growing up hindu: a personal perspective

For me, Hinduism is strongly associated with the Indian subcontinent. So growing up as a Hindu is strongly linked with growing up in India and sometimes it is difficult for me to distinguish between the two. Yet it is also true that India houses many religions including Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Bahai faith etc. Quite a few of these faiths are regarded as subsets of Hinduism and that is because of the accepting and inclusive nature of Hinduism. It pretty much assimilates any new influences into itself and it is so broad in scope that it can do that fairly easily. As I appreciate the richness, intricacy and complexity of Hinduism I also appreciate more and more my exposure to it as I was growing up.



My father had a little shrine with idols and pictures of his favorite deities and gods. He spent and still spends around an hour each morning after his bath saying mantras in prayer and then doing his Surya-Namaskaras and Yogasanas. The man in the pciture below is not my father but the image does provide a feel of the prayer altar.



My mother would spend about five to ten minutes after bathing in front of the gods, murmuring her prayers. Her devotion was to her family. She always wore a sari and cooked all our meals and all our meals were cooked meals. If you are familiar with Deepak Chopra and his description of a balanced meal that is what we ate every day. My mother also wore the Mangalasutra a necklace with black beads and gold cups as a sign that she was a married woman. All her life she worked as a home maker. Again the woman below is not my mother, but the image recreates a feel of her and our kitchen.




My father worked as a civil engineer with the govt. and every three years we moved to a different city/town in India. We did not go to the temple on a regular basis. But Krishna was my pal and I reveled in the stories of his stealing butter and yoghurt because then I could steal Bournvita from the kitchen shelf with impunity. Temple visits were more about appreciating the architecture and the workmanship than about devotion.



I connected more with the religion through the stories I heard on my father’s lap and off it after a certain age. The Stories were about all the various gods and their doings, tales of valor about the Hindu kings of yore, moral tales from the Panchatantra that most often had animals as characters and of course little vignettes from the epics. There are two epics the Ramayana traces the life of Rama.

I can tell you a little story form there. I was very surprised after coming to the U.S. when I saw the squirrels here. They are larger than the ones in India and they do not have any marking on their back. The Indian squirrels have a tri-mark of light-dark-light on their backs. The story goes that King Rama was busy trying to build the bridge to Lanka to attack the king Ravana there who had captured his wife Sita and was holding her captive there. All of the God’s creatures were doing their best to help Rama. The little squirrel saw all the activity and picked up a stone on her back and did her bit to help. When Rama saw the squirrel struggling with a stone twice her size on her back, he was very touched and he picked up the squirrel and caressed her back. The lines of his fingers made a permanent mark on the squirrels back and all her kind as a token of Rama’s appreciation. And since Rama never came to the US the squirrels here do not have those marks!




Mahabharata is set in the time of Krishna the next avatar of Vishnu. Vishnu is part of the holy trinity Bramhaa-Vishnu-Shiva. Creator-maintainor-destoyer. Bramhaa is the creator and Vishnu is the maintainer. So as the administrator whenever things get out of balance Vishnu manifests himself on earth to set things right. The various avatars he has taken are that of fish, tortoise, boar, lion, dwarf, etc and according to some Buddha was his last avatar. The avatars seem to follow the story of evolution. Rama was a goody goody king, Krishna incorporates the dark side as well and Buddha is of course compassion personified.



Despite the diversity of gods there is one universal reality Bramhan, which can be realized by the individual soul Atman since they are essentially one. This is the vedic truth. The multiplicity of gods exist also to aid in bhakti and the realization of smaller goals. Since there are four aims dharma - duty, artha - money and worldly success, kama - worldly desires and moksha - liberation. Although I was exposed to these concepts off and on I only made coherent sense of them after taking a course in Indian philosophy at college.

