Wee Bit Badass

The Reunion Tour

2007-04-03T00:55:00.000+05:30

March 28 - April 5 Los Angeles, CALIFORNIA

April 6 - 8 Moab, UTAH

April 10 - 12 Chicago, ILLINOIS

April 13 - 17 Pittsburgh, PENNSYLVANIA

April 18 Philadelphia, PENNSYLVANIA

April 19 - 22 New York, NEW YORK

Coming Soon to a Town Near You

2007-03-26T09:54:00.000+05:30

I’ve been in India for seven months. I’m leaving Wednesday.

It’s time.

It’s not that I’m tired of India. I mean, I am, a little. I’m tired of the heat and the traffic. I’m tired of bugs. I’m tired of salespeople shadowing me when I shop and restaurants that take reservations for 6:30 but don’t open until 7. I’m really tired of rice.

But minor annoyances aren’t the reason I’m leaving. I’m heading back to the U.S. because there’s stuff I wanna do there. I came to India because there was stuff I wanted to do here. I did that stuff. I learned more than I planned on learning. I took more than I’d hoped to take. I found teachers and friends and both in one.

I’ve scratched off everything on the India to-do list. Travel: check. Unwind: check. Find self: check. Buy bangles: check.

(If you didn’t know already, I’m an obsessive list maker, a trait I owe to my mom. I’ve juggled as many as a dozen lists at a time. Here’s a partial list of ‘em: shopping list; errand list; to-do list at the office; to-do list at home; and lists of gift ideas, movies to watch, books to read, places to visit and yoga poses to practice. I’ve been known to kick off slumber parties with: “Ladies, I’m making a list of all the topics we need to cover.”)

Here’s what I want to do when I get back to the States. I want to keep the “I’d rathers” at bay. As much as possible, I want to be where I’d rather be. I want to spend the bulk of my days doing things I care about, things that interest me, things that challenge me, things that maybe help a person or two. I don’t know if I can do that. I mean, a girl needs health insurance, not to mention the occasional hot stone massage. But I’m going to try. I have some ideas.

I miss America. I’ve never been a patriot, but, dang, it’s a mighty fine place to live. It’s a Choose Your Own Adventure life. India, I love you, but your codes of conduct – family honor and whatnot – don’t sit well. You’re too quick to cast out. Too unforgiving.

I miss mundane things like clothes dryers, pillow-top mattresses, sidewalks and lettuce. I miss sushi and sake and anonymity. I miss hugging and that cheek-kiss thing they do in New York. (There’s not much touching in India, except between male buddies.) I miss stretch fabrics.

I’m looking forward to getting off the plane at LAX, where Heather will be waiting. I’m going to give her a long hug. I’m going to turn on the fancy seat warmers in her fancy car, roll down the windows and breath clean-ish air. I’m going to prance around town in tank top and shades, and nobody will notice me. I’ll reap one of the greatest rewards of seeing the world: seeing my world with fresh eyes. I’ll drink tap water because I can. I’ll visit my friends and my tax accountant (big money, Larry, BIG MONEY). I’ll eat salad!

After about a week, I’ll get behind the wheel of my gold Buick and drive across the country. I’ll take in the national parks and the Wal-Marts; the truck stops and Tommy Hilfiger outlets; several dozen McDonald’s arches and twice that many Starbucks seals. I’ve told some friends along the way to leave a light on for me.

So much has changed since I left in August. One friend got married, and another got divorced. Two friends got pregnant, a third got into grad school, and a few got new jobs. One had a baby girl; one had a heart attack and died. I want to be there for the next batch.

I’ll post some photos and my U.S. tour calendar in the coming weeks. Thank you for reading. A bigger thank you for writing. See ya soon.

A Very Special Entry: Revenge of the Native

2007-03-13T13:58:00.000+05:30

(Chitty and I spent the last days of February in a remote village on the Arabian Sea, in her home state of Karnataka. It was a perfect beach vacation, as evidenced by the fact that I came home with clean underwear. We spent our days in pajamas and bathing suits, honing our Sudoku skills, spooning pearly meat from just-picked coconuts and … well, that’s about it. I thought I’d let her tell it. What follows is this blog’s first guest entry.)

Perhaps it was the auto rickshaw driver who delivered ice cream, fruit juice and other emergency supplies. Perhaps it was the personal cooks who served tender-coconut water as I struggled to capture that perfect shot of palm trees, empty beach and my feet. Maybe it was the thrill of dodging suicidal fish when we ventured out for our late-afternoon dips.

It's hard to pinpoint what made that week so special.

No tourists, no hawkers. No one lurking with a camera when the hammocks dropped us on our asses.

It was a week at an uncle's beachside house two kilometers from Kota, a village near Udupi, a town outside ... well, this could take a while. Suffice to say, we were at a beach near Kota, whose only claim to fame is a Kannada novelist and playwright it produced two generations ago.

Until we came to town.

The hordes of giggling children who discovered Anna as she made her way down the beach to the fisher-folk sorting through the early morning catch will probably struggle, decades from now, for words to describe the vision of her.

That was the only time we ventured away from the house in our seven days there.

Yes, I was with her on that trip to buy the fish, with our Man Friday, Rehman, trailing 20 paces behind. The children of Kota may never remember me, or Rehman, who stepped up to rescue us when it was time to haggle. But that tunnel vision is a common problem here, as Anna's earlier trips have shown. I can’t tell you the number of times I've been ruthlessly edged out of camera frames and elbowed out of the way as my countrymen clamored to ask Anna that burning question: “Which country?'”

Perhaps that's really why this vacation will always be memorable. You see, there was this one sweet, brief, fleeting moment – The Revenge of the Native – when the housekeepers, done with their morning chores, sidled up to me as I sat wrestling with yet another Sudoku. They were staring, befuddled, at Anna, as they were wont to do.

“Her hair, is it always that color? It'd be so pretty ... if only it was black.''

Chitty: 1 Hammock: 7

Anna's fan club

coconut cutter

Anyone for a drink?

Cad

2007-03-11T20:51:00.000+05:30

Chitra squealed and swiped at her chest. The tiny fish leaped back into the ocean in a flash of silver.

“Did you just get felt up by a fish?”

We hadn’t noticed them before, but now we spotted them all around us: schools of pinkie-sized fish skipping there … and there … and there. We guarded our cleavage with our hands when they came near.

“Who needs fishing nets when you’ve got boobs like those?” I said.

“Come to mommy,” she crooned.

The real fishermen

Meditation and Martinis

2007-03-06T21:45:00.000+05:30

Yesterday was my birthday. No, really, like my actual birthday. It was also the first day of a two-week yoga course I’m taking at the KYM. The course requires rising before the sun, so I wasn’t my usual party-all-night self.

OK, OK, I wasn’t my usual party-until-11ish self.

But it was a swell birthday, made sweller by watermelon martinis and sangria, and capped by a conga line of waiters bearing chocolate mousse.

Viparyaya

2007-03-03T23:34:00.000+05:30

The bug wasn’t particularly vile-looking. It had a hybrid quality: part cockroach, part ladybug. The woman sitting next to me this morning trapped it with her travel mug.

We were at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, seated on autumn-colored carpets, waiting for a lecture by TKV Desikachar. Every Saturday, if I’m not traveling, I head to the school to hear its founder talk about yoga. His audience is a Benetton ad, a congregation of lithe yoga students from far-flung countries. In this crowd, a bug can take liberties. “Squish” is a dirty word. On the scale of criminality, it’s somewhere between sweetening your tea with Splenda and snacking on foie gras.

Her containment strategy satisfied me. I was glad it was her mug and not mine.

Several minutes passed, and then I saw this Prius of a bug on my bag. It was crawling quickly and too close for comfort. If we hadn’t parked our shoes outside, I might have reached for one. Instead, I put my Yoga Sutra book in its path. The bug climbed aboard.

I tapped the book on the floor and readied the cup. The bug hung on. Tap tap tap. Still, it clung. TAP TAP TAP.

My tapping turned my neighbor’s head at exactly the moment when the bug dropped to the floor. She saw the bug on the floor. She witnessed my last furious taps. The look of horror and disgust that crossed her face conveyed her conclusion: killer.

No, I wanted to say, I didn’t kill it. See, it’s here under your mug, alive and well. But by then, Mr. Desikachar’s lecture had started.

I missed his opening remarks. I was busy worrying about the stranger and what she thought of me. I was readying my post-lecture defense. When I finally tuned in, I realized he was talking about us: me, her, the bug. Mr. Desikachar was talking about distorted perception. Wrong seeing. In yoga philosophy, this wrong seeing is the fault of the mind. Our minds react, interpret, draw conclusions. A person with a clear mind – a yogic mind – draws the right ones. The rest of us, well, we just think we do.

I sat there smug. My neighbor – oh, humanity! – had misinterpreted what she’d seen. In Sanskrit, such misapprehension is called viparyaya, and the aim of yoga is to quash it. What did I care what this viparyaya-afflicted dame thought of me? I knew I wasn’t a bug killer.

Except that I am. I kill bugs all the time. The ant motels JJ sent guard the corners of my bedroom. I attack tick-like creatures and gauzy nests with fistfuls of toilet paper. I recently added a Rechargeable Mosquito-Hitting Swatter to my arsenal. It looks like a badminton racket and delivers death by electric shock. Sparks fly when swatter meets mosquito, and, I’ll admit, the crackle-pop gives me a thrill.

I am a killer of bugs. And sometimes I use Splenda. And I care what people think, so I do these things furtively. And, you know what, the bug died anyway. My neighbor lifted her cup at lecture’s end, and the cockroach/ladybug didn’t scamper. It wriggled a leg in that half-dead way. I like to think it ran out of air. In her cup.

Know What I Wish

2007-02-22T19:11:00.000+05:30

“It’s almost your birthday,” Amanda said to me during one of our Skype chats. My birthday was 40 days away. I’ve trained my friends well. (See appendix for Anna-to-English dictionary of birthday terminology.)

A few days earlier, and partly because my birthday was coming up, I’d updated my Amazon “wish list.” I tossed in a bunch of yoga books, deleted the Cuisipro Donvier Electronic Yogurt Maker (because, really, who has time to make yogurt?) and moved a couple of must-haves to my shopping cart. And then it struck me: where to mail these must-haves? My default address was an apartment in California I’d vacated half a year earlier.

I looked at the other addresses in my Amazon account. There was the LA address of a company I no longer work for and the Brooklyn address of the pad I shared with Amanda and Sash. There were three Jersey addresses: the house I fixed up with Jason, the tiny apartment I lived in before that, and the hotel where my ex-employer put me up when I moved to the Garden State.

