Mooventures

Jaipur is known as the “pink city” because there are lots of walls made of pink sandstone all over town.  Here is an example:

Jaipur is also home of the Amber Palace built completely of white marble and red sandstone.  Set high on a mountain above the city, it is an old but beautiful palace built in 1135.  The intricate decoration of the fort is influenced by both the Hindus and Muslims. There are detailed carvings on the walls and ceilings along with minute mirror work.  Stretched out and around the palace there is a wall that serves as protection – sort of like the Indian version of the Great Wall.  Here are some photos, although they don’t do it justice:

Day 17 of this program brought us to Jaipur. After a 6+ hour bus ride from Agra (home of the Taj Mahal) we arrived at 1:45 in the morning. Like the rest of the trip, we normally would be staying at the local Jain complex, but our arrival coincided with the 2012 Monk Conference. Not your typical Jain monks like the one we met back in our first week:

No, the monks at this conference are of the naked variety. Yes, you read that correctly. These naked monks have taken all the vows of Jainism, one of which includes the vow of non-possession.  As a result, they literally have nothing. Here is the banner hanging on the gate at the Jain complex:

In response to this conference, we are staying at a hotel that is a 5-minute walk away, but we are still having lectures at the complex.  There have been some awkward and uncomfortable run-ins with these monks, but for the most part we’ve been able to avoid needing to interact with them. 

July 16, 2012 will mark the day that I WENT TO THE TAJ MAHAL!!! Definitely one of the places on my bucket list, but was never sure if I would ever get there one day. But I did!!! I don’t think there’s much to say about this wonder of the world, but I will point out one ironic point. We have been studying ahimsa and nonviolence for almost 3 weeks now and we went see the Taj Mahal which signifies an act of violence in the end. Shahjahan built the Taj for his wife Mumtaz, and after it was completed, Shahjahan had all of the workers’ hands cut off. He didn’t want them to be able to ever build anything as beautiful again. Pretty violent if you ask me. Despite this, I have to say it was pretty amazing to see. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves:

East Gate Entrance

Despite being out in rural India, it was encouraging to see the time and effort that was being put into various schools we visited. The first one was Prakash Academy School – a tuition free school run by the Jains and geared towards helping the poorest families living in local villages. This school did not have a lot of the bells and whistles that the other schools we saw had, but the very presence of the school – the fact that it exists and runs as well as it does with as little as it has – is an amazing example of ahimsa. Here are some images from the school:

The second school we visited is Mangalayatan University. This university is only 5 years old, but they seem to be making a lot of progress. It was interesting to consider the fact that it was located literally out in the middle of nowhere.  Not much to tell about this school (at this point, I was on “school visit overload”) but here are a few photos:

The third school we visited was Delhi Public School. This school was also founded by Jains and while students have to pay tuition to attend, it operates on a sliding scale basis. One of my favorite parts about the school is their motto:

July 12 started early as we dragged ourselves out of bed at 4:30am in order to catch a rain from Smarak to Aligarh.  It’s been a while since I’ve done international travel with a large group, and I was reminded of the challenges of maneuvering not only the people, but the luggage as well.  Lots of stairs going up and down is much more overwhelming if someone has a large suitcase.  While I had my pack on, I found myself being hyper aware of the swarms of people around me, fearful that someone would cut open the front or bottom of the pack and take stuff (my Costa Rica friends might recall that incident!) We did make it to the train and it was my first experience on a train in India, and we were in a first-class AC car, which included copies of multiple newspapers and a hot tea service.  When I wasn’t dozing off, I was enjoying the sights of India what I wouldn’t have been able to see if driving by bus.  We arrived in Aligarh (a rural town) around 8:30am and as soon as we stepped into the carpark of the train station, I could sense the difference from Delhi.  Aligarh is a very rural town and as a result the landscape looked different – lots of open fields, mud huts, and small villages – most of which were several miles from each other. This was a very common sight:

We stayed at a Jain complex called Mangalayatan Teerthdham. We felt a bit like we were in a prison because outside of the temple, the living quarters, and the Jain School for Boys, there wasn’t anything to do. There were regular sightings of monkeys though. Cute to look at, but we kept our distance because they are carriers of so many diseases.

On the complex, there was also a Jain Temple. We got a tour of it, but we were only allowed to take photos in certain areas. Here are a few I got:

Also on the complex, there was an all-boys Jain School. We had the opportunity to sit in on their evening prayer and dance ritual inside the temple (although no photos were allowed) and one day they took us to their living quarters. These boys were some of the most amazing, well-spoken, intelligent, and genuinely HAPPY kids I’ve met. Spending time with them has been one of the highlights so far.

