on our way to gay Paree

The first really lazy day since I left home - or at least it feels like it. Ayse and Heinz went early to work leaving Bablu and me at home to fend for ourselves. By nine we had showered and changed and were both installed at the dining table. Ayse had taught me how to use the espresso machine. Very easy, she had said, you had to press just one button among half a dozen different knobs, on the top left side of the machine. I did that, after which it made some alarming noises and gurgling sounds and let out a thin honey coloured trickle. After a minute or so, the coffee started to flow properly. So we had coffee and bread with cheese and ham and we talked and talked and talked.

Bablu wants to get these 200 acres of land on the outskirts of Timbaktu where he is based, to get a new project going. He wants to put up a kind of polytechnic for people to learn various skills and side by side, for us to learn more about living in a community, living in tune with each other. To create a space essentially, for like minded individuals to be together and to look at stuff which is important for us.

The trouble, as usual, is the financing. But I said, the first step is to look at what we want to do, and to discuss it, to work on an outline perhaps. If any of you are interested you could write in, either to me with your ideas: umazon@rediffmail.com

or to Bablu. timbaktu@vsnl.com

We are thinking of meeting there around the end of December, before Samuel`s workshop.

Bablu and I talked also about the need to change our focus, from perceiving everything at the intellectual level to living with more awareness. It has been good, meeting him here. In India he is always so busy!

This afternoon the three of us are driving to Paris where we will meet Suhail. It is a bit crazy come to think of it, driving all the way there for hardly a day and a half - Ayse and Bablu at any rate want to get back to Cologne by the 2nd of July. Still we are pretty excited about it. Paris is one of the most charming cities in the world, and I am looking forward to it.

It rained quite a bit this morning but the sun has begun to put in an appearance in the last twenty minutes.

Oh yes. I bought a digital camera yesterday at one of the bargain shops in Cologne. Fuji, with 5 mega pixel for just about 200 Euros which is quite a steal. It is small and neat looking. Have to still learn to operate it though! As soon as I do you will get pics of all that is going on here!

News from Cologne

This morning it was a riot trying to find a parking spot at the station where Ayse and I went, to pick up Bablu. Bablu was returning from Amsterdam. Well, finally Ayse just stopped in the parking lot and told me to wait and that she would be back in a minute or two, with Bablu.

I said, what if someone comes by and picks a quarrel with me about the way you`ve parked? Ayse said, "Just wave your stick at him and tell him to go away!" Luckily nothing happened and Ayse was back - but without Bablu. Maybe the train was late, she said as she rushed back. Eventually we had to go to a parkhouse and Ayse went once more to the station while I hung around the enormous square in front of the Cologne Cathedral. So many people all walking around. Hordes of school kids, tourists, Japanese, Americans, old and young. The youngsters even skateboard around the place.

Within about 10 or 15 minutes Ayse was back, along with this tall imposing looking guy dressed in pyjamas and a blue striped shirt and a colourful orange waistcoat. Bablu, grinning happily as he walked towards me, rolling his small trolley suitcase behind him.

Had hot chocolate at an open air cafeteria in the vicinity of the cathedral and watched a group of Indians, women in saris and men in safari suits, doing the rounds. We talked about bumping into Indians abroad and how Indians never looked you in the eye when you came across each other. Bablu said he was often greeted by the locals and sometimes invited for a cup of coffee by the Europeans and by the Turks but the Indians? They pretend they haven`t seen me, he said.

Then Ayse dropped me off at the shopping centre while she took Bablu to Bonn, where he has to meet someone at half past three. So now I am in Heinz`s office waiting for them to get back.

By the way Samuel has a new mode of transport in Switzerland. I was sitting on the bench outside the workshop house one evening when he passed by and he went "Look! India!" And when I turned my head I saw this scooter rickshaw standing in the courtyard! It is painted a very chic shade of beige - light and dark beige - and I heard he uses it all the time, summer and winter! It was a gift from friends and members of the Swiss community and it was mainly Ulrike who organised it.

thoughtful

Am sitting here, once again at the window in Sabine`s bedroom, looking at the maple tree and at the factory across the road. Jörg says they manufacture watch parts. At night it looks like the sets of some soulless movie about nothing in particular. The nights are warm and it was past midnight when we walked back home from the farmhouse, where the workshop was being held.

