Dear reader
i think i just played a bit part in a low budget Bollywood. Admittedly it was more drama than romantic comedy and there were no scheming ugly chicks or pinning, perfectly coiffed heroes but there was plenty of ham acting so I'll let you be the judge...
it all started one hot and humid Indian night with a grumble in my stomach. (a common theme these days but then who said i was of a different caste anyway). the grumble led to a stumble upon my friendly Indian guest house owner pitching a local restaurant which served good tandoori chicken to a couple of linen clad Brits. well i can tell you, he had me at tandoori. with his wiggles all deciphered ( yes we go now? yes we wait more?) i was soon zigzagged through the streets on his motorbike, the grease and humid air exactly what my hair needed for an authentic Bollywood blow. so i wasn't complaining. if you could see some of my styles of late (from Curly Sue to Tina Turner and Seinfeld Kramer ) you would have encouraged me to hire a motorbike a few curries back. anyway i swing my long cotton camo legs from my steady steed, turn on my flip flops, wave my hunk into the night and prepare to make my entrance...follywood style
except that i must have got the location wrong. why else would the bustling restaurant set suddenly stop mid-musical (i could hear the sing song laughter chatter along the hallway) to look so silently in my direction? i had to ask myself...was i wrongly cast/of the wrong caste? did my travel agent get it wrong? perhaps. so i did what any self respecting thespian would do in this situation...i did up another button on my conservative linen shirt and found a table tucked far away in the shady corner...presumably where all the extras/to be cast section would be. and waited. but not so patiently. i had a hunger that needed to be fulfilled you understand.
The set looked authentic, if not a bit drab, or so i gathered in the minutes i waited for my waiter. the white plastic tables beamed in the florescent lighting (not my best lighting) while the women bunched tightly together like a bridal bouquet and the men stared thoughtfully at me over their right hand shovels.
A few added details ...the "no liquor served" signs on every wall and the waiters all capped in Muslim Taqiyah changed the story line somewhat. How was i to be cast now? (cast aside it perhaps). so when the waiter, wearing a checkered country and western styled shirt (who dressed this set anyway??) eventually John Wayned himself to my table, i wasn't quite prepared to sit idly by as he asked the wall for my "drink and food" order.
it's quite a strange thing to have the dank restaurant wall serve as your mediator/medium/chaperone. quite an interesting Shirley Valentine impression i admit. i am just confuse as to my offence. was it the slight stench of beer on my breath? perhaps it was all he could do to not laugh at my motorbike styled hair?
of course i did a quick check about me. legs, elbows knees and toes covered? check. so, dear reader, as confused as i was, dissuaded from the promise of good tandoori, i was not. i sent him off with a tall order and watched him make his way to the open kitchen about 20 meters straight ahead of me.
it was then that the game changed because as soon as he was behind the kitchen counter, he joined the rank and file in their very open, very glaring (did i mention the lighting?) staring down of me from the safety of their barracks. if i was the pariah, he was the piranha.
it was war. no more miss apologetically sitting in the quiet corner while country and western stares me and my western (I'm from crazy Africa fool)morality down. no sireeeeeeee. i come from a country that knows how to bring about bullies with peaceful protest. dang, I'll even take a Bay leaf out of Gandhi's book if i have to.
I knew the food would come quicker than I could say "game on", but i had a plan to eat every grain and mouth at every morsel like a mime artist in freeze frame, a tableau on a "go slow". and if you want a staring competition, i have my third eye all primed and ready. i am not your worthy opponent, i am your commander in (mis)chief.
And so it came to pass that every stare was met with even longer stalling and stuttering of limbs. He brings my wall the bill before the steam even cools on my chicken and i, in turn, choose to not know my right from my left. So that, with every slight of my right hand in favour of my harem left, his stares are shot down with shame. ag shame, see the worry in my eye.
Gradually i tire of the tedious combat, but never the war. I use my gravy-stained fingers to fish out the money I owe and leave the change " i wish to see in the world " lying in the bill folder. And with my eyes firmly fixed to the wall as i march past him, i direct one final thought his way...."Yes, Mustafah, my money is dirty but then so are your eyes. And by the way, Kenny Rogers called and he wants his shirt back".
And that my friends is why you should never pick a fight with a cat when her hair is up.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
cat eats humble parotha pie
dear reader...
i am sorry for having left you without word for so long
be it for an ashram, a long bus trip, even a sandy sarong
you are worth more than my time
even more than a well constructed rhyme
so please, dear reader, do forgive and forget
for i promise to love (and leave you) for a long time yet
c
be it for an ashram, a long bus trip, even a sandy sarong
you are worth more than my time
even more than a well constructed rhyme
so please, dear reader, do forgive and forget
for i promise to love (and leave you) for a long time yet
c
A headline for my journo friends...
