Hinduism FAQ

As promised, here's the first in my series on Hinduism. I absolutely loved the class I audited at Tufts this spring, and I'm excited to share what I've learned on the blog. It's taken me so long to get this started only because (as you well know, dear reader) I have too. Many. Projects.What follows are my most basic burning questions, which our professor Brian Hatcher mostly answered in the first couple of lectures (with the exception of "om," which we came to a little later on).  Is Hinduism a polytheistic religion?The delightfully slippery thing about Hinduism is that it can't really be classified as a polytheistic or a monotheistic religion, nor is it a unified belief system with a "central authority" like the Pope or the Dalai Lama. You can look at a list of basic tenets like this one on the Hinduism Today website, but it isn't accurate from a practical standpoint. Not every Hindu believes in reincarnation, for example, and it's estimated that only 25 to 40% of Hindus are vegetarian, so ahimsa isn't a hardfast principle either.It seems that the underlying tenet of Hinduism, the thing all Hindus would agree on, is the oneness of all creation. Each of us has a soul—atman—which is part of brahman, ultimate reality, the "cosmic soul" if you will. In this sense there is only one "god," though that "god" appears in many avatars; and because we are divine beings, we are all on a spiritual path. What are the Vedas?Amy Lou's husband Finn recently finished his Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indian Studies (check out this gorgeous video of Indian high school students getting ready for a theatrical competition, which Finn filmed in Kerala in December 2012). They actually moved to Kerala for a year, and when Amy Lou referred to Vedic this or that, I'd have pretty much no idea what she was talking about.Now, however, I can tell you that the Vedas are the very oldest Hindu scriptures, written in Sanskrit and divided into four texts: the Rigveda, the Yajurveda, the Samaveda and the Atharvaveda. The Vedas are śruti—"what is heard," or divine revelation—as opposed to smṛti, "what is remembered," wisdom gained through tradition.Each of the four texts is further subdivided into four (or five) types, the fourth being the Upanishads, which cover philosophy and spiritual principles (which is why we Westerners hear about them most often; this is where you learn about the concepts of atman and brahman).Another word I came across from time to time is "Vedanta," which means "the last" or "highest of the Veda." Vedanta originally referred to the Upanishads; now there are six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy, of which Vedanta is the most prominent. What does "om" mean, anyway?"Om" (or "aum") is a sacred syllable, a primal sound or "root vibration" linking heaven and earth. It's made up of three sounds, A + U + M, which symbolize earth, heaven, and the space between. Now I understand why we chant "om" at the beginning and end of yoga class—it's the simplest and most powerful mantra there is. 

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What else will I blog about in this series?

The Four Goals of Human Existence

Hinduism and Vegetarianism (you knew that was coming!)

Hinduism and Yoga (ditto!)

Hinduism, the Epics, and the Role of Women

Asceticism

The Concept of Divine Sight

This is going to be great! (If I can just get organized enough to post on a regular basis...)

Ajanta & Ellora

I never did finish blogging about India! My last stop (after Hampi and Hyderabad to see Golconda) was Aurangabad, the best base for visiting the marvelous caves at Ajanta and Ellora. I'd misunderstood my sister when she told me about these Buddhist monuments; I thought she'd visited them herself, but she hadn't been able to venture that far south when she was doing a law school program in Delhi (and elsewhere) in 2009; so I went down the walkways between the caves happily thinking I was walking in her footsteps. We've said we can't really do India together, since I did the southern half and she did the northern half. Each of us has already seen what the other one would like to. (Good thing there are plenty of other places in the world...like, say, Uganda!)Anyway, this is going to be more of a photo dump than a proper entry. Ajanta and Ellora are each a series of rock-cut temples, both within easy reach of Aurangabad. The "caves" at Ajanta were built between the second and fifth century CE, Ellora's between the fifth and tenth centuries. As I toured each of these sites I kept thinking about what life must have been like for the Buddhist monks who painted the walls and carved the arches and columns and sculptures of all sizes—to toil in what must have been dangerous conditions for an end result they wouldn't live to see. It would have been a life very much like those who built the great cathedrals of Europe, I imagine. Fascinating and awe-inspiring and exquisite.Our guide told us the artist-monks made those hollows in the floor to mix and contain their pigments.I was blessed to find a new friend from Switzerland on the bus ride to Ajanta. Julien and I got lunch at the site, and it was delicious. (I just skipped that yogurty-looking stuff on the right.)The next day we hired a rickshaw to take us to Ellora—which, true to reputation, was even more awe-inspiring than Ajanta:(I love this shot—a simple but powerful gesture of awe and humility and gratitude.)(Ha! Not likely!)

