Ayurveda & Tabla

The morning started with a lie in until 6:30am (moon day: no practice) when I just woke up, but I didn't want to waste this luxury lazing in bed moment so I listened to to tunes for a while. I met up with S at the coconut stand for breakfast, 2 coconuts and a good chat later I was running late for Tabla class.

Tabla class was cool, my teacher is brilliant. He plays brilliantly and he has a fantastic smile. We went through yesterday's lesson and then went through something new and rather complicated, I'm going to have to work on this one! I let him listen to Paul Simon on my ipod and he listened to all of it, banging away on the tabla. He loved it, and he had never heard of him before. I'll send him a cd from the UK. He says we can learn something to go with it before I leave. I have my own tabla now, they are cool, but they have a distinct smell, as they are made from some weird leather.

I went home and did some studying it was good, I felt like I'd done something really worthwhile and it helped me a lot. I have managed to get a lot done while I've been here, although being a type A personality does help as there are many distractions like napping and chatting mainly.

I had some lunch at Anu's and ate far too much as usual, but as my friend Rew says, you only live in this body once. She always has 3 bowls of desert, I had 2 today. Deserts are a bit like rice pudding with nuts and fruit in. The main meal is always beatroot, some cucumber, tomato and mint salad, chapattis, 2-3 different types of curry including Dhal, carrot salad, rice, some vegetables. All fresh and home cooked.

I sat and chatted with people after that for an hour or so, it's interesting to hear about other people's backgrounds, interests, and lives back home. There's a few I will definately stay in touch with when I leave. I've made some good friends here who have been very beneficial to me. It's actually very hard to be friendless in Mysore. You'd have to be incredibly anti-social to not make any friends.

There were 60 odd people at Rew's violin session, and Ganesh and another person joined her on drums it was fantastic and everyone had a really really good time. It's lovely to hear live music here. Anu was a great hostess as well.

I went to the Ayurveda class which was really really interesting. There is a clear link between that and yoga, although as Dr Nagaraj explained, Ayurveda is for the common man not the yogi. It is possible for the common man to reach Moksha. To be in good health you have to have Dharma (righteousness), Artha (earning money, material things), Kama (desires), Moksha (liberation - but for this one you also need Dharma). There was a long conversation about Karma as well at the end of the class. There's too much info to list here, but if you're interested drop me a line of get hold of me. Basically it's all about your intention. But it's much more complex than that though. I definately felt that I benefitted from going to the class, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

Tune of the Day: "The obvious child" - Paul Simon