Amaravathi, Andhra Pradesh
Dearest Friends,
Greetings of the season and greetings as always! I think about you (most of you in the good ol’ bay) and hope that you’ve had a warm restful winter and festive holidays. I myself feel not at all in the season. Here in the smoldering heat of Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh, where this year’s Kalachakra teaching and initiation (by His Holiness the Dalai Lama), and surrounded by Buddhists and Hindus with just a sprinkling of Christians around, I barely feel it is Christmas.
In fact, I had one of the worst Christmases ever. Good thing I don’t really celebrate it anymore. Really, this year beats last year’s, during which I spent all day on a train (24-26!). But this year, I had a train ticket for Christmas day to head down south from Delhi, but missed my train and was worried for 2 days afterwards that I had lost all my luggage except for a small day bag. So…..that was a challenge, running around Delhi trying to find my party (who had not only my luggage, but also my ticket) with only my toilet paper, some handwipes, glasses, sunscreen, a journal, what else. Of course I had my "very important stuff" bag attached to me, so luckily I had my passport and money. I won’t got into great detail here, but the short of it is that after the overnight bus ride, during which I was freezing cold and got little sleep, I was not thinking properly and made the error of thinking in terms of small towns, like Dharamsala, where I had been for the past 3 weeks. So when a friend and myself decided to take an auto rickshaw out to majnu ka tilla and karol bagh to pick up some supplies, we both forgot to think and got swept up in the rushing flow of Delhi and just spent all day engaging with that until we got back to the train station and realized it was the wrong station. I had plain assumed that we had arrived at New Delhi station. The rest of the story is too pathetic to recount but basically had to do with both of us freaking out and further not thinking properly, which is a TERRIBLE thing to do in a bustling metropolis, and especially Delhi. We ran around at each of the four railway stations looking for our party and feeling really stupid and helpless because we had just relied on them to hold our tickets, did not have the train name or number (only the time of departure), did not have any of their mobile numbers (and besides, they had switched off their phones since they only worked in Himachal Pradesh).
But let’s leave the past behind. This was a challenge, and it was karma (on top of stupidity). After quite a bit of hustling, we barely got a place to stay, managing to survive off of the little we had with us, got some rest and our minds back, barely got train tickets, and got here ok (and our luggage was safely with our group, thanggod!). I guess you could say this was our tapasia for getting the privilege of being at the kalachakra and receiving this huge blessing from HH Dalai Lama. We can never take that for granted, and for those of you to whom I talked about seeing His Holiness at Stanford – seeing him in India is completely different! For one thing, there’s the valuable ass-kicking you get (well, to put it another way, the huge challenges, especially internal), that you get, which makes you earn the experience.
Everyone here is currently still climbing that mountain. This tiny village of Amaravati (pop. 20,000) is now facing the huge challenge of seeing at least 80,000 pilgrims and tourists come to camp for 2-3 weeks. The transformation is amazing. Local government folks have been working day and night to get roads built, toilets and showers and water supply installed, to get tents up for all the people who need a place to stay, shops up… Most of the people have to stay in tents because there simply are not enough accommodations. So my experience here so far as been…. Er, rusitc. luckily, I’m getting to stay in an actual room (a small classroom to be precise) with the Norbulingka performance group. So I’m getting quite a bit of luxury. Still, I have to go pump water nearby and bring that bucket with me every time I go to the toilet. Washing clothes this morning at the pump, I made a few friends with some of the local kids.
There are also moments of the surreal here. Yesterday morning, monk died while bathing in a nearby lake. No one actually saw the crocodile, but locals say there are some in the lake.
Anyway, worst Christmases pass, and the tradeoff has been mighty fine. That’s the story from Amaravati for now. Yes, I do have plenty to tell from the past month I’ve been in India, but l’ve been in such a whirlwind of activity that it’s hard to actually get it all down. Living it. In the meantime, trust that I’m ok and thinking of you. Will write soon, and will (probably as slowly as the internet runs here) get that blog up, pix and all.
