Topstation-- trekking

Okay, this is an attempt to actually take a half hour to create an entry.[Note from days later-- totally failed with this attempt!] But this time I have some decent pictures so I can let them do some of the communicating. In fact, I'll structure the description of this experience around explaining the pictures. As a quick overview, Christoph and I went up to Topstation near Munnar (I had stopped in here briefly several weeks earlier) to do some trekking. This was perhaps my favorite thing I've done in India, as it took us far away from everything tourist and we got to spend both nights in people's homes. All around it really helped develop my sense of what the village life is like, at least in this one small region. The pictures:

This is a picture from Topstation of the home of our guide, Mano, with him and his family (and Christoph) out front. I should clarify that Topstation isn't so much a town as a pretty place to visit, with I'm guessing something like ten or fifteen families living there, presumably supported primarily by tourist visits from Munnar. The photo was taken last chronologically amongst those included here, but this place was the starting point of our time with Mano, so I've put it first. We showed up at Topstation in the afternoon despite best made plans to make it in the morning, so that day all we did was check out the area around Topstation a bit. I had seen it previously, but it was a bit clearer this time, and the place is really just spectacular.

We had dropped our bags in Mano's house, and as the light began to fade we returned there. Part of the deal was that he would feed us, so shortly afterwards, as we sat beside the fireplace in the room Mano keeps for his customers (or so he says), he brought us some excellent rice and eggs someone in the family had prepared (probably his wife's mother, who lives with them, as his wife was in a nearby town for the evening for some reason). The house had no electricity-- though the church just next to where I stood to take the picture does. So they have no lighting, but they do have a battery operated radio. It's cold up there, and only some of the windows are still there, so the house is cold-- but none of them seem to care much. Mano's little son Katic was running around in just a t-shirt (as in no pants) the whole time. (All the empty windows you see in the picture are misleading-- there's sort of a porch space in the front of the house. In other words, they're not all broken.)

----So much for half an hour. That's as much as I wrote in that attempt (several days ago); hopefully I can finish this today . . . All this is starting to feel so long ago; forgive me if I am writing mechanically. ----

Anyhow in the morning after some breakfast we packed up what we needed for the day and headed off. The morning was spent with Mano leading us down all sorts of little paths running through the area's tea plantations. That's what you can see in the picture here. The green hills in the middle distance are covered in the tea plants you can see in the foreground. It was really quite beautiful. Throughout the walk Mano would pick a few leaves from plants we passed and explain their traditional use. I especially appreciated the remedy for clogged sinuses, as I had come down with my first cold of the trip the day before. When he wasn't talking about plants he was talking about . . . something. Mano is one of the most prolific talkers I have ever encountered in my life. The most incredible thing is that the man must know barely a hundred words of English, but world class persistence and loads of gesturing made it such that he was able to communicate quite a bit to us, though there were also certainly plenty of times where I was just nodding my head wondering what he could possibly be talking about. A favorite topic was animal encounters. He had a few tiger stories, though none that ended badly (and we saw tiger cub tracks!), and endless tales of destruction and death inflicted by elephants. The place where his father escaped from a raging elephant decades earlier, the place where an elephant gored a young man from a nearby village with its tusk, the spot where thee used to be the "grass house" of an "unlucky family" until an elephant decided to trample the whole thing in the night sometime last year. In everything we learned of the way of life in these mountain communities, the menace imposed by wild elephants seemed among one of the most difficult aspects of existence. Of course elephant rampages make for good stories, so my perception may well be skewed.

In the mid-day we stopped to take our lunch (which we'd carried from Topstation, packed for us by Mano in a banana leaf and newspaper) at a small village. What Mano apparently hadn't fully succeeded in communicating to us was that we were waiting for a ceremonial procession to pass by. We knew we were going to see some dancing in a village in the area, but it was quite a surprise when several hundred people-- many dressed in bright ceremonial garb (such as the floral cone shaped hats you can see in the picture)-- rounded the bend down the road, and the music we had heard in the distance was suddenly upon us. After those with important roles in the ceremony had passed by we joined everyone, who we found out were walking towards a nearby Hindu temple. Soon after our joining we were hit with another surprise when a young girl approached me and began speaking to me in perfect English (complete with a vaguely British accent). It turned out that her mother, who was walking next to her (but didn't speak English), was the mayor-equivalent of the region. They were Christian, and it seemed that they were attending the (Hindu) ceremony at least in part due to her holding this position-- the making an appearance sort of thing. The girl, who turned out to be fifteen though she looked younger and acted older, was great to talk to-- full of energy, very positive, well educated and informed.

