Monsoon Season in India
A New Adventure Begins


August 27, 2010

Greetings from steamy monsoon Mumbai. So marvelous to be back in India to begin this new adventure of teaching magic to twelve children of sexually trafficked women in the red light district slum of Mumbai. This is my sixth time in India, but I've never been here during monsoon season.
"Incredible India" the tourist posters announce -and so true. Every five minutes I see something I have never seen before in my life or certainly have never seen in Lincoln, Vermont. No wonder I am usually exhausted at the end of the day -taking in so many new things every few minutes wears one out. I guess this is why babies have to sleep so much -- exhausted from "beginner's mind."

My plane arrived 2 a.m. Tuesday morning --four hours late. We sat on the tarmac in JFK for six hours. Air India even served us dinner on the tarmac before we took off. Delicious Chicken Briyani was the 'non-veg' offering. Delightful, attentive, friendly flight attendants in their gorgeous red and saffron saris -making you feel as at home and comfortable as you can on a fourteen hour flight. Fortunate for me, unfortunate for Air India, the plane was not even half full. So I had three seats to stretch out and sleep when I wasn't eating one of the three meals, reading Melville's short stories, or watching the selection of movies.

After the hour taxi ride -the slow descent into the wild and wonderful world of Mumbai and India, I arrived at the Garden Hotel about 3:30 am, checked in and slep for four hours.
After breakfast I headed off to Mumbai's ornate Victorian Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus train terminal to catch the train for Bhushawal to meet Walter Spink. Walter is an old friend and major supporter of Magicians Without Borders -Walter funded the film shot by Dominic Howe that is now posted on our website -in six exquisite minutes Dominic captures the mission and feel of our work. Check it out! Walter Spink is the expert in the world on the monumental Ajanta temple caves. He is working on volume seven of the most comprehensive study of perhaps any monument in the world. Thursday I went to Ajanta by rickshaw, Walter would meet me there to show me around.

Gandhi once said, "India is in her villages." The rickshaw took me through villages where life goes on as it has for thousands of years. Women walking in threes in an unimaginable riot of color and pattern of sari and dupats (scarves) with stacked gleaming ornate silver water jugs balanced on their heads; earings and bangles, toe and nose rings, and glistening black black hair falling to their waists, and all laughing as they bounce along the dirt roads. Men making chapatis and samosas in roadside stalls, working on trucks and tractors, herding goats and cows. Children every where. In one village a Islamic mosque, Hindu temple and Buddhist stupa all within a stone's throw of one another.

And all around the villages and along the roads the fields are ablaze with monsoon green and flowers of unimaginable shapes and colors, corn and cotton, rice and vegetables of all kinds. And through all of it birds of uncalled-for color -flocks of emerald green parrots, shockingly blue kingfishers and birds I have never even imagined -if I was an Audubon birder with my life list in hand, I would have been madly checking off species as the rickshaw bounced along. The rickshaw dropped me off at "the viewpoint," from which you have a spectacular view of this most awe-inspiring, breath taking, beyond belief that human-beings-could-have-created-such-a-marvel, Ajanta. As they say of the rock hewed churches of Lalibella in Ethiopia, maybe "angels came at night and did the real work." Going to Ajanta through the villages is a perfect way to begin my time here in India.

The next blog entry will give an account of my walk down to the caves through the blossoming teak trees and the magical seven pools filled by seven waterfalls and my day at the caves with wild and wonderful Walter guiding me through its marvels. Namaste.

DAY 3-4

We took a sleeper bus from Mumbai to Fatehpur. The bus ride was long and bumpy. Some of the magic troop slept, others did not. It is very arduous to get off an all night bus ride only to realize that there are no toilets, there were bed bugs and its cold. Being ill-equipped (commode wise) we boarded the taxi jeep, as all strong travelers do. We arrived at the hotel resort in Fatehpur an hour or so later.
ENTER: Walter Spink, the unparalleled historian of the well known Ajanta caves. It has always been an honor to personally know Walter, he is such a great man. While there, we performed serveral shows. The first at a local Muslim grade school. The girls were very shy, but loosened up when Janet did her routine "goofy miming antics". The show was fantastic, the magic touched many people. Our presence was that of celebrities and everyone wanted their photos taken with us.
Walter has been sharing some of his knownledge of the history of the caves. From Walter's friends he has made over the years, we have had the opportunity of them inviting us to their homes to visit with their families. We have had the pleasure of meeting women who kindly offered to do exquisite traditional henna on our hands. One of the beautiful women doing the henna turned out to be a very traditional Muslim. We were grateful to realize that behind close doors this womens borders no longer existed. After having a wonderful evening of drinking chai, dancing with the children, we noticed how this women put on her burqa before even stepping out of the kitchen. The walls we were in that night protected her from being surpressed.