Protein

I’ve been eating ants.

I first noticed them a few days ago. They were on my kitchen table, tiny ones. Sometimes, as I ate breakfast or lunch, I’d find one crawling on my leg and flick it off. I couldn’t tell whence they came or what they were after. I figured the maid had missed a sticky spot.

Yesterday, I poured muesli into a cup. It was the last bit in the box, more crumbs than crunchy oat clusters. Muesli is my favorite breakfast. And lunch. And sometimes dinner. A box lasts less than a week in my home, which is why I ignore this instruction on the side: "Open and pour into an airtight container.”

I saw them just before I poured the milk. They were rising from the oat ashes and scaling a lonely raisin. They didn’t look altogether unappetizing. My body, weary of a cuisine based on rice, craves protein. I threw the muesli away, but only after I thought about it.

Save an ant. Send tuna.

Shoulda Listened to Babushka

I learned a lot in my first two weeks at Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram. I learned how to take a pulse. I learned oodles of Sanskrit words. I learned a breathing technique that promotes weight loss. (Relax, ladies, I’ll show you when I get back.)

I also learned that I’m a mess.

My right shoulder is higher than the left. My left leg is stronger than the right. My lower back is feeble and excessively concave; my upper back is a tad too rounded. My breath is shallow.

After years of fretting about the size of my butt, I’m realizing it’s the least of my problems. (I’ve also concluded that my butt is actually smaller than it appears. The concavity of my lower back creates the illusion of a large caboose.)

The worst part is, I’m to blame for my crookedness. I’m warped from years of sitting like a lady, one leg wrapped around the other, and standing like a runway model, hips askew. I’m paying for watching TV on my stomach, shrugging phone receivers to my ear and craning forward at computers. My grandmother, bless her heart, used to nag me about my weighty knapsacks. I was a bookworm and a back-talker. “How do you expect me to get good grades if I don’t bring home my books?” I’d retort. Babushka was right.

My consolation: Most of us are messed up. Some problems are inherited and others, acquired. One of my teachers at KYM has diabetes. Another has asthma. When I look around the classroom, I see bodies fit for magazines. Close inspection reveals kinks. He compensates for tight shoulders by arching his back. She compensates for a weak lower back by puffing out her chest. From a distance, we’re Michelangelos. Up close we’re all Dalis.

The good news is, babushka wasn’t completely right. I won’t end up a hunchback. What I learned in the first two weeks is that I’m fixable. Most of us are.

I’ll stop there, one step short of my yoga soapbox.

Sight to Behold

In Mamallapuram, a seaside town about 60 km south of Chennai, there’s a 1400-year-old temple on a grassy promontory. There are six more beneath the sea.

G. Kutty has seen them.

Kutty’s not a scuba diver. He’s a stone-carving student and part-time tour guide. On a day in December 2004, he rode his scooter to the beach to see what everyone was talking about.

“No one knows what means `tsunami.’ People say, `Water coming up. Water coming up.’ So I went to see.”

Kutty saw the water coming up. He saw it recede. In the moments before Kutty fled Mamallapuram, he glimpsed ancient shrines swallowed by the sea centuries ago.

Here’s what I saw Sunday, when I visited Mamallapuram with three classmates.

Why We're Here

Twice a year, Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram opens its doors to a group of foreigners for a four-week “intensive.” There are 22 of us in the latest batch.

At orientation on Sunday, a KYM staffer put a check by my name and said: “There is another Russian woman in the class.”

I didn’t correct her. I was born in Russia, but I’m an American. My family immigrated to the US when I was 5, and we became citizens several years later. I’m way more burger than borscht. I speak broken Russian with an American accent. I’ll take bourbon over vodka any day.

Anyway, I picked out the Russian immediately. I have “Ruskie-dar” the way gay men have gaydar. She was sitting in front with designer sunglasses perched on her head and pearls around her neck. She had very blond hair and very arched brows drawn over plucked ones. When it came time for introductions, I learned that her name is Irina.

It didn’t take long to realize why country affiliation is a tricky matter. I’m a Russian-born American residing in India. Irina lives in Geneva and holds both Russian and Swiss passports. Our class includes a Pakistani woman who lives in London and a New Yorker born in Mexico. Dhurga, the only “Indian” in the bunch, was born in Chicago.

There’s also a student from each of Canada, Sweden, France, Britain, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Switzerland and Argentina. Italians number two, and Germans form the majority with five.

Some of my classmates are in their 20s, and others are in their 60s. Only two are men. (My mom was crestfallen when I told her this. She’d hoped I’d find a husband here.) One of them is a 65-year-old Frenchman named -- but of course! -- Pierre. He lives in Reims (Champagne country!), where he teaches yoga to prison inmates. Talking to Pierre has convinced me that I have a gift for French.

