Back on the road...

So far…


Been involved in all kinds of weird and wonderful adventures, but I don’t wanna bore you with details so here it all is in a nutshell...



Hampi

It was more a meeting of minds than anything and the spontaneity of new plans couldn’t have taken place at a better time or place than this. Josep, an eccentric Catalan journalist is also heading to Anantapur to check out the Vicente Ferrer Foundation, an NGO bringing in excess of 2 million euros per month from donors to provide the best in education and health to the dalits (untouchable communities) of Anantapur, a region situated in the southern state of Anantapur. Cheeky Norwegian, Joachim is a carpenter and has worked with NGOs in South America and is inspired to join us. With me and Wayne, we've suddenly formed a team, so it's back on the road and we all link at the next stop: The Vicente Ferrer Foundation, Andra Pradesh.


Big NGO - sex education for deaf kids
It’s meant to be the most innovative humanitarian project in India and was started by the main man about 50 years ago. I’m doing a report on one of their latest projects: sex education for deaf kids. Kinda ironic when you think how the subject of sex education falls on deaf ears everywhere else across the country while these kids are getting the message loud and clear. I wonder if they'll be using props such as bananas and condoms? Headquarters of the NGO are huge with residential facilities for press, donors, volunteers, staff and security.

Projects
We stayed five days and spent much time visiting a number of projects including the maternity unit. Here, women here have opted to get their fallopian tubes tied straight after giving birth. They come here to recover from the operations while their mothers have access to all facilities at the hospital to take care of the new-borns. Also went to an AIDS hospital where we saw a three year old child born with the disease. It was a shock to see this. His grandmother was feeding him one grain of rice at a time. He had the look of death in his eyes. My heart flipped about 50 times. We also went to a number of schools including those for mentally disabled kids, blind and deaf kids.


Bangalore
Everything became interconnected when we discovered an ex-Vicente Ferrer employee had gone off to Bangalore to begin his own NGO for lepers. Ignacio got things moving about four years ago and today, works with some 200 leper families. Housing, education and health are key areas. There are three schools, we went to visit the kindergarten school for kids with parents who have leprosy and had a day of fun. They need more resources, facilities, at least another teacher (there’s only one so far) and opportunities to get out on some field trips. Josep is flying back to Bangalore this summer to work with Ignacio and to help the NGO meet goals. This is India where anything and everything is possible. It’s all there for you if you want to make it happen - so all I can say right now is, watch this space…


Bangalore: the city
Didn’t like Bangalore. Spagheti junctions and super highways and concrete flyovers and skyscrapers and billboards advertising insurance plans for families with 2.4 kids – modern is the buzz word for the Indian who wants to get on in life. Buying into the commercial crap of the west means status. The pink plastic American dream with its diners and cafes and yuppie bars and McDonalds and Burger Kings and Indian fastfood chains that have lowered the standards of Indian food just to fall in line with the trends of the west – it’s all a huge and shameful contrast to the slum-like streets with its lepers, beggars and prostitutes that roam through the city. We avoided the yuppie side of town and hung out in the dodgiest Indian bars we could find.



Tamil Nadu

It was time for some space so the team split and me and Wayne sped even further south to Tiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu. Tiruvannamalai is a centuries-old ancient city in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The history of Tiruvannamalai can be tracked back as far as 100BC. The city is home to a number of ashrams, one of the most famous being the Shri Ramana Ashram. You can feel the spiritual energy of the place and the way it bounces back into the city from the huge Arunachala Mountain(otherwise known as Shiva's mountain). According to geologists, the mountain (also known as Tiruvan Malai Mountain) is older than the Himalayas.

Tamil Nadu - Home of the Real Indians
It's also home to real salt-of-the-Earth Indians. As India continued to be raped and conquered over the centuries, many Indians also continued to move further south, namely to Tamil Nadu. The people of Tamil Nadu are a spiritual people with kind eyes and hearts, they are tribal in their ways, yet genuine, beautiful, amazing at the same time. Tamil or Telegu is the language of Tamil Nadu. I tried to speak to some natives in Hindi, but had to resort to sign language and broken English, but it was still all good!

Shiva and the eternal column of fire: The story behind Arunachala Mountain
Shiva threw a mighty column of eternal fire through Arunachala Mountan and asked the godheads Vishnu and Brahma: "Whichever one of you can find the top or bottom of this eternal column of fire, will become the master of the universe, the respected, the feared, the worshipped, the greatest!" Vishnu went down the column to find the bottom but re-surfaced to admit defeat. Brahma went up to find the top and to his dismay, could not find it. He also found he could not admit defeat, returning instead to tell both Shiva and Vishnu that he had indeed discovered the top end of the eternal column of fire. "You are the true master of the universe" cried Vishnu! Shiva too offered his congratulations. However, it soon transpired that Brahma had lied, forcing Shiva to cast a curse that declared he will be the least worshipped of the godheads for all eternity. And so that is the story of Arunachala Mountain and Shiva's column of fire.

Tamil Nadu - facing myself
I can understand why people come here for spiritual enlightenment and why it is reffered to as the "divine city for spiritual enlightenment". I came face to face with myself in this place, so naturally, I wanted to leave within 24 hours of arriving. It's a spiritual haven for international travelers seeking something and for those who believe with their hearts and souls in the true power of the non-physical world, the power of attraction, a higher consciousness, connecting with the Supreme and discovering god within. In other words, a load of happy clappy freaks of meditation addicted to meditation.

Didn’t think I could do it, but I did actually manage to meditate. Hooray! It’s impossible to sit there and not have any thoughts whizzing through your head, but what I learned was that awareness of these thoughts is what will help to reach that meditative state. Oshu said, (no, I am NOT joining the cult) that we are all mad. Why? Write down all the thoughts that cross your mind and you will realise that you too are a mad person.

Controlling these thoughts by being aware of them was libertating and felt like a great step. I saw the traffic that was going through my head. It was a spagheti junction of thoughts whizzing through my brain, flashes of light, of people, a loudspeaker of conversations being played back. It was useless shit that got in the way of my energy and creativity. The mind can be controlled by the self, it's just a matter of knowing that there is shit that it will love to churn around like a washing machine. I sat there and watched it all happen. I brought myself back to myyself by realising myself as me: here I am watching my thoughts. I am I. It felt like the shit in my head had been exorcised. I felt calm afterwards.

Drinking tea with monks
We climbed the Shiva mountain. It was about 800 metres up and felt almost vertical. Half way up we had an ariel view of the Shiva Temple, the second biggest Shiva temple in the whole of South India! The architecture of the centuries-old building looked like a cross between ancient Mayan, Egyptian and Indian influences - just like the similarities I noticed in Hampi... Took an hour and a half to get to the top where we meditated in front of the phallic Shiva symbol, the Shiv Ling, followed by tea with the monks. The monks were in their early 20s and had been climbing up this almost vertical mountain for the last 10 years, meditating with the master guru, who is in his 80s and who has been meditating on this very mountain for the last seventy years. Felt at peace here on top of the mountain. It was a beautiful experience that kept me grounded as a I accepted things and felt the freedom. I didn't feel like running away anymore because I felt tranquil in Tamil Nadu now, allowing me to enjoy the real spirit of India for at least a few more days.