Last Wednesday morning (July 11) started off with “meditation camp.”  The night before we arrived at Adhyatma Sadna Kednrea, which is a Preksha Meditation center.  Our early morning meditation hour was lead by Swamy Dharma Nandji.  It’s a good thing we weren’t being graded on this because “quieting my mind” was a struggle.  It started to rain halfway through the session and after giving up trying to be still, I got distracted by some laughter.  I looked out the window and saw 2 children standing on the room of a building in the rain wearing nothing but underwear, and sliding down the slant of the roof.  The squeals of pure joy turned the morning around for me.  I snapped a few photos:

After breakfast, we went to the Heritage School for another school visit.  Unlike the first 3 schools we’ve visited, this is not a Jain philosophy school, but it was an amazing school with other impressive attributes.  I won’t bore you with the details, but I did want to share some photos:

This post is dedicated to my second grade ahimsakas from this past year – I wish I could have brought all of you to the Gandhi Museum today!  There were lots of interesting exhibits including replicas of the ashram he lived in, and the workspace that he used his spinning wheel in.  My favorite part of the museum though, was a chronology of his entire life in photos.  It took over 2 huge rooms to show his life this way, and it was incredible! We weren’t allowed to take photos in certain parts of the museum, but here are some I was able to take:

On Tuesday (July 10), we had the opportunity to visit the school that is on the Smarak campus.  What a welcome we received! We entered into the courtyard along a pathway lined with students greeting us.  We each received a bindi mark on our foreheads and a marigold garland on the way to our seats.  We were guests at their school-wide assembly, which is how they start school everyday.  1800+ students gather together for mediation, the national anthem, shakras, daily news, and skits.  Afterwards, we got an extensive tour of their medicinal garden, which grows over 40 plants and is maintained by the students and staff.  Here are some photos from the morning visit: 

After the morning assembly we were part of an interactive session with teachers, staff and students from the school.  We learned about their 3 most important themes: “Understand, analyze, create.”  There were many things that stood out to me about this school but the one that I noticed the most was the push for students’ need to be aware of social responsibility.   All the clubs, activities, and opportunities that exist for students have the notion of social responsibility at the core.  We had the opportunity to hear several students present and talk about the school, and it was clear that the school was reaching what it believes about every child – “You were born to shine.” 

Sorry for the lack of blogging the last several days. We have been in a rural part of India called Aligarh, and I’m not even sure if they know what wifi is. My roommate has a usb hub that allows us to access the web, but the connection is slower than molasses, so it’s been frustrating being on. It will most likely take almost 10 minutes to upload this post.  By Monday night we’ll be in Jaipur (back to civilization), so I’ll be able to post photos and updates. Oh – and we’re going to the TAJ MAHAL on Monday!!! The anticipation is killing me!! 🙂

Today we left the “compound” we’d been staying at for the first week of our trip and we made our way to a new part of Delhi.  On the way we made some school visits to find out from teachers how they teach/use ahimsa (nonviolence) in their schools. The first school we stopped at was Hira Lal Jain Secondary School.  It is located in one of the most impoverished areas of Delhi and was created by the Jain Society to offer free, quality education to the students in this neighborhood. Here are some photos from that school:

After some presentations by education scholars and board members of the school, they invited us to stay for tea and some snacks. All of us on this trip are learning that “snacks” is just a code word for “we want to stuff you full of delicious homemade Indian food!” Feeling full, we said our good-byes and walked out to the bus that was parked maybe 50 feet from the entrance to the school.  Somehow, our bus got stuck (before we even were on it) and the easiest solution seemed to have people literally push the bus from the back. After several tries, they were able to move it 6 inches, so they decided more people pushing would mean they could move it further. 

While this demonstration of brute force was going on, monsoon rains started to descend, and we were being ushered to the closest covered area.  School officials from Hira Lal brought us back to their school to wait while the bus was fixed. Except it never did. Instead, we were brought outside and put into a variety of vehicles being driven by people we didn’t even know.

We arrived at the second school, The Mahavira Senior Model School, which is a private school run by Jains, but the students population is 30% Jains, and 70% other. There was a beautiful sign in the entry welcoming us  and we were each greeted with a bindhi mark on our foreheads. 

We were brought up to a meeting room where some students performed songs about ahimsa, followed by a dialogue with teachers.  We asked them how they teach nonviolence to their students, and they asked us questions about challenges of dealing with the types of violence we face in American schools.  We went for a tour of the school and one of the highlights was the medicinal garden run by the school to help cultivate the ahimsa principle of community.

We hit the road again in a new bus that took us to our next school, which is where we are spending the night. It is another Jain complex called Smarak, which is similar to the one we stayed at last week, but this one is much bigger. The complex houses two schools (one elementary, one high school), a university, a male monk ashram, a female monk ashram, a Jain temple, the Institute of Indology, and several dorm-style living facilities.  Here are some photos from Smarak: