The second to last day.
I don’t leave my room until almost 3pm. The school is having a cultural program to celebrate the New Year. When I arrive, girls are busy putting on makeup and costumes. I look for light in the classrooms, which are strewn with articles of clothing and makeup. The fading afternoon sunlight is streaming through the windows, and girls are checking their complexions in the reflections on the windowpanes. Click. So many colors. So beautiful.
This is the India I have always pictured: the bright colors, dance, laughter, celebration. Happy, smiling faces. It is the India I still picture, even though I have seen unfathomable poverty in Vrindavan. Yes, there is pain, there is suffering, there is cold and sickness and abuse. But there is a persistent glimmer of joy.Monday, Jan. 1, 2007
The beginning of a new year. 
How fortunate I am to have begun 2007 in India. I start the new year with a new perspective, based on my experience in Vrindavan over the past month.I wake early and begin to pack. I feel like I am taking home significantly less than what I came with. Less worry, less stress, less weighing on my heart and mind.
At about 10 I head over to the school. Children eager to receive gifts are already swarming around the main gates.
There is a short award ceremony first for outstanding students. They receive colorful pens and other fun items for their hard work.Then the schoolchildren line up to receive bookbags, which have been filled with shawls, caps, snacks and toys. They eagerly show off their new treasures.
I wander about, trying to come to terms with the fact that it is really my last day here. Or is it?
****
There is something about Vrindavan.
The driver who brought me from Delhi was right. There was something in his voice that indicated the magic of this place.
I am not a Hare Krishna. I am not religious. I am not even Indian. Yet, oddly, in this little religious haven in the middle of India, I feel strangely at peace.
Maybe it is because people here are right in their faith. They really believe; they are not being forcefed ideas and ideals, as happens so often. People come to Vrindavan from all over the world for religious purposes.
Maybe it is the hospitality that everyone has shown me. Rupa trusted me to do on a photo project on a sensitive but pertinent topic. He welcomed me into his school and his program. Nirguna Mataji took me under her wing and looked after me, like a mother would do. And Prashant, who has been an immensely helpful guide and friend. So much so that he spent two nights in that hospital with me.
Maybe it is the simplicity of this city. It isn’t really a city; it is more of a village with 50,000 people. There are open sewers and trash problems, and animals roam the streets. People walk or ride bikes instead of driving, at least most of the time. The power goes out at some point every day. The air is thick with dust and smoke.
Yet a simple life brings simple pleasures. Children are happy just to be hugged. And receiving a new backpack makes a child’s face light up a room.
Maybe it is the utterly backwardness the city faces. The child marriage, the spousal abuse, the female labor, the widowhood and poverty. It gives me something to explore and to fight. It is a clear issue that I can relate to and challenge.
****
No, I am not really leaving Vrindavan. The city and my experiences there will be with me always, in my photos, in my writings and in my memories. And, of course, in my heart.
It will also be with me in a more physical sense. Starting today, I am sponsoring a child in Sandipani Muni School. Her name is Karizma, which means “miracle.” I hope I can help her get an education and get out of the cyclical poverty of which she already is a part.
It will be with me in all the work that I do back in the U.S. The photos I print, the display I make. All to help the women of Vrindavan.
Soon I pile my bags into a taxi and begin the three-hour drive to Delhi, where I will board my plane home. We drive off into a thick shroud of fog.
Vrindavan. We are like two railroad tracks, always together but never meeting. But we will meet again.
Until then, hare bol.
