India Part 1

            Everything is alive in India. Everything has a smell. Everything has a sound and absolutely everything moves. Incense wafts upward from fruit stalls, sweet aromas float out from dried fruit and delicacy shops; curry, coriander, cumin, chili powder, thyme, and hundred other spices I don’t know the names of combine outside restaurants to create an intoxicating nasal orgasm (Of course the stench of rot and filthy public urinal is just as powerful not so far away). Every rickshaw honks, every bicycle dings its bell, and every driver yells. The vendors entice, the shopper’s haggle, and the stray dogs quarrel.  The surrounding scene gobbles you up and simultaneously spits you out.  Life is constantly in motion and all the while every moment the heat, humidity, and dust sinks deep into your bones until you can’t even recall what it feels like to cold and clean. There never was, and I imagine never will be again, such an assault on the senses as Mumbai, India. It is organized chaos and it is fascinating beyond measure.

            My flight to Mumbai was by far one of the most pleasant plane rides I have ever taken! The plane was mostly empty so I got to choose a fab seat with no neighbors and plenty of space to lie down and nap.  I also watched “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” on the way over and if you haven’t seen it, you should because it is a really fun movie. PLUS the airline food was not only decent but good! Even I ate all my supper haha I arrived very late in the evening and was picked up by the driver from my hotel. The hotel was nothing special although getting there a day early allowed me to have my first Indian market experience, as I was in desperate need of clothes suitable for the climate. Let me just say, women’s clothes here are really the best most comfortable, not to mention beautiful, clothes on the planet. The tops are loose, cottony, and brightly colored and the bottoms are either baggy Princess Jasmine style pants or leggings, which bunch slightly at the bottom. I enjoy both styles equally and take full advantage…

            The day after my arrival I took a rickshaw to The Yoga Institute where I was to spend my six weeks. The Yoga Institute is over 100 years old and trains hundreds of students per year. Besides holding teacher-training courses like mine, they also have daily classes and children’s camps in the summer.  The Institute itself is situated in the far northeast part of the city near the airport. Typically in Mumbai the Western part of the city is the wealthier side and the Eastern side takes the scraps.  Because the institute has been here so long and the city has grown in around it, my fellow yogis and I find ourselves in a lower-middle class neighborhood sandwiched between two major slums. Most impressively to the south lies Daharvi slum. It is the second largest slum in the world and houses over 1 million people on little more than a few acres. If you think that is impressive, you’ll be interested to know that it is only one of many major slum areas here in Mumbai which all together house about 60% of the city’s population…which comes out to be around 10 million people in total. Yikes! They have become so large and diverse they are nearly independent cities themselves with independent businesses and power grids. Life seems oddly normal until you take a closer look at the infrastructure and realize the “houses” are made of anything from patched cement, to tattered cloth, to scrap metal, to plastic tarps and cardboard and are piled one atop the other so tightly it is unimaginable that someone lives there….and then 3 children, a woman, and a dog come piling out the “front door” and you think, my God, the human condition is truly astounding.

*Note for concerned family members: Don’t worry I have not been wondering around slum areas. The institute is quite far from the city center and to get there I have to take a train, which goes directly through this area.

            On a different note, life inside the institute is business at usual. Rise at 6am, breakfast at 8am, class from 10am-5pm, and dinner at 7pm.  There are no tables or chairs anywhere to be found and we do everything barefoot and cross-legged on the floor (writing, listening, eating, reading etc.). It’s quite nice I must admit. The food is prepared on site and 100% vegetarian and very much my kind of good clean sustenance, but Indian style. My class consists of 6 foreigners and 40 Indians so the lectures are in a Hindi/English mix and most of the time unintelligible in either language as far as I can tell. Neither our classroom nor our sleeping quarters have air conditioning and therefore in the 98 degree heat and 90% humidity my feet and ankles are usually swollen to twice their normal size….good thing no one here wears shoes….Boo 

            As far as traveling goes, the course keeps me pretty busy but last Sunday I was able to take a trip to a place called Elephant Island with my friends Mansi (Indian) and Georg (German). The heat was excruciating, but the caves were interesting and the boat ride to and from the island was refreshing.  On the way I discovered trains here in India are divided. Women and men ride in separate cars. If a family is traveling together the women are permitted to ride in the men’s cars but under no circumstances are men allowed in the women’s cars. I am told this is because during peak hours when the train cars are crammed full that the women are inappropriately touched but unable to escape due to the crowd. It is said the men “just cannot” control themselves and there have been more than a few incidences where clothing was torn or worse and women were emotionally traumatized, and therefore were just separated all together. Interesting fact….

            That’s all to report for now!! Hope everyone is doing well and gearing up for summer! xoxo