my apt. on Hari Krishna Mandir Road, Pune

Since tolday is election day and everything is closed, it became the perfect day to learn to blog!!! Thanks to my handy and smart niece, Alison, I have this blog. Thanks, Ali!

After a day and a half in Singapore where I had a lovely spa day and recoved from severe jet lag, I landed in Mumbai (Bombay) on the 30th of January. A driver met me at the airport and we drove straight to Pune. While I was on the plane, I read an article about the growing number of accidents on the new road from Mumbai to Pune. They attributed it to poor engineering of the inclines. Just the article I wanted to read. But luckily I made it here, safe and sound. After getting one of my suitcases ripped off on the train during my 2001 trip, I would highly recommend doing the driver thing. It was way less stressful and quite scenic. It took about 3 hours. Most of the drive was on the new open highway. The drive to the highway, was another story. Mumbai is extremely crowded. Not sure what the traffic regulations are, but it looked like there was none.

I stayed at the Ambiance Hotel the first night since my apt. wasn't going to be ready until the 31st of January. There were pluses and minuses about this hotel. It is definitely bigger and more modern then the Surya, where I stayed last trip, but the restaurant workers walked out a few days before I got there and so room service was rather bleak. Lots of yogii's were staying there. Richard Schachtel (one of my assessors from my Introductory assessment 2 years ago) was leaving with this other guy who said he recently moved to Palo Alto from New Mexico and is teaching at Elise's studio. They gave me a block to practice in my room with. This block weighs a ton. No wonder they didn't want to take it back home. Then yesterday, I moved into my apt.

The photos are of the apt. on Hari Krishna Mandir Road, a short 5 minutes walk to the Institute. Its tucked back on a private driveway with lots of trees and birds and supposedly, monkeys, although I haven't seen any yet. My apt. is on the 3rd floor near the back of the building. Lots of families live in the nearby apts. A few other yogi's are living here this month. My landlady's name is Sanjivani. The cleaninng and magnificent cook's name is Mangola. Sanjivani speaks impeccable English. Mangola's english is very limited. Maybe she'll teach me some Marathi. Today Mangola made chapati (bread), basmati rice, a delicious yellow dal and a bhindi (okra) curry. Since I went out for lunch already, I will have this for dinner tonight and tomorrow. Yum.

I went to my first practice session this morning. I augmented the jet lag series and enjoyed it. Guruji was holding court and talking about the ligament at the front of the ankle. Everybody ran over when he started to talk. I did too, but couldn't figure out what he was saying. It was half in Marathi and half in English. Guruji looked quite fit and happy. Geeta was quietly practicing in the back. What I saw of her practice were very long timings of baddha konasana and upavistha konasana. For both she was seated on bolster. For upavistha konasana she also had her heels up on blankets. Tonight she teaches pranayama.