BACK HOME

They were all there to greet me when I arrived.  Andrew was still at home on his winter break from college, Robert had a day off from school and on their way to the airport, they collected Florentina from NYU.  I was overjoyed to see them, they looked well.  I wondered if they had missed me as much as I had missed them. Yet I didn’t want to find out.  I would feel hurt if they hadn’t, and guilty if they had. 

  Cold in my thin Indian clothes and sandals, I was grateful that Hugh had brought the car to the terminal and I quickly climbed in, glad to be in the warm again.  On the drive home I looked at the familiar landscape speeding past the car and the beloved faces inside.  It’d only taken one smooth plane ride to get back.  Would I one day be similarly amazed at finding my Self?  Amazed perhaps to discover that finding myself involved nothing more arduous than waking up from a dream?

 

  Walking into the house I took in the familiar smells of hardwood floors and of the espresso Hugh was making.

The cat came down the stairs.  Nose twitching, she cocked her head and looked at me, then like a model on a catwalk she slinked toward me and rubbed her body against my leg. She had not lost weight. 

  I took the hot café-latte from Hugh, the rich vapors wafting to my nose and I breathed deeply as though from an inhaler. I like Chai and while in India I looked forward to it in the morning and afternoon, but I had missed the milky coffee that Hugh and I have at the start of the day. 

In my bedroom the turned-down bed was inviting.  It looked just as I had seen it in my mind’s eyes that first sleepless night of the tour, on the floor in the school in Telassery, Northern Kerala.  Soon hot water was filling the tub.  I had looked forward to a long soak and when I came out, my feet were finally clean, no more black around the toes and heels.

 I climbed into bed and turned to face the window.  The trees outside were still bare but I fancied I could see the hint of buds on the branches.

“Mummy, would you like to come down for dinner or do you want to eat in bed?”

My goodness; it was already dark outside.  It was seven o’clock in the evening, had I slept that long?

 

The precious silence that I found in India had come home with me and I didn’t want to lose it by plunging back into the world. Many days went by before I left the house, or talked to anyone other than the family.  

With my tiny pocket mirror forgotten in my bag, I’d only rarely seen myself while in India; now that I was home, I stood in front of my bedroom mirror and saw that my stomach had shrunk.  My appetite had also shrunk, and I dared think that I had conquered the hungry ghost within. 

 

HOMEWARD BOUND

 

  Nova was on her way back to England and I was on my way home to New York.  Soon I would see my husband and children again.  I was the one who had gone off with three changes of clothes, a collapsible bucket, a Thermarest mattress and Bruno, my son Andrew’s old teddy bear for comfort, but this journey had been undertaken by the whole family.

I had traveled from one end of the Indian Subcontinent to the other.  Riding for hours on end on a jolting, swaying bus, as we went from one city stop to another, I came to feel that I no longer inhabited the same world as my family.  My luggage was all that was familiar to me, and the mosquito net I hung above the Thermarest was my room.  The challenges I faced were both physical and emotional.  The reality of a spiritual

boot-camp was harder than I had imagined from the cozy comfort of my home.

 “Why is Esmeralda putting herself through this?  Is there no easier way of getting to Heaven?”  a friend asked Hugh in an email soon after I left.  When my husband forwarded it to me, I was still struggling with sleeping on the floor and going to the toilet un-western style was difficult for me and things got a bit hard!  I had had to adjust to “showers” in the toilet with a bucket, being careful not to drop anything.  With a hole on the floor and not even a nail on the walls, I worked out a way of hanging my collapsible bucket from the door, thereby avoiding any of my things touching the floor.  I would slide the bucket’s nylon handle over the latch, before hooking it into the metal hole on the doorframe.  The bucket contained my toiletries and my towel and I also used it for my laundry.

  No, I hadn’t come looking for Heaven per se. I had come at my soul’s urging to find my Self.  Alas, the path to Self-discovery was rugged and uphill.

I missed the children and cried a lot.  Bruno the Teddy Bear was supposed to cheer me up but made me cry instead, because every time I looked at him, it brought back memories of the children when they were little.  And those memories fuelled the sense of loss I carried, unexamined, within me.  In the end, I took the difficult decision to pack Bruno away in my duffle bag. He didn’t come out again until Bombay, when I discovered that the woman on the floor next to me had lost her ten-year old son in a car accident.  Upon hearing this, Bruno leapt out of the bag and threw himself into her arms to comfort her.  By then I had traveled a long way, and not just geographically.

 

As time wore on, fatigue, illness and general weariness had gradually chipped away at the armor and brought me to a state of openness to and acceptance of the present moment.   When the tour started, I quickly learned that being first off the bus, when we arrived at one of the program stops, also meant first pick of the sleeping floor.  Being last in meant that the only free floorspace left was in the middle of the room, which made it difficult to hang the mosquito net.  It also meant that people had to walk over you on their way in and out of the room.  And so, for the first part of the tour, one of my primary concerns was securing a prime corner or window spot on the floor.  Then I got really sick in Bombay and even thought that I might not be able to finish the tour. It was only thanks to my friend Kayvalia, one of the doctors,  that I managed to get up from the floor and onto the bus.  When we arrived in Ahmedabad from Bombay after a sixteen-hour bus drive, I had to reach deep within to summon the strength to get off the bus and stagger up three steep flights of stairs to get to our accommodation.  When I got there I opened my straw mat and fell on it.  Softened by tiredness, weeks of existing on only mouthfuls of food (I didn’t like the food, and when I got ill, I just didn’t eat for forty-eight hours), something within me shifted.   I stopped relying on the mosquito net for privacy; in fact I stopped using it.  I still tried to get a comfortable spot on the floor if I could, but I no longer made a beeline for it.  I had realized that true freedom, and all the health and wealth of the Universe lay within me.  Relying on anything – anyone – meant allowing my happiness to be contingent on external factors not within my control.  As the tour progressed, the swaying and jolting of the bus no longer bothered me and I stopped wanting to keep track of date and time.  Forgetting I had a small mirror in my bag, I didn’t see my face (or body) for weeks and I stopped being concerned with my looks or weight.  My hair was short and I combed it with my fingers, my only concern with clothes was that they be clean and even that was a flexible definition.  After the initial upset at not being able to dial out with my cell phone, I found that I could get by with my husband calling me every couple of days.  Then the phone stopped allowing me to even receive calls and after only a few swear words I shrugged my shoulders and did without.  From then on, my husband and I stayed in touch by email, and luckily there were Internet places at most of the tour stops.

 By the time we reached Calcutta, the last stop of the tour, I noticed that the constant noise of incessant thinking had subsided, revealing a peaceful silence instead.

By the time I boarded my flight from Dubai to JFK, on the second leg of the homeward journey, I had become so accustomed to traveling for anywhere between twelve to twenty-four hours on a bus, that the fourteen-hour flight did not bother me.  I sat quietly in my seat and enjoyed the peace and silence of my being.  I was glad to have gone, glad to have made it to the end, and glad that soon I would see my family again.

 

Leaving For India

Back in New York

I Am Back

Pilgrims Bathing In The Ganges At Bellur

I have been back three weeks now, and it has taken me that long to settle down.  To settle down sufficiently to try picking up from where I left off that is.

 

But let’s start from the beginning.  As you know, Nova joined me in Calcutta for the end of the tour and I joined her at the Oberoi Grand.  And grand it was indeed!  And do you want to know something? I had no trouble whatsoever letting someone else carry my luggage; in fact it was a very welcome change. 

