laxman jhula - little black bug

two nights ago a little black bug stung me on the bottom side of my pinky toe. since then my foot has been swollen and itchy. i can't walk very much. i keep thinking about liat and her ordeal... i guess if she can go through 6 mo of immobility i should be able to deal with a few days, right?

jesse wrote a song:

laxman jhula hari om
laxman jhula big chillum

i saw a baba on the street
he said hari om to me

i saw a monkey on the bridge
throwing prasad down to the fish

chanting mantras on the patio
french dread lock rasta on the radio

i ride my royal shiva enfeild to the other side...

hari-s-p-e-c-t find out what OM means to me

and the new addition dedicated to my foot:
laxman jhula owey foot
laxman jhula little black bug (this doesn't rhyme!)

we got some recordings of this classical indian singing and one lady in particular, Shobha Mudgal, really blows me away. the whole concept behind their voice production is really raw and awesome. i just got a book about some of the well known indian singers over the past 5 decades. i'm excited to learn more about this. indian culture is so rich and spans over such a long period of time. what's so fascinating is that most of the culture and arts have stemmed out of spiritual or religious roots. i guess that is case in the west too but i love learning about this side of the world becuase it makes everything seem so much less ethno-centric.
so now i'll hobble back down to my guest house and sing and study...
bye bye

still in rishikesh...

since i last wrote some things have changed and some things have stayed the same. (as always...) first of all, that kundalini class was beautiful but emotionally and physically draining. i was the only person to be in the class for 5 days straight and by friday i was so glad it was the weekend. my body was sore and my spirit was shaken. it did give me strength to see some things clearly though. friday after kundalini i quit that private music class. it just didn't feel right and i have material left over from bombay that i want to practice. besides, i also have a intimately private guru "jessa ram ji" who relentlessly teaches me the most important intricacies about music including the way to find the precise notes of just intonation on the guitar and testing my ear with different intervals. (i tried to test his and the only way i could almost stump him was by making "rasberry notes" (what you might call psuedo-farts) on his arm... but even then he usually got them right.) anyway, over the weekend i pulled myself together and got back into a healthy practicing routine. today we went back to a hatha yoga class and it felt really good. so for the next two weeks (until my momma comes to visit!!!!!!!!!!) our schedule will probably be similar: wake up, eat muesli with curd and fruit, practice for 3-4 hours, walk around, do yoga, eat dinner, and chill.
whoever reads this should definitely write me some comments - miss you people!
hari om

kundalini yoga!!

i found a really nice way to start the day here in rishikesh. this kundalini yoga class is taught by a western woman in very meditative and active way as well. it's not the classical yoga poses, but it gives a great feeling while strengthening all kinds of muscles. and on top of that, i get my kundalini moving! kundalini is a powerful energy that is coiled at the base of everyone's spine. it is usually quite latent but if you get it flowing up through your chakras, you are on your way to everlasting bliss :)
after yoga i have been going to a music lesson with that 75 yr old teacher. i don't know his name yet. he's quite a character. it is taking me time to warm up to this guy. but he seems to really encourage me. i tried to tell him that i can't take class everyday since it's not in my budget but he told me it's very important and he will teach me really well, etc. so i walked out of there and felt pretty rediculous for telling this indian man that i can't afford a $3/hr lesson. his whole life has been only music, his children are in the same feild, and they live like any ordinary indian family, with a couple cows and other animals, outhouse type toilets, many people per room... since it's a private lessons it's pretty fast paced so i'll learn a lot over the course of the next month. according to guruji, this is what we humans are here for: to learn indian classical music - music to enlighten our atman.
we moved to a new guest house (actually 2 new guest houses! one room for practice and one for sleeping...) it's feels good as a change of scene. now we are even closer to the ganga, so close we can hear it!
i'm going to find some lunch.
Sat Nam
("truth is my identity" - a greeting used in kundalini yoga)

mukesh kumar

today we went on the hunt for jesse's old tabla teacher from seven years ago. he didn't remember how to get to the place so it was a long walk... across the whole town, up a huge hill, around a few ashrams, back down the hill and finally into the music school. it took a moment, but student and teacher recognized each other and commented on the difference in facial hair from 7 years ago. what followed was a lot of tabla talk and name dropping. we drank chai as well. later we went to meet mukesh's father who is a 75 yr old man without any of his upper front teeth. we told him i would like to take some vocal lessons and he proceeded to check my musical abilities. He shook Jesse's hand and told him he has all of his strength at this age becuase of the power of music. so tomorrow morning i'm going to learn something from him. he's been teaching music here for 45 years.
yoga in this town is crazy. it seems every other person is a yoga teacher. my body is not in shape for all of this, but the teachers don't seem to notice that. today the teacher actually managed to contort my body into a pretzel!! i wish i had a picture to prove it but i only lasted for about 2 seconds, not even enough time to get a shot. tomorrow we're going to take a class on the beach at sunset. aaah. then starting monday i think we may try the kundalini approach since we've been reading a book on the subject. (yes, we are actually reading the same book at the same time, what does that say about us as a couple??)
the pictures i just posted don't really do the trick for this scene. i'll see what can be done about that.
Hari Om my friends

sights of rishikesh

it's hard to capture the atmosphere here, but you can get a glimpse... a mix of spiritual seekers from around the world walking through the paths of the town's many ashrams to the holy river mother Ganga, twisting bodies into crazy positions they call yoga, hearing and reciting mantras, begging bowls always outstreched with a "Hari Om" on the lips. I told you it was hard to describe.

