Adventure 15: Chennai

Yesterday morning I left home at around 8:00 AM to get to the Delhi Airport by 9 AM, so that I could check in for my flight (which was going to be at 10:10 AM) on time. (Oh yeah, I came back to Noida from Varanasi on the 26^th morning… it was an overnight train, which was pretty fun. Not much more to say about that.) I ended up arriving around 8:40 AM and so I checked in, and sat down. I was flying Indian Airlines, and so naturally, at 10:30 AM I noticed that there was a flight that was supposed to leave at 9:40 that was still boarding. So I waited, and waited, and finally about an hour and a half late (not too bad!) I boarded my flight for Chennai. Now, my dad’s office is in Chennai, of which he happens to be the CEO. So when I arrived in Chennai, one of his chief helpers came to pick me up, and we went to the hotel called Green Park Hotel where my dad stays when he goes. It is such a sweet hotel… Take our 5-star hotels, add some extra service and food, and one of the coolest foyers I have ever seen, and you’ve got the Green Park.

 

After dropping my stuff off at the hotel, we went to my dad’s office. It is so nice! And my dad’s personal office space has this big sign on it that says “CEO” and under the sign is another sign that says “Rajiv Khanna” which was the coolest thing to see! I could just imagine when my dad comes here; he probably gets such an awesome reception and stuff, because in India, the corporate culture is different. The respect given to one’s boss is unparalleled. Even the respect given to the boss’s son (me)!! I felt like I was in a scene right out of a Hindi movie, the classic “son of the boss goes to dad’s office, meets office workers, they like him, etc” scene. So I met his workers and then sat in his office (which only gets used when he comes here).

 

I must comment here that it felt so awesome to be in my dad’s shoes for a while. Of course, I didn’t have to do the work he did, but just to sit there even felt so cool. The same goes for when I went to BHU. It was my dad’s alma mater, so it made it all the more special for me. Those of you who have gone to the college your parents went to, or done something your parents used to do when they were your age, or even visited your parents’ workplaces, doesn’t it feel special somehow? I think it does. Anyways I was so proud of my dad for establishing such a nice office and large company, and that feeling mixed with the relief of being done with my coursework officially was really nice.

 

After retiring to my room in the hotel, I realized how luxuriously we live in the States, and in classy places like Green Park Hotel. This is because only a few days ago I was in Varanasi, with no electricity, running water only half the time, no gas, and a temperature that was WAY hotter than Chennai… It occurred to me that even living in such a classy hotel, after having experienced what I saw in Varanasi, I could never get used to this. Just knowing that there are people out there in the world with nothing but a cloth to bunch up to put their head on when they sleep at night, outside, on bare ground in the heat of summer, it is so hard to live with oneself in such luxury. I realized our worlds are just little bubbles of security, especially for kids of successful parents, because the kids themselves were simply born into such luxury, they never have to work for it… they will never get to experience what 95+% of the world is going through. And without this experience, they cannot know what is going on! And yet, these are the people that run the world. We always talk about helping people on the streets, helping the poor, saving the world. But do we even really know what we are trying to save?

 

Of course, the problem is not the luxury we live in. It is the thanklessness with which we live in it. We complain about food, we complain about clothes, we complain about people, dorms, classes, TV, politics, weather, facilities; we complain about EVERYTHING. If we could just adopt an attitude of gratefulness for our circumstances, life would be so much more beautiful and meaningful. It is hard to adopt this attitude without knowing what we COULD be living in, I know; but maybe that means that each one of us should make a trip outside our little bubbles of security? Gratitude is the key to living a meaningful life, I think, but nobody can give you gratitude… you have to feel it. Step away from your security bubble, wander outside your comfort level, and observe the real world. Then gratitude will naturally enter your being.

 

Finally today I went to go see one of the friends I made at Veda Vijnana Gurukulam, Arvind Agraja. He lives in Chennai, so today I had a taxi ordered for me, and made my way to his house. When I got there, I saw that Bharat Agraja was also there, as were a few of the other students from the Gurukulam!! They were apparently finishing some week-long program they had set up for Sanskrit or something. It was so cool to see them after a couple of months! I sat with them for a couple hours and we talked, and then I had lunch there. After lunch, it was time to go. I left and then I asked the driver to take me around Chennai. He said ok, and we went first to Marina Beach. I got out of the car, and decided to walk around the beach a little.

 

Marina Beach is one of the biggest beaches I have ever seen. There had to have been over a thousand people within sight range, I’m not kidding. And it was something like walking into a carnival. In India, in big cities and in crowded places, the street vendors have a method of finding their way into the center of attention. And their stuff is always carnival-ish, which makes these locations a lot more entertaining than if it was just a lot of people in one place. So I entered the festivities and walked all the way to the ocean (which was a 10 minute walk, so imagine how big the beach must be), and then walked back to the car. It was a short but enjoyable experience at Marina Beach, and then I told the driver to go to our next location. He then took me to the hotel, so I guess he was satisfied (and so was I, I was exhausted)! It probably also has to do with the fact that the driver didn’t know English, and I don’t know Tamil, so we couldn’t really communicate very well. I used hand gestures to get my point across, but it seemed to work.

