Where I am Called Didi. — sara lynn lashbrook

I am here. The Sri Ram Ashram has been my home for a week now. I was here for the transition from one year/decade to the next and I have been held, accepted and welcomed since the moment that I arrived.

I learned about the Sri Ram Ashram in a way that India often offers. I was in Rishikesh and was invited to attend a sound healing mediation. The friend that invited me ended up not going and I did. It was there that I met Anna. She too was at the sound healing and after I invited her to join me for dinner. Over soup and ginger, lemon, honey tea, we shared pieces of our experience. I mentioned I was interested in learning from woman and children. She had spent a few weeks here at the Ashram with a group from California and she shared that there were six babies that needed to be held. And here I am.

The courtyard looking toward the girls rooms

I am holding babies. I am holding them. I am rocking them. I am singing to them. I am staring at them. I am sitting with them. I am making noises with them. I am feeding them. I am burping them. I am simply being with them. And it is beautiful.

The ashram is an orphanage. All of the children here (there are about 33 living full time and since it was winter break many of the older siblings have been here, making it close to 50) have been found without families. While they each have their own story on how they arrive here, all of them are loved and welcome with open arms as I was.

Look who I found here, Hanuamanji! I could not even make this up!

The ashram sits on 16 acres and has a living area for boys, girls, employees (who do not work directly with children) and guests. Children have a ‘ma’ that nurtured, nourished and provided for them when they were little, if they arrived young. Each ‘ma’ cares directly for 2 children, they can be close in age or the ages can differ. For example, I spend most of my time with Prena (nine months) and Shahtam (two months)and their ma Sunita who I respectfully call Maji. Guari (6 years with special rights) and Aanya (4 months) share a room and a ‘ma,’ while Tanya (who completed her second year of age and is in her third year) and Madhavi (who completed her 1 year and is in her second year) are with a different ma. Anisha (six months) and Vidhi (five months) have two ma’s, one of them is Swapna who is American who arrived her with her Guru Hari Ram or know here affectionately as Babaji who had a vision to create a space where children we are part of a loving family.

The phrase or motto of Sri Ram is Love Loves Love.

While I have not been upstairs to the girls’ rooms, they have shared rooms and live together by age. The younger children aged five-nine/ten have a ma that shares a room with them. In general though, everyone who is older looks after all of the children. There is a shared responsibility for raising, nurturing and disciplining everyone. And no older sibling spares the responsibility of showing his or her age.

view of my third floor room 22 from the outside

Each day at 6:15 am we hear the wake up bell. It is not an electronic bell. It is a metal stick hitting metal pieces. Morning aarti (prayer) follows and children who wake and attend get a chocolate. The breakfast bell is at 7:15. The children gather their thali, a traditional meal plate (which is a metal plate with divisions in it- similar to a picnic plate) and meet in a line in the courtyard. The girls are in one line and they boys are in another. They walk to the dining/eating room and enter only after taking off their shoes. The boys sit to the left and the girls sit to the right (currently there are six boys who live here and the other 27 are girls). The cooks and older children come around with serving size portions of the meal and call it out, offering it as a choice. The children say ‘ha’ or tilt their head meaning ‘yes’ and point to which section of the thali plate they would like it placed. They can also say ‘ni’ or ‘niheen’ or tilt their head in a different way to indicate ‘no.’ Once everyone has their food they join together in a prayer, while they say the same prayer, I have noticed at times the boys say it when they are ready and the girls say it when they are ready. Most folks eat with their fingers, some eat with a spoon. We all sit on the floor. Some times children are fed (I have seen Tanya use a spoon and eat from a bowl on her own and I have also seen her ma feed her). Once they are done eating, they each are responsible for washing their thali plate, bowl (if they have one), spoon (if they used it) and cup.

There is some time between breakfast and study hall for children to return their dishes to their room and for them to play. The bell rings at 10ish for study hall, and while I am here during winter break, they only days they have taken off from study hall is Sunday and New Years Day. Everyone who is ‘school’ aged, meaning older than five, gathers their book, workbooks, photocopied papers and writing tools and meets in a room to work. After about two hours, around 12:15 we hear the lunch bell. After lunch is a time of rest, before a chai/snack break at 2:45/3. From then until 6 children have the opportunity to play and explore on their own.

The sound of the bell at 6:15 signals the start of aarti/puja, which is lead by the children. The elder children do the fire and water ceremony, play the drums and the harmonium and start the puja. The younger boys blow on the conch shell, which they love to do! The aarti ends with 3 minutes of mediation, in which the room is quiet. Dinner is served around 7:15 and after children have time to study or watch TV for one hour before lights out.

I wondered before I arrived, what my role would be here. Sri Ram Ashram is a functioning family that guests step in to. So while I am here or if I am not here, the same routine continues to honor consistency for the children. My role here it to help with the babies. I have found a connection with Maji, Prena, Shahtam, Ma, Tanya and Madhavi and I spend most of my time with them, where I am called, Didi or big sister.

With a huge smile and love radiating from within,

HUG

Didi