mythology – The Woke Yogi

Death of the Guru

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The Last Lineage Holder

The shala walls are lined with photos. In some, a teenaged boy prays with his family; in others, the same boy, slightly older, demonstrates advanced yoga postures. Many more photos show the man in middle-age, pacing between rows of mats or posing with crowds of smiling students. At the front of the room hangs the largest photo by far, adorned with strings of marigolds and bathed in incense smoke. In old age, the guru smiles down upon his disciples.

Sharath Jois was, until very recently, considered the primary lineage holder, or paramaguru, for the entire Ashtanga yoga tradition. He inherited the lineage from his grandfather, K. Pattabhi Jois, who created and popularized the Ashtanga sequences. Today, Ashtanga is one of the last remaining yoga styles to emphasize guru-śiṣya paramparā (GSP), the ancient South Asian tradition in which knowledge is meticulously passed from guru to disciple in unbroken lineage. It was precisely this tradition that drew me to practice Ashtanga in Mysore: I craved access to the original teachings, supposedly so whole and pure, undiluted by modern interpretation and therefore irrefutably authentic.

But shortly after I received my confirmation to attend classes at Sharath Yoga Centre, mere weeks before I was scheduled to arrive, Sharath Jois passed away. His death was sudden and unexpected, leaving the Ashtanga community reeling. For the first time ever, the lineage was without a paramaguru.

When the news of Guru Ji’s death arrived, many students had already booked their annual trips to Mysore. No one knew what would happen – would the shala close its doors for the season? If so, would it ever reopen? After several weeks rife with speculation, shala staff announced that classes would proceed as scheduled. There would be only one small difference: in lieu of the guru’s teaching, all students were to engage in self-led practice.

This request was not altogether radical given the unique pedagogy of the ashtanga tradition. Even under regular circumstances, all practitioners do self-led or “Mysore-style” practice five days a week. They still go to the shala daily, but rather than following a teacher’s verbal instruction, the students move through a pre-set, memorized sequence at their own pace. The teacher(s) walks around the room to give guidance to students individually. I have found that this teaching style promotes a more meditative experience – without having to listen to the teacher’s cues or worry about what posture comes next, I can focus more deeply on my internal alignment and breath.

In the wake of Guru Ji’s passing, however, the notion of an entirely self-led season seemed only to heighten the uncertainty clouding the ashtanga community. Students were still expected to pay the usual course tuitions – so what incentive did they have to show up at all, let alone practice in good faith? I was skeptical, to say the least. Judging by my own shaky self-discipline, I doubted that anyone would travel all the way to Mysore just to teach themselves.

I could not have been more wrong. When I arrived for my first day of class, dozens of mats were neatly lined up before the altar. The room, though quiet, was animated by movement. Students in the front row contorted themselves into impossible folds, even as those towards the back were just getting warmed up with Sun Salutations. On occasion, students would pause their own practice to give their neighbor hands-on adjustments. Many advanced students lingered in the shala after completing their own practices to assist students who had just begun. It seemed that in the absence of a central authority, the ashtanga community had come together to carry the lineage forward collectively.

Next in Line

What I witnessed in Mysore resonates with sentiments I have heard from many of my respondents in other parts of India. When asked if they follow a particular guru or adhere to a specific lineage, most of my respondents say NO – they favor a self-guided approach to spirituality instead.

One of my respondents, a yoga teacher from Uttarakhand, explained simply: “I’m not following any [gurus]… My journey is my journey. I am following myself.”

Another respondent, a yoga teacher from Gujarat, told me that he wholly disagrees with spiritual seekers who blindly follow their gurus: “They’re sheep!” he exclaimed, shaking his head. “They don’t think for themselves.”

My friend from Rajasthan also confessed that he’s wary of trusting any one spiritual leader. “These gurus or these ‘God-men—” (he paused to shudder at the word), “—they aren’t always right. It’s best to learn from many different people and come to your own conclusions.”

Even my aunt, a devout Hindu from West Bengal who studied under a guru for decades, warned me about spiritual authorities who claim to be enlightened. “Always do your own research,” she instructed me. “Anyone can say that they know the truth about the universe, but it’s just their interpretation of the truth.”

Their responses shocked me. Prior to starting my fieldwork, I expected to find a thriving culture of gurus and ‘God-men’ in India; I imagined that strict lineage-based practices would be the standard, offering a simple way to distinguish Indian yoga from its bastardized Western counterparts. Evidently, such a clear distinction does not exist. Modern yoga practitioners around the world reject the possibility of an all-knowing guru – and many distrust gurus at large. Even Ashtanga, the lineage that I have always perceived as unconditionally guru-centric, seems to function just fine without its foremost figure.

Is the Guru Dead for Good?

And if so, what has prompted the passing of this age-old tradition? Perhaps we are simply seeing the global trend towards individualism play out on the yogic stage. People around the world crave more privacy and self-determination than ever before, and their dwindling sense of co-dependence renders the guru obsolete. Alternatively, we might blame the explosive growth of the virtual yoga industry. In the past, spiritual seekers had to leave their hometowns or even their home countries to identify suitable teachers. Now, hundreds of yoga influencers offer digestible tidbits for the modern yogi on every social media platform. Even the most charismatic gurus cannot compete with the convenience of discovering God in your living room.

More insidiously, the past several decades have seen a string of scandals around yoga gurus, revealing just how fraught the entire guru-disciple complex is. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, Guru Satyananda Saraswati of Yoga Nidra was investigated for child sexual abuse, and in 1991, Integral Yoga guru Satchitananda Saraswati made headlines for molesting his students. Bikram Chowdhury, creator of Bikram Yoga, accumulated five sexual assault-related lawsuits by 2014, to say nothing of his brazen capitalistic corruption. The #MeToo movement in 2017 spurred a new onslaught of allegations, with Ashtanga’s Pattabhi Jois and Kundalini Yoga’s Yogi Bhajan joining the list of sexual offenders. Just last year, Sadhguru of Isha Yoga Centre became embroiled in international controversy amid accusations of brainwashing and spiritual coercion. The regularity of these scandals suggests not just a few bad apples but an institutionalized pattern of abuse. Modern yogis have no choice but to question the power dynamics inherent within guru-led communities – and wonder whether guru-śiṣya paramparā is even worth preserving.

Abandoning this ancient education model isn’t without costs, of course. Gurus offer a structured yet personalized approach to spirituality. They inspire and empower their students, serving to motivate consistent practice and hold students accountable for their own improvement. Most importantly, gurus protect their students from harm. In postural yoga, gurus ensure proper alignment and physical safety, while in spiritual contexts, they guide students through practices that are mentally challenging and sometimes even psychologically dangerous. For example, many yogis believe that some Kundalini yoga exercises can induce psychosis; therefore, aspiring practitioners of Kundalini are urged to only practice under the supervision of a learned guru.

In my view, however, the cultural shift away from GSP aligns with the core yogic ethic of radical introspection. Traditionally, gurus have been glorified as sacred sources of knowledge; they were revered as spiritual guides or teachers, loved as parents, or even worshipped as gods. Yet, yoga scriptures teach us that we are one and the same with God; we already carry divine wisdom within ourselves, and rather than deifying other people, we need only look inward to discover it. Yoga trains us to tune in to our inner teachers. Given this framing, it makes perfect sense that modern yogis trust their own intuitions over those of external authorities. This mindset is even encouraged by the classical yogic texts!

Moreover, the guru’s declining popularity makes space for a more inclusive, democratic yoga tradition. After all, gurus are, first and foremost, gatekeepers of knowledge. Their preeminence in South Asian spiritual circles has historically made it difficult for many demographics, such as women and low-caste individuals, to access yoga. But yoga itself is not exclusionary – it is a tool for collective liberation! When we relinquish our fidelity to the all-knowing, infallible guru, we may begin to distribute power more equitably between teachers and students. We can welcome yoga practitioners of all backgrounds and encourage them to cultivate self-reliance and self-confidence, thereby modeling yoga not just in the teachings we offer but in the very way we transmit them.

Ashtanga clearly lives on, despite the death of its guru. If my observations are any consolation, you can trust that gurus do NOT singlehandedly sustain their lineages. That duty is held by students, preserving their yogic traditions through the profound act of practice. Certainly, the coming months will pose new questions and challenges as the Ashtanga community begins to chart a way forward in Guruji’s absence. But personally, I can’t wait to see where the lineage goes next.

Sorting Science from Superstition

The Curse of the Monkey Skull

Shadows descended over Tali Forest in the early afternoon, the sun dappled by tall rhododendron thickets and cut mountain creases to the west. My trek leaders spoke in hushed tones of Himalayan superstitions: of birds who cry like children and fairies that dance in the wake of death. As we hiked up the mountain, I teased them for their childish ghost stories. But when we arrived at our campsite, a shiver crawled down my spine. The clearing was littered with dried bones.

Eerie though it was, I was delighted to stumble upon a monkey skull at the edge of the woods – nearly intact, with a half set of teeth.

Such a unique souvenir! I thought to myself as I gingerly wrapped the oddity in layers of plastic and cloth.

My delight quickly faded, however, when I became violently ill later that evening. The hiking had been tough on my body, and at 13,000 feet above sea level, I struggled to recover. Although I’ve spent my lifetime living at high altitudes, that night, for the first time, I was struck by acute mountain sickness (AMS).

The following morning, after a long, miserable night in my tent, a fellow trekker pulled me aside:

“Hey, I know this sounds out there, but legend says you should never remove anything from these woods… lest you fall sick…”

My eyes flickered to my daypack beside me, which contained my prized monkey skull. Without him saying as much, I knew exactly what he meant: I’d return that skull if I were you.

He was right – it was out there. So why was I immediately inclined to believe his superstitious explanation? All my symptoms pointed to altitude sickness, and yet, that clinical diagnosis sat uneasily in my gut. I didn’t want to believe that my body was succumbing to the harsh demands of high elevation. In my moment of vulnerability, the notion that I had fallen victim to a monkey spirit’s curse flooded me with understanding, even relief. I’m not weak or out of shape, I reassured myself, I just angered the forest’s patrons.

My feverish imaginings of a vengeful primate seemed to soothe my throbbing head and roiling stomach. It was dubious, implausible, but this supernatural story allowed me to make sense of my condition. It lent mystical meaning to a memory otherwise marred by discomfort and disorientation. Most importantly, it shifted the blame off my own shoulders – admittedly, I had neglected the cardio regimen that was, evidently, necessary for acclimatization.

There’s no doubt that modern medicine offered me something more pragmatic, more actionable than did Himalayan legend. None of our trek leaders knew how to reverse a curse, but we had medics on hand to treat AMS. My trekking cohort took it upon themselves to cure me with electrolyte packets, Acetazolamide capsules, and plenty of fresh water. Indeed, by the next day, I felt well enough to walk myself back down the mountain.

As I arrived back at base camp, flushed with pride and accomplishment, I began to wonder: Must we forgo empiricism to accept esotericism? Can science and spirituality coexist? It was hard to deny that medical intervention had saved my ass, and yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had been called into the woods for a paranormal purpose. I had brawled with the forces of the forest and emerged none the worse, albeit with a newfound faith in the local people’s fables.

Shadows of Scientific Certainty

In a previous post, I wrote about how spiritual people are particularly prone towards pseudoscience. In their belief of biblical genesis, for example, Evangelical Christians often belie evolutionary science. Moreover, we all know an *astrology girly* who dismisses medical innovations as mere harbingers of the Aquarian Age. I once attended a workshop in Boulder on traditional breath and bodywork practices, ranging from reiki to yoga to chakra massage. One of the sessions, ominously titled “The Truth About COVID-19,” turned out to be a fervid condemnation of vaccines (in hindsight, maybe I should have seen that one coming…).

Before we write these conspiracies off, we must consider that for lay people, belief in science often requires just as much blind faith as spirituality. If NASA says that there is life on Mars, most ordinary people have no way to fact-check their claims. We possess neither the resources nor the know-how to conduct such experiments. We must simply take astrophysicists at their word, trusting that these mysterious elites, with their lofty credentials and their top-secret security clearances, are feeding us the truth about the universe.

The scientific method is grounded in evidence and transparency, to be fair. Peer-reviewed journals exist to substantiate all the discoveries that take place behind closed doors. But most of these publications are inaccessible to the general public. Scientific knowledge is hidden behind paywalls and buried in jargon, to the extent that even exceptionally resourceful individuals struggle to discern what humankind already knows to be true. You can imagine how certain populations might grow suspicious of science, especially when our education systems discourage us from questioning its authority. Think critically about everything, we tell our children, except science. That stuff has already been proven in ways that you don’t and might never understand.

Of course, scientists get things wrong every day. They work with existing information to develop theories, which other scholars then corroborate and modify and yes, often disprove. Our collective understanding of reality is ever evolving, but that doesn’t mean scientists are lying or incompetent or power-hungry. It simply means that they’re human. Scientists dedicate their lives to the pursuit of knowledge, and we must trust that their specialized expertise is superior to our feeble skills with Google.

Not everyone has that kind of trust. Just as I hesitated to concede my AMS diagnosis, many people refute science for reasons both personal and systemic. And who can blame them? To believe in science is to accept that fallible humans, who attempt to answer ethically fraught questions amidst a slew of competing financial and political interests, should dictate our perceptions of existence. By contrast, it seems a whole lot easier to believe in God.

Spirituality offers a way for common people to comprehend the inaccessible and oftentimes imperceptible findings of modern science. It is in our nature to seek answers about our surroundings; without access to peer-reviewed publications or the education to understand them, alternative explanations will inevitably arise. Long-lost legends and far-fetched fairytales are a means for us to grapple with the order of the cosmos and our place within it. They allow us to find solace, even comfort, in chaos.

Conclusions: On Coexistence

Two things can be true at once. Perhaps I came down with acute mountain sickness because I removed a monkey skull from the jungle. My willingness to indulge superstitions need not undermine my fundamental belief in science and its evidence-backed explanations of natural phenomena. When we accept that science and spirituality can coexist, we can begin to disentangle our faith from the pseudoscientific discourses that turn our spiritual practices into dangerous tools of misinformation and propaganda. We can work towards a more informed future, even while acknowledging the forces that may forever remain beyond the scope of scientific inquiry.

As for the monkey skull, I kept it! It was far too rare a find to return. My spooky souvenir now sits on my shelf as a reminder that belief is a spectrum — science salvaged my health, but superstition made my trek unforgettable. I have since identified the skull as belonging to a Hanuman Langur (Latin name: Semnopithecus).

If there was ever a curse upon my head, well, I suppose it was short lived. I made a full recovery after my bout with AMS and have since remained in good health. I certainly intend to take altitude training more seriously next time, but allow my story to reassure you: superstitions carry only the power that you give them.

On the Eve of Feminine Rage

2.13

अतुलंतत्रतत्तेजः सर्वदेवशरीरजम् ।

एकस्थंतदभून्नारीव्याप्तलोकत्रयंत्विषा ।

“Unequaled light, born from the bodies of all the [male] gods, coalesced into a female form and pervaded the three worlds with its splendor.”

2.32

अन्यैरपिसुरैर्देवीभूषणैरायुधैस्तथा ।

सम्मानिताननादोच्चैः साट्टहासंमुहुर्मुहुः ।

“Honored also by the other gods with adornments and weapons, the Devī [Goddess] laughed thunderously and defiantly again and again.”

2.33

तस्यानादेनघोरेणकृत्स्नमापूरितंनभः ।

अमायतातिमहताप्रतिशब्दोमहानभूत ।

“She filled the entire sky with Her terrible roar, and from the immeasurable din a great echo resounded.”

2.34

चुक्षुभुः सकलालोकाः समुद्राश्चचकम्पिरे ।

चचालवसुधाचेलुः सकलाश्चमहीधराः ।

“All the worlds shook, and the oceans churned. The earth quaked, and the mountains heaved.”

3.28

इतिक्रोधसमाध्मातमापतन्तंमहासुरम् ।

दृष्टवासाचण्डिकाकोपंतद्वधायतदाकरोत ।

“When She saw the great asura approaching, inflated with rage, Candikā aroused Her wrath and prepared to slay him.”

3.34

ततः क्रुद्धाजगन्माताचण्डिकापानमुत्तमम् ।

पपौपुनः पुनश्चैवजहासारुणलोचना ।

“Angered, Candikā, the Mother of the worlds, drank a divine potion, and with eyes reddened She laughed again and again”

3.37

देव्युवगच ।

“The Devī said:”

3.38

गर्जगर्जक्षणंमूढमधुयावत्पिबाम्यहम् ।

मयात्वयिहते’ त्रैवगर्जिष्यन्त्याशुदेवताः ।

‘Bellow, you fool, bellow for now while I drink this potion. After I have slain you, the gods will cheer in this very place.’

3.40

एवमुक्त्वासमुत्पत्यसारूढातंमहासुरम् ।

पादेनाक्रम्यकण्ठेचशूलेनैनमताडयत् ।

“Having declared that, She leapt upon the great asura, pinned his neck down with Her foot, and pierced him through with Her spear.”

– The Devī Mahātmyam

Full text here. Transliteration & translation here.

The Goddess arrived in Kolkata on the morning of October 10^th, her ten delicate hands dyed red with alta as they brandished the gods’ weapons. Joyfully she comes year after year to the capitol city of West Bengal, India, where the city’s residents build thousands of clay murtis (idols) to honor her many forms. Brahmin priests invite Her spirit with Sanskrit chants and clamorous drums, methodically consecrating the murtis so that Maa Durga may reside among us.

For Bengalis, Durga Puja is the climax of the year. The Divine Mother’s presence on earth is tangible: an exuberant energy that compels us to don our finest outfits and dance in the streets. The entire city is transformed with colorful LED panels, pop-up fuchka stalls, wandering balloon vendors, and advertising billboards. Each neighborhood crafts elaborate pandals: temporary structures that house Devī murtis in every shape and style.

On the final day of the festival, devotees lovingly immerse their idols in the holy Ganges River, disintegrating them. They release the Goddess from her mortal form, and with melancholic praise, they bid Her farewell until next year.

Yet, this year, beneath the din of festive music, devotional mantras, and friendly chatter, a dissonant thrum builds to a crescendo. A wrathful chorus of wails, issued by a growing mob. They have gathered in the streets to demand justice.

Two months prior to Durga Maa’s well-anticipated arrival, Kolkata was rocked by the discovery of a female doctor’s lifeless body in the seminar hall of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. The young woman was found naked and bleeding from her genitals, mouth and eyes. Despite blatant evidence of a brutal rape and murder, the case was initially declared a suicide by the hospital’s president, who has since been accused of conspiring with local police to destroy evidence. It would seem that he is not the only one to have obstructed the investigation – for while the autopsy report clearly indicates multiple perpetrators, federal authorities continue to insist that one conviction is enough.

This crime and its subsequent mishandling have sparked protests across India. Protesters – largely women – have raised questions as to the structures of power within the hospital and within India at large that enable these horrific abuses. Indeed, this incident, as harrowing as it is, is not altogether unfamiliar. The 2024 events at RG Kar harken back to the 2012 Nirbhaya case – involving the gang-rape and fatal assault of a physiotherapy intern on a Delhi bus – which likewise drew international attention to the alarming trend of gender-based violence in India.

Across the country, nearly 100 cases of rape are reported each DAY – to say nothing of the countless acts of sexual violence that go unreported. Due to the slim chances of conviction and the pervasive stigma against women’s sexuality, published statistics only convey a fraction of the dangers faced by Indian women. India is plagued by sexual assault, domestic violence, female infanticides, dowry deaths, and honor killings. And despite its ancient history of Goddess worship, India remains the most dangerous country in the world for women.

Herein lies the problem with ancient Indic scriptures, written always by men and for men: Śakti, the cosmic feminine force, is thought to animate our reality – and yet this power may only be cultivated and controlled by men. Woman’s life is given by man, and it is forever liable to be taken by man as well. How is it that men reserve the right to desecrate the body of the Holy Mother, be she doctor, intern, or else, even as they consecrate her form sculpted from clay? How can those very same men claim to venerate the Divine Feminine while they beat and batter women, leaving them to die excruciating deaths on street sides and in seminar halls?

Perhaps what we need now is not reverence for the Goddess, but rather unbridled fear. When She bares her teeth to issue an earth-shattering roar, men should not bow but cower. They should tremble and beg for Maa Durga’s mercy, knowing that they have not done enough to keep Her daughters safe.