 

Anyways, tomorrow I’m leaving at 5:00 AM to go to Pondicherry, so I think I will end this entry here.

Course 5: Ayurveda Studies @ Banaras Hindu University

My study in Ayurveda at BHU was probably one of the coolest courses I have ever taken. It involved buying a book by my professor, Dr. Ram Harsh Singh (apparently many or most of the professors at BHU write their own books), and then reading as much of it as I could, asking questions as I went along. So what I did was as I finished each chapter, I would take detailed notes, and then write questions that came up along the way. When each chapter was done, I would go to Dr. Singh’s office (in the Ayurvedic wing of the Sir Sunderlal Hospital on BHU’s campus… how cool is that?). I would ask him my questions, and then he would answer them. Of course, he is now a retired professor, and just practices Ayurveda instead of teaching. This means that he can always be found in his office. So I went there as many times as I could, and asked many questions. He suggested very strongly that I apply for BHU’s Ayurveda program in the future… I guess he liked me a lot. Many people here are struck by the fact that I was born and brought up in the United States, and yet have an interest in ancient Indian knowledge. But even I don’t know why that is the case; it simply is. And I enjoy it. I get questions like, why do you like India so much? What are you doing in the United States? Uh, you’re studying mathematics and neuroscience in the U.S., and you have an interest in Sanskrit, Vedanta, and Ayurveda? How? And why??

 

It’s something that I know I will have to deal with for the rest of my life, seeing as I can’t change my birthplace. But I am rather proud of being American; it’s something that I don’t want to change. So I guess I got the best of both worlds… I was born in America, and my roots are in India!

Course 4: Cultural Geography of Varanasi

This was my fourth course here in India, and it was rather moving. I had the privilege of working with Dr. Rana P.B. Singh, about whom I wrote earlier in the blog. He is an excellent writer, and of course a great friend. We did not meet as many times as I would have liked to over the course of my stay here in Varanasi, but the times we did meet were very fruitful. I am honored to have gotten to work with him.

 

This course was all about exploring and writing about Varanasi. As you know, I have written a lot about Varanasi already here itself in the blog, but this course had a different motive. It was not simply to observe and then write about what I saw, but to observe, relate what is going on in the present to Varanasi’s history, and then react and write about everything. So I started by first trying to decide what to write about (I’ve never been in a situation where I have complete freedom to write about whatever I want)! I couldn’t decide what to write about for the longest time. Finally I realized, after a meeting with Ranaji, that lots of western authors come to India, and specifically Varanasi, and write about what they see, with a very shallow understanding and ultimately end up destroying the image of the scene. This frustrated me quite a bit, as you can imagine, and I decided to rectify a few of the misconceptions created by these authors in the west.

 

I identified several “problems” in India that western authors wrote about, distorting the true meaning behind the acts of the Indian people here. Then I went around as often as I could, observing the true situation, interviewing people, and then understanding what the true significance of the circumstance is. Finally I wrote as much as I could about what I found. It was a moving and changing experience, to say the least, but there is not much more I can say. Kashi is such a vast city, and I knew from the start that I would not be able to do it justice in just two months of writing. People in the past have researched it for over 10 or 15 years and only then began to write about it! Who am I to contend with such dedication and hard work? Varanasi has, indeed, given me a lot in the way of spiritual uplifting and self-development, and I only pray that I can give back even a fraction of what I have gained here.

Adventure 14: Exploring Varanasi

Today I saw pretty much every important and touristy location in Varanasi.

 

First I went to Godowlia at around 8:00 AM to meet Giridhar Mahodaya (if you will remember, he was one of my teachers at the Samvaadashaalaa in Delhi in January) because he was going to meet me there to be my tour guide around the city. We made our way first towards the Sanskrit College, called Sampoornaananda Vishvavidyaalaya (that’s not how it’s spelled, but that’s how it’s pronounced… which I think is more important). We had called a rickshaw driver, and on our way we stopped to pay our respects at a mandir. As we were walking inside, I learned that it was Gayatri Mandir, the temple dedicated to the Goddess Gayatri, and the Sun (the famous Gayatri Mantra is made to pay respects to these deitites). After receiving prasaad, or food blessed by divine presence, we headed out. We gave some prasaad to the rickshaw driver as well, and were off to Sampoornaanand.

 

A little funny note about prasaad: it’s quite interesting to see different people’s reactions to the fact that any bit of food is prasaad. Usually it is something sweet, and many old people’s reactions to sweet things is “No!” but as soon as you tell them that it is prasaad, they take it quite willingly. It is obvious that secretly, from the start, they were wishing they could eat it, but due to their apparent diabetes or whatever the case may be, they don’t take the sweets initially. But then they are given the reassurance that it has been divinely blessed/purified, and they gladly take it without further thought. Such is our faith! If it’s prasaad, I’ll eat it. The same thing goes for people who don’t like whatever it is you are offering them. Tell them it is prasaad, and they put aside all their distaste and dislike; after all, it’s divinely blessed – there’s really no way of saying no to that. Prasaad is such a wonderful concept.

