Action Is Everything

Shifting Sands: Ends and Beginnings

2009-10-08T22:43:00.004+05:30

Action is Everything served it's purpose. When I set out back around the world in 2008, I wrote this:

"Almost 3 years ago, I left home to chase a dream in India. I thought to document the trip and thought to blog it out, using the same interface I'm using now. Ah, the intention good, the execution not so much. The Road to Delhi and Other Tales faltered out of the starting gate, falling prey to a number of computer glitches, my own naive belief that blogging without a personal computer would be a breeze and internet connections that rivaled turtles and last period trig classes for speed.

Action is Everything seeks new ground. Not as bold in ambition. Not seeking to be the revelation of my first world journey. Instead, exploring. Reflecting. And a love letter to home.
And those I wish to, with me, walk."

Writing throughout the course of that journey brought with it many things. Reflection. Relationship. Transformation. Through the breezes and slogs of it, the manifest commitment to you and to myself shaped the entire experience for the better. The words will remain. And I feel it will carry on, even though it's time has come to an end.

My plan to write was a good one. But as all plans must, it's time to change. A change that matches a new direction in creativity, community and faith.

As I left Cambodia and subsequently Europe this summer, music emerged. For the past few years, I've played and written more music than I ever have in my life, but recorded very little of it. I've thought to partner with a producer and lay down some tracks. That may still happen. But I've been encouraged to use the tools in my hands at the moment to share it.

So as one door closes, a new one opens. I spoke with a dear friend of mine, Jeff, and he was also keen to set up a space where we could share music for our friends, family and those we meet along the way. A gifted webman, Jeff crafted a site within hours and it's already open for visit at http://www.nowactlikeit.com/music/

It's a continuation of the conversation. And I'm thankful for you and how that exchange has carried on so far. I hope that there will be a time when the pen and paper return to story-telling and reflections in prose, but for now, let the music ring.

Action is Everything,

Chris

Rilke Dropping Rhymes

2009-07-14T18:47:00.002+05:30

Maybe its that I don't feel that I have much to add to the discussion these days aside from a lot of questions and the rare glimpse of truth. Or maybe I'm getting lazy in my second year of blogging. I'd like to call it a shift in priorities. I've been much more drawn to my guitar and music in terms of creativity/expression in the past weeks and so feel keep the focus there for a while. I think it will mean a shift in style for the blog, moving from lengthier pieces to shorter, more compact bits.

Out of a number of conversations in the last week, I've heard heaps of wisdom. This one resonated particularly well with my current flow.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign language. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet 1934

Silence

2009-07-10T19:11:00.000+05:30

From Thomas Merton's book "Contemplative Prayer". He quotes the Syrian monk, Isaac of Niniveh:

"Many are avidly seeking but they alone find who remain in continual silence....Every man who delights in a multitude of words, even though he says admirable things, is empty within. If you love truth, be a lover of silence. Silence like the sunlight will in you in God and will deliver you from the phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite you to God himself...

More than all things love silence: it brings you a fruit that tongue cannot describe. In the beginning we have to force ourselves to be silent. But then there is born something that draws us to silence. May God give you an experience of this "something" that is born of silence. If only you practice this, untold light will dawn on you in consequence...after a while a certain sweetness is born in the heart of this exercise and the body is drawn almost by force to remain in silence."

Core and Circumference One: Love on a Mountain

2009-05-14T19:30:00.000+05:30

Hong Kong’s spectacular visual nature – her green mountains meshing with her incredible skyscrapers – struck me first, but I’ll always remember my time there for the way my heart grew beyond my personal limits.

After a month in Taiwan, we had the privilege of being the first Action for Life program invited to make a presentation at a university. It was an electric session dedicated to the theme of “personal change”. I had the opportunity to tell a story about rebuilding a relationship that had nearly collapsed. While I spoke the words, I felt fresh and alive and I gave to the students with a sense of freedom and hope.

At that point, I couldn’t identify the feeling, but later in the week I took a day in silent reflection to climb the mountain behind our hostel. As I reached the summit, I sat down on an outcropping of rocks and listened to my heart beat, my lungs breathe and felt the blood pulsing through my body. My spirit of gratitude for a well-working body quickly met an overwhelming and quite unexpected feeling of love.

Looking over the massive cityscape, I realized that I had a deep love for my team. For all of their talents and faults, their difficult parts and the easy parts, I loved each of them. I’d never experienced a sense of love in such a generous way. Most remarkably, I realized that the love came from a different source. This was no longer the labor of my own will to care for my teammates, but I felt as though I was now drawing on a much deeper and enduring spiritual strength.

Like a blend of freedom and joy, the core within me stirred deeply. Liberation, not for its own sake, but with a purpose. And not of my own will, but of something far beyond it. Less than a self-absorbed victory and more like riding on a golden chariot carried by streaking and beautiful steeds. Just less of me. More of everyone and everything else. Filled with the great depth. And released.

Greed

2009-05-11T20:04:00.001+05:30

The sleepy port town of Sihanoukville isn’t the best the world has to offer. The beaches aren’t kept too well. The massive new port makes the whole place feel a bit industrial. The town itself doesn’t bring out the best in you. It’s easy to feel suspicious of the old tourist men and most of the town feels a bit unkempt. I wouldn’t head back to S’ville if I had a choice, especially in the heat of April. And if any of you are looking for beaches to visit in SE Asia, I’d encourage you to head elsewhere. Come to Cambodia for the culture, Khmer food and kindness, a bit less for its main coastal city.

Still, amidst all of this, something astonishing happened. And it would almost be worth a return. It’s an annual event that can only be described as the blessing of creation. It’s the reason why people have given thanks at the time of harvest for thousands of years. Because sometimes (perhaps often-times), the things that emerge from the earth are the best things in the world.

Let me be frank. I am talking about mangoes.
When you grow in up Jersey, mangoes are beyond exotic. They weren’t exactly in high supply at the local Acme and as gifted as my Mom is in the culinary arts, mango never really made it into our regular meal rotation. In fact, mango was so off my radar, that aside from the first taste of Mango nectar (which I had in Italy at 18) I didn’t even know how a mango grew. Did you pick it off a tree? Did it grow like a vine on the ground? Was it more like a tomato plant? Like Corn?

But who doesn’t like mango? It’s one of the world’s perfect foods. Even when you don’t get a particularly good one, it’s still fantastic. But I’ve never been in India for mango season (home to over half of the world’s mangoes) and I thought I might miss it all together again. Ah, but how the world smiles at me sometimes. When I arrived in Cambodia, not only was it the height of mango season, but the climate was particularly good for growing the magical fruit. On top of that, S’ville happens to be home to the best orchards, I’m sure, in the country.

On top of that, the hotel I stayed at had steady access to the best mangoes I have ever tasted. And by steady access, I mean that I ate their pretty much three meals a day for a month and at every lunch and dinner, they provided mango. I’m not talking like they plopped a fruit in front of me and asked me to grind out the hard work of peeling and pitting. Nay. I’m talking royal, nay, palatial treatment. Fresh-cut, fresh-out-of-the-fridge absolutely perfect mango dripping with unparalleled natural sweetness. If you have ever had what I just described, then you are with me. This is as close as I’m feeling to a Garden of Eden vibe.

Those who haven’t, you might be thinking: “Mango twice a day for a month? Chris, maybe you’ve been gone a little too long. Are you okay?” Fair enough. But I can tell you without question that this mango was so special, that I would have eaten it three times a day (and actually made a strong [but unsuccessful] push to the management to try and arrange such a situation).

But I wasn’t alone. In fact, what unfolded around the mangoes was actually a pretty good study of how the world works. Every meal, the catering staff would have 3 platters of mango available. This would certainly be enough for every one of us to have a reasonable taste of mango at every meal. It wouldn’t be a lot of mango for each person. And it might not satisfy completely, but it would allow for everyone to have a taste of the glorious goodness.

Interesting though, with limited resources and appetites;This is the combination that essentially creates most of the world’s problems.

And so it was (though without the horrifying consequences of greed on a world scale). When the mango emerged from the frosty chill-box, some would aggressively pursue their fill while others would play off like they weren’t eager but still quietly got their fill. Some would send others to get it for them so as not to look “wantish”. Some took unapologetically while other seemed almost unable to enjoy what they took if other’s were lacking. Some took seconds before others took firsts. Some gave up on mango entirely while others never took a meal without a mango. And how different cultures differences worked on this issue too (about 35 of us from 18 countries)!

Ha! This would have been an incredible social experiment to monitor beyond my playful observances and musings. Real data would have been fantastic. Who took how much and how often? And how did it affect the way others felt and acted and reacted?

So can mango be compared to oil, gold, water, land? It’s a bit of a stretch, but damn if I didn’t see, clear as could be, the way the world works. And damn if I didn’t eat a lot of mango this last month (you can take the boy out of America, but you can’t take America out of the boy!).

My Journey in Film

2009-05-06T20:04:00.000+05:30

Even as the scenery changed around me over the past 8 months, many things about me did not. My love for movies remains. In fact, sometimes film becomes a helpful tool of escapism when it’s just reached a point where I need to take a step back from the events swirling around and relax the brain.

There’s nothing like a combination of friend’s DVD collections, international HBO and in-flight entertainment to make a hell of strange viewing list. As I thought about it one day, I actually realized that the list of movies I’ve watched on this trip says quite a bit about where I’ve been, what I’ve been doing, what’s been available and what I’ve needed from my movie experiences. In general chronological order:

So I Married an Axe Murderer
Kung Fu Panda
Hairspray
The Last Mimsy
Goal
Goal 2
Slumdog Millionaire
Eagle Eye
The Office (British)
Leatherheads
About Schmidt
As it is in Heaven (Swedish)
Rope
North by Northwest
Valkyrie
Chariots of Fire
Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace
Die Hard 4
Kate and Leopold
Triple X
A Beautiful Mind
Quantum of Solace
The Reader
Payback
Spiderman 3
The Illusionist
Wall-E

I could make conclusions out of this list that still amaze me. Like when I got sick in China and was so desperate for an English movie that I happily tuned in to a romantic comedy. I watched movies I swore to myself that I would never watch (Spiderman 3). I saw breakthrough movies that lifted me during a malaise in Taiwan and Hong Kong (As It Is In Heaven and Chariots of Fire). I did a double feature of Alfred Hitchcock and stood stubborn in my stance about watching Bollywood movies.

In terms of self-awareness, this ranks up there with my music playlist of the past 8 months. Hmm…but that’s a bit too big for here.

10 Years. 5 Questions. 1 Can-Opener.

2009-05-03T17:53:00.000+05:30

Ten years ago I graduated from high school in New Jersey. One of my best friends from that time was recently asked to make the keynote speech to the senior class on “Career Day”. Looking for some brainstorming partners to develop the content, he sent out an email to three of us from our graduating class.

The question was simple: If you had a chance to talk to 100 high school seniors from Princeton Day School about “career”, what would you tell them? I have spent a fair amount of time with high school students and I liked the three people in the loop – I enjoyed the chance to respond. With thoughtful input from an international lawyer, an environmental scientist, a traveling educator and a grad student, the conversation flew around the earth from New York to China, Holland to Colorado. Each added his unique input and a collection of themes emerged. Looking at them now, I think they are questions that are applicable to me now and probably to many of you. They are themes that can keep being revisited in terms of vocation and life’s calling.

1. What is the lingering question that keeps coming back to you? How can you apply that to how you live and what you “do”?

2. When you listen at the soul-level, what do you hear?

3. What is the moral imperative in your life?

4. What will you do with the “opportunity of privilege” you’ve been given by God, your parents and your community?

5. What is the authentic you? How do you live authentically/What will your life look like if you are living authentically?

A I move into a new transition time, I welcome the questions. They prod at the can inside each of us. The can that we often don’t open up. Because we know what’s inside. It’s a million opportunities, gifts, fears, mysteries, uglies and beautifuls. All of its a bit intense. It’s daunting to think about opening it up and letting the contents of that can explode onto the canvas of life. But it’s also where the real genius lies.

Pour one out for my can-openers worldwide…one time…

It Took Me a Long Time to Get Back on the Train

2009-04-29T21:06:00.004+05:30

I arrived in Cambodia about three weeks ago and I haven’t written a lick about it. Yeah, I tidied up a couple pieces during this stretch, but I haven’t created anything new. It’s a bit disappointing, but sometimes its best to ride the natural waves. These days I'm surrounded with more people on my daily and with the increased efforts of reaching into my final month of Action for Life, I feel contented with my absence.

It won't be today, but I'll look forward to writing about Cambodia. It's my second visit to this compelling country and at an interesting time. For one, the country is in the middle of the prosecution of a former Khmer Rouge leader who is being tried for crimes against humanity. There is also an ongoing border clash with Thailand, which is still brimming with political upheaval. And down south at the beaches of Sihanoukville, it's sweltering hot, but rain has already broken through the dry season and climate change is a hot topic .

I'll be here for about 5 weeks in total. So far it's been a nice chance to reconnect with some old friends, play my part in the training program here, enjoy the sunshine at the local National Park and attend a wedding. Aside from that I've been spending a lot of time thinking about air conditioning, global warming and carbon off-setting versus carbon neutral. I'll be sure to pass on more of that in the coming days.

Kites for you.

Religion in China: In Bits and Pieces

2009-04-20T19:52:00.001+05:30

China’s religious history is deep and wide. Often this is forgotten in the recent context of communism, but Chinese philosophy includes a thread of spiritual powerhouses long ranging past Confucius and Lao Tzu, cultivating a depth of belief that far surpasses the simplicity of isms. It’s full of remarkable insight and can, when applied appropriately, provide a critical balance to much of the Western philosophical and religious tendencies that often dominate our world view. Chinese philosophy isn’t a full picture of the human religious experience, but it broadens and deepens the experience in distinctive and essential ways. It’s my hope that it will emerge in a more relevant way at the global level in the coming years as it advises well on the issues of environment, morality and relationships.

When I arrived in China, my religious studies curiosities (full of potential energy and latent like Kundalini since my college days) piqued sharply. Chinese philosophy plays an important part in the puzzle of human spirituality and given the recent history of nationalized communism since 1949 and relative liberalization since the late 70’s, what an opportunity to be here to see a country in an interesting patch of it’s philosophical history.

Given my focus in Nanjing and Shanghai, I thought my visit might be relatively unspiritual in nature, as religious activity can often be pushed to the countryside, which often fosters more traditional aspects of life. Somehow, when I conjured up images of modern cities in China, I just didn’t see spirituality playing an integral role socially, architecturally or in any other way.

Much of this supposition was justified. Religion doesn’t smack you in the face the way it would walking around Amsterdam, London, Mumbai or Pune. But that’s what’s curious about China. It’s not a country that works in the obvious.* She can when she wants to do so, but in general, it’s a culture of subtlety. It’s about what’s just underneath the surface.

In many ways, this suits my own personal taste in religion. While I enjoy the loudness of a massive basilica or the thump in a bass drum at church, I often prefer religion in quiet or even silent contemplation. But quiet, alas, is often a hard thing to find – especially in a Chinese city. So I set out on an armchair research project to learn more about what shape religion is taking in these cities. My answers came in a number of snapshots throughout my three weeks.

In the Buddhist temple I mentioned a couple weeks back, what caught me by complete surprise was the fact that it was full of common people praying. Usually religious heritage sites are primarily for tourists and devoid of any lively spiritual action. That’s typically left to the odd monk or priest. Sometimes its even the responsibility of the inanimate sculpture and other religious art in the sacred space. Remarkably, this place had few tourists and was full of earnest believers. At times I even felt out of place entirely, as I was not praying and found myself amidst many people who were devoutly following the rituals of their faith.

To my amazement (and to show just how many people live here), there are 70 million Christians in China (To compare, that’s 10 million more people than in all of Italy). The state sponsors a church, whose priests must submit sermons and reports to party members and bureaucrats for review and passage. Those who wish to practice in other settings are forced “underground”. I met one man from Taiwan who attends one such church for internationals only. Since the congregation includes ex-pats from throughout Asia and Europe, they receive little harassment from the government. But he told me that they still need to shift meeting places (congregation of about 300) frequently and when its particularly hot, they move week to week.

For those native Chinese, this “underground” church becomes increasingly fraught with danger. I heard that most don’t see it as a major risk, but they do operate with careful attention. Home churches in the “underground movement” rarely grow beyond 15 before factioning off again to keep numbers low and mobility high. This often presses highly educated Christians to take on the responsibility of teaching/preaching even without any proper training. Natural leaders in the group often emerge as the spiritual guides of the home churches. This can lead to an increasingly diversified understanding of the message.**

For those who believe (and perhaps rightly so) that the internet has developed its own system of religious idiosyncrasies and rituals, I was caught off guard one day when I went searching on youtube for some old comedy sketches to forward to a friend. To my surprise, the web address didn’t connect to anything. I checked a couple of times and never got through. Quickly, I surfed through a few pages and found out that China had suspended youtube indefinitely. The Dalai Lama’s Tibetan Government in Exile had made a video of last year’s riots in Lhasa (the capital of Tibet). China rejected the video as a farce (a compilation of footage from other events). Because it had been posted on youtube, youtube was therefore banned in China.

I was in Nanjing for tomb-sweeping day. It’s the day when children visit the gravesites of their parents and other ancients to pay their respects. Honoring ancestors is an incredibly important practice in China. Aside from visiting the graves during this annual celebration, ancestors are often remembered by presenting offerings. It’s common to see the ancestral religion in ritual on the street. People will buy fake money and effigies of cars, houses – even laptops and cell phones. When burned they are meant to be passed on to the deceased as they journey on to the next life.

I spoke with a young attorney and young insurance man over a huge Shanghai dinner the other night. Of the many issues we covered, one that surprised me was their perspective on faith. They both mentioned that they wished religion, faith or at least some deeper sense of spirituality would make a come back in China. While not over-zealous or even religious themselves, both felt that there was a need to provide for the spiritual element of the population. In their current view, the spiritual identity was leaving China and it was time for a return to a balance in the culture.

Spiritual life in China exists in the subtleties. It’s not glamorous or obvious. At times it’s hardly even recognizable. But when asked in private, most will respond with an opinion about religion and spirituality and its place in the society. My hope is that elements of Chinese spirituality will continue to emerge (even if only quietly for now) and once again play an important role in the way the people treat themselves, treat one another, treat their enemies and treat the earth.

*One of the most endearing factors of Chinese culture. I once had an artist explain to me the difference between Eastern and Western art, citing a visual example of still art. She proposed that Western art focuses on the point of climax: like the flower at the apex of its bloom or a sunset sky at its deepest saturation. While Eastern art often aims to capture the moment just before the climax or just after: like an apple just about to be ripe or a tree with its leaves jut beginning to weep.

**Curiously, this is quite similar to the development of the early church following the death of Jesus. Although those early churches were more communal in nature, they too shared the difficulties of a suspicious government. Often, this meant that teachings were disseminated by lay people in these smaller group which were often widespread and not always communicative with one another. This led to many different understandings and emphasis in the faith as it developed in the wake of oppression. It took several hundred years for the canon to develop and a more systematized theology to take shape from the original “home church” movement.

What Do We Memorialize?

2009-04-16T19:11:00.000+05:30

In my last entry, I wrote about Megumi’s story of apology. I’ve recently been in Nanjing, the sight of the massacre I mentioned in that post. There are a number of memorials around this area, the most prominent of which is the Nanjing Massacre Memorial.

I just returned from the Nanjing Massacre Memorial a few minutes ago. It left an imprint and I wanted to get it out while it was on my mind.

When the Japanese invaded China in the mid-30’s (in what would later become WWII) they laid siege to Korea and NE China before sacking Shanghai in 1937. Following that victory, they proceeded to march on Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China.

What happened in Nanjing is almost unimaginable in its mass destruction. I’m not sure how to describe this kind of nightmare, but its as terrifying a situation as I can imagine. Mass executions and sporadic murders amounting to 300,000 non-combatants killed over a six-week period (one person every twelve seconds over that time). 80,000 documented cases of rape. Widespread pillaging and looting of personal and public property. Complete physical and psychological assault and annihilation.

After reading endless stories, I can only paraphrase the following from one: For 6 weeks the Japanese soldiers turned into incredible beasts. Their eyes were those of the insane and their souls deprived of humanity. It was one of the darkest hours in human history.

I didn’t know about the severity of the Rape of Nanjing until I arrived in this city. As I wrote earlier, I had heard from my friend Megumi about the invasion of the Japanese. But I hadn’t encountered a vivid image. The image I uncovered knocked so deeply inside that it shook the foundation of my understandings of humanity.

At points I felt physically weak as I walked through the extensive exhibit. The scope of the human suffering seemed incalculable. Just overwhelming. From indiscriminate bombing to burying people alive – chilling and shocking.

But I recently read a book that challenges the mindset that condemns the past so easily armed with the information and conditioning of the present. It’s easy to condemn
(and rightly so) the actions of those who perpetrated these crimes. But as I cast my judgment, a question came into my mind that still bothers me: Given a similar upbringing, a similar conditioning and a similar circumstance, would I have behaved in a similar way?

I couldn’t shake this question out of my mind. I still can’t. I can’t give an unequivocal “no”. As much as I can think of myself now and firmly believe I’d never do these things. What if I was there in their boots? A 19 year old pulled off the family farm, forced into the military service, reared under a brutal command, lead to invade a foreign country, homesick and cold in the heart of winter and pressed to assault and strike incredible fear into innocents. I can be sure of nothing.

What I can grip more closely is today. One hopeful feeling I had when I left the museum was that I firmly believe that we actually have reached a stage in human history where we can reasonably envision a world, not without conflict, but without the kind of horrific violence of the 20th century. We aren’t there today, not by a long way. The violence in Darfur or the jungles of the Congo, the tribal belt of Pakistan and even on the streets of Washington, DC is with us. It’s all around us. And sure, even without physical violence, there is the widespread corruption and greed that insures the continuance of disease, famine, environmental degradation and widespread economic oppression.

But there is also hope. Yes, the challenges are huge, but can we think at a much wider level? Someone recently told me that China has existed in relative peace for the past 20 years. A period it cannot claim in the previous 100. Is it progress? Japan has successfully re-integrated into a community of nations and no longer demonstrates an interest in physical domination of the region. Is it progress? Certainly we are part of systems that work in cycles and perhaps change for the worse will again occur in these countries, but I can reasonably choose to see the glimmering edge of sustainability here.

*As you can imagine the visit had a significant impact on my team. I wanted to share a couple of thoughts that emerged from the conversation.

First: What do we memorialize? And why do we memorialize it? We all questioned whether this memorial ought really to be in Tokyo, where the Japanese can see it and make their own commitment to “never again”. I recently read a story in which a town conspired, as a community, to commit a severe atrocity. Following their act, they are cursed – the price of which is that they must tell all visitors to the town about the gross misdeed of the past, for generations on end. The beauty of the story it is a just punishment. It is the perpetrator who should be in the business of leading the commitment to never seeing the nightmare happen again. Not the victim.

Second: The memorial dripped with an unmistakable sense of nationalism and victimhood. Instead of carefully promoting an understanding of the past with a look to the future, much of the memorial felt vindictive. The common visitor would likely leave the museum with a feeling of developing hatred toward the Japanese or with a confirmed belief that the Japanese were and are the worst of the “foreign devils”. The length of the museum did more than make one feel appropriately uncomfortable. Instead, it felt almost like basking in the anguish of history without making room to move ahead. In following conversations with some Chinese, they had a similar feeling and some expressed a want for the museum to take on a different approach; One more postured towards reconciling the past and forging a real vision for the future.

Megumi’s Story

2009-04-12T20:24:00.000+05:30

People often ask what it is I do with Action for Life. Typically, I tell them that it’s a leadership training program and that we work to develop leaders who are highly capable at leading themselves as well leading groups. We spend significant time in the area of self-understanding and development, which is fundamental in terms of leading people. The program also seeks to develop a key skill set that will empower participants to be good communicators, effective team-builders, conflict solvers and project managers. Action for Life accomplishes these tasks in two main ways – classroom training with an international faculty in an international learning community and practical application in traveling teams in a variety of cultures with a focus on partnering with NGOs and people from all parts of society who are working to bring positive change in the world.

At the heart of the program, however, is Gandhiji’s idea: Be the change you want to see in the world. So at the most basic level, we really start by helping people to identify what kind of world they want to see. From there, we are about the business of helping people take the steps of change that will help bring that world into actuality. It’s a simple idea. But it’s one with almost unfathomable depth.

For a number of reasons (our many connections, a general curiosity about who our group is and the fact we have a good message and capacity to teach/connect with people) we are often asked to speak to groups of students and various other community groups, NGOs and politicians about what we do and how we do it. We frequently give workhops. We teach some skills. We give exercises on leadership and self-awareness. But most of all it gives us an opportunity to share with the audience what Gandhiji’s message means to us.

Yesterday we were invited to spend about 3 hours with a volunteer group in Shanghai. We were asked to make an hour presentation and then spend another two hours of more informal interaction time with those present. About 25 people attended.

We decided to go bold and get direct: China is the nation on the world’s mind. The actions of China and individuals in China will have and already are having a huge impact on the rest of the world. You are part of China’s impact. What will be your impact on China?

It was a good message for the day. I really enjoy hitting young people with a good question and giving them some space to wrestle with it. But it wasn’t the question that stuck this time. What did stick was the idea of change, which came out through a personal story about change. And a very simple message.

In the 1930’s, the Japanese invaded China, after overwhelming Korea, They stormed the NE before sacking Shanghai and eventually pillaging Nanjing, the capital of the Republic. In an absolutely devastating assault, an estimated 300,000 non-combatant Chinese perished in the course of 6-weeks in Nanjing. The wounds of Japanese occupation run deep in the Chinese psyche. Even in the group we met yesterday afternoon (70 years removed from the events), one young woman told us that she felt uneasy just knowing that she was in the same room with a Japanese woman.

That Japanese woman was Megumi-san, one of those traveling with our team. Megumi comes from a generation of new hope in Japan. Born in Tokyo in the early 50’s she must have represented new opportunity and possibility for a devastated country passing through the emptiness of war and looking ahead to a new horizon. Like a new day at dawn, she and her contemporaries came fresh and innocent on the edge of a long and troubled night.

Except for her experience and conscience, she might have continued her pursuit of teaching. She might have moved to Italy with her doctor boyfriend. Or maybe continued her study of Hebrew in Israel. Or taken on the mantle of motherhood. But her parents sent her to Switzerland one summer (actually where I’ll be this summer) and she got a vision for the world. When she was challenged with the question of “What kind of world do I want to see?” she had her answer. She wanted to see a world with healed and mutually beneficial relationships between countries. Her offer in the pursuit of that would be her willingness to push pride aside and apologize on behalf of what her country

Whenever she spoke in our sessions, I could feel the energy pulse through the people. Not dramatic, but palpable. Megumi’s story opened up. First, came a story of personal reconciliation with her older sister. This transitioned into a deeper understanding about the nature of forgiveness and its transformative quality. With gentle timing and solemn tone, she then apologized for the transgressions of her people. She apologized to the grandmothers and grandfathers and for all of those touched directly or indirectly by the severe actions of her own ancestors.

When someone speaks without pretense, there is no confusing the authenticity. One could feel the purity and humility of her sentiment cut to the hearts of those encircled. The room breathed deep. Tears fell. Like opening a valve, so many found release in her story, her simplicity, her apology. True and sincere.

Many never expected to hear these words. Some didn’t even recognize the emotions they had bound to this situation. Others hardened, unwilling to let it touch them. Many wavered, wondering what it all meant to them and unable to convey their feeling. Quite a few accepted immediately, deeply moved.

Japan has never formalized an apology to the Chinese people for Nanjing. Without a clear indication of remorse from the Japanese government, Chinese have long choked on the stories of their suffering ancestors. The pain streaming down generations. Megumi’s story altered that tale of suffering dramatically.

One person acting to bring the change they want to see in the world and being willing, courageous and humble enough to act in the space they’ve been given.

**In a later conversation with Megumi over a breakfast of pork buns, coffee and seaweed knots, we developed an armchair, unprofessional and simple model that helped us to better understand the cycle of transformation that comes through forgiveness.

To start, a perpetrator lives in a state of arrogance, ignorance or denial. Arrogance in feeling that any hurt or damage done was and is justified. The willing ignorance that stays happily unaware of pain/suffering caused. Or denial, which is a rejection of either the occurrence of the event or the consequence of the event to the afflicted party.
Once this defense breaks (for any number of reasons) there is a feeling of shame. This starts a process of shame. It’s valid and necessary shame. If taken negatively, it will be shame that destroys a person, devastated by their past and unable to move forward. If taken constructively, it will be a long-lasting scar that will instruct the perpetrator in the future.
When accepted, shame breeds humility. Humility is a space of malleability. It’s a place where transformation occurs. It’s a moment of willingness. It’s the space of vulnerability. It’s incredibly powerful in its capacity to let go of ego and usher in a new spirit of growth and possibility.
From humility develops the capacity to apologize. This is the step of sharing the transformation with others and inviting the aggrieved party be transformed by forgiveness.

Would Megumi’s example ever bring this out in the Japanese at a national level. The spirit of humility that transforms a whole nation in its relationships with her neighbors?

A Religion of Images

2009-04-07T10:04:00.003+05:30

After the pagoda, it was the depth of the temple grounds that struck me. Temple after temple. Courtyard after courtyard. Prayer after prayer.

Another level. Incense smoke blows through the cool March morning. Murmurs of monks chanting and patrons praying sweep over a background cars and trains bustling in the city beyond the temple walls.

The builders of constructed the temple to worship Buddha. In terms of religious architecture, I found it inspired. Their design emanated balance, from the size of the individual buildings to their layout on the overall grid of the walled area. No building to large or small, residential long houses on the sides with central temples in a string of courtyards. Each step into the grounds felt like one step closer to God. The final temple brought a sense of completion and even reverence. As if some sort of spiritual journey or purification right had just been completed.

What I didn’t expect, however, was the extravagance. When one studies the central tenets of Buddhism and the hagiography of Gautama Buddha, one would easily suspect that it is a simple religion practiced quietly by Buddha’s devotees (hmmm…on thought of this, my recent reading of the Gospel of Mark reminds me that one might believe that the followers of Jesus would also practice their faith with a simplicity and humility that would belie the excesses of some churches and audacious spectacles of some church services.)*. What I experienced in the temples was both astounding and ambitious.

I’ve been in a lot Buddhist temples, but none matched this one. Aside from the fairly common image of a giant Buddha, this one had many. So many. There are traditionally 18 images of Buddha. Some of those were exalted in the temple to heights of 20 feet. Another temple had human sized images of all 18 times two – for different artists interpretations. The first temple had images of the 4 Gods from the North, South, East and West. Further on I saw a room dedicated to a statue of the Buddha with 1,000 hands of service. Another with the hundred faces of Buddha. And on it seemed to go, with each new room and building a new house of imagery in honor of the Buddha.

In a lovely wrinkle, I went to the Shanghai Museum later in the day. The first turn I took in the massive collection of historical Chinese treasures was into the 1st floor sculpture exhibit. In the display I found sculptures dating back over 2,000 years. A little discombobulated, I took the wrong entrance to the exhibit and started marching back through time. The common media of bronze, stone and ceramic all took shape in a front of me. About halfway through (almost 1,000 years back in time), I started to notice that most of the sculpture was religious in nature. The Buddha and boddhisatvas were the primary subjects of most of the art.

The observation that struck me the most was the incredible resemblance to ancient Indian art. Walking backwards through the chronological exhibit, the connection seemed only to get stronger. By the end, I felt that I may as well have been in an Indian collection. The lines of the sculptures, the clothes, the features on the face. Not identical, but an obvious connection. And why not, the Buddha’s message emerged from India and his devotees brought it to many points North and East, including Tibet, Eastern China, South East Asia and even Japan.

By the end of the exhibit, I got my lesson. Yes, Buddhist devotees had come through China with the message of Buddha. They used images to help explain their ideas to the people they met on the way. In response to this method, Buddhism had a nickname in Chinese for many years as “The Religion of Images”.

Icons and imagery have always been important to religion. Still, I wonder what Buddha would say if he walked into that temple. Or Jesus in Il Basillico di San Pietro.
*On further thought, I wanted to say that I believe firstly in each individual’s ability to experience God as a natural part of being human. The expression of that experience (whether pretentious or audacious – whether I agree with it or like it), I can appreciate as that individual’s understanding of how to express themselves as an individual in relationship with God.

Facing Myself About China

2009-04-05T10:15:00.004+05:30

I’ve recently had a chance to meet quite a few Chinese people and I’ve been asked on occasion to share my thoughts with them. Most recently, I spoke briefly to a group of lawyers who have started a volunteer agency in Shanghai.

