Too Close to Home

Picture this. You are attending your child’s school play. It is titled, “A Day to Remember” and the opening scene depicts New York City on an average day. The students are playing the parts of typical New Yorkers, briskly walking as if rushing to work with a handcrafted city skyline as the backdrop. The big clock in the background shows 8:45 a.m, and the song “Workin 9 to 5” is playing as the characters begin entering their places of employment. All of a sudden, frantic, ear piercing notes replace the music coming through the speakers, and the students begin running around in a state of panic. At first you can’t tell what’s causing the chaos, but then you see it. A student is carrying a pole with a cardboard plane across the stage, and before you can even comprehend what’s going on, he slams it directly into one of the tallest two buildings. Smoke begins pouring out from the background, and that’s when the color drains from your face; you suddenly realize exactly what your child’s class is re-enacting… the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Now, I can imagine you reading this and thinking that I have crossed a line. How dare I stir up such close-to-home emotions?!?!? This is supposed to be a happy blog about our GSE adventures, why would any American bring up such sad memories on purpose? But please understand that there’s a purpose for me creating this tragic scene in your imagination; I wanted you to feel, not just read, about the Republic Day presentation our team witnessed on January 26th.

January 26th is Republic Day in India. On this day in 1950 India solidified their democratic identity with the creation of their constitution. Along with August 15th, their Independence Day, Republic Day is a very important holiday in this country. We were in Nagda at the time and were invited to a celebration at the town’s local school. The way it was described to us in our itinerary was as a parade, so we immediately thought of our typical parades at home with floats, balloons and marching bands, and initially pictured something along the lines of our team on a GSE Rotary float practicing our Miss America waves. But instead we wound up being honored with front row seats to what turned out to be an amazing mix of dance performances, singing, acrobatics, and skits. There are towns and cities in India which celebrate Republic Day with a typical processional-type parade, but Nagda had put together an entire 2 hour student-run show, and it was incredible.














After a few of the acts we came to an event in the program entitled “Action Dance”. Based on the name I was expecting a very high energy dance performance of some sort. But it turned out to be something very different. The students began setting up the backdrop which included a cardboard cut-out of a building, and off to the side they erected what looked like a cage of some sort. Behind this I could see a few of the children in their costumes… and I started to really question what was about to be performed...


“Are those toy guns in their hands?”
“That building looks a lot like a hotel or something…”
“Oh my gosh, are they really going to act out what I think they are going to act out?”

Sure enough I was right. The Action Dance turned out to be 100 Nagda school children re-enacting the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 26th.






I almost choked up, I wasn't sure what to do or say or think. I looked over at Robin and found out later we were both thinking the same thing, "Had this been performed in a school at home, it would have stirred up major controversy." Toy Guns? Kids acting as terrorists? Students acting out murders? And this event only happened 3 months ago. Wasn't it too soon to be reliving this tragic event? A little too close to home? This would never ever be ok back in America. But as these questions and thoughts were racing through my head, the performance took a different turn, and as a result so did my thinking.
After the terrorist scene, the music changed. The attackers were conquered by the Indian armed forces, and as they were taken away and arrested, (the cage in the background turned out to be a jail) students dressed in beautiful costumes appeared and started dancing and singing. They were waving the Indian flag and singing Jai' Hind! Jai Hind is Hindi for "Victory to India", and at that moment I realized the importance of this Republic Day celebration.


The terrorist attack of November 26th was a terrible tragedy, but what came of it? India faced a problem and came out victorious in the end. Instead of trying to push the sad part of the story aside as quickly as possible, India looked at the nightmare that occurred and found the good somewhere inside. And the theatrical performance we witnessed seemed like the nation's way of saying, "We felt, we hurt, but now we are moving on!" This nation's ability to embrace the truthful notion that bad things have to happen for good things to happen seems to help them heal and learn very quickly from their wounds.

Maybe America as a nation can learn from this very strong characteristic of India. Maybe you, as an individual, can learn from the GSE story I have just shared and do the same. Life is filled with all sorts of events, and not all can be good. But life truly is a gift, and we should embrace every moment. In order to learn and grow and really appreciate happiness and, in a sense, victory, we must first face the event or events that have caused the sadness... not try to ignore them. Because as our team learned from just a single performance on India's Republic Day, we had to first watch something unpleasant before we could see and appreciate the happy ending.

Nearing Conclusion by Jay

It is hard to believe 4 weeks have come and went so quickly. We have travelled to many places. Bhopal, Indore, Ujjain, Nagda, Ratlam, Sagar, Khajuraho, and we are now back in Bhopal, ready to depart to Agra to see the Agra Fort and Taj Mahal tomorrow morning. I can speak for all of us when I say “It is Great to be Home.” I am speaking of our home away from home, Bhopal. It was great arriving here 4 weeks ago, and we now feel like we are seeing our old friends that we have been missing for weeks. This is one of the Highlights of the trip. Building relationships and maintaining them.

