Adventurers in India

In the last several years two of my daughters have gone to India, incidentally fulfilling one of my own lifetime dreams. It has thrilled my soul to "picture them" there. All of my children, their mates, and my grandchild thrill my soul day in and day out. But this India thing has me entranced, and I mean majorly entranced.

Why do people go to India? In my family, India has been salve and sustenance. I would say that my girls have gone for spiritual reasons, soul-soothing. One went to Darjeeling to work in a Tibetan School after heartbreaking revelations by her fiance, and a disastrous end to their engagement.

My youngest, my 22 year old, is in India now, headed off suddenly after working for eight months in Manhattan, feeling unfulfilled. She has been staying for the last few weeks in Udaipur in Rajasthan in a guest house called Dream Heaven, in a room with a beautiful view of a lake and her own bath and shower. Originally the room was $4.50 a night, but she and a friend who works in Udaipur bargained for $1.50 a night. The room was sweetly painted and decorated and clean despite having some lizardy things like geckos climbing on the walls. She has loved it there in her little room in that beautiful city, and is sad to leave.

Today she wrote to say that she has extended her trip annother six weeks and had checked out of Dream Heaven. She's on the move, alone, by bus to Jaisalmer, a ten hour ride, and thence to Chandighar, Amritsar and Dharmsala in time for the monsoon. She has signed up for a highly intensive ten-day meditation course, Vipassana, in Dharmsala. Then she'll head across to Darjeeling.

She sent me a phone text message from the bus she's on right now saying that she was in a cupboard above the seats, no air conditioning in 100 degree heat, and the "cupboards" were like fishbowls. She thought it was funny. But how funny can something be when you're alone in that situation, right near the Pakistan border in an area where rebels have been disrupting public transportation with the most primitive of weapons, including sickles?

I've been trying to think of a word to describe how I feel. It's an agitation, fear of the highest order, concentration, constant prayer, and excitement that defies description, my molecules are all astir, I know there's a word for it on some planet somewhere. That old nut Gurdjieff probably made up a word for it. I'm so glad that my girls have had this experience as young women. I feel enormously proud of them, but that's not even it. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh...in ancient crazy wild wonderful India! Drawn to the Himalaya, they journey north and leave bits and pieces of their DNA in the sworl of humanity there, as they brush their hair, touch the flowers, swim in the waters.

Even the thought of the Himalaya and beyond that, the Hindu Kush, sets my blood on thin-speed, and makes me feel an exhilaration I cherish.

I'm on edge.
I pray.
I'm there with you every step of the way.

I think of coming but may be too old,
I can't stand extremes of hot and cold.
When I was young
a room for a dollar a day
was just fine.
Do you think
I could still be that way?
So do me a favor
and try not to stare:
just tell me if you can
picture me there.