Golconda

The view over the entryway from the ramparts at Golconda.There are only a few more stops on my India trip to share with you; from Hospet (the nearest station to Hampi) I took an overnight train to Hyderabad, and I had the day to pass before taking another night train to Aurangabad (the jumping-off point for the marvelous caves at Ellora and Ajanta). Then I took a morning flight back to Mumbai and chilled at the airport until it was time to go home.So I arrived in Hyderabad around 4AM, which meant that I was pretty much at the mercy of whichever shady character wanted to lead me to a hotel that wasn't shuttered for the night. I ended up at the 'Hotel Reliance,' where there was a bucket of water beside the Indian-style (i.e., hole-in-the-floor) toilet in lieu of a working faucet and the ceiling fan rumbled and shook like it was about to fall on my face. The consolation prize: I had not one, but TWO numbers scribbled on the wall to choose from! I was a lucky girl indeed. This room made me think of the horrible place Kate and Elliot stayed at in Hong Kong, where it appeared the air shaft led directly down to hell. I laughed to myself, tried to get a couple hours' sleep, and thought up the perfect last line for my magnum opus. Then I got up, went to half a dozen places before I found a restaurant with veggie-friendly breakfast options (many more Muslims than Hindus in Hyderabad), and bargained for an auto-rickshaw to Golconda, a vast medieval fortress a half-hour ride from the city.(By the way, I got pretty good at bargaining with taxi drivers. I'd ask for the price listed in the guidebook, they'd initially refuse, I'd start to walk away and they'd call after me saying they'd do it for the price I'd asked. I was always too timid to do this before, especially when traveling on my own.)The Balahissar Gate.Balahissar Gate detail.The mortuary baths. Fairly self-explanatory.I glanced up from taking that shot of the mortuary baths to find this little boy looking down at me. I love this shot.You pass all sorts of royal residences, mosques and temples and stables and such as you traverse the grounds and climb up to the summit. There's a multi-story hall at the very top with a view out over the rest of the fortress as well as a refreshment stand and a Hindu temple (you can see it below).On the way down again.It was really hot, so I treated myself to a ridiculously overpriced peach iced tea at a slick Western-style café down the street, then went looking for some nearby Islamic tombs. I took a few wrong turns and gave up when I got too tired and cranky.  This part of my trip was about deciding when I'd seen enough and that it was time to relax. So I took an auto-rickshaw back to the city and rested up before the night train to Aurangabad.Kate and Jill and I are leaving for Turkey tomorrow (Elliot is meeting us there in a couple weeks), so I'll be taking a break from blogging until September. Enjoy the rest of your summer!

Romping elephants

There's a donations/lost-and-found closet at Sadhana Forest where you can often find some really cool free clothing. Someone got rid of these awesome elephant pajama bottoms just because of a rip in the seam. So easy to fix!Elephants are my new obsession, although I don't yet have as much proof of it as I do my owls.Lakshmi, the temple elephant at Hampi, out for her morning constitutional/bath.(More proof here and here.)This fabric is really cool, but the pants were enormous. So I decided to make good friends with my seam ripper, and turn them into a romper using a pattern mash-up: the tried-and-true Mendocino sundress crossed with the McCall's pattern I used for my mermaid pajama bottoms. (Jill Draper was wearing an adorable strapless romper on our first night at Squam and I thought, I really need to make one of those! Perfect for bumming around the house.)I tried on one of my sundresses by pulling it up over my hips just to be sure I could get away with not using a zipper or some other form of closure.(Olivia wandered in while I was at my sewing machine, and wanted to try on the pants.)There are several sun-faded patches, but there was nothing I could do about that. The bodice is made up of four pieces from the lower legs. If I could sew it over again I'd make the legs longer, but oh well. I didn't reinstate the pockets (too much poochiness around the hips? and anyway, I'm lazy.) I fretted a bit over how best to join the two pieces, but it wasn't a big deal--I gathered the waist with a stray length of elastic thread, turned one piece inside the other with right sides facing, and stitched away.And I just used the drawstring for the straps! So easy!I always wonder how bloggers like Mena at The Sew Weekly can make a dress for a couple of dollars. Basically I need to start cruising some estate sales and flea markets! But I had thread to match and elastic thread left over from the sundresses, so this project was ALMOST free--I did run out of elastic toward the end, and had to buy one more spool. So total cost = $1.79 plus tax.

