So Henry asks "What about the food?"

My good friends, Lenore and Henry, H.W.'s parents, want to know about the food. First, let me say I love Indian food. The first time I had it was on a trip to London with my Dad when I was sixteen. We were walked around jet lagged and tired and this amazing smell captivated us and drew us into this Indian restaurant. Second, I don't get to eat it all that frequently in that I don't cook much now a days (I know how to cook, cook well, even, I just don't cook) and I don't ever cook Indian food and well, Waco has no Indian food except once a year during the Arts Festival downtown. Third, I am really looking forward to the opportunity to get tired of Indian food. It hasn't happened yet.

We received a list of restaurants from experienced Pune travellers before we left (thanks to all those who provided a list). We did have an Indian Breakfast Buffet in Mumbai the first morning. There was some sort of spicy soup and sweet flavored something that resembled couscous. Also, there were hash browns and eggs and toast. So far so good. We went out the first night in Pune right after checking in at the institute. The restaurant closest to our flat and highly recommended by Randy was Hotel Ambience. Unfortunately, the restaurant was under renovation. This was highly disappointing, particularly given that it was raining! So we walked a couple blocks further to the Hotel Ambassador, which is not on anyone's list, despite its close proximity to the Chetak. We decided to give it a try. The first night we had paneer in masalana sauce and a vegetable curry, and fabulous garlic naan. We came back for lunch the next day, more naan, and we got an excellent vegetable briayni and (a spicy rice dish) and a dumpling dish that was sort of sweet with a green sauce. and then the next day we went back again. Tandoor veggies, a rice paulo, and excellent veggie raita. And of course naan.

So basically, we have gone to one restaurant. It is close by and good (this is early Frosolono childhood samskara, find one thing you like and stick with it!). We did see many of the highly recommended restaurants on our perilous journey down FC road yesterday and perhaps we will take a rickshaw to one of them some day.

But really the most noteworthy thing about the food is that we have a most excellent cook, Bebe. We actually haven't been out to eat since Tuesday when Bebe started cooking. For the amazing rate of 750 rupees a month she will cook our food, for another 100 shop for us, and another 150 do all the dishes! (more on that in a bit!)

The first day she cooked sag paneer, rice and dahl. I can't eat much spinach due to an inherited allergy... but the paneer part was great and the dahl was fabulous. Day two we had, peas and paneer, rice and roti (indian equivalent of a wheat tortilla, Day three we had a spicy okra dish, rice, dahl, and roti. Day four we had subji (mung beans) very spiced and yummy, rice, dahl, and roti.

She has the food ready at noon when we get back from class or practice and we've just been eating leftovers of lunch with supplemental snacks (like these yummy crispy fried treats from the local swati mart and extra roti).

We had extensive conversation with Karishma, our land lady about arranging all this the day we checked into the flat but some of the logistics didn't really get conveyed (Karishma is Greek, married to a German and though her English is excellent, it is accented and she is very excitable (She is somehow like a combination of Greek and Indian) and we were extremely jet lagged and perhaps not hearing everything correctly. Also, since we are "friends of Randy" I think she thought we knew more about the process than we did. But the upshot was she did not tell us (or we did not understand) that we needed to leave money Bebe money to actually buy the food. So poor Bebe had been buying our food out of her 2000 rupee a month salary (this is like 50 dollars a month) obviously we felt quite horrible about this and now we have the system worked out!

Christina wrote a long note about Geeta's pranayama class last night. I can only echo how stunning it was. The only thing I might add is that she talked a lot about the receptivity of the mind to learn. And her ability to pick people out of the room to illustrate what she wants us to see is almost magical. I know it isn't magic at all, but her ability to make us see a small sliver of the vastness of what she sees is humbling.

We had another great practice session this morning. We have been taking Mary and Eddy's advice and working on the class sequences in practice. With some supplement as we have three hours to practice and the sequences are two hours. It is fascinating watching Mr. Iyengar with his Indian students and also watching them teach and help each other. It is also great how public the practice is. In America, practice seems so much a private individual thing so much of the time. (I do practice with Christina and Devon and with the Dallas people from time to time, but this experience really makes me see the value of opening up/ sharing my practice time with my own students. Not sure how I will implement this yet. We'll see. Also, just seeing all the ways that people use the props in the institute. It is like being in a candy store! "Oh that looks great!. That would feel fabulous! Wow. I wonder what that's for?"