Lisette is going to Chenni today to meet with her cousin who is coming for a week so yesterday was our last night all together. The four of us, so we celebrated with apple pie and milk sweets at the local bakery. We called it our "Last-dinner, American-Thanksgiving, Sinterklaas-arrival, Guy-Fawlkes-Day extravaganza!" and it was awesome. There was even cricket on the big screen TV in the bakery, so it was almost like watching football. Kyla and I will go back on Thursday to eat more pie and sweets.
This weekend was great. Kyla, Lisette and I headed to the backwaters of Kerala. Dr. Gigi and Dr. Banu were gone on Friday, so Kyla and I took the early morning train to Trivandrum, arriving about noon, and went to a restaruent where I had my first mango lassi in India (sweet lassi you can get anywehre, but not mango). It was delishous, and they served it with the mango on the bottom and the lassi on the top, so it looked like an ice cream sunday. We had decided that Friday night we wanted to visit the ashram of the "hugging mama" about an hour and a half from Kollum (where we were meeting Lisette satruday). It's huge and pretty famous, and featured in Holy Cow, the travelogue of India that I have a love/hate relationship with. If you'd like to see the website, it's http://www.amma.org/. When I brought up visiting to Kyla, in that kind of "I know this sounds feel crazy, but i figure since we're going to be so close..." she was all over it. So the two of us left Trivandrum around 2:30, hit Kollum about 4 and reached the ashram about 6 pm.
The rickshaw that took us to the ashram dropped us off in front of a huge bridge across a backwater canal. On the other side, rising out of the palm forest, were four huge twelve story pink skyscrapers.
As we walked into the ashram, the sun was setting behind them. We walked intoa central courtyard between the buildings, and saw a temple, with a horseman and chariot decorating the front. We stopped at the "Enquiry" desk, and were told that we had to visit the "INternational Visitor Desk" on the second floor balcony of the temple. At the front of the alter were two pictures of Amma, who has a round, happy face, and women in white saris sitting and chanting devotions to her. In between was a shrine to Kali, who looked fearsome and scary, as she usually does. It was an interesting contrast, the "mother" of love and the goddess of distruction.
The international office was closed, and wouldnt open until after dinner, so we wandered around a bit, trying to get our bearings. It was hard, eeryone seemed to be absolutly sure of what they were supposed to be doing, and it didn't include stopping to talk to the lost girls carrying backbacks. Finally, we stopped at the Indian accomedatino office for a temporary room assignment. They gave us a card and sent us up into one of the high-rises, to the fourth floor. The room was white tiles, and bare except for sheets, blankets and two mattresses stacked up against the wall. Wondering what we had gotten outselves into, we plopped on the floor and read until the dinner bell sounded, calling us to teh communal meal.
We wandered into a huge room with a stage in it behind the temple, where three lines of food had been set up. We couldn't find the plates for a minutes, until a man pionted them out to us, then we hopped in line behind a foreign girl, and I started coverstaion by asking if she knew whether we had to take our shoes off or not. She said no, and we got to chatting about how she was just visiting for a few days and was from Germany. We moved toward th front of the line and got our food, rice with vegitable curry (spiced differently than in Tamil Nadu). We took a table in the "International" section of the cafeteria, which featured chairs and tables instead of mats on the floor, and a canteer with western food that you could pay for (Kyla noted the french toast on the menu for the morning). On the way, we passed many young men and women from Amma's universities, who use the ashram as dorm and cafeteria. Conversations in India with travelers reminde me of conversations during orientation at school. They follow the pattern of "Where aer you from, when did you get here, how long are you staying, wehre have you been?" and then run out of steam. Just when we were reaching that point, a small gray haired man with very intense eyes and white clothes came over to our table, and asked if we were new and if anyone had shown us around. I jumped on teh chance to get some direction, and told him that we had missed the 5pm tour and were completely at a loss. He sat down with us, the German girl left, and told us a bit about the ashram and the daily schedule. Prayers started at 5pm with a chanting of the 99 names of Amma and the 1000 names of the divine mother, then chai at 6:30, meditation at 7, breakfast at the Western canteen started at 8:30, and some people do Seva (community service) and then lunch was at 12:30. We had to leave at 11 to meet Lisette, but agreed to do Seva tomorrow morning by weeding the garden with some other volunteers.
