In the House of Toys

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An auspicious time. Vilachery, Tamilnadu, India.The humble village knows many visitors. In Vilachery, near Madurai, all come to find an icon, an idol, a doll, a toy.

Someone wants to have a Ganesh holding a computer? It will be done. Someone else piously comes for a complete set of the holy family to set up a crib for Christmas? He will be satisfied in no time. The different figures, scattered in various big piles, will be swiftly collected and presented to you. Every home in this village of about sixty families is also a workshop and a showroom of clay and papier-mâché figures. From tiny ones, a few inches tall, to six-foot tall idols that can take 25 days to complete.

Entering such an amazing place can be utterly surprising and fascinating. The atmosphere of Mrs Selvi’s home is rarefied, only few concentrated people at work, but the presence of many scattered figurines about the place awakens the curiosity and the desire to know more. Why can Ganesh be grey or pink or blue or green? Who do the many sitting sages with a white bun on their head represent?

The process of transforming a cube of clay into a variety of figurines is quite interesting to observe. The dark man’s skinny legs move rhythmically over the clay as the feet merge with it creating a pattern of waves that almost embody his dance. He might have developed his own style or might be following an ancient codified tradition passed on from father to son, I will never know. By the time he has finished the clay is soft and malleable, ready to fill up the moulds that will contain it until it dries, three days later.

Like a rhythmic dance. Vilachery, Tamilnadu, India.

Whenever the figurine is ready it is taken out and laid to rest until the painter takes over to give it colour, lustre and shine. However the Tamil Nadu government requires Ganesh’s idols to be made only of mud when they are meant for immersion in order to avoid any pollution of the water that welcomes theVinayaka, the form of the deity. Immersion in the sea, the ocean or a lake is part of the ritual that after parading Ganesh through the streets sends him symbolically back to his abode in Kailash.

“They are ecological, “says Mrs Salvi who has proudly learned the importance of this word. She is also happy to share that the government banks have helped the families to set up this business when fifteen years back their pottery activity was dying for lack of buyers and they never have had the need since to go to the money lender. A mud statue of Doctor Ambedkar is standing under a canopy to remind this community of harijans of the struggle necessary to improve the quality of their lives and reach economic independence.

“Now many people come to us, from officials who buy for the government shops to families, and even foreigners like you who bring home a handmade souvenir from our land.” She is right, I think, I will also choose from her collection and from a startled curiosity I switch to a personal involvement, I feel my travel can contribute, though modestly, to this family’s wellbeing and I cherish the opportunity. Immediately, I start looking at the piles with renewed interest and I choose a bunch of handsome Ganeshas for my colleagues at work, a few idols of Durga, the goddess with the lion,  for “women’s power” to give my girlfriends, a dozen idols of sages that might come handy when I wish to invite someone to cool his temper and the holy family for my mother’s crib.

But this one, I won’t be able to gift away, I think, this yellow and water green ten-inch figure that greets me with red arms and hands joined in a namaste. This one I will keep on my bookshelf to remind me of my fascinating first journey to South India. Back in my car, moving away into the distance, I feel like a little girl who has just been in the house of toys and could take all her heart desired.

Namaste. Vilachery, Tamilnadu, India.

Unforgettable

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Today it is a joyous and beautiful day, the children of the Tushita Foundation have been invited by the owner of Samode Hotels, Yadavendra Singh, to visit his fairy-tale palace and have lunch in Samode Bagh, a lush garden and a fabulous retreat for knowledgeable travellers who come to Rajasthan.

For the past three months, I have been volunteering at the Tushita Foundation, a house of learning and empowerment in the village of Amber near Jaipur. Together with the children and the teachers at the Foundation we have celebrated several festivals from all the religious traditions represented here: the festival of kites and Holi, Milad un Nabi and today, Easter, which is promising to be an eventful one.

