Community Immersion : Extended Family!

When she mentioned that I shouldn’t leave her house because she feels lonely without me, I felt my purpose was served. 

She is Kunti Ma’am, an Aanganwadi Teacher in Vadyuda village of Bageshwar District. I’m living in her shelter from the past 10 days for a community immersion project and 10 more days to go. She has taken care of me like my mother but also been a supportive and funny friend. 

She is again an inspiration to me because she has been living alone for a longer while now that her family has shifted to the city to work and earn. She has encouraged them all and herself as well to lead her motive for people’s welfare. 

She call’s me Nikita and keeps asking me if I’m hungry even after I have eaten.

Ofcourse there is a discomfort to live at someone’s place without paying them anything. 

But when they love you like their own and support you for your vision you know that you have increased your family. Right? 

Village : Vadyuda, Block : Kapkot,District : Bageshwar

The kingdom of isolation | Khati

It’s funny how some distance makes everything seem small. And the fears that once controlled me can’t get to me at all!

My trek toward Khati, which is considered one among the backward and lastly inhabited villages in the lap of Himalayas was not an ordinary trip.

After reading my previous articles you must have received an idea about the kind of work I’m into. At present I’m located in the remote location of Uttarakhand, India. Working under a Rural Development Program I’m also trying to explore the culture and beliefs of people. I had to visit Government Primary School of Khati for an intervention with the children there, merely a creative activity. To know more about the same or suggest ideas for making my interventions better please comment below with the contact details. 

This was an opportunity that I received because I and my two co-fellows were supposed to be interviewed for a documentary by our donor organization.

I will soon elaborate my experience here. Have a happy reading & writing. Take care! 🌻

Vipassana Retreat : Power of isolation.

With my first Vipassana retreat I tasted silence and solitude. Several months before I moved from Mumbai to Uttarakhand to find some peace. To escape the regular life and contribute in the rural community. While I worked between the cold & misty mountains I decided to travel to Jaipur for a Vipassana course. Not only for meditation but in search of some answers to my misery. And look where I found the key, within myself. 
Dhamma Thali Vipassana Centre demands us to remain silent for 10 days, without talking to anybody one must meditate the whole day, eat plain food & isolate itself deeply. 

Being a proportionate explorer I could see myself getting down in life after seeing the mess in myself. 

It wasn’t that easy because just like some, I am a complicated person with tangled cycle of thoughts. I have always been writing stories and verses to entangle my own miseries. But here I learned to accept the same without giving any feeling or any label of craving or aversion. 

Yes! I felt like running away the very next day. The first few days was a jail experience. If I knew I could then I would have surely left the place. 

I had several people around me who followed the course rules of not even passing gestures to each other. Disconnecting myself from everyone and technology was not difficult but being unable to share the outbreak made me feel weak. Who knew it was making me strong. I kept smiling because I wanted the same to reflect between the people in the same journey. And started stitching stories inside my mind. 

Unfolding some tales turned unnecessary. The baggage of this untold experiences ain’t heavy either. 

Letting go of many unwholesome beliefs and habits that had set boundaries, one becomes aware of the body and the mind. Mostly the interaction between the two. Because we are usually busy distracting ourselves so we can’t see or readily face some difficult truths about life and death, joy and suffering, karma and chaos etc. 

This will change – This is what I learned, experienced & will follow that nothing is permanent. And also that I am not going to perform any good only for others to think I’m good. But for myself to feel good. 

The experience is different for everyone. Some take a dive into deep peace, some barely are able to get the hang of it. But this course isn’t demanding. It believes in giving to all those who can accept. I did and I’m happy. I suggest you all the same. 

The best stories will be curated when you will have no pen or paper on you.  
Have a happy reading & meditation. 🌻