India Photos - at last!

Bobbing heads

There is a peculiar Indian mannerism that looks like a cross between a nod and a head shake. People bob their heads like those gimmick dogs they sell on the side of the road in SA - rubber necks! It can mean many things, depending mostly on the facial expression.

Most commonly the head-bob denotes agreement, but sometimes it means 'I don't know' or 'no', and I have even seen it used in the 'are you a complete idiot?' context - Indians as a rule are too polite to ever say that, but their head bobs speak for them. I have even started doing it, its a very charming mannerism.

Tomorrow is the last day of school and there have been tears. There are sure to me more, too. The members of the chanting class (incl moi) will be performing the Gayatri Mantra for the benefits of our classmates and teachers. Gulp......

See you all soon, I am looking forward to it.

Toilet paper not included

This will probably be the last post before I come home, as I fly back on Saturday! I am feeling nostalgic about leaving already, although I am also very excited about getting home and putting some of what I have learnt into practice.

India grows on you like a charming fungus. However, all travel brochures should come with the following disclaimer:
Toilet paper, drinking water and hot showers not included. Excessive shopping may cause luggage crisis on return journey.

Its been raining again, and I have just spent the evening crammed into an auto rickshaw with two other girls, splashing through poopy puddles to get to a FedEx office. I thought this might be the solution to my Bought Too Many Books problem, but it turned out to be less than affordable. So now I all for buying the cheapest piece of extra luggage I can find and suffering the ensuing airport nastiness.

School was crazy busy last week, with all sorts of extra murals. I finally received my tailor-made practice. I was very disappointed; after all the poking & prodding in class, I was expecting a remedial practice, but they seem to think I am flexible and strong, so have basically given me a fairly vigorous asana practice with emphasis on improving my breath. Lots of breath counting and holding. Quite interesting!

I had what may have been a mild case of Delhi Belly towards the end of last week, but never got sick enough to really know - I was just off-colour and very attached to the toilet for a couple of days. Good thing the general store a my hotel sells toilet paper since I still haven't worked out the rinse-and-pull-up-wet-undies thing.

See how weak she is?

School is getting really hands-on now. We are all subjecting ourselves to the merciless scrutiny of our classmates for practice purposes. Just the other day, I demonstrated ardha uttanasana (half forward bend, which is ironically a rather difficult backbend).

The commentary from the teacher went something like this:
See how weak the lower back is? See how the pelvis tilts to compensate? She is not ready for this posture. (Then to me) This should be part of your daily practice.

And I am not the only victim - all of us, no matter how fit, have idiosyncrasies which make our bodies interesting fodder for our classmates to learn from. Clearly there are no inflated egos on this course!

The after-school activities are on the rise too. Last week an Ayurvedic doctor came to give us a talk after school, and Saturday's session with the Sir went on longer because he had a special Q&A session with us western students. I am over being awestruck by him - he is really quite approachable, and as someone noted, he often forgets the punchline of his stories. Interestingly, he has trained his teachers so well that you get the same experience from them as from him. This is the value of having a personal mentorship with your teacher- you get a far more solid grounding.

This week, a psychologist is coming to talk to us about yoga for the spine (she has a doctorate in yoga) and a famous Indian singer is going to perform for us too - she is a student at KYM.

Its bittersweet that the course is more than half over now, as I don't want it to end, but on the other hand I am really looking forward to coming home and sharing all my new knowledge! I think I will be back in Chennai, because I think I have more to learn here. Much much more.

Thinking of you all at home!

Halfway

It's the end of our second week at Yoga School and people are starting to get tired. Some of the classes have shown considerably less attendance in the last few days, and several people have had India Tummy. Sorry for them! I figure the nasty anti-malaria doxycyline I'm taking may be protecting me from more than just malaria, since its a broad spectrum antibiotic and will kill just about anything. That said, I still have two good weeks in which to catch all sorts of nasties.

India is really.... Interesting. Its such a juxtaposition of beauty and filth. Its been raining and the poo, dust and wee (and the odd dead rat) are now a repulsive soggy mass. Even the locals refuse to step in the puddles. That tells you something.....But on the other hand, there are little pockets of amazing beauty - one of the girls on the course is staying with family who live in a wealthy suburb. Their home is huge, filled with beautiful sculptures and art, and the suburb is quiet, leafy, green, lush. Not the Chennai I had grown used to at all. Nearby is my current favourite place - Amethyst. Its a boutique/restaurant/ flower shop housed in an old colonial mansion with a gorgeous green garden. I went there on Sunday with some of the girls, shopped (the clothes are exorbitant by India standards - about the same as at The Space) and ate a pesto sandwich. My digestion was delighted not to have to deal with super-spiced oily food for once.

A lot of my non-school time is spent looking for places to eat - I think I have regressed to hunter-gatherer status. I have found another place, Eco Cafe, owned by the same woman as Amethyst - God(s) bless her - which serves fresh food and juices, some even organic! So far no ill health has resulted from eating there.

School is super-intense. I guess that's why they call it an intensive. We are learning how best to sequence poses according to the KYM philosophy, and we learnt more about diagnosing health issues by observing students. I had an appointment during the week with Dr NC, and next week will meet a teacher for my specially designed practice. Our morning yoga practice is getting more strenuous. I am very glad they worked us up to that slowly - all part of their strategy - everything fits together like lego. The teachers all know what we learnt in the day's other lessons, and the theme of the day is set in asana practice then carries through all the way to meditative practices in the evening.

