5 weeks with Mom&Dad

January 24th, 2012

It's been 5 weeks that I've been back in my hometown, and yes, staying at my Mom&Dad's. That, in itself is a feat. OK, I did spend about 8 weeks at home prior to the 3-month India trip...and yes, that was also an accomplishment. Thank you! I think at that time, I was still reeling from having packed up my life in San Francisco, leaving a 12year career and travelling through Europe for 2 months. So I did a whole lot of nothing...happily. Save for the almost daily yoga practice, I lazed around at home, met up with friends, and slept some more. This time around, I'd hoped to get out and about a bit more. But the whole week or two after I got back from India, I had no space/energy/emotion to be with or for anyone. There was just so much to digest. Literally. Yes, I'd gotten sick in Calcutta actually. Thankfully, for only 24hrs.

Since my parents do not celebrate Christmas, that made it simple for me. Though it was one of the quietest, if not uneventful Christmases I've ever experienced, it was probably just what I needed. I got to spend a few days with one of my childhood best friends, Lay Hoon, going around old haunts (particularly lots of food spots) in Penang. Both of us spent New Year's eve with her very cosmopolitan and lovely friend's family.

Being in Penang just means eating a whole lot as evidenced in the pictures. Every meeting with a friend or relative is an occasion for food. Wendy and I took another childhood friend's mom to a german restaurant I fell in love with and for a 2nd dessert, had the most expensive durians (those thorny looking fruit.) Mom&Dad and I met up with a cousin and his family visiting from Australia over some sumptuous nyonya cooking. After hiking to Pantai Kerachut, a couple childhood friends I've not seen since leaving Penang in 1991, and I pigged out at an awesome Indian restaurant that is now the venue of our class reunion in a couple of days for Chinese New Year.

Ah, yes, and then there's Chinese New Year...or Lunar New Year, whichever you please. It's my first one back in Penang since I left 21 years ago. I didn't quite know what to expect anymore. When we were kids, it was great fun visiting relatives, friends and who knows who some of those people were, collecting ang pows (red envelopes with MONEY in them) - yes, cold hard cash! Does anyone wonder why the chinese are so money minded? Anyway. I had to insist on taking Mom&Dad to a new restaurant, Chinahouse, for our CNY eve reunion dinner since they hadn't made any plans. Thankfully, it was quite a pleasant experience. The next morning, as I got ready for my first Chinese New Year of the Dragon day (after an hour of yoga, showering and ironing some clothes) I came downstairs to find Dad had already left to visit friend/relatives on his own. WTF? "Enter the dragon" brought a whole new meaning to this house and there went my morning's yoga practice! Mom had even told him to eat lunch on his own as she was thinking we could go back to the yummy Indian vegetarian restaurant. Wow. What a blow to my anticipation! And here, I was worried about nosy relatives and those unidentified ang pow giving individuals of past questioning my marital status!

So. Hummmmmm.... mind you. It's only the second day of CNY. I've cooled down a tad since while still processing all this, and the last 5 weeks. In a few days, I head to Kuala Lumpur to meet up with friends and relatives before flying out to Cambodia for my 1-month volunteer teaching stint at a university in Prey Veng. God bless those kids I'm about to tutor. Ahhh, I still have a few days to recover...one more day of yoga to teach at Inner Peace Yoga Circle in Pulau Tikus, where I've been fortunate enough to get on the schedule! When I disengaged from my life in San Francisco on this yogic journey, I'd planned on spending extended amounts of time with Mom&Dad. At a corporate job and apparently at the most "hard-working" , it was hard to fly all the way home only to spend 2-3 weeks at best with them. For the most part, it's been an uneventful trip. But I constantly have to recall every yogic principle I can think up to keep an even keel. And from yesterday's re-appearance of the dragon in me, I obviously have a looooong ways to go from yogic-hood. Definitely not in this lifetime!

Last stop: Kolkatā

Kolkatā (new name of Calcutta) was such a pleasant surprise of a major Indian city.  Yes, it's huge (4+ million  people in the city proper; 14+ area wide)  and yet it felt manageable.  The story of how I ended up coming through this city lies in the first 2 weeks of my trip to India.  In a desperate attempt to get myself 6 hours north of New Delhi to the town of Rajpur, I'd miraculously made the night bus that ended up an 11 hour trip.  Sunil was the nicest gentleman I could have been so lucky to be seated with on this arduous bus ride.  He was on the way (in his last minute plan) to visit his daughter at a boarding school in Mussoorie.  We ended up chatting quite a bit of the 11hr journey, especially since there was little chance of us getting any sleep in the most bumpy, noisy and cold bus ride ever!  With his warm Nepalese nature, he'd invited me to visit with his family should I be going through Kolkatā...and so I did!  

Aparna, Sunil's wife, was able to show me around the city for the 3 days I was there.  It was great fun getting to see the city with a "local" companion.  The highlight of my trip here was visiting Mother Teresa's Mission of Charities.  Much of the rest of my tourist sightings were seen from the car ride through the city, which was such a contrast to my experience in India until then!  Eating masala dosa and Mumbai coffee (y.u.m.) in a very modern shopping center was almost surreal.  I still don't get the whole idea of discarding the cute little red earthenware cups from which I downed much deeelicious (and what I believe to be doped up) chai.

There is just so much life here. So much grandeur.  So much poverty.  So much pollution.  So many people.  So much trash.  So many colors.  So India. 

silence in BodhGaya

I was in Bodh Gaya only from Dec. 14 - 17th and yet it had such a profound impact on me. Perhaps because I spent most of my time there at a buddhist meditation course in silence. Or that I didn't leave the compounds of Root Institute for 3 days except a couple of hours on the first and last afternoons. I'm not quite sure... I think it's probably more of the former. I've never had to be quiet in one stretch for so long in my life, not that I can recall anyway. And this was only for 3 days! Can you imagine what I'd become had I signed up for the 10 day vippasana meditation course, which I had been contemplating?

Being silent brings a sense of peacefulness I don't think I've ever experienced. Never having to speak. What?! Now, not being allowed to speak at home or in school is one thing...but when one is out in the "free world" and after 2.5 months of meeting awesome people through India, yakking one's heart away, this was quite the aftermath of a crescendo to my time in India, Varanasi being the height of a crazy time. From the constant life/death in Varanasi to the quietude in Bodh Gaya... I ended up not really able to socialize much when I returned to Penang just a little over 2 weeks ago! Therein, the oxymoron. Magi =/ unsociable.

I haven't even started about sitting in lotus pose, in hour long meditations 3 - 4 times each day. My legs on the first day had that tingling, numbing sensation that almost felt like they were going to break into pieces. And yes, I was most certainly nodding off that first afternoon's meditation, having just arrived in Bodh Gaya early in the morning after catching the 5:45am train from Varanasi. I persevered and was never so happy to be done with my day that day, passing out at around 9:30pm!

On the second day of the course, I was able to put in some yoga time, on the roof top of the dorm! At that point, and even to some degree, till now, I was feeling the aftermath of Usha's classes in my hamstrings...I must've torn some muscle fascia! Anyway...I'm very happy to have participated in the retreat, though I don't know if I would go back to Root Institute. It was a bit overly westernized for my taste, where all the food served largely catered to the western pallette. BUT. It was a great space to be in. The temple is beautiful and the grounds very well kept. The rooms, bathrooms etc. were all super clean. It was just so unlike much of what I'd experienced in India thus far...

Outside of Root, I loved witnessing the masses of monks at the Mahabodhi Temple. They had come from all over the world for a 10-day Tibetan festival graced by the Dalai Lama and more were on the way! Next, a night train to Kolkata! Shhhhhh!