Blondie in India- Part 1

Ah India, where to start? Unfortunately all of my pictures from the first 5 days that I was in Mumbai by myself were lost. So I don’t have any pictorial evidence of being there, but please believe that this was the hardest time that I spent in India. I was constantly bombarded with people, mostly children, begging for 5 rupees which is approximately 10 American cents. I have never been faced with amount of poverty that I saw in Mumbai. From the minute I got off the plane, there were hoards of people around me at all times asking for money or just staring at me. There are very few western people in India to begin with, and a blond American female traveling by herself is an extreme rarity. So I was the receiver of much unwanted attention. While traveling, people would reach out to touch me as I was walking by or even in the car. I am assuming it was just to see if I was real, but it was quite unnerving at first. It took me quite a few days to get used to that level of attention from everyone.
Also quite prevalent is the idea that since I am a westerner, I must have money coming out of my ears. So every person I ran into seemed to want either baksheesh (tips or handouts) or charge about 3 times too much for the goods they were trying to sell me. As I did most of my shopping in the 5 days that I was on my own, I got quite good at bargaining with people. Although I usually ended up spending a bit more than an Indian would, both parties were usually happy with the transaction. In between shopping trips I went to a couple tourist attractions, such as Elephanta Island, which in true Indian fashion holds nothing even resembling an elephant anywhere on the island.
I learned quite a few things about Indian culture during my short time on my own. One is, if a woman makes eye contact with a man that means she must be looking for a good time. Another is that if you are a blond female, they assume you are looking for a good time whether you look at them or not. I attempted to blend in at first by wearing some Indian clothes that covered my shoulders and showed no leg, but that didn’t seem to change anything. So finally I just accepted the fact that everyone was going to stare. Then I became a lot happier with the whole situation.
When I finally was becoming more comfortable with Mumbai and all the chaos that was involved there, it was time to go to the ashram. I was glad to be starting my adventure in yoga.
Here is a picture I took from the bus on my way to the ashram. He seemed to me like the James Dean of India.

These women were filling bags of dirt by hand to transport to the other side of the road that was being built to dump in a pile. This gives manual labor a whole new meaning.

When I finally made it to the ashram after a day of travel, this “OM” sign in Sanskrit on the side of the mountain served as an excellent welcome and entrance into the world of yoga.

This is the entrance to the ashram.

My home for the next month and my new roommate, Natalie.

The view from the ashram before the rainy season started.

On our first day at the ashram we were given a presentation by some of the people who would be teaching us yoga. Some of them were quite reminiscent of Gumby.



He makes it look so comfortable!

This is Hansraji, a volunteer who had just taken the teacher training course the month previous. I was a bit nervous that we would be expected to perform this asana by the end of the month. Asanas are what most westerners know as yoga. They are the different positions that you attain and hold. The other aspects of yoga which are not commonly taught are pranayama (deep breathing), karma yoga (doing good things without the expectation of reward), meditation, and chanting. All of these things are done for the common goal of attaining Samadhi, or the union of self with the universe. They are just different vehicles used to get to the same place in your understanding.

This is Gandhar, our teacher and son of the ashram guru.

Now it was our turn: Everyone get into a pretzel!

In the first week, a few others and I walked down the street to the small town that was near us. As this was a farming community, we saw plenty of cows and people trying to till their land and get it ready for the rains which were coming soon.

Also, when the neighborhood kids saw us coming, they ran out from their houses and started asking for photos. They do not have cameras and loved being in photos, so we gladly obliged.


Then they wanted to take the pictures, so I nervously handed over my camera to the girl. To my surprise, she was actually a pretty good photographer.



Weekly we would get one day off to go into a nearby city, Nashik, which holds about 1 million people and importantly at least one internet café. We would do a little shopping, internet surfing, and eat some forbidden food, including chocolate, meat, and coffee or tea.
This is what I encountered at the markets.




Here is one of the guys I was hanging out with for the day, Jeff. He was trying to get a little sunscreen protection, since the sun was so intense. Of course, all the locals were staring at us like we were aliens, slathering some sort of weird salve over our pasty-white bodies. It is strange that most of the skin care products sold in India are for skin whitening, while pasty-white Westerners are always trying to get more tan. Life is ironic.

This vendor was selling fish straight out of the water next to him, which he had just cut the heads off of. There were flies and blood and guts everywhere. You can just imagine how pleasant it smelled.

This is a great example of how the cows in India basically run the place. They share the same food, water, and land rights as humans. They are free to wander wherever they please. They have no owners, and are revered as holy animals. People often will feed them scraps for good karma. The cars in India will not stop for bikes, other cars, pedestrians, or other animals, but they will come to a dead stop for a cow. It is very interesting to see the difference in treatment from the rest of the world, which only sees cows as hamburgers waiting to be eaten.

This girl is drinking the same water that she just washed her clothes in, which the cows live next to, people throw their trash in, and everyone uses as a toilet.

My travel companions for the day.

One of the many statues of Ganesha, the remover of obstacles.



This end of the first couple weeks in India. By this time I was getting quite used to taking a shower out of a bucket of cold water, observing silence during meals, and doing yoga for 4 hours a day. After the second week at the ashram the rains started. It seemed that the heavens opened up and started throwing huge buckets of water down to earth with gusty winds added in just for fun. You will see the landscape change before your eyes in the next post.
Hari Om,
Anna