In Awe: Conclusion

Things have really turned around for Rahul and the old man he has been in care for. Down the street from Jayeshbhai's house in Ahmedbad is a hospital called Mother Teresa. It has about 40 patients being watched after one phenominal nun called Sister Tessa. Rahul says she does hard core service, such as cleaning colon cancer wounds.

Under the Mother Teresa Hospital's care, the old man has drastically improved. He smiles and has started eating better. He doesn't have TB and will soon go to his village once he gains enough energy. Rahul's has a friend going to the old man's village in Rajasthan to find out the story on why he was abandoned.

...Thanks for all the comments and staying to tuned to Rahul's remarkable efforts. I am sure your wishes helped the situation.

Pakistan: Islamabad, FATA

The purpose in going to Pakistan was to meet my amazing friend and guru Walt (more on Walt Dada later) and to assist in a solar PV training for an upcoming solar water pumping project for the FATA portion of the Northwest Province and the Balochistan areas of Pakistan. (I thought the villages would be in the quake affected areas, but it turns out that the water in the quake areas is too contaminated to use.) The training was held in Islamabad at the National Univer. for Science and Technology. Hence, after the first night in Lahore, I took a bus to Islambad. The students were engineers and barefoot engineers from some remarkable non-profit groups working with remote communities in Pakistan, such as Islamic Relief, Community Mobilization and Development Organization, and Kurram Rural Support Organzation. ...I was so excited to meet the only woman engineer (from Islamic Relief) to attend the class.

The genuine respect I received during the visit...from EVERYONE I met was unmatched from any other place...I miss that special flow that Pakistan nurtures. Here are some photos of the field visits.



Village girls taking a break from carrying water up to their homes.


Elders looking over our shoulders as we inspected the well that needed the solar pump.

Pakistan: Lahore

Two loudly sirening police vehicles in the front, two in the rear, and two policemen inside the bus...we watched a Hindi film during the ride, but it felt like I was in a Hindi film. This is the "peace bus" I took from the Ambedekar bus station near Old Delhi to Lahore. The ride was about 8 hours, plus 4 hrs for breaks and border paperwork.

Once I reached Lahore, I realized there really was no need for such security. I call Roop, a friend's friend and a phenominal volunteer for Friends Without Borders (www.friendswithoutborder.org) , from the Lahore-Dehli bustop for directions. Never having met, she openly welcomes me into her home...and into a dream. I was expecting to find a city much like any city in India dealing with over population and lack of the Western world's definition of infrastructure. I found the complete opposite.

Lahore has a center which has its fair share of slums. I didn't get a chance to see this part of the city in my 24hrs there. Roop's mom is head of the Microbiology Dept. at the University of the Punjab, the largest university in Asia...as I was told. The campus could have been Stanford...and Roop's family could have easily been a Bay area family.

Her mom is extremely outgoing. Her Nanima is extremely open. Her Aunt is professor of Environmental Studies. I was showered with so much love. Nanima non-stop told me of her Indian friends and memories she treasures of them. ...She treated me as if I transpired the priceless for her...again great showers of Love...in her thick Punjabji...me replying in my wanna-be Hindi.

...Roop and I tried our best to explain Friends Without Borders to Nanima....little did she know that she embraces the India-Pakistan context that Friends Without Borders wants to resurrect.

Deathless Rose

"In my heart where blooms the Deathless Rose"

Rose symbolizes love.

There is a love that is human and there is a love that is divine. Human love depends upon human factors and is mixed with human motives. This love imposes a claim on the loved one. It demands recognition, it insists on a response. If that is not forthcoming, there is disappointment, resentment, anger. It is a conditional transaction. It is transient.

But divine love is unconditional. It exists for its own sake, it flows because it is its nature to do so. It does not seek a return. One loves because one cannot help loving. It is endless, boundless, deathless.