My experience in Shanghai has reminded me of a fundamental idea a friend told me in India: Trust is a decision. It doesn’t matter how many actions a person takes to show you that he is trustworthy. At the end of the day, you still have to decide whether or not you trust that person.

I’ll be straight with you. China is misunderstood in America. We don’t get very much information about what is happening in your country. And it’s obvious that the information we do get does not give us a complete picture of the reality of present-day China. On one side we see broadcasts about the riots in Tibet and on the other we see the dazzling spectacle of the Beijing Olympics. I read articles that conjure up feelings of fear about China’s world ambitions while a day later I see a magazine cover that reads “Why you shouldn’t be afraid of China.” This demonstrates the vast gulf between the two sides and the derth of balanced information.

The problem with misunderstanding is that it leads directly to mistrust. And there is a lot of mistrust of China in the United States. And I’ll admit it to you. I find it very challenging to trust the Chinese – I’m a person who makes decisions largely based on information and my lack of reliable sources on this subject spurs my suspicion.

But that has started to change. I’ve always wanted to get a closer look at China – to see it for myself. And over the past two weeks, I’ve experienced here what I’ve experienced in many other countries – a common theme worldwide – people are all people.

During my time at Shanghai, I’ve noticed some very specific things that I share in common with Chinese people I’ve met. We like bike-riding and there are times when want to and perhaps need to take unnecessary risks on two wheels. We like sitting around a big table with friends and enjoying good food. We tie knots the same way and need a toothpick after eating spare ribs. We tend to talk more loudly and laugh more easily after we’ve been drinking. We prefer wearing slippers indoors. When spring knocks at the door after a long winter, we wish it would come in more quickly. We love flowers. We feel pain when we hear a friend has lost a loved one. We get hurried and careless when too much is happening around us. We smile at the sight of a friend’s newborn child.

When I remember and recognize that people are people, it slows me down. It gives me a feeling of great connection, despite all the obvious and large barriers like language and culture. And with that weave going on, trust happens at a human level.

So it’s from this personal experience that I think I can bring it back to the big picture. What about America and China? What does it look like if our countries are working diligently to build-trust at all levels of society. What could happen at a global level if China and America actually decided to trust one another and work together. We could be more than business partners. We could develop new models of business that become recession-proof and seek greater equality and opportunity for all. We could be the leaders of an environmental revolution of long-term sustainability. We can make major breakthroughs in medicine and science by joining eastern and western styles. It’s a vision worth having and pursuing.

If we are talking about Gandhi’s idea – my life is my message – then I want to make my message one of trust. I truly believe that with trust, all things are possible. In the same moment, without trust, nothing is possible. So today I will make a commitment to you. I will take my experience in Shanghai back with me to my home. I’ll share about China in a personal way, a way that brings out your voices and stories – the human aspect of your country. A way that challenges any sweeping generalizations I might hear. A way that seeks to build understanding and trust.

In this way I’ll build a sidewalk of trust between our two nations. I’m not Barack Obama, so it won’t be an interstate. It may not even be noticeable to more than a handful of people. But my hope is that if we all build sidewalks and put them next to one another, we’ll eventually build a rock-solid bridge of trust that spans the Pacific Ocean and a Great Wall. That covers the vast void of fear, suspicion and misunderstanding. That connects us despite barriers of language and culture. And if we can do that, as people and as nation – that’s a vision worth the commitment.

A Picture of China

2009-04-01T19:25:00.000+05:30

By the side of a lake, I watched the old style. The willow tree weeping into the water. The gentle clap of the waves on the shore. The early spring lavender bursting to life along the banks.

A man holds the long-cut bamboo, waiting for the fish. One can tell the age of the method by the unrefined nature of his craft. A simple string and hook attached to the end of the pole. No reel. No spinners. No tricky casting. Just reach the long twig over the water and drop in wherever the fish might be. It looks old. Must be from many generations past. Passed on from grandfather to grandson over hundreds of years. A peaceful and gracious style. A soothing and organic approach.

The sound of music seemed misplaced in the setting, but when it came, it wasn’t grating. The Chinese melody floated along through the misty, cool air. It wasn’t live music and it lacked the punch of a stereo. It just wandered into the foreground. I tuned in.

But in a splashing flurry it shot out of mind. I snapped my head to check out the happenings and caught a view of a fish writhing on the end of the line; flopping in a last ditch effort to shake the tackle. The angler quickly handled the bamboo and masterfully landed the fish in a couple of moments. Not a monster catch, but enough to keep me interested (and the fisherman) interested.

Yet in the instant that he seemed to secure the line (fish swinging back and forth), he cooly reached into his pocket. The move was unmistakable. As surely as he brought in the fish, he pulled out a cell phone and clicked on. The music stopped.

With one hand on the 10-foot bamboo rod and the other holding the cell phone, I clicked a picture in my mind. Antiquity and modernity in frame.

Walking Meditation

2009-03-29T19:46:00.002+05:30

I spent the day in Luxun Park in North Shanghai. It was a once or twice a year kind of day. Spring emerging, cheating winter out of a day. And I’m free to enjoy it. Crisp and fresh and fragrant. Warm in the sun. Cool in the shade.

For those of you lucky enough to live near a big city park, you know well the social masterpiece that takes place on this carefully crafted and maintained stage. On a day for quiet, I walked. Breathing deep the joy of life around me.

Old couples dancing in coordinated step to old Chinese classics

A kite stuck in a tree

Practicing calligraphy with water on black pavement. Liquid blends dirt and rock. Getting darker.

An old woman in a wool coat and trousers – using green metal fencing to stretch our her legs

Men huddled around the Xingqi board. Women crowd the card table.

The wedding couple walks by. Photographer in tow. Photographer helper in tow’s tow.

Football stadium pokes out through the spring blossoms. Massive Nike ads of Ronaldo and Torres wave in the wind.

The odd business man practicing Tai Chi. Alone. His suit stands out in the crowd of passer-bys.

Women singing a duet as the wood block keeps semi-steady rhythm and the violin swims in the background. The wheelchairs circle round.

Bamboo scaffolding. New building.

Men’s gossip corner. An audience for anyone. An ever-eavesdropping ear.

Another casual observer.

A fuchsia overcoat. You just don’t see those around.

Two kinds of magnolia.

String, sticks and a spinning top. He’s learning. This one’s caught the rhythm. He has gloves; the master on stage.

Clap front. Clap back. Clap front. Clap back. Clap front. Clap back.

Studies a three-page foldout in the weekly news magazine.

Walk backward. Walk forward.
Walk alone. Walk arm in arm. Walk arm with bag. Arm with baby.
Walk with a gaping goofy smile.

On the move. A huge blue and white construction truck. Heading for bamboo scaffolding.

Yellow forsythia. Brighter than yellow ever imagined. Struck across tender willow greens.

Jeans that say “jeans” accompanied by frazzle-dried, red-dyed hair. A mischievous smile. “Should I push him in? Could I?”

Two-year old playing ball. Can’t let it fall in the water. Grandpa chases successfully. The sidelines watch and enjoy and help when necessary. The game must go on. Lilo and Stitch must stay dry.

A silent study of flowers with camera.

Ground shakes. Train underneath.

Up the stairs. At the top, a victorious yelp. Down again. Repeat. Many times. Many yelps.

Exquisite rock landscaping brings life and layers to the garden. Someone put the right person on the job.

Cigarette #9. 11:23am.

Two men in camouflage walk easily with their pruning shears. There smiles shouting. “It’s a perfect day to work in the garden.”

A saxophone warms up on the hill.

Blossoms. Soft. Pink. Yellow. White. Green.

A disfigured face. Purple and yellow. Swollen. Not self-conscious.

Attracting a crowd. The boys surround and stare. Seconds pass. Will they speak? “Hello. What are you doing?”

Memory welcomes back a day in Rome. Losing my way outside the Aventino. Panini and a Peroni.

Snipping badminton shuttlecocks. They will fly faster now. Two cigarettes of work. No sweat. Back to the court.

Marching with vigorous arm sways. Middle-aged women exercise.

Saxophone still warming up. Another Yelp.

Lunchtime.

Enter the Dragon

2009-03-25T19:11:00.000+05:30

The Eastern China Airlines flight touched down early in the afternoon and I passed through the non-descript Pudong airport without a second thought. It felt more like a terminal in Milwaukee than one of the major ports of entry for the most populated country on the planet. An interesting signal. A lot can be learned about a city by the feel of its airport.

Clearing customs and loading up, we quickly arrived downtown. Chae Nam and I settled into our new digs at the “fashion-savvy” Rhea Hotel. Compared with the resourcefulness of our Chinese hosts (buying subway cards, getting haircuts, etc.) we spent the hour and a half doing relatively nothing (Fortunately, someone told me long ago a cardinal rule of travel. Don’t compare. Appreciate.). We made coffee and weighed ourselves on the scale (haven’t seen one in months, other than at the airport) – that was about it. When I travel in hotels, I relish the first hour of a new room. It’s feels clean and I unpack at a relaxed pace.

In a surprise break from the normally cold weather of March, we arrived on a day that leaned towards springtime. Despite the heavy and humid air, we enjoyed a subtly warm evening, cruising downtown to see the skyline at the Bund. We passed through the commercial hub of Shanghai on the way, decked to the hilt with lights. It didn’t match the obsession of Hong Kong and I was glad for that. It seemed a bit looser and dirtier. Delightful.

After some dumplings for dinner, we ended up on the river, looking at the increasingly well-known Shanghai skyline. It’s a good one. Not overwhelming, but still the Pearl Tower stands. There is an absolutely compelling LCD display on the side of one building. It projects motion pictures over 40 or 50 stories. It’s modern China and its stunning sharp.

Walking the promenade, I soaked it in alone. I’ve spent a lot of time with my team these past five weeks. I enjoyed taking the space to relax amidst the people. People covered the walkway. Shanghai, they say: “People mountains People sea”. Still, I feel alone. It’s easier amidst so many people than with two or three.

As I walked down, I made friends with a couple of young guys from Hunan Province. They were on holiday and in Shanghai to see the sights and take in China’s #1 metropolis. We chatted for 15 minutes (their English was good enough and they were kind to enjoy what little I know in Mandarin). A pair of old friends from the neighborhood. One helps his Dad run the family mop factory. The other is a liberal arts student at university. I couldn’t help but be warmed by their spirit. I had to admit my own prejudgment: that the Chinese people might be a bit colder on the mainland than they were in Taiwan or Hong Kong. On this occasion, I was happy to feel so wrong and thus, so welcomed.

The guys made me smile. It’s not necessary to go out of one’s way to make a friend or even to say hello to a stranger. If anyone, I’m naturally happy to keep to myself. I rarely extend a warm hand to a random walking down the street. Still, it made all the difference to me tonight. I told them that they were true ambassadors; Not only for China, but for all people and the human-quality of friendliness.

It didn’t take long for me to get home at night though the trains were still buzzing after 9. The whole way home I couldn’t shake off the smile I received from my new friends, nor my disbelief that damn! I’m in China! Enter the Dragon.

Helmut Lang or Homespun?

2009-03-23T19:23:00.002+05:30

I’ve never seen a city like this before. Far from the romantic images of an East-West port city in transition through the 20th century, 21st century Hong Kong smacks of globalization.

Visually, it is something to behold. Hong Kong is unlike anywhere I’ve ever been. Framed by volcano-shaped mountains, the city consumes a few islands and over 6,000 glass-metal-concrete spires shoot skyward in a sea of skyscrapers. Pitched against the March mountains and the blue-green harbor, it’s a combination of human and natural engineering that left me inspired with mouth agape for days on end.

I’ve enjoyed my time here, welcomed by a number of generous hosts and even catching up with an old friend on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon.

But there is a certain heaviness here. In so many ways, there is no question that the city sparkles. But what’s underneath her clothes? A heavy and haunted history. Born from that, one sees/feels/hears the emptiness underneath the glamorous designer wares and latest plastic sheen.

The other day I sat out lounging on the deck outside the International Financial Centre, cooling over an ice tea. After walking past what seemed like the 18th Salvatore Ferragamo store I’ve seen since I arrived in town, I sat and watched the other patrons. A perfect deck, elevated and harbor-viewed and my friend and I even scored some classic fully-pillowed couch. Perfect day. Choice spot.

But as I sat there, I started to feel as if I was on a see-saw – pitched in the middle of two swaying sides. The seemingly opposed sides became crystal in my minds eyes.

On one, I could feel the spirit of materialism that has raised me up since I was a child. Whether its a couple hundred thousand commercials or my senses that developed to understand smells, sights and sounds, I’ve learned all about material things. I’ve learned to appreciate all kinds of things too: a new baseball glove, cheap wine, fine cigars, GI Joes, fresh basil, a well-cut shirt. I’ve learned to appreciate giving and getting. Things that are free and things that you pay for. And here I was sitting on a nice deck, sipping an over-priced drink with an old friend and feeling that life was just about as perfect as it could be at that moment.

I took all that in. The fact is that we are material beings. We rely on the things of the earth to provide us not only with entertainment or a good feeling, but much more practically giving us the nourishment, shelter and safety we need to live. At the same time, I’m more than well aware that material goods do not provide lasting happiness or security. They serve a purpose, but that purpose isn’t fulfillment. We can be satisfied with a meal, but we will be hungry again. We can enjoy a cigarette, but we will nic again. We can be happy with new pair of Italian leather shoes, but unhappy when we step in dog shit walking down the Roman street. (This first became clear to me studying the Buddha though many sages recognize the suffering that arises from desire for things – which naturally arises as a product of a overly-materialistic society).

But thinking of Buddha got me thinking of Gandhi’s autobiography. I was so compelled by his will to let go of much in order to strengthen his focus on truth and nonviolence. These two things, far from things you can “have” were worth more to him than accumulating anything other than a pair of chappals, some clothes he made by himself* and wearing a hairstyle that he cut by himself** (though as a British-trained barrister, he could have lived posh as). Surely his high thinking and practice served a remarkable purpose for India and the world. Would it have been possible if he had been distracted by recurring desires to purchase the latest iProduct?

But can you live alone on the truth? Can you live alone on a good hug?

The truth with seesaws is that they show us two sides in comparison to each other. We ultimately see which one weighs more (or to which one we assign greater or lesser value). Between materialism and non-attachment there must be balance. We are material beings, yet we have a degree of conscience unparalleled on earth.

So how to balance? In Hong Kong, the seesaw tilts one way more than the other. How about your seesaw? How does it balance?***

*Reminded me of a shirt my friend Ngan wears. It says: “The best things aren’t things”. Of course, it’s a on a shirt, probably costing more because it of what it says Perhaps its also of more attachment for her because it’s a clever and perhaps “good” shirt.

** In a somewhat poignant side note. Gandhi’s watch, glasses and chappals recently went up for auction in New York. The proceedings caused such a stir that the items were eventually removed form the auction block. Seems they couldn’t decide who should “have” them. I can almost hear Gandhiji sigh heavily and patiently.

***As it goes sometimes, I read some supremely incisive words during my time on the seesaw. This came from the Gospel of Mark. “Listen carefully to what I am saying – be wary of the shrewd advice that tells you how to get ahead in the world on your own. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity. Stinginess impoverishes.” (4:24-25)

A Solid Start But a Lasting Aftershock

2009-03-20T19:07:00.007+05:30

10 years ago, a major earthquake devastated central Taiwan. As a topographic gem, the island displays a spine of sharp mountains around 10,000 feet that shoot up from the surrounding lowlands. It makes the scenery absolutely stunning, but it’s the surface level beauty of the shifting plates underneath. Earthquakes are imminent here. But none had rattled the people like the 1999 incident. In September of that year, a major seismic event shook the Nantou area. The aftershocks destroyed major infrastructure and claimed about 9,000 lives.

Like New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Nantou became a rallying cry for the human spirit. Volunteers and resources flocked to the region from throughout the island. The group I work with had a volunteer team in Taipei that flew into action. After mistakenly arriving in a small village outside of the main town, the team’s leaders connected with the village leaders and a lasting relationship started. Every other weekend for six years, a team of volunteers took the 4-hour bus ride from Taipei City to work on reconstructing the village.

Over time the village put brick on brick and eventually the old farming community began to look more modern. The team had to keep lively, quickly switching their role from house builders to community bridge-builders. In the fall-out of the event, families and old friends bickered over the new direction of the village. The volunteers used the skills and heart of a long tradition of trust-building work to bring the estranged parties together. Together, their efforts have built a new village.

We met some of the original group that helped with the recovery; a strong team of volunteers and villagers. I enjoyed hearing the stories of how people respond to moments of crisis. Fortunately, these weren’t only the heartwarming tales of service and selflessness, but the real stories of power-struggles and politics that arose when the money started showing up.

I heard a couple stories that emerged from the rubble.

First, the story of how one family welcomed my friend Oufang without a second thought. When she showed up in their village by mistake, their was good reason to raise suspicion. But instead of going through a strenuous and suspicious trust-building process, they saw purity in her spirit. They immediately opened up their house to her and she spent many days working out of their spare bedroom to organize community efforts and volunteer work. Frequently, they cooked meals for her and her entire volunteer team. 10 years later, she still gets invited back as family.

Second, the story of how crisis presents a great opportunity for change. While the village underwent a physical change, we met a young man who transformed at a personal and spiritual level. Just 14 when the earthquake occurred, he had already created a reputation for himself as the chief rabble-rouser in the village. His parents had reached wits end with him. But in the aftermath of the catastrophe, a new spirit emerged. He told me that the need became so obvious that he realized he could use his misguided energy to provide new direction for his village. Now Chang Zheng is an important community organizer, an already successful businessman and an emerging photographer. He’s coordinating a 10-year memorial that will be celebrated in the September.

Today, new struggles face the community. In the shade of the sprawling betel nut plantations, times are good for the farmers economically. The natural stimulant in the betel nuts provides them with ample income, even as these plantation make the soil increasingly vulnerable to mudslide should the earth shake again. But now the scourge isn’t the disrepair of the buildings, but alcoholism. Our afternoon meeting with one man felt quite different when we met him in the evening after his daily drink. Oufang told me alcoholism would continue to afflict the village until villagers sensed a renewed sense of purpose. Another struggle is the loss of young people. With fewer jobs in the countryside and increasing migration to city, the youth, with bolder professional dreams than their parents, continue to ship off to Taichung and Taipei (and even abroad) to pursue their hearts’ desire.

These aren’t the kind of problems that attract the aid and attention of a natural disaster, but perhaps they are as destructive and as important to address. But who will work with them – now that the crisis is complete but a steady aftershock continues?

The Faces of Infinity

2009-03-17T18:43:00.000+05:30

Living in community always brings new and interesting experiences to my everyday. One particular facet of my life that’s completely opened since my work with Action for Life (starting in 2005) has been on the relational/emotional front.

One of our partners in work in Taiwan is a group called EQ that works primarily on just that – the Emotional Quotient. Developed out of some Western psychology/counseling coupled with an Eastern understanding, the center hit at the heart of an often unspoken issue in Taiwanese culture: family relations. In an effort to build a better society, a small, dedicated group decided to work on the issue . They have been highly successful and well-recognized for their work in Tainan. Their vision is that the city of Tainan will be not only nationally recognized, but internationally recognized as a city where families flourish.

Some of my colleagues have been involved with taking this work to other countries including Malaysia and South Korea. They hooked us up one afternoon and we were invited by the director to attend a session on grief healing.

When I first encountered this type of thing (kind of a group counseling vibe) several years back, I scoffed. I didn’t think I would gain anything new, or at least nothing that I couldn’t have figured out on my own. To be honest, some of that thinking has been validated. In attending a few sessions with my various teams, I’ve found little fresh in terms of intellectual concepts. It’s all fairly straight forward. But what catches me is that a) it forces me way outside my logical paradigm and comfort zone and b) its about real people and their real lives.

If you are like me, you might find it easy to tune into your own world; well aware of you’re own feelings, reactions, thoughts and experiences, but often unaware of others. As a highly self-interested person who is also happily and often aloof, years passed by me without much of a developed sense of empathy. Yes, I could sense another person’s joy and pain, but it wasn’t a gripping kind of connection – the kind of connection that can be a cornerstone understanding in a relationship.

But working with other people to process experiences and relationships has meant a couple of things. For one, it’s meant opening up parts of my life I’m often unwilling to share with others. For two, it’s meant learning about love and how to love in an incredibly new way.

Some people wear it all on their sleeve and they will gladly talk to you about deep feelings and relationships without hesitation. Others dig in and gladly set up their walls to keep certain things private. I’m more the latter, long ago figuring it would give me maximum leverage (read: power) to keep my hand full of my own secrets and others’ secrets ready to play when needed. Rarely has this been malicious. More self-interested.

Since learning that I don’t want to be part of those kinds of power games, I’ve slowly opened up. I’ve found that it can be helpful for someone to provide a specific format for doing so – someone who knows how to work with a group in this specific function. I find this particularly helpful when I’m working in team or community, as I don’t often offer much information without a helpful prompt or question (nor do many others). This type of experience (along with a number of others) began to bring out a great happiness in my heart – to share my experiences and adventures and feelings with people. If there was any obvious demonstration of this new leaf, you are reading it right now.

As I’ve opened up about myself, I’ve also learned to be more open in my reception of others. This has brought me great joy, enriching my understanding of the human experience through more personal relationships. It has also brought difficult challenges, requiring me to struggle with the deeper sufferings of human life and forcing me to adjust my own understandings of how and why existence is the way it is. Despite the difficulties, I wouldn’t trade my now-complicated canvas for the myopia of my old shoebox dioramas.

Last week I worked with my team to look deeply at the grief each of us carries around. The hurts of days past that still mark our souls and influence our actions today. I heard about the impact lonely family members had on their families. The response of children to parents who tried to love them, but didn’t love them the way the kids needed/wanted. The toll of a sibling’s death. Friends who let circumstances drive them apart.

When I hear one person’s experience, I’m shaken at the intense reality of their life. It can overwhelm me to think that each person I pass by on a city street lives with the same kind of deep existence – an ever-changing cloud of feelings and relationships, reactions and events, physiology and psychology, banal and sacred. We all share that.

But what comes of this? I’m moved by it. To learn about another person at a deep level allows me to transmit that understanding to each new person I meet. I can see that depth in all things. I an look into their eyes and see the infinity therein.

Levinas writes exquisitely on this subject. I loved reading his philosophy in college, but now I’m finding new ways to explore its practice: the challenge to radically experience the depth of life in the face-to-face encounter. And then to love.

Playing Politics

2009-03-12T20:04:00.000+05:30

My family isn’t a political family, but since I can remember, our dinner table conversation revolved around current events of day. Over the past years, this has brought up some rich dialogue and some heated arguments that make me feel more Italian than I probably am. Which is a welcome side-effect of the debate.

This interest bubbled over one spring afternoon in Washington DC when I was 17. My AP Government teacher, Mr. Sanderson, brought my class to the capital to understand the federal government a little more clearly. I still remember going to the NRA and listening to their young PR man explain to us the important personal and constitutional merits of owning a firearm. Being a young New Jersey liberal who’d only used firearms at summer camp, I found his reasoning for owning an M-16 as pockmarked as a duck on the wrong end of a shotgun blast. In a what I can only imagine was some hormone-induced rage, I took him on in front of the class and felt that I legitimately held my own (which actually wasn’t too hard because he’d gone way too far into the realm of ridiculous). I visited the NRA headquarters again a couple years back and found myself to have a similar experience, except this time I let my high school students take on the work of debate as I sat back and tried to take the whole line of reasoning seriously. That said, my actual opinion on firearms is much more nuanced than “anti-gun” but I do think the NRA could do with some much deeper and more critical thinking on what they are actually trying to say/do/enact with their lobbying work.

Where am I going? Right, so as my interest in politics and policy grew, I later found myself living in the capital and visiting representatives, attending congressional hearings and generally living it up with a gentle case of Potomac Fever. So though I’m far removed from the mid-Atlantic, I felt quite at home when I spend an afternoon in Taipei visiting the party headquarters of the DPP.

The DPP founded in 1986 (can you imagine such a young political party?) largely as part of a response to the long-term rule of the KMT, the party in power since the arrival of Chiang Kai-Shek (this was following the communist revolution in China that finally succeeded in 1949). With the Republic’s Army on his side, Chiang rolled into Taiwan and quickly asserted dominance over the small island while setting a up a ruling party that governed with martial law for many years.

The emergence of the DPP took significant courage on the part of founding members. They took their initiative forward in a time of political persecution (Though its rarely mentioned, I’ve met two former political prisoners in Taiwan, one of whom was beaten into disfigurement for writing a pro-democracy editorial in the 70’s). The main objective of the DPP was to establish a democratically-elected Yuan (Congress) which was finally accomplished in 1991. They worked in a green-coalition for many years to counter the strength of the well-entrenched KMT party. Their rise to power climaxed in 2000 when they took a majority in the Yuan and their party leader, Chen Shui-bian, took the presidency.

It was a fascinating time to visit with the party and the two young leaders who met with my team for the afternoon. At the moment, the party is going through a major reorganization following the filing of massive money-laundering and corruption charges against the former president (who finished his second term in 2008). In the fall-out of the scandal, the party suffered dramatic losses in the 2008 election and its once-strong majority has dwindled below 25%. With major ground to recover, big changes are underway and we got to hear about them first hand.

The meeting was a good one. I found the representatives to be loyal to their cause but open and frank about the challenges facing their party. After all, the best way to face a problem is to acknowledge it outright. I found this promising. But one couldn’t help feeling in the middle of a major political battle. The DPP currently runs as a party against the ruling coalition of the KMT. They continue to paint a picture of the KMT through a filter of its anti-democratic policies of the past. They use fear as a major weapon in their fight, identifying KMT actions (such as recent coziness with China and a crackdown on a recent demonstrations) as a signal of a return to the more authoritarian structure they employed in previous decades. It’s fairly obvious that it’s the strategy of a group with its back against the wall – fairly passive and not very creative in terms of a proactive agenda. It’s a disappointing for a party that’s demonstrated real strength and potential in the past.

At the same time, the DPP takes up a fairly bold stance on matters of independence, China, UN status and membership in the World Health Organization. But with the country swamped in a faltering economy, issues of international standing are secondary to more immediate matters of crisis.

As a marginalized minority, it will be curious to see whether or not the DPP can become a relevant player again. When I asked about the ability to work with the KMT, the feeling did not seem particularly good. The DPP spends a lot of its time painting the KMT in a negative light and while politics does make strange bedfellows, the villainizing culture within the DPP seems to be quite strong. The party seems stuck between moving forwards with real initiatives and still being stuck in a paradigm that essentially disappeared in 1991.

Their opinions on international status are important and have a fair amount of backing in Taiwan. As pressure on the Taiwan Strait is likely to increase in the coming years, the DPP will have its say on the matter of whether or not Taiwan maintains its current “undecided” status with China, works towards a formal reunification with China or makes a claim for complete independence. In that pivotal discussion, I hope that it’s a party free of its long-term resentment and one that thinks more about what’s right for the whole island rather than its own power.

I wonder if we are doomed to the power politics of democracy. What I saw here was the same I’d expect from visiting Democratic or Republican headquarters in the States. Will we ever move into the so-called “post-party” politics that could liberate our thinking beyond simple paradigms and move us towards broader thinking on what is necessary for the people by the people instead of what’s best for the party?

The Wide World of Sports

2009-03-09T20:20:00.000+05:30

In 1994, the World Cup came to the United States and my understanding of sport changed forever. Though I wasn’t so lucky, friends of mine attended games at the Meadowlands, the Italian squad held their training camp at a private school in New Jersey and I watched a tape-delayed final at a summer camp in New Hampshire, falling to the floor in agony as Baggio sent his spot-kick over the cross bar sending Romario and his Brazilian teammates into ecstasy. Sport for me became a real world event and my love affair for calcio began.

My passion for sport has only grown since my day as a kid and along with my world travels, its allowed me to enjoy much more global take on the world’s sporting situation. This has led me down many roads, including the unenviable task of trying to both a) understand and b) enjoy watching cricket (which they are desperately trying to make more palatable to the common viewer; they’ve chopped down 5-day test matches all the way down to 3-hour 20/20 matches. Hey, it’s a start.). But its learning cricket that has made my Indian experiences much richer and if you can name the Indian captain (MS Dhoni) to almost any Indian man, he will reward you with a smile of delight and a cup of chai.

But Taiwan’s sporting scene is much different from the pluralistic sports scene of America, or the ironic monotheism of cricket in India. Taiwan breaks down into a few top draw events: basketball, badminton and baseball. In this you can see the influence of the United States on the island, which is actually fairly obvious to a visitor’s eyes.

In the cities, basketball dominates – as it does in the States. It’s more suited for the urban landscape in terms of equipment and size of field. One can take a walk through any city in Taiwan and see the boys knocking down threes in baggy shorts and sleeveless shirts.

But with a large countryside of rice paddy, there is a huge affection for the more pastoral transpirings of a baseball game. In fact, one of Taiwan’s biggest exports is Wang Ching-Mien who starts for the New York Yankees (and to my own personal distaste, makes this place overwhelmingly pro-Empire). While Taiwan’s domestic game has suffered recently because of a gambling scandal, many Taiwanese play overseas (two, in fact are in the Red Sox farm system). It’s all to say that baseball matters here and my visit just happens to correspond with a little known but increasingly significant sporting event: the World Baseball Classic.

When they kicked off the inaugural classic in 2006, I half-loved and half-laughed at the idea. In theory, it’s a great idea. Baseball is an international sport with much of the Major Leagues filled up with imported talent from Latin America and the Far East. It’s no secret that the Sox have signed talent from Japan as much if not more for marketing than talent. In fact, almost every major league team has a substantial investment in the Caribbean where they have development houses for youth that resemble similar set-ups for the big European soccer outfits (NYT Magazine did an excellent article on the NY Mets globalization strategy in 2005). At the same time, the tournament hasn’t been able to gain all the world-class stars it would desire (who are prepping for the games that actually pay $$) and some team are downright pitiful (what is South Africa doing in the tournament? Really…?**)

But regardless of its feeling to me, its good here. With a history of back and forth over lands and political displays, this makes for really good east-Asian rivalries. And with baseball being a pre-dominant sport in Korea and Japan as well, this part of the tournament burns with some intensity.

But what I did not expect was that it would have a pull here in the way that the World Cup might have in other places in the world. At the moment, I’m sitting in a chilled out café in Tainan that looks like it would never even welcome a sports fan, but sure enough, they’ve circled several couches around a projector screen so patrons can look up and get the latest on the Taiwan-China game that’s underway. Last night I tuned in to watch Korea-Taiwan with my friend from Seoul.

Taiwan won’t make it out of the first round. Korea and Japan will dominate and represent Asia in the next round of the tournament. But its good to see this kind of competition emerging and to see what it looks like in another country. Last night I took a break from my bike ride across town to tune and watch the second inning of the Korea game with about 75 other people who were watching a big projection screen outside a Sony store downtown. Sure, its not Circo Massimo after Italy took the 2006 World Cup, but I think we’ll be hearing more about this event in years to come.

**For those interested in upsets, The Netherlands twice beat the Dominican Republic in the past week. It’s an impossible result. And it happened twice. Will be following this more closely than I originally thought.

Cao-Ching’s Commitment

2009-03-07T19:27:00.000+05:30

One thing I love about life is that people are simply incredible beings. The stories we write, movies we watch, plays we act and canvases we cover are derived our human experience – the often incredible courage and faith and the remarkable way that events link together, the wild dreams and even the sometimes mundane details of turning them into reality. Life in this constant balance of inspiration and normalcy.

I’ve had the great blessing to be in a line of work that allows me to meet some of the people who are the dream-makers. The men and the women who couple passion, hope and perseverance and away they go.

Twenty years ago, Cao-Ching retired early from his position as a public servant in search of a deeper calling to serve God and his country. Without a clear leading, he reflected on it for about a year, seeking some divine guidance to raise the need he could address in Taiwanese society. The answer he received wasn’t a high profile or glamorous cause: he would dedicate the rest of his life to caring for people in a Permanent Vegetative State (PVS).

His faith took him on a 4-year trek around his country, knocking on doors to raise awareness, enlist support and collect donations for the work. With the cause relatively unknown in Taiwanese society at that time, he got little response. In fact, he only managed to recruit 700 supporters in those four years. That’s only about one person every two days. Still, he persisted.

After four years, he was able to rent some space in an old building by Taipei Main Station in downtown Taipei. The first bed he used to comfort his first patient was an old bureau that he converted to suit its new function. They still have it in the center. It moved me to see this humble piece of furniture, which he saw as the first step to a work that would affect the lives of thousands of people around the island. Visionaries see the unseen.

