We had been travelling around Nepal and northern India for a number of weeks and had been enjoying every minute of it (give or take a touch of food poisoning and a laundrette that doesn’t prioritise returning clothes) but with increasing exasperation it had dawned on us that the constant prod of facebook notifications and every soul-crushing Trump story drove home the fact we were never quite present in our surroundings, at least not in the way I felt as a child when I would be totally immersed in the landscapes and cultures around me. Back then, when on holiday, home felt very far away and before long became something of a quaint memory. But here I was in Delhi, heartland of the Mughals, and was instead mindlessely refreshing my Facebook feed to read what the Muggles were saying, Denise’s homecooked lasagne being more engrossing (and, admittedly, less critically lauded) than the Taj Mahal.
So, looking for some respite from the bilge of trans-Atlantic fear and factions and eager to recapture some of that sincerity and ‘presentness’ of pre-Internet days we decided to book a week in a South Delhi ashram. Disclaimer: I’d like to consider myself open-minded and somewhat spiritually inclined but a healthy cynicism is never far from hand.
So book my partner and I did. Expecting the ashram to be something of a spiritual shelter from the storm of global politics and, more pragmatically, Delhi’s organised chaos, we arrived on a Friday afternoon a little dishevelled but ready and willing to be spiritually enlightened.
Our expectations of what an ashram might look like were immediately upended as we were confronted with a mass of Brutalist concrete more redolent of some Government intelligence gathering facility than a mecca for chakra alignment. The book cover duly judged, we were unprepared for this grey imposition to be a hulking veil for a suite of libraries, meditation halls, community kitchens, education programs and health centres hidden within.
At the reception we were greeted by a lady whose inscrutable smile, we decided later, indicated either warm generosity or thinly-disguised suspicion. We opted not to probe any further to discover which it might be and listened while she explained the ashram’s ground rules. Expecting short, memorable Fight Club-style rules I was rewarded:
- No cigarettes or alcohol
- No sex
- No politics
Easy enough to remember and barring some horrific Edwina Curry-esque meltdown we’d try our best to adhere.
With the house rules agreed we were shown to our austere but very clean rooms. On the sidetable was a sheet of A4 detailing their expectations of us: daily group meditation at 7pm and an hour’s “community service” either in the kitchen or the gardens (rather unnervingly the penury vibe didn’t begin and end with community service; we were labelled inmates on all in-house pamphlets raising the suspicion we might never the leave the complex).
The following day during breakfast an elderly lady sat down at the neighbouring bench and asked us where we were from (Wales we explained, “Australia?” her reply) and over incredible communally-prepared koftas we spoke at length about what we hoped to achieve during our week’s stay at the ashram and she also reminisced about her more than 60 years living there. Humbled by her unswerving devotion we had realised we hadn’t even asked her name. It was only at this point did she reveal that her father had founded the ashram and had also been a prominent member of the Free India Movement and close friend of Mohandas Ghandi, humbling indeed.
Later that day we were again accosted by her and, taking us by the arm, she led us on a tour of the entire complex. First, we were led to the grounds of one of the three on-site schools where we spotted a group of men in their 40s playing badminton who stopped to bow when they saw our esteemed guide.
Enquiring about them after we turned a corner she explained that as the school was closed today former pupils would often return to play sports or catch up and chat, their attachment still evident.
Making our way through what looked to be the back entrance of the school we were invited in to the music room to witness extra-curricular preparations for the school’s annual festival. Sat behind the harmonium and tabla players we sat in silent awe at the young dancers and their movements, hand gestures and feet postures so subtle as to transfix. As we were beckoned by our friend to quietly make our exits we were shown a small room full of young girls working at sewing machines, their shining eyes speaking the volumes their lack of English couldn’t. We were introduced to their teacher, a woman from Varanasi who explained that the girls were from satellite schools in the Himalayas and Orrissa and that she was teaching them how to sew bags and garments to sell. Leaving them to their lesson any doubts in my mind as to the importance of the ashram to the community were extinguished, this place wasn’t simply a spiritual hideaway but a thriving, essential part of so many people’s lives.
For much of the week we were left to our own devices, and spent our time alternating between meditation, studying the works of the ashram’s founder and making first-day-at-school small talk with the fellow inmates.
The “No politics” rule proved easier to follow as the ashram was mercifully wi-fi free and so the torrent of anti-social-media subsided and the dark clouds of contemporary living eased, if only for seven days.
But an increasing feeling of hiding away from the realities of life outside was beginning to set in, so, on the fifth day we decided a brief reality check was in order. We opted to venture out of the sanctuary for a morning and explore New Delhi’s bracing bustle. Making our way heart in mouth through the busy margs we stopped to browse a small bookshop, outside of which was a tall man, well dressed, his hair in greasy rivulettes who spotted us and proceeded to give my girlfriend a potted history of the Bronte Sisters before championing the relative merits of Villette. With this as our introduction we felt now might be the right moment to break cardinal sin #3 and tentatively broached the subject of Trump. To our evident dismay and bemusement the young man summed up his views on American Foreign Policy thus: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”. This haggard cliche has since been wheeled out twice more by different people during our travels and saddens me no less on each repeated hearing. Clearly tensions with Pakistan and anti-Muslim sentiment in general were reason enough to overlook the President’s moral failures. The isolationist postures of both America and the UK clearly struck a chord with him and the eerie familiarity of “We must think of India first” left me feeling uncomfortable.
Returning to the ashram’s pastoral serenity after the outside world’s grit and reality felt welcome but ill-fitting for my own personal belief system. Some balance needs to be struck between the constant shellacking of the online trenches and head-in-the-sand abstinence from the political realm. Whether I’ve found the balance myself is far from certain but I’ll keep searching. Regardless, the work places like this are doing and the opportunities they provide should never be dismissed but if ever was a time to stick our heads above the parapets then now must be it.
words ADAM JONES