Second week in Mysore

Monday (9) - Visit to the Tibetan Settlement
Today was moon-day, so the plan was to visit the Tibetan settlement called Bailakuppe, which is about 70 km away from Mysore (about 2 hours drive in India). I never had the chance to visit this the last time I came to Mysore, so I made a point of not leaving this till the last minute. Sylvia organised a minibus through Ganesh, which cost us Rs 1 900 and we could split that between six of us because two swedish ladies joined our group. I met Sylvia, Miranda and Mia as well as Kerry and Mel at the Om Cafe for breakfast at 8:30 and around 9 we left.

We started at the Golden Temple housing an 18m tall Buddha, with two slightly smaller ones next to him. I then took a leisurely walk around the Namdroling Monastery complex and found some schoolboys throwing stones into a lake with slingshots and others playing cricket in their monk outfits. Sylvia and the rest had gone to lunch. At 1pm we had the priviledge of sitting in on a meditation session and to my surprise it was not a quiet affair at all. The schoolroom was filled with boys of different ages, the smallest one seemed to be in charge of beating the drum, the eldest were in charge of blowing the horns and trumpets, while all of them were reading and chanting. They also served biscuits and tea during the session and even offered some to us visitors. That was the highlight for me.
Afterwards we drove 2 km to Sera village and the Sera Jhe Monastery. The village was absolutely spotless with absolutely no hint of any litter. There were of course many signs requesting people, I guess mainly visitors, not to litter. There was also a sign indicating that visitors needed special permission to visit certain areas, but Sylvia and I took a chance and walked around the village a little. The rest seemed to be quite tired and waited at the minibus. On the way back we stopped at a traditional Tibetan Thangka maker, however, these were not anything I had seen before. They were made using different colours of silk cut into shapes instead of painted.

The trip home was a little quicker and we arrived just before 5pm in time for supper at Anu's Internet Cafe (Ganesh's wife). Afterwards I met Mel and Adan, a mexican who was practicing with Mel with Saraswati in the mornings, and when I said I needed to go to Yogic Supplies in Laksmi Purim to pick up my new cotton yoga mat, he offered to take me, which was extremely nice of him.

Tuesday (10) - Exhausting day
Today was the first day of the Ayurvedic Massage course. I had been looking for a massage course since my arrival and there are about 3 Thai Yoga Massage courses, ranging from 5 to 15 days, and are offered by westerners here in Mysore. It turned out that the universe did not want me to do one of these because the start and end of the courses just did not coincide with my time in Mysore. I then found the ayurvedic massage course and I thought that I would rather do the Thai Yoga massage course in Thailand and the ayurvedic massage here in India. The ayurvedic massage course was offered by Kumar, a local Indian. The course is quite expensive at Rs 15000, so I asked around if people had heard good or bad things and I got some good feedback, so I finally decided to go ahead with the course, but I was still very sceptical. A few days into the course I was very happy that I had decided to go ahead with it because I really enjoyed all the knowledge Kumar imparted on ayurveda and his massages were well liked by many people around. He also gives a past life healing course and seems to have a gift of understanding people quickly.

I knew that Sharath has new people registering every week and people leaving every week and since this was the first Mysore style class this week he would give people new times for the week. I made a point of being at the shala early so that I would be given a nice early time and so that I could have enough time to shower and eat breakfast before the massage course at 10am. When I got to the shala, the foyer was empty and Sharath called me in immediately and gave me a 7:30 timeslot (1 hour earlier). That meant I finished by 9:15, had a shower at home, rushed to have a very quick breakfast at Santosha's and then to Kumar's home, which is in the same road as the shala and where I live.

Kumar introduced himself and he is quite open about himself. He also gave us some insight into Indian life during the course. Today I learnt that Indians have to fill out what class they are on government forms and school enrollment forms etc. This surprised me, but the explanation was that the government is doing a similar thing South Africa is doing with Black Empowerment. So the lowest class will get their text books for free and will be given 20% added to their final mark for instance to help them get through. Kumar is a brahman (highest class) and had to buy all his books and got no percentage added to his marks. He said it infuriated some students when they saw the students who had been given the text books sell their books for half price two weeks into the semester.
The first one and half hours of each day is spent learning about ayurveda (starting with the dosha's) and then Kumar domonstrates the days section on massage after which we pair up and massage that part of the body on each other. Today was the back of the legs.