So - the main session is over and boy! I have not experienced something this good for ages. The stillness went deep. The subject was: community and mysticism. What one has to do with the other. I shall write more about it, in time. Have to let it work inside me a bit. Somehow all of you in the group, made an appearance, and there were insights galore. A deep sense of something new growing in spite of the seemingly insurmountable problems.

Well life is life and things will happen, good and bad. Sometimes I think of Sharat and wonder how he is getting on, (and yes, I read that piece about starting to drink again). There is a sense of letting go through it all. Knowing that I cannot really "do" anything to make anyone see or to be different. Maybe it is okay, to be the way you are. Yesterday`s session brought back a deep feeeling of acceptance of the way things are, of the way I am and the way each of you is. What more can I say!

One accepts it all - the people who say they love you and equally, those who dislike or hate you. Often the roles reverse. The people who swear by you one day will badmouth you the next day. One learns not to take it seriously. Neither the praise nor the rejection. Yesterday I learnt something about the unconditional nature of love and that it can come into existence when you have truly put your egoistic feelings behind and learnt to look at what is best for the other person and for the group, for the community, rather than how you can satisfy your sense of self importance. And when you sense this kind of feeling in even a handful of individuals, the deep unchanging internal ties it leads to, it brings hope.

What is the difference between fattening your ego and genunine fulfillment? That is something I guess we all have to learn to differentiate.

India in Switzerland

The first sign my eyes alight on, when we enter the cable car which is to take us to Mount Titnis is - believe it or not - in the Devnagiri script and it goes: "Vishwa ke pratham ghoomthay hoowein gandola mein aapka swagat." WHAT!!!!! But I suppose given the large number of Indian tourists that land up in Switzerland it is logical. The car was crammed with Indians, three quarters of whom were Malayalees. They were all actually based in the U.S.

As we began to ascend the snow covered slopes there was a general "Oooooooh" from the Indians. Kurt, just to tease them roared, "HHHOOOOOOOOH!" and "AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH" along with them and this lady standing next to me giggled, "They are very naaaaty!"

As we kept rising and the view got increasingly dramatic, the older Malayalees started jabbering excitedly in their mother tongue while the kids, round eyed and full of awe, and downright American, went "Holy Crap!"

We didnt have much time up at the summit because we arrived only half an hour before the last cable car was to leave. And right as we were leaving there was a huge thunderstorm and the employees seemed quite worried. We made our way back down in the rain, and with occasional flashes of lightening streaking the sky but as you can see landed safe and sound back on earth.

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Kurt - many people say - looks like the twin of that character Spock, in that TV serial whose name I have forgotten - Star something or other. (Talk about getting old). Oh yeah, got it - it is called "Star Trek". I promised him I would pay him my respects in this blog for all that he has done for me (and the group) including making a CD at the crack of dawn this morning, with all the info on the Krishnamurti book by Samuel, which George`s friend is going to soon publish in India. Kurt, hope you are reading this!


The night I arrived at Kurt`s place I was amazed to find him drinking mineral water and some reddish Martini look-alike soft drink although he was kind enough to offer me and Jospeh wine. I learnt subsequently that he`s stopped drinking alcohol - and has kept it up for about 3 months. Well! I asked him how he managed and he said that one day he decided it was too much and made a firm decision to stop. He said that everything depends on that decision. Then, even when one feels tempted, one remembers that there was a decision not to drink and it is not so difficult to remain "clean".

Food smells from Nicole`s kitchen currently (which is where I am currently) tell me that lunch is on the way and I will have to soon stop.

The Creation

Swiss saying: God made the world in six days. On the seventh he made Switzerland. Now, I dont know whether that is really a Swiss saying or whether it is God speaking through Kurt Marti, born and brought up in this spectacularly scenic country, but that is what he told me today as we drove through the Swiss countryside, yet again feasting on the view of snow clad mountains. It was so bloody hot to start with, all I longed for was to sit in an airconditioned room drinking cold coffee or coke all day but Kurt and his friend Doris enthusiastically packed a hamper, sorted out the route by pouring over a map and around ten thirty I was more or less pushed into the car and off we went. Periodically I dozed off - which I frequently do, during any longish car journey - though once I heard Doris say, "Here we`re travelling through all this wonderful scenery and she`s sleeping through it." So I hurriedly shook myself awake and made some appreciative noises (actually it was pretty impressive) and we wound up and down the mountainous roads.

