Monkey Business

Monkeys are by no means unique to India nor are they as ubiquitous as everyone makes them out to be. They do make it an exciting subcontinent – you always have to close your doors and windows, can’t leave anything on the motorcycle, and make sure you hide your bag of peanuts (and not just in your lower pant pocket). They can be horrifically ugly, as I discovered traveling through Orissa on the east coast and as this photo above demonstrates. They can also be adorably cute, especially if there’s a mother with a wee baby clinging to her. The eeny weeny monkey baby seems so little and helpless but it’s important to remember that the baby is hanging on to mother and not mother holding the baby (like cat and kitten or human and human baby); he is still responsible for not dropping out of that treetop and some day, on his own, he’ll let go of his mother when he’s able to climb the branches on his own.

Many places have monkeys, but in my understanding monkeys sometimes keep more to their own (many parts of Asia) or become subjugated by humans, kept in cages for human entertainment (I know of examples in Colombia), definitely separated and put in the animal domain.

Monkeys are interesting in India because the divide is not so clear. All old world monkeys have opposable thumbs like us. In the north of India the apes are big. So big they come over and steal your glasses like some school bully, and unless you’re fast or offer food, you’re going to be blind til you find the next optician’s. Or they steal your Lonely Planet guidebook on some remote mountaintop and they’re so mean-looking you don’t dare to try to grab it back and just watch as the primate tears and eats page after page, leaving you guideless and not knowing when the next train departs for Haridwar. (This is a friend’s story- I’ll leave out the details of how she used subterfuge and kicked the ape to retrieve the half-eaten, monkey-eared book, of which the yet-untraveled regions had already been digested.)

Mountain monkeys -Himachal Pradesh (northwest of India)

My friend’s foot-to-foot combat with the monkey is somehow representative of monkeys in India today, as in the past. Competition for terrain is complicated as urban and village sprawl take over more and more land area, but the monkey can adapt more easily than most animals to city life since he’s pretty much like man anyway, except doesn’t dress up in suit and tie to go to work. This tension between man and ape isn’t perceived in India as conflict, except in the monkey’s random acts of destruction and petty theft scavenging for food. As with most things, Indians are quietly passive in their non-reaction to the monkey’s mission to sneak into your home and eat every fruit and nut he can get those four hands on, later exhibiting his “I’m king here” stance on your rooftop and balcony. The Indian man’s best defense against monkey vandalism are screens on windows and locks on doors but that seems to be man’s only assertion of his superiority and it’s pretty laissez-faire.

Elephanta monkey contemplation

Monkeys are obviously not humans but it’s a blurry divide, the main differences for me being A.) amount of body hair (in some specimens) B.) agility and C.) the monkey always does what he wants to and humans wish they could (this includes climb the walls, play all day, laugh and tease friends, run and jump around everywhere – basically do parcour and do it well all day long - , play with his tail, copulate, masturbate anywhere and anytime, steal your food and eat it, steal my food and eat it, and tear your motorcycle seat to shreds, just for the heck of it). I don’t want to paint these apes too harshly; they are also capable of and display a vast array of “human” emotions: nurturing, love, affection, intimacy, sharing, helping the other, grooming, fear, and I would swear an appreciation for the ephemeral beauty of life, as I observed on the other coast, on Elephanta Island near Mumbai. As this mother held close her nursing baby, she breathed in the aroma and beauty of a small flower, possibly with more sensitivity than you or I would. She transected the nurturing mothering act with a moment of intimacy and union with the flower, the sort of union achievable in ekāgraha dhāraṇa, a contemplation bordering on meditative union.

Himalaya monkey

I’m not going to try to make like monkeys do everything humans do and more but I’ll tell you who does – Valmiki, India’s storytelling grandfather, the man who wrote the longest and oldest work of fiction, which is theoretically not fiction but rather one version of part of the history of India focusing (mostly) on one great, god-like and beautiful king (who is also incidentally God), Lord Rama. I don’t need to exaggerate the doings of monkeys because this man Valmiki already did it, and did it throughout a large portion of what’s considered to be the longest ever and definitely oldest ever book in history. While monkey could be seen as competing with humans in most contexts and environments, Valmiki makes monkey into man’s ally and shows the necessity of this symbiotic relationship.



Finishing off some monkey business



Valmiki’s juxtaposition of monkey and man is not coincidental as it has always been ever present in India. His treatment of man and monkey relations is more remarkable. Of course these Ramayana monkeys aren’t really monkeys but rather the offspring of gods and the like who with great strength and many abilities assume the form of numerous monkey species, numbering in the millions and millions. They’re not monkeys but they spend all their time pretending to be (while they can take on the form of man or of creatures ten or one hundred times their size or of anything else, it seems – typically they’re described as “as large as a mountain” – now that’s one big monkey). The fact that they keep their monkey form by choice means it must be a lot more fun than an anthropomorphic one or any other for that matter. These monkeys do everything that any human does (talk, eat, get drunk, stay up late at night), and surprisingly, as they take a heroic, leading role in the book, they do these things better than humans would or could. Rama’s alliance with the monkeys is double-fruited, beneficial for both sides, but the fact that Rama chooses and uses monkeys to help his victory as opposed to humans, who could just as easily have helped him in massive numbers, helps demonstrate Valmiki’s point. The inherent monkey nature/animalism which we all share (but which we can subdue and/or transcend temporarily to achieve our goals) is projected onto this monkey form as a contrast to the ideal, god-like human form.




