Photo: Soul&Surf
There is a line in Gregory David Roberts’ novel, Shantaram, which goes, “Without love, India would be impossible.” When you arrive in India, you are forced to learn, discover, and understand everything through all your senses. When you master that, you graduate to trusting your instincts and relying on intuition.
With that said, when I arrived in India for the first time, I was hit with a sensory overload. The smells and tastes were strong and spicy, sweet and raw; the sights were colorful and vibrant. India’s touch and feel were comforting yet so incredibly foreign; a strange patchwork of wide smiles, confused gazes, and a warm, unwavering love. It is this love that allows your intuition to guide you.
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Deep thunder, lightning which spikes the sky, and the onslaught of rain which follows it all at the tail end of monsoon season take their toll on Varkala, Southern India. Yet here are all the boys, watching in wonder, smiles wide, arms around each other, playfully reading the waves, planning the next day’s surf. Some of them had never seen the sea before coming here. The prospect of surfing is a seemingly miraculous dream. Now, they have grown into strong and wonderful instructors, teaching the next generation to walk on water. At first, they were reserved around me. They smiled and waved but didn’t interact. Perhaps it was the language barrier or maybe it was because I was another westerner coming into their world, unsure of how long I would be staying.
You see, There is a constant stream of new people who walk through the gates of Soul & Surf as guests, volunteers, or new staff. We must seem so transient to them. We come, we surf, we stretch, we go home. In the end, we always go home, which means trust is harder to build out here.
But a few days in, we are equally as enamored with each other. They high five me, they grant me nicknames, and they smile freely as if they are smiling with their hearts. They are inquisitive, wide-eyed and eager to learn.
Three of the surf team in particular captured my heart during my month of working in Varkala. They were cousins who had learned to surf as teenagers through Soul & Surf and had found surfing as a passion and a lifeline.
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Sitting down with Praveen, one of the surf assistants here in Varkala, the glean in his eyes is unmistakable when talking about surfing. The 19-year old has been part of the family for more than five years since learning to surf at Soul & Surf’s Sunday surf club. It’s something he says he is indebted to for enabling him to live the life he leads now. I ask what he plans to do in the future and his answer is simple and resolute: “I want to surf every day of my life.” To him, a life where he can earn a living from doing what he loves is unfathomably exciting. It is life-altering, and not in the hyperbolic, radical surfer dude way – but in the purest and most authentic sense of the word.
How often can we say that what we do has changed our lives for the better? Or perhaps more accurately, how often do we look back on the things that we have done or the places we have been and taken a moment to be truly grateful?
His cousins, Sujith and Jithu, share the same passion and love for the ocean. Sally, a wonderful guest who I met while working in the cafe says she was a surf assistant herself in Varkala about three years ago, teaching the same Sunday surf club when Praveen, Sujith, and Jithu were just groms.
Their transformation, she noted, was remarkable. From three boys who had never surfed, growing into strong coaches now helping others find their motion in the ocean. Carving, getting barreled (on the occasion or two that’s possible in India), totally comfortable, and at one with the waves. All with such pure joy. Sally explains what a proud and beautiful moment it was to be reunited with them and to see them surf, using the skills she had passed on in such an incredible way.
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I have learned a lot from these boys. I’ve learned about love and respect, family and happiness, being at peace both on land and at sea, and feeling humbled by the magnitude of the ocean and its power over us.
Praveen and I discuss this gift – that the ocean is infinite, that it can hide our deepest fears or expose them so dramatically just in the crest of a wave. Because in this space, out in the lineup or in the tumbling white waters, we are all equal. It makes no difference whether you are rich or poor, Indian or western, big or small, professional or a novice. In those moments, we are all at the mercy of the rawest and most natural energy there is.
I have witnessed so much love in the spirit of this place and its people. It has been incredible to be a part of their world and I am so grateful for my time spent with them. Call it love, call it compassion, call it a hunger for something much bigger than yourself. Open up your hearts to these faces of Varkala, and their smiles which seem to break into your soul. They’ll get you, and you will be utterly grateful.
Editor’s Note: This journal first appeared in Soul & Surf’s blog here.
