Travel Day 942 – Amritapuri Ashram, Kerala, INDIA
It was funny but it seemed that I was finally getting quite comfortable here and I even didn’t oppose to saying ‘Om Namah Shivaya’ any more…
Tabla Practice at the Beach in Amritapuri
When I first arrived, I felt a bit out-of-place while seeing that everyone was wearing white clothes only and responding to my ‘hello’ with ‘Om Namah Shivaya’. Everything felt a fair bit exclusive and I clearly wasn’t part of the inner circle, I didn’t know what to wear, what to do or even what to say. But slowly I was getting more into it and understanding better what was going on…
Well, it still meant that certain things or people seemed a bit strange to me, but overall I felt more comfortable and let people be they way they wanted to be and in return I hoped that they would let me be as well. Luckily this was mostly the case and nobody really ever said anything to me besides one lady who came to the roof this morning to tell me off because I was practicing some Tabla…
Usually there were only about one or two other people on the roof doing yoga in the morning and I was just sitting in one corner and practice, but this morning and this particular lady found great disturbance in my music and she insisted that I would stop my practice because it was supposed to be quiet time. I wasn’t quite aware of this quiet time and so made the best out of the situation while relocating to the beach…
So far I had always tried to avoid practicing Tabla at the beach because I was afraid that the salt water could harm my instrument, but having nowhere else to go, I gave it a try. And in the end I actually did find a nice spot on one of the breakers, reaching out into the sea. This location was actually really great because it allowed me to look at the rough sea and the shore while the sun was slowly rising in the background…
So in the end I not only found a great new spot for my Tabla practice, but I also started to be more comfortable with everything around me in the ashram. Well, Om Namah Shivaya… : )
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