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Rums, Mums, Mopeds… and the Kundalini life-force
Goa started like an episode of a bad ITV programme ‘When holidays go wrong’. My mum
wasn’t able to fly out for Christmas and the guest house we’d chosen was run by an awful American lady who insisted we pay fully for my mum’s unused room. But things were soon to pick up. My mum rebooked her flights to arrive in time for New Year and we managed to move to a nicer beach up the coast.
On Christmas day Carl and I bought a £2 bottle of rum and set off early to Anjuna beach wellbefore the crowds. Sun, sea, sand and a few rum and cokes set up an excellent Christmas day of just simply enjoying. The only downside was that the bar we chose to purchase our cokes from had decided to put their Christmas CD on loop.
A few days later we decided to rent a scooter and scoop out the surrounding beaches for accommodation for mum arriving. ‘Have you driven a scooter before?’ asked the man. ‘Yes’ Carl replied remembering his 16 year old self having a quick go on a friends. ‘And you have a driving license?’ So as not to technically tell a lie Carl produced his provisional to which the man nodded. Off we chugged, slowly smiley to a quiet spot where we could both get some practise in.
Carl got the hang of it pretty easily, and I was doing ok before I had to stop to turn around. We’d come to the end of the road and were surrounded by derelict buildings, garages and palm trees. Carl got off the bike and I attempted to move the bike round. Upon noticing that the bike would not make the turn I decided to reverse it by pulling backwards on the handle, forgetting completely that that was actually the scooters go button cleverly disguised as a handle. Straight forward I went, smack into a garage door. All I heard was Carl shouting ‘let go, let go’. I let go of the bike, dropped it on the floor and stood back to admire a perfect Hazell and scooter shaped dent in the rusty door. Luckily the door was so weak and tarnished that both the bike and I were fine, apart from a few scratches and a bit of a fat lip. With no one around Carl picked up the bike and reversed it the way it should be done – with no engine. I jumped on and off we sped… slowly.
This all happened within an hour of getting the bike and within five minutes of my driving turn. It was therefore unanimously decided that Carl would be the sole driver of the bike. When he’d gained a bit of confidence we drove through a beautiful stretch of road to Arambol beach. We revelled in the freedom of having our own wheels singing ‘Born to be wild’ over and over again as we glided through the surrounding palm trees, past various beaches along the coast, finally arriving at Arambol.
The beach at Arambol wasn’t much, I’d seen nicer ones down the Gower in West Wales, but its traveller atmosphere, friendly vibes and plethora of yoga on offer made us choose it as our next spot. We found a guest house with two rooms almost next to the beach and awaited my mums arrival. This was delayed further by cancellations courtesy of Kuwait airways, but two days and five flights later she finally arrived minus her suitcase which would show up a few days prior to her homeward journey. She got straight into the Goa vibe by purchasing a purple tie dye number and after a few beers, expressing an interest in getting dreadlocks, something I adamantly discouraged while Carl did quite the opposite.
It was lovely to see a familiar face and have some family for the Christmas period. Both Carl and I really appreciated the effort she made to come half way across the globe to see us, although as she admitted, the sun and cheap booze were the main draw. We once again hired scooters and drove freely around the spectacular Goan countryside. Most mornings Carl and I would get up for yoga, meet mum for a leisurely breakfast and spend the day swimming and sunning ourselves before a few beverages and some good (and not so good) food. Mum came twice to yoga only to discover that her memories of the 1970’s flexibility she once claimed to possess had waned ever so slightly.
Both Carl and I had expected to find Goa an almost unbearable beach resort full of Russian tourists
in g-strings, (and some beaches are exactly that), but we grew to love the rugged Indian coastal state, particularly Arambol. The beaches are by no means perfect; you are constantly harassed to buy bracelets, sarongs, fruit and more, the sand is not as golden or clean as it once was, the sea is pretty rough at times, and floating faeces are not uncommon – one particular lump of human origin kept us out of the sea for at least half a day. We were sure that by the next day it’d move on. So what is it about Goa or Arambol in particular that attracts a loyal crowd. All we can say is that it’s the vibes; the chilled out parties hung over from the 60’s, the price of board, booze and other necessities, and the courses on offer.
After mum’s departure we decided to stay another week to take part in a Chakra Healing course taught by the Kundalini Yoga teacher that we had grown to admire. Kundalini yoga (in the tradition of Yogi Bhajan, a Sikh Yogi) works with the subtle awareness of the energy in the body; at an advanced level the goal is to cultivate and harness the unlimited creative and spiritual potential that exists within every human being. Our course was more of an introduction, a ‘tuning in’ as our teacher would say to the subtle energy flow often overlooked by Western thought. Within Indian tradition this energy is known as Prana, and in Chinese classical medicine as Qi. To begin to develop subtle awareness of energy flow is like gradually tuning a radio to a specific frequency; it may not be apparent at first due to lack of mental refinement, and to work with it, the energy must be felt rather than conceptualised.
The chakras are wheels of energy found at points along the spinal cord. There are seven chakras (eight including the aura) which relate to different areas of the body, emotions, physical disorders and our changing needs. When there is an energy imbalance in one or more of the chakras a person may experience a certain kind of suffering and vice versa if someone experiences a distressing event it can cause the chakras to become unbalanced. Kundalini yoga, meditations and healing techniques can be used to re-balance the chakras but a holistic approach to pain must be taken. You cannot work healthily with your energy without working with your own mind and body. This is a fundamental principle in both Indian and Chinese classical medicine; one must deal holistically with causes rather than symptoms.
I find it quite hard to describe the experience and our teacher was very aware that ‘preaching’ about an unknown-to-us form of energy in our body was going to fall short. So we were to investigate it ourselves using chakra awareness yoga and various other methods which focused on developing subtle awareness, and by the end of the course we were all very much able to feel our own energy circulating and that of others emulating from their chakra points.
Two specific examples stand out for me and may be a little too ‘hippy’ for some readers (Dad). The first was an Osho meditation where our small group of 6 had to move our bodies and chant sex-like ‘huh’ noises, adjusting the tone as we focused on the different chakras using our hands and minds. After half an hour of jiggling we could all feel the energy flowing through us; I was unable to stand still as I had to swirl with the energy. Osho’s meditations are designed specifically for Westerners; he recognised that the classic analytical meditations are not practical for those who have a lot of baggage to let go of first! His meditations are designed to release and expel all the inhibitions, stories and self consciousness that eat away at many of those working in the modern world. For the rest of the day our minds felt extremely calm and all course participants were able to focus more readily. Carl had previously experiences similar sensations of energy flow in an acupuncture session in London.
The other incident that caused our healthy level of cynicism to diminish was the use of dowsing crystals to decipher whether a chakra is balanced or unbalanced. If it is balanced and energy is flowing freely, the crystal (preferably clear quartz) will swing in a circle and if it is unbalanced then it will swing back and forth like a pendulum. We all discussed having areas of tension in certain parts of the body and the crystal agreed with our newly developed awareness. It was an eye opening experience as we watched the crystal meet and mingle with the energy fields. Carl tried holding the crystal over other points of the body, other objects, palm trees etc but nothing happened.
We then went on to learn a chakra healing / balancing routine in which we would act as a channel for universal healing energy to enter the other persons body via the chakras. We practised this routine a number of times with different partners, each time different experiences were had by all. We’d learnt the theory and read the books before, but this was the course that really opened our eyes (all three of them – bad chakra joke) and our bodies to a force largely neglected in our own society.
Goo Canons and Hinglish in Mumbai
We arrived at a station on the outskirts of Mumbai bleary eyed and with no guest house booked. One last leg of the journey took us to the UNESCO listed Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, or CST to us foreigners. The building itself was constructed under British rule and originally named Victoria Terminus, in celebration of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee in 1887. We were in no mood for patriotic reflection, our attention instead drawn to a golden arched haven across the road. McDonald’s in India is a strange affair; no beef, a clientele of bourgeois aristocrats, and a menu which includes the McAloo Tiki (NB. Avoid like the plague, it‘s foul). Furthermore, the straws are kept under lock and key behind the counter, presumably to prevent the proletariat from stealing them and profiting from resale. I could hear Karl Marx turning in his Highgate grave.
Hazell relived her youth and dipped soggy chips in a chocolate milkshake, while I wondered the streets searching for a room, due mainly to the fact someone had ripped the Mumbai pages out of our second hand Lonely Planet guidebook. We ended up in Colaba, the traveller area of the city, in a room which is best described as an office cubicle with a bed in it. Privacy was nowhere to be found and we practically shared our room with the excitable Koreans next door.
Mumbai is emblematic of the extremes and paradoxes embedded within Indian society. The architecture tells the tale of British rule, but within this framework the full range of Indian life pours forth. We were struck by the lack of cows or rickshaws in the southern part of town; replaced by metered taxis and an eerie, contrived calm. Modern, brand name stores line the roadside, frequented by youngsters communicating in a dizzying flurry of ‘Hinglish’. Often the preferred local dialect, this amalgamation of Hindi and English can be heard from the street to the cinema screen, projected with blistering speed by the resident artisans. Mumbai is the home of India’s creative industry and it swaggers with arrogance in the face of outsiders.
