People Watching In Pushkar

People watching over Pushkar, a delightful relief from jostling Jaipur, it jostles still, but in a much more spacious, laid-back affair. Men wrapped in amber and ochre, women draped in fuscia pink and emerald green, young guys in paisley shirts and pashmina scarves so common in the Rajasthani state. The sounds of slow, beat-heavy Hindi play out from the ‘Baba Rooftop Café’, remixed by the high-pitched beeps and honks of the horns emanating from ground-level; if India was to be summed up by a sound, surely after the holy aum, the horn would be it.  

The pilgrimage town of Pushkar is constructed around a holy lake, forming the centre stage of this destination.  Fifty-two gates surround the pious body of water, elaborately painted in Hindu iconography and the aesthetically pleasing Sanskrit script.  Pigeon filled, concrete steps and ghats for bathing line all sides of the lake, a vision of stone and water, mountains and sky.  The landscape is a cluster of low storey, straight edged, buildings - blocks of concrete covered in square windows, mostly off-white or cream, with the occasional, and beautifully contrasting, baby pink or azure blue.

From within this Lego brick town, elaborate spires and rounded domes protrude, reaching up into the sky from the temples below.  Palatial buildings pepper the cityscape, their majesty best absorbed from afar, with sweeping bell-shaped rooftops and countless arches lining their walls.  On closer inspection, the arches are intricately yet perfectly carved surrounded by decorative painting and tiled mosaic, so beautiful despite the dirt and dust gathered over many, many years. 

Long tailed langurs hop from ledge to ledge, bouncing gracefully over concrete that appeared to give little purchase.  But the most eye-catching of animals in this town had to be the birds which circled the lake in swarms of hundreds.  These pigeons were clearly more refined than their urban, city-dwelling cousins back in London, feathers smooth and clean, glimpses of purple and green flashing in the sun.  They collected on the ghat steps en-masse, pecking at corn scattered by purity-seeking pilgrims, and lined the corrugated steel rooftops that jutted out over the concrete steps surrounding the area.  A sudden, whoosh roars from above, seconds later a grey cloud of birds takes to the air, briefly taking flight but only so far as to the neighbouring rooftop where they simultaneously take their seat. Minutes later the whoosh booms again, and the army of feathered comrades rise up and return back to the preceding perch.

This pigeon ping-pong continues, undecipherable to the human eye, as to the reason for this continual switching of rooftops. I could happily stand here a while enjoying the avian storm, the bird’s thunderous take-off followed by the lightning fast flurry of wings a sensory delight.  However, this place is rich with such sensory nourishment and meandering strolls are bountiful with further sustenance.  

Across all edges of the water semi-clad bathers absolve their sins, with cupped hands they scoop up the holy water, lifting it over head, placing droplets across the crown, before moving fingertips down over closed eyes, ears and finally to the throat.  This ritualistic gesture, a bath of purification, clearing away samsara and sin.  ‘Priests’ are numerous, offering puja, a personal blessing, yet some wear Adidas jumpers and Nike shoes, not what comes to mind when you conjure up a mental image of such a person. Unsurprisingly, such charlatans will affirm that the more money one donates the more good luck for their family, an amusing interpretation of God’s way, akin to a heavenly bodyguard hired for protection, ‘you give ten pound English money for each your family member’.  I proffer that I don’t think God works like this before giving one good, old, English pound for my whole clan. Protect us all, dear God, that’s at least 10p a head. 

Moving away from the lake, it is not long before the tourist driven stalls echo the small lanes of Laxman Jhula back in Rishi’. The usual collection, silver bangles, macramé bracelets, mirror-clad embroidered bags and tie-dye clothes. No harm to peruse and much less hassle from the sellers, window shopping is an enjoyable pastime here.  Gemstones feature highly, being a central item of Rajasthani trade. Everything from camel-leather bags to clipper lighters are adorned with round, polished stones. Tiger’s eye, labradorite, turquoise, quartz, jaspers in all the colours, a meteorological mecca. Brass jewellery and pretty, painted bowls and ashtrays glitter in the afternoon sun.  Cheap, easy spending, purchases you could never really need. Gorgeous embroidered door hangings, fabric archways covered in coloured thread, mosaic tiled lanterns, a decorators dream for interior design.  

Further along stalls become more practical, fruit and veg traders, flower sellers, chai,panipuri, and katchori, a mung bean filled, spicy spaceship shaped snack, deep fried pastry not unlike a samosa.  Following the locals is always the best tactic here, the stall attracting the most patrons always the wallah of choice.  The sweet and sour mango sauce teamed with the heat of the curried potato filling is rewarding, this fifteen-rupee breakfast stupid to resist. 

