Lalaji's India: Welcome to the Land of Bodily Noises!

I don't know if it's because people don't realize that someone resides in my office or perhaps it's more that people in India have a different take on bodily noises than those in the West. I think it's the second supposition because I've heard the same noises when I'm walking through the ashram or market. Basically, people feel free to burp, spit, blow their noses without tissues and allow gas to escape from their butt cheeks. It creates quite a cacophony of sounds on a daily basis! Just keeping it real! And I'm sure there's something spiritual in there.

Moving on - these are some shots that I took around the ashram on October 16th.

Laundry

More Laundry

Shiva and devotees

Maa Ganga

Shiva Temple

I was invited to attend a production of the Dead Poet's Society put on by the students of The Doon School in Dehradun, some 45 km from Rishikesh or 1.5 hour drive--yay roads! The Doon School was celebrating their Founder's Week. It's an all boys elite school and one must be Indian in order to attend, although daughters of staff can attend. Gorgeous grounds. I think that Hari, my driver, also got to broaden his horizons by attending the play with me. A couple of observations from my outing was that there were cleaner streets in parts of Dehradun than I'd seen in Rishikesh and more Muslims. Pipe was being laid along the side of the road between Rishikesh and Dehradun and like other construction, it was labor intensive. Imagine seeing people laying pipe in the U.S. barefoot!

I celebrated my anniversary of arriving into the U.S. from Korea with Adrianna and Shaochen at Tip Top restaurant. The Nutella crepe and Momo's were terrific! I learned that there's also a Korean Indian connection. "According to Sam Kuk Yusa, the ancient history of Korea, Queen Huh, wife of legendary King Suro, who founded the Karak Kingdom, was born in Ayodhya."

Had my first sampling of coconut chutney - yum!

Two lizards were chasing each other on the wall's of my office. Never a dull moment!

I notice that there are very few strollers here. It would be kind of difficult to push them as sidewalks are limited.

On my walk to the German Bakery towards Laxman Jhula, I noticed a man knitting by his stand. His name is Sudamaji and he has been knitting for the past 30 years. I asked him how he started and he said that his mom taught him. Nice man and beautiful items.