But to come back to the stories I heard as a child.
Another story that I enjoyed although it exemplifies respect for one’s parents goes like this. Shiva and parvati have two sons. Kartik and ganesh. Kartik was a little jealous of ganesh since he thought the younger one was a favourite of his parents. In an effort at one-upmanship Kartik challenged his sibling to a race. Let us go around the world three times and see who comes first said kartik. Ganapati agreed. Kartik has the peacock as his vehicle and ganapati has a mouse. Kartik thought it was a sure bet that he would out-speed ganesh as he flew around the world three times. He returned to find ganapati sitting at his parents feet waiting patiently for kartik. How could you get here so fast spluttered kartik. Shiva-parvati laughed and explained to kartik that ganapati had circum-ambulated around them thrice and as ganesh explained my parents are my world and shiva-shakti being the primordial forces of the world kartik could not argue against the logic and had to concede defeat.



I connected with my religion also through the various festivals that we had. Diwali, is the festival of lights, and we light lamps or diyas and place them all around the house. We decorate the home entrance. We always got new clothes. We made and ate specific sweets and delicacies. We got fire-crackers and burst them every evening (not unlike the fourth of July celebrations here). Each of the days is marked by a different kind of puja. One is to Lakshmi the goddess of wealth, another to Saraswati, goddess of learning, another for appreciating and giving thanks to the tools of your trade and another day for honoring your spouse. But basically Diwali celebrates Rama’s return to his kingdom after many years of exile.



Dussera celebrates his victory over Ravana and more generally the triumph of good over evil. Ravana is the ten headed evil king of Lanka. At the community level huge effigies of Ravana and his brothers are put up and set on fire.



often a skit is put up and scenes from the epic are enacted over ten days, not unlike the passion plays of Jesus’s life. However traditionally all characters were played by men, even the role of Rama’s wife Sita, since girls/women from respectable families could not perform in public. But definitely things are a-changing.



Then there is Holi, the festival of color when every one splashes color and/or throws water on every one else. This is the great equalizer festival, when gender, age, caste, class norms get a break. The origin is to celebrate the killing of the demoness Holi by Krishna but more generally the Rasa leela of Krishna and his gopis.



Rakhee is a festival where a sister ties a little thread on her brother’s wrist to remind him to protect her. Ganapati puja and Durga puja are big in different parts of the country.





So the values and moral codes or dharma that are a large part of Hinduism were transmitted in very many ways. The belief in karma and reincarnation too I learned through osmosis by being in that culture. My attitude to reincarnation has certainly come full circle. I have heard enough accounts of children recalling their past life that I am a firm believer now. Past life regression may or may not yield accurate recall, but when the past life information comes up as a knowing one can feel the difference and be sure. I think if you believe in the soul or Atma you almost certainly have to believe in reincarnation and life as a school. Samsara is the cycle of birth-death-rebirth because of action and re-action and the way out is to stay non-reactive but responsive. As long as you are caught in the action reaction cycle you are trapped in the veil of Maya.



As therapists we need to stay non-reactive yet responsive. We respond to the client’s cry for help when necessary and stay non-reactive when they are acting out. We need to be accepting towards our clients and we need to hold them in our space which often might mean expanding our boundaries. This is what Hinduism is about. We allow them to change us as we allow them to be changed by us. Thus, it is a process of assimilation. We can see each little break-through taking place in the client as a death of an earlier habit and a new life beginning with the new learning. As long as the client is caught in the chain of action and reaction, change does not occur. It is when old habits are destroyed that therapy yields results. We might have to come in different avatars to counter different problems that the client has. Yalom says a different therapy for each client I say a different avatar of the therapist for each of the client’s problems.

childhood in adulthood

I am relaxed and walking down a forest path. I see the rabbit-hole that leads deep into the ground beginning at the trunk of a wide and large tree. I go down this rabbit hole. There are steps that take me deeper and deeper into a magical land. I am next to the ocean and the breeze blows against my face and hair. I can taste the salt of the sea-spray on my tongue. I am feeling immeasurably relaxed and at ease. Now, I am resting under the shade of a tree and a cool breeze fans me. Birds are chirping, butterflies fluttering, a field of flowers in blossom stretches out in front of me.