Freddie Mercury, the chai wallah

A selection of almost identical rooftop cafes provide further opportunity for relaxing and surveying the surroundings.  Common to all are the painted wicker chairs, the red, yellow, green so synonymous with the Rastafarian culture which easily overlays the shanti shanti Indian way, pictures of Bob Marley and paintings of babas smoking chillums cover the walls.  Cotton lanterns swing from the rafters, fake, gaudy flowers dotted across the tables, ceiling fans painted messily in bright, fluorescent paint. My former days in Thailand endow me with the fitting phrase same same, but different, and this comes to mind often here. Same shit, different diaper might be another perspective of this phrase. 

What surprises me most is the lack of any congregation of travellers. I see couples and singles, the sign of the traveller often being the loosely draped pashmina scarf and baggy harems. But here and in Jaipur, I have been yet to see places brimmed with backpackers, areas where many tourists can be spied in close proximity.  Here I begin to deepen my understanding on the sheer size of this country.  Unlike the small countries of Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, where wanderlusting westerners cannot avoid becoming part of a mini-microcosm of its own, here the vast lands of India allow for a more sparse, spread-out dissemination.  In the space of twenty hours I have frequented five of these rooftop residencies and each time have shared the space with only two or three of my travelling counterparts.  It’s nice. An easy, peaceful affair.  Pushkar differs from Rishikesh in this respect, back in Rishi’ the cool, chill out cafes often throng with spiritual seekers, lounging lazily on futon mattresses, propped up by bolsters, gazing out over the flowing water of Ganga Ma. Cafes and restaurants have no shortage of orders for drinks and food, a steady stream echoing the river, flow on from morning until night. In Pushkar the pace is much slower, but a trickle compared to the former. Again, it’s nice.  Chefs take time preparing dishes and creamy matar masalas and spicy palak paneers showcase this readily.  No rush, shanti shanti, fresh food and fluffy chapatti worth the wait. 

And herein contains a perspective-altering take on life, to a life where this is no waiting, instead only being, and thus enjoying things as they come.  In a country where there is so much to observe, admire and meditate on, no time need be considered waiting, a wait implying an imposition, a window of lacking, awaiting fulfilment of a desired service. Instead all time is just being, presence, peaceful occupation, free from thoughts or pressing matters. Watching the comings and goings before one’s eyes, easy amusement to keep on entertained.  This kind of time is then punctuated with the arrival of sweets, drinks, snacks, the bus or train – just points at which the experience is varied or enhanced in some way; we are not waiting here. We just are. Here. In India. And it’s magnificent.  

As the smell of rose water wafts by my nose I bring this to a close and head off for another dose of Pushkar, a place where the energy is light and comforting, like a gentle hug and pat on the back, or perhaps more fitting, like sitting in the lap of the the Gods. Interestingly, Pushkar houses one of the only Brahma temples in the world, thus perhaps it is the energy of Brahma, the creator, which is felt here.

Om Satchit Ekam Brahma, I offer my prayers to Brahma who is one with the universe. 

A peachy day in the Pink City of Jaipur

After just one day Jaipur exceeded any kind of idea that I might have had about the place. I hear ‘big city’ and I think silver, shiny, metal, glass, straight lines, pavements, cityness. The Pink City is certainly none of these things. Arriving on a sleeper bus - plush mattress, bunk-bed cabin, very fitting for a futuristic Japanese scene -from Rishikesh, bidding goodnight to the Himalayas and grand risings to the desert state of Rajasthan. Eyes opening, sleepily gazing through the window of the bus, not expecting to be greeted by the majesty of a huge, rugged elephant, slowly and steadily plodding along with his load. The mahout lying atop limply, reflecting the early hour of the day. Next the pink hues of the city begin to register; walls, gates, scaffolding, everything a dusky shade of pink. We pass the gates to the city for the first time, their grandeur and beauty suddenly yet subtly, stirring something within, like a wide eyed child spotting the candy floss at the fairground. Jaipur, here you are, you stately, old, gent! There is a masculine energy in the air here, an air of pride and refinery. Amid the pale rose facades and salmon bollards, a feminine beauty that cannot be denied, the male presence evades. The atmosphere is vibrant, the morning hour bringing the chai drinkers to their source. Small food bizaars bustle with the chit-chat of morning business, and bold dark eyes roam unrestrained on the two foreigners sharing the breaking of fast. Unrevealing faces slip easily into smiles at the faintest grin and kind eyes twinkle as the grin spreads. No words are required in a country such as this, together smiles and eyes express warmly the greetings and curious recognition of the other. The eyes of the people are different here, in Rishikesh faces exude the very essence of the people, shanti shanti, peace and love shine out from relaxed eyes.  In Jaipur the eyes are piercing, intense stares reveal dark depths. Here are faces which reflect a lifetime of striving, eyes accustoming to darting around quickly, continually assessing the environ, ready to detect the next potential source of fruition, hungry eyes, a hunger for opportunity. 

