All a matter of balance

Exactly five weeks ago today, I arrived at the ashram. By now, I feel - as often happens when I stay somewhere for more than a few days - at home and it will be difficult for me, as always, to say goodbye the day after tomorrow. I have seen many nice people come and go, many of whose names I don't even know, while others will remain in my memory for a long time. These include the yoga teachers, Vandana and Varsha, as well as Shubham from India and Diego from Brazil, with whom I spent every day of the last week and a half and laughed a lot.

Good teamwork when serving food.

Vandana, one of the yoga teachers, and I regularly met to feed and observe the kittens.

Eventually, she asked me if I could help her write an English text for her studies. She is currently working on her doctoral degree in yoga and has to give a presentation at a conference on how the Bhagavad Gita (the most important scripture of the Hindus) can help to deal with stressful situations. In the three days that we met daily between meals and yoga classes, I learned a lot. And we also had a lot of fun.

No walk without a selfie

As a reward for the work done, Vandana wanted to go out for pizza with me, her sister Varsha, and Deeksha, who also works here at the ashram. The pizza was a total disappointment - I have never seen such a small pizza in my life and it didn't even taste good.

To satisfy our hunger, we ate Deeksha's pasta, which unfortunately was not a culinary delight either. I prefer Indian food. I felt really sorry for Vandana, who had been craving pizza for six months and then got a half-raw, tasteless mini dough of maybe 12cm in diameter. But we still had a lot of laughs that evening.

The visit to my favorite chai wallah was fortunately not a disappointment. We had a lot of fun on the way back, trying to produce beautiful sounds with these conch shells.

It looked so easy...

... but nothing happened except a weird noise. I still need to practice a little. This horn is used for prayer ceremonies in many places and I love standing on the rooftop terrace of the ashram in the morning and listening to the sounds coming from various directions. It reminds me of the Sundarbans, where I heard this sound for the first time along with a strange sound that the women make with their tongues during the Puja.

In my first two weeks in Rishikesh, it hardly rained, it was very warm, and the humidity was extremely high. The weather was rather unusual for the monsoon season. But eventually, the long-awaited rain came, and it was quite heavy and often unpredictable. There were a few occasions when I had to sit at the chai stand for one or two hours after breakfast because the road to the ashram had turned into a river, and even my rain jacket would not have kept me dry.

after the rain comes more rain

However, there is always something to observe at a chai stand, so I never got bored.

The police at Lakshman Jula Bridge preparing for the rush

In the first few days, the number of people was still manageable, but it increased every day.

People taking the obligatory bath in the Ganges

The temples are beautifully decorated, and huge pots of food are prepared for the pilgrims.

Sadhus are sitting everywhere here, even with flutes but without dancing snakes - that is now forbidden.

For some people in Rishikesh, the festival is certainly a good source of income.

The peak of the festival, Shivaratri, was on August 9th. The pilgrims had to be back home on this day to bring the Ganges water to their own temples. Our yoga teachers took a few of us to a nearby temple. But before that, we also went to the Ganges to fetch water.

Yes, the people here decorate a huge statue in the shape of a penis with flowers and money, and pour milk and Ganges water over it.

I don't know if the Beatles were here to worship Shiva, but they were apparently in an ashram in Rishikesh in 1968 to attend a course in Transcendental Meditation. Their stay here apparently inspired them in a special way, and reportedly, 50 songs were created during that time. I was never a particularly big Beatles fan and initially was more interested in visiting the no longer used ashram and paying admission for it. The long-lasting, daily rain did not exactly increase my motivation either. But then one morning, my ashram buddies Shubham and Diego convinced me to go to the ashram with them. And what can I say: it was absolutely worth it. We were so lucky to have picked the only sunny day of the past two weeks.

All of Rishikesh used this day to finally do laundry and dry it. Colorful clothes were visible from all rooftops.

The former Maharishi Mahesh Yogi ashram has since been reclaimed by nature, and street artists have turned the decaying buildings into an open-air gallery. It's not difficult to spend a whole day here and still discover something new.

These space-like eggs would be perfect for meditating in peace and then enjoying the view of the Ganges and Rishikesh.