Finally, a more interesting Adam & Eve story,
according to Tibetan tradition

 

So the progression/transformation/change of the monkey characters is the most interesting part of the story, just as is the monkey/human overlap. When the monkeys overcome their monkey nature and use their higher qualities they achieve great things, join forces, cross great oceans and defeat enemies. Curiously enough, when the monkeys have achieved great things (the moment of finding Sita, the return to King Sugriva after discovering Sita and doing reconnaissance of Lanka, etc), they revert to their monkeying around, jumping, kissing their tails, wreaking havoc and getting drunk and tearing things apart. On the surface the message seems to be that if we humans can overcome our monkey/animal nature (and get over that grief, please!!!!) we can achieve greatness, an idea that’s prevalent in many yogic and Brahmanic texts. (And then after doing good and transcending “animalism”, we can also celebrate, loosen the slack and monkey around again afterwards, too!)

In the Ramayana, the monkeys are the ones who save the day, not Rama, who’s supposedly an ace-archer, god and the ideal king but who just sits around moping in his grief, hopeless, useless and apparently quite helpless without monkey Hanuman. So much for the greatness of man or god. I like to think Valmiki is suggesting the necessity of animal cooperation, union with the other and a common life mission between man and beast, because man apparently can’t do anything on his own, in isolation.

Hanuman shrine at Banganga Tank in Mumbai,
 where Rama thrust a spear through the earth

It’s curious because so many big words praise Rama as the best, but he almost never does anything heroic except kill a bunch of demons (10,000 in one sitting) with massive bloodshed (kill, kill, kill, then think! he even has to be reprimanded by his wife for so much thoughtless destruction) and heap brotherly love on dear, moon-faced Lakshmana (which I agree is well-deserved, as Lakshmana is the best brother ever!). Rama isn’t painted so well; frankly, he’s totally incapable of getting over his grief and loss over his abducted wife and dead father, incapable of getting on with life (the message is stated pretty clearly by different characters repeated times through the book). Some king!

Our monkey hero Hanuman, on the other hand, is soft-spoken, always thinking before speech and action, and he doesn’t just save the day sometimes, he saves the day EVERY TIME in the book, except for two instances where birds save the day (1. an aged vulture reveals where Sita has been taken and 2. aruda, the eagle mount of Vishnu and King of the feathered race, undoes the serpent fetters trapping Rama and Lakshmana during the war on the island of Lanka). Humans pretty much never get anything done right on their own without animal friends, and always animals who can be seen as competition or horrible creatures (vultures eat the dead and are considered gross in Indian culture just as they are ominous and bode badly in the west).





The man of my dreams

 

It’s pretty crazy actually because the monkeys also almost never do anything right without Hanuman. Sugriva is the monkey king who befriends Rama, and supposedly a great upholder of dharma and correct action, but I feel pretty ambivalent about him because he ruthlessly gets Rama to kill his brother on the throne in a political twist after having previously abandoned the same supposedly dear brother to his certain death, trapped underground while fighting a demon – there seems to be a lot of latent jealousy and unrighteousness here. He also takes his dead brother’s wife and does a lot of copulating with her, totally ignores his promise to help Rama, spends his days and nights reveling in parties, drunk and having lots of sex, for nights and weeks and months, while despondent Rama is gloomy and desperate and unable to act and poor Sita, such a beautiful queen, is left suffering and fasting alone, even without a change of clothes, held hostage in the most beautiful garden on what’s supposed to be the most beautiful island ever with the most organized city ever while being offered the greatest riches by Ravana, who’s actually depicted as quite dashing and attractive and massively strong, correct in his actions, an excellent king for his people and ensuring prosperity for his race! Plus he’s got the most beautiful airplane-like mode of transport, a white vehicle called Pushpaka that flies in the sky and transports you superfast. Sounds rough, huh! According to everything described in Ramayana, I would actually prefer to stay with Ravana on the most beautiful island ever and ride around in his huge airplane the size of a palace grounds; he seems like a perfect and respectful man except for him having 10 heads. Ravana, by action and word, isn’t such a bad guy except for the fact that he’s on the wrong side, thinks he’s the best (he seems to be from his actions as well) and has a pretty big ego (duh, he’s got 10 heads). Sita suffers because she chooses to. Ravana is a great king and a great man (Valmiki’s words, not mine) and she doesn’t go with him because she’s already married and likes that wimp Rama and because Ravana is bad because he’d already destroyed Indra and all the gods, gandharvas, etc in order to reign all-powerfully. By act and word, Ravana is neither as bad as people think he is, nor is Rama as fantastic as people think he is. It’s all pretty ambivalent actually.



