The Ripple Effect aka Part Two, Linguistic Linguini

When last we met at “Linguistic Linguini,” the travelers had just begun their hours-long taxi drive to the ashram.

“My son knows the rudiments of the Hindi language and between that and 'international' hand/sign language, can get along fairly well while in India.  Bashir spoke the local language --- Telegu --- and a little bit of Hindi.  During this multiple-hours drive, we were treated not only to lunch at Bashir's house, but to . . .”

a trip back to the early 1920s? 1930s?  Not sure what decade the toilets, kitchens, electrical grids were in, but it was nothing like I’d seen even in my first trip to northern India five years earlier.  But isn’t that the point of both traveling and reading, to go where it’s not like home or something you’ve experienced before or to capture anew that sense of place and being?  And, with the purpose of this trip being a two-week meditation course, the surroundings were ideal:  ashram surrounded by waterfall-laced mountains, forests, lotus ponds; no distractions from electronic communications; delicious food, both Western and Indian; and government-run electricity so erratic that the DefCon-level-4-noise generated (pun intended) by the ashram’s generators soon became almost white noise and a great inducement to go inside, literally and metaphorically, and meditate.

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth is an epic and epic-length depiction of post-colonial India dealing with both Hindu and Muslim families while Mrs. Mehra searches for a suitable boy for marriage to her daughter.  It is a timely and timeless tome on tolerance, families and love while giving one of the best pictures of daily life in India (this from a New Dehli born and raised and 25-year U.S. resident).

In between getting through the 1,500 pages of A Suitable Boy, and to get a non-fiction, part memoir, part travelogue, part reflection, Westerner’s view point, pick up Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Autobiography of a Yogi completes the triumvirate and in its pages, Paramahansa Yogananda, one of the preeminent spiritual figures of the 20^th century, captivates the reader with “an absorbing account of a singular search for truth and a comprehensive introduction to the whole science and philosophy of yoga, revealing the underlying unity of the great religions of East and West.” [back jacket blurb of thirteenth paperback edition 1999]

“Underlying unity” and “great religions of East and West” bring me the perfect segue to this entry’s title, “The Ripple Effect” and its connection to the horrific earthquake and tsunami of March 11. However, just as in Part One of “Linguistic Linguini,” we’ll be interrupted briefly, not by March Madness, but something I like to call, “March Mindfulness.” Meditate on that until we meet for Part Three.