Learning How to Love God in India


Life in Hrishikesh is becoming progressively more difficult. Long gone are the carefree days of lounging at the beach and munching sweet papayas on the rocks. Indian pilgrims and tourists are flooding the city and the overall level of insanity creeps higher and higher every day, testing the last nerves of the handful of westerners who remain.

Mother Ganga has changed as well. Rainstorms higher up in the mountains fill her with silt, and as the water level rises, the current flows even faster. Already many people die in the Ganga regularly, mostly because they don’t know how to swim or they are unaware of the powerful currents coursing beneath the surface. The day our daily Ganga swim becomes impossible is the day I chelo Nepal…

The herds of huge Indian women bobbing back and forth in the streets are impossible to get around. I finally had to learn the words in Hindi for “don’t touch me,” (Kripya mujhe mat chuna) in response to the increase in random groping by Indian men. The babas have multiplied and my quiet Ukrainian neighbor at my ashram was replaced by eight middle-aged Indian women who chatter day and night. Indeed, it is rather difficult to appreciate Indians when there are thousands of them, when they are huge, when they constantly hawk lugies, when they refuse to queue up, and when they wake up at 4:30am to chant.

SO you might imagine there is, at times, some tension. Recent days have been spent searching (mostly in vain) for that one shanti spot left in the city…we are having to become progressively more creative if we want to maintain our sanity in this holy place. July is the month during the monsoon when a million Indian pilgrims arrive and the streets literally turn into rivers of shit. Thanks to some much needed moderation, I no longer feel the need to experience this phenomenon.

So the environment is a bit more stressful than before. Add to that my first infection, and now we see some real challenges taking place. In India, an infection is a reason to be very, very worried. It all started with an innocuous scrape on my right ankle. It was something that would heal in one day back home. But not here. Within two days the wound had blossomed into a full-blown infection. Maybe it has something to do with the mass amounts of cow shit sitting in the sun and stagnated water and steaming off the streets? Luckily, I am the sort of person who is always well taken care of, and one of my neighbors just happened to be a doctor in Spain. She had a look, confirmed my worst fears, and immediately took to scraping the pus off while I tried not to hyperventilate or pass out (Can you say PAIN?). It took maybe five minutes, but they were an eternity to me. When she had scraped all the last bits off, she doctored me up with iodine and antibiotics and gave me detailed instructions for cleaning and taking care of it.

The real problem with infections in India is trying to heal one once it starts. If I was in a clean environment, the open air would likely heal it in a few days. But here all the flies make a beeline for exposed flesh (food, face, eyes, mouth, etc. etc.), so the only hope is to keep the damned thing covered up at all times. This means minimum one week before the wound can heal, and that’s if you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, your infection will explode, turn to gangrene, and require amputation. I have witnessed these kinds of infections. They are what strike fear in my heart and motivate me to take the issue very seriously. For now at least, my infection appears to be under control.

Enough about infections, let me tell you again why I love India. Two older Indian men live a few rooms away from me. While our communication is not perfect, okay barely adequate, one of the men is always smiling and saying “Hallo!” He regularly invites me for chai and has told me on several occasions “Ahh, you have good nature” or “You have very sweet nature.” The first time I heard this compliment I had tears. I am sure many of my close friends and family could come up with a number of adjectives to describe me, but I guarantee that “sweet” would not be one of them. Only in a country filled with people who are alive, whose souls are turned on and interacting with others, whose eyes shine in old age…only in a country like this would someone find it so natural to comment on another person's nature!

If this man was the only one to make this remark, I might just let it go. But others who are much more spiritually aware than I am have made similar remarks, and damned if I’m not starting to believe it (just for the record, Vince was truly the first to insist I had a sweet nature, but that was before we moved to hell on earth)…

This man’s roommate is less sweet and more stern; He prefers to grill me on my whereabouts late at night. Curfew is 10:30, and most nights I am returning home at this time. When he asks me why I am out so late, I have to admit I’ve been hanging out at the chai shop. This elicits a harsh, disapproving look followed by a verbal reprimand that I can’t completely understand. Something about how women don’t need to be hanging out at the chai shops, I think.

It’s little things like this that remind me how fortunate I am. Back in San Diego I routinely imagined my own death and wondered how many days would pass before someone found me dead in my room. A week? Maybe more? Here I have a whole throng of people making sure I am home in my cage every night, all of them ready to assist me with anything I might need. What more could a girl ask for?

Finally, I just want to wish my father a very happy birthday. Dad, you have given me so much support even when my choices were unpopular and I couldn’t really explain what I was doing...that is real love. Please know that I will never, ever forget your faith in me and I hope you can now understand a little better why I am here. (Seems I’m here to learn how to love God, and at least in Indian tradition, the first place to see and love God is in your parents.) I will never have the right words to properly express my gratitude, because words will never convey the explosion taking place in my heart, but the next time I see you, you are getting the biggest hug and kiss ever to manifest itself on this earth :)

THANK YOU parents for everything!!!!

Slowly slowly learning tolerance and patience in India,
LMA