Mission Spiritual

This morning, in Kathak class, a little girls parents were watching her practice. As they were saying their good byes the father suddenly began to insist that Mangala Didi, our teacher, must enroll for a Vipassana course this year. "Not to be delayed", he emphasized again and again and then looked at me, "it will change your life".

People like these are Vipassana Missionaries. Once they've enrolled in the cult, .i.e. managed to spend ten days without talking, they preach their experience to everyone they know. "It will change your life". Their intentions are good, no doubt, but --

A. How do you know what my life is all about?
B. How do you know I want to change anything about my life?
C. How do you know whether I am open to this spiritual process or not?
D. Who gives you the authority to be a pain in the ass?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against Vipassana or meditation etc. But the basic rules of following any practice [not just spiritual or religious] are:
1. You talk about your opinion when someone asks you or it comes up in a conversation.
2. If it works for you it does not mean it will work for the rest of the population.
3. Stop being such an egotistical moron to think your practice is the only way to be happy.

Spirituality is a personal thing. In fact, you ask half the population what it means, they'll either have no clue (because they have never thought about it) or give extremely varied answers. So do your thing and leave everyone else alone.

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P.S: I have thought about doing a Vipassana course for a couple of years. I don't know if it will change my life but I am curious about what it is like to be silent and focussed on your breath for ten days.

P.P.S: During the process of discovering yoga etc. I too caught myself telling people how fantastic it was. But now that I'm wiser, I have the right to complain about those who're not ;)

Third World Existence

Our neighbourhood is eligible for the govt. owned BSNL internet connection only. We don't have a choice and almost everyday I wake up, turn on my computer with a little prayer that the net is working. Of the seven days in the week, it's out for about 3 days and then during the remaining 4 days, it flickers in and out every 20 minutes or so. "Your internet connection is experiencing problems [again]".

So try downloading music, uploading photos, or watching videos on this "high speed internet" connection, and you could be stuck here all day restarting the whole process just when you thought it had gone through.

Well, what do you expect from the government? We'll wait for the private companies to come around.

But private companies are douchebags as well. On April 9th, I sent a document to Goa via DTDC Courier Service, India's leading and omnipresent delivery service. It was supposed to have reached by April 12th but there were no signs of it. Tried calling DTDTC only to realize that the numbers written on the receipt are about 2 years old. Went over to the nearest center and the guy has no clue about "tracking" the document. Managed to wrangle a Goa DTDC office number from him to find out minutes later that the folks in Goa can't help me because there is no electricity in their office [inverter anyone?].

I gave up, it'll reach when it reaches. {why didn't I look them up on the internet, you ask? Because the high speed internet connection at home was DOWN. Did you think I was that dumb?}.

One week later, I get a call that the document hasn't reached. So I don't even bother with DTDC and decide to send it again with Blue Dart. More expensive equals more reliable (don't argue with me). At 9pm, they called me to tell me they don't deliver to the address written on the envelope. Yelled at them. They agreed to deliver. Fingers crossed.

Bloody third world existence.

The last time I was here, I talked about balance.

Now, I'm bored. Sure, balance and all that is fine, but that too like everything else has become a routine. Other people around me have no clue what my schedule is like. They think I'm always adding or deleting some event, class, or pursuit. But they don't know that for the last two months, I've been doing my thing quite steadily.

Right now I feel that I'm just swinging the swing without kicking my legs to keep the momentum.

I think I'm also hooked to getting out of town every two months. I've traveled in Novemeber, December, and February. Now I'm itching to leave again. Not to worry, a one week trip to Goa is coming up at the end of the month and I'm know it'll push me out of this mental inertia trap that I have fallen into.

Until then, ugh.

Somewhere in between

It’s been one of those days where I’ve barely managed to brush my teeth and take a shower. This on a Wednesday. In my defense, my Tuesday is bloody hard. A 2 hour commute, 6 hours at the office, 3 hours in a class and another 2 hours of teaching leave me drained. Therefore, Wednesday has been set aside to work from home in my PJs.

I once wondered if I will ever be able to cope with a neurotic, hectic lifestyle again. I remember the days at the Novotel where 13-hour days, a 1-hour commute, and 6 days a week were the norm. By Saturday afternoon, I could barely lift my arm to shove a spoonful of rice into my mouth at lunch. When I quit, I swore that I had kissed the corporate world goodbye.

But here I am, working part-time for the new Novotel and this time I don’t resent it.

I’ve been thinking about what it means to have a balanced life. The newspapers seem to be running daily columns dedicated to unraveling the problems of our modern, soulless lives and searching for formulae to balance them. Usually the articles are pointing fingers at those who work too much, drink too much, eat too much, stress too much, sleep too less, exercise too less, entertain too less, spend time with family too less etc.

But if someone needs money, who are we to tell that person to cut back on work and exercise more (so what if you can’t pay rent!). Who decides the limits on drinking too much (don’t ask my aunt who throws up her hands in horror at the thought of alcohol)? Why is a life unbalanced if it feels happy and fulfilled even if it involves being buried in activities 24/7 (hello, any successful artists out there?)?

Looking into my own life, I realized that working full-time, to market a product I didn’t really care about, was not working for me because it left me no time for other things I enjoyed and wanted on a regular basis. But quitting the corporate world and just teaching yoga was not really working for me either. While it gave me a lot of time for all the extras I desired, I found myself exhausted [again], dissatisfied [yes, again] and above all, er, poor.

So now with a part-time job, teaching yoga, a dance class and some other classes I am enrolled in, I’m working Monday to Saturday, 10am to 8pm. I love each one of these and you’ll rarely hear me complain. For the first time, I feel balanced.