Prisoner Cell Bloke Ashram – Kerela, India

Prisoner Cell Bloke Ashram
Kerela, India

Prior to visiting India, I’d always been suspicious of meditation centres. Too much orange and not enough hair. Bliss without alcohol? You must be joking. Still, despite successfully failing to attend meditation courses in five other countries, my fascination with the mysterious world of the inner-self and incense stick remained, and so with a few days left in India I decided to book myself onto the vacation scheme course of the Sivanander Ashram in Kerela. It was an experience I won’t forget in a hurry.

Arriving at the gates after two days of nail-biting post-decision stress, first impressions were cautiously positive. Set amidst 12 acres of jungle, the Ashram lay amidst the lush and fertile Neyyar Wildlife Sanctuary, close to the mirror waters of Lake Kodayar. Gravelled pathways flowed through perfectly manicured gardens, allowing access to the library, yoga rooms, dormitories, bookshop and a small café from where it was possible to look out over the surrounding jungle and distant Agastya Malai mountains.

Slightly disconcerting was the high wall and guarded entranceway – a type of spiritual Alcatraz – but it was too late to turn back. Mutely following the bald headed helper to my cell, I closed the door and lay down on one of the beds, trying hard not to think about what the next few days might bring. Evening scents of flowers, cut grass and cooking floated through the open window, bringing with it the distant chatter of other new arrivals and strains of light music. And then, with apocalyptic inevitability, Dieter arrived.

Standing some 6 foot 2 and weighing roughly 3 metric tonnes, 64-year-old Dieter from the Rhinelands of Germany was pretty much everything you’d expect from a room mate in an Ashram. What remained of his greasy lank hair stuck thinly to the sides and back of his head and continued for some way down his stained t-shirt. A heavily accented professor of yoga and meditation techniques, Deiter came replete with his own special odour. Difficult to quantify at first, I decided after some hours that it reminded me mostly of stale yeast, dead fish and something green, although I couldn’t quite decide what.

Pleasantries completed, Dieter made the unilateral decision to turn the ceiling fan off before proceeding to remove all of his clothes and wallowing to bed. He then put a tennis ball under his neck and in the small of his back, turned on a portable CD player, and began to snore with the sonic intensity of a pile driver. There was something rotten in the state of Ashram.

Morning shattered with the delicate pummelling of a large brass bell directly outside the bedroom window. It was 4.45 a.m. Wondering hazily what was going on, I was momentarily distracted by Dieter who emerged naked from his bed and lumbered to the shower. There aren’t too many worse ways of being woken than being clanged from sleep pre-dawn by a large bell, but I’m willing to bet that having to watch a 64-year-old naked German swing about the room 5 minutes afterwards is probably one of them.

Collapsing into my clothes, I padded sleepily to the main hall. It was 5.40 a.m. and the large space was already nearly full. Every student appeared to be dressed in identical yellow t-shirts and pristine white trousers with folded cushioned yoga mats tucked neatly by their sides. My spirits weakened. Already feeling awkward, a hasty decision to wash the bulk of my clothes the previous day had left me no option but to don a pair of ripped fishermans trousers and disastrously faded fake ‘Von Dutch’ t-shirt. Normally sufficient to fit in with the other badly dressed travellers, at this point it felt as if I were gate crashing a convent mass in bondage gear.

Then there was my yoga ‘mat’. Lulled into a false sense of security by an assurance that “a towel will be fine”, I’d neglected to explain that in my case it probably wouldn’t be, following my rash purchase of a novelty ‘Mickey and Minnie in Vietnam’ towel some months back. The tattered thing was now an off-white and depicted the loveable American cartoon couple driving a bright blue car through the streets of Vietnam, goofy grins on their faces and traditional Vietnamese hats tipped at a comedy angle on their heads. Great. That’s the ‘at least he has respect for other cultures’ defence out of the window then.

The morning session started as promised with a ‘Satsung’, or chant, all of which was conducted in ancient Sanskrit. The idea was that the intonation of the words would produce vibrations throughout our bodies conducive to effective meditation and eventual spiritual enlightenment. Sadly, practicality dictated that the chanter first needed at least a basic grasp of pronunciation, which, following the removal of ancient Sanskrit from most of the worlds education programmes, many of us lacked. In truth, it being 6 a.m., many of us also lacked the faculties required to speak our native tongues and this made tackling phrases like “Subrahmanaya Rakshamaam” and “Om Namo Bhagavate Vaasudevaya” all the more interesting.

