Every day, I like to wake up and remind myself to be grateful of the simple things – Miranda Kerr
How do I describe what this morning was like? I was late for my wakeup call as I felt too was tired to wake up early, so reached the yoga place by 6.30am when it was all bright. One of the ladies was sweet enough to ask me if I would like some tea to be sent to the Yoga Pavilion at 7.30am through Vishnu (the guy who takes care of everyone’s water, tea and medicinal needs and I remembered his name :)), how could I could refuse such a warm gesture. I put the mat down and saw the sun rise on the left, in front was the lake with greens and mountains behind that stretched from as far as I could see. What a beautiful sight! Birds chirping, some chanting going on from the church on the right, by the way this place is surrounded by church, mosque and a temple so you can hear the bells ring too.
I got onto the mat and into my practice for an hour and finished with Vishnu informing me of the tea and my morning medicine, a blend of herbs as a paste to swallow. What a beautiful way to finish the practice I thought as I sipped the tea on a chair and sat in silence absorbing the views, living in the moment. Soon after, I went down to freshen up and head for breakfast as my first treatment was at 9am. Shortly, the others joined from their early morning ride and I saw some pictures that kinda made me feel I should have gone but the right thing to do was to take care of my knees. After the hourly treatment, I went to my room to start the next book – The Kite Runner (one of the 3 English books in the library, two others were written by APJ Abdul Kalam). I felt either I had read this one before or heard a lot about it as while flipping the pages, as the story unfolded the two main incidents in the first 100 pages were known to me somehow, I could recollect them. I was told it finishes sadly and one could feel lonely so I wanted to finish it soonest and then stay with good thoughts until the end of this trip, by writing stories and experiences than reading.
Lunch was good, we had some few things and sadly I was the only one in the dining hall to eat all the dishes presented, as one guest was cleansing and the other two had special food. I felt bad but am sure they understood. Afternoon seemed busy already with another treatment for the face finishing with nasal spray, how I was not looking forward to that, especially since I was told I have total 7 days and I was on day 4 with this treatment. Then we had consultation slots and mine was just before this treatment, here the slots were in the afternoons instead of mornings. Being the first one, I had more time to chat with the doctor and explain all the movements and feelings from inside the body especially the condition of the knees, all of this after the prayers we did together. He spoke something in his language with the lady doctor in the room, asked in depth of how I managed food when am working and took some points to discuss once again with the other 2 doctors in the room. After a bit of checkup etc, I said thank you and he prayed with his hands on my head, finishing with ‘get well soon’.
Immediately, I made it to the treatment room next door and had the amazing-ish treatment, somehow I realised that when the steam is on my face I am fine but when it’s away, one of my nostril is evidently blocked. Yesterday it was the left one and now I was panicking about the right one. I couldn’t breathe every time the lady closed my left nostril and felt like I wanted to get up and run out. But yoga teaches you to be calm, I thought. So believe in the process, the lady called the doctor in the room to put the spray drops and OMG.. I thought, this is the end. Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt as much and I wasn’t as breathless as I would have hoped to be. Secret? A new technique she applied and I think it worked more mentally than anything else. I had a tear but with less panic and soon it was done. Phew, one more day down I thought and left, all this while the lady kept asking me if I was ok and I kept nodding yes.
Time was of essence today. It was 4pm tea time and I wanted to see how they set it up here, what fruits and surely I wouldn’t mind eating a slice of mango or two considering the humidity. It was watermelon, even better, I ate 3 slices with my assigned tea and left for yoga with one of the doctors. 3 of us were in the pavilion, stretching in various ways, feeling comfortable yet stretching ourselves. Once done, we made our way down back to the dining hall for a cooking class, yes our afternoon was busy. So what we cooked, we ate or could eat for dinner except, none of us could so we just got special permission to taste and stuck to the soup which was also made by the wife of the doctor during the cooking session. Dinner was quiet and fast, we ate and went our own ways. The Indian couple would be leaving after breakfast tomorrow so we had chance to say bye in the morning before they left, then it would be only 3 of us and I heard more guests were to arrive in 5 days. Such was the experience, you meet people, learn from them, share stories and move on. Such was life I thought!
Cooking String Hoppers 
Cottage 5
Dining Hall
