adventures in india

"you must watch the people!"

2006-01-17T06:52:00.000-08:00

well i'm currently on my 3 day journey back home.

alway/kochi
i took a general non A/C train to alway which is the airport outside of kochi. it took 6 hours and was splendid. i gazed out the open window the entire trip, nothing but rice paddys, palms, backwaters and pilgrims clad in black for sabrimala. i kept ordering coffee and chai from the constant stream of vendors. totally wonderful. probably the best train journey in the history of my travels here. who knew? rps67-that's about US1.30. 2 hungarian back packers asked me to share a cab, which was just fine. they were going to the domestic airport same as me and on their way to delhi/hungary. the girl-rita-was fed up with india and had a panic disorder. "i want to do yoga some day. will it help with my panic?" um, yes. crammed in a 3 week journey trips to delhi, agra, jaipur, jodphur, udaipur, varkala, and kochi. no wonder she is sick of it. all with a huge back pack. i prefer to snack on india and with a suitcase. anyhow, i thought she would have a heart attack on deccan airlines-the size of a large helicopter and with propellers. oh well.
i hung at the airport 4 hours busying myself with the internet cafe and bookstores.

bangalore
bangalore, as usual, is totally nice and comfortable. it's very east meets west fusion and hip. if i had to live in india, i might choose this city. i opted for a nicer hotel with a/c, tv, hot water, room service action. i take advantage in india cause it's so cheap. i chow down on the confused order (they always get it wrong even if they repeat it back perfectly) and watch jack nicholson in "wolf" and indulge in the most addictive mtv india. in the morning, i ventured on the streets to search for internet. "we do not have internet here, madam" "in the silicone valley of india???" well, i could not find anything and bribed the staff at the hotel to let me use theirs for free. i indulged in my free breakfast, which was the best in india ever. 4 idlys stuffed with nuts, tomato oothapam, peanut chutney, coconut chutney, and the best sambhar i have ever tasted.

my driver back to the airport was mohammad nassir khan-nassir for short. he dropped the khan part. he was very charming and spent the entire half hour begging me for work in america or any country for that matter. "i cook, clean, drive, fix cars, garden, and counsel (?)" he was very proud of his passport and worked in malaysia for 2 weeks. i asked him, "what about visa?" cause that's the hard one, i know from talking to many indians that it is almost impossible. lots of red tape, waiting years and a huge amount of money. the poor never make it to my country. "i get visa, you just tell me when to come! i do not cheat. i am not a cheater. i am born 1962! i do not take much money. i only need eat, sleep-i work hard! please you help me get a job!!" than he busts into a muslim prayer song and chant to allah, praying for lisa lisa lisa to help him. i just did not have the heart to tell him that his chances were slim to none, so i tipped him generously.

the airport guards would not let me through security. "you must take food, you must watch the people!" "but i only want to buy magazines, not eat" "oh...she is fasting! well you sit and watch the people." ok. i go to the airport coffee day and purchase a pile of bollywood rag. such a funny place.

mumbai
an uneventful flight back to mumbai. when i arrived, i went to the hotel reservation booth and got snagged away and got talked into staying with a gaggle of sari clad lady seniors at the sai baba ashram. "you stay with us at ashram and we meditate till we go back to airport." which would be 8 hours. "ok". so i sit and i wait and i wait and i start thinking, do i really want to do this? i notice many of the ladies won't sit by me, looking at me with distrust. (?) i wonder what i'm getting into cause all that was on my mind after 2 days travel and another ahead of me, was a hot bath, internet, mtv, food and beer-none of which would be found with sai baba. "ummm...i am not a sai baba devotee" "why?" she says. i have no answer. she understands, i get my swank modern hotel in the middle of some horrifying slums with everything i need.

this will be the last entry to my blog this trip. thanks for staying with me on my journey!

with love-
bindifry

birth & death party

2006-01-14T19:34:00.000-08:00

"the important elements constituting a nation are being disease free, wealth & productivity, harmonious living & strong defense," abdul kalam; president of india.
he is quoting from a 2000 year old text thirukkural(the south's ramayana)

"there is no difference between a poor man and a dead man"-the ramayana.

some interesting takes on the wealth subject in "being indian"

i finished my last day with lino. "one side very good, other not so good. they must be same" he tells me about vasisthasana. which is true and just fine. i have a lot of work in front of me and yoga was a joke today. almost killed myself in titibasana. no explanation. couldn't balance in pinca mayurasana. these have not been problems before. i get sappy. tears coming. snap out of it and finish the damn practice. let it go.

i'm in my room after the post yoga shower and "knock knock knock" those soft siva knocks. he appears with a perfectly wrapped package of sweets-prasad. i know before opening cause you can squeeze them-like snowballs. very "sweet" gesture. the last day on the island.

daren had a party friday for me leaving and nicola and lauren arriving. i called it "birth and death" party. a wonderful gesture. a supurb spread of real kerala thali served on the banana leaf. such a treat. a nice party consisting of tamil people, a girl from mozambique (of course i HAD to know how astanga reached HER!), wild adam and his purple hair and his mates, some sassy english lassies, gopan the flirt, todd, daren and the new girlies.

i took the new girlies on their first rickshaw ride (it's endearing to witness this)to the kripa theatre to deflower them of the bollywood. my old rickshaw "pal" is MIA, so i negotiated a new one and we were fine on our way. the movie opened this weekend, "zindu", and was directed and produced by sanjay gupta, starring the legendary sanjay dutt, model turned actor john abraham and lara dutta, miss world. set in bankok, this excellent movie is in the new hip mtv style. no big musical numbers, but lots of graphic violence and good story and acting. a revenge movie about an educated psychotic (abraham) holding a childhood grudge and taking revenge on the kids that teased his sister and caused her to burn herself to death. he kidnapps sanjay and throws him in the thai jail and knocks him out with injections and poison smoke, making him pay for his childhood antics. lara dutta is his taxi driver (?) there is real kissing in this movie-lip on lip action, but no open mouth. i'm always totally shocked if that happens. almost turns it into porn. it's weird.

well on to my long journey home. i leave at 5am tomorrow and won't be home for 4 days. train, to taxi, to plane, to taxi, to plane, to taxi to plane to taxi.

see you soon!

eye of the tiger

2006-01-12T23:30:00.000-08:00

well i'm nearing the last couple days here in india. 10 months of my life spent here over 3 years and am already negosiating next year's hotel. this place definitely has it's ups and downs, but there's no better place to study. and learn about yourself. and learn patience. and learn cinema! i'm very happy to have stayed in a budget hotel this year cause it forced me to read again. it's been a long time. and appreciate the simple life, which has slowed me down quite a bit. it's hard to have nothing to do for a month or 2, but it's very good for the mind and body to just be still. most yogis who come here are obsessed with ayurvedic cleansing and massage to the point of it being more of a focal point than the yoga itself. and many women are obsessed with losing weight. i've seen the most skinny white girls here and in mysore than anywhere else in the world. this morning during led class, this toothpick massage obsessed girl fainted on my mat and had a seizure. me thinks she should add a little food to her "program." everytime i ask people to go to the movies, they tell me they have massage at 2, cleansing at 4, oil drip at 6...a movie is too long to accomodate that kind of schedule. lino tells his students that massage on top of the very hardcore astanga is a bad idea. and i listen to him. i find so many people have a hard time with doing nothing. but isn't yoga supposed to bring us to that nothing place and learn to embrace it?

what was important materialistically this year for me?
-lots of long books
-playing cards
-transistor radio-batteries only
-lots of earplugs
-lots of panties
-3 shirts, 3 skirts
-pens and notebook
-little bottles of good liquid soap (thanks julie & adam)
-scented japanese fan (thanks sue!)
-2 extra towels from home
-1st aid kit
-oil of olay moist towelettes

the ipod is nice, but not necessary.

THE EYE OF THE TIGER is playing on the radio
now it's INXS
the theme music on the radio is miami sound machine's CONGA

THE 4 PURUSHARTHAS IN HINDUISM (goals in life)
1.ARTHA-acquisition of wealth
2.DHARMA-rules of life, what your purpose is
3.KAMA-pursuit of desire (you must be an accomplished lover according to kama sutra)
4.MOKSHA-salvation

from "being indian"

PRASAD

2006-01-09T20:36:00.000-08:00

one new pose has totally altered my body. just when the hips were opening, SLAM! shut again, thanks to this asana. this practice plays this game constantly-your back is open, new pose comes, SLAM! closed. every part of your body. non-attachment is the sane way to go, believe me. this new asana seems to be about balance and strengthening the hip flexors. it's hard to be flexible and strong in all areas of the body, but astanga addresses it all, that is if you are one of the few practitioners who sticks with the practice long enough to realize this. it really takes tons of patience and many years-i've been at it 9 years and feel like an embryo in the womb.

when i first met gwendoline hunt, it was my good fortune that she whispered a wonderful snack of wisdom in my ear which has stayed with me always. she told me, "the more you do this practice, the more you will understand it." SO TRUE.

PRASAD-offerings of sweets to a god or a guest (guests ARE god to indians)
usually a sugar bomb in any thousand of shapes and textures. some dense, like almond balls, some light and airy, like these pillows of coconut balls siva gave me at the internet yesterday. he left me with 10 and i ate every single one! "what are they?" "bombay sweets!" fresh coconut balls of heaven! and straight after yoga, a woman gives me dense cookie types that fall apart in your mouth! sugary buttery goodness! and i don't know why, but i feel like a god when i am eating these.
prasad is also the name of a small young extremely sweet waiter at the lonely planet. he was born with the perfect name! he wears a tiny t-shirt that says "try me."

i'm reading my 5th book this month called "being indian-the truth about why the 21st century will be indias" by parvan k. varma. it's a bit on the scholarly side, but pretty insightful. it discusses the traits that indians have so non indians can better understand them. they have a lot going for them. resiliant people who've had to deal with adversity constantly-even the middle and upper classes have to deal with traffic, polution, water and electrical shortages on a daily basis. they are also a detached people and spiritual, constantly getting forgiveness from "sins" or "wrong-doings"-a jump in the ganga does the trick, or several hundred mantras.
yesterday i read in the hindu that there were 80,000 indians admitted into top american schools last year! this is very good news for india. bright people, hard working, curious. that will get you a lot in this life.

A HARD RAIN is gonna fall...

2006-01-08T06:21:00.000-08:00

it's totally downpouring again. monsoon is extended into the late months this year and it's delightful! i've never seen this kind of rain before. just downpours and stops. a hard rain, it is. rain in tropical india is actually romantic, except i have no one but my imagination to share that notion with. it's nice cause it's so hot here and is a nice change cause i am not a beach girl. i've made pals with my ivory white skin and we have an agreement.

in yoga, the strength is with me again, thanks to saturday's off. why we don't practice saturdays? cause saturn rules and it's inauspicious. it's a brilliant idea, imo. so during chakra bandhasana (drop back to the head), lino asks me the all too familiar question, "so how you feel?" and i'm feeling real good and strong, even though i ate 2 jaffles and drank 2 beers night before. he says "tomorrow you do vasistasana." 3rd series.

EROTIC INDIA PT. 2
i finished the sex book. i will spare you details, but mr. kumar keeps an active sex life throughout the rest of the book. his lingam is his best pal. the last hussy he screwed asked him, "why don't you wear a condom? you should be more careful."
so kumar, who has never been sick before, gets sick and can't heal. AIDS!!! kumar and his penis are no longer friends and he even slaps it around scolding all his 15 inches of manhood. because aids is SO humiliating here in india, he decides to take 30 sleeping pills, reciting the gayatri mantra after each pill is consumed.
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VISIONS OF INDIA
2 year old indian boy wearing dad's flip flops chasing a white puppy through the lonely planet restaurant during breakfast.
cut to 7 year old making silly faces, sticking his tongue out and such till he gets smacked square in the face with a ball of coconut fibers! his face went from "nya nya!" to balling like a great girls blouse! crack me up hours later!

vinyasa master

2006-01-06T06:12:00.000-08:00

it sure feels good to be a student. when i'm in india i forget that i am a teacher and it's such a nice feeling. there's still much to learn in about yoga and life.

many people say astanga yoga is boring cause you do the same thing over and over again. but this is why we call it yoga mala-repeated prayers, chants and mantra repeated is extremely powerful. i have learned several instruments over the years and the only way i was able to finally play them was if i practiced scales and rhythms over and over again. there's something profound about that "do your practice and all is coming."

if you find that you are bored with astanga, ask yourself some questions-what is the 6th vinyasa of utkatasana? dristi is what? what is the transition? are you engaging mula and uddiyana bandhas? is your breath even and correct? this is not boring, but quite challanging.

anyhow, india is pretty interesting, both profound and scarey at times. it's 5000 years old and has much wisdom. practicing yoga here is perfect, especially with a soundtrack of chants, prayers, temple bells and explosions always in the background.

my hotel manager's name is joe-boy and his brother is johnny-boy. joe's ringtone on his cell is "oh susana, don't you cry for me, i've come from alabama with my banjo on my knee," and johnny has his name tattooed on his forarm with the crucifixion above it. interesting.

lino taught a half primary and a full today. there are lots of people confused about the correct vinyasa and he is trying hard to change that fact because he is VINYASA MASTER.

so i have met quite a few interesting people from all over the world. being alone does have it's advantages and it's actually fun to hang out with total strangers. people are so fascinating that i sometimes forget i'm shy. "you're a documentary filmaker for the bbc?" "23 years in the irish marines? now you are riding your motorbike all over india without a plan?" "nice book you've wrote of 365 yoga quotes."

gwendoline quote
hadie shared a good gwen story. she once said at age 60-"i'm gonna be through all 6 series by the time i am 70." then she goes on to say, "but when i reached 3rd, i had to go back to primary again because i had not learned the use of my bandhas!"
guruji always says, "slowly, slowly, slowly"

the year of the dog

2006-01-05T19:45:00.000-08:00

finally saw "bluffmaster." with a name like that and after seeing the videos, i expected this to be a real horror. to my surprise it was good. basically it's a con gets conned movie with a decent cast-nana patakar, priyanka and abishek. btw-abishek should never smile. ruins his face. it's supposed to be a remake of a 70s film and it had all the right elements-gangsta rapping, rich stylin studly con men-think "miami vice" set in mumbai and showing all it's beauty.

i was actually wanting to see a more local film, but i brought a bollywood virgin and i want to take it slow with him. with indian cinema, you don't want to scare first timers away. the next one will be regional.

and when sharaf dropped us off, he asked for "help" in the form of 3000 rupees. how awkward. daren says it always leads to that. just say no. i mean, the dude now owns his own rickshaw thanks to me. i think that's enough help.
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THE HINDU TRIVANDRUM EDITION
tit bits

1ST FLIGHT FROM RUSSIA HAS 214 TOURISTS FOR A 10 DAY SOJURN IN KERALA
"we did not expect such a grand welcome. back home it's freezing but we're happy to see the climate is good here"
lady! it's south india! you are from russia!

CITY UNSUITABLE FOR HUMAN HABITATION
trivandrum

WELFARE FUND FOR SHOP FLOOR ASSISTANTS FORMED

NEW COW BREED WITH MORE MILK YIELD
phule triveni cows are robust and strong!
-they live 18 years
-they milk 10-12 months
-naturally disease resistant
-adaptable to drought

RINGSPOT VIRUS IN PAPAYA
PRSV-papaya ring spot virus-is a major infestation of the papaya crop

QUESTION CORNER
why do tennis players eat bananas?
why does milk turn sour?
when the hand rests, why do the fingers curl?
whi is the left thumb impression taken for men and the right for women?

SHANGHAI
a company in northern china will only hire candidates born in the asian zodiac's year of the canine, which starts january 29.
"we believe that people born in dog years are loyal and honest"

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AIR-ALL INDIA RADIO
vintage michael jackson
"wanna be startin something"
followed by the live version of "smoke on the water"

i'm totally not kidding

erotic india part 1

2006-01-03T22:25:00.000-08:00

i plowed through half that erotic indian paperback-it's actually interesting coming from the mind of an 85 year old senile indian. way soft core, but by indian standards, HARD. we read the "F" word, of course the author is hung like a horse and it needs it's name in the cast of characters. ok.

he (he's a brahman) dumps the boring wife of 13 years and the kids. he hooks up with the sweeper, who is an untouchable, with an incredible dark, (BUT pretty anyhow-gee thanks) hourglass figured woman who is very happy to accept money and sex, especially since her husband is a lush and is never home.

than dude puts an ad in several newspapers for a live in sex slave for rps10,000 per month, room and board, free limo service-dude is an importer and a millionaire. hooks up with a short frumpy school marm with small tits and a fat ass who does not drink but suddenly turns into a 6 glasses of port a night hussy, the reputation of both of them becomes public, cause hey-servents are gossips.

now we learn of his schooling in princeton-free scholarship cause he's a genius and goes from delhi to princeton and back again. he meets an orthadox muslim pakistani hindu hater (the dude is a hindu) and the old(20 years his senior) fat smart mouthed pakistani woman gets all political on his ass, fanatical religeous and they have many interesting debates-the most interesting part of the book so far-and low and behold right before she leaves the college, she screws him silly and we get to know all the fleshyness of it-ewe!!! her orthodox muslim ways right out the window.

can't wait to finish so i can regurgitate it on this blog.
stay tuned.

humility

2006-01-03T22:17:00.000-08:00

i've been receiving firm and frequent adjustments in class for the past few weeks, in addition to the travel and india itself. i have now begun to live through the "real" yoga that i talk a good talk about. you know, the one where we embrace the hard times, the stiffness, the weakness, the voices in the head that convince you that everyone in the room is judging you, and i thought i learned this lesson more than once before.

the way this yoga works is this. you feel like on top of the world, sometimes for a day, sometimes a week, light, perfect, confident. than it comes to a screeching halt, and there is no explanation. sometimes i try to figure it out. "food? not enough carbs? toxins? planetary? biorhythms? my general attitude towards the world at any given time (!)"

the reason does not matter, because as soon as i think i've got it figured out, i am soaring like a superhero through the practice once again.

how humble this practice makes me.

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you must have been an indian in past life, except we don't believe in reincarnation...

2006-01-03T06:33:00.000-08:00

todd and i wandered into a bookstore somewhere on our way somewhere else, after canceling our plans to see "bluffmaster" at the parthas. sharaf was not available and i would miss his company and his big speakers and cd player blasting indian filmi music in the rickshaw.

the bookstores in india are usually small and the offerings often strange. the books are always dusty and dirty and in no particular order. but it was a slice of heaven, being rather book dry at the moment. they steered me right to, "the company of women" by khushwant singh. a sikh! ok. i got to reading it later and here is a snippet from the author's note: "i started writing this novel at age 83 and finished at 85. no characters in this expose are real: they are figments of my senile fantasies." i'm already skeptical and privately blushing. the 2 books i picked out for myself were selected tamil and punjabi short stories. call me conservative.

naturally we are invited to sit down with danny and tommy and culture swap. i vocalize my love for bollywood, they bash the bolly. "no good scripts-we like american movies. realistic is better." ok, i half agree, but i like the escapism of bad recent bollywood, as well as appreciate fine indian cinema as well. so i ask what these dudes like. "friends, animal planet, will and grace, and caroline in the city-very good script." ok. "so what about malayalam movies?" i chirp. of course they fall all over each other just at the mere mention of their beloved regional cinema, which is more realistic. "indians don't have washboard abs, fast japanese motorcycles and supermodels for girlfriends." this was a truly puzzling conversation.

they say to me, "you must have been indian in a past life, except we don't believe in reincarnation" and i don't know if this is a compliment or what. they are hindus who have converted to christianity.

which explains danny's obesession with the "god" cable channel. and i realize how alike we all are at the core, but so different in our approach.

dristi 101

2005-12-31T04:19:00.000-08:00

dristi is my new favorite astanga topic. if you have lino's book, you can look up any of them you are unsure of. there are 9 dristis, but we will begin with the 4 used during surya (sun) namaskar (greeting).

1.nasagrai (nose gaze)
2.angusta ma dyai (thumb gaze)
3.broomadhya (third eye)
4.nabi chakra (naval)

there are 9 vinyasas in surya namaskar

1.ekam-inhale hands up-angusta ma dyai
2.dve-exhale forward fold-nasagrai
3.trini-inhale head up-broomadhya
4.catvari-exhale chaturanga-nasagrai
5.panca-inhale up dog (urdhva mukha svanasana)-broomadhya
6.sat-exhale down dog (adho mukha svanasana)-nabi chakra
7.sapta-inhale jump forward-broomadhya
8-astau-exhale forward fold-nasagrai
9.nava-inhale hands up-angusta ma dyai
samasthitih-nasagrai
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pronunciation of sanskrit numbers 1-9

1-ekam-yay kum
2-dve-dway
3-trini-chreenee
4-catvari-chatwori
5-panca-pancha
6-sat-shot
7-sapta-sapta
8-astau-ashtoe
9-nava-now wah

happy learning!

lungi love

2005-12-31T03:59:00.000-08:00

regretfully, i finished "shantaram" and it's impossible to follow that one up. so i opted for the ridiculous and the sublime, 2 books that were hand delivered to my doorstep by friends. "journey to the east" and "scar tissue", a high school herman hesse and the biography of anthony kiedis from the redhotchilipeppers. i'm already almost finished with "scar tissue" and somehow feel soiled. that boy is about nothing but chicks and heroine. which makes him a very boring fellow indeed, and quite pleased with his tattooed self. but it's kind of fun anyhow. every year i bring a pile of books that don't get read, but this year i have to scrounge for reading material. i'm actually obsessed with books now, which is a tremendous achievement, remembering the television addiction i left at home. i was actually obsessed with "america's next top model" and "celebrity fit club." i may have been better off with a heroine addiction myself! and the horror of best sellers and romance novels scattered throughout this island is of epic proportions.

yoga is intense, as usual, and i am getting more than my share of assistence. i am learning a lot of subtle things i was not aware of-especially in intermediate series and am quite anxious to share the knowledge. the adjustments give here are not for the meek. they are extremely firm and frequent. they have eyes in the backs of their heads and they watch everything-check for bandhas, and make sure you are using correct dristi (gaze point).(follow up on dristi 101 in the next post)

there are at least 200 students right now and lino is making 70% of them do led classes for the next 2 days, which means they are really getting down to business with teaching correct vinyasa. YAY! the rest of us get to do mysore at 6am. this is the first time he has ever done this. the workshop is very organized and like a well oiled machine. it's very impressive. penucha has arrived today, so we are lucky to have 6 adjusters at the moment. it's SO good this year i doubt i will ever miss a winter here and encourage anyone who can get away in 2006 to come and join me. it really transforms the practice and i find it way better than the shala in mysore where theres too many people you just fall through the cracks.

i have officially fallen in love with the lungi, just like the turban. here in the hot south, it's all the men wear. it's a piece of cloth wrapped and tucked worn long to the floor or turned into a man mini-skirt. it's always paired with a crisp colorful button down shirt and perfect hair, of course. and i think the lungi for me has become a symbol for the place in india that my heart is really in-kerala. i just love kerala!

xmas eve

2005-12-28T22:05:00.000-08:00

xmas eve
Originally uploaded by bindifry.

i posted a few dance photos and some other people stuff. this was a pretty fun night. he was one happy dancer. he was juggeling sparklers and shaking everything he had.

the crusher

2005-12-26T05:50:00.000-08:00

so that girl who had all the good stories showed up at lino's class today. she was not allowed to drop in for a day, probably because he does not know her. she would have to commit to a week, which is fair. she got all snotty, stormed out and told a mutual friend, "lino is so arrogant!!" "my practice is way more advanced than most of the people in the room!"

that statement is SO sad. why is it that many yogis think the world owes them a big bow because they are "advanced?" i mean, yoga to me has always been about what you can't do,not what you can. because you are proud of your postures, this does not make you more yogi-er than though. i've met way too many people who are like, "look at me!! i'm such a yoga god cause i can do third series! actually, i'm too good to even talk to you!" i can't tell you how many people i have met over here in yoga land that exhibit this nauseating behavior.

xmas was way low key. yoga one hour later-7 instead of 6, my usual brekkie of gobi oothapam (cauliflower grilled rice cake with sambal (spicy lentil gravy), coconut chutney and tomato chutney, ginger tea, and fresh lemon soda-a true addiction. i opted for a little nap instead of attending the yoga party. davey, my irish acquaintance, yelled outside my door and wanted dinner at sunset. ok, cause i was on my way out anyhow. rooftop below average food, above average sunset, and below average conversation. because like so many people i meet, all they want to do is talk about themselves. even if they ask you a question, they don't listen to the answer. this is not communication to me. and i end up being one bored son of a bitch.

i spent xmas eve with davey and ann, another irish lassi, who is a yogi also. after my dinner with fellow chicagoans, i hung out with them at the way below average leos restaurant. it was amusing watching 2 people from the same country communicating. they could have been speaking malayalam it was so foreign, when out of the blue, the south indian ricki martin appears to juggle his sparklers and shake his booty like no one else can. my god he was flamboyant. and i wanted a piece of it. i couldn't help myself and promptly leaped up on the stage to fulfill my bollywood dream and dance with ricki khan martin to ole ole ole! soon about 3 dozen indian youth and geriatrics gathered and formed the typical stadium audience i'm so used to. god they love it when you dance or sing, cause everyone loves to do those things here. unfortunately what put a damper in the performance was the fact that the cd was skipping, making dancing a definite challange.

tina is here and we're about to embark in the greatest 10 days of yoga. she is the lion goddess-the crusher. i've named adjustments after her. she is very quiet and shy, you hardly even know she's there, when suddenly your being squashed like a rotton tomato! she is supremely gifted. lino's wife and teacher. she's kind of like a female sharath, if you know what that means. and incredibly humble. i want to be her when i grow up!

vagina mudra

2005-12-24T19:17:00.000-08:00

so i noticed a horrible dead rat like smell in my clothes closet only to discover the shell i had brought back from vizhinjam had a decomposing crab getting eaten away by hungry maggots! super!
honestly, there's nothing worse than rotting shellfish.
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amir khan's new wife looks just like my friend cheekoo, who fancys him. are you there, miss lal?
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i met a girl from san francisco who was in bangalore at a yoga confrence and somehow ended up here. super friendly with some very good stories i am about to unload. she had been shown all the pretty paths, the river, the palms, all that is lovely about this tropical paradise, met a little girl who was sharing her little hand made doll house, when suddenly an indian man appeared, removed his member and preceded to begin "choking the chicken" so to speak! in front of the child and everything! so the woman starts yelling at the dude and he says politely-"sorry" and does his indian head wag.

the next one was about a certain celebrity yogi who was swearing like a trucker, multi-tasking with 2 cell phones and a blackberry at the airport. she turns up at the conference with a posse of indian youth touching her feet, while she is dressed all in orange like a sadhu, totally "yogic" constantly holding the vagina mudra.

another she told of a tattooed girl with the entire body of kali on her back and front of her body. indian children tore off her shirt, lucky she had a bra on, only to discover the much worshipped deity tattooed to her, and fell to their knees and began to do puja!

