fly blown Goa

There is a very fly blown juice bar in Chapora frequented by sweaty junkies, and the juices aren't bad. Set dankly amongst the layers of grime, tat, commercialism and history that make up places like this some 4 centuries after European powers arrived the juice bar churns out R25 treats customers for whom an early morning means 1pm.

Once villages, now holiday camps of a very specific type, these communities have simply had to adapt and live with the hoards who keep coming in ever increasing numbers in the now invisible wake of the first Hippy visitors of the late 60s and early 70s who arrived when this was still a viable fishing community.

I'm staying in Vagator which is still party central but with more of a breeze and less outright debauchery visible to the naked eye. On the upside we have here a great yoga teacher in the person of Gabriella Pascoli who is aided and complemented by her assistant Michael. I've never had so much input in 1 class. Sometimes both of them are on you at once. The perfect antidote to Mysore where the numbers of students involved make any meaningful teaching continuity impossible in the short term. Thank god!

The main question that has crossed my mind in the last couple of days is:

'Where in the world can one go to practice and learn Ashtanga and find a grounded and truly peaceful environment too?'

One could reply that yoga (like Ind-yah) is a state of mind. Indeed. However, as suggestible as the next person I have to admit to being influenced by the world around me. And it doesn't always feel that great.

Yesterday, after too much sun and beach the previous day, I went to the fabulously airconditioned multiplex cinema in Panaji, the European tinged capital of Goa, to see Casino Royale with Daniel Craig having a stab at 007. You know what? In contrast to the last effort, which was directed by Lee Tamahori, it's pretty good! Formulaic by definition of course but also fresh and up to date, without too much play on the gadgets (the fx crew seems to have realised like the rest of the world that, yes, the mobile phone is actually taking over every function known to humankind) and enough sharp edged self referencing humour to spice up the cliches. More like that please.

I have moved back into the hills for a couple of days in the Wayanad region, known in these parts for the wildlife sanctuary that is the main attraction. A small group of towns, the two largest being Kalpetta and Sulthan Battery, make good bases from which to explore the sanctuary, jain temples and caves of the region.

The weather has improved a bit from the conditions further south while I was at bodhi zendo and we now have 27C, sunny and very humid. Haresh, a 27 year old slightly overweight chemistry MSc who I got talking to on the bus here tells me that this is definitely the best time of year to be here though. From April onwards as the monsoon builds humidity builds from very humid to stupidly humid. Even the locals are drenched in sweat some of the time. Mental note - always come to Kerala after July.

Leaving Kozhikode this morning, after catching a few soul destroying hours of the first Ashes test from Brisbane, the bus hammered along towards what looked like an enormous cloud bank, ominously grey and weighty. I assumed for an hour or so that we were in for a soaking. As we covered more ground, swerving dangerously along the main streets of small towns, the exhaust pipe of the bus emitting a sound similar to a large calibre machine gun particularly at mid-gear revs, the cloud bank resolved intself into the Western Ghats. Above, if one dipped one's head to look out of the side of the windowless bus, was the hazy washed out blue of the sky, and rising towards it was a sheer wall of foothills that began abruptly from the fertile plains on this thin strip of coast. The Ghats are narrow here and it was simply a few hairpin turns and 30 minutes before we were travelling across a plateau, now covered by a mixture of plantations from cardamom, vanilla, tea and sugar palm to rice paddies and bush clad hillsides. Monkeys scampered across the road ahead dodging road works and potholes as the bus barreled along. These bus drivers can pull some interesting overtaking moves.

My discussions with Haresh were proving fruitful. Apparently the reason for the apparent boom in North Kerala is not really to do with domestic economics. It seems that, like Philippinos for example, Keralans are big migrant labourers. Millions work overseas, mostly in the Middle East (West Asia as it is known here). It is the remmitances from the 3 or 4 million Keralans slaving away overseas that is now boosting local family incomes here. Still, lets not get excited. Haresh, qualified as he is, and his wife, with a similar education in Physics, together earn about Rs10,000 per month. GBP120. In addition, there is definitely some serious inflation in sectors of the local economy here. Commodity prices have risen inexorably around the world over the last few years, pulled higher by the combination of monetary pump priming in the US and Chinese hypergrowth. If your main expenses include cooking oil, bus fares and rice then your household budget may be more highly impacted by this than households with higher incomes and more diversified consumption patterns. Unsurprisingly Haresh would love to go overseas. Almost anywhere. To do almost anything. He talked about a local saying, 'Shining India'. An evocative phrase indeed. Aspirations here are high. For some they may be fulfilled.