Chill Out hostel - our open air bedroom :) and Ajeet :)

Short tuk-tuk rides turn quickly into promises of unforgettable days of sight seeing and chauffeur driven Jaipur jaunts, our driver, Bilal, has a sweet yet hard edged veneer. With little planning and even littler stress we find ourselves at Chill Out hostel, its rooftop beds and bohemian lounge instantaneously had us beaming. Perhaps Jaipur is not going to be a one night stop off after all.  Our finely clad host, Ajeet, beard full and groomed, attentively chats, showering smiles and compliments, those kinds of meetings full of energy and happy enthusiasm. He takes my compliments on his fine, paisley shirt and curled toe Aladdin style leather slippers gracefully, that he was nothing more than scruffy in his mother’s eyes.  Ajeet was a cool guy. Not long passes until he returns, pen and paper in one hand, fat joint in the other, eyes shining, and plonks down himself down with a list of his recommendations he’s already begun. The list continues to grow, as he excitedly recalls other places he wants to add, here is a man clearly with much love and admiration from his home city and it was nice to receive this heart-felt, home-felt, itinerary thoughtfully put together by a fellow that, half hour ago had yet to know us. Indian people are like that, they will help you to the last degree, if they can, which they often passionately enthuse that they can, because sub kuch miliga, everything is possible. In India it probably is.

After some time spent chilling on the rooftop we hit the streets to take a stroll and catch our bearings. Much amusement is to be had doing simple things, like looking at all the different sweets and crackers in the sweet shop; sugary gulab jamon, rich, creamy barfiand peda, spicy namkeen, aka Bombay mix, to you and me, a captivating array of colours, shapes and textures. Buying biscuits on the street is an even more titillating matter, pointing at boxes, wanting to try everything, throwing in many small Hindi words, vah, yah, thora, chikki, only glimpses of a language, said with an air of fluency, enticing a flurry of hard and fast Hindi from the dawdlers hanging around this candy wallah.  The next shop brings pineapple juice, sweet and yellow, freshly and readily prepared, served immediately, no wait at allm as we parked our behinds on the old, plastic stools, ubiquitous with Asia. The paltry fifteen rupee recompense for this satiating cold drink was just one of the small smiles and surprises India often brings. 

No surprise we end up in another tuk-tuk and this time, after a stop at the fruit wallah, a trip this driver was kindly bestowing upon two papaya desiring stoners, our driver takes us to his family’s textile shop and we are, before we know it, the audience to a impassioned pitch displaying the elaborate and desirable cloths and silks of Rajasthan. Layer after layer of cotton and silk are thrown over us, soon giving the rise to the Raj within, feeling quite queenly a top the sofa adorned in throws.  What started as a firm resolution that there was nothing in this shop that I could possibly want, I’m soon shaking hands on a deal for a block printed Rajasthani bed sheet, a cotton and silk bed cover and a soft, silky pashmina just for good measure. Right there, right then, the feelings was as if I had indeed sought out this shop for these items, I was chuffed. I’d found the things I didn’t even know I wanted, and yes, no problem that I will have to find a post office and mail this to England and blah blah blah. Hahaha, it was just a bewitching experience indeed. I guess this was enhanced by, Ali Baba, the shop owner, reading my aura and telling me all kinds of existential things about myself – which has actually happened a few times here now, and weirdly, or maybe not so, they all say pretty much the same thing. I take my leave after around twenty minutes of prophesising with my sage, not to forget the meeting with his guru that has been arranged for tomorrow.  His words will make my hairs stand on end, or so Ali Baba assures. 

Round about now, the days fares are calling for a retreat to the rooftop and more chai, until we suddenly realise we are no longer in Uttarkhand – Rishikesh, and there are actually beer shops here! So a few Kingfishers are secured and we head up to spend an evening doing much chilling, little moving, nice chatting. A great, great first day on the road. The energy of Jaipur is vibrant. 