My fellow volunteer and I woke early and a bit tired this morning, after having a very late day yesterday helping the teachers finish organizing the trip, followed by a traditional, Rajasthani dinner at Veenaji’s. I honestly don’t know how everything got pulled together, but it did. These teachers, headed by Veenaji and Gajju Bana, who are responsible for the Foundation, could lead military strategies, I think. Dheeraj, who animates Kamalan, has picked us up and as soon as we arrive in Amber, we pile into the buses and are off! I don’t know how exactly dancing on the bus works on bumpy roads, but here it does.

Upon arrival at the palace we take a quick tour – it is so beautiful, especially the paintings and the mirror rooms –but then we don’t have much time to linger on, we have to hide little Easter eggs in Samode Bagh for the children to find. Dheeraj, Gajju, Geeti and I dive into the daunting task of concealing them in a very large garden in only ten minutes. We are still finishing up as the kids come in shouting, “Go! Go!” It is hilarious and so much fun.

Being American, I am the only person who has ever hunted for eggs, or celebrated Easter for that matter, so I am quickly designated the “speech giver”. I tell the children that Easter is a festival Christians celebrate to signify the end of winter and the birth of spring, the eggs being a symbol of rebirth. I also say that they will collect all the eggs in one place and then share them equally among themselves, thus avoiding the possibility that someone could be left without any. And off they are, doing pretty well and finding the majority of eggs intact in spite of the heat I was worried about. There is a chipmunk flying away with an egg, the bird has played too.

After the children have finished the hunt, we sit down to a lovely lunch of paneer and dal, followed by gulabjamun, my favourite Indian dessert, and butterscotch ice cream, my colleague’s favourite. The chef, so considerate and respectful, has come to see the children and stopped by all their tables to ask them how they liked the food and if they were happy, just the way he would with any important guest. The children are thrilled, but never overexcited, they are actually so well mannered that we can all just relax and share a lovely lunch together.

Dulcis in fundo, so sweet at the end, we see a troupe of professional Rajasthani folk dancers arrive followed by a magical puppet show. We all join in the celebration and by the time we are ready to go, we all have stars in our eyes. I know that my words hardly do the day justice, but I guess I can just use one to sum it all up: unforgettable.

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In SwaSwara, a little corner of paradise

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« The one who looks outside dreams, the one who looks inside awakes »

– Carl Gustav Jung

 

“Breathe in, breathe out,

With a gentle smile on your face,

Relax.”

With her clear voice, Doctor Savita has succeeded to open my mind and body to the wonders of yoga. I am in SwaSwara, a secret retreat spread out just above Om beach near Gokarna, a small town dedicated to Lord Shiva who is believed to have appeared here from a cow’s ear. After three weeks of relentless work, travelling all over India, a time of well-deserved rest seems to be the right step to take.

SwaSwara means the sound of the inner self. For me it holds the promise of reconnecting with the core of my being in the sanctuary of nature. I have wanted to come here for long, and the first few days have already flown by. Every morning I have been greeting the sun, a simple pleasure long forgotten for the city dweller that I am. I have seen it announce its presence embracing at first small holes in the forest, then slowly pointing its bald head over the hills at my left. Below the single palm tree that marks like a flag the furthest point east of Om beach, dolphins play hide and seek in the waves, hawks and kites hover above my head.

The yoga lesson has followed the meditation on the hill every day and I have never been tempted to sleep in. The three teachers are competent and very interesting; two of them are also naturopathic doctors, doctor Savita and doctor Vinod, and both have studied at the Rajiv Gandhi University in Bangalore. In that campus, allopathic medicine is taught in the same premises as homeopathy, naturopathy and yogic sciences.They are considered equally important and complementary.

When I first met doctor Savita, I thought that was the closest I had gotten to meet an Indian goddess. She is beautiful and considerate, calm and joyful and has the voice of an angel when she chants the slokas that introduce and conclude a yoga session. The practice of yoga nidra with her, under the four hundred year old banyan tree for half an hour, equals six hours of deep sleep and has a powerful regenerating effect.

