India Revisited

An excerpt from my India travel blog (Travels & Tribulations) about my time in Pushkar is being published in Emails from India, edited by Janis Harper, issued by Seraphim Editions in September. 

I went through some old posts, pretending it was the same as visiting the people I miss. Nay milega...not possible. I'm putting a different one here, dated Friday January 25th, 2008. I'd arrived in Rajasthan a few days before, and ran into a friend from Vancouver who'd been at the ashram with me. She introduced me to a Satyananda yoga teacher and I ended up changing my ticket to stay longer so I could study with him.   

CENTRAL UNIVERSE SYSTEM  My previous yoga teacher (the one before Swami Shyam Lal, a.k.a India's answer to Kris Kringle) said once, "this position is for to benefit the central universe system" but then corrected himself and said "central nervous system." I prefer the first version.

Like that old saying goes, "Seven days without prayer makes one weak," two days without yoga practice makes for a shamefully disgraceful Tree pose. I thought I was going to knock over the gal on the next mat. I managed a bird-named pose, and I held the position for one-one-millionth of a nano-second, which I thought was pretty good. Heck if I can remember what that asana is called but it's something like peacock or you've got to be kidding me. It involves lifting and holding your entire body weight onto your arms, as you tuck your knees into your armpits, sort of. Of course, the holding was where I was faltering. All right, if you want to get picky about it, the lift was no graceful manoeuvre either. I felt about as agile as a NASA Space Shuttle trying to blast off: imagine the energy that ignites that heap o' engineered metal. I huffed and puffed, wheezed and coughed, and nearly blew my own house down on the way to that serene place promised in all those glossy magazine pictures of yoga practitioners. 

I did get of the ground, momentarily. I can't tell you what a major accomplishment that is, considering the amount of chips, chocolate, tea biscuits, Bourbon Cream Cookies, chocolate croissants and sugary chai I've consumed. That's pure white sugar I'm talking about. I'm one step away from free-basing it. Yes, this is how I deal with seeing mass poverty around me, I stuff my face with junk food.

Enlightenment is a gracefully executed hop, skip and a jump away: I can just feel it.Sigh. It's a little too cold to feel anything really. My hands are numb and it was so windy at class this morning that my yoga mat kept blowing up to smack me in the arse. It's hard not to see that sort of thing as a sign, y'know?

The thing is, I still get to look out over Pushkar Lake as I try to do the Triangle pose. I'm supposed to be looking at my hand, but my neck doesn't want to go that way. I'm trying! [As that famous muppet Yoda said, "Do or not do! There is no try." I wouldn't hire me to be a Jedi knight either. Besides, I'm a Trekkie.] I see the temple next to the yoga centre as I balance in standing pose. [Oh, yeah, you think it's soooo easy to stand. You're deluded.] I see the ghats when I turn right. Then I see the German bakery when I leave and all feels full with my central universe system.

That's all she wrote (and edited for this post-within-a-post.) Is that a meta post? Post-post? I'd be hard pressed to say. I can't wait to get my copy and read about the adventures of my fellow travellers: Janis Harper [the brains behind the book and the editor], Ashlee Petrucci, Beverley Reid, Bronwyn McBride, Denyse Johnson, Farah Ghuznavi, Heather Conn, Jann Everard, Jasmine Yen, Jennifer Waescher, Jennifer Zickerman, Jill Stock, K. Lorraine Kiidume, Kathryn Sutton, Lauren Van Mullem, Leanne Leduc, Leah Sherry, Liz Snell, Margaret Miller, Mariken Van Nimwegen, Morelle Smith, Renée Sarojini Saklikar [I know her! Her book, children of air india, is forthcoming from Nightwood Editions in October 2013 - I've read excerpts, you'll want to pick this up], Sarah Mian, Sonja Bricker, Ulrike Rodrigues, and  Vawn Himmelsback.