The course is 3 hours long until 13:00. I felt absolutely exhausted after the course, but I still had my sanskrit reading and writing course as well as the chanting course in the afternoon and afterwards I went to the Kirtan at Annie Paise (from Colorado) house. We sat in her lounge in front of an altar and got given sheets with the words of the different songs and mantras. I did not enjoy the Kirtan so much today because the musical instruments were too loud in the very confined space and the fact that there was a statue of one of the deities all lit up in yellow and read lights put me off a little. I am still struggling to reconcile my christian faith, which prohibits idolatry, with that of hinduism. In my opinion, when we chant in sanskrit or do kirtan, even though we are invoking the names of hindu deities, these names represent the positive attributes that we try to cultivate within ourselves, the godliness in each of us and the objective is to awaken the devine energy in ourselves through the vibrations we generate within our bodies. I do not treat it as a form of worship.

Wednesday (11) - Kirtan
Today was the first day I was allowed to do Pashasana (Noose Pose) - the first posture of the second series. I was tempted to do it yesterday while Sharath was not looking, but I decided to follow his instructions and wait until today. I was able to bind, which is only because I had been practicing the posture at home for about two months, but I struggled with my balance. I have been struggling with balance ever since getting to India. I cannot seem to do the balancing postures in the standing sequence without falling over a few times, but I am not focusing on this negative and just ascribing it to all the travelling I have been doing. After Pashasana I sat down and waited to see if he would give me another posture, but that was wishful dreaming :-).

After practice was rushing to breakfast and the course again. Second day doing the back of the legs. I was happy that I was not so exhausted after today's course though. After the course I had a bite to eat at home from the stash of bread and almond butter I had bought from the man selling it outside the shala every day. Very expensive but the bread is better than bread you can buy in local Indian shops.

I then met people at the coconut stand to take 3 rickshaws to Laksmi Purim for some Kirtan with James. This was the highlight of my day today. James is from england and teaches at a university in Thailand. While there, he started learning sanskrit at the department downstairs (4 years ago). He wants to do his Phd in sanskrit next year. He now comes to India to learn sanskrit during the holidays, so he has been here since Novermber already, but will be leaving soon again, so we have asked him to do another session on Sunday. We basically sat on the floor in a circle in his lounge with a garland of flowers placed in the middle of the circle. There were no instruments and no sheets of paper with the words of any songs. When we sat down James asked if Kirtan as new to anybody and explained a little about what Kirtan is. I then asked him what the difference is between Kirtan and Bhajan. He explained the sanskrit meaning of each, which were very similar - both devotional, and that the root of Bhajan means to approach with reverence. Bhajan has more complex songs, whereas Kirtan has simpler mantras. James has a very good voice and lead us through the songs very well. It takes quite a bit of concentration to repeat and sing words you have never heard or read in another language you do not understand. After about an hour he aske for requests and one girl asked for the Gayantri Mantra. He then explained why he did not feel qualified enough to lead that song. Traditionally a brahman child starts singing this from early age and later is taught how to lead it and once taught, he has to do it with his teacher 30 000 times before he can start doing it by himself. James did sing it for us once though and then he started explaining the mythology behind it. This is what I found so fascinating. He is a good story teller and kept us all captivated for at least half an hour talking about Visvamitra and Vasista and then related this to the first two asana's of the third sequence in Ashtanga Yoga, why the one pose comes after the other. Absolutely fascinating!!!
Kerry and Mel were also at the Kirtan and upon my question to James, Kerry asked Mel and I to join her at the Atma Vikasa Shala where she trains with Venkatesh every day for Bhajan at 18:30. Venkatesh is a very serious teacher apparently and the men, of which there was only myself and another guy, had to sit on the right side of the room and the ladies on the left in rows like at school, but on the floor. It was a nice experience going to a different shala and getting a little insight into what Kerry is experiencing, but Venkatesh does not sing with you when you are repeating what he sang, so I found it extremely difficult, especially with songs that have hardly any repetition and no sheets with the words. The ambience was nice and spiritual though, with the single candle lighting the room as the sun was setting and I found the devout atmosphere in stark contrast to the noise of the busy streets and goings on outside that could be heard from within the room on the first floor.

Afterwards Kerry, Mel and I and another girl practicing with Kerry went to eat at Nalpak in the area, which was fun.

Thursday (12) - The Dosha's
My left Sacro-Illiac (SI) joint had been painful for months already but during the last two weeks here in India, the pain seems to have completely disappeared, even though I am going into very deep back bends every day, however, today the pain was back strongly and it was because of the massage I had received yesterday. My sacrum was not supported properly during the leg stretches. Today when I waited for Sharath to give me another pose, he told me that I must finish and that he will tell me when he will give me another pose.

