Author: Shreya Roy Chowdhury
Publication: The Times of India
Date: April 29, 2011
URL: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-04-29/delhi/29486765_1_haridwar-orphans-yoga
She was just three days old, when she was
left to die in a lonely alley in the temple town of Haridwar. Dumped to her
fate, she lay by the roadside sobbing and gasping for breath amidst the ebb
and flow the Ganga nearby. But destiny had something else in store. Soma Sharan
was picked by a good Samaritan. That was 1993. And from an orphanage in Haridwar
to heady Los Angeles to being the prestigious Gates Millennium scholar - it's
been a giant leap of fate for the 18-year-old girl.
Eight years later, it's homecoming for Soma
Sharan. She has come to India to be alongside her 70 brothers and sisters.
Well, she has a very large family at Sri Ram Ashram, Haridwar, where she grew
up after being abandoned.
Soma is now going places. She is now a Gates
Millennium Scholar. Her undergraduate course at University of California at
Los Angeles is being sponsored. And she has also earned a scholarship for
her graduate studies and even her Phd.
The Sri Ram Ashram, where Sharan stayed till
she was 10, was started by Baba Hari Dass Babaji - who, in 1970, had gone
to America to teach yoga. Growing up in Haridwar, Sharan and two other 'sisters,'
were the only ones attending an English-medium school.
English education helped them to cope with
America, but things weren't all that rosy. "The hardest part was that
kids teased us for being orphans. But back home at Haridwar, we didn't feel
orphans. We had such a large family at the ashram."
Her English was "good for India"
as she puts it, but not for America where she moved at age 10. When she moved
to the Mount Madonna Center - a yoga commune run by Babaji's students - and
got admission at Mount Madonna School in 2004, she felt out of place once
again.
"I didn't know where I was in the US,"
she says, "It was really hard adjusting as I didn't have my family there."
But she settled down gradually and even joined their volley ball team. "I
was the only fresher in the varsity volley ball team and we won the state
championship," she says proudly. She dances too. "I have never taken
professional classes and performed in school plays too."
She has visited India several times since
flight to the US, mainly to meet her family and help them with the kids. There
are about 70 of them at the ashram now, the youngest only eight months old.
For the scholarship, she had to write eight
"very long" essays on a variety of subjects including leadership
experience, difficulties in life and subjects she excelled in.
Sharan will be studying International Development
and hopes to do a Phd. She wants to start non-profit organizations around
the world and help destitute children. She'll return to India every year but
not establish herself here. "I see myself in all different countries.
I'm not set on living in one place," she says, "There's so much
to do in the world."
