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January 14^th (8 pm CMT)

The plane ride to India is the color of 80’s dance clubs – with pink and blue neon lights that line the upper left and right hand ceiling edges of the plane. The 12-hour flight is full of men with turbans. Everyone is quite nice and social – with men passing around extra airplane meals and women tending to each other’s children. Almost everyone seems to be frustrated with the movie screens on our chairs – as they tap the unresponsive screens mercilessly. Selection ranges from Hindi “late” and “classic” to English “late” and “classic”. One of the men in the turbans started singing as I browsed the movie choices. Perhaps it was in Hindi – perhaps it was religious song. I was clueless, but it was uniquely charming – and occasionally melodious. Still trying to decide on a movie and struggling with the supposedly touch-sensitive screen…one of the stewardesses approached me and presented me with dinner choices. Unfortunately…I couldn’t understand her. When I thought I heard her say “chicken” – I said “yes”. I think it was supposed to be the “American choice” for dinner…apparently there was also an “Indian” choice, which appeared to be some kind of curry. It looked better than my chicken, which was some kind of Indian airline take on chicken medallions with zucchini, tomatoes, corn, and potatoes. Next time…I’ll know better. Fortunately, the rice pudding was scrumptious.

The movie I finally picked is called “Taare Zameen Par” – or in English – “Every Child Is Special”. It’s a fantastic movie about a dyslexic child who finds liberation from his stifling teachers and traditional school system by meeting an open-minded teacher who is able to identify with the child because he has been able to overcome the hindrances of his own dyslexia.

My movie was occasionally interrupted by various announcements about not standing in the aisles due to a relatively high degree of turbulence. I’m reminded of the safety video we watched at the beginning of the flight – where the virtual depictions of women included comically large breasts. The things a 21-year old male notices on a journey to find himself…here’s to adventure and understanding.

January 16^th – 7:42 am (India time)

I slept on rocks – the hardest mattress in my life. Imagine a very large, lumpy brick and you have imagined my mattress at the YMCA hostel in Delhi. Not drinking the water continues to be a challenge – brushing our teeth with tap water and closing our mouths the entire time in the shower. The food, however, is superb. Last night we had naan, chicken, and and dahl – all quite spicy. It was perfect. I hope all my meals taste so good – though I must admit my standards are quite low after enduring food at the “ratty” – the nickname lovingly given to my cafeteria at school (Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island) – for three and a half years. Today promised to be good with breakfast (more food!), a visit to a Sikh temple, garden, and Indian dance performance. I am becoming increasingly worriedabout my weight – as people from the program have repeatedly told me that healthy, relatively large males typically lose 30 pounds. I asked the monk I had dinner with last night (Geshe La, a name that many highly learned monks go by) about the availability of protein powder – among many other inquiries. He told me that there was probably some available in Dharamsala – where a new health store had apparently been recently opened. I also asked about the journey he took from Tibet to Dharamsala when he was 5. He went only a few months after the Dalai Lama took the trip. Geshe La is captivating – fitted with the polite, frequent, delightful chuckle that seems characteristic of so many Tibetan Buddhist monks.

January 17^th (10:35 pm Delhi time)

I was told today that I may have to leave the group to obtain a check on my Visa – as I have the only Visa in the group that tells me to check in at Delhi instead of Dharamsala. Adventure awaits…

The trek to the immigration office was long, enlightening, and productive. Karma (one of the group organizers – the secretary for Sarah Institute of Buddhist Dialectics) and I took an auto rickshaw (you can see photos of these small green and yellow vehicles in the gallery) to A.I.A.S. – where a very helpful man and his driver took us to the New Delhi immigration office. There was quite a line – and to ge in I had to show my passport and sign a book. I actually signed in the wrong place and the guard snapped at me. It was a bit funny – this gruff-looking solider upset about the neatness of his makeshift journal. Thankfully, I was successful in not letting out an audible chuckle. Once inside, we waited until 1:30 – about half an hour – when everyone cleared the building for lunch. Everyone left – eating with a roadside vendor or from thermoses from their cars packed with dahl and naan. It was refreshing, though my western orientation was fueling anziety within me about registering my Visa successfully. Everyone joked and laughed outside the office, forgetting about the business at hand and prioritizing breaking bread with both friends and strangers. A few minutes before 2 – everyone headed back in. After a long wait - I was finally called to the front where a seemingly tired and frustrated lady quickly brushed through my papers and stamped my Visa. After a warm embrace, I parted with my helpful A.I.A.S. comrade. Karma and I proceeded to get some food. I was hungry because he didn’t think my Western stomach could handle the roadside vendors – I trusted him.

