I was a bit freaked, however, that is not what happened but a funny phrase I heard a girl say a few days ago....."Ou'est? - "DANS MON PANTALON"- ze french are zo romantic.
That monkey surprised me by being so angry. There is a new colony here and they really don't like us human folk. 10 years ago I was working with spider monkies in Bolivia and was used to them giving me a hug everyday. I miss these lads......
Anyway, enough of my relationship issues. Here's what I've been up to:
It's quite hard to be lazy in India but in Rishikesh it's easy. Along with Kerela and Goa, despite my fondness for the place it's a long way from the bonkersville that is the rest of India. I've had power, wifi and hot showers everyday here. Despite missing Indian food I've eaten at western vegan restaurants and juice bars most days and my mattress is more than the average Indian 2 inches thick! The highlight, however, was in a the toilets of a cafe yesterday where they were playing meditation music IN THE TOILETS. Rishikesh is like the Disneyland of yoga with of more mature yogis coming to get their Yoga MOT/NCT and young glowing girls (and a few guys) skipping around with yoga mats under their arms sipping lassis saying "OMG did you go to Surindher's class - I totally found myself melting into my mat, I heart India". Now, I love girls and I love Surindher's classes but in a world where the toilets play jazz music the phrase 'I heart India' needs a rethink.
Some of the yoga classes are damn funny. In one of Surindher's classes the mats were so close together that at one point I opened my eyes to find my big toe nudging a girls bum cheeks (like I said.....I LOVE his classes). Five minutes later my neighbour on the other side had her foot over my nose. Life: It's all about balance. The highlight of the yoga asana classes I've taken for me, however, was when local teacher Deepak hopped ontop of me during a wheel and first stood up and did little jump, then went down into crow. It was a beginner's class ! I held it for 20 seconds with him on top, I didn't have a camera and surprisingly my back felt splendid afterwards.
It looked something like this......
The lowpoint of my yoga classes was my pranayama course. I love pranayama and after training in the YTT then additional courses in Delhi I wanted to do one with the best teacher here so I signed up with taalls/ . It worked out to be $40US per 2 hour class. In Delhi I had been paying $1US for a 2 hour class (classes were in Hindi but you get the idea of the difference). I turned up and despite being told it would be separate to their YTT it was a room full of YTT students (thank you Tattvaa yoga!). I wasn't paying $40US for that so instead reinvested my rupees in more singing classes, massages, books and some inner child meditation classes (yes I am hanging out with me as a 10 year old - it's GREAT craic). Everything also balanced out when after returning from the pranayama course I'd walked out of at 6am there was a storm and I rescued 1/2 my clothes which were on the balcony drying. They would have all headed up the Himalayas had I stayed in the class. Plus later that day I was retelling the story to a well known yoga teacher here and he said he'd give me some advanced pranayama classes for $5/hour. Everything.......EVERYTHING happens for a reason :) Having met people from 10s of YTT courses now, I am convinced I did one of the better ones. If you are every considering it check out http://www.hathayoga-meditation.com/.
One of the many books I bought as a consequence of getting a refund from the course and WHAT a book :)
My projects are going well I'm even sticking my head in the classroom and teaching the kids some English at this school. My favourite phrase was 'Nice to meet you boss' in a Michael Kane accent.
Kids at the music school.....
Dinner at the music school :)
Traffic delays on the way to the music school.......a Cow Jam :)
I was also honoured to be asked by my friend the TEDx Ambassador for India to do a talk at their new seminar programme called 'The Shift'. Now I love a good Shift but unfortunately it's end of April, my visa runs out in 2 weeks and I need a new passport so it ain't gonna happen. I turned down another potential shift a few days ago. My neighbour is doing an Agama Tantra course here and asked me as an ex-student if I could help her find her Shakti (that usually involves shifting). I declined her kind offer as I don't fancy her; which I guess means I know more about Tantra. Dear Agama please stop producing sex robots and produce loving ones instead.