 

We found ourselves at Sampoornaananda University next. It is a huge campus, similar to BHU’s but not on such a grand scale. It is beautiful; there are trees everywhere, and everything is written in Sanskrit (all the boards, etc.) because, well, it’s the Sanskrit University. People go there to become scholars in Sanskrit, so it would only make sense that their campus is full of it. As we were walking through the campus, we passed a really old looking chap with a baseball cap on and a walking stick, and really worn out pretty much everything. Giridhar Mahodaya informed me, after passing him, that he had just read about this man in the paper, with his picture and everything matching exactly this guy’s profile. He told me that this man had walked 55,000 kilometers (yeah, I know, that’s fifty-five THOUSAND kilometers) all the way from his native place, Maharashtra. After trying really really hard but not being able to resist talking to him, we walked up to him and asked him where he was from. He said “Maharashtra” and we looked at each other with crazy expressions like 3-year-olds finding some secret buried treasure in a sandbox. This was insane! A guy who walked 55,000 km across the country starting 18 months ago, and here he was in front of us, with no pomp or anything! He asked us how we knew about him, and Giridhar Mahodaya told him that he had read about him in the paper. This man, apparently, was not free from vanity. He told us he had been looking for that same newspaper all day, and while we were talking to him would not stop asking us where the local/good newspaper stands were, and why there weren’t any proper newspaper stores in this city. We had to detach ourselves from him after a while; it was time to go. He called out after us to make sure one final time we didn’t know of any good newspaper stands nearby that he hadn’t already checked out. (I really love India – the people are just so… unique). We were still amazed though; 55,000 kilometers… that’s a whole heck of a lot of kilometers. And he traveled it all by foot!! (Later, when we got back to Godowlia, we saw one of our friends reading that same newspaper, and silently laughed to ourselves).

 

Our next stop was the Bhaarat Mata Mandir. This is a sanctuary dedicated to the ancient land of Bhaarat, fittingly located in its oldest lived-in city. The reason it is called Bhaarat Mata is because its inhabitants worship their land as their mother; it is this soil that gave them (and humanity in general) life, and they give it proper respect. Bhaarat, of course, was way bigger than what is modern-day India. It was spread out all across modern-day China, Nepal, Bengal, Malaysia and Singapore to the east, Pakistan and Afghanistan to the west, and Sri Lanka to the south. It included all of the mighty Himalayan Mountains and great river Ganga; it stretched from ice to tropics. It was the most fertile land, teeming with resources, and the cradle of an ancient, complex civilization that figured out facts of the world and life through introspection and contemplation that modern-day science is still struggling to understand. In the last few hundred years, she has been stripped of her original glory and beauty due to invasions from the north… I’ll stop here for fear of getting passionate and angry. It is my motherland, after all.

 

Anyways, this mandir is a quiet-zone where there is a HUGE 3D model of the ancient Bhaarat. In it, even every mountain in the Himalayan range is labeled. It is such a fascinating thing to observe. Let me be a little more specific. It’s like a 20-feet-by-30-feet clay-cast model of India and surrounding land, all plaster-colored, specific down to each and every geographic detail, set on the floor. I don’t know how they did it but they did. This model is surrounded by about a 2-foot gap, with a railing that goes all around the model, from behind which you can view it (what people do is walk in a clock-wise fashion around the railing). It’s similar to a museum. There are stairs leading up and dowstairs, but the upstairs ones were closed, so we checked out the downstairs ones. These led to a tiny viewing window that was set at the very tip of Mother India, at exactly eye-level. So you could see the model, observing each geographic detail, at eye-level! And the interesting thing was, it was set at the base of the landmass, representing the feet of Mother India. We offered our prayers (it was like a temple after all) and paid our respects to the motherland. I was deeply touched by this experience, and anyone coming to Varanasi absolutely must come visit this temple. I didn’t want to leave, but Giridhar Mahodaya said it was time to move on, or we wouldn’t finish our tour of the city.

 

Our next destination was Varanasi’s train station, called Kant Station (I don’t know if it’s spelled Kant or Kent or Cant or what, because it’s not written anywhere at the station, but it’s pronounced “can’t” … I assume it’s spelled “Kant”). We reached the station and it is HUGE! It’s bigger than the airport in this city! I believe that is because the rail system is much more developed in smaller cities than the air system. This station is packed with parked cars, booths to buy tickets, booths to buy food/drink items, buses that bring travelers to different parts of the city, rickshaws entering and exiting with their passangers, and people! Everything is visible from outside, which is cool, because we didn’t have to go all the way inside to check it out (I needed to see it because this is where I’m going to be leaving Varanasi from, and I didn’t want to be lost on the day I leave).

 

After seeing Kant Station, we were debating whether to go to Ram Nagar or not (the city opposite the Ganga to Varanasi, where there is a fort and other touristy things to see), but decided against it as we were too tired and it was way too hot outside. Instead, we went back to Godowlia and parted ways there, probably only to meet each other in another year or two… But friends made in India are friends made for life, without any expectations. This is one thing I have learned to appreciate about Indian culture.

