Namaste friends and family!
Our Shiva family is in Calcutta now, doing some volunteer work at the Mother Theresa Home. Before Calcutta, we spent a lovely couple of days in Bodh Gaya.
Bodh Gaya was a breath of fresh air. Literally. After crowded, polluted, over-powering Varanasi, it was nice to take a couple days to decompress in such a beautiful, calm, and spiritual place.
We stayed at the Root Institute, a lovely retreat center, where we enjoyed hot showers, filtered water, and healing breakfasts (food that was very light on the stomach). Those who needed to rest were able to catch up on much needed sleep, while others took to exploring.
I decided to tour the temples in the area and Margaret, Avy, and I also decided to rent bikes for the afternoon. We rode down dirt paths next to packs of cows, buffalo, goats, you name it, while witnessing the lush countryside surrounding Bodh Gaya. It was wild! While I loved the bike ride, my favorite part of Bodh Gaya was still to come. That night we went to the Bodhi tree as a group.
There’s no way to describe how I felt upon entering the sacred ground. Everything was lit up for night visitors and the temple built around the tree was so different than anything we had seen before. I just stood at the foot of the temple in awe. Tibetan monks shuffled by us chanting and we got the hint to keep moving around the temple. When we arrived at the backside of the temple, we walked down into the temple to get to the Bodhi tree. Dozens of people were sitting peacefully around the tree, singing the most beautiful songs of prayer. It was nothing short of magical and once I was there I really didn’t want to leave!
I reluctantly left the spiritual service to attend dinner with our Shiva fam. After dinner we departed Bodh Gaya (sad face) on a night train which took us to Calcutta.
Calcutta is nothing like we imagined. It has a very different feel than Delhi and Varanasi. I think we were all pleasantly surprised by how calm this city feels in comparison to the other big cities we’ve visited. One major difference: there are old-fashioned taxi cabs everywhere. Go figure! Anyway, upon arriving we got breakfast as a group, and then Jake and I set off to find our accommodations. After a bit of searching, we found a gem. Yay. Hotel Gulistan has western toilets, fans, showers, a rooftop, AND TVS, AND get this, we saved money because it was below budget!!! WIN! After settling in, we had some time to chill and roam as we pleased. Margaret and I decided to explore around and we found a lovely restaurant where we tasted Bengali food for the first time. We also dipped into a few book stores and a music shop while other people recovered from our train journey back at the hostel.
Saturday night we experienced (drum roll please) bbbbBollywood! What a fun time. We stocked up on snacks at a local grocery store to share during the film “Student of the Year.” I believe it was the same film the Shanti group saw? There wasn’t much English, but that didn’t really matter. It was a hoot! Love, lust, betrayal plus random outbursts of song and dance numbers made the movie night an uplifting and fun experience for all of us .
Sunday morning we started volunteering at the Mother Theresa Home. Julia and I are working at Shanti Dan, a home for disabled women who are working on putting on a Christmas play. Grant, Jake, Lilia and Margaret are volunteering at a hospice center where they wash and hang laundry as well as tend the bed-ridden patients. Avy has been working with disabled children, I think she’s the only one with enough energy to keep up with them right now! The volunteer work has been challenging for all of us, both physically and emotionally. Lilia and Margaret have shared some especially touching and heart-breaking stories. I’ll take this opportunity to share what happened to me today.
After lunch time, we tuck the women in for an afternoon nap. One woman latched onto me and practically dragged me to her dormitory. She was the only one taking a nap at that time in her room, so I stayed with her and rubbed her back for a while. As I rubbed her back, I hummed a lullaby from my childhood and I saw a huge smile spread across her face. I continued to sing and at one point she wrapped her hands around both sides of my face and pulled my face to hers. She kissed my cheek and my forehead out of appreciation for the song. I exited the room as she started drifting to sleep. The hint of a smile remained on her face and I felt full and happy inside knowing I took part in putting that smile there.
I think everyone is still trying to process everything we’ve seen over the past few days (and we will continue to process even after leaving Calcutta). During this time, it’s important to take care of ourselves and each other. We’re learning we have limits to how much we have to give, and realizing that is half the battle. To lift our spirits and take some time for ourselves, we decided we’re going to go for a fancy dinner on Halloween and then go dancing. I’m pumped to say the least and I think we could all use some hard-core fun!
More to come soon. Chau for now. We’re all safe, happy, and healthy (or resting and recovering).
Love to my friends and family.
Shayna