I hear the tinkling of a bell and see the tent flapping of a large stall that holds a number of antique treasures. I walk into the shop and gaze at a variety of fascinating objects, fingering a few, picking up one here or there, smelling some, touching and handling others. The owner of the shop comes up to me and tells me that he has something for me. He looks like a wise man, has a long flowing beard and long flowing robes and a turban to match. He asks me to close my eyes and hold out my hands, palms up to receive the object. He tells me he is just the carrier and I can do with the gift just as I wish. It is mine to treasure or throw away or whatever. As he hands me the object he whispers “This is your adulthood!”

I look at my gift and smile with pleasure. It is a large multi-colored umbrella. I remember I had always wanted one as a kid, a small multi-colored umbrella, but never got one. So this was my adulthood – the power to fulfill my childhood wishes. But it was more than that. I treasure that umbrella as a symbol of my adulthood, because it means also that my adulthood is filled with the colors of my childhood, with its qualities. The umbrella shields me from the harsh weather reality of adulthood by its protection of innocence, of wonder, of curiosity, of playfulness and a natural connection to spirit. Yes, I definitely treasure this gift of childhood in adulthood.



Childhood in adulthood. Such a title can be interpreted in a number of ways I suppose. To clarify, I am not speaking about the impact of childhood events and trauma on adulthood nor am I alluding to unresolved issues from childhood being dealt with in adulthood. I am referring to the qualities of childhood being carried over into adulthood. By the qualities of childhood I mean the child-like qualities listed above and not the childish qualities of impatience and lack of impulse control. Adulthood also covers a wide span and I refer here primarily to middle adulthood and even late adulthood. Although I guess even youth with its heady rush of energy and excitement could do with some of childhood qualities.

Too often adulthood is viewed as a lack-luster time and space of duty and responsibility. A time to hold a job, practice one’s profession, build a home, attain one’s goals, have and raise children and give back to society and community a little of what one has got. Young adulthood or youth is considered the zenith of one’s lifetime, after which things are just going to do downhill. Of course, views on and attitudes toward adulthood are changing now. There is a lot more focus on the positive aspects of aging with better health and increasing options, yet the resurgence of childlike qualities is unfortunately most often associated with senility and dotty old age is regarded as the second childhood.

Gail Sheehy offers some hope with her new map of adult life. I list her endearing titles of the ages – tryout twenties, turbulent thirties, flourishing forties, flaming fifties, serene sixties, sage seventies, uninhibited eighties, nobility of the nineties, and celebratory centenarians. These are marked by the passage of first adulthood after a prolonged adolescence, passage to the age of mastery after the early middle crisis and the passage to the age of integrity after a meaning crisis and the onset of menopause. Having passed into the age of integrity we can look forward to active risk-taking, mature love, sexual diamond, coalescence, being grandparents and growing the brain.

Cozolino in ‘The healthy aging brain’ offers 52 ways to avoid hardening of the categories, a program of personal experiments. Many of these are related to emulating childlike qualities. To enumerate a few:
1. Play with children whenever possible.
2. Learn something new from someone new as often as you can.
3. Engage in public displays of affection.
4. Take unfamiliar routes to familiar places.
5. Make up some new stories about your past.
6. If something makes you anxious, make sure to do it anyway.
7. Play videogames with your grandchildren. Play to win.
8. Rediscover your curiosity.
9. Go to a hobby store and get something to make.
10. Spend a day hanging out at your local animal shelter.

So that is one reason for inviting childhood into adulthood. Keep your brain from calcifying, sorry, hardening into categories. In Transactional Analysis the healthy individual comprises 25% of the adult structural ego state, 60% of the child ego state and 15% of the parent ego state. That is reason number two. Since we are adults = rational beings, we like to have our reasons clear for doing things. Unlike children we have a hard time doing things just for the fun and sheer joy of it. But let me not belabor my point and move on to quote from ‘That childlike state, and Love’ by Matthew, to register my third and most important reason.

“Children, in their simple wisdom of being who they are, have tremendous amounts to teach and remind us. How easy it is to break down in tears when a child touches your cheek after noticing some held back sadness. Being silly and unrestrainedly playful around a child is the most natural thing in the world. They remind us what is truly important in life. And what they teach us, via the characteristics they model, can be applied to all of life, not just our interaction with them.