Weird angle, but you can see how I got the elephants lined up on the front center seam, woo hoo!(Thanks for the pics, Snook!)

Hampi

After flipping through my new friend Chris's (from Sadhana Forest) Hampi photos, I was really psyched to go there myself. He told me about watching monkeys stealing handbags from the local shopkeepers (!); I saw plenty of them on the roofs and climbing the gopuram (above), but didn't stop to take photos since I'd already gotten a good one at Mamallapuram.The Virupaksha Temple is situated at the foot of one longish street of restaurants and travel agencies--but not a single grocery store, figure that one out ('Where do you get your food?' I asked one travel agent.  'At home,' he said. Yeah, right. I didn't see any evidence of home gardening anywhere I went, and even so. They must have a top-secret no-tourists-allowed grocery store hidden someplace).Inside the Vitthala Temple.The ruins at Hampi are spread over a large area (something like 26 square km), so it's hard to see everything even if you do rent a bike.  I decided not to because my calf was still acting up, but if I could do it over again I'd take another paracetamol and suck it up.  There were a couple of ruins I really wanted to see (like the elephant stables), but gave up around 4pm after spending too much time in the heat. On the other hand, there are so many temples that, as majestic as they are, they all start to look the same after a couple hours.It was strange to me how few Western tourists I met. I heard one pair comparing Hampi to the Roman forum as I walked by (ancient empire, check. stunning monuments, check...), and marveling at how quiet it was.Goat stampede!

There was something rather Indiana Jones-like about wandering through these ruins. Minus the Nazis, of course.Lakshmi, the temple elephant. Chris said I'd get to see her if I went to the temple around 8am, and sure enough, there she was. After giving blessings to the locals, her trainer rode her down to the river, where he sudsed her up.Beautiful, but you couldn't pay me any amount of money to bathe in it.And a couple photos from the Mango Tree, the fanciest restaurant in Hampi. The food is good (and not as expensive as everyone says) and the views over the river are really lovely. Here's a photo of my thali meal (mentioned in my Madurai post). Not a 'proper' thali, where the waiters keep coming by until you're all rice-and-chutneyed out, but you get the idea.On my way out, I spotted these kitties under a bench. Too cute.After Hampi I took an overnight train (from nearby Hospet—Hampi is a half-hour rickshaw ride from the train station) to Hyderabad en route to Aurangabad (where I'd base myself to see the amazing caves at Ellora and Ajanta). Hilariously skanky "hotel" room, awesome medieval fortress at Golconda. Looking forward to showing you those pics!

Twelve Hours in Bangalore

10 May.At a shrine to Hanuman (the monkey-god) in the Bull Temple complex a priest and his boy assistant (who was maybe ten) were attending to an idol (maybe three feet tall, on a slanted platform), made of candy and adorned with garlands. They gave me a coconut sweet, but didn't let me take a picture.

I took an overnight bus from Madurai to Bangalore, made my train reservation for Hampi, and then had a whole day to kill, so I went on a city tour. Above: Tipu Sultan's Summer Palace, built around 1790.And just a few silly photos from the botanical gardens:It's Disney time! (That's a working clock behind all the Seven Dwarves statues.)CLASS-AYYYYYYY.I'm turning Japanees, I think I'm turning Japanees, I really think so!I know, I know, that was pretty terrible. I couldn't resist.

Vegan rice pudding

Cardamom growing on one of the spice plantations in Munnar.Remember that article about preserving family recipes my friend Cheryl Tan wrote for the WaPo a few months ago?

For years, Camille DeAngelis, author of "Petty Magic," resisted asking her grandmother and mother for their recipes for meatloaf, apple pie or pumpkin soup, for example, because of "the simple fact that no dish I put together will taste as good as my grandmother's version." Then, earlier this year, she got her grandmother's zucchini souffle recipe and tried it out in her kitchen. "Apparently my grandmother has a great deal more patience than I do. The recipe calls for grated zucchini and onion, but after only a few strokes I gave up and took out the food processor," DeAngelis says.