One thing she mentioned that I found interesting was that though her mother had run-- and lost by a margin of a dozen or so votes-- in the election prior to the one before that in which she won (i.e. 2 elections prior to that which she won), her father had run in the election in between-- and also lost by a tiny margin. So they acted as a sort of political team. Though by and large it seems that women in Indian culture are not looked on as equal to men, this is only one of several things I've learned about that suggests that in politics they are-- at least much more so than in the US. [The most obvious example of this is Indira Gandhi, who was PM for the better part of the mid-sixties to mid-eighties (when she was assassinated). Also interesting to me is that what I know of her career seems to me to parallel what I know of that of Margaret Thatcher: quite a bit of heavy handed union busting and the like. I suppose I need to not include this sort of thing anymore if I want to finish this entry . . . ] Anyhow, she had won in the recent election by a large margin. They were the candidates of the Congress party (said to be moderate; that of Mrs. Gandhi and her father Nehru, one of the main Indian independence figures), and so they felt that this victory was a big deal, as Congress has had only limited success in the state of Kerala.

The reason for this, and one of the things that makes travel in Kerala interesting, is that Kerala has tended to be rather left-leaning. It's state government happens to be the only democratically elected Communist government . . . ever, according to Keralans, anyhow. I certainly don't know of another example. And while I talked to a number of people with gripes about leftist policies creating problems for business and preventing investment in the state, many people seem to be absolutely thrilled with their leftist government-- and understandably so. Kerala's literacy rate is insanely high-- over 90%, in a country with a national average estimated at about 65%. Those I spoke with attributed this to the heavy emphasis on education by the state govt. During our trek we saw several examples of the government involved in the life of the rural poor-- the house we slept in on the second night had had a grass roof only a year or two earlier, but the family had been able to install metal roofing thanks to grants from the govt. Several homes had (limited) electricity due to grants for solar panels.

Back to stuff that happened (I'm hopeless!), the procession ended not too long after we joined them at a smallish Hindu temple, where some hired dancers-- two men and two women-- performed a series of dances. They were quite entertaining, especially a bit of mock husband-wife bickering worked into the performance. There was quite a bit of pressure for us white boys to join in with the dancers but we managed to avoid what would have been certain humiliation. Apparently the ceremony was to continue into the night, and there was to be a goat sacrifice around midnight, but after taking it in for a bit we continued on our way.

After only a bit more walking we arrived in the tiny village where Mano's wife's family lived, where we spent the night. Memorable bits of the stay included being forced to drink an entire glass of this powder that was supposed to cure my cold mixed into a homemade alcohol that was, to me at least, indistinguishable from vodka.
It was absolutely vile. It also didn't cure my cold, though after Mano's insistence on our drinking more throughout the evening I did wake up the next morning with a hangover. Also interesting was the sleeping arrangement-- Mano, Christoph, and myself all packed together like three big sardines in sleeping bags and blankets on the floor of this little room. We had discovered the night before that Mano was a world-class snorer, but as he had been in the next room it hadn't been a big problem. This night, as soon as Mano's drunken hiccuping ceased, he started straight away into impossibly loud snoring-- sleeping was absolutely impossible. As Christoph was in the middle I told him to give Mano a shove so that he would shift about and hopefully stop snoring. Christoph didn't want to, so I reached over and poked him lightly in the ribs-- no reaction, no change. I poked harder-- still nothing. My attempts escalated further and further, and yet the snoring went on. It wasn't until I started kicking him that he rolled over-- still not waking-- and the snoring ceased long enough to fall asleep.

The next day we hiked to the nearby tribal village. The village didn't look entirely different from others in the area, but it was set in a beautiful spot in a gorgeous valley. According to Mano the people spoke their own language (certainly not Tamil, as that's what he speaks), and he was only allowed to visit and bring us because his wife was friends with some of them on account of growing up nearby. When the children playing saw us approach, they all ran and hid-- these people definitely weren't used to seeing Westerners. One of the great things about this whole trip was that it seemed that no Westerners ever went to any of these places, besides those of us who came with Mano. We didn't stay long-- all we really did was stop in for tea at the home of one family he knew. The picture was taken inside the home. There were several generations of people inside, moving about doing different things. The kids--some of whom are in the picture-- were curious and cute but very shy. I really loved this village-- I instantly decided I wanted to learn their language and come back and stay for half a decade. (I also gave up this idea pretty quickly-- besides the facts that there's no way to arrange it and they probably wouldn't let me anyhow, I don't see what benefits my presence could benefit them and their apparent attempt to preserve their apparently distinct culture.)