 

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Doctor Vinod is young and enthusiastic; he comes from a family of doctors, but wants to experience the world before joining their clinic. He is a strong advocate of naturopathy and has suggested I should follow a juice diet to detox my body that has made me feel lighter and younger. He has suggested that I do not drink water during meals and has made sure that the waiters in the restaurant don’t serve me any. He is also a skilled practitioner of kalaripayattu, the ancient martial art from Kerala. When he teaches yoga, his husky voice has the power to relax even the walls and everyone in the class can’t but concentrate on breath and movement.

Krishna, the third teacher, has a diploma in yogic sciences and is more comfortable speaking Sanskrit than English. His yoga is energetic, uncompromising, precise. He enumerates the benefits of each exercise and smiles with a big grin. He also teaches laughter yoga, a practice that deserves a special mention. In my experience, after an erudite introduction, ten Europeans are invited to start running in circle, clapping hands and making funny noises. When we stop, Krishna tells us the story of a New Year celebration in the forest to which we are invited. We mimic the wild animals making broad movements and laughing loudly. At first we are faking it, of course. As the tempo increases, our bodies break into a sweat, we revert to a childlike mode and our inhibitions disappear. We play the elephant, the bear, the dear, the monkey, and by the time we are invited to a big feast of spicy food, we are all looking at each other, laughing for real, without restraint. Even after the exercise is over and we lie down in sawasana for relaxation, some of us are still bursting out in laughter. By the end of the session, we all clap, thankful to Krishna who has made us laugh heartily.

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Mr and Mrs. Shobha are the ayurvedic doctors at SwaSwara. They make a handsome married couple and are in charge of the centre, an abode of peace where it is easy to let go of all the accumulated stress. The consultation with the doctor does not last long in my case, I do not complain of any major ailments, just a great fatigue. My blood pressure is on the verge of being low, says the doctor. The therapist takes me to a quiet room in the penumbra. An oil lamp is lit, red and white hibiscus flowers are placed over the massage bed. Archana invites me to remove the green gown and I sit on a stool. She opens my hair, removes my bangles and explains the procedure. “First prayer”, she says and with a faint voice she sings a litany in Sanskrit that loosely means: “I bow to you, Lord of healing, for you to come and make my intervention beneficial.” She massages my head with medicated oil, specially made for my prakriti, my constitution and proceeds to massage my back, then invites me to lie down on my stomach. Without a noise, one of her colleagues joins her for both of them to massage my body rhythmically, as if performing an ancient dance. While my body relaxes fully, my mind dwells in an indescribable density. I lose the sense of time, but I do not fall asleep, I am ready to turn around when I am asked to do so. The front of my body, then my face are gently massaged and finally I am invited to go for a shower. Hand woven cotton towels are laid out on the floor for me to walk on, it feels like I am stepping on clouds, but then it must be the effect of the hour-long massage. I wash away the oil with rice powder and warm water. Before I am allowed to go, Archana combs my hair and places a bindu, a dot of sandal paste on my forehead, between my eyebrows to encourage the opening of the third eye, the centre of inner vision and intuition. When I go back to see Dr.Shobha, I have no complaints to report and sip down my herbal drink with great pleasure.

For four days, I have retired from the outside world without regret, been pampered in an environment of beauty and calm, walking on the beach, swimming, reading, meditating, following my treatments, practising yoga and eating the most delicious inventive vegetarian food I could have ever imagined, served with great attention to detail. On the fifth day, I decide to venture out of the Garden of Eden that SwaSwara appears to be. I renounce my morning meditation to follow the in-house naturalist who takes a small group of us up the hill, in the woods, all the way to the single palm tree for us to see the entire shape of Om beach. We walk down to Paradise beach and take a boat to go back to SwaSwara. My friend Jessamine who shares the adventure, looks very happy with her hair flowing in the breeze and a big blissful smile on her face. She has come all the way from Australia and is falling in love with India.