"The importance, for me," she adds, "lies not so much in the preservation of the recipes themselves as in the memories of family dinners they evoke. Someday I want my children to know their great-grandmothers through the dishes they made."

Since then I've been wanting to share Grandmom Kass's rice pudding recipe, but I'm only now getting around to testing it. This dessert will end up tasting even less like the original now that I'm vegan, but maybe when I make this it can remind me of my grandparents and that beyond-delicious thimbleful of cardamom rice pudding I had in Madurai.

So here's my vegan version. It's easy-peasy and excellent comfort food—the way the cardamom mingles with the vanilla is totally magical.

2/3 cup uncooked white rice (I used 'jasmati')1/3 cup raw sugar1/3 cup raisins4½ cups coconut milk1 teaspoon vanilla6 cardamom pods

Preheat oven to 325º. Mix all ingredients in a large casserole dish. Bake for an hour and fifteen minutes, stirring regularly and taste-testing for sweetness once the rice has softened. Remove cardamom pods and serve hot or cold. Yields 6-8 servings.Some notes:

• You can add more raisins, but it might be a good idea to add more milk too, since they really suck it up while they're cooking.
• Of course you can skip the cardamom pods, or use ground cardamom, but it really does make the dish. (I can't emphasize this enough, actually. Magical. For reals.)
• There's no need to cover the dish with foil (I wasn't sure, so I called my grandmother to check).

Now if only that zucchini soufflé were so easy to veganize! (I picked up a box of egg replacer but I haven't used it yet, so I'm still skeptical.)

Madurai

Detail from one of the gopurams (monumental towers) at the Meenakshi-Sundareswarar temple.Thanks to layovers, I got to see much more than I had originally planned on. I got to Munnar via Madurai, so on the way back I visited the temple there. I must have arrived too late in the day (10 or 10:30, maybe?), because the temple elephant was nowhere to be seen. (I went back and asked the guy who sold my ticket and he pointed out where I might find her, but I never did.) I wasn't too disappointed because (thanks to tips from my new friend Chris at Sadhana) I knew I'd get to see Lakshmi at Hampi.I had the best thali meal of my trip in Madurai, at a place called Sree Sabarees. Forty-five rupees (ONE DOLLAR!) for a huge amount of food, including a little cup of the most delicious cardamom rice pudding! (I didn't take a photo in the restaurant because I already felt like a silly tourist as it was, but I did take a photo of another thali plate in Hampi, so I'll show you that later. In real thali restaurants they give you a banana leaf and come by frequently to refill your 'plate' with rice, curries, chutneys, and pappadam or chapathi, but in other restaurants they just bring you the plate and that's that.)Anyway, back to the temple: it was marvelous, of course, a riot of color and texture and sound (there were loads of market stalls in shopping arcades offering mostly junk, apart from the flower sellers selling their fuchsia and white garlands). You walk into a place like this and realize just how limited and Eurocentric is your grade-school history education. (I felt this times a hundred while I was walking through the ruins at Hampi; but that's for another post.) I really enjoyed walking around (even if going barefoot still squicks me out a bit) and watching people at their devotions.The two statues above are inside the temple art museum.From Madurai, I took an overnight bus to Bangalore for another layover en route to Hampi. I did a city tour that day, though, so I still have plenty of good pics!

Munnar, part 2

(Munnar, part 1.) Photos from the plantation trek, continued:We passed several groups of plantation workers, some on their lunch break, but our guide asked us not to take photos of them, not that I would have anyway. Soon after we passed them, we came upon a bunch of porcupine quills strewn along the path. Guess the little dude grew new ones.(And yes, it was sharp enough to kill.)At one point the scenery got pretty jungly...Later on in the afternoon it started to pour, and we sheltered on the front porch of a wonderfully friendly family. Candice tried her hand at cat's cradle with one of the daughters while we waited for the rain to stop.The day Sophie and Candice left town (sad!) I went on a day tour arranged through the local tourist office. It wasn't anywhere near as awesome as the plantation trek, although I did enjoy some nice views of Mattupetty Lake and Dam:I think I'll blog about Oxford and London before I continue with India...