Oh, and I can’t tell you how easy it was to get into the elevator and just push the button to the fourth floor, instead of staggering up the stairs as I had been doing for the past seven weeks.

As for washing, well!  Instead of waiting for my turn to wash in a toilet with a bucket and a jug, I soaked in an actual bathtub.  And I scrubbed my feet almost clean.  I mean they weren’t dirty, but they had black stains on the heels and toes that would only come off with a bit of the old pumice stone.

And sleeping in a bed, a really comfortable bed, with crisp white sheets and feather pillows.  As I said before, it’s like riding a bicycle, once you learn you never forget!

 

On our last day in Calcutta, Nova and I went to see Dakshineswar, the famous Kali Temple on the Ganges.  The temple complex and the area all around were teeming with people.  Children begging for rupees, vendors clamoring for business, rickshaw drivers vying for passengers.  As quickly as we could, Nova and I walked through the heaving mass of people and, after buying flowers to offer at the Temple, we stood in line and patiently waited our turn to stand in front of the Dark Goddess, Mother Kali.  I was reminded of another pilgrimage I went on in Sicily a long time go, when I was only six.  But the throngs of people waiting for their chance to gaze at Kali did not allow me to linger and I had to move on.

Ramakrishna and Vivekananda’s Ashram in Bellur, on the opposite bank of the Ganges, stood in stark contrast to Dakshineswar.  The well-kept grounds were an oasis of peace and tranquility.  The pilgrims walking in and out of the Ashram buildings, or down to the river banks, seemed to be engaged in silent contemplation instead of urgent, desperate prayer, as they were as they approached Kali in her Temple.

 

On the way back we stopped at Mother Teresa’s centre and visited the place where she had lived and ministered to the poor.  I would have liked to have met her when she was alive, but even in death she had a presence within the walls of the mission she had founded.  Before heading back to the hotel, Nova and I spent a few quiet minutes by her tomb.  It was a perfect end to our stay and I had no trouble going to sleep that night.

 

I was sleeping so well in fact that I didn’t want to wake up when the alarm went off at five o’clock the following morning.  Then I remembered I was going home!  Home, I thought, and I leapt out of bed and into the shower.

Nova and I flew together for the first leg of the journey, Calcutta to Dubai, and then she boarded her London-bound plane, while I flew on to New York on the other side of the Pond. 

 

Nova, thank you for being a true friend!!!!!

 

(End of part one.)

Some Of The Pictures

Car Park In Benares

Esmeralda and A Sidewalk Barber In Delhi

Rickshaw and Palace In Jaipur

SuperNova In Kolkata

(This entry is by my friend Nova Alexander)

So here I am in Kolkata having made a promise to Es three months earlier to join her on the last leg of her spiritual boot camp. I’ve struggled with coming to Kolkata – worried about how I might be treated as a black person more than about anything else.  My mood was not helped when I arrived and found that Emirates had messed up my luggage and it was going to be a couple of days before we would be reunited. It took a further three hours before I arrived at my hotel. The fact that I got there alive and in one piece was a debt of gratitude I thought I owed to my Formula One driver; however, over the course of my stay in Kolkata I realised driving within an inch of your life was the norm.

In my room (having bitched to the front desk about not getting my luggage ), I thought about what Es must have been through and tried talking my way out of my spiralling bad mood. Get over yourself Nova, focus on why you came, I remonstrated. The phone rang. Esmeralda was on her way up. I was almost at the door when she bounded into the room with her two heavy bags and one backpack; before we hugged I quickly searched her face and could see how hard this journey had been on her. Yes, she was tanned and had lost weight. Her hair was still short but spiked with grey. However, it was her eyes that told me of the emotional and physical struggles she must have endured. And I thought I could see faint stains on her face where tears might have been. Or maybe it was just sweat from the 37 degree heat. Dear Es. How proud I was of her. We finally hugged and I silently wondered if I should kiss her feet or something.

Gradually, once she’d eaten and taken stock of things, she told me about her journey and Amma and the sadness at leaving her newly formed family behind. She only scratched the surface and glossed over certain things. But that’s ok. Maybe I’ll hear more when the time is right. We laughed and Esmeralda also cried - more of joy than anything but also at having to leave Amma and the world that had in many ways protected her these past seven weeks.

The hotel was kind enough to kit me out with toiletries and two white Panjabis until my luggage arrived. Es took immediate control and, as I changed into my Gandhiesque garb, before I knew what was happening we were in another one of those frightful taxis en route to the Ashram on Budge Budge Road .

As a die-hard sceptic, I was anxious about the next few days and what might be expected of me. Despite all the books and lectures Es had thrown at me, I had not read any and what she said never really registered. I felt a complete fraud.  As we walked in through the Ashram's gate and past the Brahmasthanam Temple on our way to the program hall, I looked around and saw many westerners, the first thing that struck me was that all the '60's hippies I had seen on TV, had congregated under this one roof. The stereotypical person I expected to see was there along with thousands of local people.  But everywhere I turned, friendly people who knew Esmeralda came up and said hello as If they already knew me. I was given a quick recce of the place and at one point I thought perhaps now was the time to kiss E's feet.

At around 8pm, still clutching my handbag, I walked with Es bare-foot on a wooden floor through the huge congregation. It was time for me to face up to why I had come and to meet Her Holiness, Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi ( Amma). After much ado, it was time for Darshan. I was given a numbered token and placed in a long line. Trying hard not to think about my aching back I waited patiently to receive my blessing. When my time came it passed quickly. Clutching my hand-written note, I felt her embrace and before I realised what was happening my head was on her shoulder and I was being hugged and squeezed. Someone took the note out of my left hand and the moment was over. I was exhausted and just wanted to get some sleep. We got back to the hotel around 1.00am. Es said later that Amma looked into my eyes. Thinking back, what I do remember is feeling an inner warmth from Amma’s embrace.

By 6.30am the next day having changed into my 2nd pair of white panjabis, we returned to the temple. I sat on a chair opposite an Indian lady who's lead I would follow during my first Rahu puja . Es sat to my left. I felt out of my depth and was worried I might damage any good karma I had left in my life by messing this up. I tried to concentrate during the meditation and at one point opened my right eye slightly to see if anyone was looking back at me. Everyone except me was in deep contemplation and, with thousands of people chanting the mantra, I was able to concentrate sufficiently to follow the puja.

Sometime later that same day, we returned to take part in the Saturn puja. There were even more people taking part in this puja, and it was difficult to see Amma, but I was able to absorb myself in her singing which was mesmerising. By eleven pm though, I felt it was time for me to leave and headed back to my hotel leaving Esmeralda behind with her mother. 

I cannot tell you if I will eventually embrace Amma the way Esmeralda has. I still feel confused and I have many questions I need to ask myself. How I find those answers will depend on how open I am to hearing the truth. Whatever that will be. For now. I feel fortunate to have experienced another world very, very different from mine.