I am a museum

As someone who effortlessly brushes off hawkers and touts (for some reason) and who does not feature regularly on any of the '10 most sexy...' lists I can honestly and without modesty say that I am unaccustomed to objectification. However, this sultry bustling and panic laced lunch time on the streets of Thrissur, the cultural capital of Kerala, I can report that I was by all measures possible at the time more interesting than the State Archaeology Museum first thing today.

Having eased open the 12 foot wrought metal gates at what turned out to be the back of the museum and taken an unplanned turn around the Heritage garden to the side of the building I was actually enchanted to find a beautiful pond and carved stone fountain at its centre. I say actually because it is not a sensation I am used to feeling. But I was. The fountain was becalming, beautiful and clean, a trio rarely found in unison at these latitudes. Dark pink lotus flowers were spread evenly over the surface of the pond, interspersed with the shiny lushness of their leaves. The font at the centre of the round pond was carved to resemble a chunky spiral staircase, 10 foot high with only every 3rd step in place. Not another soul shared this with me although the city could be heard all around and the nagging smell of animal dung seemed to drift around sporadically. It was only when I looked over the wall at the west side of the garden to see what was producing the drumming and percussion I could hear that I saw a large bull elephant, in leg chains, at rest. Using a palm frond as a fly swat it was swaying forward and back between a half pace slowly expelling generous quantities of poorly digested plant matter. These rugby ball sized pellets reminded me of the glops of white hot glass that appear down the shoot in a bottle factory just prior to their flowing into the casts.

At the front of the museum, where the doors were 5 minutes late opening, I saw that I was to be joined in my wait by a party of schoolgirls whose teachers did little to control the surge towards me that their charges seemed to make.

'What is your good name?'
'Where is your native place?'
'How are you?'
'How are you?'

As their heads turned and their hair bows followed it was like watching a sort of collection of interconnected beings, whose individual movements passed a charge causing the next to also pass it on in turn. A small crowd of eyes, with teachers trying to remain dignified in the face of my incomprehensibly accented replies to their exemplar questions, flashed and blinked in the dark unblemished faces. Once inside the museum however the exhibits proved too much and I was relegated. Of less interest, and certainly less importance, than the wonders of the house of the Cochi Royal Family.

I particularly liked the 18th centuy marble buddhas who sat in lotus position and held their hands in the mudras for universal love and knowledge. No more than 6 inches high their typical serenity was given an unusual liquid quality by the medium.

Tamil Nadu

It rained for 3 hours of the 7 hour train ride south from Bangalore to Coimbatore, my half way stop on the trail to Zen. The 2nd class sleeper, no bedding provided just bare pvc covered bunks and barred, slatted windows, was full of human cargo and redolent with piss. Water was leeching through the window frames to mix with seepage from other parts of the carriage and run across the floor like oil legs on a hot griddle pan at around 5am when I de-bunked and got ready to detrain. Those 3 hours of rain translate into about 200kms of track. Solid, dark, murky foetid rain.

I readied my pack to step down and noticed a pocket right on the bottom which had never caught my attention before. It contained a blue rain protector which handily covers the whole pack.

Out onto the dark and grimy platform, seemingly covered in a disarray of things resembling wool sacks, red LCD clocks and notices flash a dubious and dissonant welcome. A walk through the platform underpass becomes a wade as brown water inches its way out of some unseen opening to cover the floor. The women in front dawdle under their huge head balanced loads. Those of us behind feel the murk swish tepidly around our feet. Everyone is feeling squeamish, you can see it on their faces, but there is nothing to be done, it is a moment of displeasure in what for many must be a life full to the brim of far more distasteful matters.