 

A little note about the weather here, it’s getting HOT. I don’t know the exact temperature, as I don’t get the newspaper and don’t watch TV, but it feels like 100 degrees Fahrenheit. And the local people tell me it only gets hotter… In May, temperatures reach up to 45 degrees Celsius! That means around 115-120 degrees Fahrenheit, and with heat index (it’s dry heat over here, not humid), it probably feels like 140. What that means is, it’s impossible to go outside… if you do, you will literally start to evaporate. Now, imagine this – there are people who live in little tents outside. And I don’t mean a few, here and there, I mean a LOT of people. How do they survive the summer? I am told that a lot of them don’t. This is the state of our beloved oldest city in the world. What are we doing? We are the ones causing this upsurge in heat, by polluting our land and water and air. Just by telling everyone to stop polluting, the polluting does not stop! A good deal of the people contributing are illiterate or uneducated, and don’t understand the harmful effects of polluting the land. I talked to a guy who came from Switzerland 18 years ago, and has been living here ever since, and he told me that in his 18 years here the weather and atmosphere of Varanasi has changed drastically. He is worried about the pollution in the air, and despite his strong body and serious love for this city, does not feel that he can stay much longer due to the adverse changes in the atmosphere.

 

In the olden days, I read, Varanasi was a woodland, full of greenery and lakes and rivers and was the perfect haven for the spiritual seeker. But now it is reduced to what will soon become a wasteland if people don’t start caring about their environment. The only way I can see this being done is by using the police force, ensuring that people do not litter, instating garbage cans all over the city, and pretty much redesigning the infrastructure. Now, if only the police force wasn’t so corrupt… If they catch you doing something bad, you just have to give them a few rupees and they let you go. I have learned that many policemen stop you with the expectation that you will give them some money; it is their way of earning daily bread and butter. But such is the way of the world, I guess.

 

All I know is, during the day, my room turns into a toaster. And it’s beginning to get uncomfortable, because I happen to be the toast.

Quest 15: Moving to Kabir Nagar

Today I moved from Nagwa to Kabir Nagar, which is a small colony right across the street from Durga Kund. It is a great place to be, there’s electricity and running water and it’s actually a home-like atmosphere. That’s about all I have to say about that.

 

Kabir Nagar is a great location; I can, from here, catch a rickshaw to Godowlia or to BHU for cheap, and the market is pretty sweet. I can get anything I want, by just walking to the main street because Durga Kund is a very visited/popular location.

 

We called a rickshaw from the street to come to Nagwa to pick me up (and my stuff) and somehow we fit it all into a rickshaw (such is India) and I went thus to Kabir Nagar. If you don’t know what a rickshaw is, it’s a bicycle with two wheels in the back instead of one. The person pedaling sits on the front seat (until which point it is just a bicycle), and in between the two back wheels there is a bench-like seat (it’s about 3 feet wide and 1 foot deep – not very huge) with a footrest for the rider(s). So somehow all of everything I had fit on that thing and I made it to Kabir Nagar! Yay!

Adventure 13: Household Work

Today was quite possibly the most adventurous day of all.

 

I woke up, performed morning routine, and immediately got down to business. Today I was going to wash my clothes, buy supplies for the apartment, and cook lunch completely on my own… right from buying the groceries. I was alone at home all day today, so I was forced to do everything on my own, though I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. This is how one learns: by being plunged into situations where there is no other choice but to perform the desired skill. For example, I plunged myself into a situation at Veda Vijnana Gurukulam where I had no choice but to speak Sanskrit, even though I was barely introduced to it. But my goal was to learn Sanskrit! And so it happened. In the same way, I was plunged into today’s situation… and the desired techniques were washing clothes (with just a bucket, water, soap, and my hands… the best tools anyone can have), buying groceries from the street market (which included bargaining with the vendors… a perilous task, I was well aware, for someone not from here), and cooking a meal.

 

I filled the bucket halfway with water (lo and behold, you all can learn how to wash clothes too), and then added a decent amount of soap powder (detergent) into the bucket. Next I took the clothes I was going to wash (not too many, since I had just washed my clothes a few days ago – with the help of Ashwini, Upendra Mahodaya’s younger brother – but this time I was on my own) and put them into the bucket, and plunged them up and down a little bit, swirled a little bit, and then let them sit there.

 

While the clothes were sitting in the soapy water, I decided to go buy some groceries. This is the part that would be interesting, I knew. I had never done this on my own, so I wasn’t wholly confident of myself in this endeavor. I left the apartment with my cloth bag – empty – and some money. As I walked down the street that would lead me to the road that I otherwise take to BHU, where the street vendors all line up their stalls, I rehearsed in my head everything I needed, how much I was willing to spend for it, and how I would interact with the street vendors. I knew I’d have to put on a heavy Bhojpuri (the local dialect) accent so as not to let the vendors know that I was from America… otherwise they would raise the prices to triple or quadruple the amount! For example, if they knew I was not from here, instead of charging 10 rupees for a kilo and a half of potatoes, they would charge me 40 or 50 rupees… and if I tried bargaining, they would lower it to maybe 45 or 40 rupees, which for me would seem like a good deal (hey, 10 rupees off), but in actuality would be a huge rip-off.

