One Whole Month!!!!!!!!

So today I have been here a whole month. I can’t believe it was only four weeks ago that I walked through those gates for the first time. So much has happened!

Here’s what’s happened:

I’ve gotten through the two anniversaries I was dreading most, and not just endured the sadness but found new ways of dealing with it.

I’ve completely changed the programme I was on to one which suits me.

I’m learning to meditate with a fullness I never thought possible.

I dropped a ton of weight and re-instated my fitness regime.

I've found a masseuse than can only have been sent from the heavens with her healing hands.

Other than half a chicken panini three weeks ago, I’ve eaten vegetarian the entire time. Even when I eat out and have the option of meat I’m just not interested.

I’ve made some friendships that I suspect may last beyond the gates of this place.

I’ve gotten three new tattoos.

I’ve become so comfortable wearing dresses that it feels really odd to put my jeans on. Hell, I don’t even mind the colour maroon now!

I’ve found a peace that I’ve been craving for quite some time, and while there’s still a ways to go, I’m in a very different headspace to the one I was in when I was in London.

I’ve been to an Indian cinema.

The last one happened last night as myself and one of my new chums here decided to ‘sneak out’ and go to see Black Swan. We got a tuk tuk to the local multiplex (well four screens, but still multi innit?) and paid all of £3 for our tickets!

They had popcorn but with some unusual flavours. I had a mix of cheese and salted, but apparently the caramel one is the one to have. Next time. There was something kind of quaint about the way it all worked. We had some adverts, not quite Pearl and Dean, but no trailers, we had a short information film in Hindi about the threat of AIDS, which seemed to involve flies in your food, then we all stood up for the India National Anthem before settling into the movie.

A strange thing they do here is even when something is in English, they run English sub-titles underneath, they do on TV and now here too in the cinema. I guess it’s for people can’t understand the accents. It was very odd that while we saw and heard a fair few “fucks” not to mention seeing Nathalie Portman masturbating herself into madness, the two cuts the Indian censor made were to the words “cock” and “pussy”. My theory was that as the country is predominantly vegetarian, and both references were to eating said cock and pussy, maybe they didn’t wanna offend people’s food choices!

The movie I thought was really disturbing. I loved it and I loved all the deranged characters in it. I don’t know if it’s because I haven’t seen anything other than Osho on a screen for the last month but seeing all that action up there on a huge screen, along with the noise and colour, it all just seemed to affect me far more than a movie has before. I really was ‘in the movie’.

I guess it’s pretty old news in the UK, if I recall it was due to open there the week I came to India, but if you haven’t seen it do go. It’s a cracking horror film and Barbara Hershey is fabulous as the scariest psycho-mum since the one in Carrie.