Life begins...

...with the gentle chiming of the bells at four in the morning. By the time I gain full consciousness half an hour drifts by. The Room Mate's already up at half past three bending over his ass in weird positions I haven't seen in any yoga book before. Ah, always depressing to have an over enthusiastic room mate !  The weather's dry and so is my skin and hence after applying a generous amount of oil on my slightly shivering body I head for my cold bath. The bathroom is thankfully empty and by the time I head out 5 minutes later, the wind has picked up speed and started blowing relentlessly down the mountains. I slip into my white kurta pyjama 'uniform', the supposed hallmark of a Brahmachari, someone who practises purity in thought, word and deed. Ha Ha! Nevertheless I think the colour of the apparel does affect me. For the past 3 weeks dressed in what some may consider to be prison overalls I feel a strange calm. Next I do pranayam (breathing exercise) to quieten the mind (tough luck!) and also for my hayfever.

When the bells toll at five we are assembled in the hall sitting crosslegged on the floor and chanting mantras from the Vedas. Despite my initial indifference Sanskrit's a powerful language and its hard not to be moved by the surging voices of 40 sleep deprived souls !  We sit quietly for an hour trying to tame the wild monkey inside, the mind. Before breakfast i do neti( pouring water through one nostril and out through the other) and try to master shirshasan [the king of all asans(postures), where you basically stand on your head and try to look cool and relaxed while youre contemplating how not to break your neck while coming down]

The 'morning' session proper consisits of a series of lectures on various topics like Patanjali Yoga Sutras, The Upanishads, Religious Consciuosness, Western Philosophy, Indian Philosophy, Bhagwat Geeta, Narada Bhakti Sutras, etc. The teachers vary in age from 25-85, most are sanyasins of some stature spiritually. Evenings are spent doing half an hour of Karma yoga ( doing a job to perfection but without attachment to the result ). Hatha Yoga (  The Yoga of postures and breathing) follows at 5 in the evening. Dinner's at seven and its lights out at 10 pm.

Breakfast's a simple affair with a small katori( bowl) of upma/rice. There's a smile on everyone's face when idlis(steamed south indian rice cakes) are dished out, which happens once a week.

                                                             Image courtsey: Wikipedia

Ok it doesnt look as esthetically tempting as above, but for a South Indian idlis in any arrangement is welcome! Now lunch is interesting. As in breakfast we all sit on the floor crosslegged with empty plates and katoris. The sanyasins are served first. Rice roti , sabji( vegetable curry mix) ,dal, buttermilk or curd and on lucky days when a rich dude happens to drop by and donate, we are spoiled with absolutely ravishing gulab jamuns and custard ! Ok imagine all  this stuff on your plate. The sight and smell's killing you but you can't touch it unless the mantra chanting is finished, which takes an agonising 10 minutes. But soon the go ahead is given and this is when the real meditation happens. Everyone single mindedly concentrates on stuffing the food down within the alloted time of 20 minutes. There's no restriction on the amount of food but wasting any is frowned down upon. Another short prayer and everyone's up to wash their plates and burp away contentedly.

Next: Love comes univited...

The lump in my pants...

I sit in front of a screen taking forever to load Blogger. Despite the speed of the internet, it feels as if I am abroad, coz im surrounded by white bodies. Rishikesh was all jungle just 40years ago. Hard to believe seeing the rush of people in search for salvation now that wild animals once roamed this very place not so long ago. At the foothills of the Himalayas with the Ganga's eternal presence, it's still beautiful with lots of forest cover, not a bad place for enlightenment ! I'm in an ashram learning the flavour of Vedanta for 2 months. The day starts at 4 and ends at 7. I hardly check mail and blogging once a week, maybe less, is the only activity I might do on the net  for the foreseeable future. The day is so full I don't miss the internet that much although sometimes I wonder what my blogging buddies are upto. The sanyasins(Hindu monks) who teach me also question the 'wordly' life and it's ramifications. hmmm not helpful at all. ;) Hopefully I will get to read what some of you guys have been upto  soon. For the people who keep reading and leaving comments I can only say that Im very very lucky to have such good readers !