In her last moments on earth, a young woman at RG Kar was made to cry tears of blood. This Durga Puja, she returns to Kolkata in the form of the Great Goddess, her eyes blazing red with unfettered rage. Through the clay idols of Devī, through the sorrowful shouts of every woman who has ever known pain, she will exact her revenge. She, and we, will know justice by her sacrifice.

Let us arouse our wrath in service of our fallen sister, a promising young medic who had so much of her life ahead of her. Like Mahadevī, her life was designed and dissolved at the hands of men – taken too soon by a system that treats female bodies as less than male desires. May the oceans churn and may the mountains heave with the force of our rage and terrible grief, which we offer unto the world so that our daughters may live in a kinder world than do we. After we have slain this demon of our modern times – this violent, senseless patriarchy – we will not wait for the gods to cheer. We will laugh defiantly again and again, reclaiming our śakti as our own.

Join the Fight:

Donate to Parichiti, a Kolkata-based women’s group that works towards gender equity by empowering women AND educating men.
Donate to MAVA (Men Against Violence and Abuse), an outreach organization dedicated to dismantling violent and patriarchal modes of socialization among young men.
Donate to Swayam, a feminist NGO committed to advancing women’s rights and ending gender-based violence.
Spread awareness about gender-based violence and injustices in India – even if you don’t live here. International visibility is highly effective in catalyzing social change.
Advocate for legal and social accountability – both the perpetrators of violent crimes and the bureaucrats who cover them up must be brought to justice.
Talk to your male friends & family members about what they can do to protect women. Gender-based violence is NOT only women’s problem to solve.

Tourists in Tiger Territory

The morning air in Basanti was warm, with smog draped over the pink-orange sunrise like a thick layer of grey chiffon. After a 2-hour drive southeast from my Dadu Ji’s (granddad’s) house in Kolkata, we had reached the far edges of the state of West Bengal and indeed the outer borders of the country of India, but we had not yet escaped the ring of air pollution that surrounds the city center.

The streets of Basanti town were abuzz with shopkeepers preparing their wares, mother cows bellowing to their young, and tropical birds cheerfully singing the tunes for which they were named: papiha (Common Hawk-Cuckoo), kokila (Asian Koel), kowah (Crow). Their songs were underscored by the incessant thrumming of mosquitoes, menacing man and animal alike as they flitted in search of their next victims. Mosquitoes, I believe, were put on this planet to humble humans — after all, their mere presence reduces us from power-hungry predators to paltry prey.

We unloaded our car briskly, swatting the air vigorously all the while, then made our way to the waterside, where a sign welcomed us:

Sundarbans National Park & Tiger Reserve

A boat and its crew awaited us at the dock: the Delta Queen, captained by a majestically mustached man named Mrittunjoy. The Delta Queen was our ticket into the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest situated within the world’s largest river delta. Spanning two countries (India and Bangladesh) and nearly 4,000 square miles, this region boasts a wide range of flora and fauna, with over 200 bird species alone. But the jungle, we were told, was full of terrible dangers—ranging from tree roots to tigers to territorial bees – and thus the water was the safest place for us to observe its biodiversity.

Mangrove trees are unique in that they have aerial roots or “breathing roots” that grow up and out of the water-logged soil. This incredible adaptation has enabled mangroves to thrive in extremely harsh, saline environments; however, these breathing roots are also very sharp and hazardous for land-dwellers.

Just as the sun began to peek out from behind its ashen curtain, the Delta Queen embarked on its 3-day journey into the Sundarbans Delta, where the sacred Ganges River empties into the Bay of Bengal. Mrittunjoy had a keen eye for spotting birds, and he promptly began to point out Kingfishers concealed in masses of mangrove roots. He soliloquized about the species of the Sundarbans; about the sea and its stringent saltiness; about the sweets that might be served at snack-time. Within only a few hours, we had seen deer, monitor lizards, birds of prey, and hundreds of mudskippers along the canal shores.

This amazing shot of a Black-Capped Kingfisher was captured by my incredibly talented uncle, Partha Pratim Saha. You can check out more of his photography on his Instagram and website.

Then, in the late afternoon, as our boat wove down a wider waterway, my sister leapt up from her seat and pointed excitedly towards land. I craned my neck, hoping to catch a glimpse of an elusive Bengal tiger. Instead, I saw…

A woman. She balanced a pot on her head as she retreated from the riverbank, the pleats of her sari swaying in time with her gait. I squinted at this sight, struggling to see what had attracted my sister’s attention.

“People live out here?” my sister asked in awe.

Despite the dangers advertised to us, people do in fact live out there: 4.5 million on the Indian side and even more in Bangladesh. Much of the Sundarbans is protected as a nature reserve, but this region is still one of the most densely populated in the world. The fertile floodplains surrounding the delta are ideal for agricultural production, and there are small fishing villages on the islands within the delta. These settlements are simple and extremely rural, sometimes only accessible by boat.

Discomfort settled over me as I realized that we had been observing these villagers with unabashed scrutiny, just as we had been observing the flora and the fauna. They’re not here for my viewing pleasure, I scorned myself. Yet, I couldn’t tear my eyes away. The sight of this woman was jarring, I realized, because her life was so necessarily attuned and inextricably tethered to the patterns of the earth: the comings and goings of the rains, the cycles of the moon, the ebbs and flows of the tide. Every morning, while I stumble to my bathroom and turn on the tap, this woman carries a pot down to the riverside and fetches her water straight from the Sundarbans Delta. Though united by our shared humanity, I couldn’t help but feel species away from her, as distant as I felt from the exotic Kingfishers.

Over the remainder of our jungle cruise, Mrittunjoy pointed out local fishing boats and informed us about the villagers’ practices of collecting honey from wild rock bees. He explained that the locals fish the delta from June to December, then pause all fishing activities and collect honey between March and May to ensure sustainable harvesting practices. As he continued to intersperse facts about the local people’s customs with his commentary on cobras and crocodiles, my unease grew. I became acutely aware of the separation between us and them; between our tour boat and the Sundarbans – their home.

Indeed, from the safety of our tour boat, it was all too easy to view these villagers as another species altogether; to assume that they are somehow less susceptible to the forecasted dangers of the Sundarbans simply by virtue of surviving there everyday. This is not the case. The villagers enter the jungle at their own peril, for tiger attacks are common. Yet, they have no choice; aquaculture and beekeeping are the only ways for them to make a living. In this way, the villagers are equal contributors to the Sundarbans ecosystem; they survive on the offerings of the jungle, at any time prone to becoming offerings themselves – whether to tigers or to mosquitoes. Sometimes predators, sometimes prey, these villagers remind us that humans are but one species acting within complex, multi-species ecosystems. They challenge the illusion that humans are always, unequivocally, at the top of the food chain.

Some more breathtaking captures of the Sundarbans food chain by my uncle, Partha Pratim Saha.

But then, if the villagers are prey, what is it that seeks to predate them? Is it really the tigers, prowling innocently in search of their next meal? Or is it the tour companies that ferry paying foreigners out by the dozens, predatory in their promise of ‘exotic experiences’ at the expense of ecological peace? These tour companies are required to hold permits, and they are (in theory) regulated by strict legislation. But the laws prohibiting pollution are not enforced – I personally witnessed a great deal of waste during our three days onboard the Delta Queen. Though I remained firmly on the boat, I was drawn into this larger socio-political ecosystem of the Sundarbans, animated not by waters and winds but by neoliberal greed and corruption. We may have been safe from the jungle, but the jungle was not safe from us.

In climate change discourse, humans are usually positioned against nature — and for good reason! Humans have too often exploited nature’s balance to our gain. However, I reject the notion that humans are always and can only ever be antagonistic forces on nature. As we see in the Sundarbans, humans can be protectors and stewards of their lands; they, too, can contribute to ecological balance. We need only to remember that we are – despite our daily differences – the same species as the villagers of the Sundarbans. We are products of our environments, not just polluters of them.

Though protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the fragile brackish ecosystem of the Sundarbans is extremely vulnerable to climate change, and many of its inhabitant species are endangered—including humans!! Rising salinity levels, coastline erosion, cyclones, and floods threaten to disrupt the precarious natural balance of the Sundarbans and displace the millions of people who live there, triggering an environmental refugee crisis. We cannot allow this to happen!

Climate change is NOT inevitable OR irreversible.

We are ALL a part of this global ecosystem, and we all stand to benefit by saving it.

If you are interested in learning more about the Sundarbans, or if you’d like to donate in support of its inhabitants, please visit the links below:

Read about/ see maps of the Sundarbans UNESCO World Heritage Site

Read Misreading the Bengal Delta by Camelia Dewan

Donate to the Sundarban Foundation to support tiger victims and other humans in the Sundarbans through medical aid, employment, and education.

Donate to The Canopy Project Sundarbans to support environmental conservation and restoration.

Donate to AID India to support natural disaster relief and climate resilience infrastructure.

Photo by Partha Pratim Saha

A Meditation on Yoga

“Inhale, arrive on your mat.”

It was my very first yoga class, and I was there because I aspired to touch my toes.

“Exhale, shiiiiine your love outward like a rainbooowwww,” the Lululemon-clad instructor crooned, “and remember: yoga is whatever you make it!”

Throughout the 18^th and 19^th centuries, westerners viewed yoga as an esoteric tradition: practiced on the fringes of orthodox Indic societies by magicians and priests; shrouded in superstition. But when Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda spoke about yoga at the 1893 World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, and when the physical fitness revival of the early 20th century swept the globe, yoga exploded into the mainstream. Hindu nationalists hailed yoga with a newfound vigor, touting its indigenous character. New Age hippies were equally enamored; since the 1950s, yoga studios have popped up around the globe, attracting celebrities from Marilyn Monroe to Adam Levine, while brands like Alo Yoga and prAna have seized the athleisure market. Suddenly, yoga is no longer a secretive lineage from the ‘exotic East,’ but a popular fad – a stretching routine. Yoga is…just exercise?

“Inhale, stay.”

I closed my eyes and an ethereal sitar tune began to play, transporting me to the Indian subcontinent of millennia past.

