Ok, it’s really not that hard to grock.

in india they still do a lot of things by hand that are done by machines in the west. these first two pictures are of a woman making gravel by hand. anyone who has been to mysore probably recognizes her from behind the coconut stand. the third picture is of a woman carrying her belongings on her head. i’m not quite sure why this third picture came out looking so antique, i shot all of them in the same was as my last set … sometimes the film processing gives rather pleseant surprises.

the fourth picture i shot in nepal, but felt like it goes with the set. the woman in the picture is working an extention to a pashmina factory, carrying rocks out of the construction site using a basket attached to her head.

when i first came to mysore, i remember feeling like a movie-star .. or maybe just a really strange person. i remember there being so many times, that whenever i walked down the street i was followed by people wanting to talk to me, touch me, take pictures with me, just generally see what the foreigner was doing in mysore.

this time around, i’m either not famous, not strange or most-likely the people are more used to foreigners. it still happens that people come up to me and say “which country you from?” “what are your qualifications?” “take picture, please.” but it’s nothing like it was before.

all of that goes out the window when foreigner women dress up in indian clothes … when the elles, tomoe and i all went to see the mysore palace lit up at night, they dressed up in traditional indian sarees and seemed to attract even more photos than the mysore palace. most people wanted to take their picture with the girls, the pictures above are some of the few that i managed to take with my holga. i shot on medium format 100 asa kodak extrachome ev film and had it cross-processed.

ohh, and i finally got all my pictures and scans … monday evening. the reason i kept getting for the delay was the rain, i guess they can’t shuttle things between bangalore and mysore if it rains. this is the rainy season, so we’ll see what happens with the batch i just sent out.

people lacking in patience shouldn’t come to india … or perhaps they should if they want it forced on to them. i think being here for any period of time, you either learn to be very patient or you grow to hate the place to run home quickly … or you buy large quantities of xanax and deal with it that way.

all the pictures that i’ve posted so far came from my digital camera, but i also brought along four different film cameras (well mom is bringing the fourth from usa in two weeks) and a refrigerator full of film.

when i first got here, the weather was really sunny which work well with the 100 asa 120 slide film i’ve been using with my holga. i shot a bunch of rolls and then started searching for a place that could cross-process it and scan the negatives for me. g.k. vale is mysore’s professional photo lab, and when i took in three rolls last saturday they told me it would be sent to bangalore and would be back and scanned by monday … or tuesday. so when i went in on wednesday, they told me it would be ready in an hour … so i went and had lunch and came back in an hour, at which point they told me it would be ready on friday. friday i had the good sense to call first, and they promised me it would be ready by 14:00. i got there around 14:15 and they told me it would be ready in 5 minutes. i should have been a little worried though when they offered me tea and kept encouraging me to sit down. after twenty minutes passed, they promised that the pictures would be ready in 10-15 minutes, then there were multiple promises of “just 2 more seconds sir” … finally around 15:20, two rolls came in, printed but no scans. the woman promised me that tomorrow i will have my third roll along with all the scans.

i did get some nice pictures and i napped for at least 20 minutes that i was sitting and waiting. funny things is that yeas ago, i would have been beyond angry … i would of bitched, complained, asked for a discount, written a complaint letter, things like that. the pictures wouldn’t of gotten there any faster and it’s doubtful that i would get any sort of discount. i’d just end up ruining the moment for myself.

when amma gave me a mantra, her assistants told me that i should thank amma for all these situations. that i should use the time to sit and silently chant my mantra. admittedly, i used the time to nap and read a book … but i think lessons that i’ve learned from amma, from thich nanh hanh and of course from this ashtanga practice taught me a lot about just being in the present and not creating problems. it probably helps a lot too that i’ve spent time in india and lived in thailand for two years, both places where time is very flexible.

other random news

• i’m really not all that surprised to read this bit of news from a country that fired (very much in demand) military arabic translators just for being gay.
• these scupltures were made by marc quinn showing a perfected version (?) of kate moss twisted into various yoga poses. the artist used both kate moss and some other yogi / contortionist for models but smoothed out the skin to a point beyond perfection. the accomping review provides some interesting facts, but seems to be off on his review of the last piece “road to enlightment”.

  the last scupture shows a very emaciated kate moss sitting in padmasana (much like the buddha when he was searching for enlightment, before he found the middle path). the reviewer seems to think that the scultpure shows kate moss achieving an inner-peace, but i see someone searching for inner-peace through extreme measures that may not provide results. the buddha gave up ascetic practices before he found enlightment. perhaps by showing kate moss going down a path that didn’t work for the buddha, the artist is saying that the way the whole modeling industry views the body is a path that doesn’t head to happiness and enlightment.

when teaching the ashtanga system, it’s very common to hear comments from
students about how they feel bored, how they feel like primary is too easy for them, how they just want to do new poses. i’ll even hear comments along the lines of “well i’ve paid lots of money to practice here, i should be able to practice how i like”. i talk to people about how i’ve felt the same way myself, that they should focus on their breath and drishti instead. to keep focused during the practice, not watch other students, not let their mind wander.

