Last I heard, your FF team would do better if left to themselves. Take a tip out of my book.

But seriously, keep in touch. Yes, you must have missed it. It was special to me to be able to write emails and PMs to you when we were both out there for months. As you know, it may be umpteen years till I can now go back. But that was weird: as you wrote at the time, we might have been in the same country, even both in the south, but much further apart, especially in terms of travel time, than in England!

Enjoy it. I may never have asked, so you might tell us all: what's your kinda daily routine? I kept moving on, but you often stay put. TBH I wasn't into more than a couple of weeks in one place.

V xxxxx

Hi Sunanda

Have a great get-away-from-it-all.....holiday :dance:

Have a great time Sunanda......I can't wait to read of your exploits out there in India....

Enjoy your trip to India. I hope you are going to avail yourself to some lovely ayurvedic treatments or Chivutti Thirumul massage - oh the thought of all that and the spiritual aspect. It's enough to send me wild with envy.
Have a wonderful time and keep us posted.

Namaste
Binah
x

Hope all goes well Sunanda. Enjoy and relax and keep in touch.

Wow! What a dream life some people lead! (I've never even been to the med. )
Have a fantastic time & please keep telling us all about it, so we can benefit vicariously. Go well. Keep safe & happy! 008: xxx

Have a great time, Sunanda. If you happen to find yourself making a pilgrimage to Arunachala then say a prayer for me :).

In that place the Lord ever abides, the hill of light named Arunachala.

- Sri Ramana Maharshi

Have a great time Sunanda! We'll seeyou around I'm sure so I won't say goodbye just so long.

Have a wonderful time Sunny:) I envy you being in the sun for 6 months. I look forward to hearing your adventures when you get a chance to pop in to HP.

This could also augur well for our team, seeing as they were winning when I was out of the country too:o

Anyway, I shall drop into your virtual party for a slurp and a nibble.

Bon voyage

Love

have a wonderful time, sunanda. i know how you love being there, doing ya thang :).

enjoy the warmth and the sun, obviously cast a thought in our miserable direction every now and again!

au revoir!

xx

Have a great time, Sunanda. If you happen to find yourself making a pilgrimage to Arunachala then say a prayer for me :).

For the first six weeks, Graham, I shall be living at the foot of Holy Arunachala. So life will be one long and continuous prayer.

Sue, it's only three months this year. But far far better than the zero months I was there last year. I want you to know that I have done my best to scupper the Spuds for you - I've bought Darren Bent so that should stop his goal scoring for a while. I'm just wondering whether I should show even more altruism and sell Cesc to improve his game and get the points flowing....:p

Anyway, thanks everyone for your good wishes. It's another bleak day in Tottenham so I am looking forward to going even more. And I shall have company on my flight - do you remember me posting a while back about my friend Harriet who had a baby out in India (home birth, holistic etc)? Well, she and her gorgeous baby have been in London visiting her family and they are on the same flight as me. I'm going to be staying in one of Harriet's cottages so we'll share baby minding duties on the flight and a taxi at the other end. Just great.

xxx

Have a lovely time Sunanda.

I have never been. Do you travel around or stay in one place, is it work related or just for pleasure?

Thank you OB. I stay mainly in one place but I also visit two other places for shorter periods. All in the South: Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. This year I'm going to be spending about six weeks in my first port of call before I start travelling in January.

xxx

Hi Sunanda......I assume you are now in India and just starting your break away from the Winter chill here in ole Blighty....

Us Apples are going to Kirtan chanting tomorrow...( Sunday ) and it will be the last session of this year.

We thought it would be nice to share it with you, so here is Jonothon and Christina who lead our group.

[DLMURL] http://uk.youtube.com/belovedonechanting [/DLMURL]

Have a brilliant time and enjoy your break.......Oh, if you do manage to visit the Arunachala Temple, maybe you could light a few incence and offer a little pray from Crabbie and Myself.....for the Sadhus who pray and meditate along the wall of the temple........

many thanks and much love

Crabbie and Oakapple

Hope you have a lovely time in India

I know this is not where you are going but....What is it like in Delhi.?...how can I get the best fares?...I would love to go

Hi Jualsy

I know this won't answer your queries directly, but we don't know how soon/how often sunanda will be able to get online, so in the meantime may I suggest you use HP's Search, top right of any page. Go to Advanced Search, put India in as your keyword and click on Travel & Holiday forum from the drop down menu, and you will get a results page.

Highly recommended are threads by sunanda and venetian, who were both in India last year, and I hope you enjoy reading them.