During our visit, Anish Kapoor had returned to his home town to display his modern artwork. The Mehboob Film Studios in Bandra form a large, warehouse space, not dissimilar to the Tate Modern’s ‘Turbine Hall’, and upon entry we felt as though we had arrived back in London. Thankfully the staff were all Indian and welcomed us to a room full of Kapoor’s mirror sculptures, which in all honesty, are just an over intellectualisation of the ’Hall of Mirrors’ at the funfair. The star of the show was the Goo Canon, (official name Shooting into the Corner), a pressure gun which shoots soft red wax at a wall every fifteen minutes, operated by team of lucky attendants. All artistic critique went out of the window, to be replaced by a mental commentary of ’Cooooooool’.
We spent the evening strolling along the promenade in Bandra and watched an unsettling display of ’Western Emulation’. Young couples sipped Lattes in franchise coffee shops, air conditioned saloon cars entered condo garages, and overweight professionals undertook evening power walks. At the local, import heavy supermarket, once can purchase a box of British Weetabix for £5. We strolled back to the centre of Bandra, entering the zone around the train station where worlds collide. Corrugated slums line the streets, bursting out of the gutters, reaching for the sun. Formally a temporary means of accommodation, permanent shacks fill every nook and cranny, creating a warren of human activity. Electricity is supplied to many of these ’colonies’, as the Indian government labels them, yet outside children play in moats of raw sewage and refuse, splashing in the pervasive, oily blue liquid. My mind wrestled with the juxtapositions present in such a small area; I couldn’t reconcile my conflicting emotions. Conceptual, disposable, modern art resides next to human beings also treated as disposable. All the while local neighbours spend excessive disposable income on British breakfast cereals. There is a walkway in Bandra which is an apt metaphor of the situation. As the slums writhe in the dirt below, the luckier members of the population cross the chaos via a network of walkways, arriving at the station hearts and minds unscathed. As the press report of India’s ’booming economy’, the children below continue to splash in the sewage with the dogs and the rats. The most painful thing about the experience was that we were part of it too. 
We were both feeling emotionally drained as we caught the metro back to the ’sterilised’ end of town. In the environment of Colaba, one can choose to ignore the obvious difficulties, stroll along the waterfront to India Gate, eat some ice cream, and then enjoy a lavish dinner. We enjoyed these privileges ourselves, though on a traveller budget, the dinner was a modest salad rather than a five course meal! At a local restaurant, a young group of Indians had left a large amount of food after paying the bill. 
Outside families begged for food, and as the waiter began to clear the table, I asked, ’what are you going to do with the food?’ He smiled knowingly at me and said, ’we throw it away sir.’ ‘But I could give it to someone outside’, I replied. ‘Well actually sir, it is company policy not to give away food; we dispose of everything.’ My head span as a look of incredulity crossed my face. The waiter grinned on, his look implying the line, ’you’re Western, you understand. You guys created this type of bureaucracy.’ An American guy on the next table said, ’infuriating isn’t it? In the states they even spray paint on all leftover food so it can’t be touched. But hey, what can you do?’ But of course there is something we can do, and my mind free-wheeled with ideas of reducing waste by feeding those who need it most. Certain companies are working towards this, but the simple fact still remains the same. An enormous amount of food is wasted while a huge amount of the World’s population starve.
These extremes and the difficulty I had with processing them, were my lasting impression of Mumbai. It is an intriguing place, but there was a sense of relief in leaving. Being in a city which exemplifies the inequalities of Indian society was very difficult, and in a way I felt guilty for having the option to move on when many don’t. Poor infrastructure is a big problem in India; living conditions can change from excessive comfort to extreme poverty in a couple of streets. Hazell and I interpreted much of what we saw in Mumbai as apathy towards fellow citizens, but in reality the majority of the population are just living out their lives. No individual has an obligation to help the poor or feel guilty for the obvious inequality, but we certainly learnt in Mumbai never to take for granted the basic welfare services which we enjoy.
Bollywood Babes
Accommodation is hard to come by in Mumbai and compared to the rest of India it’s expensive and bad value. Luckily we bumped into two nice Indian men who helped us secure a lovely little number with no roof, cardboard walls and a moat of floor space in which we could squeeze our belongings. In return for their help we agreed to appear as special guests (read extras) in a Bollywood film the next day.
Not thinking much of it we were woken up at 7am and piled into a bus with other Westerners who had been tempted by the glamour and 500 rupees (£7). The bus began to chug along and the ‘casting director’ started shouting the names of Bollywood stars and directors that we were about to meet. ‘Madhur Bhandarkar, Ajay Devgn, Emraan Hashmi’. Rather disheartening to him the bigger reaction of glee was to the prospect of a free buffet breakfast upon arrival on set.
