Home Sweet Hyderabad

Ho man--- not two days ago Josh and I arrived in Hyderabad after another hot 30 hour train ride. Vijay and Mayukh were waiting for us with open arms and juice packets. Relieved to be back is putting it mildly. Coming back to Vijay and Shim's apartment was like coming Home (not like that mom), it's like stepping back into an oasis of peace and calm and depth after what has turned out to be one hell of a month. Josh and I kept murmuring to each other, like little school girls, how happy we were to finally be back here. Vijay said he was very worried about us: we were smelly, gaunt, pale, and a little spacey. When we got back to the apartment Shim had a feast of, once again, the most amazing home-made Indian food I've probably ever had. Chai tea, heaping mounds of rice, vegetables, soup, and on and on. Before we ate, Vijay gently prodded us, "I'd, um, prefer if perhaps you took a hot bath and put on some new clothes and refreshed yourselves before we eat?" After eating and bathing, we apparently regained our 'glow.' Before dinner that night Josh had a headache and reached for an aspirin, but Vijay was having none of it. He sat Josh down, told him to take off his shirt, and proceeded to massage (a mixture of massaging, rubbing, patting, and pounding) Josh's head and back with various oil mixtures. He has been studying Ayurvedic medicinal techniques for a while I guess. When it was my turn, the oils created an intense cooling sensation that Vijay rubbed/pounded into my skull. It felt amazing. He said it will allow the heat to leave the head. Josh's headache went away, I was on cloud nine, and Vijay and Shim whispered to each other in Telugu and smirked with amusement.

The past two days we've spent mostly relaxing at home. Yesterday Shim was sick so she was home with us. Vijay came home with a colleague for lunch, then we ran some errands, came home for a nap, took a walk in the evening once Mayukh got home, ate a pasta dinner, and began to prepare for bed. Josh felt like he was getting a cold and had a weird chill over his body so...Vijay and Shim once again prepared to go to work. Shim brought out some oils and told us both to go wash our feet. We came back into our room where Vijay was waiting to give us both a foot massage. I went first and he massaged my feet and legs with the oils until both limbs were sort of vibrating with rejuvenation. Then Josh, who wasn't feeling well, took my place (lying down in bed) and Vijay went to work. Conversing with Josh about what hurt on his foot, and where in his body there was pain. I was watching Vijay watch Josh, it was like watching a hawk subtly but thoroughly eyeing his prey, every so often mumbling back and forth in Telugu with Shim. They told me to look at the foot Vijay had just worked on as opposed to the foot he was about to work on: night and day. One foot had a fine sheen, a glow, a different color and even shape than the other one, it looked lean and flexible and spry, and the other one (I'm sorry to say Josh) looked rather crippled and sickly. At any rate, I found it just so stunning that this couple was treating us with such tremendous love and humility and care. I went into their room after Josh had dozed off and found Vijay giving a massage to Shim sitting on their bed (which is just a quilt laid on a marble floor...) with Mayukh sleeping soundly beside them... I tried to thank them but I couldn't quite find words; I just looked at this strange little family sitting serenely in their ancient, other-worldly kind of way.

This morning I got up at 6:15 and went into the Puja (shrine room) to wait for Vijay to come in and do his morning prayers and rituals. He stepped in at about 6:30, laid out a little mat and began preparing the oil candles, water, incense, ash and okra, etc. As I sat behind him, he performed what he performed every morning at 6:30; applying holy water to himself, the air, etc., various silent prayers, ash to the forehead and a bindhi (the red mark between the eyebrows), and then he prepared to sit in meditation. So together we sat in the dimly lit Puja, listening to car horns and morning birds and the Silence beneath them all...what a way to start the day. I had a cup of chai while Vijay and Shim and Mayukh had breakfast and prepared to take off. Now I am in their computer room, incense and Himalayan mountain music wafting behind me, preparing to upload pictures and update you all--

So since the last post in Goa we've remained on the coast of India. Our last day in Goa we spent all day out on the beach, frolicking in the waves of the Arabian Sea, giggling like idiots. Periodically we'd come back under the shade of a beached fishing boat where a father and son sat (all day) threading their nets in silence. Behind us a ways there was a little beach shack where we could go and get a $0.60 banana milkshake or fruit salad or something. But what we didn't quite realize until the sun magnificently took leave was that we had been wearing severely inadequate sunscreen under one of the harshest suns in the world. I got a pretty bad burn, but Josh was on fire. He couldn't quite sit...at all, and the rest of the night was spent in ridiculous agony. We left the beach in the darkness to find some aloe, and he spent the rest of the night in a crazed trance of pain. Many bizarre things were said that night, a lot of it in between desperate fits of laughter (and possible sobs). My burn wasn't quite that bad, and after some time of applying cool towels, mulling over how to get 50 gallons of cool water into a body-sized container and debating what a doctor would and would not do for us, I felt I had done all I could do... so I took off to the beach for a little midnight quiet under the nearly full moon. The cool ocean breeze and silver waves eased my pain considerably, but when I got back to the room I walked in on Josh acting crazier than I had left him; talking to himself, standing under the ceiling fan, hands raised to heaven, eyes tightly shut...we'd lost him. The rest of the night was filled with much the same- between the two of us we probably got a total of 45 minutes of sleep. A dear price paid for a fantastic day.