I’ve lived in more than a dozen cities. The addresses span three continents, eight U.S. states and Washington DC. It’s why I draw a blank every time someone asks, “Where are you from?”

I’ll never get tired of seeing the world. I think I’ll always travel. But these days, the first item on my wish list is a permanent address, a place to put the baubles I bring back.

A little while ago I found myself at Chennai’s Home Store, a giant furniture and housewares retailer à la Crate and Barrel. I didn’t need anything. I wandered through every department, caressing throw pillows, comparing kitchen gadgets, sniffing scented candles. Most of my belongings are stacked in a shed, stuffed in a car trunk or sitting in friends’ homes. I’m a home accents junkie without a home.

In the end, I changed my default address to my mom’s place in Pittsburgh. It’s the closest thing to home. It’s where I’ll head when I return to the States at the end of March. And, ahem, it’s where all birthday gifts should be sent.

Appendix

“My birthday is coming up.” . . . . . It’s 6-8 weeks away.
“It’s almost my birthday.” . . . . . It’s 4-6 weeks away.
“What’d you get me?” . . . . . It’s 2-4 weeks away.
“It’s my birthday!” . . . . . It’s up to 2 weeks away.

Another India

2007-02-20T15:48:00.000+05:30

Goa is India’s Sunset Strip. It’s where people go to party. By day, backpackers, ageing hippies and escapees from India’s urban centers lounge on the shores of the Arabian Sea. By night, they dance, powered by thumping music, pills and booze.

I didn’t go to India’s smallest state to party. I went to see Gina and Manny, friends from LA who have a condo in Benaulim, a coastal village in South Goa. Manny is Goan; his family lives near Benaulim. He and Gina have visited Goa three times since they were married almost four years ago. When we exchanged photos of India after my first trip, it seemed as if we’d been to different planets.

Goa is known for its beaches: long stretches of wheat-colored sand shared by sunbathers, fishermen and cows. During the tourist season, the beaches are lined with small huts that serve as guesthouses and bigger huts that serve food and drink. They look like they were built by the first little piggy; they’re dismantled before monsoon.

Chennai has beaches, too. I live within walking distance of one, but I rarely go there. Once, at twilight, I went for a stroll on Chennai’s Marina Beach. I walked as if drunk, head down, zigzagging to avoid piles of shit. The crabs darting across the wet sand reminded me of the aliens in a game of Space Invaders. I looked up when a dog emerged from the shadows and growled at me. A leathery fisherman ordered the dog to desist, and I continued on my way. There were many piles of shit, and I worried about crossing paths with other territorial dogs. When I looked up again, I saw men squatting by the water. I realized I was safe; it wasn’t dog shit.

In Goa, you can wear a bikini. Chennai’s too conservative for that; a mid-calf skirt is considered short. In Goa, you can sip a Kingfisher beer and watch a Western retiree practice fire twirling while waiting for a burger. Most of Chennai’s restaurants are dry, and beef is rarely on menus in this predominately Hindu city.

Goa, unlike most of India, never belonged to the British. Portugal held it for some 450 years. Until 1961, when the Indian army booted the Portuguese, visitors needed a passport to enter. The Portuguese missionaries were cruelly efficient; Catholic churches and chapels are more ubiquitous than ATMs.

Goa was just what I needed, a break from my break. I bobbed in the ocean with Gina. I ate home-cooked meals with Manny’s family. I bought jewelry from gypsies. I sipped strawberry juice with sloshed tourists. I inhaled sea air instead of rickshaw fumes. In the shower, the sand came off easily, not like the black film on my arms after a day on Chennai’s roads.

Thanks, Gina and Manny, for sharing your paradise.

Manny and Gina

fishermen

Clever Girl

2007-02-09T19:06:00.000+05:30

My friend Nadine scanned an article I wrote for a yoga magazine and put it on her blog. Because I lack such tech-savvy, and because I have no shame, I’m directing you there.

Mary Agnes, Who Wishes to Meet Her Maker

2007-02-09T18:51:00.001+05:30

“Can I ask you a question?” Mary Agnes says to me. “Tell me the truth.”

I promise to be truthful. Mary Agnes and I are on the express train from Chennai to Goa, a 23-hour affair. That’s long enough to swap life stories, unless you have a story like Mary Agnes’s.

She’s Indian but lives now in Dubai, where she keeps house for a Lebanese woman. Every two years she has four weeks off, and she comes back to India even though she has no family here. Mary Agnes was raised in an orphanage run by nuns. I can see their influence when she turns on her cell phone; a full-color cross materializes on the screen.

“How many sleeping pills does it take to die?”

I tell Mary Agnes the truth. I don’t know. She’s disappointed and takes another sip from her bottle of whiskey.

This is why Mary Agnes wants to die: She has no one. She has money, but no love. (“My madam pays me very well,” she says of her employer. Every time she mentions “madam” she kisses the tips of her fingers like an Italian chef proud of his puttanesca.)

In India, having no one is worse than having nothing. It’s not unusual for a dozen family members to sleep in a one-room house; not one would trade that life to sleep alone in a mansion. Children don’t grow up and “get a place.” They live with their parents or in-laws long after having children of their own. Solitude, loneliness, independence – these are strange concepts here. When I say I’m traveling alone, I’m asked the question again. “You are here with?” They’re confident I misunderstood the first time.

Mary Agnes, who’s 45, had a husband once. She was young and naïve when the nuns coaxed her into marrying him. She didn’t drink or smoke then. She didn’t know where babies came from. He never kissed her and had a habit of dragging her by the hair. She left but didn’t divorce him. She didn’t want another woman to suffer.

Mary Agnes is sharp. She doesn’t read or write, but she speaks six languages. Her English is excellent, though it gets a bit worse with every sip. She wears a watch with a maple leaf on it, a souvenir from a trip to Canada with “madam.” She used to have a bracelet with diamonds, but it was stolen by people who called themselves friends.

“I live only for him,” she tells me, hand raised to the sky.

Don't Try This at Home

2007-01-30T21:29:00.000+05:30

Aerial massage by Nathan. Pre-tumble.

Of Mice and Mailmen

2007-01-29T16:15:00.000+05:30

There’s a can of refried beans in my kitchen. This is remarkable because Indians don’t do refried beans. I get a thrill every time I look at it. It arrived last week in a care package my friend JJ mailed from LA almost four months ago.

The Indian postal service is notoriously unreliable. It’s not unusual for packages to be “lost” in transit or arrive with half their contents missing. Customs agents and postal workers, like mistresses, are particularly fond of sweets and new clothes.

On Tuesday morning, my flatmate Nathan and I were swapping postal horror stories. He’d knocked on a dozen doors and paid the equivalent of $300 in fees and bribes to rescue a package he’d shipped from Korea to India. I’d lost hope of receiving JJ’s package. On Monday I’d been to the post office and lectured the workers on airmail ethics. “It will go soon, yes?” I said as they pried an LA-bound package from my fingers. “Not lost. Package will not be lost, yes?” In that moment, I hated India.

Tuesday afternoon my phone rang. JJ’s package was waiting for me at the post office. I couldn’t have been more surprised if the caller had told me I’d won a million dollars.

I picked up the battered package the next day. There was a hole about the size of a fist on one side, and when I peered through it, I spied a stick of Toblerone. How remarkable, I thought. Bloody postal workers passed on Swiss chocolate.

Inside, I found a ready-to-make Mexican meal: not just refried beans but also flour tortillas, corn chips, flavored rice, cheese sauce and jalapeno salsa. But my jig of joy stopped short. There was a gash in the box of rice. Corn chips rained from their bag. It looked as if someone had taken a giant bite out of the 10 tortillas.

Postal workers weren’t the culprits, it soon became clear. A rat had raided my care package. A rat with a taste for Mexican and not the slightest hint of a sweet tooth. (The Toblerone was untouched – at least until Ben came home – as were a pair of Twinkies.)

I’m planning a fusion meal: chapattis stuffed with refried beans, chunks of paneer, and sautéed onions and bell peppers. Chapattis, a staple here, aren’t unlike wheat tortillas. Nathan’s cook taught me how to make them this weekend.

JJ had thought of everything. He’d read my entries on itches and ants and sent calamine lotion, ant motels, and Ziploc containers and bags. There were Band-Aids and Banana Boat sunblock, Wet Ones cleansing wipes and Purell hand sanitizer, Imodium and Tylenol PM, organic deodorant and Odwalla Bars, Emergen-C drink powder and Q-tips, chamomile conditioner and hemp peppermint soap.

And one more thing:

To Ted

2007-01-23T20:41:00.000+05:30

I was about to start my yoga practice when the call came yesterday. That is to say, I was leaping and twirling around my room. Lately, I’ve been kicking off my practices by dancing wildly to a particular Fatboy Slim song. It’s surprising that I heard the phone at all.

Chitra sounded down – someone-died down – and I turned off the music the moment I heard her voice. Someone had died. Our friend and former editor Ted, dead of a heart attack at 55.

Ted didn’t look like a guy who would die of a heart attack. He was slim and shaggy-haired. He often wore cowboy boots and a screw-The-Man smirk. You could tell by looking at him that he’d had more fun than you in his youth. You could tell he had a better CD collection.

I met Ted when we worked together in New Jersey. We kept in touch after I transferred to LA. When I visited our East Coast offices, we’d grumble and gossip and grumble some more. He’d offer his house for a welcome-back bash. I quit in August. Ted stayed with the company; he had the house and a teen-age son and a sweet salary that kept him in shackles.

Because I’m so far away, his death doesn’t seem real. I picture Ted at his desk, not in a box. I won’t be there for the viewing or memorial service, so I asked a friend to bring a flower for me. Ted was into flora. And birds. He was really into birds.

I didn’t finish my dance number yesterday. I couldn’t bring myself to bop around. Instead, as I started my practice, I cranked up “Amo la Vida,” a Spanish song whose title means “love the life.” Because Ted did.

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

2007-01-16T23:05:00.000+05:30

Because it was strapped to a bike.

Being Britney Spears

2007-01-11T23:50:00.000+05:30

“Indians can be very racist,” Chitra told me one time.

“I know,” I said. “And I love it.”

It was a joke, and we both laughed. Chitra and I have the sort of friendship that allows for politically incorrect humor. Racism, of course, is not only reprehensible but also uncool. It’s for nitwits, a trademark of the lumpen, as unattractive as plumber’s butt.

But I sort of meant it.

