Where are Sarah and Rich around the world?

Newbie's Guide to Mysore, Part 2

I was planning on writing a Part 2 to my guide to Mysore but I've changed my mind a bit.  After some thought, I realized that such a great part of the Mysore experience is the flailing around you do as you figure out how to negotiate India.  And I don't want to take that away from anyone by giving them too much information.  So, I've decided to only say:  hang in there at first, ladies I recommend a dubatta  (scarf to cover the chest), and in the words of my good friend JC:  "Being in India is kind of like practicing yoga, you just have to take it as it comes, and not try to figure it out too much." 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yesterday was Thanksgiving here.  I was feeling a little homesick and missing participating in a family dinner.  The festivities here turned out to be really lovely.  We wound up going to TWO dinners!  As yoga students we should be practicing non-gluttony, but we were hungry!   First there was a huge buffet at the Southern Star Hotel that was generously hosted by one of the long-time students.  All of the students went; there were enormously long tables set with white tablecloths and flowers out on the lawn by the pool.  It was my first outdoor Thanksgiving and I definitely recommend it.  We had tofu curry, rice, naan bread, salads, curried vegetables, and loads of chocolate desserts.  Not your typical Thanksgiving menu, but it was definitely a big hit.  Juan, a student from Texas, got everyone to sing Happy Birthday to Rich.  (It was the day after his birthday.)  The best part was when everyone started singing, Rich was singing along because he didn't know they were singing for him.  The surprised look on his face as realized the song was for him was priceless.  He had been saying that he didn't want to make a big fuss for his birthday so it was very cute that Juan had everyone sing to him.

For dinner we went to a Thanksgiving potluck at Autumn and Adriana's house.  They are from Santa Barbara, California.  We brought a sambhar (like a spicy veggie and lentil stew) that the grandma at our house made.  The spread at Autumn and Adriana's house was fantastic: mashed potatoes, green beans, beet salad, chappati bread, guacamole, rice, mung bean and cucumber salad, sambhar, Indian rice pudding and more.  The biggest hit was the homemade apple pie  - it was very special because most kitchens here don't have ovens AND because it was such a great dose of home.  The Indians who tried the pie and mashed potatoes didn't love them - I think they weren't spicy enough for them.   Before the meal started everyone went around and said what they were grateful for.   Several people there were not American and they said they were grateful they were celebrating their first Thanksgiving and they would always remember it was in India!  We ate the meal on banana leaves - common here - and they made the best kind of disposable/biodegradable plate. 

We truly feel grateful for our family and friends, to have each other, to be here in India, to be studying yoga with Pattabhi Jois, to be part of this wonderful community here, for our health, and to be taking this trip and for all the perspective and insight it has brought us.  And as crazy as it may sound these days I feel really grateful to be an American citizen with all the incredible liberties and opportunities that it entails.  Sometimes you gotta leave home to appreciate home.  A few more weeks are left on our trip and we are trying to be grateful for every minute.  We really look forward to getting back home and giving a huge hug to everyone who makes home what it is. 

Doing the yoga thing

From Rich:

If you've read my prior posts about yoga, then you know that I started learning Ashtanga yoga in hotel rooms in Bali and China, and Sarah and I practiced together for about one month before we arrived in Mysore.  I just finished practicing Ashtanga in the shala for 8 weeks.  To help make sense of what I was doing, I wrote an article on the benefits of yoga from the perspective of a novice yogi and western doctor:  The Healing Psychology of Yoga.

Practicing yoga was REALLY hard at first.  I struggled with soreness and exhaustion and constant hunger, and I slept about 10 hours per night for the first 2 weeks.  Then I was abruptly hit with a high fever  - 104 F - and recovering sapped my energy for the next week.  Then, at about week 4, I decided that I'd just take it easy with the yoga - I'm no yoga superhero, and I don't imagine my body will ever be a pretzel, maybe more like a doughy breadstick.

So during weeks 5 and 6 I was keeping my breathing steady, paying attention to the tips of my nose and fingers, and stretching into the asana poses to the point of pain, but not beyond.  I had a cold for a few days, but otherwise I was pretty healthy and neither sore nor stiff. 