Munnar

At Sadhana, on the taxi ride to dinner one night, I overheard Diva telling someone that a certain place was her favorite in all of India. Right away I wanted to know more about the place she was speaking of, because if Diva loved it then I knew I would too. And Munnar did not disappoint!Tea leaves. I expected they'd smell like a cuppa, but there's no scent until they're processed.I did have a bit of a rough time getting there, but I'll skip most of the details and just tell you a cool little story. My calf was hurting so it was difficult to walk, and I was contemplating taking a taxi the rest of the way there (instead of standing for who knows how long at a crowded bus station, which I knew I couldn't really handle at the moment), but I balked at the price. I was having lunch at a hotel restaurant and trying to decide what to do (it was the hotel manager who was arranging the ride for me) when suddenly I heard my grandpa Ted's voice in my head. His voice would strain in a certain way when he got exasperated (which was anytime we were talking politics, of course), and I heard him in that tone of voice I remember so well: "For Chrissakes, honey, order the taxi!"It doesn't matter if it was really him or not. That taxi ride was worth every rupee, and I felt much better in the morning.These photos are from a glorious day trek through tea and spice plantations (established by the British in the 19th century), which we finished off with an utterly delicious vegan-apart-from-the-raita lunch prepared by one of the guys from Green View. Highly, highly recommended.No matter how beautiful or enjoyable you can find a place on its own, it's even better when you can experience it with new friends. I tagged along with Candice and Sophie, both from England, on the plantation trek, and we got to hang out for a couple days afterward. Sophie shared her knowledge of vegan baking, and Candice gave me loads of travel tips for Turkey (August 8th!!) and elsewhere. We sat on the roof patio at Green View drinking the local teas, eating takeaway samosas and talking for hours. They made me miss Sadhana less.(As my friend Rich reminded me last night, life is a series of calculated risks, and this one was so worth it. You can get a better sense of the drop in this photo.)Coming upon a bunch of guys building treehouses was another highlight. I want to live there SO BAD.More Munnar photos soon--too many good ones to fit in one post!

Sadhana Forest, part 3

(Part 1; part 2.)A passionflower growing outside the kitchen.April 9th.'Rode back to Sadhana Forest in a red truck on top of 350 coconuts, all the men in trucks and tractors staring down at my bare legs, and I just kept thinking 'I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts...'Another view from my pillow, late afternoon.Diva, Franzi, and Remy performing at open stage Wednesday night. (Diva is using her new aforementioned singing bowl.)Jaspreet henna'ed Annika's hands. Gorgeous.Chloe and Remy. Such an adorable couple, and so much fun to be around. April 28th.One of the dogs left a GIGANTIC rat right outside the kitchen last night. Steph told Sen (the appointed "rodent relocator" this week) to move it into the forest to let nature do its thing, and Sen reluctantly applied himself to the task with a rice sack.

Me (sympathetically): Thanks for doing that, Sen.

Sen: My pleasure!

Just the way he said it cracked me up.Elisa, Christian, Annika, and Judith making dinner.Part of why I love Sadhana Forest is that you can feel like you're doing something useful every single day. I've tried volunteering plenty of times before, and each time I wound up frustrated, oftentimes because it seemed like resources (particularly of the human kind) were going to waste through inefficient (or downright ineffective) planning. For instance, I signed up for an afterschool mentoring program and got linked up with a sixth-grader just because my birthday is in November and his is in December. This was meant to be something we had in common, I kid you not. He gave me monosyllabic answers to open-ended questions and stopped coming after the third week. I've also tried volunteering for the elderly and housebound a couple different times, which is hard because when people are lonely they can expect a little too much of you; and in another instance I asked a volunteer coordinator repeatedly to hook me up with someone who wasn't already getting a few visitors a week, someone who might really need a visitor, and he never got back to me. It kinda feels like I'm saying 'I can't deal with people, I prefer seeds', but when it's just you and the earth and a packet of cosmic purple, or you and a vat of daal and a crew of hungry gardeners, swale waterers, and woodchoppers, there's none of the nonsense involved when somebody's dropping a ball or giving you a guilt trip because you've been visiting them for only two hours. Does that make sense?Anyway, suffice it to say I left Sadhana feeling changed in the best possible way, and I can definitely see myself going back there someday.Next post: a trek through the tea and spice plantations of Munnar!