 

I reached the long line of stalls, and started walking along it… looking for good potatoes (they actually all looked good to me…) and good parwal. I don’t know the name in English for it. It looks like a mini-cucumber, though the insides are not quite like a cucumber... I don’t know how to quite explain. As I was walking, I saw a stall where a lady was sitting there, kind of looking at me. I passed it, not knowing where I was going really, and she called out to me. “Hey, what would you want to buy?” she asked me in the common speak. I said “How much per kilo of potatoes?” in the same dialect (you have to get right to the point with these vendors) and she replied, “10 rupees for a kilo and a half.” I’m not perfect at imitating the Bhojpuri accent of Hindi (similar to a Texan in the United States trying to imitate a New Yorker or someone from Boston), but I thought to myself that 10 rupees wasn’t bad, which meant that I must have gotten away with it. I didn’t need to bargain in this case, but I also had no idea how much to actually buy. I figured, why not take the kilo and a half, because it’ll come in handy for the next couple of days. I said, “OK give me the kilo and a half… and how much for these?” I pointed to the parwal (at the time I didn’t know the name of it, and I knew it was going to give me away…) but she said, “Six rupees for a pao.” Got away with it again! A pao is quite possibly one pound, but they just refer to it as a pao, and if it isn’t exactly a pound, it weighs approximately that much. When vendors weigh out the amount they are going to give you, they hold up a balance (totally old school) in their hand, and put the desired weight on one side of it… often measured by a rock or collection of rocks. Then they put the equivalent amount of whatever you’re buying on the other side of it. Imagine the amount of weight lifting these people do all day!! One pao is measured by one rock about ¾ the size of my fist, the name for which is actually probably referring to the rock itself. So I got 1.5 kilos of potatoes (which ended up being a lot more than I expected) and a pao of parwal for 16 rupees, which is a little less than 50 cents. One of the coolest things about coming from a foreign country and living in India is that a little money goes a long way… if you know where to go and how to spend it. This only works in cities like Banaras… not cities like Mumbai, where all the prices are converted to scale for foreigners (the same amount of stuff that I bought would probably cost around 200 rupees in Mumbai, Ashwini informed me).

 

Next, after completing the mission of getting veggies for the dish I would make at home for lunch, I started walking back towards where I came from. On the way, as I was passing the fruit stalls, I stopped and asked a boy (his prices would probably be lower than the middle-aged men’s stalls) for the price of both bananas and oranges. I needed both at home, I was totally out of fruits and fruits are what are keeping me healthy here! He said 20 rupees for a kilo of bananas, and 35 rupees for a kilo of oranges. I bargained with him a little bit (you have to ask them how much they’ll really sell it to you for… it’s quite comical if you’re an observer, actually) and got a total of a kilo of fruits (half a kilo of bananas and half of oranges) for 25 rupees. This wasn’t much of bargaining, but I’m only a beginner, and it was actually not bad for me. I got 5 rupees knocked off the kilo-price of oranges! 25 rupees is around 70-75 cents. Again, not a bad deal from the American perspective (which is what I tend to see things from when I actually make purchases, I don’t know why)…

 

Finally I started walking back home, with the intention of stopping at a shop nearer to the apartment for some flour (for making rotis) and some oil to cook the vegetables in. The flour and oil have a standard price around here, so I couldn’t bargain for those… so I came back with half a liter of mustard oil (which is what we cook our food in here) and half a kilo of flour.

 

This whole process took about 45 minutes, and I would have gone on bike if I weren’t picking up so much stuff. I also picked up a 1-liter bottle of mineral water and some Parle-G biscuits (the best biscuits ever)… I ended up walking home with my cloth bag plus two little plastic bags full of stuff.

 

I got back home and unloaded all my stuff, immediately going to the bathroom where my clothes were waiting to be taken out of the bucket. I then unloaded the bucket one piece of clothing at a time, putting a little extra soap (there’s a separate special soap bar for this purpose) on each of the whites and forcefully scrubbing with a hard brush, then removing the soapy water from them, while adding clean water from a separate bucket. I have so much newfound respect for this kind of job – imagine squatting the whole time, with no seat or anything… just you, the bucket, the water, and the ground. Most people here have been doing this job since they were 5 or 6 years old, so they are in practice… but I was using muscles I have never had to use in my life! At the end of just 6 pieces of clothing, my back and my legs were sore (it doesn’t help that I have long legs, so when I squat they get in the way). But it felt really good to finish. I got up, and hung the clothes outside to dry.

