Closing Thoughts on India

 

From Katherine: The last few days have been filled with many personal experiences of the struggles (and joys) that exist in India.  Since last Friday we have been traveling and playing with friends who are part of Interplay.  Through dance and play we have connected with many people including members of the Warli tribe and women living in the slum.  We also visited a leprosy hospital where we did not dance with the patients, but they did share a song with us.  Yesterday, before going to the slums, we visited with children of prostitutes, many of them infected with HIV.  After they showed us some of their dances (Bollywood style), including one that described how HIV is trasmitted and ways that those infected can be supported, we danced with the children.  At the end of time of playing, dancing, and laughing with them, we asked them to gather and sit at one side of the room.  We asked them about some of their prayers, intentions, wishes and hopes.  The children offered hopes of becoming pilots, doctors, painters, and fashion designers as well as growing up to take good care of their families (right now many of the children live at the center full-time because of the dangers of their living situations).  After hearing from them, we asked them to sing a song -- they selected two, including one that described their life at the center.  As they sang we danced "on behalf" of their intentions.  This is in improvised dance -- really, it is a prayer "said" through our bodies and movement.  We have ended many of our visits in this way, offering ourselves and our prayers to the peoples struggles and hopes.  We even did this at the end of Father Prashant's mass in Vasai.  Each time people have been moved by our prayers (the slum women, in Gretchen's reflections, for example).  The children did not express their gratitude verbally, per se, but they did watch attentively through the dance/prayer and at the end one of the children asked to sing a prayer that she knows -- all of the children joined in, offering us their prayer.

As we have traveled we have been enveloped in many prayers, whether one silently muttered while boarding an airplane, as part of an elaborate Hindu wedding rite, at a temple devoted to one of the goddesses, or among people who speak different languages but dance the same language.  Along with the exhaust, dirt, sickness, colors, rickshaws, food, generous and kind people, and adventures of every shape and size, it is a powerful image I will take from this trip.  When so much of life feels unclear and out of control, we have been able to gather all of these questions and longings, offer a prayer, and take the next step.