Day Two in Jaipur brings a different energy, the frenetic traffic and incessant honking of horn is enveloping, the warm air heavy with dust and the invisible poison emitted from the sea of a diverse array of transportation streaming in every possible direction. Dusty, clapped out cars, bright yellow and green, buzzing tuktuks, rickety, spindly, old rickshaws heaving, and grey buses, sapphire blue and pink lorries, hand-painted with Sanskrit lettering and the ever present Om, motorbikes and scooters, carrying one, two, three passengers, or balancing gravity defying loads, precariously ridden bicycles, the occasional camel, horse or even elephant, share the road here, in a chaotic yet subconsciously synchronised flow.  The horn is imperative, used differently in the West, this is not the angry admonishment from one driver to another, this is the beacon, the alert system, ‘I’m here, coming through, step not unto my path’ – and it works, no crashs, no collisions, just plenty of close calls, near misses, and exhilarating thrills for the brave hearted that ride this mighty beast.  Small children weave through the traffic touting items seemingly useless to the captive market. The kohl ringed eyes of a young girl appear through our tuktuk window, a small, thin wrist holds out a red balloon on a stick, just what I was thinking would be useful in this bubbling soup of traffic.  She remains despite a clear lack of a sale, until the road roars and she is forced to slip away, a faint smile leaving her lips as she holds my gaze with those deep, dark eyes. It is these moments, looking into the people’s faces that leaves one contemplating life here, to be born into such a unrelenting walk of life. 

Before long, it is evident that today’s driver, Abhi, is not the trusty steed, his stuttering English quickly becoming a source of irritation, requiring much time and attention every time he speaks. His intentions were fairly pure but with only one day to explore this city we wanted not only a guide who could show and tell us a little about the city, but someone able to give us a chilled out day cherry picking the best sights and cool spots, those off the beaten track locations, giving a snippet into real Jaipur. Abhi was not the man and after going with him to his textile shop yesterday and leaving laden with goods we harboured no guilt at our desire to replace him with a better model. Knowing the persistence of the Indian counternance the best port of call was to escape via the local market, where we had planned to stop to find food. Stepping out of the Asian golf-buggy, we grease Abhi’s palm with two hundred rupees, muttering changes of plan, we hastily disappear into the throng of people, not looking back, yet feeling a pang of something a leaving Abhi standing wondering what he had done wrong. It was easier then explaining that we just didn’t want to spend the day with him, stuttering Stanley, and his lack of tour guide intuition. 

The market served as an experience in itself, a suffocating, yet fun detour. The dusty floor littered with plastic, unidentified trash, heavily trodden, embedded into the ground.  Bodies moved forward as one, occasionally halting for a stream of people going against the grain. Tarpaulin covered stalls lined both sides of every walkway of the market, swarms of shoppers formed small crowds at each station, eagerly grabbing, quickly studying, and just as rapidly throwing back down whatever this wallah was trading, here was a lot of fabric and textiles, a lot, forming piles of colour at the feet of thin, old men, stroking long grey moustaches. This was a muslim market, contrasting the colourful saris worn by Hindu ladies, here the women wore top to toe black, faces covered, black-lined eyes, framed and thus beautifully enhanced.  I follow suit, adjusting my headscarf accordingly, over my hair and immediately feel the comforting shield of concealment forming somewhat of a barrier from curious eyes. 

We navigate our way to the perimeter and into a small alley, laughing as we mused if Abhi was searching the market for us. Nourishment was our aim, a local food joint should suffice, the journey yielding further opportunity to see local life by foot.  Our presence was clearly equally as interesting to the local folk, and one must become accustomed to being watched and studied at every moment.  It also helps to become familiar with unsolicited interruptions from unabashed Indian men, stepping face to face asserting something unknown in Hindi. At first my naïve nature assumed something was up with whatever we were doing, this food shop wasn’t open or this place was only for drinks but one quickly realises this is not the case, and we actually have a poacher in our midst. Indian people feel no shame at seeking to lead you to part with your cash at any opportunity, even when you have already sought a recipient for this particular transaction. We take our seats inside the dark hole in the wall that was our chosen dhaba, food spot, and begin to survey the scene and work out what we will eat here. The guy from the street has followed us in and stands over us, firing out questions. ‘What your country?’ ‘In India you how long?’ ‘You have sigret?’ ‘You come here my shop’. Eventually it pays off to point outside and politely tell him ‘tum jao udhar’, literally ‘you go there’, a subtler way to say GO AWAY! At these times I’m happy with my small but growing grasp of the Hindi language. I’m sure this will not be the last time this phrase is drawn from the bag.

Rishikesh Revelations, the journey to another dimension.

Rishikesh post, take two. My initial post transgressed into more of a personal account of my departure from London and my transition to life in India, so I wanted to write a more Rishikesh-specific post, about a place that deserves it greatly. 

Where to begin though? Perhaps a fitting place to start would be a dissection of it’s name, Rishikesh, which will provide the perfect spiritual entry point. So, rishi means sage, or prophetic seer, and refers to the holy men, babas, living in caves in the foothills of the Himalayas.  

These gifted ‘seers’ were blessed with the divine revelations that were to become the Vedas, India’s most holy ancient Hindu scriptures. The area itself has further significance in being destined as the place for Lord Rama, ninth apparition of Lord Vishnu, to remain, in exile, for the murder of evil demon, Ravana, in a battle over Rama’s wife.  Rama and his brother Laxman, crossed the mighty Ganga on a bridge made of rope, and now, hundreds of years later, these significant spots on the river are marked by the city’s two famous bridges, Ram Jhula and Laxman Jhula, narrow metal suspension bridges, stretching across the watery rapids below. 

