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Late in the afternoon on 1/1/11, I went to look for Spotty who’s been hanging out elsewhere after all her babies had been taken away by various locals. I wanted to give her a happy-new-year treat.



I found her with a new boyfriend with a broken hind leg and another friend with a broken front leg. I fed all three of them doggie treats and milk.

I noticed Spotty sporting a wound on her left side. Fight? Scooter? I could see the exposed red flesh, fur and skin torn away. And the infection from giving birth had gotten worse.


After eating she laid down in front of the gate. I scratched her head. She had a fever and was shaking. She didn’t look too good. I got angry for so many reasons (long psycho-babble) and started crying. My neighbors C & E came home and found the sad two of us. C called a local vet and we took Spotty in a rickshaw. E picked her up and she didn’t even growl or bite, she was just scared and sick. The vet gave her a shot for the old infection (turns out to be a tumor), ointment for the new wound, and we got some meds for her.


We tied her to the gate inside the yard while waiting for our landlord’s permission to keep her for a few days to administer her meds. Ah, but Spotty is a free spirit; she cannot be tied down! She somehow wiggled herself out of the collar and bolted.


On subsequent days, I went looking for her morning and evening to give her meds. She refused the milk method and wasted almost half of the antibiotic. Well, she couldn’t resist one thing – fried chicken wings with tandori spices! I bought some from a street vendor and hid the pill inside. She gulped it down without even a consideration for chewing. Yes!


Happy new year, Spotty!

A week later, she was hanging with a new boyfriend- that tramp! – this time, one with some sort of facial imbalance, crooked ears and jaw. She has an ecclectic taste… Of course, I fed him, too. What was I supposed to do? Lecture her about Brahmacharya? Spotty and her friends bark madly at all the overfed and underexercised Gokulam pets, and chase any stranger dogs off their turf. Every morning she comes to the gate of my place, lies down and waits for me to feed her. She won’t even lift her head any more. I hand-feed a street dog! She then rolls belly up so I can scratch her saggy boobies, er, belly. One time, upon seeing me, she wagged her tail so hard she lost her balance and fell. So, of course, I oblige and scratch her boobies.

The second visit to the vet was just as traumatic for her. She needs to return weekly for the shots to reduce her tumor. E helped to hold her so she couldn’t jump out of a moving rickshaw. (You know, people say Canadians are nice. In E’s and C’s case, that’s an understatement.) When we returned to our street, I took off her leash and she scrambled out of the rickshaw as quickly as canine-ly possible. She ran up the street, then turned to look at me resentfully, probably cursing me. I was sure she’d never want to see me again. But a couple of hours later, there she was following me down the road to the Shala. She laid down smack in the middle of the road (traffic be damned) to have her boobies scratched.

I think I’m in love.

I was on a mission to find a working, tuned(!) piano in Mysore to prepare for an upcoming gig. For over a month, I searched and searched. I asked everyone I know in Gokulam if they knew anyone with a piano. The closest I got was a piano missing the entire keyboard sitting in the lobby of a local hotel and an electric piano at a private English school whose director never got back to my request to see it. In Mysore, classical music means wooden flute, tabla and sitar. Not piano, cello and clarinet.


Vivian (of the yoga students’ breakfast hangout) told me I could borrow her daughter’s toy keyboard. Four octaves and perma-tuned. Sold! Thank you Vivian for rescuing me from practicing on the miniscule keyboard of my iPhone app.


Meanwhile, the story of my search for a piano spread, and several curious yogis started asking. Voice lesson? Holiday caroling?


J from Germany became a regular voice student and C from the US came for a consultation. Ann from Santosha (another breakfast favorite) asked me to join a small Christmas caroling concert with a couple of other musician yogis. I printed & copied a bunch of Christmas songs from the Internet and got the breakfast-munching audience to sing along. Good times.


The highlight of Christmas in Mysore was definitely the visit to a local children’s home. After hearing the Santosha breakfast sing-along, Aussie D asked me to come to the home where a bunch of yogis from the Shala volunteer.





We distributed Christmas gifts and sang with the kids. The sweetest, most awesome and super rambunctious kids! They totally took over “Jingle Bells” Bollywood-style. We jumped up and down, singing, jumping, dancing and rejoicing. Really good times!