It is of course very humorous that millions of people have quoted the Bible on becoming like a little child without making any movement whatsoever towards that effect themselves. Being childlike is in essence the same as being full of Love. It is a state of playful unity and harmony to the surroundings, appreciating and welcoming the uniqueness of everyone in the world. It is a state of continual transformation with no end in sight. It is a state both of incredible fragility that comes from vulnerability… Know that their vulnerability is at the same time incredibly fragile and immensely powerful, and that this dichotomy also resides within you.”

To put it simply, the child is you. Being childlike is closer to being truly yourself. To understand this better I have listed the qualities of young children that we could all learn from. These characteristics epitomize essence:
Vulnerability: The degree of openness and surrender to whatever is can be learnt best from children. Particularly babies, they are completely helpless and fully open to whatever life may bring, yet at the same time they trust that this process will result in continued life, growth, and for all intents and purposes, Love. True vulnerability often evokes more openness, more allowing, and therefore, more Love. We feel this around children, and it is this sense that we respond to in children.

A sense of perpetual wonder: Just connecting with the phrase evokes a childlike feeling in me. The ability to look at the world with fresh eyes, listen with attention, etc. and experience each day as a gift, a present of the present moment. Closely linked are the qualities of awe and being present. I remember my response to seeing the ocean for the first time at age two, when I was taken to a Bombay beach by my parents. I looked at the sea with awe and wonder in my eyes and said “What a huge water!” To look at the ocean and see and be impressed by the sheer quantity of water still brings a smile to my lips. And what are we doing as adults? We end up polluting the Bay of Mexico with our oil drilling and killing all the dolphins and whales and all other sea-life.



Self-expression: Children laugh with delight, cry in agony and pain, scream with fear or terror, squeal with joy and excitement, throw tantrums when angry and generally have little or no inhibitions around expressing themselves and their feelings. Their feelings change too from one moment to the next and they can move on without getting stuck in any one state. Along with learning some emotional intelligence, we can also allow ourselves a bit of unrestrained expression in safe settings. Emotional lability is a highly under-valued quality in adults.

Creativity, imagination and fantasy: Children give their imagination free reign. Their art for example is spontaneous, vibrant and highly expressive. Creativity flows freely in kids and we can learn to flower by using our imagination in similar heart felt ways. Guided fantasies for relaxation are just the tip of the iceberg. Stream of consciousness writing can get one going or painting and playing with colors will do the trick. There is nothing like having a creative outlet to letting in the fun and engaging in an activity for the fun of it. Another thing we can let go of is our functional fixedness. A little bit of imagination and the use of creativity and our everyday objects and our day to day things can take on a whole new meaning and become a source of play, fun and joy.



Playful, joyful: Fun brings us to being playful and joyful. Children learn through having fun. Exploring the world around them is play. Since they have no agendas almost every activity undertaken by them is play. Why do we have to see learning as a drag? Is not writing this paper also fun and play? It sure is.
Curiosity: Closely tied in with exploration is the natural curiosity that children have to learn about the world around them. And we dull our minds by cooking up adages like ‘Curiosity killed the cat!’ but the cat has nine lives so curiose on! Let life get “curioser and curioser”, let yourself be swamped in the mystery of it all. Let the conditioning fall away and pure perception take you to the place of wonder and light.

Connection with spirit: Children often do not have the words for all that they see and hear. Their innocence and openness reveals many mysteries of the spirit world to them that we unfortunately lose out on.
Forgotten Language
Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly in my bed
Once I heard and answered all the questions of the crickets,
And heard the crying of each falling, dying flake of snow
Once I spoke of the language of the flowers …..
How did it go?
How did it go?


Malidoma relates how he could naturally see the forest spirits as a child. Later he lost the ability and regained it only after working at it through a process of initiation and vision quests. There are many others who have had such experiences. Many children can see the colors of our auras and lose the ability later in life.

Dr. Ian Stevenson’s study on claimed past life incidents showed many children had a spontaneous recall of their past lives at around the ages of two to four and they stopped completely by the ages of seven. The study said the sample was not statistically significant, but I think even if one person can recall his/her past lives it is clear that reincarnation is a fact. For then it is true for the race, for all not just this one person. However I am not arguing reincarnation here. But I would like to relate this real-life story that I had learned about through the newspaper.

