First of a two part account of a road ride through the hills of far south Karnataka down onto the plains of Tamil Nadu. We were heading for the city of Coimbatore and from there taking an excursion 30 km or so west of it to the ashram of an Indian spiritual teacher by the name of Sadhguru. Known as Isha Yoga Centre, it is a place some considerable size and a magnet for many thousands of visitors throughout the course of the year.
By 7.50 I was out of the guest house in the Dhondenling Tibetan Settlement of Kollegal, which is located in the far south of the state of Karnataka, and making my way to my brother in law Sonam Tashi’s quarters halfway up a nearby hill, at the gates of which his driver Ranga was cleaning the windscreen of the car which was going to take the three of us down to Coimbatore. There was a slight delay before we got under way due to the fact Sonam Tashi couldn’t find the keys to his motor, despite the fact all the doors were open because of Ranga’s cleaning and shining. Somehow in the process of the work the keys had got mislaid, but how and when that had happened was all a bit of a mystery. Eventually they turned up, but only after a whole load of searching, having escaped to a corner on the floor by the front passenger seat, but once retrieved we were soon on the road and out of the settlement, heading south to the border.
The original plan for breakfast was to stop for iddlys, sambhar and coconut chutney at a small place Ranga had been told about which was around 35 kilometres away and deep in the hills between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Before that however, we drove through some densely forested areas where roadside signs indicated there were plenty of elephants and tigers, wild boar and deer too, all in forests which were similar in appearance to the more famous wildlife reserve of Bandipur which lay over to the west and in the direction of Kerala. It turned out the place Ranga had in mind for breakfast had simply disappeared off the face of the earth, it just wasn’t where he was expecting it to be, which meant we carried on across the border and into Tamil Nadu.
We were soon busy negotiating a descent from the hills onto the plains, a drop which involved driving down a road with no less than 27 hair pin bends and which reminded me of the 36 hair pin bend road which took drivers off the plains of Karnataka and up to the hill station resort of Ooty in the district of Conoor, Tamil Nadu. A tricky route if ever there was one. It wasn’t until around 9.15 or 9.30 when we finally stopped for breakfast in a small roadside restaurant by the side of the highway leading to Coimbatore. There we enjoyed plates of lemon rice, plain dosas, coconut chutney, sambhar and cups of strong sweet coffee, all of which went down a treat and for not very much money at all.
After what had been a more than satisfactory breakfast there were now a couple of hours hard plains riding to Coimbatore ahead of us, with Ranga behind the wheel and me sitting next to him in the front passenger seat whilst Sonam Tashi lay crashed out in the back of the Mahindra. State Highway (SH) 948 was not really a highway in the sense of being a dual carriageway or anything like that, it was just a well surfaced road on which we made our way through dusty northern Tamil Nadu towns in the bright morning sun; maybe with eternity hanging just behind our shoulders. It was difficult at times for me to stay on the button. Must have been the early start to the day, must have been the sight of Sonam Tashi flat out on the seats behind us, but the simple fact of the matter was that I found it tough in places to stay awake. Thoughts spiralled into realms where they made no sense, memories of feasting came floating through my mind where they were destined to fade; guess they just appeared to me by accident. Eyes staring from out of space into the lands of a kingdom I will never get to know! No matter, that’s the dice spun by the karma machine; where to look into the mirror of life with a glint in your eye and to come out smiling is all I’ve got to say.
Our late morning entry into the city of Coimbatore after what had been a busy couple of hours on SH 948, soon saw feelings ofstress induced in me by way having to navigate our path through an unknown Indian city using the GPS on my iphone. Every damn street looked exactly the same, and multiple changes of glasses – shades to reading then reading to shades again – were required whilst we slowly made our way over to the other side of town. This was necessary because the Sadhguru ashram – Isha Yoga Centre – was 30 km to the west of the city and we were coming in from the east. All of it was not as easy as you might think, decidedly difficult, compounded by the fact I suddenly felt dog tired after having been on the road for the best part of 5 hours, now finding myself slap bang in the city centre intensity of a very busy and traffic choked Coimbatore.