But I was explaining how Sugriva is supposedly the best monkey king ever, ruling with dharma, but he just spends his days and nights (and months!) decadently, having sex with lots of monkey girls and monkeying around. The whole while, Hanuman is upset that the king isn’t keeping his promise and he is the one who insists that Sugriva take action and help Rama, the god, who is unable to help himself. So yes, once Sugriva is convinced, the rest of the monkeys clean up their act fast and come from all corners of the earth (or the subcontinent) and save the day quite fast. They’re given a month to find Sita, and then humble Hanuman makes his heroic leap to Lanka, finds Sita, wins her friendship, on his way back decides to kill most of Ravana’s progeny and burn down most of the city. Then the monkey architect Nala is enlisted to build a bridge so all the monkeys and Rama can cross to Lanka to start the fighting (because no man would be able to do this). In battle, while Ravana’s forces use weapons, the monkey troops are so resourceful and use tree stumps, branches and rocks to fight, demonstrating independence (non-dependence on other things to be successful, one of the principles in the Yoga Sutras). At one point (actually two instances), when Rama and brother Lakshmana are totally bloodied and wounded, Hanuman makes a leap to the Himalayas and brings back magical curative herbs to heal their wounds. In an endearing act, unable to recognize which herbs he needs to take back, he actually picks up the whole mountain and carries it back to the injured, of course being considerate enough to jump back again to Himalaya and return the mountain to its place!

Topiary of Hanuman carrying off the mountain,
he's got the mountain in his right hand,
a mace in his left and a silly hat (Mumbai)

So yeah, the monkeys save the day, point made. Rama only managed to kill Ravana through the use of a verbal weapon bestowed by god Indra (a verbal command/magic mantra which makes the magic weapon appear to do the deed). So it’s not like Rama even did it with his own powers. There are so many charming details I could share but it’s better to experience these oneself upon reading. Then you can see for yourself that human/god Rama, all the gods (all the hosts of gods rooting for Rama to be victorious, as they had been destroyed and had their powers taken away by Ravana), humans and all the world are unable to manage without the animal community and without friendship to help get beyond one’s moments (or years) of weakness and one’s grief. In this story, the animals are crucial for re-establishing a proper balance on earth. Just as animals were a vital part of the “society” and for survival of the human community thousands of years ago when Ramayana was created, so do we today need these animal friends who, despite possibly being perceived as competitors on our turf, are necessary for our physical survival and emotional and psychological well-being. I’d present more examples to defend my argument of the animals’ role in ensuring the emotional well-being of Rama and other humans, but as I type I can see a monkey out my window, kissing his tail in contentment and jumping with delight because he’s managed to swipe somebody’s nut stash……

The Well-Tempered Yogi and Tadka (AKA tempering)

“Like oil in seeds and fragrance in flowers, the soul of man permeates his whole body.” – BKS Iyengar, Light on Pranayama

You may have noticed that many Indian recipes call for starting the cooking process by either dry toasting spices, chilies, curry leaves and dal, etc. in a heated pan or frying them in hot oil or ghee before proceeding to add other ingredients. This technique, generally called tempering in cooking and referred to as tadka and bagar in Hindi (derived from the Sanskrit bagharna) (oggaraṇe in Kannada), prepares the pot for the main substance of the food to be received and adds much of the desired heat, spice and caloric energy (in the way of fats) to a dish. This is a common practice in western cooking methods, as well, like sautéing minced garlic, onion, and occasionally paprika or other spices in oil to start a dish. In Indian cooking, spices are often used whole at this stage as their natural packaging retains all the aromatic punch of the volatile acids inside, which escape much more quickly when cooking them crushed or ground. The volatile acids remain in their shells for a bigger taste explosion later in the mouth and also seep gradually into the heated oil, perfuming everything that will be added to the dish and intermingling throughout.

On a chemical level, tempering activates the volatile oils in the spices and leaves, increasing the flavors and aromas as the heat intensifies their essence on an atomic level as the particles vibrate more rapidly. The downside is that at the temperatures needed for sautéing or frying, the oil oxidizes, reducing some of the antioxidants and health benefits of these seeds and spices.
Although Indian cooks do not always concur on this point, the finest I have encountered insist on tempering over medium or low heat depending on your stove, and never on high (except initially when adding the oil to get the pan going). Doubtless this is to prevent burning as volatile compounds are just that, volatile and more delicate, but also, as all good cooks and professional chefs know, gradual cooking brings out the most intense intrinsic flavor of foods without going too far. Tempering is not a matter of extremes even though it may involve chilies.

So tadka is used to prep, heat up and maximize the seasoning in a dish, but also packs hidden nutritional value. Toasting or frying urad or chana dal ups the protein content as well as adding extra crunch and nutty flavor to a dish. Curry leaves are high in lutein, alpha tocopherol (vitamin E), beta-carotene (pro-vitamin A) and more. The tadka spices in general (eg. cumin, asafetida) aid in digestion and are beneficial for their carminative (gas-reducing) properties. In addition, the tempering process serves to transfer nutrients to the dish as a whole; for example, tempering releases the carotene from fresh curry leaves into the surrounding oil, and later into whatever sauce or liquid you add. The nutritional boost from tadka as a whole is not coincidental but reveals a deeper intuitive sense underlying much of Indian cuisine.

I may be taking the analogy too far but I see many links between tempering in cooking, tempering in other contexts in English, the benefits of the tempering process, the starting/closing mantra and sun salutations/relaxation in yoga.