Last night, after a rather smooth ride from Sagar to Bhopal, we were greeted by our Uncle, Uncle Kapil. Kapil Jain has been with us since day 1, and took on the duty of standing in for Selva for the first few days, when Selva could not be here. Thanks DD for choosing such a caring, compassionate, and Awesome man for the job. Kapil is much more than a quick friend. He was watching over us the whole trip, along with many other Bhopalians by reading and commenting on our blog. And of course, there were always the random phone calls to make sure we arrived and departed safely from our succeeding cities.

Today we went shopping with Johnny and his wife Mini. You could call it marathon shopping, we went for 6 hours. But with these two it seemed almost effortless. They are both expert negotiators and live up to the Indian standard of treating their guests as Gods. They had 5 Americans to tend to; each of whom had many other Americans to shop for. Tim and I hate shopping the most, but for some apparent reason always end up spending more than the girls.

I reflect on the hospitality we received in all of the cities, beginning and ending with Bhopal, and only hope that I can live up to the standard set by the selfless Indians that we have encountered. Looking back at one of our first blogs, “Indians treating their Guests as Gods”, it looks like we were right on point from the get go. I cannot say the same for every blog entry. This has been a learning experience, and with any learning experience, you must get it wrong before you get it right.

There have been a couple of blogs I have written, that I look back on and quote the popular phrase of hindsight being 20/20. Education and Health Care are such major topics that one has to experience a number of Government and Private sector facilities in many Urban and Suburban Cities to form a valid opinion. There is so much to learn and so little time. It makes me think of how narrow-minded we can be to form opinions of what we see and read from half a world away.

One thing I can say confidently is that India is a developing country that has a long way to go. There are many wins underneath her belt, but she will need to be strong in the coming years. Great News India, you are still young. Make great choices, and learn from your Western cousins.

Week 3: "Bharati and Me"

We traveled to Ujjain to begin the third week. It is about 45 minutes from Indore. Ujjain is a district and a city. In the city of Ujjain there is approximately 500,000 people. It is considered a small city by Indian standards. In addition, it is considered a rural area. There are farms on the outskirts of the city that produce lots of agricultural products that are sold in Ujjain and Indore. The traffic in Ujjain is considerably better than Indore. The methods of driving are still the same, however the amount of vehicles and animals on the road is much less. On the itinerary for Ujjain were a couple of NGO’s and universities.
Out of the visits we had there was one NGO that had the most impact on me. It is called the Sewadham Ashram. It was founded by Sudhir Bhai Goyal in 1989. The Sawaghram Ashram is at its most basic level a homeless shelter. The NGO takes in individuals that have been left on the road-side because their families can no longer take care of them, it takes in derelicts of all sorts. For example, we met an individual who was chained up for 16 years because he had a mental disorder and his family did not know how to care for him. There was a small child that was found atop a pile of human bodies after the terrible earthquake in 2001 that struck rural north India. The one person that touched my heart and soul the most is Bharati. Bharati is bed ridden due to a severe case of cerebral palsy. Her home is in one of the back corners of the 15 acre ashram in the women’s section. We saw the bed ridden ward about half way through the tour. We passed through a heavy metal gate painted in terracotta red. Upon entering there were 30 or so women playing instruments and singing. We were asked to come closer because they wanted to sing a song to us. One woman was playing a traditional Indian base drum (find name) and the rest were singing and clapping. The song was in Hindi. I asked the executive assistant Rajeev Sahal (a chartered accountant now dedicating himself to the ashram) for the meaning of the song. He told me that they were singing about a caged bird and how no one will ever know the caged bird’s thoughts and feelings. Little did I know how foreboding this song was.

Moments later we arrived at the “bed-ridden ward”. It was a small white, cement, cylindrical building with a pointy roof. The ward was run down like most of the buildings in India. The exterior was painted white. There were cracks in the plaster along with dirt stains growing from the ground up. It took about 5 steps up to enter the ward. I was immediately impressed by the smell and appearance of its cleanliness. A nurse stood to the left and we exchanged Namastes with each other. I spun around the room to see three individuals that have involuntarily claimed residence to this space. All three were imprisoned by a square mosquito net. I remember being told that one had spinal dysplasia, the other had an ailment I cannot remember, and in the final bed lay Bharati. As I stated before Bharati suffers from cerebral palsy. She will never walk on her own. She will never ride a bike, she will never drive a car, she will never stay up late and gossip with her girlfriends about the cute boys in school, she will never walk hand in hand with her lover, and most of all she will never be able to fully express her thoughts and emotions to another human, at least not conventionally.