Last year I missed out on Holi the festival of colour due to a visa issue and I was gutted. This year I spent the day with a friend at the music school I'm working (and learning!) playing with the kids (and their Grandpa brother cousin.......or Great Uncle as we say in English English!). A lot of the local yoga schools and Mooji's satsang warned people to stay indoors and avoid the perils of the toxic paint. However, once you got into the mess of it no-one cared - HAPPY HOLI :)
So I'll be back in Ireland in one month today and was thinking about what I'll end up doing career wise. I've lots of opportunities but am not going to rush into anything. Whilst I was writing my journal today an Indian guy sitting on the wall next to me picked up my pencil and stuck it in his ear and starting cleaning inside. I've since disposed of said pencil but ....it gave me an idea for a niche in Ireland ;)
You know you're back in India when you're checking out a pretty girl chatting on her mobile when she smiles at you whilst saying "Hi yes I'm just calling to check on my stool results". Hello India.
+ My mum (the highlander) is better
+ I become wise among the gurus
+ The birthplace of the universe
+ I revisit my early yearnings to visit India
+ I'm moving back to Dublin
Since I was last in Rishikesh there was a national emergency during monsoon season with +1,000 lives lost and 120 bridges swept away in the region. It's now tourist season and the locals are all on great form, despite the huge losses there are no signs of change apart from the huge Shiva statue missing from the skyline having been swept away by the force of The Ganges. For the locals oddly being swept away by the Ganges is a blessing.
Before and during monsoon (just before he was swept away). Not my photos...
Lots of the local shopkeepers and restaurant workers remembered me, as did alot of the old annual rishikesh old timers (mainly Osho heads) a warm community feeling I haven't had since living in Dublin. Only difference is the Indians are brutally honest, eg one of my first conversations with my old Barber.....
Barber:Hey KrishJii, you look the same as you did one year ago
Chris:lol, yes but less the suntan - I'm a bit whiter eh?
Barber: Yes Ji, the white hair you have now make you look wiser
.......SILENCE
A Rishii is a wise person so I guess I'm in the right place :)
February was a tough month for me (see my last post). My mum is stable now and has private carers but the parent/child role reversal was hard for me. She might be a highlander but I'm not sure I am as I arrived in India an absolute wreck.
I ignored my own golden rule about travelling in India when I arrived. This country is bonkers and if you think you can land from the west and just head out without a sniff of cultural shock then fair play to yea. I always recommend to friends they relax and get a decent hotel on their first night. I, however, decided to travel straight away. Missing my six hour train so opting for a 10 hour bus sat next to a man who seemed to think his nose was a chimney and he was Dick Van Dyke; and that as the least of his hygiene issues. 10 hours of potholes and breathing through my mouth :)
I spent my first night in Haridwar so I could go and see the famous fire ceremony on this sacred part of the Ganges (Har ki Pauri). According to Hinduism Haridwar was where the universe started. Funny that, as I thought it was a hole. The ceremony was on special form as it was Shivaratri (Day of Shiva) so there was an extra amount of distorted noise, garish gold suits and lads dancing on parade vans dressed up as Shiva.
Looks impressive but sounds like a car exhaust
The band uniform was a beany and trackkie bottoms - love it
I was soon reminded of the delights of travel in India as one of the parade vans ripped though some overhead electricity cables and a sparkling cabled bounced on the floor in front of me. I didn't react, my Indian instincts clicking back. However, 1 hour later, after not sleeping for +30 hours and when it was lashing with rain, there was no power and I couldn't find my hotel I remembered that travel in India is tough. I'd forgotten that northern India was cold in February and I only had one jumper and it was soaked through. I went home and had a cold shower (thanks India) and as I still had power on my netbook I watched 'All is Lost'; a surreal experience watching a film about being alone (and soaking wet) on a sinking ship when you are in a cold room surrounded by damp clothes!
I'd missed Indian Head wobbling and on the bus to Rishikesh I met Ramesh and his family from Kerela. You don't see as much of the head wiggling in the north and I was delighted when they all syncronised their wiggle when I started dropping in a few Hindi phrases. I'm guessing in their case it meant 'fair play to ya'.