After some chicken masala and a couple of auto rickshaw rides across town – we were able to catch up with the group – see an Indian and Tibetan dance performance – and exchange adventures of the day over dinner back at the hostel. A few of us agreed to wake up early so we could leave the hostel by 4 am to attend a 4:30 am Sikh service at a temple just up the block from where we were staying. The poverty we encountered in that short walk was extraordinary – with young boys and girls around five or six huddling around fires in trashcan barrels in attempt to shield themselves from the fifty degree morning temperatures of Delhi.

The temple itself was beautiful – with sounds of Indian Sikhs praying in song that radiated across the dust-covered streets. The temple was all white (available to view in the gallery) and had a water fountain to wash our feet before walking up the steps to the temple. The service consisted of men and women listening to one man who was singing in the center of the temple. (The only other male in the group and I had to cover our heads with bright cloth available at the front of the temple – as all people in the temple are expected to cover their head). We stayed for about 20 minutes before walking out to the water section of the temple (available to see in the gallery) – where people would rinse their feet and faces.

One man approached and asked where we were from. After I said we flew in from New York City, he handed me a letter to give to the U.N. Office – making me assure him that I wouldn’t hand his letter over the “corrupt Indian Government”.

Later that day we were able to see the Dalai Lama speak at an event in Central Delhi – where he spoke abut the necessity of compassion. This was the first time I had ever seen the Dalai Lama in person. He waddled in from one side of the stage…slowly with his head bowed. (pictures available in gallery)

After wondering through a mental state of awe after the Dalai Lama spoke…a few of us went to Old Delhi for some exploring (pictures available in gallery). Walking around this are of Delhi reminded me of a number of the border towns in Mexico. There were dilapidated buildings, unpaved roads, and beggars galore. Bargaining is a must in the shops. Apparently…a decent strategy is to offer half the price quoted to you in Delhi and work your way up from there – threatening to walk away once you get close to the maximum amount you’d like to pay.

Jan 20th

The night before we left Delhi for Judge’s Court in Pragpur, I began to feel ill. I developed a sore throat before going to sleep. I wasn’t too worried – hoping I would sleep it off on the 12-hour bus ride. However, I had not been able to completely convince myself that staring out the bus window would be a less attractive option than sleeping off my potential cold. I woke up at 4 am to shower and collect all of my things before walking downstairs to eat breakfast with the group and brace myself for the epic trip across unpaved roads in a foreign land, where every single place I turned inevitably produced an endlessly captivating site. Many times in the preceding days I caught myself staring at the most “normal” scenes: cars driving by on the highway, people buying food at stores, dogs walking on the sidewalk. I had seen all of these in the U.S. many times before. Nonetheless, it was all incredibly unfamiliar, and I couldn’t peel my eyes from anything. It was for this reason that I suspected I might be misleading myself regarding my ability to sleep off my sore throat on the bus.

After we ate and discussed our expectations for the trip to Pragpur and what we speculated was to be a very comfortable stay at Judge’s Court, a World Heritage Site, (a very welcome change from the high degree of activity and smog that engulfed all things Delhi) we set out for the road. Driving from the YMCA to Pragpur began as something that seemed out of science fiction movie. It was dark outside. The highway was small, and the surrounding buildings and construction made the entire ordeal seem as though this place had just endured an alien invasion. People congregated around garbage bins where they had set fires to keep warm in the early morning amidst the backdrop of sporadically thrown metal and concrete columns that were apparently intended to help aid in the completion of the highway, but ultimately, at least for the time being, only helped to convey an atmosphere of some kind of futuristic post-war scene, as if out of Terminator 2.

We drove until the urban street scenes of Delhi transition into rural countryside. There were gas stations with teenager attendants. It was very reminiscent of small towns in Texas, with tractors parked in large fields being prepared for harvesting. Immediately it became obvious that this was the kind of place where almost everyone knew everyone else. People in cars would wave out the window as they passed other vehicles and pedestrians. This was a stark contrast to Delhi, which was much more characteristic of the urban sprawl found in Los Angeles.

