It’s easy in hindsight to say I should not have walked so far alone but my friends will know I may well have gone anyway, even if I had been aware of a risk. I have recorded quite graphic details of a sexual assault that occurred on day 4, December 7th (Though I actually wrote about it on day 5, December 8th, from half way down page 27). If you think it may upset you to read it, please don’t. I’ve made it clear in the text which bit to skip. I’ve included it in the interests of maintaining the integrity of my intentions with regards to the entire Maggamouse blogging project, I’ve included it because I want to share the rest of the diary, which at the time, it helped me to write in it about, and I’ve included it because, like many other difficult personal things I have been historically open about, I think the more we talk publically about such things, the better. But there we are. You have been warned.  All you really need to know is I am well. I am happy. I am growing and developing. I continued with the retreat and derived further benefit from it so there is more to read beyond that incident. I’d like to thank my friends and fellow retreatants, Mark and Aryaketu for supporting me through the days that followed and with metta, I’d like to thank you for reading.

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.

It’s not uncommon, indeed this will sound familiar to many teachers, to become involved in issues that students are encountering beyond the classroom. This is a key role of the personal tutor, providing personal support and pastoral care suitable to the needs of the individual, helping them make the most of their studies by being aware of their whole being and not just their academic progress. Even a subject teacher who does not have these tutorial responsibilities will need to be aware of the potential for study to be disrupted by matters beyond the usual classroom barriers, especially when it is clear that there is some problem impeding learning. Sometimes, you get an inkling that a student is struggling for a particular reason and the course team had noticed that one of our female students seemed to struggle with seeing the whiteboard in classes. There are often some simple things you can do to subtly remedy these sorts of problems without making a fuss. In this case, make sure she sits near the front, use a good quality whiteboard pen, ensure you write clearly and that your worksheets are easy to read, to name but a few. Eventually though, if this doesn’t seem to help, you have to make gentle enquiries about her well-being. I’m not sure who took charge of that, probably Sheetal for obvious reasons to do with language, but we learned that she was indeed struggling with her eyes.

As much as we might like to try and do that in England, from within a UK educational system it’s just not possible. There are too many students, money is not free from budgetary restraints for such things and anyway, issues such as physical healthcare are grey areas where one becomes involved in only a distant way for fear of being considered inappropriate or having ones motives scrutinised. How satisfying I find it then, that we can simply cut through all that here. There’s a need. Here’s a solution. Problem solved. A very refreshing perspective indeed; no lenses required to see that!

It seems a strange characteristic of each blog post I’ve written since attempting to become an English teacher in India, that while they’ve featured plenty of English, there’s been very little use of it to discuss teaching. There’s been so much going on in the periphery that has seemed remarkable or exceptional in some way that the very reason for my being here has faded into the background. I suppose the truth is that while there’s plenty about my time teaching here that is novel to my experience, really, it’s been the one thing that hasn’t seemed so exceptional, the one thing I can rely on to be really pretty predictable; an oasis of relative normality in an ocean of experiential shift and cultural upheaval. In all honesty, it hasn’t even factored as a huge percentage of my time here so far. There are only two English classes a day, apart from weekends, when students have a half day of other classes on Saturday, we have our weekly teachers meeting, and a two hour  Dharma class instead (Think Buddhist Sunday School). One of these daily classes during the week is with the young women in the morning, one with the young men in the afternoon and more often than not, it is simply a case of repeating (with a few tweaks and twiddles) the first class with the second group.

Perhaps this sense of obligation is at the root of an apparent trend to overemphasise the responsibility of the teacher in the learning process. To my mind (and this works equally when I am the student), a teacher should be a facilitator of appropriate conditions for learning to take place, but it is the student who must necessarily take a leading role to ensure it actually happens. I’m aware that may sound like a teacher trying to back off responsibility but I do not underestimate how much work or skill is involved in cultivating those conditions; simply aware that the seeds from the ripest fruit in the world cannot grow unless they are embedded in fertile compost that is consistently watered and kept in appropriate light and heat.

A little and often approach to delivering high quality, meaningful information is a very new one compared to my conditioning to churn out lots of content in about half the time really required, which too often results in low quality, sporadic and unreliable learning. Another feature of this temporal spaciousness is that we have plenty of time to revisit, reinforce and repeat. Gone are the days of ‘tick the box and move on to the next thing’ teaching. We move on, when they are ready to. Funnily enough, they do seem to be absorbing the knowledge pretty quickly anyway and we’ve stuck, so far, to our ‘module’ plan.