 

Now, for food. By this time it was around 1:00 PM, and I was ready to get working in the kitchen. I quickly took a shower (I was done with the dirty work), and got cookin’ (literally). I first unpacked all the plastic bags I had originally put in the kitchen… realizing that I had so much stuff that I wouldn’t finish it all by myself even in the next couple of days… but that’s why there are two of us here! So hopefully it will get used up before it gets spoiled. Anyways I peeled the potatoes, cut them into little pieces, cut the parwal into little pieces (you don’t need to know the details, so…) then I put them in the pot with some oil and masalas and cooked all of it.  Since there is only one burner, I had to wait for the veggies to be done before I could make the rotis. (We seriously live in luxury in America, and I realize it more and more every day. We have running water all the time, electricity all the time, stoves with 4 burners, and lots and lots of other things that we don’t even realize.) I made the rotis – yes, successfully – and ate. I was so hungry that I finished everything I made… which was food for two people. This ended my real adventure for the day, and by this time it was about 3:00 PM. Then my work started… but I was so tired from the chores that I couldn’t get my mind to concentrate on my studies… So I fell asleep.

 

…And woke up at 7:00 PM, by which time Ashwini had come back. We chatted for a while, and then I got to work. Around 9:00 PM, Ashwini started making dinner and then we ate at around 10:00 PM.

 

Ok, now for the part where I tell you what I learned from this experience. First of all, I have SO much more respect for people who do the household work. If people ever look down upon housewives/husbands or homemakers, well, they shouldn’t. It’s quite possibly more work than going to a 9-to-5 job, because first of all, it is 24/7, and second, it involves a lot more running around. Imagine cooking food, doing dishes, doing laundry, cleaning the house… add in a kid or two (or three), plus the spouse in many cases, and all of their needs, and that is only the tip of the iceberg in the ocean of work that is maintaining a household.

 

I have a newfound appreciation for this kind of work. It really is an art, and requires a talent beyond just following protocol. Today’s adventure got me thinking about such things in much greater detail. There are unexpected twists and turns in every task, even when there are machines to help do all the work. You have to get the machines repaired every once in a while, know what needs to be done when, and who needs attention when. Essentially the homemaker is the best manager of time, resources, and people… without the recognition or the title. What humility one must have to be a true homemaker! I would like to acknowledge here the hard work and dedication of my mother since I was born (and even before that), who has taken care of every single one of my needs, my brother’s needs, the home’s needs, and somehow had time to take care of herself… without asking for anything in return. I have realized how much work she did for our sake before, but one can only truly understand the nature of another’s feelings when they are plunged into the other’s shoes. And today, I got a taste (and I repeat, only a taste) of what it means to take care of a household. So thanks mom (and moms everywhere), really.

 

I have also come to appreciate the reason there are two people in a household (essentially, why we have the system of marriage). One cannot possibly hope to take on the task of caring for the house and managing a job at the same time, and doing a satisfactory job of both (especially if there are kids involved… I had a tough enough time taking care of myself). It is written in our ancient scriptures that men and women have two different tasks towards a household, acting as a team, for neither can hope to accomplish all the tasks by oneself. There is great wisdom behind these words. In modern times, people shut these words out because of years and years of conditioning that says the opposite. In our society, men and women take on the same tasks at the same time, both trying to earn and take care of the house at the same time, resulting in extra money but an unsatisfactory environment at home. There is so much competition between the two! Who earns more money? Who does more work? Who contributes more to the house, who does this better, that better, etc… Since “work” in America nowadays does not require quite as much physical labor (thanks to machines) as it used to, anyone can do it, so the ancient wisdom of how to maintain a household is pushed to the side or forgotten entirely with the opportunity for everyone to “work.” However, we fail to acknowledge that it is in fact the women who have a natural tendency towards children (since they are the ones that bear them, after all) and caring for others (that many men simply don’t have)… Interestingly in olden times the household chores also required a LOT of physical labor, which the women alone used to perform. And we also fail to acknowledge that it is only by pairing up as a team, dividing and conquering, that a family unit (husband and wife) can properly take care of a home. Of course, if they are satisfied with always scrambling to make ends meet between work and the home, that’s a different story… but I have a feeling that almost nobody is totally satisfied in that situation.

 

The other great wisdom in these words of our ancient seers is that when the two partners in household management do not share the same duties (though it is not a bad thing if either one helps the other), there is never any competition between them and therefore reduced – if not eliminated – conflict in the home. However, there should not be a judging between the two jobs either, like “which one is more important” and the like, because neither one can function without the other. Keeping this in mind if we enter into a relationship, there will be a mutual respect for both jobs and things can only turn out for the best.

 

Again, I must write here a thank you note to my parents for carefully maintaining a peaceful household throughout my life, neither infringing upon the others’ duties, nor trying to prove that one was better than the other. They maintained a perfect harmony that I can only hope to achieve in the future. It is because of their stability and selfless effort that our house was always a welcome place to come home to, always a place of respect and dignity and gratitude and support, always acting as a sanctuary. I cannot thank them enough for that, nor can I begin to count my blessings for being born into such a family… and I am grateful every moment of my life for it.

 

I truly believe that if a family can operate as a unit that divides and conquers the tasks involved in creating and sustaining a home without judging or harassing any of the other members of the unit, then the home will always be a haven. I believe that my mother and father have created such a haven for our family, and I only wish such peace and protection upon everyone else as well. I cannot thank my mom enough for being the strongest person in the world and while taking care of household duties, being the superglue that keeps us all so perfectly united at all times.

