What I'm up to

I’ve been back up at SIDH for the last week, or so now…. And I love it…. I’m glad to be out of the city. After Ahmedabad, I was in Mumbai with my relatives for 4 days, where I watched Lage Raho Munna Bhai which was a fantastic movie!!! Haha.. funny, fun, gandhigiri… good stuff… then I was in Delhi for 2 days, where we met and discussed “InSPIRE”, and then I got here to SIDH.

For now, I’m involved in the preparation and execution of the Youth Camp coming up from 8^th October to 14^th October… it should be pretty sweet. A really mixed group is coming. There are college students from Delhi, college students from Shimla, youth from lower economic backgrounds from Manzil, two young guys who were Dalits and converted to Buddhism, two guys from SIDH who are from villages in the mountains. On top of that… there is this NRI Shreena who will probably be here for the camp… she did her high school in India, then college in the States. ANNNNDDD Karishma is coming with the group from Delhi as well!!! That’s quite exciting… I’m pretty sure that she’s going to absolutely fall in love with the place…. Although, I think, with her nature, she’s going to question many things… which is good… but it’s also good to be able to see past the questions (because usually, we’re only asking about things seen on the surface) and go deeper.

After that…. There’s “workshop’ week with the Bodhshala students here (class 6 to 8). They are going to broken up into four groups – dance, theatre, drawing, and creative writing. I’m going to be taking the dance workshop with the kids… should be pretty fun… we’ll be doing some bhangra, raas/garba, and film dance… and hopefully get them into being able to choreograph a little on their own as well.

Then… the main project, like I’ve mentioned before, is the planning and preparation for InSPIRE (Indian Summer Program to Inspire Real Exploration). Probably after the 19^th… I’ll head to Tehri Dam for a couple days, and also spend a couple of days at Bija Vidhyapeeth (possible sites for InSPIRE exposures). Then, I’ll be headed to Kaunpur for the Jeevan Vidya Sammelan from 25^th to 29^th October. Then, off to Sarnath/Benares… where I’ll check out the scene at the Coca-Cola factory… another possible site. And also, I’d like to visit the Krishnamurti school at Rajghat. That’ll probably be until 9^th November. Then, I’ll head to the Indian Social Forum in Delhi with the group from SIDH. At that time, I’ll probably talk with a lot of the groups that InSPIRE will partner up with in Delhi. Then, probably head to Ahmedabad, and meet with Anand and talk to him about the entire thing…. And work out details. Then, back up to SIDH for about a week, meet Satish Kumar (who is coming here at the end of November)… then, back to Mumbai… and then, back to the States.

That’s basically how I see my next couple months playing out… pretty busy… but all good stuff.