RISHIKESH

What a change of scene! We have been in Rishikesh for 4 days now and it feels like we'll never want to leave.
The journey here went relatively well. We were on a 17 hr overnight train ride on an air conditioned train. The ride passed quickly since most of it we were sleeping. We spent a few hours in Delhi, had lunch and such. Then we were on an uncomfortable but short train ride (4 hours) to Haridwar. We spent one night in a hotel there and walked around, got our first glimpse of the Ganga. The next morning we took a 1 hr bus ride to Rishikesh.
We are staying at a nice hotel which has mainly Indian guests. We have a beautiful view from our balcony of the Ganga and the rest of this town. It's actually a lot bigger than I expected. There is so much to do here. There are many ashrams where they rent out rooms, and everyone here teaches yoga. We've gone to 2 different classes and are still looking to find the right teacher at the right price. But it's all by trial and error with that. Across the road from our hotel there is a music teacher who I spoke to today. I will take a lesson from him and he said I can use his extra practice room whenever I want.
I took Jesse to the passover seder here the other night. It was pretty crazy. Most of the 300 guests were Israeli. The seder was led by Chabad guys who just kind of rambled off the haggadah in Hebrew, participation was very minimal. I tried to explain a few things to Jesse but it was kind of worthless. The food was very dissappointing too. We were sitting with a few other English speakers so that was good for Jesse, even one of them was a non-jewish woman recently married to a Jewish guy. Anyway overall it was just fun to be at an event like that here in India. :)
Yesterday we went to the beach of the Ganga. You wouldn't believe it, but there is sand and sun and everything! We met some people and had a nice time soaking in the sun. The weather here over all is pleasant, hot during the day but cool at night. The air is very dry, especially coming from Bombay's extreme humidity. Our noses and skin are still aclimatizing.
It's nice to have lots of restaurants that serve western and israeli food. we can eat muesli or porridge for breakfast instead of idli (an indian rice patty). and there is falafel and pasta and everything else you could want.
There are lots of tourists here. Most of the guest houses we have tried have been full. Most of the westerners are israeli... and all the indians label me right away as israeli when they see me. i don't know when it happened but i guess over the years i acquired an israeli look... there's a good vibe here though. everyone is here to learn some yoga or something. there is so much to explore. i'm looking forward to more shopping, some hiking, more yoga, taking some hindi lessons, and meeting good people.

parting from bombay...

So, we may actually be leaving this city tomorrow. (Jesse may have one more gig that would postpone our trip by a few days but in anycase, we're nearing the time to ramble...) I've had two hour long lessons this past week and i have now learned three Ragas (Yaman, Kafi, and Bhairav) and one composition in each as well as one song in Yaman. The interesting stuff has just begun and now we're leaving for a while but I have a lot to practice in order to master what I have been introduced to. I'll spend a good chunk of time practicing each of these scales while I'm gone. Music has been the main reason to stay in Bombay for so long, but even with all the craziness of this city and the heat and everything, i have already come to love it very much. The amazing thing is that it is so overcrowded and crazy yet the people seem to all be at peace somehow. the rickshaw drivers for example... if i had to spend a million hours a day in bombay traffic i would probably murder someone if not kill myself, but most of them are extremely calm and gentle people. There is a feeling here of modernity and progress in the air and the economy is booming. this makes it have an international feeling too. many tourists and business people from all over the world. there is a lot of music and film and art of all shapes and sizes. we've started to make more connections with young people living here and striving to work as film makers, actors and musicians. we are definitely leaving on a high note and look forward to come back here. unfortunately we payed way too high a price for the small room we stayed in for the past two months but when we come back we will be able to find something at a much better rate. We've also been eating restaurant food and hope to have a better alternative when we return. Apparently you can order home cooked meals to your flat. The other night this guy Dharam invited me over to meet some other friends of his. Turned out that they were all much cooler than him as he wouldn't stop hitting on me the entire night (ugh!!). So these other guys are in film, trying to push off their directing careers. Maybe Jesse will work with Atin on the music for his upcoming short film. Atin and his girlfriend, Collette, are really interesting, the kind of people with whom the conversation flows freely. Udai, on the other hand, is quite a trip, full of energy and hard to really communicate with, but a lot of fun nonetheless. They will come hear Jesse play tonight at Seijo's in Bandra I think. So, once we're out of Bombay and up in the Himalayas (or nearby) things will change and there might be more descriptive entries I suppose. Wish us luck with our 25 hour train ride across the country!