Bharati drew me in with her gaze. Immediately I was hypnotized by her spiri, as if in a trance I knelt down in front of her and gazed back into her eyes. I did not know what this would accomplish; I intuitively knew that this is how she can communicate best. As I gazed into her eyes my friend Elaine began to sob. She rushed out of the ward to collect herself. Everyone else left the ward after a couple of minutes. I continued to gaze into Bharati’s eyes with my hands in prayer position. Doing my best to communicate non-verbally with her I hoped and prayed that she is happy. I wanted to tell her that, “I am here for you. I think you are beautiful. I care about your well-being and what happens to you in the future. I hope that you have a long and full life of happiness and prosperity. I want you to be healthy and happy, what ever that means to you.” So, I did my best to communicate this to her as she communicated to me, with my eyes. All of my intention and energy went into expressing these thoughts to Bharati. Could these efforts help her? Could these efforts bring happiness into her life?

The tour of the facility continued. We were shown the children’s ward, the rehabilitation area, the beginning of their hospital construction, and ended up back at the administrative offices. Sadhir ordered some snacks and chai for us as we discussed the our views on the ashram. Everyone was thoroughly impressed with how much work has been done to offer the unfortunate of the surrounding area. Due to Ujjain being a religious destination the city receives many pilgrims. Because of the increase in travelers there are more people left to the side of the road. The reason behind this phenomenon is the families can no longer take care of the disabled children or the old grandparents. So, they leave them to the roadside. This is common occurrence in India, but as mentioned before the religious destination allows for this to happen more.

As I sat there a nagging feeling kept arriving in the forefront of my mind. The thought kept saying, “You need to go see her…”

After three or four times of hearing this thought I asked Rajeev if I could go see her again. He responded, “Who would you like to see?”

I said, “I would like to see the girl that is in the bed ridden ward, I cannot remember her name?”

“Of course, of course. Come, come,” he said.

After a little bit of confusion of to which location I was talking about, we were off. Sadhir’s assistant asked me why I wanted to go back and see this girl. I replied, “There was just something about her, she just touched my soul. There is no other explanation then that.”

As we were walking I kept asking myself, why am I going back here? What was it about this child that had me so enthralled with her?


The approach was the same as before. As we were walking the assistant and I conversed some more about the challenges his organization is facing. It is an unimaginable feat to overcome. This feat of providing aid to 30,000 people in a land that the central government has forgotten, or simply does not have the resources to supplement. The helping hand can extend only so far. Some major benefactors supply the seed money for a lot of their projects, but more help is needed. For example, a hospital is in their future. Diagnostic machines are their biggest need and desire. With the help of these machines the surrounding villages that rely on this organization will be that much better off. The increase in basic healthcare services will help extend the average life expectancy of the area.

We arrived at the bed-ridden ward. The nurse came running over from another building as she saw us approaching. Again, Namastes were exchanged. I climbed the now familiar cement steps. I was then greeted by the happiest face I think I have ever seen in my short life. Bharati vocally expressed her excitement in the only way she could, with a few grunts. These grunts seemed to come out with so much effort. It was as if she did not like vocalizing anything because she knew it did not sound like the people who are taking care of her. Needless to say this effort she made moved me deeply.

The nurse motioned to move the mosquito net. I concurred with her efforts. The mosquito net was removed. Bharati's face continued to beam with elate happiness. I could only imagine what was going through her mind. Her expressions told me that she felt special. I felt from her that hope was instilled again. That hope coursed through her veins once again. The fact that this stranger from some strange land cares for her. It felt so right. This was what I was supposed to be doing. There was no doubt in my mind.

It was effortless for me to have knelt in front of Bharati and hold her head in my mind. I think we both needed each other that fateful day.

The trip had not been easy up to this point. We were demanded to be on cue where ever we went. Our traditional American identities that we were so accustomed to back home had been stripped from us the moment we arrived in Bhopal two weeks earlier. As a team and as individuals we all had to acquire new identities. This is no simple task. Questions ran through our minds such as: How are you going to act around the press when they approach you? What will you do if someone offers you something you don't necessarily want? If you are feeling worn down and have been greeted by 200 people that day how will you act when one more person wants to meet you? Don't forget that you are representing Rotary in every action you take. Don't forget that you are representing America in every action you take. Don't forget that you are a guest in a foreign country, dissidance is not an option here. So, what identity will you have today?



Thank you to Bharati and the hope that you instilled in me. Thank you to the founder Sudhir Bhai Goyal for creating the Sewadham Ashram, and may prosperity and success flourish in your midst.

Please visit their website at: www.sevadham.org