driving, Vedic chanting, and Ganesha

Yesterday evening our host family took Tim, Arlita and me to a spiritual talk with a famous yogi. We left the house around 5pm to drive into, and across to Hyderabad's twin city, Secunderabad. Driving here is like nothing I've ever experienced. At any moment I think I could die, but amazingly I made it. I think because there are so many cars and people and things going on when you drive, it forces people to pay more attention and so there is none of the 'spacing-out--while-changing-the-CD-while driving' that is so dangerous in the states. I'm starting to not be surprised by some of the insanity, but there are just so many people, more and more of them that keep coming from every direction, that it is absolutely impossible to get anywhere quickly or safely. My host father, Ramarasimhum made the comparison of Indian cities being like 'broken ant-hills' because you just keep seeing people spilling out from all places, going in random directions, and they are all going about their own paths and just keep coming and coming. The best part of driving yesterday was the small statue of Ganesha that sits on the family car's dashboard. Ganesha is the Hindu god who removes obstacles, which really is just hysterical to me, beyond ironic of course. Ganesha is trying his very best to make our path clear to the lecture hall, but the broken ant-hill of Hyderabad is too jam-packed that he is having a tough time of it. Each stop beggars come up to the window with babies in their arms, street vendors try to sell electric, rechargable plug-in fly swatters (random I know...) and small children come with rags to wash the windows for a few rupees. We are constantly confronted with other cars, pedestrians, bikers, motorcycles, cows, goats, dogs, beggars, children, and street sellers; at its most busy and insane, this place really does feel like something broken, unable to fix itself, perpetuating more confusion and chaos. Did I mention that people don't wait for the lights (when there is one) to change from red to green? They just go when they...want to? need to? certainly not when they think it is safe, because that never happens.

We sat in traffic until around 7pm (the lecture started at 6:45) and so luckily we only missed a bit of the speech. The speech was interesting, it was about the practice of yoga and meditation as the means to reach god/self-realization. What I like the most about Hinduism so far is how all-encompassing it is. It brings so many aspects of other religions together that is seems to teach a very universally spiritual message. The hall was full of Indians, some of which only understood Telugu (the speech was translated afterwards in Telegu), and then we had a big meal of the usual rice, daal, chipati, curries, and yogurt. It was fun to go off into the city with my host family and see what life in Hyderabad is like for someone who is not just going to school here.

On the say back we got talking about Vedic prayers and hymns and soon they were singing out the matras that my Mom used to sing to me at night when I was little. It was so interesting, hearing the words and melodies that I used to fumble along with, it was like hearing something from a past life even. It was such a flash back. Anyway they sang one that was probably about 7 minutes long, which was really amazing to me because it is all in Sanskrit, the older version of Hindi, and neither of my host parents speak it (and my host mother doesn't even speak Hindi!).

Of course, while they singing about the beauty of the universe, the creation of the world, and the unity of everything, we were sitting in a tiny red car, with Ganesha on the dashboard, being honked at, nearly crushed, tapped at, and waved at by a city that is so over-flowing with people it takes an hour and a half to go about 10 miles.