Perhaps it is partly due to this appropriate pacing, partly due to a genuine sense of progress in themselves and partly due to a generally very grateful attitude to learning in the first place that it has become common for classes to be concluded with a round of applause and happy shouts of ‘Thank you m’am!’ The first time this happened, I had to check they weren’t being sarcastic, but I don’t think that’s really a feature of Indian humour. Is this due to a cultural difference? The fact that these students are so incredibly grateful for any learning opportunities when coming to us form a background where only the high-caste privileged born are able to afford or socially access education? Compared to the UK, where I feel free education to a certain standard has become regarded as such a basic right it’s barely valued. You can lead a horse to water but that’s as far as it goes. Sadly, in the UK, if students aren’t motivated to put in their share of effort on the learning journey it is still more often the teacher who is blamed for not trying hard enough, not differentiating successfully, not being creative, exciting, engaging. I think it must be more complicated than this alone and I know from Shakyajata that it is not always the case that students blindly accept whatever they are given at Aryaloka simply because it’s free and it’s better than the nothing they would otherwise have.

I have been asked to teach Photoshop (what music to my ears!) and hope to start doing so next month. We’ve still got a bit of negotiating to do but I’ve started planning and am looking forward to begin back on familiar ground. It’s going to be a challenge, no interactive whiteboards here to demonstrate on, no Virtual Learning Environment to upload materials and content to, not much in the way of student access to the internet during classes either; but I’ll get there. My first ever taught lesson ended up being painting with only red paint and no brushes or paper. We got through and learned a lot about achieving texture, on cardboard, with various alternative tools. Where there’s a will, there’s a way and that resourcefulness is something that India is very good at teaching. It may end up being a bit unconventional but I don’t think I’ve ever been described as ‘conventional’ anyway. That’s probably just as well!

As many Buddhists around the world know, last Monday (November full moon) was Sangha Day. Those of you reading this who are not familiar with Buddhist terminology may like to know the word ‘Sangha’ refers to the spiritual community and is considered one of the Three Jewels of Buddhism; along with the ideal of human enlightenment (represented by the figure of the Buddha) and the teachings that enable us to achieve this state (known as the Dharma or Dhamma depending upon whether you’re using Pali or Sanskrit). Sangha Day is celebrated in November (on a ‘supermoon’ this year!), as it traditionally marks the end of the rainy season (though I’ve seen not a drop since I arrived 5 weeks ago). This then, was the day that all the monks and nuns left the shelter of their temporary communities to once again ‘go forth’ and teach the Dhamma as far and widely as possible. There were two traditional practices on this day; for the monks and nuns, confession was critical. Having been cooped up for so long during the rains, many unskillful and unkind words or actions may have slipped past even the most well-meaning practitioner and to leave these weighing on a guilty conscience was not the best way to bid your compatriots farewell, not the most honest way to begin teaching higher ideals.

For the next couple of days, I felt decidedly ‘not right’. Low energy. Unable to settle down to things I felt I ought to. Unable to find motivation to do the things I felt I ought to want to do. Write a blog update about Sangha Day, for one! I decided to let myself have some time ‘doing nothing’. I’m starting to find that when I get ‘stuck’ and decide to do this, what I actually do is far from nothing. What I actually do is allow some space for the things bubbling and brewing away in my subconscious to ‘do their thing’, to coalesce, to ripen and bear fruit. I then started reading some of Bhante’s writing, ‘Conversion in Buddhism’ and ‘The Ideal of Human Enlightenment’, both pretty core texts and both with their share of comments to make about the role of Sangha. One thing that struck me in his discussion was the importance of having a community to bear witness to you at your best and, sometimes, at your worst. Funnily enough, this is one of the things I have been finding most challenging about my current situation. I’m very used to living alone. Even when I don’t live alone, I’m used to being able to take as much time as I want to myself, to work through when I’m not feeling at my best in private. To then re-emerge, feeling better, all shiny and new like a butterfly who’s just been able to do all that ugly business of mutating from a caterpillar in the safety of its cocoon and never had to make any of that public. Yet, in a home full to bursting with over 20 people, I cannot do that. Even if I go to my room, everyone in the house knows where I am. If I leave the house, people know. If I return, I am seen. If I am looking a little dishevelled, a little less tired than I might like to admit I feel or anything other than at my total best, I know it has been seen, noticed, witnessed. So much for just lying low until I feel back on top of things again.