At some point we stopped for lunch and super efficient Doris brought out a blue rucksack from the car and began to unpack it.From it emerged hard boiled eggs painted bright orange, small brown bread rolls, sticks of beef jerky, a plastic containerful of fruit - apples and pears and kiwis and peaches. Cherry tomatoes, and to end with there were small bowls of caramel custard. HO!! Talk about a full belly.

More tomorrow about the trip to the peak we visited and the Indian contingent we met en route. Kurt made me pronounce the name a hundred times, making me promise I wouldn`t forget and now ... it is sitting far away on the self same mountain and refuses to come down into my head. OK i got it from Doris. It is called "Titlis".

Samuel Territory

Ganesha is this dark smokey grey cat - fat fellow with a fat face and small yellow eyes, and a thin, girlish mew. He lives in Adrian`s house and is about 2 years old. Apparently his mother tried to bite him dead and the owner (Daniele Jollisaint) feeling sorry for the poor kitten tried to give him away. Along came Adrian and picked up Ganesh who seems not to bear any marks of his traumatic childhood (kittenhood?) experience. He is extremely friendly and came first thing and prostrated himself at my feet. Adrian was quite amused.

Ganesh has a girl friend called Shanti, a very delicate looking ginger and white cat who comes visiting every evening around dinner time. Adrian says she is wild and only slowly getting used to Adrian petting her. Ganesh and she just love each other and as soon as she turns up they rub noses and she sidles against him and they play around a bit before she settles down to eat.

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Am at Nicole`s place right now. Adrian dropped me here this afternoon and this evening we have a meditation with Samuel and Daniele. Ayse is also here, after spending some days with Bablu, who has now gone on to Amsterdam. We will catch up with him after the workshop I guess.

Nicole and Ludwig are having supper in the garden and I am going to join them. Just finished a bread and cheese dinner with Ayse myself. The weather is still very "good." Actually bordering on unbearable heat. Now it is cooling down a bit.

The Swiss part (I)

Mechtilde asked me this morning how it was for me, coming from India to find myself in a country like Switzerland, with such a different culture. Mechtilde is Adrian`s wife and is spending this week in a little town on a lake whose name I have already forgotten, about 3 hours from where they live, in Hünningen. She, along with a couple of others is looking after a group of mentally handicapped young people on holiday ( I refuse to call them mentally “challenged” the same way I refuse to call myself physically “challenged”. As if indulging in euphemisms is going to change society`s attitudes towards anybody!)


I told her that strangely, landing in Europe I didn`t get the feeling I was far from home. Everything seemed, at times, distressingly familiar. One reason of course is the fact that I have been visiting Europe now for so many years that I am pretty much used to the way life works here. But I think the other more important reason is a kind of standardisation that is beginning to set in everywhere that is beginning to dull the differences. In any case I am not here to sightsee or visit museums and castles and all the rest, this visit is more to visit friends and …yes, to be able to walk again, on pavements that are not filled with potholes or other impediments and almost level with the road rather than being eight feet off it.

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Back to the Swiss mountains today after what seems like a long time (tho it is not more than two years or so ago, that I was last here). Adrian and I took a very scenic route to get to where Mechtilde was. The mountains are awesome. Giant craggy walls rising almost perpendicular in some places, just a few meters away from the road or at least that is what it feels like. Some of them are just bare rock, some covered with mostly coniferous trees, others still with bushes which make them look like a huge cosmic bunch of Brussels sprouts. And in between very pretty lakes, big and small in all hues of blue and green from cobalt blue to emerald green. Reminded me of the time Christoph and I used to go around in his caravan, parking ourselves somewhere in a field surrounded by mountains, cooking steak on his little portable grill and sitting in the open air on his camp chairs, chatting and admiring the view. Christoph? Chrissie?!He is obviously not listening. Away in Bermuda on vacation – or was it Spain? I am so bad at remembering details about other people`s vacations.


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The garden here is very green and Adrian who loves it, is nurturing a number of potted plants including a small olive tree, dill and parsley, lemon grass, a pot of colourful flowers. Right now (its after dinner) he and son Stephan are going around watering the plants. The weather is currently hot and it has become quite dry. You need to drink gallons of water.