In a village (Allahabad) in northern India there lived a little boy with his family. When he was four he started crying and saying that he wanted to go home, because his folks were waiting for him. Even after trying to reason with him and placate him through other means, the boy would not stop. Finally they asked him where he wanted to go. He described in great detail what sounded like a neighboring village some miles away that he had not even visited yet. Anyhow, they took him there and much to everyone’s astonishment the boy ran up to a house, where he recognized his father, mother, uncle, grandparents etc. etc. It turned out that that family had lost a son in an accident some years ago and this boy had remembered that life. In resolution, the two families decided to live together and share custody and care of the little boy.

Honesty: Children are known for their candid outspokenness. More than once they have let the cat out of the bag. They are so without guile and deception that they seem to be unable to grasp the social intricacies of the situation. Not that they never tell lies. But even their lies are white lies, as transparent and lucid as their souls. As adults we might practice speaking from the heart our truth and being fully conscious when we do fib.

Physicality: Children are so physical and embodied in their experience that we often wonder at their high level of energy. But it is this embodied-ness that gives them much of their energy. Their bodies participate completely in all that they experience and so there is a high charge to whatever they do. Adults can try to become more aware and conscious of their bodies and listen to what the body tells them. They can also create and go through meaningful rituals to mark and embody major life transitions, so that their experiences become more conscious at the physical level too.

The list of childlike qualities could go on but if I had to choose only one quality that typifies childhood it would be innocence. Innocence includes an open, trusting, fresh, clear, pure and non-judgmental approach to the world. We can all do with casting off some of our jadedness and cynicism, can’t we?



“Having grown up in an egocentric society, one day we wake up, perhaps in our twenties, thirties or quite a bit later, suddenly and painfully mindful that our innocence disappeared many years earlier. Is it possible to regain what has been lost? I am certain it is. The peculiar thing is …now later in life we get to invite innocence consciously.”

Plotkin recalls seven practices for doing this. Meditation is time honored and cross-cultural method for re-embracing innocence. Another proven resuscitator of innocence is solitude in nature. A third approach is the creative art process. Innocence can also be revived through the kind of psychotherapies and therapeutic practices that emphasize present-centeredness. A fifth method for restoring innocence is to consciously enter social occasions as openly as you can. Yet another approach is to get in the habit of reviewing your day to find one or two situations where you could have been innocent and present had you been more mindful. These are the moments that did not need the degree of vigilance and protectiveness you adopted. And his final suggestion is to hang out with infants.

I can add several other practices to that list. Savor the senses. Touch the bark of a tree and feel its texture, or the texture of the fabric on your sofa, or the wall. Sift your fingers through the soil in your garden, or the sand or the flour or your beloved’s hair. Smell the flowers, the eucalyptus leaves, the pine tree needles, the scent of dry earth soaking in the water, vanilla essence, aromatic candles. Lick at an ice cream cone and slurp. Do a physical nonsensical activity like skipping rope, jumping up and down, if you go jogging or running, run backwards for a few minutes. When with a group create a collective story: one person starts another takes over where the first one left off and so on, but each one adds their own twists and turns. Make a game of some of the ordinary objects in your home and see how many other uses they could be put to. Comment on or compliment someone in a completely candid way. Reveal your inner state/feeling to someone at least once every day. Remember an activity you did as a child that you thoroughly enjoyed, do it again, revel in it.

These days there seems to be a concern about retaining these childlike qualities even in children, since the process of education and socialization is eroding these qualities from the children themselves. So, yes we do need to protect and safeguard these qualities in children and we also re-instate them in adulthood. The quality of life is so much better when you are open and trusting rather than materialistic and covetous. You may have all the luxuries of the world, but if you are plagued by anxiety, worry, guilt, shame, suspicion and/or ambition you do not have much energy left to enjoy all your gizmos and acquisitions. If you are grateful for what you have and can look up at the sky and gaze into the expanse, can connect with the earth and feel the grass under your feet, you are definitely happier. So why try so hard?

