Those of you who remember the saga of Chime and her various offspring may be interested in the latest developments. A year ago last May, Chime brought a kitten to our door. Literally:
This cat got named Tsilu, and grew up to replace Leopard once he struck out on his own on the hillside to find a good female to settle down with and raise a family. Once Leopard moved on, Tsilu grew up as the Only Child for many months.
Then the siblings arrived. In early July I visited the statue of Padmasambhava, and after a cup of chai one of the construction workers led me down into the basement room, where Chime’s latest litter resided. At the time the kittens were only five days old, and Chime was still nursing them. I eyed them dubiously. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you’ll know that the life expectancy of a baby anything in Rewalsar is kind of dicey. I told the workers that if the kittens were still alive in three weeks, I would take them.
Time passed. Then one day a friend from the construction site turned up, with too little kittens in tow. The younguns were frightened by the trip up the hill, dusty from living in a construction area, and full of fleas from their feral mother. Chinta and I set to work cleaning them up, and three days later we had kittens that were actually presentable for the camera.
First up: Pixit. A mighty but playful adventuress who thinks nothing of satisfying her curiousity come what may.
She also quickly figured an escape route out of the little kitty house she and her brother were stashed in.
Next: Dixit. His name in Hindi means “scholar,” and he earned it by being the shyer, more reticent of the two. Like his continually bad-tempered mother, Dixit often has a grumpy, and seems to be of two minds as to whether to share.
July 30th, 2009
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Ghari (car — local dialect)
Bajaiya (musicians)
Mommyji (mother) Sue wearing a sari for the very first time
Mamaji (mother’s brother) Bob wearing a pallu (wedding headdress) for the very first time
Parivara (family): Mommyji, Mamaji, Bhai (brother) James, and Behan (sister) Chandra
Dulaha (bridegroom) Martin
Dulahana (bride) Tara
Shaadi (wedding)
Saatiya (husband and wife — local dialect)
July 26th, 2009
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This is our living room:
This is our living room during monsoon:
Any questions?
July 15th, 2009
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Among our bhi-bhi Chinta’s varied household duties is that of produce shopping. As a local villager who’s known most folks since they were children (and is probably related to the rest) she has the best chance of getting decent quality produce at a reasonable price out of a profit-minded subji-wallah. She can usually haggle the price down from what a Westerner like me would be charged to something a bit more affordable. Also, since she has a bit of farmland in combination with her neighbors, she’s often able to bring in seasonal “local-local” vegetables at no cost.
However, this year everyone has the drought to contend with. Monsoon has not yet reached our region of India. The few rains of the last couple of weeks have been enough to moisten the ground, but not enough to do the farmers much good. And so, several days ago, Chinta turned up at the house empty-handed.
“Kuchne,” she reported disgustedly. Nothing.
Just the day before we had reeled in sticker shock at vegetable prices in Mandi. A subji wallah had informed us–with a straight face–that peas were 70 rupees the kilo. To understand the seriousness of this, most produce here normally runs under R20 a kilo when in season, with exotic stuff like broccoli running closer to R40, and fragile fruits like grapes running probably 60 or more. In this area the average produce seller has no qualms about quoting any price he feels like to Western tourists; after all, he reasons, they can afford it, and they’ll be gone in a couple weeks, anyway. Quoting the same price to a couple of Hindi-speaking women in local salwar suits and dupattas, especially in Mandi where the subji wallahs all sit cheek by jowl selling the same produce, means the vegetable shortages have started in earnest.
After Chinta struck out finding reasonable produce near her village, I wandered down the hill to check the produce available in Rewalsar. It was just as bleak. No tomatoes, at the height of the season. Stumpy, undergrown cucumbers. The kicker was finding peas that were not selling at R70 the kilo. No, these were priced at R80.
I returned home also without buying anything, and Chinta and I commiserated over the current state of vegetables. Nothing was worth buying, and what there was was too expensive.
“Well,” I said finally,” I guess we’ll be losing a bit of weight over the next couple months.”
Meantime, the water rationing continues. During rationing they turn off the water supply except for public handpumps for a period of anything from four hours to a full day. Today I woke up to greetings from my next door neighbor, a schoolteacher with two sons. He told me his water tank was empty; did I have any water? By now the morning water-tank check has become routine. Climb the stairs to the roof, fish out the practically indestructible iron ladder, and climb to the water tank platform. Then use a key to unlock the monkey-proofed lid, and peek inside.
Half empty, and not refilling. The water is off again.