“Where I teach in zee prizohn, there are no -- how you say? -- gardien.”

“Guards,” I offer.

“Yees!”

“Sometimes a cell door ees open when I walk through zee -- what ees it? -- couloir.”

“You mean corridor?”

“Yees!”

Like Pierre, most of the students are yoga teachers themselves. A few make their living that way; the rest have day jobs. There’s a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, a massage therapist, an Ayurvedic therapist and a student of naturopathic medicine. Nelly, the New Yorker, does stage lighting. Romina, an Argentine who lives in London, is a personal trainer. Inge, a 65-year-old German, is a retired librarian.

“I worked for Forty. Two. Years,” she told me. She said 42 the way teenage girls stretch “unbelievable” into “Un. Buh. Leavable.”

My face must have said “Un. Buh. Leavable.”

“I know,” Inge said. “I can’t believe it myself.”

All of us came to Chennai to learn from TKV Desikachar, founder of KYM. He’s a renowned yogi and son of the late T Krishnamacharya, who’s credited with rekindling interest in yoga in the early 20th century.

Our day begins at 7 a.m. with an hour of asana practice. Asana is the bend, twist and balance-on-a-pinkie aspect of yoga. It’s the leg Westerners know best. Afterward, we sit down to a South Indian breakfast, typically steamed rice dumplings (idli) or rice pancakes (uthapam) with coconut chutney and dhal for dipping. We drink spiced, milky tea and finish with apples and bananas.

At 9 we return to the classroom, a delicate structure of woven palm leaves and bamboo poles, and plant knee-high desks on our yoga mats. We have an hour-long class on the theoretical foundations of asana and pranayama (yogic breathing), followed by an hour on yoga philosophy. Then we walk to a building several blocks away for a lesson in chanting. We’re a peculiar sight in the streets of Chennai, conspicuous as penguins in Palm Desert.

We recess at 12:30 to lunch, nap and pore over notes. Some use the time to shop, returning with sheer embroidered tunics and boho bags. At 3:15 we have a class on yoga therapy, where we finger each other’s spines and bandy big-boy words like “kyphosis” and “lordosis.” We recharge with tea and cookies before the final session of the day, a meditative practice that ends at 6.




It’s at once heady and exhausting. I’m inspired. I’m dog-tired. The heat and the hours spent sitting on the floor enervate my cubicle-accustomed body. The subject matter strains my mind. What is the mind? What is consciousness? What is the eternal quest of man? How do we define happiness? Even the more temporal discussions are taxing. What’s the position of the diaphragm in a headstand? How does one observe axial twisting of the spine?

That’s why I have a date with Antonio tonight. I’m not reviewing class notes. I’m not reading an anatomy text. I’m slipping “Take the Lead” into my laptop and watching Mr. Banderas merengue his way into the hearts of ne’er-do-well teens. That, tonight, is my definition of happiness.

Bloodthirsty

The scoundrel had his way with me while I was sleeping.

I woke up in the middle of the night, violated. He’d nibbled on my neck, grazed on the front crease of one elbow and feasted on an inner thigh. Bastard came just short of my bikini line. I can’t be sure if he acted alone. He was never apprehended.

When it comes to insects and arachnids, I’m all for capital punishment. I hunt mosquitoes with eyes squinted, hands in clap position like I’m waiting for the final note of a concerto. I’ve executed dozens. The outbreak of chikungunya fever in this part of India makes clemency untenable.

A Roof of One’s Own

I’ve been asked to describe my digs. I’m feeling lazy and at a loss for “like” constructions. This place isn’t like anywhere else I’ve lived. It’s not like anything I’ve seen in movies. It’s a tad Lower East Side tenement, but roomier. It has high ceilings and marble floors. The paint is cracked; the lighting, fluorescent. There are cobwebs in corners and meshed screens secured with Velcro across windows. I’ll let pictures do the rest.

This is Sowmiya’s house. It’s about 20 years old. Her husband built it. I live on the second floor, in one of two apartments added about five years ago.


This is the door to my apartment.


This is the first thing you see when you walk in, a baby blue refrigerator that’s so cute I want to hug it and take it home. That is, if I had a home besides this one.


This is the dining area. (And, yes, those are my unmentionables on the clothesline strung between windows.)


Here’s my kitchen.


And here’s my bedroom.


I saved the best part for last. Check out the roof.