Being white in India is like wearing a VIP badge at a Springsteen concert; it gets you everywhere. You want to peek backstage? Right this way. Care to meet Bruce?

It’s gratifying to walk into a 5-star hotel or boutique in a dingy T, flip-flops slapping on marble floors, and be treated like royalty. Try that in New York or Paris and you’d be sneered at like Pretty Woman on her first shopping excursion.

When Alex was visiting from London, I took him to a swanky Chennai bar with a sign at the door: “No T-shirts. No shorts. No sandals.” Alex was wearing all three. We should have been turned away, and if it weren’t for our SPF 45-sporting skin, we probably would have been. Instead, we were whisked to a plush backroom where our code-busting getups wouldn’t be noticed.

Being white means almost nothing is verboten. You can hop barriers at sports stadiums. You can park your scooter in a “cars only” spot and swim in a “guests only” pool. You can pass through gates closed to the public.

A couple of weeks ago, I had another visitor. Jon is a WM who lives in LA, stands 6-foot-5 and travels on business so often that he wrangled four free nights at Mumbai’s luxurious JW Marriott. I’ll confess: I didn’t see much of Mumbai. The beachside hotel boasts three swimming pools, eight restaurants and bathrooms with – holy smoke! – tubs. I hadn’t seen a bathtub since Thailand. So you can understand why I found it difficult to venture past the hotel’s torch-flanked gates.

One of our few outings was to Mumbai’s most famous landmark, the Gateway of India. Indian families picnic in the shadow of the triumphal arch while bare-chested boys take turns leaping into the Arabian Sea. On the land side of the Gateway is a fenced garden. When Jon and I visited, it was closed to everyone but a few guards and landscapers. The guards waved us in.

They escorted us through the garden, snapped photos with our cameras and, after some negotiation about their tip, opened the gate and let us out. At which point we were swarmed by some 30 children who’d been eyeing us from outside the fence. The bolder ones reached out and touched Jon, giving him his first taste of a celebrityhood I’ve grown accustomed to.

A couple of years ago, I was taking a walk in my Santa Monica, Calif., neighborhood when I saw a pack of paparazzi outside a pet store. I stopped and asked an onlooker what the fuss was about. Britney Spears was shopping for a new best friend, I learned. I joined the paparazzi and passers-by waiting for her to emerge, and when she finally did, clutching a ball of fur, I jockeyed for a better look. “I can’t believe she’s treated like a zoo animal,” I thought as I treated her like a zoo animal.

Then she and her mom got in their car and ran over a photographer’s foot. But that’s a story for another time.

The point is: I know how she feels. Throughout this country, I attract stares and sometimes a train of children. Indians on holiday ask to take my picture. At the Taj Mahal, I became the main attraction for a gaggle of teen-age boys. When I visited a waterfall in Coorg with Chitra and Alex, a mother beseeched Alex and me to pose for photos with her son. She yanked off the boy's jacket and smoothed his hair before pushing him into the frame. Chitra was waved aside.

“I was this close to stripping naked to get some attention,” Chitty whined later.

Sometimes I tire of the attention my skin attracts. Sometimes, like Britney, I yearn for anonymity. But the perks outweigh the inconveniences. Britney gets goody bags filled with the latest gadgets, jasmine-scented eye pillows and assorted bling. I get free coffee at banks and office buildings where I have no business. I’ve been plucked from an all-Indian crowd at a Hindu temple and treated to tea, sweets and an audience with a priest.

The other day I got a free scoop of ice cream. I ordered chocolate and strawberry; the bill said just chocolate.

“You forgot to charge me for a scoop,” I said to the lads at the cash register.

“Two for one,” they insisted, smiling and goggling at me like I’d stepped out of US Weekly. “Where from?”

Free strawberry: sweet benefit of being vanilla.

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

2007-01-06T20:51:00.000+05:30

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?”

Ethnography From an Elliptical

2006-12-15T13:18:00.000+05:30

I unwittingly crashed an Indian wedding yesterday evening.

I had just left the gym. The lobby of the Days Inn hotel where I work out was flooded with wedding guests. They spilled through the front doors and into the hotel’s circular driveway, where the groom and his mount awaited a procession. I couldn’t leave without squeezing past women in sequined saris and men in scarlet turbans. I was in plastic flip-flops and a shirt drenched by just-washed hair. I came within two feet of the horse’s rump as I waded through the crowd.

But I'm not considering my to-do done.

I’ve been going to the gym quite a bit. There are lots of reasons why, and near the top of the list is the fact that Chennai rivals Vegas in its fondness for all-you-can-eat dining. Here are some others reasons:

THE SHOWERS at my gym do this remarkable thing: produce hot water. My shower at home doesn’t do that. I relished cool showers during my first month in Chennai, when the heat and humidity had me rooting for a revival in fashion sweatbands. But it’s the end of monsoon season now. That means cooler temperatures (as low as 70 F last week!). Sometimes it means wading through ankle-deep puddles. A hot shower in which to scrub my mud-splattered calves is heaven.

THE TV at my gym has a couple of English-language channels. I don’t have a TV at home. If I didn’t work out, I never would have learned that Tom and Katie tied the knot. Usually, the television is tuned to a cricket match or Indian music videos. But if I’m alone at the gym, which happens a lot, I can flip channels to my heart’s content. A gem like “Win a Date With Tad Hamilton!” can inspire a marathon-length jog. (“The Pianist,” on the other hand, rendered me listless.)

THE CHAIR. You know those massage chairs that Sharper Image and Brookstone use to lure customers? The recliners that knead, roll and tap and make you look like you’re possessed by demons? There’s one at the gym. It’s in the “cardio row” -- along with two treadmills, a stationary bike and an elliptical machine -- and faces a mirrored wall. Which may explain why some gym-goers mistake it for workout equipment. I’ve seen men in head-to-toe athletic wear spend 10 minutes on a treadmill before retiring to the chair for twice that. For me, the chair is reward for 100 crunches and two dozen arm curls. I imagine if my gym offered daiquiris I’d up my workouts to two or three a day.

The modern gym is one of those American inventions that’s taking hold in India. Every month brings new workout facilities and weight-loss clinics. They reflect India’s new-ish technology boom. As the number of desk jobs -- with accompanying commutes -- grows, so do waistlines. Two other American exports have been a boon to India’s fitness industry: fast food and diet crazes. Not long ago I overhead an Indian teen at a beauty salon insisting on sugarless, black coffee. “I don’t eat carbs,” she declared when the manicurist offered biscuits.

Still, the gym is a fine place to observe Indian culture. You have the men who lounge in the chair or gab on cell phones between bench presses. You have the women in colorful salwar kameez with matching dupattas that slip off their shoulders as they stroll on the treadmills. There's the gym supervisor who burps loudly as he surveys the scene. There’s a family – father, mother and infant – that works out together. He takes long strides on a treadmill while she slowly peddles the stationary bike, their baby propped on the handlebars. They take turns doing arm curls and minding the child.

Most seem determined to avoid sweating. I've seen just one sprinter. He was bucked off his treadmill after reaching over to tap me on the shoulder. He landed on his back as I punched at the treadmill's red "stop" button. It was only after he'd picked himself up and I'd yanked out my earphones that I realized the reason for his tap: my ringing cell phone. He limped to the chair after that.

To Do

2006-12-14T09:18:00.000+05:30

I passed two weddings on the way to dinner yesterday. It must have been an auspicious time. Hindus don’t wed on any old day. They wait for muhurtham – an auspicious time, astrologically speaking – for everything from marriage to surgery to betting on horses.

I was on my scooter. The weddings spilled into the streets and caused minor traffic jams. I was happy for the bottlenecks because they gave me a few moments to bop to the thumping music and gape at the grooms, who were astride horses and dressed in finery.

Weddings are a big deal in India. The index in the back of my Chennai atlas lists more banquet and marriage halls than art galleries, banks, cinemas and “historical places” combined. Celebrations last several days. Brides go through elaborate outfits faster than pageant contestants. Grooms arrive on horseback – or by elephant – and guests can number in the thousands. A ceremony attended by 400 is "intimate" by Indian standards.

This is what I’m told. I’ve never been to one.

Sure, there was Sunita’s wedding in Maryland. Sunita is a dear friend from college who dressed us bridesmaids in bangles, bindis and custom-made lengha cholis with silvery embroidery.

But Sunita is Christian, not Hindu, and she married a WB (white boy), so her wedding wasn’t like the fetes I glimpsed yesterday. Hers was an elegant affair that was part samosa, part finger sandwich. In short: no horses.

I thought about pulling over, parking the scooter and crashing the weddings, but I was in t-shirt and khakis. Besides, Ben and Nico were waiting at Benjarong, a Thai restaurant that serves a mean yellow curry. I put it on my India to-do list: Go to a wedding.

All invitations welcome.

Fthftirty: Why I’m Taking My Life Into My Own Hands

2006-12-03T19:08:00.000+05:30

I bought a scooter. It may be a lemon. It also may be the end of me. But it’s better than dealing with this every day:

ME: How much?

RICKSHAW DRIVER: Hundred rupees.

ME (looking shocked and appalled): A hundred rupees! That’s ridiculous.

RICKSHAW DRIVER: Ok, ok. Seventy rupees.

ME (arms akimbo and eyes rolling): It’s a 30 rupee ride!

RICKSHAW DRIVER (looking shocked and appalled): Madam!

ME (walking away): Thirty rupees.

RICKSHAW DRIVER: Ok, ok.

ME (coming back): Ok?

RICKSHAW DRIVER: Fifty.

ME (walking away again): NO!

I really hate haggling with rickshaw drivers. It’s an unsavory part of life in Chennai. They have meters, but they don’t use them. When they see a white chick, they see deep pockets, and that means protracted dickering. Sometimes I jump into a rickshaw after settling on a fare only to discover that the driver has no idea where we’re going. Destination is all but irrelevant. What matters is how craftily you argue and bluff.

I’m a good debater. I lettered in debate. My mom has a roomful of trophies and plaques from those high school glory days. I’m an OK bluffer. Texas hold ‘em with the ladies in L.A. taught me that boldness is as bankable as a royal flush. But I’ve had it with debating and bluffing my way across Chennai. Because even when I win, I lose. I climb into the auto rickshaw battle weary, grumpy and a mite guilty. What’s 40 rupees to me? That’s just under a dollar. It’s a cappuccino at one of the upscale joints in town. It’s a Diet Coke at Citi Centre. And he needs it more than I do.