Holistic

Namaste everyone

Here I am, safely arrived, sitting at the foot of Holy Arunachala and thinking of you all. Jualsy, I'm sorry, I'm in the South far from Delhi and can't help with info, except to say that IMO Delhi is only good as a jumping off point for other places, like Rishikesh or Almora.

Oaky, Arunachaleswara temple is my second home. I practically live there and am friends with most of the Brahmin priests. The Karthigai Deepam festival is coming up so I will be spending a LOT of time there, though I haven't yet been (still getting over jetlag and stocking up my little kitchen.) When I do go I shall most definitely include you and Crabby in my first puja there - I wonder if you know your Vedic starsigns? And maybe you could pm me your real first names? Thanks for the clip of the chanting. Unfortunately there's no sound on the computer I'm using at the moment but friends have gone off to Pondicherry (the nearest 'modern' town) and are trying to find a USB thingy to convert my laptop to wireless so I can sit in my favourite cafe and browse and post etc. (For anybody on Facebook, this cafe, which is owned and run by an old friend of mine now has a Facebook page. Look for Manna Cafe.)

Anyway, I have much more to say but this will have to do for now. I'm going to take some photos of the place where I'm staying. It's out of town and very lovely. There's been a lot of rain (every day, in fact, and when we arrived at 1am Saturday morning Indian time it was bucketing down) so everything is lush and green, though the streets are very muddy.

I'll be back later with more details. Much love to you all.

Sunanda xxx

Good for us to hear from you, Sunanda.

I'm really just making a quick post also to affrim that IMO also, Delhi is as you say.

I'm not quite sure if you had any special reason for focussing on Delhi, Jualsy? TBH I haven't been there since 1975 (!) but had planned to last year, so looked into it, had possible journeys planned through it, and pals I met up with have been through often of late. It's a big city maybe just well-known as the capital, but it's not the cultural capital and it's really IMO just one of the two main arrival (by air) cities, along with Mumbai. It's also a very major communication link, travelling around India by rail or road, so almost any long journey going through the kind-of north-west quarter of India will involve going through Delhi. Today I'd just think of it as a place to go through, not (for me) a place to spend time at. I found Mumbai a very tough (immensely crowded, noisy) place to be last year, but most consider Mumbai to be more interesting than Delhi.

Decades ago, Delhi wasn't quite so noisy and polluted, and made a good base to go out from and return to, but that's history it seems unless you go 5-star etc.

V

Just a cheery wave across the world! :wave:

Great to hear you arrived safe & are settling in nicely.
I've never been anywhere very much, so am eagerly looking forward to reading & imagining out your adventures. Enjoy! xxx

If you pass thro Goa feel free to pop in and visit me!!
Come to a meditation or asana class or even just a cup of tea.

Alison

Hey again

I haven't been able to get online for a couple of days as we are all swimming through the lakes and ponds and rivers left by 36 hours (and ongoing) heavy rain. And because of power cuts I've only just learned of the Mumbai terrorist attacks. You can imagine that I am horrified but please be assured everyone that I am far away and feel completely safe. Just very wet!

Was going to do a long blog on my laptop and then cut and paste it here but because of aforementioned rain I haven't been able to.

Alison - welcome. I don't think Goa is on my agenda this time. Another time, I would love to.

Hari Om.

Sunanda xxxxx

Glad to hear you are safe Sunanda.....look forward to your blog

take care

Hiya Sunanda

Great to hear you are ok, you little 'blogger'.;) I also look forward to hearing about India from you. Be sure to keep your laptop dry.:D

Keep safe honey
love and hugs
Moonfairy
x

I am so overjoyed that the power has come on again after three days without that I have immediately sat down with a cup of Earl Grey (150 teabags brought with me from England!) to expand a little on my earlier posts. Firstly, we are all hugely shocked by the attacks in Mumbai. It hardly seems possible and as I write is still ongoing. Internet access this morning was dial up only and so I only had time to glance at the news on BBC and in the Independent on line. As always, it is just so pointless. What has been gained? What achieved? We can only pray that there will be no more atrocities but if it's not here in India, doubtless something else will happen somewhere else. Prayers and light to the families of the dead and injured.

