it is clear that the ticket office at the railway station is a highly respect-worthy place to be because everyone (all the men) are wearing very clean, well-ironed shirts tucked into very clean, well-ironed trousers. nobody wears anything but sandels here. first i struggled to see the order in the jostling crowd so i too began to jostle close
to the desk but then somebody gave me a gentle tap and indicated the back of the jostling queue and i realised that you couldn't just jostle anywhere you wanted and that there was such a thing as a back of the queue and a front of the queue. only after an hour of queue was i told that i needed my passport to reserve a train ticket and two days later after only something slightly less than an hour was i told that i should in fact submit a photocopy of my passport. having procured that across the road in a matter of minutes, i hovered near the desk again feeling reluctant to jostle but feeling reluctant to return to the back of the self-replenishing queue, my eyes looked into the watery blue eyes - amid a sea of dark glistening indian eyes - of a woman who indicated that i could jump in in front of her "you don't want to go to the back again" her husband went off to get the
passport photocopies they had found out from me were requisite. the woman had blonde hair and showed a stoical composure, underlain with a sense of humour. she gave a half-roll of her eyes"it is mayhem buying a
railway ticket" . it didn't take me long to realise which part of the world she was from as i talked more she asked me where i was from..."oh aye, i know buckie, i used to holiday up there. i'm from edinburgh"
so that was it; i had a ticket to Mangalore for the next day. 8 hours to Bangalore then a further 10 hours to Mangalore. it felt good to soon be moving again - covering distance, crossing the land, eyes open to see the new sights in india. Sadhana Forest has been a special place to spend time, for two weeks and ten days, but it is a little international pocket within india and my desire to travel is high. i have found out about another ecovillage - this one in the mountains of Karnataka, composed of devotees of Hare Krishna. their diet is also vegetarian. they also do not eat eggs but they drink the milk and eat the cheese from Mother cow.
i had so much energy after buying the train ticket in pondicherry. i stopped and bought a fresh blended grapejuice from the fruitjuice stall then spun my way fast fast up the slope out of town back to sadhana. it felt like i was a child again, playing micromachines on the sega mega drive. i was pedalling as fast as i could overtaking some of the little mopeds trilling my bicycle bell to let everyone know that i was coming up behind them, never looking behind me when overtaking because if anybody was going to overtake they in turn would
honk their horn. out of town all the people waiting for buses at the side of the road saw a blur of blue LA lakers basketball vest and shorts, as opposed to trousers and a shirt - enough to make their eyes linger on
the spectacle of me - not to mention my curly black hair and big round spectacles at the top of my tall body. a linger-worthy spectacle speeding past on a big bike - triing, trriing! - on a hill on which most people only go slowly or get off and push. indian bicycles have only one gear.
then i don't know where my energy went. i was on the cooking shift from 3 to 6pm, chopping up tomatoes, onions, potatoes, garlic, carrots, pumpkin in our team of six, helping bruce the kiwi remove the massive black pan from the fire stove, draining off the tatties then making mash by him adding ladlefuls of tahini while i slowly stirred with my biceps. i was using an oversized whisk but no whisking motion possible quantities are gargantuan. a more than fifty strong community. these cooking activities kept my energy necessarily lively, although i could feel it was draining. but as soon as the pre-dinner half-hour's mediation commenced in the main hall - forming part of a global meditation to mark the twelfth of the twelfth of the twelfth, as Bhavya the girl from Delhi explained - i instead slunk off to my bed and became dead. in the sense that i did not want to move my body at all, apart from occasionally twitching my fingers and toes. all energy had been robbed of me. my thoughts are still active, i thought, while my body is immobile, as good as dead as regards ability to move. the night went on and on and i had to walk like a zombie to the pit latrines many times, passing ghostily beneath the silhouetted banana fronds and papaya fronds and the fronds of the trees whose name i do not know, for reasons that pharmacies in pondicherry (where i had been buying diahorrea redydration sachets) will know about.
the next morning i continued to walk around like a zombie, soberly reflecting that i wanted to catch the mangalore express that afternoon, soberly reflecting that i didn't have enough energy to wash my bed sheets so how could i walk the two kilometres to the road to catch the bus to pondi? then Sharon the german volunteer rubbed peppermint oil on my forehead, to draw away the pain...painkillers will only remove the symptoms of the headache, not the cause, but wow, miracle painkillers - give them to me anyway. and people who saw me
smiled to me "i hope you feel better soon" that must have done the trick because after slumbering the morning away, i woke up and felt that the oppressive cloud of weakness had been lifted and i was able to wash my sheets and take the books back to the library and pack my bag and at lunch time in the main hall i told everyone i was leaving and left a little sadhana forest notebook for anyone to leave their contact details. i said "but i have the feeling that i will be back. sadhana has been a very special experience for me. thank you all for your good looks and i thank the Universe for everything. i recognise the divine in all of you. Namaskar" - palms placed together in prayerful posture.
english Natasha - who has lived in Barcelona for 18 years said to me "you are a bit of a dreamer carson...just watch out" i wanted to ask her "watch out for what?" but i didn't have time i had to get the train. Sam gave me a moped lift along the dusty track to big road, slowing down in the village to avoid the potholes and young dogs and infant goats and hens and naked toddling children. sam who had said "when your body is ill your whole being is unwell...you need to go through that state to experience healing, and renewal and rebirth". sam with the long hair and yogic consciousness and the beatific eyes. sam from new york. "peace be with you brother. we should hang out more extensively sometime" we hugged and it felt good to be reborn.
