Happy New Year

May all beings be happy. May all beings know peace. May all beings let go of fear. May all beings be true.

I am thrilled to be celebrating the close of 2008 and ringing in the infinite possibilities of 2009. I am hopeful about a new beginning.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Holi Festival

Holi Festival begins the first day after the first full moon in March lasting 2 days and signalling the beginning of Spring. It is the festival of color. Generally people go a little wild, throwing colored water and powder all over each other. Regular work shuts down and everyone celebrates the joy of new life and a new season with special foods and of course bright colors everywhere. When I was in Maliwada village at age 17 during Holi festival, I was advised to wear old clothing and go out and have a good time. I came back completely covered with powder and colored water all over my hair, face, arms and of course my clothing. I was all shades of pink, green, yellow, red, purple, orange, and every shade inbetween. I rode on the back of a motorcycle into the nearby city of Aurangabad and got fully pelted coming and going. Of course I loved it at the time, as did the smallest children whose aim was good. We'll see how I fare this time around.

Itinerary

January 23rd Friday: Fly from SFO at 8:00 am; arrive Newark, NJ at 4:20 pm; Fly to New Delhi at 8:20 pm.
January 24th Saturday: Arrive New Delhi at 9:30 pm. Hotel near airport.
January 25th Sunday: Fly to Katmandu at 10:00 am; visit Changu Village
January 26th Monday: Changu Village
January 27th Tuesday: Changu Village
January 28th Wednesday: Fly to Delhi; Travel to Haridwar
January 29th Thursday: Haridwar Orphanage and Ashram
January 30th Friday: Haridwar Orphange and Ashram
January 31st Saturday: Haridwar Orphange and Ashram
February 1st Sunday: Haridwar Orphange and Ashram
February 2nd Monday: Rishikesh Ashram
February 3rd Tuesday: Rishikesh Ashram
February 4th Wednesday: Travel to Delhi; Fly to Mumbai; Train to Miraj
February 5th Thursday: Wanless Hospital
February 6th Friday: Wanless Hospital
February 7th Saturday: Wanless Hospital
February 8th Sunday: Timothy's Hospice Project in Sangli
February 9th Monday: Timothy's Hospice Project in Sangli
February 10th Tuesday: Timothy's Hospice Project in Sangli
February 11th Wednesday: Timothy's Hospice Project in Sangli
February 12th Thursday: Timothy's Hospice Project in Sangli
February 13th Friday: Timothy's Hospice Project in Sangli
February 14th Saturday: Timothy's Hospice Project in Sangli
February 15th Sunday: Timothy's Hospice Project in Sangli
February 16th Monday: Timothy's Hospice Project in Sangli
February 17th Tuesday: Timothy's Hospice Project in Sangli
February 18th Wednesday: Timothy's Hospice Project in Sangli
February 19th Thursday: Train to Mumbai; Fly to Jaipur, Rajasthan then train to Puskar
February 20th Friday: Puskar
February 21st Saturday: Puskar
February 22nd Sunday: Train to Jaipur; Fly to Bangalore; visit stove factory
February 23rd Monday: To Arunchala
February 24th Tuesday: Ashram
February 25th Wednesday: Fly to Aurangabad
February 26th Thursday: Ajanta Caves
February 27th Friday: Ellora Caves
February 28th Saturday: Daulatabad Fort
March 1st Sunday: Maliwada Village
March 2nd Monday: Maliwada Village
March 3rd Tuesday: Maliwada Village
March 4th Wednesday: Maliwada Village
March 5th Thursday: Fly from Aurangabad to Mumbai; Train to Pune
March 6th Friday: Pune
March 7th Saturday: Pune
March 8th Sunday: Pune
March 9th Monday: Nashik
March 10th Tuesday: Nashik (Full Moon)
March 11th Wednesday: Nashik (Holi Festival)
March 12th Thursday: Nashik (Holi Festival)
March 13th Friday: Train to Mumbai
March 14th Saturday: Fly home at 10:00 pm
March 15th Sunday: Arrive SFO at 12:00 noon; Santa Cruz by 3:00 pm?

voices from the past

I am thrilled to have received responses to an e-mail I sent out to contacts in India I had made in 1989. One of my colleagues from the original ICA village project I worked on at age 17 in 1976 replied and is living in Pune! I will be happy to see her and her husband again, both of whom I remember quite well from our Maliwada days in '76.

Visit to Envirofit International

Late in February, my plan is to travel to Bangalore to visit an ashram and a contact from Santa Cruz. While there, my dad has asked me to visit a stove factory that originated in Fort Collins, Colorado that makes indoor cook stoves that are highly efficient, clean, cut down on indoor air pollution, burn anything and pay for themselves in fuel savings in less than a year. He wants to see if we can ship them to the Changu village project in Nepal, or even open a factory up there. I'm looking forward to this leg of my journey.