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We are both very curious to discover Gokarna and we are not disappointed. In spite of the large number of aimless westerners who come here to run away from the scary world of adulthood, I guess, the temple town retains a very authentic character typical of traditional India. Walking through the streets, entering a temple, we are thrown back in time, to a place where the sacred and the mundane coexist harmoniously. The aesthetics of such a lifestyle have always touched my heart. The Ram temple, just above the beach, struck me particularly, with those priests performing puja in a suspended time of uninterrupted worship.

Back in SwaSwara, I measure the efforts that are done to reduce the impact of our presence on nature. The low tuft roof constructions blend graciously with nature and the water we use and even drink has been collected during monsoon time, boiled and disinfected for consumption. Responsibility towards the environment does not stop with nature though. SwaSwara plays a positive role for the local communities as well. On the 8th of March, to celebrate the international women’s day, the general manager, Mini Chandran, who is a woman, along with all the doctors and assistants, decided to offer free medical check up to the 120 women who work at a nearby cashew processing factory and their children. The factory is an extension of the house of a Brahmin, a follower of Aurobindo, who also produces a delicious natural juice. I am impressed by the kindness and the dedication the doctors shower their patients with. Their reward is the relieved smile on the workers’ faces, so pleased to be able to share their worries with competent professionals.

Today the ocean, that has been calm all along, is roaring gently as if to mark its disappointment with me leaving tomorrow. I am happy to go back home to my dear ones, but a bit sad as well to leave behind this little corner of paradise that has conjured all means to restore my energy. I will carry SwaSwara with me, in my inner landscape, like an oasis to revert to whenever I will seek a place of peace and beauty inside. In the sacred geography of India, SwaSwara is a pilgrimage to the self, a place of inner contemplation, a wilful journey towards one’s joie de vivre.

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A delightful celebration

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Celebration 1

 

The moon is high in the sky when we arrive at the boat jetty of the Lake Palace in Udaipur. The white outline of the impressive building glows faintly under the stars, surrounded by the silvery waters of the Lake Pichola. Everyone there has been waiting for us and in spite of the late night hour, the welcome is courteous and warm, we are immediately made to feel at home. The Jal Tarang suite is an oasis of rest for our tired bodies after the smooth six-hour drive from Jaipur.

It is our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and we want to celebrate it intimately. After a marvellous sleep, we are ready and excited to discover the town that was once the capital of the Mewar Kingdom. Sailesh, our guide, accompanies us as the grand architecture, characteristic of the city, comes alive through tales of courage and kings. We slowly become acquainted with a rich and colourful heritage.

While travelling, chance meetings are the stuff that cherished memories are made of. I am sure we will never forget the two handsome sadhus that we encountered during our stroll in the old city. Both of them were beautifully attired, dressed in white cotton muslin draped around their lean bodies, their baked skin shining, their white beards flowing. They were stating their affiliation to the Vaishnavite tradition through the white and red marks drawn with sandalwood paste on their foreheads. With Sailesh’s help we got to talk and we learned that they were from Ujjain, had been to Allahabad for the Kumbh Mela and, after a holy dip in the Pushkar Lake,were heading towards Girnar in Gujarat. When our eyes met, I felt drowned in an ocean of kindness; their blessing was the most auspicious welcome in Udaipur we could have hoped for. It was also a pertinent prelude to our visit to the Jagdish temple.

We buy a garland of fresh flowers to offer Lord Vishnu and proceed to walk up the stairs that bring the pilgrims in presence of the god. Sailesh explains to us that today is the 11th day of the lunar calendar, therefore there will be a great affluence of devotees to the temple. Many women have come dressed in their traditional bright saris, a real treat for the eyes. When we enter the Sanctum Santorum, where we are able to have a glimpse of the deity, the highly charged atmosphere of tangible devotion mesmerizes us. Women are sitting at the feet of Lord Vishnu’s effigy and singing praises to him. I close my eyes to soak in the beauty of their choir, then I open them up again to carry with me such an endearing image of timeless India. We walk away under the stern gaze of Garuda, Lord Vishnu’s vehicle, while someone gives us a prasad, a bit of sweet rice blessed by the God’s presence.