The city is known as the ‘Gateway to the Himalayas’ and paves the way to further religiously important locations, such as Kedarnath and Gangotri.  Thousands of pilgrims flock to this spiritual hub of ancient temples, to pay penance and absolve their sins. Moksha seeking travellers, come here to find their slice of kaivalaya, to experience ananadamaya, a blissful state of nirvana.  From this brief history, the vibe of this special place should be coming clear.  

If Hindu tales don’t paint the picture for you, simply consider witnessing the turquoise waters of Mother Ganga, flowing steadily; icy glacial waters, at the start of their journey down through the rest of India.  The holy river the foreground for the mountainous backdrop of never ending hills.  Being up close to the mighty river and Himalayan mountain range, the energy is palpable and different from any other place I have yet to experience. 

A scientific approach may put this down to the heavy presence of negative ions, produced by this flowing water and hilly terrain.  Negative ions cling to positive ions, accumulated by electromagnetic radiation from technology, WiFi, smartphones.  Negative ions neutralise these, having a positive effect on the body, most evident after walks in nature, through the forest or by the sea.  

For this very reason, Himalayan salt lamps have made their way across the globe, a popular modern take on the ancient Ayurvedic healing powers of this pink, rock salt.  If a soccer-ball sized lump of this salt, placed in the corner of a bedroom, can give health-boosting energetic benefits, imagine what being next to the whole damn mountain range can do.  I’ll say it again, the energy here is strong!  Shiva lives here, in the mountains, an omniscient presence all around, and the Ganga flows with the powerful energy of Kali, the complex consort of my divine, sky-blue, God.  

Unsurprisingly this place has become a spiritual haven of yogic and meditative practices, even given the impressive moniker of ‘Yoga Capital of the World’.  That it certainly was, with more yoga schools than one can possibly imagine, and almost as many gurus offering new-age healing practices, Reiki, womens circles, cacao ceremonies, sound massage, tantra, the list goes on. I dabbled in them all and had phenomenological experiences which serve as testimony to the powerful healing such activities offer.  

The two bridges, a few kilometres apart, demarcated the two main zones of this tourist-orientated town. Ram Jhula housed the domestic travellers, Indian residents, coming to Rishikesh to worship, and take selfies on the bridge.  Laxman Jhula was the Western end, backpacker central, peppered with cafes, serving freshly ground coffee and vegan cakes.  

Most guesthouses also offer daytime excursions, to mountain top temples for sunrise, or on rubber dinghies down the rushing rapids of the river.  Signs for these added to the plethora of advertising boards that detailed yoga schedules and the odd satsang that enshrouded every doorway and step, turning walls into huge wordsearches, a befuddled smorgasbord of fonts and lettering, an overload of information, resulting in all becoming too much to visually comprehend.   

At night, as the wind whistled up the Ganga, the streets became eerily quiet, barely a soul to be seen, cows lying every which way but loose, dogs howling.  Stilted, riverside hang-outs brimmed with dread-headed, charas smoking, spiritual dilettantes, mostly Israeli, talking chakras and where to get Bhang lassi.  These small, wooden structures came alive with the rhythmic, ear-pleasing beats of djembes and deeply resonating vibes from impressively played didgeridoos.  

It was hippy paradise, just to sit back and absorb it all, sipping on a hot ginger-honey-lemo, passing the dutchie to the left hand side.  Although the potent snot green sensimilla of the Netherlands was distinctly absent here, if weed is your thing, then it’s the brown bush-weed of nature’s bounty that you will find here.  An amusing little reminder of Brixton, and the ‘mersh’ smoking Rastas that became friends of sorts, occupying the stoop of my nearest William Hill. However, it was charas that featured highly here.  Supposedly the hand-rolled product of Himalaya's finest.  Hash was smoked everywhere, carefully rolled joints, decorated the fingers of many a Caucasian, whereas the chillum was the weapon of choice by those wanting to further aquaint themselves with the habits of the ochre-robed babajis that lined the streets and slept like corpses on unforgiving benches made of cement.

Cows roamed freely everywhere here; great horned creatures, with the cutest baby calves, fur still matted and wet signalling their arrival on to this Earth.  Huge, great bulls, with shining coats; long-lashed and stunning, toffee-brown beauties, with knobbly, bony legs; rotund, creamy white ones, more short and stumpy; and the greatly esteemed Krishna cow, humongous creatures, sporting a protruding hump just behind the head, the cow often depicted in Gopala, under the loving and protective eye of Shri Krishna and his sixteen thousand Gopi milk maidens. 