HO-ho-HO

2005-12-22T23:14:00.000-08:00

ok-the radio-AIR, which stands for all india radio-the best damn radio in the world is on and that dreadful theme song from the six flags great america commercial (the one where the kid in the old man suit dances all over the place)is playing with malayalam lyrics. i am wondering whose version had come first. the radio in india is one of it's finest treasures. it was created so all people in india would have access to free radio and they managed to set up 98% of the country with access. i remember a friend asking me why i don't need to take my own music with me to india. "why? when all you really need is a transistor radio and some strong indian made batteries!" she did not understand. "won't you miss western music?" "are you kidding? i come here to get away from it! you can't hear the stuff i hear here back home." i love to sponge up the stuff they play here cause it rocks. nowhere in america can you hear all punjabi radio, rajasthani radio (which REALLY impressed me) and tamil/malayalam radio. there is only one station in most of india, and it varies regionally, but the same format. kind of like npr-national public radio. only the languages change, and slightly different style of music, but always great and always fascinating. they play regional, english, and hindi songs-everything from classical ragas to filmi to backstreet boys, john denver and air supply.

i've been feeling lonely and stir crazy. i am counting the days i will be leaving. i am very homesick and have booked my flight back to bombay, which is kind of a pain. i have to take a train north of kochi, taxi to kochi, fly into bangalore and stay a night, fly into mumbai next day, stay another night, then come home. is ANYTHING easy here???
in the midst of my self deprecation, along comes angela, the girl i met from london during cooking class and invites me to dinner at sabrimala. an x-cook from lonely planet stole the magic gravy recipe and opened his own vegetarian restaurant. this is a good sign, cause i've been feeling anti social, blue, and i would have just sat around for the next 3 days moping and feeling sorry for myself. the holidays depress me. i have no family and i am away from home for the third year in a row. ho ho ho. i know-it's my choice, but it's still sad ass.

the island (i call it this because it feels like a tropical island cut off from the rest of india) is now filled with obnoxious europeans with their ill behaved children. my hotel chock full of screaming danish babies that like to play basketball outside my room at midnight. obviously they don't have to get up at 6 to do yoga. i just stuff my ears with my squishy ear plugs, close my windows and pray for SOME sleep. such a commodity.
HO-HO-HO

the boys

2005-12-19T21:09:00.000-08:00

the boys
Originally uploaded by bindifry.

these are my friends-well, sharaf and his best childhood friends. you can't imagine the weird looks from fishermen-a white girl and 6 indian boys. here they are holding up a bottle of cheap rum. they washed it down with water-took about 30 minutes for 4 guys to drink it. ick. and when they ran out, they swam out to a swank hotel with a roll of rps in their mouth and got 10 more kingfishers-2 of them holding onto the bag as they swam back to the boat. hardcore. i pretty much ignored them, cause they speak mostly malayalam anyhow, and they ignored me. i just took in the sights and enjoyed the rather amusement park fast speed the boat was going. i am very lucky to have had this cool experience. tourists ane women are never allowed to ride in the fishing boats. once in a life time experience and they were very sweet for doing this for me. now i am the one saying "thank you very much-i am very happy!"
of course my face is badly burnt and it did wonders for my cold, so i missed yoga the next day. oh well

yellow mosque in sharaf's village

2005-12-19T20:16:00.000-08:00

yellow mosque in sharaf's village
Originally uploaded by bindifry.

this is the mosque that sharaf goes to. he lives in a small fishing village in kerala called vizhinjam.

fishing boat trip

2005-12-19T20:09:00.000-08:00

fishing boat trip
Originally uploaded by bindifry.

well the boys decided to take me on sharaf's brothers boat today. it was a big one that was motor powered and moved really fast, like an amusement park ride. for 4 hours, we combed the arabian sea, and i got to see many fishing villages, temples and mosques.

E-G-O

2005-12-18T19:32:00.000-08:00

yesterday was another splendid vinyasa workshop with lino. he was in high spirits, which always makes for fine entertainment. i have taken this counting workshop several times over the years, and it gets clearer each time. he demonstrates the real science behind astanga-each breath has a specific count- each asana a specific amount of vinyasas-breath movements. this has been an issue in my classes as well as his. some students love to linger and mince around the asana, when they should be taking only one long breath. this helps to bring the attention to the bandhas and breath, rather than fixating on perfect asana, which is a different style of yoga (vinyasa flow or iyengar). many students waste their time with thinking too much, and incorporating unneccesary movements when entering and exiting postures. this is NOT astanga. astanga is a very precice science. unfortunately some students are stubborn as bulls, and think they know what is best for them, when the fact is that they are fooling themselves into thinking they are doing astanga. i can't tell you how often this system gets no respect, some even dragging toys (props) into the mix, which is NOT astanga! guruji is famous for drop-kicking blocks out of his classroom! it's unfortunate, because these students are wasting theirs and my time, are completely disillusioned, disrespectful to me, and will never reap the fruits of astanga yoga. astanga is not a popular yoga because it requires complete surrender to the system. it's a science. and westerners don't like to be told what to do. (why is this never a problem with asian people?) i often wonder why some students come to my class, because they never change these problems. like i am supposed to cater to what THEY want, like it's supposed to be all about them or something. pity. there's a 3 letter word for that- E-G-O.

just let go

2005-12-17T20:23:00.000-08:00

yesterday i saw my friend sharaf and i took him to see aaru-cause he did not see it yet-big surprise, cause it's rare i can turn him onto something-virrumaandi, kill bill and this one was it. he loved it and was back to his old self,(last year he was very affected emotionally by the tsunami cause he spent time in tamil nadu bringing supplies and collecting money) smiling, laughing, saying "thank you very much" "i am a very happy man" because it's rare a rickshaw driver gets taken to a movie, fed beer, AND get paid. in return, he has invited me out for a day on his brother's fishing boat tomorrow! woo hoo! this is also rare. and it's good, well not good for his brother, but he has been out of work cause of the floods.

i unfortunately had to use the ladies room at the cinema, which i always dread. it had a padlock on it, which they came to open for me. in it there were 4 stalls without doors and indian style toilets without a hole in the floor! just a drawing of a toilet! so i lifted my skirts and squatted and pissed on the floor, the urine splashing all over my shoes and feet--super. i can't say that i've seen that one before. and of course after wiping with my hand, no running water. super. it's always a very very good idea to pack moist towelettes in india, should this occasion occur, and you can bet on it.

we stopped at BAR (the "bars" in india have no interesting names.) simply a generic watering hole that has many individual grey compartments much like an office, but the doors close and there's a buzzer on the wall you ring for service. hardcore seedy. it really makes you feel like a convict when you go in there, especially if you are a white woman with a black rickshaw driver. i tried to get 2 parothas (steamed chappati bread) but they refused unless i bought some curry to go with it! "i don't want any curry" i told them. "you are buying curry!" "don't want any! just parotha" "no" "NO??" they have a fast loud conversation in malayalam with sharaf. "they said they won't give you bread unless you get some curry." this is absurd to me, but i was exhausted at this point, "ok. give me some vegetarian kadhai". it was actually pretty good.

i woke at 620am, walked through the winding paths to my first mysore class, and did a nice slow primary. maria paola (my very favorite)was there and i was so happy to see her. now i have a cold, so i need to move slow the rest of the week. it's ok cause i'm not in any kind of hurry. the greatest lessons yoga can teach us is when to pull back, and how to just let go.

you must dance with smiling face-afterwards it will be yum yum yum!!

2005-12-16T20:27:00.000-08:00

HI-GRO
on indian television, this is some kind of foot device that claims to make you grow as much as a half a foot. don't think we have this in the states.
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being alone is a challange-especially if you are shy, but smiling alot can go a long way. my technique is to first eavesdrop on conversations, gather the info so i can ask questions, and then take the plunge. it helps if they are drinking beers, so i know they won't be snotty. that's how i met an old dutch artist who had been to india 10 times, so he had many good stories and future travel advice. afterwards, i was swept away by the hot indian waiter whom i've known for 3 years who seemed particuallarly interested in me. however, he invited me to "talk" with him at 10:30 pm after his shift at a hotel. hmm. had to blow that one off. a young hot indian and me at a hotel late at night is just asking for trouble. it's weird, cause it seems if you are married, you almost become a dude magnet. go figure. maybe it's the committment thing-casual sex must be happenning like crazy here. they sure hide it well.

friday morning was my first practice with lino-a traditional led class called very slowly-about 2 1/2 hours, which was good for me. very nice. i just love that man lino. "reeelax your baby toe...." it quite wiped me out, but the beauty of this place is you can always take a nap pretty much whenever you want.

in the evening, i took my first cooking course with the famous SIVA of lonely planet. it was the best rps300 (US$6) i've ever spent and tons of good healthy fun. i even made a friend from london.

siva gathered the 10 of us around the cooking burners. it was like the indian emeril, but way more cool. siva has a unique way of speaking. the first things he said about cooking indian food was, "first most important. you must have a good mood. you must dance with smiling face!!! afterwards, it will be yum yum yum!"
he taught us 10 items in 2 hours, everything when prepped properly takes under 5 minutes to prepare "siva's very own fast food!" the first was his "magic sauce", an all purpose basic gravy you can use in 128 (?) items. with it we learned to make aloo gobi (potato & cauliflower), channa masala (spicy chick peas), aloo palak (potato and spinach). after, we learned to make fresh coconut chutney and tomato chutney (my favorite-he singled me out on that one cause he knows how much i like it, "maybe, lisa, you go back home and make your own dosa stall!" "how did you know my plan?" i replied. i got hands on experience making my very own masala dosa. that definitely was a highlight. than we made dal, dal fry, chappatis, and vegetable biryani-siva's own, with pineapple, cashews and raisens. we got to eat everything we made, no additional charge, and i left stuffed and very happy. i now feel very confident to start my own indian kitchen. it was a great way to spend a friday night. siva does indeed rock!

i think i will be happy now

2005-12-14T20:21:00.000-08:00

i arrived in sunny kerala yesterday on a 2 hour jet airway flight. i am delighted how easy it is to fly domestically here after having so many hell journeys on busses and trains. and they have about 10 different airlines to choose from, so that makes it easy.
after setting up in my "luxury" pad, i strolled the beach trying to find friends. it was kind of like a ghost town. i guess the tsunami has kept people away. i ran into an old pal-shibu-who is working at a new restaurant. workers move around quite a bit here, but they are still here somewhere. anyhow, i asked what he suggested, and he said prawns with coconut rice. ok. even though i vowed to stay vegetarian on this trip, i figured what the hey? i received 4 pieces with the rice-quite fresh and lovely-almost like lobster. when i got the bill, it was rps500! whoa! that's really expensive (US$10). when i checked the menu, it said rps100 ($2). when i asked him why i was charged 5 times the price, he said, "sorry, lisa. they are jumbo prawns."
now in india, you MUST ALWAYS as the price first, even if you see it printed on the menu. and of course, it always sucks to be ripped off by who you think are your friends. his loss. won't be back there. i'll stick to my lonely planet veg restaurant.

i went to find lino at class, because he lets people practice on moon day and just supervises. there he was. about 20 knuckleheads practicing on moon day. i can start tomorrow-friday. each friday are lead primary class at 7am just like they do it in mysore. cool! i'm ready! and i get to start in the first or second group-630-645. the earlier the better, for me.

i went back to my room last night and discovered how ghetto my rps750 room is. they stuck me in a room without windows, privacy, electrical outlets, a/c (they promised i would have this), no tv (also a promise),no way to clean my clothes, stinking of moth balls, and a fan that was unable to be adjusted-was permanently on high and almost falling out of the ceiling! it was so loud with the workers congregating outside at the desk and the phone ringing off the hook.

so i got up at 7 and after seeing lino, went and priced a few places by the beach. i found a place twice the size as the other with a balcony, adjustable fan, outlets wedged right between my high speed internet pad and lonely planet (where i eat almost all my meals) for rps250!! how happy am i? that's US$5 per day, rather than US$15! and with the flying i did, i can not really afford such a place.
lucky for me i am reading "shantaram" a fabulous novel that is 1000 pgs long and very detailed about bombay, my favorite city. the book was given to me last year by judy and daniel neiman and i have finally got the chance to chew into it. i think i will be happy.

city palace

2005-12-13T02:36:00.000-08:00

city palace
Originally uploaded by bindifry.

i've uploaded some pictures from jaipur-check em out

at the golden temple-amritsar,punjab

2005-12-12T02:31:00.000-08:00

at the golden temple-amritsar,punjab
Originally uploaded by bindifry.

here i am at the golden temple. quite a beautiful and peaceful place.

at the wagha border

2005-12-12T02:12:00.000-08:00

at the wagha border
Originally uploaded by bindifry.

here i am on the border of pakistan and india in punjab. this was definitely a highlight of my trip. more pictures on my site:
www.flickr.com/photos/bindifry/

filum,filum,filum

2005-12-10T22:58:00.000-08:00

the 2 biggest reasons i like bombay are food and film. can't get enough of either. yesterday we saw the 10am showing of "hanuman"-india's first animated feature. who dosen't love hanuman, right? this was so endearing-it was a bit sloppy, but cute and obviously modeled after the 1930s vintage disney shorts. there were times when you could see mistakes in the drawings, fills not proper, etc, but it just added to the charm. we see hanuman being born and turning into the powerful monkey king in the traditional ramayana fashion. i immediately set out to buy the soundtrack because it was excellent, and had my favorite singer, kailash kher, on many of the tracks, as well as sonu nigam.

after, we bought tickets for our evening show at 520, because this is opeffning week for a handful of hindi filums. we chose "kalyug" a movie about the porn, or "blue" film industry. all unknown actors, pakistani singers on the soundtrack, same people who did "paap", one of my favorite recent soundtracks. after strolling the city on a steller day, watching some cricket in the park, going to planet M, and doing some street shopping-(i purchased some great little yoga towels for some special girlie students of mine and the vendor held my rp100 bill flat in the palm of his hand as his friends marvlled at the crispness, utterring "atm"), we made our way back to the inox multiplex. kalyug did not disappoint. it was a political film about human trafficking and how most of them end up in the blue film industry. it was a fantastic soundtrack, and a great treat seeing all unknown actors. i really get sick of the same recycled hindi film actors over and over and over again.

we walked back towards the bay where we knew of a place called gokal near the gateway that is a supposed gay hangout with dozens of heavy drinkers. it was a real big dive, me being the only female in the entire a/c room, and not one male staring! such a treat. jeff ate the traditional pomfreit and liver masala, i stuck with prawn koliwada and some biryani (instead of chunks of chicken, there was a massive whole piece buried underneath the rice-a new one on me). the menu offered bottles of booze rather than glasses. we stuck with a couple of hayward 5000s.

but the real treat was this morning. there was one showing only at 930am sunday of a tamil film called "aaru"-i knew this had to be a good one because bombay does not get too many of these, and i expected there to be a small turnout. got up at 7 and did my yoga (strength is coming back!), went down to the kamut-for some idly, and to our delight, hundreds of tamil people huddled around the regal theatre for the one time showing of this big movie. and let me tell you, tamil movies put the current crop of hindi movies to shame. they've always been my favorite, because they usually are regular people (not yuppies), dark skinned (try to find that in hindi movies)-they dance like it's the last time on earth, they fight harder and better than any movies i've ever seen, even hong kong cinema, and they are just a true delight for the senses. my heart was racing throughout the entire film. and i got big pit stains from being constantly on the edge. the big star was surya, who i've seen before. and plenty of comic relief. i couldn't tell you exactly what it was about, but i could tell it was about betrayal, political corruption (most tamil movies tackle these themes) and, of course, love.

and it totally whet my appetite for the south. i can't wait to get to kerala! it kisses tamil nadu, and the films i end up seeing are tamil and malayalum. the sole hindi cinema is empty, you can hardly get near the local films. and it's SO exciting because the crowds really get into it-cheering their heros on, clapping and whistling. i love it.
now i remember why i love the south SO much. don't believe it when they tell you that the south is not the "real" india. it's more real and magical than you can ever believe.

french yak

2005-12-09T02:27:00.000-08:00

quotes of the week about jeff's beard
"you are a french yak" "osama bin laden!! ha ha ha!" "are you from pakistan, sir? no? arizona?"
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so the last day in jaipur was not too bad. i don't want to dis on the whole of rajasthan because of my personal mishaps and inability to deal with the hell that accompanies the heavily touristed areas. i just want to put it behind me and learn from these experiences and put them into practice next time i visit india. (strange i know i will return repeatedly despite the hell) i will only visit the more obscure places. i will always wipe my glass well before drinking from it. i will take my time when being sold tours. i will not travel by train and pretend it's some kind of "fun" adventure. i will embrace deccan airlines. i will only visit one place per week.

we began the day trying to find the cheapest flight possible out of the shackles of jaipur to mumbai. everytime we would call somewhere, we would get this "haaalooo??? haaaloooo???" and than dial tone. and quotes we did get were in the rps 9000 range-200US. we finally settled for the hotel's advice and went with the posh, but not cheap, but convenient indian airlines because we were beat down trying to do it on our own. they sent us to travel care (travel care-that makes me chuckle) where they actually lost our credit card trying to multi-task, dozens of posters on the wall of dennis the menace and charlie brown preaching about making the customer "happy" - of course they pointed their male dominated index fingers at me-"we gave the card to HER (her is obviously a dirty word here) i just barked like a rotweiler and they found the card. amateurs. all of them. period.
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GURUCOOL CLASSES- we kept seeing this sign with a phone number advertised all over jaipur and wondered what it meant.

ok ok ok...so for the final night we took our first peddled rickshaw (quite small and pretty hard on the bum-poor fellows with their boney asses) to an amazing vegetarian south indian restaurant called "surya mahal." there, we feasted on papad stuffed with aloo (potatos), sarsoo (broccoli rabe like spinach but way more bitter), chickpea paratha, malai kofta (veg meatball in rich tasty gravy), and chach (buttermilk). 4 guys stood over us with our american appetites marvelling at our bollywood knowledge. "you should have come a few hours earlier-my brother is in the movies shooting munna bhai mbbs II and we could have hooked you up!" chirped our favorite waiter. i shout out my faves like shah rukh khan, sanjay dutt, and anil kapoor, and he hit me with raj kapoor, so i hit him with dilip kumar, dev anand and guru dutt. it was like cricket! he taught us the bollywood family tree-who is related to whom-the kapoors, the kumars, but he was wrong about om puri and amrish puri being brothers, because we knew they were just cousins, and when i said "i did not know that, obviously insulting him (i do this ALL the time with indian cinema) jeff just poked me and said "YES!" because he had learned not to disrespect, not correct even though they are wrong. f...that. i think they should know the truth! however, that always gets me into trouble. how the hell could a white girl from chicago know more about hindi cinema than a native indian? well, i do my research and i'm absolutely sure. what is wrong with having the facts? indians don't seem to feel wrong about correcting your mistakes.....whatever. i let it go.

we struck up a relationship with the man next to us who was eating many courses of food. he learned our entire history and invited us to his home, but too late! we were leaving at 6am in the morning. darn it. i always seem to miss the good stuff. after he left, our pal said "i think that man was tipsy.

we had a great time, and when we left, he said, "good luck getting into the movies-suppose the director wants you to shave your beard?"
"no problem. it will always grow back."
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off to the famous raj mandir cinema in jaipur-an elaborate castle that had been turned into a film theatre. and a spectacle to the eyes, and surround sound to boot! like a junkie in a candy store i was, panting like a dog. kyon ki was playing with 2 of my least favorite actors-salman khan and kareena kapoor. at least om puri was in it for good measure, and a cast of good small parts. how i marvled at the interior-the chandeliers, the carvings on the wall, the squishy carpets all pink, like real royalty. everyone was taking photos of the interior with their cell phones, so i took some photos with my camera and GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! i got accosted by 2 men in brown-grabbing my camera from my arm! "you have to cut off my had to get this camera, mister" "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" they could NOT have my camera. i held onto it like it was my lifeblood. they dug their fingers into my wrists, they pulled my body up the stairs, but i would NOT LET GO. the whole crowd was behind me shaking their heads in that traditional nebulous indian head shake, which meant "what the fu...????" this is out of control!!! i say-no filum, no filum! i delete! i delete! watch!-so i delete every interior photo in front of this crowd and the men in brown. and i proceed to the "diamond" entry box seats to see the film i don't really want to see because i'm there to see the interior of this very famous cinema. regretfully, i have no photos of this place except the outside. whew!!! that was indeed a close one. you could buy tickets in sections ruby,saphire,emerald or diamond. all the whities were in the expensive seats, of course, many obviously bollywood virgins de-flowering before our eyes-and to a bad salman khan movie, nevertheless. so we sat through half of a stupid re-make of cuckoos nest (nice try-salman khan as jack nicholson???) only there was the love twist where we find out why salman is crazy-he throws his wife into a pool and drowns her by mistake. we had to leave at intermission (all indian movies have intermission 90 minutes into the film for smoking and peeing and eating-most of these films are 3-4 hours long) because we had to check out of our hotel, arrange a ride to the airport, and watch a 2 hour special on john lennon on star world cable tv.
i am landing in mumbai as i write this, 2 hours it takes, one healthy south indian brekkie served-vada and oothapam with "jive juice",chai,fruit,yogurt,water,and chutney & sambar. indian airlines rocks. i like flying. and today, well at least at the moment, there seems to be a god.

you teach me yoga....

2005-12-07T23:21:00.000-08:00

so we got of the train around 930pm. like a swarm of bumblebees, we are accosted by dozens of rickshaw touts-the most hardcore ones i have ever encountered (and i've been to agra). unfortunately, jaipur is one of the most touristy places in india and that fact has ruined it completely. i hate rajasthan for this. you can't walk anywhere without a circle of touts/beggers/hawkers around you at all times. and after being so sick and hard trip from the get go, this has not been the camel riding, elephant loving, palace trip i had dreamed of.

so these assholes won't take NO for an answer, "prepay, prepay," we are trying to find the legitimate window to pre-pay, because we already have done our homework. this is the one time i am actually glad not to be a man here, because they swarmed jeff, not me. women are invisible here. unless you are not wearing your dupata (scarf over boobs-i made the mistake of not having one last week in bombay and believe me, i was not invisible-well, my boobs weren't anyhow).
we plunged ourselves sweating right into the government tourist office, panting-"pre-paid windows are where?" "sir, do you have a reservation at your hotel?" "no" "well, you should try one of my hotels" he precedes to try to sell us one of his, nowhere near where we want to stay. "no. we want to stay by the park" "very well. call them and ask if they have a room" we call, they have one, and tell us to wait right there while they send someone to get us for free. thank you. there may be a god after all. but probably not.
within a half a minute, a dude appears (ali)with a paddle with the name "madhuvan"our hotel on it. we scamper after him, ditching the pile of dirty shoeless rickshaw peddlers, into a pristine old white ambassador taxi. on the way, he begins to tout us-"i give tours of jaipur. it is my tour, the jaipur i know, but you can have me for 12 hours and we go many places." me, in my delight and good instinctive "feeling" i have for mr. ali, without much thought ,cause he gives us that "if you do not decide now, i will be busy already"line of bull, says "yes!" because mr. ali is a kind of savior to me at this point. you have NO idea what it's like to land from a train into jaipur. we stay in a gorgeous mini marble palace with a flower garden and amazing hospitality. now there might be a god.

we rise in the morning, drag my bum to the yoga mat and squeak out a weak half primary, but it helps and VOILA! ali is waiting ready to take us on our tour!

first we visit jaipur city palace. this cool old palace still houses relatives of the maharaja and has a bunch of courtyards and buildings from 18th century. there's a palace of the winds for the ladies to watch the street, and a maharani palace which was the queen's apartment. it has amazing ceiling frescos and collections of old weapons-including the dagger that turns into scissors upon impaling the victim and opens inside and disembowls-handy! as well as the largest pieces of silver according to the guiness book of world records-in the world. these giant silver pots were used to carry sacred ganges water.

next, we went to the observitory called jantar mantar. it was created by jai singh in the early 1700s and contains the worlds largest sundial and 13 massive stone instruments for calculating movement of celestial bodies, positions of constellations, calculates hindu calandar, and all 12 zodiac positions. wish we had a guide for that one cause it kind of made me speechless.

then ali took us to the grave of the maharajas. we decided to get a guide this time, and at light speed, he spoke SO fast and ran SO far ahead of us, i did not even know what was going on. apparently he was anxious to get his rupees and get back to his newspaper. the only thing i got out of it was one of the graves had an old king who was over 7 feet tall and over 500 pounds. he ate over 100 chapatis for breakfast each day. and tiny dirty sneezing begger kids by our side the entire time sneezing diseases everywhere, "chocolate? chewing gum? one rupee?" i am trying to get away from him because i don't want tuburculosis or typoid, thank you. i know this all sounds terribly cold to you, but if you spend enough time here, believe me, you would feel the same way.

the next place was outside of jaipur, called the amber fort. it was built at the end of the 1500s during war. you can walk, take a jeep, or an elephant up. we opted to walk, because the elephants are severly abused like all animals here and we did not want to contribute. first you walk through a pool, than a courtyard and then a bunch of winding steps dotted with touts, beggers and hawkers. there's a kali temple that a goat has been sacraficed at daily since 16th century (i guess outlawed in 1980 finally). there are mind blowing frescos, mirrored ceilings, and breath taking views of the city. i liked this one the best.

after having lunch-which almost killed me because i fasted 4 days and ate what he said was "mild" veg biryani and dhal fry, mr ali forced us into yet another textile shop, which really sucked. had to sit through the whole carpet lecture, silks, pashmina, etc etc...me almost pooping my pants from curry, AND they insist on wrapping me in a sari! f....NO NO NO. thank god i got my way, bought a couple pashminas, and darted back into mr. nice ali's taxi.

on the way to the hotel, we stopped for bottles of water. jeff went out to get them. when he left, mr. ali turns to me and says "have you ever been with an indian man before? because you can call me when your husband leaves and meet me here. you teach me yoga, i give you nice body massage. we have lots of fun together."

um.....i'm sure you know the rest of this story. i bought my ticket back to bombay. i'm leaving tomorrow-friday-at 730am.

back to a city you can disappear into, a city that does not tout and hawk you to death unless you want that, a city with at least SOME respect.

rajasthan. it's not at all what i expected.

