The Simple Things

I’ve been having a good time, relaxing, surfing, diving in to ‘lake me’ and whatnot but the really special moments so far have been a couple of afternoon cricket games with some boys from the village. India is cricket crazy at the moment with the multi-billion dollar IPL but the grass roots passion for the game rather than the corporate dollars are what make it so.

Shyama Kunda, Rassica, Diki and I took a stroll to the village cricket field a few days ago as the scorching sun was beginning to cool. Word got round that a foreigner was in town so some of Kolechi Kamla’s finest soon emerged and everyone agreed that I was the spitting image of Ryan Sidebottom (which I can’t see myself – I guess we look all the same).

Conjuring up the spirit of a Flintoff-esque all rounder I hit some 14 year-olds for six and bowled some un-playable in-swingers – partly due to the high moisture content in the air and partly due to the tennis ball bouncing wildly off the recently ploughed pitch – arousing cries of “bowl, bowl!” on occasion, but even that herculean performance wasn’t enough to save us from losing both matches. To be frank, the local lads were pretty darn good!

About ready to collapse in my own personal sweat-lagoon, we retired to the lagoon proper for a post match sunset bath. Walking back for dinner I was exhausted with an aching bowling arm and cut feet, but I felt a tangible sense of contentment having connected with village life in a small way.

The Ashram Aspect

The place I’m staying is a Krishna Temple / Ashram. The Krishna Consciousness devotees who live and run this place are part of a bigger organization lead by their guru Bhakti Gaurava Narasingha Maharaja and they have another Ashram in Mysoor and are opening one in Switzerland and are looking to do another surf-oriented one in the Seychelles – and it’s no coincidence that it’s a tax haven over there, these guys are businessmen. The Ashram has many businesses to generate income to support it’s activities and the elders in the community (Americans predominantly) tend to have their own business interests ranging from farming to mining, from import/export to surfboard manufacture, from web development to property development. There’s no conflict between earning money and being spiritual in Hindu life, rather the opposite. Krishna is, after all, the wealthiest, prettiest, strongest, most powerful entity and boy does he like to show it!

They get up at about 5am and meditate privately from 5.30am till 6.30am at which time the conch is blown and the fun begins. We meet in the small temple room and various melodic chants are sung accompanied by a mrudanga drum, bells and cymbals all culminating in bellowed rounds of Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna as the swaying sometimes spills over into dancing… at 6.30 in the morning! I’m slowly becoming more comfortable with all this strange, dazzling ritual. My body is softening to it as it becomes less alien to me. From my stiff, awkward, repressed-English-male demeanor to begin with I’ve loosened from uneasy stock-still silence to a sort of mumble-hum and a sway. At times now when I know the words I’ve sung my little heart out accompanied by full on Uncle-at-a-wedding style dancing…. Sweet.

I figure if I’m staying in this kind of environment I should live it, so I join in most morning’s and evenings. I haven’t broken free of the shackles of my false-ego to live forever with the divine… yet. But chanting Hare Krishna is apparently the fastest way to achieving this breakthrough in the current era, so we’ll see. If you notice a funny glint in my eye when I next see you, you’ll know the source.

The surf has picked up over the last few days – head high, fast and hollow peeling down the sandbanks deposited by the river with the surface almost unnervingly smooth making it hard to judge the pitch of the waves as they sweep toward shore. It’s breaking in waist high water and sometimes barreling, sometimes closing out so a mouth & shorts full of sand is a regular occurrence. I haven’t been able to take my camera across the lagoon to capture any of this magic so you’ll have to take my word for it.

The schedule

The surf has been picking up steadily all week. We tend to make the paddle across the lagoon at about 7.30am to either Baba’s left or Water Tower and get back for a very late, well-earned and heartily appreciated breakfast at about 11am or even 12pm. At about this time the land heats up and the pressure difference draws the air from cooler sea to land creating on onshore breeze which messes the surf up a bit.

This morning we paddled down the lagoon to the river mouth to the south and crossed over to a spot called Swami’s (the Ashram have named all these breaks a couple of years ago as no-one else had previously surfed them ) where we had a good session in shoulder high, but pretty powerful waves which without even a breath of wind were as clean as they come. The paddle back, against the river current , took thirty muscle-burning, energy sapping minutes after a two hour session, but the lure of lopping the top off a fresh coconut to drink the cooling brew within kept us focused. It’s amazing to be the only people on this 60 mile stretch of picture postcard tropical beach aside from the odd heavy goods vehicle wandering by with a load on top of her head. It’s also great fun surfing with the kids from the Ashram: Satya, Shyama & Diksheet as they whoop, scream, sing Hare Krishna and bizarrely make meow noises as they take off and wipe out, consciously aware that they are probably amongst a handful of Indian boys – most of whom they know – surfing this whole sub-continent.


I finally succumbed to the lure of the longi (?). I cast aside my prejudices, quelled my cynicism, conquered my English reserve and bought the 2m strip of cloth and learned the wrap-round technique to keep it from falling…. And boy does it feel good. So much cooler than shorts clinging about your thighs, to have a bit of erm... freedom in that area encouraging a breeze about your bits is a joy to behold.

First Taste

Here I am in my room at the Ashram with the fan furiously blowing hot air around me. I'm lucky that I arrived in a cool spell after the first rains of the approaching monsoon season. Still it's 32º and humid all day and all night. The Ashram sits on the shores of a lagoon which promises respite from the swelter but a leap off the jetty is rewarded with a slightly warmer, slightly wetter sensation than on land. The better recourse is to draw a bucket of water from the well in the garden and douse yourself in it's invigorating contents.

The surf, not epic but building day by day, is reached by a 20 minute paddle across the lagoon then a short walk across a sand spit to the Arabian Sea to Baba's Left. The sea is warm and the only crowd in the water, or even on this huge sandy beach, are the crowd you go with from the Ashram – which so far means Dustin (a SoCal devotee living at the Ashram), Krishna Priya (wife of the top dog – i think that's the correct Hindu term...), Satya & Shyama (two krishna kids from the Ashram) and David (the only other guest here, from San Fran).

The most profound, spiritually rousing thing to happen so far on the sub-continent (at least to me) is the stealth upgrade bestowed upon me by Jet Air from Mumbai to Mangalore. As I checked in at 4am on Saturday morning I could pay no attention through my sleep(less) encrusted red-eyes to my boarding pass. Only as I climbed aboard the plane and prepared for the usual traipse down the aisle to the cheap-seats at the back did I glance down to read the numbers on the pass, numbers of lottery winning magnitude:
4
B

The seats, with cloth of finest cobalt blue, were wide as the Serengeti, the legroom as bountiful as the Grand Canyon. As I eased into my seat I checked my ticket again... surely there's been a mistake, someone will notice in a minute and manhandle me through the curtain-of-plenty into the cattle class behind. But as the hot towels and complimentary mineral water arrived, with a smile of recognition, I relaxed into my new found, yet richly deserved, status... yes, this was how it was meant to be...
The food was an inedible concoction of boiled egg in marie-rose sauce with a bizarre sausage and the flight was over in 45 minutes... The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away...

here i go again on my own...

... going down the only road i've ever known... or something like that...
I'm in a mild state of panic as I throw the last few thongs into my holdall, but i figured I should add something new since my last visit here.... so here's a picture from my recent Icelandic adventure.

See you in India