The exchange transcribed above happened on Thanksgiving as I was leaving the Days Inn hotel where I work out. Catching an “auto,” as they’re called here, outside a hotel is like buying blueberries in February. The premium can be staggering.

As I walked away, I wondered if I’d pushed too hard, been unreasonable. I didn’t wonder for long because another auto pulled up within seconds.

ME: Ispahani Centre. How much?

RICKSHAW DRIVER #2: Thirty rupees.

I almost hugged him. I jumped in without argument. As we rattled past Rickshaw Driver #1, I shot him a “take that!” look. But I know he got the last laugh. Two lady tourists were exiting the hotel and heading straight for him.

Often, auto drivers congregate on corners, and it’s me against three or four.

“How much?” I asked a gaggle the other day.

“Fthftirty,” came the reply.

Or that’s what it sounded like when one quoted “fifty” and another “thirty” for a ride that shouldn’t have cost more than 15 rupees.

Yesterday I flew to Bangalore and back for an interview with the CEO of Air Deccan, India’s first low-budget airline. I’m writing about him for Yoga + Joyful Living magazine.* I paid 130 rupees for the half-hour ride from my apartment to the Chennai airport. At the Bangalore airport, I fended off taxi drivers whose opening bids ran as high as 350 rupees and made my way to the auto stand.

“How much?” I asked before hopping in.

“Per meter.”

The half-hour ride to Air Deccan’s headquarters, a 10.2-kilometer trip, cost 61.5 rupees. I gave the driver 70 and considered moving to Bangalore.

Instead, I’ve bought a scooter. It’s a 1999 Honda Kinetic, and it cost about 7,000 rupees, or $150. It broke down on my first outing. The mechanic who sold it to me “fixed it” for free. My second outing ended similarly. He took it back again, and then he fell off the map. After repeated phone calls, a visit to his (literally) hole-in-the-wall shop and threats involving the word “police,” the scooter was returned to me. The whole affair made haggling with rickshaw drivers seem like holiday.

It’s rickety, this scooter of mine. It tends to stall after potholes and bumpy patches. It lists to one side or the other. Its engine is about the size of a powerful chainsaw’s, and it makes as much noise. It’s not pretty, but my vices have never included vehicle-related vanity. In college I drove an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme with a headlight that dangled pendulum-style from a single wire. I drove a Buick Century in car-crazy Los Angeles.

My mantra as I bounce along Chennai’s roads is “left left left left.” Which is useful to a limited extent. Indians drive on the left side of the road unless driving on the right is more convenient. They don’t believe in “lanes,” and intersections are free-for-alls. Scott tells me to think of driving in India as playing a video game, “except you only have one life.” Unlucky for me, I was never much into video games. Ms. Pac-Man was my game; the only skill that imparts is gobbling.

The good news -- mom -- is that traffic moves slowly in Chennai. My scooter’s speedometer doesn’t work, so I can’t tell you how slowly. But it’s slow enough that you needn’t lose sleep. Collisions are frequent but not terribly deadly. They’re like stubbing a toe: painful and disorienting and hell on a pedicure. But no worse than haggling with rickshaw drivers.

* SHAMELESS PLUG: Check out my “Journeys” piece in the January/February issue, on newsstands now!

Here’s How the Story Ends

2006-11-25T15:58:00.000+05:30

We had turkey.

I hate to reveal how a story ends before it’s even begun, but keeping you in suspense would be cruel. Cruel like the season 2 finale of “Grey’s Anatomy.” That kind of cruelty has no place on Thanksgiving. So I’m telling you now: We had turkey.

I like Thanksgiving. I look forward to it the way I look forward to birthdays, and anyone who knows me knows that’s a pathological level of looking forward. I started bugging my American friends in Chennai -- all two of them -- at least three weeks ago. “What are we gonna do for Thanksgiving? What are we gonna do?”

I don’t have Thanksgiving traditions. My family immigrated to the U.S. when I was 5, and Thanksgiving didn’t immediately translate. We were eaters of borscht and baklava. Squash soup and pumpkin pie seemed … mushy. I embraced them in time, though not as quickly as I embraced Barbie, Boy George and all things jelly: jelly shoes, jelly bracelets, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

We were guests, never hosts, and I witnessed a dozen Thanksgiving traditions. There was the family that watched football. The family that played touch football. The family with the Thanksgiving-off: a potluck meal at which every dish was critiqued and scored, a winner crowned.

The common denominator was turkey.

Turkeys aren’t indigenous to India, and they’re far more expensive than chickens. You don’t see turkey on menus or in stores. Which is why no one had an easy answer for my question: “What are we gonna do?”

Scott knew of a turkey. Kidnapping schemes were discussed. The plot fizzled when we spoke of feathers and butchers.

We got our first major lead on Monday, when we went to a Harlem Globetrotters game. On their third and last night in Chennai, the Globetrotters played to an almost empty stadium. Basketball, like turkey, doesn’t suit the Indian palate. My crowd of eight cheered as loudly as possible for a game whose outcome is rigged. The vendors hawked samosas and masala popcorn; we wished for beer.

At halftime, Scott, his wife, Padma, and I “snuck” into the VIP section. Nobody tried to stop us as we crawled through barriers and hopped over railings. Maybe it’s because Tamil Nadu’s turbaned governor left with his posse shortly after the halftime photo op. Maybe it’s because Scott and I are white, and in India that means VIP.

We arrived on the podium several minutes before the third quarter and made a beeline for David Hopper. Mr. Hopper is the U.S. consul general in Chennai. We introduced ourselves and made small talk. Then we got to the meat of the matter (pun totally intended).

“We were wondering where we could get a turkey for Thanksgiving,” Scott said.

The next day, the diplomat e-mailed me a name: “Tamil Nadu Veterinary & Animal Sciences University, Poultry Research Station.” I didn’t like the sound of it, but we were short on options. Padma volunteered to make the call.

“They asked if I wanted it alive or dressed,” she told me Wednesday morning.

“Dressed?”

“As in deprived of feathers.”

Dressed sounded like a good idea. And the price was right: 120 rupees a kilo. Translated into American, that’s about $18 for a 15-pound bird.

We had another problem: I don’t have an oven. Scott and Padma don’t have an oven. No one we know has an oven. That’s because Indians aren’t bakers. They fry, sauté, steam, fry, simmer and fry. Also, they fry. Their breads are flatbreads, and their desserts are sugary, no-bake confections. That left one cooking option for our gobbler: deep fry.

Wednesday night brought a new lead in the form of a text message: “My friend can deliver u a turkey 2morro if u want.”

Several minutes later, another text message: “It is already cooked. Honey roasted in fact!”

Touchdown. The third message from my flatmate Nathan said “Harry,” followed by a phone number. I called Harry right away.

Harry is an Anglo-Indian who works at the American International School. Harry has a contact at a food-processing plant outside Chennai.

“They are raising all the fowls,” he told me. “They cook the whole thing and give it. It comes nicely packed.”

I imagined a turkey-shaped insulated delivery bag. It would probably need reheating, I thought. No matter. We have a toaster oven.

“I’ll take one,” I told him.

Thursday morning, a flurry of activity. A driver was sent to fetch the turkey from the school. He carried 2,200 rupees, or about $48, to pay for a 10-pound bird. (Cooked turkeys don’t come cheap.) Scott and I sketched out a menu over Skype. Stuffing sounded like a tricky affair. A call was placed to Chennai’s recently opened KFC. Stuffing? Negative. Invitations were extended to half a dozen non-Americans. Shopping lists were drafted. I made a preemptive trip to the gym.

The turkey was waiting when I walked in my door around 4:30 p.m. It was roasted, alright. Roasted, wrapped in plastic and frozen -- solid. Date of packing: 15 Nov.

“Harry, the bird is frozen solid.”

“Yes?”

“Harry, it’s 5 o’clock on Thanksgiving Day. What am I supposed to do with a block of turkey?”

Harry’s plan involved a bucket of hot water. My Thanksgiving plan didn’t involve a cold, barely thawed bird. He promised a refund. I called off dinner. The 16 chocolate croissants Padma had ordered for dessert arrived. She, Scott and I munched on them as we mulled our options.

In the end, we three piled on Scott’s motorcycle and went to the only place we knew we’d find turkey: the Taj, a five-star hotel popular with business travelers. Its all-you-can-eat Thanksgiving feast was expensive, but it was the only game in town. We loaded our plates with turkey and trimmings. The house band, a Colombian foursome, belted “Baby One More Time” and other karaoke staples between Spanish numbers. Football played on a flatscreen TV behind the band. It might have made me nostalgic for Thanksgivings past, except it wasn’t American football. Mid-meal, it was replaced by pro wrestling.

“This is kinda depressing,” Padma noted.

I felt awfully grateful nonetheless.

I’m Not Who You Think I Am

2006-11-18T13:57:00.000+05:30

I wasn’t in the mood for coffee when I paid a visit to Fresh & Honest Café. I know what you’re thinking: You, not in the mood for coffee?

I wasn’t in the mood because I’d already downed four coffee drinks that day. There was the travel mug of instant Nescafé before an early appointment. Then there was the cappuccino I ordered with breakfast. Cup #3 was an Indian-style filter coffee savored after a lunch of pooris and potato curry. Four was a Frappuccino-esque concoction procured at Citi Centre.

I was on my way home from Citi Centre when I spotted the Fresh & Honest signs. I figured I’d take a peak. I have a handful of hangouts in Chennai; I’m always on the lookout for more. Give me Western-style coffee and free Wi-Fi, and you’ve got a customer for life. Well, for as long as I’m here, anyway.

The signs pointed me down a dirt road, through a large gate and into an office building. No café in sight.

Perhaps it’s on a different level, I thought. I took the stairs to the second floor and paused before a set of glass doors. Behind the doors: cubicles, conference rooms and no café.

“Here, madam.” The man came up behind me, ushered me through the glass doors and disappeared.

Indian office workers hustled past me. I spotted two white men in business casual entering a meeting. “I’m looking for the café,” I said to the first person I flagged down.

“Next level,” the woman told me.

The man who’d waved me through the doors reappeared just then. She spoke to him in Tamil. I recognized “coffee.” He wobbled his head in understanding and motioned for me to follow him.

The man led me to a rooftop room with walls of braided palm fronds. The decor: quintessential teachers lounge. There were two rectangular conference tables ringed with plastic chairs, a water cooler, a pair of swivel chairs and couches that looked like van seats. There was no one else there.

“What is Fresh and?” I started. The rest of the name escaped me. I was confused and almost certain I shouldn’t have been there.

“Honest,” he replied. “Fresh and honest.”

