The Experience A rope. A seat harness. A well. Me. A plunge. The sky. The ground. Read the above again in the same order. :-) I had one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life so far. We reached Visthar at around 4:30 pm on Friday. That place is beautiful. Surrounded by fields and trees. Birds and insects. In the middle of this beautiful, intoxicatingly calm and serene place, is a 49 year old well. Huge wide well. Deep well. And then..... We are asked to descend into the well...not using the stairs....but with a rope and a belt tied around our waists. Beautiful. I volunteer to fall down first. I stand on the border of the well, with my back facing the well. The instructor just asks me to fall backwards and let go. I fall backwards. I don't let go. I am momentarily scared. I stand again on the ledge. I fall backwards. I let go. I descend into the well. My face looking up at the sky. My back facing the bottom of the well. I am looking at the sky and I am descending. All the while, the stone bricks of the well are going past my eyes. Beautiful. I wanted to be in that state for ever. In that tableaux for ever. I reach terra firma with a sense of having achieved something. I am asked to light 5 candles and go up. Every member of the Playback theatre group did this. Result: 18 happy souls. 90 candles in the well. This activity left me in an unexplainable state. Words really do confine our process of sharing. After that we had a theoretical session on the mission and purpose of Playback Then dinner, followed by interacting with all the members. Most of them were new for me. I met a lot of interesting people out there. More of that shall follow later. After an explosive session of dumb charades (where I got branded as the psychic one and the D-Factor), we hit the bed at around 12. Woken up at 5:00 am by a bell. A bell ringing all across our dorms. Tea and breakfast followed. Then we were led off to a huge hall open on all sides and covered by a huge thatched roof. Very windy and cold. Every one of us really glad. We are asked to lie down on the cold granite floor. We are asked to relax. Spirited music playing in the background. The instructor then asks the group members to visualise the images of their parents. Remove all negative emotions, if any, towards your parents. Visualise your siblings, your loved ones, your friends. Forgive them if they have wronged you. Forget all the bad things that might have happened. Relax. This went on for an hour. Very therapeutic. Awoke with a new level of emotional maturity. Everything is indeed beautiful. And to think of it, we end up taxing our minds so much with unwanted and damaging thoughts and interpretations. Look at the bigger picture. There is a lot to do in life. The connection with the mysterious energy, your angel, your invisible companion was the next activity. We were asked to let go of our logical and rational minds. To let go of our thinking. Just allow the mind to connect to some higher level of energy. Just close your eyes and tune in to another frequency. If we can do it with radio, we surely can do it with our minds. I did connect. I did experience certain interactions. These are personal. I missed those whom I love. I wished they too would go through this experience. Experiences amount to nothing. Its the interpretation of these experiences that develops the person. After a wonderful morning session, we had lunch. After lunch, we were all blindfolded. We were led in a single file for a walk. Seemed quite a long walk. Then someone led me by my hand and asked me to press my palm against something. I pressed my palm against something moist. The cloth around my eyes was removed and I saw my palm-print on a wet cement block. The words 'Playback Theatre Group' were carved at the bottom. My palm-print cemented amidst many others. This cement tablet was hung at one of the entrances of Visthar. If not anything, I can confidently say I left a print behind when I depart. Then was the pottery session. We saw a demo of how a pot is created on the potter's wheel. Incredible. Then we were taught how to make a pen-stand or a mug. I made my pen-stand. Its rustic to say the least :-) It perfectly resembles Harappan art. Tea. Then we had the playback theatre sessions. Wonderful performances. I felt very good when I performed some of those stories. Playback theatre was at its best. Dinner. Dumb charades yet again. Woken up at 6:00 in the morning. Tea and then playback theatre yet again. This time it was better than last evening. The stories shared were really deep. Physically and mentally. Then breakfast followed. It was time to say farewell. I loved every moment. I can still picture every moment. Do what you really like to do in life. You will then not feel like taking a break ever. There is a lot more in my mind that I can go on about. A lot of thoughts. A lot of opinions. A lot of learning. Probably some other time I will share them all with you. For now, it’s going to be shared with the people closest to me. Visthar was refreshing The well was refreshing. Playback was refreshing. I am refreshed.