Surat – fake guru, sacred tree and mosquitoes

Read the previous post about my adventures on the train here.

When we came to Surat station we decided to stay in the waiting room for a few hours since it was still dark. After a few hours we caught a rickshaw to the ashram. It was still dark in the city when we caught the auto rickshaw so I couldn’t see how the city looked like, I just noticed that it had a lot of straight very broad roads.

The first impression I had of ashram was really good since it looked really nice. The entrance was decorated with beautiful lights and it was so peaceful there. Women only wore saris and kurtas and many men wore white kurtas (long white shirts).

The girls I came with were pretty neutral and sometimes frustrated on the train but as soon as we entered ashram they became peaceful and happy. Their whole energy changed as they felt like they were at home.

The girls led me to a stage in a temple-tent like building. The temple was with fans but there were no walls, so it was just a roof, fans and a marble floor. We slept there on mats for a few hours as it was a very early morning and we only had our bags as pillows. The girls said that they would take care of the room for me tomorrow. I felt asleep instantly.

When I woke up in the morning (at around 5am) I realised that I got many mosquito bites, even on my palm and my forehead! I even took a picture of mosquito bites on my palm:

The girls were nowhere to be seen. I left my bag in the corner of the temple and went to explore the ashram. An Indian girl approached me and told  that the girls I came with were bathing.

The ashram was really large and had temples, holy statues and holy trees. People kept staring at me as I was the only foreigner there. One girl volunteered to show me round the ashram and I agreed.

Then Shilpa and Shika (the girls I came with) found me and showed me the rest of the ashram. I asked them how to take the bus to the centre of Surat  because I needed to buy some stuff there and I wanted to take a look round the town. They didn’t want me to go as they said something will be happening in ashram but I convinced them that the sooner I go, the sooner I will return. My reasoning appealed to them so they showed me which bus to take and I was after a short while on my way to the city of Surat.

Unfortunately Surat wasn’t a nice place. All I could see was rundown half built buildings, many poor people and horrible pollution. I had to cover my whole face with the scarf because I didn’t want to damage my lungs and skin with polluted air. I also did that to avoid at least some of the looks.

People kept looking at me, even pointing at me. I was the only tourist there. I checked out some stores but they were selling only very low quality things. Like I needed to buy some hair clips and all I was shown by one seller were two fake bright pink barbie doll  clips which were dirty and looked like someone just picked them up from the street.

I swear all the shopping centres I saw were half-built and most of the shops were empty, and those that were open for business sold something to do with cameras and mobiles. Street market stalls mainly sold very low quality clothes and old style Indian hair accessories.

I went to the train station to buy the ticket to Mumbai. The person that served me was extremely nice and even invited me to come inside his office to avoid crowds. He said he would try to get reserved seats but for that I needed to return before my departure date to collect them.

He said he paid for the ticket so he put trust in me for me to return, otherwise he would lose the money. I assured him that I would come back.

Instead of taking an auto back to ashram I decided to take a bus for the experience of it (I always try local buses of different towns). But that was a big mistake!

Surat buses were awful, nothing like the buses I have seen in other places of India. People were fighting each other to get in first, even old people were forcing their way into the bus like their lives depended on it. So by the time I got on the busＩ got 6 scratches on my arms. Thankfully they weren’t deep scratches. I got the seat next to the bus driver so I avoided being squeezed throughout my entire journey.

In the ashram me and the girls I came with explained everything about their guru. They said that they were not allowed to have relationships with men because they were completely dedicated to their guru. That triggered in my mind some facts I read about some ashrams in India using girls for sex, so I was wondering if that was the case with this guru too.

On that particular day their guru was landing in Surat. The girls convinced me to take an auto rickshaw together with them to meet their guru. I felt a bit tired but still decided to go because they begged me to. So five of us got somehow squeezed into the three wheeler auto and one girl had to share the single seat with the driver. It was funny how we all fitted in as that car was super small. Here’s the picture I took of the three girls that were sitting at the back with me:

The auto driver tried to go as fast as possible. When we got there we went to the vip area of the airport since the girls that I came with were holding high status in the ashram. In a few minutes we saw a red car and the girls told me it was their guru coming.

A few other people were in the vip area too and as soon as they saw a red car they started running towards it and touching the windows and the guru would throw sweets towards them sometimes. When that would happen people would fall on their knees to collect the sweets and worship their guru, totally disregarding cars.

Soon the red car came near us and the girls told me to remove my white scarf and try to touch the screen of the window. I wasn’t particularly up for it but I did remove the scarf and guru saw me. He was a bit surprised to see a European female. He threw me some sweets and the girls I came with straight away bent down to collect them. They gave me the sweets and told me that I was very lucky because the guru looked at me and gave me sweets. That was quite funny,  because they were so impressed by that and for me that guru looked like just a normal person. To be honest I’m sensitive to energies but I couldn’t feel anything about the guru, like his energy was protected. I wonder why…

The girls convinced me to be in the vip area in ashram so that the guru would again see me. I was sitting there being bitten by mosquitoes and the guru saw me again and even asked Shilpa (one of the girls) why I was here. They were super happy that the guru asked about me because he usually doesn’t ask any questions about anyone so from that day on I got two personal guards:)

Shika (another girl) showed me round the other areas of ashram such as the temple and the tree which is basically a very old tree which people in that ashram consider sacred. So they say that if you make a wish and walk round that tree that wish will definitely come true. All day and even night there are people walking round that tree. For the fun of it I made a short-term wish and walked round that tree but the wish didn’t come true:)

Here’s the picture of that tree:

As the days passed in that ashram many people would approach me with identical questions which were in this order:

1. Where are you from?
2. What’s your name?
3. What do you think of our guru?
4. What do you do in life?

And then some would ask what’s the purpose of my visit to ashram, what’s my education and that’s about it. The questions were in Hindi but since I got asked so many times I came to remember what each phrase meant so it was easy for me to answer them.

