news from mysore

A few random updates:

The monsoon has settled upon us and our days are grey, rainy and cold. There's more than enough to occupy my attention so life carries on as always with the addition of careful laundry strategizing, an acceptance that I'll be wearing the same set of warm clothes for the next two weeks and a slight regret that I didn't take advantage of the sweltering weather with an afternoon at the pool when I had the chance.

I copied the following headline from the newspaper this morning: "Fraudulent Manure Seized". Someone was selling 240 bags of fake manure to agriculturalists. Given the contributions of cows, goats, dogs, pigs, and the occasional human to the cause, I'm stunned that someone actually thought it necessary to create fake manure. How lazy do you have to be?

The woolen blanket count on my bed has risen to four, it would have risen to five but I'm out of blankets. As it is, the combined weight of those already there makes it difficult to move once I've slid under the covers. Last night a very, very, very large coackroach sauntered across my chest and I couldn't get my hands free quickly enough to panic appropriately. The extra time served me well by giving me a chance to think about just how important it was to expend the energy to free myself, move the blankets, and try to find the bug. Turns out, not very, I turned over and went to sleep instead.

humpty-rebecca-dumpty

Last summer, at about this time, I was sitting in my overly-airconditioned office reading the blog of a woman who had come to Mysore to practice yoga for three months. I was envious and wanted that experience for myself. When I was trying to decide what to do this summer I couldn’t get that memory out of my mind: sitting at my desk, daydreaming through others’ blogged experiences, wishing I too had a flat in India and could bury myself in yoga-land. And so I came.

The writer of this same blog talked about the value of being here for three months because the first month you settle into your practice, the second month you fall apart, the third month Guruji puts you together again. Halfway through my second month, I can definitely identify with that.

The last two weeks were difficult and I really wanted to leave. Like any other community, the yoga scene can be tiresome at times with gossip, judging, and complaining but then added to that is the very gorgeous tendency yoga has to stir stuff up and bring it to the surface. These lessons truly are the reason I keep coming back to my mat but it can be a bit much when you’re trying to deal not only with your stuff but others’ as well. The energy around here can get a bit wonky at times.

My first month I was just glad to be here. Getting settled, rediscovering Mysore, and diving deeper into my practice. My second month, well, it’s been work. I’ve felt irritated, agitated, bored, and frustrated. Not with the practice, I love practicing here and wouldn’t change it for anything; but the hours the follow (you know, the rest of the day) have been trying. This week I gave up fighting it, gave up counting the number of days until I leave, gave up dreaming of leaving early, and gave in to the struggle because I had an epiphany: this is exactly what I came here for.

I could have travelled, moved around, explored new countries but I came to Mysore specifically to dive into my practice and stir shit up. That’s why I’m here, I can’t run away just because it’s getting hard. It’s amazing what a difference this insight has made. I’m happy to be here again because instead of getting stuck on the frustrations, irritations and agitation, my focus moves a step beyond to think about why, what’s happening here and what lies beneath?

Far from counting the days until I leave, I’m startled to realize that I only have two weeks left. I’m going to miss that third month, the one where Guruji puts me back together, but I’m back to feeling greatful that I’m here and I’m pretty confident that I can put the pieces back together on myself without the help of all the kings horses and all the kings men ;)

camping in mysore

My family and I spent the better part of our summers camping. To this day my daydreams lead me down dirt paths marred by tree roots, through northern Ontario forests, and along sparkling pink granite rock when I’m in need of a mental escape. Like every family, we had our traditions and when it came to camping, our tradition was rain. We camped, it rained. That’s just the way it was.

We learned to cope, stringing tarps up across every square inch our campsite was as natural a part of setting up camp as putting up the tent was. Even now, whether I’m car camping or tripping, a ridiculous portion of my gear is dedicated to army green, blue and orange plastic tarps because, hey, you never know when they might come in handy. My affinity for doing absolutely nothing, in its own way, helped cope as well. Memories of camping include the usual swimming and campfire scenarios but also the sound of the wind in the trees, sight of grey skies, and feeling of cold feet tangled in my sleeping bag as we whiled away the rain; spending hours in our tent reading, writing and irritating each other.

