Zhuhai--Part 2

The next day dawned ... Tuesday the 27th and the plan was to go sightseeing the city. We -included Raja's Indian friend, Rabi (who took a day off)and his wife Deepa who have been in Zhuhai for about a month. Raja of course was at work.

At about 9 am Raja's Chinese friend who speaks English, picked us ( Rabi, Deepa and me) and we drove first to a historical place Chen Fang's residence. Chen Fang was China's first consul to Hawaii and first overseas Chinese millionaire. After his return to China in 1890, along with his Hawaiian wife (of Royal family), he engaged in a lot of charity work. The Emperor Gaungxu allowed the construction of the stone archways as a recognition of Chen Fang's philanthropy. Apart from the the stone arches, the residence had interesting pieces of architecture which was a mixture of Chinese and Western. He had about 7 children of his first wife, a Chinese and 17 of his second wife, the Hawaiian.

One of the  halls has wax figures of well-known people of Zhuhai, including a famous, erudite monk, and China's very first world table- tennis champion.

Our next stop was to see the quintessential of Zhuhai, the iconic, Fisher girl statue on the waters of Xianglu Bay. Standing on a rock, she is a symbol of grace and beauty, draped by a fishing net and hands holding aloft a huge pearl. There is a legend around it, which sounds quite cliched..so I won't repeat it here. 

We did some other visits such as a huge museum chronicling the people who built the city of Zhuhai,including the person who first used block printing as an art. But the highlight of the day were the visits to Chen Fang's residence and the Fisher girl statue.

In the evening we dined at Rabi and Deepa's house.... a simple Indian meal and they shared with me the travails of living in a city where you do not know the local language. They get by to a large extent with a pocket dictionary....searching for the English word and showing it to shop assistants for them to read the Chinese translation! 

The next couple of days, I spent sketching, marking Stats papers that I had carried with me, going for walks around the hotel and capturing local life through my camera. The weather was chilly with a slight drizzle almost continuously. 

Friday's dinner was at a Chinese restaurant, hosted by Raja's counterpart at Jutal and it was the first time I could manage a meal with chopsticks...vegetarian meal of course!

And now we are in HK for a few days, before I return to Singapore alone, while Raja goes back to work in Zhuhai for another week.

Zhuhai --Part 1

This was written yesterday in 'Notes'. Copy pasted today...when we could access FB and my blog :)

Today is the last day of my visit to Zhuhai, China. I thought of blogging about it, but my blog  does not open, so I guess just like Facebook is banned, the ban applies to private blogs as well.

It's been an interesting 5 days here in Zhuhai. We arrived on Sunday by ferry from Hongkong where we flew from Singapore. It's a one hour ferry ride from Hongkong. My husband Raja visits this place often on work. He is a materials engineer and works for FMC, Singapore. FMC stands for Food Machinery Corporation, and has quite a bit of history. It is now making equipment for oil extraction ...called subsea equipment among other things for the oil industry. Currently their customers are Chevron, and to make this equipment a company in China is engaged (Jutal, Zhuhai). Raja visits Jutal, Zhuhai to do NDT (Non-Destructive Testing) one of the procedures required in enforcing quality of the product according to customer specifications.

This is what I have gathered from what he explained to me. With absolutely no background in Engineering,  I sometimes find it difficult to wrap my brains around  the work Raja is involved in. But he simply loves what he is doing and I think that is great, because I am not very fascinated with machines or how they work.

As he frequently visits Zhuhai, this visit coincided with a week of my own free time, and hence I decided to accompany him.

Monday evening (after Raja's work) we went to Ocean Spring Resorts. This is China's first 'National Development Base of Vacation Tourism'. It has many amusement activities in it, including hot springs.

We however watched a spectacular show 'The Memories of the Sea" . It had about 200 performers from different parts of the world who told a simple story of a little elf trapped in a fishing net..the kind fisherman who saves her and their lovely relationship thereafter. They wove this simple tale with the help of music, dance, ballet, acrobatics... Simply lovely. The grand finale was a performance with doves, that were later released in the hall, and all of them flew to their homes backstage... Well trained ones!!

Later that evening we went to the Indian Kitchen (restaurant) for dinner, a haven for vegetarians like me.  Great way to end the day!

Some reflections

It has been a long time since I wrote. Many things have happened in this time. I have become a Singapore citizen and therefore have a new passport and painfully have to take a visa to visit India. Anyway as someone said, when you pick up one end of a stick, you automatically pick up the other end too.
I have immersed myself deeper into the practice of Vipassana, now working more closely with the area teachers and taking on a few more responsibilities. My recent visit to Malaysia, where I served in the 10 day course was another huge learning experience, as all courses are.