Despite being full of tourists I chose to spend Feb/March in Rishikesh. It's Guru season (they come to have Q&As called Satsangs) and the International Yoga Festival so a bit like the X-factor of spirituality. A Satsang looks something like the below (this one is with Mooji who is in Rishikesh right now :)).. Despite not having quite the humour of Monty Pythons 'The meaning of life' Satsangs generally make you feel like you know a lot more about why we are all here :)
Once back in Rishikesh the first few days were still cold and damp. A Canadian girl I met said the weather reminded her of a trip to Ireland, only there she had had central heating and glass in the windows. However, I had hot water and the sun soon turned up. I spent nearly a month here last year and had although overrun with tourists I'd loved it.
As a tourist town they have toilet paper here and this is what some wise local brand manager thinks of ze French. To be fair it's very soft and silky ;)
Here people don't ask 'do you do yoga' but 'what kind of yoga do you do'. Feels a bit like clubbing in the 90s': instead of 'are you on drugs' the 'what have you dropped'.......seems most of those kids from the 90s are now here detoxing mid life. This is the view when I sit in a group every night and sing........if you want to know the real me - pop down and check out the grin on my face ;)
My schedule is petty simple. It's a dry town so early wakeup and usually yoga, then a mix of satsangs, mini treks and singing. I'm also working on a couple of projects including helping a friend who is developing a film docu on Vegetarianism and the positive effects on climate change, and working with Roopak, the orphan with polio i met here last year. Roopak is doing great, thanks to funding from friends Roopak is now full time in music school and good enough at vocals and harmonium to perform soon. It's amazing to think he was begging just 8 months ago. He's looking pretty sharp these days!
Nearly 20 years ago I got a promo tape (yes, I know......a TAPE) from a record company for Nitin Sawhney and the music was one of my first draws to India. Aswell as working with the music school where Roopak studies to expand so as to work with more children I'm learning Ragas and Boles (Hindustani vocals) which is what's at the beginning of this song. I'm finally singing the music that drew me here in the first place. And my gurujii is the son of the teacher who taught The Beatles to play Sitar.....the icing on the cake :)
Despite feeling very at home here I have decided that this India adventure will wind up mid April. I've been living out of a bag for 18 months and have had some very special experiences and met incredible people who have shaped my life. However, Iife on the road can be lonely and I want some grounding. The weather in Dublin is shite but my friends there are amazing, that in combination with a need to be closer to mum for a while means I'll be back in Dublin full time as from late April. Lots of this please..........
When a retreat is a long way from being a 'treat'... being a monk for 10 days.
When farting really is the funniest thing in the world
One of those phone calls you really don't want
Proof that Vipassana works.....well kinda
My mum the Highlander
If you had 10 days free and could do anything, chances are it would involve spending it with loved ones, partying, relaxing or something that would make you feel instantly better. So why the feck did I chose to go to Vipassana, a 10 day meditation retreat (let's ignore the 'treat' bit) where you wake up at 4am and do +10 hours of meditation/day most of which is sat completely still? Plus you have to keep noble silence so no talking, reading, writing or eye contact.
Well, I'm curious as to how the mind works. I also know that we all have ups and downs, but we rarely talk about it. I'm having a low time in my life right now but I know meditation is helping me and most of my life is bloody splendid (well according to my FB status anyway).
So as opposed to reaching for those quick heal hormones from sex, drugs, dancing, sport or any of life's other oxytocin/serotonine/endorphine type hits I thought I'd try and go a bit deeper.
These famous lads make a big deal out of the importance of meditation:
......but they are not the same as the rest of us. Finding the time to meditate is difficult if you have any sort of normal work/family commitments. And that is why I decided on the 10 days retreat. Habits of a lifetime cannot be changed in minutes or even in a weekend workshop. Especially if the results are something like this:
Although, let's face facts. Even the pros find it hard to sit for that long.....
