Tuesday 29 March 2011

21 March: Hurrah! Adventure!

I ventured a bit further than the supermarket yesterday, and went to the Bannerghatta national park! I went on safari in a green bus which had metal mesh over the windows, to stop vicious carnivores from consuming the sweaty tourists within!
The safari started in the herbivore park, where Bambis grazed, and also gazelles, boar, and gigantic bison. Next we came to the bear park. If I believed in reincarnation I’d want to come back as one of those bears – they’re entirely vegetarian, and spend their time sitting on their arses, eating watermelons and honey.
After the bear park we came to lion territory! There were one-year-old cubs playing and frolicking! The lions, bears and tigers at Bannerghatta are not wild, having mostly been rescued from circuses and zoos, and other such inhumane institutions. They don’t hunt but sit on their arses and get fed punctually every day at 17:30. Still, they’re beautiful! Tigers are absolutely enormous! Since I was on my own I got to sit at the very front by the driver and guide, and had the best view. The guide helped me take pictures when the animals where on the wrong side of the bus. He also told me all about the animals, and extorted a tip from me at the end of the tour.
I wanted to go on what the park advertised as an “elephant joy ride”, but apparently the elephants were busy doing other things that day.

Lions at Bannerghatta National Park,
dreaming of sausages
A giant white tiger
The food truck turned up...and the bears were off!

Having got the bus back from the park, I walked back through the village – and was attacked by people smearing paint! The Holi festival was in full swing, and people were throwing paint left, right and centre! As I walked back people kept bursting out laughing (which may or may not have been due to my sweaty, paint-smeared appearance) and shouting “Happy Holi!"

Colourful people during Holi

 It turns out I’m even healthier than Mr Burns (apart, obviously from the usual crippling disability) – all my blood test results were completely normal. The doctor thinks that with some more rehab I should be able to do computer work for at least a few hours a day, and Ajeesh has licence to start beating me black and blue again. This is good news for future career plans: Sarah, I know there’s a shrine devoted to me at Millets (and quite rightly, too), but the long-term plan is still to get away from retail! Far, far, far away. (Providing, of course, that cripples are hot on the job market right now.) If all else fails I’m thinking maybe an all-female Elvis cover band. Or a Dolly Parton cover trio! I know Rox can sing and look fabulous at the same time, and Ruth, being super musical, can play the piano, harp and accordion (simultaneously?), and I could maybe bang two wooden spoons together.

I’m still trying to learn to relax enough to benefit from Manjula’s chakra meditation. It’s surprisingly difficult, but I found a most amusing guide to meditation in the library. Some excerpts from the introduction:

“The mind is thinking usefully about thinking and thinking: pondering about this, wondering about that, turning over assorted problems. Indulging in these suppositions gives the mind no rest.

(…) Instead it continues on its own way with mindful awareness lagging behind, unable to catch up. We almost manage to bring it in but then it slips away to (thoughts of) ‘America’, and upon following this we find it’s already back to ‘Thailand’ or ‘Germany’ and so on.

(…) Whatever, if the mind isn’t with the breath it’s off rambling and concocting.

(…) I would like you to bypass the affair of voices heard in this state. They sound a bit indistinct like over long distance telephone lines. You may actually seem to see and hear both local and distant conversations concerning yourself.

(…) The mind must be reprimanded and when necessary brought to order by intimidation. Such threats will leave the mind baffled and dazed and it can then be led back to the meditation object.”

(From Meditation by Dr Mohan Makkar Ph.D. (A.M.) and Dr Geeta (Naturopathy); introduction by Phra Acharn Plien Panyapatipo. Winsome Books India. Delhi, 2007.)

That's it for now, folks.

Thank you, come again!

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