I have just returned from an Easter break to Kerala with my family. We could only stay for four nights, but it was the perfect introduction for my 7 year old son and husband to this amazing, beautiful and crazy country. It makes me smile that India is an affordable mini-break destination for us now that we are based in the Middle East, and I already have another trip booked to explore Jaipur in May. It's certainly not somewhere I could imagine us ever considering as a destination for a family holiday when we lived in the UK but I'm so glad we have been given the opportunity to explore and learn from our experiences travelling here.
Kerala is a gorgeous part of the country, filled with coconut palms, rice paddies and peaceful backwater canals. It is also heavily influenced by its long history of 'visitors' from foreign fields. Fort Kochi in Cochin is a unique blend of crumbling Dutch warehouses, Christian churches, Shrines, Mosques, Jewish synagogues, Chinese fishing nets and shops filled with Hindu antiques and local fabrics and treasures. It hadn't occurred to me that Easter would be being observed there, so it was with some surprise that we discovered on Good Friday that the churches were packed but the palaces, museums and many of the shops were closed and there was no cooling beer to be had anywhere! This unique melting pot, known as "God's Own Country' may have developed with many struggles and difficulties on the way, but it has left something quite beautiful and inspiring in its place.
We are very lucky to be able to take our son to a place which not only highlights how privileged he is, but also that no matter how many differences he can perceive in how people look and live, what's really important are the similarities. The children who waved at him from the side of the river or played cricket with him in the park may not have a room full of expensive gadgets and books like him, but they have the same smile and the same dreams and ambitions. We live our lives in a protected and affluent part of the Middle East, but what is important to me is that he goes to school with people from around the world with different backgrounds, languages, cultures and beliefs. He has many friends, and when they fall out it is not because of where they are from, the colour of their skin or who they worship. With everything that has happened across the world so far this year, and the fear and anger that is generated on all sides by such terrible actions, my main hope remains that my son will grow up to see a world where there will always be more similarities then differences.
Yesterday when I was contemplating about what to write in my blog this month, I opened a book of daily meditations by Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov which was gifted to me by my teachers at the end of my yoga training. The entry for 30th March inspired me to share these thoughts and the words seemed so appropriate for the difficult world we live in, that I decided I would share them here too:
"If some people do not want to make the effort to be in harmony with others, it is because they fear being absorbed by the community. No, every person is a separate individual, but while still maintaining their own character, their particular way of being, they must work for unity. Look at the cells of the body: they are not identical, and they do not fulfil the same functions. A cell of the heart is not a cell of the stomach; each retains its individual nature. But the similarities and connections between them create a state of harmony we call health. Is that so difficult to understand?
We do not have to ask a black person to become white, a Muslim or a Buddhist to become a Christian. In the past, Christianity sent missionaries to convert people all over the world, and with what violent and tragic consequences! All believers, like all human beings, must keep their particular characteristics, their differences, but at the same time establish fraternal links, through which they create unity."
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| Me with my new Keralan friends outside the Jewish synagogue in Cochin on Good Friday. |
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| Jamie being taught how to play cricket by the locals. The Indian cricket team has nothing to fear for the future! |