It was a surprise when, starting in week 5, I really began to get into this yoga thing.  I've been having more and more insights and mental clarity.  I became very patient with all the little hassles of India.  I noticed that I was able to focus, much more productively, on some side projects of mine.

In week 8 I began to push it again.  I've been feeling strong lately, so why not a little more effort?  Now, after one last week of intense effort, I'm seriously tired again.  Seems like there's a balance in here somewhere, especially since pushing my body hard leads to such fatigue.

I'm astonished by the physical conditions of many of the yogis - ripped bodies, bulging veins, and impossible contortions held ridiculously long. 

And I'm so impressed by what my body has been able to accomplish over 8 weeks.  Things I could never imagine during our trip through Bali and China.  I can balance on one foot, leg straight, while holding my outstretched big toe and slowly rotate my leg from center to side to center again.  I can do a headstand for one minute, then bend in half and hold the bend while balancing on my head.  I can even do the "wheel" (from childhood) where we bend upwards from laying on our backs and hold it far too long.

But there's also a lot of things I can't even imagine doing.  I STILL can't squat or do Indian-style sitting properly, much less the classic lotus or half-lotus.  Oh well - "slowly, slowly" I guess.  Maybe in a few years.

There have also been some really unusual physical changes since we've been here.  I had some "rolfing" (structural integration) bodywork with Mitchell (who has since left for the USA).  After 3 sessions I swear that my bowed legs are only half as curved.  Mitchell has pictures to prove the change!  Weird, hunh?

And I've got the most amazing acceptance of the little hassles that pop up every day.  I used to feel incredibly impatient with the lack of definitive answers here - it's considered rude to say "no" when asked a question.  It's easy to be frustrated by the lack of "no" answers, and the mis-directions that follow.  There's also a tendency for dogmatism in India, but ironically, it's a relative thing.   An Indian man may make a strong assertion regarding the "TRUTH" about the way things are, but just a few moments later he'll contradict himself and ferverntly claim that both his statements are TRUE - the universe allows multiple absolute TRUTHS. 

Initially these were very frustrating cultural tendencies, but now I'm accepting and (maybe) understanding what they're all about.  These culturtal idiosyncrasies reduce tension, because they require a real ramping-down of achievement and goal-orientation and the negativity and conflict that goes with disappointment and frustration.  Why try to sprint when you're living in a pool of molassess - it's just as effective to walk?  It's a kind of cultural apathy that prevents too much intrapersonal conflict and stress, in my opinion.  And I was able to maintain my western goal-orientation while navigating that frustrating inertia.

Many changes, and I think it will take some time to really integrate them all.

We're on candid camera

From Sarah:

Today we were interviewed by a documentary team that is in town.  There are actually two sets of yoga students who are making a documentary.  The people who interviewed us were Kate, Jonathan, and Nick.  Kate is the producer and has been making documentaries for many years, and she is a very cool and grounded woman.  And it turned out that we both went to the same college; although not at the same time.  I'm not exactly sure how the responsibilities are divided amongst them but my basic understanding is that Kate is in charge, Jonathan runs the camera, and Nick is a main subject of the documentary and the interviewer.  They are making a movie about yoga and its impact on the western world.  Nick is serving as sort of a guinea pig; he jumped into a yoga practice as he hit his 30th birthday, so they are documenting the story largely from his point of view.  All three of them are quite laid back and fun. 

They have been interviewing many yoga students here.  Rich and I were apparently the first couple to be interviewed.  It was funny because they wanted us to sit very close together so they could get us both in one shot. We were sitting on little stools and it took several tries with various cushions on the stools to get us both to be the same height for the camera.  We both had microphones taped to us and little mike "boxes" to hold in our laps.  Before we started I said "So who talks first between Rich and I?  Are you going to ask us both questions at the same time or individually because we both really like to talk."  Rich laughed and agreed.  Kate said it should just be organic. 