We pulled over at a gas station for a bathroom break. One notable difference between gas stations right outside of Delhi and in the U.S. is that these gas stations are almost never attached to a convenient store. You can stop for gas, directions, and perhaps some help with very light automobile assistance. However, if you want chips or a soda…you’re out of luck. Though, there are quite a large number of tea stands along the road where you can get chai, snacks, such as Masala-flavor Lay’s potato chips – one of my personal favorites.

Upon trying to use the men’s restroom, the four of us made the sad realization that someone had either taken up shelter in the restroom and was living the life of a hermit – refusing to share his good fortune of a hole in the ground with us, or that the men’s bathroom was simply locked and could not be opened. We tried asking one of the attendants about using the restroom, but we could not overcome the language barrier. The Buddhist monk that was traveling with us also needed to use the restroom. Upon seeing him walk to the back of the gas station where the bathroom was located, one of the guys said, “Oh good. You know he’s gonna use magic to open that shit.” The sleep deprivation, the increasing need to urinate, and the well-timed humor resulted in a jubilant formula of guffaws. Unfortunately, the monk was not able to “use magic to open that shit.” So...left with nothing else, we hopped the fence behind the gas station and used that as our restroom – right in front of the girls who were waiting for their turn inside the women’s restroom. It was quite an interesting juxtaposition, between the four of us urinating on the fence in front of about ten girls between the ages of 20 and 21, our female professor, and a monastic Tibetan Buddhist monk. It was certainly the most thought-provoking yellow stream of relief I have ever experienced.

We continued driving, stopping at tea stands along the way for Indian chai, bread, and cookies. The 12-hour ride was long and my throat continued to hurt more and more. We drove by small towns with lines of tiny store fronts that extended for miles. We saw many more small businesses than houses. Though, the houses we did see were not quite what many Westerners would consider a “house”. People live in tiny buildings that lack any real shelter from the elements. Essentially, these residences are comprised of strips of discarded sheet metal or plywood what is rested against one another to form some resemblance of walls. On top of these walls rests another layer of sheet metal or plywood to serve as a roof. Across all of these houses are long strands of clothes that have been hung up to dry in the sun. If communities are fortunate enough to have running water, they certainly do not have access to dryers. Most people wash their clothes in a bucket and then proceed to dry the clothes on a line.

Eventually the scenery of people began to look the same. There were sporadic groups of Sikhs (the guys with the turbans), some Indian guards at checkpoints, and lots of Indians who wore a Western style of dress – often sporting slacks and a shirt or a blouse (depending on whether or not the person is male or female). There were of course a few people in traditional Indian clothing, but these were among the minority of people that we encountered.

As night began to fall the Indian starry sky revealed itself to us. We peered out from the bus windows to view a deep black sky that was completely littered with stars. It looked as though we were driving around a large planetarium. It seemed possible to make out the fold of the Earth by seeing the ways the stars fell across the night sky and reflected their light back at us. The scene was absolutely breathtaking. We stopped for a bathroom break and to get a better glimpse of the stars. The monk who was traveling with us told us that the night sky at Sarah, where we were headed, looked even more impressive. I didn’t believe him; it seemed impossible for any night sky to be more impressive. Trying to take in every second of the stars– while trying to ignore the pain in my neck and throat from looking straight up for such a long time, I reluctantly made my way back on to the bus. A large number of the people began to sing Disney songs, Beatles, and a wide array of recent top 40 hits. I tried to smile and nod in approval as I struggled to not let my throat get the best of me, which was really hurting by this point.

We got to Judge’s Court about an hour later, where we saw beautiful architecture. It was an old Indian hotel tucked into a small village in Himachal Pradesh. A lot of renovations were going on – at least it seemed this was the case since the building we were staying in was full of construction materials and sawdust. However, our rooms were beautiful. And compared to Delhi, the showers were palaces, which really just means that they were very clean and had hot water.

I had a quick dinner with the rest of the group – sticking to the Dahl since it felt good on my sore throat. There was a quick toast to Bush’s last day in office and Obama’s inauguration. After drinking a few sips of water in honor of the new President, I hurried off to bed. It was in that bed where I thought I might die – the first American casualty of the trip. I slept that night, the entire day after, and the following night. I had a fever that was slightly above 102. I was scared. I was away from every single person I knew, without a modern hospital in site, and here I was – as sick as I had ever been in my life. I thought…well this is it. Everyone who told me not to come to India was right. They said I would die…and sure enough…I will. This is the end. At least I get to die a world traveler I thought. Of course, a lot of this self-imposed melodrama was for my entertainment. I didn’t really think I would die, but I was very worried. My anxiety about the trip had recently skyrocketed. The fact that I abandoned my final semester at Brown, which should be full of parties and friends – the time of my life – for this land of cold showers, no family, friends, or girlfriend, or protein…had finally hit me. And on top of it…I had a terrible fever, a very unfamiliar sickness. I never get sick. This was a bad omen. I was sure.