It is surprisingly calm in the early morning gloom of the station entry hall. Crowds just outside huddle under the roof awnings in the hope that this rain will peter out soon but the road cutting left to right across the view of hotels, broken pavements and swamped autorickshaws is actually a torrent. A cow, silhouetted by flourescent lights and neon flashes, is in the middle of the street up to its knees in the rippling flow.

Three police sit at a wooden desk, one dozes head down stll grasping his cane. I ask the other two the way to the hotel which they have never heard of. The woman corporal laughs at me softly, shyly, to her colleague. I have taken off my flip flops, rolled up the jeans and thankfully drawn up my hood for the river crossing ahead.

Just been to sort things for departure, like buying a trunk to store stuff in that won't be leaving Mysore - speakers, bedding etc.

Leaving Wednesday, first to Bangalore to drop mum off to her flight early Thursday morn. Will be seeing her (and sis) a month or so later in Australia. Gotta love these multi month holidays.

After that I will be heading to Tamil Nadu, further south, where up in the cool and verdant Palani Hills the place known as Bodhi Zendo is to be found. I will be there for a couple of weeks, maybe longer, then I plan to make my way to Goa. But you know what they say about plans.

A backet fell out of moy vagina

Nice eh? That is what S (from WA) came up with as a contribution to the discussion about strange excretions/sensations we were having. Apparently said bucket expelled somewhere in the Arizonan desert. Nobody actually knows why. I can't match it for sheer spontaneity and shock value (she wasn't pregnant at the time) but I have had a few wierd things going on to which I refuse to become attached in any way. The only thing that is worth mentioning is the following event:

I am walking down the street here in Gokulam having nipped into the hospital to get my dressing changed (the cut is no longer 'paining' and is in fact healing 'nicely' now) when a random dude walks past me carrying a big bag of cement on his head. As he draws level he says to me the word 'Srirangapatnam', which is the name of a place outside Mysore that I was just then thinking about. This has happened to me 3 times since I've been here. How do they know what I am thinking?

I'm leaving Mysore in a week to take Mum to Bangalore. After that I'm gonna take a little trip down to Tamil Nadu, the neighbouring state, for a little look see. A couple of weeks there will be good, up in the hills, cool, peaceful and rural(ish). Still planning on Goa but I really felt that 5 whole weeks in Israeli raver central (even if still doing yoga) might take the shine off things a little.

Quiet here at the moment, just going to a cooking class this afternoon. Still going to the hospital evey 2 days to get the dressing changed on the cut, which is slowly healing up. Big (ok, not that big, don't get too excited) juicy scar likely. Hopefully it will be in place before the travelling next week.

This weekend mum and I are going on a (very small) excursion to Srirangapatnam, just outside Mysore, where we will explore the local bird reserve and a colourful fountain ceremony on the Saturday night.

For those interested in such things - yogawise this has been an eventful trip, mainly because of the crash which has affected my practice in many ways. I've had the best part of 2 weeks off in total and at the moment I'm off jumps because of the risk of opening up 'the cut'....nonetheless physically I have certainly opened up in the shoulders and am sweating lots less than ever before. Not really lathered up until prasarita pad. Now that is a result. Those chilly NZ mornings could be interesting. Mari D is still a way off but mainly now because my left medial collateral ligament is getting sore and protesting that I'm rushing too fast. So much for Sharath's prediction that it would take me a week. It has got closer though. And he told me to go on and do Navasana and Buja pidasana anyway just to mix it up a bit ( I suppose). I'm still easily the first to finish. On the non-physical side of things I have watched some impatience with things come and go though it has never been predominant. My concentration is a lot better, more focused, less easily broken and the practice seems to whip by now which is a huge contrast to, say, the start of last year when it all seemed quite lengthy.

The comment on rhe previous entry relating to injuries rings true to me. Ashtanga people are more aware of (and obsessed by) the state of their bodies. They do get lots of injuries though, and practice when it might not be the absolute best option for them physically. Attachement to the practice of yoga can be a big issue for the individual and those that know them, but is it any bigger than the other attachments we have - to foodstuffs, diet, drinking, relationships, work, status, possesions and so on.