Cao-Ching opened his first center with an annual budget of about $30,000. 20 years later, the Genesis Social Welfare Foundation has 12 PVS centers, expanded to address the needs of the elderly and homeless and now operates on $60,000 a day. It’s the 6th largest NGO in Taiwan and has three more centres under development at the moment.

From a seed of inspiration, Cao-Ching followed his calling in faith and his actions brought the PVS issue to national recognition and demonstrated the massive potential of a fully-committed individual.

How does one respond to a life like that? For me, it begs the question of my own life: How committed am I to anything in my life? Would I drop everything if I got a sense of specific purpose for my life?

It becomes more and more obvious to me the level of commitment that is necessary to bring real constructive social change to the world. It’s a level of trust and discipline most find far too costly to be worth the sacrifice. But all important things require sacrifice at some point. In the end, its far more about willingness than what is sacrificed. The unique power of the spirit over the material

Small Town Taiwan

2009-03-06T20:03:00.003+05:30

Fat on handmade noodles and steak, I rolled down the quiet main street with a French Father, who gently spoke with me of divine will in English, his third language. I never fail to be inspired by young men who commit themselves fully to a spiritual search. Particularly, one that brings them to small-town Taiwan.

Riding through the night, I worked to keep awake. My eyes weary and vision blurring I held conversation for 90 minutes before we arrived at a small Catholic monastery about 45 minutes outside Tainan City. The gates left open, my small team of seven unloaded our mini-van and walked up the stairs to a drop-dead sleep.

There are little things that start to happen when one travels with the intention of building relationships and experiencing culture. The word “no” often begins to slip from usage. If someone asks me or others to do/try/ask/say/build/write something, we often say “yes” and see where the rabbit hole goes. (I actually saw a British Late night show when a man tried this experiment out for some weeks at a time. His only answer to any yes-or-no question was “yes”. He wrote a book about it and the idea caught me. I’ve found myself being more affirmative ever since.)

So when Brother Thomas walked in on our afternoon meeting and asked if we would like to meet his pottery teacher, we agreed. Two minutes later we were at a sublime art studio off the main street. The warehouse split in two sections. To the right a potter’s wheel, two kilns and stack of ceramics in all parts of the process. To the left an open space with five working canvases. On the walls hung large portraits.

Immediately upon arrival, a middle-aged Taiwanese man approached in jeans and cracked leather shoes. We warmed to his good looks immediately and his English made the interaction easier. Within minutes we were into his work, peering around every corner of the studio. He paints and his wife write children’s books. A third artist works the wheel in the back.

It didn’t take long for my incessant questioning to strike gold. The portraits, large (3’x4’), oil heavy and worked with a spatula, displayed faces, almost mutated in their distortion. The depictions were harrowing, but human and I didn’t shy away from them. Instead, I drew closer, locking eyes with each and understanding the depths of the characters, anonymous yet vivid. They were pictures from memory. From intense memory.

The painter told the story of his political dissidence in the 1970’s. Well, dissidence would be perhaps an overstatement. That said, he told me that he had been a political prisoner in Taiwan for 2 years in his early 20’s. At somepoint he had disagreed with the ruling party of Taiwan (led by Chiang Kai Shek, who moved to Taiwan following the successful Communist Revolution on the mainland in 1949). A few small words landed him in prison where he stayed for 24 months along with a number of other inmates, many serving time for uncommitted crimes.

They were the faces, speaking out over the years to him as he taught in a primary school. They were the voices he tried to amplify through his work.

Times in Taiwan have changed. Martial law was lifted. Democratic elections in the Yuan took place in 1991. There’s even been a different ruling party in power at the federal level.

So has the life of this artist-teach. In a remarkable (and at one point unthinkable) turn of events he was personally invited by the Taiwanese president to display his work in the presidential palace two years ago. A new age of freedom and openness.

We arrived back at the monastery in time for the brothers’ evening expedition: Night Market. Every Tuesday the men head to the local town square to join the other hawkers, wielding twin pans of brilliant cake. The sweet is an obvious cover to hang out with the people in the market, but its fantastic nonetheless. We pitched up our lights, rolled out the extension chord and even busted out the guitars, drinking in the magical scene of the Taiwanese Night Market

It’s spring and with the cool air settled in, we traded roles selling (actually not really selling) our cakes, playing music and shooting hoops. Few people attended the market, so it was a hawkers affair. The old folks traded stories and conversations lilted gently behind larges spreads of goods ranging from cheap socks and underwear to meat cleavers and fingernail clippers. One outfit rented motorized cars for children while another let kids try to catch fish to take home.

Of course, these are all distant placeholders to the real stars of any night market. Yes, the food vendors. In all, food vendors took up at least half the market and they sizzled in the night. From prawn noodles to street meat, the mouth-watering aromas emanated from all corners. We were helpless. Within minutes we were pounding the puffed rice available for free at our table to satiate our whetted appetites. Of course, it didn’t take long for my friend Cheng to break. I’m sure she loves food more than anyone I know, which is impossible to understand when you see her petite frame. But her stomach, eye for cuisine and Mandarin skills instantly paid off as I found myself slurping up a bowl of noodle broth. But it was all appetizer to me as I walked directly to the king of it all, the street meat man.

One grilled squid, some chicken liver, another grilled squid, some bacon and a piece of pork later, I basked in the greatness. After 4 months of a fairly disciplined vegetarian diet, I had entered the land of the non-veg grill. I savored every last marinated morsel.

As the market dwindled, we grabbed the last of the cake (okay, we had only sold three pieces in two hours; which led to the obvious conclusion that the cake was a weekly [if not delicious] cover to hang out with the townspeople) and traveled with our product. Behind the power of some good-looking women, a little background guitar, a nice product and bit of peer pressure, we managed to unload about 15 pieces in 15 minutes, emptying the tray and putting a smile on everyone’s face. Elated, we packed up our gear and walked down the street.

Every week, the men head to the same noodle man for some post market chill time. It’s tradition and as such, it instantly took me. It reminded me of days back in Plainsboro, eating McDonald’s after Young Life. Eating fries and milkshakes and playing out a million high school dramas. Minus the theatre and hormones, the weekly noodle run brought a smile to my face.

We sat down with the chef and owner as we ate. He always waits for the brothers before closing up shop on Tuesdays. They chow and talk and laugh and listen. Tonight it was a lovely scene with the French brothers and their Chinese friends taking in a group of foreigners at the long table, sipping black red-tea-coffee and slurping soup. As we finished up, we snapped a photo out front with the owner and his son. A more memorable night in small town Taiwan.

Lesson 4: Catching the Vision

2009-03-05T05:55:00.000+05:30

Working in a team or living with people in a community is challenging work. This past week I found myself being dragged down by a few negative voices in my midst. As negativity can be quite contagious, I felt myself and the whole group being affected.

I grouped with my leadership team to see what could be done to change the situation. We decided to throw our whole-hearted energy into working with these few individuals. Our hope was to bring a new understanding, a new line of sight that would shift perspective and thus behaviour. For a good week we went at this business. We made some progress, but I felt the efforts were moving too slowly as compared to the increasing impact on the other side. For one, the whole group still felt the burden of this negativity. And two, because I was so focused on addressing it and was not getting the type of response I wanted, my spirit drained. I started to flat-line along with the rest of my leadership team.

The situation required a new tack. A good friend met with us over lunch and issued a stern challenge: “What direction will you take this group? What’s happening now isn’t the answer and you have to decide how you want to lead. Now is the time.”

That morning during some time in reflection I had been thinking that the vision needed to become more real to everyone. We needed to understand the importance and the urgency of accomplishing what we all had come to do. As I mentioned this to my team in the subsequent discussion, a new realization came to light. The vision would provide the answer we needed.

So far, our energy had been drained by throwing water on a fire of problems, but we hadn’t looked around to see that a) most of the place was not on fire and b) many of the people were either helping fight the fire or even better, thinking on issues beyond the fire altogether (to stay with the analogy, this means they were thinking that the fire was actually a very small issue that would eventually burn-out on its own).

What we found was that the key to restoration was to re-center the work of the community on the vision and not the problems that were eating it up because of naval-gazing. Further, we shifted our focus on building up those who had the vision already and celebrated their development publicly. By bringing the vision to the front, we began to see a gentle movement towards looking up and ahead instead of down and in. By working with the visionaries, we felt our own energy rise and the group rally behind some champions who, in turn, took the opportunity to rally their colleagues and lead the way.

It didn’t transform every problem into an answer, but it did demonstrate to me the power of two things: One, the power of negativity and “fire-fighting” to bring things down and to make the scope of seeing and thinking increasingly myopic. And two, the power of vision and affirmation to lift a group to be it’s creative best.

Problems are always with us. Discussing the vision and affirmation can be tasks on a checklist. But if we can lift our eyes to see the vision with a genuine freshness and share it in kind – oh, how the water rises!

Hiatus

2009-02-16T20:09:00.002+05:30

It's been a while since I last posted here and I thought I would give you a chance to decide for yourself what it was that kept me away.

a) I finally gave into the pressure of my boosters and entered the rickshaw derby from Mumbai to Goa.
b) I took on the ascetic lifestyle and gave up on computers and internet for two weeks
c) I ate too much food one night, suffered a severe case of delhi belly and laid in bed for half a month
d) Meditated in silence for 14 days
e) Decided to commit myself to modeling traditional Indian clothes on a full-time basis
f) All of the above
g) None of the above

Well, if you guessed g, then you are right. While this may disappoint you (and somehow it slightly disappoints me) I actually spent the last three weeks in a mad rush booking tickets and getting visas and preparing a thousand details in advance of our program's move to the Far East. Oh, and we also arrived in the Far East during that time, so I'm writing on from Taiwan.

A couple of notes about the upcoming posts. About five will be backdated to the beginning of February, while a couple feature my most recent experiences on the island. Please keep an eye out for both.

I'll do my best to keep writing and I hope you enjoy what you read.

Xie Xie,

Chris

A Few Hours In Malaysia

2009-02-09T20:19:00.000+05:30

For a number of reasons, I had a two-stopover trip to Taiwan from Mumbai. Following a five-hour trek down from the plateaus of Panchgani to the mega-city, I camped at the airport with my friends before departing on an overnight flight to Kuala Lumpur.**

The flight itself was memorable if nothing else. As we boarded the plane at 11:55pm, we secretly told the cabin crew of the Malaysian Airlines (an airline I will now officially endorse) flight that one of our friends would actually be celebrating her birthday at midnight. We asked if they could do something special for her. Sure enough, when we were just airborne, the captain made his usual flight announcements and then wished our friend a happy birthday over the intercom. This led to an uproarious version of “Happy Birthday”, which we sang several time and was later repeated by all the flight attendants. The cabin crew supervisor gave her some sweets and even two bottles of wine! Amazing. Into her sixties, my friend could not believe the whole scene and beamed one of the most genuine birthday smiles I’ve ever seen.

Of course, the excitement eventually subsided into relaxation and after dinner I settled into watching “Eagle Eye” before trying to nod off in the late night hours. It turned into fruitless search as my mind buzzed with a million thoughts of my upcoming trip to Taiwan, Hong Kong and China and beyond that. Exhausted, I deboarded the plane at 7:30 in the Malaysian morning, cleared immigrations, loaded up my bags and walked into the swollen humidity outside.

I would still need to take two more flights in the day, but we had an 8-hour layover and my friend Cheng had spoken to her friend Kei-Kei who offered to pick us up and show us around KL. In a flash, we were in his SUV and flying towards the capital. It’s been three years since my last visit to KL, but the palm plantations and hazy air felt familiar and as the city came into view it seemed like a memory coming alive.

I have a fondness for Kuala Lumpur primarily because I met my good friend Jeff there at the tail end of my long trip to Asia a few years back. Over long correspondence we had agreed to cross paths as he was setting out on a solo backpacking adventure and I was finishing mine. He had the brilliant foresight to book us a hotel and smiled thinking of our night of reunion when I laid on a comfortable bed and watched a baseball game before he arrived and we sipped tiger beer in the street sharing stories in the late evening heat.

I’d seen the city before and I was happy to pass by some of the old sight-seeing hotspots, but I felt a kind of joy when I arrived in the Chinese district where I met Jeff on the hot August night two-an-a-half years ago. I saw the rows of hawkers under the plastic waving the plastic ceiling. I remembered the place where I saw the biggest rat I’ve ever seen in my life. The exotic smells that make up an open-air market. The old hotel, the tea stalls and the knock-off shoes.

The expedition was perfectly timed. It was the last day of the Chinese New Year celebrations and we caught the excitement of three traditional lion dances. And Kei-Kei went out of his way for us to dine on all available market cuisine. From rice milk drinks and nuts to Chinese buns and coffee we ate our way down the streets before rollingback to the airport for our onward flight to Hong Kong.

Without question, Kei-Kei’s attention made a lasting impression on me and the others along for the ride. I’ve been on the receiving end of some incredibly generous hospitality in my life (often feeling quite undeserved), but Kei-Kei really went out of his way to pick us up (an hour out of town), show us around and make us feel that we’d really been to his hometown. When we asked why he made such an effort, he said that he had traveled to Taiwan a few months back and been treated so well that he wanted to make sure that if anyone was coming to KL, he would give them the same kind of care and attention. It must have been some trip to Taiwan.

My companions and I were so touched by the spirit that we made a mutual commitment to pay that sentiment forward and take up the challenge of being equally gracious hosts when given the next opportunity.

We wished Kei-Kei a cheerful goodbye at the terminal. True to form, he gave us one final gift, handing each of us a red envelope, the traditional gift given to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Inside was a small coin that signified good luck for our upcoming journeys.

** I’ve developed a theory that because Americans developed flight technology and pioneered the subsequent commercial air business, they [and perhaps reasonably so] picked out the best departure and arrival times to which the rest of the world had to adjust. Given their considerable sway in terms of capital, Europe managed to get in on this as well, pushing countries like India to the margins. Therefore, whenever you leave or arrive into India, its almost always at some ridiculous hour like two in the morning. Of course, to this theory I will add the “camp corollary”, which basically states that the kid who shows up in the cabin first gets to pick whatever bunk he wants. Tough luck for everyone else and “stay off my bunk!”

Lesson 3: Loving People When its Impossible

2009-02-05T19:30:00.000+05:30

People are incredibly difficult. If you have lived with a family, being with the same people day in and day out, you’ve reached the height of understanding this difficulty. The ones we love the most are also those who often become the most difficult. Sometimes, its just because they know how to be difficult and want to do it. Sometimes, its because we are actually the difficult ones!

Traveling with a group of nine people over the course of two months is the closest I’ve come to having a second family. We spend almost all of our waking hours together, bouncing from meal to meal, appointment to appointment and planning, discussing and sharing life together. In many ways it’s absolutely brilliant, we see the best of one another. But there is no question, time and travel always reveals the worst in someone as well.

It’s no wonder that this is the time and place that I would reach the conclusion that people are difficult. And even more, people are difficult to get along with. And the most of all, people are difficult to love. But this is the challenge – to love people when it’s difficult. Even more – to love people when it’s impossible.

Impossible? Yes. I’m not talking about impossible in absolute terms, but in our own thinking. How many times do we construct a limit of impossibility within our relationships (“I’ll never forgive him”, “She’s just impossible to love”, “I can’t stand them”, etc)?

In the right light, it’s quite helpful to recognize something as impossible. It’s an acknowledgement of our own limits. When we’ve felt our own endpoint, we’ve reached a point of growth, in faith and in relationship.

More and more I’m welcoming the point of impossibility. When something seems impossible, it’s a challenge. Am I willing to extend myself into the void and trust? Can I step where I’ve never stepped before? Can I ask someone for help and work with them to do what I can’t do on my own?

Somehow, I find the realm of impossibility (our own self-imposed limit) somehow sits at the heart of the human experience. The most inspiring people I know have repeatedly come against the abyss of impossibility and stepped forward, only to find that somehow, their faith was received by an even greater faithfulness on the other side. I find myself increasingly motivated to take these steps.

And so it is with difficult people and difficult situations. Will I keep confined to my own limitations and act in the realm of what’s possible? Or will I instead choose to love people beyond possibility and step in faith towards the impossible?

Lesson 2: Taking the Challenge

2009-02-04T17:02:00.000+05:30

These days I’ve come to a final conclusion about living. Life requires risk and true living means putting faith into action, even when the risk seems great.

Over the past week I’ve come to see some things about myself more clearly. Importantly, I’ve run up against a familiar trait of people-pleasing. To put it more precisely, it’s an issue of appeasement. In many ways it’s far easier to appease those I find difficult and hope that a steady dose of this strategy will keep any rising problems at bay. It’s a strategy many people employ on a regular basis. But it’s flawed and doesn’t tackle any of the root causes of the problem. Furthermore, its usually devoid of love.

To sort out these relational issues one must act with a spirit of bold and unfaltering love. The kind of love that is the very opposite of fear (the central motivator in people-pleasing). We can live forever in a state of fear regarding relationships. Fear can actually provide a sense of purpose and meaning in a relationship because it gives it a direction, an intention. At the same time, fear fundamentally spoils our ability to love, our highest human calling.

For me, living in fear as a leader on Action for Life means not risking. I am constantly in a place where I can deliver important criticism to those on the program, but at the same time, I need them to work with me and be with me for our group to function. If one person loses grip because the criticism cuts too deep, the group can faction off and destabilize completely. We’ve all been in groups where one statement set off a chain reaction that destroyed team chemistry. I frequently find myself measuring the content and timing of my words for impact, but often find that my fear of a negative impact keeps me silent, happier to keep an uneasy peace than to stir up a storm.

This policy is based on a belief that the unsaid word will make no impact or keep the status quo. But this isn’t true! If the word goes unsaid, it still makes a significant impact. For one, it keeps the feeling inside of me, doubling its potency (and perhaps venom) if it would ever come out. Further, it doesn’t address the issue at all. There is a reason it came up. That reason is important because it’s hitting on the root of an issue that, if changed, could bring significant, positive results in the future for that person, that person’s interaction with the group and the group as a whole.

On top of a misty mountain in Yercaud, Tamil Nadu, I managed to write a few words on the water-logged pages of my journal:

Observe behavior carefully. Listen in silence to understand the root cause of that behavior. Develop a clear line of thinking. Act swiftly; don’t hesitate on sharing the insight. Deliver the insight with genuine love and respect.

Lesson 1: People Where They Are

2009-02-03T20:03:00.000+05:30

My whole trip back around the world is full of more lessons than I could ever possibly recall or fully understand in the short time I've been given. But this the first of four lessons I've written about specifically since I've been on the road.

Take people where they are and give them a vision for where they can be.

When we look at people, can we accept them for who they are and where they are? I’ve found regularly in my life that I meet people and wish that they were someone different, somewhere different. What I mean is that sometimes I see a person and wonder how they can act a certain way or why they can’t see a blind spot in their life. I’m sure people look at me the same way, wishing I could somehow break away from something that is holding me back. I imagine that parents frequently feel this way when they look at their children learning lessons (or not learning lessons) the hard way.

But one of the most remarkable things about human life is that despite our almost identical biological compositions, we are each unique, shaped by our genes and experiences like no other. Each of us walking our own path of life. Sometimes its alone, sometimes we share it with others or even walk long distances with the same person, but the small truth remains the same: each of us is at the point we are at on the path we are on.

No one can make another person move faster or slower on that path. Or climb the rocky patch that’s difficult or take it easy and smell the hedge of honeysuckle. It can’t be done without that person’s consent. This is free will. And free will plays as central a role as any in the course of humanity.

But in the same moment that we can’t move someone (no matter how frustrating this may be) we can do something about it. True education and leadership and care for another human being is helping them to see who they can be and what they can do on their path. It’s believing in the possibility of each person and giving them a vision that excites them to the point of taking action of their own volition. Not for any other reason than that they saw a vision for their life that inspired them to new action.

(There is another side to the concept of vision expressed here, and it’s the idea of judgment or rebuke. I’ve recently been reading “A Generous Orthodoxy” by Brian McLaren who writes exceptionally on the important role judgment plays in bringing the truth into the light. I hope to reflect more on this later).

It’s a difficult task to move past the frustration that others cause us when we see where we would like them to be and have to deal with the reality of where they are. It requires the wisdom of patience and acceptance. But it’s also an incredible opportunity to shine some light on the path ahead.

Postlogue: Upon writing this, I want to acknowledge the many who have taken the time to give me a greater vision for who I can be in my life and I’m grateful to those who have waited out a remarkably stubborn man uninterested in change. Now it’s my chance to work with the lesson learned and take my turn.

Two Holy Men

2009-02-01T19:18:00.001+05:30

I haven't written an ounce of fiction in years. I don't aim to write it and its the rarest of occasions when it even comes to mind in a daydream. That said, I was sitting in a Jain temple in December and scribbled this out as the sun was setting in Maharashtra. Thought it was worth sharing here.

Two holy men from neighboring villages were traveling on the road. Coming from different directions, they arrived at the same village together on the same afternoon. As per their custom, each went to the local temple to sing prayers at sunset.

Both men had reputations for being the best singers in their respective towns and both walked into the same temple ready to give their offering in song. One arrived a few seconds before the other, bowed his head and began to sing his prayer. Mere moments later the other launched into his melody and the two voices rang aloud throughout the temple. Like a pair of clanging cymbals in discord, their voices clashed harmonically, rhythmically and in all imaginable ways. The cacophony drove the other patrons quickly out of the temple. Too stubborn, each singer continued his song until the temple emptied and both were completely exhausted and sore in the throat.

With the painful event concluded, they parted ways without a word and left the temple to their separate quarters for the night. Each thought to himself, “Every time I enter a temple and sing, everyone is blessed by my prayers, but today they were not. They left unhappy. If only that other man had not come, then I would have pleased everyone with my sweet songs. Surely, tomorrow he will have moved on and I will be able to sing my prayers alone.”

The next day, both men arrived at the temple for prayers at sunset. When they entered they noticed each other and raced to the shrine, leaping into song at the pint of kneeling. Again, one started a moment before the other and both, out of breath from their race, struggled through their prayers. All those in the temple left quickly, deeply irritated with the two holy men.

With the temple cleared for the second straight evening, each man glared furiously at the other and again stormed off in different directions. Each more determined than ever, the two men separately developed identical plots. “I will arrive at the temple early tomorrow. This way I can start my prayers alone and if the other man comes, he will already be too late. If he doesn’t sing, I can continue in peace. If he does sing, he will interrupt me and this interruption will look like pride. The people will discourage him and a send him packing.”

The next day, both men reached the temple and hour early, walking from different sides of town. They entered from different sides of the temple and arrived at the altar seconds apart and each launched into song. Exasperated and desperate, the sounds emerged and again the temple suffered from the tragic tones. The noise was so horrible that no one even entered the temple that day.

Cursing each other’s name, they each stormed off even more determined to win the developing competition. With renewed vigour, each man committed to outlast the other. For weeks their battle continued. Few people visited the temple. They could not believe that two holy men could feud so relentlessly.

Weeks turned into moons. Moons turned into seasons. Seasons turned into years. And even when the heat of summer and cold of winder kept other inside, both men would religiously visit the temple and sing their disgraceful duet in the emptiness.

The town’s morale began to fade and many gave up on God. Many saw God as the source of the problems. As the years rolled by even the temple workers and custodians could no longer take the wretched noise. They left to find other work in other villages. The temple fell into disrepair and no longer meant anything to anyone other than the two holy singers who continued to use it as their personal arena.

Although the two men were blind to many things, they could see that the people no longer visited the temple or prayed – nor did they treat each other with the neighbourly love that used to emanate from the temple grounds and their hearts. Hope had left town and faith had been replaced by apathy and cynicism.

Dismayed, each man decided to try to see if he could spy on the other to find a way to end the competition once and for all and thereby restore to the people what had been lost.

One morning, one of the men snuck over to the other’s small flat and watched through a hole in the wall as he washed his clothes. While doing the chore, the man began to sing the most beautiful song the listening ears had ever heard:

Join us together in love
For we are of one mother
We are of one father
We are children born in love and of love
Born to love

It sounded vaguely familiar and the listening man strained to place it. After some minutes he realized. This was the prayer that the man had been singing everyday at the temple.

Shocked, the man hurried home and sat at his table thinking. “What a glorious voice this man has. He is right to be singing at the temple. I should have noticed years ago, but I have been too interested in my own song. Tonight I will pack up my things to leave. Tomorrow I will apologize to him, let him know that I’m leaving and that he has well earned the place of honor as singer in the temple.” He set to work, singing as he readied his things for the onward journey

But as he prepared, the other man wandered over to spy in on his competitor. Peering through the gate, he head a most joyous tone – the sound of someone no longer burdened by the weight of suffering:

Let my heart be pure enough
To embrace my brother
In bold and delicate love

His heart warmed with the music, but it confused his head. “I know this song,” the man muttered to himself. A few more repetitions and it clicked in. “My God! That’s the song he’s been singing in the temple these many years. Surely God has given this man the voice of angels.” The man continued to listen until slowly walking back to his house, ashamed.

As he walked he thought, “That voice deserves a temple to sing in alone. He felt clear to pack up and leave the town at once, stopping first to apologize to his enemy before heading out. He too set to work, getting ready for the journey.

The next day, both left for the temple to meet the other at evening prayers. As usual, they arrived within seconds of each other.

One spoke first, “Brother, I have wronged you. I’ve made this temple a place of my personal agenda and I believe that its your voice that should be singing here and not mine. I’ve come to apologize to you. Please forgive me.”

“No, no!” the other said. “It is I who have committed the crime. I’ve held a bitter feeling in my heart against you and made a competition between the two of us. I’m sorry for this. I believe that it’s your voice that rightly belongs in this temple. Please forgive me.”

For the first time in years, both men stood in the temple and there was complete silence.

“I forgive you.”
“I forgive you.”
“But my dear friend, what do we do now? Should one of us stay? Should we both go?”
“Dear brother, let’s pray to see if we get some direction.”

Both men kneeled down together and humbly began to sing their prayers underneath their breath at the same time. But something had changed. Their hearts and attitudes had moved. Their postures had shifted. And now they were listening.

Instead of singing to feature their own voice and blast the other to the wall, the modesty of each voice brought gentleness into the air and painted the walls with colors. And something incredible occurred. As each man listened, he began to vary his melody to fit with the other, slowly developing into balanced harmonies first whispering and eventually soaring together as two voices in one. A flawless duet rang throughout the town, resonating with creation.

In the street, a small child heard the song. He picked up his ball and wandered into the delapidated temple, sitting next to the men, cross-legged with his eyes closed. Listening. Minutes later, his mother, frantically looking for him, entered the temple. Relieved to see him, she sat next to him and caressed his head as they both listened to the music. Having not seen his wife for a while, a husband searched the streets of the town in search of her. Eventually he came to the temple and sat with his family, joy-filled by the music.

And like this, the temple slowly began to fill with people, song, faith and hope. And the music played for many, many years.

New Beginnings

2009-01-29T11:38:00.002+05:30

I was recently asked to deliver a message for a conference at Asia Plateau. The subject was America, Obama and New Beginnings. It was part of a session entitled New Beginnings, which reflected the importance of a number of forward-looking events unfolding at the same time (Chinese New Year/Lunar New Year, New American President, Indian Republic Day, 1st Anniversary of Australian Sorry Day, etc.).

Hope is the reason behind a new beginning. Faith is the action. We view a horizon we want to reach, a destination worth the sacrifice, the world we want to see. With hope as the fuel and faith as the motion, we step boldly towards the vision.

I’ve been asked today to speak about America, Obama and new beginnings. At a time of great turmoil in the world, when economic crises and extremism and climate change and corruption sink the spirit, America finds itself a wounded power on the world stage. All of these issues have finally come to the door of my nation, which has for so long prided itself on its prosperity and virtue. Largely as a response to these difficult times and recent governance, the people elected Obama for the hope he represented. For the new beginning his words and his life demonstrate.

Like Buchman did many years ago, Obama rightly sees his world at the turning. He stated clearly in his address the path the nation must take despite a myriad of domestic and global obstacles: “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.”

It’s a new beginning and he opens it with hope. Real hope. Once, when he was asked if he really believed in all this talk about hope he quipped (and I’ll paraphrase): “I’m the son of a white mother and a black father, my middle name is Hussein and I’m running for the President of the United States. You better believe I’ve got hope.”

It’s a great line, but the miracle of an Obama presidency is that it is a hope realized. A vision met. A promise fulfilled.

Many of you will have been alive when black Americans would have had to use separate bathrooms, restaurants and drinking fountains from white Americans; When a black man’s vote would account for only three-fifths of a white man’s. When blacks were systematically held back in education, business, sport and almost all pursuits of life.

Martin Luther King, Jr., saw this inequality around him and held up a vision of hope for a nation and a world. That hope drove his actions as he followed the message of Jesus and the methods of Gandhiji and spoke truth to power in love. In the daunting face of hate, violence and ignorance, he cast his sights on a dream, that one day all people wouldn’t be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. He sacrificed. He offered his life to pursue truth. He did so willingly – fueled by hope for the vision and determined in his faith that it could realized.

Obama’s inauguration in many ways fulfills that dream. In a way, it’s a completion. It marks the end of a journey millions have taken towards equality. An African-American holds the highest office in the country – according to many, the most powerful person in the world.

At the same time, this completed chapter intersects with a changing world. A world at a new beginning. And the world can take on that new beginning, with a great hope for a great vision.

Hope for a world where cooperation would be the theme and courage and unselfishness the characters. A world where resources are sustained because we learn how to share and innovate together. A world where business works, not for the few, but for all parties, because we realize our futures are interdependent. A world where intolerance and violence are humbled at the mighty feet of love and justice.

At this new beginning, hope fuels that vision. In the footsteps of Martin Luther King and Gandhiji, Barack Obama’s story shows us that hope isn’t a fleeting concept of the idealists. In fact, it is the driving force of all new beginnings. When coupled with unshakeable actions of faith, all things are possible.

Recently for me, my hope was a restored relationship with a close relative – hope for a relationship full of trust and love. From a chapter of grievances, I could see a new beginning blossoming with possibility. It was towards that hope that I took a step of faith, admitting the bitterness I held in my heart and asking forgiveness. The response from that person was overwhelming – a real change arrived. The kind of change I want to see in the world.

Today is a new beginning. Now is a new beginning. And in each new moment we make a decision for ourselves and as a people – will we move towards our insecurities or towards our inner greatness? Will we move in fear or move in faith? Will we dwell in despair or run with hope towards vision of a better world, starting with ourselves?

Today it brings me great hope and encouragement to be with you as we steadily walk in faith towards that vision. Thank you.

Panchgani Sunset: Three Views

2009-01-28T14:06:00.001+05:30

Thoughts for a New Year

2009-01-27T22:41:00.001+05:30

A stretch of thoughts that came on New Year’s Day morning. Following a number of days down on vision, energy and my team.

2009: A Year for Trust and Joy

Make trust the core of everything.
With trust, everything is possible.
Without trust, everything is impossible.

Joy is the natural, final outcome of trust.

Truth is faithfulness
Faithfulness is an action
Action is everything
Everything is possible with trust

Use all methods available to make trust as strong as possible:
Steps to advance it
Plans to get it right
Hammers of and nails to build it
Words to invite it
Risks to demonstrate it
Care to maintain it
Faith to believe it
Forgiveness to redeem and restore it
Compassion to understand it
Courage to offer it
Love to sustain it
Kindness to ease the tension of it
Humor to make it light
Toughness and dedication to see it through

The Star Spangled Banner

2009-01-21T10:44:00.000+05:30

When Dianne Feinstein asked the crowd to rise for the national anthem, I thought little of it, watching on a small screen ten-and-a-half hours away on a remote Indian hillside. Then, without reservation, everyone around me stood up.

*********************************************************************************

I no longer know how to express the power of articulating hope with humility and courage. Or the impact of recognizing the transformative nature of faith. Or the energy of casting a vision for a generous future coupled with a sense of reality. Or the influence of catalyzing the energy of inclusivity, trust and optimism.

It’s a world longing for these ancient treasures of the human spirit. One only need walk into the town of Panchgani to see a child beg at the cuff of a wealthy Mumbaikar. In that moment the world revealed – in all its possibility and need.

The paradigms of unchecked consumption, rampant consumerism and self-interested decision-making are ill-suited for the challenges of these days. My hope is that this new leadership can be one that empowers us to equip ourselves with the knowledge to wield the tools of the 21st century to tackle the immense concerns of a generation.

The new president speaks with the authoritative confidence of a man who is leading in a time of change; when new systems are already driving the way we communicate, work and process. There is no need to fight change. Instead, the time has come to embrace the undercurrent and harness the changing tides. This is a time to claim that as part of a new direction for a country and for a world – and with change on the move, it’s just a matter of nudging these systems in the right direction.

