You’ve completed 200 hours of teacher training, mastered flying crow pose and even spent a week at yoga surf camp. What’s next? Yogis seeking transcontinental bliss head these days to Mysore, the City of Palaces.

At the Mysore Sanskrit College. This photograph is in the Yogasana room, where Sri Krishnamacharya taught Yoga. This college premises belong to the Mysore palace.

I recently watched this film again, may be for the 100th time. Every time someone watches this film, they always tell me what a nut case Timothy Treadwell was and nothing more. Yet to me, this is a fascinating film. Werner Herzog is such a brave director to have made this film even though the first reaction for most people is that Timothy is just a madman.

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I realize how precious my knees are, every single time I get hurt. My left knee hurts so bad that I cannot do any ’serious’ yoga. I mean the typical western vinyasa flow with tons of warrior poses. Western vinyasa flow is what I normally practice, if my knees were any good. Now I am practicing ‘mild’ yoga to heal my knee. It is so ironic that my knee got hurt while practicing yoga. I should correct it, I got hurt while doing yoga mindlessly. Led by a famous teacher in an ashram in India along with 250 people. It happened 10 months ago and it still hounds me. It took a long time to heal while I was in India and I reached a stage where I could actually practice Mysore style astanga. I was doing good for a while, I had forgotten all about the knee pain or that I was injured so recently. The knee injury resurfaced back in the last few days, when I was in a hurry to get back to my daily practice. Now, all I think of is my knee. I know it hurts every single millisecond.

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Indian Railways has been one of my highlights traveling in India. For most part, the trains were on time and it was way cheaper than traveling by bus, with the exception of Shatabdi. Shatabdi was an especially nice train, with great views. Non-stop from Mysore to Bangalore in less than two hours!

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This is Bhagiratha, a king who did tapas to bring Ganga to earth. He did one tapas after another to bring Ganga down, as there were so many hurdles on his way. He is a king and his ancestors had been turned to ashes by a sage. Bhagiratha wanted to bring them back to life and the only way to do that was to ask Ganga to flow over the ashes.

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In Bangalore,  load shedding means power or electricity cuts. Most people in Bangalore do not depend on electricity at all. By this I mean, if there is electricity, fine. If not, it is still okay. While I was traveling in Kerala, people would tell me about the power cut of 30 minutes, like it was a big deal. I did not bother to tell them I can live without electricity, after all I have lived in Bangalore where a 5 hour cut is not abnormal. Now that it is time for me to move, I have to deal with a different type of load shedding. I have to face the difficult question of what books I need to take with me. I have only so much space for a very few books. Every time I move, I have to face the downsizing. Even though I have done it a few times, it is still tough every single time.

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The more I think about it, I should not have been so shocked about it in the first place. For the signs were all there, it had just not registered somehow or subconsciously I had hoped India was above all this. But, no. India adores white people. I cannot find a font size to get the word adores highlighted adequately. So, I will just let it go.

White people are actually mini celebrities especially in places like Kerala. The way Indians gush while speaking to the white people is sickening to the stomach. I was always aware that fair skin is what is considered beautiful. I remember having conversations with my male friends in my teens that they wanted to marry a girl so fair and had a complexion like cheese. I always wished them they would find their cheesy girl. I somehow thought in 2009, such things would have gone away. I was taken aback to what extent it is practiced by common Indians everywhere.

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I have been vagabonding for the last seven months. Been checking out places, taking courses and visiting ashrams. I travel with a backpack which is a day pack. It is small but is quite sufficient for me. I carry a laptop, camera, a few clothes, toiletries, a pair of slippers, a few books and a yoga mat.

Actually this is all I possess right now. I do have some more books, a sleeping bag and a suitcase  which I will pick up later from storage. The most expensive thing I have in my life right now is a laptop. (more…)