A Year in Provence

A year in Provence

Saturday, October 16^th

I decided to go down to the Ganges river and take a plunge. The shock of the cold as the water hit my body caused me to tremble. I literally felt as If an electric current had passed through me. It was exhilarating, and soon my body had adjusted to the temperature. My visit to the Ganga today is not without purpose. I have come to petition Mother Ganga to remove the woundedness that I carry deep within my soul. In this, I am guided by local mythology, which says that if you ask Mother Ganga, she will wash away your sins. And in return I offer her three flowers, so as to honor the natural flow of life's give and take.

I emerge from the water feeling revitalized. I do not know if the feeling of renewal is real or simply imagined; a residue of the rivers hypnotic current. Not caring, I cling to this feeling, as I make my solitary journey back. I am running late as usual, and I quicken my pace to arrive at the cafe where I will be meeting Musette for breakfast. I am the fastest thing moving on two legs, and I realize that I am still habituated the frenetic energy of New York. The relaxed pace of India, has not yet seeped into my bones.

I arrive at the cafe to find that Musette has already eaten her American styled breakfast of hash browns and eggs. She is happily sipping on a cup of coffee on the balcony of the restaurant which overlooks the river. It is a spectacular view. I order a glass of orange juice and we talk about her life in Denmark.

Seated under the hot morning sun, I am reminded of a similar scene in France. Just three short weeks ago, I was seated in a cafe in the port town of Ville Franche; sipping wine and eating a baguette. As life naturally seeks to imitate art, I sat contemplating living in France. “A Year in Provence” seemed idyllic. But, under the spell of India's naked beauty, here in Rishikesh, any such desire is all but extinguished. I now seek to while away my days sipping black chai, reading books and practicing yoga in a quest to discover the meaning of life. That sounds rather lofty. The truth of the matter is I like the rest of us want to live without having to earn my keep. I am plagued with flights of fancy.

After the second of the three daily meditations, I am feeling restless. Immediately lunch was finished, I inveigled Angelo to go off campus with me and walk into Laxman Julha. Angelo is what I can only describe as your typical beach bum. His highly bronzed skin, bleached blond hair and rippling muscles all confirm his tale of living on the beaches of Ibiza. He is a masseuse and he spends his summers working and living on the beach for six months. In the winter he migrates to the city of Madrid. And in keeping with the stereo type he boasts of spending the last ten years in an intimate relationship with marijuana.

He takes me to a tiny shop selling singing bowls and statues of Buddha. He is keen to purchase a singing bowl, as he uses them is his work. He is actually a very intelligent chap, with an extremely analytical mind. We spend an hour listening to the nosounds of the different bowls; at the end of which he decides to take them all. I am disappointed as I had hoped to buy one as well. I ask the shop owner if he has any more, and he sends his assistant off on a moped to bring back more bowls from the warehouse. In less than ten minutes the assistant is back with only two bowls. I select the larger one which seems to have the best resonance. The shop owner was quite anxious to finalize the sale as he needed cash to travel that night some 200km away and offered us a 30% discount.   We were surprised at the generosity of the shop keeper, and hastened to pay before he changed his mind. 

A sitar player was hired to play music for us for one hour after dinner. At 9:00pm a group of us filed into the meditation hall to listen to the live performance. We sat in near darkness, the only illumination coming into the room from the hallway light. The atmosphere was magical and I think we were all spell bound by the music. The sitar was at once woeful and plaintive; ecstatic and jubilant. I closed my eyes and let the music take me on a journey of longing, of love lost and found and of the sheer joy of living. The sitar player closed with a single note that hung in the air for two minutes. This I found the most beautiful.

I was intoxicated with the music of the sitar.  So it was only fitting, that this should be the last night of celebrations and I was once again serenaded by the chanting of prayer and song in the name of Lord Ram.