Overall the interview was pretty short, probably about half an hour.  They asked questions about why we did yoga, why we practiced this particular style, how long we had been practicing, etc.  I had been feeling nervous about having complete verbal diarrhea and saying something that I would later regret.  (It always feels a bit contrived to me to discuss yoga practice because it's so personal and experiential, but I wanted to participate because it seems like a project that would encourage more people to practice yoga.)  Ironically, in the end, after the interview was over, I felt like there were so many things that I wished I HAD said.   And Rich on the other hand, boy did he get talking!  (I know he agrees so I can say that for him.)  He said some great stuff.  They were very excited about him being so new to yoga and essentially learning the practice here in Mysore.  (Learning here is pretty rare.)  They also asked some cool questions about how he experiences being a Western doctor and a student of yoga, which is considered a science in the East, but a very different one from the Western idea of "science". 

So maybe you'll see us chattering away in a documentary in about a year and a half........ 

The movies in Mysore

Saturday night eight of us went out to the movies.  Claudia and Daniela were leaving and we thought seeing a movie would be a fun goodbye event.  None of us had ever gone to the movies in Mysore before.  We were a group of eight - five women and three men. 

First there was buying the tickets.  We got to the front of the theatre and looked left and right for the ticket booth.  Finally we realized the ticket booth was a small (4" by 4") square hole in the concrete wall of the building.  It read "25 rupees" above the hole in red paint.  Rich stepped up to try to buy tickets for everyone and was immediately jostled by 8 or 10 Indian guys who all tried to buy a ticket at exactly the same time.  Standing in line is sometimes a foreign concept here.  Finally Rich emerged with the tickets and we went in to sit down. 

As we filed into the theatre all of us women had a more or less simultaneous realization - we were the ONLY  women in the whole place.  For a moment I was concerned that perhaps we had walked into a less than wholesome cinema.  But no, we were in the right place and the film was the very benign "Around the World in 80 Days" starring Jackie Chan. 

We settled down into our seats in the middle of the cinema, and all the men (about 300) in front of us turned right around and stared at us as if we were the movie.  We were not doing any thing very interesting - just sitting .  And they just stared.  When I say staring I don't mean the kind where someone turns away when they see you staring at them.  I mean continual, unself-conscious, un-inhibited staring.  You could stare back, but they just kept staring.  We laughed because we couldn't imagine how we could be that fascinating.

The previews were all Indian films that didn't seem to have plot but they did cover the basics - violence, fighting for power, and dancing girls.  The movie was nothing special, but it was great to hear the audience whistling when they found a certain part especially exciting.  Especially the almost-kissing scenes. The Indians didn't get the jokes, but they liked the Jackie Chan martial-arts fight sequences. 

I won't go back because it's too weird to me that not one Indian woman went to the movies, but it was one of the more interesting things I've done in India.

It's India.

From Sarah:

I walked out of our house this morning and the first thing I saw was a scruffy-looking horse, bare-backed, trotting down the street all by itself. I looked up and down for a possible owner. Nope, no one was around to claim the horse. "It's India," I thought to myself.

Yes it is India. We all have to say that sometimes, or actually a lot of the time, to ourselves and to each other. Just when everything seems pretty normal, there's always something to remind you you're not in Kansas anymore. Like the camel with bells on its legs who, walking casually down the street, just passed by the window of this internet cafe. (Camels, while common in the north, are not typical in South India.)

Really though, looking back on it, I'm surprised that I was surprised. Among the things that no longer make me look twice, I am now used to seeing cows lying in the middle of the street while the rickshaws and scooters swerve to avoid them. The cow barely blinks an eyelash while horns blast around it and careening vehicles miss hitting it by two inches. Another phenomenon of the streets of Gokalum is that there are domestic-style pigs running all over. The pigs trot down the street, their nipples swinging to and fro as they go, and with a little bevy of small piglets grunting along behind them. The pigs are in the garbage piles, in the gutters, and sometimes just lounging in some good-looking dirt on the side of the road. Just to remind you, this is a country where the VAST majority of the population is Hindu (82%) - vegetarian, and Muslim (14%) - non-pork eaters.

What's up with the pigs?? For a while I thought they were feral and only protected by the lack of interest in their meat. Then I found out that the pigs are "harvested." Whenever someone wants a pig, he and his friend tackle a pig on the street, they literally hog-tie it by all four ankles, and then with great effort (these are LARGE animals), they haul the squealing pig onto the back of their scooter and drive away with the goods.  We've also heard that the untouchables or "out-castes" tend these pigs as a way of thumbing their noses at the Brahmin (priest/"highest"-caste) Indians who live in Gokalum. 