First, how I liken the tempering process to the opening chant in your yoga practice and the first sun salutations: This is a moment to put the focus on a new endeavor, concentrating the energy on a small area, as well as activating a sort of magical, spirit essence which will infuse your whole yoga practice and/or curry! Your breathing in the chant provides the initial heat to get your practice going; references in Vedic works equating breath and fire are too numerous to mention here.[1] Your inhalations provide your body with extra energy (like the heat of toasting or frying in the pan) and the vibration of the words in your vocal chords, lips, palate, head and thorax is also heat: energy released by virtue of the vibration (kinetic energy) of the atoms, which produce the resonating sound. I see an easy equivalence between the vibrational energy of mustard seeds bouncing and popping in a pan and the mantra buzzing out of your mind and mouth.

In tadka, the spice heat of the chili pepper spreads atomically to the surrounding oil along with the rise in temperature; in chanting and ujjayi breathing the heat and prana which build in your body are prepped for use throughout practice. In a tadka, the chili and spices then work on heating and modifying the dal, vegetables and gravy you are cooking; the dal or vegetables are akin to the gross physical body which is affected by prana, your chanting and ujjayi. Again, a gradual increase in heat and particle motion is preferred, just as your first sun salutation is not so strenuous and you slowly warm up to get your energy moving. In the same way that an initial chant or Om has energy that you carry throughout your practice, the tadka generally holds most of the heat, energy (fat), and flavor to carry off a dish. On occasion part of a mantra will come back to you unexpectedly, you may come to some realization or even see an image without any apparent connection to what you are “doing”, just as an otherwise subtle touch of fried curry leaf or chana dal is suddenly released in your mouth and nose although it did not seem evident in every mouthful.

Needless to say, this tadka process (more familiarly recognized as tarka on Indian restaurant menus abroad, as in "tarka dal") is called “tempering” in English because the temperature rises. In cooking, the traditional purpose is to moderate the food product to the desired strength or to change the physical condition or consistency of a food (as in the case of tempering chocolate). A similar process with heat, also called tempering, is used in metalwork, to strengthen and toughen metals while at the same time increasing their ductility and malleability; as with yoga, metallurgic tempering requires special attention to maintain the delicate balance between strengthening and increasing ductility as the temperature is increased. In yoga, the role of the chant and sun salutations is that of initiating the tempering process in the body. A feeling of tiredness or drowsiness while stepping on the mat can often be dispelled by chanting energetically, or you may simply find that your sleepiness or exhaustion has mysteriously disappeared by the time you finish your chant. The chant is really adjusting and putting you more in focus and in “tune” (on a psychic wavelength) with the practice to follow. The sun salutations, of course, work to build strength and endurance in the physical body as well as maintaining fluid malleability.

The word temper, in English, also refers to your state of mind, emotions and composure (like asanas in the mind). While temper sometimes can be used to describe rage or irritability, “losing one’s temper” means that the temper lost is really a calmness of mind that is lost. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language interestingly includes a now archaic definition of temper as “a middle course between extremes” which we still understand today in the sense of well-tempered and even-tempered and which may sound very familiar to Buddhists. The verb “to temper” signified “to exercise control,” something much worked on with a regular yoga practice. The vibrational energetic analogy seen in bouncing mustard seeds and the mantra you chant can easily be applied to musical vibrations as well. In a well-tempered piano, every key’s pitch was adjusted in relation to the others so that music could be played in any key, creating a better balance with the other keys on the keyboard and making every key usable. Likewise, the idea of tempering in yoga is to make every component in the body function more harmoniously with the others. Just as the tempering process gives quality chocolate its consistency and stability, the tempering process of sun salutations gives stability, fluidity, and strength to you on and off the mat.

Sometimes, Indian tempering is not done at the beginning of a dish’s preparation but as a final step (take for example curd dishes finished with red chili and curry leaves fried in oil or ghee). Instead of the opening chant, this part of the recipe is a final mantra or relaxation, still infusing the effects of your entire practice. In the final tadka the strength and intensity of the flavors are more recent, yet their power is not at all diminished when the dish is served. The fried spice and ghee bind and impregnate everything in the dish rather than the spices’ flavor simply popping up with certain bites. The effect is the same as with tadka starting a dish; it is simply mirrored.

Likewise, a final chant/relaxation ending yoga practice can be equated to the final addition of ghee, a sprinkling of chopped cilantro or fresh squeezed lime/lemon when serving a dish. The ghee should mix and meld with the whole product, adding a glistening completeness to the dish – a true Midas touch. Fresh herbs add extra vitality in the form of vitamins A, C and K (not to mention the A, D, E and K vitamins already in the ghee itself). The final chant and rest after practice in savasana (AKA sukhasana) are the final touch to make you glisten and glow inside, as the good effects of practice are given a chance to move around your body and be assimilated. The final chant and relaxation are vital for restoring energy used in practice.
Ghee offers a similar edge when used to finish a dish’s preparation; besides the antioxidants it contains, it aids the absorption of vitamins and minerals from the food eaten with it and it is traditionally believed that it feeds all layers of body tissue through the quality of the fat it contains.[2] It is undoubtedly true that these fats bond with fat-soluble nutrients and readily penetrate the lipid-based cell membranes throughout the body. Thus, the fresh herbs, lemon, etc., already boosting the vitamin content of a dish, can be used more effectively by your body when served with a dollop of ghee, giving you a magnified vitaminic charge for the day. Incidentally, fresh green chilies, cilantro, or any raw green herb make a great addition to your cooking, Indian or not, because the vitamin C they contain aids in absorbing the iron from your beans and rice. These are intuitive nutritional additions common in Indian cuisine and are not just there to make your mouth burn or add color. Consider ghee and the tadka ingredients to be a way to make your meal more holistic, with more complete interrelationships between the parts.