The earliest known definition of yoga appears in India’s oldest text, the Rig Veda, dated 1500 to 1000 BCE. In these ritual prescriptions, yoga means ‘to yoke’ or ‘to connect;’ it is the action of harnessing a horse to a war chariot, therein submitting the horse to the charioteer’s will. Several centuries later, in the Upaniṣadic texts, yoga became a series of exercises for one to restrict the body and discipline the mind, usually as a means to seek metaphysical power or attain mystical union with god. The 3rd century BCE Kaṭha Upaniṣad asserted that yoga is “firm restraint of the senses.” As one harnesses a horse to a chariot, yoga harnesses the mind to the body. I was starting to understand this form of torture self-restraint as the instructor reminded me to return to my breath, even though we had been sitting criss-cross-applesauce forever and I couldn’t feel my feet. Whether the goal is to commune with the cosmos or simply to condition your quads, yoga is control.

“Exhale, downward dog!”

I pressed myself up, relieved to distract my mind, only to discover a new kind of fatigue igniting in my legs and shoulders. My body began to shake, and I fought the urge to collapse back to the ground. Evidently, yoga is as mental as it is physical. In the Bhagavad Gita, the god Krishna tells royal warrior Arjuna that yoga is “skill in action.” He commands Arjuna to be a yogi to fulfill his divine duty–of slaughtering his own family on the battlefield. Like Arjuna, I failed to see the purpose of my excruciating position, and like Krishna, my teacher was strangely militant about demonstrating yogic willpower – albeit through core workouts, not holy war. Yoga, then, is the discipline to do what you may not want to; the patience to serve a greater good that you may not yet understand. Yoga is control.

“Inhale, three-leg dog!”

The room burst into a silent symphony of swaying limbs. The yogis around me contorted themselves into incomprehensible shapes, touching their toes in a thousand ways that I never thought possible. The teacher rattled off foreign words: śvānāsana, añjaneyāsana, uttānāsana…

Āsana means “seat” or “posture,” and it is one technique by which yogis discipline their bodies in pursuit of spiritual power. Around 200 CE, āsana appeared as the third precept in the Yoga Sutra, an aphoristic text on yoga philosophy. At that time, however, the list of āsanas was limited to those suitable for seated meditation: sukhāsana, padmāsana, and vajrāsana. It wasn’t until much later, in the 13th century Haṭhapradīpikā, that āsana was elevated to a foremost priority. The Haṭhapradīpikā codified 84 total postures, and furthermore recommended bandhas (muscular locks), mudrās (gestures), dṛṣṭis (gazing points) and prāṇāyāmas (breath restraint techniques) to train and constrain the body. Yoga is control.

“Exhale, warrior two!”

The pace of class quickened, and the postures began to flow together, fast and fluid.

“Inhale, reverse triangle!”

The music intensified, matching the rhythmic pulse of breaths in unison.

“Exhale, extended side angle!”

A bead of sweat dripped off my forehead.

“Inhale, half-moon!”

My feet hurt. My breath burned in my throat. I wanted very badly to be done.

“Exhale, chaturanga dandasana!”

Really? Push-ups? I thought this was supposed to be relaxing.

“Inhale. Pause.”

I laid down on my back. The sensation of movement lingered in my tissues as my breath slowed.

In the Yoga Sutra, āsana is merely a step taken to prepare oneself for samādhi: a pure state of meditative consciousness. Yoga is citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ: “the stilling of the turnings of the mind.”

“Exhale. Rest.”

I dropped into śavāsana: the pose of the corpse. The air in the studio quieted. My body softened, my mind stilled. For a time, I was neither sensing nor sleeping, but simply experiencing. Yoga is the absence of sensory intake; both this moment of uncanny stillness and every moment that builds up to it. First, yoga is just exercise, and then it is control. But ultimately, yoga is surrender.

A Visionary Experience

“Organic…wheatgrass…smoothie stand…” I muttered to myself, my breath hitching as I trotted along the uneven dirt path. I had been walking for maybe 20, max 25 minutes. The journey wasn’t long, but I didn’t exactly know where I was going, and after twenty-some minutes alone with my own thoughts, I began to wonder if I had already passed my destination. I peered over my shoulder and saw the same stretch of road I had just walked. No smoothie stand. It must be further ahead, then, I thought, and kept walking.

“Smoothies…organic smoothies…”

I wasn’t craving a smoothie. No, I wasn’t really looking for the smoothie stand at all. Rather, I was seeking what lay behind the smoothie stand; an elusive treasure promised to me by a stranger…

I had arrived in Tulum the night before, with only my yoga mat and a small backpack in tow. For the three weeks prior, I had been living with a Mexican host family in Merida.

The bus ride between the two Yucatecan cities was a few short hours, but transportation delays and my own neglect to consider time differences caused me to nearly miss the check-in window at my hostel. Luckily, the staff at “Mama’s Home” took pity on me.

After a good night’s rest in my shared dormitory, I woke early, intent on making the most of my weekend in Tulum. Mama’s Home Hostel served delicious homemade breakfasts every morning!

Mama’s Home was in the heart of town, but the locals insisted that I check out the beach. So, on my first visit to Mexico’s East coast, I boarded a local bus. The beach in Tulum is lined with resorts, boutiques, cafes, and art installations; I took my time meandering along the street and observing the city’s unique aesthetic.

It was during this wander that I first encountered the work of Daniel Popper, a 3D-multimedia artist who specializes in larger-than-life feminine statues. After this trip, I sought out Daniel Popper’s astonishing works at music festivals, a conservatory in Vegas, and a pop-up exhibit in a Chicago arboretum.

This installation served as my gateway to the white sand beaches of Tulum, and I stepped through the statue’s heart space towards my first glimpse of the Caribbean Sea. Almost immediately, I was greeted by a spritely vendor with a massive load of fresh coconuts.

“Veinte pesos!” he offered, and I couldn’t resist. I watched with glee as he picked out my coconut and hacked off the top with his machete. He plopped a straw into the hole, handed it to me, and quickly took off down the coast, his coconuts clanging cacophonously as his feet plodded against the sand. I settled into a resort chair—though I wasn’t a paying guest, no one seemed to mind my presence—and sipped the sweet coconut water.

After my refreshment break, I set off down the beach in search of a yoga studio. Tulum is notorious among Western yogis for its selection of top-tier yoga classes and instructors, so I was eager to check out the scene for myself. Indeed, I found several options within a half-mile stretch, ranging from sound baths to Yoga Nidra to Kundalini. I eventually opted for a familiar offering: slow vinyasa flow. The studio was breathtaking: a free-standing room on the beach with floor to ceiling glass windows and a pristine view of the ocean. I was the first to arrive, and I enjoyed the ambience for several minutes in blissful solace.

When the class time rolled around, the instructor appeared to let me know that I was the only one enrolled! We chatted for a bit before beginning my inadvertent private lesson. I was surprised to learn that my yoga teacher was not from the Yucatan Peninsula, nor would she be showcasing a unique Tulum style of yoga—rather, she had grown up and completed her yoga training in California. Nonetheless, her class provided exactly what I had been craving: a dynamic yet gentle sequence of postures and transitions, enhanced by the sound of waves lapping against the shore.

After savasana, I thanked the instructor, and we shared tidbits from our respective teacher trainings. I learned that she, like me, had traveled to Tulum in her early 20’s and fallen in love with the slow-paced, ethereal atmosphere. When her husband received an offer to relocate for work, she was all too happy to leave her life in the States and open her own studio in Quintana Roo. Our conversation eventually lulled, and I prepared to bid her farewell. As I rolled up my mat, though, I hesitated. I had an inquiry for her, though I did not know whether she would have an answer for me. Worse: I did not know whether my inquiry might be seen as tacky or even offensive. I chewed my lip for a moment, contemplating. Finally:

“Do you know where I might find a plant medicine ceremony?”

I expected a grimace, an eyeroll, or a gasp, but I received no such response. Instead, the instructor paused for a moment, deep in thought, and then said,

“Try the organic wheatgrass smoothie stand.”

So, that’s how I ended up on the roadside, clinging desperately to a blind faith in my yoga instructor’s vague directions. This was a new experience for me, and I had known coming in that I wouldn’t find a clear list of options on Tripadvisor. Even still, I was a bit unsettled by the prospect of approaching a random smoothie vendor and asking them for mind-altering drugs. Would they scorn me? Would they laugh? Would they turn me into the local authorities? I truly had no idea what to expect.

At the ripe age of twenty-one, I was no stranger to the world of psychoactive substances. I grew up in Colorado, where recreational cannabis was legalized just after my 14^th birthday. By the time I went to study abroad in Mexico, I was a certified psychonaut, but I had never undergone a psychedelic experience with a guide, save for the rare occasions when my roommate happened to be home and offered, jokingly, to be my “trip sitter.” I was, as drug users go, quite responsible; I was careful to always assess the risks of each substance, measure my dose meticulously, and prepare a safe setting in the event of a bad trip. I had never seen a need for a guide. However, I had journeyed to Tulum seeking a spiritual release, and I knew that this city would be the perfect place to dip my toes into the waters of sacramental drug use.

After another ten minutes of walking aimlessly, I encountered the first marker of my destination: a hand-painted wooden sign with the words “Vegan Organic Wheatgrass Smoothies.” The smoothie stand itself was only a few meters off the road, a quaint wooden hut with a roof of dried palm fronds, nestled within a lush garden of tropical plants. I approached hesitantly, still not knowing what or how to ask for what I desired. Luckily, I didn’t have to—a middle-aged Mexican woman behind the bar flashed me a comforting smile and handed me a menu. Internally, I facepalmed—duh, I should order something, I thought to myself. In feeble Spanish, I informed the woman about my vegetarianism and asked for her recommendation. She pointed to one of the specials, barbecue jackfruit tacos, and I nodded eagerly in agreement.

Within minutes, the woman had served me a stunning plate of plant-based tacos, complete with freshly squeezed orange juice and their house salsa. This meal was a welcome sight, for I had already learned that Mexican cuisine is not the most vegetarian friendly. Back in Merida, I had repeatedly told my host mom “no como carne!” (“I don’t eat meat!”), only for her to serve me ham sandwiches and arroz con pollo. She was such a gracious host that I was happy to eat whatever she offered me, but I was incredibly grateful to finally have some animal-free dietary options.

As I savored my meal, I basked in the beauty of the surrounding garden and worked up the nerve to ask for what I had come for. At last:

“Do you know where I could find a plant medicine ceremony?” I gulped my orange juice nervously, awaiting her response.

“Ah, si,” she replied immediately. “Go talk to the man in there.” Much to my surprise, she pointed to a small building behind me.