going to jaipur

2005-12-06T04:33:00.000-08:00

after my sickness, we flew to delhi and took a train to jaipur. the plane was the size of a chevy van and had propellers. they squash you into a bus only to drive 20 feet to the plane-this amused me. it took only 90 minutes. i think i like planes now.
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quote of the week
on asking where to find vinyl records
"sir, you must understand-these things no longer exist"
we walked around the corner and found a record seller and bought a dozen filmi albums and 45s.
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new delhi is kind of sterile. the rickshaws aren't allowed to paint cool stuff, so they all look the same. roads are impressively paved, it's kind of clean, no hand painted signs anywhere, and no posters littering the walls. but we were on our way to the old delhi rail station. classic india. great buildings, plenty of trash, lots of hand made graphics. what a difference.
with 4 hours to kill, we hung outside under an umbrella reading newspapers and sipping chai, getting offers of beat up old dudes with long q-tip offering to clean jeff's ears-the qtip was black-ewe. we boarded the famous 3 tier a/c to jaipur, rajasthan for the next 7 hours (because, of course, the train kept stalling). shared space by window view with a cute pair of french lesbians with matching hippie pants and hair and big tshirts and a revolving door of proper indian men. i am very happy to have a view of the countryside UNTIL a man puts his hanging clothes right over the window right in my face. why not?
i was, however, delighted to receive my chai in little earthenware cups-flower pots. but whose lips were there before????

backtracking

2005-12-06T04:09:00.000-08:00

well i have been absent for a couple reasons. first, it had been very hard to find dependable internet in punjab. each time i would blog, "POOF!" gone like bad magic. and there are enough irritations here. and after my first real "good" day, i got my first giardia. this one put me flat on my back for 3 days. all because i forgot to dry out a glass before putting liquid in it. this feels like a rodent with long nails is doing laps in your intestine. it's terribly painful, and you shoot gallons of water out of your bum, so you have to drink gallons of water. i had to take antibiotics because i could not combat myself, and had not eaten for 3 days. so that's that.

in response to jeff, he is here. we took seperate flights and it took him 18 hours and me 36 to get to mumbai. he is doing fine, never gets sick, never lets anything bother him. we are very different beings. he will be leaving on the 18th, i'm pretty sure i will be home on 18 january.
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12-3
i visited the golden temple, which was the reason for my going to amritsar. it is the holiest shrine of the sikhs, a sect of the hindu religeon that broke off and formed their own thing around the 18th century for many reasons. they are a very peaceful people and i very much enjoyed being around them. the gold temple was much smaller than i imagined and is surrounded by a pool called amrit sarovat, which means nectar of the gods, where the name amritsar came from. this is enclosed by a beautiful white fort. the temple is open to all denominations, and a wonderful way to spend a beautiful day. before entering, you have to wash your feet and cover your head. you can take prasad-sweets-and distribute inside the different levels in the temple. there are musicians and priests on each floor and the music is broadcast on speakers throughout the compound. great atmosphere. you can watch this on television live every day. and every day at 5am, the holy book is carried into the temple, and removed at sunset. the golden dome is an inverted lotus flower representing the sikhs concern with the problems of the world. there is a sikh museum with paintings of mercinaries who have given their lives, graphic pictures of what was done to them (when they were forced to convert to islam), and one of muslims chopping up babies and making them into garlands and stringing them over the mother's necks. hardcore. there was even one of a sikh being boiled alive, who requested to stare into his guru's eyes as he died. outside is a 400 year old jubi tree believed to have shaded the very first priest-(ram dass?)and women pray there for future children.

afterwards we decided to hire an omni bus and go to wagha border-the border of pakistan and india-to watch the border guards do their competetive good natured dance. this is done daily at sunrise and sunset. the scene is very much like a high school pep ralley. the guards open the border gates and they do a marching kick dance that is remenicint of john cleeses "silly walk" from monty python. this was the most fun i have ever had in india and i went back to my hotel unable to wipe the smile off my face.

till i woke up with giardia.

turbans & bhangra

2005-12-01T22:42:00.000-08:00

buying your own ticket at the rail station is a real lesson in hell. over 60 windows to choose from, you have to go to the right one without allowing all the touts to steer you in the wrong direction. focus. 52 was my lucky window. i got second class seats and had to pay in american dollars. why they did not take rupees is beyone me. can you say scam?

i have to take a taxi one hour to bandra, where i have to meet the train. an hour of the worst ghettos i have ever seen, i have been through this ride before. every time the cab stops is an opportunity for beggers to seperate you from your rupees and give you a guilt trip. "maaaaaaa" buy these whistles, buy this, buy that. finally arrive at bandra terminus. millions of flies live here because it's one big pile of waste, consisting of poo, piss, vomit, garbage and dogs feasting on it, children playing in it. totally disgusting.

get to my "room"-actually its a small space with a curtain, and i have to share with "twitchy"-a man who can't sit still. he paces, sits, paces, hums,groans,belches,coughs,farts,paces,snorts for the entire 34 hours. ok. i can deal with this. but 3 hours into the trip arrives a family of 6-queen ma and dud & mum with their 3 abusive kicking screaming bouncing light flicking on and off - staring down at us like gargoyles "children". queenie grandma sitting cross legged applying her cherry red lipstick, with long manicured fingernails and toes, sipping chai, proud as all hell. daddy sitting on twitchy's legs while he pretends to sleep, and we can't do a damn thing about it. they even try to take our room away from us. i repeat the same mantra to myself, cause i can't do nuthin about it-"get through it, get through it, get through it, all things pass, all things pass...." about 6 hours later, finally, they get kicked out. rudest damn people i have ever encountered in all my travels.

arrive in amritsar, punjab 34 long hours later, dumped into a street with nothing but turbans and rickshaws for miles. find the wrong hotel-ooops-super luxury hotel. stay anyhow, cause i deserve it. hot shower, room service, bad bollywood gossip show on plasma tv...and nothing but that delicious bhangra music and gorgeous turbans! god i love turbans!

off to the golden temple. stay tuned

leaving on panjim express

2005-11-29T02:21:00.000-08:00

i have purchased my train ticket for amritsar tomorrow at 11 am i leave. it takes 1-3 days to get there, so i don't think you will hear from me for a few days. i also have not been able to post any pictures, even though i've taken some.

so it ends..

2005-11-28T05:33:00.000-08:00

ok. here's the rest of the story. i boarded emirates airline finally around 2pm. side note-dubai airport is the best airport and nicest people i have ever encountered and so is their airline. alitalia is the worst, and the least friendly, worst food ever. i do not reccommend alitalia because i heard workers in the airport saying "so what else is new" in response to my problems with them.

so i get seated in a very crowded 3 seat aisle, in the center is a 250 lb.sudanese man who thinks he's all that. now who on earth would seat such a big man in the middle like that? i would have given him mine, but i did not want to be sandwiched between 2 rico suaves. anyhow, he kept staring at me, touching me, making me sit on one side of my ass the entire 2.5 hour trip to bombay. might have been a prince in sudan, but he was no prince in my heart. totally uncomfortable. we arrive in bombay, i try to lose the sudanese and his fancy pal (i really think they thought i wanted their bodies) i wait an hour in immigration, and another hour for my luggage. no luggage. they turn off the machine. i let it go, take down numbers, and figure out what i need purchase. i slowly roam to the other side of the luggage machine only to find one small blue piece sitting on the floor waiting for me like a lost dog. yay! i scurry off to my pre paid taxi, get in the car only to find the driver is totally inexperienced, speaks no english, and has no clue where colaba is. i ask him "taj mahal hotel?" no response. "gateway of india?" what's that? i mean this is the most common place for tourists to stay in all of india, so it's strange he does not know. away we drive. and drive. and drive. and i KNOW we are going around in circles-i see 3 weddings-numerogically it's a 9, which is very auspicious, we see juhu beach, totally crowded, and chowpatty, which has a huge carnival all lit up. i know we are not in the right place, so i take over and direct the poor fool to our destination, dump out my luggage onto the ground and haul myself into my awaiting hotel room. as if nothing ever happened. 18 extra hours later, i sleep 18 hours. i am happy to be here and can't believe i survived such a journey with reletive ease and not much anger whatsoever. i can do anything. it can only get better from here.
i wake in the evening, get some goan cuisine, and check out the new animated hanuman movie at the inox. things are not so bad. not so bad after all.

...with love...from dubai

2005-11-26T21:23:00.000-08:00

i write this post with love from dubai because i'm on my 3rd "wait." this is how it began. arrived at chicago airport 1pm friday, boarded at 4pm, sat on frozen plane till 8pm, thrown off and given a $10 food ticket (this buys a sandwich and a small water)and told to return to the gate at 9 because "we are having mechanical problems." i return, and sit till 11pm, we board at 1130, BIG applause at this point.
i fly to milan-takes about 8 or 9 hours, and have to re-book my flight from there to bombay, because i missed my connecting flight. SO i book to dubai, and wait 8 hours in the milan airport, with nothing to do but consume a bottle of italian wine and eat a plate of disgusting cold pasta and fall asleep on the marble floor, waking up in time to board the flight. takes 6 hours to get to the UAE (united arab emirates), and get a flight to bombay, which will give me another "wait" for 6 more hours. fortunately, this airport is very cool, but very expensive, i buy a "fly emirates" t-shirt from duty free, because i stink SO bad-i did not anticipate THIS kind of hell, so i did not pack an extra shirt and have been wearing a wool pashmina all this time to cover my tattoos and for warmth, but it keeps getting warmer with each flight, nor did i pack any deoderent, so i feel sorry for whoever has to sit next to me on my way to bombay. i guess it takes less than 2 hours to get there from here, and another couple hours in a taxi to the hotel, which puts me at about 7pm sunday evening.
you do the math.
i guess the big question on my mind at this point is whether my luggage has followed me around the world.
pray for me.

take a number, have a seat

2005-11-23T11:50:00.000-08:00

so getting the visa for india is very much like being in india. first of all, you have to find your way to nbc towers, which is an island in itself, with parking lots that cost upwards of $25, so it's best to be dropped off or walk in from somewhere else. and you have to know the shape of the building in order to find it. tricky. you can apply for visa mon-fri 9-12:30 (excluding the dozens of muslim/hindu/christian holidays and gandhi's birthday) and pick it up between 3:30-5. so we arrived friday around 10. jeff took the day off work, cause there's no other way to do this. at least 150 people ahead of us, our "number" says 39, the digital sign says 02, and they are calling 116 (?) with the next number being 48! we do not know how high these numbers go before it is at zero again. very low rent, no speakers, just one quiet indian whispering numbers (i can't even listen to my new ipod nano) and have to sit on my coat on the floor because all the leather furniture is taken by snoozing indians-ONE person working while 300 india loving suckers sit and wait and wait and wait and wait....
we stayed almost 3 hours only to be told, "you must return next tuesday between 4-5. we are giving our staff the day off because they work so hard."

i come back when told, stand in a line to collect numbers, sit, sit, sit, half an hour later, the entire room gets in 3 lines-left for miscellaneous, right for visa, middle for i'm not sure. no numbers called, dude in front of me is 68, i am 29......he is from turkey, we strike up an amusing conversation about india, he is going to bangalore, chinese woman joins in, we all have a laughing party over all of this......and in an hour i am out the door swooning over our unbelievable chicago skyline and missing home already.
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3 time's a charm

this will be my 3rd trip to the indian subcontinent in 3 consecutive years. i waited 7 months after the first, and 9 after the second. let's see if i stick to the plan. these are the places i plan to visit. the north west!!!
arrive in bombay, fly to amritsar, punjab on the pakistan border to see the golden temple and hang with sikhs, watch the border guards do their competitive dance visit the rat temple, than to dharamsala-where all the exiled tibetans live, including the dali lahma, than to various places in rajasthan (udaipur, jodphur, jaipur, etc.) and through gujarat back to bombay. 3 weeks later, i go back to kerala and mysore for yoga, jeff goes home.
will be travelling on planes,trains,busses, autos,camels,and rickshaws.

stay tuned.....i will arrive on november 26th

wrapping it up

2005-02-12T18:56:00.000-08:00

well, folks, i'm afraid this is it for the blog. my life at home is not interesting enough to warrent keeping this going, so this will be my last entry.

today is my final day in india and i couldn't ask for a better last dream. i dreamt that i met amitabh bacchan! i got to sit at a table and talk with and swoon over him. he was so special and gentle, he even let me hold his hand. it was so real, i woke up with tears in my eyes. and the 2 songs that are in my head this morning are "can't smile without you" and "don't fear the reaper."

probably what caused such a dream was the HELP bollywood telethon for tsunami victims that was on for hours last night. the finale was amitabh and his son for the first time in history performing together. this was the best going away present i could ever hope for. everyone who is anyone was on this show. for those who know about such things, i kept a list of the amazing stars that performed or appeared. the absolute highlight was adnan sami, the most amazing singer right now, and shah rukh khan doing a medley of his best. here is a list of the rest: amir khan/rani mukergee/lara dutt/bobby deol/anil kapoor/saif ali khan/uday chopra/fardeen khan/amisha patel/aishwarya rai/amitabah/abishek/srk/sanjay dutt/mallika sherawatt/sajid khan/rekha/yash chopra/rishi kapoor/akshay kumar/kareena kapoor(absolutely terrible with a million bucks worth of diamonds strung around her neck clad in crappy salwar)/strings/koena mitra/ramesh sippy/priety zinta/salman khan and zayeed khan(with a big pot leaf on his tank top-the 2 seemed completely strung out)/sonu nigam(in ripped jeans with a drum between his legs-completely self indulgent)/adnan sami/sameera reddy/vivek oberoi(with a heart wrenching speech about his experience first hand with the victims)/and the gorgeous priyanka chopra.

yesterday i couldn't cross the street to save my life cause the streets were chock full of hari krishnas! they were having their festival and a parade was taking up the streets of bombay. they are blissfully delightful. ahh india.

i roamed the streets behind the prince of whales museum yesterday searching for a thai restaurant. after an hour, i came upon a japaneese restaurant called joss with indonesian, thai and vietnamese influences. this place was very chic. sake, which costs 6 bucks in the states was going for 950rps (almost 20 bucks!) and 6 pieces of sushi for around 10. i guess i don't understand this cause we are so much closer to japan here. it was nice to have a change of food, though. the pre fix menu for 400 rocked-twas one of the best meals i've had here. giant bowl of coconut soup, thai salad, indonesian veggies on rice, and tenderloin or chicken, as well as choice of ice cream. it was a delightful change, since i have officially finally burned out of indian food after 14 weeks of eating it.(don't worry, mr sayed and miss bhabi-i will get the taste back in a few days of being home).

DHOOM-A REVIEW
this is a film that i have avoided since it's release on my last trip to india, but it's still playing after all this time, a rare feat with all the film turnover here. it's a huge huge hit with the young set. i avoided it cause the 2 main actors are pieces of wood-abishek bacchaan and john abraham. however, with enough action and special effects surrounding them, even 2 wooden sticks can produce a flame. the theatre was full of babies-the man in front of me had 5 boys (ching ching jackpot for an indian daddy). the kids absolutely love this one and all the songs, especially the theme song doom macha da are chart toppers and popular cell phone ring tones. tons of action and glitz, very fast motorcycles fueled by nitris oxyde, tons of fights in slow motion on top of speeding semi's, boats leaping, cycles leaping over moving trains, glamerous girlies (esha deol, who now goes by "esha" daughter of very famous bollywood actors hema malini and dharmendra) i think she is still a bit too young, but hey, brittney spears does it. my favorite one was uday chopra. he reminded me of a young dharmendra and i haven't seen him before. there's even a gambling heist in goa aka oceans 11. the movie isn't an art piece, nor does it claim to have any redeeming lessons, however, if action and pyrotechnics is what you are looking for and pure fun, or if you are a boy between the ages of 2 and 25, this film is for you. i'm a 39 year old western female and i liked it a lot. i give it 3 stars.

so that's gonna be it for this blog. i already know how it will all end. i get home after 30 hours of travel, i eat and drink all the things i couldn't get here, even though bombay is pretty diverse, i cuddle my dog for all the dogs i couldn't cuddle in the streets here, i spend days a week re-creating the food memory on devon, i give out indian presents to all the special people in my life like i'm santa clause, i go back to work, i cry every time i listen to rabbi shergill. and as time goes by, i long to come back to india. i put on my salwar kameez, my silver bell ankle bracelets, and i dance around my house to "mahi ve...that's the way..mahi ve......"

bindifry

back in the skillet again...cha cha cha

2005-02-10T01:08:00.000-08:00

well the luxury bus, or civalized bus as i like to call it, was not all bad. it was so air conditioned we had to wear wool blankets, and they showed half of a bollywood movie. there were no sleeper cars, but the chairs reclined back a bit, it was as comfy as an airplane. unfortunately, i did not know how winding and hilly the roads were from goa to bombay, which is unfortunate cause i have motion sickness and my dramamine were in my luggage in the belly of the bus. i spent half the time with plastic bags in my lap coughing to try to stave off the vomit. a little pranayama and tossing and turning and cold sweats seemed to do the trick, but i am a light sleeper and even with ear plugs i was unable to catch a wink. and i had to piss for 8 hours and refused to jump off and be a man, which was a big misteak cause i had a bladder full of rusty urine from dehydrating myself. i left at 7pm and arrived at 6am, got dropped off somewhere in the middle of the street in some hood in bombay, and caught a cab that seemed to be pedaled instead of driven. the cabs here are so tiny you can't even fit a backpack in the trunk, so we tossed everything on top and crawled to my destination-the bentley's hotel. when i arrived, the place was totally booked. tried the guesthouse. totally booked. i asked, "is there some kind of festival going on?" "no madam. it always is like this." i guess bombay is crowded with tourists all year round. the only thing going on over here is carnival-their version of mardi gras which was more celebrated in goa cause of it's christian population, and the president of iceland is in town. i'm not sure how big of a deal that is, but whatever. i landed a very expensive room on the sea-tiny room with a tiny tv, a fridge 8 times the size of the tv-how did they know i drank that much beer? and an a/c that barely worked without knobs, so i wasn't able to turn it up. the entire room reeked of mothballs-for the price of 2700rupees!!! "you can stay only one night, madam." so i spent the next day treasure hunting for a place to stay. landed at hotel causaway, on the colaba causway road smack in the middle of panty and shoe stores, hundreds of stalls of tit bits, and shoe shiners and giant balloon salesmen-how do you blow those things up? they are balloons as big as a 12 year old child that the hawkers lunge into your face at every corner-very coney island. anyhow, the place is also small with the same amneities and costs half as much. bombay is the most expensive city in india because the real estate is among the highest in the world. it's cheaper to buy a house in beverly hills. i'm basically re-tracing my steps since last november, eating in the same places, trying to re-live my experience, but it's not really the same. weather is just as hot-this place below sea level without much breeze, kind of like mexico city, very polluted. i found myself eating my first western food today-chicken salad with avocado and russian salad which had peas and potatos on the sandwich. now i'm going to see "lost in translation" again cause it's the last day here. it does appear i am ready to come home, dosen't it? i made my usual pit stop to planet m, the tower records of india, for some more sami-"lucky-no time for love" cd which is all the rage and 7 more movies-(dori-i got your kids a bunch they will love.) i keep smashing down the luggage to fit as much as possible, which means stopping at rhythm house, the better dvd/cd store. like the 30 movies i bought in november are not enough. it's gonna take me till 2010 to watch them all. i also have developed a love for indian pop tunes that are non-film score from watching lots of mtv asia.
this place gets to me if i walk around too long-it's really really crowded, stinky, and the entire city is one big outdoor market with constant hawking and beggers who grab you and don't let go. still, if you like the bustle of new york city, you will like this place.
i did, however, sadly miss my chance to be an extra in a bollywood movie, the premise of this whole trip. a woman approached me and said she was from bollywood, but before i realized what she had proposed to me, i had sent her away and when i tried to run after her, i lost her. boo hoo. big boo hoo.
bindifry

"black" the review/panaji bye bye

2005-02-07T22:09:00.000-08:00

"black" a review
so i went to the inox theatre here in panaji, capital of goa to see a much anticipated new movie called black. the inox theatres are the first multiplex theatres in india. they lack the charm of the old movie halls, but make up for it in a/c splendor and cozy armchair comfort, with a darn good snack stall serving everything from soft serve ice cream to samosas and dum maro dum biryani. of course you pay for it, tickets for one movie run around 100 rupees-two bucks (average price goes around 15-50rps).
"black" is kind of a re-telling of the hellen keller story. there are no musical numbers in the movie and it is only 2 hours long, including intermission. half of the film is spoken in english, and is very easy to follow. it stars the gorgeous and massively talented rani mukergee as a deaf, dumb and blind girl with rich and reluctant parents. her "magician" teacher is the great legend amitabh bacchaan of "sholay", "don", and probably over 300 other movies.
the first half of the movie shows "teacher"(his name in the movie) struggling to teach the young michelle (ms mukergee) how to eat with a spoon, spell, talk, and basically behave like a normal human being. of course the parents don't like his methods, cause they seem harsh-he has to sometimes slap her because she needs to be tamed. she is a wild beast who is brilliently portrayed by a new child actress. you can't tell she is acting. there's a whole scene reminicint of the "water" scene in the helen keller story where she learns her first words, water, mom, and papa, and teacher.
intermission. michelle is a young lady for the second half of the filum. she has learned much, but needs "cane" training to become independent. teacher has been with her 18 years and still faces many challanges. he helps her get into a normal university, but she fails year after year, giving up hope. "impossible is not a word i have ever taught her" teacher preaches to all the doubters, including michelle. the kicker is that teacher is getting old, and begins to develop senility, losing his memory, his voice, and his hearing. he has turned into michelle, now she must help him. of course she ends up graduating, it's quite a momentous occasion. and teacher spirals into confusion and than death. be prepared to give up lots of eye water for this one.
i liked this move a lot. both actors deserve awards for their portrayals, including the little girl who plays michelle as a child. on my 5 star scale, i give it a 4.
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well, folks, i'm rounding off another part of this trip. i'm leaving panaji today on a BUS-yes you heard it, a bus-for bombay again. panaji is not like the rest of goa. there isn't a beach here, just a very quaint french-like small city of only 90,000 people with not much to offer except cobblestone roads, great goan and punjab food, and gentle beggers. the goan people have their own look-they are truly a beautiful people, and most speak portuguese. i love the combination of the indian/portuguese food-pinto beans appearing in dhal, for instance, and i love the relaxed atmosphere. it's the only place in india where it's not a sin to drink beer or any other alcohol in public. women drinking in restaurants is normal, which shocked me at my first lunch. i highly reccomend this wonderful little city without a beach. it is surrounded by the mandovi river, so it's not totally dry. if ever you visit goa, don't limit yourself to western drug laden beaches. come to panaji!
see you in bombay-
bindifry

3-tier a/c hell

2005-02-03T01:03:00.000-08:00

kisna the review
kisna, or krishna. same thing. vivek is warrior poet! long hair and face whiskers, he's still hunky as hell. and very fitting of him to play krishna. it's 1935 in hardawar, uttaranchael (sp?) in north india, where you can see the ganges and the mountains. movie is in flashback, of course. an old white english woman narrates her story and her love for kisna as a child in 1935 till she hooks up with him after being banished to delhi. it's 1947 during the revolution at this point and the indians are kicking the white man's ass. hence a host of problems, cause the white girl is in love with an indian, even though another indian girl also wants him-white gopi versus brown gopi-can you say "meeeooowww?" the blond, who is actually french is so striking you can't take your eyes off her and speaks bad hindi. the indian is seen constantly praying to her krishna deity for love of kisna and does yoga postures suspended by ropes, we don't really know why, but it looks cool. (jeff-think naach). vivek-krisna-of course plays the flute and the dances are very krishna like, like cloned krisnas blue skinned and all. it's charming, really. as i stated earlier, this movie was filmed in both english and hindi and one song is entirely in english, which is almost impossible to watch. i personally don't think indian movies need to cross over to america. i happen to like indian cinema exactly the way it is. let those that deserve it's bountiful fruits find it for themselves. however, i still will watch it again if it happens to reach chicago in english this spring. the cinematography is breathtaking, the script is not, the best acting is only when the late great amrish puri enters the screen with one blue and one brown eye, just as evil as ever. god i miss him.
should you see this movie? sure, but it's way not on par with many others i've seen. it's a good one to start out with if you are inexperienced in bollywood movies. the seasoned viewers don't need it. i give it a 2.5 out of 5 stars, mughel-e-azam being a perfect 5.
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3 tier a/c does not rock
we took a couple of bulging rickshaws to the trivandrum rail station, got on the train right away. seemed too easy by indian standards. of course it went down from there. skinny indian business men were snoring away in our bunks, so we got put in someone elses bunk. seemed ok for awhile until we got to kochi and were promptly kicked out of our spots by mean indians from london. luggage scattered all over the place, no one to help us. my only choice was to kick out the dude that was fast asleep in my bunk. fun fun fun. me and 5 men crammed into a corner, me sleeping on top of my purse, everyone's luggage chained and safe except for ours. only hours before, we were forced to tip jerks who pointed to our seats, and a waiter with a drinking problem from the velvet dawn who followed us to the rail station and also begged for money for booze, cause he had gotten fired from the restaurant for bugging the guests for money and being drunk. seriously creepy. not a wink of sleep for me, dudes staring at my ankles, me worried about my luggage, the english indians cursing us out. luckily the rest of the trip was mild, some of the dudes had gotten off in mangalore, so there was more room. no privacy at all, and way too cold. food is always good on the rail, though. bathrooms clean, which is always surprising here. of course we thought we were out of the red until we tried to exit the train. just think "haj stampede" and you will understand why indians crush each other to death every month. this giant indian woman crammed her body into mine and refused to let me off till her and 100 others got on, me with huge pieces of luggage, backpack, yoga mat and purse. i wound up my arm to punch her out, but than the indian jail scene popped into my head just in time. she told me not to push, i screamed at her, it was ugly. and than my new bag ripped totally in half, exposing all my stuff. weeee... got into a 500rp government taxi for the hour long ride to panaji. next time i go first class. forget being herded like cattle for 18 hours.
still, goa rocks and panaji is charming as all hell.
bindifry

brilliant word massacre

2005-01-30T20:03:00.000-08:00

i went to santana restaurant for the first time yesterday. and to my delight, upon opening the menu, was the most brilliant display of misspelled words i have ever seen. here's the list of winners and their apparent translation:
mashroom-mushroom
spagathy-spagetti
macroni-macaroni
potato cack-potato cake
peanet-peanut
pease-peas
boild-boiled
chees-cheese
omlet-omelet
lessy-lassi
peana culada-pina colada
bloody merry-bloody mary
musle-muesli
cabab-kabob
sweshwan-(this one's my favorite) szechwan
sous-sauce
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tit bits n observations
velvet dawn 830am
to my left is a giant english dude making his prescence known by crashing down in his chair. i've been waiting a half an hour for coffee and orange juice. he screams to the waiters-i'm in a hurry and i want my breakfast right away. of course this amuses me and i look right at him sternly, feel like telling him that mcdonalds is right down the street, but that's not true.