It took us a good hour to get our bearings and find those signs to Isha, but we got there in the end and hit that target, in other words we were on the right road. In the process there was a stop for bananas and slices of fresh watermelon which were difficult for me to eat whilst sitting in the front seat and twirling through my GPS, but no matter, they were given to me by Sonam Tashi with the right intentions. We also stopped for him to activate the pin on his new SBI (State Bank of India) debit card he had recently received and which he wanted to do when, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted an SBI ATM by the roadside. Again, it went with the territory, just one of the things you do. Card activations in unknown cities and all that.
The road to the Sadhguru ashram was SH 81 and it wound its way through the attractive green countryside to the west of Coimbatore, although the spread of the city was seemingly eating up more and more of the land. Apartments for sale with 2 BHK (2 bedrooms, one hall/living room, one kitchen) for 20 lakh (20 grand or thereabouts) or with 3 BHK for 29 lakh with G.S.T. included. These were what the billboards were telling us, serving to give the impression that as far as urban areas in South India go, it was probably cheaper to live in Coimbatore than many other places of similar size.
We finally arrived at our destination – Isha Yoga Centre – at 1.15 pm. Stepping out of the Mahindra into a razor hot sun meant that for me at least, shades and baseball cap were mandatory in order to stop the brightness from blinding my eyes. After we found the car park for Isha, we then made the walk to what is known as the Adi Guru statue whose head and shoulders were set enormous on an open plain. There was a small temple or mantapam in front of the Adi Guru with mantras and prayers evocative of the ancients being relayed through a crystal clear sound system. I sat in the mantapam which was open on all four sides, where people were engaged in meditation or sitting with their palms folded in prayer and chanting. It was time for me to take a breath, time to take note the fact that we were there, at the place of Isha, now in front of the Adi Guru after a five hour ride through the hills and the busy city of Coimbatore.
Fact of the matter was that it was very hot and I felt weary, tired from our car roll over the hills and onto the plains, tired from navigating our way through the city on my iphone GPS with the blinding brightness of the midday sun shining through the front windscreen. In other words, what you had was a situation where I wasn’t exactly at the top of my game. Oh, and let’s not forget the watermelon. Nevertheless I knew that I had to keep my head above water if a serious amount of power packin’ was to be done in a spiritual sense, by way of making the most of the fact I was now at the epicentre of the Sadhguru Kingdom, and that it might be a long time before I got the chance to be there again. So the Adi Guru scene was taken in to the best of my abilities as I sat there in the mantapam with my eyes closed and concentrating on my breathing. After a little while I ventured out of the mantapam and stood there in the brightness of the white hot plain in front of the super size head and shoulders statue of the Adi Guru, car park stretching out behind us and fields of banana plants gently swaying in the far distance. It was mighty, it was spectacular, but it was as much as I could do to keep my head from spinnin’ due to how I was feeling after a long hard ride. That’s India you see, the toll of the physical can catch up with you, underestimate it at your peril.
I took a bullock cart ride with Sonam Tashi and Ranga at just ten rupees per head from behind the Adi Guru head to the ashram entrance, or rather just before the entrance because that was where a cluster of snacks and drinks stands stood, plus the ashram canteen. It was time for us to have lunch, with delicious vegetarian meals coming in at just 90 rupees each in the canteen, so on top of three set meals known as thalis, we ordered two glasses of chai, an orange juice and a plate of Gobi Manchurian mushrooms. Guess it is fair to say that tasty though it was, I ploughed my way through it all more out of a sense duty than anything else, a duty not to waste food. The main reason for this was my tiredness, plus the fact it was so damn hot that it was difficult for me to have much of an appetite.
Once our food was done and dusted it was time to go through the gates and into the Isha Yoga Centre proper for the very first time. Whilst I was expecting to go in barefoot, which was most certainly what we did have to do, I wasn’t ready for the fact that all our bags and mobile phones had to be handed over to the locker room people as well. Paranoid thoughts flitted through my mind of nothing being there when it was time to collect our stuff on our way out; no cash, no mobile, an’ no peace o’ mind. You know, the usual deal in other words when it came to the state of my thinking. Rather than simply having trust in the capacity of the ashram people to safely look after all my gear, there I was getting paranoid about it whilst standing in the heat of the early afternoon sun. Same old story, back down Shakedown Alley once again, with only my rank thoughts for company; now isn’t this somewhere I’ve been before? What with my belly full of recently consumed thali and my brow sweating in the heat, I suddenly found myself nearly hitting the rocks but somehow – thank da Lordy – I managed to keep steady and hand over what was due with no complaint, in order for us to go inside.
