Indian Samurai इंडियन सामुराई

This morning, still sleeping like during the holidays (sleeping early and getting up early – yes it is not usual but in a country where most places do not have electricity it is rather normal), I got up to go to…  my first class of… yoga!! Yes yes. I did hope that it would rain and I would not be able to go but no…

I thus gathered my strengths to go to a place full of unknown people (when you are shy, you are shy) and I took my first lesson of yoga.

For the story, I have never been attracted by yoga. But then, upon my mother’s insisting, I tried to register in Pune (in the Iyengar center) but their bureaucracy irritated me and I gave up.

When I arrived Mumbai, I began aerobic one in the gymnasium of a college. That was good exercise but after 6 months, my dash broke with the holidays.

Since then I have been looking to practice sport. In vain. Not one squash court, nor badminton (the only way is to be a member of a “club”), no gym with step classes, and I stopped running after a big fall caused by a stupid root.

Then I had this brilliant idea: if I can not make any exercise in Mumbai (because of a lack of space), but yoga, it must be a sign.

To find a yoga class however was not so easy. And I did not want a private teacher – I want to socialise!

And then which yoga?? After some research, I chose Ashtang Yoga. Why?? Because that is also called “Power Yoga”. Stupid reason but well…

So this morning I learned that Ashtang yoga is a yoga which is based much on the breath and I made my exercises like a good girl – at the beginning the teacher was surprised/worried that I had never practiced any yoga but I did quite well!!

So here I am, having yoga class 2 times a weeks, early morning, 5 minutes walking distance from home, and we are two in the class, which is really nice!!

Let’s see for how long I’ll hold ;)

Note: the following remarks come from personal experiences and exchanges and if it is very general, I think that it is quite true. One can certainly say also a lot on the French who travel…

First: choosing the destination. The Indian is not an explorer at heart and will prefer to avoid the unknown regions – so if parents, friends went there (or better even better live there), it is preferable.

Second: the visa. Indians need visas to go about everywhere. And though in the majority of the countries the procedure is not too complicated – and on top of that most of Indians use the services of an agent, time management to get a visa is not easy easy. As for everything else, waiting for the last minute is preferable.

Once on the holiday spot, the paramount question will be the food. If the Indian is vegetarian, I don’t want to even mention the situation… In any case, after a couple of days, the Indian will want to visit about all the Indian, or Chinese, restaurants that he will come across. He will not force his partner to share his dinner, since anyway eating is about eating – you really have to be French to think that dinner is more a moment of sharing, talking, than just gulping food.

Very recently, my “own” Indian really played with my nerves (this is my point of view, not his obviously). After obtaining his visa in a record time (4 days before departure), he looked at the weather on Internet, discovered that the monsoon was starting there and panicked – and yes we had checked before and we knew we could expect some rain but not to the point to ruin holidays (apparently he forgot that)… So he mentioned changing the destination. Or at least suggested that I call my friend who lives there (yes, even if she is on holiday in the Vietnamese countryside, she has access to facebook not?) so that she tells me the weather. One week in advance…

If I did not have him, I would have to invent him…

I finally started to actively learn Hindi 2 months ago (initially, I took 30 hours of class).

My teacher is an old and nice fellow.

However, the training does not go without clash… To start with, I have a thing for grammar. It is like that, I need to understand how the words work together to make a sentence.

My teacher sees things in a different way: "Why is it like this?" “Because it is like this.”

Tired to fight, I got a grammar book and started to learn on my own. And this leads us to yesterday’s lesson when, fighting over a plural, my teacher discovered the “oblique” form of nouns after a postposition…

Let it be.

Grammar is not his thing. No, what he likes is proverbs. This is how I learned last week “jangal mein, mangal” (translation literal: “in the jungle, auspicious” and a more meaningful translation: “even in chaos, there is hope (something positive)”. I told myself that this could be re-used, like if I see a beautiful display in a messy store (almost everywhere). I thus decided to remember the proverb.

I proudly told it to my colleagues, who looked at me, disconcerted.

It has a double-meaning, sexual obviously (my colleague even told me that it would mean something like: “where there is vacuum, it can be filled”)…

When my teacher arrived yesterday with a special book of proverbs, I said stop. Firstly I don’t know them in English and then it won’t help me to speak Hindi!! Even if I have to acknowledge that culturally it is super interesting; see the following proverbs:  

• What does a monkey know of the taste of ginger? à Someone who can't understand can't appreciate.
• The drums sound better at a distance. à We tend to like the ones we don't have.
• Living in water and being an enemy of the crocodile is not good.
• Small cumin seed in a camel's mouth. à Too small an amount for a very large need.

I am struggling a bit with Hindi (and apparently I am not the only one, see my teacher below!!) but I'm holding on!!