Today was the first day that I went shopping in my T shirt only. I even considered to take my coat or a sweater, but I took the risk.
In other words, today was kind of the first warm spring day in Holland.
We had a long and cold late winter and spring.
(This pic was taken a week before the meeting described below, it shows the Matrimandir in Auroville and my turqoois head that Sindhu also wears six pictures from here).
Last December and Januari I spent again 6 weeks in India, wearing T shirts only.
This memory and my first T shirt day in Amsterdam gives me the energy to finally make this page about my meeting with this 10 year old girl in the Ramanashram Garden (Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India) in Februari 2011.
So, over two years ago, during my first visit to India in ages and my very first visit to Tiruvannamalai, (known in the western world as the home base of the late Sri RamanaMaharshi), a spontaneous meeting happened with a little girl dressed like a Dutch queen in gold and orange. Soul to soul, laughter to laughter, silence to silence, inner sadness to inner sadness, it was all there and we had a great time together.
And of course, as we do nowadays, for sure as tourists hanging out with kids, I made some pictures that we could watch on my camera. So, we can show them now again. Here they are:
(About other adventures during my stay, there are several reports on myblog,
starting with this one: Ochre salamander on azur wall).
A year later I travelled again to Tiru, and the first night I was there, along the dusty and crowded mainroad that runs almost literally along the holy mountain Arunachala, I thought that I saw this little girl again, passing by in the pitch dark with a bike at her hand.
We both thought the same and turned around at the very same second and recognized each other. That was a happy meeting again. Later she introduced me to her mom, also later I saw where she attended school and at some point I had the idea that I could maybe support her.
With the question if that was a good idea I approached the headmaster of her school.
That meeting felt like a blind alley, (I had the later confirmed impression that the good man was drunk), and later told a German woman in the Shanti Cafe about this. She turned out to be married with Kumar, the brother of the owner of this Cafe, and the man running Shanti Travels and both brothers also are involved in ‘their’ Shanti Children Project.
So, the boys of planning (that’s how I name fate) had quite short lines between my idea and the implementation of it. Of course it took some meetings with the girl’s mother and Kumar and me, some consideration and there we were, involved with each other.
I like giving just a lot of pictures again, beginning with the one that I took of Sindhu to identify her in my first conversation with Kumar and yes, he knew her, she was already attending their after school facility and he had already considered to take her into the project on the basis of ‘parents promise to keep the child in school’ and ‘the project pays for all the extra needs for schooling’.
There we go:
As an intermezzo: This is the favourite picture of myself from that visit, that was taken in the garden of one of the many local ashrams.
From here all the pictures from the last visit.
Reports from it start here and below are the pictures from the meetings that happened with Sindhu.
The text that I wrote to this got lost and I leave it like it is.
Will just add a few words here and there.
When Kumar went to her house, she right away knew that I had arrived, she had said to him that she had dreamed about me.
While we were sitting here together, after Kumar had asked her to come over, Sindhu asked me ‘What your nother’s name?’. ‘Ina’, I said. Your mother dancing Ramanashram’, she said. ‘In your dream?’, I asked. ‘Yes’, she said.
Meeting with Kumar, Sindhu’s mother and one of her brothers.
This time we even went out for lunch, of course I asked Kumar if it was okay to do so.
He even joined us the second time. The time that we really could speak thru his translation. The time that Sindhu said that she wants to become a teacher. And then she will not beat the children, she added. Kumar asked her if she had been beaten on the basic school that she just has finished. ‘Yes’, she said, ‘on both hands’.
They calculated together how long it would take for her to become a teacher. That would be in 8 years from now, was the conclusion.
Well, that suits my unspoken plan, I said, I had the idea that I was going to pay during 10 years. And then you will be a teacher. Great plan.
Here we are having our very first lunch together, it is at one of those places where private families offer good food for a good price, this is at Ragini’s place.
A friend of mine has sent me a picture of himself at Ragini’s courtyard. This picture I do like very much, I laughted out loud when I saw it for the first time. Robert actually made the above picture at Ragine from us. And here he is:
And here we are having the other lunch with Kumar, this time at Kokilla’s place.
So, that was our farewell dinner at Quo Vadis.
Onward to the future, always in the now.