 

I love you, mom.

Adventure 12: Living in Nagwa

On April 1^st I moved to Nagwa, a location in Varanasi right next to BHU, closer to where my classes for this month will be held. One will be in BHU itself, and the other one involves exploring the city itself. Nagwa is right next to Assi Ghat, the southern most ghat of Varanasi. I have effectively moved from one end of the city to the other. Here, I am living in Sanskrit Bharati’s office, which is an apartment essentially turned into an office/classroom setting. Refer to Quest 13: Upendra Mahodaya for a description of how the apartment looks. I sleep in the classroom, and classes are now actually held in the living room instead of my room, which is nice.

 

Upendra Mahodaya is such an awesome guy. Our conversations are only in Sanskrit, and this month I feel like my Sanskrit will be solidified. He says he’s been living in Varanasi for 10 years now, and has been alone almost the whole time… so he has learned to survive on his own. He’s originally from Bihar (refer to a map of India) and he came here for studies when he was younger. His age I don’t know, but my guess is 26 or 27. He’s been married for a year, but his wife is currently not here because she has her own examinations going on where she studies.

 

Here I am learning how to live. In the 5 days that I have been here so far, I have learned how to cook food from scratch (yes, including rotis directly from the flour, sabzi directly from the raw vegetables, etc.); how to wash clothes by hand (in a different style from the way I learned in the Gurukulam, which was just using a bar of soap… here I am learning to use soap powder and THEN the bar); how to interact with street vendors (basically learning to bargain, though first I had to learn how to even ask for what I wanted); how to use an Indian-style bathroom (they’re WAY different, let me tell you); how to ride a bicycle in Indian traffic… specifically Varanasi’s traffic (it’s SO much fun but requires SO much concentration); how to explore Varanasi from the perspective of a city-dweller, and many, many more things. Some things are really random and obscure, such as sitting down and standing up without the use of hands (which is pretty sweet though, I must say). In essence, if I come across a situation where I have almost no resources, I can live. The cool thing is that throughout all of this, I have been practicing what techniques of observation and exploration I had learned from the KFI center in Raj Ghat last month, and it is making my stay all the more effective and enjoyable. I love life!

 

Upendra Mahodaya taught me how to do all these things, and I am pretty sure it required a lot of patience on his part, because I asked him so many questions while learning EVERYTHING. No kidding. His family (mom, sister, and brother) came over yesterday to see Varanasi. He has been showing them around a little bit. He is leaving tomorrow and is only coming back on the 14^th, so I will be alone for the next week and a day… which is why it was imperative that I learned everything in the last few days, because without him I’ll have to do it all myself!

 

There are many, many of Sanskrit Bharati’s workers in this city. There’s another office of Sanskrit Bharati’s in Godowlia, which is the main market of Varanasi, located in the center of the city.

 

An interesting story:

 

I had gone to KFI on April 3^rd to see the performance of the kids I was teaching a cappella music to, but it never happened. They apparently didn’t have permission or something… anyways, on my way back from there I stopped in Godowlia and instead of taking a rickshaw from Godowlia to Nagwa, like I normally do, I decided to walk around the gullies a little bit. As I was walking in a gully, I randomly ran into Omkaar Mahodaya, a worker for Sanskrit Bharati. He asked me where I was going and I said nowhere, I was just wandering around the city a little bit! He asked me if I had seen Sanskrit Bharati’s office in Godowlia yet, and at that point I hadn’t, so I said no. He told me we were standing right in front of it. I looked to the left and saw, to my astonishment, a couple of other Sanskrit Bharati workers in the direction that Omkaar Mahodaya was looking. It was such a pleasant surprise! When Prithviraaj Mahodaya, another worker, asked me to stay there for about an hour so that he could come back and meet me and talk for a little bit with me, I said I couldn’t be in one place for so long, so I asked him where he was going, and he told me that he was going to Dasashvamedha Ghat to teach a class, and I asked him if I could go with him. He said it would be his pleasure to have me in his class, and he actually asked me to teach. I said I’d come with him, though teaching wasn’t really in my capacity. I told him I could only speak in Sanskrit, teaching was a different story. He said he was only going to this class to teach speaking to the students…

 

So when we went there I actually ended up teaching a class for Sanskrit Bharati! It was really fun, and the location is absolutely beautiful. It’s in a building that’s probably about 200 years old, or maybe a little more than that (I’m not kidding), all the way up the stairs where one has a stunning view of the river Ganga and Dasashvamedha Ghat through the ancient barred windows. I was told that this was a school for Sanskrit, though not owned by Sanskrit Bharati. It was hosting classes held by Sanskrit Bharati nonetheless, because their causes are one and the same, the service of Sanskrit. I made friends with the people there and they told me I could come there any time I wanted (which will come in handy in the future, I just know it). Anyways I thought the experience was pretty cool. I met this interesting swami there, who was also a student of Sanskrit, who was going to come back with us to the office in Godowlia.

