In the Land of Pura Vida: Story featured in e-book

This story was featured in the e-book, In the Land of Pura Vida, by the Indo Hispanic Language Academy and Costa Rica India Association – CRIA, on Page 09. Download the e-book below:

In the Land of Pura Vida Download

WE BATHED IN HER BEAUTY &

BOUNTY AS MUCH AS WE COULD

BAISAKHI SAHA

I came to Costa Rica in March 2011 from Venezuela. I lived in Venezuela for two years prior to coming here. Before that I was in Nigeria for a year and a half. Before that I was in Germany briefly for a couple of months only. Before that I lived in Singapore for six years. And before that I was in India, born and brought up across Kolkata, Patna, Chennai and Delhi. So that’s my life story in summary!

Just kidding; let me begin from the beginning… I left my country India while still in my teens having won full scholarships to study abroad in Singapore. I had just finished my high school, grade X CBSE national exams, when I applied for the Singapore Airlines Youth Scholarship and got selected to pursue Junior College and University education in Singapore. Besides majoring in Computer Science, I was also learning German which was equivalent to a minor, at the National University of Singapore – NUS. That’s when I caught the travel bug actually. At my University, we had lots of exchange students from other countries that came to Singapore to spend a semester or two studying in a foreign language then went back to their own countries to finish the rest of their career. I found the concept fascinating. My German teacher used to invite the German exchange students at our University to our classes where we had the chance to interact with them first hand. I admired how these Germans traveled at the drop of a hat; be it a weekend, a short break or a longer vacation, they would pick up the map of an unknown land or island then go visit the place with other exchange students or sometimes even alone. Such a thing was so foreign to my own Indian culture where we are brought up in such conservative, protective environments that I was intrigued by their travel spirit. I too had the opportunity to go to Germany for a semester or two to do a part of my University education there in German language. But instead, I started to travel with these exchange students at my University to nearby Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Thailand, neighboring islands and explore more of Singapore too. I liked the experience of independent traveling so much that when I graduated, I took up a different kind of exchange program at my University that allowed me to travel and work in other countries, and that’s how I journeyed from Asia to Europe to Africa to South, North and Central America, doing foreign internships in all these continents. I lived with local families, ate their food, adopted their lifestyles, contributed to their economy, inhabited their culture, navigated extreme realities and belief systems, attended religious and traditional functions, wore local costumes at weddings and ethnic ceremonies, spoke the local language or gesticulated with symbols when I couldn’t communicate with words, used currencies that were mere paper to me – money whose value I did not comprehend, depended on others for my survival, traversed across lengths and breadths of the countries I lived, and had the adventure of my life! Coming from a conventional family background in India, I had to overcome all limitations to fly out of my comfort zones. The internships I did across these countries encompassed a variety of jobs. From a software graduate to a marketing executive to an English teacher, a German interpreter, a Spanish translator, to now a writer, speaker, dancer, actor, mysterious coincidences led me from one place to another, contriving me to live out my destiny, my true legacy.

So that was a brief history of how I landed up in Costa Rica, my final exchange country. I came here as an English teacher directly from Venezuela. I taught Corporate English and Business Communication at local organizations, institutions, besides being invited as a guest speaker and performer at Universities locally. I lived in Costa Rica with interns from other countries who were also here to do exchange programs like me. We were an interesting bunch with folks from Belgium, Netherlands, USA, Mexico, Russia, Argentina, India / Singapore (me) and of course the ticos (slang for Costa Ricans) hung out with us all the time. Every weekend we either chilled out at local restaurants and bars to try different cuisines, or hit the touristic sites in the country. Sometimes we would rent a car and some interns who had international driving license would drive us all to local sight-seeing spots, beaches, mountains, rainforests, volcanoes, islands etc. Costa Rica is a beautiful and bountiful country and we bathed in her beauty and bounty as much as we could. We stayed in backpacker’s lodges, slept in bunk beds, tents, hammocks, played games around bonfires and cooked together to save money, although we always had enough to make merry! They particularly loved it when I made elaborate meals for all of them. Oh once, I also organized an international food festival at the corporation where I was teaching Business English to the supervisors and managers. I invited the interns to cook a dish or two from their country; it was a truly interesting day for us all, as my Costa Rican students had the chance to practice their English with foreign speakers of Belgian, Mexican, American, Netherlandish, British, Indian accents and taste all types of cuisine, while everyone spoke or tried to speak the common language – English. And we had so much food that we ate the leftovers for a whole week afterwards!

