Experiment #15: My First Thanksgiving

I was not expecting to have a special Thanksgiving this year, in a country where “Indians and Pilgrims” has a different meaning, and “thank you” is rarely part of a person’s vocabulary.

But last night, 40 of Manav Sadhna’s friends and family joined for an internationally inspired dinner, cooked by the volunteers. We experimented with sweet potatoes to make a pudding for dessert (which turned out more like sweet potato soup), invested several hours into a decadent paneer butter masala, and wrapped up the untraditional feast with caramel popcorn balls – which were quite a crowd pleaser.

After dinner, I joined Sunilbhai, an MS staff member, to deliver some of the delicious leftovers to two children he has been very connected with in the Old City.

I had met Karan and Tejashwari once before, about three weeks ago on Karan’s tenth birthday. The brother and sister are adorable, loving, and full of spunk. Yesterday was the first time I visited their home.

As I entered, Tejashwari greeted me warmly by wrapping her arms around my waist and burying her head under my arm. I hugged her tightly back.

Sunilbhai commented on the shocking sea-green color the children had recently painted the walls, and the pictures of their parents that had been hung up.

After the death of their parents five years, Teju, now 14, and Karan have lived on their own. They spent a brief stint in a children’s hostel in Gandhi Ashram, about three years ago. During their time at the Ashramshala, Karan began showing signs of a skin infection. Medical tests soon revealed that both he and his sister are HIV positive.

The children did not find it easy to live in the hostel. The constant schedule and routine made them unhappy, as they were used to living independently and doing as they wished. In addition, the teachers at the hostel worried about them living and playing in such close contact with other children.

Although there are other hostels in India especially for children like Karan and Teju, most of them require the boys and girls to live separately, which they are not willing to do.

They returned to their home from the Ashramshala, and ever since have been taking care of each other. Watching the prem, or love, between the siblings is truly touching. Together, they manage their house – cleaning, cooking, and washing all on their own.

Although Teju and Karan live alone and have certainly matured beyond their age due to their circumstances, there is no doubt that they are still children and want to enjoy a childhood filled with playfulness and mischief.

After welcoming Sunilbhai and I into their home, Teju rushed to find a Barbie doll she had just been gifted by the Make-A-Wish Foundation. She sat the doll down next to me and insisted that I help her dress it properly and comb its hair. Meanwhile, Karan was excitedly showing Sunilbhai the remote control car he had received.

After we left, Sunilbhai divulged his deep worry about the children. He explained that the area that they live in one of the worst neighborhoods in Ahmedabad. Although the kids have a good rapport with their neighbors, who often supply them with groceries, they have no one to look after them continuously. As a result, they have discontinued their HIV treatment.

“They don’t go to school. They don’t have much discipline. And worst of all, they don’t have an understanding about their disease,” Sunilbhai went on. “Teju is getting older now too. She is already 14. Unless they are put in a controlled environment, they might end up in real trouble.”

I’ll end with a thought that was read at prathna yesterday morning: Gratitude and sorrow cannot coexist

It’s a simple and powerful idea. The act of being thankful fundamentally negates self-pity and distress.

Despite their tragic and unfortunate circumstances, Karan and Teju are full of life and love. They enjoy whatever little they have to the fullest, and such enjoyment of simple pleasures leaves no room for sorrow in their tiny home.

Sometimes our lives need to be shown against a different background to reveal the good things we have come to take for granted. This may have been the first Thanksgiving that I have felt real gratitude for the countless blessings in my life.

I went to bed last night with my heart filled with thanks, and my brain filled with anxiety about the sweet brother and sister.

Experiment #14: Lost in Translation

For breakfast this morning, my Australian (Korean-born) housemate Soo, made banana pancakes. I haven’t done much cooking in the volunteer house, after an incident about two months ago when a lizard found its way into a cooking pot.

But Soo’s pancakes were delicious, and having her bubbly presence in the kitchen makes our small house, often devoid of natural light, feel large and warm.

Just now, she peeked her head into the bedroom and asked if I’d like to be a guinea pig as she experiments on how to best flavor a fresh brew of chai. I can never say no to chai, though I often wish I could-- as I’ve seen how much sugar people add to it here.

What smells like cardamom and ginger delight to my Indian self, smells suspiciously of diabetes to my young, hypochondriac, American self. It’s a struggle to balance these two brains, often in contradiction with each other.

I feel like my experience here has brought me to a point of convergence of the many brains I’ve embodied, and worlds I’ve known during my life.

