Pondicherry and leaving the Sakya Hostel
We had a few days off last week and went to Pondicherry, the former French colony. The city itself has some historical interest, a cathedral, a botanical gardens and a museum. What we really went for, though, was the food. South Indian food is tasty - lots of forms of fried wheat with spicy curries - but often completely devoid of vitamins! So we were feeling weak and unhealthy and craving anything fresh, preferably a pile of raw salad. The other drawback of Indian food in general (and I really like Indian food) is that the ‘western style’ bread is sickly-sweet and tasteless. So the promise of baguettes and croissants lured us towards the French-inspired cafes of Pondy. We weren’t disappointed, and three days of crunchy salads, fresh rolls, cakes and croissants seemed to have recharged our immune systems.
Not for long, unfortunately. On the way back from Pondicherry we went to a bird sanctuary, a large flooded plain on which thousands of birds had settled. We had a lovely evening looking around but in the night Alison was taken ill and we stumbled back to Chennai the next day, finding when we got there that the other volunteers were all ill as well! So the end of the weekend was passed with all of us sitting around in the flat comparing symptoms - some of which were quite fascinating, but I’ll spare you the details. We’re all perfectly well again now.
Yesterday we went down to the hostel for our last evening with the kids. When we first arrived I took my camera out for a few snaps and it turned into a lengthy photo-shoot. Their big gleaming smiles are very photogenic and as always in India the chance to be photographed with guests is very popular. We'd spent the day in a bit of a panic getting things together for the party we’d planned and got quite stressed, so it was lovely to arrive and simply hang around spending time there for a bit.
Geeta (one of the hostel wardens) then set up the main room for a puja (service). This was partly in honour of our last night and also of the three children who had had birthdays this week. I had never been at a Buddhist puja with a large group of children before; there were over fifty children in a small room with a shrine at the front with the wardens and birthday children sitting on either side of it. The room hushed and took on an atmosphere of calm and energy that was the more noticeable because these are usually such bouncing, romping kids. A focused calm with adults is one thing, but with all these children it was somehow quite different - perhaps more straightforward. The puja consisted of a short session of breathing meditation and some chanting. A puja is really quite like a church service in many ways - a time for communal prayer - and the atmosphere was quite comparable to a good service or mass. One tradition common in Buddhism is to offer flowers to the Buddha figure (since they are things of beauty which decay) and towards the end a couple of children came round distributing handfuls of fresh flowers. I was wondering what we’d do with them. Would we go up one at a time and offer them? That would take all night. Suddenly my question was answered as a prayer finished and with a loud shout of “Sadhu!” (performs a similar function to ‘amen’ in this case) the children all threw their flowers into the air, over the Buddha and the birthday children! It was a lovely moment.
Then we had the party - we’d made a couple of pass-the-parcels and, as in Delhi, it went down very well. One of the wardens (a cool dude called Brother Bhim) got the ‘have your face painted to look like a tiger’ forfeit and I got a great photo of him being held down by a flock of children as Leslie (another volunteer) smeared him with orange face-paint. After the party they thanked us in the effusive Indian way and gave us presents - a touching and wonderfully tacky memento each, featuring a couple of model birds, some false roses with pretend drops of dew on them, and a red plastic heart bearing the words ‘Best Wishes’! I’m definitely going to bring mine home, but I’m not sure quite where I’ll put it...
We then had a final dinner at the hostel (the food there has been delicious, simple and nutritious which was really hard to find in much more salubrious locations!), said final goodbyes, and left. It was sad, but it had been great, and one of the best things is that it’s laid the foundations for people to come here for five months next winter, and hopefully for years to come, which would make a definite difference to these kids. We’re on the train to Delhi tonight, to spend the last five weeks of the project there.
Not for long, unfortunately. On the way back from Pondicherry we went to a bird sanctuary, a large flooded plain on which thousands of birds had settled. We had a lovely evening looking around but in the night Alison was taken ill and we stumbled back to Chennai the next day, finding when we got there that the other volunteers were all ill as well! So the end of the weekend was passed with all of us sitting around in the flat comparing symptoms - some of which were quite fascinating, but I’ll spare you the details. We’re all perfectly well again now.
Yesterday we went down to the hostel for our last evening with the kids. When we first arrived I took my camera out for a few snaps and it turned into a lengthy photo-shoot. Their big gleaming smiles are very photogenic and as always in India the chance to be photographed with guests is very popular. We'd spent the day in a bit of a panic getting things together for the party we’d planned and got quite stressed, so it was lovely to arrive and simply hang around spending time there for a bit.
Geeta (one of the hostel wardens) then set up the main room for a puja (service). This was partly in honour of our last night and also of the three children who had had birthdays this week. I had never been at a Buddhist puja with a large group of children before; there were over fifty children in a small room with a shrine at the front with the wardens and birthday children sitting on either side of it. The room hushed and took on an atmosphere of calm and energy that was the more noticeable because these are usually such bouncing, romping kids. A focused calm with adults is one thing, but with all these children it was somehow quite different - perhaps more straightforward. The puja consisted of a short session of breathing meditation and some chanting. A puja is really quite like a church service in many ways - a time for communal prayer - and the atmosphere was quite comparable to a good service or mass. One tradition common in Buddhism is to offer flowers to the Buddha figure (since they are things of beauty which decay) and towards the end a couple of children came round distributing handfuls of fresh flowers. I was wondering what we’d do with them. Would we go up one at a time and offer them? That would take all night. Suddenly my question was answered as a prayer finished and with a loud shout of “Sadhu!” (performs a similar function to ‘amen’ in this case) the children all threw their flowers into the air, over the Buddha and the birthday children! It was a lovely moment.
Then we had the party - we’d made a couple of pass-the-parcels and, as in Delhi, it went down very well. One of the wardens (a cool dude called Brother Bhim) got the ‘have your face painted to look like a tiger’ forfeit and I got a great photo of him being held down by a flock of children as Leslie (another volunteer) smeared him with orange face-paint. After the party they thanked us in the effusive Indian way and gave us presents - a touching and wonderfully tacky memento each, featuring a couple of model birds, some false roses with pretend drops of dew on them, and a red plastic heart bearing the words ‘Best Wishes’! I’m definitely going to bring mine home, but I’m not sure quite where I’ll put it...
We then had a final dinner at the hostel (the food there has been delicious, simple and nutritious which was really hard to find in much more salubrious locations!), said final goodbyes, and left. It was sad, but it had been great, and one of the best things is that it’s laid the foundations for people to come here for five months next winter, and hopefully for years to come, which would make a definite difference to these kids. We’re on the train to Delhi tonight, to spend the last five weeks of the project there.