01.09 beautiful people

today i meet up with abbas, another torontonian in the 'bai.

at india gate, he appears with his sister. he's in head-to-toe electric "talk-to-me" blue, a massive camera dangling from his neck. with the tou-rist 'tude, we head for lunch.

after, we walk down what must be "madaaam" street for a session of nodding and smiling and politely waving "no thenkyoo" followed by the ihw. at the keychain-walla, abbas orders 40 keychains engraved with the names of all his staff, and one for me, my folks, and my sister. i get mine in arabic, curious to see how it looks. it's kinda pretty...

at jehangir art gallery, painter gautam vaghela's exhibition knocks me out. his ancient fortresses and monumental mughal architecture along with such ferocious, vivid colour and dreamlike mystical creatures floating high above in bright reds, greens, oranges and yellows are pure genius. the old dude at the desk yells over and tells us to stop taking pictures. dude. it's gautam vaghela himself. abbas chats him up and snap snap snap takes his picture. i'm floored. the two other galleries inside are equally as impressive, but gautam's visual style is unmatched.

next off to the market for abbas-style charity work, also what i secretly call "robin hood" action. he buys twenty bags of rice from two shopkeepers, who load them into cabs. off we go, shopkeepers and all, to pick up crates of chai and then finally reach the mother theresa home for the disabled. 400 people live there. they have no families, no supports except for tireless sisters who run this place. amazing to hear three blind girls with facial disfigurations sing so beautifully. one girl, komal, makes purses and greeting cards to sell and make enough money for nursing school. i "buy" a card from her before we go. another girl follows me, trying to tell me something and pointing to her cheek all the time. i stop and give her a kiss but she keeps following me finger pointing at her cheek. i say, "ok - you give me a kiss now!". uproarious laughter. i didn't realise then that she was asking for help. she has a really bad toothache and was in a lot of pain.

i'm really moved. there are so many people in mumbai but none of them appear to be jaded, cynical and negative like so many people back home. on the contrary. so many indians, the poor, the homeless, even the disabled - may not have a shot at any rosy future, but they do what they have to do, what they can, to survive. and that's simply beautiful.

01.04 oro in auroville

yesterday i went to auroville, a town which lies 12 km north of pondicherry. ranjith gave me a lift there on the back of his motorcycle. now i want a bike for myself!

back to reality. auroville is a manufactured town, designed in the vision of "the mother". the goal or purpose is to realise human unity in diversity. of the 1,700 people who live in auroville, 1/3 are from india, the rest from all over the world. i had envisioned auroville to be a massive hippie commune, even though its endorsed and backed by UNESCO. my perceptions were bang on.

the layout of the town is a microcosmic representation of a galaxy, the matrimandir - or the soul of the city - at the centre. the path to the matrimandir begins at a humungous banyan tree, which has many pillar-like branches that have grown back down to the ground. the tree will eventually be one solid mass of wood.

emerging from the path of plants from all over the world is a giant amphitheatre, with a cement urn podium containing soil from 124 countries (ah diversity). what looks like a giant golden golf ball, the matrimandir itself, floats up, seemingly held in place by the red stone beneath.

the matrimandir is closed so off for the beach! back on the bike for a trecherous ride. ranjith slowed to a snail's pace to negotiate the bike over and around giant rocks and got caught in mud fields. thoughts of cracking my skull on the rocks or being swallowed up in quicksand floated through my head. but ranjith is an accomplished motorcyclist. we made it to aurobeach totally intact.

here is where i decided to skip my afternoon at the school for perfect eyesight. having raided nehru street in pondi earlier in the day, i came prepared with my boy-shorts and tank. any woman in the ocean will get ogled like crazy. blind bat that i am doesn't really care, but i had been chastized by some rude indian women at the ashram guest house for wearing a knee-length skirt (they talked about me out loud as they stood right next to me, so obviously bending to give my skirted ass some old fashioned cut-eye). now that's what i call shameless!

but i wasn't going to give up the salt water for some old hags. the water was divine. the waves, kind. i stayed until the sun started to come down and hunger set in. i swear my eyesight improved that afternoon in leaps and bounds!

01.01 meditation with the masses

the first thing i do this year is meditate.

i have been invited to bring in the new year at the global meditation at the ashram - at 6 am. at a regular new years, i'd usually be in bed or just be getting to bed at this time. so i wake up super duper early and walk 15 blocks to the ashram, eager to see what the global meditation will be like.

this is not a strange concept, though, i must explain. i am ismaili. it's ritual to meditate from 4-5am each morning. i have to admit, i haven't been to the mosque in the morning since forever. when i used to go regularly, it was great. when you meditate in the morning you bring in your day with such peace. and your days seem to go by with little conflict and trauma. there is something about meditation that i haven't fully explored yet but i will.

the ashram is full up. tonnes of people cross the street to meditate inside the educational centre. i decide i don't want to remove my shoes so i install myself with the throngs meditating in the street between the two buildings.

quick note: it's quite a strange sight to see for the first time, but indians sit everywhere on the ground. you go to the train station or the airport even and there everyone is, en masse, sitting on the ground having a snack. same thing with the sidewalk. or the street, or just behind a parked truck, exhaust pipes overhead. this is my first time sitting like that. i gotta be honest. it's really a yucky feeling.

then, organ music floods the street from the ashram and i wonder - how can you mediate to this?! for as far back as i can remember, i have somehow associated organ music with horror movies and sinister moods. my attempt at embracing the ashram is not proceeding well!

latecomers are now relegated, due to the increasing lack of space, to the periphery of my visual and hearing boundaries, therefore my consciousness. i close my eyes and attempt to center myself. the organ music continues, and then a lady's voice starts talking. it's the mother! but she's dead! wait - she's talking in french. she's telling me to relax, clear my mind and feel calm. i suddenly wish i was in my bed, but ok.

after 10 minutes, i get over the amplified organ music, the voice, and the dude sitting next to me craning his head to look at me. i begin to feel very calm.

after a half hour the music stops and people start to come back to life. i feel jipped. half an hour!! i have to admit, i did feel good after the meditation. i am used to the full hour at the mosque. half an hour is not bad, but the organ music has to go! as people begin to get up and dust themselves, a feeling of warmth comes over the crowd. its my first smile of the year - all sorts of people are wishing me and each other a happy new year. i walk to the far end of the ville blanche and come back to the guest house via the beach.

it is a magical morning. i spend the first hours of 2007 watching the bright red sun come up over the bay of bengal. there are dozens of people on the beach welcoming the new year with me this way, but i am happy to be alone with my thoughts. as i walk over to park guest house to get a cup of tea and ginger cookies (!), i notice a few old men doing yoga in the park. they smile at me and wish me a happy new year.

today is going to be a beautiful day.

12.30 la vie en pondi

pondicherry is charming.

the city has been growing steadily for 10 years. i am staying in the french quarter. this neighbourhood is marked by clean buildings and wide streets, and stretches about 15 blocks north up the coast of pondicherry, bordered by the canal to the west, and the beach to the east. driving in yesterday, i saw puducherry (the indian name reclamation process is well underway!), which i intend to visit soon.

today the vice president of india is paying a visit pondicherry. i take some time after my morning eye session to explore the city, the best way i know how - on foot. i walked for more than 5 hours.


the whitewashed walls of the buildings reflect the colonial french enclave's history; some being restored, with the blaze of bougainvillas climbing over walls. i am reminded of the decadent french quarter in new orleans (all my memories being pre-katrina). known as "ville blanche", the french quarter has many boutiques, french hotels and guest houses and even some french restaurants. much of this part of town is operated by french expats and affiliated with the city's most popular attraction: the sri aurobindo ashram, which i decide to visit today.

i may as well have gone to the moon.

after removing my shoes, switching off my cell phone and camouflaging my camera, i enter the main building where throngs of people shuffle in silent mobs toward the samadhi. the samadhi lies in a greenhouse-like courtyard within the ashram walls, the centerpiece of which are the marble tombs of sri aurobindo and his right-hand, french expat mirra alfasa (known to all as "the mother"). a large sign warns visitors: "please refrain from bringing flowers for the samadhi".

the place is full. does jim morrison's tomb at pere lachaise cemetary get this many visitors? i get caught up in the mass that is moving feverishly toward the tombs. radiating in every direction, followers from all corners of the world have scored prized seating on the courtyard floor to meditate facing the tombs. approaching the samadhi, teary-eyed visitors are lowering to their knees, kissing the marbled tops of the tombs, whispering prayers, eager to spend as much time as possible with the departed despots before being urged to move on or are forcibly wrenched free. i feel like an alien, a stranger to the mass outpouring of love and devotion to two mere humans who i know nothing about. my time has come. i walk past the tombs, more interested in people-watching than paying my respects. without muttering even a single anything, and careful not to touch the tombs or trip over barnacles latched on for dear life, i continue past, wondering what else there is to see here.

my answer came quickly: not much. i walk through the congested bookstore, photo shop (where you can buy limitless posed shots of aurobindo and the mother as personal souvenirs), and the preserved living room of the two, before collecting my shoes and emerging into the relative normalcy of the street.

i feel as though i just crashed a funeral. eager to shake off the weird feeling i have, i take in a visit to the pondicherry museum. it contained a mishmash of artifacts from excavations at the nearby ancient indo-roman port village of arikamedu, an extensive collection of french colonial furnishings from the time of general dupleix, and statues of mythic vedic gods and saints from hindu mythology.

in the midday heat, i return to the guest house, shower, change and have lunch. i inquire about organizing a car or rickshaw to show me around the larger city, perhaps go to arikamedu and auroville, the much-famed town built by the mother (this is also where the nice beach is - my real reason for going). apparently it's dangerous for a single female tourist (sft), to trust any old driver to take me outside this part of town. the young man at the ashram says he can arrange something for me but not today.

thankful for sound advice, i spend the afternoon checking out more of the city. i begin to wonder as i encounter several shops, the revenues of which support the ashram. part of the mother's vision as she took over control of the ashram and related departments when aurobindo went into seclusion before his death, was the creation of income-generating departments to support the ashram. but visiting expensive ashram shops like "aurofurn" designer furniture (very sleek and stylish stuff i got to admit!), "auroshoes" (leather shoes), "aurobati" (designer candles and incense), "aurotextiles" (designer clothes, handbags) and so on, i begin to think that the place is making a mockery of sri aurobindo's name... auro-this and auro-that.... would he be turning in his grave? or perhaps not, i wonder? we will never know. several locals tell me about the ashram, how they dislike the french, indulge me in the politics and corruption of the ashram itself, tell me of colony of locals and expats who have surrendered their lives (livelihoods) to live and devote their service to the ashram in the styled village of auroville 12 kms north. i conclude the ashram is a business after all, and has systems that make it function. in any case, i decide not to delve too deep into anything "auro", to maintain my own sensibilities.

tomorrow, however, i am going to auroville to check out the beach!