Very Peculiar Benefits

Did I mention I finished reading Eat, Pray, Love at the Ashram during the 2 days I was sick in bed? (during the week I also subsisted on tea biscuits, bananas and oranges because I couldn't see another bowl of rice without my stomach churning?) I enjoyed it, and tried very hard not to compare her India experience to mine, since comparision is a dead end street. Still, I decided my title for my version is Smell, Skip, Surrender.

Smell: Walking along toward Jain Ghat today after our yoga class and lunch, Rich says "Except for the smell of shit, it's quite beautiful today."

Skip: "Watch out Miss. This is Holy seed, not just seed, this is holy seed because it comes from the cows." Rakeesh says.

I said "Holy seed, wow, I didn't know it was called that." Rich stepped in to say "He's saying shit. Holy Shit, not seed."

Ah.

Not a problem, I can handle that. In fact, if you were to look at my feet before the blessed hot water shower, I've been mired in holy, dancing with the divine, since I arrived and put on the flip flops. You can try to skip over it, or jump over it, and be extra careful when backing up to a wall or turning a corner here.

Surrender: "Sometimes surrender means giving up trying to understand and becoming comfortable with not knowing."- Eckhart Tolle in Stillness Speaks.

Today I stood on top of a small hotel just off Mansowar Ghat, having a Yoga class. The teacher was fantastic, and this time no crowd could drop by. Rich was with me, so it was like a private class for two from this man who has been pratcising and teaching for years. He explained a lot of things first, then started the breathing exercises and then we were into Asanas.

Some stuff was beyond me: "If you do this posture, you can take water into your rectum and cleanse your stomach this way." Often he would give a posture and say, "Very peculiar benefits this ."

Now, at the end of the day, I'm once again feeling the burn, and this wasn't as non-stop cardio as the one in Bodhgaya - but it was 2 hours (did I know I signed up for 2 hours? No sir. Did Rich? Nope. Ouchie)

Then I went for an Ayurvedic massage at a beauty parlour near the other hotel we'd stayed at - and I wasn't sure what ot would be like, they didn't advertise doing massage at all. Rich had noticed women coming out and pointed it out to me, encouraging me to go ask.

So I set that up yesterday and today I was in somebody's house above their salon business, essentially in the master bedroom of the house, having these two women who spoke little english massage me with the oil that smelled like roses. (I haven't smelled this good in a long time.)

The master bedroom was right off the living room, and when someone was in the living room watching television, which sounded like Bollywood MTV, I tried to ignore the fact that I was naked in someone's family home and that someone was in the next room watching TV (volume on high). My massagers started singing along with the MTV singer. There's no New Age waterfall/flute music happening in that environment.

Then a domestic dispute broke out, between a man and woman with the yelling sounding a lot like it would in an Italian home. I hoped it wasn't the man of teh house going "Why can't I go lie down for a nap? Who the hell's in my bedroom?"

One woman kept saying "Good? Relax?"

"Yes," I said, "Atcha" (thereby using the only Hindi I can remember from paying Pawan, a 12 year old CD hawker outside the temple in Bodhgaya to teach me. Atcha means "okay". Dhanyavad is "Thank you". Kripya means "please" but has a connotation like "have mercy". No doubt you can guess, the last one's my favourite as I thought I might have to ask for mercy often.)

My favourite part was when the women kept on having to give me a wedgie for to be able to massage my bottom while I was on my stomach, because I didn't remove my underwear.

"Good?"

Atcha. Kripya! Atcha.