India, Day 3

Checked into the Shivananda Ashram after a truly awful breakfast of all-fried food. Am fully briefed on all the DOs of the ashram, the DONT's aren't mentioned . Seems like they just want you to apply some common sense. The Secretary General and his entourage come across as serious people with a deep purpose in life. Explaining that wearing a short skirt around the ashram appears way beneath them. The ashram takes its mission very seriously and expects the scholars to observe the same. My room is in block 1, very clean and tidy place. I'm enquiring on yoga classes - only in the evening for women. "Can I join the men's class in the morning?" I ask sheepishly. "And why would you want to do that, dear madam?" he shoots back at me. I give up. Lunch is at 1130am, served at the 'Dining Hall". Long carpets are rolled out for people to sit on in long rows. Women separate from men. Food is simple yet delicious; rice, capatis, dhulls, ladies fingers, water, salt. No garlic and onions are used. Apparently they make you fart, which is not desirable when you meditate. Men with buckets of food walk along the rows and dish out a portion on each plate.

While walking around the ashram, I bump once again to Raja whom I met yesterday. We go up to the hilltop shrine and talk for a while. He's from the south, a graduate of economics. He tried working before, but found companies and the corporate world to be highly immoral. "I'm a very immoral person" I tell him. We both laugh. Yesterday when we spoke, he was learning from me where Hong Kong, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur were to be found on the map. India is complicated enough to master. He is a traveller now, seeking a higher purpose in life. I'm feeling very cheeky and ask him how he makes a living. He does not give me an answer and I decide to be polite and stop here. He has interesting views on life - he feels that if girls mature in the age of 13, they should get married at that age. He himself is 35 and still is not married. "Progress is about giving people choices in life" I tell him, not sure if it registers.

I fall asleep in the afternoon, it's the work of the wheat intolerance - it's making me feel so sluggish again. I get up in time for the first yoga class at the ashram. Run by a French african woman, the class starts with 20 min meditaion. I feel like she's lost us and vice versa. I didn't like the class and her teaching. Too passive and not charismatic at all. She forgets what we told her 5 min ago, she calls the Japanese girl Korean and when corrected she says 'close enough'. I decide to explore Rishikesh for better options. Dinner is at 7pm, it's very simple food and I'm feeling peckish. Hit the town, in search for fruit and sweets, I also find Green Hotel with an Iyengar yoga teacher. He tells me to return at 8am the next day. For the sheer fact that he resembles Sharukh Khan, I will.