Week of Om

We spent most of the time since we last wrote at the Shankar Prasad Foundation in the tiny town of Bankikodla, near the slightly larger town of Gokarna, in the state of Karnataka. We found it on Airbnb, advertised as a "Yoga Meditation Organic Farm," which pretty much sums it up. It's run by Australian-born, Mumbai-bred, Swamiji, a sudha (a person who leads a simple, holy life--you can tell them apart by their orange clothes. Even Swamiji's crocs were orange)! There was chanting to at 6am and 8pm, and no talking after evening chanting until after breakfast the next day. A sign hung over the dining table requesting that food be enjoyed in silence. Silence for lunch and dinner, too! As you can imagine, this was pretty difficult for us, not being used to much silence. 

The idea is to appreciate your food and be aware of what you are eating. We can see some merit to this, but at the same time, talking while eating is great; especially talking about the food, which was really good. Breakfast consisted of brown/purple-ish porridge, made with oats, ragi flour, water, sultanas, and cashew nuts. Lunch was the main meal of the day, always including rice, dahl, curds/yogurt, chapatis and some sort of salad (our favourite was a grated beetroot and carrot salad). Dinner was leftovers. 

Silent lunch... shhh

The day before we arrived, there was a big festival in town, during which hundreds of people pushed this cart (below) through the streets. The cart is anywhere between 600 to 3,000 years old (we got varying reports... either way, it's old). Unfortunately, the axle broke in the middle of the festival! Bad omen--it had never happened before. Everyone was disappointed and blamed the "cold weather" the next morning on Shiva's disapproval. It still hadn't been fixed by the time we left--they were looking for a Brahim mechanic.

The cart in nearby Gokarna.

The coast near Gokarna is spectacular, and a path runs along it for miles, so you can walk from beach to beach over the headlands. Our favourite was Om Beach, which is shaped like an om sign. We saw a couple of most excellent sunsets there, and one morning got up at 5am to take a rickshaw over for sunrise meditation. Led by Sebastian, a German chap who had done it on Christmas Day as well, we walked right out onto the headland overlooking Om and Half Moon Beaches. Sat in meditation asanas, cross-legged (not the most comfortable position), we watched the sun come up.

Sunrise meditation. Lauren needs to work on her posture.

FOOD PROCESSING WILL TAKE 20-50 MINUTES. After the sunrise, we had the DOLPHIN BREAKFST, and very much enjoyed the dolphin cake, which didn't taste like dolphin at all (it was basically a slab of chocolate, caramel sauce and graham crackers).

We were taken by the MECRONI and SPEGHETTI

Every day, Swamiji led a two-hour class on yoga nidra ("psychic sleep meditation"); the aim is to access the subconscious, the place between being awake and asleep. There are five steps designed to get you to relax completely. You lie down in shavasana (corpse pose), and the tricky bit is not falling asleep. Hamish had to sit up, because he couldn't stay awake lying down. The dream-like place you go to is called your “chidarkash,” and could be colourful, like Lauren's cloudy rainbow place (where she befriended a black bear), or more low key. We discovered our favourite foods. Hamish's is scones and Lauren's spicy tuna rolls. But anyway, you see things man, it's a trip when it works. 

Swamiji and friend, with our friend Barry's "Keep Smiling" cards in three languages.

Bananas.... or fingers?!?! (Lots of baby bananas in India).

Spilled powder in Gokarna, left over from the festival.

Market in Gokarna

Hi elephants

One of the thousands of cows we've encountered so far. This one was particularly sassy.

Swami's Parisian Siamese cat, who has his own cat passport (catport?).

SO MANY PUPPIES on the beach!!

Inventive toy at the nursery school on site. All the playground materials were built from recycled local materials.

Nice lady in Bankikodla.

Beach snake! Hamish nearly stepped on him. He slithered back into the ocean soon after. Good move, snake.

Temple on top of the bluffs by the beach by Gokarna. Check out them elephants.

Sudha, the talented cook at Shankar Prasad.

"10 rupees per half bucket with old lady." Never figured out what that meant.

Chalk designs before the fire ceremony.

Peanut fields on Shankar Prasad. Shelling peanuts was one of the top activities there.

There was a heavily-laden starfruit tree in the garden, so Hamish, Mack and Sebastian (pictured) collected them and made several batches of starfruit jam. It was tasty in morning porridge and on top of scones.

Starfruit!

And now for Racoon's cookie review. Racoon has decided to review a different brand of biscuit/cookie every post. This week he decided to try Hide&Seek, by Parle.

Here's what they look like.

"It's a thumbs-up from me. Better than my usual roadside rummagings, but not quite as good as Brazil nuts."

Chip/biscuit ratio: 7/10

Crunch factor: 8/10

Size: 10/10 ("it's as big as my face!") 

Dipping time in tea before dissolving: 4 seconds

Overall mark: 8/10