Yoga in Rajpur, Dehradun

Friday, October 7th, 2011  - Rajpur, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, Northern India.

Yog-Ganga studio

I am in yoga heaven!  It's day 2 of my 3 week yoga course here in this quaint town.  I chanced upon this yoga center while researching for a place during my stay at the hospital in Delhi.  The main factor capturing my interest in this center is the Indian couple who run it with the occasional help of their two sons.  I'd never heard of them nor the center (or anything else about this area) before, but liked the warmth they exuded over the web, if any can ever be imagined!  Luck would have it that I arrived at the place I'm meant to be.

Just rewinding to my last day in Delhi where I attempted to buy a railway ticket... the autorickshaw I chose outside my hotel in Karol Bagh (oh yes, that's another story from when I left the hospital!) at first agreed to take me to the railway station, but halfway through started talking about some tour agency.  This is when I repeated myself about 10 times that I didn't want to go to any such agency, and yet this man took me to one!  The agent I spoke with eventually got that I wasn't about to buy anything from them, pointed me to some other place for a bus ticket instead as apparently, all railway tickets to Dehradun were sold out for the next 6 days.  I later learn that the Indian government actually releases a quota of tickets for foreigners and that one can buy a ticket directly from the railway station. After unsuccessfully trying to buy a bus ticket, I hopped into a tiny internet shop to ask for directions and instead bought some "cash on credit" delivered to my mobile.  I try to get another rickshaw back to my hotel, only to be quoted what I knew then to be exorbitant prices, so instead I tried to walk home, until I realized it was going to be one, long, hot and dusty one!  Thankfully, I'd taken the metro just days before and jumped on one back to the hotel instead.  My first few attempts at using this cash-credit on mobile were futile and I figured I'd again been bamboozled.  But I eventually managed to buy a bus ticket to Dehradun that left that night. Thankfully, the hotel Marketing Manager who'd been helping me around town escorted me to the bus pick up point, which was another wild goose chase.  The 11 hour bus ride to Dehradun deserves another write-up, but save for an already verbose posting, I will just have to say that I lucked out yet again meeting a wonderful Nepalese man on his way to visit his daughter at a private high school near Dehradun.  He saw to my safe arrival at the yoga center I am now.

[Jai from the hotel in Karol Bagh and me having a gujerati dinner.]

My state of Delhi suspicion left very quickly within hours at Yog-Ganga after meeting George, a canadian retiree who'd been coming here regularly for a decade or so.  I got to learn some bit of the ropes around this little town from George as we headed out for chai with his taxi-driver friend, Prem, a jovial local that I've also gotten to know.  Since class orientation, I've gotten to know several other students, many who are returning ones, hailing from England, some from Australia and the remaining 30 from just about everywhere else.  My house mates, Marion, originally from the US, and Sylvie, originally from France, both come from London.  We've had some good debates on yoga styles already, and I'm looking forward to many more such conversations with these 2 seasoned practitioners.  It turns out I am the only east asian person in class.  But I've also figured out why many chinese don't or can't possibly get into yoga!  It's aparigraha!  A tenet that simply means, non-hoarding.  Enough said, methinks...

Abilasha, the cottage I'm staying at for the next 3 weeks!  Prakriti, the 12 year old grand-daughter of Abilasha's care-taker, our much needed and appreciated translator.

my walk to Rajpur bazaar

The town of Rajpur by Dehradun is quite like my grandma's old neighborhood back in Penang, with cows milling around, monkeys jumping around not too far off trees, and of course, cow dung everywhere.  That may be the state for most of India...I'm not sure, but the lack of mad traffic up here 1,000ft above sea level is a much welcomed respite for me.  It's a 5 minute walk to the town area of Rajpur where I can get most of the amenities I'm looking for, though I'm living on bare necessities these days. The cute cottage I have all to myself actually seems a mansion compared to my apartment in San Francisco and a wonderful contrast to what I went through the last 2 weeks in India.  The wonderful vegetarian dishes cooked up by Prakriti's grandmother is deeelish from the pale food I had in Srinagar. I am considering taking another session of yoga here that incorporates an ayurvedic element next month.  Adieu!