Lama Dances In South India

This little excursion saw me, in the company of Sonam Tashi who was behind the wheel of a Mahindra XUV 500, travel to the Tibetan settlement of Hunsur in order to see the lama dances – cham – at the Dzongkar Choede Monastery. Hunsur is part of Mysore district in the south Indian state of Karnataka.

The lama dances or cham, are held according to the Tibetan calendar on the 29th day of the final month of the old year. Their primary purpose is to purify negativity, get rid of all the bad spirits which might still be around from the old year, so as to begin the new one afresh, slate wiped clean, with the culmination of the day’s activities being the burning of an effigy symbolising all that needs to be got shot of.

This was about the third or fourth year that we had made the trip together. To be honest Sonam Tashi and I usually call it a day after lunch and don’t stay for the afternoon part of the proceedings, both of us possibly having rather low boredom thresholds you see, but that is OK, because by that point we will have been there a full 4 hours and seen the main lama dance performances which always take place in the morning.

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Sadhguru: A Night in Coimbatore

Second 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 of some considerable size and a magnet for many thousands of visitors throughout the course of the year.

After a rest on my bed in the Kiscol Grands, where I was fighting off a headache from the ride to Sadhguru’s Isha Yoga Centre, I was due to meet Sonam Tashi and Ranga down in the foyer at seven in order to go and find somewhere to eat. I did a bit of searching on Google for restaurants in Coimbatore and saw that our best bet was gonna be a place called Barbecue Nation which was located in the Hotel Metro City. It was five stars all the way as far as the reviews were concerned and for some reason I felt a little bit of meat eating was in order. Dunno why, usually I try to be veg as much as I can, but just there an’ then I wanted to eat some chicken. Maybe the need to ground myself was kicking in after my close shave with that headache, a possible thumper, anyway whatever, Barbecue Nation was the place I came up with so that was what I suggested to Sonam Tashi and Ranga when I met up with them. Thankfully the effect of those Nurofens I popped was already kicking in and I was beginning to feel more like facing the blinding lights and dust clouds of evening time Coimbatore, which was probably just as well because on the roads it was going be a take no prisoners situation, with headlights full beam and all manner of vehicles coming at us from wherever we looked.

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Sadhguru: Trip to Isha Yoga Centre

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.

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