My mobile phone gave up the ghost in Manali. Truth to be told, I was using it more as a camera than a phone. A small voice in my head kept telling me that this was a sign and to trash the set. Which I did. But I also got a new Nokia 1303 (or was it 1203?) whose unusual feature was that while making a call your neighbour could hear the person at the other end of the line more clearly that you. While getting on the bus to Rishikesh I felt something amiss. Something was just not right ! Yes the permanent lump in my pants pocket where my phone used to be. I panicked for a millisecond and then decided to just let the damn thing  go. On the bumpy bus ride I could swear that I could feel the phone vibrating in the pocket. Almost like a bloody phantom limb. It was Holi and i had a window seat. I got reasonably wet with all the kids by the side of the road taking upon themselves to give unsuspecting bus passengers a colour bath.

So far the ashram's been good to me except for a few health niggles. It's beautiful to live by the side of a river so beautiful . Ganga changes her hue throughout the day but mostly its a warm green. Ah one of my big toes seems to be getting infected despite my crude attempts at surgery with a safety pin and dettol !May have to show it to a professional soon.

Om shanti shanti shanti...

Not so long ago...

I open my eyes and it's still dark and the mind's silent. I stumble out of bed groping for the light switch congratulating myself that my meditation is finally bearing fruits  when i realize that the silence is not of the mind but because the noisy fan is not working. So no electricity again ! It's 5 in the morning and not hot, so no complaints. I can't get lost in my room because its 6 feet by 8 feet. A strong urge to empty my bowels leads me outside to the common toilets where its pitch dark. I finally get an idea how it must feel for a blind man to shit in a new toilet, Indian squatting style. He can't poke his white stick around to probe the exact location can he ? I finally manage to do it successfully ( i think !) and make a quick exit.

Welcome to Ved Niketan ashram, a real ashram with no creature comforts. Its a backpacker's paradise and they seem to love the minimalistic design... there is a thug at the front desk who always grunts whenever I greet him. I still remember the first time I set foot in my room and sat down on my bed. Everything was suddenly fuzzy due to the enormous dust cloud that rose when I settled my backpack on the bed. Its not all bad though, the shower's excellent , a swanky new thing out of which three threads of water squeeze through almost as if it cant decide whether to piss or cry. The ashram's in a very quiet area though and they were the only people brave enough to take on a solo Indian male traveller in the whole of Rishikesh. 

This was after my stay in the great Sivananda ashram in Rishikesh, an institution in itself. To be in with any chance of staying there you have to write 2 months in advance, so straight after I landed in Rishikesh I just walked in there hoping to charm my way in. The swami in charge was not amused and told me so. But just as i did my pranams and lifted my butt off the seat, he relented and gave me the dorm. The dorm in Sivananda is ***** compared to the single room in Ved niketan . A view of the Ganga , with a sunrise thrown in everyday  + my dorm mates, who comprise of swamis in the ashram, travellers, of all ages, brahmacharis, etc. There was a guy who walked from Rameshwaram all the way here ( just 2000 km) with not a single paisa in his pocket. Everybody has their story and it will fill a book or two easily. Most of them seemed genuine , at least more than me , and that's the criteria I go by to judge genuineness! So all sorts of guys came and went during my 10 days there , and it was fascinating. Yet it was quiet most of the time, people just minded their own business. It was great not to feel the need to explain why I was STILL  travelling close to a year. It was the norm.

During the last two days though, a sanyasi took upon himself to give me small lectures on the mysteries of the universe. Maybe i reminded him of his son who was a similar age. This small mishap apart, it was a beautiful tranquil period.

 One day it was the birthday of one of the gurus and we all floated scores of diyas on the Ganga as part of the aarti ( evening worship). No photograph could capture the beauty of that scene. Finally i overcame my phobia of bacteria count  and dead bodies and swam in the Ganga. Everyday 2 oclock sharp , i used to go with a swami and man it was just ccchhhhhillllllll...... so cold  so refreshing, better than any coca cola in the world !

Any travel in India is bound to be engaging , you never know what to expect even if you're Indian. Just today, i saw a cow stealing and munching heartily some orange ice cream cones while the vendor was screaming blue murder and a Tibetan looking chap walking dreamily around in his underwear with welts all over his body as if he just landed from some S & M club. Then there's the dirt , the shit, the smells , the poverty which I can never get used to... Oh the bulls are something else here. They are big humped ones and I saw one charging a swami in the groin in a narrow lane.

So life's never dull, although... sometimes travelling alone gets to you. You might be lying in your room and suddenly it hits you, the loneliness you've always been carrying with you since birth, with no distractions in a 'foreign' land far from 'loved ones' makes you think about the absurdity of it all. Isn't it just better to sit at home and go for that 9 to 5 job? But then i look outside my window and see that the tussle between the bull and the swami is still going strong...