dateline india

Things are never how you expect them to be - particularly countries. That is until I arrived in India. Definitely still in jetlag/arrival phase but the impression is living up to the stereotypes, good and bad - typified by the mixture of smells, from jasmine to dead rats rotting in the sun.

It's not technically my first time here though there has been about a 30 year gap between visits. I'm not really sure if the 4 year old who was lead by his parents through the streets of Calcutta, barefoot and stepping painfully on lit cigarette butts, really counts as the same person that is here now. Interestingly though there is lots that is familiar, in fact it doesn't really feel foreign at all - although I may have to revise that little assertion in a few days once the culture shock starts to hit home.

I lay on my bed in the hotel here in Mysore this afternoon reflecting on the fact that this for me is the start of a few months overseas - after the 3 months here I am spending 6 weeks with my mother and sister in Australia. That's all pretty exciting to contemplate. But so was the fairly ordinary prospect of lunch - a dhosa in the end. I'll be honest, it took me a while to bite the bullet and find somewhere to eat. Like most people I don't relish the idea of getting ill and my digestion has often been the first thing to complain after a change of location. Dhosa +3hrs now and nothing to report. Ya gotta eat.

The other thought that came up was - 'what am I really doing here?' After all, one can practice ashtanga next to a roaring fire in a bothy clinging to the side of a Hebridean isle, so why come here of all places? Maybe I'll cook up some answers to that one by the time I leave.

Uluru

Well, I have now seen Uluru. The pilot got the ok for a banking turn over the rock itself from Aussie air control and so we were treated to a peak from 8500m.

The preamble went like this (imagine hesitant asian/american accent)

Uh...we have ok from air traffic so..uh..if you look out the right of the plane in about 10 minutes you wiw be able to see Ayer's Rock.

Time passes.

Uh..we are about to turn..uh (plane tilts to right as half of the passengers scramble to the starboard side scrabbling to see this thing)..so if you..uh...stretch your eyes..uh..you wiw be able to see it. It's the..uh..big bit of rock sticking up with some green around the base.

No shit.

Other highlights of the 8 hour flight - the excellent video on demand system. Lapped it up. One episode of Kath and Kim turned out a cracker. Kel, having a mid life crisis on the eve of his 50th, arrives to take Kath out for a spin, in 'the latest pop-top roadster Daihatsu' (it's bright yellow and dinky) having just had his hair braided and highlighted.

Now at Singapore Changi Airport - a marvel of airport/shopping mall design.

Funky, jazzy reggae

Its the best. I love The Black Seeds - a really great NZ band. I know I'm repeating myself but I enjoyed their gig the other day in Napier so much.

Rolling, flowing lyrical reggae.

They have just released a new album - Into the Dojo. Their previous release, On the Sun, is a mini classic in my view.

Did a last early morning effort at Ashtanga Yoga Space this morning. 630am. I have to say that morning practice has rarely felt this good. Sometimes injuries help to slow things down a bit and allow more focus on a mindful approach to the asana. Perhaps the slightly higher temps here help a little, plus the bus ride is a chance to wake up, drink some water and let the hamstrings loosen a bit.

Showered at the shala, walked out the door to a perfect morning. Sydney is definitely a place one would be happy to return to time and again. Not sure about actually living here though.

Get the flight to Bangalore tomorrow around midday. Have decided to stay at the Hotel Empire for the one night there before heading to Mysore and starting to get things sorted there on Saturday. Apparently Sharath now has his own rooms, separate to the AYRI although not far away. The handover would seem to be progressing.

sydney side

so back to 23C and sunny - ahhh. that's why I love to stop over here.

nice practice first thing (getting in the swing for Indyah...) and then toast before some shopping for med kit and other necessaries for Mysore.

tactical clothes wash - the aim is to minimise the dirty stuff actually in baggage at time of check in.

shorts, a new t shirt and flip flops and time to go out.

cold sydney blast

You can normally depend on Sydney weather right? Not this time. Cold, rainy, grey.

Got an early morning practice in after waking at 530am. Went to ashtanga yoga space on Oxford street which was fairly busy. The teacher Fiona, whom I had actually come across before on a previous visit to Sydney, was very nice and positive. The class was pretty active and the room is a good one with hard wooden floors and a pleasant feel, enhanced by the warmth and some good incense to eradicate any sweaty smells! This is Sydney after all - where the superficial is everything!