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As usual we have been talking. Sat up last night till past midnight, looking at the age old questions about individual will and “cosmic will”. How to dovetail one into the other so as to be able to serve “the whole” (eg all of society, or the group one lives with). Why it does not happen and why we end up just serving our own petty little goals and then complaining endlessly about life and the ills of society. Mechitlde also asked me how I felt about the poor people in India. How it felt to be in the midst of a rich society, knowing there were people back home who didn’t have enough to eat. Well. I told her that I feel increasingly unhappy about it but does it help to put all our energy, only into action oriented plans?

It is definitely important to be doing things and to be contributing in a concrete manner to society but on the other hand, without an attempt to change the mindset, the attitudes of people, without bringing more awareness in our lives, all that is not worth much.

Somehow, I said to her, it seems a pity that people who do a lot of social work and who help the poor sections have so little time for any kind of inner reflection – let alone to do this jointly so that we really begin to change our power structures. Not just in the superficial political sense but within ourselves as well. The trouble is that not all the “good work” has changed the way human beings – including social workers – behave towards each other. You come across the same old greed, the same old power struggles, the same old fear and virulence towards each other. Society will surely change, only when we see all of that in ourselves and dissolve the age old blocks in our minds first. Trying to do things the other way round never seems to work.

More from Frankfurt

Went and got my train ticket to Switzerland yesterday morning and Basia came with me. Shall be first visiting Adrian for a fw day or two - someone whom Sharat and George might remember from the December workshop.

After that we spent a few hours at Basia's place. She and Wolfgang live in this really nice big house. Sitting in the dining room you look out onto this sprawling green garden, full of shrubs and trees. Squirrels scamper up and down the tree trunks and all over the garden. I made some chai for us and we nibbled on almond biscuits as we exchanged all the news. Basia spoke a lot about the desert workshop which she attended this April. This time they met in Egypt.

The theme which Samuel and Daniele proposed was Community. To see if it was possible for the thirty people who had gathered together in this desert, to live for two weeks as a close knit community and if not, why not. Apparently when they looked at the "why not" all kinds of things came up for discussion and thrashing out. Resentments, anger, grudges and so on, between the individuals present, so the time was spent really in clearing the air which was very good.

On the last day the assignment was for each person to go out alone into the desert to their favourite spot and to undertake a parting ritual. Basia said her chosen spot was a bit of a distance from camp but she decided to go anyway. Soon after they set out there was a terrific snow storm which obliterated everything. Basia says it was an elemental experience and she was terrified but somehow at the given time she managed to find her way back to the camp.

She was terribly afraid she says, but then she realised that in this case what she thought was fear was not really fear - was more like a heightening of her senses, which helped her to find her way back.

Basia was back in the evening to take back my suitcase with her and we again spent some more time together chatting and this time Sabine was there too as well as Wolfgang (Basia's husband) and Rolf- Sabine's friend. We covered Indian politics and what is happening right now between India and Pakistan, the crazy growth of human civilisation (so-called civilisation) and Basia mentioned how, in nature, there was no such thing. An organism grew up to a certain point and then when maturity was attained, the growth stabilised. The only area where this unlimited growth takes place, she said, was in cancer cells and actually this is what human civilisation has become. Cancerous. How to change the direction? Only through awareness, we decided.

Well we are going to have a late breakfast in a while (it is already 9:45 am) and I hear some faint noise from Sabine’s room which means she must be stirring to life after last night’s excesses. And... sure enough, Sabine just emerged from her room, wrapped in a towel, on her way to a shower, and says HI to everyone.

random thoughts on travel and being in europe

Random thoughts and happenings:


Yesterday evening Sabine and I celebrated our tenth year of friendship and knowing each other, at an Italian restaurant around the corner from where she lives, with Proseco (a kind of ersatz champagne) and a glass of wine. Years of fun, laughter, and MAJOR CONFLICT and making up, of the kind that more or less convinced us we are family. This last year it has been good, we have both loosened up a lot, are infinitely more open to each other and there is this feeling that we are moving in a new direction perhaps. New glimpses of what intimacy really means. A lot of hard work on one’s ego to start with!