Celebration 4

Enriched by such an intense exposure to spirituality, we are now ready for the mundane. Sailesh takes us to the local market for us to experience the Indian bazar, an expression of a traditional way of life that continues to coexist with the onset of modernity in India. We truly enjoy the experience, the cloth vendor sleeping in his shop oblivious of the passers by, the young woman with a cock, both attired in matching colours, the old lady with too thick spectacles who offers me a handful of fresh peas. Although we were the only foreigners around, we feel that we do not disturb anyone around, on the contrary we are an amusing distraction.

We finish our discovery of Udaipur with a pleasant walk in Saheliyon-ki-bari, the gardens where the princesses of the house of Mewar use to frolic, I wish I had sometime to sit under the extravagantly huge bougainvillea and draw the images that the story conjures in my mind.

By the time we are back at the jetty we are left speechless by the magnificent sunset over the lake that seems staged just for us. We cross the lake and regain our princely abode for the night. The whirling dancers, accompanied by folk musicians, perform in one of the numerous courtyards of the Palace, making for a pleasant transition between the world outside and the intimacy we can enjoy inside.

We wash away the emotions of the day with a relaxing bath in the Jacuzzi and are ready for an unforgettable dinner masterfully laid out for us on the rooftop of the Lake Palace. Sitting under the starlit firmament graced by a stunning view in front of us, we stay silent for a while in awe of such beauty. At the end of a lovely evening, when the chef and the maître d’hôtel come to ask if we have any suggestion to improve their services, we truly have nothing to offer but compliments.

A lazy morning, we decide is the perfect gift to give each other. We have breakfast on the charming garden of the palace under the stern gaze of Lord Ganesha, lulled by the notes of the bansuri played by a turbaned flautist sitting on the terrace above us. Our American neighbours, an elegant couple, discuss their travel: “I don’t want to leave India,” she says to her husband and he replies, “this is the best hotel I have ever been to”.

Then we enjoy playing the photographers for an imaginary magazine, shooting the ideal subject, The Lake Palace. The visit to the Jiva spa for a wonderful massage is the cherry on the cake. As the boat ferries us away, we turn around for a last image to cherish in our minds, forever grateful to the Lake Palace for having offered us the most delightful of celebrations.

Celebration 9

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Holy Dust

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Performing Puja on the banks of the river Ganges, Haridwar, Uttarakhand, India

There is no happiness for he who does not travel.    Rigveda

 

In her cosy New England kitchen, my grandmother is serving me a cup of green tea. She then sits in front of me, staring. Finally she asks the question that must have been in her mind for quite sometime: “Why do the two of you keep going to India every year?” Dear Grandma has never left the United States and India must have been the least of her concerns until her granddaughter and her artist husband started to travel there repetitively. The first time we went, ten years ago, we accepted Raju’s invitation for his wedding in Kolkata and as he jokingly said we entered India by that door, but never found one to leave her.” Since then, we have been planning a three weeks journey every year and we have always come back enriched, enlightened, enamoured. “Yes Grandma, India made us fall I love with her peculiar ways, with her warmth and her elegance, her simplicity and her grace.” “But Jess, my neighbour, Mrs Weaver said that there is a lot of poverty and a lot of dust in India.” “I bet your Mrs Weaver has never travelled a hundred miles away from here, has she? I retort. Travel is about suspending your judgment and embracing the reality you are encountering. Travel makes you realise that your way is not the only way. Travel challenges your notion of what is good and what is bad. When I first saw a young boy walking barefoot in the monsoon rain in Dhar, whistling away happily, I realised that having shoes does not make one rich and that wealth and poverty are relative to one’s perception of them. And dust, Grandma, is not everywhere, every time! India is a huge country not only made of deserts. “Yes, but the world is much bigger and you keep going back there, I still don’t understand.” “I agree, it might seem that we are obsessed, but we have met many travellers who keep choosing India over other destinations. India is vast and extremely varied with an outstanding and warm-hearted population. In a small village in Ladakh, we met Tibetan looking women dressed in woollen coats and turquoise studded headgears who invited us to drink chang, the local beer, at their home. In Maheshwar, on the banks of a sacred river, an old widow wanted to share her ratio of sugar with us. In Kerala, total strangers invited us to a wedding and made us feel as guests of honour. Such spontaneous sharing, born from the Indians’ curiosity of foreigners and their trust in a fellow human being is very endearing and particularly surprising for the westerners that we are.”

