Week 9 & 10, India: Rishikesh and Food

It's tough to break this into two posts so I apologize for the length today.

The experiences

This week I flew instead of taking the train. This gave me access to a few stores in the Delhi airport and a layover long enough to pick up some more essentials.

I was a few days early for my stay at the ashram in Rishikesh so I ended up staying at a very nice hotel 1km up the road. For two nights I got to relax in a beautiful room with a view of the Ganges. I slept like a rock since I'd had a strange schedule and, as mentioned before, pretty intense napping habit. I called the spa downstairs to see if I could get an Indian head massage and was a little surprised that they told me to come down right away but it was a fantastic half hour and I was pretty relaxed thinking I should get a full body massage too. Instead I got excited by the restaurant menu and decided I'd treat myself that way. That was not a good choice as the "continental" favorites I was looking forward to (i.e. American nostalgia) were very Indianized. More on food later, but I can comfortably say I am over Indian food for a while now much like I can't eat cantaloupe or hot-dogs after over-dosing as a child. Hopefully this is more like the time I over did it on cream cheese and took several months hiatus from it--now I desperately want some.

Sunrise on the Ganges

I stayed up the whole night reading and then I got to see the sun rise on the Ganges resulting in a nice photo op. Then I had to find my way to the post office and to visit an old ashram across the river before heading to my program at the ashram down the road. The hotel called a courier instead of letting me go to the post office (although the only thing they could tell me about the post office is I would have to stand in a queue--which I would expect anyway). I decided to walk the seven kilometers to the suspension bridge over the Ganges to cross. I was heading to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Ashram (AKA the Beatles Ashram), which has been out of commission for over 30 years now. For those of you who don't know, last year shortly before leaving Epic I went through meditation classes to learn Transcendental Meditation (TM). This is the technique Maharishi fostered and you'll see that a ridiculous number of celebrities when they speak about meditation are talking about his teaching. It's not religious in any way, nothing to do with breathing, but instead is a way to take time and clear your head. I noticed within a week I was much more calm, people I worked with noticed and mentioned it even though they didn't know what I'd done. This ashram is where Maharishi taught thousands including the Beatles (hence the nickname).

Rishikesh is one of the yoga capitals of the world. The place is littered with ashrams and just a few weeks ago hosted its annual international yoga festival. Looking for a yogic vacation? This is where you'd come. When I finally made it to Maharishi's ashram I was greeted by a someone who offered to show me around. He seemed nice, about my age, had a stutter and dressed in orange signifying an enlightened person. I agreed to let him show me around and for the first half hour it was really great and I learned a lot, but then as some people do, he got creepy. Much more creepy than the subject of Sanjay's (founder of the Jugaadus hostel in Amritsar) essay on the topic would allow. My "guide" made many comments that were just not okay, tried to massage my calves, tried to kiss me and topped it all off with many admiring statements about my breasts and everything else. I was so done that even though I'd set my heart on a rickshaw for the 7km back (due to afternoon heat and my healing foot), I walked the first 3 on my own to get the hell out of there. Once I crossed the bridge a really nice rickshaw driver took me back to the hotel. Overall it was a great and productive day, I saw the sunrise,  walked about 10km, saw the sights I came for, sent home extraneous items (which hooray!, they arrived), but major sour taste in my about that guy. I don't mean to at all imply that this behavior would have been excusable in any way but I did a thorough check on my outfit just to reassure myself and I was covered. I was very cautious before coming to India that I would be able to wear a lot of my pack respectfully (i.e. covered knees, shoulders, no cleavage). Also I want to point out that this could happen anywhere and is no way the usual here. When I arrived in Delhi last night there were two different gentlemen my age that went out of their way to help me.

Murals inside one of the buildings. 

Mural of Maharishi

View of some of the dwellings on the grounds. All in all they housed about 15,000 people at full capacity.

I went back to the hotel, picked up my pack and walked the 1km down the road to my new home for the next 10 days. I arrived at Sadhana Mandir (AKA The Himalayan Institute) founded by Swami Rama. I didn't know much about the place before coming, only that there was a 10 day "self transformation program" that sounded interesting and unlike most of the programs in the area included a focus on meditation. Of course things got more and more hectic in my last couple months at Epic and I lost track of my TM practice. I hoped this program would strengthen my practice.

There are 12 students in the course and our teacher is a former surgeon who gave up medicine and studied under many teachers including Swami Rama. He's an extremely animated character and while he was singing/dancing to I like to Move it Move it in a reprisal of Madagascar, I thought he might actually be inspiration for some of the characters in the movie.

I realized late in the first day that this is a program and school of thought that would have been just what my Uncle Jimmy would have loved. So instead of really digging in and doing a lot of work I was just constantly reminded by my Uncle Jimmy and how much he loved learning and discussing different philosophies. And I think I even remember him talking about Swami Rama (since Swami Rama had been in the US for a while starting in 1969, founding the Himalayan Institute in the Poconos to synthesize Eastern philosophies and Western Science). In this sense I felt terrible that I wasn't getting as much out of the experience as the others and I missed my Uncle Jim who passed away in 2009, however I followed our guiding philosophies and vowed not to judge myself for it knowing that when the time is right it would all be clearer.

Jimmy with Nick and I (note the cool hair Nick is sporting)

My favorite picture of Uncle Jimmy and I.

So what is a "self transformation program"? I didn't know when I showed up or until about day three really. We’re learning the basics of life: how to breathe, how to sit, how to stand, when and how much water to drink, how to eat, the look and frequency of our poo, examining which nostril is dominant at different times of day, and mixing in the enigma of consciousness. These may seem like easy things to the lay person, but we're dealing with them on a very intense and strict level. After doing a breathing exercise standing on a yoga mat we step off and check the imprint of our feet and so does Ganasan, our instructor, to make sure we're in balance. The schedule alone should give you an idea (pasted in below). I always had pretty good posture, until the years at Epic where leaning over a laptop while sitting cross legged on the floor of a cube in a hospital office under significant stress made my shoulders creep to my ears and well, you can imagine. But that was how I was most comfortable. What I find funny about this whole thing is that I was admiring my posture the day before I came here, how it had improved and it was looking really good again. The whole week was torture on my back muscles since, as it turns out, I was over-correcting.

While there were 12 people in the program there are others in the ashram for other reasons and programs so outside our classroom and the washroom (for dishes) we observed silence. It's difficult for me to communicate some things, like: before I put the toast on do you want to add a slice? I feel like it's progress for me to only have been singled out three times for thinking. Thinking is "sinking, stinking"…imagine about 500 of these phrases/alliterations all day for 10 days keeping us all on track. We learned that Crap and Shit can be effective acronyms. Like I said above, it's intense; I had to stop myself from getting stressed thinking I was in no way going to pass the test…then I remembered there's no test, just the commitment to practice.

What really stinks about these weeks is food. Every day it's Indian food for all three meals. I like Indian food, however, I've gotten very tired of it several times in the last month and now it's to the point where it makes me gag a bit every bite I take. I started keeping a list of foods I miss and will buy immediately when they are next available to me which was mostly spurred by Bridge Jones eating many many bags of shredded cheese in Mad About the Boy. I miss good cheese. The pizza I had in Mumbai with fontal was the only time in the whole trip (2.5 months) I tasted delicious cheese. For now I've resorted to raw fruit and vegetables when they're out for meal time and toast--god I love buttered toast.

  

Food is everywhere in India, actually everywhere. I go down the street and 3 of 4 shops are selling food or drink. What is maybe most crippling when you first get here is the fear of "Delhi belly". Before I left one of the books I read in preparation for the trip overall was How to Shit Around the World which did a great job covering all manner of things including different toilets, what to look out for in food that could make you sick, water, female hygiene, malaria prevention (i.e. when best to shower), how to make Oral Rehydration Solution by adding salt to Coke, and some very funny stories.

Food safety isn't part of the regular repertoire in India meaning food temperatures maybe aren't where they should be or maintained. You can never be sure if the food was washed properly and with filtered water (read: safe for the western stomach) or normal sink water. Starting out on your own can be daunting and I'd be lying if I didn't divulge that there were days I went with only eating once or only eating cookies or cereal but sometimes you just go for it and eat. I haven't gotten sick yet from food but I've been around so many people that just couldn't stop vomiting. I decided to go vegetarian (just a couple times I didn't) which takes away a lot of the concerns but also have been careful with water and if I ran out of bottled water in the middle of the night I might use my steripen on some tap water a few times (it might hydrate you but it tastes terrible and I'm sorry I ignored the lemon powder idea I read about which would improve it). I stick to restaurants recommended by people in the travel industry (tour guides and hotel managers who frequently work with westerners).