******************************************************************************

As the “Star Spangled Banner” rang out through the tinny speakers, I surveyed the room. I wasn’t standing among Americans gushing in a moment of patriotism. My neighbors were from places as far flung as Ukraine, Kenya, Vietnam and Australia – Uganda and Kashmir, Nagaland and Malaysia – Sudan, Russia, Zambia, Fiji, Canada and the United Kingdom.

What resonated within each was hope, renewed. The possibility that the world could seek out and pursue freedom, hope and justice as lasting and guiding principles. That we could work together to solve the problems of climate change, economic crisis and extremism. That there could be more than Us and Them and more a spirit of We.

That maybe, just maybe, we could realize our dreams together.

Love on a Train to Bangalore

2009-01-12T11:21:00.001+05:30

Chris: What do you think about love?
Kartik: What is there to think about?
Chris: What do you mean?
Kartik: One isn’t meant to think about love. Thinking is too much tied to logic and science. Love isn’t about thinking.
Chris: But doesn’t thinking have a place in love?
Kartik: Love doesn’t need reasons. Love isn’t supposed to make sense. In fact, the day that love starts making sense is the day that I no longer care for love.

Record-Breaking and Begging in the Lion’s Den

2009-01-10T11:08:00.000+05:30

Last night I was invited (with my crew) to give a presentation about Action for Life at the local Lions Club in Coimbatore. The moment I sat down, I knew this would be an instant classic.

We were scheduled to start sharp at 7pm and be the top item on the evening’s bill. When the meeting got going at a very sub-continental 7:30, I could see the writing on the wall. Instead of the star attraction, we’d been bumped in favor of a more honored guest. Without notice, we slowly watched as we got pushed further and further down the agenda.

The reason for our slow and steady demise came in the form of a solitary guest, who calmly walked to the dais to sit in the seat of honor (which we no longer held). He was middle-aged, mustasched and spectacled. A generous South Indian paunch rolled from chest to over-belt and an easy presence rested on his face. After some basic greetings from the club president, we slowly began to get some answers about the mystery man.

Not kidding, it seemed our replacement guest of honor had recently set a Guinness World Record for doing the following things at the same time:

1) Writing with both left and right hand simultaneously
2) Writing text from five religious books
3) Writing those texts in five different languages
4) Writing for 24 hours continuously

I don’t think I’ve heard of a stranger feat worthy of note. But, then again, it’s been years since elementary school when I scoured my freshly-bought book-fair paperback version of the records. And here, now, in real life, not only had he been invited to the meeting to receive his honor, but so had the Guinness judges and various witnesses!

For a minute I was excited about all the hubbub. But oh how that would turn! And how fast! In an incredible turn of events, each person at the meeting (a total of 25 [and we accounted for 40% of that total]) was asked to give a speech to congratulate the new world record holder (no mention of the previous record). As this process moved forward, it degenerated into a general platform to say whatever you wanted. The group extended this opportunity to every other person in the room before the focus returned to us.

It wasn’t until 8:40 that we actually took to the stage. I assumed my duty of MC bravely, but limited my vision to a simple: “avoid disaster”. We had already given two multi-hour presentations during the day, traversed the city a couple times and were still looking for dinner. With the crowd looking uninterested (to be fair, they hadn’t looked interested once during the entire meeting) we abbreviated our bit, finished and started to leave.

This wouldn’t be so easy. As we walked towards the door, one of the leaders of the Lions told us that we had to stay and eat their food. Meanwhile our main fixer said we had to leave and go out to eat. This turned into a public disagreement in front of the small, but at least now interested crowd. It helped the theatre that our man, a barrel-chested middle-aged no-nonsense industrialist was up against a short, stout man in a bowtie, blazer and hat with wing flaps. With the blood boiling between them (and admittedly within me as this tragedy desperately needed a quick ending to stop the bleeding), my crew (remember, a full 40% of the meeting) literally stood frozen on the way to the door without any clear idea of who’s direction we should take. In what seemed an agonizingly long 15 seconds living as a bewildered Bernini sculpture, the argument finally ended. Baskar, our ever-cool leader sealed the deal with a classic Indian hand flip. We were liberated, turning down the food promised from the Lions and turning up for at our host’s dinner table.

In an almost surreal scene, I looked back at the 2nd floor balcony when we had reached the street. The administrative secretary and the treasurer had come out to make one last call for our return. Both men were speaking in Tamil, expressing pain on their faces and making the unmistakable motion of hand-to-mouth. It’s unmistakable because it’s the motion that Indian beggars make when they ask for food or money.

The moment grabbed me. So many times I’ve been asked for food from the hungry in India. Many times I’ve turned down the plea. Now I was being asked to eat the food. Along with my group, again, I rejected the open hand

There are many kinds of begging in this world. We walked away. They went inside.

The Beauty of Ooty (the laziest and worst title in my blog's short history)

2009-01-08T12:17:00.000+05:30

In the last of the evening light, I pass through the rolling hills of the Nilgiri district of Tami Nadu. Tea estates cover the hillsides. The dense, dark, rich leaves of the low-lying plants contrasting with the string-thin trees marking the patches. A gentle sunset fades in the back as the mountain road switchbacks push my stomach into battle. My well-picked seat helps save the day as the comfort of the semi-sleeper and open window balance my equilibrium enough to get me back to Coimbatore.

It’s a night bus and a good time to write and listen to music. After some waffling, I passed on Explosions in the Sky’s “How Strange Innocence” for Radiohead’s “Kid A”.
I can’t help myself. I’ve been on a massive Radiohead trip these days.

My trip south is closing down. It’s been amazing. From crazy faith adventures in Pondicherry to leading my first college course, it’s been a time for strange experiences, bug episodes, new relationships and wild travels.

This weekend I spent in Ooty, and old hill station built up by the British for retreat in the days of empire. Coming form the hot plains of Coimbatore, the cold air smarted as we climbed the mountain. Dropping from mid 80’s days to below freezing evenings. Packed for the Southern tropics, I thank God it was only an overnight. Our quick visit reminded me of a few critical learnings about India that will instruct me well for the rest of my life.

Hospitality is the greatest gift of all. When it can be given, it should be done so generously in physical, spiritual and personal terms. We arrived here on Saturday morning to the warm smile of Mr. Chandren. I’m still not sure how he is exactly connected to my crew, but he showed up dutifully in front of the Tata Motors storefront at Charring Cross with his two lieutenants in a well-worn white jeep (that we later learned needed a rolling start every morning [a la “Little Miss Sunshine”]). Without a moment hesitation, we were ferried up to our guest house at the top of a hill looking over the town. We dropped our bags and were off on a tour of Ooty by the number 2 man from the district’s horticultural department.

Yes, the number two man in a town known for its forests, gardens and fresh air took us on for 24 hours without even knowing who we were or what we were all about. He got us in gratis at the world’s largest rose garden, the 150-year old botanical garden, Doddabetta (the highest point in South India) and even at the town lake. His patience and duty unwavering throughout, we developed a nice relationship with him as he welcomed the strange family that my team has become in these past 6 weeks of traveling.

We all felt a sad goodbye when we left on the bus this morning. He had been a ready guide and friendly companion. Laughing with us at our group dynamics, bargaining for scarves and fleeces, picking up the odd ear of roasted corn off the street and handling our endless questions with informative authority. A true gem of India. We call this kind of man a champion. The one who makes your life incredibly better by the simple act of service. I honestly believe that a good dose of hospitality can change a person’s life. That may not have happened in Ooty, but there’s no question that we all had a blast because of his step forward in that spirit.

Homemade things are always best. At the top of the Botanical Garden (way at the top beyond the last tier where no one goes) there is a small village called Thodamund. It’s home to a few remaining “tribals” who still inhabit the area. (Tribals is a term given to those Indians that live deep in the rural country and have very basic infrastructure in terms of water, plumbing, etc. It’s still a term I’m trying to understand as it seems unrelated to a sense of “tribe” as I typically relate to indigenous people.) We arrived to see a few boys preparing the ancient temple for evening prayers. A couple of the older gentlemen spoke with us about the village that looked over the cascading hills of the Western Ghats in some kind of timeless landscape. A shame that its now losing literal and figurative ground to the more rampant consumerism of modern India

Speaking with the men, we noticed their spectacular shawls. Hand-threaded needlework on a vast canvas that covered the upper-half of a grown man’s body. One man proudly announced that it took his wife six months to make it. Covetous, I asked if he had any available. The large throw seemed off limits, but he said he would look for some other items. He returned with an exquisite scarf and a wall hanging. They will arrive on two of your doorsteps someday.

Walking out of the garden with my handmade loot, I walked past a store with a sign for homemade chocolates. Feeling the timing right for a culinary celebration to accompany my feeling of the epic garden, I purchased. Real chocolate in India overwhelmed me and my friends. We forgot the dropping temperatures for a moment and welcomed the cocoa intoxication.

When with a group, pay for an hour of fun, even if it seems over priced or a bit ridiculous. Showing up at Ooty Lake, a nice, but clearly man-made pocket of water in the mountains left me wondering. Tourist trapped to the max, the attached amusement park didn’t do much to add serenity to the natural surroundings. But we fought through the carnival and cotton candy to the boat dock, where we quickly split into two groups of three and boarded row boats that looked like they were built during the Mughal Empire and last restored at Independence.

Regardless, I felt a gasp of excitement in the thin, cool sunlight as I took the decrepit oars with a sense of pride belonging to the grandson of two boatsmen. Wielding the wood I took us halfway out before we all noticed that the other crew were struggling behind an ever-changing captaincy. We let float and watched as the sun and water collected at the treeline. The deer came down to eat the vegetation by the shore; the rock of our boat resonating with the sublime afternoon’s melody.

Our friends eventually found their sea legs and joined us in the afternoon radiance. I never thought an hour in a rowboat would do us all so much good. We beamed as we left to go grab our lunch banana leaf lunches topped off with sweet paan.

I think this short overnight in Ooty will change the rest of our trip. We haven’t looked this relaxed since we left. A real affirmation of good lessons put into action.

A Saviour, a Miracle and a Little Science Fiction: Christmas in India (part two)

2009-01-05T10:01:00.001+05:30

To make the most out of having Christmas away from home (and especially in India) its critical to follow the most important rule of holiday travel: Don’t expect that it will be remotely like anything you know of your family holiday tradition. Don’t even presume to compare. The golden rules in place, you may never experience a more creative and unique celebration in your life.

This can be my only explanation for waking up at 7:00am and fogging around for a cup of coffee in the empty Pondicherry streets on Christmas morning after falling asleep around 2:30am the night before. With a dose of caffeine inside, I warmly welcomed the navy blue ambassador that drove up to the front of the Raj Lodge (why they didn’t spell it Raj Laj will only bum me out for ever). I loaded in with my crew and drove off to Auroville.

Auroville is an intentional community just outside the city. It’s based of the teachings of Sri Aurobindo (from my brief research a weighty and thoughtful Indian freedom fighter turned yogi from the early 20th century). The vision for the community is a place where human unity can be experienced; a new vision for living together with spiritual values as the premise. The community purchased about 20 square kilometers in the 60’s and have developed a global village that today consists of over 2000 people from some 40 countries. Passing by the bungalows, I tried to shoo away the rumors I’d heard of it being a refuge for criminals on the lam. I believe that everything deserves a fair shot from the beginning.

Our highly mechanized entry (including pre-registration through a contact days before and a secure checklist) led us to a viewing room for the official Auroville video. It glossed all the good stuff, human unity, responsibility and freedom, utopia stuff. It skipped all the grime of community, but I couldn’t blame them for that, hoping I might get it later on in the tour. From there we got in some electric people transport (which my friend related to the jeeps in Jurassic Park [fairly I might add]) to the center of the premises: Matrimandir.

The massive golden orb raised out of the manicured garden like Epcot Center in Orlando. I dropped off my bag, camera and phone at the coat check and listened to a kind Frenchman explain to us all about Matrimandir. It’s here that it all started to get a little more interesting for me. At Aurobindo’s passing, a woman (who later became known as The Mother) got hold of the band of devotees and took the ideas forward for the next 25 years. She held onto some of the teacher’s principles, but also took a hectic turn by introducing a good dose of her “visions” into the philosophy of the place. She dreamt up the massive golden orb (some 7 to 8 stories high) and its entire inside design, which included long indoor waterfalls, tricked out blue and red lighting, circling staircases and a meditation room centered around a huge crystal ball. My friend said as we walked into the orb “This all just went a little Star Trek on us.” I agreed, It looked like we had just jumped onto the set of TRON. When I heard that one of the six main reasons for creating Auroville was to hasten the arrival of a more highly refined species to earth, I decided to cut my losses and try to focus on what positives could be taken from the place, even if the philosophy seemed to go crack.

Redemption came in the form of the most beautiful piece of landscaping I’ve ever encountered. An epic Banyan tree, carefully manicured to create a most spectacular grove. As a Banyan tree grows, it rains down rootlike vines from its branches which grow into the ground and serve as new sources for nutrients. Typically, this process takes over and the tree grows in a spectacularly untamed jungle of tree. But in this case, the gardeners had pruned these bundled vines, keeping only one each at various points on the tree. These once-thin vines had now grown into the size of tree trunks and supported the extremely long branches of the tree that now stretched horizontally from the main tree trunk up to 50 or 60 feet. With careful attention, this tree could continue to grow in such a manor for hundreds if not thousands of more years. Ah! A Christmas Tree for the Ages. Sweet redemption and definitely a signal to bounce.

Leaving the compound, I laughed to myself. Is this where I really spent my Christmas morning? I thought about the hundred times my family used to think about going to watch the re-enactment of Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas and always turning it down, placing priorities on food, family and chilling with our new gifts. Ha! I never imagined my first big Christmas Day outing could be this!

But the redemption of Christmas continued with a quick stop at the beach to dip in the Bay of Bengal. Watching the fishermen finish their lunch and take their outboard motor long boats straight into the rolling tide.

Exhausted from the strange morning, we met the rest of our crew (Auroville could only accommodate a small number of us at a time) for lunch and splashed together, meeting up from very different mornings. A classic restaurant search upped the tension, followed by some so-so food and the need to plan for a presentation we would give later that day. A couple of verbal outbursts jolted the group and a classic Christmas drama started to boil.

But at the height of the dis-ease, we received a small Christmas miracle. The crew from the East (Chinese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese and Malaysian), not used to celebrating Christmas, provided the desperately needed Christmas spirit. In a flurry of activity following the meal, they played Santa Claus to our restless crew and transformed the rest of the day.

Impeccable timing. The whole day turned on the moment. We laughed and traded gifts with the joy of children. In total, I received three gifts this year, each one as lovely as the next and providing me with big smiles.

A Bookmark. Which hysterically reminded me of the last time someone gave me a bookmark as a gift. At the age of 6, I received a bookmark from my parents to mark the pages of my bible. A year later, my Mom recorded something like this in a family notebook: “This year, Chris (now a thoughtful boy of 7) decided to give out Christmas presents. He gave Andrew a drawing, Lindsay a marble and a bookmark to me and Dad. On the note attached to the wrapping paper, Chris wrote the following: ‘To Mom and Dad. Love: Chris. I thought you could use this more than me’. When we opened the package, we found a bookmark with the inscription: ‘To Chris, Love Mom and Dad’.”

A Polo Shirt (which would actually come a day after Christmas, but not a moment too soon for my hurting laundry situation). This of course delivered the most classic of all Christmas subtexts: The old “I think your clothes make you look like a hobo and I’m buying you something in the hopes it will help you clean up your act” gift. Good to have a surrogate Indian Auntie around for Christmas

A Pair of Black Athletic Socks. Which reminded everyone of the time I soaked my only pair of socks at Yercaud, a cold and wet hill station near Salem. In a desperate (and what I thought at the time was a rather clever) move, I lit the prayer candle in my room (was staying at a convent) and draped my socks over the edge and above the candle so as to use the generated heat to dry the socks. Smart enough, until I turned up from my journal some 10 minutes later to a smell of burning. I looked back at my socks, which seemed to be fine. But upon closer inspection, I realized that the socks were a synthetic blend and the materials were, in fact, melting! Actually, they had melted to a point of crust and when I tried to scrape away the hardened surface, I accidentally tore a huge gaping hole in the toe. Socks finished and worse, feet still cold!

With the sprit renewed, we took a siesta and gathered again to sing Christmas carols – it has been a real pleasure to teach the tunes to those unfamiliar with the traditional songs. We brushed up “Silent Night”, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!”, and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” (which coincidentally is a very common musical theme in India for giving the alert that a truck is in reverse) and took our massive cheer to a convent on the other side of town. By this point I had completely lost my mind, drunk on the eggnog of what can only be described as the fully international Christmas Spirit.

We delivered a presentation to about 100 high school girls who loved the whole event. The Sisters as well. It was tough to claw myself away from their over-eager attention when we finished, but I managed to escape and take a phone call with the family who had just sat down next to their Christmas morning.

When we returned to the seaside, another Christmas feast ensued at “The Bamboo Hut”. A big dinner of chipatis, rice, fish curry, mutton biriyani, mutter masala and palak paneer. I fine way to close out a spectacular day of culture and celebration.

I feel asleep listening to Sufjan Stevens sing “Joy to the World”. My newest favorite Christmas Carol.

Joy to the world
The Lord has come
Let earth receive her king
Let every heart prepare him room
And heaven and nature sing

Chaos at Communion: Christmas in India (part one)

2009-01-02T12:08:00.001+05:30

I received an email from a friend on Christmas Eve. He said that this would be a Christmas that I would never forget.

I knew the moment I read the words that he was right. Already the epic journey to Pondicherry had made this a famous holiday for me. But even then, I couldn’t imagine the unique events would actually comprise the day.

It all started on the night of the 23rd when my team of nine sat around some chicken korma and paneer butter masala and swapped stories on Christmas traditions back home. Of the nine, five are Christians and the other listened happily as we described visions of cold (USA, England) and hot (Solomon Islands, Australia) Christmas days.

As we went round, various ideas emerged for how we could celebrate. We settled on attending a midnight mass and having two meals together – one on Christmas Eve night and the other for Christmas lunch.

Following a loungy day of taking in the sights of the city, patting the local temple elephant, taking down a South India thali and visiting the Sri Auribindo ashram we dressed up sharp (or as sharp as you can look after traveling on the road for five weeks) and went to a “multi-cuisine” restaurant for dinner. Food flooded the table as we canceled the budget for the day and let everyone indulge in the food they’ve been missing most. My chicken sizzler alerted all denizens of my choice when it arrived. The strange combination of Indian, Italian, English and “no particular ethnicity” cuisines brought a thousand smiles to our faces. With the air-con blasting to break the heat, we laughed in the holiday, topping it off with a proper cappuccino. After being in chai country for 4 months, that is what I call a Christmas present.

Scooting out I took the chance to grab an unnecessary ice cream and savored each bite of the coffee-chocochips combo as I strolled with my friend to the cathedral for midnight mass. By now it was on 10:30 and we showed up at the gorgeous Portuguese colonial style church. Painted a Mediterranean pink with twin apses, the courtyard outside could have been southern Europe. The inside, well, that was unmistakably Indian -- complete with a garlanded Mary and an epic nativity scene with blinking lights.

Int what I would later describe as one of the better Christmas Eve ceremonies I’ve attended, the Fathers opted for a three language service. I found this a bold choice as most people find church too long in the first place. To triple the length due to language, well, it seemed a move of either an untested and wily rookie or the touch of seasoned and gifted veteran. It would prove to be the latter. Playing to a packed house, the choir belted out songs for the majority of the service bringing loads of Christmas joy to our ears. The music came in three languages and, unsurprisingly, they all sounded about the same. And while a few slowly slid down their pews and faded into their sugarplum dreams, most of us cranked through the service with a growing Christmas spirit.

The standout Indian moment of the service came at communion. With four stations and about 1,000 people, I through we would follow the typical route of up the middle and down the sides. Well, if that wasn’t a Western concept of order in a church service then I don’t know what is.

When the priest made the call for communion, something only slightly short of chaos broke out. I don’t know of a competition for getting to the front of the communion line, but from the looks of it, I thought there might be. Immediately, several people came straight up the middle from the back, jumping the line in front of those sitting further up. Then it became clear we would not go row by row, but rather whenever you felt like it. We might call this go-hen-you-are-led-by-the-Spirit style. Just as I thought I might understand this more democratic (and maybe even more spiritual) process of communion, things changed again. I was sitting in the main section on the left side, but the man next to me quickly jumped over into the side aisle and walked up it to receive the sacrament. When I finally got up into the processional, I found myself squashed into a subcontinental queue** that welcomed in new people all the time at all points. As we proceeded to the cup, those who had finished started walking straight back down the center aisle, so now we had two lines going up, one each side of the aisle, with the recent recipients streaming down the middle, doing their best impersonation of a Brian Westbrook running between the tackles on Christmas Day.

By the time I received the bread, most of the congregation was somewhere in the midst of this mass movement. Something now resembling an beehive or ant colony. I struggled to get back to my seat, stepping on a couple of toes (which requires immediate apologies with lots of hand motions) and catching one man with a shoulder (which requires no apologies [stepping on the toes in India is a big no-no, but giving someone a stiff shoulder by accident is no problem]) and beginning to laugh at the whole scenario. I tried to pull it in when I got back to my seat, wanting to be reverent in the moment of Christ’s birth. But as I bowed my head, closed my eyes and prayed, my Vietnamese friend next to me nudged my arm. “Brother. Brother! Don’t fall asleep. It’s not over yet!” I wanted to be angry that she disturbed my prayer, but then I had to laugh as I could only imagine what this experience must have been like for her – her first time to a Catholic mass.

At 1:40 the music faded, we passed the peace and headed back home. First we walked the block to the sea and strolled the promenade, wishing the many gathered there a merry Christmas. One fellow asked me where I was from and when he heard I was from America, he gave me a big hug. Ah, the Christmas Spirit.

**In a conversation a week later, I had this conversation about the lunch line at a recent event I attended.

Prabhakar: Hungry for lunch?
Chris: Yeah, but it may be a while before we eat. It seems like more people are getting ahead of us.
P: Yeah, well, this is India.
C: Yeah. India has a bit of a queue problem. Don’t you think?
P: (laughing) Ha! India doesn’t have a queue problem. It just doesn’t have any queues. You have to believe in queues in order to have a queue before you can say it has a problem!

A Real Christmas Story

2008-12-25T16:17:00.000+05:30

While they were there the time came for her to give birth. She gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in blankets and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the hostel. (Luke 2:6,7)

This year, I was meant to spend Christmas in Kumily, a hill station in Kerala famous for tea and spices. Instead, the host for the week could not accommodate our group. Even as we persisted, suggesting we find our own lodging in town, he said a visit would be impossible and told us to look elsewhere. We were officially turned away at the inn.

As the highlight stop on our 8-week trip, we took a hit. We felt the loss of the destination – we had been looking forward to the visit for some time. We got rejected, like we had been pushed aside for other priorities. Lastly, we felt the challenge of having been pushed out on a special occasion, a time when we just wanted to be near family and celebrate an important day. To be sure, this was the closest I’ve ever identified with the real Christmas story in my whole life.

With a week of time now available and with only one week to plan for it, we now had a unique opportunity. Nigel and I brought it to the group, suggesting each take some time to consider it and to try and search for what might be right for our Christmas.

To my surprise two people came up with the same idea: Pondicherry. The old French colonial city looked close on the map they had seen in their respective journals and both thought it might fit. As we had no other real leads, we took it on board. Curiously, a couple of hours later we got a phone call from the couple that would be joining us over the holidays – knowing our dilemma but not knowing the aforementioned conversation, they also suggested Pondicherry. A further call that night to two senior members of our team traveling in Gujarat gave rise to the same thought. It seemed more than a coincidence. We had found our star Star of Bethlehem and set to work on finding our way there.

The road would prove difficult. We took things into our own hands, knowing that we would have to exhaust very contact to find a place in the tourist destination in a holiday season. We had lots of secondary contacts through friends in South India so we began asking them to make calls on our behalf. From bankers and school teachers, to Catholic fathers and shop owners and even a few strangers, we mentioned the idea to everyone. Loads of phone calls went out across South India.

But nothing came back and the days started counting down. Our best contacts came up with little. Housing 11 people in one place seemed impossible. Beyond that, they couldn’t their seemed no rooms available in Pondicherry at a price that would suit us. Not by a lot. Most quotes came back at two to three times the money we had to spend and those were the reasonable rooms. Was our leading off base? Was Pondicherry just some happy dream we’d had that would disappear in a moment?

We persisted. A trip to a conference in Coimbatore brought some new options, but again, nothing came through. It started to get desperate and we settled in on a plan B. We would leave Salem early for our next town. Christmas, it seemed, would be in Coimbatore.

But something happened at that conference. My friend Nigel was sitting in the meeting hall and had a clear thought. “Francis, the professor from Dharmapuri will be the one who pulls through.” It seemed a far off possibility. We had met Francis on only two brief occasions a week earlier and he had little knowledge of who we were or what we did. But, he did live in Pondicherry and he was going home for the holidays. He seemed like out best shot and we held out hope for it.

We spoke to him two days before we would need to leave and nothing had come through. But on the eve of our departure (either for Pondicherry or Coimbatore), we were back in Salem and we got a call from Francis. Through a friend of his brother, he found a place that had 11 beds for us and right on our budget. Impossible we thought. No one had even sniffed anything near to this kind of offer. We brought it back to the team, setting out a clear understanding that this “to good to be true” offer, was certainly likely to be so. I told everyone to lower their expectations, thinking something must be off, but everyone agreed and we had a goodbye dinner in Salem before packing up for the beach.

It was a risk. The bus ride would be 7 hours and we didn’t know much about what was at the destination other than a promised hotel room and our new friend and lifesaver Francis. (And actually, he couldn’t get early leave from school to receive us, so we would be picked up by an Indian-Frenchman name Gerrard at the bus stand). Two legs later we rolled past the coconut trees and through the gates of the city. Opening the door onto the dusty platform of the bus stand, we felt the hot Southern heat pour down on us in the mid afternoon. “Well, I thought, we did our part. If this is a journey on faith, then we did it. We’re here.”

I turned to my phone and dialed up Gerrard’s number. He couldn’t understand much of what I said, but true to Francis’s word, he was at the stand and we quickly found each other. Within another few minutes we had boarded our 8-weeks of luggage into three auto-rickshaws and were onto the Raj Lodge.

We arrived at the inn. We waited. We waited some more. Lots of Tamil speaking brought up a lot of doubt in our minds. It seemed one room for four was available, but our other seven beds were out. End of the road. But then, the last Christmas miracle in this story. Somehow, through a bunch of phone calls and nudges, the rooms opened up. We had three guaranteed nights for the 11 fresh-arrivals. Incredible.

One big step of faith returned with one big grip of faithfulness.

We dropped our stuff and walked to the water, passing the normal sights that have become regular. The family of buffalo grazing on the local rubbish pile. The near-death flashes with out of control rickshaw drivers. The warm smile of the juice man. The desperate face of the beggar. Signs in Tamil and English started to include French. Basic Tamil architecture started to look more French colonial. Crossing a canal we got to the old French quarter. Tree-lined avenues and a big park for sitting. Feeling near the beach, I went to the head of the pack, eager to see the sea. We turned a final corner and saw the horizon.

In a strange euphoria, I whooped and starting running the final block to the water. As I ran I could feel that this was Virginia Beach – a fading sunset at my back heading into the coming dusk. It was a familiar run for me. I reached the edge of the sea and a massive promenade that rolled far down the water edge. I watched as the storm rocks broke the waves with the spray of high tide and welcomed the salt water on my clothes and face.

Fatigue

2008-12-22T19:29:00.000+05:30

I collapsed today in the corner between a wall and the doorway to a church. Having taken up the place to relax my back while I scribbled in my book, my hand and brain ran out of energy after a few short paragraphs. With only a second thought, I nodded off in the warmth of the late afternoon sun.

When I woke up, I read over the words that preceded my nap. They communicated my clear fatigue.

For me, there is a difference between being tired and being fatigued. Tired is taking on a full day of yard work after a week of office work. Tired is after 2 days and two nights on an Indian train. It’s standing on your feet for three hours straight or pulling back to back all nighters.

Fatigue has much more to do with where one is emotionally and spiritually. The crushing blow came for me today when I officially recognized that, at the moment, I’m out of my depth in a few key ways. For one, I’m not taking on my usual position and responsibilities of program coordinator and project planner. Second, I’m working in a culture that doesn’t stress punctuality, which tends to stress out my group and me. Lastly, I’m working with a group that doesn’t process like me or manage itself in a way I understand well. To be sure, it’s not been easy to move these days.

I’m not using my best skills, so I’m challenged to adopt new methods and new tools. This process of adaptation requires incredible energy. Learning new techniques and struggling through the growing pains at 27 isn’t an easy task. Shouldn’t all things be a snap to me now? Instead I find myself taking on responsibilities for the personal development of my team and its individuals, a job for which I’m only harnessing my skills.

The key to all of this is that hard work and dedication only take on so much. They actually get in the way sometimes. For me, hard work can often be ego-driven. I can work hard because I think its impossible for me to not be capable of learning something. So the learning and doing process is more about me than about the people it’s meant to impact.

I’m developing two radical (okay, not radical and not even new) concepts for dealing with this fatigue.

Making myself available to a stronger force than myself. When the ego is clearly in the way, the challenge is to make room for something else to enter in to my thoughts and actions. It’s a process of realizing my own limitations and looking to tap into something much deeper, broader and exceedingly more wise and capable than my simple understandings and reactions. At some point, the ego becomes aware of its own fragility and demands to lean on an understanding much greater than its own.

Asking for help. In a similar vein, its seeking out the aid of others around me to help me with my development – to add insight where I’m blind, to lead the way when I need to follow and to encourage me when I stumble. This is terribly difficult for me. Afteral, it requires great humility. But somehow (perhaps the biggest surprise of the last 4 months), I’ve finally learned how to take feedback constructively and without defense, developed a sense of my own limitations and noticed the clear strengths of others in areas in which I’m deficient. It’s never easy to recognize one’s limits, we are, after all extremely complex beings with an innate God-sense that draws us to see ourselves as limitless. But whether we break an arm as a youngster and notice our own mortality or give thanks that some people like accounting when we can’t add up, limitations are powerful. They give us something to strive beyond while they also guide us to the people who can take us to the next level in partnership.

These thoughts have restored me from fatigue, but it’s the end of the day and I must rest. For now – I’m tired.

Majesty

2008-12-21T19:31:00.000+05:30

That which stirs in us a profound sense of humility.

Today I saw something truly majestic. I’m not easily moved to such descriptions, never having seen a human-made structure that evoked the word. I’d apply it more often to a noble action or an incredible human feat achieved with grace. But of all possible usages, it’s only the natural world that ever truly moves me to this special kind of awe.

My understanding of majesty is limited to nature because it defies the human mind, having surpassed our own existence on into the billions of years – or is that billions of light years – its simply too huge for me to comprehend. And for that, I’m left with a sense of humility in the presence of majesty.

It’s not easy for 21^st century humans to consider their smallness. Especially in the west, especially in America, we are trained to consider our own projection as immortal – to consider ourselves without limitations. If you can dream it you can do it. You can be whatever you want to be when you grow up. Don’t let people tell you what you can’t do. These common messages surrounded me as a young person. And to much positive affect I might add. I am grateful that I’ve been in an environment that has supported the potential of my heart, mind and soul.

But on the flipside swells the ego: that critically important but highly volatile character. The ego, when told it is endless, so often pains at the sight of something so incredibly greater that it can be described as majestic. The endless doesn’t like to become aware of its limitations. Whether that be another person, an event or something great, its hard to welcome that which might make us feel small, humbled or limited.

It’s beginning to hurt me less. For so many years I looked at guitar players and thought I could out do him. Or criticized a book or essay believing I could add the extra that would make it great. I fooled myself by thinking that I had the talent, I just hadn’t yet invested the time. If I wanted to, I could. Afterall, I could do anything that I wanted to do.

However true this is, how far a combination of my natural talents and hard work could take me, today I realized that I’ve been missing the point entirely.

Majesty reminds us of our limits and does so in a way that doesn’t make us feel regret for them but humbly inspires us to use what we have in extraordinary ways.

Limitations are excellent instructors. They are boundaries to be pushed and at times broken. They also teach us discipline that can bring us to a much deeper understanding and realization of freedom. Most importantly, I feel limitations remind us that we exist in a world of relationships in which our variety adds great value to life. It’s far more productive and enjoyable to notice, appreciate and work with someone else’s skill or talent than to use it to stir the ego into an ill-advised tantrum.

