Our Girls in India (February 27 - March
25, 2006)
See photos
of the trip!
Letter from Durga Smallen, trip leader
March 1, 2006
Hi parents and friends. This morning we
had a fabulous trip to the Gandhi Smriti memorial where
Gandhi was shot. It’s hard to explain now but it
was a lovely, extremely creative museum that not only
showed movies of his life and activities but each aspect
of his life was shown with replicas of those events. For
example, when they talked about his walk to the sea, you
can put your hands in a vase of salt and that will activate
the movie on that subject. And they have a replica of
the train he rode to see India and inside is a computer
map and if you punch a city to see if he went there or
not, that map will appear and the sign on the engine will
light up “Varanasi” or Kolkata, etc. It’s
wonderfully done. Barbara and I had lots of ideas for
Swamiji’s video images and such for his visit and
photo displays. It was lots of fun and very entertaining
and informative.
The girls love, absolutely love, everything.
Riding in the cars, watching the scene, giving little
kids fruits and coins and continually laughing and loving
it. Leiya may never come home! (Just kidding, Mom.) She
is in heaven. It is a real joy to be with these young
ladies. Both Vidura [Durga's husband] and I remarked separately
how absolutely loving and kind and joyful they are –
both to each other and to everyone they meet. They spent
20 minutes this afternoon trying to get the driver in
the car behind us to smile. They couldn’t believe
they couldn’t get him to respond to them so we had
to call Santoshi who was in that car and sitting next
to him, to ask him to smile. When he did, the girls went
ballistic, laughing and so happy that he finally had a
big grin on his face. What I’m trying to say is,
it doesn’t take a lot to keep them totally in the
moment and feeling at home yet in an exotic place full
of surprises and adventures.
They are now rehearsing again with David
[Eby] at the ashram where Brook, Barbara and I will pick
them up in a few minutes to take them to the mall to shop
more.
Last night Brian took some of them to the
ice cream store across the street and they are bound and
determined to return. They exclaimed quite profusely how
delicious it was.
Love to each of you. Parents, I cannot tell
you how thrilled Vidura and I are to be here with your
daughters. They are, each one, a jewel.
In His light,
Durga