I hope to remember the kids and their smiles and all the fun we had whenever I feel cranky. That should shut me up real fast. I am beyond lucky to be in Mysore and to experience everything around me. I am grateful for my family and friends back home. I am thrilled for my new friends in Mysore. That I am healthy enough to sing and practice yoga…just crazy awesome.


Christmas afternoon was spent lunching with Aussie D and other yogi friends at an outdoor buffet named Palm Springs where four middle aged Indian guys with a drum machine and incredibly out of tune electric guitars played and sang Christmas hits. The buffet had “Mexican” food. It was fun. And surreal.


On a slightly less surreal note, I got hit by a scooter a few days after Christmas. I was crossing the street to get to the supermarket and the scooter was trying to park in front of the same supermarket. The problem was that the scooter was approaching from behind me and the driver tried to speed past me to park. To be clear, I had no intention of parking my big ass in that spot. He didn’t speed enough I guess because he plowed into my right side. I was knocked over. In shock but all in one piece, I got up, checked for any broken body parts and finished crossing the street. He and his passenger were surprised as well and very apologetic. No worries, I said. It’s all good. They looked at me like I was a bionic woman regenerating body parts right then and there. I was lucky and got away with only bruises.


Now, only if I can grow a set of eyes on the back of my head, I would jaywalk so much more effectively!

Eh…just kidding.

But I have been very busy with additional classes and serendipitous obligations (all of them delightful, details on the next blog).

A few weeks ago, I went for an injury consultation with Noah McKenna (yoga
teacher, chiroprator, acupuncturist). I was so impressed with the results, I decided to take his anatomy course. It took up a big chunk of time every weekday afternoon for two weeks and was worth every minute. Aside from all the practical yoga anatomy, something he said stuck with me. One’s level in asana practice is not an indicator of one’s worth and values as a good human being.

Well, duh! Right? Think again. It’s so easy to forget the obvious in yoga, especially since asana practice is so heavily emphasized these days. How many people in New York choose their yoga teachers based on their physical appearance and asana-wow factor? How many for the life experience and spiritual knowledge? How many of your teachers talk about “juicy” poses? What the hell is a juicy pose for Krishna’s sake?!?!

My Sanskrit and philosophy teacher, Lakshmish,explained to us that the yogic texts frown upon blabbing about one’s yoga practice and marketing it. Be a student. Do your best with dedication regardless of end result (an important lesson from Bhagavad Gita).

My voice teacher in NY had asked me to keep singing even if I don’t get any work, because it’s so obvious to her that the act of singing makes me happy. It’s the not-getting-the-career-I-thought-I’d-have part that makes me unhappy. But that’s not singing, is it?

Do what you can to keep practicing, studying, singing. Forget the rest. The rest is all ego and naval-gazing. What I’m learning in yoga directly applies to my singing in the most fundamental way. If I love practicing yoga and singing, then that’s good enough to keep going. What other reason do I need? I am humbled daily here, and gladly so.

Spotty (of the 7 puppies) and Snow (of the 5 puppies) have been kicked out of their dens. They had hid their babies in and around the yard of an empty house. I guess the landlord didn’t appreciate all the yoga students coming around to feed the dogs. The dogs had moved to a dranage ditch shortly after the landlord came back to check on the property. By then, the total number of the puppies had dwindled to 3. One was run over by a scooter early on and the rest were taken one by one by the locals.

I really hope they are well taken care of. I’m really conflicted about how they treat the dogs here. I heard that a couple of years ago, a local neighbor was not happy with the yoga students, so he poisoned and killed a stray which the students loved. A whole bunch of students helplessly watched the dog die.

As of Christmas, only 1 of Snow’s pups was left. I feel so sad for the forlorn mommies. Spotty looked lonely and sad after all her babies were taken away (way too early!). I miss them, yet hope they will remain house pets, off the streets, and well loved.

On a happier note, Shiva’s pug had 4 squirming puppies. I almost fainted at their stupendous cuteness.

Shiva is the problem-solver extraordinaire for the yoga students, arranging apartments, transportation and other living arrangements. He is also an animal lover. Those pups will be well taken care of. Yay!