fighting for the seat you reserved because other people did not reserve seats and yet sat wherever they wanted to, trying to dig for information because no reliable information is ever provided on the phone or in person, learning how to read geography to know where you are because there are no street signs, learning how to hold your body so that you don’t give out the wrong signals to the leering males who might be sitting next to you on the bus… Yes, a different kind of skills set that Indians have to learn in order to successfully navigate living the ordinary life in India.

This brings me back to the great divide between affluence and poverty in India. In my few days in Mumbai I felt the same phenomenon of parallel universes that I had felt in Singapore. I was living in this universe of affluence but could see right through its transparent walls where next to me was the universe of poverty and squalor. But I could not get near there – I could not cross the dividing line, I could not step through the glass wall that divided these two worlds – the highway was too far removed from the roadside, the car was moving too fast to stop or allow my camera to take a picture, the apartment building was too high up on the hill, Peddar Road was too far away from Dharavi, Shiro’s was too far removed from the dhabas.
I could see the other world but I could not reach out and touch it – there were too many barriers. I would have liked to stop the car on the highway, get off and walk over onto the roadside and enter the world of slums, narrow streets, crowded alleyways, smelly sewers, dirty stalls, stray dogs and half-naked children playing on the streets – to get a feel for a Mumbai one seldom experiences because we happen to be born on the other side of the fence. But I know that along with all the squalor is also all the color, the vibrancy, the music, the dance, the layer upon layer of history and the arts and the context, the warmth and generosity of the human heart, the strength of the human spirit, the faith of human devotion, the potential of the human mind, the India that is Indian and not the India that is colonial and in being that is so “western”…


India: Unrest and Stillness in Ahmedabad

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…


Diving in the Maldives

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.

Being underwater was almost hypnotic in a way. Several times I would look away from the sand-covered coral slope and my eyes would be drawn to the sea on my right as it plunged down into darkness becoming intensely deep, mysterious and strangely inviting. There was a part of me that wanted to follow the depths of the ocean and to know its deepest secrets. 

Words by Rumi I had once read came to my mind:

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...