Mamallapuram

Capucine and Diva at a 6th-century temple on the outskirts of town.The day after Pondicherry, fifteen or so of us piled into a rickety old bus headed for Mamallapuram (Mahabalipuram), an excursion Tobias had very kindly organized. It was darn hot, so we took a stroll through the surf and ended up at a beachside restaurant for cool drinks before visiting the Shore Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage site dating to the early 8th century. (It's itty bitty in the beach photo below.)A few shots of the Shore Temple:

Catherine and Tobias.Later on we visited the other thing Mamallapuram is known for, a series of 'caves'--rock cut temples, with intricate bas reliefs--inside a public park. They were carved mostly in the 7th and 8th centuries.And of course, some of us had to go and feed the monkeys:These elephants are probably the most photographed thing in Mamallapuram. They are awesome.Then we went back to a friend's house for a snack before the bumpy two (or was it three?)-hour ride back to Sadhana Forest. I've got one more batch of photos to share from Sadhana, so I'll post that next.

Great Book #38: A Passage to India

Noise, noise, the Europeanized band louder, incense on the altar, sweat, the blaze of lights, wind in the bananas, noise, thunder, eleven-fifty by his wrist-watch, seen as he threw up his hands and detached the tiny reverberation that was his soul. Louder shouts in the crowd. He danced on.India has a way of changing you. Every place you go is, as they say, 'an assault on the senses,' and every new experience has within it the potential for either sublimity or profound unpleasantness. It overwhelms you, you can't get a handle on it; and while you're questioning your surroundings you also begin to question yourself, and your reasons for coming here in the first place. You don't need to spend a month in an ashram to come to this point. You need only board a rickety old public bus on which every passenger is staring at you like they just saw you tumble out of a rocketship.[She] had learnt that Life never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate. Adventures do occur, but not punctually.In my case, questioning myself and my motives led to a marvelous eye-opening experience of India. But I also live in a society that values cultural exchange, a society that, in theory anyway, that has long since washed its hands of colonialism and its attendant evils. I felt a little sheepish choosing A Passage to India for my trip reading (E.M. Forster being on the list and all), and then I figured that it's probably not a cliché unless you're as nerdy as I am. This novel made me squirm on every page, as it was written to; Forster obviously spent a lot of time among the ruling classes during his time in India, and in writing this book was reacting with a degree of sensitivity and insight that was forty years ahead of its time. (He visited India for the first time in 1912, and finished the novel in 1924.)At the beginning of the story plain, sensible young Adele Quested and her potential mother-in-law Mrs. Moore arrive in Chandrapore to meet the latter's son, Ronny Heaslop, the city magistrate. Eager for a glimpse of the "real" India, both English ladies chafe against the snobbery and hypocrisy so rampant at "the club," where officials' wives hide themselves to avoid dealing with the natives. After a chance meeting in the local mosque one night, Mrs. Moore makes friends with the bright, arrogant, capricious young Dr. Aziz, who in turn cultivates the friendship of English school principal (and social misfit) Cyril Fielding. These tender new connections lead to an excursion to the Marabar Caves; there an unfortunate misunderstanding culminates in Aziz's arrest and a farce of a trial, in which his fate has already been decided through his skin color. To put it succinctly in the thoughts of Hamidullah, a leading member of Muslim society in Chandrapore: "Here all was wire-pulling and fear."On every page Forster's prose snatched my breath from me. Each description is shot through with ruthless insight, whether he's describing a city or landscape (Houses do fall, people are drowned and left rotting, but the general outline of the town persists, swelling here, shrinking there, like some low but indestructible form of life), a national character (He was even tender to the English; he knew at the bottom of his heart that they could not help being so cold and odd and circulating like an ice stream through his land), or human nature by way of one pill in particular:

India had developed sides of [Ronny's] character that [Adela] had never admired. His self-complacency, his censoriousness, his lack of subtlety, all grew vivid beneath a tropic sky; he seemed more indifferent than of old to what was passing in the minds of his fellows, more certain that he was right about them or that if he was wrong it didn't matter.