A year ago if someone had told me about a silent retreat I'd have thought they were bonkers. However, I initially did some by order at my yoga teacher training and liked it. I had signed up for vipassana 6 months ago but was turned away as I had a fever at registration. So time to try again...
So what is Vipassana? Well if you are travelling in India, it's something that comes up in conversation pretty regularly. Just as bungy jumping is in New Zealand, India's adventure sport for backpackers is Vipassana. And that is India all over, a challenge for the mind aswell as the body; it also shows that India has a slightly different type of traveller. For Indians, it's a part of life. Gautama the Buddha discovered this technique around 500BCE. Put simply his philosophy was that we all suffer in life through attachment and one of the ways to not get attached to emotion is not to react to things ie. balance or non dualism. No-one can ignore the fact that we suffer, we all strive for a goal of continuous happiness but life throws us lots of shite along the way which makes that harder. Two good friends of mine committed suicide in the last few years and yet whenever you saw them they were an advert for happiness. Two very sad stories. We all like to put on a brave face when we face adversity and that really helps but too often we ignore the route of the problem and just carry on. And that is why Vipassana is becoming so popular now, people realise that in such a busy world if you can react to/judge emotions with less attachment then life is easier. Simple. However, it's not simple to attain. We could just get lucky by relying on the happy hormones I mentioned above or for medicines but it still comes back to this.......imagine if you could switch it off?
So vipassana, described as similar to a surgical operation to train the brain to react differently to things. The course is free. It's free for a reason, you work hard, living practically as a monk and leaving is not really an option.
I'd done alot of meditation in recent years and it was one of the parts of yoga I really struggled with so a prison type setting suited me. Plus the fact that one of my most rewarding types of yoga was the focus on breathing which is a big part of Vipassana, but it's only the first three days. And for those who choose to leave, that's generally when they do. Just before the deeper stuff starts, so if you chose to leave because you are bored you've totally missed the point.
Now, as for the deeper stuff. Despite feeling a bit like a cult, Vipassana is not, it's also non-secular and is being reviewed by renowned institutions such as the NHS in relation to mindfulness and addiction. Now that's all well and good but if you've never done any meditation/been to South Asia before you'll think it is a cult. Everybody is sat on the floor, chanting everyday with rules such as no feet facing the front of the meditation room. And although I was fine with it and it keeps the authenticity of the technique I think that the chanting and sitting on the floor would put off a lot of people.
I chose to do the course in England as I was due to be there for a month after Christmas to see family. I'd also been told there were a few more creature comforts than doing it in Asia (eg glass in the windows and better mattresses). Stuff that made 10 days a bit easier. The accommodation felt like 'business class' to me after spending the last 2 months on a camp bed in the jungle in southern India. I was also impressed with the ageism where all people over 30 got a twin room as opposed to a dorm. Plus based on a recent compressed nerve injury for which I was getting weekly physio I was advised to do the course in a chair. Comfy bed and meditating in a chair.....like I said 'Vipassana Business Class' So how does it work? I've seen some blogs where they describe day by day and 1) I'm not sure how when you cannot write anything down whilst you are there and, 2) I preferred not knowing before I went in. This was the daily timetable:
As with all Vipassana courses the guys and the girls were split up, even having separate outdoor walking areas which everyday at sunset resembled something like a scene from village of the damned (apart from it was a line of guys just staring at the girls area.......I guess you could say they were in deep thought taking in the sunset - but they (me included) were subtly checking out the girls). After all when you cannot have something you want it more right? The village of the damned.....I joke you not this is what it reminded me of!
As I've mentioned before Tim Minchin so succinctly describes us lads are after all just 'monkies in shoes' ....
After joining the line of guys at sunset for a few days I decided to maintain the rule of no eye contact and didn't look at anyone until the end of the course. Surprising how much energy that took judging people; trust me try it and you'll be amazed.