Maps

http://maps.mapmyindia.com/
Try this spot to see a map of India

OK, so having failed at transporting a map from the internet to this site, I drew one of my own. I'll be flying into New Delhi, arriving Saturday night in time for a good night sleep in a hotel near the airport, then a flight to Kathmandu and a visit to Changu village project there. Dad will fly to Bhopal. I'll take surface transport to Haridwar and Rishikesh.

After Nepal

On Wednesday of the first week, my dad will fly to Bhopal to meet up with an Indian heart surgeon he has worked with in the past. I'll be going to an area near the headwaters of the Ganges River to visit an orphanage and ashram near Haridwar and then to Rishikesh. One week later I'll meet up with my dad in Miraj where he will be working with a cardiothoracic surgery team at Wanless hospital, consulting. I will be volunteering in a nursing capacity as needed and learning more about what medications, supplies and services are available locally for hospice patients in preparation for my efforts to help start a hospice program in the nearby city of Sangli.

Ode to India

This is a poem I wrote upon awaking from a dream after my last trip to India in 2000.

ODE TO INDIA

Road killed carcass of dog at first
bursting with the creamy rot of fresh decay
Then wide open, caved in, picked clean by crow and runaway piglet
feeding on this unexpected source of rare nutrition
The smell of human excrement
Pervasive through the pungent spice of
Cardamom and burning temple incense ganja weed bidi smoke
Fly encrusted flesh wound on
an otherwise skeletal stretch of skin
Over the smooth, nubby bone of thigh
pushing out at the knee and hip and pubis-
Revealed through tattered
filthy cloth the color of dust,
once magenta or azure or parrot green
Trimmed in gold.
Shrieking claxon of overloaded lorry
Pounding over broken pavement, rutted road
and smashed melon bleeding cracks
Barely missing the lumbering charcoal water buffalo
with long curled horns tipped in brilliant red.
A bright blue tassel smartly jiggling on his wrinkled forehead
Beautiful brown eyes shining through the
Long dusty lashes, clear mucous rolling from
the giant whiskered nostrils in tiny streams.
Bitter taste of diesel fumes and ginger garlic cumin
clouds of steam billowing through cracked and broken grass mat walls
Stained with the splash of mud mixed urine, discarded
tea, dishwater, bathwater, soot from fire pit
Deafening roar of rolling metal machine transport
Cut through by the shrieking horns, squealing brakes, and rubber tires
Forced around turns at high speeds occasional shout—jeldie jeldie lakie jao
Barely missing sudden death by crushing blow
Of impact with the endless flow of living creature
from lamb to goat to pig to cow to dog to chicken to
Tiny urchin child with shiny begging eye and
Outstretched mutilated limb—mehm sahib mehm sahib paisa?
Whispered, whined and bawled through parched throat
of scrawny little dust laden person
A person with heart, blood, spirit, feelings, flesh and
Human bond with mother. Always a mother somewhere
Somehow warm and tender milk sweet holding soft enfolding
Long black oiled hair scented with coconut or jasmine or cook pot steam
The froth of thick buffalo milk boiling in a battered pot
Tinted with the creamy brown of Darjeeling or bergamot tea.
Syrupy sweet with mounds of pure white sugar ladled generously in.
Floating cardamom pods, black speck of sticky seed
rich with succulent aroma. Chai, chai, chai wallah chai wallah chai.
Tiny newborn child swaddled in a crusted cloth
Shining new brown skin of toe and heel thrust through and into air
Dangling below the tiniest fragile perfect knee
Held close to withered breast, wrinkled face, broken, black stained teeth,
showing through red colored pan chewed smiling lips
Winking diamond eye of great grandmother—shriveled
small as an eight year old child—
wrapped elegantly in her cotton cloth sari dress
with petticoat tails of clashing color
above be-spangled silver chained bony ankles and cracked bare feet
The second toe of each encircled with a shining band of marriage metal.
All of this from rot to ruin to fresh and brilliant beautiful lush and colorful
All of the sights, sounds, smells, tastes the touch of India
Vibration of color and life and amazing inspiration in the
deepest poverty and despair, pain and dying desperate hell.
India calls me back relentless tugging at my soul
Awakening in me a fascination with the extremes of human condition
All displayed in full light every day exposed and open.

Leaving Town

I'll be leaving town on Friday, January 23rd. My plan is to fly to New Delhi, via Newark, NJ. It's a non-stop flight to India. After a brief sleep in a hotel near the airport in New Delhi, I'll meet up with my dad and his travelling companion and we'll fly to Kathmandu, Nepal to visit a small village development project my father is supporting. His main goal this trip is to arrange for clean water to be piped from a well a mile away, so that people don't have to carry water from so far away.