Today is a camping day in Mysore. Warmth has given way to cold weather, the wind blows strongly shifting rain clouds across grey skies, and my jeans have that clammy feeling that comes when a cold body is poured into clothes that feel permanently damp. So I’ve spent the day hibernating. Whiled away the miserable weather from the comfort of my bed buried beneath a tangle of blankets, under the makeshift tent of my mosquito net and reading trashy books. It’s been a strangely familiar, at times the sound of the wind in the trees has tricked me into forgetting where I am, and an entirely lovely way to spend this day.

pictures

Last time I was here I was able to link to the pictures of Mikko, photographer exraordinaire, instead of inflicting my crappy-400-speed-for-all-occasions-take-the-picture-quick-before-someone-sees-you pictures on you.

This time, you're not so lucky. But don't worry, the camera I've borrowed uses a lithium battery which has since died, all requests this far for 'a lithium battery' have been met with the infamous wobble sans replacement battery so I suspect my crappy-picture taking days are over. Have fun. r.

crappy-400-speed-for-all-occasions-take-the-picture-quick-pictures

the love affair resumes

Just a quick update: our spat is over, India and I are in love again. With the grace of a few days distance, I can admit it, I may have been in the wrong. I should have known better than to write anything for public consumption after a sleepless night, nothing good can come from zero sleep. Which reminds me, although the love affair between India and I is alive and well, no such love exists between me and my 'begin socializing at 10pm' neighbours. They can go.

overheard in the shala this morning...

Guruji has a fondness for children. Parents practicing here often usher their kids into Guruji’s office to say hello and the kids come willingly because Guruji’s got something fabulous in that office: he has chocolate.

Today during a particularly exhausting practice I could hear Guruji teasing the two children in his office bellowing “Yes? What you want?” and the kids replying “Chocolate, we want chocolate”. I was distracted by an all consuming yearning for chocolate. Forget driste (focusing the gaze), breath and my bandhas, all I could think was “Oh God, me too. I beg of you, some chocolate”. Alas, none came my way.

when can i leave?

I spend more money on India tourist visas than I do on rent so, please don’t take this entry the wrong way, but, right now, I really can’t wait to leave. Yesterday was one of those days. It’s hard to put just how horrible a day it was into words as the nature of its crappiness exceeds any crappity-crap scale I’ve ever seen. It was that freaking crappy.

Given the runaround by the same rickshaw drivers I use every day; isn’t there a point where they match the smiles on their faces and happy greetings with the inclination not to jerk me around? Conflicting fees at the Southern Star until the final price quoted was far higher than either of the first two quotes, the employees feeding off of each other’s ridiculous estimates and combining forces leaving me with little bargaining power. Returning to pick up clothes left a week ago at not one but two separate tailors to find that neither had been started yet, come back next week. Cat calls, kissing noises, swerving rickshaws, hit by a turning scooter; all seemed more prominent than usual, although it’s more likely that my foul mood just lent itself to noticing these things more than I would normally - frustrating, all of it.

And then the final denouement to my crappity-crap-when-can-I-get-out-of-this-country day: the neighbours. The same ones who let me blissfully fall asleep each night thinking ‘this will be the night, tonight, I sleep’ only to wake me up at 10-10:30 for several hours of entertainment courtesy of them, their guests, their guests children etc. I’ve been informed by my landlords that this is to be expected, they’re not from this area but I really don’t care where they’re from, I need to sleep. Last night they didn’t let me get a moments sleep. At 12:30 one of the kids had a temper tantrum which, instead of being met with, oh, you know, bed, was the source of great mirth for the adult section of the party. By 2:30am I started crying myself, big, self-pitying alligator tears. At 3:00am the guests departed leaving the hosts free to have a viscous (and loud) fight which ended with the woman growling and snapping at the man who retreated to the rooftop to sob (also loudly) to himself. By 4:00am I turned on my light, pulled out my book, and started reading. The alarm was set for 4:30am anyway.

