Besides mothers taking over the world for one day, May was also the month in which Siddhartha Gautama was enlightened by the full moon of May. He also finally answered his troubling question of why there is suffering and became Buddha or “the one who is awake”. Whether or not you follow Buddhism, it is amazing to read about the philosophical mysteries that Buddha unearthed in that moment. It is also remarkable that a prince threw everything away to find out the meaning of life and broke the barrier between superficiality and materialism.

Speaking of barriers, I had recently seen a show that totally broke the language barrier. The Midsummer’s Night Dream is a renowned classic written by Shakespeare and has been performed many times. However, I have never seen it been performed the way I saw it a few nights ago. Set in India, the director adapted the play to the location and the actors in total speak about seven languages in the duration of the play. This means that I heard Hindi (the first one I understand), Bengali, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Sanskrit and English. With all these languages, I say it’s hard enough understand the English (or Shakespearean as some say). However, being very popular, this company toured India, England, Australia and now America. This shows that despite the difference in languages, a play can still bring people together.