Our yoga teacher also happens to be the care-taker of his ashram's shrine / medicinal plant garden which is nestled in a gorgeous forest on the edge of town. He is a sweet man, very talkative, with an advanced degree in Chemistry that he seems to have renounced in order to live a life of solitude and contemplation in the forest. He (we still don't know his name, somehow) invited us to his home (the shrine/med. garden) for lunch. It is an amazing spot: old stone walls and outbuildings beside a clear river, bright moss everywhere, birds and moths. The whole thing feels like a Japanese garden. Over lunch (a spicy South Indian biryani of eggplant, beans, and tomatoes served on the ground on fresh-cut banana leaves) we talked about a crazy range of subjects. Strange to find a monk living in a forest who is able to lithely discuss equations of quantum physics, contemporary politics, and financial planning while relating it all to his spiritual path. He is utterly accepting of our non-spirituality and said even tabla playing can be suitable worship. He has promised us a hike up to a shrine several thousand feet above the city where, on a clear day, we will easily be able to see the snow-chapeau'd Himalayas very near by.
What's more, he found us a house. And we can stay for free! Tomorrow we move into a nice house (with a kitchen, I smell Himalayan apple pie already!) on the edge of town, surrounded by rice paddies and cinderblock school rooms. We'll have it to ourselves, since the owner (a 70-year old ex-mining engineer married to a woman who can't be more than 35) will be going out of town for the next 10 days. Serendipity-doo-dah. All we have to do in exchange is sweep out the meditation room and light incense each morning for Shiva or Krishna or whomever. Oh, and we had to tell him we were married. Which feels funny. 'Cuz we're not, ya know.
Today, I saw wild peacocks and the tiniest frogs ever. I realized I was spoiled by my American tabla lessons (the Indian teaching style seems rather laissez-faire, so far, and my teacher here is young and proud), but I'm making progress and can practice on a shitty pair of tabla whenever I want for free. Overall, very, very good things seem to be happening to us; I blame Heather. I hope we don't get too attached to Rishikesh, since gritty Varanasi is only a few weeks away...