It feels terribly egotistical to move from the above to telling you what I'm up to but that's what I've sat down to do....As I think I told you I am staying a couple of miles out of town in one of my friends' guest cottages. It is really lovely being out in the countryside, with so many birds around (I have my binoculars and my Indian bird book) but this cyclone which has covered Tamil Nadu for the past week has tipped down so much rain upon us that we are wading ankle deep in water whenever we venture out of doors. The day before yesterday a big Indian Almond tree came down and took some power lines with it so we were without power for 48 hours, which meant no running water too as water is pumped up from a borewell by electricity. Believe me, being without the utilities we take so much for granted really brings it home how lucky we are. There are, of course, thousands of people here who live out their lives without access to running water or electricity and I feel for them, even as I celebrate the return of light and power and water into my life.

One thing about the countryside here though is that it is anything but silent at night. I have been deafened by the constant sea of white noise that's given out by the crickets, grasshoppers, cicadas? which starts up every evening. They have been joined in the wet by a whole chorus of frogs, two of whom take up their station outside my front door every night and sound like a flock of particularly demented geese, honking or a rusty bedstead creaking rhythmically...And the holy mountain, Arunachala, is hidden by cloud all the time.

This morning, six days after I arrived and thus somewhat late, I made my way (barefoot - it was easier) to the 'Big Temple', home of Sri Arunachaleswara (Lord Shiva in the form of fire) and there did puja and asked that the rain should cease. Lo and behold it did! But only for an hour and it's started again now. I was able to renew my acquaintance with several of the Brahmin priests who became my friends over the course of the ten years I have been coming here. Tuesday sees the start of the biggest festival of the year here: Karthigai Deepam, which culminates, after ten days of major pujas and 'roundings' when the processional deities are taken around the town, with the lighting of a vast cauldron of ghee and camphor on the top of the mountain. This is a time of enormous activity and energy and if it doesn't stop raining soon, will be a very muddy festival this year! On Tuesday morning the flag will be hoisted inside the Temple - if I go I will have to get up before 5am. Watch this space to find out if I make it or not!

One more word before I transfer all this onto my USB stick to take in to the internet next time I go. For anyone on Facebook, you may find it interesting to go have a look at the Manna Cafe page. This is the cafe which was started by an old friend of mine, Steve, some years ago. I used to work there sometimes until I got fed up with running up and down stairs and handed my apron in! Now I just hang out there (though I'd said I was going to be more reclusive this year, it hasn't happened yet!) Anyway, an English woman called Jackie has been busy building a very professional looking page on Facebook and you might find it interesting. Especially the guide to all the gurus to be found around the main ashram, which was the home of Sri Ramana Maharshi, one of India's greatest sages. He left the body in 1950 but his ashram is still the centrepiece of the ashram 'zone'. However throughout the tourist season we see wave after wave of western 'teachers' putting up their posters and offering satsang. Some would seem to be more effective than others. For myself it's enough to go and sit in silence with Sivasakti Amma, whose photo I posted on the Spiritual Free Association thread. To my astonishment, not only does she now walk around and stand in front of each person for a little moment of silent darshan, but she also, according to her son, has now come out of the silence she maintained for some years. I've yet to hear her speak though....

Enough for now - my friends who were trying to find the thingummy which would convert my laptop to wireless operation got swept away by the rain in Pondicherry and came back empty handed. They are going back on Monday and will try again. Till then, no photos I'm afraid.

Thinking of you all (honestly) and sending much love and many namastes.

Sunanda xxxx

this sounds wonderful, I can smell the rain and hear the frogs from here,,,how wonderful to be in the aura of that mountain

tigress

Nostalgia...

Thank You for such a wonderfully vivid email & how I'm wanting to be there now reading your words...

Inspite of all the chaos & madness in Mumbai, there is also a strong pull to go back there - all the images & now your post bring back such memories & with them a strong pull...others I've spoken to who have been are feeling the same too! I've never been able to put my finger on exactly what is so magnetising about the land...but it sure has a hold!!!
Enjoy, Enjoy, Enjoy & please keep these wonderful posts coming,

Love, xxx

The biggest festival of the year began this morning here in Tiruvannamalai. I'm sure I have written before of the Karthigai Deepam festival but for the benefit of newbies, I'll quickly outline it again.
Eons ago two great gods, Lord Brahman the Creator and Lord Vishnu the Preserver, were arguing about which of them was the greater. Unknown to them they were overheard by Lord Shiva the Destroyer, who turned himself into an endless pillar of light and in a great voice challenged them to find either its beginning or its end. 'And whosoever does so can call himself the greatest of all.' Vishnu immediately turned himself into a boar and started digging down to find the beginning of the column. Brahma became a bird and flew up to find the top. After further eons, Vishnu returned to the surface and admitted defeat. Brahma, however, cheated and caught a leaf of a parijat flower which was floating down to earth. Upon his return he loudly proclaimed that he had reached the top of the pillar and found the leaf there. At this point, Lord Shiva stepped from the column and called him a liar. Both Brahma and Vishnu fell to their knees, proclaiming him the Lord of Lords and begging that he would remain on earth to remind them of his greatness. So Shiva turned himself into the holy mountain Arunachala (the red hill) and decreed that once a year in the Tamil month of Karthigai a great Light (deepa) should be lit upon its summit to remind everyone that the mountain is itself the embodiment of Shiva. (Brahma's punishment for lying was that no temples in India should be dedicated to him; in fact there are two.)

