Shala Registration

I made it!

My first real day in Mysore! I could not be more excited, although I really have not done too much yet today. I woke up fairly early and did my practice. It was strange to practice on my own when the main shala is just a few hundred yards away.  After practicing, I had breakfast where I am staying. It was quite a scene--there were lots of teachers whom I recognized. I ate with some charming German women, a Russian guy and a Korean lady. The place was hopping with lots of interesting people. There were many vegan items on the menu, and they had soy and almond milk for cereal, coffee and tea. It was primarily western food on the menu, and everything looked delicious. I was boring and just ordered tea and cereal.

Breakfast under tropical foliage

Awhile after eating, I made my way to the KPJAYI shala to register for the month. I made sure to arrive extra early in case the lines were as long as they were reported to be yesterday.  There were roughly 15 people in front of me when I arrived. Registration is supposed to start at 3:00, but I think that we were all called into the foyer to fill out our paperwork around 2:30. I was reprimanded for not printing out the entire email that I received from KPJAYI, but I am fairly certain that I printed out everything that was sent back to me. After filling our forms and gluing our passport photo onto the cover page, we were ushered into the main shala practice room. It was definitely strange to see something in person that I had seen so many times in videos. The space is much smaller than I thought it would be, but it was airy and bright. I had feared that there would be a stinky yogi smell. We all sat on the floor in a line along the walls and waited for Sharath to arrive. Once he arrived, he called people in two at a time to process their paperwork and their payments.  It was a pleasure just to sit in the shala just looking and all the photos and murthis. There were photos of Pattabhi Jois' wife, Guruji himself, Sharath, Krishnamacharya, as well as an image of Shankacharya (who consolidated the whole notion of Advaita Vedanta) at the front of the shala. In the center of the wall at the back of the room was a photo of Pattabhi Jois' father. He looked terribly stern and intimidating. There will definitely be no slacking in his presence! There is a big clock in the shala as well, and just as everyone has said, it is at least 15 minutes fast. Students were called into Sharath's office two at a time to take care of payment and registration. I think that we I probably sat there for 30 minutes waiting for my turn. The whole registration situation was actually making me somewhat nervous. I think it was simply because of being in such a solemn, charged, tapas-filled space. Perhaps it was also because this was the final step in the whole, complicated process of coming to Mysore to practice. When it was my turn, Sharath asked me who my teacher is and then took payment.  I was somewhat concerned because he told a student in his office right before me that he would not accept debit cards. The student said that it was also a credit card, but Sharath said that it had "debit" written on the card and he would not accept it. I think that he told the student that she would have to come back later to make her payment. At this point, I slipped into panic mode, because it was my intention to pay with my debit card (that works as a credit card, of course).

Shala card! Late start times.

Sharath called the next two of us in the office and asked the usual questions: "First time?" and "Who is your teacher?" When it came time for me to make my payment, however, Sharath jokingly asked "Is this a fraud?" when he saw my card.  I heard "frog" and had no idea what he was talking about, but the other student in the room understood and explained that I was who I said I was, Then I realized that it was because I had a Wells Fargo card. I guess the news of our banking scandals have reached India. My payment went through without a problem,and it did not seem to be a problem for me to be paying with a card that has "debit" written on it. Next, I went to the floor by Sharath's desk where Usha, Sharath's assistant, was processing the pass cards and accepting cash payments for the mandatory chanting class. When Usha handed me my card, I finally discovered my start times: Regular Class Time 8:30, Saturday Led at 7:30, and Monday led at 6:00. All of those times seem reasonable to me.  I dreaded the idea of a 4:30 start time. I have no idea if the start times mean anything, but I am glad that I won't need to get up in the middle of the night. (Incidentally, while we were sitting on the floor, Usha announced that this Monday exceptionally, our start time would be our Saturday start time. I am not exactly sure why.) So, having successfully registered at KPJAYI, I stopped by the coconut stand and had my first Mysore fresh coconut and then encountered a happy family of noisy goats on the way back to Anokhi Garden.

 I will likely step out later and try to find a dosa. It is New Year's Eve and there will probably be parties, but I think that I just want to chill out and read. I love the idea of starting out the New Year in a different country. I have spent several New Year's Eves in Paris, and maybe one in the Caribbean, but this will be my first in India.  I know that there is nothing magical that happens at midnight on December 31; days, months, and years are just tools for us to organize time. Nonetheless, throughout this past year, the world has  seemingly gone bat shit crazy. I am more than ready to bid adieu to the whole 2016 mess. I know that we can turn things around for the better in 2017!