then i hitched a lift into pondi.
to the desk but then somebody gave me a gentle tap and indicated the back of the jostling queue and i realised that you couldn't just jostle anywhere you wanted and that there was such a thing as a back of the queue and a front of the queue. only after an hour of queue was i told that i needed my passport to reserve a train ticket and two days later after only something slightly less than an hour was i told that i should in fact submit a photocopy of my passport. having procured that across the road in a matter of minutes, i hovered near the desk again feeling reluctant to jostle but feeling reluctant to return to the back of the self-replenishing queue, my eyes looked into the watery blue eyes - amid a sea of dark glistening indian eyes - of a woman who indicated that i could jump in in front of her "you don't want to go to the back again" her husband went off to get the
passport photocopies they had found out from me were requisite. the woman had blonde hair and showed a stoical composure, underlain with a sense of humour. she gave a half-roll of her eyes"it is mayhem buying a
railway ticket" . it didn't take me long to realise which part of the world she was from as i talked more she asked me where i was from..."oh aye, i know buckie, i used to holiday up there. i'm from edinburgh"
so that was it; i had a ticket to Mangalore for the next day. 8 hours to Bangalore then a further 10 hours to Mangalore. it felt good to soon be moving again - covering distance, crossing the land, eyes open to see the new sights in india. Sadhana Forest has been a special place to spend time, for two weeks and ten days, but it is a little international pocket within india and my desire to travel is high. i have found out about another ecovillage - this one in the mountains of Karnataka, composed of devotees of Hare Krishna. their diet is also vegetarian. they also do not eat eggs but they drink the milk and eat the cheese from Mother cow.
i had so much energy after buying the train ticket in pondicherry. i stopped and bought a fresh blended grapejuice from the fruitjuice stall then spun my way fast fast up the slope out of town back to sadhana. it felt like i was a child again, playing micromachines on the sega mega drive. i was pedalling as fast as i could overtaking some of the little mopeds trilling my bicycle bell to let everyone know that i was coming up behind them, never looking behind me when overtaking because if anybody was going to overtake they in turn would
honk their horn. out of town all the people waiting for buses at the side of the road saw a blur of blue LA lakers basketball vest and shorts, as opposed to trousers and a shirt - enough to make their eyes linger on
the spectacle of me - not to mention my curly black hair and big round spectacles at the top of my tall body. a linger-worthy spectacle speeding past on a big bike - triing, trriing! - on a hill on which most people only go slowly or get off and push. indian bicycles have only one gear.
then i don't know where my energy went. i was on the cooking shift from 3 to 6pm, chopping up tomatoes, onions, potatoes, garlic, carrots, pumpkin in our team of six, helping bruce the kiwi remove the massive black pan from the fire stove, draining off the tatties then making mash by him adding ladlefuls of tahini while i slowly stirred with my biceps. i was using an oversized whisk but no whisking motion possible quantities are gargantuan. a more than fifty strong community. these cooking activities kept my energy necessarily lively, although i could feel it was draining. but as soon as the pre-dinner half-hour's mediation commenced in the main hall - forming part of a global meditation to mark the twelfth of the twelfth of the twelfth, as Bhavya the girl from Delhi explained - i instead slunk off to my bed and became dead. in the sense that i did not want to move my body at all, apart from occasionally twitching my fingers and toes. all energy had been robbed of me. my thoughts are still active, i thought, while my body is immobile, as good as dead as regards ability to move. the night went on and on and i had to walk like a zombie to the pit latrines many times, passing ghostily beneath the silhouetted banana fronds and papaya fronds and the fronds of the trees whose name i do not know, for reasons that pharmacies in pondicherry (where i had been buying diahorrea redydration sachets) will know about.
the next morning i continued to walk around like a zombie, soberly reflecting that i wanted to catch the mangalore express that afternoon, soberly reflecting that i didn't have enough energy to wash my bed sheets so how could i walk the two kilometres to the road to catch the bus to pondi? then Sharon the german volunteer rubbed peppermint oil on my forehead, to draw away the pain...painkillers will only remove the symptoms of the headache, not the cause, but wow, miracle painkillers - give them to me anyway. and people who saw me
smiled to me "i hope you feel better soon" that must have done the trick because after slumbering the morning away, i woke up and felt that the oppressive cloud of weakness had been lifted and i was able to wash my sheets and take the books back to the library and pack my bag and at lunch time in the main hall i told everyone i was leaving and left a little sadhana forest notebook for anyone to leave their contact details. i said "but i have the feeling that i will be back. sadhana has been a very special experience for me. thank you all for your good looks and i thank the Universe for everything. i recognise the divine in all of you. Namaskar" - palms placed together in prayerful posture.
english Natasha - who has lived in Barcelona for 18 years said to me "you are a bit of a dreamer carson...just watch out" i wanted to ask her "watch out for what?" but i didn't have time i had to get the train. Sam gave me a moped lift along the dusty track to big road, slowing down in the village to avoid the potholes and young dogs and infant goats and hens and naked toddling children. sam who had said "when your body is ill your whole being is unwell...you need to go through that state to experience healing, and renewal and rebirth". sam with the long hair and yogic consciousness and the beatific eyes. sam from new york. "peace be with you brother. we should hang out more extensively sometime" we hugged and it felt good to be reborn.
then i hitched a lift into pondi.
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