Perpetually honking horns blared ear-piercingly from the jeeps that served as taxis here, rather monstrous vehicles to be hurtling through the broken, crooked, and more worryingly - narrow streets, passing by a hair's breath.  There was no end to the even more annoyingly pitched signals from the scooters that whizzed through gaps as quickly as they opened up between said jeeps and everything else that contributed to the traffic of these roads. The holy cow was the only traffic control here, the only thing

revered highly enough to find another way around. 

The jam-packed bridges transformed into the stuff of nightmares during peak times, with wailing motorbike horns, impolitely forcing their way through an already high-congested walkway of people, monkeys and cows.   Not to mention the large groups of Indian families, causing actual road-blocks, stopping to snap whole-family photos of their clan, suspended across the Holy river on the equally holy and auspicious bridge.

Infamous Bridge Selfie!

 With gargantuan population size in India I guess there is just too many people to wait for a quiet moment, so the approach is to just do whatever you want and not consider the hundreds of people at a stand-still, waiting for you to move on. Brits would be far too abashed and apologetic to even dare try pull this kind of behaviour, I'm sure of it! Pausing, ever so briefly, in the path of a power-walking commuter during London rush hour would likely get you enough admonishment and loathing, never mind hold up the whole of London Bridge! 

The scooters and motorbikes crossing these narrow hanging, metal bridges crammed full of people and animals was almost too much. Motorbikes! Some with two, or three, or maybe even four people on them! Bikes which just honk, and honk, and honk, until they reach the other side. 

I understood how the horn was used in India, as a signal of one’s presence, rather than an angry retort, but in situations like this, the horn-honking baffled me, where did these two-wheeled riders expect pedestrians to go, to hop over into the depths of the Ganga, or perhaps join the macaques, balanced high up on the steel wires of the bridge? Riders were literally rubbing shoulders with the pedestrians, the honking of the horn was ludicrous, a whisper would even suffice in this state of affairs!

It was a crazy place.  Like nothing I’d experienced. A high-vibrational, multi-dimensional nirvana, blended with the chaos and noise that was India’s most noticeable trait.  Chaos. Beautiful, unpredictable chaos. 

Meditations by the river were powerful, eyes close, plug in, blast off. I had physically moving experiences here, full body convulsions, waves of vibrating energy, Kundalini rising, strange computer-like voices, flashbacks into previously visited dimensions, under the veil of DMT. It. Was. Deep. I’ve never felt such a strong connection, and three months spent here, left me feeling like a completely different person from that girl in London, just a few months before.  It wasn’t all plain-sailing, with a few existential conundrums, not unlike Arya Stark, becoming ‘no-one’, an answer that often came to my mind when asked my name.  Shedding all this baggage of the matrix style rat-race that is London life left me feeling a bit lost and confused, no longer having any real ambitions or desires, other than just to be, to exist here in this holy town. And this was fine. For now, I’ll just float along, like the river, fully surrendering into the hands of the Gods. 

ADDENDUM: 

Three months on, as I sit in a café in South Goa, I have the liberty of further insight into this existential unravelling that Rishikesh instigates. That sacred place up there in the mountains, sitting on some powerful laylines, a portal of some kind, is powerful. The effect it has is one of removing all the layers to one’s identity that have been created, mostly externally, through society, conditioning, programming, life.  All the ‘stuff’ that makes us who we ‘think’ we are. All the rubbish. The energy of Rishikesh peels this all away. And what lies beneath is pure being. Who we truly are. Just cosmic energy, from the source. This feeling of no-one, as scary as it felt at times; this feeling of lack of ambition, lack of desire, loss of interest in all the stuff that had at other times seemed so important, was just the melting away of the unreal. To experience that feeling of being no-one, nothingness, just being, was something I will cherish forever. Over the following weeks, as I travelled through Rajasthan, I felt the connection weaken, and by the time I got to Goa, my sense of Self began to return. ‘Oh yeh, this is who I am’. However this time, one can really pick up just the pieces that are important, what one really wants to be. I feel more grounded, more confident, more laid back, more free.  I have less worries and anxieties, less pressure to achieve, less stress to make things work.  I carry great happiness and gratitude in my heart to have had this experience that gave me a deeper insight into what existence could really be. And I’ve realised why Rishikesh is such an important pilgrimage site.  It is certainly no place for permanent residence. Rather, it is a haven, to return to, whenever one needs; a reminder that we really are no-one, and most of what we think we are, we are not.  In the words of Morpheus to Neo ‘Don’t think you are, know you are’ – and with this, know that you are no-one ;)

Satyam-Shivam-Sundaram - the truth, beauty and Godliness about my YTT in Rishikesh

Oh Rishikesh

'Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shambo-ooooooo, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shambo'. Take a stroll through the small, cluttered streets of Rishikesh and this melodious mantra is sure to come drifting softly through the open front of one tourist-tat shop or another. Here we are, in the lap of the Gods. Welcome to Swargashram! You have arrived.

