I am writing to you from my parents home in Grass Lake, Michigan, where I arrived last thursday. Less than a week before I returned it was unconceivable that, still in good health, I would come home so soon. There was only one event that could have changed my path so dramaticly, and that was, of course, losing my violin.
It is gone. Stolen from my hands on a roadside in Punjab. The only object in the world that I was attached to. My vessel for making children smile, for expressing my soul. My companion whom for eight years I took care of like a child, whom I spent more time with than anyone, who stayed with me through high school, college, and all my travels. Countless hours of frustration, passion, sadness, and utter bliss I poured into my violin. A channel to connect to Hashem, connect to other like-minded musicians, and connect with people i was blessed enough to play music for. This was and still is a very difficult loss.
However, this was not a tragedy. In fact, it was a good thing. Through this loss, I have realized how dependant I was on my violin and I have had to build strength deep inside my being that I never needed before. Whenever I was going through a difficult time in my life I emptied my emotions into my violin. It was my crutch, and out of fear I never conceived of what I would do without it. But while my soul's voice is now weak it is growing every moment.
The other good news is that before I left New York my friend gave me a viola. So I have new life now on a different instrument, and can once again share Hashem's incredible gift of music with the world.
So how did I end up on the side of the road in Punjab? I will go back to my first adventures in India starting about two months ago.
I arrived in Delhi, stayed for a few days with family friends in Chandigarh, and then headed to the Himalayas. I stopped first in Kullu where there was a huge one week Hindu festival happening. People from three hundred surrounding villages came, carrying on their shoulders a flower-draped shrines to their villages' God. Together, all 300 reenacted an ancient battle between good and evil. When I needed a break from the festival chaos, I hiked to the tops of the surrounding mountains passing the most stunning rural mountain communities. Mud hut farms and women, like ants, carrying bails of hay three times their size. Each of the mountain tops had a Hindu temple on its peak and a few holy men smoking Shiva grass (take an educated guess) which grows wild on all the mountain sides. There I layed in the grass while eagles flew 15 feet over my head searching for food below.
After Kullu, I continued higher into the mountains stopping at Vashisht, a small town with sulphur springs and more Hindu priests. There I purchased a sleeping bag, hiking boots, and a tarp tent for almost nothing and started up a mountain. After six hours of grueling upward climb well past the snow line, the sun was setting and I had almost reached the peak. So I quickly set up my camp and spent an absolutely frigid 12 hours hiding in my sleeping bag, too afraid to even go out and see the stunning view of the stars. Morning came and I could still feel my toes, the sun warming everything to a comfortable temperature. I was in the most incredible place I had ever seen, alone but for a few wild horses. 360 degrees of jutting snowy peaks and lush green valleys, cascading rivers and distant villages, complete silence. A childhood dream now realized.
I continued on to Dharamsala, in the foothills of another part of the same mountain range. Here I would spend the most life-changing five weeks I may ever experience. After camping a couple days a few hours up from the town, I decided to go a bit further just for the day. Another four hours hiking up and I reached Triund, a flate green plateau where I would spend the next three weeks. There was a small chai shop and a two room guest house on the plateau which served the tourists who hiked up there. Aside from that there was nothing. No roads, no running water, no electricity, not even an outhouse. The man who owned the chai shop offered to let me eat there and sleep on the floor of the shop in exchange for helping him with the work and the occasional violin lesson. So I stayed on this plateau from which you could see 60 miles out into the plain of India in one direction, and a line of mamoth glacier peaks in the other. Shanti. (Peaceful). The extremely pronounced horizon line made the cities below look like an underworld at night. And the sunsets and moonrises blew my mind with their colors and intensity. Otherworldliness.
I washed dishes from a bowl of water in the grass; learned to cook dal, vegetables, noodles, omlets, and of course, chai; opened and closed shop; carried 25 liter tanks of water from a nearby spring and found a new passion for playing American folk and bluegrass tunes. But after one week I went down, itching to continue travelling. The following day, exuberant after finding out that Obama had won and for the first time truly proud to say I was American, I was helping an old lady gather wood when a man passed by my campsite. I was not so far away but I could not see my things and when I went back to my tent I noticed that my wallet, ipod, and phone were gone. My world turned upside down. I had not a single rupee and no way to get any money at all. This was one of the biggest blessings of my life.
