Chanting

I’m not a morning person, as anyone who knows me can attest to. I love music, but cannot sing. So the idea of waking up at the ungodly hour of 5:45am to make it in time for half an hour of chanting in another language, didn’t exactly thrill me. In the five mornings we spent in the ashram, I made it once. The one morning I dragged myself out of bed, I ended up having two naps during the day, which was added to the sleep I acquired during our meditative yoga session. Following that, I felt I would get more out of my time there by sleeping into the reasonable hour of 7am, and starting the day off a little fresher.

After the chanting finished at 6:30am, a lot of the residents, visitors and volunteers went off to the free yoga class. I was still in bed, and others seemed to return to bed, practice their own yoga or meditation, or participate in the “puking exercise”. Marieke will be posting about that shortly. Breakfast was served around 8:30am, with a different yoga/meditation class every week (Monday to Friday) starting at 11:30am, so there was a bit of downtime for higher paying guests, or time to get to work for the lower paying guests/ volunteers.

As Marieke and I were there foremost to visit my friend Marg, who was my boss for four years, and we were paying  850 rupees ($17 CAD) per day (this put us in the elite category of higher paying guests), we took this time to grab a tuk-tuk/rickshaw/three wheeler to the beach and into town, eating “vacation breakfasts”, swimming and shopping. Vacation being mostly for Marg, who was actually on leave from her ashram where she’s studying Sanskrit in another part of India. Not exactly what one might think of as a break, but we had a great time indulging in pancakes and lassis.

Following the 11:30am-12:30 class we took every day, lunch was served, followed by peanut time. Peanut time actually started our first morning there, and quite honestly, scared us off. It seemed we were faced with the insurmountable task of shucking the largest bag of peanuts I have ever seen, while separating the small ones from the large ones, and the good ones from the bad ones (which seemed to be in the large majority). What these peanuts were used for is still a question in my mind, but apparently they were important; so important, in fact, that talking was prohibited. Having eight months of life to catch up on with Marg, while being forced to remain silent to meditatively shuck this mountain of peanuts, did not understandably make the three hours fly by. Days two through five we reverted to finding an oasis where we could chat or listen to music, while enjoying an hour of peanut shucking.

The peanut saga

Biggest bag of peanuts I’ve ever seen!

Following the peanut sava (or saga, depending on which way you look at it), some people would take an afternoon yoga class, while Marieke and I would retreat to our room and write, read or nap (depending on whether we had made it to morning chant). At 4pm I would continue my project of attempting to repair three severely neglected bicycles, by visiting Mr. Bicycle man in the village, who may or may not be open, and may or not be able to help.

Mr. Bicycle Man

With the switch of dinner to 7 and chanting to 8, this gave us a few hours to go on more excursions, especially if we didn’t mind skipping dinner and eating in town. These adventures frequently ended in a lovely restaurant that seemed to drag in locals and tourists in equal proportions, with its awesome beachside location and delicious food, and of course, homemade ice cream. Having taste tested all of the options*, we recommend the coconut, with mango being a close second.

Evening chanting was much easier to make it to, and was really quite pleasant.  My favourite sessions involved a lot of giggling following the consumption of large quantities of ice cream by about 10 young women, and the very serious discussion of which Christmas carols would be sung at Christmas. The perplexed look on Swami G’s face (leader of the ashram, and Marg’s friend) when the Jewish woman from Israel told her she didn’t know “Silent Night”, was priceless. I’m not 100% sure Swami G understood the concept of a Christmas carol. Following chanting, silence was to be maintained, which we did at least until we reached the haven of our room, at which point we gossiped like school children about the day’s events, or at least our interpretations of them. Silent time for loud, talkative people was about as thrilling a prospect as 5am singing is for someone who does not do mornings well.

So that was how we spent our five days in an ashram. It was a truly fantastic experience, but I do have to say I had issues with the early mornings and the routine. If we come back next year and do the north of India, another ashram stay will definitely be on the list.

*On a side note, my dream job when I was growing up was not to be a doctor, but either an ice cream tester or mattress tester. If it was a particularly energetic day, I envisioned juggling both jobs at once. Which in hindsight would have been a recipe for rapid weight gain. But worth it.