I have been back from my Kerala workshop now three weeks. Yet my heart is still there. It is a difficult concept to explain as you might imagine. I’m sure we all go through it from time to time. When I started doing these workshops, earlier this year, my ideal was a lofty one. I wanted to show people, mostly westerners (but also Indian) how fantastic India is. It is not all what you hear in the media. It truly is a country that welcomes you with open arms and then hugs you so tight that it is difficult not to be affected by it. I wanted to show how welcoming and spectacularly beautiful it is. That notion has not changed.
All too often in our modern societies, we have forgotten how to do that. We walk around with impenetrable faces, drowning ourselves in our smart phones, hoping no one will notice how lonely we all are. India is like an open book. It is far from perfect but doesn’t strive to be. It wears its heart on its sleeve with quite a lot of pride. It is so flawed, that as a human you can’t not feel as if you are being mirrored in its being.
And Kerala, known as ‘Gods own Country’ is not unlike the rest of the country. The people, the landscape and the food is vastly different from the North in every aspect physically but the its heart remains the same. Warm, kind and so abundantly generous.
And all of this was embodied in the perfect setting at the Kumarakom Lake Resort. The resort, at the top if its line in India, is like a small village in itself. I was there for nearly a week but felt no need to step outside of its confines. The people there always smiling with never a frown, ready to do anything for you.
Each and every participant was so wonderful and just like the Coorg workshop, the dynamic between the group was just fantastic. We were together for only 5 days, but we left each other knowing a little of each ones life. That is a privilege for me which I am so grateful for.
We started our days with yoga and spent the rest of the day learning the art of photography.
The food in Kerala was incredible. I am from the North of India and our understanding within the same country of different regions still remains limited. I had never tried some of the incredible dishes served at the resort. Every day there a ton of dishes we had never tasted before.
We all went away with a magical experience.
Thank you to all the participants for being there and sharing this adventure with me. Thank you to the Kumarakom Lake Resort for making this possible!
Gorgeous Goa
