Christmas Highlights (Part 1)

First of all wishing all our dear friends and family a very happy Christmas! Hope you all got through the festive season enjoying good food and beautiful times with loved ones! Thank you for the lovely comments you have sent us- it is very encouraging, as I sometimes wonder if this blog is boring. So it is great to know that my musings are occasionally being read! We had an amazing Christmas, which was indeed very memorable. We have been incommunicado for most of the Christmas period, as we were stationed 30 kilometers out of the city of Pune along a single lane dirt road, (near Mumbai) at a meditation seminar with 25 000 people sharing 2 phone booths! Even Sandeep had resorted to sending us a message via this blog page (as you can read) – as he could not even get in contact with us! So many beautiful experiences have passed that is would take days to report in detail – so here are some highlights:

23.12.06

After a beautiful Rajasthani breakfast given to us by our hosts here in the Jain School office, their driver very kindly dropped us at the airport. We had a pleasant flight on Air Deccan (One of India’s budget airlines) – We had a great laugh when the security officer directed Madam Caspar through the ladies security booth – Guy laughed out loud as the officer took a closer look at Caspar and realised his mistake!

We were picked up in Mumbai by a very sweet Sikh driver, whom our Aussie friend in New Mumbai had organised for us.

It was humid and much hotter in Mumbai and the traffic was pretty bad as Sonia Gandhi was holding a huge political rally in the city – and Indians love their politics! So as we finally got to the outskirts of this mega city Rajeev, who is married to Fiona (heralding of Sydney’s North Shore) called us, and invited us for tea. We have always stayed with Fiona and Rajeev when coming to India, and no visit seems complete without a visit to their beautiful home in New Mumbai, the new part of the city on the other side of the water, where the air in considerably cooler and fresher! Fiona makes the best Chai, and we felt much refreshed after a short break and a catch up with them. We also met a very new member of their family, little Shivam, their 18 month old adopted son. Shivam came to their home only a few months back, and you really cannot imagine that he has been with them for only a short time. He gave me a big smile – (I guess I look a bit like Fiona), and after one week away from the orphanage where he was everyone’s favorite he was completely attached to his new parents. I was very moving seeing this beautiful newly formed family together.