I grew up in California, so I thought I understood water shortages. But the situation here calls for a lot more than just putting the toilet on “California rules*”. This year’s learning curve has been steep, with little room for error. Like everyone else I’ve quickly learned to stash a couple of full water jugs against the next round of rationing. Making sure there’s enough water in the drinking filter is now an automatic thing. The Indian-style bucket wash makes more sense than a more luxurious Western-style shower. And these days, no trip to Rewalsar is complete without seeing a group of Indians, Tibetans, and schoolchildren gathered around the public water pumps, waiting to fill buckets, bottles, and jugs.
As I write this, they’ve turned on the water again. The tank has refilled, and off in the distance are fluffy cumulus clouds, promising (but not yet delivering) rain. Now all that remains is to see what the subji wallahs are selling tomorrow…
* During water shortages in California, the basic rule is: “if it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.”
July 12th, 2009
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A special announcement for SF/Bay Area readers who are interested in the Dharma, or Tibetan Buddhism:
Continuing today, July 4th in Berkeley and at various locations around the SF Bay Area through mid-July, Venerable Wangdor Rimpoche will be teaching from the complete text of Kaden Sho Lap, translated as “Flight of the Garuda,” a Dzogchen heart text of the Nyingma lineage. Rimpoche traces the core text back to the words of Padmasambhava himself. He has agreed to do “Flight of the Garuda” in its entirety, including commentaries and transmission of the Direct View of Mind. He will be teaching this over the course of nine or ten sessions (final number depends upon suitable locations.)
NOTE: All sessions are open to the public, and you do not have to attend all sessions to receive these teachings. Wangdor Rimpoche sincerely hopes that those of you who are in the Bay Area will try to attend as often as possible to receive the transmission and pointing out and hear this beautiful, poetic text for yourselves. As a Dzogchen Heart Text, Flight of the Garuda prepares the dedicated student of Dzogchen meditation to achieve full realization.
Here’s more info about the weekend teaching:
July 4, 2009
10:30 am - 4:30 pm
Berkeley, CA — Flight of the Garuda Parts 6 & 7
Teachings from the Flight of the Garuda
Times:
10:30 am - 12:00 pm (Saturday)
3:00 pm to 4:30 pm (Saturday)
10:30 am - 12:00 pm (Sunday)
Location:
Dondrup Ling Center (2nd flr)
2748 #D Adeline Street, Berkeley, CA 94703
Please arrive by 10am to be seated. Some cushions and folding chairs are available.
Flight of the Garuda Songs #9 “Mist Dream and Optical Illusions “; #10 “The Mind Created Universe “; #11 “The Natural State of Freedom “.
and possibly:
#12″The Crystal Metaphor and the Dynamic of Being”; #13 “Instructions in working with emotions”; #14 “Instruction in the Recognition of One Taste”; and #15 “The Nonduality of Stillness and Movement”; if Rimpoche decides to go that far this weekend. How many songs he decides to give in a given session is decided at the time of the teaching. These teachings will continue on July 7, in Oakland, CA, 7:00 pm at 1039 6th St.
The Garuda is a mythical bird renowned for its speed and martial prowess. The Flight of the Garuda is a Tibetan Buddhist text consisting of 23 poetic songs to help meditators attain Dzogchen (Great Perfection) realization—beyond the Karmic wheel of causation.
The aim is to cut through the root of the mind attached to the appearance of phenomena and experience the true nature of mind—the Primordial Awareness. The more experience you have in meditation, the more you will gain from this teaching, however even beginners will benefit from participating in a teaching from such an accomplished Dzogchen Master as Lama Wangdor. We are honored that he has agreed to teach this material.
July 4th, 2009
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Now the rains arrive.
Cool water drips on live wires–
power’s out again.
June 29th, 2009
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Not a lot, and not enough: rain.
June 28th, 2009
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As our stay here in India continues, we’ve grown more and more used to the practice of “eating local“. I did a recent calculation, and realized that, except for commercial products like biscuits, cheese, butter, and oil, a good 85% of our groceries come from within a 25 kilometer radius of our house. Another 5% perhaps originates from as far away as Punjab. Chickens are free-range birds from a ranch several kilometers away. Sheep and goats are also local; often a member of a flock passing along the road is destined for the butcher’s shed.
Some things, like milk, are much closer. The cow our milk comes from lives just down the hill, within perhaps 50 meters of the house. Our produce, for the most part, comes from local farms. Our bhi-bhi, Chinta, explained that most farmers hereabouts don’t like the idea of chemically enhancing their produce “with injection”, and that many people are suspicious of commercially-grown produce from Punjab. After all, she asked us, if you don’t know who grew your food, how do you know it’s not full of chemicals? And so we have learned to ask while shopping at the subji wallah where the produce was grown. In Mandi, it’s not uncommon for a subji wallah to retort that the vegetables in his baskets came from his land, “just up there,” while pointing to a nearby hillside.
