of travelling and healing…..

When I left pune this September, I was having my asthma. I knew that it was coming before hand as I was in a stressful situation because of what had happened around the FTII mess where I was volunteering for about two years. Had to heal myself soon as had already made plans to go for the organic terrace farming meet with Moonstar and she had come to Pune for it. She also wanted to see what kind of work was happening in sustainable practices in Pune and at the FTII mess.

Had met her when I had last been to Delhi for my niece, chinki’s, wedding. We had talked about the power of community and about her city farming project in Chandigarh. When we were in Navadanya Store the woman managing it seemed a bit flustered as she had too much to do. Moonstar offered to help her with her work. We talked of Non Violent Communication(NVC). Had been to Sanjay’s place and along with Parul, four of us had done lot of cooking. It was a day of community living at its best where things just fell in the right place. Every body was doing some thing or the other. We made breads using ragi which we had bought the same day from the Navdanya store. Parul was always washing the dishes. We even made some bel sharbat and peanut stew. We had chatted and laughed.

My asthma was severe, I couldn’t even talk or climb the stairs. I knew the only way to heal soon was the water fast. Five days of water fasts has worked more than four times for me. I realised that there were still about six more days to take the train to Bangalore. So if I went on a water fast I would still have a day or two to heal before we took the train to Bangalore.

Decided to move out of the institute to a quieter place. Also at the moment I felt that staying at FTII would keep me more under stress. Some how landed to Vanaja and Shirish’s place as Moonstar had to visit them. She had been in touch with Vanaja and wanted to see their rooftop garden and they wanter to meet each other. We went there, while I had begun my fast. That was the first day and I was on lemon shots. My bag was full of lemons and had been taken them all thru the day. Might have taken about 15 that day. I decided to stay on while Moonstar moved on to meet other people whose interest resonated with hers in Pune.

I am fortunate that I have friends who take care of me. It must have been hard for them. My mouth was smelling bad and I couldn’t do much about it. I don’t know why it happened so much this time of my fast. The Asthma and the fast slowed me down, first physically and mentally. But every morning that I got up thoughts came to me about the mess. About the hurt that I felt. However much I thought that I will not think about it, or I tried to convince the triviality of the isse, it didn’t matter. There could be hundred things that are going nice in one’e life but strangely the one thing that doesn’t go right takes so much of our mindspace. Yes, there is always so much good happening. For example I had Vanaja and Shirish to take care of me. I had Guru and Sunaiana who were concerned about me. Moonstar had chosen to come to Pune to travel with me to Bangalore. Urmila was there to support me. Faisal and other people from FTII wanted me to be there for the Iftaar cooking and the party. Nirali had been there to help me work on the zine and design for me, Anmol was also calling me and was concerned. Zalina had written a letter in support of what I was doing andf given it to registrar. Ganesh had also written to me and asked me to share it with others. There were so many people who believed in the worth of what I was doing. So many people who wrote to me after they found out that I was not volunteering at the mess and how things had happened. But still the negative thoughts would win some times. I would think of ‘sthit pragnaya’, not to be too happy when some thing good happens and not to feel bad when some things don’t work out. The lessons I had learnt at Vipasana were not helping me. I was thinking of words like ‘samata’ and ‘anitya’. May be the problem lies in the way we put labels of good and bad. In a way there is no duality of good or bad and one has to accept everything mindfully. One needs to practice that. Or as everything is divine. So many times when things that happen feel good later on we realsie that the same ‘bad’ stuff give such a meaningful direction to one’s life. For example if I hadn’t had my asthma I wouldn’t have embarked on my journey with food and healing. I know that there was a larger purpose in whatever is happening in my life.

I wanted to go out of Pune for some time. My heart is still there in FTII and I wanted to start an intentional café at the Tapri. But I wanted to take a break from Pune. To go and see what all interesting works are happening in the area of food and bring the ideas back to the Tapri. So even though Asthma was not fully healed I decided to move on, spoke to Vinita, who I think has great perspectives on healthy and healing and also runs an alternative bookstore in Calcutta. She has been my guide all along my experiments with healing. I felt that she understood that I really wanted to go and said yes. She said, anyways you would be going by train and not traveling AC….

It was not that easy for me to walk with wheezing. Had the inhaler with me. This time when I fasted for the first two days I was also taking the inhaler as it was getting difficult to sleep. I was worried about taking the puff while fasting. But then I thought that I had taken the puff for more than an year in Bombay and have then got rid of it. I could be gentle to myself as taking the puff meant that I could sleep. I also believe that lot of healing happens when we are asleep. I was remembering Nandita who said a few days ago that children need more sleep because their bodies grow when they are sleeping. During my fast, like always on the third day, I began to throw up. Soon after that more phlegm would come out and my health began to improve. When I was in Bombay a few years ago and suffering from Asthama, no amount of ‘Kadas’ and Sitopladi Churan’s had helped me. But fasting had always worked as a miracle. Had fasted for the first time when I had got an attack of chicken gunia, when I was in Udaipur and I had then too wanted to go to ‘Kabad se Jugad’ meet in Chandigarh and I wanted to be alright for it. I had counted the number of days before the meet and realised that I have five days for the water fast and one day to eat before I took the train to Chandigarh. I was going there to cook for the kabad se jugad meet. Manoj, with whom I have done lot of 'Conscious Kitchen’ work used to come to Manish’s home to make the menu while I was in the bed. It was so bad that I couldn’t even walk to receive my father’s phone call. On the second day I felt better. It was my first water fast. It was guided on phone by Vinita who was in Calcutta while I was in Udaipur. At manish and Vidhi’s house. Once in a while some one offered me food but Manish asked them to not do that and let me be. One thing good about Manish is that he can support the most difficult looking idea. Some times when I describe Shikshantar I say that it’s a place where if I go and say I want to walk upto Europe I am sure I will find some companions.

Coming back to Pune, as I began to walk with Moonstar, out of Sunaiana and Guru’s place to take the train, I took a puff of Asthalin which made me go on. I knew that I had to be off it in a few days.

Had read a book by Susan Weed on Healing. Enjoyed reading it. She talks of three approaches to healing. One is the linear one which is done by the modern medical system. Second is the one where there is lot of abstinence and resistance, which she calls the heroic method and refers to it as a circular one(the fasting kind that I have been doing in the past). The third one is the Wise Woman approach which is like a spiral in which there is more acceptance. It does not believe in torturing the body. One thing that inspired me in her approach was about accepting and living with illness and not to be always fighting it. According to her when illness happens we feel that we are incomplete unless we get rid of the illness totally. She thinks that at times one has to accept to live with illness, just as a blind person lives with their blindness. They find ways to do it, learn Braille, learn to walk in the street, etc. I have carried this idea with me and since then when my asthma attack happens I think if leading my life with it rather than thinking that I will be active only when my body is healed fully. This idea has helped me and I have been able to travel with my asthma.

She or some one else I had read a few days ago also talks about how our body is becoming new all the time. I don’t remember the exact number of days but it said that our blood becomes new every thirty days or so, all the cells of our kidney become new in a few months. Then in that case isn’t it easy to get rid of the illness. For example if our stomach is going to change in a few days then if there is an ulcer wouldn’t it not exist ultimately.

So with that understanding I began my train journey to Bangalore with Moonstar....