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| Govinda and family - Varanasi, 2013 |
Sri Krishna Govind Hare Murare
I was reminded of this beautiful Sanskrit prayer from
the very beginning of our trip, when we were first introduced to Baba and Govinda,
our host families-slash-guides as we travelled our crazy route across the
Northwestern Indian states of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. It’s a beautiful and haunting chant I couldn’t
help but absorb in my many years on the yoga mat, listening to various kirtan
artists,singing this and other prayers in their mellifluous voices.
Govinda is a popular Indian name,
one of the 108 names for Lord Krishna, referring to the impish young god’s
occupation as a cowherd. I like the
meaning of Govinda as “One who pleases the cows and Nature.” It was a
fitting name for the real Govinda, whose life we got best to know when we arrtived
in Varanasi, where he lives with his wife, their three daughters, parents, several
siblings and extended family.
Govinda and Baba were the two
‘patriarchs,’ (although they are kids, really) of two families supported by a small
group of donors ("The India Group") at Xavier Parish in New York City. Each has three
children and a host of extended family members for whom they are also responsible. Paul,
one of the founders of the group, goes back and forth to India several
times a year to check in on the families who live in Khajuraho, Varanasi, and
now Delhi. Once a year, he takes a small group of donors and friends. This year I joined them.
“TIG,” as it’s come to be known,
started out with the goal of offering scholarships to the children of these
families, and a few others, to attend English medium private schools. Paul and
Michael, TIG’s treasurer and a lifelong educator, are in regular contact with
school administrators and review assessments with the principals and a local
woman we’ve hired to provide tutoring for some of the kids.
Early on, TIG discovered that with its
modest initial goal of funding education, comes significant responsibility. If
anyone in the broader family unit is suffering (and there is so much
suffering), it is hard to concentrate on the children’s schooling. And so
healthcare, small business loans, and even funds for dowries and marriages have been added to the mix
of items considered for support.
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| Govinda and Baba - 2013 |
While Baba is a story unto himself,
I was recently asked to speak specifically about Govinda at a meeting at the parish last month. It’s that request that inspired putting some of my memories into
words and as I began writing, I realized just how much he brought to our
experience of India.
Govinda and his family live in Varanasi, where he is a boatman on the Ganges. Of the two, he was definitely
the quieter, given to occasional bouts of unhappiness when he felt Paul was
favoring Baba or otherwise misunderstanding him. [Paul, who has known these two and their
families for years, has a gruff, but very loving, way with them, treating them
as I suspect he would treat his own kids, with a blend of kindness and gentle exasperation].
As the days wore on and we all got
to know each other better, I was taken by the devotional nature of both these
guys – Baba, a Kali priest who gave us a mini dissertation on the Shiva Lingam
one night at dinner, and Govinda, who led us in a rousing Mahadev mantra one
morning as we began our journey to Jaipur and who, on Tuesdays and Saturdays,
fasted from meat in honor of lord Hanuman. Of course, the utter infusion of
Hinduism into every facet of Indian life and culture is something I expected, but
it nonetheless did not cease to amaze and delight me. It is like Catholicism on
steroids, the pantheon of gods like our saints, only much more fantastical and
interconnected.
Baba and Govinda were the perfect
hosts throughout the trip, shepherding us in and out of vans and tuk tuks,
keeping us from spending too much money on things and making sure we had plenty
of chapatti and sweet lime soda during our meals. It was Govinda who went back
several hours later with me into “Fab India” one day after I left my sunglasses in there during a shopping spree, Govinda who patiently worked the
back of our little group, making sure we all stayed safe and sound. I am
humbled when I think of how non-existent their carbon footprint, yet how generous
their hearts and their hospitality.
While Baba and Govinda are street savvy
and knowledgeable about their culture and religion, neither has gone much
beyond the third or fourth grade. And whereas Govinda proudly reads signs in
English aloud, Baba might have dyslexia or some other reading issue that prevents
him from making much written progress. However, Baba speaks five languages,
learned over the course of his many years of picking up odd jobs and "running the tourists" in his home town of Khajuraho. His English is quite good, his
Spanish I believe even better, and we all watched in awe as he picked up a
conversation in Korean with a tourist we happened upon at the Western Temples
in Khajurajo.
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| Baba's family home - Khajuraho 2013 |
But they are of the farming and
boating castes, and, as such, have struggled throughout their short lives. Both live in cinderblock rooms with their
extended families along narrow alleyways with no plumbing, relying on a village
pump, for which their wives and kids might have to wait several hours,
intermittent electricity strung rather precariously across the brick walls and
ceilings, and cow patties (gobar) and kerosene for most of their fuel.
So in addition to the children’s
scholarships, which, at $350 or so a year are ridiculously cheap, and books,
registration fees and uniforms, TIG will consider other kinds of support having
to do largely with health and overall social welfare - doctors, medicine, transportation
to and from facilities. It is never easy. None of the family members are 100%
sure how old they are or when their birthdays are, and they lack all of the
documentation and burdens of proof that we take for granted.
As it happened, during this trip we
found out that the wife of one of Baba’s cousins had been in a great deal of abdominal
pain for several weeks prior to our arrival. After looking at the doctor’s
records she showed us indicating a cyst, we agreed that TIG would rent
a car and take her to a clinic about 50 km outside of Khajuraho and pay for
whatever treatment or medicines she might need. I accompanied her, her husband and their
four-year-old son to two hospitals (the first, a public
hospital, turned out to be far too confusing and random) to get treated for what
ultimately turned out to be a serious infection. Given a great deal of upheaval and uncertainty in her life right
then, we were concerned that she understand the importance of finishing the
complicated regimen of meds, which we knew under the best of circumstances is easier said than done.