My experience of dissatisfaction with my own mundane reality reached its peak, when in the early hours of Thursday morning, I finally had cause to really concede my belief that I’m super human. I finally had to give up my resolution that ‘this is great, I’m practically a native! I’ve got guts of STEEL I’ll never get sick in India!’ whilst deciding which end of myself to first position over a bucket. Thank goodness I had a bucket. I’ll spare you any further details but there, along with the bodily fluids I never realized were so abundant, went any last shreds of dignity and privacy in this household. The thing about having so many people living in one house is that they’re never physically distant and it’s amazing just how much a bucket can amplify the most private of noises in the complete stillness of a far from festive, truly silent night. And of course, from there on in, came the outpourings of concern, the complete eradication of a sense of privacy and the very well-meaning offers of various Indian remedies. I have learned that there is nothing like the love of an Indian grandmother, gently yet persistently plying you with Ayurvedic remedies that appear to be the equivalent of pouring melted Vics Vapour Rub into your ailing digestive tract 'because your fire's gone out', to make you quite determined to get better just as soon as possible. Unfortunately, where we encounter one kind of suffering in our immediate experience, we often compound this for ourselves by generating a load more in our felt responses to it. Buddhism describes this as the ‘second arrow’; it’s all the ways we hang onto, prolong or add to our own unhappiness. In my case this came tumbling in on me as a barrage of feelings of guilt for getting sick (maybe I ate too much, didn’t wash my hands well enough, failed to follow some sage advice about not exposing myself to various pathogens), worry about being a burden (if I can’t teach, why am I here? Am I going to make others ill? If I can’t help round the house I’m just dead weight, people will think I’m being lazy!) and embarrassment for being seen as I really am (a wet, squidgy lump of meat full of various unpleasant substances and not always best able to retain said substances where polite society traditionally considers appropriate).

Cue a day in bed, consuming nothing but rehydration salts (I avoided further Ayurvedic doses) and reading more Bhante. I managed to get up that evening and was generously cooked a special dinner; lentils and rice cooked into a warm, salty, bland mash. Probably exactly what I needed. After a day in bed, I thought I’d get no sleep at all but I did sleep right through. I managed to drag myself kicking and screaming to the 7am puja and did a very sorry job of attempting to focus on my meditation, but still that was better than what I’d managed the day before.  Feeling better but still not great, when Shakyajata suggested ‘checking in’ after breakfast (A Triratna practice of sharing with Sangha members how you’re feeling) I really didn’t want to. I knew I had nothing nice to say. I also knew that was precisely why it was so important that I did so. Funnily enough, I had felt rather guilty during our last ‘check in’ on Saturday when others felt down or uncomfortable and I had felt really good, as if I was rubbing my happiness in their faces. Now I felt the same but for opposite reasons, guilty for ‘dragging down’ other’s good moods. Well there’s an interesting thing; you really just can’t win against yourself sometimes, eh?

And there I find a recognition; that’s what Sangha is. When you just can’t win against yourself alone, Sangha is the community of others who remind you that life is not a battle you fight against yourself, or alone in the first place. Shakyajata referred to our close working relationship as ‘a cremation ground’ when we first arived. I understood this on one level, I understood that yes, other people can help you work through and eradicate unhelpful things but now I think, I really get it.  Sangha is a community who don’t just help you flush out these impurities, but without whom you couldn’t truly tackle them at all. It’s the coming together of all the other perfectly imperfect people, some of whom are necessarily on top form, some of whom are inevitably not, at any one time. We support each other, we see the best and worst in each other, we get on with it. Sometimes, we even get on with each other, but if we don’t, we’ll use our incompatibilities as fertiliser to grow into stronger, better humans who are one step closer to our common goal together. We’re the mirror in which we see each other’s and our own flaws and foibles, because without that illumination, we can’t grasp the blemishes we need to cleanse. Sangha is the bucket that lovingly contains our midnight explosions without question yet simultaneously amplifies the embarrassing noises, so there’s no hiding from it, so we have to confront the unpleasant truths found within us, we have to empty them out and disinfect them. But whichever end we find ourselves on, whether performing the stoic job of martyrdom that is the bucket or taking the embarrassing role of sickening patient, it’s all just part of the balance of life. To refuse a sharing of these with one another denies others their own fluctuations. Being me ‘at my best’ gives others permission to be at their best too, but why should I deny others the freedom to feel not so great without judgement as well? So that Dhamma I’m so fond of, that flux of combined universal energies, flows in such a way that when I am up, another is counterbalancing this by being proportionately down and one way of seeing it is that it’s my responsibility to share my inevitable ‘meh’ days too so that this can be normalised, that others know I understand these; I have them too. That’s real understanding and community I think. It’s great to share each other’s company when we’re feeling wonderful but perhaps more important to endure ourselves in the company of others during those times when we are not.