And the source of this immortal love is your psychic which is itself an immortal spark of God. This spark is there deep in the core of our being, in the inmost heart-cave, as a perennial spring of sweetness and love. As you feed it with thoughts turned towards the light, emotions that are more and more purified, energies that consecrated and physical movements oriented towards the Indweller, the spark grows into a flame. The rose blossoms. There is a continuous outflow of love and sweet rapture.

Attend and become aware of this sanctum in the earth where the bud of love waits to blossom into a full-petalled rose at the feet of Godess.

--M.P. Pandit on Light by Sri Aurobindo

In Awe

I have returned to Orissa. Photos and news on Pakistan next time. For now, a breaking and amazing story of true Love.

Rahul Brown (rahulbrown.livejournal.com) is a fellow "ABCD" (American born compassionate Desi) committed to various acts/projects of service and writing a book in India. Last week Rahul discovered a 70-yr old, hungry and wet man in one of Ahmedabad's gutters. He took it upon himself to stop all activity in his life to serve this old man as his own.

Rahul admitted the old man into Civil Hospital...which has turned out to be quite uncivil in repeated situations. The hospital is completely neglecting the old man, as well as other patients. Rahul is waiting to get TB test results before demitting the old from the hospital. Due to hospital slacking on getting the test done, Rahul thought he could speed up the process by pushing at every stage. ...At one point, he was asked to transport an open vial of blood from one hosptial wing to the other!

Daily, Rahul feeds and cleans the old man. Yesterday, he had two helpers from Manav Sadhna--one helped cleaned the old man's self-soild pants and the other watched Rahul's bag.

The old man is hard of hearing and doesn't understand Gujarati or English. He is from Rajasthan....Rahul is determined to get this old man well enough to return him to his village in Rajasthan.

...When I told Rahul how much in awe I am of his act to stop everything else and focus on this old man, he simply replied in his calm and deep tone, "I am getting more than I am giving."

...I've been trying to find ways to help the situation. Rahul says money will help little, since taking the old man out of the hospital is a no-go until he gains his strength. If you have family in Abad that could help in taking shift to watch after the old man this week, write me.

...Lastly, I share this story with you to ask you to notice the next you're wanted and received in a situation of need, out of the blue.

“The heart of a world in which all hearts are one.”

–The Universal Incarnation, Sri Aurobindo.

I waited to see where the 5-person packed auto rikshaw was going and whether I could be the 6^th. Bargaining rikshaw prices in Delhi is next to impossible for me, but I knew with 6 of us it would be much less than my own rik.

As I got on, I was still in search of how I’d cross the border by road. For the last few days people kept talking of a bus and a train from Delhi, but I hadn’t been able to find out where to catch either. I recognized one of the passengers with the driver in the front as a fellow visa applicant. I called him Uncle (as I do to anyone my Dad’s age) and asked about the bus and the train. Soon enough we were on our way to the Delhi-Lahore bus bus stand at the Dr. Ambedekar Station in Old Delhi to buy tickets.

‘Uncle’ is a Muslim from Calcutta; he’ll be crossing the border to visit much of his family which is in Karachi. Thinking about how far Calcutta is from Karachi, and remembering a friend remark earlier in the day that “only an idiot could have separated the India and Pakistan in those days because the culture is in total continuum across the border”, sent waves of a past that wasn’t too long ago.

Realizing that in the larger picture it hasn’t been so long since the two nations were one, made me discount my own uncle’s remark that later in the day, “Be careful. The country is filled with dangerous people.” What my uncle didn’t think about is just as the halves of separated families like that of the Uncle from Calcutta are in Pakistan, so are in India the halves of the “dangerous” people in Pakistan.

I didn’t make it to Pakistan in Nov. after the quake. Finally, there is another opportunity to go, see, and do. I’ll leave tomorrow morning on a bus from Delhi to Lahore. The final destination is Islamabad and the quake affected areas.

(Sparse email until May 10.)

Hope!!

Hopefully the micro hydro electricity in the villages can help makes some of these biodegradable products...and we can use them in the US!!

http://www.ecogreenunit.net/

Win-win for the "developed" and the "developing". As alwasy, open to your ideas.