Atman

Well I am so sorry that I have not been on top of my writing – but we’re still in bonding mode over here with new friends and homestay families and I can’t seem to find enough energy to focus of writing. Odd, huh – that Ms. Ferrandino cannot find enough energy… it’s hard when most of you energy is spent on simply trying to live Kolkata. We certainly live life in the fast lane – but not in the normal sense of the phrase. Literally… the fast lane.

But I am not here to dive into my life in Kolkata just yet – I figure I’ll do that in small increments – because I barely can take it in small increments myself. For now, I would just like to share with you a very simple yet profound moment. Immediately after it happened, it was one of those moments that I knew I’d be talking about until I turn 83 – and even then it will have the same emotion as when it first happened.

So a quick background: my volunteer service here in Kolkata is at All Bengal Women’s Union, a NGO for victims of sexual violence. The place offers a home and psychiatric care for women and girls who need it, school for many children of all ages and pasts; and a workshop for women to learn skills to make products to sell on the street. Specifically, myself and two other volunteers prepare for school with the “traumatized” (their word, not mine) girls, ages 7 to 16 (yes, 7); then we teach English in a non-formal classroom then visit with the older women or the nursery for our last hour there. We work from 8 to 12 five days a week.

So on our first day, we enter the girls dormitory and we hear choruses of “Auntie Auntie!!” All in all, it’s the nickname for teachers, but used mostly for us white girls. “Didi” as well, which means ‘older sister’ in Bengali. Immediately upon arrival, they attempt speaking English, which loosely consists only of “Good morning, what is your name?” They know the alphabet and a few food items and emotions – but beyond that, there is little verbal communication. After our miserable attempts at speaking the very little Bengali we know (which consists of “hello” “thank you” and “potato”) the girls ask us to sing American songs. We break out into a rendition of Moulin Rouge’s “Elephant Love Song Medley” which is always entertaining, regardless if one speaks English or not. After laughing at us, one girl takes out her diary and starts to sing us a Bengali song. The rest of the girls wanted to sing too and the diary gets passed around as each girl sings a new song.

Finally, one girl, Ripa, gets the book and points to one song. The owner of the book, Thina (I think) glares at her and hangs her head. Ripa began to sing and all the girls are completely silent and the mood turns somber. I look at Thina – her eyes are staring at the ground in deep thought, the breathing had slowed down. The rest of the girls do the same. Looking back at Thina I realize she is beginning to cry. I have no clue what the song is about, I do not know what this girl has gone through to be 15 years old and in the “traumatized” category of a sexual violence aid programme – all I know is that she is in pain from this song. I grabbed her hand and she fell out of her trance and looked at me. For the rest of the song, I stared at her staring at me watching me cry because she was crying.

We were learning in class later on that day about the different kosa’s of Hinduism. A Kosa is a container, a sheet – its use is to describe the different layers of one’s personality. Our professor described it as one of those Russian dolls, where after opening one doll, the other dolls get smaller and smaller. After going through the layers, he said true bliss, ananda, is when your soul, atman, touches the Soul of the World, God. This bliss, joy and love can occur even when your atman touches the atman of another human.

In that moment – holding the hand of this Bengali girl, who I had just met, mutually crying over something I might not ever know – my atman touched hers.

The girls finished singing the song, and looked up at Thina then looked at me and saw my tears. Without hesitation they attacked me, saying “My God, no sad, no sad, happy!!” wiping my tears from my face. I could not help but laugh. And to think, these girls have lived such scary lives – yet they wipe MY tears? Dear Ganesh their strength is unsurpassable.

These moments need to be tattooed in my memory – for they are the ones I should hold on to for dear life – because it cannot get more wonderful, more beautiful – or more real – than a moment like this.