Each morning I rise at 5.30am and get ready within a few minutes. It is still dark as I leave Door No. 1472, 7th Cross in the neighbourhood of Krishnamurtypuram, Mysore. It is one of the few quiet times of the day, for people in India are busy most hours, and God is everywhere, drawing prayers from all sides, all corners, all minutes. Some mornings the Muslim call to prayer wakes me first at 5am, other time the devotional chants are already underway at the nearest Hindu temple.
I walk 5 minutes to reach my yoga shala, situated at No. 1317, 3rd Cross, passing the Shree Ladies Beauty Parlour and Surya Medicals on the way. This is usually a very quiet time of day, like I said, but there is a small tearoom already open, where the working men on scooters and motorbikes stop for a quick idli and hot chai.
Upstairs the shala practice room is already getting warm and busy as the students from around the world stretch, meditate or say prayers. From the rooftop one can see Chamundi Hill, the place where the goddess Chamundeswari slew the demon Mahishasura (after whom Mysore is named) in a battle that lasted for nine days and nights. These nine days came to be called Dussehra, which celebrates the victory of good over evil, as well the power of women more broadly.
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Our teacher has already been up since 3am when he does his own meditation and practice before turning his attention to us. Each morning begins with an opening prayer chanted in Sanskrit as the clock strikes 6am:
Jeevamani Bharajath Phana
The common soul shines like an emerald on the head of the snake
Sahasra Vidruth Vishwambara
Which has one thousand heads and is all pervading
[and the prayer continues...]
Mysore-style ashtanga yoga is not led but only supervised by the teacher -- each student must remember and implement the sequence of some 60 poses and their variations, in the correct order, preferably with no memory aides. The students are at different levels, and several do apparently impossible contortions that I can only dream of. Our teacher circulates the room to improve the students' positions, stand on them with his full body weight, or even pick them up and swing them around, sometimes shouting instructions across the room:
"Hello! HELLO!!"
"Head up. Head up! UP!! Eyes! Knee to floor! No, floor!! RELAX!!!"
"Tssst!"
Around 8am, as our vigorous practice is coming to an end, the fruit and vegetable sellers start to steer and ply their wares up the street. We know their voices and their individual hallmark cries by now, even though we don't know their faces. Somewhere next door is the sound of running water and a woman beating her laundry with gusto. Charcoal fumes drift in from nearby kitchen stoves. The train horns blare in the distance, on their way to Bangalore. By the time we emerge, sweaty and stretched to the enth degree, life in the residential world of Krishnamurtypuram is all a-bustle.
If you take the first right at the construction site and turn left at New Globe Tailors, there is a one-room one-man laundry operation where you can drop off your laundry virtually around the clock. Just down the road is the Vijay Motor Driving School, as well as a printing press whose machines spin till late. Next door to the yoga shala is a classical dance teacher whose teenage students are busy preparing for their exams, still practising at 9.30pm at night. Amidst all this, residents go about their daily lives, cows wander by and keep the road adorned with cowpats, and boys play cricket in the street in the afternoon. Collectors of alms come and go.
People here, like elsewhere in India, are enterprising: homes often double up as business premises. I pay 30 rand/USD $4 a night for my room at the home of a woman who must make a small fortune cooking delicious lunches and giving cookery lessons to word-of-mouth foreigners who appear in droves to sample her cuisine. In the morning the small kitchen is by far the most crowded part of the house, comprising the three ladies preparing lunch (for up to 30 people), the domestic worker, two small children, the cat, and the two Czech yogis (my neighbours upstairs) who are cooking their customary sizeable pot of oats.
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My simple room with the hardest bed in India is upstairs at the back, with shutter windows overlooking the Dr Ambedkar Park on one side, and into the courtyard on the other. The courtyard has a small altar and the greenest-leaf-tree I've ever seen, and below the ladies of the house wash, clean, sort and dry, in the way that women do everywhere. It is cool and clean, if not messy. To reach the courtyard, and thus the toilet and bathroom (each of which has a blogpost-worth of damp individualities) requires descending a steep metal ladder which would avert even the most avid of night pee-ers.
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Many of my meals have been had at the no-frills Hotel Mahesh Prasad Veg Restaurant, a fast-service diner situated next door to a chemicals shop. Mahesh Prasad has a cashier who prides himself on the speed at which he can return your change, and turns over 1000 customers a day. Now that's business for you. The menu is highly classified according to times and types, the full rationale for which I haven't yet figured out, but one's ordering has to be carefully done with these many timings in mind:
The Mahesh kitchen, which you pass through on the way to the loo, is another world - New York speed, Bombay heat and a lotta workers. You can get take-aways at the 'Parcel Counter' where your food will be expertly wrapped in plastic and newspaper, secured neatly with string.
It's not all romance, of course. At least one of the famous yoga schools that I enquired with in person was unwelcoming and exclusive, leaving me with the impression of being a bizarre mix of a business and a cult. The yogis (practisers of yoga) are often territorial and competitive about their teachers, affiliations and the correct way to teach/study; they remind me of rowers to the extent that they can talk about nothing besides...yoga. There is not nearly as much humility as I was expecting. And many of them prefer to stay in what I call the 'yoga cocoon', ie. only in the safe comforts of places frequented by foreigners, offering Western health food, smoothies and bountiful quantities of spirulina. The local economy has adapted around these demands of course, particularly in the neighbourhood of Gokulam: the couple who sell silver jewellery, incense and spirulina from home; the man who sells overpriced rooftop lunches; various Ayurvedic masseuses; and best of all, the family of dentists who sell chocolate on the side (!)