From time to time I am quite intrigued by the fact that Westerners find India and Indian ways so confusing. For instance, the many languages that India has, what is "mother-tongue", what is caste and how do you know who is a brahmin and who is not; things which are so natural and automatic to my understanding requires a great deal of explanation to a Westerner. I suppose it is the huge cultural difference. India is far too complex, too many layers, divisions and sub-divisions to grasp for a Westerner with the added confusion of caste and social class.

In any case I have been working on my native language, mainly learning through the internet and can now read quite well. That has also been a subject of curious questions. How come I have to learn my native language? How come I do not read and write in Tamil? And then I take them on a Indian Education System 101 :) . Hindi is the national language but all Indians do not speak the language (especially South India). But since it is the national language we have to study it in school. Further, each state of India has its own language. For instance, my home town is Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh where Telugu is the dominant language, so that language is offered in schools. However, we do have an option to read Sanskrit instead of Telugu. Finally, partially giving up the attempt to make sense of all my explanations, my teacher (a Westerner)simply said..."India is a vast country indeed....a real vast country"

Some where in the process of giving these explanations what I have noticed is a subtle but a sure transformation of how I view India and Indians. I now understand how a non-Indian sees India and have gradually become more objective in my views about India. Sometimes these complex perceptions become a disadvantage as it comes in the way of relating to extended family members back in India. For instance, there seems to be a thin line between what genuine concern and an exercise of control. Suggestions are rarely just suggestions they become commands that one has to follow.

However, I do love to visit India and especially visiting friends and relatives there, and the experiencing the  richness of Vipassana meditation practice in the centers. In addition sharing my experiences with friends and their families who for various reasons are not able to do the courses but want me to share with them my insights. In a vicarious way they benefit from my conversations and hopefully inspired to take up the courses in future.

Letting go...

I have difficulty in dealing with people who try to control my life. Who ask me to do certain things which I am not willing to do. My initial response to these requests (which I interpret as "orders") is a form of psychological reactance---I will do opposite of what is asked of me or defiantly refuse to comply. Being an Indian and raised in a conservative brahmin family, I am expected to be an obedient daughter, daughter-in-law, wife ....but I have resisted all forms of control. Fortunately for me, my husband pretty much lets me do whatever I am interested in, and has supported my pursuance of meditation--which includes long absences from home. However, I have not been comfortable with requests from my mother, and resist what I see as attempts to control my life.

My practice of meditation helps me resolve this kind of situation as well. Initially, so enamored I was with Vipassana meditation, that I totally refused to perform rituals of prayer and puja or visit temples. If I did so, I would do it with reluctance. Now, having a much better understanding of the practice as well as the traditions and rituals I was raised in, the conflict is minimized greatly.My teachers in meditation always enquired about my family and advised that I never quarrel or neglect family responsibilities in my pursuance of the path. Addressing the conflicts that sometimes seem to arise in visiting temples and the meditation practice which is devoid of rituals, the teacher in my last 30 day course in Jaipur said---Radhi, when you can give metta to all beings in this universe, small and big, visible and invisible, why can't you share that metta with with gods and goddesses in temples and the invisible beings there? That resonated very well with my thoughts as well, and erased the few traces of reluctance I might have had in visiting temples.

However, two days ago when my mother called and asked me to visit the temple on a particular day along with my entire family, my old self popped up its resistance to orders and control. Being the good, polite daughter that I was, I gave a non-committal answer. I struggled with the request for about an hour or so, and then suddenly stopped--I realised how attached I was to my ideas, my views, my opinions. I realised that I had no problems going to a temple, my resistance was what I perceieved to be my mother's attempt at control--telling me what I should do on a particular day. I decided to let go of that perception. I decided to get dis-engaged with my interpretations, my thoughts and my opinions. Ah! what freedom there is when one is willing to let go! I happily went to the temple with Raja and Pavithra and covered a few more errands before returning home.

While the above incident required some deliberate effort in order to put in practice my new awakening, in some other instances, it is relatively smooth and effortless. As when I causally ran into an ex-colleague at my university and she looked away when I greeted her. For a fraction of second, I felt insulted and my mind was about to start interpreting the incident in negative ways and I effortlessly changed it with thoughts of compassion. Maybe she has some problem? why would she ignore me otherwise? May she come out of her difficulties....The next day I happened to meet her again at a common friend's Christmas party and while she looked a trifle sheepish, I could respond with the same warmth and care as I always had in previous occasions. Liberation! liberation from the bondages of emotions and attachment.