Best India News headline so far... (presumably not posted with tourism bureau's approval)
West Benegal to get arsenic free water by 2012
West Benegal to get arsenic free water by 2012
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
How Cat got her first hot wash
Dear reader
This is not a "Just So" story ( as the title might suggest), but take my word for it happened Just So...
it's week two. i am high on life and yoga asana's in the ashram but after all the squatting, stretching and shoulder stands, i'm in the mood for someone to hunch over my every need and knot. so i book a massage. the famous keralan specialty ayurvedic massage let it be said at the ayurvedic hospital on the ashram property. granted i should have flinched at the idea of a massage in a hospital but hey, i'm all trippy from my morning chant session so i just mantra my way over there and wait patiently (no pun intended here).
i am ushered in by my lady masseuse (it is illegal in India to massage the opposite sex i am told) and gather from our clumsy exchange (remove yes? wait here, this okay?) that this is not going to be a chat session. fine by me.
i don't need indian phrases to tell her that there is no way i am going butt naked but yes okay i'm willing to compromise by wearing the discretionary loin cloth instead. (actually it looks more like a muslin cloth curtain than a respectable pair of disposable knickers. but no mind, i am sure that the smell of ether will make me pass out even if the massage doesnt.)
Let it be said that having a massage at a hospital tends to be more treatment than pleasure.
what i am avoiding telling you is the part that really freaked me out. the room. perhaps i have watched to many movies in my day but i didn't expect to be conjuring up images from the jack the ripper movie era at a hindu ashram in india.
Let me paint the picture a different way. have you ever watched those movies ( in the 16-1800s with the grimy backstreets and dingy surgerical rooms where surgeons operate under low wattage and even lower regard for the patients on their tables? well the image i have is always of the old bearded white surgeon wearing a white shirt covered in blood and some woman dying in childbirth. bad image i know and right now i bet you're asking yourself why am i following this blog. didnt i promise you cheap thrills and the occasional witticism? stick with me here reader, don't pass out.
the room was straight out of that movie set, complete with a massive wooden surgical table (well oiled thanks to the limbs of many) and a surgical trolley crowded with large glass bottles showcasing viscous yellow ointments and tubes running between them. way to authentic for my liking but luckily i had my pranayama (yogic) breathing to keep my mind focused on the green tiles that gripped so clinically to the walls surrounding me. or at least until the ether made me pass out.
to the traumatized mind, the incident (in this case the massage) is only recalled in visual frames, which i shall try to recall...
i was smothered in more oil than a south indian curry. at one point i remember thinking that i was waiting on this plastic chair for my wrestling opponent to challenge me. instead i was placed on the surgical bed and rubbed down but not massaged as such. i recall my knees and elbows being bent back and forth, presumably she was checking that my joints were indeed well oiled.
yes sireeeeeeeee. i was well lubed with no opponent to wrestle.
i think she had the last laugh over my "not completely nude" rule as my loin cloth curtain wasn't drawn in the first place.
And the butt naked truth is that i had to go through this treatment of mind and body manipulation to earn my greatest desire.... a hot wash. those few minutes after the massage, when she left me alone with a bowl of chickpea mush and a large bucket of hot water, were probably the most sacred and sweetest i have experienced in all the weeks of mass participation and ritual in the ashram. i scrubbed myself down like i was edifying myself of desire itself and allowed myself to tingle and drip with a simplicity that only nature allows.
And that, dear reader, is a true tale of how Cat got her first hot wash.
PS> it's funny how things come full circle. as my masseuse was directing me to put my used loin cloth in the bin i suddenly realised what i had been emptying every morning on my daily rounds of bin duty. dirty loin cloths. karma yoga indeed
This is not a "Just So" story ( as the title might suggest), but take my word for it happened Just So...
it's week two. i am high on life and yoga asana's in the ashram but after all the squatting, stretching and shoulder stands, i'm in the mood for someone to hunch over my every need and knot. so i book a massage. the famous keralan specialty ayurvedic massage let it be said at the ayurvedic hospital on the ashram property. granted i should have flinched at the idea of a massage in a hospital but hey, i'm all trippy from my morning chant session so i just mantra my way over there and wait patiently (no pun intended here).
i am ushered in by my lady masseuse (it is illegal in India to massage the opposite sex i am told) and gather from our clumsy exchange (remove yes? wait here, this okay?) that this is not going to be a chat session. fine by me.
i don't need indian phrases to tell her that there is no way i am going butt naked but yes okay i'm willing to compromise by wearing the discretionary loin cloth instead. (actually it looks more like a muslin cloth curtain than a respectable pair of disposable knickers. but no mind, i am sure that the smell of ether will make me pass out even if the massage doesnt.)