Like a field of mating bullfrogs we struggled valiantly with our “Chinmaya Guru Om’s” and our “Raamapriyaye Namah’s” but for all the sincerity, the only vibrations I felt that morning were from my malcontented stomach, understandably piqued at its being woken so early without even the merest crumb of solid excuse.

We were then invited to line up and one by one throw a rice cracker onto a fire at the front of the stage. The point of this was to demonstrate how working together can overcome all. The rice-crackers were symbolic obstacles. The more ‘obstacles’ that were added to the fire, the bigger the fire became, and the more easily the obstacles are destroyed. Not an offensive message by any means, and so battling with the primitive urge to just eat the bloody rice-cracker, I’d queued up and grumpily chucked it on.

Unfortunately, the organisers hadn’t reckoned on the considerable number of crackers due to be incinerated that day. As the symbolic flames grew stronger, so did the fumes. In a superb demonstration of elemental physics, smoke rose in great plumes from the front of the hall, inched its way along the ceiling, and descended like a fragrant fart onto the heads of those of us seated at the back. Having finally located my seat through the smog, I watched in mute amazement as the raging fire some 200 meters away disappeared from view. Worthy demonstrations aside, I wondered hazily whether ‘enlightenment through symbolic rice-cracker asphyxiation’ had been part of the intended plan.

Yoga was next, although that experience wasn’t without it’s peculiarities. Bucking the trend, our appointed teacher, whose strictly balanced life was dedicated to health and happiness had gone down with the flu. The replacement teacher was a stern looking girl in her mid to late 20s, who made it clear from the start that she wasn’t going to take any crap. Strutting up and down the room like a prison officer, she proceeded to bark instructions and make examples out of the truly rubbish, of whom I was one.

Not that it mattered, since concentration for the whole group was then irreversibly broken by the unmistakable sounds of mating lions in the wildlife reserve a kilometre or so away. I don’t know how many of you have ever been privy to the incredible noises that accompany lion sex, but believe me, these creatures know how to party. With each new roar and thundering grunt, a fresh section of the assembled group dissolved into fits of laughter, all attempts to disguise the merriment with ‘deep breathing’ exercises only making matters worse. Frankly, I suspect that the Dali Lhama might have had a job keeping it together, but for us it simply wasn’t worth trying.

The rest of the day was spent carrying out ‘karmic yoga’ duties (toilet cleaning that improves your chances of enlightenment. Result!), attending talks (predictably although rather unimaginatively all about yoga); more group grunting, and yet more yoga.

Returning to the room that evening I discovered Dieter, thankfully clothed, lying prostrate on his bed, tennis balls expertly inserted and CD player on. Roused by my entrance, he clicked off the player, and for the next hour or so we had a thoroughly entertaining chat about how life had been in the 60s Indian Ashrams, the twirling; the gurus; the music and the philosophies. Deiter didn’t really get on with the whole chanting thing, and argued that spirituality should be a purely personal experience, learned principally through ones own meditative techniques. This made sense to me, although quite how a couple of Slazenger’s best had wound themselves into Dieter’s personal psyche was a question I’d probably leave unasked.

The following days passed in a similar fashion, with quirks and peculiarities occurring hand in hand with developing friendships and increased flexibility. Despite my worst fears, I had to admit that the overall impression however was certainly positive. Had I missed drinking? No. Had I missed smoking? Incredibly, not one single drag. Had I resented getting up early? Well, yes, but to be honest that’s a loaded question. Ok then, had I felt tired? No. In fact I’d never had so much energy in my life. The 5 a.m. starts had left me positively bouncing about in glee. I had to admit it, I felt great.

How about the diet? Ahh. There’s the rub. Although nutritious and managing occasionally to produce a vague taste, there’s only so much of the colour grey that anyone can eat. Dear meat and fish, whilst I may try and cut down on you, I’ll never give you up. Amen.

Still, whatever your poison and whatever your beliefs may or may not be, it’s a fact that few of us ever spend much time with ourselves enforcedly not worrying about ‘stuff’. It’s also a fact that to do so, for however short a time, does instil or at least reinforce and feeling of increased well-being and calm. Whether you attribute these feelings to a higher universal consciousness or not is up to you. It did occur to me that to attend this kind of a place was a privilege that not everyone had the time or money to afford. How many of the local Indians I’d met in the last 5 months could take the time out to attend an Ashram? How could a working mother of 5 spend 4 hours a day in quiet meditation?

Whatever the shortfallings, I was glad I’d attended. Touching my toes was no longer an issue, and I’d found it encouraging to clear up some of the misconceptions relating to the type of people who attend these things. Although I doubt I’ll ever be able to look at a tennis ball in the same way again.