Namaste!
This blog is intended to inform my friends and family of my adventures during my fourish (?) months spent in the country. I will begin in Mumbai, where I will spend the holidays and than spend three months volunteering with a school in Jaipur, in the north. If you have seen Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, than you know the city already. After that - well, who knows. Family circumstances may limit my trip, which means I will have a few weeks post-volunteer site to visit my highlights. Kerala. Goa. Dharamasala.
The truth is that I don't enjoy writing blogs.My writing becomes stilted and I just...ugh. HOWEVER, I recognize how many people want to know how I am. And where I am. Coming to India is something that many people back home will not/can not do. So, hopefully, this blog will be a taste of that for all who may never travel to this country. A close friend advised me to incorporate fictitious elements in my blog and let the reader chose the reality. Such as, found myself sitting next to a dashing Indian man on my flight to Mumbai. We sipped chai and discovered a mutual love for British comedy, in which, upon arriving at our destination, he revealed he was the son of a Rajastani maharaja and whisked me away to his island paradise for the week.
I may go more subtle.
I don't really know what India will be like. Another friend of mine told me to travel there with no expectations. No judgments. That India is a place where the whole world can be found. The images of Westerners who come here to "find themselves" are laughable ones. And that is not my feeling anyway.
Rather, I think I am searching to learn how to be present. To discover the joy of awareness. To push beyond my limits. To, as Thoreau said, fish in the stream of time. I bought a book the other day in a dusty bookshop near Dupont Circle. The author states that, through meditation, all of Walden Pond can be found within your breath. That idea...is beyond calming. Reminding me of a day in May when I ate tacos and watched the sunset over that very pond. And thought, so this is travel. The act of gathering places to take with you.
If things go well, I will a) limit movie references in future posts b) actually update this blog and c) have a wonderful, challenging, limit pushing vibrant, enlightening experience. I hope I get along with the children I will teach and that I don't get attacked by monkeys in my sleep. Finally, I hope I can live up to Thoreau in a small way. To discover the beauty of the moment itself, rather than striving for success and missing the moments in front of me. The chaos of India may be quite different from the idyllic New England setting where he wrote Walden. But it will suit me. And if it doesn't, there is always Thailand.
Namaskar!
This blog is intended to inform my friends and family of my adventures during my fourish (?) months spent in the country. I will begin in Mumbai, where I will spend the holidays and than spend three months volunteering with a school in Jaipur, in the north. If you have seen Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, than you know the city already. After that - well, who knows. Family circumstances may limit my trip, which means I will have a few weeks post-volunteer site to visit my highlights. Kerala. Goa. Dharamasala.
The truth is that I don't enjoy writing blogs.My writing becomes stilted and I just...ugh. HOWEVER, I recognize how many people want to know how I am. And where I am. Coming to India is something that many people back home will not/can not do. So, hopefully, this blog will be a taste of that for all who may never travel to this country. A close friend advised me to incorporate fictitious elements in my blog and let the reader chose the reality. Such as, found myself sitting next to a dashing Indian man on my flight to Mumbai. We sipped chai and discovered a mutual love for British comedy, in which, upon arriving at our destination, he revealed he was the son of a Rajastani maharaja and whisked me away to his island paradise for the week.
I may go more subtle.
I don't really know what India will be like. Another friend of mine told me to travel there with no expectations. No judgments. That India is a place where the whole world can be found. The images of Westerners who come here to "find themselves" are laughable ones. And that is not my feeling anyway.
Rather, I think I am searching to learn how to be present. To discover the joy of awareness. To push beyond my limits. To, as Thoreau said, fish in the stream of time. I bought a book the other day in a dusty bookshop near Dupont Circle. The author states that, through meditation, all of Walden Pond can be found within your breath. That idea...is beyond calming. Reminding me of a day in May when I ate tacos and watched the sunset over that very pond. And thought, so this is travel. The act of gathering places to take with you.
If things go well, I will a) limit movie references in future posts b) actually update this blog and c) have a wonderful, challenging, limit pushing vibrant, enlightening experience. I hope I get along with the children I will teach and that I don't get attacked by monkeys in my sleep. Finally, I hope I can live up to Thoreau in a small way. To discover the beauty of the moment itself, rather than striving for success and missing the moments in front of me. The chaos of India may be quite different from the idyllic New England setting where he wrote Walden. But it will suit me. And if it doesn't, there is always Thailand.
Namaskar!
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