As Robert Fulghum says, all I really need to know I learnt in kindergarten. ‘Most of what I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom is not at the top of the graduate school mountain but there in the sand-pile at Sunday school. These are the tings I learned:
Share everything.
Play fair.
Don’t hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don’t take things that are not yours.
Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life- learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work everyday some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down, the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die. So do we.
And then remember the Dick and Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all – LOOK!’

Would it not be a better world if we could all remember these simple tenets and live by them? I personally am tired of the sensory influx of the consumerist culture. The materialistic outlook of most around me I find rather bemusing. My husband gets regarded almost as a ‘Sadhu’ at his corporate organization, because getting a flat-screen plasma T.V. is not one of our high priority goals! I am rather weighed down by the information available and the means to get it – sheer overload. I find the over-specialization in the academic world something to lament about - for the loss of perspective in the ever-narrowing focus. Most activities that adults consider fun can and sometimes do turn into addictions like drinking, taking drugs, sex, television, internet surfing, adventure sports. Of course it is a question of maintaining balance, but really what is the adult world offering me that I can unconditionally embrace and heart fully celebrate?

I am often asked if I have any children. Being 45 and married I guess that is to be expected and my response to the question is ‘only inner ones’. That leaves a few nonplussed and some smile in response. I do wonder if having children offers one more of an opportunity to be childlike along with them. Or does it weigh one down with many more responsibilities and duties so that one dons the role of parent, of authority-figure and rule-setter almost automatically and lose out on a golden chance? I suppose it is a bit of both and depends on the awareness of the parent and their intent and where they are at.

I believe mystics and masters honor these qualities at all times.
‘Masters are adept at recognizing wild nature in human children, in particular their natural innocence and wonder, essential foundations for all that follows in life. Masters do all they can to defend these qualities… and to directly nurture them ….masters lobby for and model (as needed) the importance of touch, play, nature and stories. They champion their need for free play in nature, the celebration of the imagination and the senses, the thorough exploration and embrace of emotions, and the enjoyment of sacred stories (mythology and cosmology). Earth elder Thomas Berry reminds us that children must understand that their home is not the industrial world, but “the world of woodlands and meadows and flowers and birds and mountains and valleys and streams and stars”. Thomas tells us that children must be enabled to directly experience the universe. In fact he believes the child is our guide to how the universe ought to be experienced by all of us.’



There is a little quiz on the internet that you can take to find out how you score on two childlike qualities and one adult quality. It is fun and takes only ten minutes or less. So try it out just for the heck of it.
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/the-childlike-qualities-test

To end I tell a lame joke. “You’ll never guess who’s just been on the phone,” said Isabel Dalhousie, editor of the Journal ‘Review of Applied Ethics’, “Professor Lettuce. He’s invited me to lunch.” Jamie laughed “Perhaps he has turned over a new leaf.” Isabel smiled. There was something reassuring about weak humor: it took the tension out of a situation, made children of us once more. “He even said he just wanted to eat something light – like a salad.” “Don’t give him a dressing down then” said Jamie.

cinema and a few films

I am a cine-buff and have been for a long time. Much of my aesthetic education has come from cinema and film appreciation. I love movies also because they offer me the chance to enter into another reality, culture and/or sub-culture, be emotionally impacted by it and to learn from it. I feel compelled to speak about some of the movies that changed my life.

I must talk about the movies made by master film maker Andrei Tarkovsky. He is Russian, but the culture he presents in his films is not just Russian, but transpersonal. He is the only film maker I know who can grasp the ethereal quality of transpersonal dimensions and convey it so beautifully and evocatively. Ingmar Bergman was quoted as saying: "Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [of us all], the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream". He made only seven feature films and each is a memorable journey stamped indelibly on my mind. Some scenes that left me gasping were : In ‘Mirror’ the young mother sits on the fence and the tall grass parts with the wind and an other presence is felt, in ‘Sacrifice’ the camera zooms out from the house in the frame and we see it is a toy version of the ‘real’ larger house a shift in perspective that boggles the mind. ‘Andrei Rublev’ on the life of a 15th century icon painter portrays the struggle the artist goes through as he questions his faith. ‘Solaris’ takes us to an extra-terrestrial location, where the planet is a living, knowing organism that takes the material of your dreams and presents life-like versions of the dream characters. All his films offer a mirror into the soul and they awakened an awareness of the transpersonal dimensions and a sense of indescribable beauty, much before any experiments with psychedelics or any experience with meditation. Any one interested in the transpersonal would definitely benefit by seeing his movies as he captures what is often so elusive and almost abstract and gives a veritable experience of such realities.