Amma wasn't at the ashram, which meant that it was quiet, with only about 1000 people instead of the 20,000 they have when she's there. The couple in charge of the garden were just on temporary duty, taking over for someone who was in Eurpoe with the Amma tour. They were from California, and had been musicians when the wife (they had "spiritual" names that I can't remember, but I'll call her Saraswathi cause I know it was close to that), a tiny lovely women about 29 with long red hair, went to see Amma and though she was kinda neat, but nothing more than that. Later, she said, when her life started to fall apart she started to think about her more and more, and finally felt like she really needed to move to the ashram and explore these feelings. Her husband, (we'll call Suresh) who looked like a cross between Jesus Christ and Charles Manson if you can imagine such a creature, was mostly along for the ride then, but is now totally into the ashram life, and doesn't have any plans to leave any time soon. He seemed much less "with it" than his wife, but nice in that hippy-dippy kind of way. We set a meeting time at 9am the next day, and they headed off to bed.
We went to the canteen for masala tea and ginger cookies, and sat down across from an older lady sitting with a group of others. I could tell that she was from New England from her accent (she was from Mass.) but she was thrilled to find that I had lived in Pittsfield since her neice was from there (and had moved to Chicago, which was even more of a coincidence). A lady sitting down the table from us was from MA too, and kept interjecting random comments like "Did you head teh Red Sox won the Wolrd Series" every few minutes. It was funny, because they were all older ladies and could have been at a book club or golf outing, except every once in a while they would talk about something the swami said, or how Amma was beyond what we think of in the West, and it would seem like I was talking to a completely different person.
Kyla and I went to get our official room pretty soon after that, and were given a key much higher up in the tower. We got off at the 11th floor to see the moon reflecting off the ocean less than a quarter miles from the ashram. I had no idea we were so close to the ocean. We openned our new room, which was much nicer with beds, set alarms and went to sleep.
I got up at 5:15 for early prayers (cause...when are you going to have the chance again?) and sat in the temple listening to the rhythmic chanting of the names of the goddesses without falling asleep (more than I can say for the devotees sitting next to me). I saw Saraswathi in front of me, in her white sari and holdinga book with the names of Amma in it. I wish I had ahd one, because the prayers were all in Sanskrit, but it was interesting to just let the words flow over me. Finally, about 6, the chanting stopped and the women all stood and sang while the light of the temple went out (dawn was just about breaking) and a women went into the space containing the Kali statue and did Puja, using flames, bells, and insense. As she finished, the women turned themselves around twice, and then started heading out of the temple.
I followed them to the chai break, in the same place as meals. I had to borrow a cup from the canteen, which meant I got a full huge mug of chai, which I wasn't complaining about. It was so hot it burned my mouth, but was sweet and delishous. I then headed out for a walk down to the beach before mediation. Since we were on a penisula, I figured that if I walked down teh beach, I would eventually find the chaneel that was on the other side of the ashram (with the bridge over it). I started walking through the villages, which look almost exactly like Gauguin's Tahiti. The villages are neselled between canals lined with palm trees, pinapples and hibiscous, the women wear long bight colored mumus and leave their hair long down their backs. The signs at the shram say not to walk down this way, but every person I met was kind and friendly and said "Good morning!" or "Nasmastiaa" the greeting of the ashram. Eventually, though I had to admit that the road wasn't really turning and I was lost. I turned down a solid looking road aht went to the left, figuring it would hit the cannal at some point, and it did. The water was still and quiet, and the morning sun was just gettnig high enough to cast light on it. It was lovely, and I started walking up beside it, hoping to get to the sharam that way. I ahdn't gone more than 1/8 of a mile when the path died, just stopped in someone's front yard. I had to turn aruond, and was resigning myself to retracing my steps, when a man who was birshing his teeeth (and continued to do so through our whole converstation) asked if i was looking for the ashram. I said I was, and he brought me to the edge of the canal and called across to a boatman. The man was using a pole ot move a small boat towards us, and my new friend said that for 5 rupees I could go across, then make a left and walk for 4 km until I reached the bridge. Pretty amazed that I had already walked about 2 miles, I was game to try. I got onboard with men going to work with scythes in their hands, a boy witha bike, and women carrying laundry. The trip was quick, but silent except fro the singing of teh boatman and the men teasing the boy sitting next to me (at least, I think that they were teasing him about me). I got off on the other side, and made it just in time to meet Kyla for breakfast at 8:30.
