India in my Heart
by Carla Simmons
In November, I visited India for the fourth time. I’m drawn to the place like a magnet, like my energy is attracted to its energy, like my soul gets caught on the prevailing wind.
It is a land of fascinating human history, evidence of which can be seen in forts and palaces and temples. Its people are friendly and musical and resourceful. Of course, it has its problems, and like everywhere else in the world, they’re man-made, but sweeping the trash aside, India is a beautiful and exciting place.
Each time I’ve been, I’ve had a mission: the first was to visit the big sights of Rajasthan and South India; the second to do research for my novel-writing; the third to spend nine days in an ashram at a women’s festival focused on saving the planet (with my guru, Liz Gilbert); and this fourth time was twofold — to check out a residential school for disabled kids run by an incredible woman I met at the ashram, and the other, to join a group of writers in a tour aptly called Story Hunters.
The school turned out to be a treat, a happy place where kids were thriving. Kids who had suffered birth trauma, disease, or lack of pregnancy care, who would normally have no opportunity for happiness, were being educated, looking after themselves and each other in a positive environment, playing sport, laughing. I got to hang out with the girls in their common room, having my hands painted with henna, dancing.
The group of writers turned out to be an eclectic bunch of highly creative and deep-thinking women.
Story Hunters was the vision of a man who wanted to connect a bunch of curious, foreign writers with types of Indians who don’t often get to tell their stories.
Travelling with us was a young Indian woman with impressive qualifications who acted as facilitator, herder, and interpreter; a musician who played violin, guitar and wooden flute, who sang and wrote poetry; and an earnest, young videographer and documentary maker with the sweetest of hearts.
We got to meet with:
- gypsies who live on the edge of the Thar desert, who perform dances, play instruments, and do tricks like pick up razor blades in their eyelids. Their pride and their personal stories of loss have affected me forever.
- street-sweepers — a mother and daughter-in-law — who were accompanied by a male family member in order to be decorous.
- a jeweller who broke away from his family’s traditional silver-smithing style to make highly imaginative artworks from metals and gems and fossils. He almost died from Covid, then a great light lifted from his chest, leaving him completely well.
- a Naga sadhu in Benares (Varanasi) who was once a successful software developer who now devotes his life to attaining enlightenment.
- a Sufi priest who explained that Sufism is about finding truth, liberation, reality, and love. He spoke eloquently, sang Kabir’s poetry, and played tambourine with dancing hands.
- a tuk tuk driver in Delhi who turned his life around with the love and support of his wife — a love marriage between a Muslim and a Hindu that survived his drug addiction and imprisonment — becoming an honest business owner, able to put his sons through private school.
- Hijras — people of the ‘third gender’ — whose personal stories of hardship, ostracism and desire for love broke my heart.
We spent days in India’s last living fort, Jaisalmer, and more by the great, holy Ganges in Varanasi. We visited ancient sites including a 350-year-old Mosque built with the remains of a Hindu temple and the remains of a city, reportedly abandoned 800 years ago. We learned about caste, religion, gurus, Hindu gods, and Diwali. We explored alleyways and danced on the river’s ghats, singing Hindi and Beatles songs with our very own troubadour.
My fourth trip to India turned out to be exceptional. I learned so much that it took weeks to process once I was home in the quiet, open space of Australia.
On reflection, I wonder if the gods play their part in returning me there, time and time again.
Vayu, the guardian of the northwest direction and the Lord of the Winds, may be my universal facilitator. No doubt, I will do this exhilarating journey again and like the much enjoyed roller-coaster of my childhood, I will find myself weeping with pain and blissful with joy. India burns in my heart and like the flame of the diya (the sacred oil lamp), it will remain the light of my soul.
© Carla Simmons 2023.
Carla Simmons is a nature lover, explorer, mother, friend, dog carer and spiritual seeker. She writes a blog and is currently working on her first novel — a transformative story, partially set in India about women in their middle years.
School for children with a physical disability — SKSN:
Story Hunters:
