10.2.2008

Oh My-sore….

I can't believe how fast the time has flown by here in Mysore. I guess I spent this first week trying to settle down before I could really launch into whatever I am supposed to be doing here. I lived in that awful room without packing my bags for 4 nights, at the same time searching apartment to the degree that I had blisters on my foot. In the end rather than looking for something so perfect I took Claudia's apartment which is a very cute top floor apartment whereby the rooms are like the Russian dolls, into each other. You go through first bedroom into the hall way and then into the kitchen. It would have been pain in the arse to have that entrance as your bedroom and having everyone walk through it to get to other rooms. Luckily I use that space as nothing and that I have a decent one bedroom. So it works perfectly well. Only issue is that the toilet is outside and that can be annoying when I'm doing one of my famous purifications. For example last night I ran outside 7-8 times even until 1am!

Landlord is even funnier. This place reminds me of Turkey so much. Everything is about status, education, money. One of the first things the landlord (Mr Acharya) said to me, who is a retired biologist now giving private maths lessons, "I'm an educated man, you can come to my house with your shoes on"…Ok, I don't know how to answer to that one. After a little discussion he warmed to me very much and started to show me what he teaches to his 12-13year old students, praising himself as often as he can for the good work he does. One of the funniest thing was a scrapbook he had put together for his students which was full of newspaper articles cut out about animals, trees, royal family…it was hilarious and full of useless facts.

Anyway, as I seem to settle well and just now made my first meal, a lentil soup, I am liking my space very much. I was resisting getting to know the 300 yogis in Mysore as much as I could, trying not to give in to the crazy lifestyles, social gatherings and all the courses they attend to but I am slowly warming to this crazy, dirty city and the new people I am meeting.

A lot has happened in the last week. Arianna, a very sweet Italian girl I met in Kovalam had an abscess on her calf from a mosquito bite and as the antibiotics weren't helping at all we took her to hospital with her room mate Stefano. Stefano was also doing yoga in Kovalam and at the time didn't speak to many people as his English wasn't so great but in Mysore he is so much more open to meeting new people and we seem to communicate perfectly with my very simple English and his great effort. Anyway, Indian hospital was indeed an experience on its own. Arianna was taken into the emergency room very quickly and a doctor was examining her within 10 minutes. The emergency room consist of 2 beds, nurses in white wearing facemasks and gloves, and that everyone including the patient had their shoes removed outside the room. As Stefano and I walked up and down the hospital paying bills for blood tests, getting a file made for Arianna, queuing for admission bed I noticed more and more shoes being taking off outside consultations rooms, x-ray rooms, blood test room…I guess it is a dirty country after all and perhaps Indians got it right, taking shoes off in the hospital is a way of maximising hygiene. Everything seemed like so much more effort as we had to do a lot of admin and cash exchange but at the end of the day the speed they were working at, the attention surgeons paid in explaining procedures and the courtesy of the nurses was absolutely amazing. That may just be our experience as foreigners and not true for the locals but Arianna felt very safe in the hands of this hospital to go under general anaesthetic and have her operation that evening. Overall cost was as little as 6000rupees which is around £75, but again that is a few months' wages to the locals.

So now Arianna is in her room for the next 10-12 days, not allowed to move around and still thinking about flying home early. But a group of us are working hard to entertain her and get her to wait to recover, then enjoy another month of India.

And there have been somewhat very funny encounters in the last few days. One reason I love India is because everything is possible and at the same time difficult. It could take a few days to get any task done, like buying a new padlock for the door…Trying to explain to an Indian what you want, then finding the address they give you which is a complete mystery and then having to deal with unnecessary chattering in the shop like where you are from, what you do, why you do it…Argh! This is why we miss the western world so much, where you can simply go into a hardware store and take whatever you like from the shelf. It does minimise the human contact in the long run (which is actually the number one priority in India) but makes one's day so much more productive. The funniest was when we were trying to find an internet shop to ask about home connections. Most of the shop owners said that they don't know where we should go, a lot misunderstood us and sent us to internet cafes, and one (a Panasonic shop) said "go across the street and ask the coconut man". I laughed so much that my stomach hurt, I never thought that I would be directed to a man selling coconuts to fins out about and internet shop. To my surprise he knew exactly where to send us. Perhaps I ought to have more faith in the way of doing things in Mysore.