Things that I've found I love about India.

It would be impossible to describe all the experiences of people, places and food, that are at once exhiIiarating and exhausting, in this place of sensory overload. I miss home and everyone when I think about it, but this is our time to do this and we're getting into the groove of working with each other and respecting strengths and space.  I think it is getting easier as I find myself here.
While it would be easy to list the things that one finds odd, uncomfortable, or even shocking, and many people write about these when travelling and living in a new country and culture, for me, part of making the conscious choice to be here, is to 'be' here.  This is not to source the known items and comfort zones, but to find how to 'be' in this space. For that reason,  and in no particular order, these are some of the things I've found I love about India.
For example, yesterday we walked from our guest house to the bus station and found The Dairy - seriously straight out of the cow. On the way back we ascertained they openat 7am, so this morning after yoga and meditation, while Brian is still asleep, I set of the 500 metres or so to buy curd/dahi/yoghurt ... whatever works.  Obvious white woman in western yoga clothes walking down the mall/bazaar at 7.30amamidst businesses opening, childen walking to school, all forms of manual and engine transport, plus a few livestock. At the dairy, which is open (I wasn't banking on it as opening time is generally 10ish), I work out with the shopkeeper that I would like to buy curd. He suggests 'loose' and pulls a brand new and fresh set tray of yoghurt out of the fridge, retrieves the scoop from yesterday's dregs and weighs me 250 g into a plastic bag, ties it with a rubber band - all for 15 Rs. "Shukriya. I'll see you tomorrow."
Things like this happen countless times a day.  The vegetable seller in Mandi who sold Brian tomatoes, and then gave him a free cucumber.  The auto rickshaw driver in another town who wouldn't take a 10 Rs tip.  Our rock star status where a papparazzi of photographers appear around us to be photographed with us.  Today at a temple in Dehradun I said to a young teacher supervising a school  excursion, "I'm really not that important."
His response, "Every person is important,ma'am."
And I must mention the politeness; not forced or contrived, but simply beautiful manners.
Some things that need no explanation:
Full leg and underarm wax, no appointment necessary, for 250 Rs
Jeera (cumin) with everything
Dosa - GF andDF, enormous, thin crepes made of rice flour and pulses
Dahi as above, low fat, no flavours, colours, preservatives or setting agents, just plain
Toned milk - whole milk with water and skim milk powder added to prevent separating. In effect non homogenised milk and low fat, which takes most of the nasty dairy intolerance issues away.
And some things I like on Brian's behalf:
A No. 2 buzz cut with an awesome head massage for just 50 Rs
Dahl makhani
Engaging with the locals
Meandering and discovering ...









Kayleen Wood
B Bus (Econ), MBA HRM, GCertHigherEd

Juxtaposition

I awoke on the day marking three weeks I'd been in India, with three questions from Brian:
Are you happy?
Are you having a good time?
How do you feel?
My answers were, in order, yes and no, it's amazing and terrifying, and I feel great and underlying sick ... with anxiety.  These things I feel not as binary states, but all at the same time.  To illustrate how this can be, let me tell you the story of The Oberoi Cecil and the roadside dhaba.
Planning a quiet day Saturday, we found ourselves on The Ridge above Shimla, still walking and still in search of an elusive cup of coffee, in a world where nothing opens til 10am. Even that is false hope when kiosk after kiosk checks their 'Nescafe' machine to see if it's heated up, as they only turn it on at 10am.  And 'Nescafe' I hear the unspoken query? Yes, it saddens me to say, this is the only coffee, and to compound the sadness, this instant powder, not even freeze dried, is put into coffee machines, and topped with warm frothy milk, complete with pre delivery sugar and chocolate dusting, then presented as an espresso.  Soy milk is thing only of my dreams.
As I have quickly, even abruptly, discovered, nothing in India ever quite goes how one would expect.  Waiting in the sunshine, I decide this is an ideal opporunity for a yoga pose.  A young man comes over to talk to us and cricket conversation done, he then tells us the sites to see in this 'Echoes of The British Raj' city of Shimla, perched precariously on the cliffs, and emerging from the mists like Shangri La.  An easy walk along the ridge, just 5 kilometres return ... but in these shoes?
Armed with the Heritage Walk 1 listing we set off for our stroll and soon pick up our ever present entourage; this time a hoard of school children on excursion from Delhi.  The 'stroll' was a bit more up and down than anticipated, as well as a bit more roadworks than road.  My handmade blue shoes from Mr C Fook Chong, were really not made for this type of walking, and we were still looking for coffee.  Number 15 on the Heritage List was The Oberoi Cecil. 
"Is anything happening there?" I enquired, quite used to landmarks turning out to be derelict buildings.
A property with green turrets and a crisp white facade came in to view, and a discreet brass plaque confimed our arrival, and then ...
The full dress uniform doorman ushered us in, then no short of twenty namastes from and to immaculate staff members serenaded us tnrough the double foyer and into the atrium Lounge Bar. As opulent as Versace Palazzo or maybe The Author's Lounge, ... Bangkok, here in The Himalayas on the border of Tibet.  A relay of attendants seated us, provided menus, and informed the bar staff we would be ordering, and then I was escorted to the bathroom.  For any of you who have travelled in countries with differently equipped 'bathrooms', you will understand my delight at a fragrant dish of floating flower petals, classical music softly soothing the space, perfectly clean from floor to ceiling, folded toilet paper, and not one but two rolls, liquid soap, cloth towels and subtle yellow lighting.  I smiled my way back up the stairs to The Lounge and found Brian reclining in a wing back chair, resplendent in his jeans, tshirt and hiking boots, but quite at home.
Back to the coffee.  At the exhorbitant amount of 225 Rupiahs each, we ordered a latte for Brian and a Masala Chaas (spiced lassi) for me.