Hmmm. Well, no, not yet. Not always. But I think this Sangha Day, I learnt why I must try. And as long as I remain mindful of that, I do, at least have faith it will enough to get me there. No, that’s not quite right. Not enough to get me there. Us. It’ll be enough to get me there with my sangha. Wherever they are in the world.

We had a few social engagements last week and although these were exciting in their own right, there was definitely a sense of build up to the wedding on Saturday; this is probably true of any event that requires its own shopping trip! Of course, with this in mind, I was quite eager to try the sari on, though I’d been very patient and waited for the day itself to arrive. The fact that I had no idea how to put it on myself was something of a deciding factor in this apparent restraint but I was also a little apprehensive; I’ve heard saris are hard to walk in and not very comfortable for those not used to wearing them. I’m normally up for a challenge but these days form definitely follows function in my sartorial decision making and it’s been many a year since I talked myself into enduring discomfort for an evening just because I thought I looked good. I find formal social engagements exhausting enough even in my own cultural territory so I was aware that I might be setting myself up for a bit of a job and if I was going to be uncomfortable I thought it best not to know ahead of time. Still you can’t come to India and not try wearing a sari at least once and there’s not much point putting one on unless you’re actually going somewhere in it!

The wedding invitation made clear that it started at 11am and we’d been told we’d leave at about 10:30. Given that I would need help to get dressed, but not wanting to be pushy or rush anyone else who also needed to get dressed I simply said ‘I’ve no idea how long it’ll take to put on, please let me know when it’s time to get ready!?’ and settled down to a quiet hour before all the excitement kicked off! I certainly didn’t want to get into my beautiful new strait jacket too early and start the discomfort any sooner than needed but at about 10 O’clock, I started to wonder where everyone was. It really was very restful but I was worried we may end up with a last minute rush. Didn’t anyone else have a watch!? I looked upstairs. I looked downstairs. I fetched the sari, packed my bag and got as ready as I possibly could. Aryaketu, sat happily in the downstairs living room, asked ‘Why are you not in your sari yet?’ Shakyajata emerged, dressed in her new kurta. Neither of these things did anything to dispel my concern. I’m not used to being unable to get dressed independently. I think I can just about recall learning to button up my own dressing gown and I definitely remember the perseverance of learning to tie my own shoe laces but I managed to get my head around these skills nigh on three decades ago. Having to wait for someone to dress me was somewhat disconcerting. But of course, I was forgetting; we’re in India and time is only ever theoretical. Just as I had found Sheetal (who was dressed) and tried to remind her politely that I might need a hand, Aryaketu wandered calmly into the kitchen and started to make himself some breakfast. It was now after 10:30. Sheetal told me that Vaishali (her sister in law, who also teaches at Aryaloka and lives with the family downstairs) would be better able to help me… and then proceeded to get changed into a different outfit. Aryaketu went to have a shower. I calmed down.

I had thought I might only need help putting a sari on once and that if I watched carefully I would be able to do it myself next time. This wasn’t born out in reality; however, when Vaishali arrived to help dress me! I felt like a cross between a maypole and the unfortunate victim of a very aesthetically aware spider as she ducked and dived around me tucking yards of fabric into the petticoat tied incredibly tightly around my waist. A pleat here, a tuck there, a loop left trailing for some unknown purpose, a fold, another tuck… and then the pinning started! How on earth anyone ever manages to get into one of these themselves I couldn’t begin to imagine but I think you’d have to learn to do it young. So much for a sense of pride over the buttoned dressing gown. Finally I was folded, tucked and pinned satisfactorily. I was already sweating (great!) but it was time to find out if I could walk. I took an experimental step forward. No problem. A second step. I did not trip over. I internally congratulated myself for my ability to remain perpendicular. I’m not a stranger to hitting the deck when I have no restriction round my legs whatsoever and this seemed like something of an achievement. Actually, I didn’t find walking any trouble at all, but I did feel strangely exposed and only half dressed. Strange as it may sound from someone who has spent the last four weeks silently grumbling about having to keep her legs and shoulders covered at all times for reasons of modesty, I found myself feeling rather naked to have half my midriff hanging out.