God is Everywhere

Ok, I know, this title has heavily religous overtones, but in India, it's true, at least of the Hindu gods. There are roadside shrines everywhere, so numerous that I have already stopped noticing them. People place offerings of fruit, rice and flowers before the feet of the gods, and at yoga school, the flowers in front of the statue of Patanjali and the photo of Krishnamacharya are refreshed daily.

People are quite practical here too. All auto rickshaw drivers have stickers of gods plastered across their windshields - usually at least one of the elephant-headed god Ganesh, who is an overcomer of obstacles and patron god of entrepreneurs - and then a selection of Jesus and Marys (popular even among Hindus) and Lakshmi. She is the goddess of wealth and beauty, great to have on your side if you are in business.

Lakshmi is possible the most popular goddess among business people. Every morning at my hotel, the New Woodlands, they chalk beautiful, complicated designs outside their main doors, to welcome Lakshmi into their establishment. Lakshmi lends her name to every business you can imagine, and sometimes the businesses go so far as to call her MahaLakshmi (Great Lakshmi). Personally, I think they are just sucking up.

Not that Lakshmi is the only one to lend her name to enterprise - I have seen Siva and Krishna businesses, Surya's (God of the sun), and even an Angel boutique. But my favourite so far has to be 'Efforts Never Fail Real Estate and Letting'.

I am really glad school is over for the week, although it means there are only three weeks left (sob). I now have two days to try to assimilate some of my new knowledge. Perhaps two months would be more appropriate. Have decided not to do the tourist thing on Sunday, and if things continue at this pace, I may have to come back to India to be a toursit, because yoga school is consuming all my time and energy. And that is what I am here for.

I am turning into a complete nerdy-nerd in Applications of Yoga - my hand goes up so often that Dr NC is starting to get a desperate look whenever he casts his eye in my direction. I have made an appointment to see him for a therapy session next week. To pester him some more.

Tomorrow is the not-to-be missed talk by Sri Deiskachar (Sri is a term of gret respect). He has such a powerful presence, I am reduced practically to tears every time I encounter him. Never thought that would happen to me. But he is truly truly great.

Soft landing, bumpy ride

I have been in India since Sunday morning and the journey was remarkably painless. Granted, there was the extra hour spent circling Mumbai at midnight because the airport was too busy to land then the half hour waiting for a plane parking bay and the 40 minutes waiting for my luggage, but that's all kind of to be expected.

I sat next to a really kind man on the plane - a Chennai businessman returning home from a business trip. He took me under his wing and sorted out a taxi from Mumbai international to the local airport, which is in a different place, then we got access to the business lounge to wait for our flight, since he is a frequent flyer. All this simply because I was a woman travelling alone - no funny stuff at all. Talk about a soft landing, especially in a country as famously misogynistic as India.

My initial hotel, where I stayed the first two nights, was great, but really far from the Mandiram, and yesterday, I got an unrequested tour of Chennai's slums while my auto rickshaw driver got more and more lost. So that was a bit of a let down. I am now at a hotel much closer to the school. Not plush, but clean and private and with aircon! It is really hot and humid here - you pretty much sweat from the moment you get outside.

People are very friendly and helpful on the whole, and for a South African, South India is a pleasure because the are comparatively few beggars - almost none by our standards. The poverty here doesn't seem as extreme or desperate as at home.

We are on Day 3 of our course, and I already feel that I could come home a different teacher, I have learnt so much. It is not officially a course for teachers, but just about everyone on the course is one. The few who aren't are mostly involved in other similar disciplines like ayurveda. Good thing, since the level is quite scary. If I didn't already have some base of sanskrit and yoga philosophy, I would not be coping. I am the only African, and we are very mixed - quite a few Germans, then people from all over Europe, a few from the US, one from Canada, one from New Zealand and one from Australia. There is even an Argentinian girl, although she lives in London now. There are 26 people on the course, only two of whom are male. Interesting, since our teachers are pretty much evenly split between male and female.

We start the day with a 1 hour asana practice, then spend the rest of our time sitting (on the floor!) in our theory classes - my favourite at the moment in Applications of Yoga - basically the yoga therapy course. Yesterday we worked with helping to modify asana for people with kyphosis (hunchback). I volunteered a modification and actually got it right! I was quite excited because the depth of knowledge our teachers have is really quite intimidating, and I am have a mini-crisis about my own right to teach when I know so much less than they do.

I have met lovely people on the course, so have someone to visit all those temples with. Including the shopping ones! The Australian and Canadian girls are champion shoppers, and I have tagged along on two of their trips, but I can't quite keep up their pace! I had to do some shopping, because the clothes I brought with weren't quite appropriate. I am now wearing very light kurta (tunics) which cover but also don't restrict. Some of the textiles are incredible here.

On Saturday, TKV Desikachar gives a talk, which I will be attending since we have only met him once, the teaching is now handled by his senior students. On Sunday, some people from the course are planning a day trip to Mamaliapuram (sure that's spelt wrong) - there is a spectacular temple there. It is about one and a half hours drive from Chennai because the roads in this area are quite good - pretty much on a par with SA. There are just a lot more people.

I am finding, along with the info overload at school, that the sensory overload of India is starting to catch up with me. I am going to have to barricade myself in my hotel room for some alone time during the weekend.