what to do when you haven't blogged for a few days? use that ol' Hollywood technique of the montage, you know, the part of the movie when they play music and the great drama in the movie is resolved...by a montage of images...
breaking up with your ayurvedic health practitioner...Lee and I signed up at Swastha, an Ayurvedic health clinic in Gokulam....Ayurveda is an ancient Indian system of health, a wholistic way of treating an individual's physical and mental health...I've read a bit about Ayurveda and, long term I'd like to read and possibly study a lot more...the Swastha clinic is run by a young Ayurvedic doctor, who puts together a program for yoga students/ active people...he had Lee initially agreeing to a 21 day program, which I got 7 days through. It consisted of daily massage with lots...and lots of oil, in the capable hands of 2 massage guys and then the good doctor would come in for some heavy massage work...about an hour's worth of massage, then hot, hot herbal packs prepared on the stove and tamped all over the body...too hot sometimes :) the whole routine challenged some of man/ man intimacy ideas i had, not that i want to jump the fence, but i feel a lot more comfortable being butt naked and lubed up in the presence of dudes...
aside from that...the treatment involved a steam chamber on day 4, which knocked the stuffing out of me...and then some castor oil ingested on day 6...which was a really effective treatment getting fully flushed out...BUT, along with yoga practise, it was a bit too much, so i resolved to finish after 7 days. this breakup went smoothly, I told Lee and Natalie that I was finishing after 7...and they actually broke the news to the doctor...a painless breakup for me. So back to the practise today (May 4th), with no Ayurvedic treatment - and a really strong practise. So much so, that Saraswati is having me start Salabasana on Wednesday - apparently no new posture day on Tuesdays
I went with Alex downtown - me keen on checking out Ashok's - a renowned book store in the city...Alex to pick up some tailoring from Rashinkar's - Ashok's is great - I picked up the 3rd Stephanie Meyer and a dictionary for scrabble at Santosha...
then off to Rashinkar's for Alex...who ended up engrossed, so I took off to try to find some ipod speakers in KT Street...i ended up in a section of the city where gold, silver and precious stone shops are clumped together...then there was a parade down one of the tiny side streets, and, for some reason having a westerner in the parade is good luck, so they pull me in for a bit of a dance - tho i'm not sure why they're parading, i go along for a bit, then opt out...a young local called Imran catches me asking for speakers, then offers to take me to KT street, along the way he tells me that he's from Goa, studying Ayurveda in Mysore. Imran's looking to finish his studies in Mysore then go back to Goa and open his own practise. Imran tells me about an oil factory that presses it's own sandalwood, lotus, hash, opium oil...i'm interested but some other time, not so much in the hash and opium, but some good, cold pressed oils would be great to get a hold of...finally, to KT street (electronic goods hub in Mysore) and the first store has a decent sub woofer and small speaker set - a brand called Frontech...for Rs 1300...I offer 1000, we agree on 1175 - i'm kind of getting the hang of this...the other notable interaction of the trip was lassi's at Bombay Tiffany's - very...very good...i had to take a second...
and yesterday, Sunday May 3rd, I was talking with a new arrival who I met at Om Cafe - James, from Hawaii via Singapore, about getting a guitar - he gave me good directions to a music store in the city, so after meeting up with Ben for a midday chai and mango crisp at Santosha, I took off on the scooter and badly followed James' direction, ending up instead at Chamundi Hill - definitely on my to do list, but a long, long way from my intended destination. Chamundi Hill sits imposingly over Mysore and I found myself riding along and somehow drawn to it, then up it...a local waved me down for a lift up the hill. If he'd known that I'm a newbie on the scooter he might not have waved me down...when we were pressed against the side of the road by a tourist bus going up the hill and overtaking us, he would have definitely been having second thoughts! I dropped him nearly at the top and rode on up...for a brief look around - reckon I'll be back this weekend for a betterer look round sunrise, when it's a bit quieter...
getting home was circuitous - i ended up on the road back to Bangalore, finally making my way back to Gandhi Square in the city, from where I'm now adept at getting back to Gokulam...where an afternoon Dosa, an afternoon Chaat, an evening ice cream and a game of Carrom with Elizabeth, Ben and Oden took place :)
which brings us to today, watch out for the next montage ;)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment