I caught a ride today in a tuk tuk (auto-rickshaw) with the music blaring - it was the most beautiful chanting and I couldn't help but smile and hope he didn't turn it down, on account of the white girl in back. As he caught my smile in the mirror, he explained, "Sai Baba". I haven't studied the gurus, and I can't tell you what the philosophy is of this one, but I do recognize the name. He's well known, with a large, devoted, following and many temples.
As we drove along, both of us tapping to the music, the driver occasionally head-bobbling in time, I found myself getting choked-up, my heart overflowing with this sense of humble devotion, amidst the chaos of traffic. While I can't, from that brief encounter, assume to really know anything about the man that was taking me home from the market, it was clear by the pride on his face as he announced "Sai Baba" that his guru is important to him, the music is deeply moving, and sharing it is a blessing and an honour.
Can you imagine, in Canada, listening to Christian hymns in the back of your taxi cab? It would be completely out-of-place . . . and in our culture, perhaps even inappropriate. But here in India the sacred and the profane go hand in hand, un-apologetically, unabashedly.
My sense of this driver, as he navigated impossible turns and traffic snarls, was of someone content and grounded. (But what do I know?) And he's not the only one I've had that sense with. This is a huge, chaotic, unruly, stinky, CRAZY city . . . that I see through the eyes of a Canadian white girl. But sometimes, like today, I am privileged to see it, just a little, through someone else's heart. I catch glimpses of what life might be like for someone who just lives and works here, for whom this is truly home.
And I am reminded that comparisons truly have no place here. That what I know about how life works, from my home in Canada, has very little value here. That the only way to be here is to BE HERE.
Blessed be.
As we drove along, both of us tapping to the music, the driver occasionally head-bobbling in time, I found myself getting choked-up, my heart overflowing with this sense of humble devotion, amidst the chaos of traffic. While I can't, from that brief encounter, assume to really know anything about the man that was taking me home from the market, it was clear by the pride on his face as he announced "Sai Baba" that his guru is important to him, the music is deeply moving, and sharing it is a blessing and an honour.
Can you imagine, in Canada, listening to Christian hymns in the back of your taxi cab? It would be completely out-of-place . . . and in our culture, perhaps even inappropriate. But here in India the sacred and the profane go hand in hand, un-apologetically, unabashedly.
My sense of this driver, as he navigated impossible turns and traffic snarls, was of someone content and grounded. (But what do I know?) And he's not the only one I've had that sense with. This is a huge, chaotic, unruly, stinky, CRAZY city . . . that I see through the eyes of a Canadian white girl. But sometimes, like today, I am privileged to see it, just a little, through someone else's heart. I catch glimpses of what life might be like for someone who just lives and works here, for whom this is truly home.
And I am reminded that comparisons truly have no place here. That what I know about how life works, from my home in Canada, has very little value here. That the only way to be here is to BE HERE.
Blessed be.
