Shri Ram Ashram

I spent about a week at the Shri Ram Ashram/orphanage, and I loved it. I loved it so much, in fact, that I stayed longer than planned even though Mom moved on without me. She needed to get away from people and busyness, and just hike in the mountains and listen to lectures. I can understand that, but I was having such a fantastic time that I just wasn’t ready to leave.
There are 66 kids at Shri Ram, I think. And they all seem so happy. Of course, when you have 66 brothers and sisters, there’s bound to be some drama and discontent – for example, the game ‘sequence’ is quite popular, but only 2 or 3 people can play at one time, causing some difficulties – but for the most part, things run smoothly and everyone takes care of each other. Life here has actually reminded me a bit of my own childhood, of my group of friends who I became so close that they became, essentially, my ‘brothers and sisters’, of my own ‘didis’ and ‘bhais’ (adopted aunties and uncles) and of the general happiness of those precious, golden years.
My day took on a bit of a routine. I’d join the older boys for their CrossFit workout every morning. Rashmi, the director, started the program to get in shape and convinced the boys to join her by letting them out of Yoga. It is really a great program and the camaraderie between the boys and Rashmi is fantastic – it has really brought them together. It’s great fun to see the boys teasing Rashmi and encouraging each other. And I was accepted into their group very graciously. These boys are currently either taking their final exams and have been released from school to study or are waiting for their exams to be returned. This means that they are hanging around the ashram all day instead of being in school, so it’s easy and fun to hang out with them.
Also, the preschoolers are still here during school hours, so I can play with them. It brings back lots of nostalgic baby-sitting stories and I wish I could introduce my young friends from opposite sides of the world to each other. The youngest Shri Ram kid is only a few months old. She was found abandoned in a field and brought to the ashram, where she was named Sita, after the wife of Rama who was similarly found in a field when she was a baby. She is adorable, if underweight, but it seems her luck is looking up. In a sense, she is better off at this orphanage, with all its love and care, than growing up in a family that doesn’t want her and can’t support her. That’s the sad truth.
Everyone comes home at one o’clock for lunch and then studies in their rooms. The best part of the day is at 5: Recess!! A huge bunch of kids get together to play basketball. I’ve actually gotten a bunch of blisters on my feet from playing barefoot, but that’s not going to stop me. Rashmi engineered a boys vs. girls game, which was lots of fun. The boys won. By a lot. Really a lot. Our cheating didn’t help. We had 10 girls against 5 boys, but the boys are all about a head taller than the girls. (To illustrate this point, let me tell you – I was one of the tallest player on the girls team…and I’m 5’2”) So the boys just shoot from far away and then some other boy will keep bouncing up and getting the rebound shot until it goes in. Not that it usually took that long; Gautham is particularly good at the long distance shots. So the final score was 35 baskets to 1. (Baskets, not points!) It was quite discouraging, but we arranged for a rematch…and lost that as well. Finally, on the third day, we switched up the teams. It was much more even, but more difficult to remember who to pass to. I had lots of fun. I didn’t even really mind losing. Usually I’m really competitive (and I did play a bit rough, which shocked some of the boys a bit) but I had such a good time that it didn’t matter.
Mom and I also gave a Tae Kwon Do demonstration, which was fun. As always when teaching kids, or anybody really, we stressed the importance of not misusing the training. We kept the demo pretty simple actually; focusing on what’s actually useful, rather than what’s flashy and exciting. Moving properly, for example, was a key point. People who don’t train never really think that footwork can win or lose a fight. And after Mom had left, I gave a Martial Arts class in place of the CrossFit Kids session. (Every fourth day in Crossfit is a rest day, so the boys train the younger kids. I took this over for one session.) I taught the basic boxing Jab-cross-hook combination and showed them how to do rolls and back-falls. The rolls were a special request of Rashmi’s, so that they could roll if they fall down playing field hockey, but I’m not sure how much of an effect I had. A few kids got it, but I’m always surprised at how difficult it is for some people. Even when I started training, I’d been doing summersaults on the living room floor for years and it was merely a matter of modifying and improving what was already there. But these kids had never tried this, so we had to start from square one. It also didn’t help that all we had was a few yoga mats stacked up – not exactly the softest surface. The kids were quite surprised when I invited some of them to punch my hand so they could feel how to do it wrong and then how to do it right after I corrected them. They were quite tentative, even when I told them to hit it harder. I’m used to having my hands punched because I often just hold my hand out rather than going to find a pad when I’m teaching at home, but I’m pretty sure some people were quite sure I had lost my sanity. (Radha was especially convinced of this.) It was enjoyable though, and I had a few kids coming up to proudly demonstrate their punches for the remaining days. The best moment was when I told them to do their age in push-ups during the warm up. This is great in kids Tae Kwon Do classes, because the older kids have to do more. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize Rashmi had joined in. “My age in push-ups?” she asked. “My age?! Is this fair?” The kids thought the situation was absolutely hilarious.
The night before I left, I got to go to a wedding. You have no idea how excited I was! I spent at least half an hour picking out an outfit. There’s a trunk of donated clothing in the guest dorm that visitors have just left. Some of the stuff is really nice. After going through several options, I decided upon a lovely apricot Salwar Kamees. I am not usually a pink sort of person, but the color actually quite lovely, and the suit fit as though it had been tailored for me. By some chance, I even had earrings that matched perfectly. I wasn’t really paying attention to the time because I thought everyone was going and most of the children were eating. But as it turned out, only the older kids were invited, because it was their teacher getting married. (I only lucked out and got an invitation because Rashmi was looking out for me.) So when Barbara, another guest, yelled at me from her window that I should be getting ready, I was taken totally by surprise. I hurridly ended my conversation with Vijay and ran off to get dressed. Years of changing for martial arts classes payed off and I arrived back downstairs within 10 minutes, suit on, light make-up, hair brushed (sort of). But of course, we were operating on India time, so after all my hustling and bustling I just had to calm down and wait. Some of the girls redid my hair, and fixed my make-up, which was apparently too understated when I did it. We had to borrow lipstick from Andrea. And still we weren’t ready to go.
Finally everybody boarded the school-bus and we were off. But of course, even though we left late, we were still some of the first people to arrive. I wandered around for three hours with my new-found friends before the groom arrived. We wandered around, ate some of the food, talked and walked. It was fun. Rashmi said, when she us walking around, that I really looked Indian. I think it was partly my escorts and my clothes, but she was not the only one. An unknown woman bumped into me and looked absolutely shocked when I apologized in English, and with an American accent.
Unfortunately, we had to leave before the bride arrived because it was late and it was a school night. (Indian schools do not have Saturdays free) I was sorry to go so early but realized that the usual bedtime was 8 or 9, not 11.
My final day was bittersweet to say the least. I was looking forward to seeing the Himalayas, as I have been since the beginning of the trips, but there were so many sad goodbyes – more than almost any other place. Only VKV is comparable and I stayed there a month, not 6 days. Shri Ram is yet another place I will have to return to when I can afford to come back. In fact, it was upon leaving here that I realized that a piece of my heart has truly been left behind and I have finally decided concretely to return. I may even become an India Junkie and return time after time. However, that’s all in the future. The present, too, is wonderful.