Finally, around forty five minutes ‘behind schedule’ and fifteen after the publicised start of the wedding, we were all ready to go and I found myself feeling very grateful for the fact that we’d be getting a lift to the venue so I’d not have to navigate the bus in my new outfit. I climbed in the back next to Shakyajata, leaving the front seat free for Sheetal. Aryaketu had already explained he’d be picking Mark up separately after dropping us off as there’d be no room in the car. I thought we’d have been able to squeeze him in between us in the back but was secretly glad not to be too scrunched up given the circumstances. This was until Sheetal got in the back next to me. Then Saket (Vaishali’s son) climbed on her lap. Jija (Aryaketu’s mum) climbed in the front seat. Her sister hopped in too, half on top, half next to her. And so we drove off, seven in one car, none of us with seatbelts including a child and two elderly ladies (both in the front seat). Aryaketu made a call on his mobile (maybe to let Mark know we were running late? Probably not) and at this point I stopped trying to make a mental catalogue of all the traffic regulations we’d have been breaking in the UK. We’d not have made it past the end of the road! But, in the UK we were not; just another difference to swallow up and get on with!

It soon transpired that what had appeared to be lateness had in fact been a carefully orchestrated disinclination to spend too much time hanging about unnecessarily. Well aware that the ceremony was highly unlikely to start on time, there had never been any need to rush and we actually drove past the wedding procession that had not yet even arrived at the celebration hall. We were dropped off outside as Mark was collected and made our way to some seats halfway towards the back. Shakyajata was firm in turning down an offer of seats on the stage; we’d never even met the bride and groom after all and neither of us fancied playing the role of trophy white lady. That might sound harsh or unfriendly and it did indeed feel a bit that way but there’s a degree of status that comes with visible association with Westerners (I’d encountered this in China too) and it makes me feel uncomfortable at best.  We were attracting enough attention just by being there; far better to take some modest seats in an unobtrusive spot than to draw anymore stares. I tried to ignore the gentleman in front taking a ‘selfie’ with us carefully framed in the background by turning my face to look behind me, only to find myself staring into another camera. Such is life. A strange feeling though, to be valued for one’s skin colour instead of some achievement, especially when you’ve spent your whole adult life fighting as much as possible to eradicate this mistaken assumption that a chance quantity of pigmentation in the dermis has any bearing on your value as a human being. At least this discomfort distracted me from any thoughts about how I felt about what I was wearing and I found myself relaxing as I enjoyed watching the live band who were merrily turning out all manner of entertaining, up-beat songs to keep the crowd entertained as they waited. Quite a crowd it was too. I think there were about 500 people milling around and I wondered how on earth it was possible to have so many friends to invite to your wedding until I reasoned that it was probably not that difficult at all if you were content to invite entire families of ten plus their random foreign visitors who you’d never even met. Of course, this being a Buddhist wedding, there were also a lot of Order Members and other Sangha members about too, which would have pushed the number (and I thought also the costs!) right up through the roof!

True to the pattern of most weddings I’ve attended though, it seemed most people saw it as an opportunity to eat free food and show off their fancy clothes. There were plenty of these too and I soon ran out of energy to mentally tag sari designs as my ‘favourite so far’. ‘Nope, that one!’, ‘Actually I prefer the colour of that one.’ ‘But maybe with the pattern of that!’

After the chanting, I managed to peer through the backs of heads, milling crowds and enthusiastic photography team (yes, there really was an entire team) to see what was happening next. Part of the ceremony involved a cord being tied around the couple’s hands before water was poured over them. They swapped garlands (indicating my opportunity to dispense with the handful of marigold petals I’d been sweatily clutching since they’d been handed to me half an hour ago) and saluted the shrine for a final time before leaving the stage. “Was that it!?” I inquired of Sheetal. Not quite. They had gone to get changed and we were invited upstairs to a buffet lunch while they did so (I guess there might have been some formal signing of registers and such too, but that’s based on an English model and I don’t actually know that!). The lunch hall was huge, I suppose it would have to be for so many guests, and while I was semi-curious to explore it, I was actually quite grateful that Sheetal offered to go and get me a plate of ‘safe’ foods; she knows well enough now what I like to eat and would be better placed than I to identify any random milk products! A Buddhist wedding will be vegetarian by default (though I’m learning to assume nothing) but milk doesn’t come into this category so paneer, ghee and curds are still likely to be involved in some dishes. I waited for her patiently, wondering how long it would be before I spilled an oily, turmeric yellow dollop down my so far shockingly pristine turquoise sari. I contemplated perching on a sofa but decided that with a petticoat tied so restrictively tightly about my tummy, trying to put any food down me whilst bent at the gut would be a temptation too far for the gods of indigestion so I stayed standing, true to buffet style. Plenty of more practised sari wearers were happily plonked on the floor to enjoy what appeared to be plate after plate of (characteristically excellent) Indian specialities. Much as my taste buds were tempted to request seconds, my stomach over-ruled them for once. No more space! No time either, as we were herded into photo after photo by various people who I think were friends of friends, or who were at least pretending to be.