This is the universal attitude of British officialdom in Chandrapore, and Forster shows a very different 'lack of subtlety' in revealing one by one the appalling racism and ignorance of virtually every soul in the club. Why, the kindest thing one can do to a native is to let him die--one of the "ladies" actually says that. To find such disgusting sentiments expressed without censure, and everyone constantly manipulating each other under the guise of polite society and colonial order, all the snubs and missteps between people who only pretend they can stand each other--like I said, this is an exhausting book. Forster will show you a lovely moment of kinship, and in the next paragraph snuff it out in a twist of pettiness. A soldier with whom Dr. Aziz has passed a silent but very satisfying evening of polo on an empty playing ground later mentions the episode when the doctor is in prison--to the effect that the sportsman is the rare decent native, the prisoner a common monster--unaware, of course, that they're one and the same man; or when Aziz offers his own collar stud to Fielding, pretending it's a spare, and later Heaslop notices with snooty satisfaction that Aziz's collar is turning up.The novel ends on an odd note, with Aziz and Fielding coming to the conclusion that they greatly value each other's friendship and yet they can't remain friends. Allegory over character, but it's only a quibble. So, yeah...not exactly what most people would consider holiday reading, but then again, like most trips I take, this wasn't really a vacation as such. More trip photos coming soon.

Pondicherry

When I first landed in Auroville, I borrowed a bike from my guesthouse and cycled into Pondicherry, the nearest city, to pick up  mosquito net and an adapter for my laptop before arriving at Sadhana Forest the next day. (Pondicherry's official name reverted to the de-anglicized Puducherry a few years ago, but everyone, Indians included, was still calling it Pondicherry, or Pondy for short.) You have no idea how crazy Indian traffic is until you're in it; I kept thinking as I dodged motorbikes driving on the wrong side of the highway, 'if Mumsy could see me right now she would be horrified.'Anyway, I went back one afternoon with my lovely new friends and explored the city in a much more relaxed way.First we had a proper Indian breakfast on Koot Road before hopping the bus (four rupees!) Diva snapped this photo of Jaspreet, Kate, Capucine (who can't ever seem to resist sticking her tongue out), me, and Danielle.If there was a contest for bloodthirstiest deity, d'you think this gal would take it?I spotted this rooster hangin' out just beside the Kali shrine (above).An elaborate gopuram at one of the Hindu temples (I can't recall which one).(Yeah, right!) Capucine and Diva.Pondicherry was once a French colony, so it has a quieter, vaguely European-feeling section we walked through later on in the afternoon.Of course, we spent the afternoon either eating or shopping. We had cucumber mint and pineapple juices and picked up healthy snacks (sweets made of dates and ginger, that sort of thing) at the local health food store, paid a visit to a French bakery (where after eating a few petits fours Danielle whipped out her toothbrush; 'there is no one in all the world like you,' I said), and shopped for journals, cards, and stationery at the excellent Sri Aurobindo Paper Factory. And Diva finally purchased the beautiful singing bowl she'd been thinking about since she first saw it at a Tibetan imports shop. It was such a nice day!Next post: a day trip to Mamallapuram.

Sadhana Forest, part 2

Tobias pulling a Rohit (i.e., making a jungle gym out of the rafters in the main hut!)There were certain things I wanted to take photos of--the handwashing and dishwashing stations, the herbal tooth powder (which doesn't taste as yucky as it looks), the bathroom stalls and so on, to give you a sense of how responsibly the community uses its resources. (I didn't take too many photos at Sadhana Forest because I was too busy doing; and by the time I was getting ready to leave, I was too busy packing and saying my goodbyes to remember to take those pics.)In 'showering' (i.e., filling a bucket at the pump and using a cup to dip in and pour over yourself in a shower stall) or washing your hands, you realize just how little water you actually need to get clean. I was able to wash my hair and shave my legs with less than half a bucket of water (just a couple gallons). A 'proper shower' is actually really wasteful, and I want to remember that whenever I shower at home.Also, there is zero shame attached to bodily functions at Sadhana Forest, which is really (for want of a better word) refreshing (I mean, c'mon, everybody does it, so what's the sense pretending you don't?) There's even a demonstration of how to use the toilets at the Sunday meeting. The thing that sometimes squicks out new volunteers is the lack of toilet paper. Yup. You use your fingers, and then you wash 'em two or three times. No problem. (If you're really curious about the toilets, check out Danielle's blog. She took photos.)Baby cacti!Life at Sadhana Forest is always fun, even when you're out working in the heat. One of the many things I love about the community is how we're encouraged to share what we know; so one afternoon I did a knitting workshop. I don't often get to hang out with other knitters, let alone teach new ones, so this was a huge treat for me!New knitters Beth, Sharri, Annika, and T.And a couple more fun moments:Impromptu back and headrubs (with Capucine, Rohit, and Beth), every day of the week.The Sunday evening meeting is always themed; this week it was 'famous couples,' so Sam and Charles came as 'Adam and Steve.' Brilliant and hilarious.Next post: an afternoon in Pondicherry.