Calcutta, March 22nd 2008

The 2008 North India Tour is over!
It’s like Tiramisu, I said when someone asked me what I thought of the experience. It cannot be eaten immediately after it has been made. It has to rest in the fridge overnight first.
Oh dear! Trust me to think of food to explain a spiritual experience.
When the program came to an end yesterday morning, I was not the only one crying. A feeling of loss echoed in my heart. Like in a movie, images of the last two months ran through my mind. Had it only been two months since I left home and set off on this Tiramisu of a journey?
And why had I shed so many tears? Why was I shedding them now? What was it within me that now felt sadness at seeing everything being dismantled?
Had I not longed and dreamed and talked about going home to my family?
And yes, that longing is still there. But what about the friends I made here with whom I shared rickshaws and memories?
Not to mention Amma who had been physically present in my daily life since I arrived in India on the fourth of February.
Was I like my cat Zoe, often on the wrong side of the door?

How tenderly had Amma held me when I went up for Darshan at four o’clock in the morning. Afterwards, I sat in the hall with Miriam and watched the rest of the group go up to Amma one by one.
Sweet, kind, always smiling Emmanuelle was sobbing; Priscilla was stumbling down the ramp. Lars, Kaivalya, Raffaella, Mira, Mary, Brenda, Liz, Kripalu, Linda, Leela, Pushpa… not all of them crying, but certainly subdued.
I didn’t want to say goodbye. When the last one of us had had Darshan and Amma got up from her Peetham, so did I. While everyone rushed to catch a last glimpse of her as she left the hall, I quietly walked out of a side door and made my way to the nearby taxi stand.
The buses were already being loaded for the return journey to Amritapuri. The stands that only hours earlier had been full of books, CDs, incense and more, were now planks of wood lying on the ground.
After a last look at the newly consecrated Brahamasthanam Temple, I walked out of the Ashram gates and into the first available taxi for the drive to the Oberoi.
An hour or two from now, the traffic would be unbearable, but at six o’clock in the morning the roads were fairly clear.
As we got closer to the hotel, I was startled out of my reverie, when I noticed that every other car, bicycle and rickshaw on the road was going in the opposite direction.
It did take me a couple of seconds but I did grasp the fact that, though cautiously, we were driving on the wrong side of the road, but as my driver did not seem to be overly concerned, I didn’t feel that I should be either. In any case he did move to the right side soon enough.
I wasn’t too bothered either when I realized that this driver wasn’t too particular about the colour of traffic lights; red, green, it was all the same to him. Or as they say here:
“Same, same but different.”

I am now at the hotel with Nova. What joy to see her again! She tells me that I have lost weight, but with the delicious breakfasts, lunches and dinners that I have been eating here at the hotel…. Oh dear, I do have to be careful!
Nova and I are going to do a bit of sightseeing today and tomorrow and then I am going HOME! I can’t wait.

From India With Love,
Esmeralda

Ps I would like to thank Pryan, Jani and Doo who selflessly organize the tour for Westerners like me, I owe them a lot. In my book I will write more about them. But for now I want to say that it was a relief this morning not to have to pack my bed roll for loading.
As for Tiramisu, I make a really good one and if you would like the recipe, email me at : esmeraldawn@gmail.com
As for Nova, like Bruno, she will write her own entry about her experience.

Delhi - Calcutta

We are now in Calcutta, the last stop of the tour and there are only three pages left in this notebook. I will limit myself to those last few pages for now.
March fifteenth, the day of my fiftieth birthday, dawned early. I was awake at three a.m., not out of excitement because of my birthday, but because we were leaving on the three day bus drive to Calcutta at five and loading our bed rolls and bags started at four. Before leaving, Kaivalya came into my "room" and to the tune of Happy Birthday to you, gave me a simply wrapped present. Touched, I opened it there and then; it was a small mozzarella! I rolled on the floor laughing. I had often talked about making a mozzarella and tomato salad. Nancy gave me what here they call a house dress, a lovely long cotton dress/nightdress. And when I boarded the bus, those who knew, gave me hugs and wished me a Happy Birthday. I knew that my family was also thinking of me, and though far away, I could feel their good wishes.

At lunch we stopped at a monastery, and together with the food, Amma gave everyone one of the four hundred candies I had bought for the occasion. But imagine my surprise, when one of the swamis came up to me and told me that Amma wanted a little piece of mozzarella! "But I've given it all away. And how did she know about it anyway?" The swami laughed and told me not to worry. I was amazed. When she left, Amma took my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. The squeeze was gentle, but I was deeply moved. Other than stopping again for dinner, we drove on for twenty-four hours. When we arrived in Benares, it was five thirty in the morning. A Wedding Hall was our base. I quickly found my "room" and showered. I hadn't slept much during the twenty-four hour drive, and I was very tired, but we were in Benares, a place I had been dreaming of visiting for ages- and the Holy Ganges was only one mile down the road. Mary and I walked out of the wedding hall and jumping into a bicycle rickshaw, we headed East to the Ganges.

"Oh this poor man! It is going to give us bad karma having this man work so hard," Mary said. It had been the same in Faridabad when we had got on a bicycle rickshaw to go to the internet. "Look Mary, we've been through this before. This is how they make their living.""We should just give him the money and walk," she said. "It's just your inborn Irish guilt, Mary. We are not doing anything wrong," I reassured her. Our driver went as far as he could, then we walked. The streets were crowded with people going for their morning bath in the sacred River. I was so excited. A few more steps and the Ganges was before me. It was as I had always seen it in pictures. Beautiful, majestic, teeming with people, boats, Brahmins, Poojaris, vendors of flowers and sandal wood paste. On our descent to the ghats, Mary and I bumped into one of our group, Priscilla from the Bronx. Every now and then I would stop to take pictures until finally I took one more step and my feet were in the holy water of the Ganga. Wow!! And then my friend Mira from Milan, Italy joined us and without stopping went right in fully dressed in her travel clothes. I looked around me and all I saw was beauty manifest in many forms. I felt happy but wished my family had been there to share this precious moment with me. Next time.

After a while we moved on and walked the short distance to Benares' crematorium on the banks of the river. Several funeral pyres were lit. I stopped to photograph a tree that seemed to grow out of a wall, monkeys were jumping from branch to branch. Poised to snap with my camera, I was startled when a goat jumped from a nearby wall and landed at my feet. I thought it'd broken a leg, but he got up and walked away. Further along, I first heard then saw the snake charmer. Two cobras were slithering out of a basket at his feet. As well as the Ganges, Benares is also home to some of the finest silks in the world and, spiritual seekers though my friends and I were, we also wanted to do a bit of shopping. We walked the narrow alleys crowded with small shops, barbers, hole in the wall tea shops, cows and their sacred offerings. Turning a tight corner, I squeezed myself against the wall to let a funeral cortege with flower-covered body pass by me on their way to the cremation ground. Holding my breath I watched for a while before moving on.

Thinking of my own children, I let a twelve-year-old boy sell me a few scarves and two cotton shirts for my boys, before following another of our group to the German Bakery. What a place! I have pictures of it, it felt like an opium den. It was fun and I did enjoy the croissant with butter and jam, the first sweet breakfast in almost two months. Soon it was time to go. Mary and I jumped onto another bicycle rickshaw and after a while it became apparent that we were lost. "I knew it was bad Karma," Mary said."Oh Mary, don't start that again."It took almost an hour but eventually we got back to the wedding hall in time for a shower, before getting on the bus again.