At any rate, I'm learning to not be surprised by the surprising here. These little stories are just tiny pieces of the wild and crazy collage that is our India experience. 

Student interview

Exit Interview with anonymous Yoga Student.

This interview was conducted one lovely sunny morning over breakfast here in Mysore, India. I was speaking with a yoga student about her thoughts and feelings about her time spent in Mysore studying yoga. (Her identity is kept anonymous for her privacy.)

Q: How long have you spent in Mysore?
A: Three months.

Q: What brought you to Mysore?
A: To study for a prolonged period with Sharath and Pattabhi.

Q: How long have you been practicing Ashtanga?
A: Daily, with a grain of salt (laughing), for five years.

Q: Why do you practice this style of yoga?
A: Well, I sort of accidentally discovered Ashtanga and then loved it. I went to a class at a health club that was labeled Ashtanga and I enjoyed it. And then when I was traveling, I saw another Ashtanga class so I decided to go. That was with a much more traditional teacher and completely different than my previous experience, and I thought it was great so I went to a couple of longer ashtanga retreats to really learn the practice.

I appreciate the regularity of the practice. You do the same thing every day, you don't need a teacher telling you which way to turn your heel, or to turn up the heat, and I can do it wherever I am. It feels like it's my practice.

Q: What has been your greatest joy in Mysore?
A: The best thing about Mysore is the people, the community, the sense of being in a giant group of people all doing the same thing, for three months. I feel the kindness of this community. It is so
wonderful, loving, supportive. We're not just doing the same kind of yoga; beyond that we share a similar approach to life. This is a very cool, very loving group of people.

Q: What has been your greatest surprise in Mysore?
A: What you hear when you stop and listen.

Q: What has been your least favorite thing about Mysore?
A: The in-your-faceness of it, the cultural pushiness. It's not an intended rudeness, there is just sometimes a cultural gap between a Western understanding of appropriate and an Indian
understanding of appropriate. It isn't easy to figure out how to negotiate this civilly.

Q: Will you come back?
A: I don't know. I find India stressful. It's been a privilege to study with Sharath and I hope that I have that privilege again. But I wish India was next door!

Q: Anything else?
A: Yes, it's been stressful at times, but also a good place to practice. I love yoga. I really love yoga. It keeps me physically healthier, happier, and I think, easier to live with. (laughing) It is a huge gift.

Quiet on the street

From Sarah and Rich:

This past weekend has been the Diwali festival.  (The spelling of that varies widely, so hopefully I am somewhere in the range of accurate.)  Diwali mainly involves EVERYONE shooting off a huge quantity of firecrackers.  Some of the most eager Diwali revelers are young boys whose greatest satisfaction is to set off a LOUD firecracker just as an unsuspecting Westerner walks by.  They also love to set them off as rickshaws and scooters pass by, which seems super dangerous, but then we are still amazed at the lack of regard for safety precautions here. 

In the night at around seven all the families go out into the street and set off sparklers and crackers and every kind of thing. Even the older go out and participate.  We saw a grandma a couple of houses down from us standing outside on her front step, stoically holding a sparkler in each hand.  As far as we can tell, and we may be far off, Diwali is about setting up lights and sounds so that the god Rama can find his way home.  The more firecrackers you set off, the more prosperous you will be in the coming year.  We were told that for this reason the banks offer loans for people to buy more firecrackers. 

So the fireworks have been fun and beautiful, and really, we have to admit, they put some of the 4th of July festivities to shame - these people GET INTO the firecrackers.  The drawback has been that we go to bed at nine and even with our earplugs we couldn't block out the noise of the firecrackers going off all night long.  (One person still heard firecrackers as he was going to practice early one morning.)  So we are feeling really grateful that Diwali ended and all is quiet on the streets of Mysore again.  Well, relatively quiet. 

