India, Day 2
My driver calls me at 6am sharp “This is your driver speaking madam”. I love Delhi at 6am, already bright, yet not in the full state of madness. We drive pass a man who made a house or a roof over his head by using a car cut in half. Everything makes sense in this chaos. Every man around the railway station knows which platform the train to Haridwar departs from. No official display is available. The train takes off with a Swiss precision at 655am. Across the tracks, I see a family making their way down for a morning toilet session. The woman has an obvious advantage, by wearing a skirt. But is discretion something that she cares about. Her 2 yr old boy takes the longest, she just leaves him there. There seems to be no train arriving. But does she know it for sure??
On the train, I sit next to a French tour guide, she’s traveled the world and keeps returning to India. Her group is equally enthusiastic. She’s telling me how she still has not found the man of your life, how tough it is to have a man wait for her to come home. She concludes that women are meant to wait, not men. I concur. I tell her about www.match.com and how my friends met there, got married and are now having a baby. She looks very optimistic. Then I also tell her my mother’s experience of being involved in a multi-dating episode, with heart-breaking effects for some. She further tells me that her father was half-Polish, but abandoned her mother. They never married. “You were a love-child”, I tell her. She laughs out loud, telling me that nobody ever called her that. We part after the 5 hour ride, I wish her luck on match.com. At the railway station at Haridwar, I’m surrounded by a few too many taxi drivers, feeling strangely alone in getting rid of them. I jump on a registered taxi, and the unaided suicide on a rural Indian road begins. Being well predispositioned to asian ways, my heart only once skips a beat – when a bus is head-on with us. An hour later I sit at the Sivananda Ashram office, explaining myself why I had supposedly not written in a month ahead to request the Secretary General for a stay permit. But I did. But my work held me back. But he has little consideration and understanding of the mean corporate life. So he turns me down, I can’t stay. He asks me to come back 3 hours from now to speak to the all-mighty General. My backpack is too heavy to walk around, so I give in to the Swiss Cottage, Lonely Planet’s favourite. I don’t like these kind of places. Little UK in India, Little Germany in India, now also Little Israel in India. People travel for months, without interacting with the locals, just burying their noses in LP. Perils of perfection. I drop my bag, rinse down and dash out to see the town. Rishikesh is spread on both the sides of the Ganges river. I’m determined to go back to Sivananda, but planning a back-up yoga place. After crossing the Ramjula Bridge, this part of Rishikesh is no different than Kuta in Bali or Patong in Phuket. I run away, finding surprisingly lush and green areas just 1 km away. This is what I expected it to be. Expectations are the best way to ruin the experience. I hike up the mysterious path up to the ashram, to be welcome by a ‘DO NOT Disturb' sign. I prepare to leave, but am whistled at my the swami. I have to convince him that I’m not just a passing tourist, that I have a higher purpose in life than stretching my bones. I do some name-dropping quoting Karen O’Bannen to be my teacher at some yoga workshops in KL. He’s hardly impressed. I want to understand yoga beyond its physical merits. Now we are connected, at least on the lowest level. He will do a psychological diagnosis on me when I come back, so we align yoga and meditation depending on his verdict. I remind open-minded. I now also see the only-other visitor, a NZ girl sweeping the gardens. I peep at her extremely basic room. The corporate girl of comfort awakes in me and I decide to move on. I go back to Sivananda to present and sell my story to the Secretary General. He finally accepts me at the ashram. I don’t like ‘no’ for an answer… My day tomorrow will start at 5am with some morning sun light shots. Took some shots today, none of them impressive. I’m still warming up.
On the train, I sit next to a French tour guide, she’s traveled the world and keeps returning to India. Her group is equally enthusiastic. She’s telling me how she still has not found the man of your life, how tough it is to have a man wait for her to come home. She concludes that women are meant to wait, not men. I concur. I tell her about www.match.com and how my friends met there, got married and are now having a baby. She looks very optimistic. Then I also tell her my mother’s experience of being involved in a multi-dating episode, with heart-breaking effects for some. She further tells me that her father was half-Polish, but abandoned her mother. They never married. “You were a love-child”, I tell her. She laughs out loud, telling me that nobody ever called her that. We part after the 5 hour ride, I wish her luck on match.com. At the railway station at Haridwar, I’m surrounded by a few too many taxi drivers, feeling strangely alone in getting rid of them. I jump on a registered taxi, and the unaided suicide on a rural Indian road begins. Being well predispositioned to asian ways, my heart only once skips a beat – when a bus is head-on with us. An hour later I sit at the Sivananda Ashram office, explaining myself why I had supposedly not written in a month ahead to request the Secretary General for a stay permit. But I did. But my work held me back. But he has little consideration and understanding of the mean corporate life. So he turns me down, I can’t stay. He asks me to come back 3 hours from now to speak to the all-mighty General. My backpack is too heavy to walk around, so I give in to the Swiss Cottage, Lonely Planet’s favourite. I don’t like these kind of places. Little UK in India, Little Germany in India, now also Little Israel in India. People travel for months, without interacting with the locals, just burying their noses in LP. Perils of perfection. I drop my bag, rinse down and dash out to see the town. Rishikesh is spread on both the sides of the Ganges river. I’m determined to go back to Sivananda, but planning a back-up yoga place. After crossing the Ramjula Bridge, this part of Rishikesh is no different than Kuta in Bali or Patong in Phuket. I run away, finding surprisingly lush and green areas just 1 km away. This is what I expected it to be. Expectations are the best way to ruin the experience. I hike up the mysterious path up to the ashram, to be welcome by a ‘DO NOT Disturb' sign. I prepare to leave, but am whistled at my the swami. I have to convince him that I’m not just a passing tourist, that I have a higher purpose in life than stretching my bones. I do some name-dropping quoting Karen O’Bannen to be my teacher at some yoga workshops in KL. He’s hardly impressed. I want to understand yoga beyond its physical merits. Now we are connected, at least on the lowest level. He will do a psychological diagnosis on me when I come back, so we align yoga and meditation depending on his verdict. I remind open-minded. I now also see the only-other visitor, a NZ girl sweeping the gardens. I peep at her extremely basic room. The corporate girl of comfort awakes in me and I decide to move on. I go back to Sivananda to present and sell my story to the Secretary General. He finally accepts me at the ashram. I don’t like ‘no’ for an answer… My day tomorrow will start at 5am with some morning sun light shots. Took some shots today, none of them impressive. I’m still warming up.
posted by Magdalena Wszelaki @ 12:58 AM
1 Comments:
At 8:56 PM,
Anonymous said…
except for the fact that I am constitutionally incapable of bending over to touch my toes or kiss my own butt as is required by many yoga poses - I really really really wish I was there!
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