Silence worked well. It made you appreciate every sense more intensely. You become closer to nature. I walked everyday during the breaks and each day it was as if my body was getting quieter, I have never been able to get so up close and personal to birds, practically sitting next to them whilst they were feeding for worms. Amazing. It also reminded me how silence can be interpreted; during silence on my Yoga TTC a fellow student Yves used to have his food in silence but express his feelings though groans and moans whilst chewing on the food. An impersonation of 'When Harry met Sally' during a silent retreat is kinda weird.
There had to be some outlet of energy though and generally that happened when people relaxed 'too much' and in the men's toilets. I've never heard such an orchestra, even vs. the 'girls with gas' I met in Ladakh. To be fair, I'm glad I didn't do it in India as farting is an olympic sport there, it would have been like trying to keep a silent focus during last night of the proms.
There was one chance to speak every couple of days. You were invited to the front of the hall and the course leader would ask how you were getting on with the meditation. On my attempt to whisper after days of silence I came out like a castrami on every occasion with my vocal chords going back to their time when my voice was breaking - oh, so cool ;) Meditation is hard and sitting completely still is even harder. Pain is a big issue that people have with vipassana. Sitting on the floor, people's knees and backs scream with pain. And I was similar, 4 weeks on I'm still getting physio on my compressed nerve and at vipassana I was in agony everyday. Pain is part of the meditation as you have to learn not only to work with the breath to calm your mind but also to not react to sensations. It was ferkin hard!! Being an only child I don't like being alone with my thoughts at the best of times but I actually loved the breathing part, it was the pain that killed me.
Despite not having eye contact I still judged people as you have more time to think. 'That guy who took four pieces of fruit when you're only allowed two' or 'The guy who went to the toilet with the toilet seat down and didn't wash his hands'......classic. My favourite judgements though were:
A guy I called 'catweazle' after a really old UK kids show. There were all sorts of people on the course. From stockbrokers to hippies. This guy looked like he'd been sleeping in a cave for most of his life. And alot of people were coughing during the course as their bodies reacted to withdrawl from smoking/drinking etc but this guy coughed the loudest. He sounded like he was going to die everyday. I'm guessing his body was reacting to a not eating roadkill....
The course leader's wife. Satya Narayan Goenka was the person who took Vipassana global. After being lost from Indian culture, it was still practiced in Myanmar (Burma) and Goenka was the first teacher to bring it back to India and now c100 centres around the world. Every night there is a discourse video from Goenka. Very informative and surprisingly funny but the best part for me was when the camera (even the camera work is hilarious often with his ear as the centre of the shot) panned out to show his wife sitting next to him. He would be going full flow in lecture style and his wife just sat with no expression. EVERYTIME the camera panned out I longed for her to be doing a headstand, robot dancing, or looking at her watch and yawning. It never happened.
It was a stark reminder of a woman's role in India. Something which was depicted excellently in a recent Economist article.
Before the course started (before silence), I overheard a couple of guys talking about experiences with Mushrooms and Ayahuasca and I really wasn't sure what kind of course I was getting myself into. I have to admit though toward the end of the course when I was able to control sensations moving through my body it did remind me of the rush MDMA had given me in my youth......only difference was in Vipassana you had to remain 'equanimous' ie. not react. Well, I enjoyed it :)
On Day 8, I woke at 0400 with crazy shooting pains in my arm. My room mate must have thought I was mad as I spent alot of time in the room rubbing myself up against the radiator to try and get the heat into my compressed nerve. And, of course, I couldn't tell him what I was doing. Must have thought I had worms!
Despite the pain, I never thought about leaving Vipassana. I wanted to experience the full 10 days to see what happened no matter how hard it came. However, on Day 8 I was told I could go home. A course helper came to my room with a note saying my mum had been taken into hospital. I couldn't speak to her but found out that she was stable. The fact is with my mum is that despite looking healthy most of the time she has spent her life with a severe heart condition. She grew up in a wheelchair, was home schooled, has never done any sport and spent most of my childhood in hospital fighting endocarditis and now as a result ticks as she has titanium heart valves. She is vulnerable to anything. If she gets the flu it's bad news and in the last few months she had been diagnosed with crohn's and then whilst I was at vipassana she had collapsed with a ruptured disc. Painful for everyone but for her an issue due to the extra pressure on her heart. It was a big deal but I couldn't know the next steps until the afternoon. I went back into the meditation hall for the next session and it worked. I didn't react, I was possibly the calmest I've ever been despite hearing some pretty shocking news. The course head told me I could leave but I knew nothing would change until I spoke to my mum a few hours later so I waited then spoke to her and she was stable.