Then the man disappeared again, and I heard the hiss and gargle of a coffee vending machine.

He brought the coffee in a bone china cup. The matching saucer held a teaspoon and two cubes of sugar.

“What is this place?” I ventured again.

“No place,” he said. “Only coffee.”

“Milk coffee,” he clarified.

Then he disappeared a final time. I sipped my fifth coffee of the day and wondered about Fresh & Honest*. I wondered who they thought I was. I wondered how many times I could pose as this person they thought I was. How many free coffees before they discovered I had no business there? I have friends who pose as guests to use the pools at five-star hotels. No, I concluded, I lack the chutzpah for petty deceptions. I drained the cup and skedaddled.

* Fresh & Honest Café Ltd., I later discovered, is a Chennai-based provider of coffee vending machines. Thanks again, Google.

So Long, Sanjay

2006-11-13T15:55:00.000+05:30

Yesterday was Sanjay’s last day in Chennai. You haven’t heard of Sanjay because I haven’t written about him before. I haven’t written about him before because I met him just 18 days ago. I’m writing about him now to illustrate the dark side of expat life.

I met Sanjay at a party. We sat and talked about burritos. Also about infectious diseases. Sanjay is an Arizona boy (of Indian descent), so he knows about Mexican food. He and two friends founded a Chennai-based organization that provides free HIV/AIDS education, so he knows about infectious diseases. He’s just out of college, a save-the-world type. Which is great for the world but bad for me. It means Sanjay had to return to the States to go to medical school, raise funds for his organization and whatnot. Bastard.

I knew when I met him that he’d leave us soon. We became friends anyway. Over three brunches, two dinners and one “Esencia del Mundo Hispania: An Evening of Spanish Music and Dance” (think Indian adolescents impersonating Santana and Shakira), I learned a lot about Sanjay. He loves steak, bacon and his girlfriend of three years. He dances, drums and does impersonations that rival Sacha Baron Cohen’s. He’s climbed Kilimanjaro, but his four-day trek in the Himalayas was harder.

And now he’s gone.

Yesterday’s send-off -- a three-hour, all-you-can-eat affair -- was the second I’d attended in less than two weeks. We hugged and pouted and promised to meet again -- maybe here, maybe in Hong Kong, maybe in the good old US of A. Then he rode off into the, um, smog.

That’s Sanjay in the back.

Wild rides, strange foods and fast friendships -- all part of the expat experience. So is saying good-bye. A lot.

Sanjay is returning to Chennai in April. I may have taken off by then. Not to save the world, necessarily, but to see it.

Fed Up With the Feds

2006-11-09T18:53:00.000+05:30

I heard the big news when I turned on my laptop yesterday morning.

Britney gave K-Fed the boot. Finally.

Then the other big news: Democrats gave Republicans the boot. Finally.

I spent half the day listening to NPR, worrying over Montana and Virginia, “You go, girl”-ing Pelosi and feeling very American. My British roommate and his countryman were unmoved when I skipped to the living room to share the news. I didn’t bother telling them about Britney.

In the afternoon I turned off my computer and went to the most American place I could think of: the mall.

Citi Centre, Chennai’s newest and hippest mall, is within walking distance of my new apartment. I discovered it on Sunday, and it caused my heart to leap.

Now, hear this: I hate malls. In Los Angeles I avoided them except to go to movies. Malls remind me of high school and Jersey and having nothing better to do. So it surprised me that first sight of Citi Centre filled me with glee. I almost threw my hands in the air, rollercoaster-style, as I rode the escalators, the first I’d seen in India’s fourth-largest city.

Two months into my India stay, I crave modernity. I don’t mean central air or toilets that flush, though such technologies are swell. I mean order.

Chennai, or most of it, is chaos. Restaurants without maitre d’s or menus. Stores without price tags or change for a 100-rupee note (a little more than $2). Streets clogged with honk-happy drivers, stray dogs, and vendors of flowers, fruits, coffee and paan.

Walking outside requires full attention and razor-sharp reflexes. Stoplights are scarce, and there’s no such thing as right of way. I’ve yet to see a single blink of a turn signal. There’s more to crossing the street than looking both ways. It’s look right, then left, then right, then left, then right, then run. Motorcyclists think nothing of riding the wrong way down a street. They think nothing of riding the wrong way while talking on their cell phones. I jump to avoid collisions so often as to consider it cardio. I suck in my gut to dodge handlebar jabs.

It’s not that I’m tired of all this. But it is tiring.

The mall, by comparison, is a place of order and calm. I can wander -- and let my mind wander -- without fear of dismemberment. I can finger skirts and sunglasses without salesmen circling. I can hear my thoughts. They’re a mite more lyrical than the “Madam! Madam! Rickshaw?” I constantly hear outside. The mall as mountaintop. Who woulda thunk?

Citi Centre is the sort of mall that would go by “galleria” in the U.S. It’s compact, bling-y and architecturally ambiguous: faux neoclassical exterior, glass-covered atrium and floor tiles masquerading as fan cobblestone. There’s a creperie, several coffee shops and a “Fun City” playpen for kids. Anchored by a department store called Lifestyle and festooned with banners of hollow-cheeked women and stubbly men, Citi Centre screams America. (If you ignore the kiosk selling black burkas and headscarves.)

Yesterday I toured the food court and considered my options. There were a variety of Indian cuisines: Chettinad, Lucknowi, Bengali and Punjabi, among others. Wangs Kitchen promised a taste of China, Mex Chic’Inn boasted burritos, and Little Italy offered a variety of pizzas, pastas and -- oddly -- nachos.

I settled on Pizza Hut.

Like I said, I was feeling American. I washed down my personal pan pizza with a can of Diet Pepsi, sold at a satisfyingly capitalistic 40 percent markup. Then I strolled to Lifestyle, humming the ‘80s power ballads in constant rotation. Once upon a time I was falling in love, but now I'm only falling apart. There's nothing I can do - total eclipse of the heart.

I was in a dressing room, experimenting with a fuchsia shawl, when my phone rang. It was Scott, an American who lives in Chennai with his Indian-American wife, Padma.

“Guess what I found,” he said.

“A suitcase?”

I wasn’t feeling terribly imaginative, and I’d recently chucked my carry-on, a casualty of Operation Smuggle Eight Bottles of Wine from Bangalore to Chennai.

“Better than that,” Scott said.

“A wine store that actually sells wine?”

“Even better.”

I gave up. The fuchsia shawl worked as a skirt, too.

“Pancake mix,” he exhaled. “You’re on the hook for brunch.”

O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

‘Toxic Even When Dead’

2006-11-05T01:40:00.000+05:30

The Internet is a handy tool. Mostly I use it to figure out if I’m going to die.

Among my recent Google searches:

cauliflower worms
mold futon mattress
laptop electric shock
dengue fever
malarone long term side effects
chikungunya india epidemic
eggs undercooked risk

The caterpillars I found floating in the cauliflower soup I cooked this week probably won’t kill me. They were small, about the size of fingernail clippings, and anyway I lost my appetite after fishing out three. “Cabbage worms,” says Wikipedia, are the most common insect pests of cauliflower. They like rutabagas, too. (I like saying “rutabagas.”)

My moldy futon mattress, however, could very well lead to my demise. I dragged it out of my room after a peek at the Berkeley Parents Network Web site. Mold is “very dangerous,” according to a parent named Sara. Some species are “toxic even when dead.” Dang.

I find Google Image Search particularly useful. A search for “papaya seeds” turned up 465 images. I slept easier that night, knowing the black beads I’d scraped out of my first whole papaya were indeed seeds and not the eggs of some prolific pest.

I’m not a worrywart by nature. In the U.S., I was fearless. I’d go as far as to eat a Yoplait past its expiry date. India has turned me neurotic. I worry over inflamed bug bites. I wash tomatoes in dishwashing liquid. I carry Purell everywhere and quiz waiters about the contents of fruit juice. Avoiding “Delhi belly” means acting like a prima donna: “I’ll take a mango juice with filtered water. Filtered. No ice. In a paper cup. If you don’t have filtered water, then NO water. And no ice!”

Life here can feel like a “Fear Factor” episode, what with ants in my cereal, rat droppings on my kitchen counter, nibblers in my bed, frogs in guesthouse showers, leech attacks and gecko poo. One evening in Coorg, a swarm of moths overran an Internet café where I was writing home. They bounced off monitors, writhed on keyboards and skittered across the floor. We turned off the lights to make them leave.

Moth scales and other body parts are known allergens and can pose a serious health hazard. So says a Journal of Economic Entomology article I found on the Net.

New Digs

2006-10-31T16:44:00.000+05:30

That oh-so-perfect pad I wrote about last month? I moved out.

My new digs are cheaper and more comfortable. I share a three-bedroom apartment with Ben and Nathan, an Aussie and Brit I met at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram. I wasn’t looking to move when they offered me their third room. At first I said no. Then I remembered the pancake brunches.

Almost every Sunday of my last semester in college, I woke up early to prepare the batter. One bowl for plain pancakes. Another for chocolate chip. I’d ladle the batter onto hot pans, wait for bubbles, then flip. The pancakes were almost as big as Frisbees, and one or two were enough for most guests.

My friends brought orange juice, milk and backpacks stuffed with books. Accommodating a dozen guests wasn’t a problem. My roommates and I had an assortment of hand-me-down chairs and a couch we’d rescued from the streets. The brunches made Sundays a little easier to bear; most of us had all-day dates with a desk.

I was dreaming about pancakes while eating a spectacularly crappy breakfast not far from Auroville. That got me thinking about the brunches. My next thought was: “Dude. I should have pancake brunches for my friends in Chennai.” And then I thought about my apartment in Chennai, which had exactly one chair.

I called Nathan that afternoon and told him I’d take the room.

Our dining room table seats 14 comfortably. Nathan had it custom-made. It’s perfect for pancake brunches. Also for table tennis. Nathan strung a net across the middle, and fierce matches are held daily.

There are other toys: speakers for our iPods, a hammock, a punching bag and boxing gloves, a chess set, and a sling for hanging upside down, which no home is complete without. When Alex was here, I snapped a picture of him trying it out -- just before he nearly passed out.

The apartment also has a washing machine (though no dryer). Washing machines are a rarity in India, even among the affluent, because maids are much cheaper than major appliances. At my old apartment, a maid washed my laundry in a bucket of cloudy water spiked with my sweat and hers. It never came out as clean and fragrant as laundry washed in a machine.

I have less privacy, but that’s OK. My recluse phase was short-lived. I’m leaving my door open. I’m digging out my social calendar. I’m ready to whip up some batter.

