Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
For so many years, I took my education for granted. I hated school, but I could never
imagine not having had it. It was there that I fell in love with the stories of history. It was
there that I spun my first globe, looking at all the places in the world I hoped to one day
see. And though I failed chemistry and algebra and a couple of other classes that we don't
need to talk about here, it was at school that I also learned how to meet new people, create
friendships, and find my place in the world.
I looked at Amrit and Ashish, and I couldn't imagine them not having that opportunity.
The power of an education, whether it's the traditional kind or one fueled by imagination,
could forever alter the course of a life.
At sunset, I took Dilip and his two young sons for a walk along the banks of the Ganges,
where I had just swum. Dilip held his younger son in his arms, bouncing him as we walked,
showering the boy with affection, the outward proof of love. It was this love that would
always keep us alive, long past our actual mortality. It was through our children that we
lived beyond our own lifetimes, carrying us into the great beyond. Dilip explained how he
wanted his boys to have a better life than he had. He wanted them to have better jobs. A
better existence.
“I will do what I can to help them go to school,” Dilip shared, his eyes filling with tears
of determination. “I teach them.”
“You teach them yourself?” I asked.
“Yes, in the night time. I come home, and then I teach them.”
In the West, school is open to everyone. We see it as a right, not a privilege. But in India,
education comes with school fees, even for those who barely have enough to eat.
“Money's always a problem everywhere,” Dilip explained. “Who doesn't have money
problem?”
He was right. You could ask the richest man in the world if he had a problem with
money, and he would say yes. You ask the poorest man, and he sees that he is not alone.
I was taken aback once more how a man with nothing had such a deep acceptance of this
world that has so much. Here was someone who had emerged from the vicious caste sys-
tem only to then fight for his children to do the same. And yet he accepted his limitations,
even as he struggled against them.
“Because,” he explained, “if I am good and honest person, God might send help for me.”
We all know what's next, right? I thanked Dilip for his help, for his kindness, and most
of all for showing me how to live in acceptance of the moment that I am in. Maybe accept-
ance and struggle didn't have to be in conflict. Maybe I could, in the same breath, accept