As a final note, so much talk of tempering reminds one, of course, of perhaps the most famous work involving tempering in the title, Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, a masterwork made up of preludes and fugues demonstrating that one single instrument could be played in all keys equally well. In Bach’s fugues, he employed inversions in his melodies and themes (essentially turning them upside-down) and in his counterpoint (after two melodies are played together the 2 parts or voices switch roles and mirror each other, the higher moving to a lower position and vice versa). Even with intervalic inversion (inverting single notes)[3] the purpose is to change the perspective or relation between the notes while changing the vibrational energy for a different but familiar experience.

Of the various classical inversions in yoga, sirsasana (headstand) is a good example of a pose undoubtedly changing perspective, the sensorial experience, your vibrational energy and the position of the energy. It’s also worth mentioning the inverted presentation of postures in the ashtanga yoga method and other yoga practices. The surya namaskaras essentially present the equivalent of intervallic inversion in music; the sun salutations mirror themselves going from and to standing – each asana is progressively mirrored with the reflection point being between urdhva and adho mukha svanasana (this flexion point is, of course, in your core and located at the base of your spine). Other asanas are also introduced and then repeated in an altered physical position, working to demonstrate that the body can be played in different energetic keys, standing, sitting and reclining. Examples here include utthita hasta padangusthasana later echoed in supta hasta padangusthasana, garbha pindasana later counterbalanced by pindasana, the prasarita padottanasanas mimicked in the posterior sitting konasanas, and more.
Really a more formal analysis relating music and the yoga practice is necessary, but I think my point demonstrates the existence of an effort throughout yoga to temper the body as you would any instrument or other material (and not just on physical plane). Dexterous as a pianist, a well-tempered yogi, like a well-tempered clavier, begins in one key with his starting mantra, works his way (often using inflections and inversions) in a symmetric form through others (the series of asanas) and returns to the same original one, the balance point (mantra or moment of reflection), just hopefully a little better-tempered than when he started. :)

[1] Please refer to my section on “Agni, Breath, Fire, and Cooking”.
[2] For more on the benefits of ghee, see my section, “The Glories of Ghee.”
[3] For example, C is still C but in a different octave; if before it was lower than the other notes later is it presented higher than the other notes, shifting its position and increasing the energy.

Dharamshala, si no fuera por los budistas, que habria de dharma en esta parada?

Aunque no sea nada nuevo, y ya estoy en EEUU, subo este trozo de texto de hace unas semanas por si a alguien le interesa.
Se me pasa todo entre los dias sin internet aqui y el curso de yoga que estoy haciendo aquí en Dharamshala, que queda en la faldita de las Himalayas (a 2,500 metros). Suficiente altitud para que me cueste subir (jadeando!) los 350 escalones rotos de piedra desde la escuela de yoga hasta la “main road”, una de las 3 calles en el pueblo de Mcleod Ganj, y donde hay que ir si quieres comprar fruta, comida, comer en un restaurante o café, etc!! Suffice it to say, voy a definir los musculos en las piernas en este pueblito este mes! Porque hay que subir todos los días, no (a no ser que pasas de comer para ahorrar los escalones)? Y desde luego que todo el pueblo y los alrededores están en cuesta bastante inclinada, pero esto ni se nota después de los escalones.
El lugar es muy bucólico - mongoose, cabras y vacas en los caminos de tierra, se ve todo el valle abajo, el amanecer es una pasada....ver el sol subir entre las montanyas. Hay mas especies de pájaro y insecto que descubro todos los días, aunque la verdad es que preferiría no descubrir mas cada dia en el pisito que estoy alquilando. Vamos, es peor que una acampada porque la fauna aquí tiene pinta salvaje, tropical, de montanya desconocida. No son los bichos que se puede encontrar en montanya en EEUU o Europa. He tenido que matar cosas en casa (gracias a dios, no eran cucarachas) con mas color y con pelos mas largos que llevaría una modernilla en Berlin. Ahora que lo pienso, no tengo ni idea de lo que seria la moda ahora en Europa, aunque sospecho que es la misma vaina de ochenterismo de antes (que me he ahorrado 6 meses de ver!). Siempre procuro atrapar y soltar lo que se puede desde mi balcón (con banderitas tibetanas y vistas de valle abajo) pero si el insecto tiene mas color que el mostrador de maquillaje de MAC no acerco la mano con el vaso para atraparlo y espero que mi karma de 32 anios de vida me lo compensa y se hace un balance.