On Day 10 we stopped the noble silence. I checked my mum was OK and we started to all talk and share our experiences. Everyone I spoke to who had stayed had positive experiences and I was glad to finally speak to my roomie and explain my radiator rubbing obsession.
The journey home on Day 11 was very odd. Getting used to the noises of normal life was pretty special, even plugging in my headphones sounded as if I was hearing the music live. And I immediately noticed my reactions to and judgement of situations was different, reactions were different and that was good. But would it last?
I think the best thing to do after vipassana would be to gorge on all those happy hormones by dancing, drinking and sharing some love but for me I was happy to drive on a dark drizzly night to hospital and see my mum.
Life since has been pretty weird. My mum is stable and out of hospital. I was her full time carer for the first few weeks which in the early stages involved me getting up at 0530 to make sure she was ok and feed her morphine then, dress her, feed her porridge and look after her for the day. She's now alot better and we have a private care company looking after her but it was a big change and we are still waiting the outcome. It's weird to get to that age already where the parent/child role changes and I'm looking after my mum. I even filled the freezer with meals in tuppawear all labelled for her to heat up and eat. Something that she used to do for me as a teenager when my parents were on holidays! My mum is a legend. I've a feeling with all she's gone through she might just be a Highlander!
So has Vipassana worked for me? No. You are supposed to maintain it by practising for a minimum of 2 hours/day. I've been rushing into my mum's room with any sound of pain so that was never going to work but even in my normal world I cannot see it happening. I have been doing more breathwork though and that helps a lot. However, the fact remains that I saw the potential of meditation. It's very powerful. For now, I'm happy with just striving for balance by using some of those easier to reach happy hormones :)
If you are thinking of doing Vipassana or have done it and want to share any thoughts please comment below :)
"Vipassana is the art of living. Not the art of escaping"
S.N. Goenka
Here are some good links on vipassana:
Link to the food for Vipsanna in the UK - it's VERY good (if you're going to a course, don't click this....wait for the surprise) - click here
Good Blogs:
My friend Barbara. An Irish girl who completed 10 days despite having diahhorea
A three day diary (not sure how they wrote this!) proving the benefits of staying and 'switching off' the monkey mind (although they left after day three)
I had been expecting to come home to a month of Christmas socialising, home cooking and long days of yoga before job applications. That all changed when I found out that my mum was not on good form and I needed to be nurseflack for a while. Being a two person family team it took a bit of getting used to and meant I had to get on my pinny and be the cooker, cleaner and PA. Christmas didn’t really happen; for most of it I felt like I was in an episode of Andy and Lou pushing mum around in her wheelchair. But it did mean I got the chance to polish up my Indian cooking skills and after a bit of bickering remembered just how important family is.
For New Years my mum had her friends over to help out so I headed off to Ireland. I'd missed Ireland so much, from the fact that I saw more fake tan on the flight over to Dublin than I’d seen in the last year to the fact that I spent the entire flight talking abou the weather with an old couple from Wicklow. And once I got to Ireland life was simple: Tea/Cake/Tea/Cake/Guinness/Friends/Guinness/Friends/"I’ll put on the spuds”. I ended up by the fire listening to Irish Folk music at Johnnie Foxes one day. I’ve been to Johnnie Foxes lots of times but never gone into the tourist bar and this time went in by mistake and left in a blur of Guinness and crackin music grinning from ear to ear. I’ve missed Ireland badly.