At the massage course we went through the third and final dosha, kapha. Ayurveda has the view that everything including humans are made from 5 elements, earth, water, fire, air and space. There are three types of people called vata, pitta and kapha. A vata person has more air and space, so they think very fast, they are very creative people, they give out their energy easily and also loose energy very fast. They are giving people and spend their money easily etc. They don’t sleep long and have difficulty falling asleep. They have a long and light bone structure and their skin and nails are drier.
A pitta person has more fire and water, they have a very good digestive system and have good energy for long periods of time, very intelligent, they love to learn and they love to eat. They don’t like wasting time, sleep is normal, but can go without sleep for long periods of time.
Kapha people have more water and earth element and are lazier. Their bone structure is heavier and their joints are more stable. I have realized that I am a pitta person, with a little bit of vata and kapha. I find it so interesting and feel that something like this should be taught in schools as it would promote acceptance of peoples differences and understand how to handle different people. So pitta people like me, when we get angry, just give them some food and they will be happy :-).
We then did part one of the back massage. I am realising that it will be very difficult to remember everything and it will take us a very long time to the massage on the whole body, which we will have to do on the 14th day of the course, which will be the day before I leave Mysore.

After lunch I searched for Janiki's house where I had had a lunch two years ago. She cooks a Thali lunch for yogi's every Tuesday and Thursday and charges Rs 90. Everybody loves her food, but Anu's is more popular because she cooks every day except for Thursday and has the a bamboo hut on the roof with wireless internet. I eventually found it and there was Dimitris and Iiling having lunch. I had met Iiling at the party at Santosha last Friday night, where she performed the Odissi dance. The meal was fantastic and very filling with more chapati's coming continuously. We finished the meal with a chapati that was smeared with ghee and then drizzled with jagaree and some chai. Very sweet but nice. I told them that I was going to the Idli man on Saturday for breakfast and they immediately jumped at the chance to try somewhere new.

In the afternoon I had sanskrit lessons again.

Friday (13) - Charity Concert
As usual it was lead class at 6am in the morning. I found it difficult getting out of bed because I usually get up much later. Sharath lead the class, and I got muscle spasm between both my shoulder blades... middle fibres of the Trapezius muscle, the same place I got it 2 weeks ago in lead class with Lino Miele when I was sick, but that was only on the left side. I don't know why this is happening. I was in absolute pain when I got to the massage class and when it was time to massage I asked to be massaged first. I was very lucky that it was revision of the previous day, back part one, plus today's work, back part two. Kumar said something interesting, that the muscle spasm happens in reaction to a fear, so when he massages, he does not go deep into the muscle, but holds it and gives it a trusting and reassuring energy to let it relax. Kumar did very little work on me, Sherry was my partner and she did a good job because by the next day I was alright.

In the afternoon I finally hired a scooter from Rajesh at the Chakra house for the next thirteen days that I am spending in Mysore, as I was going to start doing many trips. I wanted to go the maha idli man tomorrow, the railway station to organise my ticket to Bangalore, do some shopping in town and I wanted to do a Contact Improvisation course in Laksmi Purim, which would be every day from 17:00 for two hours while the sun was setting on the roof of an old building across the road from the Mandala Shala (see previous blog two years ago about Sheshadri).

Friday evening was the charity concert at the Sri Krishna temple hall. It seemed to be organised by the yogi's and it was a famous flutist from Bangalore as well as a Tabla player who had lightning fast fingers. Tickets were Rs 200 and the proceeds went to the mental health centre. At the door we were given english books on the Bhagavad Gita, which was a nice touch.. Santosha provided some free ice tea with Tulsi as well as chocolate milk, which of course I had lots of! :-)

Saturday (14) - Shopping
On Saturday morning at 8am I met Iiling and Dimitris, who also invited Hamilton, at her apartment, because she had a motorcycle accident the day before and could not ride here scooter to the maha idli man. There have been so many scooter accidents in the recent week. But I was not surprised. I do not really like rules very much... coming from Africa, I really thought countries like Switzerland for instance are over the top with bureaucracy and rules. In South Africa, people do not abide to the letter of the law all the time but there is order. In contrast, in India traffic lights only exist at the main intersections in the very centre of the city. Even there, special traffic police is deployed to keep people in line, including pedestrians, who just cross the street whenever they feel like it. So at a large traffic circle in the centre of town that means a seperate policeman at every road entering the circle, so four or more. In the rest of the city there is a traffic cop standing in a little stand in the centre of a traffic circle, trying to direct traffic, but I cannot see them being very effective. The intersections and roads in the rest of the city and country are just left without any stop signs, road markings or any other rule to abide by. At first I thought, this is great... everybody just uses common sense and everything works... traffic flows much better and you do not have to waste 60 seconds of your life at every intersection.
However, judging by the many accidents (students come to the shala in the mornings with scratches and bruises) I am not convinced. Many rickshaws drive without any lights on at night. Pedestrians walk across the road or along the road without paying attention to traffic and I mean without regard for traffic. At night they are difficult to see especially since there are no street lights and the light provided by the surrounding shops in busy areas are not enough when there is a power cut. You also have many many speed bumps and potholes to deal with, which are also incredibly difficult to see, and you have the occasional cow standing in the middle of the road or a bunch of goats walking in the road, the street hawkers push their wooden carts, which are the size of small cars on the road, holding up traffic. People are very impatient and instead of stopping at an intersection they will continue driving, hooting to make sure others know they are coming. In India you drive on the left hand side of the road; however, motorbike riders when turning right and there is lots of traffic on the lane they have to cross, they don't stop either, they then turn right close to the edge of the road into oncoming traffic, and when a gap opens they will cross the road into the left lane, so you have to watch for motorbikes and bicycles driving in the wrong direction. The roads other than main roads are also extremely narrow, so with the sides of the road used by pedestrians, and building material, parked motorbikes etc it is often the width of one car. There is no line drawn in the centre of the road and cars and motorcycles constantly overtaking each other, whether there is a save opportunity to or not, leaves very little space for oncoming traffic. Even big buses move onto the other side of the road to overtake when you are on a scooter in that lane. Everybody drives like a madman hooting every ten seconds to let people know they are coming and it seems to be everybody elses responsibility to move out of the way and they have to, otherwise there would be accidents left, right and centre. Nobody has a concept of using "lanes": scooters, bicycles and motorbikes squeeze into every little space between cars, trucks and buses at intersections, trying to get ahead of everyone else, so it looks like a big jumble of vehicles as opposed to an ordered line. At places where there are traffic lights, there is a big digital clock showing the amount of seconds until the lights will change. Engines are turned off until this shows about 10 seconds to go and at 5 seconds to go everybody starts anticipating the light and starts moving and at two seconds to go the first people start going across between the stragglers of the crossing traffic -- unless of course there is a traffic cop on hand. I should also mention that the the exhaust fumes are also usually quite visible!!!
I asked Kumar the following week after I had almost hit a pedestrian who walked into the road without a glance at traffic, why there is absolutely no sign of road rage in India, yet he said that Indians are very fiery people. He said that they cannot afford to get into a fight because of all the repressed anger that they have, if a fight did break out, everybody would just join in and start clobbering people and even the beggars on the side of the road would start throwing rocks into the brawl!
Another interesting thing is that in India only the driver of the motorcycle has to wear a helmet. You should not have more than two people on a scooter or motorbike, but there are regularly three, a man and two women, or a family of three, but I have also seen families of four, including two small children on a motorbike. It seems that only the driver of the motorcycle needs to be protected.

Anyway, enough ranting! Iiling had to have 3 stitches in her knee the day before and the driver of the motorbike had deep wounds on his leg and left palm. So both of them will not be able to practice for a while... that would be my biggest frustration!!! The three of them decided to get a rickshaw and I led them to the maha idli man in Laksmi Purim. They absolutely loved the idli's and Iiling also had some Bissebelle Baht. I had five idlis as well as some vada. We all some chai and the bill for all 3 of us came to Rs 100. I pay up to Rs 180 for myself at Alia's Om Cafe in Gokulam and I do not feel half as full afterwards!

I then went into town to look at my options for train tickets and went to Ashok bookstore which was still closed. I had to wait thirty minutes until 10am and went into my favourite market of all my travels, the Devaraja market, and just took in the sights and sounds taking photographs and responding to the greeting from all the vendors and answering the questions as to where I am from. I started in my favourite section, the fruits. One vendor insisted I come see how he makes incense and made me smell all of the essential oils he had for sale. Another invited me into his stall and showed me all the surfaces that I could paint on with the different coloured powders made from plants and rocks, which just needed to be mixed with some water.

At the bookstore I was looking for books like the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and learning sanskrit in 30 days, both of which I needed for my course, as well as the Ramayana and Marhabarata for insight into the stories of the deities like the one James told. These were sold out of course, but I found so many books I would love to buy, such as a book on the best speeches ever, Sun Tzu's "The Art of War", a book on the interface between yoga and ayurveda, the Yoga Tiravali, a book on Hindu Mythology, a collection of essays and reflections on Ghandi etc.
I found out later that the special that the post office had two years ago on shipping 5 kg worth of books no longer existed, which means I will have to pay twice the amount for the books to get them home, or I will have to carry them. I know I have 4 kg to play with, although space is an issue!

At three I met Iiling and Dimitris and we drove to Ganesh's house where three other people joined us to do some Yoga Nidra (yogic sleep). Ganesh, who was the driver of the motorbike that Iiling had the accident on, took us through the meditation. It was only about half an hour, but quite deep. We all enjoyed it and asked him to do another one next weekend and he promised to do a longer one when he felt less pain.

In the afternoon I had the first session of Contact Improvisation with Yanael. Contact Improvisation is like a dance without any choreography. Multiple people just dance together and the movements you make are completely organic coming from "listening" to what others around you are doing, while you make your own movements, constantly trying to stay in contact with the people around you, so you do not dance by yourself. There is probably a better explanation on the net, but I have no internet connection as I write this. The first session was spent exploring the sense of touch and then exploring the support that the ground gives us and we finished with a little "dance", which I enjoyed very much. I found that I was still very sceptical of Yanael the teacher, but I must say I enjoyed the dance.

Afterwards I rushed to Yogic Supplies, where I had bought my cotton yoga mat. Nagaratna had cooked dinner for six other yogi's including Garth, Mel and Kerry. They had gone there at six and I had booked seperately and let them know I was coming after seven. Everybody else had finished eating by the time I arrived, but they warmed up a Tali for me and the food was fantastic. She charges Rs 100 for the meal. Nagaratna (Yogic Supplies) is around the corner from the Mandala Shala and guruji's old shala in Laksmi Purim. Guruji moved to his new home in Gokulam four years ago only, so Nagaratna was the person who used to look after the yogi's for a long long time, cooking breakfast, lunch and supper. She told us that Richard Freeman met his wife at the table we were eating at and that Brian Kest used to sit in front of her kitchen and used to take her kids to the swimming pool to teach them to swim. She is such a sweet lady and extremely shy when we tried to take pictures with her. She seems to miss yogi's coming to her and we offered to help her create a poster that we would put up in the yogi hangouts in Gokulam.

Sunday (15) - Hectic day
Sunday morning was lead class again. As usual, all of us doing the second lead class had to wait outside the shala in the dark, until the first class finished and then we had to rush inside and try to find and emptly spot, otherwise we would be practicing in the change rooms, or the foyer. I got a spot right next to the door, which was good as I planned to watch the second series after the practice. Saraswati lead us again this Sunday. It seems that the Sunday routine is Sharath leads the first class at 4:30, Saraswati leads the second, and then Sharath leads the second series. (There is no lead second series on Fridays.)
I was a bit scared of practice this morning due to my muscle spasm on Friday, but the practice turned out to be good. Afterwards I immediately put my mat at the edge of the door in the foyer, so I had full view of the shala during the second series.

I left as they went into the finishing sequence at around 9:15 so that I could still visit the organic market before my massage course at 10. Mel joined me. The market officially only starts at 10, so we were half an hour early, and vendors are apparently not allowed to sell before the opening time because if they do, a lot of the good stuff will be sold out before they even open. But they are actually happy to help and I explained that I had to be somewhere at 10, so I bought Ginger and Lemon concentrate, which I mix with my drinking water and I bought some balls made with nuts and herbs that I like to eat as a snack. We then had to rush back for me to make my class.

In the massage course we considered how we would identify the dosha of a new client and what we should be aware of when massaging each dosha. We then revised part two of the back massage and worked on the front of the legs. After the course I had a quick bite to eat at home and then rushed to Laksmi Purim for Kirtan with James. I arrived late and I was the reason the Kirtan was at 13:30, because I had sanskrit at 15:15 (shala time). So I left early to get to my sanskrit & chanting class and then at 16:30 was supposed to be the conference with Sharath. A few seconds into the conference though, after Sharath started talking about the breath, he got a message that guruji felt ill and they needed to take him to hospital so the conference was cancelled. This meant I could make the Contact Improvisation course at 17:00 on time. at 19:00 my day was finally complete and I could go eat some supper and go to the internet cafe.