I quickly finished my meal, walked over to the modest hotel, and repeated my question to the man behind the desk. He confirmed that I was in the right place. Before I could even process what happened, we agreed that I would come back the following morning at 7 am—“just as the sun is rising,” the man said, “it will be beautiful.”

I went through the rest of that afternoon and evening in a state of slight disbelief and gripping fear. What had I signed up for? Should I even trust this man? Was I putting myself in danger by agreeing to this? In hindsight, my concerns were perfectly valid, and perhaps I should have asked more questions before I paid the man to reserve my ceremony (a measly $100 USD for what I perceived as a once-in-a-lifetime cultural experience). Even still, I am glad that I calmed myself and embraced the unknown. The next morning, I awoke before first light and tiptoed around the hostel to avoid waking my roommates. At 6:30, I set off down the same road I had walked the previous day, this time knowing confidently where I was headed.

Just as the sun’s light began to peek over the horizon, I arrived at the hotel and greeted my facilitator, whose name I learned was Valtteri. He led me through the garden behind the hotel towards a lone tipi nestled within the lush vegetation. He then introduced me to his assistant and invited me to get comfortable amongst the many blankets and pillows laid out on the tipi floor. He began to explain the medicine offering: 5-MEO-DMT, not a plant medicine after all, but in fact the venom of the toad known as Bufo Alvarius, which is native to the Mexican Sonoran Desert. My heart was racing out of my chest, but he spoke slowly and steadily, and I began to feel calm by listening to his voice. I tried to focus on my breath in an attempt at getting my heartrate under control.

Valtteri asked me if I had ever experienced the toad medicine, and I shook my head. He smiled knowingly but did not say anything; I imagine he did not want to create any expectations for me. Instead, he explained the method of ingestion. Though he gave clear and concise instructions, I could feel my stomach twisting into knots. What if I did it wrong? What if I missed a step? What’s the worst thing that can happen?

My facilitator did not give me time to dwell on my anxieties. He immediately launched into a guided meditation focused on the breath. Those ten minutes felt like an eternity. I attempted to clear my mind and listen only to the sensations in my body, which were clouded by the overbearing thump-thump of my heart in my chest. My logical mind fought for dominance against my emotional center, and I tried desperately to suppress my panic without tensing my body or losing the rhythm of my breath. Finally, Valtteri asked me to open my eyes. His assistant handed him a small glass pipe, which he promptly held up to my mouth.

“Breathe in,” he instructed, and began to light the pipe. I did as I was told. Almost immediately, a burning sensation erupted in my lungs. My years of smoking weed could never have prepared me for that moment—I wanted to exhale, to choke, to cry out, but Valtteri said firmly, “keep going.” I did as I was told. I inhaled until my lungs were full of red-hot air, swirling and smoldering and igniting my airways. I inhaled for a thousand years and felt my chest imploding with the shape of smoke, my blistering breath combusting inside me. And then, when I thought I couldn’t possibly inhale anything more, Valtteri said, “hold it in.” I did as I was told.

I must have exhaled at some point. I vaguely remember seeing a cloud of wispy smoke dissipating before me. I believe Valtteri guided me through one more inhale, though my memory of the ingestion disintegrates into conjecture after the first hit. Valtteri’s voice began to sound very distant, as though I was falling down a deep well and he was calling to me from the top. At some point, the blazing fire in my lungs faded away, overtaken by the more pressing concern of my rapidly dissolving consciousness. The edges of my periphery blurred, followed soon after by my entire field of vision. I began to vibrate.

At first, the vibrations were gentle and low, emanating from deep within my gut. Then, the vibrations grew stronger and stronger, crescendoing in a symphony of high-frequency tremors that resonated outwards from my being and caused the earth beneath me to quake and tremble violently. Just as the pulsations arrived at a deafening throb, I heard Valtteri speak to me from someplace far away: “lay back.”

I did as I was told, and I immediately slipped into the warm embrace of the visionary realm.

My blurry, precarious grip on reality exploded into unprecedented clarity. I was suddenly drenched in the full spectrum of color, swimming in a pool of blinding saturation. Every shade of the rainbow splintered into fractals simultaneously. Each hue gave way to a new shape in succession: circles, stars, spirals, supernovas. They blended into one another seamlessly, creating a harmonious cinema of kaleidoscopic beauty.

I was no longer in my body. I was not merely a detached observer; I was not separate from the kaleidoscope at all. Rather, I was careening down its center, being absorbed and resorbed by a boundless pattern of pigmented particles. My limbs, my torso, my head, all these parts of me had ceased to exist, and I rode the current of colors like the high soprano of a violin, ringing amidst its counterparts in a bright orchestral swell. The energy within my prismatic world surged and softened, crested and calmed. I floated above it all.

Magenta rings shattered into lavender mandalas; rust-colored rhombi fragmented into scarlet diamonds; cobalt crosses fractured into dazzling lime angles. Each mosaic ruptured into one more breathtaking than the last, weaving a never-ending polychromatic tapestry. I had never seen such color before. Formless, limitless, I traveled through the tunnel of my fulminating consciousness.

Time did not exist here. I was wholly immersed in my altered consciousness, unaware of my physical surroundings. Eventually, I was ejected from the kaleidoscope into a realm inhabited by prismatic nature spirits. These creatures were equally as colorful as their polygonal predecessors, but they resided within the third, fourth, and fifth dimensions, shifting between planes and challenging my depth perception. At one moment within reach, and the next light years away. Rainbow-colored elephants zoomed in and out of focus with the vibrant contrast of a neatly lined color-by-number painting. Jungle cats folded symmetrically along their mid-lines, their whiskers aligning with perfect precision, only to stretch and elongate, abstracting and deconstructing through countless reflections. Polyhedral parrots, geckos, frogs, and fish stacked themselves on top of one another, forming infinite totems that stretched beyond my comprehension.

The final spirit was that of a lone wolf, crisply defined in all his chromaticity. He dominated my mind’s eye, strong and stationary. Rather than standing opposite the wolf, it seemed as though his face was presented to me: a page in a book from which I could not and did not want to look away. I stared at him; he stared at me.

And then: white. My awareness was subsumed by a blanket of heavenly nothingness. A choir of angelic voices rang out in unison. In this blank space, I had no body, nor thoughts, nor feelings. I simply existed. Unfiltered sunlight poured in from all directions, purifying and crystallizing the emptiness. I remained there for quite a while, basking in a sensation of peace that I had never before experienced.

Upon opening my eyes, I first saw the blue day sky through the open top of the tipi. The sun was fully risen now, indicating that some amount of time must have passed during my ceremony, though I had no conception of how much. The sounds of my surroundings came next: the gentle yet steady percussive thrum of Valtteri’s assistant as he struck his drum and chanted in Spanish; the wind whistling outside the tipi; my own breath. I slowly became aware of my own body on the earth, bolstered comfortably by the pillows and blankets onto which I had collapsed during ingestion. I felt my bones first: my hips, spine, and skull pressing against the firm ground. Then, slowly, I regained sensation in my soft tissues, felt my muscles reawakening, sent subtle movements into my extremities. My vision gradually sharpened, and I began to remember where I was and how I had gotten there. I rocked my head from side to side and swirled my tongue around my mouth. I returned to reality.

I pressed up to a seat and looked to Valtteri, who was smiling softly.

“Lost track of space and time, hm?” he asked with slight amusement. I nodded, bewildered. The details of my journey were already beginning to fade from my memory, but the integration of what I had learned would take many months to follow. I could only begin to process my visions in those first few moments after reemergence.

We took our time exiting the tipi, as my legs had seemingly forgotten how to work. Valtteri wished me luck and sent me deeper into the garden, where another member of the hotel staff was preparing a fresh vegetarian breakfast for me. Having just encountered a multitude of divine beings, eating was the last thing on my mind, but indeed my body was grateful for the nourishment. I ate slowly, chewing each bite a hundred times as I lost myself in recollections of my trip. And then, when I had finished my meal, I simply got up and showed myself out.

I felt as thought I was putting my human suit back on and resuming the mundane act of theatrical imitation. My head reeled with everything I had seen; my perspective on life felt forever changed; and yet, I had emerged in the same physical form, a mere 45 minutes later. I had no choice – I went on living my life, having captured a glimpse of the otherworldly forces that lie beyond the veil.

The Truth About Birthright Israel- Part Two

In my previous post, I wrote about my “Birthright” trip to occupied Palestine in 2018. “Taglit-Birthright Israel” is an Israeli government program that sponsors ten-day trips for all young Jews. I am Jewish on my mother’s side, so I decided to take advantage of the program.

Before embarking on my journey, I was quite unfamiliar with the socio-political controversies surrounding modern Israel. This ten-day trip certainly opened my eyes, and I was shocked by how viscerally I was confronted with conflict.

Yet, I had several Jewish peers who went on “Birthright,” and when they returned, they were enamored and entirely uncritical of the Israeli government. They spoke of forming lifelong relationships, connecting with their heritage, and of course, the delicious Israeli food. I was deeply disquieted by the differences in our experiences, which appeared to me as blatant indoctrination. Is a free ten-day trip really all it takes for young people to overlook human rights violations?

A Precursory Disclaimer on Antisemitism

Jews have been systematically persecuted since the advent of Judaism, circa 1000 BCE. Around 70 CE, the Romans destroyed the Jewish State of Israel, causing Jews to scatter across the globe. In the centuries to follow, Jews were pushed out of Russia, Austria, Germany, and many other countries across the globe, forced to seek asylum in foreign lands where they were despised due to religious conflict and ethnic stereotypes. The most obvious example of this hatred is the Holocaust, wherein 6 million+ Jews were murdered on the sole basis of their ethnic identity. These antisemitic biases and crimes persist today, as evidenced by the Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting in 2017 and, more recently, the infamous hip-hop artist’s public hate speech towards Jews.

I provide this context to remind my readers that Jews have been and still are a targeted minority group throughout the world. For this reason alone, I felt it important to write a separate article on the beauty and complexity of Jewish culture that I experienced while in occupied Palestine. By splitting my travels into two separate articles, I acknowledge that I risk conveying a holistic view of Israel as entirely good or entirely bad. To the former, this trip taught me a lot about global politics and Jewish history. To the latter…well, let’s just get into it.