 

Prithviraaj Mahodaya, the swami, and I left the place and started making our way back to the office. It was at this time that I mentioned to Prithviraaj Mahodaya that I wanted to get a japa mala. A japa mala is a chain of 108 beads used to keep count of one’s japa, or repetitive chanting of a mantra. The most powerful ones are made of a bead called rudraaksha, which has energy storing capacity, so when one does japa the energy from the mantra gets stored in the rudraaksha beads. As you do it more and more, the beads continue to increase in energy, and when this japa mala is worn around the neck it provides the wearer with the energy stored in the beads. It is said that one should not let it touch the ground, for in touching the ground it loses its energy. When the swami heard that I wanted one of those, he said that he had a new one, and that he would give it to me the next day (my contacts were already coming in handy)! So that search ended rather quickly.

 

The swami then took our leave (I still don’t know his name, so I keep writing “the swami”… sorry) and then I asked Prithviraaj Mahodaya if we could maybe search for what is known as an ashtadhaatu ring, which means a ring made of a mixture of 8 metals, I forgot which ones exactly… but basically what this ring does is at any given point in time, when a certain metal is needed to be on one’s body for curing certain ailments, this ring provides the metal for the cure. It has 8 of the main ones involved in such procedures I guess, so that’s why it is so useful. Also, some of these metals are said to have certain effects on one’s mental state, including reduction of anger, boosting of confidence, increasing of concentration, etc. Sometimes they can have adverse effects on a person, but you can only know how it affects you personally by wearing one, right? So Prithviraaj Mahodaya and I turned into a gully to look for one. This particular gully is a very famous one, known as “Vishvanaath Mandir Gully”, because it is this gully that leads to the most popular mandir in Varanasi, the Vishvanaath mandir. I went to this temple with my dad and Nani when we had first come to Varanasi. You can refer to Quest 12: Kashi Vishvanaath Mandir and Satish Mahodaya to read about the temple itself.

 

When we entered the gully, I was filled with a sense of medieval times, the way they portray it in the movies. Cobblestone street, the gully maybe 10 feet in width, winding, the proximity of the two sides shutting out the sun… the drone in the background of bargains being made between store owners and customers, conversations, and vehicles, and the occasional “moo” from a cow or bull… it was such an awe-inspiring feeling. We finally reached a little shop where a guy was selling rings and the like. We asked him if he had ashtadhaatu rings, and he said he did. They were apparently not in his display stuff, because he had to reach into the back of his shop to pull them out. Since we were speaking in Sanskrit to one another, he was treating us with respect (the interesting thing is that people associate Sanskrit with the divine, so anyone who speaks it is automatically given that association… even though Sanskrit can be used as any language as well! I’ve received several discounts so far just on account of me speaking Sanskrit)… He brought out the box of ashtadhaatu rings, assured us they were absolutely real, and I started to try them on. I found one that fit (actually the store owner helped me find one that fit) and put it on. It looked pretty cool, but also I felt an immediate connection with the ring. It sounds silly, but in this case if it weren’t true I wouldn’t have written this. Anyways Prithviraaj Mahodaya liked the idea of an ashtadhaatu ring so he picked one up too. We had asked how much it would be for one of them right when we got there, and the owner had said 34 rupees, but then while we were searching for rings that fit we started talking to him, and learned that he was also someone who had learned to speak Sanskrit, albeit 10 years ago. He said he was particularly interested in Sanskrit drama, and he appreciated our fondness for the language as well. So when we asked him again how much it would cost, he said 30 rupees. Of course it wasn’t much of a discount, but it was a discount nonetheless. And to get a ring that includes a little gold in it for only 30 rupees (between 85 and 90 cents) is a pretty sweet deal, by any standards.

 

That’s the story.

 

So basically, I am making tons and tons of contacts wherever I go, based on the fact that I speak Sanskrit and I’m from America. That’s how people introduce me to other people… they are like, “This is Varun Khanna, from America, and he speaks Sanskrit.” It’s kind of funny actually, as if being from America means that people shouldn’t be speaking Sanskrit or something… anyways I’m meeting a ton of people.

Again, I feel like Link from Zelda picking up small but useful/powerful (powerful?) items and certain abilities along the way during my adventure in India, which will undoubtedly be handy in upcoming adventures and quests.

...But interestingly, as I am acquiring experience and items here (how funny!) my interest in the use of the items is slowly decreasing, as cool as they are, because of what I'm learning here: which is to be in the present moment. It's not easy, and I'm obviously just beginning, but it's much more rewarding than being caught up in the past and in the future, which you can neither change nor predict, respectively. So it is the learning that interests me, the constant battle that rages within -- to focus, to be in control of the present moment -- and not the items that I am accumulating. I am not interested in what I was before, nor what I will become, but who I am now. It is in the present moment that true freedom and happiness lie, not anywhere else.

My current courses include Ayurveda with Dr. R.H. Singh, and studies about Kashi with Dr. Rana P.B. Singh. Both of them are pretty awesome (the courses and the professors), and I’ll write about them later…

 

Most importantly, I’m learning how to live. And I’m loving it.