The films of Pedro Almodovar are almost on the other end of the spectrum. Spanish in setting and context they revolve around themes of sexuality (homosexual, bisexual and transexual), desire, passion, identity, love and death. They tend to be melodramatic stories with complex narratives about people on the fringes of society. The films can be hysterically funny, but remain compassionate to his characters. Outrageous, provocative, irreverent, whacky, sexy, kinky, dark, offbeat etc. are some adjectives that describe his films. ‘Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown’ a witty, whacky movie about high-strung, headstrong women and their modern love relationships, ‘All about my mother’ about a single mother grieving the loss of her only son, ‘Bad education’ about the sexual misconduct perpetrated by the catholic church, ‘Talk to her’, ‘Volver’, and many more are part of his oeuvre. His films give me insights into marginalized people and LGBT community.

And now I am going to talk in one breath about the Indie movies by westerners. ‘Water’ talks about real issues of Hindu widows, ‘Monsoon Wedding’ is set in the context of a middle/upper-middle class urban household and looks at incest, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ about a boy from the slums, who makes it big and ‘Mississipi Masala’ is about ABCDs i.e. American Born Confused Desis. Although they are by different directors (including Indians, but Non Resident Indians) and have highly varied themes the perspective they offer is skewed in that it is India seen through a foreigner/westerner’s eyes. I was particularly triggered by a scene in ‘Slumdog’, where the child climbs down into a pile of shit to catch a glimpse of ‘The’ iconic superstar AB. Admittedly Indians go overboard in worshipping their celebrities, but this scene is beyond gross. It also triggers the ‘dirty Indian’, ‘filthy pig’ slurs used by the British during their rule and is definitely offensive to Indians. Although A. R. Rehman is no doubt highly talented and deserves an Oscar the film is defintitely not his best work. The tracks in 'Delhi 6' for example are far more complex, nuanced and experimental too.

the film also offers a different view, as do others by Indian directors. 'Delhi-6’ is about a New Yorker adapting to life in Old Delhi, ‘Swades’ a NASA scientist returns to native India to find his roots, ‘Chak De! India’ about a women’s hockey team dynamics and an inspiring coach, ‘Luck by Chance’ about the Bombay film scene, ‘Omkara’ Shakespeare’s Othello adapted to the outlaw world in an Indian village to name a few. I highly recommend these as more ‘authentic’ versions of the Indian culture.

cultural challenge

There was a time, for a few years, just after I returned from Switzerland and my first forays into the transpersonal realms, that I actively sought out places and situations that would challenge my personal and collective conditioning. I spent a night in the forest alone, I went to five-star hotel restaurants, slum tea-shops, ghetto hang-outs, churches, durghas, gurudwaras, synagogues, economically low class markets and even graveyards and cremation grounds. But I never got around to visiting a bar alone.

So given the assignment I thought I might as well complete that old challenge I had set myself. I imagined walking into a bar, sitting at a bar stool, ordering a drink, and observing what transpires next. It was important I do all this alone. I knew I would be challenging several cultural taboos for respectable middle-class Indian women. Good/nice women do not go to bars alone; those who do are looking for trouble or asking for ‘it’. Shady/loose women visit bars in order to get picked up. Although I do not buy into these beliefs any more they are the background of my cultural conditioning and it will be an interesting experiment to see how they might operate unconsciously in me.