Some Quick Historical Context

Zionism — a nationalist movement that espouses the creation of a Jewish homeland — emerged in the late 19^th century. Jews yearned for a place to call their own; a spiritual center; a refuge free from discrimination, abuse, and violence. The new Jewish state, named Israel, was established in 1948 in the region historically known as Palestine. Zionists claim that this region, often regarded as The Holy Land, belongs to the Jews, for Jewish texts describe Jerusalem and surrounding areas as a sacred site for Judaism—the Promised Land.

One tiny problem: the Promised Land had already been promised to others—specifically, the Palestinian people, who had settled on that land for centuries preceding 1948.

This territory has been a source of conflict for so long that many consider it irreconcilable, and indeed, the conflict continues to this day. Since 1948, Israel’s military occupation has forced Palestinians into smaller and smaller areas in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Those who remain with their homes and communities in occupied Palestine face daily persecution from Israeli Defense Forces, which often culminates in destruction of Palestinian property or bodily harm. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has consistently affected civilians and produced a disproportionate number of casualties from the Arab side, in large part due to Israel’s resources and military power. I implore my readers to research the continued violence against Palestinians in their ancestral homeland. Vox is a good place to start.

The "Birthright" Agenda

NOTE: I will continue to refer to my Taglit trip as “Birthright,” because I do not feel that Jews have any more birthright over that land than the people who have resided there for centuries. Furthermore, I use the terms “Israel” and “occupied Palestine” to refer to the same region; “Israel” in the context of the Jewish nation-state, “occupied Palestine” everywhere else.

Step One: Get them while they're young

In the wee hours of dawn, I stepped afoot an Israel-bound plane with forty other young Jews. In my first attempt to make friends, I struck up a conversation with a girl seated next to me—a fellow brown-skinned, dark-haired, Jewish girl who could, like me, pass for “ethnically ambiguous.” I must have mentioned that I speak some Spanish (studied in high school and later in college) because she exclaimed,

“Cool! I love Mexicans! I love your culture!”

She’s confused, but she’s got the spirit, I thought. Chuckling, I said, “I’m actually half-Indian, half-American Jewish.”

“Oooooh, so can you speak Indian?”

Um…. there are 22 scheduled languages and hundreds of regional dialects spoken in India, none of which are called “Indian.” My father speaks Bengali, and I study Hindi. Common mistake—I didn’t fault her.

Yet, this encounter set the tone for many of my future interactions with my fellow “Birthright” travelers. While many of them proved knowledgeable about Jewish customs and Israeli history, they also turned out to be uneducated, tone deaf, or even willfully ignorant to other cultures—especially Palestinian culture. For many of my peers, “Birthright” was their first time traveling outside of their home state, let alone by themselves or internationally. At age 20, I was older than most of the individuals in my group, who were primarily fresh out of high school and extremely impressionable to the ideas proposed by our tour guide and group leaders. I believe the “Birthright” agenda is heavily targeted towards those who have limited prior cultural exposures.

Step Two: Lure them to Israel

“Birthright” is a shockingly generous program. The Israeli government pays for thousands of Jewish youths to visit every year, and there’s virtually no catch, besides having to stay for the entire ten days. If you leave early, or somehow get kicked off, you only forfeit a $200 deposit. Many travelers take advantage of the free overseas flight and continue to travel around Asia or Europe after the trip ends—“Birthright” makes no conditions as to when you arrive or when you leave the country, so long as you participate in the ten days of organized travel. They’ll pay for your flight home–no questions asked!

Furthermore, the “Birthright” budget is by no means modest. We slept in 5-star hotels, gorged ourselves on gourmet buffets, and engaged in countless cultural activities that would have burned through a tourist’s pocket. The sheer luxury of this free program raises some questions, to say the least. Yet, if you’re Jewish, you would be stupid to not take advantage of this program. In this way, the “Birthright” offer is somewhat irresistible.

Step Three: Make them feel at home

Israel boasts a developed free-market economy, with modern infrastructure that rivals many Western countries. The country’s prosperous economy allows for sophisticated welfare programs, a powerful modern military, and high-quality education systems. As a result, many parts of occupied Palestine feel comfortable and familiar for many American travelers—perhaps even uncannily so. Indeed, the difference between Israel and its neighboring nations—Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt—is stark. The Tel Aviv skyline, the developed roads, the thriving technology industry…these factors point to colonial power, not a young sovereign nation sequestered in the Middle East.

From my perspective, the logic behind this step is quite clear: shower the young visitors with lavish gifts so they won’t ask questions. At the beginning of the trip, I naively wondered if “Birthright” is an innocent ploy to boost Israeli tourism. As time went on, however, I started to feel as though I had been paid for my silence.

Step Four: Promote anti-Arab propaganda

My fellow travelers’ true colors emerged quickly. Upon arriving at our hotel on the first night, one girl became restless and irate. She began to shout about having to sit next to a Palestinian woman on the plane ride,

“I bet she thought she was going to Palestine, huh? Well, she’s not. This is ISRAEL!” She followed her angry tirade with a stream of obscenities, prompting one of our group leaders to step in.

“Hey now, I spoke to a Palestinian man on the plane, and he was actually very nice…” the group leader began weakly, but we all recognized the futility of his attempt. Even he seemed unconvinced. There was no further effort to counter her blatant hate speech.

From that interaction onward, anti-Palestinian rhetoric became commonplace among our group. Other forms of hate speech also went unpunished (the N word was popular among my group—needless to say, none of us were Black), but remarks targeted at Palestinians seemed to be encouraged, even rewarded. These sentiments were propagated by our Israeli tour guide and our American group leaders as much as my fellow travelers.

For example, the Birthright itinerary always includes a visit to Israel’s borders with Syria and Jordan so that travelers can “gain a real understanding” of Israel’s geo-political positionality in the Middle East. This “real understanding” turned out to be a slew of propaganda which cast Jordanian and Syrian people as uncivilized, violent warmongers. Our tour guide, standing with his back to the arid Syrian plains, gestured broadly across the farmlands and said casually,

“We always see explosions over there.” Inevitably, this remark prompted several ignorant questions: How often do they bomb Israel? Have they ever targeted a Birthright group? Are Syrian women educated? Are they all forced to build bombs? The conversation was unproductive once again, serving only to heighten fear and distrust. As for perspective gained on Israeli geopolitics, we were evidently meant to view Israel as a perfect victim, helplessly sandwiched between primitive Arab countries with no means of self-defense. Records of military spending will no doubt have a different story to tell.

At the Dead Sea, our tour guide declared that the Jordanian government is purposefully polluting the saline water to gain control over it. He conveniently neglected to mention that Israel is equally to blame for the Dead Sea’s lowering water levels and rising number of contaminants. In reality, the two countries’ refusal to cooperate threatens the Dead Sea far more than the pollutants of either country alone. Israelites have historically accomplished great feats in water management (see Part 1), but their inability to work with Arab neighbors may cause irreparable damage to their historical and religious landmark.

The anti-Arab discourse came to a head in Jerusalem. On a rooftop overlooking the Old City, our tour guide began to lecture about the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, and other sacred geographies. He recounted the First Temple and its fall to the neo-Babylonians, then the subsequent Second Temple and its fall to the Romans. Then he pointed to Al-Aqsa, the plaza beyond the Western Wall. Barely bothering to conceal his disgust, he sneered, “they stole our temple.”

Dominion over the Temple Mount, or Al-Aqsa as Muslims call it, has been central to global religious conflict for centuries. This location is a sacred site for all three Abrahamic traditions–Judaism, Christianity, Islam–whom all constantly vie for control. However, the claim that Muslims stole the Temple Mount is reductive and historically questionable. 500 years span the gap between King Herod’s Second Temple and the construction of the Dome of the Rock; if anything, the Romans should be on trial, for their temple to Jupiter was the first to replace its Jewish predecessor. Our tour guide’s accusation mirrored the broader Zionist ethic, which tends to ignore historical chronology in favor of spiritual entitlement.

All this hateful rhetoric against Arabs was underscored by a bizarrely cheerful spring break energy. Out of all the planned activities, my peers were mostly interested in clubbing in Tel Aviv, partying at the beach, and drinking in our hotel rooms. We were shuffled from marketplaces to gift shops to malls, urged to shop for handicrafts and try authentic local cuisine. Ironically, many of these uniquely “Israeli” dishes (shakshuka, hummus, falafel) are just shameless appropriations from Arab cultures. But my peers were far too busy spending their shekels at upscale boutiques to think critically about colonial exchange networks.

Step Five: Instill Zionist loyalty

Much like American education, the framework of “Birthright” is infused with an Israeli nationalist spirit that strategically penetrates the pathos. The “Birthright” itinerary takes young Jews through Israel’s national cemeteries, war forts, and great historic battle sites. These morbid locations work in conjunction to illustrate the endless plight of the Jews. Simultaneously, the educational core glorifies Jewish history to justify the creation of the Zionist State.

Through all of this, my group was drinking excessively, hooking up with one another, and attending “Birthright”-sponsored EDM mega-events that celebrated the founding of Israel. At the mega-event I attended in 2018, a sponsor implored the audience (thousands of Birthright travelers) to act as ambassadors and sway public opinion in Israel’s favor when we returned home. I was shocked by his bold request, but when I glanced around me, my peers were smiling and cheering—they had been drinking for hours by that point. I guess alcohol makes the propaganda go down easier.

There was also a distinct undercurrent of peace symbolism throughout the trip. I mentioned in Part 1 that we were each given a dove to release for seemingly no reason. Later, we took a tour of an olive oil factory, where the saleswoman really emphasized the olive branch imagery.

And then there were the IDF soldiers. “Birthright” includes a multi-day mifgash (encounter) with Israeli peers, who are almost always active duty in the Israeli Defense Forces. On my trip, our IDF peers traveled with us for six days.

For background, Israel mandates conscription for every citizen over the age of 18. Men are expected to serve a minimum of 32 months, women 24. Arab Israelis are notably and explicitly exempt from service, as are a few other groups such as religious women and married individuals. The Israeli Defense Forces is somewhat notorious with the United Nations for its perpetual war crimes in conflict against Palestine, so I was fascinated (and somewhat terrified) to meet the young soldiers in person and pick their brains.

As it turned out, my IDF peers had little to say because they had nothing to admit. One day, I sat with an American friend and an IDF soldier, a woman named Einav, for lunch. My American friend mentioned a video he had seen the previous week, of an IDF bombing of a Palestinian civilian area.

“Do you support this?” he asked Einav.

“That wasn’t us,” Einav responded immediately, impulsively.