and to my right is a bloke who is the spitting image of michael caine. what's really funny is that he is reading a book on tantra. i had the pleasure of noticing his cd collection, also, which contained whitesnake!

the ladies came out in their beautiful saris yesterday for the holiday-combo republic day, martyrs day, dandi march day, gandhi death day. i especially love the kerala saris, which are all white with different colored trim. i guess when a woman wearsa white sari anywhere else in india, it means she's a widow. i think the kerala sari is the most beautiful. when the people dress up here, they look like peacocks, beautiful silks in pink and blue, green and yellow, with the little ones all decked, complete with jasmine flowers in their hair. it's a sight to behold.

so the movie i will see today, "kisna" with vivek oberi about a love affair between an indian stud and an english woman during the revolution has made indian film history according to the bbc. it is the very first indian movie shot entirely in hindi and than again in english. the english version will be released in the spring. hopefully in chicago!!! i will report back on the movie next blog. watch for it, folks. looks like a real good one. i've been watching the videos for weeks.

bindifry

in india, everyday is a holiday

2005-01-28T21:45:00.000-08:00

so if you want to follow ellen's blog, it's at
www. extrachiliplease.blogspot.com
it's completely eerie now that all of the yoga students have vacated kovalam. it's surprising how much room we take up here. the hawkers and beggers really get to me after 3 months, my personal india limit, and i find myself not looking at anyone anymore, cause if your eyes meet, it means a potential sale or free money for them. every other day a bus arrives full of beggers that drape the paths all over kovalam, blocking you from walking. they begin to outnumber the tourists, and they are DESPERATE. you can be faced with a full throttle assault, often being blocked by 3 nasty sarong pushers. it's exhausting. india is one of those places you can't wait to leave, yet upon returning to home soil, all you can do is dream about it and count the days when you can return. what is that???
another temple fest at sri devi, burning and bombs, speakers installed AGAIN. yesterday was "republic day" and today is "martyrs day" commemerating mahatma gandhi's peace march. here in india every day is a holiday and the beach is scattered with tons of indians, men wearing nothing, women swimming in full sari. strange country.
bindi

rabbi, shakira, ellen part 2 oh my

2005-01-27T22:00:00.000-08:00

i must confess i think i really like shakira. she can really dance, has a great voice, and is real pretty. in fact, i'm thinking of modeling my hair after her when i return. it's kind of like "heart" when they were doing the eighties thing.

wrapped up another 2 long and particularly grueling months with lino. he always closes with a full vinyasa class, which is always fun. it was anti-climatic cause i did it last year. now comes the hard part-maintaining some kind of vigorous practice. last year upon returning from india for 4 months, i got injured immediately and wasn't able to get as strong. than i slacked, and ate like a maniac cause i'd become anemic and weak from being very sick. i gained over 20 pounds. i'm so hoping i don't do that again. luckily i've not been craving western food at all, just avocados sometimes and salads. indian food is far more tasty, less bland, and extremely healthy. lots of people come here and only eat cornflakes, pizza, and omelets. i don't think i've had a single morsel of western food. i actually can't wait to eat at my favorite local indian restaurant-"bhabi's kitchen" when i get home.

here's a list of the strange movies playing on the strange cable channel called C.W.-cineworld.
captain invincible
glory man
cut
death on saturns moon
the killer inside
hold my hand i'm dying(with a full on drunk oliver reed)
popcorn
black cat
drunken tai chi
mission hill
monkey trouble (harvey keital and a chimp)
fart-the movie
terminal bliss

i've discovered a great indian pop star named rabbi shergill. he is a philosopher, quoting sufi poets, a farmer, and a rock star gorgeously clad in full on kurta-muslim wear-and a beautiful turban (i confess to having a thing for turbans-i really think they're sexy) there was a special on republic day on mtv asia with him, bikram ghosh-which you might know from ravi shankar and anoushka's band, and prem joshua, the danish god of indian fusion-NOT my cup of tea. too repetetive and new age.

why everyone's talking about rabbi shergill
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=63085
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ellen's corner-adventures in SE asia part 2

Let me bring you up to date... A couple of days ago, I woke up for my last morning in HCMC
My ankle was much better so I practiced and swam...Afterwards, I was headed back towards my hotel and encountered this fantastic aroma of butter flour and sugar..PASTRY!!!!...I followed my nose to this perfect little french bakery on a side street and proceeded to scarf down two of the most delectable croissants I have ever devoured washed down by some super-strong vietnamese coffee.( i like it black and strong, but the coffee here requires sugar and milk)..Headed back to my deluxe hotel and took a nice hot bath as I'll be staying in guesthouses again for the next 7 days...
I flew to Danang (one hour) and picked up a cabbie out front..He took me to the Cham museum ( the only one in the entire world) which was a pure delight...the style of carving is nothing I've ever seen before... a mixture of Hindi, chinese, with a little art nouveau thrown in...We drove throught the marble mountains where there are temples carved into the hillside..Nothing like ajanta or ellora...more pueblan?..
I arrived in Hoi An and walked about for the rest of the afternoon...It is a beautiful little town
of fisherman and tailors but it has been possessed by mass-consumerism...I was talking to this nice vietnamese man..He said that 15 years ago they had one hotel..now they have 73...they also had 20 tailor shops..now 200 plus....there are art shops and tons of souvenir shops..not really my scene...but very lovely...
Yesterday I got up at the crack of dawn to head out to My Son(beautiful mountain)..Ancient Champa ruins...They were totally devastated by the US bombing the Viet Cong...I have been feeling ashamed of my nation alot on this journey...Spoke with some Dutch fellows in detail about politics the other night...They don't hate ALL americans any longer...I turned them on to some anti-bush web sites, which they were really excited about..They basically feel like we all must be complete idiots to reelect that moron....Inaugaration?..Egad I think it's a done deal...GROSS!!
The temples were a disappointment after angkor..how can you top that?..When the bus returned to hoi an i rented a bicycle and rode out to this island of potato farms, rice paddies, banana and coconut plantations...it was one of my favorite afternoons thus far..People were very suprised to see a westerner and kept asking me "were yoyu are going to?"
I took an entire roll of photos..
I tried a new dish yesterday called Cao lau..They are about the thickness of linguine but square...made of rice flour and this special water you can only get from one well here in town..
talk about isolating your cuisine! ...the noodles are served in a lemongrass broth with fried wontons squares(they call them croutons)..fresh greens , scallions and Pork ( or tofu)...it was very good and the texture of the noodles is unique...there is another tradition here called the white rose which is sort of like shrimp shumai but the wrapper is folded in the lovely floral shape..
Today I'm off to the train station in danang and then up the coast to Hue and the DMZ
I'll tour the vietcong tunnels up there but i don't think i'll check out the US airbase museum/
The guest house lady just brought me my breakfast..it is a banana pancake that looks more like indian fry-bread.. and i honestly think it is smothered in Hersheys chocolate syrup..
So much for asian food...Gotta Go .. it smells delish.....love, ellen

bindifry

coiffed for god/adventures in southeast asia pt.1

2005-01-24T20:55:00.000-08:00

i would first like to post some of my good friend ellen's e-mails that come from southeast asia. she is visiting cambodia, vietnam and thailand. here's the first installment:
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Here I am in Saigon..It is an awe-inspiring city teeming with people..about half the size of Mumbai but Viet Nam is a teensy little country. I went out on the street to have this freaky drink...It is black beans, white beans , tamarind, mango shreds, pineapple chunks, fresh coconut, passionfruit juice, shaved ice and cream...It is served in a tall glass with a spoon and it is astonishly delicious and refreshing. I arrived here in Ho Chi Minh city by bus from Phnom Penh..An interesting but dodgy little city that could use a couple of coats of paint and some rain to wash away the urine..I went to the killing fields and toul seng which was a torture and detention center during the khmerrouge fiasco...I absolutely loved the Khmer people(native cambogias)...Very slight and beautifulwith full smiles, prominent cheek bones and eyes that are full of laughter...Cambodia is a sadly poor country and the sex trade there is one of the worst in the world...Alot of the garment factories are being shut down and women have no other way to make a living..It is a devastating cycle...Tourism is there only hope, but the temples of angkor can only provide so much for the economy... English is taught in all of the schools and the children in Siem Reap (Angkor Wat) are very well spoken and wildly enthusiastic about practicing what they have learned..In Viet Nam, not so much...I'll be staying here for the next 10 days traveling up the coast to hanoi and halong bay so I've been learning a little of the language...Fortunately they have the same alphabet as we do...Thank you France!! In Cambodia everything is in US dollars...It really enrages the Europeans and Aussies..But it is nice not to have to do the math...Here it is the dong...confusing...15,540 is a dollar..Egad...my mathematical skills seem to havetaken a nose dive... The temples were absolutely amazing!..I stayed 5 days instead of three...to see more. Today I was hit by a moto driver...he knocked me off my feet on the side of the street andI have a sprained ankle and a gash in my ring finger...the bastard didn't even stop but all of these lovely folks attended to me and a sidewalk vendor brought me a bag of iced coffee to refresh myself and pack my ankle...Most of the beverages inThailand, Cambodia and Viet Nam are served in a 2 handled little bag with a bent straw...I love it...Beats the crap out of disposable cups..I've got to fly...I am going to hobble over to the opera house to check out the symphony...20 bucks...not so bad..Viet Nam is much cheaper than Thailand or Cambodia...I understand it will be much cooler up north...It'll prepare me for the long journey home.
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back to india
so no matter what the men do here, digging ditches, selling coconuts, building a wall-no matter how rich or poor, they ALL have the most perfect hair ever. my favorite pastime is watching the menfolk pass by and i just swoon at their grooming abilities and attention to detail. we sloppy americans can learn much from the coiffed indian. it's a god thing. or a bollywood thing. whatever it is, it works.

i was roped into "mother theresa's internet"this morning by my friend salman. i've been coming here almost exclusivel for 2 years, until one day i discovered the high speed giant screen computers a few steps down. unfortuantely i have to walk fast past salman, cause you really feel like your cheating on them when you do that. so here i am using internet i really don't want to use! the fruit ladies on the beach are the same. once you buy fruit from one, they own you. i have seen MANY catfights on the beach over cunning fruit queens "stealing" other fruit queen's customers! and these ladies are HARDCORE. you are never allowed to NOT have fruit for a day, so you have to search for alternate routes to walk so you don't get accosted.

this morning i saw a desperate man selling drugs in broad daylight, desperate as all hell. even coming into restaurants to do so. i have never seen that before-they usually only do that at night. i have heard most of the creeps selling are merely trying to support their own habit. sad. BUT his hair looked REAL good!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------tit bits
*5 YEAR OLD SACRAFICED
a 5 yr. old was sacraficed by a man to gain spiritual power today. this is the third such incident in a month.

*ARMY JAWARS PUSH 7 OUT OF A TRAIN
5 were crushed to death by the sampurna kranti express which was passing by at that moment. the civilians were thrown out of the train cause the army said the seats they were sitting in were reserved for army personal.

*5.5 TONNES OF GARBAGE REMOVED
"keep kovalam clean" campaign-475 volunteers sporting t-shirts bearing the slogan "less waste, more future"
-i noticed most of the teens were simply milling about talking on their cell phones instead of working, just like the maid in my hotel who finds little patches of shade in corners and hides there all day. she can actually make herself the size of a cashew!! scares the crap out of me when i "think" i am alone.

*HORRORS ON V.C.D.
-new releases are ruling the black market video charts: compilations of grisley pictures and videos of the tsunami horror selling for 4 times the price of, "swades."
-great demand for them-running out of stock. it shows everything-how people died, how they were buried, people who were saved, bloated bodies, cremations, property destruction. they are of good quality and sound.

bindi will be publishing a couple more excerpts from ellen's journey. i just hate to keep her adventures to myself.

bindifry

biogems and tranny

2005-01-22T21:27:00.000-08:00

today i saw my first tranny on the beach. english tranny. cool.

yesterday sharaf came by to deliver kerala food. when i saw him, i asked him what bakrid meant. his answer was, "you take small cow and....cccctttt"-he makes a gesture of his hand moving across his throat. "so you mean bakrid means to cut the head off of a cow? you do it quick, right?" "no, slowly with a small knife you cut cut." "oh." "also a chicken and a bahh bahhh..." "a goat?" "yeah, a goat." "then you chop chop chop in pieces and take around." (?) so according to my muslim friend with very limited english, bakrid means decapitation.
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tit bits
JEWELRY MADE FROM 300 GALSTONES
inspired by the shapes and colors of the stones taken out, s. valsaladevi, pathologist, gave an artistic form to these "biogems" and designed a set of ornaments, necklace, bracelets and earrings, using the stones.

PARVEEN BABI DEAD AT 50
found dead in her home in juhu, she was known as the glamourous heroine of yesteryear. her first bollywood movie in 1973 was, "charitraheen," she went on to star in the famous filums, "deewar," and "amar akbar anthony." the cause of her death is not known.

PYGMY HIPPOS FOUND IN KERALA
not only pygmy elephants (remember?), but now pygmy hippos have been found in the same wildlife forest.

bindifry

goodbye sri devi, hello BAKRID!

2005-01-22T01:02:00.000-08:00

*tsunami death toll-226,500
*dude without a shirt is STILL without a shirt
*chick in yoga class STILL using undiluted lavander essential oil and making lots of enemies
*yoga teachers ARE human beings
*46 more pictures at:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ljhill11/album?.dir=9e08&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos
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friday morning on the way to yoga, i was passed by several strong men each carrying away the massive metallica speakers on their heads up the hill and probably to the local mosque for yet another festival, muslim celebrated bakrid. sri devi temple fest lasted 8 days, not 3 or 5 or 10 or 12, which is what everyone told me. indians would rather lie to you than say "i don't know." it's just not part of their culture. they feel it's rude. so lying is better.(?) it gets to the point that you have to take a poll and go with the common denominater. the rewards i reap during muslim holidays is home made food. i have several sources and lots of muslim friends. i have no idea how long this holiday is, but like the mosque itself, their fests tend to be a little simpler, a little quieter. the hindu temples are very ornate, as their festivals. interesting.
i did enjoy the "experience" of the festival in my yard, however, 3-4 days would have been plenty. lots of sleep lost, can't hear so well. now i know why so many indians talk SO loud. when they were lighting off the m80s, women, children and men of all ages just stand right next to the explosions without covering their ears or even wincing at the massive sounds. amazing.
i'm gonna try to find some info on bakrid and will submit it next blog.

have come across the only "b" movie cable channel called cineworld or C/W. i was lucky enough to catch, "turkey shoot," an aussie movie from '81, a cult classic in the b-movie world. prisoners wearing bright yellow jumpsuits are released on an island so the authorities can hunt em down. hillariously graphic. unbelievable even.

bindifry

PRISONER OF HELL!!!

2005-01-19T19:32:00.000-08:00

velvet dawn had live music this week. keyboards, 6 foot indian giant on vocals, a carlos santana clone on guitar, and mr. tambourine man. i've never seen a tambourine fronted santana cover band before. the entry was, "samba pa ti," followed up by some deep purple, and then a little french, americana, and german folk tunes thrown in. twas mildly amusing.
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i got some cool christian rag with a picture of a business suit clad dude with shackles binding him to a tree stump wrapped in an anaconda with it's tounge touching his. he is standing on the edge of a cliff that is red (hell?) and behind him are 2 black and 1 red cross. below this picture reads, "he who does what is sinful is of the devil." the pamphlet reads WHO WILL DELIVER ME.
i love this sort of stuff, cause it gets weirder when you are far from home. how's this:

-woman goes to church, yet remains a drunkard and murderess
-wicked cause she makes that cursed drink-BEER!!
-"sin has bound my hands and feet, i am a PRISONER OF HELL!!!"
-"i killed my first born son!! i had him in a back pack and i was drunk and rolled on him and squashed the head of my sweet little son so he died!!!"
"what a wretched person i am! who will deliver me?"
THE ANSWER
jesus is the answer
the next page shows business man happy with bible in one hand, other arm stretching upto the sun rising in the hills behind him, the cross hangs the shackles and the dead snake.
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tit bits
*kareena kapoor looks like barbara streisand
*sting is playing in bangalore and new delhi feb. 4 + 5 th. the new brian adams me thinks
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hindu bits

*boy injured in freak accident
-8 yr. old alameen was seriously injured in his left eye when his teacher threw a pen at him to ensure his attention to the blackboard

*avoid sun-baked bricks for pongal
-environmental problems created from devotees baking bread

*pygmy elephants in kerala forest
-2 men encountered a small herd of 5 foot tall pybmy elephants in peppara wildlife sanctuary in kerala last week.

*guidelines for using elephants in temple rituals
-animals were not made to stand for over 4 hours for rituals
-conpetitions for selecting good-looking elephants avoided
-presence of spca (society prevention cruelty animals) present with 5 or more tuskers
-elephants with musth was an offence (?)
-animals taken in lorries over 30km
-mahout 3 year minimum experience
-force should not be applied
-fireworks should not be lit where tuskers are tethered

bindifry

stay close to the loo...

2005-01-18T23:50:00.000-08:00

ok, first things first. the answers to the young world quiz:
1.finding nemo
2.HCL
3.ll cool j
4.it's a popular form of bullfighting/taming
5.eat it-it's a popular type of noodles, which are consumed raw or in a soup
6.convection
7.sirocco or scirocco
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so no matter how hard you try to eat safe, you still can get violently ill. my little safe lonely planet has done me wrong with serving tomato chutney from the previous cooking class. bad. you know what it is cause your stomach makes a familiar gurgling and you know it's all over. so i got to stay in bed all day yesterday watching more bad english flims, "white men can't jump," and, "waynes world 2-waynestock," staying close to the loo. coconuts and hydration salts delivered to my door. it's good to have friends here-thanks arnold. back to yoga today, did not think i would make it, but i figured drag my body there and begin, see what happens. you can always stop, ya know? however, i made it through my primary practice and it made me feel better. the body hurts a lot when you lay all day. get over it, get on with life. today i take it easy. swimming is theraputic. still waiting to "finish" intermediate, but don't care if it does not happen. got plenty to keep me busy. it took almost 6 weeks to get my old practice back from having a month off and 4 injuries to deal with, so it's all good.

temple festival going 2 more days. i asked 10 locals how long and got 10 different answers. it's funny how sure they all were about the duration. indians would rather lie convincingly than say "i don't know,"- course they were christians and muslims, what would they know about a hindu festival? i will miss it. it's the best malayalam jams i've ever heard-loud like a gay disco. and i'm the only freak who likes living right above it. they really jam out on those drums with the wild horns. it's pretty amazing, actually. my ayurvedic tailor, whom i've grown fond of (how many ayurvedic skirts do i need?) and is part of sri devi, invited me for puja tonight at the temple at 7pm. i'm there. as long as he tells me what to do, cause i'm not totally comfy with the spinning, fire, ghee, foot worship, and deity protocal. i guess a dude is going to carry the black sri devi on his head and dance tonight while little kids carry black candles and do fire blessings.
got me thinking, what does sri devi have to do with pongal? it kind of makes sense to worship the mother cause she symbolizes fertility, ya know? for those who don't know, sri devi is the equivalent of parvati (siva's wife), kali and durga.

don't know if this link will work, but i put up 23 photos, mostly of mumbai and agra, in my yahoo photos at:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ljhill11/album?.dir=/de9f&.src=ph&.tok=phfL0XCBqHfS0JtX
just e-mail me if the link fails to work.

bindifry

pongal pongal pongal

2005-01-15T23:50:00.000-08:00

pongal

well it's officially harvest festival and it's celebrated all over india. here are some facts, and why i suddenly understand all the festivities at the sri devi temple.

-celebrations are part of sun worship (because the sun gives life and grows the plants)-hence the ladies throwing hundreds of flowers into little piles of fire at sri devi
-mid january has the sun moving into capricorn signalling the end of winter (vedic calandar)
-celebrated in punjab, assam, bengal, andhra pradesh, karnataka and tamil nadu. tamil nadu's harvest festival is called pongal, which means "rice."

*1st day pongal-bonfires burn and ashes used as manure for the future fields (sri devi had cleared out the field behind my hotel days before the fest in preparation, than the huge burning i did not know at the time was for pongal. remember thursday when i couldn't flee my hotel?
*2nd day pongal-sun worshipped (sri devi temple had the drummers playing ecstatically at the crack of dawn on tuesday)signalling the rise of the sun. milk is boiled over as a symbol of prosperity. (this morning i saw them doing this at temple)
*3rd day pongal-the ox and cattle crucial to farmers livlihood are worshipped. sometimes splashed with colored sand, painted, dressed up, and there are ox cart races and bullfighting all over.

so what kinds of things does one eat at pongal? rice and jaggery (jaggery is raw sugar)-the canes are stacked and waiting at sri devi temple. they also feed all the crows and critters, which is why at sri devi all the people sat down to eat and just all walked away from their half eaten plates without cleaning it. the entire place was full of animals feasting on leftovers. who knew there was a reason for this. at the time i had thought they were too lazy to clean up after themselves, but now it makes perfect sense. the names of the dishes traditionally eaten during pongal are called til gajak, til poli, and chakkarai pongal.

the festivites have been constant since thursday. there's too much going on to watch all the time-it seems to begin with the sun rise and goes till 11pm almost non stop. i did watch them errect a 40 foot pole with a long rope on it while a pile of frantic drummers played against avant garde horns blasting from the speakers. they tied a large pink marigold garland and a decorative hand made textile piece and hoisted it up to the top of the pole facing the sri devi deity. when it reached the top, off went the m80s, firecrackers, and fireworks. deity in red with giant orange marigold garland. than they wrapped the remaining rope around with music accompaniment and more explosions when that was finished.

so they are constantly playing this amazing film score music loud enough for you to hear all the way to trivandrum, which is why i'm the only one crazy enough to stay in the hotel above the temple. it's like having my own personal theatre speakers circling my pool, and i can get underwater when the m80s go off. it makes me wonder-who is the temple d.j.? does he get the job passed on to him by his father? does he audition? what would be the criteria? interesting. cause he's better than any club d.j. i've heard.
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here's a few questions from the hindu's young world quiz. i'll post the answers next time i blog.

1.in which popular movie does one come across deb, gurgle, gill and bloat?
2.it it's wipro for azim premji, what is it for shiv nadar?
3.the popular hip hop artist born james todd smith, would turn 37 today. how is he better known?
4.manju virattu may be witnessed during the pongal festival period in tamil nadu. what is it?
5.what would one do with a wai wai? eat it or wear it?
6.in physics, the transference of heat through a fluid or gas by the actual movement of the fluid itself is called...?
7.name the strong southerly to southeasterly wind in the mediterranean that originates in sahara region?

bindifry

temple fury

2005-01-13T20:48:00.000-08:00

so the 10 day sri devi festival has begun. last night the 15 speakers that were now placed in different trees all over the place were blasting film score music. this puzzles me because i was expecting chants and devotional music and it sounded like one big indian rave. skeptical about sleep, they thankfully stopped the music at 9pm. course it was a thursday night, i am hoping they take pity on the sleepers and not let it go too late. however, in the past, they have gone past midnight. ear plugs do nothing to suffocate the sound, so your stuck awake with earth shaking sounds.(luckily they have good taste in music and i can't seem to get enough of IFSM-indian film score music) the ladies with the palm leaves had built a mini coconut palm house in the temple and another mini lotus flower hut next to the sri devi deity. when they woke me at 6am with head splitting drumming (fridays we practice together at 7, rest of week i'm there at 530), i passed by and witnessed 6 giant piles of fire and a circle of women throwing flowers into the flames. around 715 during yoga, off went dozens of fireworks and firecrackers. and than more music that made it almost impossible to hear lino calling the poses out. between that and the more than creative back-up sounds the taxis and rickshaws make (everything from love story to jingle bells), it reminded me of conference in mysore. guruji is SO quiet and profound when he talks, except you can't hear a word of it because of the musical horns and cell phone rings. i think the ring tones are an expression of high art here.
SO of course i'm thinking of a re-location of hotel, but part of me wants to stick around cause it's one serious party i have never been so close to before. it will take a gallon of patience and fabulous attitude. everyone involved is SO happy i'm just waiting to be dragged right into the festivities. the deity is getting her sari changed several times a day now. and half a dozen nubile indian youth splashing about in our swimming pool at 10pm. i'm hoping that elephants will come. the hawk's palm tree homes are in the middle of all this and it seems like they've relocated. how does a hawk move his entire family and nest?

so for the last 2 weeks, a girl has been practicing next to me who likes to use pure lavender oil when she does garba pindasana.(most of us use water) it suffocates me and i try hard to be in finishing when she gets to that pose rather than being the 2nd person to confront her. today she came up to me and asked me if her perfume bothered me. "it IS strong," i said. she apologized and went back to USING IT AGAIN! now yoga folks, the first things you learn about yoga are:
1. come 10 minutes early 2.do not eat before practice 3. absolutely no oils, lotions or perfumes.
this is horrifying and am rather surprised to see a seasoned yogi doing this. why is this a problem? cause the smell reeks up the entire room! not all of us are fans of lavender and it's extremely rude. why a teacher says nothing? i don't know. sometimes teachers just give up. fighting is futile. many students don't listen. i don't know why they spend the money.

saw a line of young backpackers, the caboose wearing a "von dutch" t-shirt. i found this amusing, cause one of those stores opened in chicago and i wanted a t-shirt. except they cost 150US dollars! guess the backpackers blew all their cash on t's. 100US can buy you a week in a ritzy hotel here or 2 weeks in a beach hotel. no judgement....no judgement... no judgement...........

well it's friday and it always seems like a vacation cause of the lead class and no class saturday. except theres nothing to do here but read, swim, watch tv, sit on the beach, or GO SEE THE NEW KAMAL HASSAAN MOVIE!

bindifry

amrish puri gone

2005-01-12T22:12:00.000-08:00

AMRISH PURI DIED TODAY. HE WAS 72
one of the finest actors in bollywood. this saddens me a lot. he will be missed. a fine villian, he was. i think i got lucky and saw his last movie, "aitraaz." he rocked in that.