‘It’s India’

2006-10-28T19:41:00.000+05:30

I’m back in Chennai after almost two weeks in Bangalore. I hadn’t planned on staying so long in India’s tech capital. I hadn’t planned on my Mac breaking, either. I definitely hadn’t planned on Diwali.

First, the Mac. It fell. It was in a neoprene case, which was in a backpack, which tumbled to the ground when Chitra’s driver opened her car’s hatchback. I gasped, grabbed the backpack and ran upstairs to assess the damage. The laptop worked just fine. I typed and typed until the battery icon went red, and then I looked for an outlet. That’s when I noticed the dent. It was near the laptop’s power jack, which was warped. I couldn’t charge the darn thing without standing it on its side to flatten the warped bit.

Fortunately, Bangalore has an Apple service center. This may sound unremarkable to friends back home, but India is a developing country in parts of which plumbing is considered high-tech. Many of the services and products Westerners take for granted are difficult, if not impossible, to find. Maple syrup, for instance. Also Mitchum Clear Gel deodorant, which I import by the trunkful to keep Chitra happy (and dry).

So I was delighted to learn about the service center. It’s on the fifth floor of a dreary office building and bears no resemblance to the bright Apple playpens found in finer shopping centers. The laptop would be ready Monday, the technician told me. It was a Tuesday.

I begged him to aim for Friday, citing my plans to return to Chennai over the weekend. Fine, he said. I paid and asked him to call when the laptop was ready.

Friday came and went without a call. When I phoned the service center Saturday morning, a security guard answered. There was no one else in the office, he told me. It was closed for Diwali. This, the technician had failed to mention.

Diwali is the Hindu “festival of lights.” It’s several days of earsplitting, eye-popping pyrotechnics that put our Fourth of July to shame.

“So I can’t pick up my laptop until Monday?” I shrilled.

The security guard corrected me. The office would be closed on Monday. Tuesday, too.

“Can you believe it?” I whined to a friend in Chennai. “They told me it would be ready Monday, at the latest. And the office isn’t even open until Wednesday! And they never called!”

“It’s India,” came his response.

This -- or variations like “welcome to India” -- is what expats say to each other when faced with maddening inefficiencies. We say it a lot. That’s because service is as foreign a concept in India as meatloaf. A trip to the bank can take hours, with customers snaking their way toward indifferent tellers. At the Starbucks-like coffee shops that are cropping up like, well, Starbucks, you can get a frozen coffee drink that’s First World in appearance and taste. But don’t be surprised if it takes four apron-wearing baristas 15 minutes to count out your change.

“It’s India” is what you say when you go to a restaurant that has three menus for 30 tables. It’s what you say when the water tank empties midway through your shower. It’s what you say when you’re sitting on a bus that’s packed with people -- packed as in body parts dangling out windows -- and not moving from the station. Not moving for more than an hour. “It’s India” is what you say when a taxi driver takes you an hour out of your way to fill his car’s petrol tank at a friend’s house.

I know two Brits who’ve bought punching bags since moving to India. They’re not boxers; they just need to let off steam. I rarely get ruffled. That's because I’m rarely in a hurry. So, Mr. Grocery Store Clerk, you wanna gab on your cell phone while I stand here with my basket? Bring it. I have nowhere to be. The fount of my serenity is the luxury I found in India: spare time.

The friend in Chennai urged me to “get American” on the guys at the service center. Raise my voice. Demand to speak to a manager. The truth was, I didn’t mind extending my stay in Bangalore.

For one, my hair looks better there. Bangalore is cooler than Chennai and far less humid. That means corkscrew curls instead of the puff that passes for my hairdo in Chennai.

For another, you can buy a decent bottle of wine there. The Indian vintages found in Chennai make Manischewitz look good. I filled my suitcase with Rieslings and Australian Chardonnays, most of which I’d give to Scott, a Chennai friend in need of vino.

The rickshaw drivers in Bangalore are better, too. They use meters, which means no haggling and fairer rates. In Chennai, the meters are for show, and I don’t climb into a rickshaw without asking “how much?” The driver then names a ludicrous price, and I roll my eyes, make a counteroffer and start to walk away. Sometimes he lets me, and I’m left to hunt for another rickshaw.

The best thing about Bangalore is being a guest of Chitra. She has a sweet apartment with a spare bedroom, a car and fulltime driver, an impressive library of bootleg DVDs and endless patience for my questions about Indian culture. (I called her once for an explanation of the toilet situation, and she didn’t hang up on me.)

Chitty also has a huge family -- aunties and uncles up the wazoo -- who seem not to mind my infiltration. They even let me light the firecrackers.

I got my Mac back on Wednesday. I got a little American on them. Then I got out of Bangalore.

More Than a Wee Bit

2006-10-20T20:48:00.000+05:30

On our fifth day in Coorg, Alex and I decided to go for a hike. It was hard to tear ourselves away from our books and balcony. I was cruising through a Carl Hiaasen; he was busy with Bill Bryson. From the villa's second-floor balcony we had views of dayglow-green rice paddies, papaya trees and mist-shrouded mountains. Dragonflies swirled all around. Coffee and tea came on trays. We didn't budge for hours at a time, though the occasional rainbow compelled us to reach for our cameras.

Coorg, a mountainous region in southwest Karnataka, is coffee-growing country, which made the trip something of a pilgrimage for me. Alex, that heathen, turned his back on coffee several weeks ago. He agreed to Coorg anyway, lured by Lonely Planet's promise of "awesome trekking routes" and cooler weather.

Coorg recalls Costa Rica (lush forests, lousy roads) and California's wine valleys (sprawling estates, little to do but drink). It has a number of designated Lookout Points, at which taxi drivers pull over, point and announce, "lookout point," obliging passengers to snap a few photos. This is like designating Good Paintings in a Van Gogh exhibit; everywhere you look, a masterpiece. Coffee and cardamom plants blanket the landscape, shaded by trees cloaked in pepper vines. Elephants amble through forests of sandalwood and teak. Overhead: oranges, guavas, jackfruit, bananas and coconuts, to name a few.

Coorg was our "something adventurous." We'd ruled out trekking in the Himalayas (too far) and scuba diving off the Andaman Islands (too rainy). Coorg was relatively close, a six-hour drive from Bangalore, and its monsoon season, purportedly over.

A long stop in Bylakuppe kept us from trekking on day 1. Rain scuttled our plans on day 2. On the third day, we took breakfast on the balcony outside our room at Capitol Village, a plantation-cum-resort just outside the Coorg capital of Madikeri. (In recent years, overproduction of coffee and other commodities has made tourism more lucrative than tilling the land.)

The plantation owner pulled up a chair, as he did every morning. Ganesh plays the part to the hilt, roaming his estate in safari hat, oval shades and ascot.

"What is your plan for today?"

Alex and I looked at each other as if he'd asked, "What do you plan to do with the rest of your lives?" Finish breakfast. That was our plan. Maybe finish our books. Go for a trek.

At the mention of trekking, Ganesh shook his head and curled his lips. "Leeches," he grumbled.

I'd never seen a leech. I knew a little about them, which was a little more than I knew about geckos, thanks to my favorite movie. In "Stand by Me," a 1986 coming-of-age flick starring my first love, River Phoenix, four boys emerge from a muddy pond covered in leeches. The scrawniest of them faints after discovering an engorged leech in his underwear. "Stand By Me" remained my favorite movie long after my subscriptions to "Tiger Beat" and "BOP" lapsed, though I stopped admitting it at some point and claimed to adore "Out of Africa."

I thought of River, rest his soul, when Ganesh said "leeches."

Daily rains had soaked the trails, leaving them slippery and leech-infested, Ganesh told us. Trekking was possible, but only with proper rain gear. The only rain gear I'd brought was an umbrella.

"What do you suggest we do?" I asked.

Ganesh thought for a while. (As previously mentioned, there's little to do in Coorg. Attractions are few, a fact underscored by the existence of Lookout Points. The temples are humble affairs. Shopping, unless you're in the market for coffee or cardamom by the kilo, is nonexistent. As for the restaurant scene, well, there's a reason why Capitol Village serves three meals a day to its guests.)

Ganesh summoned his assistant, who summoned a driver, who took us to a dam more than an hour away.

When Ganesh said dam, I thought Hoover. I expected an engineering marvel or dizzying view. Harangi Dam is neither of these. It's a ho-hum structure surrounded by manicured lawns studded with concrete benches. The guidebooks say it's a good picnic spot. I thought it had all the appeal of a suburban office park. Cameras weren't allowed, which was just as well.

Then the driver took us to Dubare Elephant Training camp, where we petted the pachyderms and watched them eat their evening snack.

On day 4 we left Capitol Village and moved to a smaller, more remote lodge. Palace Estate is near the base of Thadiyendamol, the highest peak in Coorg. We parked ourselves on the balcony and prayed for sun.

Day 5: gorgeous. A perfect day for trekking. Also a perfect day for reading and lazing about. We were shamed into choosing the former when our host inquired, "What is your plan for today?" (Apparently, Coorg's plantation owners took the same hospitality courses.)

We packed our cameras, bug spray and a light lunch. I traded the flimsy sandals I'd been wearing all week for a pair with traction soles and lots of Velcro. I left the umbrella.

Thadiyendamol rises to 5,730 feet. The one-way climb from Palace Estate takes 2 to 3 1/2 hours, depending on your pace. We made good time as I scrambled to keep up with my leggy companion.

We were two-thirds of the way there when it started to drizzle. Drizzle turned to downpour, and Alex decided we should turn back. I wanted to reach the top -- I wanted something to write home about -- but I relented.

We splashed our way down the mountain. The rocky trail had turned to river.

River.

"Stand by Me."

Leeches.

They clung to my feet and ankles. A few were trapped in Velcro. They were small and slippery, and getting hold of them was like spearing grape tomatoes with a fork. I stopped half a dozen times to pinch and pull them away. (Alright, alright. Alex did most of the pinching and pulling. I flailed my arms and squealed encouragement.)

Lest anyone question the title of this blog, I offer exhibit #1.

Dalaiwood

2006-10-17T00:47:00.000+05:30

We made a right and felt like we'd left India. The faces were different. Clothes, too. Brahma had given way to Buddha, and prayer flags fluttered from every post.

This is Bylakuppe, the largest Tibetan settlement in India.

Sprinkles

2006-10-14T14:52:00.000+05:30

Nelly told me to look up.

“Look at that gecko,” she said.