Me tucking into a spuds based diet in Kerry with the lovely Deenihan family
New Years Eve was a cosy few pints with good friends down in Co.Kerry. My week there involved kids running around and constant children’s DVD’s. It was the opposite of my Christmas and all of a sudden I was glad to be back in the west (and even happier to be in West Ireland!). I noticed a massive boost in people’s optimism now that Ireland is out of the bailout and even caught one friend getting quite stressed over the new design of the front of the BMW range. She doesn’t even own a BMW - 1st world problems eh! And that’s where comments such as ‘welcome back to the real world’ start to sink in. The real world is what you make it but if it involves stress over aesthetics then I don’t want to be part of it.
What you face when you work in a developing country....
Ah Jaysus - it's killing me.....
oh and one other thing about the 'real world'.....
I've come back from long trips enough times to know that travelling is one of the best life experiences you can get. So New Years resolutions? I started travelling solo in my early 20s, then one year I made a resolution to leave the UK and go work in South America and it changed everything (a decision made over dinner with my friends at a New Years Eve party). I'd lived overseas before but all of a sudden I had an appetite for more diverse cultures and would love to see more people do the same. Lucky for me most of my mates are grounded enough to enjoy life wherever they are.
However, the goal of this blog was as a little memoir to myself but also to try and encourage more people to travel. And I don’t mean a two week package in Goa, Thailand or a caravan in Waterford. They are all well and good for holidays. I mean live with locals, work with locals, get sick with locals and love their life. You can get your thrills at the local theme park or jumping out of planes but trust me it is nothing compared to boarding a plane and travelling to an unknown place. Arriving knowing nothing - not the people, the language, whether your ATM card will work or if you have network coverage (unless you’re in a Vodafone advert and travel with a brand new tablet). In india this would equate to a bad Dr Who episode, arriving on a bus and seeing lots of people with wiggling heads marching towards you. Now that is a real adrenaline rush. Don’t cling to the illusion. It's one thing us lads doing it and I'll be continuing a bit more travel this month heading back to India in a month but the ultimate in adrenaline is a girl travelling alone. I love to see girls out there discovering the world with no makeup, a dusty pair of hiking boots and a confident stride. The hassle girls get from us boys back home is nothing compared to oogling eyes of foreign lads. Here's a salute to all those girls travelling solo :)
So I’m back in the west for a while. Christmas is possibly the worst time to return from an Indian rural based NGO project. Within 12 hours of getting off my plane I witnessed people fighting over a Turkey in a supermarket (Waitrose, no punches just a lot of superlatives); lucky for me I was still smiling from all the happiness that my 15 months away from such behavior has brought.
So firstly a THANK YOU for sharing the journey with me…….
Here's me on in my last week with some of the college kids at a gig in the local town....
and two of the funniest girls in India who I'll miss dearly Sujata (my sponsor child) and her BBF Renuka.....plus some random
A week before I left KSV I’d decided to organise a Bollywood dance teacher as a gift to the kids. Not as easy as you’d think. Despite western media suggesting that India is full of Sangitas and doing sexy bollywood dances around the streets that is far from the truth (public hip is only gyrating is only for the few travelled middle, upper classes and actors). However, we found one. Albeit a tubby middle aged guy who liked gold chains and spandex pants (a new concept for the kids). He cost 5000r (£50). That’s a crazy amount of money in rural India. Yet all he did was dance in front of the kids, he didn't teach them. The kids, however, loved it. It was a real goose pimples moment when you saw their little faces light up. The volunteers loved it too, I spent a lot of my time helping look after the precious dance instructor. Yet at one point when the floor filler Jai Ho came on I had about 8 kids hanging off me including one on my shoulders who was having so much fun that he trickled some wee down my back. I gave my camera to a college boy and he took some videos (luckily not of me being wee’d on); despite capturing the moment he seemed to think that you needed to keep pushing the video button. So this is a mashup of 1 second videos…….you should get the idea.