All of which can provide variously excuses, distractions and rationales for not paying attention to the real issues we all must confront sooner or later - of living well, loving well and understanding our own pain and that of others as well as celebrating the joys of life and trying to see things for what they perhaps really are in this world......

Coetzee, homesickness and injuries

I hope JM Coetzee won’t mind me printing a small and beautiful extract by him from ‘Life and times of Michael K’, which I particularly enjoyed this afternoon:

“But most of all as summer slanted to an end, he was learning to love idleness, idleness no longer as stretches of freedom reclaimed by stealth here and there from involuntary labour, surreptitious thefts to be enjoyed sitting on his heels before a flower-bed with a fork dangling from his fingers, but as a yielding up of himself to time, to a time flowing slowly like oil from horizon to horizon over the face of the world, washing over his body, circulating in his armpits and his groin, stirring his eyelids. He was neither pleased nor displeased when there was work to do; it was all the same. He could lie all afternoon with his eyes open staring at the corrugations in the roof-iron and the tracings of rust: his mind would not wander, he would see nothing but the iron, the lines would not form themselves into pattern or fantasy: he was himself, lying in his own house, the rust was merely rust, all that was moving was time, bearing him onward in its flow.”

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When people talk about being homesick there is of course lots of focus on the ‘sick’ part of that equation. My attention is drawn by a small bout to the ‘home’ aspect however. I suddenly felt a bit homesick early this afternoon and it took a while to recognise the feelings. It’s only the third time I have experienced this since leaving the UK in early 2002, which is nice, and when it has arisen previously I have been in NZ. Now I am in India of course and 2 months of Mysore style existence has taken its small toll. I am homesick but for no particular home, or perhaps two at once – the UK and NZ. My thoughts on this flit between the two locations, without satisfaction, and also I dwell briefly on individuals from both places, but without any coalescence of feelings which might indicate that the true lack has been found and could thus be remedied.

Homesick for nowhere and no-one.

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This list is a little casualty roll call typical (at the moment, and I’m sure most of the time) of folk doing yoga here. Anonymity is respected!

D: Torn meniscus, left knee. Modified practice
T: Strained back muscles, mainly due to mild and constant dehydration but brought on by the practice. No practice
S: Pulled lateral collateral ligament, left knee. Modified practice
J: Pulled hamstring. Practicing
K: Took tumble down stairs 12 days ago and hurt left foot. Continued practicing with mild discomfort until the pain got too annoying and s/he got an x ray. Broken 5th metatarsal. No practice.
G: Mild stomach aches. Practicing
G: Recovering from mild dysentery. Practicing
Me: Infected cut (now open and clean) on left instep from scooter crash 2 ½ weeks ago. No practice until healed up
O: Chronic bronchitis. Practicing
T: Acute back pains in SI region. No practice

And that is just the stuff I know about…….

latest latest

Sort of mega posting today as its been sometime and tho I had written some I had not had an opportunity (for reasons that become evident upon reading the previously posted entries) to actually bring my laptop to the wireless cafe.

Anyway, Mum is here which is good and she is settled in and enjoying her yoga! We have already got the routine - breakfast, today I made dhosas for the first time, followed by errands then lunch then nap then dinner. Nice!

Got her from the airport on Sunday at 530am, 2 hour drive each way. She was pretty freaked out by the Indian driving I have to say but to her credit she did relax a bit once we got out of Bangalore - which was totally crazy, cows and people all over the road, huge intersections with no one slowing down etc - and also once she saw that Lokesh is actually a good driver. So we were back in good ole Gokulam by 830am.

I had a second round of stomach stuff going on from late Saturday night which was pretty severe in terms of fluid loss - huge - but not uncomfortable. Got on the rehydration salts once back here and felt right within a couple of hours. Got back to practice after a week's hiatus on Monday. That felt really good, and still feels good today.

Well, they say a week is a long time in politics but it’s a lot longer in India.