My grandmother and I share a very special bond and I have always felt that she understands me, therefore I am really eager to convince her that India is fantastic. So I resort to the images of our latest journey to the lower Himalayas.

 

Sadhus of the tea shop, Haridwar, Uttarakhand, India

 

“Look Grandma, let me show you” I tell her while opening my laptop. “This beautiful place is called Haridwar, which means the gate of God. It is a very important pilgrimage place on the banks of the Ganges, the sacred river for the Hindus. They believe that it is here that the legendary bird Garuda, the vehicle of Lord Vishnu, spilled the elixir of immortality, the Amrita. See, this is the spot where the nectar has fallen; it is called Har-ki-Pauddi, the footsteps of the Lord. And guess what? Practising Hindus perform a pilgrimage there to bring the ashes of their departed family members, hoping for their salvation. They do so following the example of a legendary king who they believe had brought the river Ganga down from heaven to rescue all his ancestors. Our guide, Tushar, who has become a dear friend, has also explained to us that in his family, when someone felt tired and battered by life’s events, he was sent to Haridwar to recover his joie de vivre. With him, we were able to visit several centres of learning, among which a very interesting gurukul, a school of traditional learning. We even met a renowned ayurvedic doctor who has managed to find a cure for Allen’s persistent headache!

Look at this, I took this picture in the evening when we reached town. Those fierce Sadhus, men who have renounced the world, bathed in a golden light gave the tone to our visit to a very special place. And see this holy man meditating in his beautifully decorated tent, oblivious of the world passing by. Allen and I were both humbled and in awe of such a mysterious way of living. While we busy ourselves with time, they deal with eternity. I don’t know who is right, but I am happy to discover different ways. We were lucky to arrive in time for the evening aarti, prayers that are performed on the banks of the river. Here, you can see the young priest offering prayers with symbolic elements, the fire, the coconut, the incense. All those around are immersed in contemplation. After a short night, we went again to the riverbanks before sunrise to witness the fervour of the devotes who greet the giver of light and who revere Goddess Ganga. In spite of their penchant for science and technology, the Indians, it seems, are still very attached to their traditions stemming back thousands of years. The ambiance at the river that morning was unforgettable. The light, the costumes, the chanting, the authenticity of the moment in which we completely forgot that we were strangers, everything contributed to a great joy that pasted a smile on our faces. We were happy to be there, we felt special. Look at this woman in the blue sari, look how beautiful her wrinkles are! “My girl, you are a good photographer, maybe if you’d take a portrait of me I would look that pretty too… I love the picture of the little girl with ponytails, doesn’t she feel cold in the river?” Grandma seems fascinated by my pictures, she keeps asking questions about Hinduism and its belief in reincarnation. She even says that it seems an interesting theory. “See here, I carry on, they are all saluting the Ganges, I love the way the crowd can become one body in India, moved by the same intention. And look at those priests dressed in white and golden dhotis, those wrapped skirts, you might say. Aren’t they impressive?”

By the time I show her my last picture, I know I have convinced her. My enthusiasm is infectious and my grandmother’s trust in me legendary. She looks at those women with their colourful saris draped over their heads, their bony hands joined in prayer and she says: “Maybe next time you can take me there, would you mind?” I jump up from my chair and hug her tight, “Of course I will! I will ask Dheeraj from Kamalan to craft a beautiful itinerary for us. We will travel at a slow pace and you will truly understand, why is the dust of India so endearing!”

 

Hands joined in prayer, Haridwar, Uttarakhand, India

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