Faces of India

I just began reading A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. This highly acclaimed novel set in India has been said to break hearts and move readers to tears on every other page: the pain of exposing a harsh reality. The epigraph reads as follows:

Holding this book in your hand, sinking back in your soft armchair, you will say to yourself: perhaps it will amuse me. And after you have read this story of great misfortunes, you will no doubt dine well, blaming the author for your own insenstivity, accusing him of wild exaggeration and flights of fancy. But rest assured: this tragedy is not a fiction. All is true. - Honore de Balzac

"Page after page, sad chapter after sad chapter, you hope for a light at the end of the tunnel," Mom says. "A light that never appears."

I open the book and begin. Reading such a momumental novel about India while in India is a potentially lifechanging opportunity not to be missed.

And so, I sit in a cafe in this rainy mountain town and order a pot of tea from the menu that advertises Italian, Thai and Continental favorites. "Penny Lane" plays in the background; The Beatles came here, I think, way back when. And their music? It's on the i-pods of the Tibetan, Nepalese and Indian men and women who make this international little town their home. Every other peson I see walking by is a tourist from Israel, France, Spain, England and a handful from the states: their eyes squint all the way up the road as they windowshop their way to the next teastand. I can identify the newest tourist arrivals by their shell-shocked faces: overwhelmed by the thousand and one yoga course flyers and advertisements for massage, cooking class, English conversation, movie nights and more. All the visual bombardment while baby stepping their way up the hill behind two enormous cows who slowly find their way through the traffic and sneakily stop to eat at the vegetable stands while leaving their stink business in a pile at the shoe-shiner's feet.

Twist and Shout dances from the sound system next and I think about Dina, a young woman from the novel, who lost her husband in an instant to a hit-and-run drunk driver and consequently lost the vitality of her life. A kick in the stomach that knocks the wind from her sails, the possibliity from her youthful dreams. Life as a widow in India: surviving does not get any harder.

I know there are widows here in Dharamsala: young women who face the world alone, or with a child or two. Surely the Tibetan women would never let on to their personal tragedy. Tragedy is not personal for the Tibetan refugees who live in Dharamsala; tragedy is collective: what one suffers as part of a culture of people banished from their homeland and ancient traditions. The Tibetan women will be tight-lipped about their suffering: hands busy working, trying to keep their home and honor afloat. From sun-up til sun-down, they work trying to catch the eye of passing tourists who might just be the winning ticket towards this month's rent or at least tomorrow's bread.

The streets of Mcleod Ganj are lined with hotel after hotel, restaurant after restaurant: pizza, spaghetti, omelette. Dozens of craftshops offer the same assortment of pashmina shawls, jewelry and traditional Tibetan souveniers. If it weren't for the rainy season stench, the cows sauntering by and the endless train of Indian tourists who stop my white-skin every 5 meters to take "just one photo," this town could be mistaken for a hamlet in Europe or most likely Israel: complete with street signs in Hebrew.

I come to India because it is the birthplace of Yoga, of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, of an ancient tradition of leaving the world to find the Self, of cutting through ignorance by cutting through ego. And what do I find? Thousands of other light-eyed seekers who come here for similar or different reasons. Native Indians are not to be found in Yoga Classes, nor Tibetans or Nepalese immigrants who come to India for work. The Yoga teachers are the classic bone and sinew yogis from the stories and centerfold photos: as unbelievably strong and flexible as on imagined and with the capacity to hold a steady stream of breath singing OM for an eternity. The students are you and I: the light-eyed seekers who've dreamed of India since hearing sitar for the first time.

Rishikesh, where I will complete a 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training, will be the same. World travelers arrive on the banks of The Ganges to know Her history and the ancient secrets to enlightened living that She whispers to pilgrims who listen. Many such travelers stay for years or forever and open espresso shops and vegetarian cafes that serve bagels and hummus. Maybe such travelers learn to speak Hindi; more likely they learn English and stop there. Good people. Excellent people. But where is India?

So goes the phrase: Truth is stranger than fiction. Dharamsala is like this: a bubble of peace in the cloudswhere monks meditate aroudn the clock and The Dalai Lama breathes a sigh of homecoming from time to time. It is the chanting and concentration of the many devoted monks and nuns that sustains the calm and steadiness of the slick streets. But still, within the quiet peace the overtakes the blaring carhorns is the irony of westernization. No trash pick up, no sewage treatment, but Cafe Italiano and Espresso Corner and Falafel and Muesli any day of the week.

I do not feel critical of where I am, just observant. At this point, it is possible for a European traveler to arrive in India with all her creature comforts at her fingertips. She will still be surprised by the smells, the pasture animals walking the streets, the footless beggars adn crying children with distended stomachs. She will feel that guilty corkscrew in her heart as she passes the one-legged man with hands outstretched while on her way to breakfast. Maybe she will remember his face while she sips her cup of coffee or maybe she'll just listen to The Beatles and forget.

Hello, India. Just getting to know a few of your many faces.