If my last couple of updates have seemed relentlessly positive then good. There indeed continues to be a great deal to feel very positive about. There was also; however, an ongoing situation underpinning my experience of that positivity, that I found quite frankly, less than pleasant. Thankfully, it is increasingly distant, but in the interests of maintaining an entirely honest record of my time in India I feel obliged to record it, despite its rapid recession.

If you’ve been regularly following my blog, you’ll recall that though generally, my health has been good; I’ve been enjoying the cuisine (spicy food does not upset my system) and doing my best to stay physically fit and healthy (I joined and have been using a local gym as well as maintaining some yoga practice), I’ve not had a completely spotless medical record. In November, I had what appeared to be my first bout of food poisoning. This was embarrassing but no worse; it’s perfectly possible to eat something dodgy in the UK, in fact I distinctly recall a particularly evil houmous sandwich that once knocked me out for over 24 hours. Then, on our way back from Bihali, I was flummoxed by what was apparently my first ever experience of car sickness. We decided this was probably a combination of fatigue, altitude, a full day in the car on winding roads and too much lunch. Whatever. Such is life. I recovered.

I didn’t recount the details in the recent update on our trip to Raipur, because I didn’t want to undermine the important facts about the visit; namely the students, but actually that had been a pretty wretched experience for Mark and I. Mark felt ill before we left, and became sick as we arrived in Raipur, so, when I was hit for a third time, it seemed irritating but inevitable. I must have caught the same bug or virus. It took me a little longer to get over that one, but I flopped back, even if ‘bounced’ back would be a little exaggerated. By the time the following weekend rolled round, I was feeling 100% and rather perky. I was bouncy for enthusiastic participation in the New Year party and the inauguration celebrations the next day. After the ceremony, I energetically delivered a presentation for our students on my experiences and learning at the NNBY convention. I had an important message to communicate and seemed to achieve this well.

Quite literally the minute I finished delivering this, as I packed away the projector and laptop, I was overcome with a wave of nausea and fatigue. I had to sit down to finish putting the equipment away but I got out my notebook and dutifully attempted to participate in our scheduled teachers meeting, to plan the content of the coming week. Feeling faint, I had to lie down instead. About ten minutes later, once again, I said goodbye to what had been a lovely lunch as I succumbed to sickness for a fourth time. Now, those who know me well will know I tend to the self-medicating. If a bit of me has not actually dropped off, I do not like to trouble myself or medical staff with my ailments. This is especially true when I am very far from any familiar healthcare providers and am not actually sure exactly how to go about accessing it. As I stared up at the spinning ceiling; however, I couldn’t help wondering if there might be something a little more to an inconvenient but apparently unrelated string of maladies. Perhaps, I thought, it was time to seek some medical advice.

Later that day, after I’d rested enough to feel like could walk, Mark and one of our more confident, English fluent students, gave up their evening, to my eternal gratitude, and came to help me find a doctor. The first place we visited, the Dr Ambedkar hospital, was closed. The rickshaw driver who had taken us then suggest and dropped us at a different clinic, which had no doctor available for another 90 minutes. Mark thought he knew where there was another place as he’d seen people queueing, so we trudged round the corner. Lo and behold, third time lucky and we were shown into an examination room to wait.

Now, I hate hospitals at the best of times, show me someone who doesn’t. This one though, so far from the familiar and perceived as it was through the haze of illness, felt like some strange new kind of hell. The old fashioned, 1950’s style wood skirting and tile design did nothing to reassure one who is accustomed to the clinical sterility of western healthcare. In my state of compromised clarity, I managed to communicate to my student, Gurudev, that I was in urgent need of a toilet and he swiftly assisted me to navigate through the dull-eyed throng of waiting patients and find one. I wasn’t expecting to be challenged though, by the sudden appearance of a member of the nursing staff who insisted I remove my trainers before going in. Apparently I wasn’t expected to be barefoot despite this, as it was considered acceptable for me to wear my student’s flip-flops. As these had been soiled by the same streets as my own trainers, I remain at a loss to explain this logic. Apparently my student also found it hilariously confusing. Thankfully we negotiated the random requirement before my system gave way yet again to another bout of self-purging and I returned gratefully to collapse on the bed that had been found for me (rather more swiftly than if I had been Indian, I imagine). In a combined attempt to distract myself, ease the boredom of my chaperones and genuinely learn more about my adopted culture, I enquired to my student as to the significance of an image on the wall of an elephant deity depicted in leaves. This didn’t get me too far though as he seemed oblivious to the details too, simply conceding that some people had all kinds of strange superstitious beliefs. This brought us on to a conversation about the morality of ridiculing other religions. Apparently Hindus and Muslims are engaged in an ancient and ongoing holy war of comic belittling of the ‘My God’s better than your God’ style, while Sikhs take the mickey out of both but people tend to leave the Buddhists alone because there isn’t much to make fun out of in logic.