Govinda, too, has been suffering
with chronic pain from an ongoing hernia, but it was on one of our first
excursions that the reality of their limited medical options hit home. I had offered
my iPod to him because he was clearly hankering for music in our little rental
van, bursting into song or trying to turn the radio up to Paul’s eternal
aggravation (“Govinda, turn the music down!”). I have a lot of “weird Indian music" (according to my husband and son), which he happily sang along to. I was
no sooner listening to him shout out “Jai Ho!” along with Sukwinder Singh, when he got a heartbreaking call from his father, which sent him into
real despair. As he explained when he hung up, his wife was in terrible pain
with a toothache and, for reasons we couldn’t quite figure
out, no one in the extended family could get her to a dentist or at least to a
doctor for pain management. All I could think of was how helpless I would have
felt had my husband been calling me in the throes of his worst Lyme episodes
when I was out of town and completely unable to help.
By the time we got to Varanasi, she had been to a dentist, but it was indicative of how everything we take for granted – health care, food, transportation, water – is an "operation," requires so much more laborious effort and logistics than one can even begin to fathom, 365 days a year, one year following the next.
By the time we got to Varanasi, she had been to a dentist, but it was indicative of how everything we take for granted – health care, food, transportation, water – is an "operation," requires so much more laborious effort and logistics than one can even begin to fathom, 365 days a year, one year following the next.
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| Govinda the Boatman, Varanasi 2013 |
He naatha narayan vasudeva
Varanasi is on the Ganges, and its main industry seems to be getting to the afterlife. Hindus believe that if their ashes are thrown into the river they will go immediately to heaven, and the entirety of the city is geared around that sacred fact of its geography. Govinda’s family works very hard – and all kinds of hours – as street merchants near the ghats, selling malas, jewelry, river offerings and other sacramental objects for tourists and devotees. The night we had dinner at their home, his mother and sister arrived late in the evening from their work, carrying trays of marigolds, strung in preparation for the next morning’s river ceremony.
Govinda, too, is a hard worker, ferrying tourists and worshipers along the river, a physically demanding occupation that is also quite competitive. We saw him in action one night when he took us out one evening at sunset to say goodnight to Mother
Ganges. Floating along past the
multi-leveled ghats on our way to the ceremony, he was the perfect boatman,
pointing out the distinguishing characteristics of each of the series of steps
leading down to the water, and expertly maneuvering his small craft among the
hundreds of others anchored to watch the priests, musicians and dancers putting
the river to bed.
His hard work and seriousness,
though, was offset by a sense of humor, and a love for having his picture
taken. He never turned down an opportunity to pose for the camera, and he could
laugh when Baba teased him about hearing ghosts all night in the room they
shared. As Baba put it, it was he (Baba) who had watched the movie “13 Ghosts” on
Paul’s iPad, yet it was Govinda who was up all night hearing knocking noises
and scaring himself silly. Baba attributed it to Govinda’s being around death
all the time out there on the Ganges, but I think it is just an awe of the
supernatural, and a superstitious nature, like my Italian grandmother and great
aunts. The other side of the coin, as it were, to his great devotion to the Monkey God, Hanuman-Ji.
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| Amber Fort, Jaipur 2013 |
Hanuman seemed to be ever present on this trip through the ubiquitous temples and shrines to him. One night in Jaipur, everyone else
was rather tired from a long day, but Paul suggested a late night shopping
excursion. I was game, so Govinda, Paul and I trooped off in search of “Jaipur
bangles” and other souvenirs.
Jaipur was probably the most dangerous for pedestrians of any of the
cities we were in – there are no traffic lights and one holds one’s breath
crossing the street, dodging cars, bicycles, tuk tuks, rickshaws and the more-than-occasional stray dogs.
The streets were bustling and we
walked around looking for the bangles, lingering in front of stalls and talking to the street merchants ("You are American? I love America!"). As we were getting ready to leave, we walked towards a busy
intersection where, on the opposite side of the street, there was an open
storefront with some sort of ceremony taking place inside, loud music
filling the air and a bit of a scene spilling out onto the street. On our side was a shrine to
Hanuman, equally noisy and colorful and into and out of which walked all sorts of
devotees, old and young. I watched a father bringing his children in and we
followed behind them into the brightly lit space, brass and gold competing with
neon, and incense offering up the prayers of the faithful as they rang the heavy
bell hanging in front of the altar.
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| Govinda and Khajuraho children - 2013 |
It’s been several months since we
got back. Of course, I thought I would never again complain about anything after
watching men walking the streets outside of Delhi, literally yoked to hundreds
of pounds of flour, metal or recyclables, exhausted beasts of burden. And here
I am, cursing my job and complaining about my myriad First World Problems, a
veritable Kali unleashed. But following Govinda’s example, I am trying to
remember to take a moment before the beginning of a meal – to touch my bread to
my forehead, as it were, and offer it in gratitude – Jai Ana Purna! – to that most sacred Spirit that nourishes us all on the circuitous journey home.
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| Baba's daughter, Mille - 2013 |
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