the holy men of the lake

just as the bible [my lp guide to rajasthan] prophesised, the Brahmin ‘priests’ of the pushkar lake where pilgrims go to bathe led me to the waters to make a puja [prayer] for me…
said priest, who was wearing a dirty white wifebeater singlet and a tatty towel around his waist, began the holy ritual by washing [...]

shoe woes

quite unrelated to the “flip flop” incident,, I have shoe woes.
the 3 pairs of carefully selected footwear are all giving me grief in different ways:
1. my favourite read/green girlie massuer sandals, bought in rome several years back, gave me toe blisters. i have just ditched them in a fit of rage
2. my hiking shoes, which were perfectly [...]

pushkar

today i climbed a big mother fucker mountain to hang out at a shrine dedicated to the god shiva. the mountain overlooks the lake [and the city] dedicated to the god Brahma, said to be the only place of worship for this dude cause he dissed his holy wife, therefore denying him of wider worship.
as [...]

jesus krishna & ganesh

yes, it’s true, jesus [hesus] was the name of the sweet spaniard dude sitting next to me for the first part of the journey from delhi to ajmer. he was a buddhist, a zen buddhist, in fact, of the japanese nichiren sect. so i had a good laugh at his expense [no doubt i am [...]

jet lag

i knew i was  heading for india when, rather than queue for the flight, indians returning to their homeland started pouring into the airline cabin out of nowhere. really, nowhere!
i thought to myself  that there would be people sharing seats, or standing for sure. but no, it was just a very very full flight. and [...]

flip flops & flying

It came up in conversation today that if one wears flip flops [aka thongs, the footwear] then they are breaking international OHandS rules of the air. My cousin Pauline was unrelenting in her assertion that flip flop shod passengers are disallowed from flying until they are more appropriate shoes are worn. I found this claim [...]

pop culture update section

i.e please keep me updated with bb and oc updates

nirvana or never mind? help!

a cynical former workmate, nay, two cynical former workmates believe that enlightenment, buddhist style, is a crock of shit. one thinks he is already enlightened, whilst the other reckons he found nirvana last week whilst eating leftover thai food following a big night out. 
i disagree, but can’t seem to convince them otherwise. can anyone offer advice on how I [...]

pre dept admin – please read

large attachments 
hello, if you have my email address and want to communicate with me can you please do your best to refrain from sending large attachments containing humourous and/or ‘naughty’ images, inspirational powerpoint presentations or chain letters. anyone who has ever tried to open a 5MB attachment from their hotmail account using a dodgy connection [...]

food diary [final chocolate fix]

here’s my food diary entry for today [new visitors - this is NOT a food blog, go to fatduck.wordpress.com for one of those].
breakfast: long black, one sugar
morning tea: 2 lifesavers [left over from previous day, last in packet found when clearing desk of personal belongings]
lunch: hot chocolate from koko black
afternoon tea [I] provided by my librarian [...]