The first place we walked to within the grounds of Isha was the Theerthakund, a huge bathing tank with waterfalls, where first it was necessary to take a shower and wear a set of robes in order to be able to bathe in its holy purifying waters. Plenty of people were doing it but I wasn’t one of them. Guess I hadn’t done my homework properly and come prepared to participate in what was on offer. No matter, there were many others like me – Sonam Tashi and Ranga for starters – and I guess there always might be a next time to take a dip if I ever get to visit Isha again. Make no mistake though, those Theerthakund waters sure looked good, perfect for physical and energy rejuvenation, but never mind, this time around it was great just to be there and witness it. Anyway, how was I expected to know the complexities of all that goes on within the realms of the Sadhguru Kingdom?
Walking through the landscaped grounds behind the Theerthakund, we gradually made our way to join the queue of people who were waiting to enter a place known as the Dhyanalinga, a sunken dome like structure and consecrated space designed to engender a state of deep meditation in those who go inside. A bell is rung for batches of people in the queue to go in for fifteen minutes meditation, to sit within the Dhyanalinga where they have to maintain total silence. The Dhyanalinga has a lingam which has seven bands encircling it, bands which represent the seven chakras – energy centres – of the subtle body, and where to sit in its vicinity is supposed to bring about a re-alignment of those seven chakras in the meditator.
Got to say that once I sat down I did indeed pick up on some kind of vibration emanating from inside the Dhyanalinga, similar in some ways to a couple of weeks ago when I was sitting in the Virupaksha Cave on Mount Arunachala over in the temple town of Tiruvannamalai on the other side of Tamil Nadu. Funny I should have felt something like that, where despite my tiredness from the heat, from the car ride and from various other bodily discomforts, I once again had the distinct impression of sitting on the edge of some kinda inner immensity which went right down to the very core of the Earth. The only way to describe the effects of that sensation is to say that it really was quite powerful in a profound, yet inexplicable kind of way. There I was, sitting in the Dhyanalinga deep within Sadhguru’s Isha Yoga Centre, once again in India and rockin’ along; and who would have thought it, that life could really be so incredible?
When I finally emerged from the darkness of Sadhguru’s chakra meditation chamber after about 45 minutes, we wrapped up our tour of the ashram which, after our visits to the Theerthakund and the Dhyanalinga, saw us go to the ashram shop where I picked up a copy of Death, Sadhguru’s latest work just recently published by Penguin India. After that little piece of compulsory purchase, we were soon on the road and heading back in the direction of Coimbatore in order to find our hotel for the night. Turned out that the rigours of the day were once again catching up with me, where the challenge of navigating us through the twilight city streets of Coimbatore to the Hotel Kiscol Grands was one I very nearly didn’t rise to. Nearly but not quite, even if I did have a bit of a headache at the end of it, a borderline throbber which would require me to pop a couple of pills.
We hit Coimbatore at rush hour time which meant a few wrong turns before we reached Hotel Kiscol Grands, where we checked in at reception and then went up to our rooms 218 / 219. An immediate problem soon reared up because some hotel renovation work was going on and the racket in the rooms from the nearby tap tap tap was hellish noisy, too damn tasty for even a chilli wrap like me to put up with, so I had to go back down to reception in order to get things sorted. Been there, done that kinda thing quite a few times before I can tell you. Guess you could call it putting my foot down, just not taking any of that kinda shit. Rooms next to incessant drilling? Come on guys, you can do better than that! Got a new room, 303, as consequence, round the back of the hotel, well away from the bang bang, tap tap, but by the time I’d paid off the room boy for bringing my luggage up, my head felt hellish hot and I knew I would have to take things real slow for the next hour or so, unless that is I wanted an early evening migraine or something similar. My overheated head was in need of a couple of Nurofens to keep me on the straight and narrow, pills which I duly popped, then after that it was time to lay back on my bed for a little while and close my tired eyes.
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