Long after my face started aching from all the pseudo smiling (I dread to think how many random people now have pictures of my well-meaning yet rapidly fatiguing grin-cum-grimace on their respective mobile devices!), we were told the couple were ready to receive us and so we all trundled back down stairs to the stage, where we joined the queueing well-wishers. Goodness knows, they must have been exhausted enough but stoically smiling amid the crowds, the bride and groom shook hands and took the congratulations of each guest amid showers of marigold petals. Finally, I had an opportunity to say hello, to thank them for their hospitality and to wish them the best for their future together. Just that though and no more as I was swept past and off the stage by the swelling crowd until the bride’s father (to whom we’d been briefly introduced at lunch) came and invited us back for a photo with his daughter and new son in law. Though I suspect there may have been some degree of ‘novelty foreigner opportunism’ to his request, it was a final photo that I didn’t mind as it was at least central to the purpose of the day!

My next opportunity to wear it will be to Neha’s wedding, in January, which I’ve been looking forward to since she visited England in June! I’m also very interested to see the difference and though I was initially sorry that I’d not be going to hers first, actually, I’m quite glad I got the chance to have a practice! I’ll not be feeling daft about needing help to get dressed though and will be very happy to accept the assistance. I shall certainly need it!

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!

It sounds like such a British affair to celebrate a rare Monday off work and school, relaxing in the open air with friends and a picnic; but that’s where the similarity ends! The girls had asked to visit the Deekshabhoomi some time back but owing to the practicalities of arranging travel amongst other things, we’d waited until we had a full day at our disposal to make a real day of it. Though many of the girls had visited the site of Dr Ambedkar’s conversion with their families, none of them had really understood the historical significance of the event and it is only recently that they have been studying in any detail about the impact of his activism on the lives of modern Indians and the wider, international community that is Triratna. So, this was in part an opportunity to spend some time together outside of the classroom but also an ongoing exercise in learning about Ambedkar’s life and the role Buddhism and spiritual practice plays in the daily routine of his followers. I was also keen to return; though it was not long since my last visit, on the 14th October anniversary of Ambedkar’s conversion, such was the significance of this date that it had been too busy to really appreciate the place and rather overwhelming just 24 hours after landing in India! I was looking forward to seeing it in a more peaceful state.

At the end of my last update, I reflected that my experience of study trips in the UK was that if you had private transport booked, this would be a significant stress reducer as an alternative to the trials and tribulations of public transport. I also reflected; however, that I was learning enough about India to suspect that things would not be quite so simple in this case. I wasn’t wrong. To begin with, I was delighted to hear that the coach we’d arranged to carry us from Bhilgaon to meet the young men at the Deekshabhoomi had, wait for it, arrived a few minutes early! India – 1, UK – 0. I’m used to coaches turning up worryingly ‘promptly’-cum-late. Would that I could end the story of the transport there, however, things fell down a little when our driver brightly announced that he could carry a total of four passengers. There are ten women students. There were four teachers expecting to travel with them. Cue a quick ‘phone call to a gentleman who has become one of our favourite go-to rickshaw drivers, mostly because he’s very flexible in allowing us to stop on our way home to buy fruit from the Kamptee Road-side stalls. Thankfully, he was only ‘10’ minutes away (note; 10 minutes in India = 20 /30 minutes in actual time). Still, this did not seem to present a complete solution to my mind; rickshaws can carry maybe four to five people. At least we had already had a call from Mark to let us know that things were equally delayed at his end as the young men had not yet finished eating breakfast or packing their lunch. I decided to disengage from any sense of stress and trust that things would work themselves out, so I sat in the sun and watched a couple of the girls hook (rather unripe) guava fruit from the tree in the front garden and waited to see what would happen. No one else seemed too worried, after all. The solution was five in the van (including myself), four in the rickshaw and the rest in Aryaketu’s car. We finally set off, only about 30 minutes behind schedule, which, I have learned, is practically on time. When we arrived, we found the guys already waiting for us calmly in the shade of the Bodhi Tree’s descendent. All’s well that ends well.