I was shortly shepherded into a new room where a gentleman sat at a computer and a lady busied herself with an array of various pieces of analytical equipment, bloody bits of cotton wool swab scattered at her feet, having missed their target of a simple waste paper basket. So much for careful disposal of clinical waste. As she advanced towards my arm with the needle, 

Shortly after that, we were ushered into a different consultation room, containing a remarkably expansive desk about three times bigger than the examination bed in the corner. Funnily enough, I relaxed a bit when I spotted a portrait of Dr Ambedkar on a shelf next to a small Buddha rupa. Perhaps it was just a little familiarity, perhaps it was a sense that the person who used this office was one of ‘my’ people but either way, it was a noticeable response in myself. We then observed a small room off to one side, almost like a little antechamber, that housed a variety of religious icons in a sort of multi-purpose shrine room. I know UK hospitals often have chaplains and prayer rooms hidden away somewhere but I’ve never seen or used one. I suppose this is simply another example of religion being so much closer to the surface of Indian culture. There were two other patients in this room who were being treated by a man behind the desk, a stethoscope casually slung across his shoulders as I imagine an actor might wear one in an American sitcom, just to be clear that he’s the doctor. We were invited to sit, while they continued discussing what I imagine were personal medical details without even batting an eyelid with regards to our presence. There were also several other members of the medical team in the room, who I got the impression were kept close at hand to provide not so much assistance, as an audience to this man whom, whilst I am sure was very well meaning, had possibly the biggest ego I have ever had the opportunity to encounter. The other patients eventually left and he turned his attention to me. After a string of apparently unrelated questions that I took to be simply nosy curiosity or an attempt to practise English, he decided the time had come to use his prop. I’m not quite sure how effective a stethoscope is when used over several layers of clothing and left in position for less than a second in each random location to which it is applied, but he seemed satisfied and I wasn’t about to volunteer any exposure of flesh. At this point, he spotted the top of the tattoo I have running down the middle of my back. ‘What’s this?’ he demanded suddenly. It took me a while to work out what he was referring to but I eventually realised and explained that it was Mercury; the nearest planet to the sun and the start of the diagram of the solar system tattoo that runs down my spine. After telling me that actually, I was wrong, that wasn’t the solar system because there was no Sun (!?), I was directed to the bed, where my abdomen received another pummelling. When he was satisfied, I was allowed to sit back up to be informed that it was a great thing to have the planets on my back as I was channelling their energies into my spinal chakras and drawing down great blessings from the gods. All good there then. After a regal glance at my printed results, we were instructed to go and collect the results from the urine sample. We were treated to some more theatrics upon our return and I was informed (and pleased to know) that I did not have malaria or dengue but had in fact contracted two separate infections, one of the gastric system and one of the bladder. Some scribbled prescriptions were made on my notes before the first doctor who examined me was hailed to the throne room and made to stand in front of the desk like a troublesome student before the headmaster. She was then subjected to the most undermining demonstration of arrogant criticism I’ve ever had the misfortune to witness as the doctor listed all the things she had not done properly in her treatment of me as a foreigner. I managed to hold back a physical wince but couldn’t quite stop myself from commenting as I interrupted to inform him in no uncertain terms that I had been very happy with the care I had received from her and was impressed by the nature of her bedside manner. I’ll confess, this was something of an exaggeration but I felt impressed at least that she’d accurately diagnosed a urinary tract infection with no more than a few prods and I felt the need to somehow redress the imbalance of his unfounded tirade. My comments were deflected from the force field of the super-ego with the same disdainful wrist-flick with which this poor, and one imagines long-suffering, woman was dismissed.

In my last update, I recounted a trip to an eye hospital with one of our students. This was an eye-opening experience (yes, pun intended) in itself, but there was an important part to the morning that I didn’t mention. A while back, I was fortunate to spend some time speaking with Aryaketu’s father, Triratna Order Member Saccadhamma, and I humbly attempted to write his story, from a childhood of poverty to spiritual discovery, through ordination and the eventual building of his house, which I am currently staying in and that also accommodates the community of young women at Aryaloka, as well as their teaching facilities. There are so many people I have met over the last couple of months whose daily lives I find inspiring, whose background stories I feel sure would greatly benefit those from the West to read. Of course, it is not always practical to find the time required to really listen to their histories from start to finish and so I have resolved to simply share as many as I can but in no particular order. It’s not inappropriate though, having started with the bricks and mortar, both physically and spiritually, to move now to someone that from my perspective really embodies the heart of all it is to be domestic in India.

