Someone I met 2

I have been holidaying in Bhimtal and here sitting at a lodge I happened to meet a social worker from England. She’s worked in different capacities all over the world. For quite a few years, she is settled in India. Telling us about few of her experiences she narrates how difficult it was to dissuade people in North Thailand against sending their daughters for human trafficking. People over there would cry and tell her, “We can’t help it, we had taken debt and now our girls are being taken away to repay it. The local authorities are mixed with the perpetrators and there is very slow criminal justice. They take away our daughters forcibly”.

She has worked with the impoverished class in Uganda and tried instilling in them the importance of local authority and their need to respect them and not fight them. Now she is settled in the hills of Uttrakhand and goes from village to village and tries to set up local schools that can educate the children, especially the girls. “The girls,” she says “are not readily sent to school in villages. So my basic aim has been to get in touch with small NGO’s and give power of education to children, though  I have tried to focus on going from house to house and tell them the need to educate girls.”

She continues to say, “I plan on staying few years more in India, work and take small breaks and travel. I want to get a better grasp of the culture; after all I too have originated from it. I recently was duped in Varanasi where I took my first religious holiday. I had heard of the reputation of the town as that being of a temple town and was very interested in going there. Yes, there were good lord too many temples there. The pandit ji there duped me of couple of thousands in doing some ‘puja’ that would make my ancestors rest in peace. In spite of that I loved the town with its Kashi Vishwanath temple that I’ve learnt is one of the important Shiva temple and saw the famous aarti on one of the ghats. Oh! the sight was gorgeous. Also nearby was the Sarnath just a mere 13 km away. Isipatana is mentioned by the Buddha as one of the four places of pilgrimage which his devout followers should visit, if they wanted to visit a place for that reason. It was also the sight of the Buddha's Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta , which was his first teaching after attaining enlightenment, in which he taught the four noble truths and the teachings associated with it”

And she is lost in thought for couple of minutes and then tells how interesting her years in India have been mixed with experiences related to culture, like the one of puja’s and it helping one’s ancestors rest in peace. “Well you see from where I come, these things are improbable and slightly hard to digest. But if this is my ancestor’s culture I do need to give it a chance and try and understand their believes. I plan on visiting Puri next month. It’s got beautiful architecture they say and has an important Vishnu temple.”

She pauses and then says, “How do you remember all the Gods and Goddesses. There are too many and I keep on getting confused. There are too many sects and variations in the Hindu culture itself. Till now I have only prayed to the all mighty Jesus of the Roman Catholic Church.” And she laughs at it.

Yes it’s a little obscure when you think of it and the so many Gods and Goddesses and their significant places to worship and then I wonder whether this Lady who has grown up with understanding of the Christian faith, has a Cambridge degree in International Sociology, is well versed in different languages will ever be able to understand the nuances of the Hindu religion and our Indian culture. Well her stay in India in so many years has made her quite proficient with the Hindi language at least. I wished her luck for her future endeavors and came back to my lodge.