The Chauhan Family and Civil Rights

We are always thankful for balance that friends give us. We share joys, our sadness, our hopes. We share our common inspirations and our values. Because of friends we have the ability to change our lives, our work, our world. We cannot know exactly what brings us together except good fortune and ancestors.

My friend Sara Chauhan, I have known since I was eighteen years old. We met at Loyola University in New Orleans. We have many memories together and much in common. But, here in her ancestral home of Jabalpur, I have learned so much more about our shared family histories. And, again, I learn to not question what brings people together, to not wonder how we learn to be friends with one another.

Our grandparents would have been fast friends also.

Sara’s grandmother is memorialized by a lovely statue outside of the government center here in Jabalpur. She is known across India for her revolutionary poetry which she wrote during her work for the Congress Party - the party of Ghandi and Nehru which gained India‘s independence from England in 1947.

When we visited the park with Grandma Chauhan’s statue, workers were enjoying lunch and tea under shady groves. A cow chewed his cud peacefully in the driveway. Flowers were in bloom. There was peace.

The Congress Party in India, which Grandma Chauhan belonged to, was founded by an A.O. Hume, (surely some connection with my own Hume ancestors who lived in Bombay (Mumbai) for nearly 100 years - three generations!). When Ba & Bapu Ghandi visited Jabalpur, Grandma Chauhan hosted them.

When great-grandfathers Hume raised human rights issues in India, they were starting with backgrounds in abolitionist human rights campaigns of the middle nineteenth century in the United States. The deserved rights for Indians were very closely related to the struggles for freedom of African slaves working in the Americas. The success Revs Hume had in Bombay fighting for rights of people without castes (‘untouchables’ or dahlits), were directly tied to corresponding human rights work of the USA.

So, our ancestors were influenced by similar world events. The work of early human rights efforts, (abolitionists in the USA - anti-British revolutionaries on India), influenced my grandfather in India in the 1840’s, Sara Chauhan’s grandmother in the 1920’s, my grandfather Shroyer in the 1930’s, my own parents in the 1960’s. These triumphant human endeavors shapes our lives and future of our world today.

When my father was younger than I, his grandmother was once presented with her morning paper. The front page lead article cut was out. As she later discovered, my Aunt Ines had cut out the photo of my father being clubbed by a police officer in Houston, Texas. Working on what you believe and changing the world does not always happen without a few extra whacks! But, my father’s Grandmother Shroyer knew that the family values raised up in her grandson were strong and supported him. She was proud of him. My father practiced non-violent protest in the Civil Rights movement which was influenced by Ghandi.

I think of Sara, many friends and family, often. As they all know about me, I am always concocting ways to spend more time together, to find more common paths, and to combine our work. Sara Chauhan has always been this type of friend. She allows her friends to share her confidence in themselves. She allows us to dream. She reminds us that we are supposed to she and challenge our world beliefs. She reminds us of the importance of work, responsibility, and dignity.

We had the same experience of friendship with Sara’s nephew Ishan Chauhan. Ishan is 12 years old. He lives in Jabalpur. But, he visit’s a Shriners facility in the United States once per year for several months. Ishan was good enough to go with us to Kanha National Park. Kanha is a magical jungle where one of our recent heroes from The Snow Leopard, George Schaller, the celebrated biologist, researched tigers and was the residence and inspiration for Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. We had such a great time with Ishan. He is a new BFF (Best Friend Forever) - translator, navigator, negotiator, and gentleman - at 12!

Traveling with Ishan reminded me of early journeys in my life: hitchhiking the USA with my father and as a young man, childhood in the woods of my grandparents in Texas and our farm house in Mississippi, hiking the Rocky Mountains and the Brooks Range. Ishan helped me appreciate many roles of friends. It is important for me to remember who has come before that make me who I am. Friends remind me who my base is, who has my back, who my friends are - Ishan Chauhan, at 12, has all these great qualities.

Luckily, family is a certain base in my life too. Looking back over my own family history, my grandfather Shroyer’s work in human rights in East Texas, my great grandfathers Humes’ mutual work in India, my grandmother Freeman’s passion for human rights into her late 80’s; it is no surprise to me that I am so interested in the world and taking stewardship for it. More important, it is so right to know from where I am now, how pleased my ancestors are with their good efforts shining onto me.

Even far away, friends give such support. Brittany and I are incredibly lucky to be on our round-the-world ‘honeyserviceyear.’ We are inspired everyday to learn, share, exchange. We are that much luckier to be following in the steps of our forbearers and to have to kind and generous support of family and friends.

I often reference ideas which change my world view while traveling. One of these is ‘Six-Degrees of Separation.’ You are never more than six degrees separated form any person in this world. It is true. Whether it is the Chauhans in India or my friends back home, we are all just degrees removed from presidents of nations and presidents of corporations, from Yak herders of the Mongolian steppes to goat herders at the furthest reach of the Andes.

You are too.

How we shape, change, and influence a better world helps us all realize wondrous connectivity. Awareness of our habitation in the world makes for living better, fuller days!

All my adult life I have remembered famous thoughts of Aristotle on Friendship. Aristotle believed in keeping a happy mean in all that we do. He said to not live life with too much or too little of anything: Not to be too drunk or straight, neither too happy nor too sad. Aristotle said that we should only have as many enemies as we have friends. While the statement may sound crude, I believe in its truth.