Wednesday, September 21, 2011

DIL SE

From Madurai city we traveled 20 K to a small village named Oomachikulum and stayed 4 days with a beautiful family of adopted children in an ashram call DIL SE. It was beautiful. We were fed traditional south Indian three times daily. It was a treat the village was beautiful. No all consuming rubbish piles, healthy looking dogs, blue skies devoid of the city smog, cute dirt trails and concrete and tree Kohlis. The children were adorable and called us brother and sister and ANTIE! horrendously i can't remember all there names but those that come to mind are the cheeky boys who took hundreds of photos of themselves daily with our camera, Yogesh, Angu Swami and Saravanan. The new kid Viramani was an insane little guy who on occation really lost his head, when we had a spotaneous dance party one night. He let loose like a true Indian dancing the limbo under some impossible invissible pole with his tiny eyes searching the wall behind him. Vera was sweet. Viccy was the married sister staying still at Dil Se boysterous and strong and her husband who drove a dirty great Indian sports bike. Dirty great Indian sports bikes are great. There are five odd children i've missed including the beautiful older sister who sand lovely songs and prayers on Chandra Bose's (dad's) whim and to her brothers and sisters to entertain them. The others were the four or perhaps more beautiful girls who were more reserved than the boys and had many chores throughout the day time and of course school to attend. The eldest brother at home was Karthik Bose who was ultra sweet. On medical camp day, which occurs once a month Karthick was in charge of stiring the great pot that feed 300 hungry villagers that day a georgous rice biriyani, Gold and I got to cut vegies with standing knive that you would hold down with one leg and pulse tomatos with our palms. Karthik drove us around in the Dil Se Ricksaw and guided us around madurai city and through the splendid Meenakshi Temple Comple and the Ghandi ji Museum. Very appropriate as the Dil Se is a totally GHANDIAN affair. Ghandian is a beautifully concept of all religeons are one. There is no conflict there is no hate, that sort of jive.

Confussingly enough other children came and went during the days (the Dil Se kids are quite popular) The neigbours kids four boys strong and an multipul girls who hid behind there Kohli when i arrived roped me into a cricket match in the feild next to Dil Se. I played a spendid game with some stunnng wickets and catches naturally. The children were ver impressed and i heard nothing but cricket from them for the next few days 'SIR when will you come play cricket?' and 'very good our cricket friend'.

During the mass cook that day my brothers had me drawing their portraits and soon eough the cricket team insisted also. Indians are very nice about my scetch books. They grasp them tightly and say 'OHHHHH SUPER!' and 'very nice' and take my hand to shake it.

We played snap
We danced
We cooked
We certainly ate
We relaxed
We washed clothes and they were dry again in minutes
We painted a mural on the classroom/bedroom wall for the kids featuring Dil Se rickshaw, Tiger (the dog) and Daisy ( the cow)
We preyed for Krishnas birthday
We wished Chandra Bose and Mama Ji happy anniversary
and we finally said our goodbyes in a great big family circle.
We must go back and see our brothers and sisters regularly. I miss them now and i miss the peace in the village.

Sigh


I have photos to add to this but it will be much later as my laptop has died forever and i need to extract his HD

1 comment:

  1. this is my favourite entry so far. india sounds like an amazing place mac. missing yous heaps ay. catch you in melbs eh

    ReplyDelete

HABBADACCHUS?