Uttam Módenes, born in the Basque Country, Spain, traveled to India for the first time at age 19 and fell in love with it. He discovered mystic India, "full of smiles, colors and aromas", but also the "abject poverty, disregard, resignation and indignity" which a large part of its population lives in. He is the president of Fundación Asha-Kiran (Ray of Hope, in Hindi), which supports vulnerable children. This NGO organized a photo exhibition inRenteria, Basque Country, in March.You claim that it is hard to know India and not question the values that drive us here in the West.
Yes, India is always surprising and its visitors can never remain indifferent to it. It is the country where more mystics, enlightened beings and teachers of the sacred have been born. Its history is one full of meditation and inner search. But perhaps it is precisely that which has created a great imbalance on the material level. There are currently millions of people who endure serious lacks of the most basic resources. India has much to offer the world. It is perhaps the only country in the world with a word, "Leela", that regards life a cosmic game, and even nowadays this view permeates the daily lives of people.
Asha-Kiran has launched the Yashodhara Shelter, two Day Care Centers and various initiatives such as the dental health program. They aim to create a ‘home’, to make it possible for children to enjoy the right to be children, to play, to be valued, to learn, to develop vitality and the ability to be happy. Is your work achieving the desired results?
The amount of social work that India needs is huge. There is an immense lack of education, and this lack is the root of many barriers to development and the balance of millions of people living in vulnerable situations, especially women and children. Asha-Kiran aims to contribute in offering opportunities for the future through projects that implement education programs, holistic health and training. It is wonderful to watch the transformation that takes place in children who benefit from this type of projects. In fact, the only thing that vulnerable people need is the chance to conduct their own development. This is what we wish to go on doing, and it is an honor for Asha-Kiran that all these children will allow us to do so.
Another opportunity that you offer to these kids are the creative workshops. Of what value are they to their lives?
Creativity is the essence of human beings and of nature as a whole. Through creativity, we make beauty evident and tune into what we are and into our source of life. There is nothing more healing, more balanced, than to channel this creative cascade that beats within each of us. And with India’s ‘lower class’ children, it is a pleasure to promote creative workshops because since they’re very young they are connected with music, dance and manual labor. They accept what is proposed to them and go to it, forgetting for a time the drama that many of them live.
What sort of welcome have the activities organized in Errenteria had?
Since we started the delegation of Asha-Kiran in the Basque Country, Errenteria was the first town where we started organizing awareness- and fundraising events. The two dinners we had at Batzoki restaurant and the photo exhibition in Xenpelar have shown the solidarity and generosity of the people here. People who have approached us encourage us to keep working and are very interested in supporting us. Errenteria was the best gateway to the Basque Country, and I am thankful for this.
You are a yoga and dance therapy teacher, and lead seminars and retreats for personal development. Do you think that Western society needs to explore new ways of being?
It is becoming increasingly obvious that there is a need for transformation in the way human beings live, far from his own nature. Mechanized life has made us forget that we belong to nature; forget what our essence is and the natural feelings that we are born with. Words like compassion, generosity, love, solidarity, friendship, have become ‘good-willed’ activities, almost suspicious and belonging to a distant utopia. An unstoppable “spiritualizing action” Is already taking place, and it will result in the checking of attitudes and the emergence of a new moral consciousness. I'm sure of it. The next adventure will be to consciousness.