First, there is the world of an American college student. The volunteer house is currently filled with girls from all over the globe in various stages of their education. We share stories about the best pizza back home, and how wonderful a pedicure would feel after walking through the slum in open-toe shoes for three months. They understand the tensions of figuring out how to put a college education to use in a way that feels fulfilling and significant, and the insecurities and frustrations that arise when we work with people from different cultures. But often, I find myself wishing that I wasn’t surrounded by people who are familiar with the mass-consumption and extreme ambition I left at home. They are a reminder that the lifestyle I’ve taken a break from still exists, and will have to be faced sooner or later.

Then, there is the world of an Indian daughter. I was raised eating khichdi and khadi, like any typical Gujarati household. My mom attempted to teach me how to roll proper round rotli when I was about nine, and we always promptly removed our shoes upon entering the house. Yet, I ate Eggo waffles for breakfast and grew up in a home that cheered for the 49ers and the Giants. Despite the obvious “Indian” forces that have shaped me, I was for all intensive purposes, an American.

In Manav Sadhna, I often feel like I am a daughter to the older staff members, with a pressure to act as a proper Indian daughter should. I should touch the feet of my elders when I greet them, to ask for blessings, and keep my hair tied in a simple, modest braid, slicked down with coconut oil. I’ve definitely grown an understanding and appreciation for traditional customs, during my time here, but I have not been able to completely embrace them. Perhaps it’s the feeling of being an imposter – trying to adopt customs that are not my own, to be accepted by this community.

Finally, there is the world of a seeker of spiritualism. The ideas of karma, nirvana, and atma (soul) have made appearances in my life for as long as I can remember. My mom has been a faithful advocate of the power of spirituality in finding happiness, and forceful in her insistence that the rest of the family find a similar faith. Perhaps it was a case of teenage rebellion, or simply a lack of context in my trouble-free childhood, but these beliefs had never truly struck a chord with me.

Everyday, I see people with lives drenched in tragedy and uncertainty, who somehow manage to make it through each day. This setting has brought new meaning to the spiritual terminology I’ve been listening to for years. It is not a solution to the problem; it’s a lens through which to look at our problems and untangle the unfair or unexplainable circumstances we are dealt.

The problem with living at the edge of so many worlds is that the logical course of action in one world, may not convert so logically into another. Each world gauges value by a different metric.

I worry that the value I add to my life here will be lost in translation when I return home and to school. The importance of spirituality and service at Manav Sadhna has fostered my belief that faithful service will contribute to bringing humanity forward, even if the results are not immediate or tangible, and as a result, bring me forward.

However, in the setting of competition at college, tangible results seem to be the only thing that matters at the end of the day. We measure our worth in terms of grades and income, on an individual level, and by the abstract figures of GDP and stock values, on a larger scale. 

Yet, the single number of a GPA that is meant to embody one’s intelligence is really just a reflection of what limited knowledge a person happened to know at a given time.  It (most often) doesn’t reflect a curiosity in pursuing new experiences, or the ability to survive in a resource-poor setting.  Similarly, a country’s GDP is supposed to be a measure of economic prosperity and quality of life, though it includes the amount of money spent on advertising by cigarette companies, to build jails for convicts, and to clear trees in order to build sprawling new highways (borrowed from John Robbins’ essay, “The Economics of Happiness”).

In essence, these tools all fail as they attempt to quantitatively measure things—intelligence, success, prosperity, happiness – that are inherently qualitative in nature.

I haven’t yet decided how to translate the value I have earned in India to my life back home. And, I haven’t yet decided if I’m okay with presenting my friends and family in America with the un-translated version, and allowing them to piece together their own renditions of my experience, determined by what represents value in their world.

Experiment #13: Happy Diwali

I've been down with a cold for the past five days. While the rest of Ahmedabad has been outside setting off fireworks and lighting candles to celebrate the festival of lights, I've been medicated in bed.

Apparently, I'm not the only one with a less than perfect Diwali. On Thursday, the headline in The Times of India read "Dark Diwali for Obama; Democrats lose House polls". My experience over the past two months has shown that The Times is a less than stellar gem of journalism, with front page news often recapping what film stars Salman and Priyanka had to say about each other last night.

But this melodramatic announcement made me think-- even though I haven't had a chance to get out of the house for my first Diwali in India, I haven't been completely isolated from the celebrations. Fireworks go off outside my window at all hours of the night, and each evening my uncle's neighbors come around to distribute prasad or sweets. And yesterday, my cousin, aunt and I made a colorful rangoli in front of the house. There's really no such thing as a dark Diwali in India, so lucky for Obama that India is the first stop in his visit to Asia.

Anganwadi children light taramandal sticks

Rangoli design and lighted divas outside our home