JAFFLES ROCK
jaffles are indian mini grilled cheese sandwiches made in a device much like a waffle iron. i've had a few dreams about them.

there's some kind of sri devi/kali/durga festival about to take place. all the restaurants are playing durga chants and the devi temple next to my hotel is totally decked out with the flower tunnel and tons of lights. they even set up a bandshell with, GASP, 15 STACKS OF SPEAKERS! like metallica would use. i don't expect to get any sleep this weekend. every day they bathe the devi statue and put her in a different sari. she's all decked out in red and orange today, yesterday yellow, green day before. many people sleeping on the ground there and old ladies in the field with huge palm branches dried out making those festival bird things they hang everywhere. many men carrying i don't know what in gigantic palm baskets on their heads to the temple. i admit i'm a little excited about this one. i'll keep you all posted.

bindifry

the ayurvedic tailor

2005-01-12T01:54:00.000-08:00

tit bits
*"why chai time? "so we eat less." "what are the timings?" "730,1130,430,730
*feni time in goa-1-3pm daily

these above are ritually performed. much of india is asleep before 10am, and between 2-4, restaurants sleep sometimes till 730pm. late risers, late eaters. these are the people of india

*india is the land of "not my job, man." one job=one indian man. example-shaji the coconut wallah gets up too late to serve the eager yoga early riser coconut fans such as i. he is woken up by his brother and 2 co-workers. it's only recently they have given up on him in order to save the business, for we don't stay long being pushed out by the locals-THE MOZZIE.

*do you notice how india brings out the scizo in bindi? not write in my blog? impossible.

*i found an ayurvedic tailor that is being pushed by lonely planet. this is a new concept and his prices are double the average clothsman. it is nice soft fabric, like much of the fabric here. chemical free naturally dyed organic cotton. dyed with pure ayurvedic dyes. i don't know if this is marketing or what as i am not a tailor junkie. (terri, julie, deb-help me out with this one)
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THE HINDU

-baby found in amma cradle
the 38th infant to be found in amma's electronic cradle (amma or ammanchi is known as the hugging saint. her ashram is in kerala)

-piece of wood pierces boy's stomach
14 year old ratheesh was playing when he accidently fell on the wood

-norms for adoption of tsunami-orphaned children
--applicants must be 25-45 yrs old
--21 difference between parent and child
--community acceptance
--willingness of the children
willing parents contact office of the district social welfare officer, nagapattinam (phone#04365-253045)

-gender no bar to hear sexual offence cases
the surpeme court today ruled that no case could be trasnferred from a court to another on the ground that a lady judge would find it embarrassing to hear a case pertaining to sexual offences.

-mobile phones not safe for children under 8
studies show there are health implications

-the sri lankan president chandrika kumaratunga said she will adopt a tamil girl victim
after visiting the eastern coastline, the president had said one of her most touching moments was meeting an orphaned tamil girl. "she lost her entire family. i felt i should bring up that child myself."

bindifry

hawks 2-crows 0

2005-01-11T21:38:00.000-08:00

thought you'd like to know the hawks have taken over both tall palms and crows aren't allowed close at all. the thing that concerns me is that they are doing building right below and if they chop those down, what will happen to the family nest? they burned down there heavily, so heavily i couldn't leave my room all day cause the only way out was to walk through it and my hair would smell like burned garbage for the duration of this trip. luckily i was finished with my swim when the burning began. the entire sky drenched in thick stinky smoke, pieces of charred newspaper flying everywhere. this is one of the things i don't like about india. the garbage is buried or burned. there is no such thing as recycling and plastic is a huge problem. to add to the horror, india is paid to import garbage from other parts of the world! with a billion living here and a large tourist population, it is getting real ugly real fast. if you choose to come here, purify your own water or refill at a purifier, such as the one provided by lino in yoga class. don't add to the trash problem.

yoga yoga yoga. what can i say except the pain never seems to go away. i think we are supposed to be aware of our pain, our weaknesses so we can learn to combat them.(bindi is in the school of xena warrior princess yoga and is learning a lot from gabrielle and xena) i don' t know a single person at any level who dosen't experience pain or exhaustion throughout this yoga. we just have to accept it as part of the ego destruction. it's interesting that some people's ego is stroked by this yoga, and others egos get destroyed. i believe the ones who have to battle hard, the ones where it dosen't come easy cause of body type, not having dance training or gymnastics training, are the ones who "succeed" in this yoga. so i guess you have to ask yourself, "do you feel good, punk? well? do you? " and if you do, come to india so lino, sharath or guruji can change that for you. than you will know yoga.

bindi

dude without a shirt

2005-01-09T22:21:00.000-08:00

ok. there's a dude in this restaurant without his shirt on. now you don't see signs here that say, "no shirt no shoes no service," and the shoes part is ok, but something about looking at a hairy pot bellied white dude without his shirt on makes me lose my appetite. listen up-it is never ok to eat in a restaurant without your shirt on unless it's a beach hut next to the ocean. AND demand a tablecloth change! (i happen to like the company of ants myself)

bindi has her own soap opera in her yard. each morning when i swim, i can watch from the two tallest palms in the area. i've never stayed perched so high above the tops of coconut palms. it's a world above me. however, in these palms live the hawks. they look like mini eagles with a body in tan and head in white. they are magnificent. they have a nest and kids and the big drama is the crows that constantly take the food right out of the mouths of the babies. this is a never ending drama and way better than tv, no commercials! i guess i will miss this place.

heads up-new book reviewed for those who care called, "and......PRAN!." for those of you who like old bollywood filums know who he is. the greatest most popular villian during the 70s through the present. don't know where you can buy it, maybe amazon, but looks like fabulous reading. (hi jeff-i know you will have read this one before i get home-pass it on to mintz)

so bindi is seriously considering ending her blog. why? i just don't know what to say in my life which won't make me feel and sound trivial. i think being spared by a tsunami will do this to you. anyhow, i have under 5 weeks left in india and i have sort of become speechless. the world around me is no longer strange, but has become familiar, part of me. this is my 7th month this year in india and i'm afraid it's grown on me-not only it's beauty and magic, but it's turmoil. i accept the pain within me and around me.

talking about yoga feels tired and trivial. it is not a spectator sport. it's highly personal and discussing "posture" is posturing! however, i do know there are people out there who are interested, so i'll try to keep it interesting. today was a moon day and i haven't been practicing on those days. i do notice a difference in energy level and am affected by it. however, lino is kind enough to keep the shala open between 630-8 entrance times with no chant and very little adjustments. some people don't think they're getting their money's worth. he understands this. in mysore, you are often given 4 days off in a week just because or if they are in need of another holiday. it can be very expensive, especially with the first month fast climbing past 600US.

i watched, "quotation," yesterday with sharaf. i wanted to see a tamil filum called, "jayasurya," which he took me to, but upon arrival, refused to let me into the theatre. "theatre very bad" he said, don't know why except i did feel a little freaky being in that part of town. hard to explain the vibe, but it just wasn't right. SO he took me to the same malayalam (i apologize for repeatedly misspelling this word)movie he went to see when he dumped us off last week to see, "swades." (he is NOT a fan of hindi cinema and there was no way he was going to sit through THAT one again.) the movie was shot entirely in the dark, which got old. twas only 2 hours long with only 2 musical numbers, but instead felt like 4 hours. there was tons of blood and merciless violence, which looked real good in the dark rain. women are not spared, the hero was not spared. this was NOT your typical hollywood ending. women were the fattest i've ever seen(merely an innocent observation) and quite proud of their bellies, bless them. and i had no idea what was going on. sharaf with his very limited english thinks that i only care about fight scenes in movies. it's true i can't get enough jacke chan AND the tamil people are role models for hong kong, but i need more than that in a movie. i know it was mostly about revenge, and a sort of love thing that almost happened, but that's it. still, even without knowing too much, it is interesting to watch the south indian people in movies cause they are very dark skinned and have jobs just like everyone else around here-rickshaw drivers, cooks, coconut and iron wallahs. and the backdrop is often chennai in tamil movies or kochi in malayalam.
i think i take out my frustration of not really knowing what is going on by binging on bad english movies, cause i won't do that at home. i even buy many of the films i see here and watch them again with subtitles, opening a huge door of discovery. cept the malayalam and tamil ones are very hard to find with subtitles, even here.

so i am not formally concluding this blog. i can only promise to write less often until i return to the states on valentines day, trying to update once a week.

bindifry

f.y.o./b.b.b./and other t.b.s

2005-01-05T22:14:00.000-08:00

*f.y.o.-for yogis only
**b.b.b.-bindi's blog break
***t.b.-tit bits
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well bindi took a blog break, not because she's lazy, but because she has nothing interesting to share at the moment, till today i guess. i've been concentrating on my health and well being, being very dilligent with building back my strength and getting my old bod back. takes time, but i am beginning to see that dim light at the end of my tunnel.

fyi
"next week we finish." these were lino's parting words to me this morning, after 5 weeks of intense yoga just trying to get back to where i was a year ago, pre injury. these words comfort me because i've been doing astanga for 6 or 7 years and after next week, i get to finish intermediate series, which means i can finally split my practice. lino believes in teaching stamina, the old fashioned way, by insisting you do full primary and intermediate until you reach the end. nowadays in mysore the practice is split earlier, like after supta vaj or karandavasana. i have 4 poses and 7 headstands to learn next week, than 2 weeks of intermediate only 5 days, friday full primary always. are my hips open enough? are my hamstrings ready? does the shoulder feel ok? what about that permanent crooked ring finger from the sprain? well i trust my teacher and if he thinks i am ready, it's showtime. i hate to admit to being goal oriented EVER in this practice, and i had let go of the fact that maybe this wouldn't happen cause of all the injuries, but i have before whined about the long practice. this shortens it to a reasonable time-instead of 2-3 hours, it becomes 90 minutes. much easier to handle in chicago. however, i have no teacher in chicago who can assist me, only friends who also do these poses. that's the way it goes, that's why i spend so much time over here. the method of working your body hard creates strength and stamina very much required for "nadi shodana," nerve cleansing, intermediate series, aka second series.
as i said before, lino has been doing lead primary on fridays, which is a super treat. these days in mysore, they have lead classes sundays and fridays and you have to be invited into the intermediate leads on sundays, which means you are very fluent in the series. only a handful are. intermediate is the flip side of primary, and both series used to be taught simultaneously in mysore. each series compliments the other. and it is quite dangerous to "take" postures from second series. i know of many people who do this, have done this, and are seriously asking for trouble. not only trouble in the body, but trouble in the mind. you don't just do what you want, you have to be given the postures by someone who really knows what they're doing, and for me, in the beginning, i would only take from teachers who have been to mysore, nowadays, only certified instructors-lino and dena. don't screw with this system. it's bite is very sharp.
SO what is lino concentrating on in his lead classes? sarvangasana sequence! that's shoulderstand, folks. he counts 25 in S.S., but it's so slow, it's more like 50 count, 50 count halasana, 25 count karnapindasana, 25 in urdva padmasana, 25 pindasana, 15 matsayasana, 15 uttana padasana. brutal! couldn't do it first couple of times out, but strong now. actually looking forward to it. in mysore, their thing is torturning you in uth pluthi. it's actually sadistic.
i love the lead classes cause it really sets the vinyasa, the movement. there are only so many breaths you are supposed to take, and each breath has a very specific movement. this is what we call "vinyassa." most people are quite ignorant of this specific thing, which is why i believe guruji is doing it, sharath is doing it, lino is doing it. very important.
my injuries have crept back, now i just have to deal with them. somehow you move beyond them, even though it's painful. painful not in a bad way, but in a balancing way. i'm not saying you should push, but injuries can be overcome over time with CORRECT METHOD, bandhas and proper breath. i do remember bragging that my injuries were gone for good, but they were just on vacation. it's ok. this is what we learn.
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tbs
a plumber came to my room to fix a water problem with his tools and toolbox. you know what an indian uses for a toolbox? yesterday's newspaper!

"i'd rather play the lead in a bollywood movie than play second fiddle to meryl streep."-kareena kapoor speaking of ashwarya rai and her taking a roll in a hollywood movie. gee, kareena, don't ya think if ya had ash's looks you would also be asked to play "second fiddle?"

i took scott and arnold to "swades" yesterday, it being my second time for this filum. "we the people" is the subtitle, and it's dedicated to mahatma gandhi. it's about a small town in uttar pradesh working together with the help of shah rukh khan, of course. he helps them get water, helps get the kids in school, teaches them how to build their own electrical system, brings the brahmins and the untouchables together in a very touching scene where the town sits outside to watch a famous movie, "yadon ki bharat." the movie quits on them, and mohan takes down the screen that seperates the castes. he teaches them about the stars in the sky, bringing togethre all people. all these themes are very gandhi. SRK is mohan, a nasa indian about to receive his US citizenship, who longs to visit his homeland. it's a tear jerker/feel good movie directed by the same director as lagaan. if you liked lagaan or/and love india, this one IS for you. bindi will be buying this one on dvd, she will have another bollywood party and show it with the subtitles. and the cd awaits my chicago arrival. the music is fabulous.

my friends sharaf, nass, mahin and sudek went to the beach tuesday, collected 12,000 rupees and took it and food and supplies to tamil nadu, the hardest tsunami hit state in india. such good boys. sharaf seemed so distracted taking us to the movie, i was wondering what was up. "you should see it, people everywhere crying, bodies everywhere, and the smell...." this is what he said to me. there have been many groups of people doing this here. we are only a few miles away from the destruction. that baby hit everywhere to our west, south and east, but decided to just skip over little old kovalam and trivandrum. who knows why, something about the position in the sea, something about blessings, something about luck. when is it bindi's turn? it takes a huge heart and huge cahones (balls) to put yourself in these places. there's nothing that can prepare you for it and it obviously affected sharaf, who is more used to such things than i am. i'm so close, it almost seems stupid not to go there, but i just don't know if i'm strong enough to see it. sending money is the easy way, but the temptation to go there is very strong. i think if sharaf does it again, it may be good for my soul.

bindifry

kerala feast

2005-01-01T23:32:00.000-08:00

well i did end up going to my hotel managers house, col. rasheed. and i'm glad i did, cause he was having the spread just for me and it would have been horrible to let them hang. so here's the spread:
-first we are shown the house, however, it was more like a mansion. the colonel had been all over the world, egypt, dubai, china, etc. and had artifacts from everywhere. absolutely stunning place. the army is good to their people here. he's been retired 10 years, and our gathering was only us 3 (scott, who is in india only 2 days at this point, and arnold)and him and his wife.
-we were introduced to the film crew, who film in their house 5 days a month a very popular malayalum series on asianet at 7:30 pm. of course this made the event quite unexpected. we had to eat on the floor of the guest quarters because of this, but that was not half bad.
-he sat us down inside for beers, cause the indians don't drink outside in public in front of others out of respect. than we lined up to wash our hands and we returned to the quarters. the furniture had been taken away and 4 giant palm leaves (the wife does not eat with us traditionally cause she's serving) placed with 7 kinds of sauces and tit bits (like mango chutney, hot red ginger lime sauce, chopped long beans and mixed vegetable, which had green chili in it and looked like guacamole)
-mrs. rasheed did the honors and piled on that fat kerala rice in the center of the leaf. than first course-dal. we used our right hand to mix it together, add some spice (looked like a painters easel) and squashed a papad into the rice to bind it. papad is a deep fried tortilla like rice crispy bread. second course, sambar, a thin stew of hot dal with eggplant and okra, a hot as hell red prawn dish, (vegetarian?), and the curd came last. than fresh pineapple for enzymatic digestion. in india, they eat their food in a certain order for optimum digestibility. we did good, folded our palm leaves in half, and it was out to the garden for local black coffee and some photos.
that's pretty much it. took about 4 hours, than his "driver" took us back to kovalam, a good 40 minutes away. they live on the outskirts of trivandrum where i've never been before.

i felt quite honored being his guest. he invited me because he caught me red handed listening to air (all india radio) and singing along. he thought it was cute a little white girl who knows film songs, told his wife, and invited me with 2 guests. very sweet new years day, much better than new years eve.

the death toll of tsunami continues to climb and is still the main focus here on tv, newspapers, and in the hearts of the people. we weren't the only ones celebrating low key out of respect for the dead and dying. death toll over 170,000 and now people are starting to die from disease, which will to take the lives of many more people.

thanks to all who made donations. it's a wonderful thing when you can open your heart and your purse for something like this.

bindifry

kal ho na ho

2004-12-31T20:33:00.000-08:00

well bindi was all puffed out yesterday upon receiving news that the hotel manager had called me into his office and asked me, "do you like traditional kerala vegetarian meal?" and invited to have a car pick me up and take me to his home in trivandrum where his wife is doing the food, you know, the palm leaf on the floor, thali with mountain of rice, mix together with hand, pop into mouth, meal. i can bring friends. as much as i want to do this, i'm so pissed at my expensive hotel cause for the 3rd time i have no water and have had to take a shower in the pool, which is a drag. other problems which i don' t want to get into cause i don't like being negative, but i've written a long letter to the owner who is in dubai right now telling him all the problems i'm having. can't even get clean towels and this is an expensive place. they want me to promote the hotel, but i'm real mad right now.

my new years eve was spent with arnold and scott at lonely planet, eating vegetarian buffet, than watching, "rumble in the bronx" (i adore jackie chan no matter what garbage he has put out lately) and was in bed by 11. not much to celebrate here. kind of somber. i feel guilty whooping it up with 6 digits of death around me, and as many in camps-there are over 20 in trivandrum alone, and water bourn disease coming to wipe out more of the population.

listen to your teacher. lino told us no massage with intensive astanga, eat only vegetarian and only at lonely planet, and drink only pure water. he has generously installed a water purifier in the shala for us, which is an amazing thing to do. i used to poo-poo at his suggestions, but i have been completely poison free since i've listened to him. trust your teacher, but never follow blindly.

also a person who i admire from afar who works at a frequented restaurant e-mailed me to compliment me on my writing style. bindi is puffed out about that. shucks. thanks, kimmie, for that. you have a massive heart.

i was invited to my friend sharaf's party last night, but i did not think i could deal with another night of young drunken indian boys. low key for bindi these days. she wants to stay injury and poison free.

yoga is good. peaking now, lots of people of all levels in there. lino is on fire. i highly reccommend this intensive. you can do 1 week or 2 months. of course 2 months is best way to get the most out of it. but i know most people can't do that.

happy new year to all
hug your family and friends extra hard cause "kal ho na ho", tomorrow may not be.

bindifry

donations/animal lovers

2004-12-30T02:04:00.000-08:00

tomorrow's new years eve and there are many articles suggesting using the money you would spend on "festivities" to tsunami flood victims. you can do this online at:

donathttp://pay.hindu.com/thrfpay/thrfpay.

www.thehindu.com
is also a great source of detailed info about tsunami,(way better than what cnn and bbc and network tv will tell you) and if the donation link above does not work, the hindu online will guide you there. i admit there is little to celebrate around here and would feel terribly guilty doing so. there is no way to explain how this tragedy has affected south india. anyhow, if you can, please send as much as you can. a hundred bucks goes a way long way here, especially since most families make 300 per year.
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so here's something interesting in sri lanka for animal lovers especially:
SAVED BY THEIR 6TH SENSE
as sri lanka's human death toll surged, wildlife officials expressed surprise today that they found no evidence of large scale deaths among animals from the tsunami. "this is very interesting. i am finding bodies of humans, but i have yet to se a dead animal," said a spokesman.
the huge waves washed floodwaters inland and yala, sri lanka's largest wildlife reserve, but the animals apparently were not harmed and have sought out high ground, he said. "maybe what we think is true, that animals have a sixth sense." the park is home to 200 elephants, leopards, wild boar and other rare animals.
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our power has been out at least 5 hours during the hottest time in the afternoon. i apologize if it takes me a little while to reply to the generous e-mails sent to me. i appreciate all the concern pouring in. our beach opened today first time, than it closed. i am fortunate to have a pool, however, usually don't think of going near it between 9:30am and night time. this south indian sun is a killer. i know all of you are probably popsicles right now and i'm not bragging, but intense heat without power can also be difficult. air, all india radio, came back on air yesterday and i'm smart enough to know about indian batteries. plus you can take your radio anywhere outside and entertain the men hard at work in their lungis as well as yourself.

happy new year
bindifry

toll-a-risin

2004-12-29T21:52:00.000-08:00

so today we're at 77,000 dead from tsunami. my plans of travel beyone the confines of kovalam have dimished for this trip. it's ok, cause i'll be back again, and susanna finocci and petri raisanen teach the entire month of february. i have my full practice back, but i feel like i need a walker when it's all over. all is coming. swimming is definitely a plus, something about moving the limbs around in cool water helps keep the pain away. i am well on my way to overcoming 4 injuries.

ASTANGA YOGA IS VERY CHALLENGING
*it's worth the long haul
*it's worth doing with correct method
*there will always be lessons to learn

i am guilty of watching "encino man" and liking it. is this good or bad?

bindifry

tit bits and tsunami

2004-12-28T21:26:00.000-08:00

TSUNAMI DEATH TOLL TODAY SO FAR
58,000 and rising
over 10,000 in south india. here's an approximate breakdown for those who know this area or are interested:
kanniyakumari-1200+
kerala-200+
nagapattinam-1700+
sri lanka-12,500+
andaman and nicobar islands-6000+
tamil nadu-3200+
pondicherry-60+
keralarose-190+
alappuzha-35+
kollam-40+
andra pradesh-115+
bangalore-40+
of course all the animals that have perished, who knows how many fish, birds, cows, cats, dogs,chickens, roosters, oxen......
heavy rains here have made things worse and the death toll expected to double from disease carried by the waters. australia is giving 5 crore (a crore is a million rupies). there are mass funerals and mass graves on the front pages of the papers, lots of little kids. kovalam beach and surrounding beaches have been closed 4 days, many beachfront hotels evacuated, tons of cancellations. i am living on a tall hill, my hotel is booked solid cause it's safe. they're expecting more quakes and the weather has been strange. there are more than 1000 people in trivandrum in relief camps, and my friend sharaf's village was destroyed, including damage to the mosque that is way up next to the lighthouse.
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plastic is a huge problem here cause it's not bio degradable and there isn't a recycling program. now india is cell phone obsessed and other electronic gadgets, what's the name of this new waste product that's even worse than plastic? E-WASTE

india offers visas to pakistan students!
india and pakistan today agreed to continue the process on a sustained and serious basis, narrow down differences, and work towards resolution of all issues.
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i confess to have been watching "rosebowl-the feel good channel" on the tele. i can indulge in hindi videos, beegees, john denver,the carpenters,abba,metalica,bob marley, bad clapton,ricky matin, worst of aerosmith (really were they ever good beyone "toys in the attic"?
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BRAIN BITES
1.who was time magazine's first female man of the year?
2.lindsay owen-jones is the ceo of which global brand?
3.which entertainment celebrity set up "data"(debt, aids, trade in africa) to create global awareness about the plight in various countries in the "dark continent"?
4.name the only indian film to win the palme d'or and in which year did it do so?
5.what happened for the first time in 456 years when john paul II became the pope?
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PERFECT;KNOW YOUR ENGLISH
"love me, love my dog"-when you say this, you mean that you want a person to accept you for who you are.
"chinless wonder"-mostly british, used to refer to someone who is weak.
"he has deep pockets"-a rich person, like a politician. they become politicians to make the pockets deeper!
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bindi apologizes for any misspelled words or poor grammar. in india, the power is unpredictable and i often don't have time to proofread. sorry journalists and big brains out there.

bindifry

turkeys are getting fat/for yogis only

2004-12-27T19:07:00.000-08:00

friends, tailors, have 3 big turkeys that have been getting fed nonstop for the last week. they are getting bigger and bigger. little do they know they will be part of the new years celebration-tandoored on new years. eat up, turkeys, enjoy those meals.

well, the tsunami death toll is fast climbing to 24,000 and twice as many are expected to die from flood related diseases. it's creepy to be so close to this gigantic disaster (although i'm sure the US isn't paying too much attention, after all, it's only asia). our beaches are closed 3 days so far and kovalam feels like a graveyard. more disasters, fault shifts and volcanic eruptions are predictided to follow soon. how will the US fight this NATURAL terrorism?? i did, however, get a great deal on silver and copper because of the desperation of the shopkeepers (hi jim and debi), not that i'm proud of that or anything. it's just a fact.
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FOR YOGIS ONLY
*i was blatently hit in the head by a water bottle during pasasana yesterday by a girl who keeps stealing my mat space. no apology. cat fight or accident? she speaks no english so i'll just ignore her.
*if you know more about other people's yoga than your own, you are probably not doing yoga-many people performing gymnastics
*quote "you mind your mulhabanda and i'll mind mine"-sri k. pattabhi jois upon being asked if he taught muslims
*yoga is always one step forward and 2 steps back. just whenyou feel strong, next day you can be weak as an infant. such is the ebb and flow of life.
*yoga is the perfect mirror of life
*if you talk about your yogic "accomplishments", you will probably collapse and hurt yourself.
*if you buy into others competetion games, you WILL get hurt
*yoga is the cessation of the fluxuations of the mind-yoga sutras book 1
*"judge not lest you be judged"-bob marley and jesus christ

bindifry

asian quake

2004-12-26T04:46:00.000-08:00

just a note to let you all know that the huge asian quake you will soon be hearing about did not affect us here, even though many have died in kerala, this area. could be a million dead-sumatra epicenter-sri lanka badly affected, chennai and other parts of tamil nadu, and thailand.

biggest in over 40 years-8.9, still counting bodies washing up on the shores, especially fishermen.

live each day like it's your last cause it might just be.

bindi
who is no longer feeling sorry for herself

happy holidays

2004-12-25T05:21:00.000-08:00

so what do i do on xmas eve? try to see this new malayalum movie that opened, we get there and it's not open yet. india. so we go see my next choice, a different malayalum movie called "black" starring the biggest kerala film star mammooty. the theatre was filled with indian families, lots of kids, which is really funny, cause the non hindi movies don't have the same censorship laws, so the violence can be shocking (eyes getting gorged out, children shot, babies thrown down wells, etc.) yet they can't show lips locking. go figure.

xmas eve was pretty lovely. my moods here seem to vary between elation and bliss to anger and utter depression. perhaps india is cleansing me. the holidays mean nothing to me since my entire family had died within the last 5 years, don't have a family anymore. i also hate the marketing xmas overload in the states. here, they just go out in their fishing boats and sing praises to the sea goddess for their livlihood. it's nice, actually. and thanksgiving does not exist here, it's only a gorge fest and football day anyhow in the states, and new years is full of amateur drunks, so i don't ever go out anyhow. i am quite blessed to spend the holidays two years in a row here. if it was up to me, and i had the cash, i would be here nov-feb each year for the rest of my life.

evening at beatles restaurant for bbq and dancing, although they couldn't get the bbq pit going, so it was mushrooms and potatos for me. than a dj and plenty of dancing, even though there were only 2 girls and 20 indian men, they behaved themselves. i got a lot of respect cause they picked my brain about indian cinema, asking the question, "who is your favorite actor?" "kamal hassaan!" instant bonding and a discount on the bill.

