Patricia Little is the author of India, India...Diaries of a Volunteer. Retired from a career as an educator, she followed an almost forgotten dream of traveling to India. Little immersed herself in the places where she stayed, volunteering in a community for mentally challenged adults near Pune on one visit and on another working at a village dedicated to helping children of the street in Jaipur, and visiting a retreat center high in the mountains of Sikkim.

read the first part of our conversation with Little...

If you’re thinking of traveling to India yourself, Patricia Little advises doing some prep work -- and then leaving some of what you learn that way behind. She suggests beginning your journey with books. “’Read whatever you can lay your hands on, and not just nonfiction,” she says, “Indians are among the finest writers of the English language.  Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things is a most beautifully written evocation of an Indian childhood, and anything by Anita Desai is a good read. As a short-story writer, Jhumpa Lahiri is hard to beat. Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children is evolves on the broad canvas of Indian independence, and for a highly personal view of Indian society V. S. Naipaul is essential reading. For a non-Indian, but deeply involved perspective on India I would recommend anything by William Dalrymple, but especially The Age of Kali, which is superb.”

Once you are on the ground, keep your eyes and your mind open, she advises. “Expect the unexpected. It’s a land of often violent contrasts: the highs are unimaginably high, and the lows correspondingly low. Your reaction will often reflect your personal preferences: the big cities – and I mean BIG! – can be quite terrifying if you don’t much like cities anyway. The sheer frenzy of it all, all those people, the speed of life, the traffic... But the rural environment can be quite isolating, the weight of eternal India daunting. Some people find the difference in culture, when it’s not tempered by a certain westernisation, just too hard to take. Verbal communication in rural areas in particular can be tricky if you’re limited to English,” she points out.

“That’s another thing, of course,” she continues. ”If you possibly can, learn a little Hindi before you go. I didn’t, for lack of time, and found it a great handicap. It’s not just that you can’t talk to people about their day-to-day concerns, it’s also that language is a great vector of culture, the culture is in the language.”

These are points good remember in venturing into any culture and country not your own. There’s bound to be some culture shock, too.  “Some things in the Indian's resistance to change are bound to remain very foreign to our way of thinking. There have been efforts to modify the harsher aspects of the  caste system, but it still leads frequently to a rigid compartmentalisation of people, set ideas of who does what, and a brake on social mobility. The Dalits – who used to be called ‘Untouchables’, still get shunted into the most menial jobs. The treatment of women in general and widows in particular can seem scandalous to our Western way of seeing things, and although in the cities there is a superficial sense of Western ways, often it’s only skin-deep,” she says.

“But there’s also a deep spirituality about the Indian way of looking at things that transcends social concerns,” she continues. “The quest for something beyond the material is apparent in every aspect of life in India. I think that’s a fundamental part of India’s attraction to many Westerners. But [in the West] we’ve lost the sense of quest, and many people get disorientated by it all.”

If your travel to India is likely to be of the armchair variety, but you would still like to contribute where there is need, or just to learn more about this vast nation and its people. Little offers ideas  “Again, I would say read all you can. Some people may be lucky enough to have a ready contact with Indians in their everyday lives, and that’s an obvious avenue to explore. The internet is a mine of information, and if you’re interested in following up the projects I’ve been involved in, start with their web sites.  They give ways you can contact them or contribute in various ways, and have some lovely photos. I think it always helps to have real people in view. You can always try your favorite NGOs and charities as well, and find out if they operate in India.

“And remember: even if you can’t set off for India now, there may well be a future occasion. After all, I waited forty years to get there! Never give up hope!” she adds. Little herself was preparing for a return journey this autumn, one which would include more work with children, a longer stay at the retreat center and work with medicinal plants there, and attending a HIndu wedding.

To learn more of the situation of street children in India and the work of Vatsalya with them, you may also want to see the book Eighteen Million Question Marks! by  Vatsayla’s co founder, Jaimala Hitesh. The book includes children’s stories, pictures, and explanations of current programs and government studies. More about this may be found through contacts on the Vatsayla web site, noted below.

To learn more of the places Little visited
http://www.sadhana-village.org
http://www.vatsalya.org
http://www.bodhicharya.org

to purchase the book

Patricia Little
Om Productions Unlimited
An Tinteán Eile
Plattinstown
Arklow
Co. Wicklow
Republic of Ireland

Email:   jplittle at eircom  dot net

Paperback: ISBN 978-0-9561920-0-4
price €20, GB £20, US $27; India 400 Rs (including p. & p.)
p. & p. Ireland €4.35; rest of world €5.35 (GB£4.55; US$7.45)

Please make cheques out to Patricia Little

Kerry Dexter is the Music Editor for Wandering Educators.
Kerry's credits include VH1, CMT, the folk music magazine Dirty Linen, Songwriter’s Market, Strings, and Ireland and the Americas. She also writes about the arts and creative practice at http://www.musicroad.blogspot.com Music Road. You may reach her at music at wanderingeducators dot com.