WEEK 1, Part II – Spreading Wings
All Yoga is in its nature a new birth; it is a birth out of the ordinary, the mentalised material life of man into a higher spiritual consciousness and a greater and diviner being. No Yoga can be successfully undertaken and followed unless there is a strong awakening to the necessity of that larger spiritual existence.
-Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga
The first leg of our embarkation took us to a part of the world so foreign, so exotic, and so intense as to be nearly incomprehensible to us simple country folk of Yamhill County, Oregon; a place where nearly every face was of unrecognizable origin, where languages flowed with shocking diversity, where bodies crammed together into spaces boggling the Malthusian mind, where smells horrid and languid and strangely intoxicating mélange in one’s nostrils: New York City. So many thanks to the incomparable Antonia Lassar, poet, actor, writer, director, and incredible friend, for putting us up in her magical little treehouse (in the living room of a 3rd floor Brooklyn apartment) and baking vegan brownies with us. Sorry to all the people we smashed in the face with our giant backpacks – I hope you see this, because in the raging current of subway station hustle, I’m surprised we made it through at all. Every turnstile was a challenge when you look like this:
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| Aphyna still managing to look amazing |
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| So dramatic - we love you Antonia! |
It was good practice for India, sure, being crammed with that many people; but India has something that NYC doesn’t have: in India, people seem genuinely happy, and seem to have other people’s well-being in mind, even if they don’t have much to share or if they don’t always show it outwardly – at least there’s a general, perceivable feeling of good intentions. In The City, everyone seems so self-absorbed that kindness is too demanding a task; regardless of how much people have, it doesn’t seem like they have enough time or money or energy or interest to spare on anyone else. Like Antonia keenly observed, “people seem to see every interaction as an opportunity for something horrible to happen, instead of something wonderful.”
The international terminal at JFK felt like a Japanese tea house compared to the 3 subway trains and 2 buses we had to take to get to there, and once we had dropped off our massive backpacks and my staff, we felt light as two turtledoves and giddy with excitement. While few people in the airport seemed to share our enthusiasm, our spirits were indomitable at this point, because we knew, there was no going back – only forward, across the ocean, through the sky, over the deserts and mountains, and finally, to India!
Who are we
When our feet leave the Earth?
Who are we
When we spread our wings and soar?
Where do we go
When we leave the world below?
Who do we become
When we shed our cocoons
And leap into the boundless sky?
Creatures of flight,
Creatures of faith,
No longer bound to the Earth,
No longer ruled by gravity,
But dancing with it,
We are flying, flying,
We are flying away.
Recalling memories from our plane flights is like trying to remember a dream or spotting stones on the bottom of a murky lake – probably because we spent the entire 36 hours (with the 11.5 hour time zone forward warp) half awake. But it all went down without a hitch, and even with a few laughs and a few lucky strokes along the way. Time became abstract pretty quickly, so I can’t really tell you how long we got delayed where or what – we learned to let it go pretty quickly, especially when you can’t tell which language the announcements are being made in. All I know is, we kept going, and kept getting closer.
There’s no way to quantify or qualify the incredible gift it is to have someone traveling with me. Over and over again, Aphyna’s presence surprises me and comforts me in a way that I don’t associate with traveling – it’s a comfort, an answer, a warmth, an embrace, with me everywhere I go, no matter how foreign. Someone to watch the bags at the airport, while I pee and fill up the water bottles. Someone to laugh with at all the ridiculous advertisements in the airport in Kuwait. Someone to help me shoulder the burden of finishing your failed attempt at taking on an airplane dessert. Someone to help me shoulder the burden of carrying an absurb amount of luggage such that we both look like bloated turtles. Someone to look like a bloated turtle with. Someone to lean against while trying to catch 20 more minutes of sleep in the airport terminal. Someone to make 50/50 bets with – so that we always win.
Many unsatisfying naps and shockingly delicious airplane meals (though distributed at seemingly arbitrary times) later, we hit the ground, looked out the window, and saw palm trees. As soon as the AC in the cabin stopped, you could feel the humidity creeping in like a fog. We had arrived in India.
WEEK 2 – CULTURE SHOCK
The secret of success in Yoga is to regard it not as one of the aims to be pursued in life, but as the whole of life.
-Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga
I really felt like we arrived in India the first time we heard someone speaking Tamil. Tamil is the indigenous local language of the Tamil Nadu, the state containing Pondicherry. It sounds something like the language I imagine super-intelligent chipmunks and dolphins might come up with to tell each other to screw off. There’s lightning-fast syllables, chirps, chatter, nasal intonations, phonetic sounds that you’ve never even dreamed of, and some form of tonal inflection system that indicates the affirmative/negative/inquisitive form of a sentence that I completely don’t understand. To me, it represents perfectly the chaos and color that is India.
