Upon my return from India, people asked me excitedly, “How was India?” as experiences in the world, far from our isolated islands, oxygenate those of us who haven’t had the good fortune to venture forth. Well, India was like catching a glimpse of a most beautifully coloured butterfly flapping its glorious wings, but no matter how hard it flapped, it could not rise above the dust. When I first stepped foot into New Delhi, India pretty much lived up to how I had pictured it: a

So here we are, sitting in a 7-seater car going to Delhi: one Muslim, two Hindus, and two newly hatched mediators. “Are you changed? Have you unstressed?” Ravi asks us, curious that we have flown across the world to navel-gaze. He says Indians can’t tell you what stress is, as they don’t have it, then contradicts himself, saying, “Mohan is more stressed, as I am a very less stressed person,” and “white people hurry for nothing.” Ravi has given me an Indian name, Asa, meaning

I am buying a drink bottle in Auckland when I happen to tell the shop assistant that I am off to India. “Don’t buy a drink bottle here, buy a copper drink bottle in India,” she says, and without any validation I take her at her word. So here I am in India buying not only myself but all my nearest and dearest copper drink bottles. In true Taurean fashion, I have persuaded Lil there is nothing as good as a copper drink bottle to drink from, and she too is buying copper drink bo

Today we are going to have lunch with the King of all the Yogis, Swami Kailashanand Giri Ji Maharaj. Giri Ji Maharaji is a spiritual guru, yoga guru, saint, and scholar. He is a writer in Hindu, English, and Sanskrit and the preeminent Vedic master and authority of all the masters of the Vedic world; Thom’s boss, I guess, although he is only 51 and Thom is nearly 80. I am not as excited as everyone else, as I am just a new recruit to this weird but wonderful world, which requ

A Pilgrimage to the Sanskrit Town Our group is very diverse, but having said that, there is only one Asian woman; all the rest of us are white. We are aged from about 50 to 80, with a couple in their 30s. There is a subset called Initiators, funnily enough half of whom are Asian. The Initiators have spent three months in the Himalayas learning the Vedic teachings and meditation so they can spread the word, because the theory is that if enough people meditate, world peace will

There are 70 of us here from all around the world, but mainly from the U.S. and Australia, and surprisingly about a third are men. Every morning we do a sort of salutation to the sunrise, which feels to me a bit pagan. Then we have a group “rounding” at 7, which involves effortless stretching, then breathing in and out through alternate nostrils, then doing 20 minutes of meditation with a five-minute reflection after. Everything is to be effortless, charming, and without atta

Standing there near Thom on the banks of the Ganga, even the pebbles seem sacred. I pluck up my courage and speak to him for the first time. “Guruji, is it okay if I take three pebbles? One for Lil, one for Gigi, and one for me.” I don’t, of course, tell him who they are for. He says yes, and I say, “Really?” and he says, “If I say yes, you can take the pebbles.” And then, as I am walking over the millions of pebbles, I think what a stupid thing it was to ask my newly appoint

In spite of successive invasions by alien hordes, the soul of India has not been enslaved, and if even in the darkest days of her history the spark of Indian culture was not blown out, it was because India did not completely cut herself away from her moorings in spirituality.(T.M.P. Mahadevan, The Cultural Heritage of India , Vol. I, p. 163) In 1968, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Mia Farrow, and Donovan were all, at the same time, visiting an ashram in Rishikesh to study the V

We are standing in the street waiting for a driver to take us to Rishikesh, a region of Northern India where we will enter into a spiritual retreat with Thom Knoles, a Master of Vedic Meditation. As we are standing there, Lil sniffs the air and says excitedly, “I smell oud.” At that very moment, a young man with a fine haircut and a clean look uncommon in these backstreets of Delhi walks by and asks if we would like a ride in his rickshaw. Lil asks him to sniff the air and he

Lil and I share the highway with dogs and cows as we drive to Agra, a town that booms because a Mongol emperor wanted to build the biggest mausoleum in the world for his wife. She died bearing his fourteenth child, and when she wasn’t having his children she used to go to battle by his side. She encouraged him to build this monument to her, and now, 400 years later, she still wins, hands down, as having the biggest grave in the world—where she lies, getting trampled on by ten

