What follows is a selection from the collected ruminations of gurus Erica, Sally (pictured above), and Alex, regarding their workshop to Bubaneshwar and Kolkata. The list has been truncated for the sake of temporal efficiency as well as propriety. Invisible hair dust → please don't brush hair in enclosed areas such as sleeper-train cars.
28th October → most auspicious day for date(ing) for Alex, Sally, and Erica (and Dheeraj).
Smiley-face toast and questionable bananas (please see photos on Flickr).
Intellectual evisceration over breakfast; topics include, but are not limited to, independent study projects and obscure 19th century authors.
Staying up until the wee hours of the morn with friends and watching [ridiculous auspicious] please choose one Indian-Canadian comedians and laughing until you pee your pants because you totally get it.
Covering sleeping roommates (one roommate) with towels (again, just one) so the hotel will not see her in her “innerwear.”
Singing Al Green to the hotel employee making your bed OR watching your roommate participating in the aforementioned activity with horror/amazement/admiration.
Employee at the temple seeing Erica's drawings and saying “Artist- Nice!” in a tone suggesting that she was drawing something particularly alluring, rather than chaatris. Or possibly indicating that he thought chaatris are particularly alluring. Nice!
Sellers of tantric palm-leaf flip-up postcards and strings of fake pearls from “the Beach Collection.”
Eating fresh coconuts.
Attempting to accept puja at the 64 Yogini shrine with my left hand and proceeding to further disgrace myself and my people (Who? Stupid people?) by pointing to the carving of a goddess with my foot.
Sleep deprivation due to much merriment. (Also see below)
Staying up until 12:30 AM, boarding a train at 9:15 PM that night, going to bed at 2:00 AM on the train and waking up three hours later (5:00 AM) to disembark the train.
Riding in a horse-drawn carriage embellished with silver (tin foil?) and neon pom-poms, driven by a 12 year old boy with beetle-stained teeth. Boy: Four boxes 50 rupees? Me: What?
Rohit love Sweety – Rohit weds Sweety Note: Found above Sally's bunk on the train back to Delhi. Did Rohit or Sweety write this? Is Sweety the name or a person or an as-yet unknown person whom Rohit predicts will be his (or her?) Sweety?
Erica sleeping later than everybody else on the train, but popping her head out of the curtain and singing along when the muzac version of “Mera jutta hai japani” came on over the train's sound system.
*Note: The title of this post was inspired by an interview in “Vogue, India” in which the interviewee declared her dream role to be that played by Mandy Moore in “A Walk to Remember.” Accha nahi hai. Very useful however, as a blog title.
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