ART Excel – Caterham 2009 (Art of Living)
12/08/13 Wednesday – Note: ART Excel stands for All Round Training in Excellence. It’s mostly fun and games for the kids that help them build themselves. 21 kids, 1 teach, 4 assistants. Funking recycling truck wakes me up making noise early in the morning. Get to Sailesh’s but he’s not gonna be around till later so kill time around Greenwich and Peckham. Ride to Caterham. Register. Reminisce. Etc. Welcome folks and register them. Meet with fellow assistants and Su (head teach for ART Excel). BTW I always wanted to do ART Excel it’s a kids course and since I’m on major budget they let me do seva helping out Su. Fellow assistants were Debbie, Malindi and Tina. First time they had a guy in as an assistant. Kinda good coz the kids need some male energy. Play a game with the kids so they know each others names. Fill out questionnaire, etc. Back to Su’s room for a debriefing. Didn’t realize how teachers have to sacrifice time and so much more coz last year I was making friends with all the other different course members. Got to this time too but not during eating and chilling times. Had to take some blankets to the ART Excel class and it’s way far in the dark past the gym, courts, cricket grounds, horses and ‘doggy area??’. Scary in the dark man! Censored: Had to sleep on the toilet window sill for a sec ;o) Oh yeah… I had a flower in my ear so some girl was asking Sanjib why I have it so I told him to tell her it was for her wink wink. Lol can’t help flirting you know! Anyway find out she’s one of the main AOL family members… um… family member. So from then on she got a flower everyday.

13/08/14 Thursday – Now the adults woke up early to join the folks doing the Part 2 silence course for long kriya in the mornings. First it was a new long kriya and second… it K.O. me in style! It’d been so long I loved it. Kids learn some breathing techniques. Do the grape exercise where we pay attention to the form and and feel it in our mouths and then slowly take a bite but don’t swallow the juice and then eat it. And appreciate that it took like months to become a grape and how that energy is transfered to us and how we should pay attention and take time to eat and appreciate the food. I was assigned to do the day one chart with the girls so we hooked that up. One of the kids found glucose in his bag and that was a no no. Then I was caught eating a pain au chocolat in front of the kids when we’re trying to teach them not to kinda thing. Didn’t set a good example… my bad. Walk in the woods… kids make a fort. Danny was in his own world knocking out some dead decomposing tree. Then there was this big ass branch that needed to be taken down and I kinda bumped myself and had a funny fall. Mansi was feeling bollywood… talking about pushing her up the tree and then falling in my arms. How romantic lol. Man the kids were so cool… but this is still the start ;o) Then Mansi had a fall somewhere so was gonna piggyback her but she’s like I stick big time. Made me paranoid! Stuff and stuff… briefing. Note: I don’t know… these days the food has kinda taken a downward turn… through out I had to put extra cheese on my stuff to make it taste better. And what what was the deal with making yogurt look like a dessert! Had to add extra sugar to that too. We all get into satsang mode and Su and Samuel got the instruments over… I kinda felt for the Part 1 and 2 people coz we made lots of uncoordinated noise. And they were gonna go into silence soon. Soham was my main man from last year… chocolate and food dealer lol. Now some lady had made jalebis coz it was her birthday but see while the parents were doing their courses the kids were getting buck wild and by the time Soham and I got back to the Part 2 area some of these kids nearly finished a huge tin of jalebis. Danny was definitely hopped up on all that sugar running around. Jasmine was on my case and she loves to cry even just for fun. Sidhant was cool too and Mansi wanted to me become a girl. I told her I already have half. Now there’s always a kid that steals everyones heart and Anabell’s son Krishan has been the main chittachor at Caterham… even last year. Since Anabell’s really busy with leading yoga, organizing stuff…. she does lottttsssss! So I had mind the lil tyke and he disappeared for a sec. Turns out he was in the loo… this was so cute coz first the loo is well hidden and he’d run out of loo paper so I had to hook him up. Poor kids they’re so small and loos are so big they have to balance with their hands. Censored: Sam kick, Ryan football.

14/08/15 Friday – Timin hooks me up with M&Ms for pulling down that huge branch. Trust me… it was nearly a lil tree itself. The girls present the day chart. Kids learn the Happy Breath. I kinda know what cracked Lucy up so much about the breath. Too bad I can’t tell :oP DJ and dance… all kids had to make their own move. Saranka’s kinda coming out of her shell but it’ll be a while… I’m kinda worried it might be anorexia coz I had a friend just like that but I have too much faith in AOL. After that kids are meant to act out some drama/issue they have with someone in their life and be in their shoes kinda thing. We go swimming. Oh man it was sooooo fun! I did a bomb splash in the shallow end and bust my right butt cheek :o( Satsang with adults. Then we were meant to go sort out our play but we passed the YES! crew (teens course). And they made us satsang with them. It was good coz this year they didn’t have time so I didn’t get to chill with Alex, Nikita, Dhru, Aditi, Darshan, Gayatri etc. We didn’t link for any satsang this time so that was a bummer. Oh and no jam sessions like last year. But anyway, get to our class… decide on doing Wizard of Oz. It was pretty chaotic but the way Su just hooked it up… nuff respeck! Then we had to make due with paper hats, masks, props that were around and what the parents brought and what clothes and stuff everyone could exchange. And boy oh boy it really makes you realize you can be so creative with the littlest of supplies. Soham and Malindi hooked up the script and scenes. Soham was already in a main role last year so this year he was chosen to be Dorothy. I was kinda happy to hear about kids doing drag coz if you don’t know already I support transgender issues when I get the time. But yeah Soham was kinda concerned so I’s like whatever you do… do you! If you aint cool with it… put your hands up in the air.