In my first year in Costa Rica, I discovered a small Indian Community called CRIA – Costa Rica India Association. I contacted its President who invited me to their celebration of Indian events. I was glad to discover this community as I got a chance to eat authentic Indian food after a long time! I say that because I came to Costa Rica directly after my exchange program in Venezuela, and during my two years in South America, I hadn’t met a single Indian there neither seen a restaurant selling Indian food especially in the city of Maracaibo where I lived. So yep, I was indeed pleased to have found CRIA where I not only ate hearty Indian meals, but also volunteered at their festivals; performed dances in self-designed lehengas made from local curtain fabrics with golden embroidery, and painted elaborate rangolis on the performance stages and venue entrances. I also invited the foreign interns and tico friends to these Indian events, especially at Holi and Diwali. They particularly loved Holi! You can see in the adjacent picture, just how much they enjoyed playing with all the rangeela colors.

I wouldn’t do justice to this piece without mentioning a little more about the exquisite nature of this exotic nation. Costa Rica is gorgeous, but more attractive are the myriad escapades it offers; be it extreme sports, zip-lining, river-rafting, hike to Rio Celeste (Blue River), Montezuma waterfalls, Monteverde cloud forests, majestic volcanoes, pristine beaches and islands, wide biodiversity of flora & fauna, or the magical blue-morpho butterfly taking your breath away! My best memory is when I swam inside the Chato Volcano; we climbed to the crater then descended into the water. While swimming, one can behold the surrounding volcanic walls conferring a dreamlike sensation. It took us a whole day to climb up the extinct volcano then down into the crater lake and back. To a first timer, I would say, there are umpteen places to explore; even a street corner talks of history and mystery, of adventure and culture. One is sure to be enchanted! I have had no problems getting used to the local food here. Nothing like Indian flavors, the food here although bland, is quite nutritious and delicious at the same time. When I first came to Latin America, I did not even know “hello” in Spanish. But through my travels and interactions with the locals, I picked up the language pretty fast, especially because very few people here actually speak English.

Toward the end of my exchange programs, I realized I had a book in me waiting to be born, one that I had been writing for years during these travel escapades; magicNine –a true account of the inner adventures of a young girl to consciousness, is a book about how signs and synchronicities guide us on our destiny path, retold through my own personal legend. I published the book and soon after became a permanent resident of Costa Rica. Right now I am publishing two new books titled, Life is Abracadabra –21 magical stories from my travels across the globe that will make you look at life with new eyes, and Nrit –the dream of finding the self, a parable inspired by true events which I intend to turn into a feature film post publication. All my current and upcoming books can be found on Amazon: amazon.com/author/baisakhisaha.

Having literally grown up in different cultures across five continents, studying life through diverse mirrors of reality, trying to understand human suffering, dysfunctional belief systems of diverse societies, the root cause of all diseases, scanning the energy of each country I lived in, for several years to find answers to life’s most pertinent questions, I have a holistic understanding of life and death, health and illnesses, culture and belief systems, the law of attraction and the pitfalls of manifestation, shadow aspects of our consciousness, energy and matter, time and space, dreams and parallel realities, and lecture on a wide range of topics spanning these themes. With the publication of my books, I became a public speaker and performer, and recently delivered several TEDx talks internationally. I am also an evolutionary artist and my work involves expanding consciousness on the planet. If you wish to know more about what I do, please visit my website and bilingual blog at baisakhisaha.com. A lot of my events, media gigs and evolutionary videos can be found on my book channel, magicNine TV: youtube.com/magicNine.

So that is the story of my life, a strange one at that, but the strangest stories are often the true ones. And of course the story doesn’t end here; this was just the Costa Rican chapter, elaborated through the myriad mirrors and plethora perspectives from my globetrotting extravaganza. Life is about interacting with the magical universe all around us and experiencing ourselves as the co-creators of our own unique destinies.

Baisakhi Saha | Email: contact@baisakhisaha.com | Website: www.baisakhisaha.com