Coimbatoire

March 7, 2008

We are now in Coimbatoire, which is an industrial city of fibers and car parts in the HUGE state of Tamil Nadu, which is basically 4/5's of Southern India. And it is definitely different from Kerela, which is where we were before. People are back to staring and not being so outwardly friendly, it is a dry hot landscape, beeping and fast pace, it is both modern and conservative, and not many people understand what we are saying. Tamil Nadu wanted to secede from the rest of India. As a Frenchman studying Ayurvedic massage and religion back at the Ashram said to me," the people of Tamil Nadu are much more wilder." I thought that sounded appealing at the time, but I am now seeing this statement in a different light. Kerela, on the other hand, is a communist state, it has the highest literacy rate, everyone speaks English, it's laid back and friendly. I guess maybe communism works, outside of Russia.

So what are we doing here, well, we are slowly making our way to Calcutta to see Amma consecrate a temple, and we stopped here because the type of Yoga that Tonya practices, Integral Yoga, has a center here. Okay with me, I have no agenda at all, and T's birthday is tomorrow. Also, she needs to emotionally rest after making herself feel so guilty about being here while her family is in mourning over where you are. Death is strange, and I'm not sure that anyone has really figured out how to approach it positively. Although life and death in India is not separate, and is not something to be feared, but celebrated. Easy for me to say, huh, I'm in India and not in cold New England. Yea, I wish we were both there to support the Salerno's, but here we are, and our love and prayers go out to them every minute of our trip. Teresa is in a better place now, I believe, and she'll never really go anywhere anyways, she'll always be inside of us who remember her.

Anyways, we are not sure what's next, we have a lot of options but we think we want to take it slow. Already miss the beach and the slow pace of Varkala. India is a gigantic country and will take several trips to see it all, if that's possible, so we have to keep reminding ourselves to just be here right now, wherever we are, and try to be at peace.

Shawn