Win free passes to see Eat, Pray, Love

This Video Friday, BreatheDreamGo is featuring the trailer to the movie Eat, Pray, Love starring Julia Roberts and 70 free passes to give away to the August 11 preview screenings in Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa and Winnipeg. And 10 lucky winners in Toronto will also receive a prize pack along with their passes comprised of  a “pray” t-shirt, mala bead bracelet and bookmark.

To enter the contest, click Read the rest of this entry and follow the instructions.

To win a pass for two people to see the preview screening of Eat, Pray, Love in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa and Winnipeg, follow these instructions and get your answers in before August 7, 2010. Toronto deadline is August 9, 2010.

1. Subscribe to this blog, BreatheDreamGo, by entering your email address into the SUBSCRIBE BY EMAIL box in the right hand sidebar.

2. Follow BreatheDreamGo on Twitter

3. Join BreatheDreamGo Facebook page

4. In either 140 characters or 140 words (maximum) answer the question: Where would you like to go in India and why? Submit your answer to the comments section below. IMPORTANT: let me know which Canadian city you are in!

Winners in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa and Winnipeg will be chosen August 7 and your pass mailed to you. Winners in Toronto will be chosen August 9 and can pick up their tickets  and prize packs at Scotiabank Theatre, 259 Richmond Street West, Toronto on August 11 at 6:30 pm.

Thank you to Sony Pictures Canada for providing the passes and prize packs.

On location in India in Columbia Pictures' EAT PRAY LOVE. © 2010 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Photo of the Week

Andrew Adams, photographer

Photo from India by Andrew Adams, Katha Images

This is a story by guest blogger Andrew Adams, who has traveled in India and is one of my favourite photographers. Andrew loves India, too, and does a lot to support Asha Canada. He is amazing at capturing moments that speak to the soul of India. As you can see.

A friend of mine thought this was a picture of a spiritual leader or guru, rather than of a homeless woman. I think that says a lot about the presence of god in India.

The soul of India

By Andrew Adams

I was staying in a small village near Thanjuvar, Tamil Nadu, India, shooting one of Ahsa’s project sites, a school for under privileged children. I went to see the kind of work Asha is doing. My last morning there I went for a walk and saw this woman walking ahead of me on the side of the road.

She was walking on all fours, picking up rocks and putting them in her sari. It broke my heart to see this. I gave her 100 rupees (about $2.00) and continued on my way. I did not photograph her until later that afternoon. After visiting one of the schools administrators at his home (I went for tea and to meet his family), I saw this woman waiting outside his house. She was waiting to thank me, and I took the photo. Turns out, she is homeless and the family look after her.

Although my time in this village was very limited, I felt so privileged to see how these people live such simple lives, without many of the conveniences we often take for granted. What struck me was how happy everyone seemed; they felt a sense of pride in their simple, honest lives.

The school I went to visit is supported by Asha US Chapter. Srividyasram school is located in the middle of lush paddy fields, coconut and sugar cane fields. The River Cauvery, the holiest river in Tamil Nadu, runs through this village. It is a quiet, clean and green village.  When you drive through the village we can smell the intoxicating aroma of the fermented sugar. I would love to go back again and spend more time in the beautiful place with such wonderful Kind people.

About Andrew Adams

Andrew Adams is a wedding and travel photographer. He is currently based in Toronto, Canada. He spends his winter months in India photographing weddings and documenting life. For more about Andrew and his photography please visit Katha Images.

Andrew’s involvement with Asha

Andrew Adams has captured many Indian weddings in his hometown, Toronto, and abroad over the last decade.  After his first soul-searching trip to India, he returned to Toronto transformed by the culture that is seeped in tradition and humanity. He decided to take his passion beyond capturing the happy memories of a wedding day.

He decided to dedicate his creative talent towards a humanitarian cause in India. He joined Asha Canada on a personal mission to support the children in India who are at deep social disadvantage. This project focuses on making education possible for these children, since it is through this that socio-economic change can arise in India. Andrew wanted to see first hand the work being done through the support of Asha so while on his second wedding assignment in India, he paid a visit to a school for blind children in Bangalore and several daycare centres, and schools in Delhi and Tamil Nadu.

He was deeply enriched by what he witnessed on this journey. The images he captured along these travels are donated to the project as well as the 100% proceeds from print sales.  The most significant aim of this creative project is public awareness about the economic reality of children in India.

Please visit Asha Canada to learn more and to get involved.

Help Passports with Purpose

Passports with Purpose is a collaborative online fundraiser created in 2008 by four Seattle-based travel bloggers: Debbie Dubrow, Pam Mandel, Michelle Duffy and Beth Whitman, the bloggers behind Delicious Baby, Nerd’s Eye View, WanderMom, and Wanderlust and Lipstick.

Each year, they choose a charity and leverage their online presence to help raise funds for it. This year, 2010, they are building a village in Southern India with Land for Tillers’ Freedom (LAFTI) and their non-profit branch based in the U.S., Friends of LAFTI Foundation.

Watch this video about the founder of LAFTI – a real modern-day hero. It’s a very inspiring, very moving story about women empowering women. Yay!

Build a village for Dalits in Tamil Nadu, India

After successfully raising nearly $30,000 in 2009, this year they are aiming for $50,000 to benefit LAFTI, based in Tamil Nadu, India.

“We really are calling upon travel bloggers to help raise the funds by spreading the word about Passports with Purpose among their networks, readers and social media contacts,” said Debbie Dubrow. “Like last year, we hope that this effort will not only raise money for a very worthy charity, but also help develop a stronger sense of community among travel bloggers, and demonstrate the effect we can have when we work together.”

For more information visit the Passports with Purpose website.

LAFTI’s Mission

For more than 50 years, LAFTI’s founders – Krishnammal Jagannathan and S. Jagannathan – have been committed to helping Dalits (India’s untouchables), especially women, with projects that include land distribution, cultivation, adult training, youth housing and housing construction. For less than $2,000, LAFTI can build a home, for which the land title is given to the woman of the household. Passports with Purpose aims to raise enough money to build approximately 25 homes to create the Passports Village in Karunganni, located in the state of Tamil Nadu.

Krishnammal Jagannathan and S. Jagannathan have been awarded two major humanitarian awards for their efforts. The first was the Opus Prize, presented on November 18, 2008 in a ceremony at Seattle University in Seattle. The second was the Right Livelihood Award presented a month later in Sweden as part of a ceremony in the Swedish Parliament. Since Jagannathan is no longer able to travel, Krishnammal accepted both of these awards on behalf of LAFTI.

According to Krishnammal, “Orathur villagers are firmly determined to build new houses. They are very eager to contribute their labor towards house building.”

Help Passports with Purpose raise funds to help these determined villagers create a better life for themselves and their families.

For more information visit the Passports with Purpose website.

Aarti (evening ceremony) during Kumbh Mela Festival in Haridwar, India, 2010

The Kumbh Mela Festival in India

“No,” said the khaki-clad policeman. “You don’t have the right pass.” It took me a moment to grasp that I was not going to be able to join my colleagues on the media platform. The spectacle of hundreds of naga sadhus parading into the centre of Haridwar, India was the pinnacle of the Kumbh Mela, the largest spiritual gathering on earth, and I wanted to see it

That morning, I rose before dawn and walked 13 kilometres into Haridwar with a group from the ashram to take a dip in the Ganges River. It was the most auspicious moment to bathe during the festival, and millions of devotees were streaming into the city to take part.

After bathing, I separating from my ashram group to join my journalism colleagues on the platform. When I was turned away, I was stunned. The sun was climbing in the sky, I didn’t know the route back and the city was completely closed and packed with pilgrims.

Buoyed by the intense devotional energy, I somehow found the winding route back to the ashram. Arriving, I felt exhilarated and realized I would never be the same.

That morning, I discovered the truth and power of ritual. It’s not about the achievement. It’s about how a peak experience can change our idea of who we are and what we are capable of. Which is a lot to get out of a long walk on a hot day in north India.

This post has been entered into the Grantourismo and HomeAway Holiday-Rentals travel blogging competition.

Video Friday

Graceful dance, with hoop, to kirtan music

Every summer, ISKCON (International Society of Krishna Consciousness — otherwise known as the “Hare Krishnas”) holds a picnic on Toronto Island called the Festival of India – Feed Your Soul. It’s a wonderful event and I never miss it. Everything is free — even the food! — and people of all ages attend. You can join a free outdoor yoga class, have your astrology chart done, enjoy the vegetarian feast, buy Indian clothes and trinkets and best of all, sing and dance along to incredibly happy, joyful kirtan (sacred) music. The event wraps up on Sunday late afternoon with a rousing kirtan session that everyone joins in. It’s basically a celebration of god, a spiritual rave — and no drugs or alcohol are needed to send everyone in a frenzy of joy. I took this video while everyone else was in the kirtan tent chanting along to the music. More pictures from the event follow.

Woman giving at ISKCON Festival of India, Toronto Island, Summer 2010

Blue turbans at ISKCON Festival of India, Toronto Island, Summer 2010

yoga class at ISKCON Festival of India, Toronto Island, Summer 2010

temple at ISKCON Festival of India, Toronto Island, Summer 2010

and for those of you who think "spiritual people" don't have a sense of humour ...