Finally in Mysore

I spent all of yesterday trying to get to Mysore. It took almost as long to get Mysore from Delhi as it does to get from the US to India.I was up at 5:30 to catch my flight from Delhi to Bangalore.  I made it to the Delhi airport in plenty of time for my flight, but because of fog/smog in Bangalore, everything was delayed. I made the wise to decision to purchase a day pass to the Air India lounge and I hung out there for a few hours. I highly recommend it if you every find yourself in a similar situation. There was a great wi-fi connection and lots of food and beverages. It only cost 500 rupees for the day pass! Which is the equivalent of about 8 dollars. Finally, after a 4-hour delay, my flight departed. Once I got to Bangalore, I took the FlyBus to Mysore. The FlyBus takes about 4 hours and only costs 800 rupees.  The bus was full, and I was glad that I reserved in advance. (I had to cancel my original reservation and lost about 50 percent of my original ticket.) Mysore is not very far from Bangalore in terms of actual miles (about 95 miles), and I was always surprised to hear that the trip took 4 hours. After yesterday’s trip, I finally understand—we were on narrow roads with tons of traffic (and cows), lots of merges, rumble strips and obstacles.  There is no such thing as a direct highway with wide, open lanes.  The trip (despite the usual road terror and the subsequent relief of not dying in a fiery bus crash) was uneventful. As the sun was setting, I did see a large cloud of bats flying over the countryside.  There were hundreds, if not thousands of bats. These are not the small bats we have in the United States, they are gigantic flying foxes.  Personally, I find bats to be adorable, so for me, the scene was absolutely beautiful. There is apparently a large bat reserve somewhere in Karnataka, but I think it is fairly far from Mysore, and from what I can tell, it is not set up for visitors.  During the bus ride, we also made a stop at a rest area/chat house of some kind. Please forgive me for the following description, but it left an impression on me that will unfortunately endure for some time.  When I made a visit au petit coin, I was struck by the most horrifying odor that my olfactory senses have ever had the misfortune of experiencing. This place made the most disgusting gas station bathroom you have ever seen seem like a place where you would want to curl up and take nap. I will need to rinse my nasal passages with Chanel N° 5 for the next 20 years to undo that heinous smell.  Also along the way, I was surprised to see several churches and even houses with Nativity scenes. India has a substantial Christian population (like 27 million people), especially in southern India.  There seems to be an emerging awareness of Christmas in India--especially the secular, consumerist side of Christmas.  There was a huge Santa statue in the Delhi airport and families were crowding it to get pictures.  In any event, we finally made it to Mysore. I took a rickshaw from the bus station to my temporary lodging. It was 9 pm, so the city was dark and it did not make much of an impression.

Marie, the proprietor of the guesthouse greeted me (en français!) and led me to my room, which is called Sparkling Water. I was amused by the name of my room since I go through several cases of sparking water each week. 

A sparkling room to complement my sparkling personality!

Marie is an absolutely wonderful woman—so welcoming and kind, and the Anokhi Garden guesthouse is absolutely charming. Tomorrow will be a busy day—I need to register at the shala and also try to get a SIM card for my phone.  I was informed that the registration line at the shala earlier today was 4 hours long. Ugh! I guess that you show up at 2:30 and then the registration starts at 3:30. Perhaps by tomorrow most everyone will have registered already and the process will not be so bad.

My room at Anokhi Garden

Land of the bucket shower

More to follow! I am very curious about my class times. It would be so nice to get a reasonable time—not 4:30 in the morning. My first day in the shala, provided the registration goes okay, will be Monday. Sunday in Mysore is rest day, and this year it also happens to be New Year’s Day. (I wonder if I will be able to find black-eyed peas; I know that sauerkraut will not be available.)

Indian mattresses are so comfortable!

Why Am I Going to Mysore???

After 15 hours in a metal tube, I have arrived in Delhi. I will stay here briefly before moving south to Mysore. The last time that I was in Delhi, it was 120 degrees and the air pollution was horrible. The city seems much more reasonable in the winter. I think that everyone needs to experience driving on Indian roads at least once. I am not sure how even to describe the experience--50000 vehicles of all kinds trying to squeeze into the exact same spot at the exact same time. I was fairly certain that we were all going to die several times on the way back to the house.I have never witnessed a more chaotic scene, but it all seems to work out. What is most surprising is that there is no aggression  or anger in the way the drive.There is some kind of flow that that propels everything in the direction in needs to go--but it is both terrifying and mesmerizing to witness. Other than the roads, I know that I am in India because I have had to take bath with a bucket and the power went out for a few hours.

My brother-in-law, amma, and the bride-to-be after a delicious dinner.
The pulled out all the stainless steel utensils for me
 because they know how much I love them.

I am staying with my in-laws while I am in Delhi. They are so kind and welcoming. My mother-in-law insists on force-feeding me parathas and chapatis and delicious food of all kinds. The taste of everything she makes is so clean and vivid. They have truly welcomed me as a member of the family, and I know that it has not been easy for them. My brother-in-law has very recently gotten engaged, and there is lots of excitement and activity surrounding that development.  I was able to meet the bride-to-be yesterday, and she is charming, attractive, and intelligent. She will make a good match for my brother-in-law.  I know that everyone in the family is eager to see him suitably married. Unlike my marriage with Animesh, which is definitely not traditional by Indian (or American) standards, my brother-in-law's marriage has been arranged by the parents. Fortunately, everyone, especially the newly engaged couple, are all very happy and excited by the upcoming nuptials.


As I was telling people about my trip to India, there were lots of reactions: "Oh! You are going to have your own Eat, Pray, Love experience!" or "Are you doing this to become a yoga teacher?" or "Are you going to some kind of yoga resort?" or "I would love to check out and take a break from everything for a month!" To be honest, I am not sure what my exact motivations are for  spending a month in Mysore. I am definitely looking forward to practicing at the "source" and to soaking up some of the tapas in the KPJAYI shala. Beyond that, however, I am trying not go into this with any expectations about what I will experience. I have only seen the movie version of Eat, Pray, Love, and although I enjoyed it, I do not think I am on a spiritual quest or trying to get away from or find new purpose in my life. It has taken a long time, but I really appreciate my life as it is today and the person that I have become. There is not anything particular that I am running away from or hoping to find somewhere else. Certainly, I am always looking for opportunities to grow and to learn more about myself and my place in the world, but I am not looking for some kind of radical change. Moreover, I am not going with the motivation to become a yoga teacher. In the ashtanga tradition, there is no formal teacher training; instead, students receive an authorization to teach from Sharath after having spent several extended periods in Mysore. I do not have a strong compulsion to teach yoga; I am still very much a yoga student. Of course, I have a great deal of respect and admiration for Sharath, the ashtanga lineage holder, but I am not travelling to Mysore to practice in the presence of Sharath. I have attended many of his classes already when he has visited New York, and these were significant experiences for me. With so many students and so many new faces all the time, I doubt that there will be much individual attention in the shala.  When I try to understand exactly why I taking a month out of my regular life to practice in Mysore, the explanation that makes most sense to me is that I am making a pilgrimage--I am paying respect to the tradition and to the parampara, by going to practice at the source.  Catholics go to Rome, Jewish people go to Israel, Muslims go to Mecca, fashionistas go to 31, rue Cambon in Paris, and ashtangis go to Mysore. The pilgrimage is not required, but it might complement what is already a satisfying practice.

Me, amma, father-in-law and brother-in-law

Who knows what might happen throughout the month and how my perceptions and my practice might change? More than anything else, I just want to devote a whole month to my practice and see where that takes me on physical, emotional and even spiritual levels. If nothing else, I love to travel and to experience new places. I love the feeling of disorientation and excitement when everything is new and nothing makes sense. Beyond that, I am looking forward to eating lots of dosas and idlis and drinking lots of fresh coconuts.

I fly to Bangalore tomorrow and then have a 4 hour bus ride to Mysore after that. I am looking to reaching my final destination! Well--it is not really the my final destination. I will be staying in the Anokhi Garden guesthouse (http://www.anokhigarden.com/) owned and operated by a lovely French woman named Marie) for the first two nights, then I move into an apartment where I will spend the rest of the month.

En guise d'introduction...Here we go!!!

Today I am flying to India to spend a month in Mysore studying ashtanga yoga with Sharath Jois at KPJAYI (http://kpjayi.org/). KPJAYI is the "headquarters" or the source of ashtanga as established by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. Mysore is a city in the southern India state of Karnataka. I started practicing/studying ashtanga yoga during the summer of 2008 when I was living in Blacksburg, VA.  I had been looking for some kind of physical exercise that was more stimulating than just jogging or working out at the gym. I had started exploring various yoga DVDs, and I was particularly interested in more vigorous forms of yoga like power yoga. Somehow, I stumbled upon an ashtanga DVD by David Swenson. I was fascinated and challenged by the practice. There were so many poses that I couldn't understand and couldn't figure out how to do. The practice was f***ing hard! There was a focus not only on difficult postures, but also on maintaining a consistent breath and focusing certain vision points called drishtis. I was eager to learn more about this type of yoga, but Blacksburg was not really a hotbed of yogic activity. I was really surprised, however, to discover that beginning ashtanga yoga classes were going to be starting at the local YMCA. I was looking for some kind of change in my life; I was searching for something! Normally, I would have never dared taking a class at the YMCA! It was just so far outside more y comfort zone. I was much more inclined to try to figure it out entirely by myself.  I was determined to learn more about this mysterious ashtanga yoga practice, and I forced myself to go.  Somehow, I managed to screw up the start time of the class, and I missed the first class of the series. Not a very auspicious beginning. I wrote to the teacher and offered my apologies, and promised to be there at the class the following week. Fortunately, I was able to get my act together and I made it there for the class. It was the beginning of a journey that would transform my entire life.  I managed to stumble into a class taught by the magnificent Karen Cairns.  I won't go into her story right now but she is an amazing woman and an unparalleled yoga teacher. She is completely devoted to the ashtanga lineage in the tradition of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. She started her yoga practice in Louisville, Kentucky at the Yoga East shala.  By the time I started studying with Karen, she had made many extended trips to Mysore, and she was just about to be authorized to teach by Sharath Jois.  By beginning an ashtanga practice under the watchful eye of Karen, I opened a door to an entirely new universe. I was immediately hooked by ashtanga--there is a definite physical challenge but they were also opportunities for mental and spiritual development.   It seemed like ashtanga was made especially for me (yes--I realize  that this sounds extremely narcissistic or egocentric), but  I just wanted to learn more and to do more. It seemed like I had been waiting my entire life for ashtanga.  My practice seemed to be fueled by all of my passions, character defects, drive and ambition, while at the same time dismantling and destabilizing them.  It felt like there were some sort of alchemy your magic going on. My body changed and my mind changed as well.  As we talked about ashtanga, Karen told me about this place in southern India called Mysore.  I had spent the first part of my life completely fascinated by France--India held absolutely no appeal for me. I was interested in French literature, cinema, fashion, parfum, and above all, French food.  Yoga and India were things that I associated with patchouli-scented hippies; I certainly did not want to be any part of that! Despite all this, as I deepened my practice, travelling to Mysore began to sound appealing. I felt the compulsion to go practice at the source of ashtanga yoga. I was beginning to make arrangements to spend a month in India back in 2009. Taking a month away from one's regular routine requires lots of coordination. My employer seemed to be okay with the idea, and my parents were willing to watch my dog. Despite the initial planning, however, the universe had other plans for me: in September of 2009, my mother died suddenly. It was without a doubt the worst experience of my entire life--the absolute despair and sadness that followed were almost impossible to endure. With the support of family and friends, and with my daily ashtanga practice, I was able walk through the grief and try to find a purpose after losing someone so essential to me. Because of my yoga practice, I could face all the emotions and the uncertainty and the ineffable sadness. I did not need to run away from the grief; I was able to try to face it and to process everything that was going on. These complicated yoga postures DO have a purpose outside of simply contorting our bodies into strange positions. They allow us to be in the moment--any moment--and to face that moment head on with full breath and clarity of vision.  The challenges that we face on the yoga mat are indeed practice for life in this world. My life has changed substantially since 2009--I moved to Atlanta, been through a few jobs, got married, but here I go for my month of ashtanga adventure in Mysore. I hope to keep you up to date on all my experiences during this month. Before the plane takes off, I must acknowledge my gratitude to my dedicated and generous husband who is allowing me to embark on this journey despite our just being married a few months ago. Animesh is watching our dog Max, with whom I have spent approximately 1/4 of my life. It was so difficult to leave him this morning--but he will be in good hands. I am ever thankful to my wonderful employer, Emory College Study Abroad, for permitting me to be away from the office for over a month. Of course, I must thank my amazing teachers, past and present, who have brought me to this point in my life. Most importantly, I want to thank my yoga teachers, Karen Cairns, Lori Risetto, Marsha McNeight and Kathy Cushing Koher. Marsha and Kathy oversee the ashtanga program at Balance Yoga in Atlanta, where they have created a dedicated and loving community of ashtangis. Practicing with such delightful people is a privilege. I must also mention the crew from Mysore Standard--who greeted me so warmly when I moved to Atlanta and who remain close friends today.  Additionally, I must recognize all my friends and family members who have supported and loved me through all the phases of my life--some of which have not been particularly pleasant. Love to you all!! I will let you know what is happening from across the globe.