Amin, auto rickshaw driver extraordinaire, took us to Aga Khan Palace today. Originally built in 1892 by Sultan Mahuammmed Shah Aga Khan III as an act of charity to help the poor in the area of Pune suffering from famine, the palace now holds the Gandhi Memorial and the organization that runs it.
Mahatma Gandhi, his wife Kasturba, and his secretary Mahadev Desai were all imprisoned in this Palace between August of 1942 thought May of 1944, following the launch of the “Quit India Now” movement. During that almost two year time period, both Kasturba and Desai died. Their “samadhis” are on the grounds as well as some of Mahatma’s ashes. In 2003 the Archaeological Survey of India declared the place a monument of national importance.
There was a group of kids all wearing red ball caps that said “Adventure” on them. There were several photographers and their pre-wedding parties there capturing shots under the arches and on the grounds. And then some smaller families. It wasn’t crowded and we could take our time and photos. And nobody asked us to take our photo. The building seems in good shape but the exhibits need some work. I appreciated that the explanations were in English (always a bonus).
There are fewer people in class as we approach the end of the month long study. And a few new faces have shown up for the beginning of their month.
All month classes have started on time, if not early. Prashant is often getting us to “settle” at two minutes before 7 AM. So today, when there wasn’t a teacher in the room at the appointed start time, it was unusual. Abijata entered about a minute later and got us started. She taught the class, picking up the theme from Wednesday’s class, opening the groins, for the first half an hour. Then Geeta entered and there was that same back and forth…sometime Abi teaching, sometimes Geeta teaching, sometimes Geeta teaching through Abi, sometimes Geeta lecturing. The mic seemed to be alternately working and not working or not on the person speaking. At one point I was on the street side and when there was no mic I barely heard anything at all. After one of Geeta’s lectures, I moved up towards the stage for a better opportunity to hear.
Compared to Wednesday, it was less chaotic, less tyrannical, and at one point, there was a wee bit of self deprecating humor from Geeta. There was a point where she asked some one “Do you speak English?” and later used the word “stupid” but the rest of the words were unintelligible when addressing some issue with a certain person (not me!).
Once we did some asana to open the groins, it was time to settle down for pranayama. It is pranayama week, after all. It seemed like it might be impossible to be calm and go inward after all the shouting of instructions and mental gymnastics of trying to figure out who to listen to and what they were saying. The prep work and the pranayama set up resulted in a pleasant experience. Abi talked about softening the bones, the flesh and in particular, the skin, specifically of the buttocks and to “decentralized”. The idea of spreading the breath without tightening the skin and without centralizing the body was the focus of the pranayama. To help this decentralization the spine was on a rolled up blanket. Knees bent and feet wide allowed access to smooth and spread the buttock flesh from the sacrum. When straightening the legs, the feet ended up just a bit wider than the mat, heels on the floor. At first it felt a bit awkward by something let go or adjusted and I was a happy yogi throughout the rest of the class.
The sequence went something like this:
Adho Mukha Virasana
Uttanasana
Full arm balance
Trikonasana (cut the juncture of the front leg buttock and thigh forward, stabilize the outer thigh of the back leg and roll open)
Parsvakonasana (arm in front of front leg and push it on the leg to open groin)
Supta baddhakonasana (rolled blanket under sacrum) hold ankles
Baddhakonasana with feet to the wall
Sirsasana – upa vista, baddhakonasana konasana
Salamba Sarvangasana, supta konasana, Sarvangasana cycling through baddhakonasana, upa vista, eka pada and then using a sort of janusirsasana leg position and straightening the leg from there into parsvakonasana eka pada
Supported savasanaa with a Rolled blanket under entire spine (sacrum to head), legs so wide the feet are off the edges of the mat. Pranayama here for some time.
Navaz is direct, caring, specific, clear, compassionate and gentle. Her delivery is slow enough that I can understand her words and the timber of her voice is deep. It was a powerfully inward going class, as only pranayama can be. It is hard to describe in words. There is a place where I get quiet, touch on my emotional self, and feel like I am grounded yet floating.
At the end of class, some of her words in savasana were comforting and calming. Something like “Allow the exhalation to start at your hairline and travel down your face, over the front of your body to your feet”. She said to breathe in the prana (life energy) from the cosmos, for there will come a time when there is no more breath. Inhale and be grateful for life, exhale and surrender inward.
