All's Well that Ends Well

Just like the deadly fistula from which the king suffers in Shakespeare's "problem" play, my problem on my last day preparing to head for the airport and leave India behind was the equally deadly Shigella, a food and water-borne bacterial disease.

The king's fistula was a long, pipe-like ulcer, my bacteria was a rod-shaped, non-spore forming one (originally the same strain as E. coli but later developing into its own family). The king survived; so did I.

I think the similarities end there because the last act ends with a couple happily in love and well, never mind.
The important thing is that there were many lessons learned and not only ones regarding how to board a plane pretending to look healthy right after having collapsed in a hallucinatory feverish fit on the floor of the boarding gate waiting area right after being deemed "not fit to fly" by the airport medical staff. Not only ones about how to quickly navegate to a bathroom in a split second while jumping over polite airplane passengers to vomit, because I learned those lessons years back. Not only ones about what not to drink on any big travel day (number 1 thing not to drink would be pomegranate juice with that cool crunchy Calcutta ice). Not only ones about not believing my invincibility despite all those crazy ashtanga postures I can do and all the juicy, iced beverages I can normally drink on streets all over India. Not only ones about the importance of avoiding milk while recovering from serious intestinal trauma to avoid deadly relapse. Not only ones about the joys of getting sick leave from work and the importance of not being one of those "I go to work even when I've got fever" types. Not only ones about coming to terms with the incredible difficulty of accepting weakness and where you are in your yoga practice after a debilitating illness. Mostly ones about letting go and trusting in others and the proper reestablishment of balance in the micro- and macro-universe.

Anyhoo, I enjoyed everything in my travels up until the end, but I think I was doing too much, trying to see and experience every single thing because I knew I didn't have much time left. In general, I truly appreciate doing nothing, sitting still in meditation, getting adequate rest and sleep, so it's kinda dumb that I pushed myself so hard at the end to fit everything in. Regardless, I made great connections with random Indians and foreigners at different points along the trip and really enjoyed the sights, sounds and breath-taking insanity of movement and masses (of people) as well as moments of stillness and inner tranquility that only India can offer.

Here Kitty Kitty Kitty

Just as the yogi is ever striving to perfect an asana, so do I go ever in search of the Indian tiger, in this case, the Bengali tiger. My research and calculations suggested that I should go to the park which, apart from being a World Heritage UNESCO site and the world's largest delta area of 5 rivers, holds the largest tiger population. Somehow I hadn't calculated that, um, yeah, at a total of 283 tigers for something like 5,000 square kilometers of parkland, the odds of me actually seeing a tiger were like 1,000,000 to 1. Duh. I guess I thought that if it was an area where these tigers still manage to kill and eat 30 odd Indian villagers each year, they must be in close contact. So, whatever. I still have my hopes up for seeing a tiger in this lifetime! And I've seen almost the next best thing, as well as catching all kinds of other crazy wildlife, crocodiles, monitors, monkeys, and all in terrain (if you can call it that) which was so watery, with high and low tides 4 times a day, that the flora has adapted to being immersed up to the leaves of treetops and then having their roots exposed endlessly. A really unusual and beautiful habitat/niche and a really nice break from the pollution and dirt of cities. I enjoyed the time, peace and food at the tiger park, as well as being able to entertain myself with an Israeli ex-military officer, who proved to be my sole source of humor among a mad troupe of 15-odd Bengali/Japanese/Australian family members. I spent 3 days traveling to and at Sunderbans Tiger Reserve, and I could easily have spent a week!