After three months in this high-vibrational spiritual haven, in the foothills of the Himalayas, bathing in Mother Ganga everyday, surrounded by babas and yogis, the energy there certainly left an impression.  It’s hard to avoid clichés like peeling back layers, shedding skin, but it’s these phrases which come to mind when I contemplate my experience there.  Away from the grind of city life in London, the responsibilities of adulthood, carving a career and making rent, existential pontifications take centre stage.  And it keeps coming back to just being - an answer to the frequently asked 'what are you doing here, what did you come for?' Just to be. To exist in the land of the Gods, in the home of Shiva and his mighty mountains.

Yoga was the vehicle which brought me here. Embarking on a 200 hour yoga teacher training course was how I began, the least intimidating start to a new life in India, after selling most of my belongings and leaving my residence in London Town.  The first week had additional challenges; failing to collect my bags in Delhi, thus missing my connecting flight and spending my first day on Indian soil, in an airport, sat on a luggage trolley for most of the day - the domestic side of departures offering little comfort, even littler on the side before check-in. When I was finally delivered to my room at my yoga school, the ghastly glare from the fluorescent light bulb cast an unflattering dim on the bare, dusty room. Two large, wooden twin beds pushed together formed a huge, hard platform which dominated the room.  A thin, threadbare sheet covered the mattress, but additional sheets or blankets were nowhere to be found. A broken, tin door in the corner filled the hole to a small, tiled wet-room, once white, but now greying from housekeeper’s neglect.  Attacking this room with Dettol wet-wipes – by far the best travel tip found online – soon restored some of the former glory and made a shower somewhat more appealing.  As I lie down on the firm, bare bed, I felt strangely emotional, pondering if I must be a bit mental for coming here, embarking on this great adventure, all alone. The silence that 2am brought, added to this sparse abode, enhancing this feeling. I was all alone. Here. In India.

I had a restless sleep due to an insect bite on my shin - some unidentified flying creature had bitten me, through my jeans, on the London Underground, as I headed off to the airport.  Despite being somewhat allergic to bites, I initially didn’t worry too much, but now this bite was an angry red and incredibly sensitive to the slightest touch.  By the first afternoon of the yoga course, I was on bed-rest, foot propped up, an incredible view of the Himalayas before me, complete with sweeping thunderstorms and lightening flashing across the landscape. Things could be worse. Indeed, they could. My leg continued to swell, my gait turning into a limp.  The Gods being with me, it was in my good fortune that there happened to be a doctor on my course, a Japanese resident of Mexico, here with her beautiful daughter and friend, for the first hundred hours of the course.
Doctor Maya, soon to become ‘Mama’, was for sure my guardian angel, as without her, I could have met a grizzly end.  I actually waved off her initial, concerned referral to hospital, trivialising my condition, blaming it on my intolerance of these small, venomous winged beasts. However, each day brought an expansion of the red, inflamed log of a thing, twice the size of my other dainty lower leg.  Eventually my Doc, presumably forced by her ethical code of care, took matters into her own hands, and armed with a syringe and a scalpel, attended to my wound each day, lancing the mountainous lump, and draining the thick, creamy, off-white interior. Doctor M also removed what appeared to be an ova of some description, or so she thought, could it be possible this mini-beast had laid eggs inside me?  My trusted Doc seemed to think so. What are the odds?! After four or five days of treatment I was on the mend and my leg gradually returned to normal size. Maya wasn’t joking when she told me that if my condition worsened I would have really been in big trouble. An angel sent by God, she surely was to me.

Once I’d crossed these first hurdles, things started to pick up.  I was one of a group of ten lovely yoginis and a yogi, a diverse mix which blended well. My fellow Brits were cool, one Irish gal living the Manchester life and the other a Folkstone fella, living a life on the road, as a set musician for boho-beat-making, Bonobo, we three representing our country well. The yoga course went without much comment. Days started at 6am with a two-hour military style yoga class, gruelling workouts of the same deceptively simple asanas, nothing fancy here, just simple stretching and twists, which quickly developed strength and flexibility and actually formed a great foundation to any yoga practice.

8am brought an hour of pranayama, which could’ve been great given a skilled teacher, but ours was strange, a little special, not always present, lights on, nobody home.  He lisped his way through explanations of cleansing techniques like swallowing cotton and poking a turmeric root up the bum, occassionally he would take us out into the alley to stick rubber strings up our nose, navigating them through our nasal cavities before fishing them from the back of the throat and out through the mouth in a swift, slick swish. Party tricks these were not.  But don’t be fooled by my casual regaling, I’m big into ‘shatkarma’ and the purifying powers of pranayama, it’s just this teacher seemed to cast a shadow over the potential benefits we could be gaining post-yoga each morning.