The sequence went something like this:
Supported savasana doing ujjayi
Swastikasana doing viloma
Virasana doing digital
Savasana flat with weight on the roots of the thighs.
Our flat mate Lally left for England this morning so last night was our last meal the three of us shared. Aneeta outdid herself and made coconut rice, which was extra delicious. We took this photo of the four of us using the 10 second timer, which Aneeta couldn’t seem to wrap her brain around.
We all like it so much I went to the photo place down the road to get a print so Aneeta could have a copy. It is one of these places that is a single garage door size wide and maybe just a single car garage (maybe smaller) deep. The woman behind the counter and I had a conversation that consisted of one word sentences/questions and that sideways head bob, that is so prevalent here, that means “yes”. And, after me getting behind the counter and sitting at her desk to download the photo from my camera to her computer, we were in business. Five minutes and 50 rupes later, success!
After a pranayama class I feel like an unreliable witness. I know things were said and we did some breathing but it all seems as slippery as an eel. I can’t hold on to much.
After the invocation the third row was instructed to hand in rope Sirsasana and the rest of the class was in supta baddhakonasana. Prashant talked about using the breath for the skin, the flesh, the bones, muscles, sense organs, etc. The rap continues even in these long hold quiet poses. My take away today was the topic of using the breath to find your purpose.
Somehow he got on the topic of animals today. Something about how animals think and how we should try and figure out how (or what) animals think. He compared a cow and a buffalo and a bull and the eyes of a cow and how they are different from the eyes of another animal. He segued into talking about the difference between cats and dogs. He couldn’t understand why anyone would have a cat for a pet. “Cats are scoundrels” (he tends to use the word scoundrel frequently) and you can tell they are up to no good just by watching then slink into the kitchen. They KNOW they are up to no good! It got a chuckle. I suspect there are many people in India who have similar feelings. Cats are far and few between here. Dogs? There are a bazillion of them. Even Prashant seems to get lost in his musings. He will pause and say “Anyway”, regroup, change the subject, and go on.
For what it’s worth, here’s the sequence. He talked about udyana during all of these poses and encouraged us to change our arm positions in the supine poses.
As we entered class we were advised by one of the other students to get the cushy mats because we were doing pranayama today.
Rajlaxmi started the class with the invocation, Adho Mukha Virasana and Adho Mukha Svanasana and while in theses first two poses, there was some fussing going on in the front of the room. When we came up, Geeta was seated in the front of the room and Abijata was also there and took over the mic from Rajlaxmi.
For most of the class Geeta was teaching, much of the instruction coming from her to Abi, who would deliver the instructions to us. And sometimes Abi would hold the mic in front of Geeta for her to instruct (and chastise us). It wasn’t exactly smooth or soothing. At one point I thought to myself “Does anyone know what is going on? Who is controlling the class?” It was sort of organized chaos, at some points Geeta teaching, Abi teaching, and Rajlaxmi and other teachers going around the room making adjustments.
The emphasis was opening the groin area, since, upon her observation of us in Adho Mukha Virasana, Geeta said our chests were open enough. So the action in most of the asana work was to take the legs apart (uttanasana, Sirsasana, Sarvangasana) and turn the thighs in and take the tailbone in so the lower abdominal could recede.
Here’s the sequence as I remember it:
Adho Mukha Virasana
Adho Mukha Svanasana
Uttanasana
Sirsasana (for what seemed like 15 minutes!)
Supta baddhakonasana flat on the floor, using two belts, one on each leg and a rolled up blanket to elevate the sacrum a bit
Prashant started his two hour lecture today where he left off yesterday, expanding on “Learn to do, then do to learn.” Not only should we do to learn we should “do to prepare, do to sense, do to perceive, do to investigate, do to experiment, do to try, and not just do to do.” Certainly a wordsmith could rearrange these pairs into a cool yoga rap or poem. Prashant is like a rapper, in that his words flow quickly and repetitively (and unintelligibly) throughout his class.
There was more this morning that I cannot give justice to. Snippets of what he says come and go. It is like separating the wheat from the chaff, yet with a very low yield. Somewhere in the mix was something like “Clarity comes from observation and investigation.” There was a thread about personal dharma. There was a criticism of “isms” at war with “isms”. That these wars stemmed from not knowing the self and that would be a better pursuit. There was a thread about activity and perception. For example, Prashant speaks the same words to all of us we each perceive something different. He is who he is and we bring who we are to the table.