I could see the gains of my last course at Jaipur being sustained in my life outside of the course.

Reflections

It was a tutorial on Regression (Statistics). After working a number of problems with the students, I was instructing them the steps to find the Regression Line on SPSS. There are very few students in the tutorial class, so I walked to this quiet girl to see how she was progressing with her work. I guided her and then asked her to write the equation for the Regression line. As she hesitated, I told her the equation---Y(hat) = bX + a
Her fingers opened and closed, and she tried to put her pencil on paper, but couldn't write Y...and when she did after a few trials, she couldn't get the 'hat' correctly on Y. I gently asked her to do it but was very surprised that she couldn't write more than that. Only then it dawned on me that she was feeling overwhelmed with my presence next to her. Her anxiety was so much that she couldn't write this simple equation.

I moved away, but was quite taken aback by her behavior. And yet it was somewhat familiar......many years ago I was such a student...scared of the teacher in school, afraid to make mistakes, afraid of looking stupid, with a background of comments such as "Can't you do such a simple thing?" " you are so slow" "how long you take to grasp such a simple thing!" whirring in my head.

Its been a long journey for me since those days of ignorance and fear. To some extent life's experiences teach one to become confident and competent, knocking off some of the fear & anxiety. However, a slow and steady transformation came about ever since I attended courses in Vipassana meditation and started practicing regularly. People who knew me in my teens and twenties are amazed at the changed person I have become.

Focusing on the breath coming in and going out of the nostrils helps to concentrate the mind. And this concentration brings about a sense of confidence in the person, for concentration helps one to be focused when engaged in a task and thus working far more efficiently than an unfocused person. This greater efficiency in carrying out tasks increases the person's confidence. This is one of the many benefits of meditation.Staying on task, noticing when the mind has strayed by distractions, gently getting it back on task--this sounds so simple but can become a challenge for people who are unused to meditation. Like the girl in my class. Performing simple actions such as writing down an equation became so impossible because her mind was overcome with fear. The reactive part of her brain could only experience fear and anxiety blocking the higher order cognitive processes.

We rarely understand the necessity to train our mind to become free from fear and anxiety. We are only interested in stuffing it with more and more information even before the mind knows how to deal with this information. Dealing with information becomes easier when the mind is concentrated and negative emotions are kept out of the way of information-processing.

I do my bit of teaching meditation to as many children as I can and who are interested in joining the courses we conduct. But I often wonder how I can reach out to a larger audience. A lot of people are unconvinced about the benefits of meditation or are just lazy to practice it regularly. Because, unlike most of the activities in the present day world, it is not a quick-fix therapy, cannot be given in bite-sized modules or crash courses. It requires some valuable time off from the busy schedules that people are currently involved. Little do they realise that that time devoted to meditation can transform their lives removing layers and layers of fear and anxiety, like it did mine!

Thank you for the music.....

It was a great weekend---4th---6th November, Kalaa Utsavam 20011.
It began with Shaan taking us down memory lane with Kishoreda's hits from the 1950s to the 70s..Some of the memorable songs he sang were : Phoolon ke raang se, Tum bin jaoon kahan, Om Shanthi Om, Jaan ne Jaan.
I was a little disappointed that he didn't sing much of the songs picturised on Rajesh Khanna...which brought romance as well as pathos as in "Chingari Koi badke..." and other Amar Prem songs and Safar. But it looked like Shaan chose only fast paced songs of Kishoreda.
After about one and half hours of taking us into a world of Kishoreda, Shaan regaled us with his own popular Bollywood hits. I loved his "Jabse tere naina.." from Sawariya, "Chaand Sifarish."from Fanaa, Tanha Dil from his own album. Lovely evening!

The next day was a Dhrupad performance by Ustad Hussain Sayeedudin and his sons Nafeesudin and Aneesudin. It was really awesome! It was the first time Raja and I attended a concert in Dhrupad and we were truly awe-struck at the way Ustadji sang inspite of having a bad throat. He explained the Raaga he was going to sing before each piece which is really required for music illiterates like us!
Elaborating in this style of music at the end of the concert, Ustadji said that it was a music of devotion, in praise of dieties in temples, where the singers would sit in front of the dieties and sing while people sat behind the singers. He then commented that now he sings with people in front, so we are his gods! Maybe that was a hint on how commercial concerts have become with entertainment its primary focus.