Today I’m grateful for who I am and the road I’m on. The limitations that I’ve broken and will break in the future. Those that I respect and will guide me to understand myself better and work with others more cooperatively.

But above all, I’m clear that I want to be in relationship with majesty. To learn in the generous and graceful shadow of the truly inspiring. To work alongside majesty to pursue the extraordinary. And most importantly, to believe in majesty. Because with majesty, somehow, everything is possible.

The Reason for the Season

2008-12-20T19:27:00.000+05:30

Chinese Joke – American Audience

2008-12-18T19:25:00.000+05:30

Today, as I was waiting for our South Indian dinner plans to develop, my friend Yue told me a joke.

It’s important to know that Yue speaks excellent English and with a wonderful accent. But she’s also Chinese and I’m American and I’ve grown fond of our regular, natural and often humorous miscommunications. There are two other Mandarin speakers in our group (from Taiwan and Malaysia, respectively) and they feature here.

Yue: Do you want to hear a joke?

Chris: Is this a Chinese joke?

Y: Yes.

C: Definitely. Let’s hear it.

Y: What does a banana turn into while it’s falling out of a 100-story building?

C: What does it turn into? You mean anything?

Y: Like, what kind of fruit or vegetable does it turn into?

C: I don’t know, a banana split?

Y: (obvious confusion)

C: How about a mango?

Y: Mango? Why would I turn into a mango? That’s silly!

C: Yeah. I mean, I don’t know. I have no idea what you are…

Y: It turns into a cucumber! (hysterical laughter)

C: …(confusion leading into laughter because Yue is laughing so hard) Why does it turn into a cucumber?

Y: Because its green! (ongoing hysterical laughter)

C: …(still laughing, but trying to figure out what the hell is going on) Is that the color that Chinese people turn when they are scared?

Y: Of course! Now wait. What does it turn into when it hits the ground?

C: Um…Banana milkshake?

Y: No, it turns into a…hold on (checks with Chinese speaking friend #1)…it turns into a zucchini! (ongoing hysterical laughter)

C: (dazed confusion. At least I could find a way to explain a cucumber…but zucchini…I start laughing anyway at the general nature of the conversation) Zucchini?

Y: Yes! Zucchini!

C: Why does it turn into a zucchini? (laughing continues)

Z: Because its purple! Like a bruise! (laughter continues)

C: You mean a…

Y: Wait a second. (checks with Chinese-speaking friend #2) I mean an eggplant! It turns into an eggplant!

C: (with a laugh and a smile) Yes. Of course it does.

Glimpse of Tamil Countryside

2008-12-16T19:32:00.004+05:30

We drove out to the countryside, passing by a thousand villager faces, bullock carts, goats, lunghis, sugar cane fields and coconut trees. Tropical greens, garland yellows, red bricks, white sumos. The roads deteriorated with each passing kilometer and we arrived at a small church along the way, some 20 kilometers from the closest town. We ate fish and biryani, papadams and chutneys. We navigated our way to a huge flood plain backed up by a rustic dam. Palm trees growing out of the water and children jumping of rocks and splashing in the liquid sea. I stood on the other side of the dam, thinking about the size and power of water. Walking past the buffalo underneath the mango tree, I arrived at a small temple in the shade. The local boys batted the cricket ball in a grove of gum trees as the sun poked through the green leaves to color my skin while soaking the unprotected valley in a powerful bright.

Unique Above the Rare

2008-12-14T21:34:00.000+05:30

In a country as unpredictable as India, I’ve been surprised that over the past week I’ve found myself feeling locally acquainted with this country. Whether its a bull causing a traffic jam, a two hour wait for an appointment or a packing an auto rickshaw with 7 people, I’ve finally walked in the shoes of the sub-continent, head waggling my way through obstacle and joy alike.

At the moment I’m sitting in Salem, Tamil Nadu. Relative to Bangalore, it’s distinctively South Indian. It’s a smaller city with a stronger sense of pride – a true locals city. People grow up in Salem, live in Salem and die in Salem.

South Indians refer to South India as the real India. Unlike the north of India which has been invaded regularly and dominated by foreign rule for many centuries (Aryans, Mughals, British), the South kept an unbroken culture until the coastal arrival of the spice traders in the 1500s. Even then, it seems that the Southern cultures is dense enough to take welcome any newcomer into its fold, so long as they can take it (South India welcomed the arrival of Jews as far back as 2,000 years and the same for St. Thomas who arrived with the gospel in the first century.) This fact brings a strong sense of depth and an enormous pride to the people, the kind of pride you find in people who date their culture in the thousands of years, not the hundreds. I had a similar feeling in Rome and I’ve never felt it at home.

This is unmistakably different from my last trip to India. Instead of cruising among the light skinned and tall folk of the north, I’m with the shorter and darker neighbors down south. The written language no longer hangs from a line like Hindi, but rolls and rounds with the swooping curves of Tamil. Cold plains and Himalayas swapped in for jungles and hot afternoons. Meals served on banana leaves and not out of the tandoori oven. Trading in naan for rice, chai for coffee and mughal cuisine for epic thalis.

It’s sunset at the Salem Social Services Society. I’ve wrangled a plastic chair and perched on the roof (one of the absolute gems of Indian architecture is that most buildings have rooftop decks). Scattered clouds canvas the sky and gentle pastels add gentle flavors to the sky. Palm trees dot the skyline – their leaves nest into a dense thicket all around the third story of this building. My friends Martin and Kannan practice their kickboxing in the shadows; Tam takes her photographs off all four sides. The local church blasts Tamil devotional music through speakers collected in the apse. It’s time for 6pm mass. The boys below practice volleyball. Smoke rises from the coconut grove as earth and paper and plastics burn away. Sets of small, young, jagged mountains draw out the horizon and bask in the fading light. Evening will pass into night momentarily.

This corner of the earth, unique above the rare, blends with me.

Images from Bangalore

2008-12-12T15:42:00.006+05:30

Miracleworkers of the 21st Century

2008-12-10T15:35:00.000+05:30

For two weeks my team and I had the good fortune to deliver a 30-hour course at St. Joseph’s College in Bangalore. Formally titled “Leadership, Values and Action”, our class focused on understanding oneself (relationships, behaviors, values, etc) and seeing where a change is needed or desired. From there, we help them to develop a vision for action on those areas that have come to light.

But the kind of change we discuss is meant not only to bring a positive affect to one’s own life, but it’s the kind of change that brings real freedom in a life. When a life is lived with real freedom, the vision for that person grows and begins to include far more than himself. It extends to include many.

As part of our course, we took our students to a local boys home run by Don Bosco. From what I witnessed there, they are a group of people who have become free inside and thus available to work for a much broader vision.

Child abuse in India isn’t something you see in the open all the time, but its there. In the west, we typically think of child abuse as a drunk dad who whacks his kid now and again. Much of the time it is. It’s pathetic behavior that causes deep fears and insecurities. More common, I would think, is emotional abuse in which parents act as nothing more than grown up children, using their more sharpened mind to make immature power plays on emotions. It’s disturbing, but in a way, I understand it. It’s a function of broken relationships over generations and a difficult culture that can crush the human spirit.
This happens in India, but even this is not even remotely close to the underbelly of child abuse.

Perhaps what I see as the darkest thing in the whole world is organized child abuse. And its in India. And its not always hidden. In fact, sometimes it walks right up to you with a smile.

Throughout India there is human trafficking of children. Organized criminals partner with corrupt police, businessmen and politicians to use children to turn profit. Kidnapped children, swindled children and abandoned children are picked up off the streets in slums and trains stations and taken to situations of cruelty that are hard to stomach: Children sent out to beg in busy intersections and beaten unless they generate a certain return; Boys going to work in hotels where they work 20 hours days and are chained to the wall at night; Girls and boys working as slaves in brothels.

For a time I denied this kind of darkness in the world. I just couldn’t imagine a person falling so far away from love that they would destroy innocence. Sadly, I’ve come to accept it. But in that sadness emerges a possibility to change it. The people at Don Bosco have also seen this situation and they’ve gripped their faith and taken their hands to work in an effort to change it.

I sat in amazement as I heard the tragic stories of abused children and the lucky few who had been rescued and taken to centres for rehabilitation and education. The stories I heard made my stomach turn and stirred anger in my heart. By the end I was exhausted and in despair. Helpless. Even in the middle of the session, a 6-month old girl arrived at the centre, abandoned at the Bangalore City Bus Stop that very morning. The center averaged 6 or 7 new arrivals a day (In fact, a six-month old girl arrived while I was talking with Father Geo). And these were the lucky ones who were reported or divinely guided to safe hands. Many others would disappear, possibly forever of the streets each day.

I could hardly get down my puri curry at lunch. Even with all of their efforts, even Father Geo and Father Edward gave a sense of the size of the problem. The government refused to give them money to help address the issue, even after naming them the official government agency for missing children in the state of Karnataka. The roots of the crime dug so deep that even those on the “good” side of the law were entangled in the deadly web.

Still, a song rang out. It was a song of hope. A song that tells the story of one person who stands up for the marginalized and takes part in the redemption of the world.

With all the desperation and the tragedy of this situation, men and women were stepping up to counter it on the ground. With every reason to say “no, it can’t be done”, they were saying, “yes we can and yes we must”.

With a problem so big and entrenched that little can be done to affect root causes, a group stands in the gap to offer hope.

With a problem so huge, that group spoke in humility: We can not do it on our own. This is a work of faith. And it is only through faith that one can topple these walls. Our only answer is to face organized crime is with equally organized systems of justice. We must live out our answer with free and spontaneous acts of faith.

I left renewed. These were the miracle-workers of the 21st century: Restoring hope and faith to innocents. Giving them grace in human form. Life anew.

Afghanistan Really

2008-12-07T15:32:00.000+05:30

There are many reasons I’m grateful for my job. One of them is that my journey through the world allows me to meet people who shatter my stereotypes and simple preconceptions by sharing with me a piece of their reality.

The first time I thought about Afghanistan was at my best friend Dwight’s house when we were growing up in Jersey. His Dad had the epic VHS collection and we found Rambo 3 in the midst of it. John Rambo’s run through the Afghani mountains fighting off Russian choppers with a bow and arrow still registers as classic 80’s action cinema.

It wasn’t until years later that Afghanistan took on any kind of real meaning for me and even then it was limited. Following 9-11 the world renewed its gaze on the country, learning about post-Soviet power struggles, the reign of the Taliban, Islamic extremism and the dope industry. But even with the news plastering headlines and the regular video rolling in, Afghanistan has always seemed a place that existed only in movies and in the television. Even a reading a recent National Geographic article about archeology in Afghanistan didn’t help bring it all into focus in real terms.

With this perception I arrived into my class on Leadership, Values and Action at St. Joseph’s College in Bangalore. I didn’t expect an Indian Catholic school to be so diverse. I met students from all parts of India and visiting students from Nepal, Kenya, Cote D’Ivoire and, yes, Afghanistan.

For reasons on which I’m still unclear, the class of 22 had 5 Afghanis, each articulate and eager to be key players in class discussions. Given their proportion and their single-mindedness on the issue of Afghanistan, I couldn’t help but begin to live into their experience. We had tea together and talked frequently after class ended each day. They were more than eager to share their experience of their country with those who had their ears available to listen. Given my country’s involvement in Afghanistan for the past 20+ years, I thought to get ready to receive a new dose of information.

The stories they shared about the past 30 years of civil war were heartbreaking. No one has been unaffected by the ongoing feuds between ethnic groups, religious ideologies and foreign power plays. I heard about the sights that no eyes should witness unfolding in front of a 10 year old. The sounds –a caucophony of suffering – aired for the ears of children. I was shocked to hear the students give an overview of their life from 0 to 18 as a steady downward slope (blamed entirely on the demise of his country), only redeemed by the opportunity to study in India. While many felt the strong urge to return to their countries and play a part in re-establishing Afghanistan, I felt an underlying despair for the situation at home. Three of them wanted to return and become politicians, when asked why, the salary and the stability seemed more enticing than the prospect of civil service.

The main national concern for them as men and women in their young 20’s is unity. The divided factions throughout the country are prey to the power-thirsty and unscrupulous. Hopelessness plays a major role in these divides. People tend to cling to those who can give them the smallest glimpse of an advantage, whether it be an empty promise or not. Even as they pointed out that Afghanistan has increased its national security (though it still suffers from the lawless tribal regions on the Afghani-Pakistani border) they said the biggest brewing conflict is over language – with major language groups squaring off over national language rights. Casually, they said, “another reason to fight.”

When asked about the US involvement, the answers I got were unsurprisingly muted. The nation that received the biggest criticism was Pakistan (not surprising for Afghanis studying in India. Note: Anti-Pakistan sentiment has completely inflamed in India since the Mumbai attacks. Tension continues to escalate along the line of control in Kashmir).

Last Sunday I received an invitation to spend the evening with them at their flat. Our host’s wife spent near on 9 hours preparing the meal and the gorgeous spread stoked our taste buds and inspired our stomachs. Over delicious and heaping servings of chicken, mutton and rice we discussed life in Afghanistan, a country full of real people doing things that all people do. Going to work each morning. Dealing with family problems. Cooking dinner together. Singing songs. As their faces and voices became more a part of my daily, their stories came closer to my heart. Just young people looking at their past, considering the present and moving into the future.

I walked out of the dinner with friends.

Lord Have Mercy! Catholic Mosquitoes in Bangalore

2008-12-06T15:29:00.001+05:30

I’ve learned one interesting fact about mosquitoes this past month. It surprised me. Only female mosquitoes bite.

The point is not to make a case for what this says about females in general (pointing out generalizations in females is a topic I learned to avoid altogether many years ago), its all to say that I’m learning about mosquitoes because they are playing an increasingly important role in my life.

This may have started in 5th grade when I used a mosquito net for the first time and found it remarkably effective in protecting me from those mammoth beasts of New Hampshire. Or maybe its my friend Jeff and his doctoral work with mosquito genetics. Or at the very least the insufferable swarms that camp out at home during the summer in Va Beach. All said, I’ve made no friends of these bugs. I find them ruthless and senseless and have no issue giving them the squash. But in the land of karma, one could say that I just got bit…bad…

St Joseph’s college in Bangalore is a great spot. In fact, its one of the top 10 colleges in the country and I feel honored to be in residence here for two weeks delivering a course with my colleagues. But top colleges in India don’t look like the Swarthmores and Princetons of the US. This one looks great on the outside, but the inside is meager and my boarding space in the hostel is spartan. In fact, its meant to be a leg up (as I am a guest in the hostel). My friend Martin and I share a 10’x10’ space with a bathroom. It’s not bad for my standards, so we crashed in on Sunday night when we arrived. The few swirling mosquitoes seemed no problem.

Now I’d spent the last week hearing about malaria and anti-malaria medications and methods. Given my areas of travel, I decided on taking the “low-risk” of infection to the somewhat toxic anti-malaria drugs. But I did grab a mosquito net to bugger off anything that might come my way. Not surprisingly and to my subsequent regret, I was exhausted when I arrived into town, so I took one look at my bed and crashcd out.

It’s kind of hard to explain what happened to my face overnight. I actually didn’t even know until about midday Monday. I took one look in the mirror around lunchtime and noticed that my entire forehead was covered in red spots. It looked like a five year old had just learned how to make dots, found a red marker and used my head to test it out. I tried to look at it from every angle to see if it was as bad as I thought. It was and while the blankets had spared my body from the neck down, my friend Cheng confirmed that I received about 100 bites overnight. Somewhere between the thought and the actuality of that fact, I felt woozy. It didn’t help when I read back-to-back news articles, one about the rat fever currently in post-monsoon Bangalore, as well as the dangerously big packs of stray dogs in some sectors of town. Surely, I’d contacted some disease overnight – impossibly not. All these thoughts just in time for me to deliver the opening presentation at the college!

Despite the weakness, we delivered a crack workshop and I soon set to work on my battle plans for the evening showdown. Amazingly, I had my first experience in understanding excessive defense spending. When you’ve been burned and you think you got a method to deliver the knockout blow, you spend accordingly. Knowing that I couldn’t take another 10 bites, much less another hundred, I manifested my three-fold plan. First, seal all windows and doors and use a mosquito coil to smoke ‘em out. Second, acquire repellant and cover forehead vigorously with the highest DEET formula available (turned out to be high-quality Australian Bush DEET). And third, gerry-rig the mosquito net for ultimo protection. It took about 30 minutes to get everything right and I set off to bed feeling secure in my measures.

Amazingly, the plan worked to perfection. I woke up in the morning with my forehead still spattered like a Jackson Pollock painting, but no worse than the day before. I took my spotted forehead and headed out into a new morning.

Southbound

2008-12-03T22:33:00.000+05:30

Getting on an Indian train is an experience I wish you all to have at some point in your life. It’s amazing really.

The train service is nationaliazed and is actually one of the biggest businesses in the whole world. It was made over by a corrupt minister from Bihar during his tenure as minister of the railway. Legally, he turned it into a massive money-making enterprise and by far the preferred method of travel for the large majority of Indians. To put it in perspective, it’s said that 2 million people are always traveling on Indian trains. 24 hours a day. 365 days a year. It’s a staggering figure.

That success in mind, it’s no perfect system. For one, the railway over books the trains. There are a couple of waiting list cars, but they attract few clients. Instead, those who have been waitlisted for “sleeper cars” often search out a spot to bunk, hoping that a properly ticketed customer won’t chase them off. More often, the ticket inspector accepts bribes from those with no tickets who just hop on for passage without paying for the fare. They tend to fill up the cabins and with corrupted authority, there is little that can be done to remedy a situation.

So with those two groups searching for any available room, space aboard the train is most precious. When the Mumbai-Bangalore showed up in Pune at 11:40, it was a hyper dash in.

It’s essential to get your luggage stowed and your seat properly accounted. Traveling with 6 neophyte Indian travelers was no picnic either, as I’ve only just honed my Indian traveling skills after 6 months and several train journeys across the subcontinent. We scrambled in, bashing our way through a crowd as dense as the polluted Pune air. All said and done (by miracle) we got all the luggage down and only struggled for 3 of the 9 seats (even with proper tickets, one gets smushed 4 into a 3 seater).

I smiled with satisfaction as we pulled out. There is nothing like the Indian train 2nd Class when it comes to traveling. Some might prefer the cushy AC 1st class, but for the real experience of India, you gots to ride with the real people. Everything from the open doors where you can hang your legs out the side and take in the passing farms, villages and sunsets to the stench of the latrine that lingers after 20 hours or so. It’s just a magical and raw place the Indian train.

The layout of the cars is simple. Each has eight six-person berths. Three sit on each side with a bunked bed on top. The bench will serve as a bed at night, as will an identical fold-down for the middle bed. At the foot of these beds is the walkway. On the other side are two more bunked beds.

This makes for exceptional theatre, as one finds that at least 8 people (up to 12) are focused in on the same spot at a time. Nothing goes unnoticed and everyone shares this experience of being together. It’s remarkable community and one can really see the genuine friendship and rapport that Indians build so well between each other. A train partner (s) can make or break a 30-hour journey. Indians almost always aim to establish the former.

My berth of 11 got very excited once I decided to start playing along after a couple of hours. I asked my neighbor about some snack being offered by one of the constant vendors patrolling the corridor. When I laid my 10 rupees down for the treat, I seemed to earn some street cred and it opened up a jovial hour on the train which included conversations on insurance, stealing water-wells (yes the things in the ground), Bush, the financial crisis and Obama. At one point we even discussed the differences between cricket and baseball. Here’s an idea of me trying to explain the differences between the two bats

“:You see, the baseball bat is about the same length, but skinnier, lighter and round. It makes hitting the ball a much more difficult job.”
“Yes,” my neighbor exclaimed, “I understand. But what you use for sport we give to the police to hit people with.”
Chuckling with the rest of the crowd, I admitted that it was true. But my neighbor wasn’t finished with his attempts at laugh.
“You can also use it to give your wife a good whack!”
I didn’t laugh, but everyone else did. I feared where this was going and tried to move off it.
“Yes, well,” I stumbled, “I think we can all agree that it’s best used for playing baeeball.”
Seeing my displeasure with his last comment, he concluded, mimicking the actions, “you can also use it to roll chipati (Indian flatbread)!”
Cue more uproarious laughter. You see what I mean. Theatre in the round

Station stops can be 5 to 35 minutes in length. It’s always enough time to hop off the train and survey the new station for a cup of chai, a new book or some travel grub. Typically one can find some puri (fried Indian flat bread) that comes along with a kind of spicy yellow dal or bhaji (buttered and grilled rolls with a red lentil masala). Both taste so good that you can’t resist. But you should unless you really believe in your iron gut. A bad bahjji can cost you on a long train journey. But a good cup of station chai can change the course of a day. Rolling on…

As I mentioned, there is also an omnipresent parade of people on the corridor. You name it – they show up. You’ve got your expected ticket inspector and occasional guard, but you also see any number of other randoms.

The tea and chai-wallahs hawking their goods in unmistakably annoying tones
The guy selling the random and lame toys parents buy to keep their kids quiet
The kitchen man moving the train’s catering products up and down the corridor
The dalit woman sweeping the floors hoping for a few rupees tip from her patrons
A boy with no legs, using his hands to carry himself along the floor or ask for change.
The blind man selling chains to lock up your luggage
A boy with a painted on mustache, doing a stage show to collect a couple rupees for his owner

It’s raw India.

Another group you see on the train are those men, eunuchs or transgendered who dress up as women. Superstitiously thought to have magical powers, they are both loved and hated in Indian society. Loved because their wish can bring blessings on a child at a naming ceremony or hated because they can curse your existence and embarrass you in front of your loved ones. They clap up and down the train, bothering the men, who often toss them a few rupees just to go away. I tend to get away with playing the innocent bystander who doesn’t understand this culture (and its true, I don’t understand it, but I actually find them to be quite unshocking most of the time – I’ll save the shocking stories for another time). In fact, I had to laugh when I bumped into a couple on the way to the toilet. I asked if it was empty and they said yes. We even had a formal introduction of names when I came out – though I did move on rather quickly. The next morning, I went to the bathroom, first thing, with my eyes barely open. When I walked out, I saw them again.

“Good morning beautiful!” they shouted down the corridor.
“Good morning ladies,” I responded.
“We love you!” they replied with a laugh.
“Have a safe trip,” I said quickly heading back to my seat.
“You are leaving so soon?”
“I’m off at Bangalore.”
“Okay. Bye handsome!”

The action never ends. You can dream out the window for hours. Read heaps of a book. Talk about Indian current events. Meet a new friend. And on you go.

I’m off to Bangalore. And I’m looking forward to a couple more trains before this southern adventure wraps up.

India’s 9/11

2008-12-01T15:27:00.001+05:30

I spoke with my family on Thanksgiving Day and they were eager to hear news of the events in Mumbai from the Indian perspective.

I showed them the headline from the Times of India, a highly circulated national newspaper.

“IT’S WAR ON MUMBAI”

The words read full across the whole page with a number of informative sub-headlines above the fold and the main headline.

Since I’m not in Mumbai, all of my reports have been either 2nd hand through conversation or through the newspaper. I’ve had no chance to watch any of it on television. They only time I’ve seen a television in the past week has been the New Zealand-Australia cricket match while I had my haircut Saturday afternoon.

But even in that flash of sport I heard the news advert interrupt and refer to this past week as “India’s 9/11”. It’s a country known for its sensationalized press (I’d say more so than the US), but the phrase rang true in many ways.

In a country fairly accustomed to bombings of public places in the name of politics or religion this event has stirred the social consciousness of the nation. It will being a change. It just a matter of when and how…

A few things I’ve noticed…

24-Hour Coverage. It’s been the first time (I believe) that India has live streamed this kind of event in their own country through their own television stations. Friends in Pune told me that people have been glued to their TV sets, even while at work, checking facts and seeing how the story would unfold. For most it’s been a harrowing experience to watch the tragedy come to life on camera, for others it has become violent entertainment, watched with the twisted curiosity that grows inside us when we see such things.

More Religious Conflict. On another level, there’s been an extremely angry response. Those who have not been shaken have often responded with anger. It’s a potentially disastrous cocktail. With Muslims claiming responsibility for the assault, it has injected those predisposed to religious conflict (which is quite a few) with a dose of unneeded adrenaline. Other’s I’ve spoken with have said that their quite ecumenical work colleagues have spoken about taking arms to fight in the battle. It’s a strange but, to some degree, an understandable comment with only a remote chance of manifestation. The problem would be (as has happened in the past) if the violent wing of the Hindu Nationalist ideology responds to this violence against innocents with equal violence towards innocents. Given that the country looks on this as a national tragedy, I would hope it’s a time when Indians stand together. We’ll see…

India-Pakistan. Whether it was intended or not (and reports have been very disparate so far) the violence occurred during a recent warming of relations between India and Pakistan, longtime rivals (and recently nuclear armed rivals) still quarreling over a number of issues, particularly the disputed territory of Kashmir. Recently, the new Prime Minister of Pakistan had made some important concessions regarding a “no first” nuclear policy – which means his government would not fire the first nuclear missile in a military conflict. He also made some statements about the rights of the Kashmiri people to their own government. These bold strides were received well in Delhi and on Tuesday the Home Ministers of each country had met to continue the quickly-thawing conversation. Those talks are now iced, with many pointing the finger at Pakistan as the origin for the militants.

Where Next? The US and the UK responded dramatically to major terrorist attacks on their home soil. How will India respond? With major international conflicts already underway in Iraq and Afghanistan, will India decide to make a bold move on the global level? Will the government seek to centralize power and tighten their authority and security over India (which happened once in the 70’s when martial law left all authority in Indira Gandhi’s hands during The Emergency)? Indian politicians have condemned the violence, but where will they lead the country?

I received this email from a supporter of Action for Life:

“Being born and brought up in Mumbai, what is happening there now has left me benumbed. I am saddened and aghast at the heedless violence, unprovoked and uncalled for. Life in Mumbai is no longer safe, as it used to be when I grew up. I am afraid now to move out in public, to mix with strangers or to trust people.”

It’s a different time in India. Some say this is a watershed moment from which Indians will mark time, like 9-11. But from the looks of Bangalore, nothing seems different on the street and aside from tonight’s candle light vigil at the local college, I haven’t seen the impact change life in the street. It’s wait and see here…

I myself have little to say on the events. I’ve been nervous, knowing I’m responsible for a number of people traveling throughout the country, but more than anything I’ve had a deep sadness.

I’ve also felt a strange desire to pray not only for the situation, the victims and families and the greater repercussions of these acts, but also for the militants themselves. It’s a profoundly disturbing moment when a young man loses his soul. All I can do is ask for a miracle to return hope, truth and love to that void of despair.

I ask you, please keep India in your prayers.

Safe

2008-11-29T20:03:00.004+05:30

I've been moved by your many phone calls and queries about my safety in India. I'm many miles from there and feeling safe where I am in the south of India.

What's happened in Mumbai is tragic. I ask that you keep the situation and those affected in your prayers. I plan to write more about it in the coming days.

With love,

Chris

“Now That’s the Thanksgiving Spirit”

2008-11-27T13:43:00.001+05:30

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year for 4 specific reasons

The entire point of the holiday is to be grateful for what you have
The entire holiday is centered around family, food and hanging out
There is no stress of shopping for gifts
Football, parades and getting excited for Christmas

The only thing missing from Thanksgiving is music and for all the crappy music Americans are capable of writing, performing and producing, I’m still shocked that Thanksgiving still remains carol-less. It maybe be something I need to change someday.

Regardless, of all the times I really miss home when I’m traveling abroad, the first is Thanksgiving and the second is Christmas. They are sad days to be away from the family – especially all the tradition that is Breitenberg holidays. And you best believe that my family loves it some tradition (ask my mom about the time she tried to change the recipe for the stuffing). I even had to fight a bit to bring in Cousin’s Chris’ Famous Pumpkin Bisque onto the menu.

Anyway, I digress. Obviously I love Thanksgiving, so I’ve been planning my Thanksgiving feast in India almost 6 weeks in advance of the holiday itself. There are three young women at Asia Plateau that coordinate the interns here, so we decided to get the AfL core team together to dinner with them. I suggested Thanksgiving. It turned out we would need to go out a week in advance. Celebrate Turkey Day twice…don’t torture me!

So we set off for Rainforest, a kiff place tucked into the plateau-side. Peerless view. My surrogate parents here, Leena and Suresh, and I ordered an epic spread. Chicken and mutton curries, tandoori chicken, chala masala, paneer tikka, mutter paneer and more garlic butter naan than you could ever want. Topped off with a round of fresh lime sodas

Before we devoured, I made sure to slow everyone down to share on the Breitenberg family tradition of passing the thanks around the table. As we gave thanks I found myself overwhelmed with gratitude for the support of my family and friends while I’m on AfL. I feel an incredible joy when I think of you all. I also feel incredibly thankful to be in a place where I can do important work for people while using my skills and natural talents. Thankful too for all of the money received by AfL. We’ve covered over 80% of our budget and are in good position to cover our needs by May. Lastly, I feel hugely grateful for the chance to be working with and around people who live their lives with faith and integrity. It’s an indescribable blessing.

After we gave thanks we dove in and I just sat in awe of the glory that is Thanksgiving (no matter where you have it in the world). People you love eating more food than they should, laughing and enjoying each other. Everyday should be thanksgiving! The conversation opened up for me to speak about the holiday, I limited the history of “Pilgrims and Indians” to focus on “The Thanksgiving Spirit”.

So much of the rest of the night turned into a judiciary review of whether actions or words were either full of “The Thanksgiving Spirit” or not. It turned out to be a really fun exercise. For instance, saying that one is “too full to eat anymore” is not in “The Thanksgiving Spirit”. While quietly taking an extra scoop of curry is. Turning down a piece of butter naan is not in “The Thanksgiving Spirit” while using your finger to scrape up the leftover minced garlic and butter is. Saying something like “I could stay here all night” is in “The Thanksgiving Spirit” while talking about responsibilities you have after the meal is not. Picking at the last spice on the tandoori chicken bone is in “The Thanksgiving Spirit” and talking about dessert when you’re stuffed and still eating the main course is too.

After the meal (10 people aching-full on good food for $30 [I’m also thankful for Indian cost of living and the strong dollar]), we went back to Panchgani town and got ice cream (definitely in “The Thanksgiving Spirit”) and went to work. I even tried green chili ice cream, which is an absolutely stunning culinary treat (also in “The Thanksgiving Spirit”). It heats your tongue but cools your throat and tastes of smoky chili and sweet milk. Impressive. I only sampled it before heading on to my favorite Hilltop combo of peppermint and choco chips (which is what Indians call chocolate chocolate chip).
Bellies overwhelmed, we arrived back at AP just in time to see the whole community cranking out a dance party. Folk dances from all over the world (probably some 35 countries represented here). What an event!

But wait…what to do? The most unbelievable of Thanksgiving Spirit dilemmas: Is dancing after being totally stuffed (to the point of pain) at the Thanksgiving dinner table in “The Thanksgiving Spirit” or not?

Ukrainian folk dancing in India on Thanksgiving with 60 people from all over the world. Seriously, is there anything more in “The Thanksgiving Spirit”?

And what a dance it was…

Talkin' Toilets: Discovering My Voice Regarding Sanitation Issues in India

2008-11-17T10:48:00.009+05:30

Did you think I was kidding?

There are a number of benefits that come along with living at a conference centre that’s been operating in the area for the past 40 years. One is that the people here have a million connections and now and again they work out to provide us with some unforgettable memories. Enter 2008 Toilets 2008.

We organized half of the group here to visit a couple of villages last week. The state of Maharashtra has actually done admirable work in developing the rural parts of the state. Loads of money gets poured into rural infrastructure giving some locals access to everything from decent roads and sanitation to clean water systems and telecom. Our first visit, quite brief gave us a clear a good image of a tiny and ideal strawberry farming village on the plateau ridge, home to only 40 families. Remarkably picturesque and a sparkling example of leadership. The village council (known as the Panchyat) has used seemingly every government break to boost their condition.

This trip whetted the appetite to spend more time out in the countryside. The next morning we bolted Panchgani and drove down to Wai in the Krishna Valley. On the outskirts of the small town we entered a village of almost 300 families and about 3000 people.