With the spiritual food so expertly served and happily consumed, we finally left the cool of the marble building (where one is requested to observe respect by refraining from photography) and stepped back out into the hot, midday sun to begin our physical feasting! The women had packed us a delicious lunch of chapattis, pilau and subji which they carefully ladled into disposable plates for us from a range of stainless steel ‘tiffin’ boxes that had been meticulously packed that morning. Delightful as this was, I was rather impressed with the simplicity of the men’s approach. They’d cooked a huge quantity of poha, which they’d simply plopped into a big bag! We tried some of that too, which was every bit as tasty! Indians tend to have a rather direct approach to food. Though great care is taken in the preparation, it doesn’t tend to be consumed with much ceremony and most of the picnickers had finished and cleared their plates before I’d got even half way through. I sped up to avoid appearing anymore unusual than, erm, usual, enjoying some guava presented to me by Hema before we all quickly piled back out of the shady spot we’d found to start taking pictures in front of the dome. I have become accustomed to eating lunch at a reasonably leisurely pace before taking things quite slowly, possibly even lying down for twenty minutes or so prior to afternoon activities and unfortunately, at this point, the heat and exertion rather got the better of me and I’m afraid to say I ended our trip feeling rather ropey.

Though neither my hosts nor I were celebrating the Hindu festival of Diwali, it has been impossible not to notice it in recent days and this has set something of a tone for our weekend. A bit like Christmas in the UK, many things shut for a few days and taught classes did not run on Saturday. Work did not entirely stop for us though and we had a very productive teaching review meeting on Saturday morning. This was especially useful as it was the first time that Mark, Shakyajata and I had been able to make time to come together for a chat about how things were going without then having to dash into a classroom or jump on a bus back to our respective campus. Having had a week of experience teaching together and getting to know one another and both student groups a little more, this became a really useful opportunity with lots of positive decisions made. Next week is now planned just enough, not too much to eliminate flexibility, with an even distribution of teaching tasks that we each feel well able to independently plan, prepare and deliver. I’m genuinely looking forward to it, both in teaching my ‘own’ content and seeing how my two experienced colleagues manage ‘their’ particular topics. Actually, such was my enthusiasm for my tasks that I came straight away from the meeting and began preparing for my first session; a ‘test run’ of an a practical activity and the creation of a gapped worksheet that I will use alongside it to introduce new vocabulary in the context of instruction verbs. Not only was it good to ‘strike while the iron was hot’ so to speak, it also meant I could really ‘switch off’ my work head and enjoy our planned afternoon together that we had agreed after a really enjoyable Saturday evening last week.

The family have received a wedding invitation for next weekend, to which we are invited by extension and so we needed (OK, I’ll be honest, wanted, but it’s a great excuse) to buy some appropriate clothes. For Mark, this entailed a smart shirt, for Shakyajata, a nice, dressy kurta (tunic over trousers) and for me… well, I’ve decided to be brave and have a go at a sari! I’ve been told they aren’t easy to walk in and I will certainly need some help getting dressed but I’m up for it. I think. One new cultural clash I shall face is that whilst I find I am sometimes resentful of being ‘made’ to swelter in long trousers and with my shoulders covered every day, it is not considered at all risqué to bare ones midriff… and of course the tiny ‘blouse’ (that I would call a crop top) I will be wearing under the sari is going to leave me more publically exposed in that area than I am accustomed to. Still, I shall get over it. If I can cope with mixed sex communal showering at German computer parties, I’m sure I can cope with showing a little bit of tummy at an Indian wedding. This is a challenge I’ve yet to face though and procuring said garments in the first place was something of a trial in its own right!

We had decided that after catching the bus into town, we would be able to find all our purchases on Dr Ambedkar Road, one of the main shopping areas and also the site of the Saturday market. This would have been busy enough on any regular Saturday but on the Diwali weekend it was even more so. Imagine Oxford Street on Christmas Eve. Now imagine that the pavements have been removed so the pedestrians and vehicles are trying to share the same thoroughfare. Now add a row of market stalls in between the shop fronts and the constantly jostling pedestrian/traffic mash. Remove observation of traffic laws and pedestrian crossings. Add smog and a liberal sprinkling of agitated hooting. Add more of both of those. OK. Now you might be starting to get an idea of the sensory overload that is a shopping trip on Dr Ambedkar Road on a normal Saturday. Square that for Diwali.

