When Elin-Nashi went to India her desire was to see more of it than just the surface.
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"Nashi has learned to make thread-braided jewellery of many hues ... learned to cook, tend to cattle, milk  cows and do the other chores  that any other  village woman would."
(Jetwings Magazine)

Arriving in India
Via Delhi, Nashi went straight to the mountains, to an Indian family of which she had got the address.
  "They were living in a small town at the feet of the Himalayas, the house was situated on a mountain slope, embedded in rich verdure. The view over the river valley, still steaming in the heat after the last Monsoon rains, was overwhelming".
  Trough this family she got the first contact with the Indian reality that she was looking for. She dressed in a sari, like the local women and started to learn the first words of Hindi.

Back in the plains, in Delhi she befriended a Tibetan family with whom she lived closely.
  "I shared their days and late meals, I followed them on their visits to the Tibetan-refugee camps and to their friends there, I followed them to their worship in the temples and the meetings with the monks".

Towards the desert
Nashi moved towards what she had had in mind for a long time, Rajasthan. With a desire to come close to the desert life of villages far away from towns and tourist places she reached Pushkar for the huge camel fair.
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   "There I would be able to meet with those who had come from the villages with their cattle, and maybe I could follow some of them back".
  The first camels were just entering the valley when Nashi met Jyoti. He told her about his life in the villages and she told him about her wishes. After a few days she got introduced to the village (Nand) and came to the house of an old Rajput friend of Jyoti's. Nashi and Jyoti soon discovered how much they had in common, their feelings and expectations of life were the same.

The first steps into village life
From now she started to dress like a Gurjari, a cow shepherd woman, and she started to learn more about Indian life and society.
   "I felt like a child again, so new, everything was different. I had to start from the beginning with everything. I had to learn not just a new language, but even in what way to communicate, what and how to say things; it differs a lot in addressing a man or a woman, someone older or younger, the relationship and the situation has to be considered. I started to learn all the unwritten rules of behaviour".
  Trough her desire and strong will, and with the help of Jyoti with his many years of experience, it all went surprisingly quick.
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Women life
Of course, a knowledge that Jyoti not could offer in detail was about the female side of the Indian life. Nashi did well on her own and now she is participating fully in the work of the women as one of them, as a sister, a daughter, a mother. She collects wood and fetches water, cooks food, milks the cattle and takes care of the children. She has a deep relation with the women and the conversations can be about their innermost thoughts and feelings.
  "I have experience both to be a modern western woman and an Indian village woman and I am happy that I am able to compare in such fair way. The facts have become very obvious of the positive and negative sides of both the opposite ways of being and living, and I can merge them to find a more balanced state".
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Gaining a rare knowledge
Like everywhere, even in the farthest villages, the change to modernity is quickly approaching. For instance, there are not many people left who wear the beautiful traditional dress as original as Jyoti and Nashi do. Only a few elderly people have some details left and even less people know how to make them.
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  These are things of village tradition and of course you cannot find them in shops. Nashi has to make her own dress and she takes deep care and has a lot of passion to learn the traditional and original ways of hand stitching all sorts of traditional clothes, embroidering them with the proper caste patterns and producing many thread plaited jewellery. She is becoming a rare keeper of exquisite art, of a handicraft thousands of years old.
  "I am learning an art that is quickly vanishing. I try to grasp and preserve the knowledge of the old women and men, about all their life and traditions, thoughts and experiences. I always ask them how the past was. When these elders will be no more, the knowledge and an ancient culture will be lost".
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