so this morning, as i practiced primary series for the zillionth time, i found my excitement to practice waning as i dealt with the same internal dramas. i found myself wondering if sharath and sarasawatti even notice me, wondering if it’s worth $500 a month to come here and practice primary, wondering if i’ll do more poses this trip … ugh. funny how the advice that’s hardest to follow is the advice you give other people. i think it’s good for me though, this system has a way of keeping your ego in check and when the poses get easier that’s when there is real opportunity to focus on breath, drishti and focus.

ok i actually wrote the english version of this post yesterday (wed) but hadn’t posted it yet because i didn’t finish the thai translation. so then this morning after i finish my drop backs, sharath tells me to start intermediate series next class. at first i was just going to delete this and never post it, but i think posting it is actually a good idea. in some ways it’s almost embarrassing how tied to the poses i seem. ashtanga is a practice that is supposed to built contentment and try to get us away from constant striving to have more. this is part of the reason for doing the same series day, after day … but i guess breaking through all of that is part of the practice.

hmmm … with that out of the way here’s some interesting photography links and some digital pictures i’ve taken around mysore lately.

these panamoric shots were taken over four trips to north korea, make sure to read the interview with the photographer.

i found these photo collages on flickr recently, the artist has a great way of composing varied pop culture images together.

ohh and hp’s just released a new series of slimming cameras, basically they can digitally remove 10 pounds from your body when the image is shot. a reverse of what whitney had done to her a few years ago …

with the elles and tomoe at cubs coffee

with the girls in a $1000USD / night hotel room … we paid $1 to see it

with russell on the top of his office building

the mysore palace lit up at night

slanted windows at the mysore hospital

random old building around mysore

whisky juice box

last friday was a moon day and saturday is the traditional day of rest which means that this week we have a rare two days in a row off. lots of people went out of town, but i was really looking forward to some time to just chill, work on my language studies and some computer projects i have going.

friday night i ended up at russell’s law firm watching a bunch of clips from the ali-g show along with a bunch of other yogis and people from his office. the office represents sasha barren cohen (ali-g, borat, bruno, ect…) , so the clips were picked mainly to educate the staff about who they are representing. the staff was warned about the sexual nature of the clips and many choose not to come, or to come to the alternate women-only screening. india can be very conservative when it comes to sex. indian movies will show very sexual dancing, but rarerly (never?) show the main actors kissing. also from what i understand, when a leading actress gets married her career generally ends. it’s not considered proper for a married woman to dance sexually with another man, even if they are just acting.

after the showing, russell and i hung out until the late hour of 23:00 talking about really any topic we could think of. i think the most interesting part was the whole “what would thich nanh hanh think?” conversation. we have both studied with the veitnamese monk thich nanh hanh and have read many of his book. when he teaches and gives retreats, there is generally time for students to come ask question, but our questions were generally about things he hasn’t written much about … sex. a topic both of us would be way too embarassed to ask him, but one that he would probably be able to answer in a very supportive manner.

living in thailand, i sometimes miss being able to have conversations like this. it’s not that my thai language skills don’t let me have them, but i think it’s the culturally it’s something that would get lost. we talked about the dharma and how thich nanh hanh might interpert it around our questions, but we did it within the context of our usa way of thinking. we have both lived outside of usa for years now, but we still spent the majority of our lives in usa and some aspects of the way we think will never change.

ok this is a break from india, but is something that tends to stop me in my tracks every time i think of it. i think it’s something that that a lot of non-american’s don’t know about our country too (half of the people that read this blog are from thailand).

40 years and 2 days ago it was still illegal in 16 states for a black person and a white person to get married. (map) it took a supreme court decision to force all US states to allow interracial marriage. in a country where there is constitutional separation of church and state, many states justified this ban by the belief that god is against race mixing.

when massachusetts started allowing same-sex marriage, i think many religious fundamentals thought that the sky would start falling and that hell fire would rain on boston. massachusetts has the lowest rate of divorce in the united states, while texas maintains the highest.

even with massachusetts allowing same-sex marriage there are still many federal rights (including immigration) which are denied to legally married same-sex couples. there are many states which refuse to recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in massachusetts.

ohh, in other news i’m in a foreign language heaven here. i have time to finally write my blog in thai, i get have time to read thai books and magazines, i get to hang out and talk with thai people, i have a sanskrit teacher that comes to the house 5 mornings a week and a kannada (the local language here) teacher that comes to the house in the evening.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/06/12/southasia.heatwave.reut/

More than two dozen people have died over the last 24 hours in a heat wave that has baked northern India [mostly around delhi], officials and media reports said on Tuesday, taking the death toll over the last one week to more than 100.