"The Masala Chaas will take 10 minutes, as it has to come from our main kitchen. Would you like the latte to come at the same time?"
You've got to love that sort of attenion to detail.
"Of course, that will be fine."
("I think we will be quite hapoy to sit here.")
Our drinks arrived and I immediately had coffee envy.  This was real coffee. Two fresh baked biscuits, a jeera shortbread and a moist chocolate brownie were presented on a little rectangular glass platter. My tall cool lassi came with a sealed straw sitting in a tiny shot glass. We sipped.  We savoured. We soireed. I ordered a coffee too ... and two more biscuits accompanied. Vases billowing with creamy white chrysanthymums sat on plynths about the lobby and lounge. Red carnations in stem vases adorned each table.  The bill discreetly appeared; 742.10 Rupiahs including all taxes. Truly this was still cheaper than three coffees in Australia anywhere, and we got biscuits! How much do we tip?  We settled on 50 Rupiahs.  Retracing our path of just an hour or so ago, we namaste'd and smiled, and stepped back out through the opened door, into the reality of a not quite typical Indian city, and contiued our walk.
Brian had been working up to having a parantha from a roadside dhaba, and he'd decided today was the day.  We'd passed a corner with a clutch of kitchens doing a roaring trade.  This was our next goal. Some more walking in my inappropriate shoes and we step up the two dusty uneven slabs of concrete into the one person wide entrance to the dhaba.  On our left is a quiet young man wearing earphones connected to his phone and sitting next to the till.  On our right, open to the street, is the kitchen, where the cook deftly rolls and stuffs paranthas, scoops dahl and rice, an makes chai.  In front of us in the entry is the maestro, a young man who takes and delivers orders, while flipping paranthas, running next door for more ghee and generally keeping everyone happy.  We identify the filling for the stuffed paranthas, and confidently order ek aloo and ek ghobi parantha, plus do chai chinni nai. Seating is wherever you can find a spot, and we sit in a both opposite a bemused local diner. Paper cups are put in front of us, then a jug of water comes.  Paranthas are rolled and flipped as we watch. A pot of chai is made just for us, because no one else but crazy foreigners want tea without sugar.  The local ratio is 10 to 12 spoons of white sugar to 2 spoons of tea, in about half and half, water and milk.
Our paranthas are delivered on paper plates, recycled out of a box that must have contained some sort of blender, judging by the pictures and Hindi/English printing. An industrial sized jar of green mango pickles, with a communal spoon, is rotated to our table. Deft charades and fluent food Hindi narrowly avoid a 20 gram slab of ghee being lofted onto the centre of each parantha. Identification of which is which is part of the game.  They taste fresh, hot, spicy of course, and great. The tea, no sugar, is masala chai, a big bonus, and hot, plus maybe the best we've had. The maestro materialises paper serviettes for us.  Signs on the wall ask us to dispose of our takeaway plates, so we stack them and slide out of our seat to pay.  Handing over a 100 Rupiah note, I am given a 50 in change.  We step back outside onto the street, wash our hands using the cups of water, and drop the cups and our plates in the plastic bin. 
Lunch for the two of us just cost us the same amount as we just tipped at The Oberoi.