spent xmas alone in my room for the most part. supposed to go with sharaf on a motorcycle to varkala and elephant sanctuary, but it fell through. maybe next week.

hope you're all having a wonderful holiday-
xxx
bindifry

take a big bite out of life

2004-12-23T02:59:00.000-08:00

so time had come for another filum and i've been quite anxious to see the tamil remake of the hindi "munna bhai" starring sanjay dutt (whose role was supposed to be for SRK, but he was having back surgery), with my very favorite actor in the world-kamal hassaan (many spellings of this name for those who want to check him out). he's better than brando in acting, better dancer than astair, sings, choreographs, writes, produces and directs. he has done films in 7 languages, over 150 and he's only 50. the name of the movie was "vasoolraja mbbs." it took an hour to get to this theatre which is on the outskirts of trivandrum and when we got there, the movie was not playing. had not been there for a month! they never bothered to change the ad in the paper. this happened last year and it was an english movie i refused to see. this time i stayed, it was a 3 year old malayaylum movie called, "praja" starring the very famous and great fighter MOHILAL. not much of a love story, only fighting and revenge, some of it filmed where i stayed at in mumbai. it was fun anyhow.
anyhow, there are 21 theatres here and it's kind of hit or miss, mostly hit cause i love most of em. i ask everyone i know who lives here what they like, etc. and see most of the hindi ones, even though sharaf does not like those.
before the movie started, i took some pictures from the outside of the film projection booth, and it caused a commotion. sharaf told them we were filum students and that we could take pictures inside of the booth of the cameras, except only a man could go in there. lucky for me arnold was with me, so i got some primo pics of the indian projection booth from the inside, i'm sure some of you (hi jeff mintz) would love to see these photos. that was the biggest thrill. than to the "man" bar where you sit in private booths like an office with a buzzer and a man who brings little bags of cashews with 5 inside.
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yogawise, things are raising in intensity and i'm very close to my original practice again, strength coming, but afternoon naps needed and tons of water and coconuts to sustain the energy. i am so surprised this has happened so fast, seeing i have 3 serious injuries. these people working with lino are amazing, and tina is coming this weekend. can't wait. so much hard work, stamina, and patience, and the ability to push yourself to limits unknown before. fridays are still lead primary, which i love, tonight is pranayama. i am learning much about the basic pranayamas and they are really amazing and calming when done right and not pushing. of course i still miss gwendoline, i think of her everytime i do krounchasana (her famous pose that was on her business card and her picture which hangs in the shala), and get teary eyed during the meditation portion, but i don't think gwen would want us all to keep slobbering over her and just get on with life and help people just like she spent her whole life doing. if any of you have seen "harold and maude" think of the character of maude and if you haven't had the blessing of meeting gwen, that was her. took a big bite out of life.
many blessings to all during the holidays-
bindifry

swimfan/for yogis only/dristi dristi dristi

2004-12-21T02:24:00.000-08:00

i moved out of my hotel couple days ago for a handful of personal reasons. mostly i desired a need to get away from the bustle close to the beach, more solitude, and mostly A POOL. i really do not like swimming in oceans and the arabian sea is no exception with it's dangerous choppy waves, unpredictable sand ground, the daily sight of dozens of deficating dogs right at the shoreline, and an outbreak of lice last year.
anyhow, i moved to what seems like a mile up lighthouse road where all the hoity toity places are, usually quite expensive, but since i'm in a place that's currently under construction, i'm getting a deal of sorts. the pool is immaculately clean and giant and gorgeous and empty (cept for me), which means i can swim after yoga and before bedtime. nothing like floating on your back in india in a pool staring into the moon and stars.
the place is not without warts. i had to have electricity installed yesterday, plumbing installed today, i need a new fan that won't keep me awake at night. but the view is spectacular, near a sri devi temple, which is SO loud, but lovely anyhow. i miss those temple speakers when i am back home.
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FOR YOGIS ONLY
spending 2 months with lino and gwendoline changed my practice dramatically, which is why i come back. however, it's definitely NOT for the lazy or prop lovers or those who like to do "research poses" like pigeon in the middle of practice, or splits after prasarita d. he is hardcore in terms of how the vinyasa is taught, each breath, each lift, each gazing poing, bandhas, and breath, doing the pose and understanding it more internally rather than externally, which is SO common.
i just keep learning and learning, last year more about bandhas, this year, dristi is my focus. if you don't even know what that means and you practice astanga, you better find out, cause it's more important than the posture. something else i've learned from maria paolo (who works very closely with tina-VERY strict) was one day she saw i was doing all my lotus poses with left leg first. she said, "NO! you do right first always in half instead of full with left." i told her i was injured, and this was the very beginning of my healing. within 3 days i was doing a comfy right first full lotus by NOT avoiding, confronting instead. no tricks, etc. it was quite magical, actually, and i'm almost back to my normal long ass practice. this after 8 months of shortened modified and avoided practices. i have to admit i was kind of hoping to complete intermediate cause i'm so close (lino makes you do all primary and second till you finish second) and it is exhausting and takes a long time. but, "whatever will be will be." i am no longer attached to my practice. having multiple injuries can be very good for you, in strange and wonderful ways.
the pranayama that lino is generously sharing with us twice a week is wonderful. i do 3-5 rounds of the first one only before starting my practice and it really kicks in the bandhas and breath. i wait till i fully understand the second part before adding it. (which involves kumbhaka with alternate nostril breathing without even sides). another reason for getting to yoga 45 minutes early is to get a mat space that is yours, or close to yours. i don't know what it is this year, but people are in there 90 minutes before their scheduled time. last year we all had our spots and it was easier for the different teachers and adjusters to get to know your practice. not this year. a girl in first row stole my spot in second row, so i whine a little to lino, who is fed up with that mess, so he just says,"so take her spot in front." this actually was where i was last year and it's good cause you face a wall and don't have to notice anyone else-pratyahara is something else i am trying real hard with-dristi dristi dristi.
bindifry

the planet is indeed lonely

2004-12-19T19:41:00.000-08:00

so the lonely planet is a great place to eat, safe, yummy, and one of the only places to get a real indian brekkie on kovalam beach. however, it's also full of very very very very very picky people from all over the world. on the wall, there is a sign that reads:
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A CUSTOMER IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON ON OUR PREMISES
HE IS NOT DEPENDENT ON US, WE ARE DEPENDENT TO HIM
HE IS NOT AN INTERRUPTION IN OUR WORK, HE IS THE PURPOSE OF IT
HE IS NOT AN OUTSIDER ON OUR BUSINESS, HE IS A PART OF IT
WE ARE NOT DOING HIM A FAVOR BY SERVING HIM
HE IS DOING US A FAVOR BY GIVING US AN OPPORTUNITY TO DO SO
SIVA
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a couple other ditties on the wall:
"one who looks for pleasure alone is done for"
"one must do some good to others at least once in a blue moon when you are above ground"
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SIVA STRIKES AGAIN IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM
HERBAL FOOD FOR PERFECT HEALTH
-brown rice soup with pickle and papad
-green beans with steam rice
-succini steam rice
-tender coconut with rice and coconut water
-rice with bitter gourd and chutney
-pumpkin and beans and steam rice
-mix dried fruits and basmati rice
-mix hrbal fod
-dal kanji and pickle papad
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a brazillian man trying to sell opium at internet cafe tells owners "you need to learn more english if you want to get ahead in life"
-excuse me, but i wonder if this brazillian speaks english, tamil, malayalum, hindi, a little japanese, italian, french and german?
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FARM QUERIES (compliments of "the hindu")
"black elderberry"
what is the tamil name for the black elderberry?
-sambucus nigraisa plant of african origin is a known anti-oxidant. it is grown as an ornamental plant and not cultivated commercially
NOW, TO VISIT GRAVES ONLINE
sitting in her apartment, batool jaffer, a 70 yr old widow puts her wrinkled hand on a computer mouse, clicks on a website, then raises her hands in a muslim gesture of prayer for her husband's departed soul. on the screen is a photo of the grave at the wadi-e-hussain cemetery in karachi where her husband was interred last year-which she can visit online anytime thanks to a simple but novel internet service used by hundreds of shia muslims.
pretty cool stuff, huh?

bindi

perfect-and much much more

2004-12-15T21:25:00.000-08:00

this is from a weekly column from "the hindu" called "perfect-know your english", one of my favorite columns.
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what is the difference between "childish" and "childlike?"

"some cricket players when they wiin a match take their shirt off and start twirlling it in the air. when a decision goes against them, they kick the ground repeatedly muttering to themselves, or run to the umpire and get into a heated argument with him. these kind of reactions we expect from small children, not from grown men. when you refer to an adult's behaviour as being "childish", what you mean is that he is behaving immaturely; he is behaving like a small child. the word has a negative connotation."
"the childish behaviour of the teacher had everyone in spllits."
unlike the word "childish", the world "childlike" has a positive connotation. it means having some of the attractive qualities that one normally associates with a child-innocence, simplicity, and sincerity.
*revathi took part in the activity with childlike enthusiasm.*
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9TH INTERNATIONAL KERALA FILM FESTIVAL
*fewer kurtas and faded jeans this year
*popularity of hollywood and bollywood films short lived
*indian films too long, too many (1000/yr), time has come to decided whether indians need so many films
*tsai ming liang, taiwanese director, prefers realism, but he has been critisized his films were nothing but an account of life and were dull
*only good and serious films will survive
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yesterday mr. bill was mistaken for arnold schwartzeneger, so he is no longer mr. bill, but gov. arnold. i am begging him to tell the indians who said that "i'll be back, girlie men."
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"every day is not sunday" direct kasmiri rug salesman quote yesterday upon bargaining for silk rugs for arnold
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big swedish lady laying on back completely topless yesterday(giant boobs). each man had someone watching his store as they took turns taking a look, her completely oblivious. we knew something big was going on cause of all the commotion here in boring kovalam.
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strange event at my hotel couple nights ago. a dozen post graduation students move into 3 rooms clad in backpacks. apparently the english do a pilgrimage each year after graduation to india. after all, they once ruled it. these kids were real young-18-21 probably. at 1:30 am i hear a blood curdlilng scream, this girl is part of this brit pack and does not stop screaming. i thought
a. raped? (it's pretty darn safe here)
b. tiger attack? (there's been many leopards wandering into people's businesses and property)
c. giant bear attack? (cept there aren't any bears in kerala)
she would not stop screaming, and i have to wake at 6 to do yoga, and i've been extremely sick and it's been brutal to sleep all night. so i step out and slam my door, to see if that works. no. than i stick my head out the window and scream "shut up!!!." after about an hour, it finally stops, the dozen of them all congregating, crying, screaming.

next day i see they've all gone away and the manager of my hotel is hanging out. he said, "very sorry about last night, madam." i said it was ok, but if it happened another night, i would have to tackle those brits." apparently what had happened was a butterfly got into the girls room. yes, i said a butterfly. they're migrating right now cause of the season change, and india has some of the most beautiful ones i've ever seen. the manager told me butterflys only come to girls, not men. "they are incarnations of our dead ancestors," he tells me. i've always believed if one lands on you, it's good luck.
perhaps these kids should have waited a few more years before taking the plunge into the strange world of india.

bindifry
who feels better and hopes to stay that way for awhile

for yogis only (or interested parties)

2004-12-15T21:03:00.000-08:00

i know i pledged off the blogging, but some interesting topics have arised worth discussing.
1.don't give up hope
2.take what previously injured people tell you with a grain of salt
3.strength returns
4.anything is possible (including squeezing india into your life if you focus your energy in that direction)

i currently have 3 injuries. one in rotator cuff and peraformis (caused by over adjustment-cuff for 1.5 yrs, hip for 9 months) and a jammed ring finger and sprained right hand from scooter accident, which is healing well. actually, everything is healing using the method of slowly slowly-guruji, sharath, and lino's favorite saying. i also took the advice of my good friend cheekoo who knows many things about life who told me, "lisa, you're not gonna want to hear this, but maybe you should stop yoga completely for awhile." i decided to heed her advice because i was traveling all over india my first month, so that was easy to do. all i had to deal with was a tighter body, a little crankiness, complete detachment from my practice, and constipation. however, 2 weeks into the yoga, along with having the common intestinal/cramping/vomitfest twice in two weeks already. idly is my friend and i will now only eat at lonely planet in the morning. there are 2 amazing adjusters in addition to lino who i have met for the first time, a lad from copenhagen named jenz, whose touch and adjustments are very beautiful and safe, and maria paolo from rome, who is an almost carbon copy of tina-lino's wife. superb. when tina gets here it will rock so much cause she's the shit.
lino has decided to teach the first pranayamas each tues and thurs for 45 minutes at 5:15 in the evening, which is going really well and is just enough for me, cause too much messes with my head. and it makes me feel very calm before eating and bedtime. he has also chose to make fridays lead primary day, which i'm quite happy about (many are too attached and won't attend) because it really re-enforces the exact breath count, which most people i know in chicago (and many in the room here from all over the world)do not know cause no one is teaching it with perfect counting of the vinyasa. this is a problem. the system of astanga yoga is completely based in the vinyasa system and how you move is of utmost importance. guruji and sharath teach 2 classes each friday of primary and on sundays, one primary and one intermediate. i think it is a fantastic idea, it also detaches you from having to do just mysore. i feel it is very very important.

so if you are injured or sick or lazy, just do what you can do, lie down. lino always says, "yoga is forever. tomorrow you can do more yoga." "don't be in a hurry."

patience is a challenge to cultivate, but it is a huge component of yoga. today is a good day.

bindifry

blogged out

2004-12-13T22:05:00.000-08:00

hi all-
just a note to let you know i have been sick a couple times and there's not much happenning lately worth blogging, so i may take a break for a week or so unless something interesting happens.
please feel free to e-mail me individually.
bindifry

sanjay dutt is my hero

2004-12-11T20:28:00.000-08:00

ok-so i broke down and went to trivandrum cause i've been waiting for weeks for "musafir" starring anil kapoor (who is virtually unrecognizable since he shaved his moustache and has light straight short hair now) and my pal sanjay dutt to come out. he produced it along with the india mtv people. very fresh, very fun, lots of action and definitely worth seeing.

http://www.rediff.com/movies/2004/dec/10musafir.htm

sanjay is the first bollywood actor i have ever seen in person. him and maduri dixit were at the chicago indian independence day parade on devon earlier this year. all the shows were sold out and seats were assigned-first time here in kerala, but done all the time in bombay.

bindifry

the hindu

2004-12-11T20:17:00.000-08:00

1)god lives in india
2)spray and wash stain stick is my friend
3)it's easy to get your own subscription to "the hindu"

LEOPARD STRAYS INTO BUSINESSMAN'S HOME
the action packed drama unfolded when the maid spotted the the beast lounging in the bushes, shell shocked to witness the wild cat entering through the bathroom

YOUTH HACKED TO DEATH
the right arm of the victim was hacked off and taken away by the assailants and thrown on the railway track (this is where your poo and pee also go)

EVEN EMPLOYED LIVE IN POVERTY
2.8 billion employed globally in 2003, more than ever before, half living on less than $2 US a day, 550 million on $1 US a day

MARRIAGE AGE
the age of marriage under the hindu marriage divorce bill is likely to be retained at 18 yrs for boys and 15 for girls, instead of 21 and 16 respectively

PM LOOKING FORWARD TO BUSH VISIT
new delhi, 2005, dr. singh welcomed the peaceful conduct of elections in afghanistan and expressed the hope that polls would be conducted in iraq (yeah right)

KEY WITNESS TO CARNAGE SET ON FIRE
bibi beno, who survived the naroda patiya communal carnage losing 8 family members, including her husband, was set on fire for being one of the witnesses to the massacre. she is fighting for her life.

bindifry

prana(life force)preserve it* take it VERY seriously*

2004-12-07T21:47:00.000-08:00

so another journey to filumland yesterday, not such a great ending. went to see the same tamil film sharaf saw the previous night starring the famous AJITH, who i loved last year in the movie RED. (i know yesterday was supposed to be malayalum day, but i'm easy). i think this has happened only once before, but i left halfway into it. the reason? the whole first half was comedy, and if you watch a movie for 90 minutes (at least half an indian movie) and you do not understand what the hell is going on and everyone is laughing cept you, it gets irritating. here's the story for you filum freaks:

http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/tamil/review/7007.html

i did realize, though, that i'd seen 3 movies in 6 days and maybe i should slow down, so no filums, if this is even possible for me, till i rest under an umbrella with a book for a few days. i have been running all over this country since day 1 and it might be a good idea. i have a laminated india mat on my wall carefully planning my next state invasion. STOP IT!!!

anyhoo, thoughts drifted towards gwendoline once again, i think i'm still in mourning, and went to the market in trivandrum and bought her a nice bouquet of marigolds-the kind the indians hang over the pictures of their lost loved ones, went to talk to her a little, showered, and made it just in time for lino's pranayama workshop. i like his and dena's because they are basic ones with little kumbhaka (retention)and it dosen't go on too long for me. if you've ever taken manju's pranayama before, it's about as intense as it gets. i've fled the workshop during that part more than once. lino did have many revealing things to say about pranayama. first, it IS meant to be done after practicing, only you wait an hour till your body fully calms down from the aggressive astanga. however, he did say that it's also ok to do some pranayama, simple pranayama with bandhas for 4 minutes to 30 (depending on your ability for it because pranayama is WAY more dangerous and intense than asana). this was news to me, cause i thought there was only one way.
the other thing was i have been nursing a bad injury in my right peraformis for 8 months and could only do the lotus with left first. well, they forced me to do half lotus with right first in uth pluthi instead of full with left. soon i am doing full lotus right first. see how things work sometimes?
tomorrow we begin our mysore practice. instead of lino asking everyone when they want to come, he simply assigned our positions. i am in group 2, which will start at 6:15 this year, first group 6. mantra at 6:15 and i'm totally thrilled to be coming in early enough for that part. last year first group, which i was in, started at 4:30.

the other item i bought was a simple screw top plastic container. why? cashew season. they sell em raw, salted and roasted, and masala, 3US dollars for 2 lbs. oh my goodness. if you've ever tried the fresh macadamia's in hawaii, you know cause of the fat content that they must be eaten fresh to fully enjoy them. same with cashews. fattenning, but good fat and very healthy snack to have around. i triple bagged my first batch and there were millions of ants in my room the next morning. luckily i had that "hit" chalk that kills roaches in one second, so i got rid of those bastards no problem. and i won't make that mistake again.

lino will teach the second pranayama tomorrow, and has been holding question and answer periods, which is good cause the room is very diverse in terms of levels. i like that, cause last year the room was totally filled with "advanced" snots, grunters, and show dogs. maybe they are on their way from mysore?

so from now on, i do my own thorough investigation of the movies online before venturing out to pollution land. love the cities, but gotta stay put sometimes. keep the prana, maybe?

lino also talked about not eating fish or meat at all, not drinking anything but coconuts and purified water, no sun 10-4, no spices, no eggs, no milk. sorry, but i can't agree with all of that. i know many people who never get sick here and eat all of those things. he even brings his own pasta from home. it's the refridgeration problem, and he does actually have a point. but nothing at all? i haven't advanced to that level yet or ever.

i love lino, the way he teaches, his assistants are also great. but it is not the same at all without gwendoline. i miss her SO much.

bindifry

!!!!!!SIMBU ROCKS!!!!!!

2004-12-05T22:23:00.000-08:00

so i saw my tamil movie yesterday-manmadhan. the plot was so complex, there's no point in me telling it, but it is very good, fresh, and it basically rocked my bum. here's the link to the review if you are interested:
http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/tamil/review/7092.html

the reason it was SO good and totally action, music packed (i think at least 15 songs, which is about triple the average) was because of this hot new actor everyone here in the south loves, this huge tamil star named SIMBU. if you want to read what people are saying about him, and it's GREAT fun, go to:
http://forumhub.com/tfilms/6298.18939.04.37.44.html

after the movie, we went to a man"bar"(no such thing as woman bar or woman parlor, only man parlor) which is basically a secret place with little private rooms with a fan and buzzer for the waiter. it's SO shameful to drink here, they really try hard to hide it. anyhow, of course as the men pass by our "stall", they see the bottem of my skirt and each one HAS to peek in, and i'm rather covered up now that i know the proper indian way a woman should dress in the city. i love the part when the waiter comes with a napkin covered plate with a tiny plastic bag containing 5 roasted cashews, carefully tears open the bag, and plates them. this is for 3 people to eat, so we each take 3 bites per nut, like the buddhists in the caves who live on little food.

i wanted to see "hero" today with sharaf, but it left the theatres. i had seen it (an unbelievable jet li movie) on dvd, but not the big screen. too bad. tomorrow's malayalum movie day, about 10 to choose from. yes, i'm a freak, but between 1:30-5 (which is when i go see the movies) is the most dangerous part of the day, the sun is unbearable unless you are a south indian who wants to keep their skin nice and black.

bill, who is mr. bill here, for the first time got violently ill-you know, the same kind we all get (mine averaging once a month). he desperatly needed parcel coconuts (parcel here means "to go" and they cut enough so all ya gotta do is puncture when you get home). first of all, i have boycotted babu, the thief who sells outside of the shala cause he still owes me 500rps from last year, so i go to the couple on the beach. "coconuts not coming for an hour" so i call my friend sharaf, he picks me up and we head towards trivandrum. i learned that babu has been hoarding all the coconuts around this area and charging 15rps!!!(going rate here is 10) anhyoo, we stop for the special yellow coconuts from sri lanka, cause they are highly medicinal, more enzymes and electrolytes. but listen to this one. the coconut wallah has about 20 sri lankan coconuts, but "knife not coming till after 9." how do you run a coconut stand without a device to open them? SO we move further towards trivandrum, which is a half hour ride, find a nice big strong lady and buy our coconuts, get the fair price, of course sharaf has to buy one cigarette. it's weird here, cause many of the chain smokers (millions of chain smokers here and they start REAL young) only buy one at a time. he said he buy his pack of gold flakes after he eats. i often encourage his habit by bringing him several packs, he appreciates this a lot. he does SO much for me.

bring mr bill his medicine, which i encourage him to NOT throw up, just breathe deep. gotta keep it down, drink gallons of water, etc.(i have plenty of experience with the food/water poisoning getting sick 5 times last year, once in hospital 3 days)and once this time.
i left for my leisurly brekkie overlooking the arabian sea, watching fishermen net fishing, when i suddenly realize why i did not need to go to a bollywood movie today. i watched one on the beach. this white girl in a string bikini with 3 pubecent indian boys carrying her towel and 4 bottles of water, find her a place to lay down her towel and just stand around her. what is always amusing about these clueless people (the girl-either she's an exhibitionist or an idiot)-is they walk around over 100 fishermen TRYING to work! this girl suddenly had at least 25 men and boys surrounding her from every corner of the beach, and the poor fishermen losing their minds. this goes on like a movie for an hour before she has her lackys pick up her things (it was like she was modeling cause she never sat down and kept turning her body around, sticking out her butt, bending for boob views), and proceed to another part of the beach to either show off some more, or be left alone, cause she finally covered up a little. this kept me amused pretty much throughout my lonely brekkie. i've lost justin cause he's moved to another motel, and i have no idea what it is and where, bill is sick like dog, but it's ok cause i got a stack of great books to read and lots of internet research.

a big warm hug to all of you-
bindifry

morning at the peacock

2004-12-04T23:19:00.000-08:00

hiya blog readers, whoever's still with me. today was first day of the yoga with lino. almost all italians from lino's studio in rome and 2 fellow chicagoans, justin and bill. of course lino had to talk a little about who was missing this year, i assumeed everyone knew, but someone did not know. i would have hated to hear that news in that way. it's very hard for lino to even talk about it, anybody who knew her (gwendoline hunt), for that matter. lino has worked with her many years, in kovalam with her for 10 years (they took over from john scott who started the kovalam retreat, and gwen was one of his faithful students). i missed her so much. her picture in her famous pose, the one i always kept on my alter, of her in krounchasana was pasted on the wall in front of me below guruji's. i'm sure this will be an incredible experience anyhow cause i love lino so much, and his wife tina will be here for a couple weeks, but it's definitely not the same.
lino had a wonderful story for me yesterday about when him and gwen went to dhamma giri in igatpuri (where i am going to go for vipassana) and it gave me great insight into what to expect. coincidentally, this book i'm reading spent many chapters documenting her experience. all i can say is hardcore. not for everybody, but i'm gonna do it anyhow. however, lino told me sri lanka is quieter, less people, and i've always wanted to visit sri lanka. he says you sit on top of a mountain with 8 people, and at igatpuri, the main center, 250 in a room at once! and the rooms you stay in are all concrete just like a prison cell. however, i calculated the percentate 10 days is in one year, and it comes to about 3% of a year, so if ya think about it like that, i'll survive.

today back to trivandrum for another filum-today is tamil day-movie called manmadhan. next time movie will be malayalum, than telegu, back to hindi-in that circle cause i like em all. but my favorites have always been the tamil ones.

my hand is badly sprained and yoga is hard, but better than no yoga. i also got my monthly loose motions/puke fest last 2 days. no details beyond that, but this year, no fish here me thinks.

more soon-
bindifry

babie's very first indian rain

2004-12-03T02:54:00.000-08:00

this is my 5th month total in india and it's pouring rain outside for the first time in my life. it's so cool.
this territory-kerala-is very familiar since i spent 2 months here last year. your senses get reaquainted, one person at a time is remembering me, tattoo girl, bindi, i am trying to remember theirs as well. i have vowed to never set foot inside the german bakery again because it's outgrown it's numbers and it's charm. and there are so many restaurants that serve food as good or better for less than half the price, less than half the wait. and who wants to hear a bunch of westerners bitch about the service and how small they want their food cut, and there's ants in the jaggery, and this isn't hot enough.....anyhow, i hit 3 places for good coffee and juices and some kick ass banana upuma with baby roasted indian peanuts (i love those-and the purple curry leaves).

my favorite restaurant called "beatles" cause the guys who own it love the beatles band, added a bamboo second level for sunset watching. nothing could have made me prouder. now i don't have to sit in that overpriced horrible "fusion" restaurant-the other one owned by german bakery owner. i actually got my first food poisoning there and it's the most expensive one on the row. it was on bindi fry, hence my nick name.

