Rooftop Culture

WOOPS!!!
wrote this post and forgot to post it!

The roof.... that’s where it aaaaall goes down.
As i sit on my own guest house roof top, one simple outdoor flight up from my little turret room (windows and or doors and all 4 sides! Like a princess, i’m thinkin), munching half a papaya, to assuage my disgruntled tummy, I look around me and realize, with this 360 degree view, I can take in a lot.

Lots goes on on rooftops in India. They are not underused. They are used to hang laundry, to paint doors.... or just to stand look out at the world and see what you can see.... soak up the sun, sit, take a rest, spy on your neighbour, or perhaps do all three at the same time: watch your laundry dry, soak up your sun and spy on your neighbour. There is a whole world up here. People dry fruits and nuts on the roof, they sleep on them when it is too hot in the summer.....
From here I look over and realize that the new guest house my mom moved in to yesterday is just over yonder and i can see her balcony from mine (i have a balcony and a rooftop). So I can keep track of her whereabouts a little because I know when she is home, she is probably throwing open those doors and letting the fresh air in from her balcony. Today was the first day of her second round of panchkarma. I am not doing it. I am going to take on a yoga focus for the next 2 weeks. Possibly two classes a day. Even though i have moved out of the ashram into a room over top the Ayurvedic cafe, I am still going to morning classes at the ashram and i might take a meal or two there too. On Monday i will also take an evening class with a big Iyengar teacher here named Usha. She is German but trains with Iyengar himself several months a year. She is a long time student of his and very knowledgeable. Her classes are a total turn around from my teacher’s classes. Opposites, but i enjoy the balance of the two.
Today i’ve been under the weather. Something I ate or drank off yesterday. I do that. I feel so good and healthy in india, i sometimes am not as vigilant as I could be, and because i have such good luck (knock on my wooden head ) i don’t stress about washing or peeling my own fruit or eating at roadside cafes as much as most. I actually have a theory that it seems that those who take the most severe precautions to sanitize and sterilize everything are often the ones who get sick in india, bad tummies, diarrhea, you know, the fun stuff otherwise known as Delhi Belly. My theory is that because I don’t hyper sterilize everything i come in contact with, i slowly expose myself to some germs and my body has a chance to build up some natural anti-bodies. I trust my body. I trust it can take care of me and heal me, most times, with only a little help from the outside.
So i do, from time to time, like once or twice a trip, get a tummy ache, and i laugh because i think back to what i ate and drank the day before and its always like “yup, that’s what it was alright”. I take charcoal pills, all natural, if i need to, which help the body to wrap it up and pass through the system whatever it needs to get rid of.
All this sterilizing and anti-septicizing is an act of futility, i feel, in places like India or Mexico. You need to let your body build up a natural resistance, within reason of course.. (watch, now i’ve probably jinxed myself by being all self-righteous and high horsey and now look out. What’s gonna hit me?).
Anyhow, its just a good excuse to take it easy today. Rest. Let nature run its course.
I am also just taking in the view and watching the Indian version of that Friends episode where Ross and the guys are trying to move that couch up or down the stairwell and Ross is yelling “pivot! Pivot!”. Except here it was 5 Indians all helping to carry a huge length of rebar, folded in half. They use this rebar for building, of which there is alot going on in Tapovan, my neighbourhood right now. The rebar comes in these extremely long pieces and they cut them to size when they need them. And guess how they do this? They place the long bar of rebar on a flat round stone. It takes two guys. One to hold the rebar in place on the rock and then another sharp rock or tool on top of the place they are gonna cut, and another guy to wield the sledgehammer. Usually the younger guy, takes a couple wacks on this rebar and the older guy (with more experience but less muscle lines it up and holds it in place while the kid wacks it. Its amazing to watch. Takes a couple 2 or 3 runs sometimes, and the kid is just dropping that sledgehammer down with every ounce of his strength, and somehow the guy crouching low holding it in place never gets the business end of the sledgehammer. Its quite impressive. And they go through this process every time they need to cut a length of rebar.

Wow, huh. Makes us look like a bunch of sissies. What do we use to cut rebar?