... om meditation.

Gurus on the street.  Gurus on their own television station.  Even the Dalai Lama has his own website and free to air station, which by the way has the same logo as my Tibetan tattoo: light or lamp for the six lamps of Tibetan Buddhism.  India, the heart of spiritualiasm, offers something for everyone. 
While yoga in the west tends to concentrate on the practice of asana, with some pranayama and a little pratayama, essentially the first four body conscious limbs of Patanjali Jois' ashtanga (eight limb) yoga, eastern yoga is approached from the four internal awareness limbs, of meditation practices moving the mind to samadhi.  So don't go looking for yoga in India and expecting it to be all mats on the floor, Lululemon and Downward Dog.  It's more often going to be cushions, meditation shawls, incense and candles.
But when in India ... 
Staying in a gated community in Gurgaon, I was directed to free yoga in the park: 5.45am every morning.  Yoga mat in hand I greet the security guards in the pre dawn Dehli haze, as I find the entrance to the secret hedged yoga space.  Much shuffling ensued as I tried unsuccessfully to set up inconspicuosly in the back.  Directed to the front and given a large plastic drop sheet, my standard sized Gold Coast yoga mat looked ridiculous amidst the expansive blankets and carpets the indigenous yogis were waiting on.
'Do you speak Hindi?'
'A little.' Thinking my yoga sanskrit would at least count for something.
With hand flicking and pointing, I was assigned the 'helper' as my own personal translator, and sergeant major.  Stumbling my way through what to my Vinyasa Flow style of yoga, seemed a disconnected disarray of poses, I frantically grasped for clues in the names of postures. Phew! Ustrasana: Got that.  Surya Namaska: Thank goodness.  Cat: What? That's dog! Oh well, obviously interchangeable.  They both have four legs I guess. ... and then there was 'laughing'.  I don't know if we were laughing as a posture or laughing at ourselves, but in the end I was just laughing at the ridiculousness of it.  At last yoga nidra, but not as we know it.  One of the class participants took over for this random rotation around the body ... for relaxation? What I thought might be an opportunity to pick up some Hindi, because I know the order of body parts, quickly reverted to more laughter yoga for me, as we went from ankle to neck to knee to who knows where.
After three mornings I was well and truly part of this yoga sangha. Walking to the shop one afternoon, a huge prestigious car pulled up alongside us, lowered the window and the gentleman driver called, 'Hello.  Remember me from yoga? Where are you going? Jump in we'll give you a lift.'
We stayed in Naddi, above Mcleodganj in Dharmasala, and found the Sahaja International Yoga Centre just a five minute walk along the ridge, so of course I was always going to find it ... or it was going to find me.  Sahaja means 'inborn or spontaneous' and yoga is 'union'.  Together Sahaja Yoga is innate union; self-realisation and the awakening of our dormant spiritual energy, our kundalini. This meditation technique 'encourages' the kundalini to rise through the subtle system of the body, the three channels and the seven chakras.  It brings clarity and a heightened state of awareness, identifying chakra blockages along the way. So far so good.
To quote my Timeless Guru, "Is it working for you, honey?"
"Well, yes.  I did my photographic essay on the chakras; Kundalini Rising." (Instagram: sabineyoga)
Sahaja Yoga is a grounded tantric yoga practice, working from the known or psychomatic body to higher realms.  While a bit ritualised, this approach is in harmony with the Vinyasa wave, restorative yin and chakra yoga asana practice.  (www.sahayayoga.org). I attendedtwo sessions with a lady, 'Just call me Lakshmi.' It was a soft, easy space and ended too fast for me. My usual meandering way of meditating is concentration on the breathe, sense withdrawal, experience of opposites and visualisation.  Sahaja cuts straight to the chase, focus on the point above the crown chakra, Sahasrara, and let's get on with it. Ten minutes and we're done.
"Hold your palms out. Do you feel any sensations?"
Left, right, palms, fingers.  All correspond to different chakras and past or future. I was apparently holding on to past fears of insecurity. Well after all, we're not in Kansas anymore Toto!
Sitting on my mat the next morning, watched over by snow capped Himalayan mountains, my mantra came unbidden, 'If you can't make it happen here?', and I couldn't, well not in any deep revelationary way.  My yoga practice was beautiful, flowing and warm, and that was enough.
In Manali, even closer to the top of the world, from my roof top yoga space, I practiced, and watched the sun's rays brighten the mountains closer and closer to me.  I felt the warmth bathe me as I sat and meditated and waited...
In Shimla, in The Embassy Restaurant, owned and operated by a couple of Krishnamurtri followers, I found ubiquitous writings stuck to the walls, What is Meditation?
A conversation with the owner after dinner explored The Indian Mind and the concept of time only existing because of thoughts.  Thoughts are not real, just a construct; therefore time is not real.  Immediately we caught each other's gaze and the unspoken words were: 'Thoughts without a thinker.' -Mark Epstein, and “Then only are we really thinking when the subject on which we are thinking cannot be thought out.” Goethe.
Finding a space to lay my mat, on the balcony of the top floor of Hotel Sangeet, intuiting east, I am accompanied by the music of an Indian city awakening, complete with lung and throat clearing, and spitting the equivalent of coughing up two lungs.  Dogs bark and monkeys fight over treasures across the rooftops, plus of course there is a symphony or cacophony of car horns.  A white foreigner providing early morning entainment for the hotel boys who carry tea and coffee up multiple flights of stairs, I am stepped around and over by other hotel guests. A middle aged Indian man with beautiful English comes to share the space and practices pranayama while I flow through my yoga asanas, mindful of the movements but without time.  I reach a place in my practice where at 'home' I most often find myself daydreaming.  Today, for the first time in this new 'home' I arrive here, amidst the noise and busyness, the distractions and unfamiliarity. 
After mountains and meditation, holy places and people, in the midst of life, is samadhi.