Calcutta is hot and humid and the mosquitoes are out day and night and they bite left, right and center. Nova arrives tomorrow and I'll move into her air-conditioned hotel.
Bye for now,

Esmeralda

Delhi

We tried to be quiet, but the chips were crunchy. Four of us were gathered around an apple, a bag of chips, a handful of small black grapes, half a packet of cookies and a bag of Bombay mix. The other four women in the room were sleeping, but Pushpa, Leela, Brenda and I were having a midnight snack by flashlight. The crunching noise of a chip being eaten seemed very loud indeed in the dead of night, and my companions and I burst into giggles that grew louder the harder we tried to suppress them. We are in Delhi now, after the shortest bus ride of the tour, which brought us here from Faridabad in two hours. Just as good was finding my "room" on the first floor. Never happened before and it is a big thing, believe me, not to have to climb two, three or even four flights of stairs. I rejoined the tour in Jaipur. The rest did me good and I was happy to see everybody again. The 2008 North India Tour is almost over. We have one more stop, Calcutta. The most challenging bus journey is still ahead. It will take three days to get there.
Soon I will see Nova and my family, I am so excited! But I will have to say goodbye to my new friends, who over the past few weeks have also become a family, with Amma at its center. Liz from Ireland was a bit teary today when we were talking about the fact that the tour is almost over. "Where are you going after Calcutta?" is a frequent question now, and though a number of us are going home, quite a few are staying in India. Darjeeling, Varanasi, Rishikesh and Daramsala are amongst the places being mentioned. I would like to visit those places too, and sometime I will, but for me it will home FIRST. But there is still Calcutta ahead. We leave tomorrow at four in the morning. And tomorrow is my fiftieth birthday. A lovely girl from New Zealand gave me a Coca Cola as an early present and Joanna from Staten Island gave me a small cake and a few people sang Happy Birthday to me yesterday.

Bye for now,
Esmeralda

ps. Delhi Belly strikes again!

Jaipur

I am in Jaipur, in a nice hotel, sitting up in bed after a nice rest. Sleeping in a bed, I think, is like riding a bicycle, once you learn you never forget how to do it. "Nice," I thought. As soon as my head touched the pillow, I was asleep. And why am I in a hotel? I ran away from the tour. Well, not exactly. Bombay was a watershed, by the second day there, our numbers went down by fifty per cent, with fever, vomit and, yes, you've guessed: Delhi Belly. On the eve of our departure for Ahmedabad most people had made a good recovery and I had escaped it altogether. I just felt tired, very tired. And I lay down in the early evening and stayed there. I started shivering and feeling nauseous during the night. Kaivalya came to see me at six thirty a.m. and by then I couldn't lift my head from the pillow. We were leaving in less than four hours. I was beside myself, I could not see I would be able to travel, nor could I imagine staying behind on my own in a place that I found so difficult to navigate in good health, let alone now that I was sick. Anyway, Kaivalya gave me an intravenous injection of something, put something under my tongue and pumped me full of I don't know what else, so that by departure time I was able to walk to the bus. She carried my luggage and kept an eye on me on the bus, making me drink, giving me more medicine. My friend Miriam also helped me during P stops and somehow I made it to Ahmedabad without "accidents." In Ahmedabad, I lay on the floor for twenty four hours and Kaivalya came to check up on me periodically. I felt better by the late afternoon and I was able to nibble some crackers after forty eight hours without food. But I could not face the thought of the two days drive from Ahmedabad to Jaipur, so when Nancy (the one who joined in Bombay) said that she was going to fly to Jaipur for the Global Peace Initiative of Women, I decided to go with her.

I have to say that I was really excited when we got to the airport, and found that we could buy tickets with JetLite for the one hour flight to Jaipur in an hour's time. Nice, nice, nice!!! At the airport we were picked up by a courteous, white-uniformed driver and at the hotel I didn't have to lug my luggage up the stairs, they brought it up. And I took the elevator. I am glad I still have a taste for comfort. I don't think that I am a hopeless spiritual seeker. I never intended to give everything up, only to learn to do without. And I have! I will rejoin the tour tomorrow night, and go with Amma to the conference where she will give the opening address, and in the evening she will hold a public program. People are really excited that she is coming. We'll leave for Delhi the day after that. I will see Nova in Calcutta in fourteen days and I'll fly home to MY FAMILY in nineteen. Let me make a small confession here; I CANNOT WAIT to see them all again.

Esmeralda

p.s. To my friend Nancy from Scranton, Pennsylvania. Nancy I hope you got home alright. The tour is not the same without you and I miss you. And that thing you told me to practice, you can see how well that is going. I toured Jaipur today. It was great. I want to come back with my family.

Bombay

The drive from Pune to Bombay was the easiest so far. Three hours on fairly good roads and a pleasant conversation with a Canadian girl who sits across the aisle from me. Yes, I've moved to the back of the bus and I now sit next to a lovely Spanish lady. Her energy/temperament is calm and soothing, just what a pita (fire) personality like me needs. We are staying at an Ashram in what I call Ashram row. It's on a hill not far from Nerul West train station, alas two to three hours to the famous arch known as the Gateway to India. Bombay is a huge city of some twenty million people and the most mind boggling mix of poverty and opulence. And pollution. A hazy aura hangs permanently over the city, but I still find wearing a dust mask too cumbersome. My lungs and throat feel the strain though. Delhi is still two weeks away but a number of people could not wait that long to develop Delhi Belly. I will not talk here of the intimately shared bathroom confidences, and I assure you that I could write a whole chapter or two on the subject. But I am still chuckling at two of my own experiences during our routine stops on long bus journeys. One was at night; I thought I had spotted the perfect "bush" only to find as I came closer that this bush mooed and looked at me in the eyes. Another time, upon hearing that I needed a bush, an Israeli girl asked me "Do you need big or small?" I hesitated a second while I translated the question in my mind and then said:"Small." "Ok, I have," she replied. "Follow me." Anyway, touch wood and not too much of the saucy, oily food, Delhi Belly has not affected me yet.

I like being in Bombay, because there are shops, restaurants and a city energy that makes one want to be out and about. So much for wanting to come to India for a bit of introspection. I got on a rickshaw with my French friend Miriam, and we went to a place called Barrista where I paid one hundred and seven Rupees for a cold latte with whipped cream. Sitting outside we saw Lars and Kaivalya drive by on another rickshaw, and when they saw us they immediately got off. For the same distance they paid their rickshaw driver ten Rupees while we paid twenty. Within half an hour we were joined by four more people including a young couple from Staten Island. After my hundred and seven Rupee coffee, I crossed the road and had a delicious four Rupee, freshly squeezed sugar cane juice with lemon but no ice, thank you. My friend Nancy from Scranton, PA is leaving tomorrow, but my friend Nancy from NY arrived last night for the second half of the tour.
I am looking at a bay from the balcony of the hall I share with the other hundred and fifty women on the tour. Someone is playing the guitar. Lars has been called away to treat a severe case of vomiting and diarrhea. When he comes back a group of us will walk down the hill to the other side of the station to a hole in the wall that makes the most scrumptious lassis I've ever had. At six o'clock this evening, I will do my share of veggie chopping. Balancing the chopping board on my knees as I have done several times now, I will reflect on the fact that the crux of the problem is a matter of balance. Life itself is all about striking the right balance.