From Princess to Pauper

I have gone from Princess to Pauper in 24 short hours. We left the lap of luxury around noon and took a pre-ordered rickshaw to the bus stand. Rickshaws do not generally frequent the Lake Palace Jetty and, I have to say, ours looked distinctly out of place amongst the classic cars. The bus ride from Udaipur to Ajmer was just your run-of-the-mill bus rude. Mom and I have really gotten used to traveling via bus. You just have to stare out the window for hours and accept time is passing, slowly, even though it doesn’t seem like it. I have found my iPod to be a huge comfort.
Unfortunately, the bus ride was not the end of the journey. We were actually headed for Pushkar, not Ajmer. We got a rickshaw. Unfortunately, a tout jumped in as well before we could leave. We didn’t make a big deal about it; usually you just listen to what they have to say, then tell them you already have hotel/restaurant arrangements and they go away. So we didn’t make a big hue and cry about it, just ignored him for the most part. But halfway up the first hill he turned around and said that one of our bags was gone. Sure enough, my suitcase was no longer sitting next to Mom’s in the back of the rickshaw. Mom and I both suspect foul play; we agree that it is very likely that the tout pushed it. There were several indicators. First of all, I just didn’t like the feel of him – he felt a bit slimy. I know that this is hardly evidence, but gut instincts should sometimes be followed and if Mom and I had been more awake, and hadn’t been feeling a bit sick, we would probably have had our guards up. He also, however, noticed the tag on the suitcase that said Lake Palace and commented on it. And when we were looking for it he asked if I had any jewelry in it. The rickshaw driver also seemed a bit more nervous than absolutely necessary and kept asking Mom to give up when she was walking along the road looking for tracks.
At one point while Mom was walking a group of young men surrounded the rickshaw and began asking questions rather aggressively. They seemed to be the local gang. Then they hopped into the rickshaw also, to “help”, but got out after a just a little while. They seemed a bit too familiar with the tout. I was really wishing I was more fluent in Hindi at this point because all I could catch was “one bag” and random verbs.
We did report the loss at the police station, but the officer didn’t seem particularly hopeful, although he said they would look. Mom didn’t say anything about the tout because he accompanied her into the station. Of course, I could be wrong. It seems likely that it was stolen because we didn’t find it. But it wasn’t necessarily planned. Some impoverished person could have found a deserted suitcase by the side of the road and seen little wrong with using somebody else’s misfortune to feed and clothe their family. I hope that this was the case and that it really does benefit someone who needs it.
Luckily, nothing valuable was in the suitcase so this is an inconvenience and a nuisance more than a real problem. All my money was on my money belt under my clothes and my iPod and camera were in my backpack which serves as a purse when traveling. And Mom had my passport. Thank goodness. Also in my backpack were all my allergy/asthma medicines, my journal with all my friends’ contact information and my random doodles and notes, and my toiletries bag. So I’m not that badly off, really. One of the great things about saris is that they are “one size fits all”, so I can borrow Mom’s.
I did lose a few things that I will miss, though. I really liked my beautifully embroidered camel-hide shoes, my new bedspread, the wooden Om I’d carved for my brother at VKV, some knives (one was a real Damascus blade with a horse-head pommel and silver inlay – a perfect Eleanor weapon) and the mortar and pestle Sarath gave me. That is entirely due to sentimental value; he’d given it to me to prepare a particular medicine but when I finished that medicine, he said I should keep it just in case I needed a mortar and pestle while traveling in India. Whenever I rearranged my suitcase and saw it, I would burst out laughing and happily remember all those hours at the hospital in good company. The terrible thing about belongings with sentimental value is that they can’t really be replaced. I was also somewhat miffed to lose my hiking boots. Honestly! I had lugged those silly boots around India so I could go hiking in the Himalayas. (And let me tell you, they take up lots of space and are not light.) And one week before I finally get to use them, they are gone. Ah well, life happens and then we move on.
So that’s how it happened; how Eleanor went from the Good Life to having next to nothing. I guess I got what I deserved for wishing for adventures.