The pomp and circumstance of a VIP arrival in India equates to that of a college commencement processional. We arrive and are seated on freshly unfolded mats. Everyone in the group receives a garland and a coconut. In India, “Guest is God” and one can almost feel embarrassed by the amount of attention and gushing given to visitors. To be honest, it didn’t take me long to get used to this cultural beauty. On one level, I do feel that it’s undeserved, but on another, is their any reason at all to try and deny a host? I think not. And to be honest, it’s even better if you are a son. So instead of fighting any urge to shoo away this “Guest as God” business, I openly embrace and just give gracious thanks. Hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Fortunately, we had a chance to give back to the community by helping with a village cleanup. Litter is one of India’s black-eyes. Actually, coming from the States, the issue is shocking and pervasive. City to farming village, plastic wrappers and pieces of paper turn the serene landscapes into ugly sties of humanity. Its by far one of the things I find most frustrating here, so I leapt at the chance to lend a hand. We did well, using Indian style brooms to pile up the rubbish before lighting it all on fire. Some villagers joined in the effort and we took some encouragement from their engagement in the process.

After the warm morning and even spicier lunch, we took a needed Indian post-lunch siesta and awoke to a new task from the Panchyat. We were to become ambassadors. No, not for our countries or for the values and community we work with as AfL, but for something far more practical. We would become the spokespeople of sanitation. The fellows of flush. The experts on excrement. The idea, in brief, was to tour the village and speak to them all about the ned for toilets. The state had just imposed a law that all village homes must have a toilet facility and this village aimed to win the prize which would insure statewide recognition and some million rupees for the coffers. Un surprisingly, the Panchyat saw in us a chance and they leapt at it.

So we went on 2008 Toilets 2008. It started with disaster, as they led us (now a group of about 25) to an old woman’s home. Our fixer grabbed my Ukranian friend, Yulia, placed her in front of the old woman (bewildered and reasonably unhappy about the attention) and told her to tell the woman about why she needed a toilet. With good reason this made the group fairly uncomfortable and I immediately approached our fixer friend and said we’d need to take a different tack on our sanitation persuasion tour. He read the group’s morale completely – depleted after the first encounter – and assured me that the rest of the tour would be done “our way”. With no other choice but to trust him, most of set off again.

“Our way” turned out to be brilliant. We ended up just getting the local tour of the village of about 3,000. I’ve now probably seen every kind of village toilet available and in every stage of construction. It was most excellent to be introduced as VIP and then shown into the villager homes (very modest) and then have the village council show off their people and their wonderful toilets. I was interested, they were proud and all in all it was more or less incredible sanitation circus of good times. Not used to foreign visitors, a pack of village kids started walking with us and our processional topped out around 75 people. What an experience.

Now I know, you must ask. Did I use one of these toilets? Sad to say, I actually did not. For one, I didn’t need to go. For two, I think it would have been strange to walk into someone’s home and ask to use their toilet, especially when public toilets were available. So I missed my chance. I know this will bring a big sigh for all you epicures out there…

As our entourage returned to the main square, we were seated on the village stage and were the honored guests at a stunning cultural performance. The kids put on a major dance performance that lasted about 30-minutes (a serious workout) which explained a lot about the length of Bollywood movies (get them hooked into excessive dance at a young age) and then the real coup: sitting directly outside a circle of the village elders jamming an epic groove with tablas, a harmonium, small cymbals and a chorus of call and response. Noted throughout the region, they played for a solid 30 minutes and I soaked in every minute.

If that wasn’t enough, they gave us more coconuts and gifts before we put on a short presentation for them. It seemed the very least our weary souls could do for them.

Factory Visit

2008-11-10T10:42:00.011+05:30

Last week I visited a factory in Pune called Forbes-Marshall. It's a respected industrial house in India and they are major manufacturer and exporter of boilers and pressure gauges (among her related products). As far as factory visits go, its wasn't the most stimulating (I've much preferred other visits to the Tata Truck factory and the Crayola Crayon factory in Easton, PA), but every factory interests me, regardless of its final product.

I've identified this interest in the very basic concept of what a factory accomplishes. Its takes elements and puts them together in specific way to create a new and more highly refined element. It takes a bunch of little parts and creates something new by adding unique. Not only that, but it all happens in the physical realm. I'm sometimes discouraged working in the "ideas" market where the results of my work can't always be seen. I'm often envious of those who work with materials. Who can see there product being developed in tangible ways. It's exactly this reality that made my short stint building a house in Va Beach so rewarding.

Factories also have a really interesting sense of the asthetic, and I've take a couple photos to show you here what I mean.

Aside from production, Indian factories have their own little qualities that add a little spice. I found one such quality in the safety posters printed on the walls of the factory floor. Most workers communicate in the native Maharashtran language of Marathi. I can't read a word of the script, so it gave me the chance to have some fun developing my own captions for these gems.

#1

Just keep yelling at everyone and point your finger at them angrily. This will help get your questions answered with excitement!

#2

When you talk to the fork-lift driver, be sure to use hand gestures. This will make him happy. But don't do the one where you raise both hands over your head. This will cause a disaster!

#3

When cooking tomato soup, be sure to use an oversized vacuum cleaner or else you will turn into a cross between Papa Smurf and Gargamel!

Your captions are very much welcomed to these photos as well.

All in all it was another educational experience in India. Next entry even more so... Talkin' Toilets: Discovering My Voice Regarding Sanitation Issues in India.

A New Hope

2008-11-05T22:58:00.000+05:30

40 people cheered today when I said two words: “Obama won.”

I didn’t shout it. It was more matter-of-fact, but 40 people, of all ages, from over 20 different countries, in India, started to clap and holler the moment I spoke.

It threw me a bit. I knew that people here wanted Obama to win the election, but the look of delight and excitement that spread through the room rushed at me. I glowed.

I heard two really fascinating comments throughout the course of this auspicious day.

The first came from my international crew in Panchgani. The most common thing I heard from them was “congratulations”. Seemed a strange word to hear from those in the community here. Some knew that I supported Obama, but this wasn’t a congratulations given to me because my candidate won the election. This congratulations had a different tone. It was the congratulations you give someone when they are part of something that has gone right. The kind you might give to a family member when the first kid graduates high school. Or maybe that you would give to Godfather at his Godson’s christening. The congratulations of communal goodwill. The congratulations of a step that symbolizes much more than a singular accomplishment, but also the many steps of the many wo supported it and paved the way to make it possible. It’s the congratulations you give when you admire something that resonates deep within, even if you don’t know why. It’s the congratulations of a new day and the hope that comes with it. It’s the congratulations given to the courageous, the changemakers and the group that has moved towards realizing their potential.

The second refrain I heard in different forms from those at home came out like this: “I’m proud of America and I’m proud to be an American.” It’s almost unfathomable to me that I could hear that statement from people in my generation. My parents and grandparents? Sure. But my peeps? Not in a million years…until today. Hearing those words demonstrated to me that something of serious consequence happened today. I’m still stunned at this comment.

I spent the afternoon working and patiently waiting for the acceptance speech to stream (a tall task in Panchgani). Above this massive outpouring of emotion and excitement I heard the voice cut through. There is work to do. Yes we can do it. A leader who asks sacrifices of his people would be a complete revolution in this era of US politics. It’s a trait of citizens in days gone that I’ve always admired. I’m on board and ready to go. In fact, I’ve been ready and working and now the ship has a new course.

Today a dream was fulfilled and I had a healthy dose of hope restored. It’s hard to know what the future holds and what the “change” will look like, but I do know that change is necessary. It’s my earnest prayer that wisdom will prevail in this administration and we will begin to build the country into something exceptional. If that happens…well then there will be even more reason for congratulations.

Something great has been achieved today. And there is a kind of purity in the air. The kind of purity that only exists alongside the promise of a new day. I’m embracing.

Election Overnight

2008-11-04T23:02:00.000+05:30

Over dinner my Tibetan friend, Jordhen, said to me, “Today is Judgment Day in America. That makes it Judgment Night for you!”

Sure enough, here we are on the edge of political change in the States – you can’t believe the kind of attention this is grabbing over here. Every day the Times of India posts a photo of one of the candidates and puts a leader above the fold. This takes the reader to about a page of coverage on the election alone. It’s laughably biased coverage. On Sunday, there were 8 articles about the election – 5 positive on Obama, 1 negative; 1 positive on McCain, 1 negative (this excludes two editorials).

But its no real surprise, as I read a recent poll that suggested that 4 in 5 international citizens would vote for Obama over McCain. Whether they consider the repercussions of such a presidency in terms of policy is another story. But what stands fast is that Obama represents a change the world is looking for from the US.

It’s exciting to be an American in India these days. It’s almost as if people I meet are realizing what America can do and be when it’s at its best. It’s not an understatement to say that the last 8 years of policy have left the international community foggy. You might be surprised, but form my interactions I think a lot of people actually like America and believe in America. I can’t imagine what it would do for the US if Obama won this election. People come up to me pleading that I vote and for Obama. It’s a far cry from when I was here three years ago and taking endless heat for the Bush presidency and the 2004 election.

From the businessman to the nun, the teacher to the engineer, Obama has generated unbelievable enthusiasm in India. From my conversations in Pune this past week, I am sure that the US election generates more excitement than the current events of Indian politics. It’s hot and people are taking notice. I’ve heard a number of times from citizens of many countries that the world hasn’t watched a US election like this in years, maybe in history (which might not be a stretch given the availability of information in the digital age).

One way or the other, I’m breathing a sigh of relief that America is looking forward from the past eight years. I believe both candidates are capable and can lead America in positive ways. I think both will be an improvement to their predecessor in terms of quality. Still, I can’t help but feel the possibility and potential of an Obama presidency. It sounds as though there is a huge swell of optimism in the States for the change he could bring. I can only tell you that I think that hope multiplies across the pond where people are drawn to the promise of the lean man from Chicago.

If he wins, the pressure will be full on. I can only pray that he would use the unbelievable good will he’ll receive from the international community to build something new and important for the 21st century. A world vision that’s forward looking in terms of economy and environment, interdependence and real human security.

At press, the election is in the hands of the people. I’m off to bed ready to wake up tomorrow like a kid on Christmas, eager to see what’s under the tree.

Festival of Lights

2008-10-31T00:15:00.004+05:30

I’ve only ever imagined war zones, but I am hearing what I can only imagine one sounds like. Massive booms, crackling pops, epic blasts. The night air rattles with a constant crash. It’s Diwali (Dee-vaal-ee), the Hindu festival of light. And do they ever know how to do light. Without the restrictions of government, all order of fireworks are available to the everyman, who spends four nights using the street as his personal launch pad for flare. The festival explodes with excitement.

But it is the end of a long day, the last and most celebrated of Diwali. It started in Aundh, a booming neighborhood west of downtown.

******************************************************

My second Diwali trounced my first one – and my first was really good. Recently, arrived in Mumbai from DC I woke up and took off for the island of Elefanta. The atoll houses ancient temples carved directly from the island rock. A beautiful spectacle evoked in me some awe, adventure and archeology. Indiana Jones fantasies. After exploring the island, I hopped the boat ride back. As the sun faded behind the Mumbai haze and night took over, a blast of fireworks roared over the city. An absolute magnificence.

This morning started different. No jet lag and in Pune, not Mumbai. After meeting her a month ago in Panchgani, we had arranged to take the crew to meet Sister Lucy, a nun working with orphans and destitute women around Maharashtra. We piled back into a Sumo and cruised across Pune to find her there.

We lost our way on the country roads and ambled by village and bullock-cart in search of Maher, Hindi for “Mother’s Home”. When we finally arrived, a group of women and children in holiday best, lined up to welcome us. Custom in India says that “Guest is God” and we undeservedly (at least in my eyes) incurred the loving the warmth of the souls being cared for by Sister Lucy and her gang. They were not an easy crowd to love or look at. They were mentally disturbed women, exiled from their homes and considered to be carrying demon spirits. Most had been tossed out on the street by husbands or families who considered their mental problem shameful. Other has been victims of domestic violence. The children were mostly street children, taken from busy Pune intersections and given a new chance to live in the village compound.

I walked down the sari-lined path to the main building on the campus. They showered rice on me and one lady gave me a fresh-made garland of marigold flowers and betel leaves. Bedazzled by the event, I focused carefully on each woman I passed, many just reaching out their hands to me to say hello and wish me “Happy Diwali”. I devoted energy into each “namaste” with an affection I don’t ever recall. I felt to trust each utterance as the only thing I might be able to do for these women in my life and I honored the responsibility with full heart. When the procession concluded, I walked in to spend more time with the residents there.

The story of Sister Lucy deserves more attention and I hope to give it some later on. My days in India will be filled with stories of incredible people who change society for the better, sometimes on mere faith alone. She started her work with 20 rupees (fiddy cent) and now runs 19 rehabilitation homes and vocational training centers. It’s an inspiring and challenging story.

After meals we left to celebrate Diwali with presents and treats in a nearby slum, a short visit in the heat of day to offer something to the kids there. We then passed through the dusty outskirt street to arrive in the first home of Maher where we briefly surveyed the home that started it all. But I was restless and tired, cooked from the heat, I couldn’t take it anymore and left the hall to see the kids playing outside. We made quick friends and after trying my hand at some Maher version of tennis (played with two pink rackets and a hollow plastic ball) I was invited for the most important of all games in India: Cricket.

I liken my Diwali cricket experience to playing football on Thanksgiving Day. It’s more than a game, its tradition.

As a sports enthusiast, I’ve tried my hand at almost every sport and found success with some (baseball, soccer, wiffle ball, bocce [yes, that’s a jab at Papa and Dad]), little with others (basketball, wrestling, swimming) and for some the verdict is still out. Cricket fits in the last category. It should match up well with the old baseball skills, but with the ball bouncing and the game often defensive minded, well, I do what I can.

Despite my warnings, the captain picked me first calling “Uncle!” loudly to razz his rival. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he had picked the guy with the most power, but the least accuracy. No matter, they handed me the bat and set me to the stump to give a go. The bowler, an Indian bloke of similar age stared me down. His spin bowling didn’t hold up on the surface and I sent his first offering for a six, which is the equivalent of a homerun. This had never happened before. Usually, I just miss everything and make an out right away. Instead, I launched this ball (the way I used to swat tennis balls in Princeton Oaks straight out of the tennis court with my tennis racquet and shout “home run!”). My young teammates, all 10 and under, went wild, the way one does when Uncle scores big. Confused at my own feat, I slapped their hands and returned to the stump. My glory would be short-lived however, as I bounced out on the next bowl. But by that point I had already won their loving approval and I basked in the joyous ritual that is village boy cricket. It’s the purest sporting event on the planet.

The dinner bell rang and we transported back to the main site. I carried my 6-year old teammate who’s bum toe disabled him in the latter half of the tie. Our good spirits arrived to offer the Pooja to Laxmi, the goddess of wealth. We lit lamps and placed about 50 in the dining hall before we read scriptures. Sister Lucy does not seek to convert her patrons and she welcomes all religions to be practiced in her houses, despite her vow to Catholicism. It’s a beautiful freedom she has and many were moved by the reading from Gita, Bible, Koran and Buddha’s teachings.

At somepoint, the post-sunset light hung glorious blues and yellow in the sky and my bare feet walked along the tiled terrace while I carried a bowl of soup. The dry air coupled with the perfect evening temperatures reminiscent of southern California in the late summer. Basking in glory, I smiled knowing full well that I had stumbled upon another one of those moments when life feels full beyond measure.

After dinner, the whole event went to romper room. We danced and played and sang with everyone present. A huge Diwali party. When dark fully set in the fireworks began and sent us home on our way. My heart went out for them. A couple cried as we left, including my main mate from the cricket ground. Orphaned, he struggles with abandonment and I could do little to console him, knowing I couldn’t fulfill any promises I might want to make. We embraced and I got in the Sumo, struggling with the moment.

The drive home memorized. Rolling through the crowded streets seemingly exploding on their own. Massive blasts pummeled the side of the jeep with thunderous bolts of sound while light filled the sky in epic fluorescent explosions. Our packed jeep seemed to be running the gauntlet of Diwali. I lapped up my view from the front seat, watching as it all unfolded in front of me.

Diwali: the festival of lights. The celebration of light overtaking darkness.

Indian Road Trip

2008-10-28T21:37:00.000+05:30

Panchgani slowly disappears into the rearview. The Hindi radio station drops a road trip beat in the background and the Sumo creeps down the mountain announcing our descent by horn. With dusk an hour off, we’ve captured my favorite time to drive to a new destination. The Maharashtran sunset serenading a soundtrack for our evening expedition.

For the first two months of my time in India I’ve spent most of my weeks in Panchgani, a small hill station in the Deccan. Even there, I’ve taken most of my days at Asia Plateau, the conference centre that hosts AfL. But with a month of the program behind us, the time had full come for some serious time away from the mountain. I couldn’t be more ready for a road trip.

It would be hard to describe to you my sense of freedom, flying down the hill towards the valley. A full release that only the road can offer. I chat with my friend Nigel as we survey the countryside. Smoke from the sheathed sugar cane stalks, burning in the fields rises skyward. A pack of goats bob along the road in front of their goatherd. We speed by a man on a bicycle stacked with gas cylinders. A group of men swap stories in the paan shop. Children grip their mother’s hands tightly amidst the confusion of the Indian traffic system on the way to the highway from the provencial town of Wai.

We stop at a toll booth and attract the attention of a number of hawkers in the queue. Grilled corn, dried nuts and fruits, even mango and cucumber spiced with masala. Its available. Despite the tempting treats, we pay a toll and steam on, The interstate allows us to increase speed and we bolt north to the metropolis. Pune, our destination, boasts almost 4 million in population and is one of the fastest growing cities in India. Unlike Bangalore, one of its main competitors in the south, Pune’s leadership has developed the 7th biggest city in the country into a crowded but fairly well run boomtown.
Night falls and we make a switch just on the outskirts of our city. My aforementioned guru, Prabhakar trades his carload of people into our truck. He will head off to see his family while we head in to meet some friends in town. Unsurprisingly, the exchange takes longer than usual, but we manage and pile in, now an India-comfortable nine of us in the truck. Passing the outer neighborhoods, we begin our circle along the south border of the city and eventually trade the dry flats of the country for the tall trees of Aundh, a well-established neighborhood on West side.

Patting our friendly driver Pradeep on the back, we ascend the steps of the non-descript apartment building. The night air cool and noticeably crisp for the packed city. Noise begins to fill it. We’ve arrived for the Diwali festival. The Hindu festival of lights. Fricrackers shatter the silence and fireworks shower the sky in color. A month removed from the spectacle of Ganpati, India still swaggers in the festival season. Up the stairs our friendly host welcomes us in. A giant hot pot of chicken biryani waits to fill our hungry stomach. We sit down to commence our feast and welcome in the first night of our week in the city.

Gift

2008-10-21T22:08:00.000+05:30

It’s nice to live in a community. I’m around a strange and wonderful collection of people ranging from a 66-year old Zambian to a 20-year old Fijian. On Saturday I sat under the starry Maharashtran sky by a fire with the men. It flowed with the soul-feeding spirit that arrives when sharing stories about families, fathers and the often hilarious stories that accompany one’s own coming-of-age.

I told one of my favorite stories. The time when I received a gift that changed my life.

The September of my senior year in high school, my parents and I rolled up the Delaware River on Route 29 for a reason I can’t recall, perhaps a Grandparent visit or something like that. The fall air still a couple weeks off, we strolled through the relaxed town of Lambertville on our way across the bridge to New Hope.

Along the way I spotted a music shop and pressed my father to come upstairs with me to check out the guitar selection. My interest in guitar had just reached its first peak. I’d recently played my first songs in front of audiences and even had won some money with my friend Jeff at a WWPHS showcase. An early love of James Taylor’s style had turned into a study of Ben Harper and Dave Matthews and I’d been prepping my chops along with attending as many concerts as possible. When we walked into the music store, my eyes leapt at the lines of finely crafted maple, rosewood and alder.

I carefully surveyed the racks, taking in each guitar before coming across a line of Takamine acoustics. I skipped past the simpler models until I gasped at a pure beauty. Like a Van Gogh hanging on the gallery wall, the guitar reflected the warmth of my eyes, radiating in the presence of something wonderful. I gripped it. The gorgeous cutaway, the deep brown neck, the pearl inlay, top-end pre-amp and smooth action. A pick and a few strums and I melted away in 17-year old dream of music.

In my own world, I can only assume that my father watched me with interest, more interested in my renewed passion for music than anything else in the store. After a few minutes, he broke my hypnosis.

“She’s a beauty.”
“Yeah,” I gushed. “This is my dream guitar.”
“How much is it?”
“A lot,” I replied with a sigh and hung the guitar back up, taking the time to look a the price tag. Way over budget. Alarmingly over budget. The kind of price you might attach to “dream guitar”. But I had known it already and I walked away from it knowing that I would have to be content with keeping it my dreams and strumming on my trustworthy Washburn.

We walked out of the store and cruised to Pennsylvania.

******************************************

Four months later I walked downstairs in early morning anticipation. Manheim Steamroller backing my steps. Turning the corner I collapsed, unable to draw the line between dream time and real time. I recovered to walk over and tough what I had seen. The guitar backed by pine and needles and basking in the gentle glow of Christmas tree lights.

Image of Quiet

2008-10-17T12:03:00.000+05:30

In a session this morning, I was asked to find a photo that would help me to define my understanding of morning quiet -- a daily space prayer and reflection.

This is the photo I selected

At Davidson, Dr. Mahony once explained the Hindu concept of God as an ocean – one body of water made of many drops. The Christian faith often refers to God as light. For me, these images collided in college, as I moved to the beach and learned about Atman all the while listening to “No Doy” by moe. and often signing my emails using a quote from “St. Augustine”: God is Light. Light is Good. Yeah, God is Good.

Those images have stayed with me, providing an unending terrain to explore.

This summer I reached a new conclusion about the interplay of light and water. Together they create one of the most beautiful sights in the world. A gold-orange sun blazing down a lazy river. The mid-afternoon light blasting the sea. A lone streetlamp enlightening an Amsterdam canal in the evening. When light touches water, words cannot describe the million infinities therein.

I’ve grown to believe that God exists in the space where light and water mix.

The fisherman in the photo uses his net to catch fish. This one seeks to catch light on water. That light-water shines like the bright spirit of truth. If you look closely and in the right way, it even looks like he has some in his net.

A fishermen doesn’t always catch his inspiration. But, also like fishermen, practice increases the chances of catching a fish. The more one tries, the more likely one is to land a beaut.

The fish (the truth of light on water) itself can be taken as nourishment, shared with others or simply admired for its beauty and then released.

The fisherman inspires me this morning.

Note: After looking at the photo for some time I noticed, at last, that the boy wears a key around his neck. I’m looking to tie the metaphor together with that symbol. I don’t have it yet. Let me know if you do.

Ingest At Your Own Risk: Health Practices from Around the World

2008-10-15T09:15:00.000+05:30

Being sick is lame. I’ve also decided that it’s also the most boring thing around. Is there anything more boring than being sick? When you just can’t do the things you want to do? Feeling out of it all the time? I’m convinced its more boring than almost anything else of considered – especially of the things that happen with some frequency. Hell, being sick doesn’t even give you the chance to really appreciate all the nice things people do for you when you are sick. Ugh…the worst.

So I’m feeling sick now for a couple of days. Pretty standard sick: A bit of congestion, a cranking sore throat and general body fatigue. It’s been going around here, so I think I just got caught in a weak immunity mode. Such is life.

That said, my recent illness had given me a good chance to familiarize myself with the techniques that the rest of the world uses to solve common colds. Why did I think that everyone would treat them the same?

Here are some things I have learned in the past two days:

Vitiman C is the cure-all for any problem you have related to your body.

Ironically, amazingly and without fail, other sick people will happily give you their advice on how both to prevent sickness and on how to get better.

Trust an old Indian Mom to give you the best advice – even if the advice mostly entails her consistently telling you to get some rest.

Vitamin C could cure malaria and an earache at the same time.

It is good to take as many vitamins as possible – regardless of whether or not they have any connection to your illness at all.

Don’t worry if the writing on the label is in Hindi (or any other language for that matter). The important thing is that you have faith in the interpreter.

Tea is only second to vitamin C as the greatest curing agent known to man. Drink tea, no matter the variety. Chai, green, Earl Grey, ginger honey…drink it and drink it a lot.

Vitamin C can cure your cough, ease your back pain, and negotiate successfully with Somali pirates all while developing a working economy in Zimbabwe.

Try ayurvedic medicine sometime. Even if you aren’t convinced it will work.

If you are from Fiji, you may find that your answer to any health problem is antibiotics. These are conveniently available in many locations in unmarked bottles without prescriptions.

Vitamin C, has just been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Of all the medical advice I received, there is none better than the kind I’ve given myself. Don’t push it. Get some rest. Let others carry a little bit of your workload and just take it easy. With that in mind, I’m tucking in with a little National Geographic and saying goodnight. Feel better in the morning.

New Day in Maharashtra

2008-10-12T11:04:00.004+05:30

I Have Seen the Light!

2008-10-09T22:23:00.001+05:30

I saw my life flash before my eyes today. It was enormous flash, not because my life is long or big, but because this is India and huge things happen here.

At about an hour before tea time this afternoon, I am having a conversation in the lobby of one of the buildings at Asia Plateau. It’s an unremarkable lobby with ceiling to floor windows and a couple of couches. The monsoon stirring outside, I watched over the shoulder of my conversation partner as the rain came down. This monsoon rain isn't sheets or scatters, its hard fat rain. The kind of rain that smacks the ground and splashes. The kind that you can watch as it covers a dry surface in seconds. Rain that you hear before you see.

Thunder worried in the distance. The occasional flicker of lightning crossed the sky. The monsoon, which I thought ended about 2 weeks ago, has continued in its death throes – settling into a strict routine of mid-afternoon blasts that give way to sunset.

Unmoved by the thunderstorm, we discussed work and life, digging out some important issues, when

SMACK!

In a harrowing instant, a blistering flash burst through the window and captured my eyes, leaving me dark. The instantaneous wallop of thunder crashed my ears, sending me shuddering into my seat. Adrenaline raced through my heart. I gasped. Shocked, I could only think that I’ve never felt so close to death before in my life.

A moment later, Adam my Australian friend, walked out of his office with his headphones around his neck, mirroring my look. “I’m sure it buzzed me. I can feel it in my arms.”

We returned to our discussion, but my heart beat speedily for over an hour. When we finished, I walked outside (rain stopped by now) and found several friends examining the tallest tree next to the AP’s main building some 75 feet away from where I sat. The lone, tall evergreen displayed a massive crack mid-trunk. An exposed underbelly showed where the lightening bolt shaved off a sizeable section of bark. We found piece of the tree 30 feet away from the base. A formidable blast.

Just thinking about it sends my body back into a nervous jitter. It has never behaved like this before. A moment for reflection for sure. In the meantime, I’m off. Praying for the storms to finally pass.

Hoping for some peaceful sleep amidst this body jolt
In the land of monsoon rains and freakish lightening bolts

Something Moves

2008-10-06T21:24:00.003+05:30

Wow...Action for Life is in full swing. I am feeling the heat of community and completely enjoying the blessing that is this wonderful collection of people from all over the world. They are challenging and inspiring and I'm amped to spend the next 7.5 months with them.

As you know, I like to talk about God. Since I was young, through my studies at college up until now, its the one thing I always find interesting to discuss. It seems the one subject on which everyone has an experience and an opinion.

When I was in school, I began to talk my friend Alex about God. Over time our discussions got more complicated and fille din with our philosphy course. We used to discuss God as Truth. We then began to talk about the concept that truth = verb which means that truth = action. Truth in its Greek sense is more about fact, but in the Hebrew sense, it was much more about faithfulness. Since that's action, we further extrapolated that in fact, action is everything, a phrase we've carried with us through our 20's.

I've often asked people what they mean when they say something like, "I've seen God's hand at work" or "I felt like I was part of God's plan". I've always been curious about this - to see how people interpret it.

Just the other day I was walking to my room. Mid stride, I a clear thought popped into my head: "Give one of your turtles to Vijay, the security guard at the front gate of Asia Plateau." (When I left Va Beach I took a bunch of little crafts to give to my hosts, etc. They are little shells that have been decorated to look like turtles wearing glasses and hats. The shell reads "Virginia Beach". Actually, they are pretty nice for 99cent a piece and I'm glad I picked them up.) With a sense of conviction I hustled down the hill. I ran to my room, grabbed it and went straight to the gate. But when I arrived...he wasn't there.

Disappointed, I put the small trinket in my pocket and set off for a session with AfL. When I got to the auditorium I noticed one of the participants looking down. Her cousin had passed away on the first day of AfL and she had been quietly grieving his death. Walking by her I didn't think too much about the fact that she sat apart from the rest of the group.

I sat through a few minutes of the session. My next action became clear. The whisper I heard that told me to get the gift was right on, I just didn't get the right name. The turtle had a different destination. At a break, I hopped off the stage and quietly handed off the turtle trinket. It was the first time I saw her smile all day.

Sunrise over the Krishna River Valley

2008-10-02T14:09:00.000+05:30

Action for Life started today. I watched the sun rise over the Krishna River Valley. This, I wrote:

You are

Early morning sun
Wild birdsong

Spring green when rain stops
First flower of rebirth

Smoke settled in the valley
Pure air of altitude

Yellow burst garden
Black-red rock

Water still and rippled
Placid and flowing

Hazy pale orange horizon
Gray-blue high sky

Jagged rock
Rolling hill
Insect whirr
Wings aflutter

Neighbor close
Family afar

Eternal dawn of day

A Brief History of Hair

2008-09-29T07:10:00.002+05:30

I’m eating macadamia nut Cadbury chocolate. Someone is trying to learn the F chord. A few others are playing Uno and another is making tea. I think I’m getting green tea, but I can’t be sure. It’s Sunday night, I’m feeling relaxed after my day off and I eagerly await the arrival of the majority of those coming on Action for Life. They’ll be here at 4am this morning. Excellent.

As for this entry, it has nothing to do with that. It’s about haircuts.

My hair, at least what’s left of it, has taken on a number of styles in the years. I probably topped out in second grade when moms put me up to a so-called “spike”. It put me about ten years ahead of the same look that became popular in New Jersey when I was graduating high school (and which made you distinctly and easily recognizable as tri-state). The cut, combined with missing my two front teeth, made me a hot target for the females in Ms. Tretter’s Parkway Manor Elementary class. That all changed when I actually moved to New Jersey later that year and found that I was ten years ahead of the curve and the “spike” had lost its magical touch.

Regardless, hair grows and so did my adventures with it. Mostly parted to the side through junior high. Getting longer and stranger in high school, including a go at bleaching during my senior spring break with some guys on my baseball team (this included getting my ear pierced at a Wal-Mart…which is another story). In college I shaved my head for the first time. Actually, Andrew shaved my head. First taking it to a one blade before convincing me that I needed to go all the way. He bicked my head in Base Rich and I’m still sure that this marked the day that my hair began its official retreat for the rest of my life.

From there, it got long, it got short, I shaved it again and finally realized once and for all this spring that I will probably keep it very short for the rest of my life. (Unless I get cool like one of those old dudes who rocks a kind-of half-bald ponytail. It’s not that it’s a good look aesthetically, but it symbolizes a point that those men have reached – becoming completely detached from all need to impress anyone.)

When I got to India three years ago, I fought the inevitable haircut for a long time. There’s a lot of variables with a haircut in India. Will they understand what I want? Will they cut my ear with rusty scissors? Will they do anything…gulp…unexpected?

Most of these fears were allayed when I looked around. Almost every man in a city or town in India is immaculately kept from the neck up. Perfectly coifed hair, neatly trimmed beards and mustaches so nice that they make clean cut boys green with envy.
Once I crossed the first Indian Barber Shop threshold, I never looked back. The tidiness of the trim and the fact that they will give you a proper facial shave (with straight blade) make it an experience not to be missed on any trip to the sub-continent.

With relish, I hopped in the back of Sumo and took the 3-minute blast down to Panchgani town. Out the back door, I first bought a volleyball for a game later in the afternoon and then took it next door to the local barber shop.

The shop itself only measures about 6’ by 15’, three chairs for the chop and the regular six for the random dudes who always seem to find their way into a barber shop but don’t do anything there. The proprietor welcomed me in and offered me a seat. “How much for the haircut?” I asked. He returned with the most classic of all Indian male gestures. This being the regular head-waggle along with hand move that looks like he is gently back-slapping the air in front of him. In short, this means, “don’t worry about it, we’ll figure this all out later.” I fell for this move once before and thus the reason I asked for the cost out right. Still, I decided to roll the dice, seeing what he would give me and try to bargain post-cut.

I sat down and looked for a place to put the volleyball. It could have gone anywhere, but we oddly settled on the basket on the vanity – which he actually used for his combs and scissors and would need to access more frequently then any other part of the entire store. Surprised and slightly amazed, I focused on the work ahead hoping he would understand my single directive: “short”

He trimmed and I made small talk with one of the other patrons who wanted to take me on a tour of the neighboring town. I also took the chance to survey the room. A remarkable collection of old stuff including a radio from the 50’s, an beautiful set of drawing of popular Indian haircuts from the 30’s and a TV playing satellite movies. I sat back and enjoyed, this, one of my true guilty pleasures of living in India. I sighed out. It would be my last moment of peace.

With the haircut looking in hand, he asked me if I wanted a shave. Excitedly, I agreed. When one is born in the 80’s in America, the likelihood of having one’s face shaved by another person rates so low on the probability scale that it’s more like impossible than improbable. So when I have a chance to relive the greatness of days when men got a hot shave on the regular, I seize it like with vigor. It comes along with the same strange feeling I get to want to wear a cool three piece suit and hat and walk on the dirt-trodden street of turn of the century New York City. With a smirk of his clean-cut face, he broke out a fresh blade and went to work.

First, he smacked some shaving concentrate on my check. Wetting the brush, he began to build a lather, which eventually covered my three-day-old beard. Soon, the blade hit my face and began to scrape away the scruff. He worked it pretty fast, cleaning off my beard before doubling up for a second go-round. After, he pounded my face with some aftershave and then went in with some moisturizing lotion, massaging my face in the process. (Well, massage is a loose term that he would have used. I would use something like “getting my face smacked a bit, kneaded with lotion and then smacked a bit more.) By the end I’m knackered and he prepares his hands for round two with another bit of lotion. My face was feeling like it might actually begin to swell – as well as being smooth and shiny. This carried on for another two minutes before I finally had to ask him to stop. Surprised, he looked at me and said, “head massage?” Knowing my limits, I said, “no thanks”. As his head waggled in response (read: I am about to massage your head whether you like it or not) I leapt from my seat and reached for my roops to settle up.

I pulled out a 50.

“Is it fair price?” I asked.
He looked away from the bill.
My tour guide friend said, “You should pay what you feel is right.”
“I always pay 50 rupees for a haircut and shave. Isn’t it about right?” I said, doubting myself even though it was the truth.

The hair-man looked away again. The tour guide said nothing but gave me a gentle head-waggle (read, 50 is okay). Feeling strange, I looked at my cash situation discretely: A 50-note, two 100-notes and a 500. I didn’t want to go much higher than 50, but I saw my 100 as a weak play in a bargain for 70 rupees. With another thought I handed him the 50 and thanked him, telling him that I would be back. He looked disappointed. I took my volleyball and left.

I felt a bit bad, but I got redemptive backing from my storekeeper friend next door who said 50 was middle of the road for a cut. Still, I second-guessed. I will need to have my haircut in Panchgani again…and, it was a good haircut…hmmm…I put it out to you all. What’s my next move?

An Elephant-Sized Festival: Day Two

2008-09-22T21:16:00.010+05:30

After a quick breakfast (well, lets be honest, “quick” does not describe Indian sit-down meals well, but after breakfast nonetheless), I hopped on the back of Anand’s moped and cruised down Tilak Road. We bounced the potholes over to Laxmi, the true heart of Ganpati.

We popped off the bike a block away from the main drag and immediately encountered the throngs, throbbing. Even before noon the street swam with people and music erupted from the asphalt. Pushing through the five-person deep crowd, we spilled into the main action, only to be restrained by a string of men holding hands and creating a human fence. On the other side of the human chain a 30-man drum line crashed down the lane, thumping, clanging and cracking in time. Shimmying down the crowd, we shot into any open space and slowly made our way down the street to our destination.

As if the Lord Ganesh had come down himself to deliver a blessing to us on his special day, Anand just happened to have a “sister” (reads as 2nd cousin in Pune-speak) with a flat one floor up from the street. Not only a nice flat, but a perched balcony a perfect 15 feet above the parade.

Her family welcomed us as their own, relishing the opportunity to teach us their holiday rituals. They sang the aarti at their household shrine. We watched them put the coconut-fried dumplings at the elephant feet. We shared them afterwards and walked out to the balcony to survey the goings on.

I’ve never been to a big parade before so all kinds of ideas came up as I watched this one unfold. For instance, the success of a parade depends on the street size and surrounding buildings and their relative scale to the parade. Just like the NYC skyline fits the Macy’s Day balloons perfectly, so did Laxmi Road complement Ganpati. A street wide enough, but not too wide – able to accommodate, two cars, two rickshaws and two sidewalks. Buildings shot up five stories on each side, staging the street as a true theatre. Balconies full of onlookers watched as the endless stream of people and floats flowed down the avenue. An epic arena for an epic event.

Over the course of the previous night, the neighborhood men had moved their Ganesh idols from their localized stages onto individual floats. In the wee hours of the morning, the floats gathered in a queue to parade down Laxmi. From there they begin their parade down the many mile parade path. At some point en route, the float amasses an entourage: the neighborhood youth, a drum and dance troupe, a tractor, a generator truck and another float that holds a concert-worthy stack of speakers with a DJ. So we aren’t talking about single float anymore, we are really talking about a five or six part processional that easily stretched up to 600 feet.

First, the drum and dance troupe. Drilling out percussion on 30 bass drums and six or seven snares. Usually in call and response. In lock step came a posse of dancers, tapping out traditional rhythms with their feet and shaking their hips to the voluminous drumline. Following them came a couple hundred partygoing youth, jamming at full-throttle as the tractor behind them towed a mass of speakers that peeled paint off the buildings. Finally, at the end (and sometimes almost as an afterthought to the fanfare preceding it), Ganesh would appear.

After a few mandals passed by, my friends and I really began to embrace the possibilities of being the few random foreigners enjoying this very Punewalla festival. We also held the premier spot above the madness to do so. Already, the pulsating music stirred our bones into action, keeping us up and dancing on our perch. We must have been some sight because we attracted heaps of attention. The minute anyone in the parade processional peeked up from their Bollywood dance moves or drum thwomping and caught a glimpse of our crew, they would start smiling and laughing. When they realized that we were dancing with matching energy, they would lose it and begin to absolutely rip out. Waving and dancing, this went on and I began to feel like the celebrated and honored guest of Pune’s Ganpati. How else to explain this lavishness? We spent hours leading the dance party like parade royalty. I laughed and danced with that intoxicating concoction of feeling when loud music, masses of people and once-in-a-lifetime experiences mix.

Thankfully, we settled into the kind of rhythm over the hours. In fact, the day itself slowly began to feel like a family holiday or a vacation at the beach.

Essentially, there are four important steps to truly enjoy Ganpati.

1) Watch/Participate in the parade
2) Eat/Drink Chai
3) Say Prayers
4) Sleep

Repeat as needed. No particular order. If one prefers to watch the parade, say prayers and then eat – fine. If one prefers to sleep, wake for a sip of chai and return to sleep – as you like it.

It took me some time to truly grasp the freedom within this structure. At first, I wanted to enjoy the parade only; then I felt the need to attend to my hosts and their requests. But as my danced-out legs, over tired smile and music-blasted brain fatigued, an inevitable rest brought me inside. Within minutes, I went horizontal and completely embraced Ganpati.

When I awoke, I found the Indians looking at me in a new light. As if I had finally understood some important truth or attained some low-level enlightenment, I emerged from the slumber like a new paduan, gently returning to overlook the ongoing street-level madness.

Night had fallen and I still hadn’t made it to dance with the people at street-level. I’d given three newspaper interviews and been broadcast on television, but I hadn’t yet seen the action from within the parade itself. It was time.

To think that some parades are not fully participatory is now a bit shocking to me. Given my Ganpati experience, I stand firmly in the belief that parades should be so open that one can literally walk down from his flat and enter the parade immediately to open arms and dancing feet. So we did. I flew out the door and into the parade. At first, I hit a wall. Men and women do most of their public dancing here separately and I had landed in bird central. Disappointed, I stepped back again to avoid any over protective uncles and I sought out the next mandal and my opportunity to dance with the stars.

It didn’t take long, another Ganesh came into sight two blocks down, so we hustled up to the Maharashtran beat and quickly found ourselves at the center of the attention we had only till now felt from the balcony. With music blasting behind us, we started to dance-walk up the street. The best part about dancing with Indians is that they are keenly interested in you enjoying what they are enjoying. They also have a style where pretty much two people just mimic each other as more others watch on. Otherwise you can flail around as you like. Since I found myself in the middle of it all, I had plenty of dance partners and found myself playing the mirror to their hectic moves. In full swing, it now looked like I actually knew a step or two (or at least tried) and this brought on heaps more encouragement from the sweltering and crushing crowd. Even after two blocks I found myself completely out of moves and energy, I felt only too happy to see the apartment starting to pass by. Darting out of party city, I breathed deep as I hustled up the stairs.

We returned to the flat only to get find ourselves on the receiving end of a massive powder storm. The next mandal, a particularly exuberant group, doused in the pink stuff, found in us a due target for their blessings. The usual smiles and jubilation quickly turned colorful as clumps of the stuff sped up from the street to meet us, like snowballs firing on higher ground. In the dark, I couldn’t pick up the stuff fast enough to dodge it and caught the first of the grape shot splattering on my check and shirt. A second round found my mouth and I dove inside to take cover and spit out the harsh material. One of my other friends didn’t fair so well, catching the brunt of the mortar. The apartment also sustained major damage, the balcony coated and a new interior design thanks to a couple of open windows and doors. The hostess assured me this onslaught should be considered good luck, as a blessing. The host looked less certain, grumbling quietly as he looked over his spray-powdered family room walls.

It seemed like a fitting end to our stay. After 10 hours of parade (and the promise that this would carry on well into the next day) we decided to scoot home for some rice and dal, dodging through two more paraded streets before we reached the door.

At midnight we gave the carnival another shot, staying this time on Tilak Road, home of my host. Itching for another street-level dance, we found a young crowd, playing Ganpati to the hilt. But when a number of overly aggressive dancers tried too hard to keep us in their dance party, we felt the strange discomfort of being at the mercy of a mob and muscled our way out of the parade (believe it or not, at 5’10” I actually tower over most Indians, a particularly helpful trait in this situation) before dashing back into Anand’s apartment entrance.

Opting instead for the rooftop view, we rocked up the stairs and watched the madness unfold from five stories up. All across the city, fireworks blasted off, illuminating Pune in a celebratory radiance. At about 1:30, a float came down Tilak Road shooting off its own fireworks. For the second time, we came under fire, this time with actual exploding projectiles. The smallish fireworks would only go up about 70 feet before erupting and so we were only a mere 20 feet away as they popped and displayed their stellar variety. The first time I literally dove for cover. Each subsequent time I welcomed the blast, easily the closest I may ever come to fireworks in my life.

After another hour we tucked in, sipping hot water to ease the fatigue and chill from the steady night mist of the monsoon. The last I remember of the day rang the clang of bells, like an alarm clock as I slipped uncontrollably into unconsciousness.

************************************************************

Oh Ganpati, if only you finished there. Instead, I woke up to your siren blasts, still walloping the walls of Tilak Road at 7:30am.

Exhausted and somewhat delirious, I walked outside to see the street. Unlike the previous night, the floats were now against time and stuck in a complete and utter traffic jam. The 10-minute rests between entourages had disappeared completely. Now one float literally came on the direct heels of its predecessor, music intertwining as if some drugged up DJ had just gained control of the levels, mixing a laced cocktail of Banghra and Bollywood.

Choosing breakfast over the beats, I ate up and prepared my bag for the walk to the train station. What I really needed was a pep talk and some strategy (knowing full well from the past day that white skin meant joyful target for a powder toss or a rowdy dance routine). I thought to move quickly and camouflage under a low profile and a disinterested face. We hit the road on the march, moving at speed past the ragged-looking paraders. They all looked too exhausted to cause much trouble, so I cruised along. A gentle mist started to fall again on Pune. I thought we would be in the clear in no time. Still, the rhythm started to drag me back. My head began to waggle. My hips began to shake. My hands started to twist and move in time. My face, so touched by my constant vision of the epic happiness before me, started to shine again. Soon I found that I was no longer covert, in fact, I was again standing out.

At first this attracted the dancers, who reached for my arms and tried to drag me in. I have learned a few good moves of escape (first from wrestling with my brother as kids, second from a year of wrestling in middle school and most notably from the previous night) so I handled those efforts well. The ones I couldn’t handle were taken care of by Anand, who swept in and calmly blasted the young ones with a stern word and decisive action. It all looked good to escape unscathed when at last I saw a float so wonderful and faces so joyful that I just looked up and beamed a glorious smile to them. They smiled back and then promptly rained down two bolts of orange, catching my left side in full. In an instant, I realized the foolishness of my resistance and the futility of escape.

You see, India is a place where you join in, where you participate, where you embrace the relationship between people. Embrace their humanness and your own humanness. Feel the dirt, the air, the rain. Eat with hands. Sit on the ground. Take long chai breaks. Get blasted with orange and mist and take a 3 hour bus ride standing up on the way home. It’s the philosophy of participation that makes India a special place.

Ganpati, the most wonderful parade in the world, not the most beautiful or the most decadent, but the place where all are welcome to participate and celebrate being alive.

An Elephant-Sized Festival: Day One

2008-09-17T22:08:00.006+05:30

When your country holds over a billion people, it makes certain things possible. One option that becomes available is the chance to do something big.

Since I arrived here, a talkative administrator offered me a weekend at his place in Pune, the city about 3 hours bus ride from Panchgani, a fairly remote hillstation. His frameless glasses and multi-colored hair cast an interesting shadow on the man, suggesting a history more curious than his current stead. When he added that I ought to bring my friends and visit with him during Ganpati, the annual Ganesh festival, it seemed starlit. I arranged the trip, eager to get some face time with India outside of my humble abode in the hills.

Cutting out of work on Saturday afternoon, we rolled down the road in our Asiad bus, watching as the mists of the tabletops evaporated at lower altitude and warmer temperatures. The ride to Pune, familiar like the trip to summer camp, winds down to Wai, a classic stop which always takes too long for its size. (My only hypotheses have revolved around good looking store merchants and a sensational chai stall). While there, I catch my first glimpse of Ganpati: An overstuffed vendor in the bus ticket booth sits caked in the orange and pink powder, Ganesh’s favorite party accessory. Too perfect, I imagined. The man, who many probably grumble with day in and out finally got his due, -- locked in his small box, indefensible against the marauding devotees, fully loaded and ready to deliver twin handfuls of the lord’s blessing. Surely, I thought, this will be a great weekend.

Passing through the countryside and the second of two tunnels, Pune emerged and we drew in to the city.

Following a beautiful pure veg feast at a local retaurant, we drank chai at Anand’s house, engaging with his wife’s parents and two of his children. We celebrated the birth of his second grandson, which occurred over our hot cups. At midnight, we learned that Anand would celebrate his birthday just one day after his grandson and we again toasted the occasion. Gaining strength from the sweet pick-me-up, we took to the streets to explore the festival on the eve of exuberance.

As an event, Ganpati started quietly. Families enshrined the elephant god in their homes, praying to the diety on the festival day. Offerings of sweets and nuts would lay at his feet as children and parents would sing songs together, remembering the greatness of their god. In its quietness, ganpati reminded me of my family, setting up the small nativity scene in our house and singing carols by candlelight. These intimate spiritual moments often happen best within a small family setting.

Of course, that all changed with the work of one visionary politician. Inspired to bring the people together as one, Tilak arranged the first Ganpati festival in Pune at the end of the 19th century. Seeing it as a chance to demonstrate the collectivity of a society often divided by caste, he suggested a parade. The revolutionary hoped that a visual manifestation of Indian unity would aid in his bid to bring independence to his people.
Sadly, Tilak passed away before seeing Gandhi and his colleagues walk through the promised gates of freedom. Still, the life of the long-mustached Maharashtran burns in the memory of the state’s people.

Walking through the streets of Pune, I thought might be surprised by the size and scope of what now happens at Ganpati; just as the man who invented the Christmas tree might be stunned at the 21st century yuletide.

With a gentle, floating rain falling, I took it in with joy. We emerged from Anand’s flat with the contagious enthusiasm of concertgoers en route to the venue. You see, during Ganpati, each neighborhood in the center city pulls their statue of Ganesh out of the proverbial attic and builds a home for it during the course of the festival. Home usually means a massive stage, a big PA system, a highly decorated idol and anything ranging from singing and dancing robots depicting scenes from the Bhagavad Gita to life-sized dioramas of Ganesh in action, smoting his demon-enemies. These epic stages take up sections of the street every two or three blocks. Over 400 exist throughout the city.

We strode along the streets, checking in on the various spots, chatting up the local neighborhood craftsmen, so proud to share with us their exhibit and passion for Ganpati. The bejeweled Ganesh held a similar charm to the faded porcelain of another. The grandiose stage for one statue took place just a block from the quieter quarters of another. Interested foreigners, we found attention wherever we walked, often getting snapped into photos on the omnipresent Indian city cameraphone.

Each turn on the streets brought with ith familiar reminders of Indian cities. Sweet smells of jasmine and fried puri rubbing up against aging refuse being picked over by the stray cats. The bumping party music of carnival mixing with the gentle call of the saddhu asking for a donation. The shriek of children’s laughter tied in tandem with the conversation of the neighborhood elders. India’s city returned to my senses.

The last stop, through a night market converted into another staging ground made them tingle again. Hundreds of people filed up to statue to place offerings – coconuts and flowers in a steady flow towards the deity’s feet. Hawkers showed of their wears, GyroSketches and books. Women sat on their haunches, needling fresh tattoos onto their customers. Orange flowers and white tubers adorned Garlands hanging from vendor wagons, ready for the purchase and drifting magnificent fragrances through the air. Fresh made dosas crackled and fried. We waded through the sea of people, taking in the remarkable sight of night festival and a final Ganesha mantel.

Like Christmas eve, I tucked into bed. As I slept, I knew all the Ganesh statues would be placed on floats and then queue in anticipation of the upcoming parade. Nodding off, I smiled a child’s smile…

I woke up to a bash of music. Has it already begun? Alex and I threw on our clothes and scurried outside, just in time to see the first float pass by, 25 young men parading in front, dancing and singing, covered in pink residue. My eyes lit up. The small idol of Ganesh came into view, sparking the event. Before I could realize it, a lean, bearded Indian man approached, covered head to toe in the pastel powder. Without asking, he drew his thumb through the crush clumped in his hand and with a single motion slung an upward line from the bridge of Alex’s nose to his receding hairline. He looked at me and quickly delivered the same blessing with vigor. Anand, standing at the end of our three-man line took the last. I smiled at the initiation and thanked him. He seemed not to notice, as his eyes darted back to Alex in a fit of mischievious-seriousity. In a bolt, he took the remainder of his handheld blessing and crashed it against Alex’s forehead with a powder-caked smack. Pink dust flooded the air. Knowing the progression, I dashed inside, laughing.

This is going to be a great day.

Going to the Country, Gonna Eat a Lot of Chipatis

2008-09-13T12:11:00.007+05:30

On each of the past two Sundays I’ve taken a day off to cruise the Maharashtran countryside. The town of Panchgani sits about a mile above the earth on the top end of the Western Ghats. The Tabletops of the Deccan Plateau more suitably describe the area here. In the dead heat of summer it is beautiful and amidst the monsoon, the scenery drips with unimaginable green.

There are five stunning plateaus in the immediate vicinity – to which I’ve only climbed on two. Two weeks ago my friend Alex and I spent the morning hiking to the farthest of the five, a tiny island in the sky about three miles from Panchgani.

India isn’t really one of those places where you have a proper hiking trail to a plateau. You just walk along the road until you get close and then you walk overland to it. Typically the road carves its way through the major passages, which means they tend to butt up on the side of the buttes. Alex and I packed up our gear and took to the road, trusting our eyes and our instincts to guide the way.

We weaved through village after village, garnering the stares of many, the attention of a number of English-ready schoolboys and the occasional farm animal that blocked our way.

I’ve never experienced anything like an Indian country road. The pot-holed dirt pathway, puddles and all, works like an artery, bringing the life of the area here and there. An old man walks with two cows, a donkey and two goats in tow. A young boy labors on a rusty, full-size bicycle. A teenager screams by on his moped, his mate on the back chattering on his Sony Ericsson. Behind them a bumblebee jeep, half truck half-taxi, rattles along stuffed beyond capacity with people and product galore. A dalit woman, clad in a magenta sari, brushes the litter off the road. Three middle-aged men sit at the local storefront and chat endlessly over chai and pan. Mother washes the clothes as the children run after chickens in the yard.

A village comes into view. We pass through. Again and again.

Finally we reach the plateau. We climb overland to find the top. Pictures will do it greater justice than my words.

A week later, my friend Suresh organized an afternoon jall out to a waterfall, flowing mightily with the rainwater of the monsoon. I’d seen it from distance a week before and persisted with my Indian uncle that we take a closer look.

We set out at midday in the white Tata Sumo, a massive sport utility vehicle able to hold nine comfortably and about 20 in a jam (I myself have never been in one that surpassed 12, but I saw one today that held about 17). We packed in along with a massive picnic spread and set off towards Mahabaleshwar.

I’ve been on a few Indian picnics and they are worth some description. In the States, we tend to picnic with food that serves the function of the event rather than the other way around. In India you don’t pack a picnic per se. It’s more like you make lunch and then carry it to wherever you are going. But lunch in India isn’t cold cuts, chips and a coke. It’s a pot of dal, several hot curries, a steaming stack of chipatis, a massive thermos of rice and non-disposable bowls, silverware and plates for the lunch itself.

Surprisingly, this works really well when you drive directly to a picnic spot, but in order to enjoy the waterfall, we needed to walk a mile in with our supplies. I myself championed the chipatis, a stack of 50 tortilla like pieces of flat-bread that Maharashtrans use to scoop up curry. They were held in an insulated plastic container, light brown with a dark brown trim. Alongside my khakis, brown shirt and rainbows I was thrilled to declare it the fashion accessory of the year (plus, everyone loves the keeper-o-chipatis). My friends made strong bids as well, one lining his pockets with silverware and sounding like a trail-blazing grunge 7th grader with a massive chain wallet. One walked patiently with stacked metal containers filled one-top-of-the-other, carefully balancing the main course. Another simply carried 15 metal plates.

In general, I just had to laugh. In almost every sense, we couldn’t have packed more inappropriately for this picnic. No bags, a lot of metal and most everything resembled a soup except for the fried fish (another questionable picnic item) and a massive load of bananas. In the same moment, everyone had something to carry and no one was overburdened. We walked to a gorgeous spot, had a glorious picnic and walked out with big waterfall-curry smiles on our faces.

In some ways I figure this provides a pretty good glimpse of how India works sometimes. At first glance the process seems ill-thought out and ill-prepared. Yet in the doing, everyone plays his part. Even though it may never really make sense the whole time it’s happening, sensibility often has nothing to do with the eventual outcome. We share a nice meal, a good view and a nice memory for the rest of our days.

Vajra Guru

2008-09-10T23:15:00.002+05:30

When I returned from the Far East in 2005, I immediately stepped into a role as coordinator for a program much like AfL. Following the massive cross-country expedition, I returned to Washington, DC, pretty spent and unclear where my next step would take me. It was the moment I had put off for about 5 months and it finally crashed on me hard. I began a slow crawl to the job search market, exploring the development field with a heart to continue some kind of service to humanity.

One day, I walked through the old Initiatives of Change office in Washington (where I worked for two years after college) and bumped into an old colleague. She asked about my plans, where I was headed and what I wanted to do. I had no response other than to say that I had been chasing up some leads at development agencies in town. Without any further prompting, she looked at me and said, “Chris, you are a natural teacher. You love learning, you love people and you can communicate ideas effectively, creatively and with passion. You should look into teaching.”

It hit me like Dearest Sree’s breakfast cart on my flight to Mumbai. Stung awake from a vocational slumber, it took a breath for me to grasp it. Teaching. She planted a thought I’ve been unable to leave since that day. The next morning I plotted a new course.

In retrospect, I’ve never been able to place that moment – when it happened, who said it, why she said it. But I knew why it happened. And from that point on I’ve always been interested in the people who seem to come in and out of one’s life so gently, but say the small things that seem drafted more from the universe than from the human conscience.

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My pursuit of education brought me full circle to join in the coordination and training of my current program. The bulk of the training will start in October, but recently I got a very welcome invitation to begin my tenure as a guru a few days early.

I met Prabakhar the first day I arrived at Asia Plateau. I felt his generous smile fall easily on my face and I returned it with my own. There are few things better than a good smile, the kind that comes more from the chest, or even the stomach, than the brain. His steel-rimmed frames brought focus to his gentle eyes and his graying goatee matched his hair, in a slow fade into old age. With his name, he shared his beautiful baritone voice, one well-practiced on the radio stations and theatre stages of Kohlapur. It saturated my ears with riches as I soaked it in like a small boy drinks in the call of his doting grandfather.

His name popped like a poster. I’d just finished reading Shantaram this spring (a recommended epic tome by Gregory David Roberts about life on the lam in 80’s Bombay), in which the protagonist makes his first friendship with a warm-eyed Mumbaikar. The endearing man went by Prabhakar. My favorite character from the book, I couldn’t help but be taken with my new friend.

A couple nights later, my friend Suresh asked me to play a few songs for a small group here in Panchgani. Prabhakar attended and followed me up after I finished. He suggested that I teach him to play the guitar. Clearly, I am like putty in Prabhakar’s hands by now, so I agreed, planning a time. He asked if we could start a day later.

“Why?” I asked.
“Because,” he responded, “If we start the next day, it will be Vajra Guru. The day in India when we honor our teachers. It’s a most sacred day and fortuitous for my pursuit.”
Perfect.

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When we sat down for the lesson, we both did our best to fill our roles. He took off his shoes and touched my feet in a sign of respect. I blushed and almost shooed him away before recognizing his sincerity. In turn, I sipped chai and lent him my guitar for the lesson, which he cherished with careful hands. We worked the basics and made slow but steady progress. His patience struck me. It’s unusual for a grown man to take slow growth with such grace and unwavering persistence.

We concluded the lesson. He was concerned my chai had run cold. I assured him there would be more chai to drink later. He apologized that my focus on the lesson drew me from enjoying my tea. I laughed. Recognizing my sincerity, he laughed too.

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The next day he asked me into his office, a small room with painted cement walls and one medium size window made just a little too high to be enjoyed while sitting. We had just finished a lunch of roti, dal and aloo gobi.

“I want to share with you my favorite music,” he said. “This is Ustad Bismillah Khan. He’s a famous Shehnai (like an Indian oboe) player from Bihar. He spent his study in Varanasi, playing in the Hindu temples along the Ganges.”

We listened for several minutes, the tables providing the steady background for the instrument as it floated from the long strides of introduction into the furious ornamentation and flash of the finish.

“Prabhakar, what does Ustad mean?” I asked.

“It means maestro. But unlike for Hindus, who use the term Pandit, Muslims typically use Ustad do denote a true master.”

“So if he was a Muslim, it was still okay for him to play in the sacred Hindu temples in Varanasi?”

“Ha. Yes. You see Chris, music can transcend even religion in India. It is common for students to take gurus of different religions. In their study, they will learn the songs the master knows. Often, this religious music will have been passed down from his guru. Hindu students will learn songs in praise of Allah while the Muslim students will learn devotions to Shiva. The music operates both inside and outside of religion in that way.

The power of music can even reshape the sturdiest walls of identity. Ustad Bismillah Khan learned his craft and preformed at the foot of the Ganga, the most sacred river in Hinduism. At the time of partition, he was encouraged by his fellow Muslims to move to West Pakistan. He refused, saying, “If I were to leave India for Pakistan, I may gain you as my neighbor, but who could replace my Varanasi? Who would be my sacred Ganga?”

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In my pursuit of education, it’s always wonderful to learn the old lesson that I am always in the learning, even when I teach.

Wild Dogs Redeemed: The World Conspires

2008-09-08T16:09:00.000+05:30

There is breaking news with regards to my last entry.

You remember the story of the wild dogs stealing my sneaker. In this tale, I revealed that I had reached the peak of my own ridiculous behavior/decision-making by putting a mothball in my shoe as means of deodorization. Well, I didn’t actually tell the whole story. In fact, I left out an important chunk. But because of the eventual outcome, now I can and will tell it with some degree of pride intact.

The reason the moth ball made sense to me as a potential solution to my problem was because when I arrived to the Jungalow, I opened my closet and crashed backwards with the hectic and unmistakable stink of mothball. The odor, so pungent its still on the tip of my nose, seemed the only smell big enough to crush the wild dog smell. Say what you will, but that was my reasoning.

Now, since the mothball smell was that strong, you can understand why I tossed them out immediately, knowing that otherwise they would stink my whole wardrobe. I tossed them into the small garbage can in our room without a second thought. Well, here comes the more revealing part of my idea to eat the shoe odor with mothballs. As you can now see, in order to actually follow through with my idea, yes, I had to dig through the bin in my room. It actually had a fair amount of trash in it (my roommate had just unloaded his paperwork from previous travel) so I crouched down and began to sift it.

Quickly, I identified the mothball at the bottom. As I yanked it out, I actually took some papers with it and they flopped out onto the ground. Nigel, my Australian roommate, curiously observing my American problem solving in action, exclaimed, “Hold on a minute mate!” In a singular act of redemption, a small hologram had flown out along with the papers and came to rest with them on the floor. He reached down and picked it up, lifting it into the range of the Jungalow’s bare light bulb. “It’s the code! It’s the code for Windows!”

You see, for the past two weeks, Nigel had been laboring over his computer. In a last ditch effort to save it, he reformatted. Unfortunately, the codes he had for the Windows program didn’t match up with the disc he was trying to use for installation. It had been slowing our work and frustrating him beyond belief. Without any knowledge of where it was, he was staring down a bill to buy a new license and a trip down to Pune, 3 hours away and the nearest city for that kind of software. Now it seemed to drop right out of the sky. Later that night, he came back to me and said that the codes worked flawlessly and his computer was back in action.

It was an extraordinary and absurd turn of events – the kind of completely unlikely chain reaction that actually happens in life and helps me to believe in the unbelievable.

Morning Jewels and The Prodigal 992

2008-09-04T22:06:00.001+05:30

Every morning I wake up at about 6:00. The morning light still distant, I can see the sky through the jungle leaves, painted grey-blue like the storm clouds over the sea. Birds fly and sing. The first ones. The birds that remind the other birds that the time has come to sing and talk and be awake. I am not a bird. So I turn over and go back to sleep.

At 6:55 I get out of bed. My feet hit the stone floor of the bungalow. I’ve grown accustomed to the fact that it’s not cold on the ground but rather warm and cozy. Not like the rock lining a fireplace, but more perfect for an early morning. (Wow. I just remembered a project I completed for Miss Blackstone’s 4th grade science class. We had to invent something [in theory] and advertise it to the class. Oddly enough, I invented a floor heater so you never had to have cold feet in the morning. Man, that’s still a good idea, and here I am just writing on a blog ☺). Now I can join the birds by giving a shout at my roommate Nigel and telling him to get a move on. He must think I am like the first bird, so he rolls over and goes back to sleep.

I take a look outside. The bungalow, a simple three-bedroom house with a small kitchen and two bathrooms sits in a patch of jungle (should start calling it the jungalow) and far removed from the majority of the center grounds. You have to traverse the thicket to get through from the back or down a gravel path from the main road. It’s secluded and getting there at night can be quite a challenge and dodging the odd snake makes for a good adventure. For now, I’m mostly surveying the area to make sure that the wild dogs and monkeys haven’t snatched anything else from our stocks. Already we are down a bath towel and one of my New Balance 992s. (as a side: I did find the shoe eventually, but it went for a pretty good ride and I’ve had to seriously consider what risk I might run by wearing it again. In a brutally honest demonstration of my denial in dealing with this problem, I will say that when I found it, I brought it inside and couldn’t figure what to do with it. In a move of desperate procrastination, I put a moth ball in it to see if it would eat the smell of wet leather. Writing that now and quite apart from the moment, I can truly see just how ridiculous that choice seems, though reasonable at the time. Wow, I just made myself laugh. And I haven’t checked back yet…Oh boy…on we go – and this was supposed to be a more thoughtful blog and here I am writing about shoes, foot warmers and mothballs. I am praying that this entry can be redeemed from here.)

When I return inside, I take a seat just inside the window that lets in the light. I take my morning quiet. Reading a passage from the Bible usually and then spending most of the time to write and think about life the day and questions I usually don’t take the time to consider during the course of the day.

It’s not something I often do with my crew at home, but my mates here do the same (in their own way) and we get it together after 30 minutes or so to share with each other whatever’s been going through the heart and mind. My teammates here think and live thoughtfully and creatively and I’m grateful to hear their insights on life. Sometimes mundane, sometimes funny, sometimes profound and powerful, they all bring a special kind of light to the beginning of the day. When we share, they inspire me and I get down what I can. Here is a collection from our first weeks together.