Date Night Manali-Style

Checklist

Ambience
Full moon
One day cricket - Austalia v India
Kulla hat
Scarf
Armritsar bus station 200 rupiah check shirt

Pre Dinner Snacks
Pepsi Vintage 2013
Crisps
Yak cheese
Kashmiri apricots
Haldiram's nuts

Dinner upstairs in the hotel dhaba (restaurant)
Booth seats facing the television, remote control and the gallery of hotel boys
Australia wins the cricket with a 6 on the fourth last ball of the last over
Plastic plates
Pink lentil (malka) dahl
Jeera aloo (cumin potatoes)
Plain rice

After dinner
Deluxe room at The Apple Bud Cottages
Chocolate
Cup of tea
2 sleeping bags, 1 blanket
6 degrees C
TV movie
... and we're done.

But we are in The Himalayas and wake up to this every morning.

Shweta's Kitchen

My first days in India we are priveleged to stay in the home of Amit and Shweta Jain, in Gurgaon, a satellite city of New Dehli.  Of course my comfort zone is the kitchen, and I quickly discover it's all about the pranthas.  These flat, yeastless breads are the centre point of every North Indian meal; breakfast, lunch and dinner, torn and folded with a dexterous action of the thumb and fingers, no cutlery required.  Plain, fenugreek or cumin, they are cooked on a concave iron over a gas flame, and puff when ready to turn.
'How do you make them do that?'  I'm transfixed.
'It just happens.' Shweta is non-plussed.
A few days later I discover the secret, when I see her rolling out the dough, then picking it up, rolling it into a sausage, coiling it around, and rolling it out again; lamination!  Pranthas are not only the centre of every meal, but the focus of Shweta's day.  She rises before the rest of the family, to make dough enough for the day, but there always seems to be more to make, as she takes care of the prantha capacity of her husband and two boys.
... and then there's the dahl.  The supermarkets have whole aisles devoted to dahl, so the importance of this humble pulse is evident.  Dahl makhani (black), pink and yellow dahl, plus plain (probably the closest to the ubiquitous orange and brown I'm familiar with).  With Shweta's patience I learn how and why they all taste different; creamy, tomato, chilli, tandoori and always cumin, garam masala spices and onion.  The exception being during Navatri ('nine nights' in sanskrit) when the nine forms of the goddess Shakti/Devi are worshipped, and it's all vegetarian with no onion or garlic.  A sattvic yogi's dream, and I arrive in the beginning of it. 
My culinary vocabulary expands to include:
dosas - huge rice flour crepes that come with a variety of fillings and sides of chutneys and samba
brinjals - glossy round eggplants
aloo - potato
palak - spinach
vadas - savoury donuts for breakfast
curd - yoghurt
My culinary knowledge now covers North and South Indian cuisine, bread over rice, and meat versus vegetarian.  The Jain household is an interesting blending of the two; Shweta, a Punjabi from the north, and Amit, a Jain from the south, living in cosmopolitan Dehli.  Until marriage, Shweta had never cooked.  As a new bride, going to live with her husband's family, she missed meat, and taught herself to cook because she couldn't face another meal of potatoes.  With the help of her favourite cookbook by homestyle Indian Vegetarian chef, Nita Mehta (and yes, it's available online), Shweta's kitchen is filled with the smells and tastes of everything I expect India to be, and look forward to creating in my own Indian kitchen.

Planes, Trains, Automobiles and the rest.

Malaysian Airlines from Brisbane to New Dehli via Kuala Lumpar, and collected at the airport in a regular car, but after that the transport has been anything but regular. I soon discovered that walking in Dehli was difficult for many reasons. To begin with it's hot, dusty and noisy. Next is the obstacle course of pavements, roads, people and 'rough spots' to traverse. Perhaps even more challenging are the ever present offers of rides in and on anything with wheels.  So began my relationship with getting around India.

For pure efficiency, the Delhi Metro is fabulous. In a city of more than 20 million people, it is clean, fast and frequent, plus on time. The more interesting side of the experience is the segregated security check before entering and the push on, before off, passenger etiquette. The end of any journey is a crush to the Metrocard exit ... and it's always a crush. Every hour it seems is peak hour. But after four days we were sailing through the process like locals; not unobtrusive with our fair hair and complexions but at least not traffic stoppers like the first day. That day we each had a Metrocard from our host, Amit, and we duly presented it on the touchpad. Brian got the green tick, the gate opened and through he went into the crowd. I got a red cross, and after repeated tries from me and the gate attendant, who was suitably unimpressed but polite, with my inability to master such a rudimentary task, I was stranded on the wrong side with no idea and no rupiahs.
Headline 'Crazy blonde foreign woman dressed in pink Shalwah brings Metro system to a halt'.
After frantic calling to Brian for money, and broken communication to the attendants I back tracked to the top-up booth, only to be told my card was invalid and I would have to post it back to get a new one! Asking the right and sometimes obvious questions help when information isn't offered and I eventually got out if everyone's way by purchasing a new card and holding my breath as I waited for the gate to admit me. My boy was at least easy to spot in a sea of dark skin and black hair.

Brian had booked us a 2nd class AC train to Amritsar, and we Metro'd to Delhi centre then made it to Delhi Railway Station as the last of the monsoon hit at 7am. Cabin service was the en route was the entertainment as we expressed our way through the countryside in the grey haze of rain.