We were both blown away by and eternally grateful for the fact that all of our baggage (and persons) arrived intact. I somehow managed to locate my dragon staff by investigating the loud clattering sound that echoed through the baggage area, which I intuited as the natural sound of a wooden staff being thrown in a fit of frustration off of a conveyor belt.
Our first attempt at haggling met with a stern defeat. The idea of taking an auto-rickshaw the 300 kilometers from Chennai (the airport) to Pondi was met with pretty universal confusion/disapproval from everyone in the airport, but I held out until we hit the street and found it entirely deserted of rickshaws, and there we were with 100+ lbs of luggage – we were sitting ducks. Taxi it had to be; and there was only one available. The driver, Naga, let me pretend like I had another option for 5 minutes, but after 36 hours of traveling, and feeling the sweat starting to soak through our shirts, Aphyna and I were fish in a barrel, and all we wanted was to get out of the barrel, even if it meant getting shot.
Oh, India. Where else could your taxi driver pull over on the side of a busy road and get out to meet a person he’s leasing the car from to make a payment? Where else could that driver then pull over 5 minutes later and pick up his friend who also needed a ride to Pondicherry (no mention of this plan to us)? Where else could all of this be the least shocking events of your morning?
Naga was an incredible driver. I’m sorry for all of the people who have never been to India, because you will not grasp the gravity of what I am trying to describe to you when I say: The Driving in India is INSANE. Even Aphyna, who thought she was prepared for this after her experience with the wild driving in Jordan, admits that driving in India is 10x worse. It’s incomprehensible. Literally putting you on the brink of death – within inches – constantly. India, as far as I can tell, does not have road rules. There are a few traffic lights, here and there. Occasionally, the roads have barriers dividing the directional flow of traffic. But usually, there’s nothing but the road, and you’ve got to share it: pedestrians, motorcycles, scooters, buses, trucks (many toting HIGHLY INFLAMMABLE paintings illustrated with burning demon faces), cats, dogs, cows, donkeys; all of this traffic, and only two rules: Don’t Die, and Don’t Kill Anyone. Basically, if you avoid killing yourself or anyone else, no-one is going to notice.
Oh right, Naga – he drove in traffic like no other traffic, 4 lane merges without a single sign or marker, dodging between massive trucks, pulling up within inches of motorcycles at 60 km/hr. All while talking on the phone. And driving stick shift. What the hell. Superhuman.
We survived the 3 hr ride, but we were in a state of shock. We had been in 4 countries – 4 very different countries – in what felt like one never-ending marathon day. We were tired, hungry, and we had no idea who was speaking what language. The temperature felt like somewhere between 100 and 180 F in my armpits. And it was 9:30 AM. But there was a saving grace, a silver lining, a true blessing sent straight from the Divine: A/C.
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| I would have stood like this all day if I could have |
Getting the A/C Room at the guest house was the best decision of my entire life. I think Aphyna even told me that she would be fine without it when I was doing the booking, but something told me it was a good decision. And it was. The best. I don’t think we would have made it through those next 2 days without it.
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| Our peaceful little room - perfect landing site! |
The rest of the first day basically centered around trying to stay awake as long as possible. We were ready to go to sleep at 9 AM, which would technically be 8:30 PM (Yesterday) Oregon time. We felt like we’d been stuffed through a spiralizer and blended into an American smoothie and then poured into a steaming sweaty puddle on the side of the Indian street. Needless to say, we were not at our best. I tried to pull Aphyna around to some of the places I remembered, and I did remember at least half of them! But the rest of the time I had us just wandering around the streets, which would be nice, if we didn’t start roasting like an eggplant destined for babaganoush every time we stepped into the sunlight, and if we weren’t being confronted with imminent bodily harm every 45 seconds from passing autos, motorcycles, and errant cyclists. We did see puppies, though!
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| Very ATYPICAL Pondi street - not dodging a scooter |
High point: first Indian chai. Nothing compares. Boiling hot, sweet, fragrant, spicy, milky, chai. You get it at little chai-wallas (chai guy), tiny wooden carts or stands at the side of the road, where a pot of milk is constantly boiling away, and your tea is brewed on the spot – 8 rupees (maybe 15 cents?) for a little 4 oz. cup. Wave your money, get your ticket, wave your ticket, get your chai. We were pros at this by now. Sit down, wait for your chai to cool (not too much), and enjoy probably the best people-watching of your life.
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| We Love Chai! |
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| This is how they cool it off - pouring from one cup to another like a boss! |
By 4:30 PM, we gave up. We retreated to our hotel room, and were greeted by a blast of AC air that might as well have been a glacial mountain stream. That feeling of returning to cold, crisp, air like a fall New England day from the humid, stinky, sweaty miasma of the Pondi street (and immediately removing every article of stinky sweaty clothing) is a special kind of high that we were immediately addicted to. We spent at least ¾ of our time in Pondi in that AC room, and I don’t regret a single minute of it.
I don’t think we made it past 6:30 PM before we were both fast asleep, dreaming of the adventures behind us, and the adventures ahead of us.
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