15/08/09 Saturday – Play more games. Bottle thing. I kinda want to reach out to some of the kids coz I know exactly where they’re at but at the same time they’re at that point they can only find out themselves and through avenues like these games we play with them. Play the trust game with blindfolds. I wanted to put ickyier stuff in Lucy’s hand but we wont allowed! And when I was blindfolded I was bumped into a fence… nice! Today I get Jasmin to give my flower girl the best flower I’ll give her but the most fragile one. Lol she was like after her meditation she work up to find it dead. I guess symbolism here is … beauty dunt last kinda thing. Oh man… we went to the old peoples home to do the Wizard of Oz for them. Most of them were so happy but this lady next to me was extra senile and started talking loud while the kids were performing. At one point she’s like ok I’ve had it I want you to go away. Freaked out the kids but it was cool. I just love the fact that I end up in close proximity to such situations. Her name was Winnie (spelling) and she couldn’t hold her tea so I held if for her and when she’s start talking to much I’d hand her the tea… that’d shut her up for a while. Then the kids sang this satsong ‘whether I’m happy, whether I’m blue, my mind keeps coming/running back to you’. So I was facing her and singing it to give her some good energy. Man then they hooked us up with some wicked cake… yum yum. Censored: Some private sleep over issue. Some of the older kids weren’t feeling the course in the start and it’s understandable coz they’re more or less meant to be between the ART Excel and YES! course. (YES! stands for Youth Empowerment Seminar) Get back and do the usual… then did this really boring meditation. Lol I know it’s not nice but like the kids where nowhere in the zone especially after all that cake and I was looking it. Like I could hear it being led but … are we there yet? It is over now? Kinda thing. Over to sorting out costumes to perform Oz at the satsang. This is where I started losing it coz kids were getting more rowdy and disobedient and I bumped my head really badly. Big up Soham for all the help man. The Oz performance went so well I was like wow! Coz the first two times it was kinda clumsy but WOW. Big up ART Excel brats! Oscar does a wicked French accent. Different kids did different stuff like sing, poetry, limerick… there was also meant to be gymnastics but hey. I really wanted to chill for satsang but we had our own ART Excel party back at the class. Sam and Ryan got down to wrestling. Ah good old days of submission moves. Remembered Kushal and Aneesh. But yeah it was getting heated up so I thought I’d referee and then folks had a lil one to one about the energies and how it felt and stuff. I’d like to tell you more but the kids gotta do the course to find out for themselves and well I just wanna give you glimpse of what kids go through and why all this helps them so much. Censored: Vain Princess was told stuff that was uncalled for. Ma man Sam was leaving that night so it got pretty emotional. I don’t know if it was the bond or the breathing but first time I’ve seen kids cry for about an hour or so… and this is late at night so it was kinda concerning, kinda funny coz the adults in silence would come out and see kids just crying late an night. Danny was again doing his thing. At one point he was being a statue at the stairs and even though it cracked me up I was like dude you have the imagination I want! Oh and also after the meditations or breathing when they were describing what they felt… we were blown away. Like how do they know these feelings, words and one of the boys especially was so action packed and… well reminded me of a young Paras but behind all that he admitted he felt angry or cried during kriya etc. Some real gems man. Yay finally join the finishing satsang as folks get out of silence. Was so drain but wanted to do more. Something about seva makes you feel like that. My room mate was an old fuddy-duddy that loved writing poetry and sharing it. Even on the first day I could tell he’s not one to be silent. But he was only he did read at night which is really a no no. But yeah now he’s belting out poems and chatting away. I’d bought the Shiv Sutra’s book coz the cd I have is in Hindi so wanted to read that but he’d keep sharing… which I really didn’t mind but he kept telling ok go back to your book I wont say any more than then… he’s say more! All nights I slept like a baby. I’ve said it before but I really love the fact that you make such good friends with folks of different ages and always encourage it. You just realize age in the end is not such a big thing coz they all feel the same stuff, experience the same stuff… it’s just like the intensity of it and even that is so weird how one same age will feel the intensity of different ages… depending on where they are mentally. I know I’m still in primary but in a good way.

16/08/10 Sunday – Some more poems. I was rejuvenated so thought I’d share some of mine too. Today’s kriya took me to some mad raves and what not. Give flower girl an acorn instead. Turned out to have a spider which worked out even better coz everyday is not a Sunday and dark times symbolism stuff and stuff. I don’t know I’m just making stuff up. Nikita was meant to exchange presents with me but instead she got a which flower ring and I got nada! I’m still waiting! :oP The YES! crew had some great performances going on. Singing, dancing, poetry was deep… I don’t know who the black girl was in the red but I want that poem. She basically opened up to a level you’re like I could never share that but I’m glad I’m not alone. Dhru (Soham’s bro – no wonder Soham was always talking about MJ) bust some wicked MJ moves. Tai-chi stuff. Some instrument performance. And before I had to leave Dhru brought up 4 of the teens who were really helped by YES! One girl with difficulty, boy with issue, girl with shyness kinda thing and one plain old bad boy! Goodbyes, group hugs, sleep on the ride home. Gotta get to Judit but fell asleep on the bus and the driver didn’t tell me when I reached my stop so took longer. My Ballerina hooked up some amazing food… MEAT BABY! Ice-cream and a crazy but amazing movie. Major Jai Gurudev. Facebook status: Bow down AOL! Always manages to take us to Wonderland and back. I’m gonna miss the ART Excel brats. See you guys soon and remember… say no to chocolates… give them to me!