Although I’m currently wondering how I’ll possibly last the 23 days I have left in this country, rest assured that by the time you read this I’ll have swung to the opposite end of the spectrum and will be exploring options to extend my ticket because I can’t imagine not being here. It’s just one of those days.

an apple playground

My last visit to Mysore served to teach me what a techno idiot I was. A stranger to my mobile and ancient PC user at home, I arrived in Gokulam to the land of the hooked up and was very much out of my league. I met requests for my mobile number with instructions to "Just stand at the gate of the yellow house on the road parallel to the shala & yell, I'll come out". Understandably, no one took me up on this.

This visit, I've arrived armed with a borrowed mobile (that actually works) and my apple ibook purchased because I got hooked on the little suckers after borrowing one through my last visit. I'm in good company. Apple seems to have a stronghold among the yogi population here, each time I visit Anu's internet cafe I'm met by several other little apples glowing in the evening light. File swapping, networking, music sharing, you name it, I've been doing all kinds of fabulous things that, while very cool, I'm completely unable to reproduce myself.

Below is a picture of lovely Abby and myself taken & networked to me courtesy of Les' iBook.

overheard in the shala this morning...

Guruji gently scolding someone "Head down ALWAYS. Why you lift your head?". This last part spoken with genuine bewilderment, as in, 'What could you be thinking?'.

Also overheard, Sharath saying "You stand up from backbend". This was directed at me and I responded by stopping what I was doing and laughing, expecting Sharath to join in at any moment, yeah...stand up...good one Sharath. Turns out, he wasn't joking. Instead he repeated "You stand up from backbend" and added "It is possible". Yes, it is possible (and getting closer) just not quite yet.

Mysore, strangely, has been feeling a bit like Club Med as of late with so much talking, planning, scheduling, doing, moving etc. but when I think about moments like these, those silly, random impressions that leave their mark, I know that I love being here and love practicing here.

hey look - a cow!

You know, this is my fifth trip to India. You'd think I'd be over the excitement of cows by now but, no, I like cows. I also like pigs, dogs, horses, and geese. I know this because I just got my first roll of film developed and that's pretty much all I've taken pictures of so far. Just like my first four trips.

Below, the prerequisite cow picture but also a few others. I wish I could blame the poor quality of the pictures on the developing, a poor choice of film speed, etc, but the blame lies pretty squarely on me. I take a bad picture, usually mid-stride which makes for things like composition, framing, and whatever else I should be considering pretty difficult.

bovine friend at the top of my street


my lovely flat (the door on the left), the pink palace


Waiting around the Bangalore railstation


this movie poster is everywhere. Inexplicably, the catchphrase (in white) "When God is silent, he is violent" makes me wince everytime...


Finland, Estonia, Latvia & hopefully better India pictures are being developed. Maybe I'll have something more impressive to post shortly.

sleepless in mysore

When I secured my flat, I was excited about two things: that I was on the same street as my last visit just two houses down from my old flat and that I had escaped the neigbours with the three dogs that barked allll night, every night.

Yeah. Have you already picked up on the idiocy of my reasoning? Given that my lovely, pink flat is just two doors down from my last visit, the irritating neighbours with the yappy f’ing dogs are still my irritating neighbours with the yappy f’ing dogs. I’ve just changed sides.

I remain yours, sleepless in Mysore - r.

being 'the new guy'

I’m not sure what it is about being ‘new’ that’s so bothersome, particularly as a lot of us travel to escape the same old, same old of home, but it seems like no one likes to be ‘the new guy’. In Mysore, you can separate the new arrivals from the ‘old timers’ by practice time, those who have been here for a while begin at 5:00am and the newcomers begin whenever a spot from the 5:00am group opens up. It’s not uncommon for the question “What time do you practice?” to be included in the usual “Where are you from?”, “What do you do?” list of introductory questions and the desire to be included in the 5:00am start group is even more common. This I don’t understand.