Breakfast came next, followed by an hour of philosophy, right up my street, having studied western philosophy in my former years.  However, this was India, and what I had assumed to be more like a seminar was actually a didactic lecture from a patriarch, taking questions from the women with disdain and always directing his answer to the sole male in the room. Several times we were reprimanded for not sitting cross-legged with straight spines.  

We were reminded it was ‘teacher training’, not ‘student training’, he, the teacher, was supposed to talk, and we, the student were supposed to listen.  My inner rebel wanting to inform him that he had a misunderstanding in context here, however, we gradually learnt not to get too sassy with our scholar, life was easier to just sit in silence, and occasionally take notes.  In a long time, he covered little, and my notebook contained a small fraction of things I didn’t already know. It was on the penultimate day of the course that The Scholar, as we called him amongst ourselves, properly touched on the yamas and niyamas, surely one of the first things up for discussion on any sound yoga course.  He whizzed through on a whistle-stop tour, and even now I struggle to remember what he spent the rest of the time actually talking about. The end of class was always welcomed happily, even if it brought a further hour of the regimented yoga practice that started our day.  But noon quickly came around, bringing lunch and the start of our three hour window of ‘self-study’ aka nap time, or nipping out for a mooch. Yet the bittersweet leisure of the afternoon made it harder to get back to it, the hot, heavy afternoon sun, wrapping you up in a blanket of humid, warm, air and luring you to lie down and shut the eyes.  Yet class was in session and anatomy was the topic, and fortunately for us, Mayank, was our favourite teacher, providing the reluctance to bunk class and disappoint. He was bright, friendly, quirky, ‘ok ji’, his most uttered phrase.  He taught us a lot and whilst it could have been better appropriated to yoga, he delivered a lot of content on the functions and composition of the human body. We liked him.

Our afternoon asana teacher just relaxing before class.

Two more hours of yoga took us into evening, our 5pm class intended to be where the real teaching of asana and alignments takes place. Again, we were endeared to our teacher, but again, little solid teaching took place.  Having undertaken a hundred hours of a comprehensive teaching training programme in London, I was privy to what a great yoga course should look like, and the hours I was accruing on this one were simply that, notching up enough hours for the two hundred of the course criteria, with course content taking a more back-seat place. So in the spirit of this we finished our day with a final hour of meditation, enlisted as ‘Yoga Nidra’ on the schedule, a practice we actually only carried out twice.  One of these times, our delightful teacher, he of the morning pranayama class, had us lie down in savasana, turned out the lights and left us in there in silence for forty minutes, awaiting a yoga nidra script that was not to come. Some of these sessions were memorable, singing bhajana open heartedly, singing Kirtan, or sharing our own practices with one another.  Others were memorable simple for the comedy value, meditation practices with little explanation of their logical and seeming rather random. One particular ‘Hari Om’ meditation springs to mind, in which we first muttered hari om, hari om, hari om, hari om, as fast and frequently as one breath allowed. It was not dissimilar to the red lorry, yellow lorry tongue twisters of childhood, and became a funny phrase we uttered often to each other, hari om, hari om, hari om, hari om, hari om, in a whispered greeting, passing on the stairs. Not sure if it could serve me in any other guise, but will always make me chuckle when I say it, which isn’t bad at all.  After the rapid hari omming,came a long slow hari om, as long as slow as one could muster, haaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, hhhhhhaaaaaarrrrrrrreeeeeee ommmmmmmmmmmmmm, and on and on until our guru-ji said stop, and gave us further instruction on the third round of ommmming in no less tedious style – which evades my memory just now. Every night after dinner, this final hour awaited us, back up to the yoga hall, now alive with mosquitoes and other creatures of the night.  

Kunjapuri mountain

And this was life for the next twenty one days, a groundhog day of sorts, and despite the tone of these here reflections, I had the absolute greatest time! My fellow course members quickly turned from strangers into friends, and there is great energy created, practicing yoga together for five hours each day, an energy that was distinctly absent in the month of solitary self-practice that followed.  The yoga school was situated a little out of the way of the busier areas or Ram Jhula and Laxman Jhula, and the morning view of the misty mountains was unbeatable and never got old.


The two boys in the kitchen, RP and Vikram, became like little brothers, RP’s cooking certainly a highlight of the time spent there.  It’s strange how quickly bonds form when you spend every waking moment in a small close-knit group, and just shows how the world if full of friends and family we are simply just yet to meet.  


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TTC Crew

Crowing by the Ganga