Photo of the Week

Naga Sadhu at the Kumbh Mela, Haridwar, India

Naga Sadhu (naked holy man) at Kumbh Mela, Haridwar, India

I took this photo in the Naga Sadhu’s camp during the Kumbh Mela in April 2010. I went into Haridwar for the day with two men who were also staying at Aurovalley Ashram — Lalit and Jean-Pierre. We spent an amazing day together, hanging out with the sadhus, swimming in the Ganges and having a lot of fun. I could never have had these experiences without the help of Lalit, who is a large, gregarious Punjabi man who speaks Hindi (and English and French). We spent a long time in this camp, where I bonded with this incredibly sweet young man (but I don’t remember his name!). I wrote about another Kumbh Mela day — the main bathing day — in Alone, and at home, at the Maha Kumbh Mela, the largest gathering on earth.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

The biggest question of our time is not do you believe in god; or is global warming real; it’s where do stand on Eat, Pray, Love? The book about Elizabeth Gilbert’s quest to find “everything” in Italy, India and Bali is a publishing phenomenon: it was an international bestseller with more than seven million copies sold worldwide; and in 2008, Time Magazine named Gilbert one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Today, July 18, is Elizabeth Gilbert’s birthday. She is 41. And I want to salute her.

I can’t honestly say that I LOVED the book — there are better books about westerners in India (see my post Another top 10 Books about India) and I question whether Gilbert was on a “real” spiritual quest as she had a book advance, which means it could be argued that she was doing research — but I appreciate it. For one thing, it unearthed an enormous audience for the kind of writing I do: personal narrative / spiritual quest / travelogue. For another, it’s immensely popular AND about going to an ashram in India, which is almost an oxymoron (though that is changing).

And I defend Gilbert and the people who charge her with “self-absorbed narcissism” on the grounds that she did what she needed to do to recover from her divorce, heal herself and become productive and creative. Through her journey of self-recovery and self-discovery, and her ability to share it through her writing, she has inspired thousands, perhaps millions, of people.

In my books, that is not something to sneeze at.

Swami Brahmdev, Aurovalley Ashram, India

The idea of a soul quest or journey of self-discovery is not new. “Know thyself” was written above the entrance to the Delphi Oracle in ancient Greece. It has a long history and is highly respected.  My teacher in India, Swami Brahmdev of Aurovalley Ashram, says the purpose of life is to know ourselves; to experience life, to learn, to change and to grow. There are many intelligent, respectable, highly spiritual, non-narcissistic people who think discovering ourselves is what we were put on earth to do!

So not only am I NOT against personal journeys of self-discovery … I, too, went on a personal journey to recover from loss. I wrote about it on my post, What it means to breathe, dream, go. Over the span of a few short years I lost both my parents (my Mother died suddenly and unexpectedly of heart failure and I found her body; my Father was diagnosed with terminal cancer and I held his hand while he died); my fiancé left me (with an expensive wedding dress hanging in the closet); my sister married and moved out of town; we lost our family cottage; and I broke my elbow, which seriously affected my yoga practise.

It felt like a river of loss was sweeping through my life and by the end of it, I was exhausted from hanging onto the bank. I threw my faith into yoga to recover from depression and during yoga teacher training decided to go to India for six months. It felt like I was letting go; it felt counter-intuitive; and I was scared. But I felt compelled. I felt I HAD to go to India to save my life.

Me, at Aurovalley Ashram, India, 2010

In my case, I didn’t have a book advance and I went only to India (and oddly I was there the same year as Gilbert). It was a spiritual quest in the sense that I had no idea what would happen – even if I would live through it!

In fact, I fell in love with India and I fell in love with Ajay (my partner) and his wonderful family; and now I make part of my living sharing my love for India through my writing.

Going to India not only saved my life – it gave me a whole new life, a new man, a new family and a new home. I now consider India my second home.

So I “get” Elizabeth Gilbert. And I am encouraged by people who find success in the creative and/or spiritual fields. Happy birthday Elizabeth!

NOTE: If you feel inspired to go on your own journney of discovery, you should check out MeetPlanGo — a free event taking place in several cities in the USA and Canada to inspire people to fulfill their career break and long-term travel dreams.

P.S. Here is Elizabeth Gilbert giving a very inspiring TED talk about creativity and being an artist.

P.S.

