Roaming Rishikesh

Rishikesh…I suppose I’d like it more here if I were a hippie.

Geez, let’s take an inventory: 10 km up the road is something called ‘the rainbow party’, an all night dance and trance with live music and something for your pipe. Yoga studios are piled on top of each other, Hindu diety-altars sit in the corners of any structure with at least a wall, sadhus and other seekers come and go in drones, meat has literally been banned from here, and you can just imagine the bookshops. 

Walking around with tattoos on your neck, braided hair to your ass, covered in a technocolored blanket and raving about god is not something to get you noticed. Wearing a suit would look almost profoundly ironic.

Rishikesh has this sort of vibe. But India tolerates these things well. Tibetan robes, saris, striking nose piercings, turbines, various western styles, whatever the Muslims wear, almost nothing…these are what you see people dressed in. You can’t help but admire how well personal differences are tolerated.

I think it might have something to do with how unconcealed India is. You see hunger, you see people’s spiritual aspirations.  Even in death, whereas western culture is so sterile and polite in handling it, cremations in India are often done in public.  Such an atmosphere makes it easier to remember that despite the differences, we’re all human in these fundamental ways. All vulnerable to needs, wants, frustration, and ‘the final negative outcome’. Not caring about somebody’s beliefs and appearance is just easier with this stuff in your mind.

This is a lot of India’s appeal. Uncontained, uncensored humanity, unapologetic about itself. It fleshes out the emotional spectrum, from awe to terror, inspiration to despair.   

Today:

I finally learned some basics about pranayama. Learning it was something I’d been meaning to do for years. It’s a breathing yoga that Robert Anton Wilson says whitewashes negative states. I was sceptical but I registered for a one day lesson and was pleased that my instructor seemed joyful and bright—an indication that maybe there was something to this.

As an anecdotal aside, my instructor was taught by the same person who instructed the Beatles when they came here in the 60’s.

He gestured for me to come sit on a cushion that was uncomfortably close to him and we talked for a few minutes, more comfortably than I’d expected. Some of his “insights” into my chronic asthmatic conditions made me think that I’d wasted my money but I tried to keep my mind open. Since pranayama is a practice I can judge the results rather than this man’s theories about it.

The session, given on the open and breezy rooftop, was pleasant and after the hour was up I felt quite serene. I hadn’t expected much from the nostril work; I was more interested in posture. But, as it turned out, the nostril work created sensations and states of consciousness that were surprisingly forefront, vitalizing, but calm.

I’m curious enough that I’m going to apply what I learned every morning for the next 30 days, sort of as an experiment to see what results it produces.

Walking the streets afterward, I was befriended by a yogi who insisted that I follow him to an ashram. His persistence made me think that he wanted something—a very safe assumption in India, but seemingly wrong in this case.  He took me to a large room where a whole bunch of people were seated on cushions on the floor singing songs together to the accompaniment of guitars and bongos, sort of like a hippie ‘coom-bai-ya’ session. Some got up and danced alone. Between songs people prayed.

At first I couldn’t tell whether I was bored or fascinated, whether this was cultish or wholesome, whether it was something I wanted to participate in or laugh at. When it was done, I just decided it was probably better than television but not really for me. 

So any way…I have about a week left in India. It’s been quite a trip.