…Sindhu for her blog Flower Girl’s Rural India
I wrote about Sindhu’s blogs here so read all about them.
Here you go, thankachi, display this award proudly on your blog….”thankachi” is “younger sister” in Tamil, the language of the Indian state that I visit.
I won’t be back in Ma India for another year and I miss India everyday — whenever I want to re-visit My India I go to Sindhu’s blog.
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Nandri is “thank you” in Tamil and I’m thanking Sindhu for giving me these blog awards. nandri, nandri, nandri, Sindhu! hugs to you, my Indian sister! I think you know how I love Tamil Nadu!
Please check out Sindhu’s other blogs, especially Flower Girl’s Rural India and Flowergirl’s Recipes (for all you Indian food lovers.)
Sindhu honored me by asking if I would write something about my Indian adventures so mine was the first post in her Travelogue section of her blog. anytime I feel “homesick” for India (although I’ve only been to Tamil Nadu three times I consider it my second home), I go to Sindhu’s Rural India blog. my most wonderful experiences have been in rural Tamil Nadu, and I’ll tell you a secret: my dream is to open a yoga shala in Kumbakonam, teaching western visitors and helping the locals with therapeutic yoga. sigh…if only…hey, there’s a donation button in the sidebar, hint, hint…maybe I’ll get an anonymous benefactor…sigh….
People talk about wanting to go to India to see the “real India” — people think that the “real India” is all about naked sadhus, spirituality, yoga, and temple incense. but all of India is the “real India” — from the $200 a night hotel rooms to the rich Bollywood movie stars to the street beggars to the naked slum children using garbage for their toys. one of the things that I love about India is that nothing is hidden, everything is in your face 24/7, life and death on the streets. that can be very hard for westerners to get used to, if they ever do, but for me, it is liberation.
you either love or hate India, there is no in between. as soon as I put my feet down on Indian soil, I feel as if I have come home.
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…well, kinda sorta…
Sindhu AKA Flower Girl of Flower Girl’s Rural India blog asked me to write about something that I experienced in India. She started a Travelogue section of her blog and I am honored to be the first one! I wrote about my most favorite India memory so far, the time I spent in Rameswaram. Please read more about my adventures in Rameswaram by clicking on “Kannen” or “Rameswaram” in the tag cloud.
Sindhu’s blog is one of the first entrants in my Blog Hall of Fame, so check her out.
Thanks, Sindhu, for asking me to post to your wonderful blog!
Taking a break from writing about serious things, I want to highlight some good stuff I’ve read lately:
Flower Girl’s Rural India
Flower Girl’s blog is “all about Indian culture and customs, religion and rituals”. Her latest post is about the boat races in Kerala. Kerala is a state in India that’s on the Arabian Sea completely on the opposite side of south India from where I always go, and where I will spend 5 days in January doing yoga, getting ayurvedic massages, and hopefully ride an elephant!
Flower Girl also has her other blogs linked to this one, one of which is a blog with all types of Indian food recipes, some of which are to die for!
India Outside My Window is all about “the colors, sights, and sounds of South India.” What is nice about this blog is that there are sound clips where you can listen to the sounds of India. The one clip I listened to was the train — I closed my eyes and listened and it took me back to my train ride from Rameswaram to Chennai, when we stopped in the stations and I heard the chai and food vendors calling out what they had for sale.
Shirley Two Feathers’ blog Mandala Madness is “an eclectic mixture of mandala art, poetry, and inspirational quotes to expand, enrich, and enliven your experience in the now moment.”
Images like this one can be downloaded to use as your computer’s wallpaper and you can also buy mandala prints.
I’ve written before about Scott Carney’s blog “Trailing Technology” (see blog links in the sidebar) and his latest post is about singing. In that post you’ll find this link to his story on NPR radio: A culture of song in India’s Tamil Nadu.
Scott says, “I love the radio in Chennai. When I’m driving around the city I always tune into FM rainbow and listen to a daily game show called Aantakshri. The game is really simple. One caller starts singing a few bars of a song. They stop and then repeat the last sound from the last line of the song. The second caller starts singing some other song that starts with that last sound. It’s sort of like musical chairs, but with singing.”
It’s very true that if you stop and listen hard enough, you’ll hear someone’s voice singing somewhere amongst the cacophony of the dogs barking, the car horns blaring, and the temple music on the Chennai streets.
Home is where the heart is and my heart is in India.
If you like MadTV watch this episode . Michael McDonald’s character, the rotund and always hilarious, Marvin Tikva, takes a yoga class. I laughed so hard I almost fell out of my chair.
For those of you who know The Jamie Kennedy Experiment, this video needs no explanation. Jamie plays a substitute yoga teacher and most of the students in the class get “X-ed” — watch the expressions on the students’ faces!
Finally, scroll all the way to the bottom of this blog and you’ll see my Meez 3D ID. It’s not animated here, but if you want your own little animated version of you — and who wouldn’t? — click on the link and get your own. It’s free and enter my code “lindias” so we both can get some “coinz”.
Enjoy!
Linda's Yoga Journey 