Anyhow, that's enough about the trek. We stopped at the home of the mayor for a bit for some fruit, as they invited us to come the day before. Then we hiked back. That afternoon we arrived back in Topstation, and that night we caught a bus all the way back down to the coast.

At this point we were both sick, and both "irregular", and had a bit of a misadventure when it turned out that every single hotel in the town of our arrival was booked. In the end our best option proved to be catching a 3:30am train to our next destination, a town in the north of Kerala called Kannur. Kannur was to be a brief stay, but ended up several days longer than expected on account of the inability to get a train reservation. So this was where we ended up for New Years. We went to witness a supposedly wild, all night long religious ritual particular to the region (called Theyyam) for New Years, but it was kind of a bust. Se la vie.

Happenings for 2006 forthcoming . . .

--Josh

Christmas Eve in Kodaikanal

Before I get back into the transcribing business (had the urge to write-- what can I say?), there's a bit to mention that preceded what I've already wrote. This way I'll avoid further confusing matters with befores and afters and in betweens. So:

After Sivinanda we crossed from Kerala to Tamil Nadu (states), headed for the very southern tip of India on which sits a town called Kanyakumari. It's a pilgrim/tourist site and, for me at least, was mostly worth going there for the sake of having been. Especially it's the southernmost point I've been so far! What silly abstract things we (or perhaps it's just me?) worry about. There were monuments to Gandhi and Vivekananda, another popular spiritual figure cum influential person important in India history, about a half-century prior to Gandhi. It felt nice to see the ocean; made me miss home. Other than that, not too much to speak of.

Next stop was Madurai, a city of a million plus with an amazing temple complex. A distinctly Indian feeling city . . . . After two days, we left for Kodaikanal, where we ended up staying for four fairly relaxed days and nights, the last night being Christmas Eve.

Written Dec. 24, 10:30pm:
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spending Christmas outside the usual context surrounding it has afforded me the opportunity to reflect on it from a different perspective. Just being apart from Christmas in a Christmas-focused place, this has happened naturally as I observe what I miss and what I'm glad to be missing and so see with fresh eyes what I do and do not value about this holiday season of ours. A few such observations: I miss the sense of it being a special time of the year, but not the lines and traffic that come with it. I miss the spirit of giving, as in people saying, "Oh have a heart, it's Christmas," and other such examples of us treating one another well; of course it would be even better if this went on throughout the year . . . . I don't miss the rampant commercials and commercialism that, if you'll excuse my language, bastardizes this spirit. I miss egg-nog (especially yours, Terry!). I miss Christmas music-- or rather, I miss some of it. I don't miss being force-fed excesses of the worst of it everywhere I go. That is, I don't miss "Jingle Bells".

This evening Christoph and I went to a local Protestant Christmas Eve service, conducted in Tamil, the language of the state of Tamil Nadu. We arrived about twenty minutes early, to scope things out, get a seat in the back from which we could excuse ourselves without commotion, etc. A number of people were already there, sitting in silence while a man played familiar Christmas songs on the organ, through crackling speakers. It was just wonderful-- I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It's amazing how beautiful "Noel" can sound when you haven't heard it six times a day since Thanksgiving (I don't suppose I'd heard it at all since last Christmas . . . ). There were a few songs that seemed out of place to my ears-- the tune that to me is "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" for one-- but mostly all the best of the traditional Christmas carolling music.

Actually, I haven't been entirely without Christmas music the past days . . . as if my brain is tuned into radio waves from across the globe, hits such as "White Christmas" have been popping into my head out of nowhere. Or maybe it's being psychically transmitted to me from the Christmas observing world! Or maybe it's that I'm so conditioned to Christmas music this time of year that even in the absence of actual Christmas music it surfaces in my mind automatically-- kind of like an itch in an amputated limb (okay, not really).

Anyhow, before I go on, let me take a step back to establish where I am at the moment. As I indicate in the title, I'm in a town called Kodaikanal. Kodai, as it is called for short, has turned out to be a good place to spend Christmas for two main reasons. The first is that, as a hill station at 2100m (roughly 7000 ft.) of elevation, it's actually pretty cold up here, at night anyways. Okay, not by the (mis)standards I've come to know in Boston, but relative to both the rest of India as well as southern California its chilly; today I put on a warm hat, which makes this the coldest Christmas in memory (though I'm told I've known colder . . . ). The second reason is the fact that, perhaps partly due to the fact that this town was originally established by missionaries (by Americans no less, in the 1840s), there seems to be an unusually high Christian population compared to India at large. There must be almost a dozen churches in and around town here, in this town of about thirty-thousand.