i wasted no time and decided to go see "hulchul", a hindi movie starring hunk akshay khanna, the ever wonderful amrish poori (sorry for poor hindi spelling), and, of course, kareena kapoor, who is starting to grow on me. she plays good lawyers.
what's funny is i was about to just catch a bus down to "new theatre" when i was locking up my hotel, turned around to see my rickshaw pal sharaf standing on a little hill, arms crossed. there was no way in hell he could have known i was going to see a movie, and at 10am! promptly walked me to his same rickshaw wth the 2 posters (crying baby in army fatigues with quote "don't worry, be happy) and the other one of "red rum" some famous racing horse. it was great to see him. that's india. it works in very mysterious ways.
hulchul was fun, hulchul means "secret wedding."
off to watch the non-sunset-watch my very first indian downpour.
bindifry

why don't you come with me, little boy, for a magic rocket ride...to kerala

2004-12-01T23:26:00.000-08:00

so i officially signed up for my very first vipassana course last couple weeks of feb, so it looks like i'll probably be here till end of first week of march. that way i can go to elora and ajanta first 2 weeks of february and maybe hit film city since i gotta get back to mumbai anyhow. oh, vipassana is a 10 day buddhist meditation course without talking, 10 hours of meditation per day, no yoga, reading, or occupying your mind in any way. i've been wanting to do this since a good friend of mind taught me how to meditate with the wall stare and i like it very much, i've also done the mauna (i think they call it-not talking) for 3 days before and the benefits were outstanding. the place is called dhamma giri, and it's in igatpuri, a couple hour rickshaw ride outside of mumbai. the monestary was built for that purpose only. i won't be able to blog during those 10 days, i will when it's over.

so i got a 2 hour ride to margoan, where i had to catch my train to trivandrum. my map made it seem like it would take 36 hours, and that's what i expected, but i was on a rocketship-an express. 18 hours to train over half of the country of india!! a knock on my door at 4am for breakfast, by 5am i was here in kovalam. my room on the train was steller, totally private with the glass sliding door and the curtain, full on a/c with cozy fluffy wool blanket, perfect view of the western ghats. 2 lovely fresh red roses and 4 meals!!! 3 thali's and a pile of pakora to feed 7 indians and a mayo sandwich-hmm-had to pass on that one. i asked for ice cream and they brought me strawberry jello. i made them stop feeding me and they didn't get it-mango juice, please please please, only mango juice!!! no more thali! no more kerala rice!

no room at my old standby the sky palace, but i can move in there dec 5th for 20 days, i'm across the street at hotel palm garden till then.
so if there is any kind of emergency, krishna forbid, till the 5th of dec. i can be reached at
hotel palm garden
lighthouse beach kovalam
tel:04712481951

after the 5th,:
hotel sky palace
lighthouse beach kovalam
tel:0091471-2487906

bindifry

alone again...naturally

2004-11-29T20:43:00.000-08:00

last day of november and you wouldn't know it here in goa. the most perfect weather. i even missed thanksgiving, not even sure what day it was. jeff left this morning at 7am on a 12 hour train to mumbai, where he'll stay till dec. 2nd, which is good cause he can eat his muslim brains fry and all the other repulsives and smoke more beedies, which i am now free of that stank-those things smell like rotten cigars and i absolutely hate them.

since i'm alone, i plan to lounge on the beach with an umbrella cause i'm keeping my ivory white skin. that's what i was born with, i keep it. i had stopped suntanning after visiting places where is simply could not go outside between the hours of 11 and 4. skin cancer sucks. besides, all the asians use skin bleach cause they hate their darker skin-if you notice in bollywood films they are so white you can hardly tell they're indian! and all the ladies use black umbrellas and scarves to filter out the dangerous rays. the indians think the westerners are totaly crazy cause we lay in the sun with our snow white skin.

we couldn't go to the capital panaji yesterday cause we're still sufferring from wounds, bruises, and sprains from the scooter accident and the idea of getting in a hot taxi for an hour to take us to a city was not appealing, especially after mumbai and agra. i've had enough of cities for a few days, but look out trivandrum, here i come. for movies only, of course. my shopping is done, so my rupies will last.

so we found silvio, the italian bollywood poster collectors mansion and visited him last night. wow. it's in apporva. most of his stuff dated from the 1800s up to the 1970s. unbelievable. i actually went for the evolution of gandhi and a picture of an indian moghul from the 20s. jeff got a couple larger ones from the 60s/70. very kind people, very interesting collection. it was fun and we found it easy with our torch to make it home safely, but not in time for that swim i love so much. one more day of that.

tomorrow i leave by taxi for 2 hours to next town called madgaon to board the 12:30 train (i'm on the trivandrum rjdhnt) for i think 18 1/4 hours or more, getting in on december 2nd in the late morning. yeah kerala!

bindifry

2004-11-28T20:12:00.000-08:00

i'm going into the capital, panjim, today and j leaves early tomorrow, i leave at noon on the 1st december, on a train that will take 18-25 hours, which means i'll be in kerala on dec. 2, in case anyone's lookin for me.

this is mainly a note to tell you women or you men who want to buy 100% silk skirts for your girlies. here on anjuna beach i have found the most magnificent stall i've seen in all of india. he has full length and shorter slightly below the knee 100% made by him and his brother in bangalore-where most of india;s silk comes from. he also is selling brillient low cut 100% soft cotton pants lined with a contrasting color on the bell bottems as well as the top, back zipper closire. totally amazing colors.
the best thing about the skirts is they are reversable and each side is RADICALLY different from the front.

i won't be shipping them because i'm traveling extremely light and i can get another luggage to carry them. if any of you reading this blog, be it an individual or a boutique is interested, you MUST e-mail me immediately cause i'm leaving in a day. the colors are widely varied, so please don't request color. only request short or long skirt or pant. my e-mail AGAIN is ljhill11@yahoo.com
i will give you the prices when you place the order. these are the most vibrant and interesting articles of 100% silk i have ever seen in my life. and i have good taste!

bindifry the silk lover

no power no shower for 24 hour

2004-11-28T02:04:00.000-08:00

ok-second time writing since power outages, forgive my poor typing because of my broken/sprained finger. quote of the day "no power no shower for 25 hour."

spent many hours recovering from our wounds from the wipeout(PLEASE BRING A VERY WELL STOCKED FIRST AID KIT WITH YOU HERE AND CHERISH IT WITH YOUR LIFE) while i shyly peered through the curtains watching the cleaning room boys play that indian game i've been wanting to try since ooty last year called gadam (i think). it's a square board with wood chips and holes at each corner. it's got geometric shapes on it and it's played like pool, except you flick your fingers instead. was hard for me because of my sprains - i have sprained 5 fingers so far. yoga is going to be a thrill when i get to kerala. so i mustered up the courage to watch the 4 of them play and they taught me. i will be playing many games with them, plus we can talk about bollywood films, which we all have in common here. i actually found a kamal hassaan shirt from "abhay" here, which probably means dick to most of you out there, but he is the finest actor in the entire world-better than brando, better than dinero.

last night we went to the saturday night market which goes till midnight. lots of european stalls charging european prices ( a skirt i wanted was 3800rps-80 bucks!!!! what am i in, london? beer stalls (the very best beer in all of india is called kings-NOT kingfisher, which is the budweiser of the east-i like to drink my beer, not puke it). we did find our italian bollywood poster collector who invited us to his museum mansion tomorrow to purchase some real shit-we already got 4 pieces, i just HAD to have the madhubala one after falling in love with her timeless beauty in mughal-e-azam. dilip kumar fell in love with her also, but she ended up marrying the most famous playback singer in all of india-kishore kumar. she had a hole in her heart and died before age 40.

SO if you all are planning a trip to magical india and you want to get the real indian experience, travel by bus, rickshaw, and train to places where westerners stay away from-agra, indore, tamil nadu, karnataka, kochi,trivandrum,mumbai, veranasi, rajastan, rishakesh, madhya pradesh, uttar pradesh, tibet and nepal. if you want to come here and not rub shoulders with indians or wipe your ass with your hand, head straight for goa or kovalam. you will feel at home, just like going to hawaii or costa rica. i prefer the real deal and i keep learning so much about this amazing land.

missing you my friends-
bindifry
email:ljhill11@yahoo.com

too much danger scooter, much too much danger scooter.....

2004-11-27T03:19:00.000-08:00

hit another beach on our new auto scooter. breathtaking. more beautiful than hawaii. i have never seen rocks and water like that in my life. and they love parasailing here, which i am tempted to do since i hanglided in australia, but i've heard the equipment is often not up to par. and your real high up there. hang gliding scared the life out of me.
so on this great beach we get touted by a jerk selling my favorite boxes of mango frooti's, which cost 10rps at the store, for 60!!! said he had to make a commission. goa is more expensive than kerala and bombay combined. rapists! but that's not all. a dude with 2 rusty needles ran up to jeff and tried to pierce his ears without him knowing it! i almost tackled that fellow!!! couldn't believe my eyes. and there is more aids in india than in africa!!!*another note-if you use needles for medicational or whatever purposes, listen carefully to your clinician and bring your own sterile individually wrapped needles.**

so i know i mentioned before about not being impressed with yet another beach. but i take it all back. goa is indescribable. and i sure can use the rest after all we've been through. you all will call me granny next time you all see me.

no more romantic scooter stories i'm afraid. this morning when turning out of our hotel, j charged right into a lady selling wares, like sarongs and jewelry on the street. boy was she mad. we got away with minor scrapes. than we followed the road to a new brekkie joint. after eating, j made a sharp turn into a huge sand pile and into a ditch. this time we had to be carried into someone's house to lay down because i was in shock and couldn't stop crying, shaking and almost vomiting. i got away with minor scrapes and bruises and 2 fat sprained fingers (no yoga again). jeff wasn't so lucky, dislocating his shoulder and his hip. he's going home in 2 days so we're just gonna take it easy till he can get a mri on those places. meawhile we are once again quite thankful for having the best thing one needs in india---a very good first aid kit.
*************************************************************************************
JEFF AND LISA'S TOP 5 INDIAN EXPERIENCES
LISA
1/WALKING THROUGH THE ARCHWAY EXPOSING THE TAJ MAHAL AND IT'S GARDEN
2/EROS THEATRE MUGHAL-E-AZAM
3/DIRECT DECENDENTS OF TAJ BUILDERS MARBLE FACTORY
4/KANU CARPET FACTORY IN AGRA WHERE THEY SHOWED THE CRAFTSMANSHIP
5/4 HOURS OF PARTYING WITH STORE GALLERY OWNERS LAST NIGHT IN AGRA
*************************************************************************************
JEFF
1/TAJ MAHAL
2/JAMMING IN MUSIC STORE
3/EXPLORING MUMBAI, ESPECIALLY MUSIC SHOPS AND EROS ART DECO THEATRE
4/SHORT LIVED SCOOTER EXPERIENCE
5/SHIT RIDE TO INDOOR

till next time-we're off to the saturday night market here in goa-
all the best-
bindifry

spike of supersnazz

2004-11-25T22:21:00.001-08:00

how can i forget who we shared a rickshaw with on our arrival in goa with none other than the lead singer spike from the very famous japanese band SUPERSNAZZ!!!! i'm sure many of you don't know who that is, but for those who do, it was a super big deal for us. our favorite japanese band. she signed my book and i will cherish it forever. india is a magical place, that's for sure. i keep waiting to share a rickshaw with johnny depp, who is over here making a move in bombay based on the book daniel and judy neiman gave me called,"shantaram"-(thank you so much, judy and daniel for that lovely book. except i can't seem to pry it out of jeff's hands, who has wanted to read the book for some time).

what is good about our hotel? it has a huge pool you can swim in between 7am and 10pm. we have taken night swims every night since we've been here. and nobody else wants to use it! i floated around on a water polo ball all night yesterday, watching the beautiful clear skies and full moon.

in the am, we headed back to our favorite eating place, the sunset bar, because they play the best oldies from the 50s-70s, which is a huge relief cause everyone else plays that hideous pounding rave music.(coke?ecstacy?mdma?hashish?brown sugar?-which is heroin,marijuanna?)they like their drugs here, i'll stick to the cashew fenni with limca, thank you very much. our pal at our eating place is simon, he has become our pal. he likes to call himself "simple simon." lots of the locals like to do that because you can better remember their names. like a guy we met in kerala called cannon-or as he liked to be called "big gun". and that's exactly the kind of energy that he had.

i left my deposit at the travel agent in hopes of getting a train out of here before new years eve. it's very very very hard to get the good seats, so my suggestion is if you want to travel by train here, and there is NO better way-it's even better than flying and a fraction of the cost, plus you meet lots of people , get fed constantly, given bottles of water, chai, coffee, and best of all, frooty-my favorite mango juice. SO IF YOU COME TO INDIA NOVEMBER THROUGH FEBRUARY AND WANT TO TRAVEL BY TRAIN IN A/C SLEEPER 1ST OR 2ND CLASS, BUY YOUR TICKETS WAY WAY IN ADVANCE. that's all i have to say about that, and trust me because i've aged 40 years just trying to get from one place to the other.

next we walked a mile to find "purple valley yoga center," a famous astanga center with mysore at 7 am mon-saturday (strange saturday, not sunday), it's not too far from my hotel. today was full moon, so i assumed no class, but tomorrow when we have our scooter-we're renting it right after i finish this blog, i can cruise right to it, will take 20 minutes. on the way back instead of walking, we hitchhiked a cargo rickshaw truck transporting a microwave oven to some rich persons house. we jumped in the back, like a pick up truck, told him we would pay 20rps. ok. after he let us out, he charged us 50rps. two words once again. "it's india." i did not care, because i have never riden on the back of a truck before with a microwave as a pal, and it was fun fun fun fun. did not speak a lick of english. weeeeee!!!!!!!

by the way, goa has the most beautiful water i have ever seen in my life. nothing is half as deep blue. i can't believe it.

for dinner, back to simple simon for a feast of gigantic tandoor paneer, lots of raw-yes raw raw raw-tomatos-the tomatos here in goa are to dye for. i know they say to avoid raw food, but i've been eating tons of salad stuff and nothing but a mild cold so far. tandoor prawns next, and than the big one, white snapper. now this is quite different from red snapper and FAR tastier. half fried. they don't deep fry it, just pan fry the half of it. there's no way i could possibly explain how exquisite this fish was. when in goa, ya gotta eat fish cause it's the best in all of india-sorry veggie heads. your missing out on plenty. BUT they have fabulous strawberry juice, which are in season here and all the ice in goa is made with safe mineral water.

hey cara-the coconuts are 25rps a piece for coconuts here!!!!!! or 2 for 30!!!! needless to say, i will wait for my coconut water till i get to kerala where it costs 10rps. and there's coconut palms all over the place!!! vermon. plus their coconuts here are left in the sun getting nice and hot, which tastes like crap. coconut water needs to be cold. end of story.

we're off to rent our scooter and go visit the capital panaji, where we are sure to find more action than this gorgeous sleepy beach. here's also a hint to those thinking of goa-VISIT IN OCTOBER OR NOVEMBER WHEN YOU CAN HAVE THE ENTIRE BEACH TO YOURSELF. AVOID DECEMBER AND JANUARY WHEN ALL THE RAVERS AND DRUGGIES AND HIPPIES TAKE OVER.

bindifry
*who is patiently awaiting e-mail from her friends back home who have seem to have forgotten here. out of sight out of mind? thanks judy for your mails. *also a note to sweet traci-i found you a beautiful killer shawl i think you will love*

goa

2004-11-24T22:27:00.000-08:00

well the 2nd class sleeper car is as good as 1st, so if your trying to save some money, that's the way to go. our train left at 11 pm and takes 12 hours. this time we were smart and when we arrived back in mumbai, we went right to the forigner reservation window and bought our tickets to goa that very day. (we saw our muslim pal who touted us to indore trying to trap other idiots like us-including us again, he did not even remember us! guess all whities look alike to them) we then checked into our old pal bentley's, retrieved our luggage (btw-if you trave in india, it's good to have mumbai as a base so you can leave your stuff and travel all over the place with only a backpack-it only costs 10rps per bag per day, for us, a total of 120rps(2.50us dollars))
we went to our favorite restaurant in bombay for mangalorian seafood-apoorva. mangalore is on the west coast of india-several kilometers to the east in a straight line is mysore-several kilometers in a straight line is chennai on the east coast, in case you are at all interested in indian geography. we ate the most exquisite sarsoo i have ever had in my life, and i never really liked it before because it's really bitter-it's the broccoli rabe. anyhow, the balanced it with plenty of sag (india spinach, which is sweet instead of american bitter), and garlic and spices. we also skipped the monster tiger prawns tandoori this time cause they cost 500rps for 3 and we went ape s... with 2 orders, one for desert the first time we ate there. can't eat like that all the time in india if you want to spend any time here. than the beautiful kerala rice came, which is about 4 times the size of your average rice, like puffed up, very filling, and sentimental cause i spent 2 months in kerala last year and am going for 2 more. they brought us the famous coconut sauce to pour over it, yummm. and one paratha. my appetite is getting smaller, but i still look fat.

than off to pick up a few errands at the store, nothing interesting there, back to the room to arrange the packages, sending tons of unnecessary stuff home. *note*if you are ever planning a trip to india, bring 3 shirts or 3 salwars, one light pant, and necessaries like glasses and sunscreen. i know you will hear this over and over again, but restrain yourself heavily when packing for india. seriously.

train was on time, did not have to share the private room with anyone till halfway into the trip, a quiet businessfellow from some tiny town, than a belgian woman who'd been to india 8 times, first time driving her own car from brussels!!via turkey. studying iyengar in the north of goa. see-we all keep coming back. i'll come back till i croak. than some government officials who wanted to talk politics, both indian and US, with us. we have no problem expressing our utter embarassment of george w. some indians like him, some hate him. probably more hate him. but to my surprise, lots of people liked the bjp better than the congress party. go figure.

so landing in goa is so strange, cause it does not have the feel of india whatsoever. i'm kind of depressed about that. just beach, nothing but crap to buy on the beach, way way way too many ecstacy headed westerners and hippies, and that relentless horrifying rave music. i wanted to be close to purple valley yoga center to take a few classes cause i had taken this time off yoga in order to try to let my serious peraformis muscle tear heal, if it ever even will. i may be stuck doing primary series for the rest of my life. and you know what? i don't care. soon i'll be doing vipassana and will realize it's all about the stilling of the mind anyhow.

so j and i sampled the fenni, which harvests in may, so most of it is not made of cashew, but of coconut. our first was cashew and tasted like arak (a clear very strong liquor pretty much like everclear- made in indonesia), but like arak, you have to add a little soda water and lots of limes, than it's wonderful. there was the wednesday market down the beach and we preceded down to purchase some goods-man, i am getting SO good at haggelling-i'm not sure WHAT is happenning to my personality. so much is coming out i did not even know existed. unfortunately jeff, with his too much fenni, stumbled down into a ditch while looking at yet another musical instrument and scraped up his face, arms and torso real good. the locals gave him a chair, i cleaned him up with anticeptic wipes (he does not understand that if you cut yourself here in india sometimes it does not heal-i know this first hand.)stubborn. i walked him back to the beach and we watched the sunset and got some food in us-delicious garlic prawns and baby tiger fish, which they also have in kerala.

not very interesting blog, but hey-i'm in south goa and it isn't much different than boring old kovalam. we plan to rent a scooter and travel through the rest of this tiny rhode island sized state and i'm sure i'll have more to say about it. if you like beautiful white sand beach, it's amazing. but i've already been to south beach, the yucatan, bali, eastern australia, so i'd still rather see the caves. guess i'll just have to wait till february-anyone want to come with me?

bindifry

from delhi to mumbai to goa oh my.........

2004-11-22T21:26:00.000-08:00

we boarded the shattabhi xpress-2 and 1/2 hours to delhi. we decided to walk the streets instead of cab or horse shaw/rickshaw just for the experience. we had only 4 hours in our hotel before walking back a 4am to the train station to board to mumbai-27 hours. we were wishing we stayed a couple days in delhi because i'm sure we would have loved it. next time. hi cheekoo...hint hint...
we got on the punjabi mail train, which stops everywhere, which is why it took so long. laid down in a sleeper, got woke up by the engineer and moved to what we thought were sit up seats, cause mostly the worst things have been happenning, we just expect it. instead, they take us to first class private coach with 4 beds, a/c, private sink, the works! 2 meals, plenty of water and mango juice, total privacy. dreamland...
we were alone until we reached bhopal, that city 20 years ago that union carbide exploded chemical gas into the city which killed over half a million people and they actually got away with it. no compensation cept 450 grand to the government with deep pockets. people still are dying today from that. i'm sure most of you out there reading this know all about the bhopal tragedy. if you don't, you should. a man joined us in the room for the rest of the journey, which was fine.

we arrived around 9am today, the 23rd, and immediately bought our tickets to goa, the train which leaves at 11pm tonight, takes 12 hours, and will spend the final leg of j's trip over there in SOUTHERN, not northern goa. white sand beaches await. planning to get a scooter and shoot all over the beaches, look at beautiful catholic portugese churches, try fenni (cashew beverage) and the world famous pork vindaloo(sorry veggi heads-i don't like to pass up anything here).
sometimes if you wait long enough, a gift awaits.

bindifry

sweet sweet aahhhhhhhgraaaaaaaaahhhhhhh

2004-11-22T21:01:00.000-08:00

agra day 3 began at the tour of akbar, the greatesst of the mughal emporers. he was a very compassionate being in terms of religeous choice. the place was surrounded by a beautiful garden chock full of antelope, spotted deer, and the largest colony of well groomed fluffy langur monkeys. which were not of the aggressive persuasion. i've never been able to sit amongst that many of them cause they usually attack and steal your sunglasses. we strolled the exquisite gardens, than entered the mausoleum. we had to decend a narrow dark tunnel before entering the domed tomb area. an imam chanted, it echoed beautifully, as we circled clockwise (***note to all foreigners-don't be the idiot who decides to circle anything in a temple or mosque counter clockwise-please do your research and cover yourselves up, for gods sake). after the circle around, the exit and it was over.

the next stop was not so pleasant. it was a restoration of a radha (krishna's wife)temple. we were immediately shown around the temple-we thought the guy worked there, but NO! a groper in disguise. he took us into a remote corner of the temple so we could take pictures-which are strictly forbidden in temples. it happened so fast and before you knew it, he was groping me, pressing into my breasts for what felt like an eternity while j took a picture. i was quite angry at j for not kicking his touting nasty ass. we left with a very very bad taste in our mouths. not only that, he demanded 10 rupies for the grope. nice. and the shit shoe watchers, who usually get one or two rupies for watching the shoes, demaded at least 10, and called us foul names cause they did not think that was enought. nice.

so it goes up from here. next stop, and one of my favorites, kanu carpet factory. we were taken to the design shop, shown the over 50 varieties of sheep, all their wools, etc. made a point in telling us the germans like the thick wool, except the carpets won't bend so well and they wear out after 40 years. only the germans had this request. than we watched the weavers knot and weave at a loom, working at breakneck speed and cutting. average size rug taking up to 5 months to complete, one knot at a time. than the rug is taken to a large ditch where 5 men in rubber boots scrape and wash the rug for a couple of hours to remove excess dye. than the rug is hung in the indian sun and after, put onto a stretcher and nailed down. after a day, they take it to 5 more men with hard core scissors and they trim for a couple more hours each and every piece. the rug is washed again, and than coated with acidic acid to moth proof and set the colors. i bought a very long wool runner rug, a gift, and a silk one for my bum for the next few months i am staying here. there is nothing better than seeing the craftsmanship of the beautiful textiles here. so far my marble and rug experiences have been steller. these rugs were every bit as good as the kashmiri rugs. they export thousands to the US and elsewhere every year.

the final stop in agra, the golden moment, was at a gallery specializing in musical instruments and jewelry. we spent 4 hours there, j hypnotized by the instruments, me by the silver and diamonds. they provided a pro tabla player to play along with j as he learned how to play sitar (he was remarkably good)and the banjo(which is not like the american banjo, but an instrument with tortise shell keyboard for left hand and strings for the right hand). jamming went on for hours, a plate of dates, cashews and almonds appeared, 3 chai tea's were drunk, and soon chicken tikka bits. i was still with my pal getting talked into several gorgeous silver ankle bracelets and an 80 year old diamond with emerald in center. than a tray of beers started being distributed, i went into the instrument room where the jams were going on and we impressed the locals with our knowledge of many old hindi film songs "dum maro dum", "churya liya", "aja-monica!my darling!!!"(most westerners go phooey on bollywood-their loss) and one we wrote ourselves, me playing tabla like a conga and j playing guitar, all of us singing and dancing all over the place. time passed too fast and we were almost late for our train to delhi. ahhhhhhhhgra...had been very good to us.

gwendoline remembered

2004-11-20T22:35:00.000-08:00

i first learned of the news of gwendoline hunt's death the day i saw the taj mahal. gwendoline deserved such a monument. she was one of the purist spirits, most positive person i have ever had the blessing to know. every time she talked, something profound was said. i always learned from her. when i first met her 4 years ago, one of the things she whispered in my ear was, "the longer you do this astanga the better you will understand it."

the last image i remember of her was watching her do her practice through the door of the ayri shala in mysore. she had been injured and was wearing a cast on her left leg. i watched her with perfect dristi, perfect breath and stillness, and most perfect bandhas gently, like poetry in motion, lifting up her body in eka pada sirsasana, even though the leg was unable to bend behind her. she was not troubled by her mishap at all. when she got hurt, she explained to me that life was a wonderful thing and she merely was not in the moment. she was thrilled to still be learning lessons into her 70s. gwen had looked at a pack of baby goats when she did not see a hole in which she stepped into fracturing her leg.

she taught me how to teach with the greatest intentions and compassion. if you were blessed to get adjusted by her, what you received was a warm generous soul wrapping her body around you becoming you for those 5 breaths, her main emphasis drawing in the bandhas and breathing with you as one.

i had been eagerly anticipating arriving in kovalam again for 2 months to see her and lino. i will miss her terribly. i will miss her spirit. and i hope god will let me keep a little snack of her spirit. i am greatly honored to have met her, to have worked with her, to have loved her very very much.

thank you gwendoline for teaching me how to be a better human being.
with all my heart-
lisa hill

agra-phobia

2004-11-20T01:38:00.000-08:00

well i thought i'd seen india. i haven't had a clue. now i have seen india the way it is meant to be seen. i am now stuck in agra for 4 days, but it dosen't matter cause it's a chaotic dream.

of course we misread our ticket from indore to agra and thought we would be late, only to hurry up and wait, something you do in india each day. a pack of cards is very handy for these matters, as we played gin rummy while a pile of onlookers watched us. the next bus was worse than the first, 13 hours in a video air con bus with sit up seats, only no video, and no air con. the seats were packed and the aisles were filled with passangers sitting on the floor, some lucky to have plastic stools. if you did not piss fast when the bus stopped, you would be left behind, as several people actually were. i learned to piss with the men by the side of the road. i am getting very good at hiking my salwar and scarf out of the way of the stream.