With this in mind, I take care to dress up in casual ‘neutral’ clothes, no skirts, nothing too feminine, nothing too showy nor revealing. I set out at 10.30 pm and plan on going into the local Latino bar on San Carlos Street. I drive past the first one and decide it is too dingy and obscure. The second one is plain offensive with pictures of semi-naked women. No way am I going in there alone. Of course this is my conditioning and my fears as also my feminist stance, but I get to decide my level of challenge and discomfort.

So I drive down to Santana Row. “Chicken” says my mind and I have to agree. But even an upper-class bar poses challenges, although of a different kind. Walking alone down the lane at that time is also somewhat challenging. I am aware of a couple of police cars that pass by and also aware that the cops note my presence. I wonder if they think that I am a hooker looking for a customer, or a damsel in distress (as though women can be only either of the two). But I do not look particularly like either so they pass by without any offer of assistance or enquiry or comment.

I am aware as I walk down the lane that I am breathing from the chest, my arms are folded across my chest rather defensively. I pass by a group of four young black guys, one of them is carrying a camera on a tripod and I have a moment of fellow feeling. I walk into the ‘American Bar’ as it is fairly crowded and open and feels warm. I walk down the length of the bar stools and am tempted to sit in the far corner so it will be easy for me to merge into the background, but then go over to the middle and sit right in front of the beer tabs.

I am aware I am making myself invisible. It is almost a reflex action. I go into myself, being just the observer and breathe very subtly. I wonder how long it will be before someone notices me. I take a look at the menu and decide I shall have the “femme fatale” There are two guys behind the bar. The white guy, who seems to be the manager is at the computer facing away, busy tallying up for the day or some such thing. The other waiter is Asian looking and younger, he is busy with the glasses and bottles. The clock on the wall says 11.15 pm. I wonder if I am already too late. I decide I will leave by 11.30 pm if no one attends to me.

I notice a guy at one of the tables is looking at me. I feel embarrassed and look away. I am not as invisible as I imagine. The Asian guy looks over and says ‘Hi’. I ask him if I can get a drink. He looks almost guilty as he says they are closed and that they close at 11 pm. I imagine a young white woman in my place. She would probably have flirted with him a little and tried to convince him to give her one last drink and probably succeeded at that. I just say ‘oh’ and then ‘ok’, slide off the bar-stool, pick up my bag and leave. I am careful to not look back at the guy who was looking at me, in order to not give the wrong signal. I have a feeling of disappointment mixed with relief. I can go back home to my safe haven.

As I walk past the high-end designer-label Santana Row stores I am aware of the old anger at the ‘filthy rich’. For the most part I have come to terms with or numbed out my feelings around the inequality in the distribution of wealth. But every now and then I have a flash of anger. As I am walking down with these thoughts I notice a fat man, who is coming towards me, kind of shrink towards the wall while passing me. I wonder if I look scary to him or if he was responding to my angry vibes.

A while later, a car passes by and the driver makes a cat call at me. I cannot hear what he says but it sounds like an invitation. As I cross the street to where my car is parked another driver calls out to ask if I need a ride or some such thing. I wave to say ‘no’. If this had happened in India my heart would probably be pounding by now. But here or in Europe I feel much safer as a woman. I figure men are not as sexually repressed, they can get what they want much easier so chances of rape or sexual molestation are much less.

Also as a teen-ager I had endured or fended off butt-pinchers while riding in public buses and at other crowded places. I decided then that no one could do to me what I did not want them to do. Since then something shifted in my energy and I never had to face any incident of molestation again. And I do call that to mind when I need to face challenging situations as a woman.

So much for my visit to a bar! I am sure one of these days I will get out of my cocoon and go out and have a drink by myself. I am well aware that the world is a mirror and it reflects back what you put out. Facing culturally foreign spaces is one way of meeting the phantasms of my mind. In a sense the whole of the past two years have been a visit to a culturally foreign place for me. Making a home for us, negotiating our way in the USA, building a social network have all been culturally foreign challenges. Without any mentors or close friends, using the internet as a guide in most everything, even a visit to the DMV can be an ordeal if seen as such. A close watch on thoughts, attitudes and feelings and the willingness to trust are my beacons as I traverse this culturally unknown territory that slowly becomes familiar and sometimes even feels like ‘home’.