Even so, it doesn't feel much at all the way it does in the US, as you might have gathered from what I said above. "Merry Christmas" is seldom heard, even on Christmas Eve. Same with "Happy holidays" and the lot. I've only noticed one Christmas tree-- in the semi-fancy hotel near to where we are staying, and outside this Christmas lights aren't anywhere to be seen. Or Santa Claus, or Santa hats, or reindeer stuff. I have seen one Santa in India actually-- after evening Satsang our last night at Sivananda (a little over a week ago now) we were treated to some Indian Christmas caroling. Perhaps it was naive of me, but upon hearing there would be carollers I was expect something not entirely different from what I have known. This was not the case: the carollers consisted of a few adults and several dozen early adolescent aged kids (or so they appeared). Their carolling involved one of the adults banging a drum really hard repeatedly at a fast pace, while the others shouted together loudly-- I think entirely without pretense of singing. Meanwhile another adult, wearing a Santa mask that covered his whole face (and dressed otherwise in Indian garb, as were the rest) danced to all this with exaggerated side to side hip movements. The mask itself was interesting-- it looked more like the Kris Kringle, "Night Before Christmas" Santa than the massive fake-beard, shopping-mall Santa were come to expect in the US. It seemed odd to think that Indian children might imagine an old white man bringing them things. I mean strange besides all the improbabilities--that is, if this happens at all, which I don't know.

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UNBELIEVABLE!!!!! It happened AGAIN!!! I just lost another half of an entry. I can't believe it. Nor do I really care to correct it at this point. Summary: the service itself was pretty similar to a Western religious service, I think-- though I don't know what was said. I expected it to be more different because of the above mentioned caroling and some wild Bollywood style evangelism I saw a few weeks ago. Wow, I think that was as good the three paragraphs I had before anyhow. I would do better to write this in haiku . . .

Christmas itself was good. Most of it was spent in transit, but I was able to call home to many of you all at the annual Herzik Christmas Eve party, which was just wonderful. The day of transit ended with a jury-rigged first night of Hannukah ceremony with some Israelis. I always liked it when one of the days of Hannukah fell on Christmas!

--Josh

In and around Bangalore-- before Trivandrum

In this post I describe what happened in the week that passed between my food poisoning and catching the train to Sivananda Ashram. In other words, this all takes place before the previous entry.
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When I got sick, I was on my way to Bangalore to meet Chris Chapple at an ashram of sorts just outside called Fireflies. Chris is the father of my dear friend Dylan, with whom I attended school from sixth grade onwards. He is a professor of theological studies at LMU, specializing in Indian religions (is this accurate, Chris?), and has spent a lot of time over here. So when I was planning my trip here I made sure to visit him to find out what suggestions he might have. Besides providing me with lots of useful info and helping me make a general plan of how I might spend my time, he mentioned that he would be in the vicinity of Bangalore in early December. The way things worked out, I was fortunate enough to be able to meet up with Chris during this time, while he was paying a visit to Fireflies.

Fireflies is an interesting place/institution. Rather different from most places that assume the label "ashram". As they describe themselves on the website (http://www.fire-flies.net/), "Fireflies is an inclusive secular Ashram open to all spiritual traditions concerned with personal growth, social engagement and environmental action." They continue, "We consider it important to integrate modern secular thinking with those intuitive insights that give deeper meaning to our daily lives. The sacred and the secular have to converge and fuse if we are to solve the grim personal, social and environmental problems facing humanity today." I think this is good stuff . . . . Anyhow, as far as how it functions, Fireflies tends to be occupied by, and is set up for, various NGOs of a generally environmental bent from India as well as abroad who wish to host workshops, retreats, etc. Though very close to Bangalore, its location is in fact quite rural, just outside a tiny village, and it is a delightfully quiet and clean place. (Note that these are not words commonly used when describing places in India.)

Anyhow, the long and the short is that I had a really pleasant, enjoyable stay here. Catching up and talking with Chris was great-- besides being a generally wonderful person to talk to, he has incredible insight into the various religious and spiritual practices of India and beyond, and so I very much appreciated the chance to hear his thoughts on these matters. Talking to him also helped me realize that there are countless opportunities to pursue such practices in the US. (More and more I'm seeing that this is so-- indeed, every ashram or meditation center, etc. that I've looked into here seems to have a major branch of sorts operating in southern California.) Being at Fireflies with Chris (not that I would have been there without him) also allowed me the opportunity to get to know people who run it a bit, and get a sense for all the wonderful things they do in the surrounding community. I'll limit myself to saying that, as someone who has felt increasingly disillusioned with the nature of many, if not most, charitable organizations (promoting so-called "economic imperialism", acting more in interest of preserving their existence than serving their supposed missions, etc), I found their particular model of action in their local community inspiring.