Lassi, here I come.
Esmeralda

Hyderabad - Washim - Pune

I am not sure of the date or even the day of the week. The journey from Mangalore to Hyderabad has been the worst for me so far. We left at noon and drove until 7:30 am the following morning. I have no idea where we then stopped, but there was breakfast, Chai and somewhere to wash and put our mats down, until we set off again at noon. We reached Hyderabad at four the morning after that. By the time we unloaded, unrolled our bedding, washed ourselves and our smalls, it was six in the morning. I am in the dumps again, the stress on my body and my mind has been almost beyond my endurance. Sitting on our swaying, jolting bus for hours and hours, I have prayed for detachment. I have tried to find that place within that is forever peaceful. I shall keep trying. This is after all the purpose of the journey. Unmoved by everything but the Self.

The program in Hyderabad last night was huge again. Over fifty thousand people filled the stadium. I am glad I didn't go. I didn't feel well, my throat was sore again and I developed a nasty skin rash. I need rest and clean, uncrowded lavatories.
While dozing on and off I would think of my children and husband and cry. I miss them. I have noticed one thing though; on those long, numbing drives, my mind seems to become still. Even if drenched in misery, I am fully present in it. The past of even a week ago seems so distant as to be almost beyond reach. The future has no place here. Anything beyond now has no meaning. I have been asked about Bruno. He is coping the best he can. Initially I took him everywhere I went, but all he did was remind me of when the children were little. And I cried so much as a result that I've had to stop taking him with me. We now do our own thing and meet from time to time. I am sure that he will want to write his own story at some point. Bye for now.

We leave for Washim within the hour, Pune after that.

I am now in Washim. We arrived at about three thirty in the morning, in bed (on the floor) by five. We are staying in a wedding hall, but I thought it was an abandoned warehouse. One hundred and fifty women in one big hall. I was fine inside my mosquito net.

Thousands upon thousands came to see Amma for the maiden program in Washim. The crowds were excited and eager to get close to her any way they could. Even when they tried to climb on the stage, they were smiling. They were so happy to have Amma in their midst. Again I was awed at finding myself on the stage behind her, timing the prasad givers. We left for Pune as soon as Darshan ended at eleven o'clock the next day and by the time I laid my bones down again, it was six o'clock the following morning.

For some of the people on the tour, this is the last stop; when we leave for Bombay tomorrow, they will go home or back to the Ashram. A handful of people have left already. I am digging in for the long haul. I am not going to quit. This was never meant to be a holiday but a veritable spiritual boot camp, and through every difficulty that I face, I see a different aspect of myself and I can choose how I respond. I am now sitting in the shade at the Brahmasthanam Temple, facing Ganesh, the remover of obstacles. I will meditate for a while.

Om Namah Sivaya

Mangalore

We never know at what time we leave. It depends on when Darshan ends.
I was still lying on my mat, when I heard Priyan call out for big bags and bed rolls to be loaded. We're leaving within the hour. I sprang up, washed, took the mosquito net down, rolled up my bedding, zipped my duffle bag and was out of the door in ten minutes.
I was in my seat when Bhavya, my Neapolitan friend, climbed on the bus.
“I am looking for a river,” she said. “Tell me if you see one, I have to throw this coconut in a river.”
“As soon as I see one, you’ll be the first one to know,” I assured her.
“I did a Rahu Pooja, and now I have to throw the coconut in a river:”
For the next few hours we examined every lake, puddle, ditch, marsh and rice field.
“Are you sure it’s a river?” she would ask. “It has to be a river, it has to flow.”
At our C & P stop we see water in the distance and I tease her that the Ganges has been brought over, so that she can throw her coconut in it.
In the early afternoon there came a moment when all the elements fitted together. We were driving past a river (I think it was a river), the bus had slowed down and we were close enough to it.
“Now, Bhavya, now! Throw, hard as you can!” I shouted.
“Are you sure it’s a river?”
“Throw for God’s sake, or we’ll be stuck with this coconut forever.”
“OK, ok, I am throwing,” she says leaning across me to the window and raising her arm.
By now Lars and Kaivalya (the doctors) were laughing.
“Goal! Naples scores, one to nil;” I announced.
“Are you sure it was a river?”
At about three thirty we stopped at a coffee curing farm for lunch and as we sat on the grass, Amma served everybody their food. By four thirty we had climbed back on our buses for the next stretch of the drive. The downhill roads were steep, narrow, full of potholes and oncoming traffic. For what seemed like hours, we proceeded at ten miles an hour. But I had limited my drinking to small sips and in the “water” department, I was ok.
It wasn’t until eleven that we found an open field where we could stop for dinner and as usual the local police took up their position as Amma’s escort.
I stood behind Amma’s chair and watched her pass the dinner plates to everyone and I was struck anew by the energy and love that emanated from her being. This journey was challenging me at all levels; physically, mentally and spiritually and yet I felt that in travelling with Amma I was in a privileged position.
“God’s love in a human form,” was how Jane Goodall had introduced Amma to the UN, when she was given the Gandhi-King award. I was experiencing that love, as had the thirty million throughout the world that she had already hugged. For now though, we still had to get to Mangalore. It was three in the morning when we drove through the gates of the program site, on the grounds of Amma’s local school.
I quickly found my room, a classroom on the fourth floor, and chose a prime spot in a corner by one of two windows. Next we all helped unload the luggage and by the time I staggered up the steep stairs to my patch on the floor, I was panting and wishing that someone would carry my luggage and that I would be climbing into my own comfortable bed. Still, I kept going. I have become quite good at setting up camp. In Bangalore I bought a clothes’ line and a large straw mat. The thermarest is really narrow, but with the straw mat underneath, my knees and elbows wouldn’t spill on to the floor every time I turned. And using the clothes line to put the mosquito net up, my little corner on the floor didn’t quite look like a center hall colonial, but it looked quite cozy nevertheless, and gave me some privacy from the other sixteen women in the room. I still mind waiting in line for the bathroom or a bucket shower, but not as much, and my own showers are shorter so as not to keep the next person in line waiting too long. I haven’t worn make up since I left home and neither have I seen myself in the mirror very much (I don’t have one) and I have to say that it is a freeing experience.
I do miss my family terribly, even more now that my newly acquired Indian cell phone will not allow me to make any outgoing calls, even though I have a thousand rupees credit.
Anyway, that’s it for now. I have to go and do my two to five veggie chopping shift, that’s my seva (selfless service) on the tour.
Oh, one last thing, through the coconut trees from my room, I see what looks like a bay and boats that resemble Venetian gondolas.
Next stop will be Hyderabad a two day bus ride from here.

Baci e Abbracci,
Esmeralda

PS. Yesterday Amma consecrated a new Brahmasthanam Temple here in Mangalore. I have no time to go into details now (I will in the book) but I wanted to mention it at least. What an extraordinary experience.
In the early evening I went for a swim in the sea (the Arabian sea) with Kaivalya and Lars, and even though I was wearing a cumbersome Indian dress, I enjoyed it. There was a dog on the beach, he had caught some small prey and an eagle came and took it from him. The dog looked really bewildered and ran after the eagle, but soon gave up as the bird was quickly back up in the sky.

Hello From Bangalore

It was long, but I did enjoy the drive from Talassery to Bangalore. The scenery kept me glued to the window for hours. And Miriam, a lively French girl my age sitting in front of me, was game enough to take my camera and snap away for me.
The day was misty and at times rainy, lending the alternating views of mountains and deep valleys a mystical quality. Rice fields gave way to tea and coffee plantations and bamboo forests. There was still enough daylight to photograph the two monkeys sitting on a wall, but it was nighttime when we spotted an elephant herd barely visible amongst the trees.