The Diwali holiday continues into the beginning of the new week and so we have no classes tomorrow but we have instead planned a picnic trip to the Deekshabhoomi for both the young men and young women's groups. It’ll be the first time I’ve visited the place in daylight and without a crush of people thronging to celebrate the conversion anniversary (See Friday Night at the Deekshabhoomi) so I’m looking forward to the trip for that reason, as well as to spend some social time with the students. Fingers crossed the hired van turns up on time and gets us there. Normally when arranging a student trip, knowing we’d be going by coach would be a significant relief but I somehow have an inkling that in India, it’ll not be perhaps quite so straight forward. It’s certain to be an adventure though, whatever happens and I’m sure there’ll be more stories to tell very soon!

After two weeks in a foreign country, it’s perhaps not unusual to be beginning your homeward journey but on this trip I’m still really only just getting adjusted and possibly beginning to imagine what my routine, as far as it will be possible to have one, may look like in the months to come. Since my last update a week ago, time has been filled more consistently with teaching activities, not just in the classroom but also outside of it in the planning and preparation stages and it’s been a real pleasure to have been given the space and freedom to turn some of my visual skills to this end in ways I’d never have had time to do when teaching in the UK. One thing I have been particularly glad to work on is a series of illustrations for the purposes of prompting correct use of pronouns with the verb ‘to be’ (She’s dancing. He’s singing. They’re running. Etc.), copies of which were then laminated and cut to handy flash-card size. These can take quite a while to produce, illustrating first in pencil before adding ink and then scanning for editing in Photoshop, but I never felt rushed or pressured to finish in an unrealistic time frame.

Still, the journey is cheap (only 9 Rupees to the first useful stop or 11 to the next) and very quick (only ten minutes on average) with a service coming every ten to fifteen minutes. In the evening, it’s sometimes a bit of a treat to hire a rickshaw as an alternative to the bus. At up to 150 Rupees, it is a bit of a luxury but it takes you door to door if needs be and occasionally a kindly driver can be persuaded to stop for shopping at one of the fresh fruit stalls on the busy main road that leads from Nagpur city centre out to Bhilgaon.

Frustrations aside, it has been good to get active again, even if this has been in very different conditions to those of my norm and I am already feeling better for the activity. Combined with a 30 minute yoga routine in my room most mornings, I should be well equipped to maintain a reasonable degree of fitness, even if marathon training distances are out of the window when broken into 15 minute chunks! In addition, I’ve realised the gym is a valuable opportunity for a little bit of the ‘me’ time to which westerners are so attached, before returning to the busy family home where a desire to be alone is not only difficult to indulge but actively bewildering for the rest of the household.

I’m continuing to get used to the alternative versions of ritual practice too, such as different tunes for mantras and entirely different verses during puja. If you’re used to chanting in Pali anyway, one might not think there’d be much difference but it can be surprisingly jarring when you’ve become so used to certain sounds or making offerings in certain ways. Even the shrine salute is a little different here; a slightly longer process and it’s taken me until now to remember I haven’t finished half way through. Meditation too has been a new experience as it’s not been so easy to follow the stages when led in Hindi. This hasn’t had a huge impact on my practice but it is yet another flicker of alteration that builds up to quite a significant degree of difference when added to the backdrop of other changes.

Generally, despite these observations, which I am sometimes more able to take in my stride than others depending on energy levels or general mood, things have been settling into a rather pleasant sense of normality over the last seven days and I find myself unsure if it still feels like I’ve hardly been here a day or if I’ve been here for months already. Feelings of acclimatisation are bound to consolidate still further over the coming days as we fix more permanent planning decisions around teaching timetables and syllabus delivery, as well as settling into other routines around weekend practice and other leisure time. Having said that, we are about to enter a three day holiday period for Diwali; not a Buddhist but a Hindu event that will bring festivities, change and disruption to the whole country, much as Christmas might in the UK. We’ve made some plans for special things to do with the young men and women over that time so whilst any fragile, new-born sense of normality is going to get a good and proper rattle over the weekend, it should be in quite a fun way and there’s sure to be plenty to fill up a new update pretty soon!