Number of Times I’ve Been to the Gym Since My Last Entry:

0.

Here's the thing. I left Chennai the day I wrote that post. I came back and left again. Came back and left again. I’m back in Chennai now but clean out of “gymspiration,” as Helo puts it. Maybe it’s because the rains have stopped. Maybe it’s because my flatmate Ben installed a water heater in his shower. Maybe it’s because my resolution for the new year is more about diggin’ what I got than chasing what I don’t.

Happy 2007, my friends. Thanks for the cards, the Ouidad Deep Treatment Intensive Conditioner and the “where the eff are you?” messages.

Here’s where I’ve been.

My first journey was to Tiruvannamalai; the second, Mumbai. The former is a pilgrimage town dotted with temples, shrines and ashrams. The latter is India's financial capital, a city that rivals New York in pace and flash. The third trip was to Pondicherry – or Puducherry, as it was recently renamed – a former French colony where breakfast means baguettes and croissants.

Tiruvannamalai is a three-hour drive from Chennai. I made the trip with Ben and Nico, a friend from the yoga course I completed in September. We stayed for three nights, during which I slept a combined eight or nine hours. Something kept me from sleeping soundly. It might have been the slumber party atmosphere in the room we shared. It might have been the plus-size mosquitoes that circled our heads.

I think it was Arunachala, the extinct volcano that rises over Tiruvannamalai. It’s steeped in Hindu mythology and considered a manifestation of Siva, a VID (very important deity). Pilgrims come from across India to circle the holy hill. The 20th century Indian sage Sri Ramana Maharshi made Arunachala his home, living and meditating for 23 years on the mountain before building an ashram at its base. We stayed in one of the ashram’s dormitories, and at night, when I gave up on sleep, I sat in the bathroom and read about Ramana. I scribbled the sort of fizzy journal entry that makes me cringe on later reading:

I don’t know what it is about this place, but I feel giddy … Is it the smile I exchanged with the white-clad, bead-draped, ponytailed man outside? … Is it because the restaurant down the street serves porridge with dates and honey? Or the fact that hiking’s on the weekend agenda? Is it Ramana Maharshi?

Lots of people find serenity in the shadow of the “Red Mountain.” A few reach enlightenment. I attained a state of perkiness familiar to anyone who’s snacked on cotton candy and Coke.

That energy came in useful. I hiked for nine hours over two days. On the first morning, I joined the stream of Indians circling Arunachala. I started the 14-kilometer circumambulation alone, but within a few kilometers I’d been adopted by a pair of women who led me by the hand from one holy site to the next. They jabbered at me in Tamil, and I responded with smiles and shrugs. They made hard-to-interpret hand gestures. They examined my hair and clothes. I’m fairly certain they were keen on giving me a makeover.

On the second morning, Ben and I decided to scale the mountain. We set off for Skandasramam, a cave-slash-cottage where Ramana lived. We acquired a guide who courted us with fistfuls of lemongrass and daubed our mosquito bites with medicinal leaf sap.

Ben on Arunachala. That's Tiruvannamalai's Arunachaleswara Temple below.

We left the guide and our sandals at the entrance to Skandasramam and joined the Ramana devotees meditating inside. After a brief meditation, we huddled behind the abode and plotted our ascent. I suggested we find a trail and follow it. It was Ben’s idea to clamber over the boulders that flank Skandasramam, crawl through some dense shrubbery and head straight up.

I was feelin’ all spiritual as we scrambled, barefoot, up the steep, rock-strewn non-path. Spiritual and sexy in a spiderwoman-ish way. It seemed less a hike and more a quest. We talked about yoga and mysticism and gender politics and worried about disturbing the yogi who's reportedly been meditating on Arunachala since 1990. We climbed for more than an hour, and then, the terrain changed. Rocks gave way to vegetation. Our battered soles forced us to turn back.

The return trip – not so sexy. My feet felt like they’d been flayed. I yelped with every step and rued a decade of pedicures. I spent half the descent on my ass, shimmying down the sacred hill.

At Skandasramam, we retrieved our sandals. Our guide was still waiting.

“You have good meditation?”