He told a story today that everyone could understand and the entire room laughed. A bank manager was at home and his neighbor came over to complain about her husband. And because of whatever she was complaining about she took some action. The bank manager said “You’re right.” Then the woman’s husband came over to complain about his wife. And because of whatever he was complaining about he took some action. The bank manager said “You’re right.” Then the bank manager’s wife came into the room and said “You listened to both of them and told both of them that they were right!” And he said “You’re right!” Everyone chuckled. Prashant said that the bank manager was a man in business and that “the customer is always right” and so that is the bank manager’s paradigm. Listening to that story you could find many different meanings. And I think that is also part of the point.
Here’s what I remember about the sequence:
Sirsasana or rope Sirsasana or Dwi pada vipariti dandasana on the chair. Switch groups until everyone had a chance to hang.
Many options were next. It feels like a five ring circus and you switch and switch until you have done all or most (or avoid what you don’t want to do) until he adds another option.
Standing back arch
Ustrasana
Danurasana
Urdhva danurasana
Rope wall back arch
Eka pada vipariti dandasana on the chair
Everyone in salamba Sarvangasana
Savasana – There were 23 minutes left in class. We were here for almost ten glorious minutes, half of which Prashant was silent. Then he got us up to sit.
Swastikasana, twist right then left. Then he carried on with more lecture, ran out of steam and said, “That’s enough for today”. He turned off the mic and said his customary “Clear the hall”
“Hill stairs” was a new term for me. It means just what you might think: a hill (or slope) with an occasional stair. To get to the top of Parvati Hill there are 103 of these stairs each separated by a slope of about five or six paces. So, the entire time you are going up (or down as the case may be). It is 283 feet from the base to climb to 2,100 feet above sea level.
The long climb affords a view of Pune. This is the second highest spot in the city of 3.12 million people. Atop the hill is the oldest heritage site in Pune. Built during the Peshwar dynasty (I am guessing in the mid 1700’s) there are five temples, a museum, and a display of the leaders of the dynasty along with a map of the area under their rule.
When people come into a temple they ring the bell, go up to the railing or door and usually press their palms together in the classic namaste position. Of the very few I have witnessed they don’t stay very long. Each temple is usually devoted to a different god, Ganesh, Shiva, Parvati, etc, and there is usually an idol of that god in the temple.
We got there and back in an auto rickshaw driven by Amin, a friendly, affable guy with an easy smile and one of those deli like hats I see many men when he dropped us off I asked him about the hat and he said “It is a Gandhi hat”, as if that explained everything. After Parvati Hill he took us to a big grocery store that had three levels and to get from one level to the next there was a “travelator” another new (made up?) word. It is a combination of those moving walkways that are in airports and an escalator (minus stairs) so your grocery cart can go with you. The wheels the travelator must be magnetic because the cart sticks right to the sloped moving walkway.
And, without asking he gave us a ride down the back roads (no traffic) of an old part of Pune to Trishunda Maayureshwar Ganpati Temple (which I had to do a Google search to find post visit). It was very beautiful with carvings not unlike Ellora, albeit much smaller and built much later. Building started in 1754 and ended in 1770 it is just a part of the current fabric of the neighborhood, as all these temples often are all around town. It started to rain so we hopped in the rickshaw and took another wet ride back to Hare Krishna Mandir Rd, home base. The cold rain soaked my left shirt sleeve and pant leg. The reprieve from the heat felt so great.
We are an anomaly here and get looked at, especially when we are in public places where there are mostly local people. Yesterday Lorene and I visited Parvati Hill (next blog post) and were approached by two groups asking to have our photos taken with them.
One group consisted of seven or eight 18 year old girls who were shy about asking us. Once we had our photo taken we asked them their names and how old they were. They recited their names and, even though they sound so beautiful they are complicated and impossible for me to remember. The other group we had no conversation with except to agree to be photographed with them. There were maybe six or so of them, likely family members.
When the auto rickshaw driver stopped at the bottom of the hill he warned us that we might get asked to be photographed. He suggested it was okay to agree to have our photos taken with the young boys but not necessarily the older “crazy” ones.
These three girls were hanging out with who I assumed was their father who was reading the newspaper. They giggled and whole heartedly agreed to have their photo taken with me.