India in Numbers

13 – highest number of mosquitoes I squished on my body in one single yoga practice in Goa
20 – drops of sweat counted falling off my head during one inhalation and exhalation in a handstand
315 –old, broken, muddy, stone steps needed to be climbed daily from the place I practice yoga in Dharamshala to the main road (where food can be bought)
200,000 too many people in the Old Delhi Railway Station
3 ½ hours – average length of my yoga practice in Goa
0 – number of temples I visited while in Goa
46 degrees Celsius – high temperature one day I was in Amritsar
246 rupees (about 5 bucks) – price of a sleeper class 12-hour train journey at night (sheets not included, snoring Indians included)
850 rupees (about 18 bucks) – price of a 2nd AC class 12-hour train journey at night (sheets included)
20 rupees (40 cents) – price of the best breakfast I had in Punjab
3 - # of times I’ve seen Indians get motion sickness on modes of transport I’ve taken
16 – the number of us that were stuffed into a shared taxi from Ellora to Aurangabad! That’s right! The average is usually a dozen Indians, but we got 16 of us in there, and keep in mind my non-petite frame! Plus there was a totally obese Indian man in the front seat!
700 rupees (about 14 bucks) – price you have to pay to share a mattress with someone you’ve never seen before on a sleeper bus while being transported 100s of kilometers
2 - # of times guys guessed I was 22 years old
11- # of days I have left here
3 – number of times I was scolded by Sharath in one single practice - “No, no! Not like that!”
63 – number of times I had to cover my face and run (a la fleeing the paparazzi) from the Indian men taking pictures of me with their cell phones (I hate this!)
7 – number of babies that were handed over to me so that they could take my picture with the baby (I love this!)
9:10 Ratio of girl births to boy births in 2010, suggesting more female babies are being aborted than males
47 – number of times I circumambulated (fast!) the rolling mantra wheel next to the Dalai Lama’s Kalachakra Temple, at the nun’s invitation. (She was the only other person in the room doing it and I understand why seeing how dizzy I was when I left the room – what’s better? Keep the gaze on the spinning wheel or keep the gaze on the painted Avalokiteshvaras on the wall that’s spinning around you?).
2 – number of times Indians asked me if I spoke Spanish
2 – number of times Indians tried to hold a conversation in Catalan with me
1 – number of times I was told I resemble Hannah Montana (ok, a child said it, but come on!)
333 - # of times I’ve fantasized about taking a shower with my mouth open
1 – number of times a yoga teacher kissed me (don’t worry – it was Rolf and on the cheek – but I hadn’t felt so much love in a long while!)

List of Firsts

I know I promised in January that I wouldn’t make endless lists of things on the blog but this has been a month of firsts (and the month’s not over yet, baby) so it’s quite unprecedented, as first times always are. These are primarily gustatory but may wander over to other areas of life.
First time I eat spicy dal curry on a beach, time 3 pm, temperature 100 degrees, humidity somewhere above 60%. It never even occurred to me that palak paneer or tarka dal could be beach food; all these years taking salads, cold couscous and fruit and sandwiches to the beach! What a fool I was!
First time I eat corn on the cob in India, also on the beach. No butter rub but even better for the blazing heat: the cob has lime juice squeezed all over it and a heavy sprinkling of masala chili and black salt. For the uninitiated, it’s an understatement to say that the acid of lemon/lime bring out the burn of chili powder. If you’ve never experienced this, it makes you sweat instantly (as well as making bacteria instantly die), and since it was searingly hot out and the corn had just been pulled off the fire and could hardly be held, the temperature plus the chili meant streams of sweat poured down my back like the Ganges in the first big melt of spring. My lips were the burnt-est part of it all, swollen and red from all that chili and lime by the time I gave up and gave the cob to the menacing and encroaching bull with horns who had decided he was finishing my corn.
First time I drank the fresh-squeezed sugar cane juice they press through those archaic machines that look like the printing press my mother has in the family room. This is what the guidebooks always warn you never to drink since the cups are reused and they could add water. Blah blah blah. Yeah, they did pour the juice over ice (and I know where they get the ice, who cuts it on the plastic tarp floor with bare feet and the dirty sharp killer knife in a shack with 8 people, because I saw huge chunks being cut and sold in a market in Calcutta). Four stalks of sugar cane equals four full cups of juice for thirsty people. No one ever mentioned the part that they squeeze lime juice in and add fresh ginger to your liking. I thought it was great, just sweet enough (not as sweet as soda) and fresh and green tasting. I just discovered a new use for that printing press when I get home.
First time I ever eat a whole mango on the beach. Some lady came over with 1000 fruits balanced on her head like Carmen Miranda and I couldn’t resist the mango for my list of firsts (of course I’ve eaten mango before but never on the beach). Yeah, she overcharged me but she was the one holding the knife (to cut the fruit).
First time I ever get my fruit salted. It was a fruit salad selection of the usual, watermelon, cantaloupe, orange, etc and I ate it how the Indians like it, with black salt. Hmmm, I’ll stick to my way. I like my fruit with nothing on it, not even ice cream.
First guava of the season. Divine! I may have to revise my list of favorite fruits; I think real fresh guava just beat out jackfruit and mango, so we’ve got a new number one. The new order of favorites is 1.) guava 2.) watermelon (necessary for rehydration in a place with almost no coconuts/very expensive coconuts) 3.) papaya (amazingly, this never made the list before and never appealed to me in Mysore or other parts of the world. Here, it’s incredible!)
First time I drink that nasty salty mountain tea, this time Kashmiri (also famous in Tibet and god knows where else!). Who ever thought of ruining a nice cuppa black tea with milk by adding wretched salt so that instead of being pleasant, it makes you want to gag? I’m sorry but this is the only thing on my list I hope never to repeat. That’s just disgusting and makes you thirstier than you were to start. What’s up with these mountain people? I’m not game. If that’s the taste of the Himalayas, no wonder the Tibetan monks come running fast and ask for refugee status in India. I would too.
First time I do a handstand. For real. In my life. First time my homework is “go home and do handstands in the afternoon to build strength”. (!!)
First time a teacher compliments some (any, please!) aspect of my yoga practice this year. I’ve been told the biggest compliment to my yoga practice is that Marci hasn’t tied me up in belts and propped up blocks and strapped me into one of her torture devices.
First time I have a croissant this year, spread with bitter orange marmalade and dipped in my cappuccino, thank you very much. You don’t think this is special, but you would if you’d been living in India for 4 months.
First time I get a new yoga pose since last September. Sigh. As always, life was easier without it.
First time I look with honest-to-god real fear into the yoga pose ahead of me, and first time Rolf (figuratively) holds my hand to help me over the dark parts.
First time I live in a place with dirt paths as roads. First time I live in a place with no paved roads. As a city girl, I think I can’t reiterate this enough.
First time I wear French lingerie out in public and ironically, it would be an Indian public. I don’t even take such liberties in liberal Europe or “free”-as-could-be US of A. But it’s also not so insanely hot anywhere else, and if the Indian ladies wear tank tops, I’ve got to one-up them somehow. Did I mention it’s fricking hot here? I do recall having worn this black slip as a skirt when I’d go to summer parties in Madrid when I was 21 but I’d never donned the Etam blue embroidered loungewear top beyond the doors of my own house (I remember even scandalizing a Wisconsinite roommate once by wearing it in my own living room). I finally understand why these summer months are low season and cheaper in Goa – because it’s so fricking hot, you’d have to pay most people to come here. Thank god I brought this stuff to sleep in, but of course it’s too hot at night to sleep in anything, and even the mosquito netting far overhead cuts off any drafts of fresh air.
First time I sweat more at night in my birthday suit than most people would in a Bikram yoga class.