Whenever our convoy drove through a village or town, people would look at us and waive and, like children on a school field trip, we would excitedly waive back and laugh.
In the early evening Amma’s car overtook us and we all waived like mad. By the time we found a suitable place to stop, a field five hours out from Bangalore, it was after eight o’clock in the evening. Before most of us had got off the buses, lights and sound system were already in place and dinner was being cooked in a huge pot on a fire pit in the ground.
Sitting on the ground around Amma, we sang Indian Bhajans for an hour or so, while dinner was cooking. It was a special time, away from the crowds, with Amma all to ourselves.
But we still had a long way to go and all too soon it seemed, it was time to drive on.

It was almost three in the morning when our buses pulled into the courtyard of Amma’s engineering school and Ashram in Bangalore. Quickly grabbing our bags and backpacks, we went to find our rooms and then went through the routine of putting up our mosquito nets and unpacking our bed rolls. After a bucket shower, I found my Alka-Seltzer Plus from my case and dissolved it in a cup of water before drinking it. On the last stretch of the drive, I had started to feel unwell, my throat hurt and I felt feverish. The alka seltzer would help me sleep, and tomorrow would be another day. But the following day I felt really ill and I went to see the doctor, who after examining me, told me that I had pharyngitis and put me on antibiotics.

What started my latest bout of crying was discovering that my newly acquired Indian cell phone will not allow me to make any outgoing calls. It is fully charged, both battery and money wise. I have spoken to a countless number of people about it, yet no one can do anything . And because I have been sick, I haven’t been able to go and find an internet place and email my husband to please call me. And so I cried, and I asked myself why I was crying. Well, I am on a diet! I have given up (for the time being) everything that I am familiar with, and everyone I love. And I don't like it.
When my mother's younger brother, my uncle Giovanni, heard that I was going to India, he asked me why.
“Because I want to be free. Free from being dependent on external things for my happiness. I want to learn to be happy whether I am sleeping on the floor or on a bed. I don’t want to be dependent on food, on people, on anything. I want to be able to enjoy something if it is there, and not mind if it is not,” I explained. He listened attentively and wished me luck but he also reminded me of an Italian saying which says that it is easy to go: " Dalle stalle alle stelle" - from a hovel to the stars - but not the other way around.
He is right of course, and I am suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms. One thing that I am grateful for is that I am not hungry most of the time. It is almost lunchtime now, and I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast yesterday, other than a couple of sweet chais and the water of a coconut. Thank goodness, because I am sick of Indian food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Not that it isn’t good, on the contrary it is delicious, but I would love a nice big salad, maybe some nice roast vegetables with some couscous. Right, enough of that.
I would also love a nice latte and the comfort of my favourite armchair. But no latte today, or tomorrow either, or anytime soon. I have discovered that I really do not like crowds. And that is tough, because wherever Amma goes, there are huge crowds and since I am travelling with Amma, I won’t be able to get away from them until the end of the tour in Calcutta at the end of March, but who knows, by then I might have learned not to mind.
And actually who knows what else I might have learned by then. But the thing is - that is then and this is now and it is only the middle of February. Tomorrow we leave for Mangalore and I almost look forward to the bus drive, sitting comfortably and chatting with my Neapolitan bus companion. I don't feel as introspective as I did when we left Amritapuri.

Bye for now,

Esmeralda

PS Thank you to all my friends who have emailed me their encouragement. It has given me a big boost. Being able to go on the internet has also helped, and sharing a rickshaw with my new German friends (the doctors) was fun. Rickshaw drivers are something else. They are not afraid of big buses, they slide right underneath them, or so it seems.
Oh well.

Already In Trouble

Yesterday felt like hell. Only I think there are many degrees of hell, and I suspect they are even worse.
The bus dropped us off at the stadium where Amma’s program was being held in Kannur. And it is just as well that it left straight away or I would have turned around and gone back.
I mean back home.
Amma was not due for another three hours but the huge stadium was already half full and busload after busload kept arriving. Cheerful, friendly people willing to wait for Amma for however long it took. By the time Amma arrived at six thirty, over forty thousand Darshan tokens had been given out and there were more than twice that number of people in the stadium, peacefully waiting for their turn to be in Amma’s arms. This was the first time I saw Amma at a public program in India, and I was overwhelmed.
Taking my newly acquired apron out of my Mary Poppins bag, I followed my vegetable chopping companions as we searched for the kitchen. When we found it just outside the stadium, we discovered that there was to be no veggie chopping needed that day.
Good, I thought. I didn’t much fancy being in that hot, makeshift kitchen for three hours anyway, and I set about looking for a bathroom with one of the two women, a German lady who had lived at Amma’s Ashram for years. And it showed, for when we found the bathrooms on the other side of the stadium, the line was long and deep, and while I was horrified, my companion was unperturbed.
“At least there is one bathroom,” she said, her countenance perfectly serene. And I wanted to tell her to get off her saintly pedestal and be real, but I didn’t.
I didn’t want to be in the sun, in that line, waiting for my turn to pee. But what choice did I have? None. Actually that’s not true; I could accept the situation gracefully and concentrate on something else. But it is not easy, not when one is used to having one's needs met almost at once as we are in the West. And we think that it is something to be proud of. Impatience is something we wear like a badge of honor.
Anyway, taking pity on me because of my badly swollen feet and ankles, the woman I was with suggested I sat down while she waited in line. And I sat on one of the police chairs in full view of the bathroom. In time, about thirty minutes later our turn came. Walking away afterward, I thought in despair of when I would have to go again, “But maybe I won’t stay too long” I told myself. And then I discovered that there were two buses going back, one at the end of the program and the other at two am. My heart sank, but I gritted my teeth and drank very little: even then I would have to use the bathroom three more times, and, as the day progressed, my body started signalling that it was getting ready to spend what it had been saving up for two days. And it was more than a penny. As I rolled the Prasad near the stage later on in the evening, I prayed that when the moment came, I’d have the strength to stand in line and hold my own, wait while I squatted. I was way out of my comfort zone, forced to reach deep within to find the resolve to cope. And yet I was also in awe at being part of the group of people who travelled with Amma.
Sitting behind her chair later in the evening, timing those who handed Amma the Prasad, I watched as one by one the thousand upon thousand who had come for her Darshan, were taken into her arms. I cried with gratitude that whatever else I had been through in life, or whatever I was going through on this journey, I was at this very moment within touching distance of the Guru. And when my turn ended, I did touch her before making room for the next person.
When the bus came at two o’clock, I could hardly walk with exhaustion. I made my way out of the stadium, but Amma stayed and so did the thousands still waiting in line for their turn to be in Amma’s arms.
I fell into my seat on the bus, a thousand uncried tears crowded my breast, and no longer able to suppress them I sobbed helplessly. When I gave birth to my first child I had also felt helpless. The epidural had not worked and the pain of each contraction felt as if it was going to kill me. But my daughter was going to be born, the labour could not be stopped, and the only way out of it, was through it. I experienced the same helplessness when I stopped smoking. There comes a time when tomorrow has to become today and the work has to start.
By the time we pulled into the courtyard of “home”, it was three in the morning, yet I couldn’t go to sleep without first washing off the brown dust that clung to my hair and body. Afterwards I was glad to lie down, albeit on the floor and for the first time in a week, I slept.
When I got up the following morning, Amma was still giving Darshan until the last of the thousands got their hug at eleven forty-five in the morning.