We went to the Western canteen, where she had oatmeal and I had peanut butter on toast (I have missed peanut butter! and this was homemade on the ashram, which was pretty special). Then we headed out for our Seva, joining a group of abuot 5 other volunteers (all day trippers, no permenant residents. There were signs up in the cafeteria saying that 'Even when Amma is not here, your Seva is needed!" so I htink they are having recruitment issues) Suresh and Saraswathi. They took us through back paths through the villiage to a Tulsi (Holy Basil) garden that the ashram runs. Tulsi is very important in Aryuveda (the ashram runs a clinic and a training center in Aryuveda) so these plants are used there, as well as to make garlands for the temple and necklesses for sale. We were given hoes, told to be careful of the plants, and got to it. While we were working, we could hear music from a local Hindu temple in the area drifitng over us. It was very peaceful, and nice to work outside on such a satifying task. Saraswathi answered questions about life at the ashram, and you could tell that she had been a singer because she had a lovely speaking voice, it was like listening to a really intersting NPR broadcast. Most of what she said was about how flexible life was there, if you wanted to medicate there was meditation, if you wanted to serve, there was Seva, if you want to pray, the temple was always open, if you wanted to deicate your life to Amma you could become a celebate devotee, or you remain married and try to fit her teachings into your daily life.
Anyone surprised I was totally digging it? Yeah, didn't think so. I'm a pushover for a commune. Maybe not so much the guru part (as I have never, as they say, "met Amma" that is a little hard to buy) but life there seemed very peaceful, everyone was kind, they eren't offended by our tourism of thier holy home but went out of their way to make us welcome, and appreciated our feble attempts to help. It was one of the nicest visits to a place I've ever had. Kyla and I had to leave around 10:30 before the weeding was done. We packed and on our way out I bought a little 18 rupee Tulsi neckless, feeling quite proud of the blisters I had developed.
We met Lisette at our hotel around 12:30, and made our way down to the tourism office. On our way though Kollum the day before, Kyla and I had made reservations on the 2pm "Villiage boat tour" where we would be guided around the nearby villiage on Monroe island, see the traditional crafts, and a spice garden. We stopped for "meals" at a local cafe, where we picked up an admierer who asked if we were "spinsters", which made us laugh. He then asked if he could come with us on the boat trip. "Oh, it's all booked","I'll buy a ticket", "Um, no", "Can I come to your hotel later?", 'NO!", "OK, bye".
Anyway, we went to the office and were put in a rickshaw for a 45 minute drive out to the island. Then we waited for 20 miuntes by the side of the canal, while our rickshaw driver smoked, looking in vain for a boat. Finally, our guide pulled out a cell phone, and sent us away down the bank where a group of at least 25 Indian high schoolers and their teacher were waiting. Uh oh.
Two boats appeared, and we were loaded like sardines into them. The teacher, who had frizzy hair and a sarcastic streak, endeared herself to me by telling the shrieking girls "If you get in a boat, there will be water. Deal with it", and trying to make the boys in tight Bollywood style jeans and oiled hair to sit down. Still, it was not a pleasent trip. We didnt' stop anywhere, the guide spoke in Hindi to the group (they were from Mumbi, on a zoology field trip) and we were in the back pretty much trying not to kill one of the students (for Kyla, it was the boy who wouldn't stop standing up, for me, a girl who wouldn't stop talking or sheiking). The only bright spot was the older woman chaperone sitting next to us, who asked us where we were from and then proptely followed up with "Are you Jews?". Kyla and Lisette said no, I said that my father was Jewish, and she was delighted. "I am a Jew!" she declaired, and then called to her daughter in the other boat (the sheiking girl I hated) and said "Jessica! This is an American and her father is a Jew!". Jessica looked less then impressed.
