Christmas with Amma

It is Christmas Day and I am at Amma's ashram somewhere in the backwaters of Kerala. There are thousands of devotees, both western and Indian, here to celebrate the holiday in Amma's presence. I have witnessed Amma hug hundreds of people since the time I arrived yesterday at 11 am until 2:00 a.m., when I finally ceased witnessing the spectacle all around me in the giant auditorium. Last night, there was chanting and dancing from numerous devotees around the world. They even sang silent night. Kinda like an open mike. Amma was there at the center stage radiating love and light and I STILL couldn't believe that not even once did she get up to use the toilet or eat. She's back at it again today. I went for a two hour nap.
If I have to be anywhere that is not home for Christmas, I am quite happy to be in a place where everyone gathers freely and believes that this woman is capable of chanelling love directly from "the divine source." I like it b/c this is really what the Christmas spirit should be - celebration of life, love, differences and faith in healing, kindness and service.
So, a brief blog just to say happy holidays one and all. I hope your year is filled with love.
I waited three hours yesterday for my hug and she smelled good and felt soft. That's really all I can say. No miracle occurred, but everyone is here for love. Isn't that nice? I have one more hug tonight then head off for Tiruvanumali tomorrow to circumnavigate Mt. Arunchala before Pondicherry's Int'l Yoga Festival. I then may head up near Varanasi to hear the Dalai Lama discuss compassion before heading back to Bombay, Bangkok for five days, then home.
I look very forward to the next phase of my life. I miss CA and my people. At the present moment, however, I thank the universe that I have such an incredible, lucky, open life. The kind of life where I can pop into the ashram of a "living saint" for christmas just to get some love not just from the saint, but from the thousands of pilgrims that are here to celebrate exactly the same thing: love. What a life!

Indian Switcheroo

As soon as I finished the blog and the rain subsided, Valerie and I walked out of the bungalow for a walk along the cliffs . We wanted a delicious thali (all you can eat many dishes meal on one platter) and I was still depressed.
A man was just sitting there and asked "are you going to the elephant festival?" to which I responded "WHAT elephant festival?" When he replied there were 21 painted elephants gathering in the afternoon for a festival 30 minutes away, I was pleased as punch. You know how much I love elephants! Then, he said the price which was too much and we started to walk away. He asked if we'd been to Varkala town yet. No. He said he was taking his friend's mother to the doctor in town in his rickshaw and if we wanted he'd take us into town for free for a delicious thali. Val heard "for free" and I heard "delicious thali" and we were in!
The thali was fantastic, Varkala town interesting and full of kind people who smiled again. We went to an ashram and circumnavigated the tomb and felt very peaceful. Then we saw 21 elephants resplendent in gold and taller than ta ta trucks parading along the street. On the way back, we stopped at a temple and two teenage boys gave me two flowers. People smiled and waved as we drove along and suddenly, the magic of India reappeared.
Is it the energy of just Val and I? I think so. When we're with others, everything shifts. We realized this quickly as we headed for the beach and ran into the three kiwis again. Suddenly, everything felt different. Our driver parted from us and a weight reappeared. The sunset was spectacular on the arabian sea as hundreds of little fish skipped in little black schools along the crest of the waves. The muslim fisherman went out just after the call to prayer and within moments, an entire city of a thousand twinkling fishing lights adorned the water. "I love India," I sighed as I raised my sarong skirt and felt the waves splash up onto my thighs. Voila!
We decided we'll stick together unless someone with something to contribute comes along. The kiwis contributed plenty, but a different energy that made things heavier, somehow. Valerie is a lovely woman. She studied for one year with a shaman in Peru and is an ayahuascera/medicine woman who lived in the deep, deep amazon in extraoridnarily primitive conditions. She's tough and spiritual, yet refined. She also happens to be a former fashion model who retired at 30 after an extraordinarily successful career. So, she contributes a bit of fashion to my walk, i.e. she plucked my eyebrows, and I contribute a bit of easy going chit chat with people to hers. We're a great combo and I love her like a sister. We are on the same level. And this is why we flow with India. Even when it sucks, India comes back and surprises us. We're lucky to be here. Lucky to have eachother. And just plain lucky to have both left our western lives for the quest of spiritual awareness and just plain dirty living. Hurray!
So, the avarice we're experiencing. I do believe it's a ripple of the tsunami caused by the financial crisis of the world. Clearly. Wherever we are, whatever we do, we can't escape that people's lives are changing and grasping seems more of a constant in an otherwise tepid realm of consmerism. I'm guessing anyway.So, it seems that just when I despair about India, India regifts me with love and sweetness and 21 elephants with wet snotty trunks that hold my hand as I walk along the row to greet them. I was the first tourist to do this and quickly noticed another ripple -- other tourists shaking hand/trunks with the elephants and beaming with joy. India's not so bad.