There's been no looking back as we've taken cycle and auto rickshaws in Dehli and Amritsar alongside goats, donkeys and cars. We even cycle rickshawed through back alleys turned into running streams to a restaurant, Kesar de Dhaba, for the best vegetarian Punjabi food in the city.

The government bus from Amritsar to Dharmsala was an authentic treat of dust and noise and mad driving, much of which was our driver's. Every gear change was a grinding relief. Every bump a window rattling tribute to a long past suspension. It was then another local bus to Mcleodganj, and a tourist vehicle (taxi) to Naddi, where we arrived at our hotel after 8 1/2 hours. The journey was completely worth it when we awoke to predawn snow capped Himalayan mountains.  We're hiring a driver tomorrow to take us 66kms to Palpung Sherabling Monastry, and it will be all day. Next will be a 'semi-deluxe' private bus overnight to Manali.

Oh, and I'm always on the lookout for somewhere to walk. Yesterday Naddi to Mcleodganj, decent 800 metres ... and back. But we did take the shortcut through the Buddhist school and forest trail, making a 5 km route into just 3 km, much to Brian's joy.

... and The Goddess Follows.

K* Muffins

My signature muffins.  Gluten and dairy free, nutritious and yummy.

You need:

©      280g buckwheat flour

©      2 tspns baking powder

©      200g raw sugar

©      100g pepitas (plus about 20g extra for sprinkling)

©      200g grated carrot

©      1 tspn ground cinnamon

©      2 eggs

©      Rind and juice of 1 lemon (or lime)

©      2 tbspns honey

©      200ml rice bran oil

How to make them:

©      Preheat the oven to 180C.

©      Combine flour, baking soda, carrot, pepitas, cinnamon and lemon rind in a large mixing bowl.

©      Combine oil, lemon juice, honey and eggs, then add to the dry mix.

©      Stir just until the mixture comes together.

©      Spoon into muffin cases (approx 16 large), and sprinkle extra pepitas on top.

©      Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until muffins are nicely browned.  Check with a skewer that middles are cooked.

©      Cool on a wire rack.  Suitable to freeze.

 

ENJOY!

Kayleen*

ૐ

Kundalini Rising

Photographic Essay on Instagram:  sabineyoga

Mooladhara
#1: To Be: Yoga Top
#2: Ravished Virgin
#3: Benedictine Seal
#4: Red Lantern

Swadhisthana
#1: Strelitzia
#2: Circle Work
#3: Liquid Glass
#4: Shell Life

Manipura
#1: Sunrise Burleigh Heads
#2: Candle Meditation
#3: Peaceful Warrior's Rest
#4: Shared Beads

Anahata
#1: Renewal
#2: Awakening
#3: Hearts in Liquid Time
#4: Creativity and Connection


Vishuddhi
#1: I never saw blue
#2: Shuttered from view
#3: BBB (Bed, Blue, Beautiful...)
#4: Once upon a time ...

Ajna
#1: Swirling Depths
#2: Indigo Orb
#3: Bird of Paradise
#4: Firm all the way down

Sahasrara
#1: Lace Energy
#2: Lavender Fields Forever
#3: Light ... As a feather
#4: Of course!

Being Yoga

Yoga is union of mind, body and soul.  Since we know a great percentage of yogis come to the practice of yoga for health and relaxation, it is imperative that we as teachers understand the anatomy and physiology of the physical body, and how the different asanas enhance functionality.  An examination of the body’s anatomy reveals systems unified in the psychosomatic expression of the energetic Vinyasa wave.

Using western medicine and research paradigms, we can look at each of the body systems individually and make inferences and recommendations about the relevance of the postures, breathing, meditation and support.  But this fragmented approach misses out on the transcendent nature of the yoga practice:  yoga of energy and transformation.  In Tantra yoga this is recognised as the spirit continually flowing into matter and matter continually flowing back into spirit.  Patanjali’s eightfold path builds the way to expand all the yogic practices into our conscious life; not separated out, but always ... and still.