It's also a quiet week because the shala is closed for 3 days for a puja for Sharath's father who passed away at this time last year.  Many people opted to take a short trip.  We were thinking of going to Hampi, but in the end opted not to.  We feel like we've already done enough traveling around in the past five months and we're leaving in two weeks, when we'll be traveling again. 

We went to the pool at the Southern Star hotel and lounged on Monday. Yesterday was Claudia's birthday and we had a beautiful picnic at the river by Rupert's house. 

Rupert's mother purchased the house (rumored to be "haunted") from the Maharaja, who had forgotten he owned it.  Apparently it was the former British Governor's house, and it is very near the ruins of the former capital of south India (until 1799).  The British, after a long and arduous campaign, ousted the Moghul ruler Tipu Sultan and gained control of South India, and its capital, in a 1799 battle very near to where the house is.  Apparently the brothers have found 200 year old British coins, rifles, and cannonballs on the property and in the "moats" around the abandoned fort nearby.  And when we first visited, we never could have imagined the history of the place, since the ruins of the city and fort have mostly grown over.  It is a really amazing place, a mix of colonial and Southern plantation-style complemented by slow tropical decay.  Pictures soon.

Tomorrow back to the shala.

Is this bus available?

From Sarah:

Last night some students organized a beautiful party at Rupert's house by the river here in Mysore.  Rupert is not a yoga student, he is a British citizen who has been a lifelong resident of Mysore, and he is friends with some of the students.  His family has a gorgeous 200 year old colonial house right on the river bank.  Claudia and Daniella (yoga students) did a beautiful job of decorating it with flowers and candles and draped sarees.  The atmosphere was magical.   

The whole evening turned out to be really special.  Drusilla, a student from the U.K., gave us an incredible violin performance.  She is a very accomplished violinist, and to get a small solo concert was really a privlege.  Following that, a local master flute player accompanied by sitar and tabla musicians played.  And after that, Claudia did a gorgeous belly dancing performance to Arabic music.  It was like a mini arts festival night! Our friend Rhonda asked Rich what he would do if he had to give a performance.  He is mulling it over.  We decided we're working on our performance arts next year.

After all of the performances, the dancing started.  Nick, a student from the UK, dj-ed for hours and everybody danced like crazy.  It's fun to see yoga students dancing because everyone is so comfortable in their bodies, and they really let loose.  Jennifer from our house busted out her 80s dance moves when a Prince remix came on.  I'm always impressed by her high energy. 

The evening would have been all too perfect if it weren't for the bus debacle.   We all rode out to the party on a rented bus.  There was some confusion about when the bus was supposed to come back for the return ride.  Originally there were two buses scheduled, but in the end the word went round the party that there was only ONE bus leaving at 11:30.  We go to bed early around here so that was late for us.  We'd had a blast but at 11:30 we were really looking forward to that bus ride back to our beds.   The thirty or so of us who were taking the bus all trooped down the dark muddy road towards the bus. (Some people elected to stay over at the house.) We got to the main road and there was a bus waiting.  Great.  We all started to get on.  It wasn't our bus.  It was a very similiar-looking bus, but just a bus that was parked there for the evening.  The driver was sleeping.  We tried to figure out what was going on.  After finding someone who had a cell phone, we determined that our bus had left two hours earlier with about 12 students and the driver wasn't coming back.   

After a lot of haggling, much thanks to a student who happens to speak the local language (Kannada), as well as Rich and another woman who speaks Hindi, we managed to negotiate a 3000 rupee (about $67) ride back into town. It worked out to 100 rupees ($2.50) per person. On principle, this was a bit of a bummer because supposedly we had already paid for round trip transport on the other bus.  It was 1 in the morning by this time though, and most of us were in no mood to quibble any longer over a couple bucks each.  We thankfully piled into the bus and made it home in 30 minutes.  We're in India after all - things always work out, but typically they don't work out as planned.

What are YOU searching for?

From Sarah:

There is a documentary team in town and they recently interviewed our friend Guy.  One question they asked him was "What are you searching for?"

I run over this question in my mind. Am I searching? discovering? remembering? unveiling?  finding? learning? 

Tina said something great in cooking class one day.  She said "Whatever we learn, we then share.  The point of learning is to share what you've learned."