Overall the food I've eaten at homestays, ashrams and restaurants has been amazing, delicious and very safe even if I rarely know what I’m eating. I do find myself wanting the variety of home very often though. It's nice in America when we mix in different kinds of food. No one eats Chinese every day or Pizza every night, but in India we eat Indian food all the time. After so much time here, I will be so glad to reintroduce that multicultural concept. I just have to watch out because there's a tendency to overeat when you get something you've been craving (i.e. the time I ate a whole 12 inch pizza in Mumbai and a tiramisu and could barely walk out of the restaurant). Sofia asked me in Jaipur what food I missed most and without a doubt it should surprise no one, it is mac and cheese, my steadfast favorite from the time I was little and my grandmother, mother and Jamie (world's best babysitter) made so much of it, I'm sure they all hate it :).

Sidenote: Thanks to the Badgers amazing men's basketball season I wore my UW Tshirt for almost a week, thinking it was lucky. My morning practices started just as the games began so after we finished I rushed out to turn on my phone's data to see the score. I even tried to pray to one of the Hindu gods on my walk during the championship game...maybe that's why we lost.

Amin told me this in Vrindavan, but I didn't believe it. The most common representation of a god you see in India is a medium sized stone like object painted orange.

Lessons

• Sarcasm does not translate well (as proved by my "guide friend")
• One should gulp an enormous quantity of water upon waking up in the morning (for me it's 1.5 Liters) and a bowel movement will shortly follow
• My skin hasn't looked this great in a long time
• Don't drink anything 30 minutes before a meal, during the meal, or until 2 hours after you finish eating.
• If you drink during the meal wait till the flavor clears before taking another bite.
• Oldie but a goodie: Chew each bite of food 25 times and wait for it to go down the esophagus before taking another bite.
• Instead of Easy Pose, try instead using Accomplished Pose or Half Lotus for meditation. 
• To even out the hips Yashendu (back in Vrindavan) taught us to use Firelog Pose which I now love. Especially since Ganasan pointed out that I favor my left side and my shoes likely have disproportionate wear.
• Shyness delays people getting to know you. It took me a few days to open up as per usual.
• Late in the week, Ganasan started calling me the "weirdly flexible girl" "like rubber"…but apparently using those double jointed elbows is not a good idea as it leaves me more vulnerable to injury.
• The minute you know you should be still, something immediately itches. (Goal is to be still for 4 hours 34 minutes)
• Lately I've read mostly for fun and quickly, however this week I got to do a "close reading" of Path of Fire and Light which was just plain fun and I realized I should be doing this more often. (Thanks Mr. Jeff Moreland)

Interesting

• Alcohol is against the law here, but more interesting, Vegetarianism is the law (can't even find an egg)
• We may all be seeking some form of enlightenment but there's a ton of profanity throughout the day--we're only human.
• Ganasan our teacher called me out several times each day for being a very honest person (even my body language came across as honesty). That and I was the only person to pick the word Esteem from a list of five--apparently it was the right answer. He told me to go thank my parents for bringing me up so well.
• The other American here (we have 5 Indians, 1 Russian, 2 Germans, 1 Hungarian, 1 Aussie, 2 Americans) is a 72 year old guy named Mike. He's super cool for many many reasons (he's a Vietnam Vet/pilot, retired Technical Writer for a software company, pastor and author) and would definitely be someone with who Uncle Jimmy would identify and be good friends.
• Something I found striking is that he met one of the German ladies here on the Camino trek and they've been doing long walks together for over a decade. And now they're on an inward journey. The whole story is just romantic as can be.
• I bought a couple of their books to read before Europe where I might get a chance to meet up with them again.
• Srishti, a young Indian woman in the program with me, told me on the last day that my smile is like a baby's. That cracks me up, since when I worked for ASM on campus Margaret told me I had big sparkling eyes that tend to attract people, that they'd done studies in babies (all reasons why I was going to be good at a job in Development). I love interesting compliments. Srishti is really cool and I'm glad we're facebook friends now :).

Program Schedule

5:00 am: Rise/Ablutions/Kriyas/J&G/Meditation

*Melissa: Still Sleeping

6:00 am: Chai/Lemon Water

*Melissa: getting up and slamming water

6:30 am: Hatha Yoga Practice

8:00 am: Breakfast

9:00 am: Walk

*Melissa: additionally meditation, shower, visit to the guard dogs

10:30 am-1:00 pm: Lecture/Workshop

1:00 pm: Lunch

2-4:00 pm: Private Study

*Melissa: additionally napping or reading or writing

4:00 pm: Chai

*Melissa: see above

4:30-6:15 pm: Yoga practice

6:15 pm: Meditation

7:00 pm: Supper

*Melissa: reading or writing

7:45 pm:  Q & A/Workshop

9:00 pm: Meditation

*Melissa: reading

10:00 pm: Sleep