Ode to Sarasvati

This is late in coming but I’ve found it rather difficult to do any sort of personal writing these last few months. Many discoveries I’ve made and things I’ve learned (and there have been many) haven’t been for public consumption. I do however want to make public my gratitude toward Saraswati Rangaswamy, who, more than most others, has shown her tireless strength in continuously giving to her students. Despite her age (approx. 70), she is constantly getting up and down off the floor six to eight hours a day, sitting cross-legged, giving students tight and hard adjustments, doing serious backbend work daily with hundreds of students, even doing the students that Sharath and the assistants pussy out of doing, and doing it without complaining about her sore back, which students, assistants and people half her age do. And let’s face it, we know she has a sore back, because even you do as you’re comfortably reading this while seated, and you’re probably not 70. How can the woman so continuously, day in and day out, be “at work” already at 5.15 am and still not finish the afternoon the shift til after 5 or sometimes 6 pm? If you’ve ever practiced in the shala, you’re probably familiar with the feeling of exhaustion, but can you imagine working with literally 100s of students every day, year after year after year, with those hours, and at least six and often seven days a week (her students still come on Saturday, the day that Sharath gets off)? And she never complains of familial duties and responsibilities like Sharath does, which she obviously has and had in abundance, raising a larger family in a previous era in India with much less wealth and fewer conveniences than Sharath’s family enjoys now.
I know she had a lot of the responsibility and care for Guruji before he died, having two complete years of sleepless nights, attending him and sleeping on the floor by his bedside in case he needed anything in the night. And then she’d get up in the morning after little or no sleep and get cleaned up and do her chants and by 5.15, the woman would be doing adjustments and backbends in the hundreds. My first trip to Mysore, when there were about 350 people who had come for Guruji’s last birthday, I remember counting the number of people’s backbends she would do and Sharath would do in the same amount of time, and being astonished by the woman. And this was after her sleepless, aching nights.
This winter, one rough Sunday morning led class, I remember being tired, or maybe just not quite awake (although I had been fully awake at 3.15 am when I woke up, I’d gotten sleepy again by 5.30 or 6 am) and I, in a down dog, I looked up and back into Saraswati’s office where she was doing her morning chants from her prayer book as she starts the day every morning, and she was fast asleep on her arms and book on the desk, just as an elementary or middle school kid falls asleep on his books (I’m very familiar with this pose). The poor woman really needed a break and a rest, but there she was at 5.30, doing her prayers before having to do Sharath’s second led class of the day. Later she woke up and continued her recitations. I realized my momentary tiredness was nothing like this woman’s exhaustion and the load she bears every day, and which she does willingly and with never a negative word or showing her tiredness ever. She does it because it’s the fortune she was given and the tradition and family she was lucky enough to be born into and be part of (and she knows it) and she does it out of love for yoga and her father. She embodies yoga and has so much of Guruji.
She is so underappreciated but she is the one who has carried the torch all along, and continued the line from her father. Fittingly, the goddess Sarasvati, the goddess of worldly knowledge, is named for the flow and fluidity which she embodies (Saras + vati = “the one with flow/having flow” in Sanskrit). This flow includes the flow of knowledge from teacher to student and the flow of knowledge from one generation to the next, so there is no stagnation or blockage in the flow and in learning, creating knowledge by destroying ignorance. The goddess Sarasvati ensures that knowledge is transmitted from one generation to the next, something which the worldly woman Saraswati Rangaswamy does every day of her life (and which is primarily a motherly role and responsibility anyway).
This woman is the rock of Gibraltar and you know what? I just want to tell you that, until reaching Rolf’s studio here in Goa, she is the yoga teacher who has believed in me and my abilities more than any other teacher has except Nick Evans. She had faith in me the whole time and from day one, and had faith in my abilities even when I had lost faith in what I could do and was feeling so small and feeble (Feb. and part of March). This is a strong woman. When I was totally lost and had given up on myself (although I may have still looked externally strong, as well as sweaty), she was standing in front of me saying, “You do! You can!!” And I realized this woman’s strength (of mind and will as well as physical) and that she was transmitting it as only the best yoga teachers do, but that she wasn’t doing it through fancy language or subtle tricks to convince the mind of the student before her. From that day I’ve been regaining faith in myself and my abilities and have decided “there’s no more saying no”, no more “not today”, no holds barred in life, yoga and the pursuit of everything.
Did you think this was going to be about Hindu mythology? I’m sorry. I can’t express my gratitude to this lady enough.