On the 6th November evening it was time for the well-known Bollywood singer Kavita Krishnamurthy and her husband Dr. L Subramaniam, the Violin maestro. Actually I wasn't sure what to expect because I have never heard them do a concert together.

Kavita sang the first half and began with the beautiful bhajan, Shri Rama Chandra krupanu dharaman... of Sage Tulsidas, she followed it by that wonderful, melodious song.. Pyar hua Chupke se.. from 1942 A Love Story. Her other lovely song was from Saaz--"Baadal ghumad bad aaye ". Allah tero naam and a lovely soothing ghazal were the other memorable numbers she sang. She concluded the first half of the concert with a tillana accompanied by her stepson Ambi Subramiam.
The second half of the concert began with a splendid performance by Dr. Subramaniam and son Ambi on the violin. They played the Kalyani varnam in Adi Taal "Vanajakshi.." a piece I had learned on the veena. My happiness knew no bounds as it was a piece I loved and knew so well. They played the varnam at varying speeds keeping us mesmerised with the music.
With a tillana again, this time with Kavita singing it as well, the wonderful program came to an end.

It was a great experience attending these concerts: It helped me appreciate the richness of classical Indian music as well as enjoy the light heartedness of Bollywood music (Shaan). I am now eagerly looking forward to the next weekend of Balasai Flute and an evening with the poet Gulzar.
Thank you Kaala Utsavam 2011!

30-days at Dhamma Thali, Jaipur: Part 1

Even as I begin to write this I wonder if I would ever be able to express what I went through in the 30-days of Vipassana meditation this July -August.

Although I have been practicing this form of meditation for the past 16 years, the recent courses since 2009--the long courses have been very powerful in uprooting some deep negative habit patterns in a way that I wasn't particularly conscious about. My engagement in courses --both adult and children's courses have been a lot more in these recent years than ever before.

It was my first visit to Jaipur. I followed the instructions that the course manager emailed me: take a pre-paid taxi to the center. Jaipur reminded me of Hyderabad in the 70s (except for the pink buildings). Registration being done, as I walked around the center, I was struck by the number of peacocks strutting around freely, talking in their peacock language. There were a whole school of pigeons, a number of monkeys (Langurs) and a variety of birds of different hues. This was going to be my home for the next 30 days---no connection with the outside world.

The course started and I easily slipped into the routine. It didn't take long for my hyperactive mind to calm down and focus on the respiration. Ofcourse there were some days when I would get restless, but generally, I could remain focused for the major portion of the sittings. Even though I had very few hours of sleep in the night, I felt very rested in the morning.

When Vipassana was introduced on the 11th day, I was surprised that I could actually sit during adhitana ( the one hour motion-less group sitting). Wow Radhi! you have got it all correct! I thought gleefully to myself. From time to time I reminded myself that this was "annicca" (impermanent) and things could change any moment. And change came in a big way on the 21st day (August 2nd)

I got up in the morning and found that I couldn't stand! There was pain in my left foot --a feeling one gets when nerves get twisted. I somehow walked to the Dhamma Hall which was only a 2-minute walk from my room, but found it very difficult to get to the Dining Hall for breakfast later. On my way back after breakfast I met the teacher, and explained my strange condition. She gave me a pain balm and I happily went away thinking that a hot water fomentation could be another way to reduce pain.

The pain did not decrease...in fact it got worse. I spent the morning meditating in my room and managed to limp to the dining hall for lunch. The good part of the afternoon was also spent meditating in my room. In the evening, the Dhamma volunteer gave me a stick for support and I could manage to get to the Hall for the group sitting and discourse. I sat on a chair behind everyone. After the discourse the male teacher got me a regular walking stick and I limped back to my room. The teacher asked me to stay in my room the next morning and breakfast and lunch would be served to me in my room itself.

The next 2 days my foot got worse: fomentation ( hot and cold), balms, pain-killer---did nothing to improve the condition and now the foot was swollen. I asked for turmeric powder and made a paste and applied it...the Dhamma sevika said she would try and get me "chuna" (quicklime). So finally on the 4th of August, in the afternoon the angel (dhamma sevika) got me chuna and I made a paste of turmeric and chuna, warmed the cup with the help of a candle and applied the paste on my foot.

The next day I was able to walk better..and in another day I gave up the walking stick and sat on a "chowki" (low stool) instead of a chair.....and by the time the course ended, gave up the "chowki" --on metta day (Day 29) I could sit on my cushion on the ground.