Fri. May 25, 2012 "Making a good first impression"

I reached Mumbai airport Thursday night at 8:33 pm and it was good to know that I did not get hustled coming out of the airport because I easily spotted Neel and Dr. Thite who were both waiting for me. I found out that they came around 8:30 and waited for about one hour before I could cleared custom. On the way back to Pune from Mumbai which took about four hours, Neel and I talked for more than an hour in which I learned a lot about him, his triumphs and more fascinating his mistakes with money and family life. I listened very carefully because there’s a lot that Neel has to teach me.

I also met Dr. Thite which Neel held in very high esteem. I found out that Dr. Thite was Neel’s Sanskrit teacher when he was probably a kid although he is only twelve years older than Neel. His specialty is on Veda, and my impression of him is that while he is only 68, he looks like he is in his 80s because he moves a little slow and he has a very contemplative persona. He looks and acts very much like a wise person and someone whom I would like to emulate. Neel, on the other hand, has a crazy sense of humor and acts very natural, just like himself--nothing more and nothing less. We didn’t reach until a little after 1 am, and I was able to sleep on and off during the night. What kept me up was the mosquito bites.

On Friday, we went over some of the daily routines and also Neel went over some of the formalities that he expected from me when I am staying over in his apartment with his wife Nancy. I also took part in a yoga class that he gave to one of his student Sweta who will have an engagement party event on June 3rd in Nagpur which I will not be able to attend because of my trip to Vietnam. I also learned one pose which is called in Sanskrit शवासन्न (shavaasanna “the dead body pose”). Afterwards Neel played a recording to teach me how to relax my body which I recalled from his words is “to imagine parts of your body melting like butter. And after relaxing one part of the body, one also needs to move on to other parts and forget about the last part.”

After the brief yoga class, Neel took me to the Sanskrit school where he informed me that I will be sitting in on classes meant for schoolteachers who are teaching Sanskrit at the high school level in India. Many of these people come from all over India and know Marathi (the state language of Maharashtra) and many live in villages where they experienced high levels of poverty and very few of them know English, hence the language that Sanskrit was conducted in these classes were mainly Marathi. It almost broke my heart when Neel informed me that these school teachers are given a monthly stipend of 750 rupees (a mere $15 dollars per month) of which 700 rupees had to be spent on monthly lodging. As you can imagine how much it pained me when I heard that. Not all the teachers are Sanskrit scholars, sometimes they are forced to teach Sanskrit in their village school and the choice is rather stark: either learn this to get a job or find other means of livings. It’s crazy sad to know how little value is given to people who want to devote their life to this sacred language.

The university where Neel attended when he was about 12 years old. He is also pursuing a Master degree and perhaps a PhD later on.

On a lighter note, Neel wanted to introduce me to the Sanskrit women teachers who were there. However, many of them are married, but according to him, there is no harm in getting to know them and visiting their villages since it could lead to other possibilities. And instead of wearing my usual dhoti-kurta, he wanted me to wear his trousers. I decided to wear my blue jeans instead and a white long kurta. To cover my head, he suggested wearing a cap but I decided against it and put on my head scarf instead. It’s important to keep the head cool and cover the face from the sun during the hot summer. His rationale for wearing jeans is because no men in India wear dhoti anymore and they only do it on rare occasion and so women in general will not like it. It’s also very important to make a good first impression. His rationale for wearing a cap instead of a scarf is also men will only wear a scarf for a funeral or if they are um humph...”attracted to their own sex.” I objected that they will have second thoughts about my sexuality once I flirted with a few of them but he rebutted me by saying that they would only think that I am “bisexual.” That however did not deter me from choosing a head scarf instead of a crumby baseball cap.

I don't look quite so bad, but honestly wearing jeans when the temperature is in the upper 80s is not that fun.

I sat in the first class by one of the professor and there was literally five ppl in that room. Me, Neel, and two other female students and the Sanskrit professor. Boy did I learned a ton in that class. The class was meant to teach Sanskrit to students who are in the tenth grade. There was a lot of discussion on grammar which was fantastic and all the Sanskrit that I learned in the past four years really came to fore. It cleared up many of the things that Neel himself could not have taught me because his speciality was neither in literature or grammar which was fine. What Neel has is a very good working knowledge of the language-- being able to understand what he reads and clearing it up for me. What I learned today were some grammatical nuances of the language that was a little over my head a few years ago and now today something just clicked and I feel really great to see how far I’ve gone. The other class was not so great because the lecture was in Marathi and I did not understand anything. But even then a lot of people enjoyed the talk.