Coimbatore - the trash truck

9 January 2010 10AM, Coimbatore: Even though Coimbatore is one of the biggest, most modern cities in India, trash pickup is done by an ox-drawn carriage.  The carriage is kind of like the back end of a stake bed truck.  The oxen all have horns painted, I assume to identify who they belong to.  This one had one green horn and one blue horn.  Catherine got a picture, which we'll upload and share when we get home.

She also got a picture of 3 of the guys at the Institute.  One is a fellow yoga teacher, one is the janitor and one is a boy (perhaps 12 years old, maybe older) who runs the little snack bar where we have our soup and juice.  This kid has a face and a smile like an angel.  He is truly radiant.  If I could see auras, I would be blinded by his.

When we went to the gastroenterologist the other day, just as with the dentist earlier in the week, it was so nice that he sat down and spent the time to explain things to us.  There was no sense of hurry, no time pressure.

He had a picture of Sai Baba on his wall, and Catherine asked him about it.  He said that, although he knows nothing about yoga (here I am sure he didn't mean "hatha yoga", but "yoga philosophy"), Sai Baba is is guru, and that is enough.  He implied that this is mostly the attitude of Indians, that they take a guru and give their devotion to that guru.  I don't think that a large number of them actually meditate on a regular basis, and I doubt if the number of hatha yogis per capita is any higher than in the west.  But it seems that most of them are devoted to one or another Hindu deity or realized master.

India just passed a law that, when you're 6 month visa expires, you have to leave the country for at least 2 months before coming in on another visa.  I think a lot of people were hopping out to Sri Lanka, getting a new 6 month visa, and immediately returning.  Boy, you could sure stretch your retirement income here.  I think you could live pretty well on $20 per day.