Find My Heart in India by Anna C.

*[REWIND] Originally posted on We Are Juxt on August 15, 2012

Anna’s Introduction

I love stumbling across beautiful feeds and more importantly I love India.  I traveled there with my father many moons ago and fell in love instantly. When I was tagged to Jessica’s, @jessuckapow, feed I was blown away by the humanity that stared back at me from their neat little boxes. I could almost smell the markets and hear the vendors. Looking through her feed and reading  her blog brought back so many happy memories. I do hope you will take the time to soak in the sites and  sounds that are Jessica’s life.

Oh! P.S. she is an Andriod photographer! Wahoo!

A:  Anna  J:  Jessica

A: Tell me a story about India. The one that you always want to tell when people ask you about India.

J:  I was in Goa and during “the season,” as everyone calls the time between November and March, it’s flooded with tourists so during this time a contingent of what the locals call “gypsys” come to town to do their seasonal begging.  Some are rather aged, some are children, many are younger women who have infants and small children with them. A lot of people consider them a nuisance and treat them like crap, which is difficult to see.  I was sitting at my favorite falafel place and had just finished filling one of the gypsy’s bottles with fresh milk for the infant dangling at her side as a feeble looking woman with the harsh years etched into her face approached wanting money for food.  The restaurant owner, Shimon, offered her chai and a sandwich and with much appreciation she squatted under a tree to wait.  I smiled at her and she shyly smiled back at me with a toothless grin and we watched Shimon’s young daughter, Gia, play around the outdoor patio.  All of a sudden, his daughter slipped on a chair and tumbled towards the ground.  This woman, who looked like she couldn’t run from a bull if it charged down the street, bolts from her squatted position and dives to catch Gia, managing to save her from a massive thud.  She brushed off her knees as Gia wailed in shock as Shimon came out to help and the woman gently passed Gia to him.  He placed his daughter into the safety of the cushions on the floor and went back to preparing the food for the woman.  Witnessing the display of compassion from two beautiful people, who belong to different rungs of Indian society, which is very rare to see here, was incredibly touching and epitomized the goodness in humanity.  The black and white portrait I sent you, is the woman who helped Gia that day.

A: Tell me about your life right now. I know your traveling. Where have you been were are you going? Why?

J:  I don’t know if I would consider what I do “traveling,” because I REALLY don’t like the whole traveling part of traveling and I usually find a place I like, stay for a few months and suck up all I can from where I choose to live.  I’m more of a gypsy, you can say.  Since December 2010, I’ve volunteered on a bridge construction project in Lesotho, Africa, visited a number of friends in Europe and Australia, meditated and bummed around Thailand, and a few visits home to Seattle to see friends, family and tie up loose ends but a majority of my time has been studying yoga and meditation in India and I plan to stay here for rest of the year.

A: Wow! it must be hard to be so far away. How are you using mobile photography/ social sites to connect with the people you love? 

A: India is a beautiful place. How does your life influence your photography ?

A: One last question. Is it all worth it? Leaving everything behind, striking out on your own, and finding a new place you can call home?

J:  Nothing in the world would make me want things to happen any differently than they did.  I studied for a very short time with this bizarre-o tantra yoga teacher and while he said a lot of crazy stuff like, I should drink my own menstrual blood (ummm EWWWW!), he did say something that struck me. “Before you meet a girl, be happy.  Meet a girl and be happy.  If the girl goes away, still be happy.”   I was so happy before I met this woman, was just as happy when we met and became good friends, was just as happy, ok, maybe a lot more, when we started dating but after it didn’t work I was a complete mess.  Something was wrong with that picture and I knew it.  Everything changes, everything goes away, relationships change, people leave or they die, jobs come and go, houses are built and destroyed, cars go vroom and then go kaput (or BOOM as was the case with mine) but through it all, the ups and the downs, the highs and the lows, we should still be… happy.  This whole journey isn’t necessarily embracing my independence from others or from things because I still learn so much about myself through the relationships, of varying degrees, I have with everything, from people to my towel.  I am just learning to be completely happy with the relationship I have with myself and that’s more important than any relationship I’ll ever have with anyone or anything else.  I’ve never felt so grounded and for the first time in my life, I can’t attribute my happiness to anything in particular and it feels amazing!  So, I think it’s worth it…if I didn’t, I’d probably be doing something else.

Thank you Jessica for sharing your heart and your home with me. I am so excited to be able to travel with you through your words and photos.

To read Jessica’s travel blog go here.

To see Jessica’s photos go here.