For Video Friday on BreatheDreamGo, I have a video I took while riding in a bicycle rickshaw on the way to the train station from my hotel in Haridwar during the Kumbh Mela. I was staying at the wonderful Haveli Hari Ganga, which is located deep in the bazaar – where the streets are too narrow for cars and too crowded with people and stalls piled high with brass figurines of the Hindu pantheon, pyramids of vermilion kumkum powder and neatly stacked wafers of pastel sweets. The hotel has its own bicycle rickshaw for transporting passengers to and from the train station.

Taj Mahal, India

India is a vast and beautiful country, filled with world heritage sites, throbbing megalopolises, sacred pilgrimage routes, tropical beaches and snow-capped mountains. But along with the ubiquitous tourist draws such as the Taj Mahal, the forts and palaces of Rajasthan and the intricately carved temples of Tamil Nadu, India is home to a very well-trodden backpacking trail.

In a recent blog entry, Authentic travel in India, I wrote about crossing the cultural divide and really getting to know the country you are traveling in. Sara C., who commented on that blog, said. “I spent two months in India in 2008, and by the second month of my trip people would routinely assume that I was an expat living fully within Indian culture. This was because I didn’t dress or carry myself like a backpacker and made an effort to learn local customs and connect with the people around me. Most of the backpackers act like backpackers – they aren’t really interested in getting to know Indians on their own terms or really connecting at all with the culture beyond platitudes.”

This entry was inspired by Sarah’s comment and also by by a video I saw at TBEX 10, the travel bloggers conference in New York City. The video, We are backpackers, is a short snappy celebration of backpacking. You can see it on Nomadic Matt’s Travel Site. In the blog post about this video, called Why I’ll never stop, Matt says seeing the video “refreshed, renewed, and re-inspired” him to keep traveling. It had the opposite effect on me.

I get that backpacking is a great way for young people to see the world and the astonishing variety of cultural difference. But I don’t think immersing yourself in the backpacking culture, and sticking strictly to the backpacking routes and hangouts, as outlined in Lonely Planet and other travel guides, is the best way to get to know a foreign culture.

Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India

Aside from the benefits of getting to know a foreign culture — such as increasing your knowledge, self-awareness and perspective — there may be other good reasons for taking the road less traveled. As I said in my Authentic travel in India blog post, the backpacking culture injects a foreign element, and the (usually) poor people of that culture morph around it because they know that, in spite of appearances, these young people come from rich countries.

There is a dark side to backpacking in developing countries. Drug use is one issue, and all the negativity it attracts. And there’s another. Some poor people in developing nations feel conflicted contempt for backpackers who wear dirty clothes and stay in cheap hovels because they think they are experiencing the “real” India or Thailand or wherever. They won’t express it directly of course, because these are usually the same poor people who are trying to make a living off of foreigners. Which is why they’re conflicted.

The poor people of these nations would give anything to have the wealth and opportunities many backpackers were born into in their home countries of Canada, Sweden, Australia. So they don’t understand why rich young westerners want to come to places like India and pretend to be poor. In fact, even the poorest of the poor in India take pride in their appearance and would never let themselves look like some of the slovenly backpackers and hippies I have seen.

If the only local people you meet while you are traveling are the people serving you beer, you are not really getting to know the people of that culture.

Shore Temple, Tamil Nadu, India

Finally, there is perhaps another even more ominous reason to get off the beaten path: an editorial in an Indian newspaper following the German Bakery bomb blast in Pune in February 2010 suggested that terrorists might be consulting popular travel guides when planning attacks. During the Mumbai attacks of November 2008, the popular tourist hangout Leopold’s Cafe was targeted.

I try to see everything in life as a learning opportunity – what is this event or experience trying to teach me? And for me, these attacks on Leopold’s and the German Bakery are confirmation of something I already felt, which is a growing aversion to “traveler’s haunts” as I call them – places like north Goa, Pushkar, Hampi, Manali, Dharmasala and Pahar Ganj in Delhi.

The longer I spend in India, the more I prefer to find the places that are less affected by the influx of tourists. And maybe that’s part of the process, and part of the magic, of travel. The more you go, the more you want to know.

Video of Kumbh Mela ceremony

This is a video of the aarti (ceremony to honour the Ganges River) that happens each day at dusk in Haridwar, India. I took this during the Kumbh Mela, the largest religious gathering on earth. I was standing on a media platform in Har-ki-Pauri, the sacred centre of Haridwar. Notice how the Indian authorities set up the media platform with a electrical wires marring the view of the aarti! But still, I think I got a lovely shot of women int he crowd when I panned down across the river to the side I was on. Of course, a modest video like this in no way captures the heat, the smells, the enormous size of the crowd and the intense devotional energy that was palpable in the air. It was an amazing experience to be there. A privilege, really.