Tag: heart

India and My Soul

In November, I visited India for the fourth time. I’m drawn to the place like a magnet, like my energy is attracted to its, like my soul gets caught on the prevailing wind.

It is a land of fascinating human history, evidence of which can be seen in forts and palaces and temples. Its people are friendly and musical and resourceful. Of course, it has its problems, and like everywhere else in the world, they’re man-made, but sweeping the trash aside, India is a beautiful and exciting place.

Each time I’ve been, I’ve had a mission: the first was to visit the big sights of Rajasthan and South India; the second to do research for my novel-writing; the third to spend nine days in an ashram at a women’s festival focused on saving the planet (with my guru, Liz Gilbert); and this fourth time was twofold – to check out a residential school for disabled kids run by an incredible woman I met at the ashram, and the other, to join a group of writers in a tour aptly called Story Hunters.

The school turned out to be a treat, a happy place where kids were thriving. Kids who had suffered birth trauma, disease, or lack of pregnancy care, who would normally have no opportunity for happiness, were being educated, looking after themselves and each other in a positive environment, playing sport, laughing. I got to hang out with the girls in their common room, having my hands painted with henna, dancing.

The group of writers turned out to be an eclectic bunch of highly creative and deep-thinking women.

Story Hunters was the vision of a man who wanted to connect a bunch of curious, foreign writers with types of Indians who don’t often get to tell their stories.

Travelling with us was a young Indian woman with impressive qualifications who acted as facilitator, herder, and interpreter; a musician who played violin, guitar and wooden flute, who sang and wrote poetry; and an earnest, young videographer and documentary maker with the sweetest of hearts.

We got to meet with:

  • gypsies who live on the edge of the Thar desert, who perform dances, play instruments, and do tricks like pick up razor blades in their eyelids. Their pride and their personal stories of loss have affected me forever.
  • street-sweepers – a mother and daughter-in-law – who were accompanied by a male family member in order to be decorous.
  • a jeweller who broke away from his family’s traditional silver-smithing style to make highly imaginative artworks from metals and gems and fossils. He almost died from Covid, then a great light lifted from his chest, leaving him completely well.
  • a Naga sadhu in Benares (Varanasi) who was once a successful software developer who now devotes his life to attaining enlightenment.
  • a Sufi priest who explained that Sufism is about finding truth, liberation, reality, and love. He spoke eloquently, sang Kabir’s poetry, and played tambourine with dancing hands.
  • a tuk tuk driver in Delhi who turned his life around with the love and support of his wife – a love marriage between a Muslim and a Hindu that survived his drug addiction and imprisonment – becoming an honest business owner, able to put his sons through private school.
  • Hijras – people of the ‘third gender’ – whose personal stories of hardship, ostracism and desire for love broke my heart.

We spent days in India’s last living fort, Jaisalmer, and more by the great, holy Ganges in Varanasi. We visited ancient sites including a 350-year-old Mosque built with the remains of a Hindu temple and the remains of a city, reportedly abandoned 800 years ago. We learned about caste, religion, gurus, Hindu gods, and Diwali. We explored alleyways and danced on the river’s ghats, singing Hindi and Beatles songs with our very own troubadour.

My fourth trip to India turned out to be exceptional. I learned so much that it took weeks to process once I was home in the quiet, open space of Australia.

On reflection, I wonder if the gods play their part in returning me there, time and time again.

Vayu, the guardian of the northwest direction and the Lord of the Winds, may be my universal facilitator. No doubt, I will do this exhilarating journey again and like the much enjoyed roller-coaster of my childhood, I will find myself weeping with pain and blissful with joy. India burns in my heart and like the flame of the diya (the sacred oil lamp), it will remain the light of my soul.

REFERENCE

School for children with a physical disability – SKSN: https://sksn.org/

Story Hunters: https://www.blueswan.events/

Writer’s Journey – https://www.writersjourney.com.au/

Follow Your Heart

TOASTMASTERS has been a great life enhancer for me. Not only have I found new, caring, intelligent friends, but I’ve been able to develop my VOICE. This is a WRITER thing but it’s also very human. We all want to be heard, feel valued and understood. Most people join to develop themselves somehow. I joined because I wanted another reason to write. I’ve not only found an outlet for my writing, I’ve found a group of people that encourage me, make me feel strong and interesting. I can speak without fear of judgement and this is a confidence booster.

I’ve included here today, a SPEECH I made a few weeks ago, on my return from the Great India Interlude. I hope you enjoy it and feel inspired to follow your heart, like I have.

***

Have you ever had a strong desire to do something that’s not totally rational, or predictable or convenient? Something that pulls on your heartstrings despite your mind saying, maybe that’s not sensible?