Sheetal manages to successfully fill all these roles whilst she works with the long term debilitating disease that is osteoporosis. She was diagnosed with this when she was 35, just over a decade ago, and it frequently causes her a great deal of pain. Having had a similar condition myself in my teens, (juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, thankfully not an active disease any longer) I can almost feel that sharp yet grinding ache in the heart of the joint when I watch her move, often awkwardly, around the house; bringing in lunch, or sweeping the floor after sorting vegetables from the weekly trip to the market. ‘I never drank milk!’ she tells me, ‘not even when I was pregnant. I do not like it. But for the calcium…’ she now drinks a glass every evening, with flavoured protein powder to make it more palatable, and an egg, for breakfast. This may help slow down any further deterioration but it cannot reverse the damage already caused. The homeopathic and Ayurvedic remedies she is prescribed may or may not, do much to help. ‘I used to worry’, she confides one evening as a student demonstrates village healthcare skills by massaging Sheetal’s sore legs and swollen feet with oils warmed over hot coals before deftly wrapping them with castor leaves tied in place with cotton thread until morning. ‘How will I manage when I am old? But this is not helpful. I stay mindful of the present moment. When I cannot sleep with pain I get up and meditate. This is very helpful to me.’

All good things must come to an end; however and when Sheetal was 13, the family moved, with no shortage of regret, back to Nagpur. Her paternal grandfather owned several properties, which he rented out and they bought one of these from him. Living in their own home did not bring the joy that might have been expected; however, and the family struggled with inconsiderate neighbours in the busy city centre, a far cry from their experience in the suburban community of Jabalpur. Despite this change of circumstances, her mother continued to form the backbone of positivity the family needed to get by. In the Indian education system, it is common for students to attend classes for extra tuition and begin preparing for exams when they reach 10th Standard. Sheetal dutifully attended her first class but found it crowded and unpalatable so told her mother she did not want to go again; she would study hard at home instead. In the interests of seeing their progeny succeed, many parents would have taken none of this wayward behaviour but Sheetal’s mum simply agreed by saying ‘whatever makes you happy!’ This support is remarkable not just to demonstrate the significant amount of trust and faith in daughter by mother but also in the face of surprised criticism from family and friends. Such critics resigned Sheetal to failure; her school in Madhya Pradesh had been a Hindi Medium school, but here classes were in Marathi.

‘I only wanted to study!’ She knew marriage was one day unavoidable but was determined to make the most of her education while she could. Mindful of her status as eldest child, she was also keen to avoid any conflict or bad impressions. ‘I thought; my father is the only man in the house, what if a boy comes to fight him!? I was afraid of one sided love.’ Such a sense of personal responsibility at this young age illustrates not only a commitment to her family but also a sharp eye on a longer term plan. She knew a good education would secure her access to a higher social standard of suitors further down the line, as well as delaying the inevitable wedding. ‘I wanted to become a graduate.’ Of course, she passed 12th Class and took a BSC at the same college, finishing with a 2:1 equivalent in Microbiology, Chemistry and Botany, taking then a computer course for five months after graduation. I can’t help wondering, when I try and add up how many chapattis those hands roll out each week, if they’d not have been put to better use in a laboratory than a kitchen, but this is a Western woman’s perspective and it is patently clear that Sheetal is very genuinely happy with her circumstances as they have unfolded.

If you’ve already guessed the Buddha-meets-Bollywood plot twist in this delightful tale, I am pleased to confirm that his name was, indeed, Aryaketu. Still, Indian culture and Buddhist reserve do not lend themselves to heady romance off screen and they did not converse again until Sheetal went to volunteer at the Triratna office on the local Dr Ambedkar Road, helping to produce a quarterly magazine published there. Still they were respectfully distant in their communication, though Sheetal remarks that she never normally talked to boys for fear they’d fall in love with her and is not entirely sure why she talked to this one! Inspired by her own experiences and by the example of her mum (now an ordained member herself), She continued her involvement in the movement, volunteering as a maths teacher at one of the local charitable projects, the Bahujan Girls’ Hostel. She attended Dhamma classes regularly and became well known amongst the Triratna Sangha in Nagpur.

After all that worry, Sheetal felt a solution to the problem of marriage that would allow her to pursue the simple life free from money or pressures of status had indeed presented itself and they were married on October 31st, 1999. As newlyweds, Aryaketu was working at Nagaloka, but he was soon ready to move on to new challenges of his own and wanted to provide opportunities for young people. He started the Aryaloka institute in 2000, so it has really always been a part of married life for Sheetal. She worked as a private tutor to bring in some money for the first three years before Ojas was born in April 2002, but then began taking responsibility for the Aryaloka accounts. It was a role that needed filling and it made sense for her to take work that made it straightforward for her to carry out the household management too.