I looked. The gecko was on the ceiling above our table. There was a paper lantern above us, too, and inside the lantern, many bugs and a small frog. Smart frog, I thought. The gecko had its tail raised. I’d never seen a gecko do that.

Nelly also knew little about gecko habits. She’s a Manhattanite who teaches yoga at Crunch. At 23, she was the youngest of my classmates at Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram. Her tuition and travel were financed by a Zen-friendly hedge fund manager. She wears butterfly earrings and bejeweled barrettes, and she packed a pair of red high-heeled cowboy boots for her trip to India.

“What were you thinking?” I asked her once.

“I thought, if you can wear red high-heeled cowboy boots in India, I’ll be very sad that I didn’t bring them. So I did.”

You can’t.

Nelly and I watched the high-tailed gecko for a few seconds before we realized its purpose.

“Oooh,” we said in unison.

The gecko poo looked like a chocolate sprinkle. I noticed other sprinkles on the ceiling and walls, enough for a sundae. Our gazes returned to our menus. Roasted chicken or spinach crepe? They both sounded good. Nelly and I decided to share.

She flinched suddenly and swatted the top of her head.

“Bug?” I asked. I didn’t see one.

Nelly looked up.

“It’s not there anymore,” she said in a panicky voice.

Sure enough, the sprinkle wasn’t where the gecko had left it.

I wiped the gecko poo from Nelly’s hair. We ordered ice cream for dessert.

Space Odyssey

2006-10-13T19:09:00.000+05:30

The day after yoga school let out, we went to see the spaceship.

Nelly, Caroline and I made the trip to Auroville, about 160 kilometers south of Chennai, in a large white SUV that belongs to a South Indian government official. (I can’t go into it. Let’s just say Nelly knows a guy who knows a guy.) The SUV had a flagpole on its hood and a siren that the driver used liberally. Above the passenger seat were three lamps to illuminate an on-the-go VIP.

We drove past an amusement park named Dizzee World, past Mamallapuram, past fishing villages and salt flats. We held our breath as we zoomed past buses and bullock carts, playing chicken with oncoming traffic, swerving so violently that a stop at Dizzee World would have been redundant.

salt flats

self-portrait in salt

Waiting for us in Auroville were my old friends Alex and Chitra, who’d driven from Bangalore. The three of us met in Jersey back in ’01. Then Alex moved to Los Angeles, Chitty moved to New York, I moved to Los Angeles, Chitty moved back to her native Bangalore, Alex moved to London, and I moved to Chennai.

Alex is visiting us in India for three weeks. I thought he’d get a kick out of Auroville. It’s India’s pocket of New Ageism, an experiment in communal living that began 40 years ago. Alex buys organic and free-range. He eschews paper plates and plastic utensils. His mother turned bohemian around the time he turned 12, and they spent weekends at an upstate New York commune called The Land. He knows from hippies.

But Auroville is something else. It’s Sedona on steroids. More than 1,800 people from about 35 countries live in settlements with names such as Miracle, Sincerity and Surrender. We stayed at a guesthouse in Certitude, though I would have preferred an address in Bliss. There’s a spirulina farm, a “Unity Pavilion,” and restaurants called Solar Kitchen and New Creation Corner.

Becoming an Aurovilian is harder than gaining admission to an Upper East Side co-op. Newcomers, as they’re called, must prove they’re healthy (an AIDS test is mandatory) and have enough cash to support themselves for at least a year. They’re required to contribute to the town fund. Any home built in Auroville belongs to the community.

The “soul” of Auroville is a space-age meditation center called Matrimandir. It’s a giant golden golf ball, slightly squashed. Started in 1971 and still under construction, the Matrimandir houses a crystal globe that’s 70 centimeters in diameter. It sits under a shaft of light in the all-white Inner Chamber, which looks like a collaboration between aliens and Ikea.

We weren’t allowed to take photos inside. That’s one of the many rules governing access to and conduct in the Inner Chamber. Getting in took Alex, Caroline, Nelly and me two days and some amount of sneakiness. We had to prove our worth -- and be primed for contact with the crystal -- by meditating in one of the “petals” on the golden orb’s perimeter. That didn’t go so well. (See previous entry.)

We kept our composure in the imposing Inner Chamber. Caroline and Nelly even experienced the crystal’s power, which they described as a pressure on their chests. Alex and I noted that an hour in the spaceship passed at warp speed. Mother would have been pleased.

Auroville is the brainchild of “The Mother,” a.k.a. Mirra Alfassa, a Parisian mystic and disciple of Indian philosopher-yogi Sri Aurobindo. Her portrait hangs in most rooms and decorates the dashboards of cabs that ply Auroville’s red-dirt roads. “Auroville is meant to hasten the advent of the supramental reality upon earth,” she said in 1972, a year before her death. “The help of all those who find that the world is not what it ought to be is welcome.”

I’m pretty sure “supramental” isn’t a word, but I get Mother’s drift. She envisioned a utopian society where money wouldn’t change hands and service would serve as currency. The town would eventually accommodate 50,000 like-minded people, i.e., the sort of people who put “Mean People Suck” stickers on their bumpers. Bumpers that aren’t attached to SUVs.

I’ll be back. I liked tooling around town on a beat-up scooter and lying in a beachside hammock. I liked drinking wine on the patio at Needam Guesthouse, watching geckos dart and caterpillars creep. I liked the spinach crepes at New Creation Corner. I liked hearing French and Hebrew and Farsi and wearing tank tops without fear of offending.

But I’ll leave the spaceship to other explorers. I won’t find serenity in a blue-lit, air-conditioned pod. A crystal cast in Germany can’t bring me closer to divinity. I prefer a gnarled tree. A tangerine and pomegranate sunset. A mountaintop. Such things make me believe, if only for a moment, that the world is exactly what it ought to be.

Making It

2006-10-07T08:06:00.000+05:30

Alex was intimidated. Three women, yoga practitioners all. One hour behind closed doors. Serious mood lighting.

“At first I was unsure that I’d be able to last for a full hour,” he would say later.

The women murmured encouragement and advice as the hour approached. “Concentrate on your breathing,” Nelly offered.

Alex and the yoginis took off their shoes at the entrance to the space-age meditation chamber and donned requisite white socks. They reminded him of the tube socks he wore at Madison Junior High in New Jersey. He pulled them up all the way, like he used to do before Heather Zee turned to him during gym class and told him scrunched was the fashion.

The lighting inside made the socks look blue. It made everything look bluish. He wondered again if he’d last an hour in blue-bathed meditation. Alex tends toward fidgety.

The first giggle escaped even before he sat down on a square floor pillow. It didn’t come from him. Alex doesn’t giggle, though he does a mean imitation. Sure enough, it belonged to one of the yoginis. He couldn’t be sure which because, within seconds, all three were giggling. The giggles stopped, then started again. They bit their lips, but giggles bubbled to the surface. Tears streamed down their faces as they sat cross-legged, eyes closed and hands resting on their knees.

And Alex thought to himself: “I’m going to win this contest. I’m going to beat the yogis at their own game.”

Tricks Are for Kids

2006-10-05T15:01:00.000+05:30

Reports of my levitating skills are greatly exaggerated.

Yes, I’ve been in India a little longer than a month. Yes, I’ve been studying yoga with masters for something like eight hours a day. And, yes, I was so engrossed in these studies that I didn’t update the blog for almost two whole weeks. (Sorry ‘bout that.)

But I’ve yet to levitate.

I felt it necessary to address the issue after receiving several e-mails of this variety: “Wow. That’s a lotta yoga. You must be levitating by now.” It’s true I can do a few tricks. I can nail a few pretzel-ish postures. But I didn’t come to India to hone my tricks. My last home was L.A., yoga capital of the Western world, where studios devoted to pretzel production are as ubiquitous as Starbucks.

I came to the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram because pretzels aren’t prized here. It’s a school devoted to healing, and few of its students resemble the hard-bodied models in yoga magazines. They come with illnesses and injuries and prescription slips on which doctors have scribbled “KYM” and its phone number.

Among the students we met was an 8-year-old girl with rheumatoid arthritis who couldn’t turn in bed without crying out in pain. Her mother brought her to KYM in February, and today she bends and twists while chanting “poo” or “cha” or whatever mantra suits her mood. We met a 39-year-old man whose right leg is paralyzed because he contracted polio as an infant. He practices yoga because it allows him to walk farther and stand longer. We met a 31-year-old woman with pulmonary hypertension whose doctors recommended a lung transplant. They changed their minds after she came to KYM and learned breathing and meditation techniques that eased her symptoms. “They are close to God for me,” she said of her yoga teachers.

My first appointment at KYM left me slack-jawed. I met with “Dr. NC,” a yoga teacher whose full name is too much of a mouthful for Westerners. NC is a medical doctor, but I didn’t spot a stethoscope when I walked into his office. He watched as I lifted my arms and touched my toes. He placed his hands on my shoulders and ran his fingers along my spine. He listened to me breath. Then he told me how I feel.

“You have some pain in your lower back?

Yep.

“You have some stiffness here?” he asked. He pointed to the part of my neck I’d been kneading for days, still knotted.

It went like that for a few more minutes. He jotted notes in my file that another teacher would use to design a personalized yoga practice. “About 80 percent of the practice is breathing,” NC said as he walked me to the door. “It should not be thought of as exercise.”

I left feeling rattled. Partly because NC had read my body like a Dick and Jane book. And partly because, for years, my response to “What do you do for exercise?” has been “yoga.”

It took a month to really understand his meaning. On Friday, I finished KYM’s four-week yoga “intensive.” My classmates and I received lotus flowers and certificates in a ceremony attended by our teachers. We showed off our new chanting skills, looking less like yogis than kindergarteners in a Christmas pageant. Voices and hands shook. KYM founder TKV Desikachar sprang from his chair to congratulate us when we finished. He’s a bubbly man who turns solemn when he talks about yoga.

He turned solemn. “Without a strong body, with a weak constitution, you cannot pursue anything,” he told us. And I really got it. The aim of yoga isn’t a firm butt or toned quads. It’s a clear mind. But a weak constitution hinders that pursuit. Clarity is hard to come by when you have aching joints or an itchy throat. Enlightenment is stymied by sniffles. So we start by working on our bodies. Yoga improves our strength, flexibility and balance. It’s exercise, alright. But it shouldn’t be thought of as such.

I didn’t learn any cool “moves” at KYM. The hardest thing I did each day was sit on the floor, eyes closed, and breath. I’m working on that one. I hear it’s pretty cool when you master it. Feels a little like levitating.