A lil' edification

In an aim to write about more than just yoga, here are a few bits of information which some of you may not have known.

Everyone's familiar with paisley (estampado de cachemira), the print that proper dandies have on their cravats (or any old British fop would wear) and which had a boom in the 80s. Not everyone is aware that the pattern was really Indian in origin, although the name in Spanish suggests something of the sort (cachemira, Kashmir). I'm hoping Prince William will sport some in his upcoming royal wedding gear (maybe a nice silk pocket hanky), not to demonstrate and assert his role as Britain's military leader or the British Empire's superiority over Indians, but rather as a nod to the Indians' influence in fashion today.
http://www.indian-heritage.org/artcraft/designs/mango.html
Oh, I forgot to mention the most important part. The paisley pattern does not feature a "paisley". It features everybody's favorite fruit, the mango. This image and pattern can be found all over India (like on kitchen bowls or bordering a temple's awning/gables). Yes, it is a repeated expression of the Indian's love for mango, which I and most sane people share.

Speaking of paisley, what's today's fashion accessory which most frequently bears the paisley pattern? That's right - gangsters' bandanas (AKA handkerchief AKA panuelo). Did gangs invent the bandana? I don't think so. Who did, you ask? You may have guessed right. The Indians did. And if you've done any yoga, the word bandana may sound familiar to you. Really, it's bandhana (related to tying, like bandhas - inner locks/ties). Bandha is where we get the word bound and bind in English, which is what you do with your bandana if you are a gangster - bind it around your head or wrist or ankle if you want to be cool or whatever. You could also stick it in your pocket to be associated with some gangs, but to me that seems more like you want to be associated with British royalty and aristocracy, except in the cotton sort of way (for animal rights' activists who don't use silk because of the silkworms killed in the silk-making process). If you were gay and had a dog, you could also tie the bandana around your dog's neck, thus associating him/her with some gang or other. Remember, silk paisley print material is upper class wear, for right fops, and cotton bandanas are working class gear, to keep your hair back and the sweat from getting in your eyes. Generally nowadays, you don't see too many working class Indians wearing bandanas, because they'll tie any old rag they can get their hands on around their heads to keep the sweat from pouring into their eyes as they labor and toil under the blazing Indian sun They'll even tie an old wool sweater which will make even more sweat pour into their eyes than if they didn't have anything at all tied around their heads. Remember, you're making a fashion statement when you accesorize - it's not only about functionality.
http://www.fotosearch.com/photos-images/bandana.html
That brings me to the last item of the day: indigo. (The reference to India should be obvious here at least).
I could be talking about a range in the electromagnetic spectrum somewhere from 446 and 464 nanometers per wavelength, as we perceive it in visible light. Sir Isaac Newton considered indigo to be one of seven colors in the spectrum. Many later scientists reject his idea, since possibly he defined seven colors so that waves of visible light (color) could be equated to the seven notes (wavelengths of sound) in a musical scale and to seven days in a week. These later scientists say that indigo and violet are both hues of blue, meaning colors in the spectrum aren't equated to anything, neither sound nor time, which is rather boring and scientific. :(
Besides color and light, indigo was the Greek name for dye (indikon), suggesting that in the past, everybody (or at least the Ancient Greeks) only wore blue clothes and had blue sheets, as that was the color the Indians dyed their fabric. This also indirectly implies that Indians were the ancient world's dyers and technological leaders in this textile industry, which is most assuredly truer than my last declaration. An even more correct statement would be that Indians were the world's dyers for the ancient world (as it is encompassed in the purely Western-centric system), only to be surpassed in time by the Dutch, Flemish, Netherlandish and Brabantine (ok, let's just say the Low Countries) in the medieval era, basically dyeing all of Europe's cloth. To recap, in a western-based perspective, Indians dyed the ancient world's cloth and the Low Country-ers dyed the medieval world's cloth. And of course, we use the word indigo for the color because of the Indians' influence.
This was for all of you who think that India is only great because of Gandhi, having inspired a few Beatles' songs, and palak paneer.