(Taittiriya Upanishad, Shikshavalli I.11.2) Great India #1
Nanda Devi from the Himalayan Writing Retreat
I have just returned from nearly a month spread between Delhi and The Himalayan Writing Retreat.
The first morning I woke to the screaming chirps of ten green parakeets outside my window. I had never seen so many at one time. They were excited by the new day, and thought I should be, too. I was in Sarita Vihar, a leafy suburb of Delhi, and I had arrived from Canada the night before. I hadn’t expected to look out of the window in the morning and see a subtropical forest. From my fourth-floor bedroom, in the middle of twenty million people, I could see no end to the trees – and right in front of me were about five different ones: neem, peepul, amaltas, jamun, and eucalyptus. It is a rare sight to see so many types in one panoramic view.
The night before I had picked the wrong bag off the carousel and left in a taxi. A few minutes later, I got a call asking me politely if I could look at my bag. The taxi driver, the police, the baggage handlers and the man I had inconvenienced were so understanding and kind I was even more embarrassed. The bag looked similar – but, duh, how stupid could I be? I had not checked the luggage tag. They were very forgiving.
A park in Pocket A of Sarita Vihar
A residential street in Pocket A of Sarita Vihar
What kind of an Ironist are You?
Although late for a dinner with people I had never met, I was treated by them as though I was their first born. I was overwhelmed. They were Bengalis, and it is true that they say Bengalis like “fish and rice.” There were nine dishes of fish and shellfish. They were excellent. They served Indian Scotch whisky, Amrut, and it was so smooth. Such was my introduction to Bengalis living in exile.
We all know, or know of, the American who doesn’t know that Canada is a country separate from his own.. Perhaps my ramblings about India sound as ignorant to Indians as the American stereotype sounds to a Canadian. I have been visiting India for the last 25 years. I must have visited more than ten times, for business, for holidays, for family reasons (one of our sons married a girl there), and yet I do not know India. India has so much of everything, both good and bad. I think that if I were to spend the rest of my life there, I would still not know the country enough. Its complexity and diversity engender an infinite imaginative sweep too audacious for one not born to it. To me, India is a range of mountains that I am looking at from far away. And that is exactly what I did.
I caught the train from the main Delhi railway station (there are seven others) and the station was, well, busy. But there was no pushing or rudeness – everyone pursued their goals (which was to get to their platform, one of the sixteen) and gave way graciously, taking turns to move forward, in a great cosmic game of give and take. That may be India’s triumph.
The Hindu gods uplift and enchant humans upon earth, manifesting themselves in various ways, behind a kind of veil that can detach and remove us from hardships and suffering if the righteous path of moral duty is followed. Each may understand the gods’ actions differently, but since the aim is to unite with the universe itself, a certain tolerance – such as permitting another person to move in front of you to get to a different platform – is to be accepted in the great scheme of things. I was once told in Benares that the great teleology of Hinduism, the core of its beliefs and lifestyle, is up for free debate, rather than dogmatically prescribed by those familiar with its tenets. This promotes tolerance and compromise. What you gain on the straight, you may lose on the roundabout, but overall tolerance of inessential matters is fundamental.
The train went until the plains ended and the mountains began. The railway ticket, for a six-hour, fast, comfortable train, including non-vegetarian meals and drinks served at your seat, was a paltry Cdn $23.00 each way. And the train didn’t pull into a siding to allow freight trains pulling empty trucks to pass by as Via Rail must in Canada. When I went to the toilet – I went to the ‘English’ toilet on the coach (the one that has something to sit on) – I met a man coming out, who, upon seeing me, started to profusely apologize for its lack of cleanliness. I have seen worse toilets in many other parts of the world. I like the courtesy and friendliness of the Indians I have met. There is a lot to learn from Indians, especially their welcoming rituals and respect for foreigners and guests.
After the train, there was a three-hour taxi ride that snaked up and around the mountains to the retreat. The retreat was on a promontory that gave a view of the higher Himalayas in the distance. When the clouds lifted, I saw Nanda Devi in her glory, and it was spectacular. The ancients describe these mountains as abodes of the gods, of places for spiritual search and purification, as well as mythical kingdoms. And looking upon their grandeur, it is easy to see why.