After approaching complete death and sleeping for approximately 36 hours, I was healthy enough to take a shower and stumble down to the main dining hall for breakfast. Auspiciously, I was greeted by cheers and a bombardment of questions concerning my health. I mustered up a smile and a friendly voice – trying to ignore the remaining soreness in my throat. I was given some grapefruit seed extract for my throat. It is most definitely the worst tasting thing in the world. I’m pretty sure this must be scientific fact. I was able to eat some eggs…and I tried getting on the internet with everyone else who had congregated at the main building where we had wireless. I was able to get online for a bit and confirm to some friends that I had been accepted into TFA- Dallas. I learned this the night before by checking my email from my phone. I had no clue if I wanted to commit to TFA or not – law school was another major option weighing on my mind. I was quite torn – and in the middle of India…having just gotten over a terrible fever…I had slightly less than one week to decide. After a few minutes of catching up with friends and surfing the web it was time for us to load up the jeeps that would take us to our final destination, Sarah Institute of Buddhist Dialectics.

The two jeeps were quite rugged-looking. The trip from Pragpur to Dharamsala is relatively short – approximately two hours in length. This, however, was not the sci-fi fantasy trip that I had experienced traveling by bus from Delhi in the early morning. The air here was extremely clean, the polar opposite of the smog and dirt that engulfed Delhi. The two-hour drive was comprised entirely of driving up the bumpy, gravel-infused face of a mountain. We drove over massive cliffs, seeing monkeys run across the road and people wash their clothes in buckets all along the way. With every curve of the mountain, the drivers would hunk to warn any other cars who happened to be on the other side of the blind turn. Every turn was of course a blind turn and the “roads” were only wide enough for one vehicle to pass. Along the way we studied the Tibetan alphabet, but had to stop after only a few minutes because a large number of people in our jeep began to feel motion sickness.

Eventually we arrived at Sarah. The entrance to the school is a tiny side street off the main road. We drove up a short little hill and were greeted by a small number of monastic Tibetan Buddhist monks who were dressed in the traditional maroon garments. They all greeted us with warm smiles and katas, a white scarf that is traditionally given to guests in India. We were immediately invited into the kitchen where we were given green vegetables – the first any of us had encountered since we left home, with the exception of some saag paneer sprinkled throughout our dining experiences in Delhi and Pragpur. We then took a tour of the very small school. There is a guy’s dorm, a girl’s dorm, a library, cafeteria, temple, and of the guest house in which we had just eaten our meal.

After the tour…we met our roommates. All of the male roommates are in the teacher training program to become teachers. This was incredibly appropriate for me since I was weighing the pros and cons of TFA at the time. After meeting my roommate and talking a bit about where I would sleep (a cot on the opposite corner of the room…it wasn’t a very long conversation) I laid down for a quick nap because I was still feeling rather tired and a bit sick. My roommate had left for a quick meeting. When he came back I was fast asleep, but his entrance woke me up and we decided to have chai in the canteen near the front of the school. After tea…we went back to the room and organized some of my belongings. I also gave him a few gifts that I brought from Texas. I gave him a calendar of famous Texas sights, like the riverwalk in San Antonio. I also gave him some Texas wildflower seeds, a Texas postcard, and a deck of Texas playing cards. I was a bit surprised when he did not open any of these in front of me. He took them from me, said thank you…and brushed them aside. I tried not to think too much of it, but I assumed he did not like the gifts at all. We talked a bit longer and I left the room to meet up with some of the other people from the program. Dinner time was approaching.

When I returned from dinner, my roommate had opened the deck of cards and had placed the calendar on the wall. He pointed to the calendar and said he had put it up. He seemed quite happy about it, so I was very much confused at that point concerning what he actually thought of the gifts.

(later on during a meditation with Ani-la, I would learn that Tibetans consider acting surprised and very grateful for presents as an act of selfishness because it implies that they want more. Rather…they say thank you for the gift and act uninterested- only to open the gift later once the giver has left their presence.)