we arrived in agra round 7am and were fortunate to meet our companion for our entire time here-19 year old samin, our personal tour guide and rickshaw driver. he set us up in a hotel, and got us a nice meal in a garden, took us to travel agent cause we did not know how we were going to get out of here eventually cause it's high indian tourist season because of the holidays and everything is booked solid. the travel agent was a buddhist and upon finding out i teach yoga forced me to take down a list of 9 questions which went something like this:
1. what is truth? is it possible to know it partially?
2. what should we meditate on?
3. what is the ultimate glimpses of enlightment?
4. in which form the energy of ego changed into?
5. is a sex creative energy? how could it be possible for a husband and wife to make this relationship more creative?
6. love is understanding or not?
7. treasure insight
8. describe marriage
a. social marraige
b. spiritual marraige
c. divine marraige
before starting any sort of marraige we should know who am i? where do i stand? what is my nature?
9. i live in the land of seriousness, imprisoned and its borders. can you draw me a road map to your land of playfulness? have i a defective gene? i can not find my laughter or lightheardness? it's around me, but do not feel it in me.

this from a travel agent.

stuck in the most indescribable traffic imaginable-4 hours behind bike rickshaws, mule carts, bulls, dogs, rickshaws, bikes, babies carrying babies, sadhus, motorbikes, cars, packs of pigs, goats, i don't remember what else, we finally made it to the back of the taj during sunset. it was quite powerful. i got a nice picture with it reflecting on the back water.

sanir, after making us shop at a silver shop (yeow)insisted on taking us to the decendents of the craftsmen of the actual taj mahal. there, muhamed showed us how they crafted the marble and put the intricate pieces of precious stones inside of the marble. it was extremely impressive. we spent a good hour in there learning and looking, preparing for our next day when we would visit the taj from the front and go inside. out of all the pieces available, of course i had to have the most unusual one, which is from 1972 and made by his grandfather, a direct decendent of the taj laborers. this piece had to be mine cause the marble had the natural spots and the flowers had pieces of gems that are extinct, and some pieces were actually stolen from the real taj mahal many years ago. it is an actual museum piece with government stamp and worth over 30,000us in the states-a piece i will someday donate to a museum. i had it shipped home and can't believe i am the proud owner, especially for what i had paid for it. totally unbelievable.

back to the guru travel agent who had bad news for us, no way to get out of here. we're stuck here until the 22nd evening when we can get a 2nd class no a/c train back to mumbai, except we have to go to delhi first, take a taxi 2 hours to get a train, connect in delhi, and travel 30 hours back to mumbai, should get us there by the 24th.

when we got back to our hotel, we lost our key. the drama was very big cause they don't have extra keys. they ridiculed me and i fought back. of course all they wanted was 100rps. then we sat and watched then hit the lock with their bare hands, ripping up their knuckles. dorks. but it popped open and we said sorry, they promised a new room in the morning, but we booked out of there cause they did not have a room in the morning and it was time to go to the taj mahal and we had nowhere to store our stuff. big drama there cause the hotel wanted us to pay another 500rps for another night. we screeched out in the waiting rickshaw with samir, as he found us another travel agent and another hotel.

then the drive to the taj. he gave us the lowdown-this guy is great-we are extremely blessed to have him. pickpockets are rampent, the food over there is all poison cause they want you to get sick,(the doctors have a thing with the restaurants and they bleed your insurance) the begging is horrendous. we got in line to pay the 750rps to get in and when i opened my wallet, 500us dollars flew out and on to the ground!!! luckily we were surrounded by tibetan monks and nothing blew away (i think).and it's indian holiday and a saturday, so you can't imagine how many people were there waiting to get through that gate that leads to the garden which leads to the most amazing thing i have ever seen in my entire life. THE TAJ MAHAL. of course i balled like a baby because all my life i've dreamed of seeing this exquisite monument. there is no possible way i can describe how it felt to be in its prescence. i actually thought i would no longer be able to blog cause i can't properlly describe what it's like to be over here in agra. and i appreciated it even more because of the time i spent with my friend at the marble shop. the way they carve out the marble and put tiny pieces of stones that fit perfectly. i just can't describe it. it was probably the most inspiring moment of my life. now you have to understand that i have only begun to travel just 5 years ago for the first time. this was a very big moment.

so if you all decide to study yoga in india, you are crazy not to see the real india. there's WAY much more to this place than mysore. don't limit yourself. don't cheat yourself. this place is totally indescribable, magical, and very very hard on your body and mind. but it's worth every single hard moment. i would do it all again in a heartbeat.

bindifry

too much..magic bus..much too much...magic bus

2004-11-17T19:46:00.000-08:00

spending another air con squeeze, this time watching "naach" which probably is the worst hindi movie i've ever saw, which is a surprise since it was filmed by ram gopal varma. felt like i was watching a vogue magazine ad for 3 hours. don't see it. no plot, no characters, terrible music. just a woman with perfect body doing yoga postures in the rain while the big b's talentless son looks on saying 5 words. of course we missed the "timings" of when we could buy a ticket to agra. i just could not stay another day in mumbai, and before we knew it, we were swept off our feet by a strong and insistent muslim man. here's how it went:

"you can get your teeket for agra now, but you will be sitting in the toilet. do you want to sit in the toilet?" "um, no." "then you can break up your trip by going to indore first." "uh, ok." "how long have you been in bombay?" "about ten days." "ten days in mumbai?! this will drive you crazy! you must break up your trip-go to indore. much to see!" "uh....cool."

so we ended up paying 3 times the value for ghetto bus-we were "touted", willingly. i actually wanted to bus to an unknown place cause i'd grown sick of bombay and wanted something more. so we ventured out to the northern state of madhya pradesh. it took over 17 hours to get here and we're only half way to agra in the next state of uttar pradesh. we're in the north and needed a new lonely planet cause we only know the south. our "friend"had helped us find one at NO bargain price. we had an upper bunker on a "sponge" as the driver called it with a ceiling so low we had to ride the entire trip horizontally. and no bathroom. 17 hours with no bathroom and only 2 stops! and that was real bad news cause we desperately had to relieve ourselves in the bag our new lonely planet came in, which proved to be really interesting. did not spill a drop, tied a firm knot, and waited for a good place to drop it down like an overfilled waterballoon. unfortunately the next desperate time wasn't so nice. i had to use plastic chai cups, getting piss all over myself and our sponge. lucky for us our bottle of doc bronners peppermint liquid soap simeltaneously exploded and we spent the next 13 hours lying in peppermint urine. yummy!

j in a classic 3 stooges move pulled down our curtain rod while climbing down from the upper berth leavfing me explosed to the rest of the man bus like an amsterdam hooker.

after 15 hours we get off for lentil puri and chai, when 2 young boys start wacking at my head cause my orange bandana was on fire!!! it burned the most exquisite perfect circle.

aside from these mishaps, it was quite a beautiful journey and we watched the sunrise with beautiful prayer music playing in the background. madhya pradesh is in the mountains and very very beautiful. the heat of mumbai was behind us. lots of farms and bulls and cows. each and every cow was clad in a gorgeous tall colorful head dress, reminiscent of carmen miranda--cow-man miranda! and they paint perfect polka dots on some cows, while others get the striped treatment.

we spent the rest of the day recovering cause there is no way to sleep on a bus that is driving on unpaved roads-your body tossing all over the place like popcorn. yet i still felt like i was in a bollywood film because indian film score music accompanied us the entire journey, blasted as loud as they do at the cinema.

we hired a rickshaw tour guide to show us the sites of indore in the morning, which include a jain temple, kanch mandir, that is fully mirrored with pictures of sinners being tortured in the afterlife, and the ganapati temple, which contains the worlds largest ganesha-bright orange in color and over 30 feet high!!!

our next bus will leave tonight at 7pm to agra-it's a "video air con bus," which means they blast hindi videos the entire duration. that's just fine with me. we are supposed to reach agra by tomorrow-friday-at 7am in the morning. i'm sure i'll have plenty of stories about that one. you have to want to see the taj mahal very badly cause it's supposed to be the worst tourist place with the worst pan handler/touters/grifters in india, and they hiked up the price for tourists to 1000 rupies!(10rps for indians). and yes, i do want to see it that bad, but we plan to split as fast as possible when we figure out the next stop. i'm pressing for jaipur in rajasthan. more later....

bindifried out

360 degrees

2004-11-15T20:08:00.000-08:00

i never made the train to the caves. however, i'm doing a complete 360 and taking a 22 hour train today to agra to see the taj mahal. than off to aurangabad for the caves, back here to mumbai, than goa. i don't know how much i will be able to blog during this next week, but if it is a possibility, i will.

i figured the way the world is right now, we could all be dead tomorrow and it would be a shame not to take advantage of some of the wonders of the world. bollywood can wait.

today will also mark the 4th new release movie-"naach" which looks pretty cheesy (amitabh's kid with urmila matondkar-a buxom dancer who spends much of her time showing off her bod while abhishek looks on like a psycho). yesterday was aitraaz, a great sexual harrasment courtroom drama with priyanka chopra, who is almost as beautiful as aishwarya.

thanks to all who have taken the time to e-mail me. believe it or not, i do sometimes get lonely over here.

stay posted-
bindifry

nose job

2004-11-14T02:21:00.000-08:00

seems much of my time is spent searching for air conditioned splendor. it's SO hot here, many days over 100, today we get a cool spell of 95. yesterday was the cool afternoon at india's first multiplex the inox to see veer-zaara, the new SRK movie. i was skeptical being fond of the art deco movie houses here, but it proved to be quite posh. reclining chairs, head rest, cup holder, and more leg room than an airline. i was one happy westerner. the movie was the typical romeo and juliet theme (paki loves hindustan) and SRK gets thrown in paki prison for 10 years for falling in love with another man's woman with all the right connections. the best part being the unexpected cameo by amitabh and hema malini as his parents-god he knows how to steal the show. the snack counter was very modern, offerring soft pista ice cream, cold coffee, samosa, and "dum maro dum" biriyani.(the famous song from hari krishna hari ram) the movie had the "throw me a bone with a happy ending" hollywood ending, which i like once in awhile.

this morning, an unexpected treat while having what we thought would only be coffee and air conditioning at the taj, when suddenly out of nowhere appears a monsterous buffet with a bottemless champagne glass. this thing had every fish imaginable, mutton tandoori, parsi faves, unlimited shrimps, subway sandwiches, crepe bar, pasta bar, and 20 feet of deserts, including mousse and swiss chocolates all for rps600. not only that, but a 3 piece malaysian band strolling to each table, taking requests. when they got to our table, we requested johnny cash, "folsom prison blues," cause we wanted to hear them sing the phrase, "i shot a man in reno just to watch him die," but they asked us for the lyrics, which we did not have on us, so we settled for hank williams, "your cheatin heart" instead, which was FAR better than hearing "annie's song" for the 15th time (god they love that john denver), horrific cat stevens covers (father and son!!!)ack!!, "lady in red" (i've heard this one in every third world country i've ever been to), and "up up and away in my beautiful balloon." even a 12 foot tall popeye appeared out of nowhere-or was that the champagne?

*fact-there are no rickshaws in bombay
*fact-it's hotter here cause we're at sea level. the water does not make it cooler.

*excerpt from "debonaire", a feminist nudie mag:
"I experience trememdous sexual pleasure whenever I come across a lady with a beautiful shapely nose with large flared nostrils. fortunately my wife posesses a sharp beautiful nose with large chiseled nostrils. I love to spend hours with my head in her lap gazing into her fleshy flexible oval shaped dark nasal pits, trembling with desire...
*excerpt from "the hindu" hyderabad
"a 21 year old died instantly when a piece of sharp iron pierced his throat on diwali friday. he was watching some locals celebrate with "crackers". one of them placed an empty iron box on a cracker and lit it. as the cracker exploded, the iron box broke into pieces and the splints flew across and one of them pierced Chand's throat killing him instantly."
...see..diwali IS dangerous.
OFF TO AURANGABAD...keep in touch and i will write with more upon my landing.
bindifry

BANG BANG!!

2004-11-12T19:47:00.000-08:00

i woke up yesterday to a phone call from the hotel desk, "happy diwali! we need your room now so get packed by noon." so i spent an hour packing, wondering where, on this busy holiday, i would go. they said they would put us up in the guesthouse, ok. kind of a drag. waited around for them to pick us up and at noon, a knock at the door, "good news madam. you can keep your room." only 2 words for that...IT'S INDIA.

spent 3 hours of the afternoon in air conditioned splendor at the world famous EROS theatre for the premiere of the fully restored colorized "mughal-e-azam" starring dilip kumar, the unbelievable beauty and cult heroine madhubala, and prithviraj kapoor-daddy of shammi and raj (rishi kapoor's dad-one of my faves check out "hum kisise kum naheen" and "bobby"). it was an unbelievable spectacle for the eye-a kalidescope of spendor. it's the oldest hindi film i have seen, me being stuck in the 70s. i had a ground floor seat, which is much better than balcony, contrary to popular belief, the sound and vibe rocks down there if you can stand the crowds. the place was chock full of old timers re-living the past, singing along, clapping for the stars. the guy next to me almost shot out of his seat each time madhubala was on screen, his palms sweating. she's quite the beauty. this is one of the most important movies in indian history, taking 10 years to make with no budget. it was intended to be filmed in color, except it wasn't available till the end of the filming, in which the final dance sequence was the only part filmed in color. of course there are not subtitles here, so if anyone knows how he was poisoned (feather and rose??), please kindly e-mail me with the information.

than we ventured out to the diwali festivities, which was not much fun for me because they are very fond of explosives-the m80 kind and dynamite. bombay had turned into a war zone and it really freaked me out. for a moment i felt what it must be like to live in bagdhad. i especially felt sorry for the street animals and children. if you didn't have earplugs, you were in serious danger of getting your eardrums blown out. i had to sleep with all the windows closed. apparently all this fest was about was whoever has the most and loudest "crackers" wins. a definitive "mans" holiday.

bindifry

quit india

2004-11-10T20:49:00.000-08:00

it's great fun trying different cuisines in a cosmopolitan city such as mumbai. whatever you want it's here. it would probably take one lifetime to eat your way through and another lifetime for street food, which is not to be missed. (contrary to popular belief)*hi ellen-bindi is trying belpuri on the streets today after a trip to the prince of whales museum*.

i tried mangalore food and parsi so far, and the bombay duck, which is not duck, but fish.(sorry veggie heads). and still the best bet for proper indian brekkie is the hole-in-the-wall. why can't we get a proper dosa outside of india? my theory is that it's all about the potatos, and they are very different here than at home. plus there are no restrictions on ghee.

yesterday was india history day. my intention was to go to the nehru center, but was first dropped off at the quaint science museum, very similar to the one in san francisco, if you've ever been. lots of participation exhibits, you can be a child again. except the military guards are constantly over your shoulders (what can you possibly steal?) and cute little girls fondly gathering around with the same curious questions-"from what country you are from?" and when you tell them, they turn red, smile wryly, and scamper off. i think they place bets with each other as to where they think you might be from. finland is a big one, probably cause i'm blonde.

after mistaking the science museum for the other nehru center, we ventured to the masterpiece of archetecture. the building looks like a towering skinny waffle. amazing. what's most mind blowing is the "discovery of india" exhibition inside. it's a multi-media maze of the 50,000 year old history of india. if you've ever wondered about this great country's history, there is no better way to learn. it's based on india's first prime minister, jawaharlal nehru's famous book of the same name and the exhibit begins way before the indus valley as we know it, before any religion conqured, before buddhism (first here), hinduism, the jains, christianity, and finally islam and goes all the way through the revolution, gandhi and the "quit india" campaign that started here in bombay. unfortunately i was bugged out from the many hours of museum strolling and could only make it to the part when the british came and ruined everything, but i know that story already. i did not know they taxed the dead, though. anyhow, i bought the vcd and will be thrilled to share it with anyone who wants a wonderful slice of history.

the day was capped off with a tear inducing trip to mani bhavan-mahatma gandi's home in bombay from 1917-1934. his spinning wheel and bed, sandles, cup and glasses remain intact protected as he left it inside a glass room. the walls of this 4 story building were chock full of amazing photos of gandiji throughout his entire life, letters he wrote to hitler and roosevelt, and even the history of how the flag ended up looking in 1947. the last room had a gandhi history of little rooms with dolls representing all the important moments in gandhi's life. mani bhavan is the location of the very first "quit india" campaign-the campaign that pursued the british to leave india in 1942. WOW!

today is prince of whales and museum of modern art day, and more mangalorian food. makes me want to take a trip to mangalore just to eat!

bindifry
***who is bracing herself for the intense festivities that await tomorrow night on marine drive (marine drive looks like lake shore drive, and they give chicago a run for their money in the skyline department
*****HAPPY DIWALI******

magic carpet ride or there's someting in the tea

2004-11-08T22:27:00.000-08:00

very revealing trip out to bandra. it's funny that nothing is ever what you imagine. india's "beverly hills" looks just like all the rest of this city and completely surrounded by the biggest slums in all of mumbai. i have never seen anything like it. beggers trying to crawl inside our taxi each time we were stopped in traffic, i had to keep my belongings underneath my bum. 6 miles takes almost 2 hours, no a/c, and a full on sunburn because of it.

we agreed to keep our taxi with us rather than fend for ourselves-thank god cause we would have been torn apat by the very desperate poor. we were first dropped off at a tall and skinny "mall" and taken by the lift(elevator) to the top floor by the mall tour guide. each floor containing only one or 2 stores, than you walk down the spiral staircase into shopping doom. i passed on the top floor much to the dismay of my guide-jewelry. then came floor 6-my greatest weakness staring me in the eye-kasmiri rugs. we met the delightful kashmiri man complete with full on entourage. we walked in and the jaws closed firmly. now i must tell you that the kashmiri's got all my money last year in kerala. i swear they put something in the tea. here's how the rap goes, and it's always the same. "i don't want to sell you anything. i simply want to get to know you. sit on my velvet couch". he snaps his fingers and a girl with a platter of tea arrives. he first makes you appreciate it's aroma, we aren't allowed to taste just yet, explaining the ayurvedic qualities. he explains how hard the kasmiri's have it with all the comflict in the north. we learn his name, his story, his sexual preference (no, not really)he learns about us. suddenly another finger snap and the tea table is promptly removed. here come the rugs. another member of his entourage appears first with the wools. he holds the rolled rug horizontally, kisses it firmly, and with a flick of his wrists, snaps it open and onto the floor. "look at it, see the colors change as it moves. it is not trick lighting." he invites us to walk around, talks of their history and asks, "how long you think this took to make?" i guess a year, he says "5 years by one person!" then invites us to remove our shoes and feel them with our feet. then the best part, quite remenicent of an info-mercial. he brings out a pair of giant scissors, invites us to feel the sharpness of the blades, and proceeds to slice away at the rugs, proving their indestructibility. no temptation yet. UNTIL...
THE SILKS!! i suddenly feel my entire body go flush, i feel faint. bastard!! unbelievable, gorgeous. his spell has worked. i want one. i want one badly. i need one more than water, more than air. after 2 cups of tea, i make my choice. and because it's ramadan, he offers 25% discount. of course one is never enough for these madmen, and spends a very intense hour trying to double my order. i have no business buying one, let alone 2, but come to my senses cause i don't want to cut my trip short because of rug weakness. signed authenticity contracts, and sign the back of the rug to prove it's the one i chose. i leave elated and sick to my stomach.

next stop-multi-level sari shop. of course they ask where i'm from, and bring in a mountain of salwars, tossing each one over my head at rocket speed. the girl asks, "how many you buy?" i say, 2 or 3. she says "you buy 3-at least!" HA!!! i walk out with 5, plus 2 pairs of rajastani shoes and wonder how the hell did that happen?

film city will have to wait cause we're totally wiped out. shopping in india is indeed dangerous to your health. next the never ending crawl through the slums filled with limbless naked kids, women lying on rubble in the 120 degree sun multi-tasking cooking, breast feeding, and sewing together marigolds for puja. me with my extravagent purchases between my legs, rug on the way, as everyone around me malnourished. i am told film city is not open to the public, but 2000+ rupies can do the talking. i am willing to pay, but next time we take a train.

bindifry

thick skin blues

2004-11-07T19:42:00.000-08:00

finally mustered up the courage to try real paan. what an interesting thing. basically take a betal leave and stuff it with 10 ingrediants, including cardemon, cloves, betal nut, and god knows what else. it's quite interesting to watch them make it and it does take some time. supposed to be a digestivo, mouth freshener, and mild narcotic. of course we were accompanied by a paan bystander tour guide who instructed us not to swallow, but spit (i knew this). it's much bigger than i thought and it took me 4 bites to finish it. i did feel queasy, but it passed. lots of folks here are addicted to it and i can see why. you can have it sweet or with tobacco, which i passed on. definitly worth the 4 rupies.

off to the mumbai crawford market. that's when i realized i probably won't last much past diwali in this city. i have never been in that kind of crowd mashing before and the intense heat made me want to jump out of my skin. thousands of beggers grabbing at me, a pile of little girls ripped off my scarf to expose my tattoos, only to flee in terror at the sight. this has happened to me before on my previous trip. in fact if i wanted to be left alone, all i had to do was pull up my sleeves. i think they see it as demonic. i try hard to hide them, but not always possible. had a market tour guide,"no fee to just look-silk row here, spice alley there, fabrics there, fruits here, you can have it all" i almost passed out there were at least a million people on a sunday. i don't know how they do it. i know you can get used to anything, but i just don't know how they do it. all i wanted was a cool place to have a beer, which i found after wandering a couple hours waiting for planet m to open. just when i thought i was passing out, i came across the capital beer bar. yay. amberro, my new fave from aurangabad. and soon planet m was open.

i couldn't control myself there and ended up buying 13 movies, 8 cds and 4 cassettes. i'm actually now considering renting indian dvd's out of my future yoga studio since my library is climbing fast. i only spent 130US for all of that-most dvds going for 4 bucks, same for cds, and 80 cents for cassettes.

the BIG news is that mughal-e-azam, a very very famous epic movie made in 1960 has been colorized and released in the theatres, opening diwali! this was like the indian gone with the wind, or ben hur. and lucky lucky me gets to see it in a massive mumbai theatre. the other BIG news is veer-zaara, the new yosh chopra shah ruh khan/preity zinta romeo and juliet paki\indian love story also opens on diwali. these are the 2 biggest releases of the year.

today i'm taking the train to bandra, the indian beverly hills where all the bollywood stars live, and to film city (bollywood) and try to schmooze my way into the studio. these places are located outside of the city and takes a train to get there.

as much as i like it in mumbai, i don't think my skin is thick enough to last much longer past diwali, which is such a huge holiday i'm sure my energy will be spent from it. they're already firing off explosions in the middle of the night. lots of excitement in the air. probably the biggest holiday in india, kind of like x-mas in the west. they are encouraged to shop till they drop, give out sweets, wear new clothes, and light up the entire city with lanterns. sounds like a blast, but a bit scarey cause of the millions that will be at the festivities. this happens friday. diwali celebrates rama's return after 14 years in exile fighting the demon ravana from the ramayana.

bindifry

back home

2004-11-06T01:14:00.000-08:00

back home
on my birthday i thought i died and learned to let go. a bit self conscious for wearing a salwar on the plane cause they're so damn comfy, i was quietly approached by an indian woman descending the escalator at the mumbai airport, "looking nice in salwar kameez." i felt my face turn red, but i beamed. the weight of self-consciousness dissolved.can i tell you how great it was to get a government taxi on a saturday at 6 am? a trip normally taking 2 hours + took a mere 40 minutes. imagine NO traffic in bombay!those familiar exhaust fumes, the burning smells brought back an emotional wave of familiarity which brought me to tears. i felt like i was finally home.of course 7am is too early to check into the bentleys hotel, so we wandered to the bombay harbor for some air and immediately spotted the world famous gateway to india, and the only place for coffee was at the 5 star astounding taj mahal hotel (which i thought of staying just one night for b-day, but just can't stomach the 250US$) i feasted on piles of fruit (after many meals of butter, cheese, rolls and all things dairy on the plane) including the chiku fruit. i thought about you, miss lal and your right about bombay rocking.the room is similar to the kaveri in mysore, only twice the size with a phone and color tv with god knows how many indian channels. (i repeat, i am NOT ashamed of watching indian television). not only that, probably a dozen stations on the radio! i love all india radio, but a dozen? sweaty palms.interesting birthday so far, having wandered out to the tourist thick beach only to be accosted by aggressive friendship bracelet wallas and wrist flower wallettes-"i don't want your money-just buy my baby milk." no time for that, she took 10 rupies instead. always making new friends. it's pretty damn crazy here, like mysore times 100, and contrary to popular belief, not really like new york, but like london on speed. already exhausted by mg road's miles of street stalls, pulled in every direction, charged 12 rupies for coconuts!! had to take a break at the famous leopolds for one beer. place opened in 1871, and chock full of travelers of all stripes, it was a bit annoying, but close and easy to have a beer and a snack.haven't slept in 2 days, wondering when it will hit me. of course i'm scouting for a bollywood film tonight, but SRK's 2 new movies aren't showing yet. fortunately the tv is chock full of movies from every era possible.this is just the beginning as i hope to get into some trouble to share.bindifrywho has to go indoors cause it's so DAMN hot!

where is the yoga

2004-11-01T03:15:00.000-08:00

i find it interesting that i have focused mostly on india and their movies rather than yoga. sometimes you wouldn't even know that is why i went in the first place. and honestly, that is not why i'm going back. i can go to helsinki or italy to be with my teacher lino. i can visit guruji on his tour of the states.

i am extremely inspired by india's high standards and attitude towards life. think about it. their art is mindblowingly detailed, the music is insanity, their spices-forget about it. they see no problem with sitting through a 3 hour plus movie, and when you study anything, you get the education of a lifetime. for instance, i came close to signing up for bollywood dance classes. i declined because they insisted that i take class 3 hours a day 7 days a week. the 3500 rupies would have bought me a lifetime membership.(that's75 bucks-such a deal) anyhow, i did not want to overload myself like so many westerners do. i think it's better to absorb india slowly and learn to be still. it is a highly spiritual place and the best place to pray and meditate. (but don't forget the ear plugs-especially in kerala where they love to set off explosives in their temples).

face it, folks. asana is way overrated here in the west. it's sad to see so many people missing the point, practicing their asana, climbing the series. one of the most popular questions among western yoga students studying in india is,"what series and posture are you on." geez, that's like asking someone how much money they make.

the surrender and dedication required for an astanga yoga practice is exactly like painting a mandala. takes lots of time, patience, and discipline. so i've come to the conclusion that to understand india IS to understand yoga. where everything in india IS yoga.

bindifry