BARBARA BORIS Yoga

Richard Jonas from IYI-NYC in Matsyasana during a class of Prashant Iyengar’s.

In Pune, one of the best things that happens is getting to know the other Yogis & Yoginis that you only know by name and/or reputation. This trip was especially wonderful, as I felt I made new/stronger friendships with many!

Greetings from Rishikesh to: Zoe from Boston; Sandrine from France; Gloria Goldberg from LA, Sue Garfield from LA, Marcia from NYC/Rio, Julia from NZ, and Rita from SF. (to name just a few)

Sue Salaniuk from Ann Arbor, Michigan, became a constant companion as we placed our mats next to each other in most classes and guarded each others props. She did admirably what I had *intended* on doing, which was write posts to her web site of her Indian experiences. Take a look: www.yogaspace.info Go to “News from India” for the reports. I was in all those classes too! Only not as inspired to write home. Thanks Sue for doing all the work!

Sunday, February 26. The night of Lord Shiva. We were out in the daytime to Lakshmi Road to pick up our tailoring at the Gandhi Khadi Bandhar. Homespun light weight cottons, made into traditional Indian kurtas (shirts) for the hot season coming. We ran into the Lord on a back alleyway with a bunch of dancing boys and fire crackers.

Later that night we visited Lord Ganesh at Saras Baug. “Always good to get in with the dad, by pleasing the kid first.” At sunset, everyone was out in their finery. We had darshan with our friends from Pune, Tushar and his wife Shubangi. Picked up some supari Ganesh souviners from the artisan on the steps for the Rishikesh group. Then risked our life crossing the road to see Lord Shiv himself. Great darshan, somewhat jumping the “Q,” but didn’t some great swami tell me once that it was ok to push to see the lord? Especially since I travelled so far to get here?

Then, the Pune special of Pav Bhaji (the Indian version of beans on toast). I know, supposed to be fasting, but the whole place was full of pukka hindus having the same! And then even crazier… the MASTANI parlour. Mastani is NOT ice cream, but we still don’t know what it is… just another amazing combo of milk and sugar. With mango and saffron.

Classes are going well here at RIMYI. Apologies to all of you checking intently for class sequences and updates. I finally found an internet set up that has a generator and decent keyboards. There is “load shedding” here in Pune (power cuts) daily from 1-4 pm, excactly the time of our break between classes. Guruji, Geeta and Prashant are all well. Classes are crowded and the weather is heating up. I will be posting class seqeuences and hopefully pictures soon.