Over the next few days somehow the kids found out how much the teacher cost. I’m pretty sure he told them as he didn't stop talking about his spandex empire. A few of them said to me that for 5000RS they’d have taught the class themselves and spent the rest of the money on chocolate. Next time we’ll do that. Dancing and chocolate with no spandex - result.
I've been to a few Indian weddings. If India is a sensory explosion then the Indian wedding’s I’d been to earlier in the year had been Indian amphetamines. The day after the Bollywood class we went to a local staff member’s wedding. A Christian ‘love’ wedding. I've never seen such scared, sad faces on a bridal party. The sad truth of 90% of India where all of a sudden two strangers (I know this was a love wedding but they’d never even been in the same room together alone) were sat next to each other for hours with the daunting challenge of later seeing each other naked then trying that thing called sex that ‘everybody’ talks about yet the church said was sinister (reproduction = good, anything more = bad). Blimey that must be a confusing day. So I didn't really feel the love at the wedding. 15 white volunteers also attracted the wrong sort of attention as we were mere photo fodder getting more attention than immediate family and at one point being told to dance ‘we want the white people to dance’. We danced like monkies in the corner whilst the paparazzi snapped away.
Me with the college boys class from KSV at the wedding
NOT THIS Wedding (just to prove that I don't normally wear western feckin clothes to an India wedding - we were ordered to!)
The happy couple
The one thing I did love about the wedding was compliments; the bridal party looked great and we all complimented them but I’m talking about the general compliments by strangers. The female volunteers looked amazing. Saris are so complimentary (and that works the opposite way for big aunties with their low flying nipples and unguarded growlers) but these girls are all slim and pretty. Quite a treat for the eyes. Us western lads had to wear western clothes. It felt food to be out of dusty, muddy clothes although I’d grown quite accustomed to them. However, the compliments given by the Indians to us westerners once we scrubbed up. You always feel like a Hollywood star in India if you are white. That day I felt like a superhero ;)
The girls in their saris.....
To leave India I had to take a few buses and a 10 hour train to Bangalore. I’ve travelled a lot before and often spent my time thinking about what was going to happen next (which town, bar, girl, mountain). Whereas India for me was so much more present and in those last hours I sucked as much of this amazing country in as I could. I sat hanging out of the train door with my feet on the step watching the sunset and the farmers head home from a hard days labour in the fields. It was stunning. Then I got hit on the head by a plastic bottle, thrown out of the next carriage. It was India!
I made friends with a family sat opposite me in the carriage. Oddly their 4 month old girl was called Dixita. They’d name her after the pop star Raghu Dixit who I’d been working with as a supporter for KSV. A lovely baby, but as names go a bad choice. Dick Shit Ah. The family had an ingenious way of getting the baby off to sleep, a hammock tied up across the berths which she gently rocked in as her father showed me his brand new Samsung Tablet. Usually a sure sign of a middle class Indian. Their social education was soon confirmed, however, as, after changing the nappy in front of me they threw it out of the window. This is India!!
The sleeper class baby hammock - amazing :)
Out with good friends in Bangalore......my first beer in a LONG time just before boarding my plane
Leaving the subcontinent after 15 months was hard. I've been lucky enough to spend time travelling through SE Asia, South America, The Middle East and some of Sub Saharan Africa but for me India is the closest I've come to feeling like I’I've left this planet. Oddly despite living through a few earthquakes and monsoon within my first 48 hours back a climatic Armageddon hit the UK & Ireland.
Seriously......
A neighbour’s tree came down on our drive and I commented to said neighbour ‘everything happens for a reason’. They looked very confused and it soon hit me that I was no longer in the East!
Oddly the biggest thing I noticed once back was the change in food. My mum has crones so there is no spicy food in the house and having been used to spicy curry x3/day I had to get used to more bland cuisine.
I’m not sure if this is a direct result but all of a sudden I was farting 'less than I was not'. For the last 15 months (apart from when in a room with a lady) I fart more than I don’t which is kinda like having a jetpack on your back the whole time. Every boy’s dream, every mans nightmare. One advantage of being back. The rest, I didn't like so much - more in Pt II.
