Please Do Not Give Tips to Holy Men

We left Jodhpur with heavy hearts, after having the most magical experience yet, at the Sowing Seeds Artist’s Residency. We got a ride to the village of Jetpur with the son of the owners of Jagat Vila. When we arrived in Jetpur we were greeted by a crowd of excited children, who seemed to be expecting us, and we dove into instant silliness and wild laughter. The children had a purity about them that we felt the moment we stepped out of the car.

We were led into an area behind a wall of white fabric, flimsily held in place by posts and string, into a tent compound where the Sowing Seeds artists reside. The children hovered at the entrance the whole time we were meeting the artists and eating our lunch.  After lunch we set out into the village to see some of the projects the artists were working on, all of which are collaborative in some fashion, with the village, with each other, or both. We only made it a few steps beyond the fabric wall before we were immersed in a blessing ceremony for newly born baby girls, a ceremony traditionally designed for boys only, but recently revised to include girls in an effort instill more pride and value in female offspring. It was a frenzy of cuddling.

One of the artists led us to the home of a young woman who was painting the floor of her earth clay home.  The house was so beautiful and simple, and we felt like we were in a dream. We watched her dip her hand into buckets of tinted water, and drizzle the pigment through a cloth to the tip of her index finger. Everyone, the crowd of children, the artist, the family members, were completely silent while she painted. Somehow, in that silence, I had a full-blown visual conversation with her mother or grandmother, as though we were seeing in each other a long lost friend. We smiled and laughed and hugged when it was time to leave. She cradled Sadie’s face in her hands and gave her a kiss goodbye, understanding that Sadie was my daughter. Sadie exchanged addresses with the artist, who we discovered was born 7 days after Sadie in 1993. Sadie and I both have a strong desire to make contact with the family when we get home. Back in the car, tears flowed for the profound way the people of this village landed in us. It is really too hard to unpack all the layers of meaning, contrast, inspiration, and clarity that this day inspired. Suffice it to say that a new portal presented itself and Sadie and I have our baby toes just inside its threshold.

“India Standard Time” reared its annoying head the next morning when we awoke at 4 am to catch a 5 am train to the desert town of Jaisalmer, that didn’t arrive until 8:30 am. The discomfort of sitting on our suitcases on the outdoor platform in the chilly pre-dawn hours, watching the station come to life in all its chaotic aspects (spilled food, sleeping bodies, bedding being pitched off of trains and hauled off in carts, pacing, brushing of teeth, huddling families) jolted us rudely into a new reality. One family sat very very close to us, on the ground, bundled in blankets, and stared, eyes open wide, at the white-skinned strangers. We stared back with mutual curiosity and fascination.

Jaisalmer is the golden city of Rajasthan. All the buildings are made of yellow sandstone. Its 12^th century fort is home to 4,000 people, and is a bustling metropolis whose sole livelihood is tourism. The Silk Road trade route was cut off when Pakistan and India separated, and now Jaisalmer sits at a dead end. The tourist intensity was hard to take after our village experience, but there was great beauty to be seen there, especially in the intricate Islamic havelis.

On our first night we took a “desert safari” at the Prince Camp, 120 miles from the Pakistan border. It was a very filtered experience, our first experience with middle class Indian families on holiday. We loved our canvas tent house, the night sky, and our funny camels and their guides. The dunes were spectacular, the sand so fine, and the wind patterns so very complex.  The folk entertainment (dancers, drummers, and singers) around the bonfire was magical and, ultimately, ironic. When the guests were invited one by one to join in the dancing after the two-hour performance ended, we all sprang to our feet and danced around the bonfire like a pack of wild animals to Indian disco music. Think Where the Wild Things Are.

Now we are in Udaipur, City of Lakes, nestled in small mountains, oddly reminiscent of the Napa hills. We drifted in and out of consciousness during the six-hour drive from Jodhpur, where we arrived at 5 am after another overnight train ride. We saw small farms with ancient irrigation systems, sinister monkeys lurking on the side of the road, beautiful hut-like hay storage structures and beautiful stone walls rising and falling over the hills.

Sadie’s good friend Hope Harvey, from Davis and Sacramento Waldorf Schools, is here with us. Her semester at the Long Island University Global Program starts in Delhi and she managed to get herself to Udaipur from Thailand before school starts. We will have four days together and plan on taking long walks, taking a cooking class, and to finding a good place to do yoga. We are craving a project. I contacted an NGO that works on education rights for village children. Maybe we will get a chance to volunteer before we leave.

Now we are in Udaipur, City of Lakes, nestled in small mountains. We came in and out of consciousness on the six hour drive from Jodhpur, where we arrived at 5 am after another overnight train ride. We saw small farms with ancient irrigation systems,  sinister monkeys, hut-like hay storage structures and beautiful stone walls rising and falling over the hills. Sadie’s good friend Hope Harvey, from Davis and Sacramento Waldorf Schools, is here with us. Her semester at the Long Island University Global Program starts in Delhi and she managed to get herself to Udaipur from Thailand before school starts. We will have four days together and plan on taking long walks, taking a cooking class, and to finding a good place to do yoga. We are craving a project, and I contacted an NGO that works on education rights for village children. Maybe we will get a chance to volunteer before we leave.

We feel so privileged to be here, yet ready to come home and to put our new ideas about how to be in this world to work.