While it’s true that eating locally has been much healthier for us, and has given us the chance to support local people, this year has been a hard lesson in the other side of the equation. When you’re eating this locally, your food supplier’s problems are your problems, too.
Monsoon is late this year. Very late. Instead of the cooling rainstorms that make the summer rice crops possible, northwest India has had incredible heat waves, and day after day of brushfires up in the hills. Without water, the rice paddies are dry, allowing mice to overrun the fields and eat the crops. The supply of rice is already in trouble. Without water, other crops grow badly, or not at all. Healthy, unwilted vegetables are less common and more pricey. Without water, milk cows dry up and suddenly milk, yogurt, and paneer are a lot more expensive.
Two days ago Rewalsar experienced water rationing for the first time. “Water rationing” in India is very similar to the “rolling blackouts” California went through nine years ago. During water rationing they cut off the water supply at the source, except for the public pumps. Once that happens, whatever water you have, or can carry, is what you have until the water is turned on again. Our landlord came over to tell me his family was down to two buckets of water, and asked me to check our water tank. I discovered it was only half full, and not refilling from the water line. For the next day or so, Rewalsar was full of folks carrying bottles, buckets and jugs to the public handpumps for filling.
The “trickle down” effect of drought doesn’t stop there. The rivers are the dryest they’ve been in years, and even the level of the holy lake of Tso Pema is much lower than usual. This also means that water-powered electrical generation is having problems, leading to power outages, in addition to the water shortages and brush fires already happening.
To imagine the effect of all these shortages, just go to your local grocery store. Put the stuff you usually buy in your cart. For every item, multiply the total price by two. If you buy any imported stuff from another country, multiply the price by three. If any items require constant refrigeration–which assumes you have access to stable electricity–multiply the price by four.
Shopping just got a lot more complicated, didn’t it?
For projects like our Emergency Medical Fund, this situation is making medical assistance a complicated task. Helping someone isn’t as clear-cut as it used to be. When you’re assisting a diabetic, which do you sponsor first–food for a better diet that will keep her sugar levels manageable, or medicines that she will need more of, because she’s not getting enough of the right foods? With someone elderly, do you just give vitamins, or do you also donate a bunch of mustard greens because he hasn’t had them in a while?
Theoretically monsoon may arrive by the first week of July. But the damage of the drought will have already been accomplished.
June 25th, 2009
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Ya know, happiness is a very subjective concept. For some folks it’s represented by piles of money, or gold, or food, or toys, or so on. For others happiness means simply having the time to do a couple things around the house. For one special person, it’s the ability to walk a few meters out an open door.
Behold:
When our readers first encountered Sonnam Yutron, she had been become bedridden by arthritis. She hadn’t seen the sun in four years. Her ability to see anything was dwindling, due to cataracts in both eyes. She could feel, and speak, and hear, and with those senses still functioning she could at least conduct her daily prayers.
So what happened?
Well, the Emergency Medical Fund happened, that’s what. The original idea, back in 2007, was simply to get Sonnam Yutron out in the sun again. (Eventually, we succeeded.) Joy originally posted the need for enough funds to provide this woman with a wheelchair, so she could at least get outdoors for the big teachings and celebrations. People responded. And responded. Soon we discovered that we had enough money to help not only Sonnam Yutron, but other people in Rewalsar who needed assistance getting proper health care.
After treatment for her arthritis began to show some results, the next project was to get Sonnam Yutron seeing again. She underwent cataract surgery in nearby Ner Chowk. Lena carefully set up medication instructions for Lobsang, Sonnam Yutron’s husband. He followed Lena’s notes, applying eyedrops and creams diligently to the eyes of the wife he loves.
For months I’d become used to visiting Sonnam Yutron as she sat in bed, praying over her malas, perhaps turning a prayer wheel or petting a cat. I’d also gotten used to the idea that she didn’t pay attention to much outside of perhaps a four foot radius, and that when I waved to her through the window, she was waving back at a friendly shape. One morning I was startled as she told me the flame under the chai pot was too high, and asked me to turn it down. Afterwards I gleefully called up to the house to give Lena the news.
By Losar this year, Sonnam Yutron put on her tchuba and apron like any other Tibetan housewife, and insisted on walking to the lama dances. The walk was one of only a few meters, but for those of us who knew her story, it was like watching that first step Armstrong took on the moon.
And now? Most days I see her putter around the house on a daily basis, or simply sit outside to greet friends and perhaps invite them in for a cup of tea, with a smile that’s literally priceless.
June 19th, 2009
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