Sadhana Forest

You'll never find a warmer welcome (and I'm not just talking about the signage).Why India? Why not? I learned and grew so much through my time in Vermont last summer that I wanted to volunteer farther afield. I was perusing the WWOOF* India boards, read glowing reports about a reforestation project-slash-eco-community in southern India called Sadhana Forest, filled out the volunteer form, got a wonderfully friendly reply from Sadhana founders Aviram and Yorit, and suddenly I was all set.(*WWOOF stands for Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms. It's a program through which you trade your labor for room and board. I've heard some people have had less positive experiences, but my time at Harmony Homestead Farm was truly life-changing. Also, I should note that Sadhana Forest isn't actually affiliated with WWOOF--accommodation is always free, but since they have no income they aren't able to pay for volunteers' food, so you contribute about $4 a day for your upkeep.)Baby forest.Short-term volunteers are coming and going on a daily basis, but Sadhana Forest is a happy and loving place at any given time, the kind of place that will change you if you want it to--and I did. Through several conversations with my new friend Jamey (who is also from Jersey--funny how you travel so far to meet people who only live an hour away) and reading The China Study, I decided to cut all animal products from my diet. Sadhana Forest is 100% vegan, so the transition couldn't have been easier (even when I left the Forest, I didn't have any trouble finding ghee-free meals. Yay for Hindu cooking!) So yeah, that's the biggest change, and I'm hoping to blog regularly about veganism from now on (yummy recipes, clearing up misconceptions, all that sor of thing). I've also given up my morning coffee--having to get up at 5:30 every weekday morning and be productive without any caffeine whatsoever, well, that'll do it!(As for the work schedule, they do two two-hour shifts in the morning, with breakfast in between, and then you typically pick up a couple more shifts during the afternoons and weekends. Somebody's got to work during down time--otherwise nobody eats! I arrived during the dry season, which means there was no tree-planting going on, but I did get to do plenty of watering.)Tobias, my swale-watering and kitchen buddy, zonked after first work.Jamey giving an introductory talk about the history and mission of Sadhana Forest to visitors before Eco Film Club and free vegan dinner for all.On our excursions through nearby villages I saw plenty of scenes of everyday life. It isn't really possible to snap photos when you're riding your bike down a concrete lane all a-buzz with children playing (and jubilantly shouting hello, and wanting to shake your hand), women pumping water or hanging up laundry, chickens and dogs and cattle and lambs wandering about, so I can't show you all that I would typically see on a bike ride. I can tell you, though, that much of what I saw you would have categorized as abject poverty--and yet everyone I passed seemed perfectly content. So strange, at first, to see women looking like queens in exquisite saris passing in and out of mud-floor huts. Goes to show you how little a person actually needs to be well and happy, right? Turns out all I needed was a good cup of tea and a new dear friend; some of my very favorite Sadhana memories are going with Diva to the nearest chai shop, where the hard-working owner bears an uncanny resemblance to Clark Gable (it's just the moustache, but it still makes me giggle). We sat on wooden boxes behind a blue tarp, with a view of the local temple if we pulled back the plastic, savoring our chai (mine sans milk) and talking about wanting to be better people and how we proposed to go about it.We always leave our shoes at the door.The view from my pillow.More photos and stories in my next post. (Please feel free to ask me questions too--sometimes I'm not sure which aspects of life at Sadhana Forest are most interesting to people who haven't been there yet.)

Snapshots from India

Above: a loofah Stephanie picked for me. Below: Danielle, Diva, Jaspreet, Kate, and Capucine, out for Saturday breakfast on Koot Road.Above: Candice and Sophie on our Munnar plantation trek, coming upon a man preparing wood for treehouse-building. Below: one of the intricate floor paintings at the Madurai temple.Above: one of the mosques inside the fort of Golconda. Below: the Kailasanatha Temple at the Ellora caves.Proper entry coming soon!

Wish You Were Here

On a trek around the tea and spice plantations of Munnar.Blogging while I'm away is proving pretty much impossible. I'll be back May 18th!