So each year for ten days before the full moon in November or December, there are major pujas and parades of the processional deities, the 'panchamurthy' or five idols, both inside the main temple and around the town of Tiruvannamalai. This morning was the flag raising which begins every Hindu festival (as far as I know) and for this I had to get up at 3.45am. (My rather feeble instruction to the auto rickshaw driver whom I'd asked to come and pick me up was not to come if it was raining!) It was dry so I had a 'bath' (water scooped out of a bucket with a plastic jug and poured over the body - one of the first things I did when I got here was to buy a big heating coil to heat the water!) and tied on a new sari (I was amazed that I still remembered how to do so after two years away) and off I went to the Big Temple. The crowds were out in force and I just managed to have my 'darshan' - my view of the two principal deities, Shiva and his wife Parvati, inside their own shrines before the movable deities were brought out amid much fanfare of blowing trumpets (well, not really trumpets but I forget the name of the Indian instruments) and conches and beating of drums. The VIPs, all dressed in their finest, jockeyed for position and the police who were out in force pushed people around sometimes quite brutally. I was 'lucky' enough to have chosen a good position and thankfully didn't get moved away and had a fine view of the four or five priests whose job it was to wrap the flag around the golden flagpole. (The 'flag' is actually a long long piece of cloth which is twisted into a rope and then wound around the pole.) Mantras and slokas were chanted at great length, great 'candelabra' containing lumps of camphor were lit and waved in a clockwise circle in front of the flagpole and the deities and everyone shouts 'Arohara' (sort of 'Hail Shiva' I believe.) The priests doled out white holy ash (vibhuti) for Lord Shiva and red kumkum powder for his wife, who here goes by the name of Apeetha Kuchumbal. The ash is placed on your forehead in a short line and on your throat and any remaining goes in your mouth. The kumkum is pressed onto your third eye. Most people manage it quite neatly; I usually finish up looking like I've had a battle with a paintbox! Anyway, by this time (around 7am) I was gasping for a cup of tea so came home for my breakfast and then fell asleep for an hour. Time has passed and it's coming up to noon so the option has passed for me to go back to town to see the procession of the gods through the streets. I've also missed the 24 pandits chanting the Vedas inside the temple but there will be processions and chanting for the next week so I'm not fussed. Tonight though I shall be back at 9pm (ish - temple time) for the first of the big panchamurthy pujas when, in a separate and very old hall at the back of the temple, the five deities are lined up, bejewelled and bedecked with many many garlands of flowers, and puja is performed to them simultaneously by five priests. (They are whisked with fly whisks, shown themselves in mirrors and generally worshipped, bells are rung, flames are waved) and then each deity is carried out on the shoulders of a team of men. A young friend of mine who does this every year has developed huge lumps on his shoulders where the carrying posts rest. I've seen men bleeding but unaware of the pain. Then another procession around the town. And tomorrow it will start all over again.....

I have some old photos which I'll try to post if I get my laptop hooked up to the internet. (My wireless connection never materialised.) I'm not taking my camera into town this year as a) it's raining a lot b) this year's photos would look just the same as previous year's! and c) there's always the risk of my bag being cut open and its contents stolen in the crowds. This has happened to me twice - but I never lost anything!

The rain, BTW, isn't over yet. Apparently the cyclone had a female name: Nisha. Everyone's fed up with it now and a lot of people's houses are wet. In other parts of Tamil Nadu people have been washed away by rivers in spate. Everything is very green though.

Much love to all
Sunanda xxxx

Hi Sunanda...

It's must be a fantastic experience, to be in the centre of such a wonderful festival. You are so lucky!.

I can visualise the colourful processions and the smell of the incense and flowers.The throng of the worshippers. Chanting and singing. I have said a prayer and lit some incense for the festival. hope you don't mind ?

How is the food?......are you eating the same as the locals, or a more traditional british diet.....also, how are the bugs and moggies..

stay safe and enjoy....:nature-smiley-008: