Khandala Getaway...

So I return to Bombay right before the last weekend of Devali break, only to be yanked out of the city one last time by my fellow AJWS volunteers! This weekend, instead of opting to stick around in Bombay to watch (and hear) fireworks going off all night, the volunteers took the long weekend as an opportunity to escape from the crazy Bombay life to a peaceful hill station North of the city, a place known as Khandala.

We actually split our time between Khandala and its brother city, Lanavla. There isn't much in either of these places, and that was what was appealing about them. Aside from the fact that Lanavla is the country's fudge and chikki (a candy akin to peanut brittle) capitol, there was little to distract us from our intention of spending the weekend trekking up, down and around the hills and valleys that the area was filled with. (Some might be wondering at this point why I wasn't distracted by the fudge... Sadly, while India has many wonderful foods, their fudge isn't quite on par with Belgium, to say the least...)

We stayed at something that was akin to a YMCA, a place called St. Xavier's Villa. We were lucky to get a room anywhere, as the weekend of Devali is somewhat like Christmas in the states, everyone's getting out of the city and everything is booked solid. Luckily, our next door neighbor's daughter is the head cook at St. Xavier's Villa, so we were in luck.

Our time at the Villa was nice, though the place felt something like a religious sleepaway camp. I don't know whether it was the rustic scenery combined with the religious paraphinalia that adorned the rooms, or whether it was the seventy Indian teenagers attending a weeklong "Confirmation Camp" while we were there that gave it this distinct atmosphere. I feel like the latter might have completed the effect. After we finished breakfast in the morning, the unconfirmed souls went off to outdoor classrooms to learn about the virtues of a good Catholic. As we sat on our Veranda at night, we watched as the teens sat around a camp fire singing what sounded like a song that had the format of bingo, though they weren't chanting b-i-n-g-o, they were saying other letters. We listened closer. "B-i-b-l-e, b-i-b-l-e," they sang. "B-i-b-l-e," they paused. "And Jesus is our savior!!" They finished off strong. We couldn't contain ourselves, we were all in stitches. The combination of the altered lyrics and the incongruity of hearing it at a hill station in the middle of India was just too much not to be amused by.

During the day, we spent our time hiking around the surrounding rocky slopes and dipping valleys. All the pent up energy of city life came rushing out into our thighs and calves, and we all experienced the joys of movement that city life in India is almost guaranteed to deprive. Our perils came not in the form of open railway cars or reckless rickshaws, but as less technically advanced dangers; falling rocks, narrow goat paths, and seemingly insurpassable physical obstacles. The air was fresh, the water cold and nights quiet. It was agreed by all that this a great way to getaway, and that this is certainly something we'll make a priority to do again.

Check out the pictures from our time in Khandala!

Respite reflections

As the smell of burning cow dung that fuels so many of the fires of rural India enters my nostrils, I know that I've arrived in Bodh Gaya. A far cry from Bombay, it is a small town with three or four roads, scores of monks and pilgrims, handfuls of monasteries and a solitary tree under which one of the most historically relevant existential realizations occurred.

An organization-wide break lasting a couple of weeks in honor of the Hindu festival of Dewali, a holiday of lights, allows me the opportunity to visit the religious studies program I participated in last year in India's northeast state of Bihar. I spend my time here reflecting and gaining perspective on my experiences so far in Bombay, as well as on the history of this country.

The work I'm involved in here requires me to understand the nature of the inter-religious conflict that has plagued the region for so long. I read and research on the roots of strife, and work my way forward to see how it's manifesting in the present.

As I sit in the library of the Burmese monastery where not one year ago I was studying a religion that holds nonharming as one if its highest ideals, I read of a conflict fueled by religious tensions that resulted in an estimated one million deaths at a time that should have been a great joy; the independence of one nation and the birth of another.

I read about people who had been neighbors all their lives, coworkers that had been eating lunch together for decades, turn on each other in a frenzy of hate and violence for the sole reason that one was a Hindu, one a Muslim, one a Sikh. I read about the Mahatma, the great soul that kept the city of Calcutta, known then as the most violent city in Asia, from tearing itself apart during the days following partition, and feel inspired. I read on, though, about the religious fundamentalists that assassinated that kind old man who cared so much about the people of the South Asian subcontinent, regardless of their religious persuasion, and feel disheartened.

Siddhartha Gautama gained enlightenment under a tree that's only a long stone's throw from where I sit, and believed that it was possible to end the suffering that plagues humanity. As I read, contemplate and meditate, I experience a jumble of emotions, of hope and of despair, of great compassion and of deep sadness. I wonder what, if anything, I can do during my short time here in this country, and in this world, to contribute to that vision of liberated minds and peaceful hearts. I find that itis essential simply to remain hopeful, to believe that change for the better, though difficult, is possible. I can see that without some belief, or even faith, that there exists some essential goodness to human nature I will have a lot of difficulty doing this work.