My stay was about 24 hours; then it was back to Bangalore proper to try to meet up with Christoph (German guy, met in Mumbai), who had just flown in from Katmandu the night before. This was logistically challenging, given that I don't have a cell phone and we didn't have a clear place to meet, but after a few hours and misunderstood emails we worked it out.

That evening we walked about Bangalore's famous MG road area, which was without a doubt one of the greatest cultural shocks of my life. A few unavoidable differences aside, it was just like the urban areas of what we like to flatter ourselves by calling the developed world. Bright lights, things that looked new; Western chain stores (Diesel, Levis) and big, shiny advertisements for fancy Western goods (Sony); restaurants serving Western food (not to mention Dominos); Indians conversing with one another in perfect (if still distinctly Indian) English. And, most of all, malls-- escalators, trendy teenagers, food courts!&$%!! We wandered into one hat turned out to be one massive (seven story) department store; it's hard to describe how bizarre this felt after being in such different environments for what was at the time the better part of the previous two months. With its expansive, white linoleum floors, neatly arranged merchandise, and fully Western style supermarket on the top floor, I'm tempted to say that it was at least as overwhelming and, well . . . shocking . . . as arriving in Damascus or Mumbai. (Though this may have something to do with the fact that it was unexpected . . . and to be fair, my airport pick-up in Damascus was pretty shocking.)

The next day we took a three hour bus trip to the nearby hill station (of sorts) called Nandi Hills. This place was distinct in my experiences in India thus far in that it was overseen by a single entity-- the Dept. of Horticulture or some such thing. It gave the place a resort-like feel, but I don't mean that in a bad way (as I probably would generally). Though I maintain that most places in India are neither clean nor quiet, Nandi Hills also possessed both of these attributes. Set on top of a big hill, it also had some excellent views, when the place wasn't socked in by clouds (which were cool too-- mystical feeling). And there were tons of wild monkeys . . .

Though it was a pleasant place to visit, there wasn't all that much to it, so the next day we headed back into Bangalore, with the intent of making our way to Sivananda. After booking our train tickets (with the requisite bureaucratic hoop-jumping), we had a few hours before departure, and so we were able to join Chris briefly at the beautiful home of a former student of his in Bangalore, which was another really enjoyable encounter. Christoph, who is doing the German equivalent of majoring in religion, was thrilled to meet and talk with Chris, and I was really glad to see him again, and we both appreciated the chance to meet Sanjeev (the former student) and his wife (who's name escapes me, as names tend to do) and children-- as well as their hospitality and the excellent food they served us. But, as we had a train to catch, we weren't able to stay long. And then we were on our way south . . .

Camp Yoga-- Trivandrum

India does not want me to keep this blog; this entry was the third consecutively that I've had at least in part to re-write. This is such a characteristically Indian experience, the way a new problem occurs every time but with the same ultra-frustrating effect. But, for the time being at least, I shall not despair! The blog will go on!!

I should clarify-- my expressing frustration with India is not to say that I don't like it here or I'm not happy or anything like this. It's just that, in my experience-- as well as that of others here I've talked to, from what I can gather-- to experience India is at least in part to coexist with sometimes maddening circumstances.

Written yesterday, Dec. 17. Rewritten in part just now . . .
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Hello!

This blog has become so much less of a burden since (a) I've stopped trying to write them beforehand and then transcribe, and (b) I don't feel like weeks have passed since the things I will be writing about happened. Without further ado:

Just today I ended a three-day stint at a place known as Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Dhanwantari Ashram, near to the southern-most tip of the subcontinent. It was interesting experience all-around . . .

A few days after meeting up once again with Christoph-- the German fellow who I met in the airport in Mumbai at the start of my time in India-- in Bangalore ("The Silicon Valley of India"), we decided we were interested in giving this yoga ashram we'd heard about a try. An 18 hour train journey, a few hours on a bus, and a short autorickshaw (a sort of a cross between a taxi and a moped) ride later, we were there, and wondering whether the three-days we had reserved (the minimum allowed) might be too long. How to explain . . . As we filled out the paperwork upon our late night arrival, the course title "Yoga Vacation", that I had somehow overlooked in considering participation beforehand all of a sudden was alarmingly apparent. The layout of the campus, the uber-rustic dormitories-- the whole place had the feel summer camp for new-age grown-ups. And Western grown-ups, to be sure . . .