Protein

2006-09-22T19:43:00.000+05:30

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

2006-09-19T00:03:00.000+05:30

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

2006-09-14T21:34:00.000+05:30

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

2006-09-09T21:06:00.000+05:30

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

2006-09-06T08:44:00.000+05:30

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

2006-09-03T15:10:00.000+05:30

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

2006-09-01T18:38:00.000+05:30

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?”

Wherein I Learn to Boil Water

2006-08-31T12:09:00.000+05:30

Two days without coffee meant two days of headaches, and today I resolved to brew a pot. I dragged a French press from LA to Chennai and bought ground coffee on my second day in town. But I was flummoxed by the two-burner tabletop stove in my new apartment. I fiddled with the dials, kicked the red propane tank and gave up.

This morning I asked Sowmiya for help. Sowmiya is my hostess. I hesitate to call her landlady because she doesn’t refer to me as tenant. I am her “guest.”

Sowmiya opened a valve on the propane cylinder, turned and pressed a dial on the stove, pointed a lighter at the burner and -- phwoom! -- a hearty flame. I could almost taste the coffee.

Now, Indians drink coffee. It’s sold in restaurants and from pushcarts on every block. Gaggles of men sip it on sidewalks, spilling into the streets. But South Indian coffee doesn’t satisfy my addiction. It's served in cups no bigger than the rinse-and-spit variety at a dentist's office. They're one-fourth the size of a Starbucks Tall, and I'm a Grande sort of gal. I take my coffee black, which confounds the locals. Their milky concoction is the color of nougat and just as sweet. There are spoonfuls of sugar in every itty-bitty cup, and the last sip reveals a film of granules. In the lingo of my girlfriends back home, it's "Sashatized." (Sasha, you would soooo dig the coffee here.) It’s delicious stuff, but it's not the drug I crave.

The pots in my kitchen don’t have handles, so Sowmiya showed me how to lift them from the stove with pincers. It reminded me of camping. I asked if I should turn off the gas when the stove’s not in use.

“I think you have not too many rats,” she replied. “You close the windows, yes?”

Her response seemed like a non sequitur, so I repeated my question. Again, she brought up rats. It took a full two minutes for me to understand the connection. Rats gnaw on rubber hoses. There’s a rubber hose connecting the tank to the stove.

“If you smell gas, then you turn off, ok?”

Is that before or after I climb on top of the table?

Barefoot

2006-08-30T20:00:00.000+05:30

I’m not fond of “I’ve seen better” types. People who visit the Getty and grumble that it’s no Guggenheim. Folks who visit Malibu’s beaches and lament, “It’s nothing like Maui.”

So it’s with a great deal of sheepishness that I say this: Thailand didn’t knock my socks off.

It’s not that I didn’t like it. What’s not to like when days unfold like this:

0730 GAZE AT OCEAN
0800 READ BOOK
0807 GAZE AT OCEAN
0900 MAKE THREE TRIPS TO ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT BREAKFAST BUFFET (OK, four if you count the hoard-for-later bowl of cashews and banana bread.)
1100 BATHE IN ORCHID-LITTERED WATER
1300 ONE-HOUR FOOT MASSAGE
1500 EAT SMUGGLED NUTS AND BANANA BREAD
1700 MANICURE/PEDICURE

That’s Thailand for tourists. Sure, there were inconveniences. I had to peel the skin off fresh litchis and pinch the feet off shrimp before popping them in my mouth. Sipping herbal tea while having my right arm massaged presented a challenge. I overcame it.

My trouble with Thailand is that it’s too comfortable, too familiar. A lot of Thailand is a little like someplace else. The beaches are a little like Mexico’s. Bangkok’s Patpong, with its go-go bars and sex shows, is a little like Amsterdam’s red-light district. The portly Europeans with their teenage Thai “escorts” remind me of the Dominican Republic. I’m traveling to be jarred. I’m traveling to be awed. Thailand didn’t leave a mark. I fear my memories of the place will fade as quickly as the manicure. “How was Thailand?” the folks back home want to know. I respond the way I do when a friend solicits my impression of his mousy new girlfriend. “She’s nice.”

I’m in India now. It’s Day 3 of my indefinite stay. I came back here because it’s like no other place I’ve been. India overwhelms me. Some days I’m overwhelmed with awe; other days, frustration. Exhaustion, elation and fury have a part, too. It’s a good thing barefoot is de rigueur here because India knocks my socks off.

Beautiful

2006-08-26T07:53:00.000+05:30

James Blunt is the sound of summer in Thailand. His “Beautiful” blasts in open-air markets, hotel lobbies and thatched-roof bars. Fortunately, I like the song. The summer I traveled in Russia, Ace of Base was all the rage. I still can’t think of the Hermitage without hearing all that she wants is another bay-be. I thought it was a kooky Russian thing until I returned to the States and heard the nauseating number on campus.

Thursday night we drank Prosecco and munched on strips of roasted coconut at Breezes, the hotel bar. The house band opened with Blunt’s hit. Then they asked for requests from the crowd, which was the three of us, two Swiss ladies and a honeymoon-ish couple.

It’s monsoon season in Thailand, which means cheaper hotel rates, beach chairs aplenty and hovering waiters in half-empty restaurants. It’s supposed to mean daily downpours, but we've been lucky. It barely rained in the five days we spent on the beach. The umbrellas and ponchos we packed went untouched.

We chose a particularly quiet island for our beach vacation. Koh Chang, unlike Phuket or Koh Samui, is largely undeveloped. There’s no Starbucks or Burger King. The only harbinger of commercialization is Seven-Eleven, which dots the road that rings the island. Gasoline is sold in glass bottles, lemonade-stand style.

Koh Chang is where Thais go to unwind. I first heard about it from my Thai masseuses in Los Angeles. The bellhop at our hotel in Bangkok looked astonished when I told him where we were headed. “Gooooood,” he said, bobbing his head in approval. We never met or heard another American there. Italians and Swiss, yes. A middle-aged couple from Melbourne now residing in New Delhi. A father and daughter from Austria now living in Tokyo. I didn't know how to respond when they asked where I'm from or where I live.

At first we were shy about making requests. We asked the band to play David Gray, whose music we’d heard over dinner. (Three albums competed for our attention throughout the meal, a hazard of dining in shoulder-to-shoulder stick houses.) David Gray wasn’t in their repertoire, and Coldplay was still in rehearsal. Tina Turner, though, they had down. “Simply the Best” brought the Swiss ladies to the dance floor. They twirled and gyrated unselfconsciously. They sat down when Tina gave way to U2, and we requested “I Will Survive” to see them dance again.

At poolside happy hour Friday, we spread the word about Breezes and its jukebox of a band. A British dad said he'd bring his two teenage daughters. A newlywed pair -- he of Ireland and she of Scotland -- promised to come, too.

For dinner we hopped in the back of a truck and rode to the southern tip of Koh Chang. The steep and twisty road, the huts strung with Christmas lights and the hum of the rainforest made the trip feel like a Disneyland attraction. We feasted on prawns and blue crabs on a dark pier, alone in the eatery save for waitstaff and two friendly cats. Then we returned to our resort and Breezes.

Our new friends were there already. The band greeted us from stage. The newlyweds asked for Eric Clapton and got “Wonderful Tonight,” which made everyone go "awwwww" and the groom blush. The Brits dedicated “Leaving on a Jet Plane” to us. Around midnight, when the singers ran out of requests, they launched into “Beautiful.”

I'm With

2006-08-24T10:49:00.000+05:30

Heather and Ioana

They braved 14 hours of flying to come to Thailand with me. (That's them liquid-loading at LAX.) One is West Coast public relations powerhouse/poker shark; the other, East Coast loan market analyst/burlesque queen. When I leave for India in a few days, they'll head to Hong Kong for two days of power shopping and then back home. I'll be on my own, with no one to remind me to take my Malarone. I'll miss you ladies.

Experiences in Life

2006-08-21T06:59:00.000+05:30

We’re in Bangkok, in the back of a taxi. It took us three tries to find a driver who’d take us to our hotel for 100 baht, or about $3. The first asked for 650.

“Too much!” we cried. He let us walk away. We were outside Wat Pho, the oldest and biggest temple in Bangkok. It’s a cabbie’s market.

Our driver has the radio on, and my ears perk up when the music stops.

Learn English in 1 minute.

I’m intrigued. One minute? The proposal is both absurd and magnetic, like teasers in women’s magazines. Become Your Best Self in 17 Days. Get Fit in 5 Minutes. I’m curious to hear what handy phrases the radio voice imparts. Most Thais we encounter understand a smidgen of English. Their mistakes amuse us. A yellow bottle is labeled "musturd." A roadside sign reads "Drink Don't Drive."

Currencies

There’s a Thai translation, and then: Experiences in life cannot be bought by currencies.

Currencies

Remember to practice your English every day because practice makes perfect.

The minute ends, and so does the segment. Experiences in life, indeed.

LAX After Midnight

2006-08-19T21:35:00.000+05:30

Breadline

2006-08-17T22:46:00.000+05:30

I woke up this morning on Heather's pullout couch. It felt like a Saturday until she got dressed for work. Then it sunk in: I am unemployed.

Yesterday morning I came to work and talked to my boss. He talked to HR, HR talked to me, and by 10 a.m. I was out the door. The company doesn't let quitters stick around. I'll be paid through the end of the month, by which time I'll have traveled to three countries.

My belongings are scattered across Los Angeles. Andy's got my blue velour couch. Heather has two lamps, a pair of 8-pound dumbbells and the end table my grandmother gave me. The Buick is parked in her garage; the motorcycle is at Dan's. Clothes and books are in plastic bins stacked in Curtis's shed. The rest I sold on craigslist and a friend's front lawn.

It's after 11, and I'm still in my pajamas. I am unemployed and homeless. I like it.

Welcome

2006-08-16T00:04:00.000+05:30

Your password will expire in 2 days. Do you want to change it now?

The question made me giddy. I've changed the password on my work PC dozens of times, nearly exhausting variations of "welcome." Welcome6. Welcome8. Welcome2thejungle. This morning I moved my cursor to the "no" button and clicked. I don't need a new password. Tomorrow morning I'm quitting my job of five years. Two days later I'll be in Bangkok. This is the last day I spend in front of a computer.

"How long will you be gone?" everyone wants to know. Six months is what I've been telling friends. But I'm not sure. Depends how much I enjoy the wanderin' life. Depends how long my savings last. The not knowing -- the up-in-the-air-ness of it all -- feels like my first game of spin the bottle. Thrilling. Scary. A little bit naughty.