And 12 days is even longer than a week.

And all the time I thought ‘nothing’ was happening.

About the middle of last week I went for my first Ayuverdic massage, courtesy of the much recommended Madhu whose house is a solid 20 minute scooter ride from the gilded and gated ashtanga community of Gokulam. There to greet me with his 800 year old, oil streaked teak massage bench was the man himself, perhaps my age, with 14 generations of family members’ massage heritage welling up through his eyes and hands. The massage itself, oil heavy and very intense (read painful), was an experience to say the least. I knew my hips had some tightness to work into but I think that using the greater trocanter as a fulcrum is not perhaps what evolution intended although that is what it seemed to me Madhu was trying to achieve in the latter stages. No wonder he was getting so out of breath.

He was out of breath after about 30 minutes – a real mark of how hard he was working. This allowed me a short respite after the back massage in which to get my (mental) breath and feel the first rush of endorphinous relief flood my system. You don’t know how much fear of pain you have until you start to experience it more deeply than any other time you care to remember. I had been thinking of a conversation over breakfast with M, from Spain and a ‘veteran’ of 8 Vipassana retreats, who spoke plainly and calmly of the emergence and dissipation of pain during lengthy meditations ‘it arises but as you examine it very often it melts away under the scrutiny…’. I had yet to reach those heights, despite huge mental enquiry, and although I realise that 30 minutes on a teak bench is not a long time to embark on a path to self abnegation it was the only option I felt was really practical.

So I had my forces marshalled for the front side instalment when Madhu returned. The barriers were breached almost immediately though and I found myself actually groaning in pain this time, with breathing very little help and a calm detachment about as likely as the observation of lane discipline at a major junction in Mysore. I grunted and grimaced my way through it. The relief was huge after that and I lay recovering for a good 15 minutes, thoughts of a shower, papaya smoothie and some reading began to surface. The hypnotic ‘Om’ chant emanating from the small speaker at the head of the bench suddenly came to my conscious attention and I listened gratefully to its soothing cadence. I figured that I had been there perhaps an hour or so. 750 rupees seemed like getting away lightly really.

Madhu returned, reinvigorated, his orange Lunghi seemingly more lumiscent than before, his bindi more intense and third-eye like, its power projecting outwards communicating the deeply spiritual nature and practice of the massage. It was time to get my sides done.

That was Wednesday I think. After, despite and because of that I felt pretty good. Someone had told me it was a stimulating massage and I can’t disagree with them.

On Friday J and I took the train to Bangalore for a quick shopping/city trip. We had bought aircon seats but found that, in these comfortable temperatures, the ordinary 2nd class cars are much better as the windows are open and one can have a chat with people easily while they have a good stare as is their wont. I don’t get stared at on my own, at least not so I’d notice, but women garner tons of attention and so the two of us weren’t short on gawps for the 3 hour ride to badly in need of repair platform 2 at Bangalore City station.

Having heard that Bangalore’s bar scene is second only to that of Mumbai we had in mind a decent night out followed by a half day shopping. The night out started well with the location of a decent Japanese restaurant – as good as any I have eaten in – which served deliciously fresh Unagi on rice. My favourite as it turns out. Back on the stinking street outside the block housing the restaurant we managed to hail a Rickshaw and go to one of the 4 bars we had targeted. It was empty. On a Friday night. As were the next three. We returned to the pleasantly white-roomed, cool and quiet hotel and decided that perhaps we weren’t cool enough for Bangalore after all. Contemplation of the reverse seemed churlish.

The next day we got bitten. First of all J found a small cockroach in her breakfast. I am fully aware that the Indian diet, to the limited degree with which I am familiar with it, may be a little deficient in proteins, but this was a step too far too soon. Okay, these things happen. Time to check out the newest shopping mall in Bangalore which as luck would have it was a short stroll from the hotel. After dodging the lepers, depilated three legged dogs and mosquito breeding farms/puddles on the way we got to the Garuda Mall to find that most shops were not open until 11am. It was 930 and our train was 2pm so we decided to regroup and head to a shop recommended by K as a good bet for towels and bedding – important as Mum is arriving on the 15th so I want to make sure she is comfortable.

