The Beat March 2003

Well it‘s back in the saddle again after a long journey in the tea lands. Winter vacation usually means a mass exodus of sun seekers hoping to decompress from the daily drudgery of existence. After a six month stretch of washing down shrimp doodles with (s)Hite, cramming language down the throats of children, and holding back the urge to take head shots at the man with the megaphone at 6 a.m. every morning, I decided it was time to get out and absorb some more culture somewhere else.

What better place to appeal to the senses than India? I spent a couple of weeks touring solo through the lawless south. I was bombarded more than ever by the poverty and utter filth that people live in. I did however come away with the feeling that people who live in the most appalling conditions (by Western standards) continue to go about their daily business like you or I. The prospect of going back home someday and churning out pre-fab food for 8 bucks an hour may set me close to the poverty line, but I‘ll never be as poor as these people. Indeed I question my standards when I‘ve wasted time haggling for a 20 Rupee deal on a trinket I bought so I can impress my friends someday with the romanticism of world travel.

In Korea I stick out like a sore thumb; in India, to some of the Muslims, I likely seemed a godless harlot, to the many Hindu men; a potential wife. I was showered with the often-unwanted attention that comes with being a solo blonde female backpacking across the feral backcountry. Short of being outright rude, I often had no choice but to lie about my pending marriage to keep the locals from getting too friendly.

Other than being popular with the local men, I spent plenty of time fending off the hands of begging un-clothed children, and telling almost every shopkeeper that I did not want to look at their wares. After a week or so of fleecing, bargaining and baksheeshing, I ended up at Mahatma Gandhi‘s Ashram at Sevagram, a self-sufficient commune the old guy started in the 40‘s. I stayed for just under a week, milking Hindu totems, drinking from the Holy Cow, grinding millet and wheat, making chapattis, spinning wool and gathering fallen leaves from the ’prayer square‘. The ashramites all live and work together while helping others around their community, such as the neighbouring leper colony.

Everyone there, some of them there since the 40s, lives and breathes truth, non-violence, chastity, non-possession and bread labor, among other things. Their daily toil gives them what they need, and nothing more. It is the only place I have ever been where people have no desire for material acquisition, only the search for truth and knowledge. They do not live in poverty, though they have no possessions. None of them are chained to India‘s caste system. Born a Brahmin or an Untouchable, here everyone is equal. It is inarguably the most beautiful place I have ever been.

I took a 16-hour mail train ride back to Bombay and met with my Korean friend and his son. We flew to Goa, and took a 3-hour taxi ride to the beach. When I got into my hut, I realized I had left my camera in the taxi. Mr. Seok and his son traveled all the way back to our point of departure and actually found the taxi driver and camera and brought it back to me. I have now experienced what Mr. Seok calls “the Korean mind” regarding true friendship: an act of kindness is just that, without motivation except that it‘s the right thing to do.

After Goa, my friends returned to Korea, and I went straight to the beaches of Sri Lanka. I was road weary from all that I had seen, done, and experienced in so short a time, so I made Sri Lanka as uneventful as possible. I did nothing but bake in the sun, snorkel the coral reefs, and drink the local lager. Mostly I was contemplating what I had learned thus far and re-evaluating my life course. It was pretty heady stuff that perhaps is unusual for a vacation, but seemed to come at exactly the right moment as I face my third contract here on the peninsula. Hopefully all of this touchy-feely stuff will stick for a while as I get back into Korea mode for one more round.