The best thing in that ashram was the food. It was really inexpensive and they had so much tasty food there. For those who know Indian currency the veg biryani was 10 ruppees which is less than 1p in UK. I tried pink chai, Indian hot desserts and other foods I’ve never tried before.

The bathrooms were awful in that place because they were all outside and for example the women would bath together without any privacy and in very dirty conditions. I couldn’t force myself to use those bathrooms even once, so I had to take an auto to the train station of the Surat to use a surprisingly nice shower and bathroom there.

Also in the mornings at 3 am people had to wake up and take shower. So the queues were horrible because there were hundreds of people waiting for their turn. They would all push each other and wait for long hours. It was just awful.

On the day before my departure I met two guys who were speaking proper English, the only two people I met who knew this language really well. They were holding hands with each other but that’s pretty common in towns such as Surat, because they hardly get any physical contact with females so they kind of compensate for that by holding each others’ hands – that’s what I was explained by some locals.

I was very happy to meet them and we started talking about the universities they went to, future plans and this ashram. Then the mother of Shilpa asked me to come and told me not to talk to those boys. I said ok and continued talking to them whilst walking away from her. Then in a few minutes’ time Shilpa approached me and started shouting at those guys. I felt sorry for them and people were stopping to see what’s happening so I told them to go.

She explained that those guys were from a bad family and that I shouldn’t talk to them. I told I didn’t care which family they belonged to but she kept insisting not to be with them. When I dug deeper she told me that she was high up in ashram and if I talked to boys and the guru found out, her career might be in jeopardy. She brought me here and therefore whatever I do will be the reflection of her.

She said that I could not imagine how many rules written and unwritten exist in that ashram. They are not allowed to talk to boys, for 7 years she wakes up at 3am and works till 10pm most days without any kind of pay. There is even one rule not allowing to drink water by touching the bottle with lips. Then I understood why she got so stressed out and why she tends to follow me everywhere when I decide not to sleep till late or talk to someone. People are watching in ashram and if I do something “inappropriate” she might suffer big time.

The Holi celebration (the Indian festival of colors) in ashram was okay, I saw and interesting sight of people being sprayed by their guru with huge natural flower paint sprays. I’m glad that I spent Holi there because people are not allowed to drink there and I’ve heard that people celebrating Holi can cross borders sometimes. Here’s the picture I took of this celebration in ashram:

In general I’m very glad to have had this experience of being in ashram but I feel very sorry for the people who believe in that guru. For God’s sake, that guru is even selling USB drives to those poor people working for him for free as well as guests. He has the whole marketing strategy in place and makes money in every way he can and those poor souls don’t realise that.

When I tried to speak with those girls about spirituality and would say something that their guru warned about or whatever, their minds would totally shut. Their parents belong to this ashram and they were brought up there so they are totally programmed to obey their guru.

Those poor girls have good hearts but they are really lost. They think that after years of slaving (which they call “selfless service”) they will be happy and that the way of their guru is the right way. They think that their guru is God and other people are just small insignificant beings compared with their leader.

Another reason why their minds shut when they hear something different is that they don’t want their little worlds to be shattered. They have so many weird beliefs instilled by their guru. They consider themselves highly spiritual but they have no idea how to open the third eye in meditation or what’s the nature of reality. I have no idea what they were taught by their guru throughout all these years but I guess nothing useful.

The people who were the followers of that guru were really similar to each other in many respects. They were mainly poor people from small villages of India who weren’t very bright and wouldn’t think with their own heads. They were the people who liked to be led and told what they should do on a daily basis.

Although they considered themselves spiritual they argued a lot with each other about insignificant things, like the location of where they would sleep in the temple. They were narrow-minded people incapable of independent thinking. And that’s not surprising because who else would work for years without any pay and follow hundreds of rules without questioning them in any way.

On my last day I got up early and went to collect my reserved ticket from the ticket office guy and surely my ticket was ready for collection. He was super happy to see me because probably he thought I wouldn’t turn up and he would lose his money.  He again invited me to his office and even offered chai. I saw a big rat in his office running towards the upper corner holding on to the computer wires. It seems that everyone ignores the rats in the train station.

When I collected the tickets I met with Shilpa and Shika. Those girls were also leaving that day for the Lucknow city because that’s were their guru was going next. Here’s their picture:

Before their departure we went to a restaurant and they ordered south Indian breakfast and I ordered mango lassi which was served in a dirty looking glass, a very usual sight in some Indian towns. I’m thinking that those people crazy about cleanliness wouldn’t survive a day in this country:)

Shilpa apologised for being such a pain in the a** all this time. I said that was okay because I understood how much in trouble she might be if I did something “inappropriate”. We exchanged contact details and they got on the train.

My train to Mumbai was in the early morning hours so I had to wait for it in the ladies’ waiting room. I felt asleep whilst waiting for it and when I woke up the lady just a step away from me was changing her sari. I was like, okay… that wasn’t what I expected to see the first thing in the morning:)

After a few minutes my train arrived.

I will update you about what happened in Mumbai soon!

You might also like:

1. Adventures On The Train To Mumbai
2. Adventures in Jaipur
3. Days in Delhi: Motorbike Rides, Street Food and a Stalker
4. My first day in Delhi – Fight Over Three Apples, Insane Roads, Bats And More