The set was an out of town multiplex cinema that would be transformed through the use of clever, but not entirely stable props into an airport. And for the airport to be realistic, it needed travellers from around the globe. After scoffing down as many idlys, vada and dosas as we could we were hurried onto set (into the cinema, the buffet was in the car park) by a small man with a big t-shirt on. We were then consequently chased off set by a little woman with a small t-shirt on. Finally we settled somewhere between the set and the car park with a group of other extras while the important people rushed around applying make-up to the stars and finishing touches to the set. Carl was infuriated when we were told that we didn’t need any make up. He pleaded with the unfortunate assistant director who had been placed in charge of managing extras for just a little blush but to no avail.
We made friends with a slightly eccentric American who was trying to ‘feed’ his shy Mexican girlfriend in order to grow her thighs that he would use as pillows on long journeys. He told us that he really wanted to join the army so he could kill people legally but for some reason or another this dream did not transpire. Luckily we did not have time to react to this revelation (how could you?) as we were rushed into shot by the casting director. Cameras were ready, escalators were go, lights were on and airhostesses pouted realistically. Our first role was to go up the escalators.
Action! Up those escalators we went, Carl and I behind our new friends miming things to each other with our hands. We got to the top and settled next to a Ben & Jerrys stand waiting to be served. CUT! Apparently we weren’t out of shot our minder informed us. ‘Well what’s my motivation man’ the American replied. ‘Excuse me?’ ‘You know, my motivation – why do I want to go up the escalators?’
Next we were tried out with the airport trolleys. Carl and I were allowed two suitcases on ours but unfortunately we got confused crashed the trolley, abandoned our luggage and went up the escalators. Unrelated to this a significant part of the ‘airport’ came tumbling down. At that there was a break for lunch, another buffet where we got the chance to prove what race was the most socially advanced (2-0 to the Indians then). Up until now the shots had been general shots of the ‘airport’, scene setting shots, but after lunch we had the chance to see the stars in action.
The first scene was starring a girl and a boy who did some running, talking and flirting whilst Carl and I were queuing impatiently to board our flight. ’What’s taking so long, I’m going to miss my plane’ Carl joked to the Indian air hostess who was not very amused, especially the fifth time. We watched in awe as it emerged that one talented individual was to hold up a mirror so that the boy could adjust his hair in between every shot. Also in between shots more make-up was applied to the girl and by the time they finally got it right her eyelashes were so heavy with mascara that she could hardly lift her head.
We move onto the next scene which was a similar affair. This time Carl and I were handed another airport trolley. Action! ‘I want to push the trolley’, ‘No I want to push the trolley’. In an effort to be the biggest star Carl decided to pull the trolley backwards in front of the main camera. Cut! ‘No, no, no! What are you doing? You are supposed to push the trolley like you would in an airport’. ‘Well I need some more direction man, where am I going, who am I, what do I want from life?’ So in the end I got to push the trolley round and round in circles, just like I do in real airports. We were told off once more for pushing each other on the trolley and then for some reason we were told to stand behind the camera.
We got chatting to the camera man who expressed some dissatisfaction with Bollywood films becoming more Americanised and losing their roots. He even complained that the starts, particularly the women are looking more Western. We couldn’t argue with that, I was darker than some of the stars and I hadn’t even hit Goa yet. The camera man had been in the business a while and Carl started chatting to him about technical TV things. It transpired that the company that were completing the post production on the film were ‘Prime Focus’, ‘have you heard of them?’ asked our new friend. ‘Heard of them, I used to work for them in London’ replied Carl. Carl was annoyed to be working for his old company that had treated him and all other humans under their umbrella so badly until I pointed out that he was getting paid and really just being a pain in the arse.
The next scene was with the big star Ajay. Carl and I and our Mexican, American couple friends were to sit in the background (very far in the background) and read magazines while waiting for our imaginary plane to nowhere. Just then one of the assistant directors came over to us. He looked at me, I smiled, he looked away. He looked at Carl, he smiled and he shook his head. Then he picked the Mexican girl and placed her right next to the star where she would sit and read her magazine. ‘Go baby’ shouted her boyfriend loudly, ‘woohoo, show some thigh baby’.
There was a lot more walking around, reading magazines and queuing for planes. Really it was like being in an airport. We had dinner which to our dismay was not in buffet format and was regulated by caterers and soon 9pm came around. We’d been told at the beginning of the day that we wouldn’t work past nine so when the director called another scene we all went on strike and demanded 100 rupees more. So the decision was made to pack up and hope for better extras the next day. We were piled back onto our bus and handed 500 rupees each which in true Bollywood style we immediately spent on beers and chapattis.
Note: we were not allowed cameras on set and as our photos were all taken secretly or with the assistant directors had in front we decided that they’re not worth uploading.
Note 2: If anyone likes a bit of Bollywood here’s the film: Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji
The Cockmans Go Forth 