Let it be said that having a massage at a hospital tends to be more treatment than pleasure.
what i am avoiding telling you is the part that really freaked me out. the room. perhaps i have watched to many movies in my day but i didn't expect to be conjuring up images from the jack the ripper movie era at a hindu ashram in india.
Let me paint the picture a different way. have you ever watched those movies ( in the 16-1800s with the grimy backstreets and dingy surgerical rooms where surgeons operate under low wattage and even lower regard for the patients on their tables? well the image i have is always of the old bearded white surgeon wearing a white shirt covered in blood and some woman dying in childbirth. bad image i know and right now i bet you're asking yourself why am i following this blog. didnt i promise you cheap thrills and the occasional witticism? stick with me here reader, don't pass out.
the room was straight out of that movie set, complete with a massive wooden surgical table (well oiled thanks to the limbs of many) and a surgical trolley crowded with large glass bottles showcasing viscous yellow ointments and tubes running between them. way to authentic for my liking but luckily i had my pranayama (yogic) breathing to keep my mind focused on the green tiles that gripped so clinically to the walls surrounding me. or at least until the ether made me pass out.
to the traumatized mind, the incident (in this case the massage) is only recalled in visual frames, which i shall try to recall...
i was smothered in more oil than a south indian curry. at one point i remember thinking that i was waiting on this plastic chair for my wrestling opponent to challenge me. instead i was placed on the surgical bed and rubbed down but not massaged as such. i recall my knees and elbows being bent back and forth, presumably she was checking that my joints were indeed well oiled.
yes sireeeeeeeee. i was well lubed with no opponent to wrestle.
i think she had the last laugh over my "not completely nude" rule as my loin cloth curtain wasn't drawn in the first place.
And the butt naked truth is that i had to go through this treatment of mind and body manipulation to earn my greatest desire.... a hot wash. those few minutes after the massage, when she left me alone with a bowl of chickpea mush and a large bucket of hot water, were probably the most sacred and sweetest i have experienced in all the weeks of mass participation and ritual in the ashram. i scrubbed myself down like i was edifying myself of desire itself and allowed myself to tingle and drip with a simplicity that only nature allows.
And that, dear reader, is a true tale of how Cat got her first hot wash.
PS> it's funny how things come full circle. as my masseuse was directing me to put my used loin cloth in the bin i suddenly realised what i had been emptying every morning on my daily rounds of bin duty. dirty loin cloths. karma yoga indeed
Saturday, November 1, 2008
AAAAshram
Dear reader i have become a fugitive. just for you.
i have scaled the ashram walls and outwitted the docile blonde lions (no joke. there is a lion park next to the ashram with real "native" Indian lions so they say but in reality they sound more like the MGM variety...Bollywood style) just to send you word of my wellbeing and whereabouts.
i am sure i don't stick out with my panama hat(slowly woven in panama, quickly unweaving in India) and RayBan retros. I am wearing an authentic Indian shirt..i got it at the oriental plaza. genuine. So cover your screens dear reader for only you can know where i will spend the next two weeks....living under my new name (Swami Balmy) at at the Sivananda, high in the lush hills of Kerala province. (but a great deal further from reality i gather).
To be honest, ( and i must because right now i need the karma points) it is only my imagination which runs amok in these humid hills. i have neither the time nor energy to go anywhere that requires legs. But how rude of me. i haven't even given you a tour of my ashram. forgive me if i do it zombie style as my body has recently started confusing sweating with sleeping so that by the time the 5.20am gong chimes in the trees i don't exactly feel like rising from Sealy Posturpedic advert right.
Routine is key here. Nothing changes. the food is the same, the schedule is the same. the yoga is the same And i think that's the point. when everything stays the same, the change must come from within. do not look to changing your external environment as this may not happen as you want. The only thing you can change is your internal environment (and especially your attitude) the short of it is that we have a long, unshakable daily schedule:
5.20...wake up
6-7.30...satsun (meditation and chanting)
7.30 ...tea (literally...no Ouma biscuits!)
8-10...yoga
10 ...brunch
11-12...karma yoga (chores. i take the trash to the land fill up the road and fend off the cats (small ones. not lions))
12-2 ...free time (guess what hour i write.)
1.30..tea (literally. again.)