And today is another day.

The Journey

Lunch was good but too spicy and after a couple of mouthfuls I set it aside. I didn’t want to drink more than one or two mouthfuls of water, this close to departure. We had been told that every four hours during the twelve hour journey we would stop for C & P (Chai & Pee). I would rather be hungry than suffer because of a full bladder.
The nine buses in the courtyard were ready to board. I scrambled for the nearest bathroom but it was just nerves.
“Get on the buses,” Pryan called out, clapping his hands.
I found my bus and climbed on board. Following Amma’s car, we left the Ashram, a convoy of nine buses. The coastal road was lined with the local villagers come to see Amma off on yet another tour.
The realization that I was travelling with one of the greatest spiritual leaders of our time, brought tears to my eyes and it was a few moments before I could swallow again.
From my window seat in the second row of the bus, I concentrated on the world outside and did my best to resist the conversation attempts of the woman sitting next to me. Italian like me, we had bumped into each other at breakfast on my first day at Amritapuri,
“Oh we must sit together on the bus,” she had said. “Tell them when you register for the tour.” But I didn’t; I didn’t want to be tied down to anybody and when I registered I just said that I would like to sit at the front of the bus. Unbeknown to me though, she had requested that we sit together. And we were, at the beginning of this fabled journey, facing my first challenge.
“Eshmeralda,” she would say in her Neapolitan accent. “Open the window, it is hot. Eshmeralda, close the window, it is cold.” This was interspersed with repeated attempts to know all about my life. Whenever I could, I took refuge in my neck pillow. She wasn’t too bad though.

On the other hand, Nova and my family will be happy to know that the two seats across the aisle from me, are occupied by the bus doctors, a nice German couple.
We reached Cochin in just under four hours. It was very dusty and I reached for a dust mask, but took it off as soon as I’d put it on - it made my face too hot.
We stopped at Amma’s school on the outskirts of Cochin for our first C. & P. I found a loo, but I had drunk so little that I almost didn’t need it. When Chai arrived, I only took a small cup but did enjoy the banana fritters that were offered. Within twenty minutes we were on our way for the four hour stretch to the next stop, only at that stop there was dinner instead of Chai. Again, it was delicious but hot, as in spicy, and I had two Luna bars instead. I didn’t want to drink for fear of needing the bathroom long before the next stop – we still had four hours before reaching Talassery, then one hour on to Kannur. The whole day I had drunk less than half a litre of water and the doctor told me to make sure I’d drink the rest of the bottle when we got to our base, and to put electrolytes in the water.
Hot, sweaty and sticky, I climbed on the bus for the third time and settled down for the last stint on the road for the day. Dozing off as soon we drove on, I almost didn’t notice when we pulled into the courtyard of Amma’s school in Talassery. The school’s classrooms were our bedrooms for the next three days, and mine was next to the bathroom. I was the first of the eight women sharing the room to claim my spot on the floor. As a real estate agent in “real life”, my first priority was location, and I chose an area near the door that had two upturned desks that I thought would be very useful as “bedside cabinets”. With the yoga mat and the Thermarest mattress unrolled, I set about trying to fix my mosquito net. Before I knew it, one of the other women had a clothes line running across the room and she used that to fix her mosquito net. I was not close enough to do the same, but she did let me hang my towel on it. In the end I used the upturned desk legs for the top end of the net and draped the other end over my duffle at the foot of my “bed”, which, with the Thermarest, pillow and sleeping bag, looked quite cozy. After a refreshing bucket shower, I called it a night.

Well, there is a saying in Italian, which roughly translated goes like this: Between talking and doing, there is a sea. Lying on the stone floor, albeit with a yoga mat and mattress, was very different from writing about it from the comfort of my home. But I was here now, on a mattress so narrow that it could not quite take me, let alone Bruno, and somehow I had to make myself comfortable enough to sleep.
“Oh Lord,” I prayed. “Help me through this.”
I slept on and off until about six; then I got up and started writing. I’ve since had three cups of Chai with Chappati and Uppama for breakfast, a wheat and vegetable concoction.
In the afternoon we will go to Kannur for the beginning of Amma’s program and if you want to know what Amma’s programs are about, I suggest you rent the film "Darshan". It is a documentary about Amma, or, as she is known in the media, The Hugging Saint.
Well, I'd better go now, my feet are swollen and I need to move about a bit.
Until the next stop (if I’m still alive)!

Email From India

Other than having to sit next to a faulty (stinking) toilet from New York to Dubai, the flight was good. I did think about my bed a few times. I’ve hardly left but I miss it already.

When we touched down in Trivandrum it was three-forty in the morning. I filled out the landing card, made my way to Immigration and was quickly waved through. My driver was waiting outside holding a piece of paper with my name neatly printed on it and I quickly walked over to him.

On the way to the car I stopped at a kiosk and bought a bottle of water. Mohammed (the driver)waited for me; then we walked to the car together. We hadn’t gone far before I realized that Mohammed was up to the job. He knew the width of his car and the width of the road, and even if only by an inch, he avoided the oncoming traffic. He also avoided running over any of the pedestrians that kept cropping up on the side of the road. I was so impressed with his driving abilities that I leant back and let the sound of the windscreen wipers lull me to sleep. Even the occasional dives into foot deep puddles did not completely wake me up.

We made good time and covered the sixty miles to Amritapuri in less than three hours! When we drove through the Ashram gates at six o’clock in the morning, it was still dark. White clad visitors and ashramites alike were coming out of the Temple after morning chanting.

The International office was still closed and so I could not check in but I was assigned a temporary room from the Indian office.

“But you must go and register at ten o’clock,” the young Indian man said, as he handed me a card with the room number. Mohammed helped me with the luggage, then left.

The Ashram was exactly as I remembered it from my first visit in August 2006. And my reaction was the same: What am I doing here? I want my husband, I want my children. And there lies the crux of the matter; I am a wife, a mother and a seeker. I am all three, but right now, without my family, I feel like an orphan.

I’m so glad that Bruno came with me.

By Midday I moved to a more permanent room on the ninth floor with views of the backwaters and from the landing I can see the Arabian Sea a few hundred yards away.

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Silvia, my roommate is a sweet girl from Barcelona, Spain. She has been traveling around India by herself for three months. She doesn’t speak much English, but in Spanish she is a philologist.

A pigeon woke me up early this morning. After a while of trying to ignore his wild flapping, I got up to chase it away and found him pooing in the sink and by the look of things, he was suffering from a bad case of Delhi Belly.

“Oh sh…t! Silvia…Silvia,” I called.

“Que, what?” she murmured half asleep.

“There is a pigeon and he’s done a poo in the sink.”

“Ah, la paloma,” she laughed, and after chasing the paloma away, she cleaned the sink. I like Silvia.

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I am going to have to buy a smaller suitcase today. The one I have is too big and too heavy with things that I will not need until we get to Calcutta at the end of March. And as I have to carry everything myself, I am told up to four flights of stairs at each of the stops, I am rethinking about what I really need.

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While waiting for the shop where I could buy a duffle bag to open, I went to a tea shop just outside the Ashram, where over a cup of Masala Chai I talked to Gill from Switzerland. He is spending six months in India as a volunteer, teaching.

I have another roommate, her name is Mary and she is Irish. Like Silvia she also traveling around India by herself. She arrived this afternoon and she has taken the bed above mine. I know that my son Robert will be jealous to know that I sleep in a bunk bed.