Six years ago, age fifty, I did something out of character. I packed the dog, hired a motorhome and left the family for a six-week time out! It was a dream that turned into a life changing journey.

Two years ago, I changed the course of my life. I left my marriage.

It was an action that was neither predictable or convenient. I stepped into the abyss and it took courage. Why did I do it? Because I knew, deep in my heart, that I would never be all I could be if I stayed.

Two months ago, I boarded a plane for India. This may have been rational and predictable. After all, I am writing a novel that includes India and I am known as adventurous. But going to India alone was going to be challenging.

I was nervous about being a single woman travelling alone in a country where native women only travel with their family. If alone, they risk being thought of as reckless or having loose morals. I was nervous about getting sick, finding my way, getting accosted.

But the twinges in my tummy weren’t from nerves. They were flutters of excitement. I wanted to be alone in India, to immerse myself in the place, in the crowd, with the noise and cows and colour. That was what was pulling me there.

I’d been there before and travelled like a maharani. But the India I craved, was amongst the commoners. I wanted to connect empathically.

My book is the story of three women who have the courage to start again (any similarity to me is coincidental!) and one of them lives in India for a year. I wanted the trip to be my version of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love, maybe Bollywood style.

So, despite my fears and friends’ words of caution, I embarked on my journey. In transit, in Hong Kong, I faced my first challenge. I missed my connection! This was stressful and I wondered if the trip was really a good idea!    I appealed to the gods, asking if I really needed such a lesson. I pulled myself together, found my offloaded suitcase and figured out how to get to Mumbai that night. Arriving at 3am, there was no one to meet me. I had no cash and I needed a taxi. With the help of a kind Indian man, I figured out the foreign ATM machine. Then I set off through the dark, quiet, deserted streets with a taxi driver who spoke no English. Friends’ words of caution were firmly blocked out.

After this initiation by adrenaline infusion, things settled down. My days of research in Mumbai were glossy with success. The help I had was beyond my hopes. Nothing was too much trouble. I found where my character lived, shopped and cremated her husband.

The next part of the journey was a nine-hour train trip to Goa. Another example of facing my fear and doing it anyway (thank you Susan Jeffers) Online horror stories of women-solo-travellers on trains and the cautions from friends had me alert, but concern was unwarranted. At 5am I was escorted by a guide to the right platform and the first-class carriage. The carriage was comfortable and fellow travellers looked agreeable. No scoundrels in sight. The most unpleasant part of the trip was the man on his mobile, shouting ‘hallo, hallo,’ every time the signal cut out.

Goa is a seaside resort town and very relaxed. On my first night, I settled at the garden bar of my resort to listen to the traditional Indian band.

A bellydancer wove through the tables and grabbed my hand. I leapt from my chair, my inner bellydancer coming out to play. Travelling alone is liberating because there’s no-one you know to bear witness to your actions.

As I returned exhausted to the bar, a fine-looking English gentleman sung my praises. I was charmed as we chatted, especially when he told me he bred and showed spaniels. We ate dinner together and laughed at our stories.

I began to think I’d met my soul mate. I was quite besotted. And then he said four words that changed everything. “As a gay man……”

After I recovered, we went on to have dinner together every night.

Determined to never think of romance again, I concentrated on spirituality. One evening in Udaipur I attended a puja, a Hindu ceremony.

I mimicked the worshippers: hands together, sitting cross legged, lining up with the ladies to run holy water through my hair and accepting flower petals. As I made my way through the little alleyways back to my hotel, I almost skipped.

I could tell you twenty other stories: of conversations with women, of feeding dogs and kissing cows, of lascivious looks by young men in villages, embarrassing massages, disturbing road accidents, Bollywood movies with no subtitles, falling a little in love with my guide in Varanasi, clever beggars, and trudging through the snow before dawn to watch the sun                          rise on the Himalayas.

But I’ll just tell you this one. I wanted to get some advice from a traditional Hindu doctor. I had a hand drawn map from my guide in Varanasi and I was told it was an hour-long trip. I was deliberating as to whether it was worth it and was sharing these thoughts with a Swiss woman at my hotel. She looked me straight in the eyes, touched my arm and said, “You have nothing more important to do today!” So, I went.

As I stepped around the cows and into the white building, I was greeted by the doctor. I shared my concerns. His final words were, “You’re fine. You have everything you want in your life. Meditate, fast and you will be well in body and mind. Concentrate on writing your novel.”

Some of life’s greatest moments come when you’re not totally rational, or predictable, or comfortable. They come when you feel that pull on your heartstrings and you go with it.

Follow Your Heart (2)