Passion week at the beach

We're leaving to Kovalam today for a family holiday. My parents and Beks and I will drive down today, Chech, Robs and K will fly there in the evening and Achach will drive down tomorrow. Unfortunately Anj won't be able to make it. In the last two years we haven't been able to take proper vacations so I'm looking forward to it. Chech called up and she gave the phone to K who immediately said "ammacha each!" (which translates to "unc, take me to the beach") and "ittar"(oh yeah, please get your guitar).

Traditionally, we always take a family holiday during passion week. This started thanks to my dad who wanted to escape the extremely long church service we have here. A couple of years ago however, the church realising that people have less time in this modern world changed the timings of the service to 9am - 4pm from the earlier 7am-4pm, two whole hours freed up.

I never used to like going to church. When we were kids, we all used to go, can't remember if it was every Sunday but at least on special occasions and I remember watching Bible stories in Sandeep's and Sarah's house. When I started to think for myself, I intellectualized God and believed that I didn't need to go to church since God was everywhere and so on. The division in the church and the court battle on which lakhs were spent didn't help in making me want to go to church.

When I sort of rediscovered God and my idea changed of It changed from just an intellectual entity to something real, for some reason or other it happened through reading Hindu literature particularly from the Ramakrishna Math. I was instantly attracted to this form of Hinduism because everything was so flexible. It understands that people are different and that God can be approached in a number of different ways depending on a person's innate nature. Jesus is thought of as a saint and so on, but not as the only son of God. His teachings remain valid though.

So because I was born christian, is there any reason why I should study christian literature? I know that it is a definite path to God and that it works for many people. However, since I am comfortable in my beliefs which also leads to the same goal, is it necessary for me to continue to be a christian or go to church? When we got married, I finally relented to a church wedding since Appa and Amma explained it as just a tradition, more to do with society than anything else. I was willing to accept that and go ahead with it, and should mention that I was glad I did it cause it was quite intense and something I'll remember forever. I am still against our child getting baptized though so that he or she doesn't have to have a church wedding just because they were born christian. I'm kind of sure though that as things it will happen and that I will be present, something to do with tradition or whatever. (Btw, not that we're planning to start trying or whatever)

Gearing up

My last week in Ktym before my first trip starts. However, now with the change of plans, I'll be coming all the way back from Delhi after my rafting trip, and then heading all the way back to Allahabad for the start of my trip with Beks.

I have around 4 days between my Simon Interview and the rafting trip so am planning to take a short trip on my own. The mountains will be pretty cold at this time of the year but I still love it, and it will probably be my last trip to the Himalayas in a while. (Not that I've been frequenting it or anything). This will be my first trip all alone since my trip to McLeod Ganj between the Analysis I and Analysis II exams in first year of college in 1997 May. (I'm not counting work trips which I've made alone, since its not at all the same thing). Thats almost 10 years ago and I'm so excited.

Strangely, I'm drawn to going to the same place, mainly cause this time I want to take the narrow gauge train from Pathankot to Kangra and Palampur. I loved the Kangra valley on my last trip and took a bus down from McLeod Ganj and walked all the way back up, 18 kms through the valley. It was summer then and absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, digital cameras were not invented then, and though I loved my film SLR, hard copies of photographs (and everything else in fact) are so much more difficult to store and I've lost all the photos probably shifting houses in Bombay. I'm really looking forward to the trip, and I also have a friend in Palampur now, Mr. Shambhu Ram, a shepherd I met at Chandra Taal in Spiti, who said he would show me around. My marathon training for the past week should hopefully help me keep up with him, which I couldn't really do in Spiti. Oh yeah, I could run more than I expected, and managed to do around a tenth of a marathon. This will also give me a chance to do some high altitude training :)

On my last trip, on of the things I observed a day of silence, where I even ordered and packed food the previous day so that I wouldn't have to speak at all. Speech creates disturbances in the mind stuff, Chitta vritti in sanskrit, and control of speech is highly recommended in the Yoga sutras of Patanjali. At the time, I didn't know anything about it, but just wanted to do it, having just heard of the concept and thinking it sounded cool. That was probably my first exercise in self discipline as well, which now has become a major part of things I like to do.

I haven't finalised any travel plans yet, but planning to head somewhere out of Delhi and probably get to Haridwar a day or two before the start of the rafting trip. Should go to Rishikesh as well, since its just 24kms from there and since it obviously influenced the Beatles so much. Anyway, whatever I finally do, I guess from now till March, I'll probably cover at least 12,000 kms or so, around the diameter of the Earth.