Taste of India

One of the naturals for me in the Pilgrimage of Peace was a taste for the food of India. I love food that uses lots of spices. I discovered the key to cooking real Indian food is the timing of putting the spices in the food. Almost every meal I have made since returning has had Indian food as one of the main ingredients. Tonight I got adventuresome and made a Chicken Curry. I took the recipe from a tiny recipe book that came with the curry powder that I purchased yesterday at the Indian grocery store in town.

Each region in India has its own curry and style of seasoning. The hotter the region the hotter the food is. With the help of the store owner I picked a curry that was for the region in the middle of India where I had spent most of my time. However, no matter how hot or mild the food is, there is always lots of use of spice. I served the chicken curry with some Basmati rice, whole-wheat Roti bread, plain yogurt and a salad.

Like Indian food, life is full of timing. The right words and right actions at certain times can make all the difference in life. This timing takes discipline, something I lack at times.

This morning while cleaning the living room I played the film 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama, something I had taped and watched earlier. Watching it again, after the Pilgrimage, the wisdom of the Dalai Lama made much more sense to me. Like Gandhi, the Dalai Lama talked a lot about the need for discipline. To be truly nonviolent and to love your enemies, as he, takes hours of prayer, reflection, discernment and self-examination.

Discipline, discernment and self-examination is something that I have been trained in, especially in all my time in Jesuit education, high school, seminary and three Jesuit universities. St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, said that if you had time for only one type of prayer a day it should be the Examen of Consciousness. Gandhi called it his reflections on his “experiment with truth”. Martin Luther King said that the busier he was the more he had to make time for prayer and reflection. Dorothy Day, the co-founder of the Catholic Worker, kept a daily diary and consistently prayed and reflected on her experiences in life.

So while the taste of India is still so strong, I need to reflect on the Pilgrimage of Peace. To that end doing Part 2 of Pictures from India, on Flickr was a good exercise today. (It can also be found on the Pilgrimage of Peace Home Page.) Pictures give a good taste of the experience and a chance to deepen awareness of it. Savor the Taste of India.

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