“What do you mean?” my friend asked, puzzled. “You can see the soldiers in IDF uniforms in the video. You can see them, see?” He pulled out his phone and showed her his news source. Her eyes skimmed the screen and without hesitating:

“Video footage can be doctored. Don’t believe everything you see on the internet,” Einav scolded. My American friend looked at me, jaw dropped. Is she required to cover for her country? Or does she truly believe that Israel is blameless?

Further inquiries were met with sharp denial. Trying to convince her felt futile, so the topic was dropped, unresolved.

Step Six: Encourage marriage within the religion

Our IDF peers were not just there to make us doubt the media narratives against Israel. They were also there for our socializing and fraternizing pleasure. They slept with us in our hotel rooms, and our group leaders did little to discourage frisky co-ed behavior. In fact, I can recall several instances when “Birthright” organizers encouraged the development of romantic relationships between group members. We were each slept 4 to a room, but that didn’t stop my fellow travelers from…enjoying each other’s company.

Subliminally, I had known that this is the motivation behind “Birthright”—to promote marriage within the religion. An ongoing longitudinal study called the Jewish Futures Project shows that Jews who go on “Birthright” are significantly more likely to marry another Jew than those who don’t. What I did not expect, however, was their complete lack of subtlety. More than once, we were told to “look around you—your husband or wife is probably standing in this group!” Everyone told us in plain terms to fall in love on “Birthright,” marry another Jew, move back to Israel, and have Jewish babies.

The part they didn’t say out loud?

Those Jewish babies grow up to be Israeli citizens and, inevitably, IDF soldiers. “Birthright” is a soft power tool of demographic engineering and military recruitment, designed to insure the Jewish majority in future generations so that the Israeli state may continue to occupy Palestine.

Despite my tour guide’s efforts to portray the Zionists as innocent victims of Arab violence, Israel has blood on its hands. Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as the innumerable war crimes committed against the Palestinian people since 1948, have been solely enabled by Israel’s mandatory conscription law. By participating on “Birthright,” I was a gullible pawn in this master plan.

Step Seven: Lure them back

After everything I experienced during my ten days in occupied Palestine, I could hardly believe it when, at the end of the trip, my fellow travelers were heartbroken to leave. They shared teary goodbyes and sappy lectures about how the trip had changed their lives, how they would miss everyone so dearly, and how proud they were to be Jewish. Many vowed to move to Israel, while others promised to spread the good word when they returned home.

Frankly, I could not participate in their festivities; my feelings were the opposite of theirs. My “Birthright” trip had disillusioned me so completely that I did not ever want to return to Israel. I did not want to advocate for Zionism. I did not want to marry a Jew. When I left Israel, I didn’t even want to BE a Jew anymore. I felt deeply ashamed by the violence initiated by my ancestors and perpetuated by my peers. I could not believe that these geopolitical conflicts, seemingly so ancient and abstract, could manifest themselves before my eyes so tangibly. Furthermore, I could not believe that kids my own age were willing to overlook these conflicts for a free vacation.

Most of all, my heart ached for the Palestinian people—those who still live under apartheid rule, and those who have died in the fight. “Birthright” did not introduce us to those people, nor acknowledge their oppression. “Birthright” relies on the anonymity of Palestinians to tell its twisted tale of nation-making and justification. “Birthright” abets Israeli occupation in Palestine by spreading misinformation and indoctrinating thousands of young Jews every year.

“Birthright” is a violent colonial institution. That is the truth. And while I can only speak for my own experiences, I hope that my Jewish peers will also soon recognize their ethical obligation to speak out against Israel.

FREE PALESTINE!

If you are interested in supporting the fight to Free Palestine, please consider donating to one of the following organizations:

Medical Aid for Palestinians

Palestine Campaign

United Palestinian Appeal

Jewish Voice for Peace

If you would like more context on the Israel-Palestine conflict, please visit the following resources:

United Nations

The Iron Cage by Rashid Khalidi

The Israel-Palestinian Conflict by James L Gelvin

Arabs and Israelis: Conflicts and Peacemaking in the Middle East by Abdel Modem Said Aly, Shai Feldman, & Khalil Shikaki

Holi Pilgrimage

Of all the Hindu festivals celebrated throughout South Asia, Holi is by far the most well-known globally. Every March, children and elderly alike gather in the streets to toss colored powders and celebrate the turning of the seasons. The result is visually striking—smiling communities and sacred sites drenched in every hue of the rainbow. When I traveled to India in the Spring of 2019, I knew that the Festival of Colors would be an event to remember, but I had absolutely no idea what to expect.

I lived in Hyderabad, Telangana during my time in India. As the fifth largest city in the subcontinent, Hyderabad was well connected to other major cities via airways and railroads, and my study abroad group did a fair bit of interstate travel using these methods. However, much of India remains rural and largely disparate from urban centers. According to a census conducted in 2020, more than 65% of India’s population still lives in rural areas. These areas are not so easily accessible by the convenient, direct forms of transportation that I am used to.

One such area is Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh in North India. Mentioned in many Hindu texts as the childhood home of the God Krishna, this city has rich mythological significance. Krishna is the 8^th avatar of Vishnu, the preserver deity in the Hindu holy trinity (trimurti). He is the god of love, protection, compassion, and he features prominently in the Bhagavad Gita. This text is excerpted from the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, and serves as a foundation for devotional Yoga practices. It is standard reading for Yogis, just as the Holy Bible is for Christians and the Qur’an is for Muslims. The festival Holi celebrates Krishna’s divine love for his devotees, his kingdom, and especially his consort, Radha. The pair (commonly abbreviated to, simply, Krishna Radha) represent the union of masculine and feminine energies, the cosmic combination of spirit and material, of reality and illusion, the complete constitution of the universe. After puja, or worship, of the two deities, devotees celebrate their union by smearing themselves with color. Nowhere is this practice more vibrant than Vrindavan, the historical setting of Krishna’s notorious romances.

Naturally, I thought, what better place to experience Holi for the first time than in the district where it all began? Georgia, my roommate from Ohio University, was studying in Thailand at the time, so she planned to meet me in Vrindavan. We each recruited some friends to join us, and we booked our plane tickets. The gang coming from Hyderabad consisted of my friends Jonny, Allison, Kelly, Hunter, and myself. The Bangkok crew included Georgia, JJ, Ejayah, and Celine. Little did we know that the travel to and from the festival would amount to a religious experience in and of itself!

The first leg of our journey was an Uber. We routinely ordered Ubers to our hostel on the Hyderabad Central University campus. Admittedly, we also routinely encountered issues with Indian Uber, but it was our main mode of transport out of campus. We had a 7 am flight to catch, so I ordered an Uber ahead of time to arrive at 4 am. In the dark of the early morning, we gathered soundlessly in the lobby with our strategically packed backpacks. We waited. And we waited. No Ubers arrived, and we began to panic. No one was awake; no one would accept our last-minute request.

Just as we had accepted the inevitability of missing our flight, a silver SUV pulled up in front of the hostel gates. We piled in without asking too many questions. This tardiness should have been the first indicator of divine influence in our travels. Later, an inspection of my Uber reservation would reveal that our vehicle had been cancelled due to lack of availability. Somewhat miraculously, our chauffeur had been hired to transport an entirely different group to the airport. He had mistakenly arrived a day early and was lucky to find us waiting for him.

We made it to the Hyderabad airport just in the nick of time to have our bags x-rayed and our boarding passes approved. We rode an airport bus onto the tarmac to board a plane destined for Delhi, the nearest major city to Vrindavan. Our flight was rather uneventful, but Georgia’s group was not so fortunate—they had booked a Thailand-based budget airline called NokScoot, which resulted in a series of strange events that they recounted to us later. First, they nearly missed their flight due to an unannounced departure change. Somehow, a NokScoot employee located them in the airport to alert them that their plane was about to leave. Then, after boarding the plane, they were surprised to find that all the other passengers seemed to know one another, and none of them seemed to want to stay in their assigned seats.

After witnessing a takeoff game of musical chairs, Georgia and JJ tried to escape the unyielding attention of a man who kept hopping seats until he ended up in the same row as them. Halfway through the flight, a persistent “ding-dong” sound began to emanate from the plane. Upon asking a flight attendant, they learned that a passenger had fallen asleep on his call button, and the attendants either could not or would not wake him to silence the noise. NokScoot Airlines has since been liquidated, leaving us to wonder about this odd flight experience for all of eternity.

The Hyderabad gang landed in Delhi at 10 am, but our voyage was far from over. We hopped an underground rail that connected the farthest terminals of the massive Delhi airport to one another. Whether we even needed to ride this train, we’re still not sure. That said, we ended up in the wrong part of the airport—rail maps were relentlessly confusing, and the staff seemed to have no idea how to direct us. Panic began to set in again as we realized we had less than an hour to catch our bus. We made the collective decision to abandon the Delhi Metro and instead flagged down a rickshaw driver just outside the airport.

Negotiating rates with rickshaw drivers was generally challenging given our…ahem… aggressively white appearance. I struggled to communicate prices with my beginner Hindi, and this task was made no less difficult by the incredible vagueness of Indian addresses. Our bus tickets instructed us to meet at “Sec 37 Indian Oil Petrol Pump.” I had hoped that this location might become evident as we approached the cross-streets, but to no avail. Annoyed with our indecisiveness, the rickshaw driver dumped us in a plaza lined with rusty buses. He shrugged helplessly at us as he drove away.

With less than 20 minutes until our bus departure time, we frantically compared our tickets to each bus’s sign. Several drivers stopped us along the way, insistent that we were looking for their bus, and there was truly no way of knowing which one we had purchased tickets for. They all seemed to be going the same route, or at least, that’s what the drivers told us. At one point, Jonny completely gave up the chase and asked a stranger to light his bidi, a type of Indian cigarette. We stood around in a huddle and puffed for a bit. It seemed like the only thing we knew how to do in that moment.

Indian bus drivers continued to hound us until we made the arbitrary decision to follow a man and his young child onto a bus. This one seemed as random as any of the others, but the driver accepted our tickets and allowed us to sit, so we did so. At first, we each had our own seat along the back row. At each stop, however, more and more people piled on. About an hour in, we were shoulder-to-shoulder, sitting eight people in a row designed for five.