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I have to go now and repack my bags. We leave very early the day after tomorrow, but the bedrolls and larger bags are being loaded onto the buses this afternoon.

Our first stop will be Kannur, North Kerala, a twelve-hour bus drive from Amritapuri.

I have to write online and there are people waiting to use the computer after me, so don’t be too surprised if the writing is not very good as I have to be quick.

Ok, that’s it for now. Goodbye from Amritapuri.

Esmeralda

The Itinerary

February 2nd. Departure Day

I am ready now, but what a roller coaster the last few days have been.  If you recall from my last posting on Monday (five days ago), I was going to have a haircut, well… while preparing an avocado for lunch I stabbed my left hand instead of the avocado pit.  The wound was narrow but deep and my husband rushed me to the Emergency Room.

“When did you say you are going to India?”  Dr. Goldberg asked while examining my hand.

“On Saturday,” I sobbed.

“In that case I’ll give you an absorbable stitch.”

He promised it wouldn’t hurt. And it didn’t.   After numbing it, Dr. Goldberg stitched my hand and I didn’t feel a thing.  I was given a tetanus shot and was sent home with antibiotics and painkillers.  Then both Robert (my youngest) and I got the flu, and I spent a few days shivering and aching so much, that I began to wonder how on earth I would be able to fly on Saturday.  And of course I never did get around to having that haircut on Monday. 

But by Thursday I started to feel better and was able to do a radio interview about the book I am writing and the upcoming journey.

Yesterday I went to Manhattan to buy the Rupees that my husband had reserved for me at the American Express Office on Park Avenue.  And a good thing that he had reserved them!

“They’ve been selling like hot cakes,” the girl at the counter told me.

“Really? Why?”  I asked.

“I think its because a lot of businesses are moving to India,” she said.

“I see.  By the way, what is the exchange rate?”  I asked.

“Thirty-six Rupees to the Dollar.”
“What!?  It was forty-four to the dollar less than two years ago.”
“It was forty-four last year too,” she said.

I also got some travel checks, and by the time I had finished signing them and went back to thank her before leaving, the girl who had been helping me was sitting at her computer looking at my blog, with two of her colleagues leaning over her shoulders.  Wow!

 

After lunch (no point skimping on meals while I am here), I went back to the hospital for a check up.  The doctor was happy with my hand and wished me a safe trip.  Finally I was able to go to the hairdresser.  My hair is pretty short now, but it is more practical this way.

 

 

There have been many heartwarming moments this week, being sick with Robert was one of them.  We shivered together, lay in bed together,  and were lovingly nursed by my husband who could not do enough for us, and who would not let me do anything in case I hurt my hand again.  Thank goodness that I had already cooked and frozen a good supply of meals for them to have while I am away.

Then Robin, my office manager, gave me the most beautiful, organic, hand made journal you’ve ever seen.

“I wanted to give you something that represented who you are,” she said.   “And whenever you take it out, you’ll think of me,” she added.  I was deeply touched.

And Barbara, also from the office, gave me a neck pillow in the shape of a pair of lips.

“Think of me blowing you a kiss,” she joked.

Then the collapsible bucket arrived.  It looks like a heavy-duty plastic bag.   The main purpose of a collapsible bucket is for washing clothes, but my children keep saying that I should carry it in my backpack on the bus with me because…

“You might need it, you know… Delhi Belly… you never know,” they are amused by the whole thing.

My friend Karen sent me a money belt from England, insect bite relief ointment and chapstick, how sweet is that?  My friend Paolo sent me a check, “I want to give you something for the trip,” he said.

I’ve enjoyed receiving good wish emails from friends and family around the world.  Nova confirmed that she has booked a room in Calcutta for March nineteenth for five nights, then added  “ Promise that somehow you’ll get word to us if you are sick, or if halfway through the tour you don’t feel you can finish and we’ll get you out.”

Does one call her a friend or a Guardian Angel?

And finally, Andrew surprised me by walking into the family room last night.  Hugh told me that he was going out to check the tires; instead he went to collect Andrew from the station.  I was so happy to see him and we hugged for a long time.  Florentina was the last to come in and she brought me her yoga mat to use with the thermarest mattress.

Soon it will be time to go.  Hugh and the children are driving Bruno and me to the airport.  When I come back, it will be Spring! 

I am still here though, sitting up in my comfortable bed, writing.  How I love my bed!  I have never slept on a floor; I have never shared a bathroom with anyone other than family and close friends.  And for the next seven weeks I will sleep on the floor and share whatever facilities there are with my fellow pilgrims.

I feel sad to be leaving and excited about going.   Why am I going?  Because my soul is urging me to.

 

I will write again from India whenever I find an Internet connection, and if I can work out how, I will post pictures.  Otherwise I will post them when I get back.

 

It is time to go now.

Om Namah Sivaya,

Esmeralda

FIVE DAYS TO GO !!!!

I am ready.  I think I am ready.  The collapsible bucket is arriving on the 30^th.  It had to be ordered, as none of the camping stores had one.  I still have to put together a first aid kit, but that shouldn’t take me long.  This afternoon I am going to have a haircut.  I am not going to shave it exactly, but it will be short.  My husband would have preferred me to wait till the end of the week.

“It is better to see you walk around with bouffant hair instead of a toilet brush.”  He actually said that. 

You see, he knows how short I am going to have it cut, because I’ve done it before.  But I couldn’t leave it to the end of the week, because other than Monday, the only other days my hairdresser works are Friday and Saturday.  And Friday I can’t and Saturday I am leaving.  So that only leaves today. 

By the way, I am not cutting my hair very short because I want to look like a wandering Sadhu when I am in India, no.  But it will be more practical to wash and go.

And this is where I am going.  I will fly to Trivandrum in South Kerala.  From there, I will drive to Amritapuri, Amma’s Ashram on the Arabian Sea and on February 7th, the whole Ashram group will set off by bus for the seven week North India Tour as follows:

Kannur and Talassery  (North Kerala) ; Bangalore and Mangalore (Karnataka);  Hyderabad (Andra Pradesh); and on to the state of Maharashtra with stops in Washim, Vidarbha, an area that has been deeply affected by farmers’ suicides, Pune, then Mumbai before leaving Maharashtra and on to Ahmedabad  (Gujarat - Gandhi was from Gujarat) before continuing on to Jaipur the capital of Rajasthan.

Our arrival in Jaipur on March 7^th, will coincide with the start of the Global Peace Initiative Of Women, a global interfaith summit where Amma is due to speak on the opening day.  Women leaders from all faiths and from all over the world will convene in the beautiful ancient city of Jaipur, for a summit on peace that will be attended by women from all races and nationalities.  For more information on that, please go to: www.gpiw.org

After Jaipur come Faridabad and Delhi (Haryana) before going east to Kolkata/Calcutta (West Bengal).  My friend Nova will join me in Calcutta and spend a few days there with me at the end of the tour before I fly back home to New York.  By then it will be March 24^th, and while I will go back home, Amma will continue on to the Andaman Islands, and I believe Singapore and Australia.

But I do have to get there first and that is still a few days ahead.

Till then,

Esmeralda Williamson-Noble 

Ps.  I would like to post an itinerary map, but I am not sure how to do it yet.

       For more on Amma, please go to www.amma.org.

And for more on Nova's company (since many of you have asked me), please visit 

www.ihml.com