Most of the people who arrived around the same time I did have had their start time moved to 5:00am while I’ve selectively ‘not heard’ Sharath’s suggestions to ‘come earlier’ and continue to arrive just before 6:00am to wait for a spot to open up. I don’t care about being in the first group, about practising in the same spot every day, about not being ‘disturbed’ by new arrivals; I do care about that precious extra hour of sleep. As it is, the alarm goes off at 5:20 so I can press snooze for 20 minutes before getting up at the last possible minute to arrive on my mat with sleep lines still visible down my face. I can’t imagine the mess I’d be after waking at 4:30am and, with luck, I won’t have to find out. All I need to do is maintain my status as one of the ‘new guys’ for the remainder of my visit.

philosophy class

I’m taking a philosophy class with B.N.S. Iyengar. Right from the start, I've been a bit jaded about the class; he had us wait on a dilapidated balcony for an hour before talking with us, berated us because our teachers charge so much for yoga instruction, and spent the rest of the hour assuring us that after his class we would be ‘able to talk about these things with any scholar in the world. Then, of course, there's his name. Just as it’s common for products to be given familiar names with slightly different spelling (Lyzol cleanser or Reebock trainers) to encourage patronage, I find B.N.S. Iyengar to be strangely close to the name B.K.S. Iyengar, one of the most learned and advanced yogis alive today.

The class itself is difficult. Sometimes I can find the humour, like when he glosses over complicated sanskrit words only to stop and spell out the English ones, but mostly, its just frustrating and I dread going. But I go. No matter how jaded and cynical I may be, he is very, very learned and he knows miles more than I do. Despite my own best efforts, I'm learning. I've revisited the Yoga Sutras since beginning the class and noticed that the pieces are falling into place much more easily than they would if I had'’t had his instruction first.

Recently, an Indian gentleman has joined our class and I've gained insight into just how frustrating we must be for our teacher. Where I meet his constant inquiries as to whether 'You understand these examples?' with a puzzled look and a “Yeah", the Indian student responds with comments like “Very convincing argument Teacher” or "You have explained this very well Teacher, I've never heard an example like this before”. I know that, in India, the Teacher/Student relationship is one of respect but really didn'’t have the framework to understand what that means in a practical setting. How strange we must be, these four foreigners, with our blank looks, one word answers and hurried departures. I'm greatful the new student has joined us, first, because I've gained a sense of compassion for our teacher and, second, because he takes the heat off of us.

why you no write?

Given that English is my first language, there’s really no reason why I should talk any differently in India than I would in Canada but I’ve noticed that my inner voice tends to adopt the speech patterns of whatever country I’m visiting. I’ve been thinking about how little writing I’ve done since arriving in India and asking myself, as Guruji would put it, why you no write?

Before I came to India I had visions of myself sitting in front of my window, candles glowing, writing madly away. I do spend hours with my feet propped up against the window and a book ignored by my side as I watch life go by, but there’s been very little writing. I came here because I was craving space to stay put, practice, and see what bubbled to the surface but I forgot how seductive the social scene here can be. I’ve been having a lot of fun these last few weeks. Even still, as easy as it’s been to fill my time with social activities and leave the pesky task of introspection for later, I don’t think my social life is to blame.

I’m not writing because I really don’t know what to say. Being here is, at the same time, the most perfect place in the world to be and the most difficult - with strong emphasis on the former. Giving credence to the phrase ‘wherever you go, there you are’, no amount of socializing can distract me from what I came here to learn. And I’m learning a lot. So much that I think I’ve been silenced, for once, I don’t yet have words to put what I’m experiencing to paper. It’s good though, so good to be here.