Post de photos.

Ugadi

Today is Ugadi, southern India's new year's day based on the Hindu lunar calendar. It's supposedly a very festive day, but I haven't seen much of that yet. I think it's more family dinner festive than make-noise-in-the-streets festive. One thing I have noticed is that the Kolam and Rangoli are in full effect today. Kolam and Rangoli are two forms of Indian art. Kolam is drawn by women in front of their homes every morning using rice powder and looks like this:

Different Kolam patterns have different meanings and blessings they are supposed to bestow on the homes they are in front of. A book of Kolam patterns I found in a local bookstore contained a pattern that was supposed to bring riches in the form of 1000 times the amount of the coin held while drawing the pattern. Considering the largest coin in India is 5 rupees (about ten cents), that means the "riches" can only amount to about $100. This is comparatively weak sauce coming from a religion whose gods include a flying monkey with bulging quadriceps and a four-armed humanoid elephant.

The other art form, Rangoli, is more colorful:

I have nothing funny to say about Rangoli. It's just very pretty.

The "German" who was Wiki-ing T. Rex* that I mentioned a few posts ago is back in action. This time I've figured out that he's not German but rather some breed of Scandinavian. Two nights ago he was on Skype at the same internet cafe as me and I heard him say "Glerpin shlerpin foobdee derple Guns 'n' Roses ger doffle Welcome to the Jungle farple!" and then proceed to shamelessly wail "Welcome to the jungle! Shanananannana kneees! kneees!"



*The dinosaur, not the band.

Thank yourself for reading this blog today.

During practice today, I was wriggling my way into Gharba Pindasana when my 67 year-old teacher Saraswathi's cell phone rang. In Gharba Pindasana, once you're in full lotus with your arms jammed into your legs and your head in your hands, you hold the pose for five breaths and then roll up and down on your rounded back while spinning in a circle. This requires some kind of core strength that I am yet to have, so usually Saraswathi helps me by lightly holding both of my knees and rocking me back and forth. This time she was only holding one of my knees at first because her other hand was tied up holding her cell phone. She was speaking Kannada to whoever was on the other end, but from the tone of her voice it sounded like the kind of pleasant, funny conversation that is the product of a long-term friendship between two mothers whose children have grown up together. I was already smiling a little at the situation, but when her face assumed a this-is-not-working-at-all expression and she said the Kannada equivalent of "Hold on a sec" and put the phone down to use both hands on me, I started laughing and she laughed with me through the whole contorted 360 degrees of rocking. On top of all of this the experience was very blurry because I recently started practicing without glasses or contacts.

The fact that she not only had her phone in the shala with the ringer on during morning practice, but answered it and spoke loudly into it while continuing to adjust and help students is an example of what I love about studying yoga here. At the end of my practice I am not told by a soft-spoken ponytailed schmo to, "Thank [myself] for making time for class today." At the very most, as I exit the shala I will hear, "You! Tomorrow coming 7:30!"

And now... pictures:

Photos, part deux.

I went to Mysore's Devaraja market yesterday for the third or fourth time.

picture post v1.0

I uploaded more but I'm getting tired of copying and pasting the Flickr URLs. Just click here for my Flickr site.