"In India I found a race of mortals living upon the Earth..."

A sign at His Holiness the Dalai Lama's Temple -  a quote of his. Kinda says it all.

"In India I found a race of mortals living upon the Earth, but not adhering to it, inhabiting cities, but not being fixed to them, possessing everything, but possessed by nothing." Appollonius Tyaneus

Greetings friends, yogis…

It's been awhile, I know. India is like that: The dissolution of time. One can really reflect on "time" whilst living in India. Small, mindful, awareness producing activities really get incorporated, if not dominate, the day/time. "Time" being what "clocks measure."

Filling the bucket from a slow faucet to try to flush the toilet (or "dilutes it anyway" as Tom says - not a true "flush" as most of us might be used to). Lighting the propane burner, filling the kettle, and heating hot water. A little tea anyone?  All dishes are washed with cold water, and then carefully assembled in the sink and basin so that boiling water can be poured over each plate, cup, bowl and spoon. Amoebas, giardia, and other unwanted bacteria are killed by water that has been boiled for 3 min. The old conventional wisdom is that the locals are all used to these bugs - not so. A local monastery had an outbreak recently and all the monks were into the clinic/hospital to be seen and treated by "Dr. Tom". Tom has seen amoebic abscesses in the lung on x-ray and others seen by scan on the liver. No thanks.

The kettle is filled again. Boil more water. Mix with cold and poured into bucket for our 'bucket showers" (even Tom has decided that husbandcide may be permissible when it comes to matters of the toilette.) Imagine.

TIME gets lost in translation, literally!

Let's take yesterday (and even today, but that's another blog). For example, I was in the town of McLeod/Ganj buying vegetables and toilet paper and curd (yoghurt). My cell phone rang, and I heard an Indian man's voice trying to tell me something in Hindi. "Miss Catherine" was all I could understand. So, I grabbed an innocent Indian bystander and asked, "do you speak English?" He nodded in the affirmative and I handed him my phone. He spoke in Hindi to the caller and kept nodding and repeated "dolphin career center" He finished the conversation and said "you have a package in Dharamsala (about 3 miles from where I was) and it is near the State Bank of India ATM." He continued "at a place", shrugged his shoulders, and said "at dolphin career center."

I thanked him for translating, and he said "no problem muhm" (Indian accent and often shortened for madam). 

When I completed my shopping, I called a taxi over. I asked to be taken to the State Bank of India ATM in Dharamsala. I couldn't imagine why any package would be waiting for me at a career center (?) in India. The driver spoke mostly Hindi, but also spoke great broken English. He didn't know of a dolphin career center but knew the ATM (which I actually knew as well; in fact there are two in Dharamsala). We slowly drove past the first ATM searching for "dolphin career center", and the driver (whose name is Azay) kept saying "dolphin career center" to himself, as was I: we sounded like we were chanting, it was in such unison! No signs of this “dolphin career center” place anywhere.

We then drove to the other ATM, saying out loud to ourselves "dol -phin car-eer center". Nothing! Suddenly Azay stops the cab almost in the middle of the road (not unusual in India). All motorbikes, cars, trucks, buses, rickshaws passing are honking loudly and continuously. Azay says, "stay here" and takes off. I get the dirtiest looks from the disgruntled drivers of all the passing vehicles. A few Indian children beggars pounded on the window, begging for money and I rolled down my window and gave two little girls thirty rupees. Naturally more children started coming over to this cab stopped nearly in the middle of the road with a moat of vehicles gingerly maneuvering around and past the taxi cab. Yep, I just gave them all the change I had. They were so dear with their "Namaste" and a slight bow with each tiny bit of money received. Mostly they can be a source of true irritation. It takes awhile to get educated about "the system" and where it is best to direct young children. Often, giving them money perpetuates a manipulating/hustling mentality and then they don't learn how to be truthful or upfront about what they really need. Many Indians and Tibetans have explained this to me yet when I see their faces and hear their sweet-voiced pleas it is difficult not to give in.

After thirty minutes, Azay returned and said, "need to park the car." He skillfully found a spot just off the road and said, "follow me." The town is crowded and I was following Azay closely down stairs, into alleyways, through narrow dank hallways and then up on a rooftop with a small office. The little sign on the door says "Dot.-In Courier Center". Light bulbs go off in my head: "oh, ah, awe, ah-ha", I say to myself, a "courier, not career" service. The Indian accent made “courier” sound like “career”!!  Azay was speaking in Hindi to a young woman who said, "not here, it is at Dolphin". Dolphin, not Dot In. They do sound alike, don't they? OK, I won't get into why the two courier services in Dharamsala shouldn't rhyme with each other, but that's for their marketing people to take up!

"Okay we'll go find Dolphin", said Azay. We began our journey through town again. Up stairs, down stairs, many doorways, dank & odiferous hallways, climbed over a fence, through a yard with three lovely cows hanging out and lots of cow dung to hop scotch around, and finally to a little room with a lovely screen door (an old wooden hand made door painted in rainbow colors). I said, "is this Dolphin?" Turned out not to be. The woman inside the room was kind enough to call "Dolphin" on her cell phone (she didn't know where it was either). She told the manager at "Dolphin" to look out for us on the street so we could follow him to the office, and she described what we were wearing. Out on the street Azay and I saw a man waving his hands excitedly, Azay turned to me and said "follow him, I go back to car."

The same colorful trekking as before, just in a different direction and into the bowels of Dharamsala we went. Ten minutes later we arrived at a little office filled with mostly large and padded envelopes. No signage for "Dolphin", so I blurted out "Dolphin?" The man inside smiled very proudly and said (Indian accent) "Yes muhm, we are ‘Dolphin’.  We are Courier (sounds like ‘career’!) Center".

I said, "package for me?" He said "you Miss Catherine?" He then pointed to two boxes. They were addressed to Tom and myself at The Tibetan Delek Hospital and were from Tom's sister Christina Coolidge in Los Angeles. I asked, "is there a reason these couldn't be delivered to Delek Hospital?" He said "Madam, I only have a bicycle, all of the others (packages) are envelopes and yours are boxes so I cannot deliver. We are FedEx for this area." “Oh, so this is Fed Ex”, I said to myself. Now, I was beginning to see this wild goose chase: a FedEx office tucked away called Dolphin Courier. 

As that was fading, I focused on the boxes Chrissy so generously sent. I had told her about the need for sheets in the hospital, and she sent a slew of them!! How thoughtful (and expensive, FedEx, etc., I was thinking to myself). The man at Dolphin helped me carry these boxes to the taxi as it was parked a good distance away.

I will be very excited to present these to the nurses tomorrow. Chrissy's thoughtfulness will be literally on the beds at Delek. The sheets will say it all, why I couldn't get back to the hospital, why I was late for patients: It all works out....that's India.

Possessed by nothing.

Tashi Delek

catherine xo

Butter candles made by the nuns at the Dalai Lama's Temple to bring light into the hearts of people in the world.