India Meltdown

Last night I lost it. I just plain lost it. We met some people in Mysore and decided to take a car down to Varkala, Kerala with them over four days. That was fine and swell and we continued to spend a lot of time with these people. Val and I have a hotel that is on the south side of town. They on the North. Unfortunately, there are no cabs after eight and so I arranged ahead of time with one cabby to take us home in the evening. When I called him, he picked up and said "he is sleeping." Voila, that was it. No ride. Suddenly, this just tipped me over the scale. I became furious and had to storm away from my companions into the darkened streets to scramble up something because they were just standing there and I couldn't handle it anymore.
Naturally, losing one's temper and feeling like she's about to explode after such a trivial thing reeks of major mental problems. However, I reassure myself that it's simply an Indian meltdown of exhaustion and overtravelling. I have been on the road for nearly 11 months. It's all been beautiful as of Hampi.
Thereafter, things shifted. In Mysore, we stayed with a lovely lady named Alex that is staying in Ken's apartment and she was gracious enough to show us around. She's studying with Pattabhi Jois and we met many ashtangis in the scene there. I found it to be insulated and landlocked. I wanted to breathe my way out of Mysore. When we left with the three kiwis in a fancy car, it wasn't quite the way I wanted to travel India, but a quick option. We passed through a forest reserve and saw a momma and baby elephant. One of the men and I went to a seedy bar and I had a cocktail and everyone stared at me like I was a whore. It was very uncomfortable. Then we went for a walk through town and again there were no women on the street save me. I got lots of dirty looks from the men in town. Fortunately, one older man smiled at me and looked warmly into my eyes, bowing a namaste ji ( regards with high respect) and I felt recognized as worthy.
We carried onto a beach town outside of Kochi and were now in Kerala. It was a lovely beach decked with Indian families fully dressed wading in the water at sunset. We found a nice hotel that was overpriced, but clean. We went for chai and thus began the downsurge of hospitality that culminated in my breakdown last night. Whereas everything has always been "yes, madam" in India, here in Kerala, the predominant answer is "no." "Do you have chai/tea?" "No." "Okay, do you have coffee?" "No." Yet everyone around us is drinking little cups of hot beverages that look and smell exactly like coffee. They're all Indians. So, I walk away and try again later. "Chai available."
We drive down to beautiful Allepey - the venice of Kerala - with canals and palm trees and boats. Our driver rushes us straight to his "cousin" who has a houseboat and tells us we "must decide immediately" if we'll take his houseboat for 12,000 rupees for one night. We decline and look at others. He follows me and harrangues me further about the decision. In the meantime, our driver asks me to give him money for his dinner when the rules are clear that he is responsible for himself. We've been fighting with him about tolls and parking the entire way - he ignores the rules that he pays and it's frustrating every time.
I see several other houseboats and the price goes down to only 7,000 rupees. We select a boat. It's beautiful and comfortable. The food is subpar. We drive only a little bit and dock. Boats swarm up offering items for sale - shrimp, coffee, tea, incense, whatever. They are unrelenting. We go up a little further and Damien, one of the men, goes for a swim in the morning among feces and dead bloated cormorants. I choose not to swim although the heat is sweltering. The prior night, it took us three hours to get the drunk captain to give us some peace and quiet out of his company. The next morning, they ask us for a tip and we decline. Our car driver gets wind of this and is furious as he drives like a bat out of hell down the road. We tell him to slow down and he ignores us. I tell him I have to go to the toilet and he ignores me. I finally lean over and yell in his ear, "Stop! Stop! Stop!" before he slams on the brakes and out we go. We assume he's changed into such a state b/c he fears he won't get a tip. Little did he know that we'd already gathered 500 rupees for a tip for him that morning. We get to our destination and he tells us we have to pay 350 rupees extra for going on a detour. We call the office that arranged it and he says we only owe 200 rupees extra.
