7/24/12.
It was a hot,
empty day in late July. My email had a reminder from Fulbright: since I had been on their
website in February 2012, if I wanted to complete an application, I had to
do it by August 1.
In fact, instead of being empty, I had planned
to fly to India with a group of my Ayurveda students in mid-July. But the
unpredictable had happened. On July 13, all semblance of peace had disappeared
as one student after another reported death and destruction in their lives,
backing out from the journey, and leaving me with a non-refundable ticket and a
bunch of train, plane, hotel, and car bookings…. I had decided to cancel the trip and eat
JetAirway’s cancellation fee of $995, a fee that was only possible because
AirIndia was on strike, leaving other airlines to price-gouge freely. My mother had experienced her own
destruction, walking into her home and finding that the guy living above had an
exploded water pipe that made her ceiling fall into her bathroom tub and floor. With the week suddenly free of flights, I
spent the time in Princeton, overseeing renovations, and spontaneously
upgrading her bathroom significantly, since the guy upstairs had his insurance
pay for it.
The email reminder
came at a time when renovation of life was in the air. As we stripped away the protective plastic
sheets in her apartment and the new bathroom emerged, I decided to renovate my
life too.
For many
years, I had been yearning to study abroad.
Shortly after residency, I had received an award from the
Clinton-supported America India Foundation-AIF, but had declined, as my student
loans needed to be repaid. With the
$401,000 paid off now, I was itching to do some much-awaited research in India.
My hospital was in trouble, downsizing
from budget cuts and corruption. I had
left in 2011.
Two decades
before, in 1993, I had applied for a Fulbright fellowship and was devastated
when they informed me that Harvard had not yet sent my MPH transcripts, so my
file was disqualified. Harvard’s holy Office of the Registrar was filled with people that
…..well, did not attend Harvard….! They
had “forgotten”
my transcript in a To Do pile that
was Not Done. So my file was ignored, my life path
disrupted, my whole world interrupted by their neglect.
Lesson of
Life Learned: smile at others, but always
check their work when you are the one that will benefit from their labor.
After a
strong meditation, and several deep dharana
sessions as I had grouted tile in my mother’s new bathroom, I dreamed up a
project I loved, that would benefit the people who assisted me in the field,
and that would help the Americans that paid for my grant. In a week, I had an essay. Then three letter
of recommendations promised, then reminded, then chased, then begged, then done
by three benevolent angels of change who believe in the work of explaining
Ayurveda in medical language. An essay, a language competency verification
letter, a slew of demographic questions, a summary of the field, with
references. Then I sat on July 31, reviewing and satisfied before hitting the
SEND button.
The Fulbright
Scholar grant is a long application, and my sincerity in finishing all the
research and writing and compiling was an exercise in self-confidence. The
biggest reward was the realization that I still have the focus to complete long
applications. I also got a lot of credential papers organized along the way. I
threw out a lot of old papers while hunting for things they requested, like
transcripts and technical articles. Whether or not I received fruits from my
labor, I knew that my idea to conduct interdisciplinary research on Ojas in
Ayurvedic pockets in India would be a great clinical tool. If I did not get
funded, I still wanted to go to India and try to finish the research with the
elders over several years.
Anyway, I
argued, it was a good way to spend the empty last days of July.
In the late
summer, my diksha guru told me NOT to mention the application to anyone, not to
even utter the F-------- word. Not even to my mother. Food cooks better when the lid is on the pan; things can simmer quietly
without outside interference. I had to keep the lid on!
When my
referees asked for status updates, I referred to the application as ‘the F*
word,’ determined to value the magic of cooking, and the command of my guru. Through silence over the 6+
months, until the F* Board agreed the project was worth funding, I learned
about the space, the abyss, between the words, where personal hopes and determination mix
with surrender and resignation, where decision occurs.
The biggest lesson to learn from ‘the F* word’ is that
the true victory is to survive the rigor of the application process. It will remain as a very
personal growing experience that belongs to noone else.