Our first day began as all days at this place begin-- with a 5:20 am wake-up for 6 o'clock "Satsang," consisting of three parts: half-hour silent meditation, forty-five minutes plus of Hindu chants, and fifteen minutes of a sermon-like talk. The first day, however, was conducted differently, as it was the final morning for the students who had been there the previous two-weeks. Instead of the sermon, Satsang concluded with a Hindu fire ceremony in which those willing throw blessed rice into a large flame--one of the Swamis (monks/priests) had built and fed it during the chanting-- one at a time and then prostrate themselves briefly before it. Mostly I had found the meditation physically uncomfortable, as I had forgotten to bring something such as a cushion to sit on. The chanting at first felt pretty strange to me, though as it went I started to see it as very much like the singing that constitutes so much of the synagogue and church services that I have known. In fact, it was so similar that I wonder whether it isn't created in part to satisfy the notions of religious service held by Western visitors. Though the fire ceremony felt foreign at first, on a certain level it reminded me of the Christian communion. I have to admit that the prostration element made me a bit uneasy. It wasn't the practice itself-- in fact I found it fascinating-- but rather the lack of prior knowledge that this place operated in such a religious way, and uncertainty of how this would manifest itself over the next 3 days.

In any case, the day proceeded in the regiment proscribed, as I was well aware it would. Indeed, it was part of the reason I was interested in this program in the first place; I wanted to see how this felt. Here's the schedule, straight from the website (www.sivananda.org/neyyardam):

5:30am			Wake-up
6:00am			Satsang (group meditation, chanting and talk)
7:30am			Tea time
8:00am			Asana class (breathing exercises, postures; relaxation; separate classes for beginners and intermediate)
10:00am			Vegetarian meal (moderately spiced)
11:00am			Karma Yoga (selfless service)
12:00pm			Lecture (talk on various aspects of yoga)
13:30am			Tea time
14:00pm			Optional Asana Coaching Class
15:30pm			Asana class (beginners and intermediate level)
18:00pm			Vegetarian meal
20:00pm			Satsang (group meditation, chanting and talk)
22:30pm			Lights out

Some details: Meals, said to be made according to Vedic proscription and absolutely wonderful, were conducted without speaking, which felt a bit odd at first. The less advanced of the yoga classes was aimed at beginners, and so suited me well. More on yoga: I feel confident that it would do me loads of good to pursue this in my life. I have dabbled only a little previously, and both before and especially now I have become conscious of just how tightly wound most of my body is, and how imbalanced it is as far as the left and right sides are concerned. One such imbalance that caused me a lot of trouble was my inability to sit comfortably with my legs crossed-- the staple position for life at this place-- as my left leg simply isn't flexible enough. Thus the problem for me with yoga is that its not very enjoyable a lot of the time--oftentimes I feel like I'm so far from being able to do the various poses that I'm note even stretching or engaging the intended areas. I think I'll look into some smaller group or personal instruction when I'm up north, perhaps in Rishikesh, said to be the very birthplace of yoga.

I've already spent far too long at this. There is more to be said about this experience; my hope is that with a bit more distance I'll be able to offer a more focused and colorful account of my time there. For now I'll say that I'm glad I went, which I'm struck may not be obvious from what I've said so far. I also hope to write about the time between that night being sick (where I left off last time) and deciding to visit Sivananda Ashram.

Goodbye for now!

--Josh

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So, to pick up where I left off . . .

As you may have perceived, I was fairly skeptical at the beginning, perhaps in part due to my experience in Sringeri (not that it was bad or I regret it . . . I'm thankful for it , in fact). But my skepticism was tempered by discussions with two so-called staff at the ashram. The first was one of our yoga teachers, early afternoon our first day there (during afternoon tea). He looked to be about late middle-age, and we (Christoph and myself) found out from talking to him that he was Canadian and formerly the owner of a restaurant in Ottawa. He had a certain dry cynicism about him that I found reassuring-- he seemed in many ways the antithesis of the flowery, wistful new ager. I asked him whether he considered himself a Hindu and what his relationship was with the Satsang that had struck me as so religious. He said he wasn't Hindu and didn't consider himself religious, but found value in the ritual in and of itself. Hearing this perspective from a man who had been spending most the year in such practice for most of the past decade led me to approach the remaining Satsang--and the place in general-- less defensively. I relaxed a bit, and found myself seeing the potential value in the various aspects of life at this place, as well as enjoying Satsang. I found the music really wonderful, once I let myself, and it was really very nice to sing along (or "chant") each morning and night-- though perhaps it lasted longer than I would have cared for ideally.