I was at The Himalayan Writing Retreat to attend a creative writing seminar guided by its founder, Chetan Mahajan. He has had an interesting life, combining his good education and work experience in America with the more unusual – an unfair incarceration in an Indian prison – before deciding with his wife to start this retreat. They chucked the corporate rat race in order to pursue their shared dream of helping to develop the minds of those inspired by the location.
It’s been a roaring success and I can see why. He has kept it small (there were only ten at my retreat) and has turned away the Big Companies and franchising American chains and monoliths that want to buy him out. His wife, Dr. Vandita Dubey, a practicing clinical psychologist, has just released a book where she has researched thirty people escaping their daily grind to find meaningful lives. It’s called The Great Cubicle Escape. They have been at this venture for ten years, and I enjoyed listening to their plans to expand their operations with a few modest buildings.
I was the only non-Indian there, and probably twenty years older than the others and yet, I felt totally accepted and an ease I have not always felt in similar Canadian educational venues. Could it be that having 122 languages and numerous cultures such as Punjabi, Bengali, Tamil, Maharashtrian, Gujarati, Rajasthani, Kashmiri, Kerala, Assamese, and Dakhini/Hyderabadi allows for a greater tolerance?
There could be an inward-looking streak in some Canadian communities. Of course, India has 1.5 billion people, and Canada has 40 million, so one must be careful of any comparison. India has an incomparably larger pool from which to draw people who might like to write. But it has always amazed me how easily Indian writers move between the global contemporaries and the canonical authors as Conrad, Dickens, Melville, etc., as well as their own indigenous authors and languages, such as Tagore, Narayan, Rushdie, Ghosh and Arundhati Roy. Maybe it helps that they have an old rich culture to draw upon, giving their work a breadth and admirable depth.
My balcony of the Leonard Cohen cabin
I thoroughly enjoyed the retreat with its debates, exercises, discussions and the open and expansive imagination of its attendees. I plan to go again. Chetan has specific seminars for specific interests and people, from poets, to editors, to publishers with keynote speakers and experts. His wife also offers wellness and health programmes. Check them out at www.Himalayanwritingretreat.com.
Non-local food ingredients come a long way by winding road – so the variety of meals offered at the retreat may seem a little restricted for some. But, on the other hand, their momos, steamed dumplings, were a revelation for me, the recipe being influenced by nearby Nepal. Speaking of local foods, we were near a small village, and given the steepness of the hills, the easiest way to get somewhere is not always by road (which is limited by the grade a vehicle can tolerate) but by short cuts through terraces dug into the mountainside and little winding paths. So everywhere locals were cutting through others’ fields and cut-throughs between houses. Certainly, these often nearly perpendicular routes ensured I didn’t see any flabby people. My seminar, of course, was conducted in English. What surprised me is that all those I talked to in the village could speak English too, and of course, they were friendly to a fault.
Apart from the interesting people at the retreat, the flora, fauna and geology fascinated me. From barking deer, lowing cattle deep down in the valley, to colourful woodpeckers, naughty monkeys stealing bananas from the kitchen, to the incredibly loud cicadas at nightfall, everything was so captivating. Much of this area has mica and pyrite in the shale of the mountains, which make for shiny reflections when the sun comes out. Combine all of this with mist and clouds rising off the ground and necklacing the mountains, and you have a magical experience.
A view to the higher Himalayas from the Himalayan Writing Retreat
Looking back over this last month, the hospitality I received everywhere was generous and welcoming. The ancient Greeks had a religious duty to be hospitable, which they called xenia. They feared Zeus might show up at their door disguised as a beggar. They no longer believe in Zeus and the modern business of tourism has destroyed what xenia remained. India, so far, has escaped this. I fear that as commercialism continues its inexorable spread, India, too, may lose more of its connections with the rhythmic chanting of the Upanishads. Many Indian parents might agree with me.
I want to close by saying that some Indian friends gave me a bracelet of cotton threads, the “knot of protection”, during the festival of Raksha Bandhan just before I left. It was given to me as a sign of the extended bonds between us, and I was very moved by this traditional and tangible sign to express our respect and love for one another. So the traditions continue – and may they always.
My cotton bracelet for Raksha Bandhan
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Contributed by
Nigel Scotchmer