Lil and I arrived in New Delhi at 1 a.m. this morning. On the drive in, we saw big men in camouflage gear with machine guns, lonely limping dogs on the sides of the dark highway, and lots of flashing lights in trees, fountains, and on the backs of cars whose drivers honk every time they overtake, as if the cars are talking to each other. We are staying at the Bloomrooms Hotel, which means we are now “blooming across India.” As we check in, there are strange men lurking in the

Laugh, and the world laughs with you; cry, and you cry alone. Just as Charley, Jettie, Cici and I are leaving Leigh after two weeks in our little cosy nook beside the sea, Henry arrives. Henry is the boy who lives round the corner in the cove and has not been sighted all holiday, despite the little girls going to visit his house every day. We are a bit pressed for time, as Charley is the host on Mai FM this afternoon, but we tell them they can have 15 minutes and show Jettie

Dearest Readers, Thank you so much for reading the eighteen-odd episodes of 28 Days with Maman, which will be paused for a while as I’m off to India to meditate (medicate—with a t) and will be reporting back to you from there. My present to you all (after my Christmas message) is a little story which I hope brings you a laugh. Much love, Ash Christmas Message Today is Christmas. I have not heard the name of the birthday boy mentioned once this month. I was telling this to my

Mum comes to the door a bit hunched this morning, as if she is copying me. It’s Tuesday, and this is the day Ernest, her financial advisor, rings her, which he has done ever since Dad died 13 years ago. Ernest is one of Mum’s favourite people, and although she has never met him, she spins him, like all her favourite people, into a fairy-tale character. He is the woodcutter who saved Grandma from the wolf. When not saving grandmas, Ernest treads softly on Mother Earth in grati

My job this morning is to wake Mum up, as the air-conditioning men are coming to fix the rusty old air conditioning unit in the storeroom. When I go down the hall she is popping into the laundry. “Oh Mum, I was going to bring you a cup of tea.” “I have a built-in alarm clock.” “Shall I make you a cup of tea?” “No darling, I will have my shower and prepare myself for the air-conditioning men.” I go and get the paper, and the sun is shining for the second time this year. I thi

Sunday 15 January At 7.40 mum is at my door. “I was knocked out last night as if I’d been hit by a ten ton brick. I’m off to make our porridge.” “I’ll come and join you.” I start to get out of bed. “No rush. I can measure the porridge myself.” I wait a while but yearn for company. I am ashamed of my preoccupation with the antics of Moo Hefner. If Mum knew about my forays into social media she would be just as disappointed in me as am I. Photos splashed all over Facebook of yo

We meet for breakfast. I pour tea from the cat teapot that Moley gave Mum. I don’t strain the tea and Mum says, in general, people don’t like tea leaves. She says it is good to be busy. I tell her Leo, my old boyfriend in Melbourne, used to call me Mrs Busy, but not in a positive way. He sent me a video to the tune of Windmills of Your Mind  with Miss Piggy (ak a me) going round and round in a wheel like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or begin

Mum pops in at 7:25. She is bright in herself, although she’s still wearing the yellow creamy-green housecoat, which prevents radiance from shining beneath her skin like a weed mat. She is on a mission this morning, and there is a scent of purpose in the air — like Bella catching a whiff of a duck. Mum’s duck is the garage. “Today Cathy and I will clean the garage and vacuum the storeroom,” she announces. I think of Cathy, her laborious breathing, and the antique vacuum clean

Last night I noticed Mum’s voice getting a bit hoarse, but when she comes into my room at 8:10 she seems cheery. I can tell immediately how she is. Her face can be quite drawn. She has had two links removed from her watch and it is still loose. She’s wearing her little house coat with flowers — it’s creamy yellow, which would wash anyone’s face out; it’s a sort of old toenail colour. “I will wash the strawberries and raspberries,” she announces. She has the paper tucked under

Container ships come and go as idle as a ship upon a painted ocean – E. Duncan. You can just see the outline of the container ships in the grey mist as they begin their long voyage across the seas laden with milk, butter, and frozen bovine meat. There are floods in Coromandel, Gisborne, and in California, and I wonder if we might have to commandeer Moo Hefner’s large wooden boat, but I doubt he’d let two of every species on, as he is not in the slightest bit interested in sav