Stop 1 – Delhi

AMENDMENT -I have since visited Delhi with a wonderful host. I am sorry I called it “a horrible horrible city” below. I was emotional from the plethora of bad ideas I had experienced. Give it a try; you live and learn. – Suzanne 4.14.09

This is the first of my stops to on my spiritual journey. This will not be chronological so let’s start in Delhi:

This is one of the stops on my spiritual journey – McDonald’s in Delhi. The ice cream tastes EXACTLY the same in Delhi as in Virginia. And if you ask for extra extra chocolate, it is only 10 ruppees for each additional squirt of chocolate! I got two extras totaling my treat to a whopping 50cents of indulgence, McD’s style.

No, that is not me with blond hair. That is Sat Siri (Rachel Dougherty) the world famous ballerina (or Yogarina) from the Australia Ballet who is my roommate and FaceWashGuru. (Please pick up on how nearly nothing in the last sentence is fully true). She has taught me not just kundalini yoga every day but also how to properly wash my face with something other than a bar of soap. Apparently using hand soap on my face is not really that good for my skin?! She happens to have an incredible sense of humor, adventure, style, and grace. So I was very excited when she asked me to go with her to Delhi last week after the International Yoga Festival ended (tackling that story for another day). We headed to Delhi for 24 hours in order to get a hug. To be honest, I am still contemplating if tackling Delhi was worth the hug. I will explain the hug and its significance in the next post.

It was at least worth the adventure which is what you must remember when leaving the airport or train station and actually going into Delhi. It is a horrible horrible city which makes everywhere else in India feel like a ride down the lazy river at WaterCountry. I shouldn’t be so critical after such a short stay but I will allow others to describe any positive aspects of the city if they know of them.

We arrived in Delhi on the morning train so we had half a day to kill before going to get our hugs that night. At the advice of a friend we dropped our bags at a shanty little hotel near the train station and headed toward Connaught Circle for lunch, not at McDonalds. We ate near McDonald’s as it was our landmark for the restaurant our friend suggested. Unfortunately that meant asking “McDonald’s?” about 5 times which made me cringe in self-disgust that I was embodying the ‘ugly American’ image each lucky local wanted to confirm by my question. So after our lunch we were no cooler so we decided that soft serve sundaes from McDonald’s would not be the worst choice of the day (we didn’t know that at the time). So we enjoyed our little piece of Americana quite impressed with the lightning speed of service, incredible tidiness, and smiles all around. Were we really in India?

We were quickly reminded of reality as we stepped outside and our decisions went from bad to worse.

We decided that being in the big city of Delhi, we would further take our friend’s advice and splurge on a pedicure. After walking around without shoes and generally living in a filthy country, this didn’t really seem too extravagant for an afternoon. We got advice from a few ladies as to where to go but 2 hours later we were still outside without our feet up.

Bad choice #1 – going to Delhi without a full night’s rest or an air purifier or personal car

Bad choice #2 – ice cream on a hot day and then walking around for 2 hours inhaling exhaust. In the immortal words of Ron Burgundy “Milk was a bad idea.” Actually, I think eating in India outside of my ashram might be a bad idea.

Bad choice #3 – looking for pedicures at the advice of a man. Really this is the only time I have doubted Sat Siri’s judgment. She asked a man for a salon. It was not till we left the “beauty parlor” later that we realized that he had charged us 20ruppes for a rickshaw ride literally to the back side of the block! We were exasperated; I forgive her.

Bad choice #4 – actually agreeing to a “facial” and “manicure” when we found out this dive of a beauty parlor didn’t have pedicures.

Bad choice #5 – closing my eyes and letting the “facial” continue until there was grit and lotion in my eyes and mouth, lotion dripping down my front, and then paying something just to get out of there without blindness or an allergic reaction

I wish I had pictures of the horror or comedy that this “beauty parlor” experience was. Instead, I have the memory of me moaning under the vigorous hands of my torturer to confirm Sat Siri’s “Suzanne, do you want this to end now? Should we just leave now?”

This experience was made even better by the fact that we had only days earlier been treated to the most luxurious spa experience of our lives at Ananda in the Himalayas. This is also a story for another post.

Moral of the story – Don’t be anymore adventurous than you need to be in Delhi; just surviving is enough of an adventure. I am sure that the spiritual growth of that day occurred under the dangerous hands of a woman at a beauty parlor, not eating ice cream, where I learned to breath through lotion and pain.

More tomorrow . . .