After spending a couple hours reflecting, I realized that I didn't need what I'd lost and many other things as well. I went to a nearby village and gave away everything I owned except for my passport, my violin, a jacket which I later traded for a blanket, sandals, a toothbrush, my journal, a needle and thread, and the clothes on my back. Then I hiked back up the mountain and worked two more weeks at the chai shop. Having removed these layers from my consciousness, I spent my time looking at what was left and I found many things that I wanted to improve. I worked on building a peaceful core inside my being, training my mind to control my thoughts and my body and not vice versa (nervous habits, anxiety, cold, hunger, lust, etc) I tried to eliminate my dependancy on mirrors and clocks, freeing myself from time and physical appearance. I examined my selfish and judgemental thoughts and actions and worked to find compassion for those I previously despised, and most of all I built courage and faith in the universe (Hashem) that I could survive without any money or back up plan. And so I descended onto the plain of India with no destination but south.
The next two weeks were one blissful moment to the next. I was given a place to sleep every single night. I was offered chai and food to the point that I was turning it down. I played music in the street and made 500 rupees ($10) in a few hours, enough money to last me 20 days. I woke up every day in good health. Every bite, every step, every single moment became the greatest blessing. Now having nothing, I was truly able to appreciate everything.
First I spent a few more days in Dharamsala meditating at the Dalai Lama's temple, another incredibly shanti place, and was able to catch a brief glimpse of him coming out of his home. Then I started walking and hitch hiking, catching most of my hitches from tractors. At this speed I was really able to experience rural India--rich soil farms, wide glistening rivers, small one road towns with smiling children waiting for the morning school bus, a baba who coated his entire body with a muddy ash mixture. I felt weightless, like a feather just blowing in the wind, landing wherever Hashem desired.
I arrived at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the holy pilgramage site for Sikhs. Anyone who wants to can eat and sleep there for free regardless of religion or class, and they serve 35,000 meals every day! The entire operation is run by volunteers, so I spent a couple hours every day chopping ginger and peeling mounds of garlic with groups of old men and women. The rest of the time I was meditating or walking around the Gurudwara (temple) which is in the middle of a large pool of water, listening to the prayers sung inside the temple. Sikhism is a religion that originated in India/Pakistan about 500 years ago, that believes in one God, Waheguru, and the equality of all men regardless of class or race. Laziness and selfishness are the most undesirable traits for Sikhs and they stick to closely to those beliefs.
I was there at the Golden Temple during the Mumbai attacks and I called my parents to let them know that I was ok, having no idea I would see them in just a few days.
From Amritsar I continued south, again receiving the hospitality of a king everywhere I went. My plan was to wander all the way to the beaches in the south, roughly 1500 miles, just following my intuition and the universe's constant road signs. But two days later I found myself in Ferozepur, near the Pakistan border, playing violin for some young children by the side of the road. Three guys my age stopped and offered to give me lift on their motorcycle. A few miles down the road they pulled to the side and we all got off. Here they grabbed my violin and jumped back on their bike before I could stop them, laughing as I was on my knees pleading for them to stop. My passport was in the case.
I cannot remember ever being so wild-eyed hysterical in my life. I ran after them for a couple miles trying to stop cars before, in exhaustion, I realized in was futile in this state of mind. I calmed down and eventually made it to the police, a deep hole in my stomach as I came to grips with the fact that would never see my violin again. It turned out that I was in much more danger than that. I was a foreigner with no passport or I.D. passing through the main drug smuggling border with Pakistan, having come somewhat mysteriously from Dharamsala, the biggest destination for those drugs, and looking like a crazed deshevalled mess. But by the grace of Hashem, my friend in Chandigarh sent his wealthy, influential friend to the police station to save me from the Indian "Guantanamo," or so my friend said.
I went straight to Chandigarh where I found out that my passport had been found by the railway tracks later that evening. I considered whether to continue travelling, but realized that it would take time for me to recover from losing my violin. I let go of my southward dreams, admitted that I was not yet strong enough to continue, and two days later I was on a plane to Michigan.
All is well. I am in good health, it is a truly a blessing to have this time to spend with my incredible family, and my Mom got me a roundtrip ticket from India thinking it was the same price as a one way. So India is on pause, for maybe a year or so. Until then, I hope to see all of you and reconnect. I would like to spend a couple months in the Big Apple and also do a trip around the U.S. this coming year, so insha'allah (God willing!) I will be able to give you all a big huge some time soon, if you can recognize me.
Shalom v'ahava (peace and love),
Lev
P.S. if you want to see pictures from the first two months of my trip in Israel, Jordan, and Egypt (before I sent my camera home) click here: http://picasaweb.google.com/leventermusic/NomadicWandering#
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