Rishikesh

Well well after such a long but not useless break I think I can start the tale of a town called Rishikesh, and this time I wrote it right, as I looked it up on google.
Well this small town, as u can read on every travel guide about India, lies at the feet of the Hymalaias and gatheres a crowd of western tourists seeking enlightment. The town and the villages around are split in two by the pure waters of the Ganga that comes down freshly from the source, only one day away from Rishikesh.
After a troubled trip on the train, as Nico was slighly sick and I was in quite of a bad mood, both of us coming down fron the wild Varanasi days, the welcome commettee was a dodgy baba trying to sell us some dodgy dope, in a dodgy garden. Of course he fell on the wrong crowd as we smelled the trick and went on to Laxman Jula, buying nothing, where we found a room quite immediately and we rested some good hours.

The place was pretty and we a had a good view over the ganga which looked quite seducing and fresh.

Our room, as we found out the morning after, was right next to the yoga hall and the little window in the wall -separating us infidel from them enlightened- made possible to the sounds of meditation to travel right to our hears, delighting us with 'inhale/exhale' mantras sang in the very early morning with the sweetest of the voices, not only waking us up at 8.00 am with no need of allarm clocks, but also keeping the rithm of our biotime, as through the day there more yoga classes and we always managed to know what part of the day it was just by paying a little attention next door. The voice of the yoga teacher is the thing I will more hardly forget of my trip in india. The forced laughing of the yoga students is the thing I most hardly try to forget nowadays. By the way...

We spent the days in the wild nature, which was quite a big change from the wildlife of Varanasi, we avoided the tourist crowded places and purified our proved spirits on the shores of the holy river, where we talked and talked and planned and planned till anxiety, and we backed off from any moving thing which seemed human, white skinned and yoga orientated.

But things went more or less in this way: every day we moved out of the little town in search of a good isolated spot on the Ganga where we could talk and laugh and argue and and fight and dance and write and draw, and everyday there was a baba approaching us.
The good thing about this was that these babas were not the freshly shaved tourist orientated yoga teacher guru wanna-be of the planty guest house-ashrams of Laxman Jula, but more of Hindu monks doing their samanas in some kind of minuscule cave, just upway from our favourite spot on the Ganga.

The first who called us was this very serious baba, he gave a sign to come up to him while Nico was tring to update his diary (he never managed since I met him though, ;o) and I was tring to read. He gave us some mats to sit on his rock and saied just nothing. Poor Nico tried to introduce a conversation but he gave up a few minutes after some stone hard silence. I quite enjoyed it, I mean the silence. I am quite sure that a real master does not try to teach stuff or instruct anybody in this life, a wise one does not look for followers or disciples. I did not look for a guru either, and I was quite sure that if I had to meet a holy man I would have just enjoyed some silence with him, as I know that the precious enlightment a saint gains in his life cannot be trasmitted by words.
So I did enjoy this moment of silence with the baba, I felt good connected with him and the environment and apart from being confused by his seriousness I quite liked him. After we went Nico was quite wonderous why the man called us, or so it seemed to me, and by talking to him I kind of empatized a little with his disappointment. My slight disappointment was more about not having seen the baba's smiling side.

We went back to the spot almost everyday and we were very carefull not to disturb the samanas, but eventually they would call us one by one day by day. One of the babas even took my hand and licked passionately before I could wake from astonishment and take it back. Samana life is something I would understand better without this episode.
But alright no big deal.

The day after we arrived we met Ram, a sadu that Nico had met somewhere in Pushka. He took us to the ashram of Vishnu, his friend, who also expressed his joy of meeting us, and expecially me, by plunging his hands in some intimate places of my body, with him I had to back off pretty strongly trying to keep a smile on my face, but if my smile could talk he would tell me its opinion about being forced in front of such a person.
Well ok ok is not as bad as it might sound, but it is normally not pleasent to be checked everywhere by man we dont know, but when the man is supposed to be a purified spirit close to the soul of the universe et cetera believe me its quite a bitter experience.

But ok, actually before he performed his hand plunging number the man was quite a laugh, he had intellingent eyes and it constally seemed he was mocking the all world around him. And probably he was, as he seemed pretty well installed, he has a ashram in a central spot of Laxman Jula, a beautifull building with Ganga view and plenty of sadus and people that seemed at his quite service, and a Nokia mobile phone that rang regularly and very loud.
II for Incredible India.