The second staff who influenced my experience and opinion positively was the director and head-swami himself. On our second day at Sivinanda, Christoph and I opted to go on a day-long excursion offered by the ashram to a nearby waterfall in the jungle, as it happened to be Friday, the "day off" (though still involving predawn wake-up and meditation, as well as evening Satsang). It was a really great day all around-- it's one of the few times I've managed to make it to a truly natural setting so far in India, and I felt very much in my element there. The waterfall was spectacular and the jungle was beautiful. Perhaps the best part about the trip was that it humanized some of the staff for me, among them this head-swami. An early middle-aged white fellow with short grey and brown hair and full but not long beard of the same color, I had found him a charismatic figure from the beginning (he led Satsang), despite whatever discomfort I may have felt. Getting to talk to him put the whole place in a different perspective. First, I should clarify that a swami is a "renounciant", meaning they've given up all material things, sexual relations, etc. I expected this guy to be fairly distant and inaccessible in conversation, but in fact he was friendly, personable, and just warm. And there was just a genuine humility, not just a feigned one. He had been born in Zimbabwe, and prior to taking up yoga full time he had become a pediatrician in England. He had renounced worldly things two years prior.

This outing had limited space, so it allowed for everyone to chat with everyone else more or less, the swami included. Over lunch, Christoph and I kind of grilled him (in a respectful, awed way) about his decision to give up so much and what that had been like, and his answers were genuine, quite personal, and made clear that he possessed what I would consider to be a great insight. His perspective was quite different from that of the yoga-teacher, in that he was actively very religious-- besides leading the daily religious ceremonies, he referred to his faith in God in certain answers to our questions (in a rather Judeo-Christian sounding way, actually). The effect of this was not intimidation or alienation, but rather I finally came to see Hinduism for what it can be. It looks on the surface like so many strange rituals to countless Gods-- or at least it's easy to see it this way-- and in fact I've heard more than one person say that many modern practicing Hindus have lost the inward, meditative spirit of the faith in the various rituals. I have been thinking about the relationship between Hinduism and Buddhism during my time here, and in this man the two seemed very close indeed, with one key difference-- faith in God as an important element. I have felt drawn to Buddhism for several years now, finding its rational, experience-based, and more or less secular approach a good fit for my existing worldview, and this remains the case. But this southern African swami managed to express faith in a way that I haven't felt before, and I will say that I found something about it appealing and somehow just plain sensible. Which isn't to say that I expect to live my life from here forward differently or that I'm going to undergo some sort of conversion or something like this. But I can feel that my perspective has shifted, though so subtly that I cannot really say how at this point in time.

Our stay in the Ashram ended mid-day on our third day. We could have stayed longer, and contemplated it, but neither of really cared to. I think more than anything else we weren't mentally prepared for a more extended stay than we had already undertaken. But practical matters were also causing problems, namely a lack of sleep. By this third day I felt exhausted and just kind of crappy, as I was having trouble getting to sleep and so the early wake-up was doing me in. My left leg hurt from trying to sit cross legged all the time, and in my tiredness I was feeling extremely frustrated at my inability to meditate on account of discomfort. And the highly controlled food intake. So we checked out, got our "exit pass" (necessary to be let out!), and headed straight for the city, with all its vices (onions and non-spiritual music, for instance).

Okay, that was DEFINITELY enough. You must really be a loyal friend or relative if you're reading this!!

Sincerely yours,
Josh

The Past Two Weeks

In the first picture I'm with some pilgrims in Sringeri who asked to take a picture with me; we're in front of the famous temple. The second is of some other pilgrims at dusk with the temple in the distance (unfortunately the pic turned out a little dark . . . ). The third is a picture from the spectacular mountains near Munnar, looking down on the clouds.
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Okay, here goes an attempt to get through my time here in the past two weeks so that I can get back to writing posts about relatively recent events. So, as they say, Here We Go! :

After Murudeshwar I went to another small town off the beaten path, having enjoyed my time in the former so much. This one was (and remains) known as Sringeri, and it is an important pilgrimage site for Hindus tucked away up in some beautiful green mountains. Though I went with the intention of staying one night or maybe two if I was really inspired, I ended up staying four or five. What happened was my first night a shop owner I encountered insisted on introducing me via phone to a German man living in the town. So I met him the next morning and ended up staying several nights at this house that he sort of but not really owned (this was never clarified . . . ), and ran as a small ashram-type thing. This guy was really quite a character-- I wrote up something about this intending to transcribe it here, but I find that I have lost all interest in actaully typing it up. For some reason transcribing has come to be one of the banes of my existence-- which is why I intend to mostly avoid it from now on! The house itself was beautiful-- warm, wood interior, with ceramic roofing in good indian style. Set in a little village about a fifteen minute walk from town, it was wonderfully peaceful and just a great place to be.

