This morning we were greeted at 4 AM in our room with tea and coffee. We lodged overnight at the beautifully appointed INDeco Hotel in Swamimalai, where we discovered that our hotel housed the single largest collection of museum artifacts by a single individual.
Swamimalai, Mother Teresa and the Grand Prix
Janice and I were entranced listening to Feroza’s upbringing in Kolkata. It turns out that Feroza,* while a schoolgirl in Loreto House, went to serve at the orphanage Shishu Bhavan that Mother Teresa founded and she had a few encounters with the legendary compassionate healer. There are pictures of Mother Teresa as you enter the majestic lobby with a handwritten note from her that truly summarizes the inclusive mission of Destination Peace:
“God is Love and He loves you and me.
Let us love others as He loves you and me.”
God bless you,
M. Teresa ma
It is 5 AM and our driver Prakash is taking us for a three hour ride to visit Auroville near Pondicherry for a special meditation session in the Golden Lotus Dome. The road to Pondicherry is as enlightening as the impending sunrise. We pass an overwhelming number of women bending over with reverence almost to the ground: painstakingly, yet with total disregard to any personal pain as they religiously sweep their sanded doorways.
Cows, bulls, dogs and goats are also pedestrians, lining the road everywhere. When fast approaching vehicles approach them, they reflexively intuit the exact moment to cease their meandering into the road. Every street, whether dirt or tarred is, without exception, treated like a super highway.
It’s a constant Grand Prix with oncoming traffic coming right at you. I must admit that if this were an auto racing video game, even our sons who are “expert finger athletes” wouldn’t be able to win!
Prakash suggested that we stop on the side of the road at a local coffee stand. Despite all the fancy coffee machines available in the U.S., we discovered that no coffee from L.A. to N.Y. can come close to the full-bodied taste and aroma of this coffee made by the skilled hands of an Indian Coffee craftsman.
* Feroza Ardeshir is the President of Alliance4Empowerment. She is on her third career, having previously been a molecular biologist on a malaria vaccine project and a sixth grade Montessori School teacher. Feroza is passionate about her family and friends, social justice, students of all ages, education, health, nutrition, science, yoga and meditation, feminism, and world peace.
The history written by the owner, Steve Borgia, of the former palace where we stayed
INDeco Hotel Lobby
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