Before moving here, my knowledge of eastern religion and philosophy was limited to the following: what I read, a few years ago, in Siddartha (I have only made it through half the book but it represents by far the highest peak of spirituality I ever indulged in); what I saw in a Hare Krishna street parade on the Rialto Bridge in Venice the Sunday before the Carnival; what I heard in elementary school when my teacher was trying to explain to us that there were people in the world that did not believe in Jesus Christ, and that was just fine.
This to say that you can hardly find anyone that is less literate than me when it comes to knowing anything remotely spiritually connected to this country.
Despite that, last week I found myself with the desire to understand the meaning of the word ashram. Yes, of course I have heard the word ashram before. And no, I never thought I would need to know the meaning.
Yet when I noticed, on one of Delhi’s many flyover highways, the recurrence of a sign indicating the way to Ashram, I finally felt the desire knowing.
That’s how I discovered: first, that an ashram is a Hindu hermitage where sages live in peace and tranquility amidst nature (Wikipedia docet); second, that the Ashram I was reading about in the street sign is not an actual ashram but only a part of the city that is for some reason called like that; and third, that there’s a practice particularly loved by some of the enlightened backpackers that come all the way here to find themselves.
That practice, no kidding, is called ashram-ing. Let’s go ashraming, they’d say, meaning let’s go visit an ashram and stay there for a few days so that when we go back home we can talk about a life-changing experience.
How cute.
Searching for proves of the existence of the ashraming thing on the web I find, on the myspace page of Lauren (27, New Jersey) the following comment left by one of her friends: I guess you’re ashraming it up right about now since yer phones not working.
I imagine you can now understand a little why most Indians find western tourist particularly amusing.
[...] February 24, 2009 by missanabeem I wish I had something interesting to say about the Y. I really wish, and I say it with the full guilt of a western girl in India who is too lazy to do Yoga for more than a couple of weeks at the time. Give me one more year, and I will provide a serious Y for Yoga for the pleasure f all of you, my friends, who come here and to go A for Ashram-ing. [...]