What I typed on the train from Orissa to SB

So on the 4th I spent all day hanging out at the beach, and the stayed the night at a hotel on a beach closer to the airport. I got up early to catch my flight. Flying in India had the expected amount of red tape, but flying Kingfisher was lovely. I flew from Goa to Mumbai, and from Mumbai to Bhubaneswar. To get on my first flight I had to get in and out of the same line several times because of a simple lack of signage, explanation or logic. Since I was expecting it to be hard, this did not upset me. The flight attendants were friendly, quick and knowledgeable and I left the two quick connecting flights thinking that perhaps flying could be relaxing. It was a pleasant contrast to the typical domestic flight in the U.S. I guess they're not trying to screw you out of that extra 30 cents every where you look, and it adds up.

The Bhubaneswar airport is tiny and lovely. It has artwork from the surrounding areas and has many signs welcoming you. I took a taxi from the airport to the Inside Orissa office. Raj and San met me in my taxi. That was nice. So they took me to meet Aruna Mohanty, my guru, at her house, took me to their office, where we discussed the details of my stay, and then took me to a hotel for the night. The deal is pretty simple, M-S at 5 am Yoga, Group Practice at 8:30, Individual Theory Practice at 11:30, Lunch, Rest/ Ayurveda (2x week), Individual Class 4:30, dinner, rinse and repeat. On the weekends we would travel to see all the major local sites.

That first night we went to a place called Big Bazaar, which is about as close to an Indian Walmart as I've seen. Well, kind of, it takes up about 2/3 of a four story shopping center. The first two floors are clothes, the next is food and the top is appliances. The atmosphere of the store is set by the incessant screeching of some manager into an intercom, urging shoppers to take advantage of some deal or another. The shouting literally never stops, and whoever's job it is to shout clearly does not benefit from practice. He shouts in highly questionable English, broken by random Oriya, stutters and general confusion. Despite the auditory onslaught, the store is so full of people that it seems impossible that anyone would ever actually be able to buy anything there. It is constantly like black Friday, only louder. We got some basics, or what I consider basics- oatmeal, honey, eggs, apples, mangoes, shampoo, and conditioner.

We bought a yoga mat at another store, which sold bed sheets, rugs and other textiles. By yoga mat I mean a multicolored blanket, which I folded and did yoga on for the next month. We also bought a blanket for my bed. By blanket I mean bed sheet. These purchases were worried over the way I considered buying a new computer. Serious deliberation about the qualities of my 'blanket' passed at least thirty minutes before something was decided on.

I had a 'chicken roll' for dinner. In India a roll is what I would consider a wrap. A puff is what I would consider a roll. A biscuit is either a cookie or a cracker and a chocolate is anything sweet. At the time I didn't know this, so when he asked if I'd like to try a chicken roll I figured I'd be getting a chicken sandwich. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised with spicy cubed chicken wrapped in a roti (read flour tortilla) with some onion. It was yummy. :-) I went to bed early, hoping to recover from my Goa/ travel exhaustion in time to wake up at 4:30.

I left for yoga in a not-so-bright-eyed manner (I woke up to them knocking insistently on my door, oops). In yoga class that day there was meditation and chanting for 45 minutes: first the guy leads us through a meditation, then there is a call and response with a guy playing a harmonium, a box shaped accordion thing. Then I have individual lessons which were about first part wind releasing or something like that. We did isolations of almost every joint and some pranams, or breathing exercises. My 'English Speaking' yoga teacher, for which the program is paying extra informs me to put my "hourness in my novel" daily during meditation. I can't tell the difference between 'fish' and 'peace' when he says them, and I often have NO idea what he means.

Let me explain here that yoga instructors, and students, look completely different than in the west. My yoga class in New York is lead by a thirty something man with a rock hard body, tingling massage oil, hands on technique and the desire to help each student take their bodies to the next step of flexibility and control. At the end of class he often encourages us to reflect on Hindu concepts and challenges us to live cleaner lives. Walking down the street that man turns heads, and in class he quickly makes friends and followers of his students. The students are all looking to get slimmer, stronger, more flexible, and most of them look great in spandex. Our regular practice includes mild contortions, back bends, headstands, headstands and a sweat inducing practice of Sun Salutation.

Here, the swami (swami literally means husband, here it means yogic monk), is an enormous man. He has a gigantic stomach which hangs over his orange dhoti (long cloth tied around the wast like a skirt) and breasts so large that I feel embarrassed by them- a fact which may partially be due to his enormous black nipples . I constantly have to ignore the thought that he should probably wear a bra. His enormous bald head and his narrow almost slightly cross eyed stare is disconcerting and unwelcoming. On good days he wears an orange t-shirt or a dhoti covering his top half too. He always wears a collection of beaded necklaces which would be the envy of any small girl, especially if she had a penchant for orange and brown. Most of the things he says are in Oriya, although he certainly uses Sanskrit and English mixed in. Unlike the lisping S in my might-be-gay yoga instructor's speech, when the swami ends a word on an s he sounds like a tire slowly deflating. His favorite word, bas (enough), goes on for five seconds. No exaggeration. He stares at us, seemingly disdainful while we meditate, then leads us on the harmonium in a chant. "Bas. Practice," he says, taking a full ten to fifteen seconds.

Then the hundred or so students stand up on their blankets. Let me tell you, athletic gear, as do most clothes, have a different definition in India. A woman may wear anything from ill-fitting cotton stretch pants and a t-shirt to a salwar kamiz. Often you see some odd combination of the two. Women in India may have small bone structures, but they are not small. I've yet to meet a woman of even middle means that would not be described as husky or outright fat. Only people who can't afford food are skinny, apparently. The men tend to work out in khakis and polos or t-shirts. The men all look pregnant. Their huge stomachs protrude from their centers like they were snakes digesting beach balls. A few of these mustachioed and shawl sporting wonders are so fat that they can't actually participate, so they do the few things they can do from a seated position, then lay on their backs in rest position. Everyone else is clearly hindered by their ill-fitting clothes. Only about ten percent are fit enough to do Surya Namaskara (Sun Salutation), and only four or five people actually make it all the way through the six rounds. Meanwhile, instead of helping us as we go, the teachers let the students do something incorrectly for the entire practice, then tell them after that it was incorrect. After resting to lower our heart rates (wouldn't want to burn fat!) we practice a few more asanas, then do pranayams. They are more or less breathing techniques. The sounds that come out of people at this point are truly revolting. I struggle not to laugh or be disconcerted by the various snorts, belches, farts, vocal sounds and other rumblings produced by nearly every one in the hall. There is a final chant and class ends.

By the second week of class a guy (who wore normal work out pants and gap t-shirts) and I were the only ones completing all the asanas. In fact, we were doing advanced versions of the asanas while most of the people were struggling with the simplified versions of them. It was kind of fun and kind of sad. In the last week I finally got the nerve to tell the swami that most of the poses didn't stretch me in any way. It was almost like being in the circus performing the series of contortions he sent me through trying to find a stretch. The entire rest of the class just watched me. One of the men living at the ashram asked me if my spine is made of rubber. I'd like to remind the reader that I'm the inflexible one in my dance classes in New York. For real, this is a nation that can't touch its toes.

Over the course of the first week I developed a habit of having an apple, mango and egg for breakfast, the same for midmorning snack, lentils for lunch and tandoori chicken for dinner. This habit remained unchanged until I left with the exception that some days I had oatmeal with honey for breakfast, and toward the end I just had one apple for breakfast and added coffee before my second dance class. On Saturdays I ate whatever fell in my path and went to pizza hut at night. It was so funny because the people actually remembered my order, and greeted me by name when I came in.

Everywhere I went it was simultaneously like I was a freak and a celebrity. People stared. They asked the people with me all kinds of questions. They took pictures of me on their cells when they thought I didn't notice. It was strange.

On the weekends Raj and San took me all over Bhubaneswar and the surrounding areas to see all the major sites. I went to Konark, Puri, Rajarani Temple, Botanicle Gardens, a tribal museum, the local market, Chilika Lake, a water park, a Hindi movie: Stop, several dance shows, two craft villages, a Goti Pua dance performance, 64 yogini temple, Megeswar temple, Brameshwar temple, and some excavated Buddhist sites. I'm pretty sure that list isn't complete.

During the week I'd get ayurveda and beauty care. I had several full body massages with steam baths, two facials, a foot treatment, a 'manicure', several eyebrow waxing appointments, I got my hair dyed black, and I had a starch massage. The ayurveda is funny because the people doing it speak little English. The first time I got a service I was always unsure how much to undress. For massages they give you a loin cloth to wear, but I didn't know how to put one on. The first time they told me to take a bath she started running water in a bucket, and it took ten minutes to explain that I'd be much more efficient bathing using the shower. I think she was about to wash me herself. Ayurveda is also interesting because they use all natural products, so when you get a facial then stand up, the table where you've been on looks like somebody threw up. Seriously, globs of orange, brown, green and yellow are all over the table. The best part about the place where I went is that two women always worked on me at the same time, so during a massage I'd have four hands pressing on me. The way they massage was in a pattern so they'd be doing the same things at the same time.