Painfully we boarded an 11pm train that took us about 15 hours south to Cochin, in northern Kerala. We spent one night there and on our departure day we took a trip out to what is officially titled "Jew Town." Which is a section of the city, closer to the Sea that is home to a several centuries old Jewish enclave. There was Jew Street, and Jew Cemetery, and "Swastik Jewish Spice Shop." Josh was in heaven (being a Jew). Unfortunately the synagogue was closed when we arrived, but there were many little shops and art galleries and strange signs to see.

Next was Alleppy, which is famous for their backwater canals and lakes. Many people rent large houseboats and stay on the actual water, but Josh and I got to stay in "government guest houses" that Vijay was able to arrange for us because his father used to work in the Indian government. We, instead, took about a four-hour-tour (uh oh...) on our own little boat. Lazily motoring through lush tropical canals with men bathing at the shore and women washing bundles of clothes and rice fields flanking either side...it was incredibly peaceful. We stopped at the side of the bank for about 15 minutes to get a fried prawn and some coconut juice, then continued on through the maze of water ways. It was a whole mess of neighborhoods out there, men in fishing boats laying out their nets and white, purple, and orange houses with goats and chickens standing next to the river with various Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI(M)) signs or Che Guevara portraits tagged up to low hanging coconut trees (there is a strong communist contingent in Kerala, apparently they were democratically elected in the late 50's and partly attributable to their policies are the lowest levels of poverty in India, high literacy rates and greater freedom for women). A fine way to spend an afternoon.

We left Alleppy for Varkala and en route, as we were riding in our taxi, as is custom, our driver was dodging and weaving in and out of traffic. He attempted to pass a large truck, but there was an oncoming car speeding towards us: no problem, slow and pull behind the truck. As the driver slowed and began to pull back, the oncoming car arrived and at the moment we passed, the side-view mirrors hit each other. The face plate flew off and shards of glasses exploded into the window. The poor driver took the brunt of the glass, and Josh and I got a few random pieces in the back. In disbelief Josh and I asked the driver if he was okay, if we should pull over, or get insurance info, but he just assured us "No no, fine! No problem, sir! No problem!" and both cars continued on. Absolutely absurd, but no one got hurt.
We arrived in Varkala and were shown into another government guest house with about a 400 square foot room and another changing room and very large bathroom attached. We were about a 5 minute walk down through a tropical little pathway to the small, relatively quiet, picturesque beach. Various thatched-roof resorts and restaurants lined the beach and above on a cliff overlooking the beach. We were scheduled to spend one day here, but didn't want to leave, so spent another. We watched beautiful sunsets, played frisbee with a French man and an Indian boy, walked through shops, took a yoga class on a roof top back in the jungle, and quietly, serenely took in the beauty of this little city.

Last stop in Kerala was Trivandrum, the capital of the state. The guest house here was like a five star hotel, where we had a balcony overlooking a courtyard, endless cable television, a couch and chairs, and an unsolicited wake-up call at 7am demanding we tell them whether we'd like coffee or tea. I groggily replied tea and within minutes there was a young man inside of our room with a full tray handing us cups of chai as we lay half asleep in our underwear. We were supposed to take an all-day tour of the city, but because of a government strike, we were unable. Instead we took a 15 km ride out to Kovallam beach, where we sat under an umbrella and read. A nice old woman made us promise her we'd buy two fruit salads from her later (which we happily did) and various dogs came to say hello. When it got closer to sun-down we got to witness what I think is one of the most striking cultural differences between India and the west. At the ocean, in the waves, was a group (several groups actually) of men and boys, ages 10 to 60, mostly middle-aged, all roughhousing in the waves like they had just been let out for recess. We saw 50 year old men ganging up on 40 year old men, grabbing them by the ankles and throwing them into the waves, 15 year old boys would run up to 60 year old men, pull down the backs of their shorts and throw sand down them then run off, and the old man would chase him down, grab him, toss him to his friend and they'd thrash him into the surf. Rolling and laughing in the sand, hitting, running, jumping, and holding hands...it was beautiful. I've never seen such ageless brotherhood and joy shared like that. I hope when I'm an old man, it will be acceptable to pull down the swimsuit of my dear old friend and shove a fistful of sand down them as I run, cackling, into the ocean.

After that we headed back to Hyderabad. The plan was to stay with Vijay and Shim for a week, then go off again to Auroville. But they have arranged for us to stay with them for two weeks and go to a couple events with them. One of which is a couple day trip up into the mountains where there is a very old temple where there will be various services and a wedding taking place.

Over the past couple weeks I have been thinking about extending my stay, now all the logistics have been taken care of. Josh will be here until April 1st and I will stay until mid-May. We will spend a couple weeks at Auroville volunteering in what's called the Sadhana Forest (replanting trees and various other forest-restoration projects). In exchange for volunteering 20 hours a week and $3 a day for all our food we get lodging, yoga, various classes and lectures, concerts, internet access, bicycles, and of course, unfettered access to the Giant Gold Orb. It should be quite the time.
After Auroville we'll head back and spend some time at the Krishnamurti Center, also volunteering (farming and other chores or projects around the grounds). After Josh goes home I'll have a month and half at the Center, with a tentative and possible trip up to Nepal: who knows if that will pan out.

At any rate, that is the latest, I'll try to post some pictures so you can put some images to all of this. Thanks again for the comments and emails, even being this far away I feel so much love and connection with you back home. I really can't wait to see you again. :)