After that met T for her lunch break then traipsed around the CBD to pick up my ticket from Singapore Airlines. They have the most stultifying offices - like something out of 2001 A Space Odyssey but without any of the glamour and much worse customer service. People dully staring into their screens behind a lacquered counter, seemingly riffling the keyboard randomly while several people, including me, sat with their queuing tickets waiting for no apparent good reason.

After that felt knackered and had to go back to the flat for a nap before going out this evening to see the Sydney relatives - who are very kindly picking me up from Bondi Rd.

departing for Indyah

Went out for a quick coffee with mates working at Alpha Domus winery here in Hawkes Bay. Having pretty much emptied my stuff out of the apartment I was feeling decidedly disconnected and like I was kind of floating around, filling in the last few days. Not doing any yoga because of ailments that hopefully will clear up pretty fast.

Tasted the 2006 Viognier that my mate Stu has made and just bottled - for those interested in such things it is a decided break with normal and previous Hawkes Bay styles of this wine - it is high on acid and sugar, much more citrus-like than stone fruit and altogether pretty good.

All I feel like doing these days is tasting wine. Drinking it just doesn't appeal. 2 years' work in the industry pretty much put paid to my wine 'infatuation', which had been simmering since I was finishing school really. Not important anymore.

Much like speaking French - you'd have to make it seriously worth my while now to spend anything other than a brief period of time in France. I did my degree in French and Business.

Also much like eating meat - which makes a much rarer appearance on the plate now than previously.

And watching TV (although films are still definitely OK!).

And making any plans for the future.

These things just falling away....feels pretty good.

Films - juicy docos

As the Napier Film Festival draws to a close I still have three films to see. In the last 2 days I have seen:

China Blue - this continues what is turning out to be a very good year for hard hitting, cutting edge documentaries. The makers have succesfully got up close to the lives of factory workers in Southern China making jeans for major retailers and buyers all over the Western world. They are often just 16 or not even, they frequently work 16-18 hour days and are so thoroughly and badly exploited it actually is hard to believe unless you hear it from their own mouths.

Painstakingly shot amid what must have been the most demanding conditions we are left with a bleak portrait of economic and social conditions for the masses in China today. 'Highlights' include a visit of the Canada/China commerce chamber from Toronto where one delegate comments, upon noticing the workers streaming up steps to their dorms during lunch breaks 'oh, how nice they can go back to their rooms to eat' (there are no staff dining facilities and the cost of the meals is deducted from pay); the comment by a French customer, buying for French government procurement, that 'one can get a good idea of how well the factories are run by how educated and honest the boss appears to be over dinner'; the continual postponement of payday until the wages are 11 weeks overdue and the workers are forced to mount a widlcat strike one lunchtime (strikes are illegal) whereupon some of the (14 year old) staff manage to corner and harangue the owner, who gives no quarter but does relent and post the wages sheets. They earn around 5c-15c (US) per hour depending on piece rates.

It's all very well bemoaning Chinese capitalism in action of course, but who is buying these jeans? Which of your clothes (and mine) has 'Made in China' on the inside label?

Next up was The Road to Guantanamo directed by Michael Winterbottom. Based on testimony of the Tipton 3, three British lads who went to Pakistan for one of them to get married, who then went on to Afghanistan and got caught up in the US invasion and overthrow of the Taliban. Detained and shipped off to Guantanamo Bay they spent about 3 years there. The film is a savage critique of US military power and abuse and a potent illustration of just how out of control some of their operations are, in scale, conception, aim and execution. With Kafkaesque brutality the men are pushed back and forward through the interrogation/torture system, completely trapped in a system that lacks the will or capacity to see that an error has been made. The dramatisation is intercut with interviews with the real people. They can hardly believe it has happened to them and indeed the story recounted is so harsh and painful that Winterbottom has had to use all his guile so that we, too, may accept that such mindless and xenophobic cruelty is possible.

We are not asked to blindly identify identify with the men - for example it seems crazy even to have gone into Afghanistan, let alone stay once they could see the country was being bombed - rather just to accept their actions on the grounds that however ill conceived, what happened to them subsequently was grotesquely unlucky and desperately sad. The next time you hear anyone described as Al-Qeada, Taliban, Hamas, Hizbullah and so on remember that it is rarely that simple. Jeez - I have a friend whose brother works for US military intelligence in Iraq. Sure would love her to see this one.

