All is well

I'm glad I finally started this blogging, as a quick read over the last entry makes me realize how many details can slip by so quickly and be forgotten. Well, I had lots of emails asking if I was ok following the Mumbai attack, and I can tell you that I definitely am unscathed. I wasn't even aware of what was happening until a few days later, as I was ensconced in the Tamil countryside at Sivananda Ashram studying yoga.

My first experience going to a Sivanada ahram was a few years back, at the wildly popular location in the south of Kerala that it seems everybody traveling in India ends up at one point or another. I had a memorable experience there, and it shifted my stereotypical view of an ashram from that of a place of dodgy gurus, flaky folk and general New Agey, California psychobabble places to that of a place where one could rigorously focus on mental, spiritual and physical development in a conducive environment. So, fast forward to now, my experience this time around was just as great, if not better. A lot fewer people stop by this ashram which creates a much more relaxed environment. In fact, there were only 2 other people who started off my program with myself, compared with about 45 before. The idea is to introduce people, both Westerners and Indians, to the principles of a yogic life and give them a chance to live them out for a while, which is no easy feat. In a general sense, meditation and chanting twice a day, asana yoga (the physical part) twice a day, and lectures on a yogic lifestyle are all de rigeur.

I'm going to have to cut this short, though I have so much more to tell, as I'm facing an hour walk back to my bed deep in the mountains of Vattakanal and the sun is sinking low. I'm, hoping to get some trekking in in the next few days, though finding a map of this area seems to be nigh impossible. I'll see where the next chapter of India takes me...