Emotions are our teacher. But they are one of many teachers. They are important, but they are not my sole guide.

When the lips of heaven address you by name, pause and listen closely.

The greatest enemy of humanity is half-truth.

When I say to someone – “I am too busy” – it places the doubt in his mind: “Do I matter?”

Being a good potter is not just knowing how to work the clay. One must also work the clay with the right spirit

If you have clarity, share it. But share it in love. Love should be a pre-requisite for opening one’s mouth.

I write this and ask for your jewels. What’s been the thought or phrase or reminder that’s been coming to you lately. One little gem that you can share with the small community that visits here from time to time. Share with me and I’ll pass on the good word back to my crew here.

Life From Rocks

2008-08-31T14:52:00.008+05:30

Driving back from Baramati in a Tata Sumo packed full with passengers and freight, I stared up the valley walls at the rising tabletops of the Deccan Plateau. Crusty red earth spread to the horizon. The air dry as a desert and the land like tinder. On the valley slopes, smoke puffed up, filling the air with black soot that faded eventually into the brilliant blue sky. I asked about it and the driver responded with a classic Indian head waggle. I pressed and he said that wildfires occurred frequently during the hot season. His tone and comment suggested regularity, so my concern passed. We arrived into Asia Plateau, where I unpacked and quickly forgot the thought.

It was my last week in India and the moments passed easily – learning simple Chinese phrases, taking walks to the plateau and enjoying the final tastes of homemade curries and dals. But surprise struck one afternoon as I lazily sipped tea under the shade of a eucalyptus tree. I smelled smoke. At first, I thought nothing of it. In the Indian countryside, the smell passes through the air from the many fires used to bake chipatis and burn natural waste. I’d grown accustomed to it wandering through the air and wafting under my nose. Yet this time, the scent punched hard – pungent with proximity. Lifting my eyes, I watched with interest as a number of men moved hurriedly down the hill to the gates of the conference center. Curiosity pushed my legs in their direction.

The brush near the gate burned with vigor. The smoke, once faint, gained intensity towards the base of the road. Heat blasted my face and the fire spread, not raging wildly, but somehow everywhere. Flames here, another burst there. I observed the firefighting methods of the men carefully and thrust myself into action.

With water limited for conservation, I took my hands to some dried brush and began to thwack the fire in hopes of suffocating the flames. Furiously, I raised the collection, took aim at the flames and smashed hard at the source. Sometimes it worked, other times it beat back, the oxygen pushing the flame further a field rather than to extinction. Ash circled around. My sweat flowed in response to the heat. We didn’t work together, but not as individuals either. Like a gang in a barroom brawl, we bashed at our individual opponents, occasionally turning around to team up on a particularly difficult foe. Slowly and with great effort, the tide turned.

When we stamped the last of the fire, I felt the rush of jubilation. Challenge raised, response overwhelming. The smoke continued to rush skyward, but the hiss and crackle of burning brush had long since faded. I surveyed the territory. The fire left a sizeable chunk of earth charred and undergrowth incinerated. The men’s faces, wet with sweat and smeared with soot looked spent, but relieved. We had stopped any major structural damage to the buildings. Exhausted, we retired from the heat of the fire to the continuing heat of the midday sun, dodging inside to wash our faces and sip the cool refreshments prepared by the village women.

********************************************************************

Two and a half years have passed since that wildfire. Burned into my mind, the memory came up as I once again climbed through the Deccan on my way to Panchgani form Mumbai. Now on the other side of the year from the hot season, the bus passed through the valley and up the slope on a brilliant and cool day, surrounded by a sea of green countryside. The cracked red earth of April became the bounty of August, lush with the spoils of the monsoon. After crashing for a night in Asia Plateau, I woke up and wrote this in my morning quiet.

********************************************************************

Thankfulness fills my heart. The monsoon rains gifting new life to the tablelands and her valleys below. Mist tumbles over the plateau, sweeping down like a waterfall.

I don’t ever recall being in a place that teemed with so much life. The restless bugs that crawl on my body and across the stone ground. The lone caterpillar loping about – the wavering curl of his back. The constant chatter of song birds, welcoming and waving at the morning light. Above them all, the whistler. Her clear, full tune must be the envy of all. The flying insects buzz and flutter in and out of sun and shade. The single, giant ant and her constant legs, running wildly.

The grass green as if newborn. White blossoms bursting from their cradle. Trees of such variety they dazzle with a million hues. Forest so dense that eyes cannot penetrate their depth. Creepers shooting up and down building walls and across footpaths. Petals, fresh and full, reflect the shining sun. Life popping from the red rocks – where it seems no plant should grow.

The rain and water arrive in abundance to give life and opportunity. A lesson that even in the driest place, the darkest night or the hottest soil, life can rise and transform the landscape from desolation to symphony.

But how can a plant grow from a rock?
How can a seed thrive without soil?

The rain answers these mysteries by outpouring spirit into a desperate land.

I turn again to myself and ask: “How might I be a drop of rain amidst the monsoon – that I may be a part of life-giving when it seems that life has gone?”

On The Road Again

2008-08-28T21:09:00.002+05:30

It must be time. The flight attendants are wearing saris, I’m hearing a lot of Hindi and “I Just Called to Say I Love You” is playing elevator-style on this Air India 747.

I stash my Washburn-filled gig bag, sit down and watch as a scene unfolds before me; An older Indian couple fusses with their bags and the overhead compartments. The controversy is that they can’t fit their bags directly in the overhead with their seat number on it, which they believe is solely allotted for them. It happens to be small and full of bags from passengers in the area, including my own. We have drama. In one of my favorite India customs, the entirety of the section begins to gather round the increasingly exasperated couple to add insight and generally to see what will amount from the developing drama. Voices raise. Children watch in anticipation. The flight attendant arrives. Literally, it couldn’t be a smaller issue, but this is custom and I embrace. I do my best to convince them that they can put it in one of the several empty storage units further back. It eventually works. The crowd disperses to their seats and voices quiet as the cabin calms to the newly-audible elevator jams of Air India.

The storage situation is squared, but the heat is here. Grounded planes so often suck on the AC front. With a filling flight, even a slight up and down breaks a sweat. My fidgety neighbors add heat. Preparation for India I presume. I will arrive at the end of the monsoon and, I hope, some cool air. Of course, few places warm like India and at some point between here and Cambodia I’ll sweat just because I’m breathing. Oof! Let’s get airborne and leave that thought behind.

Today has been a strange day. One that has left me with a feeling I can’t quite pin down. I feel excitement but I’m not excited. I feel anxious but no anxiety. I feel on an adventure but not adventurous. Curiosity, but not curious.

It’s not a malaise or ambivalence. It’s almost like normal. And perhaps it is. I’ve been living on the go for a steady three years and packing today happened so smooth and fast that it took (and still takes) me some convincing to believe that I’ll be gone for a while. It’s the life I’ve been crafting and it’s a life that brings me joy. Still, I’m feeling surprised and a little strange when I stop to think of the trip.

My friend Sean says it should feel different, and that it is so even for him. I’ve gone before. I’ve come back. My Mom said its like going back to your sophomore year of college. Strangely, that seems so accurate. Even though I bought a one-way ticket to the subcontinent this time, I feel a sense that I’ll return sooner rather than later upon AfL’s conclusion in May.

I hit my light switch on the armrest console and a spotlight smacks my neighbor in the face. Hmmm…more problems with the neighbors? I ask him to try his light and another spot drenches my face. An electrical mixup probably around since the plane’s virgin flight. Taking in the retro interior, amenities and the current light situation, the woman turns to me an delivers in a brilliant Indian accent: “I this plane needs to be junked!”

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Any flight to India will hold a few classic events:

Inter-Continental Cuisine: Upon receiving my Newark-Paris dinner, I scoped the plated to find a balanced Euro-Indian plate. “Brilliant,” I thought, “They are easing me back into the scene.” Without hesitation I crushed the chicken curry and quickly turned to the garden salad. After picking at some lettuce and tasting a few bell peppers slice, I uncovered a string bean. “What a treat,” I thought. “Nice work Air India! A little random, but this string bean actually looks perfect right now!” I pop in and chew only to immediately taste the unmistakable smoke of a chili pepper. Yes, a little less string bean and a lot more green chili, raw and unseeded. Blazing, I turn to my neighbors in disbelief and mute, only able to exclaim with my eyes that I indeed have gnoshed a screamer. “Oh, you are very brave Chris!” they observed. “You must be very much liking your Indian spices!” With mouth still afire I begin to pour the creamy keer dessert down my throat. By the time I finally cooled, I had to laugh that my first culinary injury of the trip occurred before I even touched land!

Wake Up! Open Your Eyes!: Throughout the flight Sree, my clumsy flight attendant, demonstrated the barest sense of fluency with her position. I couldn’t complain, but those of you who fly know the difference between a savvy FA and the one who just hangs on to that job. Well, dearest Sree earned a place in my forever travel hall of fame at about 9am plane time (3am home time). Finally fast asleep for about 90 minutes, Sree welcomed me to the morning with a smash. Yes, her breakfast service cart blasted my knee from short range, jolting me from sleep and welcoming me to French airspace. Unsurprisingly, dearest Sree continued her work without any mention of this event (to which I could only conclude that either a) she didn’t notice it happened or b) it happens frequently enough that its not worth her mind. I still laugh thinking what my face must have looked like in that moment of awakening.

Singh is King: An hour away from Mumbai Air India mercifully decided not to air another Bollywood movie (a subject that may need a whole entry at some point. I almost rolled out the prayer mat to thank God on the plane, but I thought that might draw some suspicion.). As one is too many for me, you can imagine my joy at three successive flicks. Spared at last, AI decided to offer us “Potpurri”. “Potpurri” was generally good, if only for the fact that it was the first entertainment I could actually watch without feeling that I had eaten three cotton candies in a row on a hot summer day. “Potpurri” hit its high point when they aired a 7-minute fashion. The novelty of course was that the show entirely consisted of Sikh men as the models. The beards and turbans struck an amazing contrast with the runways of Paris and Milan and prepared me for my later viewing of the uber-hot “Singh is King” on the way to Panchgani from Mumbai.

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Touch down in Mumbai. We rattle down the runway and taxi to the gate. On cue, the plane seems to stop and many begin to unpack the overheads. Then the plane starts moving again. This seems to faze no passenger, as everyone continues there unpacking as we continue to taxi for another minute. I’m definitely back now.

Leaving the plane and airport I connect with my old friends Alex and Nigel. They’ve been waiting for me dutifully at the airport since they landed two hours earlier. It’s now 1:30am. I exchange my dollars into rupees and we walk out into the cloudy monsoon air of late-August Mumbai. It’s cooler and cleaner than I remember. It starts to rain as we pack tightly into the bumblebee-colored ambassador, our bags tied onto the trunk by rope. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for almost 18 months. All those feelings of departure fade away and clarity comes to mind. I am here. This is where I am meant to be.

Engine on. Windshield wipers on. We roll off into the Indian night.

Looking Back and Looking Forward

2008-08-26T18:56:00.004+05:30

Panchgani
India

It's been some project, but I've backdated a lot of thinking and experiences that I had while visiting the States in August. I arrived in India on Sunday and lots will come from here soon, but I hope you will grab a chance to see where the road has taken me, who has come along and what all of that has meant. I look forward to posting you more from the subcontinent.

Peace,
Chris

“Right By the Beach…Boy-ee!”

2008-08-23T18:35:00.000+05:30

In a surprise move, I returned to Virginia Beach earlier than expected. I departed before Memorial Day, expecting to be gone from Old Dominion for at least a year. With plans to meet up with my parents and brother at my friends’ wedding, it seemed that any reunion at the beach would be unlikely. But as plans develop and the world turns, a clear path emerged. Instead of making a short family event after the wedding, I would head down for a full week at home, making it my last domestic stop before my flight back to India.

This news came with a sense of joy. My time in New Jersey continued to be brilliant from start to finish, but I started to feel overwhelmed there, both in positive and negative ways. My friends in Jersey and New York surrounded and supported me with love and care, welcoming me back and sending me off in style. Still, I needed some space to clear my head before the travels and Va Beach provided the perfect tonic for my tri-state restlessness.

Leaving Jersey brought a pang, but with clear skies and the glorious waterfront ahead of me, I landed with exhilaration. The week unfolded perfectly, as if scripted for me and my family. A few stories:

Crab Feast: When my Grandparents presented me with the idea of taking me out for a going away meal, I immediately declined saying, “I will be eating out for the next 10 months of my life, I am very happy to be eating in this week!” Yet my decision came back to haunt me when I found myself in a later conversation about crab. Yes, blue crab. I love crab. Hook me up with a crab feast and I’m on board. Let’s you and me eat crab all day until our lips burn with bay seasoning and our fingers will smell of shellfish for a week. Seriously, right now, let’s go.

I immediately went back to my grandparents, tail between legs. “Um, Papa, I changed my mind about going out to eat. Do you think we can go out and pick crab for a while?” Without hesitation we were on our way. A good family friend with the best connections in the beach came over for dinner and we pried him for the intel we needed. He concocted a plan with his local seafood guy and placed the strategy in our hands.

The next day we made our way out for a few morning errands before arriving at the Virginia Beach Seafood Market on Mediterranean and 21st. A dive epitomized. We got to the market half of the storefront and looked at the under-appetizing and under-stocked display. No service arrived, so we walked to the restaurant. Inside the service improved. A waitress called her crab guy and he walked out with a live #1 Jimmy. He sparkled. I mean the crab -- good-sized and looking tasty.

We ordered a dozen hard shells and a round of suds. The waitress covered our table in paper and we laughed at the décor. A ten-pointer, a corner hammock filled with stuffed animals, a map of the Chesapeake and two massive speakers that could have blown the paint off the otherwise bare walls of the tiny joint. Perfect.

The beautiful dozen came out steaming fresh. We gaped and then took up our tools to work the feast. Hammering and picking, knifing and cracking we handled the spread like old-timers, washing each lump of meat down with vigor. The conversation ebbed and flowed, Papa told stories and Grandma smiled. I ate at that lovely rate that a crab feast affords, slow and steady, never over full and never rushed. It reminded me of my mother’s favorite Italian proverb, “one never ages at the dinner table.” Given the look on my grandparents’ faces, perhaps one can even grow younger.

Making Kubb: If you read my blog in Sweden, you will be familiarized with Kubb, a game I picked up in Gotland. As a self-ascribed game-meister, furious with competition over the must mundane matters (a trait I treasure from my Swedish great-grandfather) I took to the Viking lawn game like a fish to water. Game of my ancestors that involves throwing wood around the backyard? Sold!

When I picked up the kubbs for the first time, I knew that it would become part of my life, I just didn’t know how. Well, the answer came sooner than expected. Thinking of what to do with the fam while the grands were in town, Kubb came to mind. Three generations of men in one house at the same time, definitely a good time to take a trip to the lumberyard, cut some wood and make a game of Kubb. With Dad and Papa on board, I had to sell them on the importance of making our own set. They suggested we buy wood and have it cut on the premises, but I told them that my Swedish ancestors (many of whom were woodsmen) would roll over in their grave if they knew their descendants had asked someone else to cut their wood for them. It simply was not an option, no matter how long or laborious the process. We would cut our own wood and make our own set.

After some initial research on the web (a remarkably helpful invention) I got the specs for the set, we took a trip to pick up the wood and returned with a fencepost, 8 foot of dowel and 8 foot of landscape timber. We marked off the measurements and Dad busted out the old Black&Decker circular saw and lopped off the pieces as I steadied the wood and Papa sanded the edges. Within an hour we had a genuine Kubb set before us. Satisfied with our work and our morning, we ate a hearty lunch and moved out to test out our set on the glorious afternoon.

Success on all fronts. Everyone enjoyed the game and agreed that we built a great set (easy enough to declare considering everyone else had not ever seen a set; but hey, can’t something be great in and of itself without comparison?). The whole event morphed beyond my own vision as the other began talking about buying some paint and decorating the set. The next day we spent “happy time” applying Swedish blues and yellows to some of the pieces. It became a family affair. I smiled with the wonderful feeling of connection with my presents and my ancients.

Eating: Many of you will know, my Mom can cook. If not, invite yourself over and she will gladly cook for you (plus, I’m sure she would like the company). It’s a hobby, it’s a gift, mostly its just flipping great. Dad brings in the dynamic of the grill and the house becomes home-cooked heaven near every night I visit. My mom sent me an email a week before I arrived and asked me to list my top choices for meals during my stay (blatantly the best email of my entire life). I obliged and ate like a king for a week. My choices in order:

Spaghetti and Meatballs; Fresh Italian Salad; Garlic Bread; Red Wine
Grilled Tuna and Grilled Vegetables over Fresh Greens; Mom’s homemade Oil and Vinegar Dressing
Cedar Plank Grilled Salmon; Asparagus; Cous Cous
Hamburgers; Fresh Tomato Salad; Grilled Corn
Lemon Squares
Leftovers from all of the above meals

Sitting on the Beach with Dad: About 8 years go my brother and I noticed my Dad chill out. Leaving New Jersey and getting to the beach seemed to vibe with his soul. The hyper activity and land-lockedness of central Jersey gave way to a short bike ride to the Atlantic. He started to get that look in his eyes I used to see when he would blow leaves around the yard in October. Tuned in and tuned out. Growing up near the Pacific, it became more and more clear that he belonged near the big water; His spirit balancing with the tides.

Going to the beach with my Dad now is one of my favorite activities in the world. For two guys who like to talk to each other, we talk little. We face different ways (me to the sun, him to the sea). We read. I talk on the phone. He does a crossword. We picked up a football and recaptured some glory running patterns on the sand. It’s hard to express the kind of joy I felt being a grown man and peacefully reveling in the fact that I was finally aware that having a catch meant something special to each of us.

The sun closes out. I go for a swim and get sandy feet. We laugh at the spectacle of a 6-year old boy chasing around his cousins with a dead crab he found on the shore. We watch the Mom try to corral the 5 children in her stead and commenting on her demonstration of the kind of resolve, attention and love that only mother’s seem to possess.

We pack up and leave the beach together. Dad to an elders’ meeting at Church. Me to coffee with a friend.

The Boardwalk: Bicycling makes me feel like a kid again. The speed, the freedom, the potential danger, the silly tricks, the pace and the wind. We’ve got two beach-cruisers at home, one black and one pink. I’m not afraid to say that when Andrew’s around, I’ve definitely worked out the pink one in the past, rocking the low-rider with the necessary attitude to make that work for me. When I’m solo, I get the black one, my Dad’s trusty steed.

My friend Jeff dropped me a nice playlist as my going away present to India and I’ve loaded it onto the old iPod. I’ve made a habit of taking a cruise from 59th street down to 1st, hugging the boardwalk and taking in the sights of summer. I like the music, the ride, the weather and the vibe, so I continuously wear a shit-eating grin the whole time and I try to make eye-contact with as many people as possible in hopes of spreading whatever feels so good inside of me to as many others as possible. This has proven to be quite a rewarding endeavor, often resulting in reciprocal happiness and only a couple of times being returned with the kind of look that makes me feel awkward and happy to be on a speedy bike.

Some of the best sights on the board walk.

5-seater group bikes whose riders constantly waver on the line of complete euphoria and complete disaster.
The late-August looks on the boys and girls who have been working the same hot dog or bike rental stand since May.
Parents trying to wash the sand off their children at the outdoor showers
The happy hour crew starting up by 3pm
The faces of each family member on a classic American family vacation
The teenage boys trying to act cool and impress the teenage girls. The teenage girls trying to act aloof and impress the teenage boys

Oh boardwalk and your thousand tiny dramas. Virginia Beach and your million little beauties.

The Summer of Emergence

2008-08-16T14:45:00.000+05:30

Watching Red Hook disappear underneath clouds and the wings of this prop plane, its with a smile I put on my headphones and cue up Vampire Weekend’s “Oxford Comma”, my jam of the week and my soundtrack out of Jersey.

It’s been a full and instructive trip to New Jersey, the kind of trip that catches me by surprise. Life is full of expectations and I expected a lot from my return to my cultural home. It was a kind of homecoming and sanctuary amidst the summer in Europe and the upcoming trip to Mumbai.

Jersey a sanctuary? Yeah yeah, laugh it up. For all the haters out there, I’m a robust Jersey-phile, always have been and graciously thank the place for being the fertile ground where I have built friendships, played summer baseball, shucked the world’s best corn and lived the majority of my childhood. So Jersey is my sanctuary. It’s my gamehendge.

My expectations for this 3-week romp were significant. I was to be a groomsmen in one of my best friend’s wedding. I was organizing a band. I had a fantasy football team to draft. It would be fun, full of friends, full of nonsense and depth at the same time. But one idea kept coming to mind through it all.

I’ve called this the summer of transition. It’s the summer of emergence. The summer where I could see that my life was moving in flow with so many of my friends. Stretching into new territory. Traversing terrain of marriage, new children, new relationships starting and old ones ending. People leaving jobs to travel, people leaving travel to new jobs. New recordings and writings. Reaffirming what’s good, restoring its luster and reestablishing its value. Trying new ways to make things fresh. Letting go of the stale and outdated models.

Emergence. That which breaks through the old. The arrival. Like the well, tapped for the first time, releasing the pure water so long stored underneath. The land just needed to be worked. The well needed to be dug. The digging is hard work, but the reward great.

I’ve had the pleasure of digging common wells with so many this summer. The kind where you go in with somebody, get dirty, work hard. You yell at each other. You curse the ground from time to time. You take a break and sip tea together. You give pats on the back and give encouragement. You show up when the other can’t go and they pick you up when you fall. You work together.

And when the water arrives, it’s the signal of the new. A signal of possibility. The refreshing flow of emergence.

The Jersey Chronicles: Gatherings, Gifts and Goodbyes

2008-08-15T20:52:00.000+05:30

Last night I had a modest going away party in Jersey City. My friend, Sean, reminded me of the week-long departure blast I had three years ago before my last trip to India. Long nights of barbecuing and toasting. I had been in DC for two years and it signaled a major turning point in my young life. Last night differed dramatically in size and in scope (a reflection of many things) and seemed to fit in perfectly with everything I’ve been doing and experiencing the past weeks in Jersey.

We collected early and welcomed a drenching thunderstorm from the West. Lightening twice shattered the air leaving us shuttering on the porch. The torrent beamed laser rain down onto the sidewalks, exposed I-beams and car roofs -- powerful enough to create a dynamic 360-degree spray, dousing pant legs and testing the endurance of my Rainbow leather. I had to make a run out for supplies and got to use the greatest umbrella on record. The oversize Belvedere automatic covered a square yard and opened and shut with the ease of a well-oiled hydraulic pump.

Upon my successful return we relaxed over a spread of Thai curries and ate fully. When we finished and without notice, my friends gathered closely around. One stood up and read a hilarious and touching poem she wrote in honor of my departure. Then they handed me a bag – a gift. I didn’t see this coming. After all, I was leaving of my own volition and while I was happy to celebrate I did not see a gift in the mix. Still, I opened it. Inside I found a weighty box and I realized immediately what it was. 10 days earlier I lost my brand-new digital camera in the madness of the wedding weekend. They bought me a new one.

I felt overwhelmed by the thoughtfulness and the out and out care of the gift. To be honest, I did not think a new camera was in my budget for the trip and I thought about getting a new one but mostly as a luxury item. I wanted one badly, but did not know if it would happen. Now, it lay in my hands as a gift. I felt emotions running through my body, leaving me on the edge of tears and running my hands through my hair in half-disbelief and half-gratitude. And the giving didn’t stop. They went on to completely overwhelm me by donating generously as a group to my work with Sometimes. It’s the first time in my life I remember feeling utterly speechless.

I couldn’t talk for about 2 minutes as it all hit me like a train. All this writing and thinking I’d been doing about friendship and caring for others in their time of need was coming back to me in force. Except instead of the giving to another, I was receiving from an incredible outpouring of friendship in ways that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around. I felt emotional and wondered “why?” But to them, I could see that this just emanated form them as the most natural thing a friend would do for another friend. There example exquisite, I realized that I have much more to learn about friendship.

The rain concluded her part in the scene. The focus moved away from gifts and departures and fell back into the comfortable exchange of stories, dreams and ideas. The playlist from the wedding set chilled in the background. I did too, just needing a place to sit as I considered relationships, both on that back porch and those I will start and renew in a short time in India. Tonight’s friendship lesson of purity, generosity and thoughtfulness will come with me.

The Jersey Chronicles: The Junction Draft

2008-08-11T20:34:00.000+05:30

For about 6 years, The Junction fantasy football league has held court, ushering a brand new era of gridiron enthusiasm in my close-knit group of friends at home. We’ve built a tradition over the years to include a live draft on a Saturday in August. It’s turned into a day that some of us now call “Second Christmas”.

Why Second Christmas? For one, it’s a day you receive gifts. You get a whole new fantasy football team, which is nothing more than a fun toy for a young man who loves football. Second, its time for family to get together, eat food and celebrate the goodness of close relationships. We arrive early and go to bed late. We toss in a game of whiffle ball and a lot of hot dogs and hamburgers.

A growing highlight of the day evolved from the league’s general appreciation of American craft brews. As the beer-tasting hobby grew, several league members began to brew their own beer. After a few initial tries, the brewers gained traction on the slippery slope of homemade beer and starting producing some quality beverages. Last year, about half of the league brought coolers full of unmarked bottles and shared them with the party. This year, the unmarked bottles turned into pony kegs with fully pressurized systems. The tastiness grows with each passing year. It may actually be the best part of our late summer ritual.

With each year the legend of The Junction grows. This year will be no different. Last year a rookie took the glory after snatching up Tom Brady in the 2nd round. We watched as he pounded a brass nameplate onto the Junction Stump, our league’s Stanley Cup. I vowed revenge on that team for knocking me out in the semifinals last season en route to his championship.

It’s a twelve-team league and we play points per reception. Given that we drafted on the 9th, I feel pretty good about my work. I picked fourth and we worked a snake draft. Here is the 2008 depth chart of Zie Beserkers

QB
Brett Farve

RBs
Joseph Addai
Willis McGahee
Rudi Johnson
Rashard Mendenhall

WRs
Terrell Owens
Anquan Boldin
Calvin Johnson
Javon Walker
Marty Booker
James Hardy

TE
Jeremy Shockey

DEF
Dallas Cowboys

K
Kris Brown

Summer’s closing and football is starting. We’ll see how well I can manage from the subcontinent.

The Jersey Chronicles: Good Lovin’ and More Wedding Jubilation

2008-08-06T14:52:00.003+05:30

Every once in a while, I find myself in a transcendent place. A place where relationships of love and service mix with celebration and spirit. A place when I feel that I’ve glimpsed the great possibility of heaven.

This weekend I experienced that. Not for a moment, but for a weekend.

Two of my good friends married each other in Princeton, my old hometown, in the backyard we used to play in as kids. He’s of European-American roots and his wife is Ethiopian. They met at university and have started a non-profit in Jersey City called Rising Tide Capital, an organization dedicated to the economic empowerment of low-income communities through entrepreneurship. Throughout the years I’ve known them, they offered me a model of love as individuals, as a couple and in the way that they serve the community around them.

When they announced there wedding date last winter, I felt sure I wouldn’t be there. I planned to spend much of this year in Australia in preparation for Action for Life. I told them immediately that it was unlikely that I would attend, but that I promised to work towards making it possible.

On New Year’s Day, we sat down in a diner in Manhattan and concocted a plan. I would work at Rising Tide Capital and my compensation would be a ticket to their wedding. It seemed a cosmic plan. An RTC project quickly arose in correlation with a break from my work. It would be three weeks, a fair amount of time, we both assessed for the agreed upon compensation.

I rolled up to Jersey in March and worked on their new website. I managed content and worked with Joomla for the first time, stretching my technological savvy in directions previously untapped. For the first time, I got to see their work up close, lived with them for the duration and walked out feeling that we had done something important, productive and satisfying. More importantly we completed the foundation on the bridge of friendship we’ve been building for years.

I bought a ticket for Europe with a return for the weekend before the wedding itself.

You see, amidst the crazy preparations in advance of the wedding, there was a serious debate over music at the wedding. Since I love music and being the only groomsman actually staying in the apartment, the three of us tried to sort out the scene. Over hours of conversation and research we finally realized that the only way to appease the taste of all parties was to hire a DJ. His family wanted some more traditional American wedding music, while her’s wanted more traditional Ethiopian. The engaged wanted world music, but found that the only band they liked, well, they didn’t quite have the “right style” to cut it at the family event. So we agreed, without extreme enthusiasm, that we would go with the DJ.

But it got me thinking. They had mentioned that they wanted to hear some music from our crew of friends, many of whom are very talented musicians. I asked if they would be cool if the crew of us organized something. Well, one song quickly swelled into a set of music. I offered to coordinate the effort. I had a vision of what it could be and I wanted to part of making this wedding an event to remember.

We got to work immediately: recruiting the band, picking the set list, orchestrating the music. Prep was going well (even from my overseas post), but I wasn’t sure if it would all come together. We had one weekend to get it to performance level and despite the talent, I didn’t know if we would be cohesive in time, much less with a set list peppered with music ranging from The Roots and Paul Simon to Oliver Mtukudzi and the Buena Vista Social Club.

Though the music, timing and amount of people presented a challenge, the guys in the band rose to the occasion. Even better, that motion was a reflection of something much greater going on. There emerged a spirit around the wedding. This backyard shindig brought in friends and family from around the world to help in the planning and operation. Whether someone ran shuttle service to the PJ train station, tied endless bows on wedding programs, barbecued while others relaxed, picked up a missing case of water or picked up last minute tuxedo changes, it felt like a whole host of supportive spirits surrounded the bride and groom and their families.

The big day arrived after a fantastic rehearsal dinner. The band gathered to sound check and practice in the morning. The session went well but ended within minutes of disaster as a crushing summer thunderstorm burst onto the scene at 12:15. A drastic 15 minutes followed as rampant fear of a rain-soaked event spread about. Fortunately, the clouds quit and the sun broke though for the remainder of the day.

We took from the rehearsal to change and then quickly, the groomsmen assembled outside the hotel to do the Hiloga, an Ethiopian wedding ritual. It meant waiting till the women got organized, so we waited outside the hotel for 75 minutes in the stifling heat, soaking our tuxes through while we learned the words and dance steps to the vibe. We went to it like our lives depended on it (traditionally, the groomsmen are responsible for winning the bride’s family over) and we delivered. The ceremony buzzed and joy emanated.

It carried straight through the wedding ceremony where love again surrounded the newlyweds. I relished hearing the stories later of how the bridesmaids fought against the pain of 75 minutes of heals on cobblestone to be there for the bride. Similar stories came from the groomsmen who worked through the oppressive heat in bowties and three-piece tuxedos. As the kiss signaled the closing, we left to hit the reception.

Of course, that couldn’t occur without a little drama. Turns out that the guests took some time to arrive at the shindig, so the wedding party cruised the Junction for a good 90 minutes before getting to our destination. Instead of wilting in the delay, the team got proactive and took on an impromptu photo shoot at The Pond, our old high school haunt and now a wedding day activity forever burned in the collective memory.

By the time we arrived the party roared. We ate heaps of Ethiopian food and watched as Uncle Solomon handled the master of ceremonies duty with expert attention and soul. Classic speeches poured from the lips of loved ones and timeless dances made the dance floor drip with emotion and love.

The night cruised ahead and all that lay ahead for me was, finally, the big set. Our good friend Nicole introduced the band and the well-lubricated gathering hopped to the dance floor like a swing dance hall. Without much further notice, Jeff started laying down the acoustic guitar line to Sublime’s “What I Got” and the classic sing-a-long took the night away.

Its hard for me to express what exactly I felt during that moment of my life. At one point mid-song, I leaned over to Sean to tell him how amazing life felt. But when I looked over I couldn’t utter a word. I just started laughing. That wild kind of laugh when all you feel is complete joy tingling through your body and the face just starts behaving completely independently of the brain. Beautifully, Sean was my mirror and his expression encouraged me to plunge into the sea of joy and love that seemed to bounce off us, to the walls, to the people, to the wedded couple and back again. Pure joy. Pure pure joy.

The set finished and the party slowly started to scale back. We rallied for one more Hiloga celebration and carried Alex and Alfa off on our shoulders to their limo. The dancing continued until the police came to kindly inform us that they needed the party to end (and had, in fact, ignored a number of complaints to let us have a tremendous party for many hours). With an outpouring of goodness throughout the night, no one even bothered to argue, we had lived every moment of that wedding.

We celebrated love with love and joy with joy. A beautiful and constant cycle.