A lesson in yoga

It's been some time since I really had a practice during and after which lots of 'emotional' stuff arose. A lot of it was triggered by the fact that my Coccyx is more bruised than I thought and is proving to be quite limiting. Even taking rest in at the end is uncomfortable as a lot of pressure is brought to bear by the body's weight at the base of the spine. A few minutes and it just aches too much to remain still.

A lot of frustration seemed to well up and so afterwards I had a read through Matthew Sweeney's comments on the Chakras. The 2nd Chakra - Svadisthana - is located at the Sacral Plexus (Coccyx) and is where interaction of Emotion and Body takes place.

Reading further onto other sections I came once more to the following passage,

"True change is made possible when you are in contact with what is, when you realise what you are. It does not occur when you try to become something you are not. This is delusion. With the latter there can only be a constant war between the desire for what you should be and what you are. This is one of the more troubling truths that most yoga practitioners have to deal with. No amount of asana or pranayama or meditation practice will make you a better person or hasten your development. Nothing will. For there is nothing better than being what you are right now." p28 Astanga Yoga As It Is.

What really interested me today was how deeply rooted the layers of non-acceptance can be and how very intrinsically linked they are to the physical, within the body, and how from this set of circumstances can arise emotions and feelings echoing aspects of the sub- or unconscious life. And the best thing is that yoga can allow awareness of this - with a little help from a teacher sometimes.

I am a definite fan of ClustrMaps - I have my own which you might notice down the side panel of my blog. This has amazed me by showing that even an unremarkable blog like mine, swimming in the ether along with the estimated 50 million other blogs globally, is somehow being seen by people literally all over the world - Ireland, Chile, Canada, Western Australia! Cool.

As I am now only a week away from leaving for India things have begun to feel just slightly unreal, this is compounded by the fact that my practice has dwindled to nearly nothing due to snowboarding injuries. I am now very glad that I have chosen to go to Mysore for 3 months as this will give me ample time to settle and get some continuity going again.

I am also looking forward hugely to spending time with good friends in Sydney on the way over and also to spending some quality time with my mother who has decided to visit me in Mysore for a month - it's a lot easier for her to go there than come all the way over here to NZ.

Good old Hawkes Bay is definitely sending me off in style too - the weather is now glorious springtime, huge amounts of sunshine and warm too.

Had a little send-off on Saturday night in Havelock where I have been living since December. it ended up being a good mix of friends from my winemaking days and those whom I know through ashtanga here in Hawkes Bay. It was a fun get together. It has taken a while but (aside from the obvious absence of any kind of career presently) I am really feeling more and more settled here. Ironic I know since I am just about to go travelling for nearly 5 months but what the heck - it'll be good to come back too!

fun times

Had a couple of pretty low energy practices the last two days - I think the bruising to my coccyx is the main reason. Jump backs and throughs are impossible and the wrenched thumb also makes some of the Parsva Konasanas uncomfortable, Navasana is also out Even Shavasana is uncomfortable. All pretty good going considering I will be in India in 2 weeks.

The best thing? I'm still really enjoying the practices and so for the second time in a couple of months I have the luxury of being injured without being annoyed about it....haha!

Anyway, my packed social life continues this week - last night went round to J & M in their new house - they seemed a little shellshocked I think - partly because the house is so nice and both kids have their own rooms and there is a pool in the garden - but also because they felt like they had become 'yuppies', in a lighthearted way. It was a fun evening. They always come out with hilarious anecdotes about J's freaky family in the US which have me in fits. Why are American families often so amusing to outsiders? Its not the first time I have felt that hearing about, or getting to know, an American family is a little like watching a car crash, major surgery or something equally compelling, morbid and fascinating. Why are they like this? There is a different quality to American life when compared to analagous tales from the UK or the Antipodes. Something about oddly outlandish, extreme features of peoples' lives cloaked in often stultifying banality makes these glimpses irresistible. The Vet sister in law on the West Coast, overweight with a tatoo of Anekin Skywalker on her shoulder, who does nothing other than work and flick through the 1000 available TV channels in her free time. The DC based Aunt whose work consists solely of dog walking. See what I mean?

Tonight is more film action followed by supper at the best Thai restaurant Hawkes Bay has to offer (it is actually very good, and you can't say that often round here). Tomorrow is leaving drinks at a local bar.

I have already moved a lot of my stuff out, arranged to get phone etc cut off, redirected mail and so on. Easy!