I had heard (again from Holy Cow) that there was a Jewish population in Mumbi, but I hadn't really expected to meet one. I asked her all about her congragation (women can get bat mitzvahed, but they sit upstairs from the men, the population is shrinking, marriage with other faiths is rare, her brother is a rabbi and studied in Israel (she almost fell out of the boat with delight when she heard that I'd been there), and her daughter went to JCC camp, just like me (Didn't ask if they sang "if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands").
After Judith and I had our talk, the guide came back to talk to us. He asked where we were from, and then said he was sorry for how things turned out. He said that "we were innocents" in this, and all the cool things he could do if we weren't with such a huge group. Now, I wasn't about to pay money for the "tour" that we were getting, so I asked him if we might come tomorrow, since this tour was so bad. Now, it took a few tries of translation before we got across that I meant "come again for free", but he called his company and said that we should talk to them when we got back, but if someone else was coming out we could join them.
After that, we enjoyed the rest of the ride much more, even seeing a Kingfisher bird and many "immature little blue herons". We got back to the tourist office around 6:30 and had the following coversation:
Me: "The tour"Him: "Yes"Me: "It was bad"Him: "Yes"Me: "We can come tomorrow again for free"Him: "Yes"
Well, then, that worked out. We went to a snack food diner place for dinner, and ordered egg sandwiches and three kind of huge ice cream to share (banana split, vanilla-waffer-cherry, and butterschotch with cookie). They were amazing, and then we went back to the hotel to scope out the channels. "Pearl Harbor' was our best bet, even though I said that I would be forced to mock Ben Affleck even if Kyla was totally into the love story. Somehow, I got really into it though. I remember Dena saying it was horrible, and the love story was pretty dumb, but the action was good and the clothes were amazing. I didn't even hate Kate Bekensale. This is what 3 months without movies does to me!
Anyway that lasted till midnight, when Kyla and I finally went to sleep. The next morning I woke up early (still on ashram time, I guess) and took a walk over to the beach. Kollum beach was very utilitarian, there were women washing clothes, kids playing a before-school cricket match, and men preparing their nets for the day's work. Still, I was a nice place to enjoy the morning, and I got back to the hotel around 7:45, in time to pack up and head out to the tourist office for round two of the Villiage Tour. We arrived and waited about ten minutes until our fourth member showed up. He was Rob, about 55, from England. He was a lock-keeper. Yes, he lived on a river and watched a lock, just like that creepy guy in "Our Mutual Friend". He also worked on a party barge and at a pub, and was a really fun guy. He made a great addition to our little crew, and we could already see that this time things were going to go much better.
We arrived at the same spot, and low and behold, the boat and guide were waiting for us.
Our Boat
It was like night and day, this ride was peaceful, fun and informative. We watched women weave rope from coconut fiber, men make boats and cover them with fish oil, we stopped on a tiny island and drank coconut milk striaght from the tree. Our last stop was at the spice garden, where Rob reopenned a cut that he had gotten by being hit by a rickshaw the day before. The guide took one look at him and stamped off into the woods, retirning with crushed up leaves that he swore were the best wound cure there was. Rob was great, took his cure and thanked the guide over and over, and said what a story it would make when he got home.
Rob, Lisette and Kyla: I'm standing on a plank over the water.
After our tour, we had to high-tail it back to Trivandrum to catch the 4:20 train. We made it, pleanty of time, and got home in time to eat dinner.
I know that I said I'd post an itinerary, but that will have to wait till tomorrow (My figers are rebeling). I'll post again before turkey day!
1 comment:
Jessica - good luck on the GREs!
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