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Something is definitely happening at Sahar airport. The check in took about 10 minutes altogether, the wait at the immigration counter was even less than 10 minutes and the officials did not ask a single question about my father, mother, grandmother, where they live and work, where they are from, what they like to eat for breakfast, and so on. They didn’t ask any questions. They even SMILED at one or two foreigners whose passports they were looking through. If it doesn’t last long it will at least leave me with a nice memory.
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Modern travel and technology is strangely disorienting. Before you know it your body has arrived in a place thousands of miles away from home but by the time your soul has caught up you are already getting ready to return. Maybe that is why, as the bus rumbled around Charles de Gaulle airport I found myself still caught up in thoughts about home until I rapped myself and went, ‘Hey, you’re in Paris now, no longer in flat 11, Rewa Apts!’ But then it could be that everything looks so much the same. Yes the airport seems a bit futuristic with its tube like structures, looking alternatively like a spaceship and a huge soulless factory to help with putting up more factories and more goods and more technology. The ads are the same, the billboards look the same, the people at the airport look like people at any airport, coming and going with this look of intense preoccupation on their faces. I think I must now stop coming to Europe every year and start going to really new places – like China or Chile.

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One of the highlights of the five hour wait at the airport was that I saw Sir Cliff Richard. At first I wasn’t sure it was him but I heard the older man by his side calling him ‘Harry’ and then I knew it was him, because his real name is Harry Webb. I felt energetic enough to hoist my backpack on my shoulder and follow him around a bit and even considered going up to him and saying, ‘My childhood hero and prince, you have come!’ But eventually opted to hang around in the background as he and his friend waited at the Air France desk, and until they walked away.
For one short moment our eyes met and I had this feeling he would recognise me and come and shake my hand ("Hallo! My earliest most loyal fan!") but they seemed to be both confused and in a hurry. For those of you who have never heard of him for various reasons (including perhaps the fact that you were born long after his heyday,) Cliff was one of the major singing sensations in the sixties, with a huuu...uuuuge fan following. He wrote his autobiography at the age of 19 (!!!). I read it when I was about eleven or so, and knew it literally by heart.

No Man's Land

Arrived in Frankfurt, at Sabine's place about two hours back and already had a coffee in the restaurant downstairs with Veronika who came to pick up her curry pata and nimboos. Sabine lives in a very central part of Frankfurt with hundreds of cafes and restaurants within about five minutes walking distance.

Currently in no man's land, neither here nor there. At times the weariness overtakes me, at times I feel perfectly fit. Sometimes sitting in the airport at Paris, waiting to catch the flight to Frankfurt I would forget where I was. Bombay? Frankfurt? Goa??? Currently waiting for Sabine to get back from the pharmacy. We'll have dinner some place close by and then I will tumble into bed.

Lots of thoughts while sitting in the airport at Paris. It was a five hour wait! But all that will have to wait a bit. Maybe till tomorrow or even later.

phew!

Last minute running around. Phone calls, faxes, wrapping of gifts, running out of gift paper. Stir in some heat and dust and sweat and a bit of bad mood, a bit of good mood, anticipation of the new, sadness at leaving behind people, parents, grandmother, friends, cat, my bed (that's one of the nice things about travelling - finding your way in the end, back to your own bed and look at me! Already thinking of how nice it will be to come back to my bed before I've even left it!)

Asha is lying fast asleep on the floor as I write. While we were having lunch earlier, I asked her if she would miss me when I was away, and whether she wouldn't cry and she gave one loud contemptuous snort. (Like "Ha! As if I haven't better things to do.")

Last minute stuff

Packing and racking my brains as to whether I have left out someone to whom I have to give a "gipt". I actually think my love and presence is an adequate gift but dont know how many others think the same. Ha ha. This time Sabine (in Frankfurt) has asked for "nimboos" instead of the usual bidis. These guys ask for the strangest things. Another friend, Veronika, has asked for "curry pata!" Well at least leaves are not heavy to carry.

Am planning to invest in a digital camera so you guys can get a first hand feel of at least some of what I see and experience.

pre travel news

Hi guys,

Just testing out a new blog through which I hope to share all the goings on in Europe with all of you. D-Day is this coming Thursday night (early Friday morning). Fly Delta to Paris and take a connecting flight to Frankfurt where I will stay a couple of days. What happens immediately thereafter is a bit uncertain. But youwill get to know pretty soon! Uma