Compassion and loving kindness shine through from the core of her being and her fierce dedication to professional and domestic responsibilities is balanced by a calm temperament, a consistent, reliable, freindly stoicism which is itself underpinned by occasional flashes of bubbling joy and moments of unconcealed delight. If I gain no more from my time in India than the opportunity to count Sheetal among most treasured friends, however far flung she may one day be, then it will have been no waste in my time and resources. I may continue to relish her company during the remainder of my stay but her influence, I feel sure, will outlast our weeks together and her steady reliability, her lightness, her determination and her selfless nature shall continue to inspire me for many years to come.

Before arriving in India, I was advised that we were likely to receive multiple invitations to lunch and dinner at various eager homes, possibly clashing and all critical to not just attend but to schedule in absolutely the right order to avoid causing offence. This did not transpire. I can’t pretend to have been disappointed; I’ve found the days full and challenging enough without wondering how to tread on social eggshells. It has been really good to simply settle into the Indian domestic environment, observe family habits and have a practice at, for example, eating rice and extremely runny dhal with my fingers without worrying about whether I was unwittingly performing some great faux pas. Having said that, I was beginning to wonder why we hadn’t received any such invites but this week has proven that such events are akin to the proverbial buses; you wait weeks for one and three turn up at once. At least in this instance we’ve had a little warning and I haven’t had to fling myself through any front doors whilst avoiding a river of mopeds.

In June, I had the great honour of meeting a particularly remarkable woman, Neha, during a visit to Europe. Neha studied on the residential course at Aryaloka with Young Indian Futures nine years ago and is a textbook model of the success of the project who now regularly rubs shoulders with very senior order members whilst holding down a plethora of creative roles at Lord Buddha TV, a channel dedicated to broadcasting Buddhist and Ambedkarite teachings. She has recently enjoyed great success with the publication of a documentary Ambedkar in Hungary (28,521 views as I write this) that she shot during her summer trip looking at the lives of a community of Roma people who have discovered the ideas of Dr Ambedkar in their own search for social emancipation.

Soon, we were presented with a fine meal; dhal, chapattis, rice, salad (a separate one made especially for me with no mayonnaise), a delicious mushroom Balti, gulab jamun, and little sweet crispy snacks as a side. Our plates were never left empty for a second by our very attentive hosts and I was gently berated for ‘eating very slowly’. It’s true that I am often one of the last to finish in the UK, so I’m a gastronomic tortoise by Indian standards. Despite the lavish care given to the preparation of a meal, most Indians seem content to gulp the dish down and get on with something else as quickly as possible, something my digestion has a habit of rebelling against. I was content to apologise and take my time because it was too nice to rush anyway but I couldn’t help noticing that none of our hosts were eating, which I found more than a little strange.  At various stages, different extended family members appeared to meet us and take photos. I also found this odd, mid meal, but did my best to be photogenic with a mouthful! Eventually, we begged our hosts to feed us no more as we were really very full! Neha explained that eight PM was far too early for them to eat and they would be having their dinner later, at about half past nine. I did feel rather guilty that such a lot of effort had been put into not just our meal but responding so kindly to our daily rhythm, but no one seemed in the least put out. After more chatting and laughter, we were graciously conveyed to our respective dwellings; Mark on the back of Neha’s brothers’ scooter, Shakyajata and myself in her Papa’s rickshaw once again. I’m not sure if I’m slightly jealous of Mark’s ride or really rather relieved we got the ‘safe’ option!

Of course this wasn’t before a grand farewell send-off from the entire family, in which Neha’s brother in law took great pains to express enthusiastically to me that if I ever encountered any difficulties in India, I should contact the family straight away, who would all provide assistance in whatever way I needed. He made this point very earnestly, several times and it occurred to me rather sadly that I would seriously have questioned the motives of any gentleman making such offers at home. In this instance though, I could not question his genuine demeanour and felt very much as though I had been welcomed wholeheartedly into yet another loving family.

As if that wasn’t enough of an exciting social experience, the very next day we were to attend lunch with Asha, another ex-student of Aryaloka who now works at the Institute. Knowing that our usual daily pattern is to teach from Five O’clock at the Indora campus, she had kindly suggested a meal beforehand so instead of the normal routine of enjoying Sheetal’s cooking pretty much as soon as we step out of the classroom at One, we instead caught a lift to her home with Aryaketu, who would also eat with us.

We now have yet another invitation to our first meal (aside from the Deekshabhoomi Picnic!) with the young women’s group on Sunday, so this time I shall not be so confused when they don’t eat with us. I can’t pretend I wouldn’t prefer it though, it seems rather divisive to my mind and a pity to miss on the opportunity for shared experience that a communal meal offers. Before that of course, we have a big day tomorrow! The wedding and my first attempt to wear a sari! I feel as though I’ve passed the first stage of Indian socialising but I am definitely about to level up. We hope. I suspect dinner with the girls will feel positively relaxing after whatever Indian Buddhist weddings have to offer!