2-3.30... lecture time
3.30-5.30... yoga session
6...dinner
8-9.30... satsun (see above)
10.30... lights out (actually you pass out way before that. until the heat or gong wakes you)
And yes dear reader, by no flight of the imagination (or Flight of the Concords) there is absolutely no "business time" here. there is actually some recycling. but that is not part of the foreplay. we are, after all, one universal Ohm of energy and light. we sway and chant as one. (partly because we are all so tired and about to fall over).
i had one surreal experience. It took place during afternoon yoga. Shiva, Kali, Lakshmi were all there, staring down at me from the 4-meter high vantage point on the walls. And i was mid shoulder stand, feeling insignificant. both for the fact that i was dwarfed (just for you Max) but the size and stature of this great hall and also because I am just me... not a mythological God
preserved in bright psychedelic pinks and drinking out of a trunk. so there i was, mid shoulder stand. sleep deprived. the blood rushing to my head, but suddenly the ceiling came rushing towards me. I swear, before it was 10 meters away and now my legs were coming out of it (like one of those 3-D posters from the 90s but with the colours of the 80s) and all their animals and arms were looking down on me trying to send me a message. Of course i wasn't in any position not to. I was upside down and vulnerable. so naturally i indicated in my trained yogi way that i very much wanted to hear what they were saying. so i decided to come down from my blood rushed position to increase my chances of remembering. which i did. but not so slowly. which meant that I released a queef (google friend) along with my posture. i think this offended them because they never told me the secret to life or even how to come down from a shoulder stand without said queef escaping..... the end.... and that, dear reader, may or may not be a true story. i told you that my mind is given to wandering when my body cant.
now i must go dear reader. the tea gong is about to sound and i must honour my stomach as much as my "contract". i will be missing in yogic action for a few days but will check in with you as soon as my limbs will allow.
Namaste to you all...
i have scaled the ashram walls and outwitted the docile blonde lions (no joke. there is a lion park next to the ashram with real "native" Indian lions so they say but in reality they sound more like the MGM variety...Bollywood style) just to send you word of my wellbeing and whereabouts.
i am sure i don't stick out with my panama hat(slowly woven in panama, quickly unweaving in India) and RayBan retros. I am wearing an authentic Indian shirt..i got it at the oriental plaza. genuine. So cover your screens dear reader for only you can know where i will spend the next two weeks....living under my new name (Swami Balmy) at at the Sivananda, high in the lush hills of Kerala province. (but a great deal further from reality i gather).
To be honest, ( and i must because right now i need the karma points) it is only my imagination which runs amok in these humid hills. i have neither the time nor energy to go anywhere that requires legs. But how rude of me. i haven't even given you a tour of my ashram. forgive me if i do it zombie style as my body has recently started confusing sweating with sleeping so that by the time the 5.20am gong chimes in the trees i don't exactly feel like rising from Sealy Posturpedic advert right.
Routine is key here. Nothing changes. the food is the same, the schedule is the same. the yoga is the same And i think that's the point. when everything stays the same, the change must come from within. do not look to changing your external environment as this may not happen as you want. The only thing you can change is your internal environment (and especially your attitude) the short of it is that we have a long, unshakable daily schedule:
5.20...wake up
6-7.30...satsun (meditation and chanting)
7.30 ...tea (literally...no Ouma biscuits!)
8-10...yoga
10 ...brunch
11-12...karma yoga (chores. i take the trash to the land fill up the road and fend off the cats (small ones. not lions))
12-2 ...free time (guess what hour i write.)
1.30..tea (literally. again.)
2-3.30... lecture time
3.30-5.30... yoga session
6...dinner
8-9.30... satsun (see above)
10.30... lights out (actually you pass out way before that. until the heat or gong wakes you)
And yes dear reader, by no flight of the imagination (or Flight of the Concords) there is absolutely no "business time" here. there is actually some recycling. but that is not part of the foreplay. we are, after all, one universal Ohm of energy and light. we sway and chant as one. (partly because we are all so tired and about to fall over).
i had one surreal experience. It took place during afternoon yoga. Shiva, Kali, Lakshmi were all there, staring down at me from the 4-meter high vantage point on the walls. And i was mid shoulder stand, feeling insignificant. both for the fact that i was dwarfed (just for you Max) but the size and stature of this great hall and also because I am just me... not a mythological God
preserved in bright psychedelic pinks and drinking out of a trunk. so there i was, mid shoulder stand. sleep deprived. the blood rushing to my head, but suddenly the ceiling came rushing towards me. I swear, before it was 10 meters away and now my legs were coming out of it (like one of those 3-D posters from the 90s but with the colours of the 80s) and all their animals and arms were looking down on me trying to send me a message. Of course i wasn't in any position not to. I was upside down and vulnerable. so naturally i indicated in my trained yogi way that i very much wanted to hear what they were saying. so i decided to come down from my blood rushed position to increase my chances of remembering. which i did. but not so slowly. which meant that I released a queef (google friend) along with my posture. i think this offended them because they never told me the secret to life or even how to come down from a shoulder stand without said queef escaping..... the end.... and that, dear reader, may or may not be a true story. i told you that my mind is given to wandering when my body cant.
now i must go dear reader. the tea gong is about to sound and i must honour my stomach as much as my "contract". i will be missing in yogic action for a few days but will check in with you as soon as my limbs will allow.
Namaste to you all...
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