In search of Saraswati…

My time in India is coming to an end – for now anyway. I’m sure I’ll be back at some point in the future. There are still so many experiences to be had and interesting characters to be met. And despite the various contrasts that I touched upon in an earlier post, I’m still deeply drawn to the spiritual awareness, or “groundedness”, that continues to be explored and practiced here. I like to call it “groundedness” as spiritual awareness freaks people out or conjures up various images that don’t accurately convey what I’m talking about. I think the majority of people have a greater understanding and respect for the word “grounded”.

So, I’m not saying goodbye to India, but I’m saying goodbye to this Blog. I’ll keep the Blog active at the address – blogs.bootsnall.com/libbyswan/ – to serve anyone interested in travel to/within India.

Before I go…Kaivalyadhama Yoga Institute – http://www.kdham.com/

This is where I am currently. (I’ve broken my “no Internet for 7 days vow”.) I’m attending the 7-day yoga-therapy/naturopathy “treatment course”. I’m essentially a patient at the facility’s “Yoga Hospital”. To be a student here, you must be enrolled in one of their Certificate or Diploma courses. The shortest of these courses I believe is approx. 6 weeks.

Anyway, today is day five, and I’m thoroughly relaxed and well-rested, albeit a bit sore given I’ve been doing two yoga classes a day, after many months of no exercise other than walking/hiking.

This has been my daily regimen:

6.30am – Wake-up
7am-8.15am – Yoga (Very much like Hatha Yoga, although Kaivalyadhama’s Yoga is “non-denominational” – so I’ve been told)
9am – Breakfast (Veggie)
9.30am/10am – Naturopathy treatment (approx. 40 min. to 1.30 hours, depending on what’s been assigned to you/what you’ve chosen)
12pm – Lunch (Veggie)
2pm/3pm – Naturopathy treatment (same situation as above)
4.30pm-5.45pm – Yoga
7pm – Dinner (Veggie)
8pm – Lecture (I’ve attended none of these as my concentration span has crashed by dinner time)
9pm – Sleep (You can go to sleep at anytime you like. 9pm has been the time I’ve usually been crashing by.)

Oh, and I’m getting all of this for USD $15/day. Or it could be USD $12. I have my own room (there are two beds) and a separate/shared (VERY CLEAN) bathroom. And given it’s the low-season there are only four other “patients” here with me (only one other foreigner). The rest of the people visiting the campus are students either doing a Certificate or Diploma course. Of these students there are about 10 other foreign students that dine with us at meal times. Makes for an interesting crowd…

Just got back from a 7 day trip to see the Taj Mahal, Dharmsala, Dalhousie, Chamba and Kujar (I think it was Kujar). The later four are all in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, in the Western Himalayas.

Pictures describe most of what we saw better than words, so here are just a few. I’ll post a few of the “nuggets” I picked up along the way, especially in Dharmsala (the Dalai Lama’s home base), later on.

Just quickly, some of the highlights included: getting to the Taj from Delhi and back in under 20 hours; crossing the Bhagsu waterfall with a French couple and hiking along the other side with them; dining with a very cute Japanese couple in McLeod Ganj/Dharmsala over…pizza; meeting a Dutch Buddhist in training, learning from her, and playing with her gorgeous son; stopping the car outside of Chamba and hiking up some unknown trail to the top of a mountain to find ~4 families living there who make the hike everyday just to get to the store, school, etc.

One of the major low-lights was the amount of discarded chip/snack packets we saw pretty much everywhere. It would be great if Pepsi Co. (the owner of Frito Lay, and one of the major, if not #1 distributors of chips/snacks here) could find a better solution to preserve their chips/snacks. One that’s biodegradable or at least recyclable. You’d think that given their CEO (Indra Nooyi) is of Indian descent, there might be a greater sense of corporate responsibility or concern about Pepsi’s role in the pollution of India.

I joined a group of Dev’s friends for a hike this past Sunday – minus Dev. Dev was still dealing with the consequences of Friday night…

Here was the email (with a few small edits) that was sent out re: the hike:

About Peth (or Kotligad): Peth is a small fort, with a large cave at its base, that sits on top of a mountain at an altitude of 1,550 feet. It’s in the shape of a funnel with a rocky staircase carved in the middle. The mountain that the fort sits on is detached from the main range of the Sahyadiri. The lower plateau is connected with Wandre Khind on the ghats in the east.

About the Hike: It’s about a 2 hour walk from the nearest road (Ambivli) to the base of fort. From the base to the top, it’s about half an hour.

Program: Leave for Ambivli (25km from Karjat) by car (7:30 a.m). Arrive at Ambivli by 9:30 a.m. Follow the trail to Peth. Arrive at Peth village by 11.30 a.m. Arrive at Peth fort by 12:00 p.m. After lunch, head back down to Ambivli. Arrive at Ambivli by 3:30 p.m. Depart for Mumbai. Arrive in Mumbai by 6.00 p.m. (The execution of this program did not go according to plan. We started late, got lost on the way there, had many more rest stops than planned for, then got delayed on the way back thanks to Mumbai traffic. The whole hike itself (with breaks) took approx. five hours.)

Things to bring:
– 2 litres of water /Gatorade
– Lunch
– Hiking shoes (good to have)
– Rain jacket
– Change of clothes (assume it will rain)
– Mosquito repellent

Getting There: We need 2-3 cars, preferably with drivers, but we can coordinate that tomorrow.

Bombay is really quite an attractive city, especially if you go “high”; by this I mean look up at the gorgeous old buildings surrounding you throughout the city, and walk up around the hilly areas north of Chowpatty Beach – e.g. Malabar Hill and Camballa Hill.

In conversations with locals on how beautiful the old architecture is here, and whether or not there are plans to restore and preserve such buildings, I haven’t received very positive responses. I think this is largely due to the common misconception that “new” indicates to others (who are just as mislead) that you are “coming up” in the world – be it as an individual, family or even country. (I particularly noted this phenomenon in Bangalore, where many of the girls from the Community College would make a notable effort to turn up in a new outfit everyday. The girls who couldn’t afford to do this looked on with angst or complained. The CC coordinators and I discussed this misconception of “new”, especially within underprivileged communities, at length. They did their best to try and rectify the situation with the girls, without implementing a mandatory uniform. I strongly believed that in this context, a mandatory uniform would be an unnecessary expense (in terms of money and time) given the various other priorities the girls, and organization, should be focused on. I have no idea what CC coordinators said, but they must have said something because this “fashion show” seemed to take a back-seat.)

Anyway, back to the old architecture of Bombay. For the sake of Bombay’s reputation as a desirable residential and travel destination, I hope the majority of these buildings are restored and preserved. I hope the city looks to other reputable cities that have done the same – e.g. London, Paris, Copenhagen, Stockholm, the West Village and UWS of New York, the Rocks area of Sydney, etc. And I hope my children will be able to take photos of the same gorgeous old buildings in years to come.