We give John is 500 rupee tip even though he's morphed into a demon and he seems genuinely relieved and satisfied. Then we come to our hotel and the owner tells us that we have to pay for an extra night b/c we arrived one day later than planned. He confirms, however, that he received our email advising him of this. He says he saved the room for us. I comment on the large number of vacancies in the hotel and he says "as you wish, pay as you wish." He never welcomes us. He just wants money. I go to the other side of the cliffs, which is littered with shops and bungalows and restaurants and internet cafes. Everyone wants money. Everything is overpriced. There are few tourists present. Every single Indian laments the lack of tourists due to Bombay and the economy. If I don't buy something, they say "promise to come back" as they hold onto your wrist until you consent.
All of this...well, it just wears you down after a while. After three days, I finally lost it last night. I got home after telling off the taxi driver who kept insisting that Valerie give him her cell phone number b/c he's taking us home. There is no logic here. Just harassment. His exorbinant fare had already been paid and he was being awful. It took long enough to find him, so when he kept not listening to me about directions and stopping to ask every clueless Indian for directions, it boiled. When he kept harassing Valerie and asked another man for directions, I screamed at him "LISTEN TO ME!" to which he turned around and started yelling that I was crazy. I told him to fuck off and slammed the door. I stormed through the mangroves in the dark (I wasn't far frojm home) and thought about how dangerous this was without a flashlight. But, I was crazed. I lost it. I couldn't stand to be in the car anymore with this man - the representitive of all that had been passing for so many days...
I got home to the hotel where Valerie was in the bathroom, put my stuff down and walked out to the cliffs where I cried and sobbed and howled with I don't know what for a good 40 minutes. I thought that I wanted to go home, I was tired of travelling, I was tired of people saying no all the time, tired of everyone thinking I'm a walking bank, or a whore, or whatever....just tired. In the morning, I did yoga for two hours and I promised myself that today would be one of calm, compassion, nonjudgment, reflections, forgiveness, love and tolerance. I feel bad about my behavior and at the same time see very clearly that a time comes when you're just full. Full of travelling. Perhaps, full of India. Someone once told me that India spews you out when it's time for you to go. That's how I feel. Like spew.
Today is a better day. It's gorgeous and I'll spend it at the beach. Meditating, reading and writing other more private details into my journal (which is nearly full, as well). What sounds good to me? Going to Amma's ashram to see what it's all about. Going to a spa outside Bombay. Seeing my Bollywood friend. Flying to Thailand for NYE on the island. Then, maybe just relaxing there in a place I know and love. A place that is calm and doesn't castigate me. I've had nothing but an amazing experience in India and it has been nurturing and inspriring...until Kerala. There is something about Kerala and the people of Kerala that just isn't working. Period. Okay, I submit. I still LOVE India. But, it's time for a shift.
Back home, friends are losing their jobs and getting married. Much has happened as I'm gone and I wonder what is available, who is available, what will I do? I don't know. But, I know it is home and they are my friends and family. It's reassuring and exciting to consider how different yet the same the world back home will be. It's been 11 months. Wow. And so the journey continues...

Hampi is the land of chill. We arrived to a crazed bus station and negotiated the price of hindu deity stickers with wide brown eyed boys in long sleeved shirts. In India, it~s like you~re dropped into a swirling teacup and you~re just trying to either go with the flow or get to the side as quickly as possible. That~s what I most admire about India..the just go with the flow. Finally, one of us negotiated a rickshaw price outside in the rain and we tumbled into Hampi.
Villages built under giant boulders lined the narrow laned streets and children peeked from around the corners of granite to smile a ^namaste.~ We crossed the river on a boat and slushed through the mud to reach the other side, as recommended by several people.
What happened thereafter was pure magic...tbc...