I spent the first two days mostly reading finishing the first novel I've read in almost a year and a half! (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.) On the third day a Russian man and Polish woman joined us as well. They were all nice enough, and though at first it looked like they were going to teach me some meditation practices and so on, by the time they decided to do so after a couple days I had lost all interest. Not in meditation in general, but in what they had to offer-- a bunch of silly falsely-Hindu (I thought, not that I would really know) new-age nonsense preached by a guru who (while alive) presented himself rather too messianically for my taste. As was made abundantly apparent by the television station devoted to it alone (the only one we got in the "ashram"), this "movmement" was constantly making all sorts of claims to being a science and having scientific validity; this in particular got on my nerves. And a lot of what these people believed was little more than self-serving, superstitious crap as far as I was concerned. So, when they decided they were ready to begin my instruction, I decided it was high time to move on. But I'm glad I had this experience-- it helped clarify what I'm looking for with this sort of thing, or rather what I'm not looking for.

From Sringeri I made my way to Kochi, a long ways to the south, in the state of Kerala. Kochi was okay. A lot of people I had encountered fairly raved about, so by this time I wasn't surprised when the place didn't knock my sandals off. Tourist crap, etc. So after a night I went further south to Aleppy, where I thought I might do a trip in the famed backwaters (lake-lagoon-canal network). I met several nice English guys in the little guest house where I stayed, one of whom said he would be interested in joining me to Munnar, a hill station in the vicinity. So I aborted the better part of my backwater plans, settling for a thoroughly pleasant two-hour public ferry ride through the backwaters as the first leg of the journey inland.

Munnar was quite nice. The town is starting to explode into yet another tourist hub, but so far it's still pleasant enough and the mountains all around are stunning--steep, lush, some covered in tea-plantations (which happen to be really pretty). It's also much less hot, which was a welcome change. The English fellow I was with proved to be a good companion, as we seemed to have a similar take on many things in India as well as the Western world. I didn't have long to spend there, so after two nights I continued on my way, while he stayed to do a short trek nearby.

After a day of buses and trains I arrived in Calicut, a coastal town in the north of Kerala, where I stayed with a kind, young Ayuvedic doctor who happens to be Muslim (Ayuvedic medicine is based on Hindu texts) who I had met on the train to Kochi. We had hit it off on the train due to a common interest in Buddhism and a shared love for the writings of religious scholar Karen Armstrong, so he had insisted that I stay with him on my way back north. During my stay we talked about all sorts of interesting things, most memorably arranged marriage. He kept emphasizing that he had known what he was getting into because he and his now-wife had mutual friends from which he could find out about her, and they had met once, amongst relatives, for half an hour. It's pretty crazy from a Western perspective, but it seems to work out just fine for him as well as lots of other people . . . . As he mentioned at one point, the divorce rate here is low. Certainly this is in part due to greater stigma against divorce, but I sometimes feel there's also something to be said for being less fixated on finding the very perfect person. All in all, it was a pleasant stay and Mubasshir (the doctor) was a thoroughly gracious host.

I left early afternoon the next day, headed for a largish city called Mysore. I got off early, however, as I wasn't feeling especially well-- at a small, charmless town along the way. After an ordeal wandering the town looking for a room with a vacancy, I ended up in a giant room with four beds (for some reason cheaper than the double). As it turned out, I had what I believe was some food-poisoning. It was kind of grim--vomiting in a not-so-nice bathroom in the middle of the night-- and yet in a strange way I relished the experience. I've been realizing during my time here that I don't necessarily have to let mild physical discomfort lead to mental anguish, so on this night that included the one-month point (4 am) of my arrival in India, it felt like a right of passage-- a kind of a test. And, I'm happy to say, I was able to keep my spirits more or less in-tact through the experience.

I have to run now, but that gets me most the way to the present! Give me feedback if you have any . . .

--Josh

just a quick note-- not an entry

hello loyal readers,

i just wanted to let you know that i probably won't have the opportunity to write up a post for a couple days yet. i've been at slow and expensive internet connections as of late and, perhaps more significantly, i've been travelling with a nice english fellow the past few days, which means that i don't have the blocks of time it takes me to write up the entries as i've been doing them.

on that note, i'm considering altering how i go about this whole thing, as it is becoming something of a chore as is. my thought is that i may just give myself a half hour on the computer once or twice a week, and get out what i can. because the way i'm currently going about this takes me MUCH longer than that, it would probably alter the form of the entries quite a bit. more a stream of conciousness sort of feel, i expect.

in any case, i hope this finds you all well, and look for more sometime after this coming weekend. thanks for reading, everyone, and be sure to let me know you're following and haven't told me so-- it means a lot to me that people take enough interest in what i'm doing to read what i'm writing here.

sincerely,
josh