The roof is spacious, surrounded by trees and, so far, all mine. I can watch the sun rise while sipping coffee. (I haven’t, but it’s divine to know I can.) I can practice yoga. (Done that.) God, how I wished for a balcony when I lived in LA, a patch of outdoor space where I could read the Sunday paper. Now I have enough room for cartwheels.

Sowmiya says I can entertain friends up there, invite them over when the moon is full. I don’t have friends yet, and I’m not in a hurry to make some. I’m greedy for solitude. That may come as a shock to people who know me. Back home, I’m an outgoing sort. I’m the organizer of weekend getaways and surprise parties. I’m the link between this friend and that. I chat up strangers and security guards. I’m a breaker of ice.

Here, I feel like hibernating. I find interactions arduous, even the friendly, fleeting kind. I pray Sowmiya’s front door is closed when I pass by. I’m reluctant to eat in restaurants because it requires exchanges with waiters and busboys. Dinnertime? Cashews and fresh pomegranate will do. My neighbor Marco has invited me over for coffee. I’m noncommittal.

Call it reverse metamorphosis. This social butterfly has entered a pupal stage.

The apartment suits my purposes. I come and go as I please. I brew coffee in the morning, drink tea at night and take cool showers at both ends. I park myself under a ceiling fan and read for hours. Much to my amazement, I have wireless Internet access if I position my laptop just so. I spend a lot of time in that just-so spot, which just happens to be in the middle of my bed.

“What’s your place like?” friends write. It’s perfect.

Busted

I had an appointment Wednesday at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, where I’ll be studying yoga starting Monday. I timed the walk from my apartment. It took half an hour, but my methodology was flawed. First I stopped to chat with Marco, my Belgian neighbor. Then I snapped photos of kids with chicks and a condo construction project.



Twenty minutes in, I was lost. I pulled out the only map I had: a doodle on newsprint, courtesy of Sowmiya. “KYM” floated in the upper left corner. The surrounding squiggles weren’t labeled, and I couldn’t tell which squiggle corresponded to the squiggle of a road I was on. Luckily, Sowmiya had written KYM’s address at the top.

There was a press shop on the pockmarked sidewalk. By press shop I mean a pushcart loaded with laundry. The presswallah stopped smoothing wrinkles with his heavy, coal-filled iron when I approached. I extended the drawing and pointed to the address. He didn’t give it a glance.

“Yoga?”

Caught off guard, I briefly forgot which country I’m in and blurted “Si!”

“Second left. Fourth right.”

I suppressed a “gracias” and thanked him in English. A left and a right later, I reached the gates of KYM.

What gave me away? I wasn’t toting a mat. A yoga-rific derrière? Hardly. A blissed-out mien? No, I was drenched in sweat and flirting with cranky. I realized the answer when I kicked off my sandals, walked through the doors and saw something I hadn’t seen since I stepped off the plane: another white woman.

KYM is what draws firangs to this part of Chennai. If you’re white and you’re here, odds are you’re down with TKV Desikachar, the venerable yoga teacher who founded KYM. It was my fourth day in town, and I’d counted three Westerners: me, That Woman and Marco. Marco, who’s renting the other half of Sowmiya’s second floor, was found "unfit to work" by the Belgian government. (I didn't probe.) Such diagnosis afforded him a life of endless travel. He’s lived in the Himalayas and Goa, the Indian state best known for its beaches. He arrived in Chennai a few days ahead of me to study Theosophy.

“Hmmm,” is what I said to that. And when he mentioned Theosophy’s founder, a certain Russian named Madame Blavatsky, I steered the conversation to something … less zany.

“I was born in Russia,” I offered.

Back home, I Googled “theosophy.” Turns out, the Theosophical Society has its international headquarters in Chennai. According to its Web site, Theosophy’s “primary object is Universal Brotherhood based on the realization that life, and all its diverse forms, human and non-human, is indivisibly One.” It’s a let’s-get-along thang. Dig?

Anyway, Marco makes three. We stand out like orange-clad monks at a Metallica concert. I don’t mind. I haven’t tried to fit in since Kirk Cameron graced the cover of Tiger Beat. I didn’t own a Cabbage Patch doll, and I’ve never worn ugg boots. Here in Chennai, my white skin has some drawbacks. Beggars make a beeline; rickshaw drivers charge double. But it has its privileges, too. Children and young men yell “hi” and, sometimes, “Which country?” Shopkeepers turn on their fans when I walk in. And it’s insurance against getting lost. Appointment over, I left KYM and went in search of a lunch spot. I strolled down the street, went round a bend, turned a corner and paused at an intersection that looked vaguely familiar. A friendly rickshaw driver divined my confusion and offered to help.

“Yoga?”