The rickshaw ride there, once we had secured a ride that is, was over 10kms. We were still surrounded by a wholly urban landscape. We had the address of the shop but it was proving very hard to locate. In true travelling style everyone but noone knew where it was. Back and forward, up and down streets. Although I don’t want to do her a disservice I have to say that by this time J was basically getting pretty stroppy. Now, I’ve definitely been there when overseas and I understand how it happens so I wasn’t annoyed with her but it just makes things more complicated and aggravating to deal with. In the end I remembered I had the phone number of the shop. The person who answered initially sounded helpful and I only needed to repeat our location 3 times but my final utterance was met with a loud cackle followed by the sound of the line being cut. J shot me a look that might cause serious injury. We sheltered at the nearest Bharat Petroleum servo where considerate street kids entertained us with backflips, top spinning and overly persistent arm scratching. The shop kindly sent someone to get us. It was 20 metres from where we had initially been dropped. I bought some stuff.

It was now 12pm. The mission to get to the train station elided beautifully with the day thus far in terms of levels of frustration, uncertainty and heat but we did get there with 40 minutes to spare and the sight of the station alone was enough to coax the first smile from J since about 8.43am, just before the cockroach.

So we got back to Mysore on Saturday evening and I took a couple of remedies for a sore throat caused by the over efficient aircon in the hotel.

Sunday’s delights included a visit to the pool followed by a Vegan, Sattvic (look that one up yourself) charity lunch for Operation Shanti, a Mysore organisation dedicated to helping street mothers and children. For 150 rupees V and C kindly prepared about 5 salads, a couple of rice dishes and some garlic free (that’s the Sattvic bit) humus for the patrons. It was pretty good actually. Well done them. I left my sunglasses there and have yet to recover them.

On Monday, after a super high energy practice which had me convinced the signs of illness were in abeyance, I felt the need to go shopping at Fabindia – a great shop chain – in search of trousers as shorts are a bit of a no no really, unless one is of the lower castes and working on a building site carrying 10 bricks on your head. Ended up buying a nice shirt as the trousers weren’t up to much. We headed into town to get offers from a couple of tailors on trousers. No deal done yet. Lunch was booked over in Lakshmipuram, where the old KPJ shala is but before hand I had a bit of a list of stuff to accumulate in preparation for arrival of mum. Visits to supermarket and a couple of other stops were completed on the scooter before a rendezvous with S, R and T in order to travel over to lunch together on the bikes. I was enjoying the jeans and shirt look and felt comfortable even though the day was warm and sunny.

Lunch was delicious, although there was a little question mark about where the water had come from though this was raised after I had drank a fair bit so I tried not to think about it. The meal was one of the many available to yoga students which are served by enterprising Mysoreans in their own homes. We headed back towards Gokulam, and I ended up carrying J and S on the scooter together. Not strictly legal but often enough seen hereabouts. The long and the short of it was that I crashed into another bike on the way home. We all walked away no serious damage done for those more interested parties reading this but the aftermath has been somewhat protracted as we all recover. I got ill within hours, first with a painful stomach thing then with a cold which still has me laid out on Thursday afternoon. This on top of the two cuts to my leg which got cleaned up at the hospital and the precautionary Tetanus shot (cost – 4 rupees including syringe) to the hip which also probably made me feel extra lousy. J has a small cut to the left knee and S has no physical knocks but is pretty tired and just taking things extra easy. We were lucky, it could have been a lot worse so I am thankful. Scooter riding days are over for me. You gotta recognise when you can’t trust yourself!

Anyway, there’s till plenty of time for me to fully recover before mum arrives on Sunday morning and that’s great. I’m looking forward to welcoming her here and, as you will understand from the above, glad that I have decided to pick her up direct at the airport in a (chauffered) car and drive straight back to Mysore. 5 hour round trip and a lot more pleasant than battling through Bangalore. We can do another side trip to take care of her wish to do the Indian train thing eh?