Greetings of the season and greetings as always! I think about you (most of you in the good ol’ bay) and hope that you’ve had a warm restful winter and festive holidays. I myself feel not at all in the season. Here in the smoldering heat of Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh, where this year’s Kalachakra teaching and initiation (by His Holiness the Dalai Lama), and surrounded by Buddhists and Hindus with just a sprinkling of Christians around, I barely feel it is Christmas.
In fact, I had one of the worst Christmases ever. Good thing I don’t really celebrate it anymore. Really, this year beats last year’s, during which I spent all day on a train (24-26!). But this year, I had a train ticket for Christmas day to head down south from Delhi, but missed my train and was worried for 2 days afterwards that I had lost all my luggage except for a small day bag. So…..that was a challenge, running around Delhi trying to find my party (who had not only my luggage, but also my ticket) with only my toilet paper, some handwipes, glasses, sunscreen, a journal, what else. Of course I had my "very important stuff" bag attached to me, so luckily I had my passport and money. I won’t got into great detail here, but the short of it is that after the overnight bus ride, during which I was freezing cold and got little sleep, I was not thinking properly and made the error of thinking in terms of small towns, like Dharamsala, where I had been for the past 3 weeks. So when a friend and myself decided to take an auto rickshaw out to majnu ka tilla and karol bagh to pick up some supplies, we both forgot to think and got swept up in the rushing flow of Delhi and just spent all day engaging with that until we got back to the train station and realized it was the wrong station. I had plain assumed that we had arrived at New Delhi station. The rest of the story is too pathetic to recount but basically had to do with both of us freaking out and further not thinking properly, which is a TERRIBLE thing to do in a bustling metropolis, and especially Delhi. We ran around at each of the four railway stations looking for our party and feeling really stupid and helpless because we had just relied on them to hold our tickets, did not have the train name or number (only the time of departure), did not have any of their mobile numbers (and besides, they had switched off their phones since they only worked in Himachal Pradesh).
But let’s leave the past behind. This was a challenge, and it was karma (on top of stupidity). After quite a bit of hustling, we barely got a place to stay, managing to survive off of the little we had with us, got some rest and our minds back, barely got train tickets, and got here ok (and our luggage was safely with our group, thanggod!). I guess you could say this was our tapasia for getting the privilege of being at the kalachakra and receiving this huge blessing from HH Dalai Lama. We can never take that for granted, and for those of you to whom I talked about seeing His Holiness at Stanford – seeing him in India is completely different! For one thing, there’s the valuable ass-kicking you get (well, to put it another way, the huge challenges, especially internal), that you get, which makes you earn the experience.
Everyone here is currently still climbing that mountain. This tiny village of Amaravati (pop. 20,000) is now facing the huge challenge of seeing at least 80,000 pilgrims and tourists come to camp for 2-3 weeks. The transformation is amazing. Local government folks have been working day and night to get roads built, toilets and showers and water supply installed, to get tents up for all the people who need a place to stay, shops up… Most of the people have to stay in tents because there simply are not enough accommodations. So my experience here so far as been…. Er, rusitc. luckily, I’m getting to stay in an actual room (a small classroom to be precise) with the Norbulingka performance group. So I’m getting quite a bit of luxury. Still, I have to go pump water nearby and bring that bucket with me every time I go to the toilet. Washing clothes this morning at the pump, I made a few friends with some of the local kids.
There are also moments of the surreal here. Yesterday morning, monk died while bathing in a nearby lake. No one actually saw the crocodile, but locals say there are some in the lake.
Anyway, worst Christmases pass, and the tradeoff has been mighty fine. That’s the story from Amaravati for now. Yes, I do have plenty to tell from the past month I’ve been in India, but l’ve been in such a whirlwind of activity that it’s hard to actually get it all down. Living it. In the meantime, trust that I’m ok and thinking of you. Will write soon, and will (probably as slowly as the internet runs here) get that blog up, pix and all.
posted by sylviashines at 5:57 AM
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