The temperature in the Indian capital reached what was described by newspapers as a “cool” 41.1 degrees Celsius (106 Fahrenheit) on Monday, nearly four degrees lower than Saturday’s season high.

apparently there is a heat wave going on in india. i actually hadn’t heard much about it here, but everyone in thailand was sending emails seeming rather concerned about me. mysore is significantly south of delhi, which might lead you to think it’s warmer but for some reason mysore has rather mild weather. i mean i guess it’s hot if you’re coming from canada or something, but after being in bangkok is seems quite nice. there is very little humidity so once the sun is down it can get cold, some nights i don’t even use my ceiling fan. the mid afternoon can get a little hot, but i’ve never felt uncomfortable walking around in jeans and a t-shirt. it is the rainy season now too, so on days when it rains the temperature also drops.

i remember coming to mysore my first time and feeling this sense of awe at everything i saw. back when i worked software jobs and couldn’t get away for long enough to come here, i made due by reading just about any mysore blog i could find. by the time i came, i had seen pictures of the shala, heard about the three sisters, knew about the kavari lodge so when i finally saw it all for real i had this feeling of finally reaching a goal i had for years. even before i started to practice yoga, i had an interest in india so to finally be here and soak in the culture was something i had wanted for a long time. i came alone my first time, not really knowing anyone.

coming back this time has been a little different. the streets and places are familiar. i know how to order southern indian food in the restaurants, and there are a bunch of people i know here. elle from thailand was here already and p’elle and tomoe came over with me. i ran into two people i know from la, and of course russell is still here too. sherry is coming next month as are my mom and step-dad. there might be some more people coming over from thailand in august too.

my practice is in a much different spot too, part of is that i’ve had two and a half more years to work on it, but i think another part is that i take better care of my body now. i don’t really drink much, eat vegetarian, generally get to bed early … probably most importantly, am not stressed in the way that i was when i came the first time.

this morning was my first practice at the shala, it was actually my first full practice since last tuesday. i rarely miss a practice, but last wednesday i had to teach some extra morning classes and only had time to do standing, then wednesday night i was up coughing until 2am and decided my body needed sleep more than yoga at 5:30am, friday’s practice i missed because i was traveling here.

guruji came in to do the opening chant for today’s led primary and then sharth did the counting. sharath counts really slow, and at many times during the practice i felt my body resisting … actually it may be the mind more than the body that was putting up the resistance. usually these feelings go away after a few minutes, but today they kept coming up over and over again. each time sharath held us in poses, i could feel myself wanting to be back in bed. finally we got to the last asana, pulling ourselves into lotus, lifting our bodies up and waiting for sharath to slowly count to 10 (i counted 27 slow breaths before sharath go to 10) … and then we got to lie down and rest.

i drank three coconuts after practice, then came home and laid down on a floor mat for an hour before showering and going to eat breakfast.

so i got pretty busy the last week and didn’t update the blog much … i did update two new holga photo albums, but didn’t have time to post about them yet. click on any of pictures to see a full-size version, or on the links below to see the full album.

this first album is of my friend tor, taken at the same location joo and i did a shoot a few weeks ago.

this second album is of a juggler i met on myspace a little while ago. he and all his friends juggle in the park on the weekends, but i didn’t make it over in time before i left to come here. when i lived in san francisco, i studied circus arts at the circus center … mostly aerial rope and some arm balancing. i miss it sometimes, especially the creative outlet it provided. it was cool to meet a juggler, brought back memories of the circus.

3am is a nice time to arrive in bangalore. when i first came here 2.5 years ago, i got in at some other time and was swamped with people pulling at my bags, trying to get me to go in their taxi. this time, elle had arranged for a taxi to come pick me up in advance. while i waited for him was rather surprised at how mellow things were around the airport. there was one guy who tried to get me into his cab, but he just spoke softly while talking to me, there was none of the yelling, pushing and shoving that I remember from last time.

i flew 3 hours from bangkok to bangalore, then took a taxi another 2.5 hours to my apt here. people keep asking me how the flight and car ride were, but i was pretty much slumped over sound asleep the whole way. i got in too late to practice today, but heard the good news that guruji was well enough to lead primary series today. he’s been really sick, he even had to cancel trips to usa and hong kong. i’m not sure if he will be adjusting any time soon, but it’s good news to hear that he is doing the lead classes.

i’ve meaning to post something these past few days, there have been a string of going away parties but i’ve also had 11 billion other things on that needed to get done. harreson asked me a few days ago if i was ready yet and i told him i wasn’t he said “i wonder if there are people who get ready for these trips a week before they leave” i told him that i don’t think such people exist in the world anywhere, but i have a feeling my mom will be packed and ready for her visit well in advance. i got most of my shopping done the week before i left, but didn’t pack a thing until the night i left. i also forgot to bring the gift i bought for my landlady, but hopefully sherry will be able to bring it at the end of the month … i also left a bunch of computer work and emails to the last minute and never got around to doing them. i’ll probably get caught up on them today and tomorrow assuming i can get the internet going.

i’ll put pics of the house online soon, but in the meantime here are pics from the various going away parties that went on this past week.

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