The bus was unbearably muggy and warm, owing in no small part to the ever-growing crowd in the aisles. I tried to focus on breathing in fresh air through the 1 inch opening in the window. As we drove farther away from the city, however, the roads became increasingly rough, and dust soon began to infiltrate my airways, catalyzing a full-on asthma attack. I wheezed, crushed against the side of the bus, being tossed up and down by the poor suspension. After what felt like forever, I drifted into a restless sleep, my skull bouncing against the dirty window glass.

I can’t have been asleep long because our ride was only meant to be three hours. I awoke suddenly to a concerned Indian man speaking to me in Hindi. My friends stared at me helplessly. Looking distinctly more native than the rest of my American group, I often found myself acting as an ambassador in a language I had only just begun to study. I knew right away that something was wrong—otherwise, I would not be fielding this stranger’s concerns.

“Aapko kahaa ja ruhe hain?” (“where are you going?”) the man asked.

“Vrindavan ko,” I mumbled, still disoriented from my reduced capacity to breathe. His eyes grew wide.

“Vrindavan? Nahee.”

After some back and forth, I deciphered the problem: we had missed our stop. The stranger alerted the bus driver, who pulled off to the side of the road rather hastily and allowed us to unload. I had no idea how all four of my travel buddies had missed the memo, even if the announcement had been in Hindi. Nor did I know how this strange man knew our mistake before we did. Nevertheless, we owed it to the stranger. Without his help, we would have ended up very lost in rural Uttar Pradesh.

“Dhanyavaad!” I thanked him as the bus pulled away. Then, I realized another problem. Even with the stranger’s help, we were very lost in rural Uttar Pradesh. The bus had dropped us on the side of a quiet highway overpass, and none of us had cell service. There didn’t seem to be any towns or cities for miles.

This time, we didn’t have a chance to panic, as our second guardian angel appeared out of thin air. He was a young man with piercing eyes and perfect English, which was even more miraculous than his inexplicable arrival. He helped us down a rocky hillside with our luggage, then hailed another rickshaw and sent us on our way. This rickshaw, our SEVENTH vehicle of the day, was a full-on party tuk-tuk, equipped with lavish décor, multi-colored string lights, and a bumping subwoofer. For the first time during our travels in India, the driver passed us the aux. We played our tunes obnoxiously loud as we careened down the bumpy rural roads, waving at amused pedestrians and trying our hardest to enjoy the thirteenth hour of our journey. Keep in mind that I was still holding a crippling asthma attack at bay.

Around six pm, we rolled into the city of Vrindavan, where festivities for the eve of Holi were in full swing. Many residents had already brought out their colored powders and were enthusiastic to get the Americans in on the action. In our open-sided rickshaw, we were subject to rowdy hands reaching for our clothes and body parts. At one point, we came to a full stop in traffic and a man stepped out of his driver’s seat to take a picture of us. I tried to tell him no, in both English and Hindi, and he ignored me, coming closer and closer with each snapshot. Frankly, I was fed up. I slapped the phone out of his hand as we drove off. Not my proudest moment, but I was just beginning to learn how to establish physical boundaries with persistent Indian men.

Shortly thereafter, the rickshaw driver pulled off to the side of the road and nodded to us to get out. We did, obediently, before realizing that we still had no idea where we were. Much like the bus stop, the address to our AirBnB was vague, accompanied by an equally vague photo of a townhome complex that seemed to match every building in the neighborhood. The rickshaw driver sped off as soon as he had cash in his hand, leaving us to wander the nondescript streets with our bulky luggage in tow.

I’m not sure how long we wandered. All I know is that we eventually made it to our destination. Using the AirBnB listing, we located the neighboring complex, where was ran into our host, Parul. Parul kindly led us to our rental home, brought us tiffins of curry, and left us alone to rest and recover from the treacherous trek. Surprisingly, Georgia’s group had also made it to the AirBnB, and we were relieved to find them napping when we arrived. We hugged, introduced the two groups to one another, and swapped stories about our equally absurd adventures.

Despite our difficulties, we came to realize that the long road to Vrindavan was half of the Holi experience. Pilgrimage plays a large role in many Hindu traditions; devotees travel long distances and endure the accompanying hardships to prove that their god’s grace is worth traversing the world for. Especially in a country like India, it requires great dedication to take time off work, travel to religious sites, and practice rites in a foreign community. The expedition itself is meant to bring the individual closer to god by challenging the convenience of the individual’s mode of worship.

Indeed, we were awe-inspired by the perseverance required to reach Krishna’s childhood home, and even more grateful for the experience because we knew how fortunate we were to have made it. We felt that Krishna himself had sent avatars to guide us on our journey, for there was no way we could have succeeded without the help of the mysterious NokScoot employee, the strange man on the bus, or the kind English speaker on the highway overpass. To this day, I suspect divine influence when I think about the number of obstacles we overcame on the way.

On the day of Holi, we played with a fervor akin to lifelong devotees of Krishna. We rode around in a caravan of rickshaws and gleefully threw colors in the air, all the while trying to avoid the dreaded buckets of street water which raucous boys aimed at our faces. We visited the major temples in the city, including Katyayani Shakti Peeth, a mythologically significant site that is rumored to house ringlets of hair from the Hindu Goddess herself. We drank bhaang (a sacramental yogurt drink made from cannabis leaves), ate chaat, and were merry.

One part enjoyment, another part pure terror, Holi was the most fun we would never want to have again. I can’t say I would ever go back to Vrindavan for the infamous festival, but I would still recommend it to other travelers who are comfortable traveling long distances on a wide variety of vehicles. It was an unforgettable experience, one that undoubtedly strengthened my Yogic resolve. Personally, I am not a Krishna worshipper, but I experienced the cosmic love and connection during my Holi pilgrimage

The Prophet from Tennessee

Like most children, I grew up with a healthy fear of geese. Until last summer, I had never had reason to bother these wrathful creatures, let alone get close enough to admire them. But in the summer of 2020, when my college friend, Payton, invited me to his family’s floating cabin in LaFollette, Tennessee, I found myself quite literally living in goose territory.

I arrived at Norris Lake in mid-May, when all the ducklings and goslings were freshly hatched and still covered in soft down. The mallard and wood ducklings matured gracefully, but the baby geese…well, let’s just say they looked worse before they looked better. Their necks and talons lengthened; their beaks curved downwards into disapproving frowns; they began to traverse the lake’s surface with more speed and urgency. Yet, their grey fuzz lingered for an uncomfortably long time.

Undoubtedly, the strangest thing about this gaggle of geese was their family dynamic, made up of three adults and eleven children. And what a sight they were: fourteen lanky things, mostly covered in fur, gliding in perfect synchronicity with all their dark eyes fixed on a single point. They moved in formation, but you never saw them coming. They were simply there or not there, within eyesight until they weren’t. And trust me—you should have been able to spot those things a mile away.

Payton and I theorized that our amphibious neighbors were swingers. We called them velociraptors, owing to their striking resemblance to their prehistoric ancestors. We even accused them of being disguised surveillance drones once they started to loiter near our cabin with unforgiving stares. We watched in dismay as eleven children were whittled down to ten, and then nine, and then eight. These eight eventually shed the last of their down, becoming homogenous with their three parents. Eleven identical geese were, somehow, an even more unnerving sight than the original fourteen.

Eventually the geese stopped making their rounds. We assumed they’d migrated for good—whether that was to Mexico or simply to another offshoot of the lake, we didn’t ask. I must admit I didn’t miss them all too much. The marina where I lived was a constant cacophony of events and celebrations, so there were plenty of other things to focus on.

One evening, Payton and I were relaxing on the front deck of our floating cabin, waiting for the bats in our roof to depart for the evening (yes, we had hundreds of bats living in our roof, but that’s a story for another time). Across the marina, I noticed a strange shape. Unable to shake my curiosity, I hopped in the kayak and paddled over. The lake was eerily still at twilight and a pit began to form in my stomach as I neared the mass. I could make out a floating log, but what was on top of it? How was it balancing?

At last, I cleared the shadow of the farthest floating cabin in the lagoon and the mysterious figure came into light. It was one of the geese! He had been injured; one of his wings hung limply in the water and his body frame leaned to counterbalance the weight of it. In that final shred of daylight, the creature didn’t look at all robotic or cruel, like I had always thought. He looked helpless. It dawned on me then that it had been weeks since I had seen the rest of his family. They had left him behind.

I had no means with which to help the goose, so I paddled home sadly. I wasn’t even sure if he could still swim. The sinking feeling in my stomach told me that he most likely wouldn’t survive through the night. I tried to put the poor thing out of my mind.

A few days later, I took my paddleboard out on the water for a yoga session. I began my practice and, as usual, the current gently drifted me away from my starting point. Only a few sun salutations in, however, I spotted a goose. I stopped dead in my tracks. Could it be the one? All the other geese had left; this was the first I’d seen in a long while.

Sure enough, the straggler was the injured one that I had condemned to die a few days prior. It still looked worse for the wear, dragging his crumpled wing in the water as it paddled furiously with its webbed feet. Nonetheless, it was swimming! It hovered cautiously near my paddleboard as I completed my prone series, seemingly unbothered by its disability.

When I got back to the cabin, I announced the news of the goose’s reappearance to Payton, who had also been thoroughly invested in its survival. We agreed that the goose possessed a sort of otherworldly quality; though not Godly, perhaps it bore wisdom from the heavens. After all, it did seem as though it had been rebirthed from the lake after escaping certain death! Thus, we dubbed this goose “The Prophet.” Still skeptical as to whether it would survive, we watched it carefully for divine signs.

Over the next several weeks, The Prophet regained its energy and grew bolder. We coaxed it closer and closer to our floating cabin with scraps of bread and, once we learned that it shouldn’t eat bread, dog kibble. Despite our initial resistance to the velociraptor pack, Payton and I grew quite fond of their black sheep gosling. Feeding it became a morning ritual no less important than our meditation practice. Payton, especially, got up close and personal with our new friend and would even get in the water to earn its trust. By the end of the summer, The Prophet was eating out of Payton’s hand!

We never did receive any spiritual teachings directly from The Prophet, but the process of befriending it was just as valuable. We learned not to judge creatures by their appearance, even if they start off (or continue!!) looking like vicious dinosaurs. We learned that being a goose is a lot harder than it seems, and that maybe there’s a reason they’re so hostile all the time. Most importantly, we learned that nature, in all of its limitless creativity, can overcome just about any obstacle. In the words of Jeff Goldblum: life finds a way.

Tag: mythology