Ananth's Blog

 Bhaelak-Bhuda Kedar-Vinayak Kal-Baethi Nanda Devi All the uphill trek we did yesterday seemed to go waste as today was a mad rush downhill. It was raining heavily. The path become extremely slippery. I fell down 3 times. Thankfully none of them were bad falls. Each step was a potential step towards a painful ankle break. We quickly descended into thick forests leaving the rolling meadows of Bhaelak. The physical discomfort and the pain seem to embolden the Garhwalis...The hills were resounding with their warcry: “Har Har Mahadev!”. After 1.5 hours, we came across a lone hut and a goshala which was setup for the pilgrims. I drank curd and it was very good. Old man and his coterie of Garhwali friends seemed to know every resident of every settlement we came across. The lady taking care of the goshala was no exception. Soon we reached a town called Thatti which has the ancient Bhuda Kedar temple . Bhuda kedar literally means the ancient kedar. Legend says that Shiva was origi...

Prelude: The following posts chronicle day 2 and day 3 of trek after leaving Gomukh.. ------------------------------------------------------------   Jhala-Ganganani-Bhatwadi-Lata Saera The path we were taking till now was mostly on the national highway till Jhala. The first of the many shortcuts we took immediately after Jhala. Climbing mountains is surprisingly easy in the mornings. Literally we sprinted to the top of a mountain called Sukha top. This was where we took our snack. More do’s and don’ts dawned upon me. I was told that when carrying the kavad, one cannot drink water nor eat anything even a candy. In fact there is a certain way by which one relieves himself of the kavad. So this essentially means that he carries the kavad upon himself the whole day as long as he is walking except for the 2 or 3 breaks in the middle. It was because of this that the first parts of my body which started aching were not the legs, rather it was the shoulders. Constantly shiftin...

Prelude: After Maamaji and I started walking, I could not write everyday. I started maintaining the journal only after reaching Gomukh. ----------------------------------------------------- One of the things that I consciously established with old man was the feeling of peerage. Maamaji was very poor and I think his yearly trek would account for the bulk of his annual expenses. I tried to avoid any way by which he would look at me as a city slicker. The people in the ashram were very excited about our trek. Many came to bless me and offered prayers and well-wishes. Old man nudged me to touch the feet of many of the senior sadhus. I was excited as well. Even though I came to know about the trek only 3 weeks back, I had been doing a lot of hata yoga. Usually 25 surya namaskars and asana practices. And it served me well. My communication with Maamaji was through my questionable Hindi but Maamaji does not really speak Hindi. He speaks Garhwali. As we were leaving the ash...

Prelude:  The following was written almost 5 months into my self-imposed exile. It was written while I was staying in an ashram in a small village called Ganeshpur somewhere in the upper reaches of Tehri Garhwal . I spent my time working in the kitchen as a self-appointed cook. ------------------------------------------------------------------ It was a rare moment. Rare indeed is a moment when you clearly realize that you have lost it. It was almost 5 months since I have been off the grid. The first 4 months were really good. I had fun. I had very little money and hence for the first time in my life, I am constantly thinking about money and rationing it. But I liked it as a novelty. Physically also, it was very difficult but I liked to push myself more and more. But most importantly, my sadhana was really good. I meditated like never before. But a variety of circumstances made me impatient and eventually pissed me off. I was no longer fine with just living not knowin...

They said the world will end in 2012. For me my world ended in 2011. Or so it looked. 2011 is when my stay in Isha Yoga Center became crazily tenable. I was taking classes in Delhi and was having a blast. Rams got married. Shanti from Home School would feed me comfort food whenever i longed for Chocolates/Italian food. I could sit in Ardha Siddhasana for an hour and not realize it! :) However a variety of circumstances forced me to leave the ashram. I had too much pride in me to do something which would have made lesser human beings celebrate. Anyways, I chose to go and live in the Himalayas. In retrospect, I really don't know how I let myself do it. What I do know is that those 6 months of my life that I spent as a nameless life walking the mountains were my proudest. There was too much life happening in those 6 months. Too many experiences, too many emotions, too many sensations in my body packed into 6 months. I managed to get some scrap paper and maintain a journal. I...

Took her out for a long drive this weekend. Drove from Bangalore to Ooty via Mysore-Bandipur-Mudhumalai route . Very scenic. She was smooth on the curves and cushioned me through all the ups and downs of the road. She took out all the 36 hair-pin bends without breaking into a sweat. Had a lot of home-made chocolates in Ooty. Was a fun weekend!

Next up is Inner Engineering at Basavanagudi this wednesday! Guess how i will be driving to the class??? a Honda Civic 1.8 VMT. Yup, that's my 'new' car... Will be out of facebook for a week... Taking classes in different parts of Bangalore city is the best way to experience the City... But more about that later.... For now, Buckle up your seat belt dorothy, cos Kansas is going Bye-Bye... Vroooom!