Fortunatelly on our way there came more movie charachters. One was called Shivala. He was a naga sadu, one of those who go naked around and full with ashes, but he had orange clothing for he lived next to tourists and prefered hash to ashes. Infact he provided us generously of that, and of speech. I really enjoyed him. He seemed at begininnig quite a bubble, but then eventually I liked the way he could see through people. He got kind of fond of us, he read my hand and said that I am and will stay a traveller, he reckoned I had a black spot on the left foot, and actually I always had, was born with it, and he said that's the travellers spot! I got quite impressed. He by the way understood me with the first glance and well, I appreciate these kind of people.
To Nico he told a lot of stuff I will not spread on to the internet world, but Shivala kept hinting at us like two who after this little separation (Nico would leave to France in a few days) after this separation we will meet again, and that there is a strong link between us. That was settled before we met the sadu, but its cool to meet a man able to read souls.

We also happened to get into an other ashram, more for indian souls then for tourists. There the guru was called also Vishnu, but he was a Das, so Vishnu Das, that in the samana's world is at a higher level of enlightment. The man was quite young though and I did not speak to him very much. Nico did, and fell litteraly in love with him. Apparently he had quite a good conversation that taught him a hell of loads of usefull things. Good for him. Me I was left looking after Ram, who took us there, as nobody really talked to him as he is looked upon like the bubble sadu man, smoking dope and having a good fun and searching for friends rather then enlightment.

Well I quite agree with that, and he did not seem to me like a holy man, but a good hearthed one for sure, a little depending of others recognition, but who isn't? So while Nico talked to the guru (he found one!) about getting over there for a few years and do some samana, I was trying to overcome imbarassment between the 2 sadus and Ram. Unsuccesfully. One of the sadus talked a little to me, he had a sympathetic expression and when I met him the day I was leaveing Rishikesh I realized I just adored him!!! Not as a Guru but as a man, as a human being. His eyes were pure and his smile fresh like the smile of a child. Peace inside. Ole'.

The adventures of the day went on and on even after we were back to the room, a little because of the activities next door, a little beacuse of Raju.
Mr Raju is the guy who owns the restaurant at the place where we stayed, and he was just simply unbelivable. He drove me and Nico creazy for his will of covering us with uneeded attentions, screamed our names out on the stares of the guest house, never got anything right of what we ordered to eat and loved us of most deep love, at least at begininnig, when we showed up at his restourant where NOBODY ever goes.
This man was able with his attitude to awake the most perverted fantasies in the already perverted mind of Nico's...In the end he did not love us that much anymore, the mutual sympathy was entirely gone just the day we left. Luckly, or there would have been a murder in the San Sheva Ashram...whoever was to be murdered.

One last but not at all least of the most interesting people we met was Dr Demani.
Already the exotic name makes my mind wonder in the nowhere land, where people are called with fantasy names and live a rainbow life. Yes because Demani sounds like 'domani' which in italian means 'tomorrow', this is why I want to remember him: as DR Tomorrow.

Dr Tomorrow (what a great name for a novel character, anybody intersted?) so Dr Tomorrow stopped us on the doorstep of his room and invited us in to have a look at his goodies. His room was maybe 2 mt by 2 and it reminded of the room my father could live in, if he was living in India. But you dont know my father and this last comment would not interest anyone, I know.
He called himself something like holistic healer, so said the mini micro sign outside his mini micro door of his mini micro room, and sold ( to us and to anybody else) healing stones in necklaces or bracelets, magnet back supporters, magnet neck supporters and a series of items that in his hands seemed to get alive.

He was a laugh, I mean a laugh to think about him! He was answering patiently all our questions, and all the repeated questions Nico kept asking, he had a way with it, I did not know if Nico was asking always the same questions to test the exasperation point of the man or just because he was out of his head (after a couple of months e-mailing I realized the second option is the most probable, unless he spends his life testing the limit of patience of everybody, cha cha).
By the way Dr Tomorrow had quite an afflicted expression on his face everytime we were asking him anything, even if he would go for a chai with us! He seemed to be tortured by simply everything, like he was doomed to be sourrounded by crowds of hopeless wonderers, it was so amusing just to look at him and feel sorry for him that I keep thinking of him. He gave me some colour advice, he said that wearing green helps to be determined and to make choises, and brown colours are usefull for dreamers like to me get hooked to the ground.
I follow these advices and whear often green.

The day we left Rishikesh was a sunny day. We went to shower at the water fall where (I did not mention it but I am doing it now) the day before me and Nico had an intense visionary moment:

he had it while he was under the waterfall, me on the side of it. I dont like to speak about what I saw and what I thought, nor I will repeat what Nico told me him vision was, but they were related, some things were exactly the same and that is because we were very very good connected.
When the simpathetic sadu of Vishnudas came along with his child smile and his pure eyes we were not surprised at all. Surely people like him shower in places like this. At a certain point it was the three of us under the water and it was a great moment, of playfull moods and children's laughers.
The intense moment made us decide to end our days in the holy town with a shower the day after, the day of departure, in what we called the sacred waterfall.

So we did, we met again the happy sadu, we said goodbye to Shivala and we headed to the bus station where we took the night bus to Dehli.