Today is the 9th day of Dussehra, with preparations and celebrations already well underway for tomorrow, the festival's apex. Today is celebrated with the worship of the implements and machines that are used in day to day life and which help people earn their livelihoods. This means that everything from bicycles to buses (including the computer I'm typing on right now) is decorated with banana leaves and yellow flower garlands. Till next time...
I walk 5 minutes to reach my yoga shala, situated at No. 1317, 3rd Cross, passing the Shree Ladies Beauty Parlour and Surya Medicals on the way. This is usually a very quiet time of day, like I said, but there is a small tearoom already open, where the working men on scooters and motorbikes stop for a quick idli and hot chai.
Upstairs the shala practice room is already getting warm and busy as the students from around the world stretch, meditate or say prayers. From the rooftop one can see Chamundi Hill, the place where the goddess Chamundeswari slew the demon Mahishasura (after whom Mysore is named) in a battle that lasted for nine days and nights. These nine days came to be called Dussehra, which celebrates the victory of good over evil, as well the power of women more broadly.
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The temple on Chamundi Hill - the original shrine dates to the 12th Century
Our teacher has already been up since 3am when he does his own meditation and practice before turning his attention to us. Each morning begins with an opening prayer chanted in Sanskrit as the clock strikes 6am:
Jeevamani Bharajath Phana
The common soul shines like an emerald on the head of the snake
Sahasra Vidruth Vishwambara
Which has one thousand heads and is all pervading
[and the prayer continues...]
Mysore-style ashtanga yoga is not led but only supervised by the teacher -- each student must remember and implement the sequence of some 60 poses and their variations, in the correct order, preferably with no memory aides. The students are at different levels, and several do apparently impossible contortions that I can only dream of. Our teacher circulates the room to improve the students' positions, stand on them with his full body weight, or even pick them up and swing them around, sometimes shouting instructions across the room:
"Hello! HELLO!!"
"Head up. Head up! UP!! Eyes! Knee to floor! No, floor!! RELAX!!!"
"Tssst!"
Around 8am, as our vigorous practice is coming to an end, the fruit and vegetable sellers start to steer and ply their wares up the street. We know their voices and their individual hallmark cries by now, even though we don't know their faces. Somewhere next door is the sound of running water and a woman beating her laundry with gusto. Charcoal fumes drift in from nearby kitchen stoves. The train horns blare in the distance, on their way to Bangalore. By the time we emerge, sweaty and stretched to the enth degree, life in the residential world of Krishnamurtypuram is all a-bustle.
If you take the first right at the construction site and turn left at New Globe Tailors, there is a one-room one-man laundry operation where you can drop off your laundry virtually around the clock. Just down the road is the Vijay Motor Driving School, as well as a printing press whose machines spin till late. Next door to the yoga shala is a classical dance teacher whose teenage students are busy preparing for their exams, still practising at 9.30pm at night. Amidst all this, residents go about their daily lives, cows wander by and keep the road adorned with cowpats, and boys play cricket in the street in the afternoon. Collectors of alms come and go.
People here, like elsewhere in India, are enterprising: homes often double up as business premises. I pay 30 rand/USD $4 a night for my room at the home of a woman who must make a small fortune cooking delicious lunches and giving cookery lessons to word-of-mouth foreigners who appear in droves to sample her cuisine. In the morning the small kitchen is by far the most crowded part of the house, comprising the three ladies preparing lunch (for up to 30 people), the domestic worker, two small children, the cat, and the two Czech yogis (my neighbours upstairs) who are cooking their customary sizeable pot of oats.
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Tiffin Select 3.30pm - 7.30pm
Dosa 7.30am - 12 noon; 4.15pm - 6.30pm
Chat 5.30pm - 10pm
Chinese 5.30pm - 10pm
North Indian 7pm - 10pm
South Thali 12.30pm - 3.30pm
North Thali 7.30pm
The Mahesh kitchen, which you pass through on the way to the loo, is another world - New York speed, Bombay heat and a lotta workers. You can get take-aways at the 'Parcel Counter' where your food will be expertly wrapped in plastic and newspaper, secured neatly with string.
It's not all romance, of course. At least one of the famous yoga schools that I enquired with in person was unwelcoming and exclusive, leaving me with the impression of being a bizarre mix of a business and a cult. The yogis (practisers of yoga) are often territorial and competitive about their teachers, affiliations and the correct way to teach/study; they remind me of rowers to the extent that they can talk about nothing besides...yoga. There is not nearly as much humility as I was expecting. And many of them prefer to stay in what I call the 'yoga cocoon', ie. only in the safe comforts of places frequented by foreigners, offering Western health food, smoothies and bountiful quantities of spirulina. The local economy has adapted around these demands of course, particularly in the neighbourhood of Gokulam: the couple who sell silver jewellery, incense and spirulina from home; the man who sells overpriced rooftop lunches; various Ayurvedic masseuses; and best of all, the family of dentists who sell chocolate on the side (!)
Today is the 9th day of Dussehra, with preparations and celebrations already well underway for tomorrow, the festival's apex. Today is celebrated with the worship of the implements and machines that are used in day to day life and which help people earn their livelihoods. This means that everything from bicycles to buses (including the computer I'm typing on right now) is decorated with banana leaves and yellow flower garlands. Till next time...
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Am loving reading this and feel lucky to be a part of your adventures. Enjoy and keep sharing when you can!
ReplyDeletelove nu