Leaving Fort Cochin

Ginger Restaurant Jewtown with Amy

Our time is almost up in Fort Cochin, though we return for a few days in March before we fly home.

It’s hard to describe how wonderful this place is.  Though people are friendly all over India, especially when you get out of the biggest cities, here is even friendlier!  Many mornings I park myself on a bench at the beach to write, contemplate and watch the ships pass through the channel.  I see Sandia there each morning, since it is her spot to clean on the beach.  We have become friends.  This morning she approaches and says “Uncle (!), do you remember the words I taught you in Malayalam?  Name?”  I say “Peyre!”, she taught me that.  She asks about our children and about where we live, and tells me about her two children, of whom she is clearly very proud.  I will miss Sandia.

And each morning I pick up a little cardboard cup of masala chai from Sobehr.  He knows I don’t want sugar, and so makes a fresh batch for me without my asking.  Yesterday we were at the repair shop of our bicycle man Kumarek.  As we left a “2-wheeler” scooter pulls over, and it’s Sobehr, who saw us on the side of the road, and had to stop to say hello.

Cherrai Beach with Amy

It’s a little sad to leave, and my heart is filled with gratitude for our time here and for the fabulous people we have come to know.  We’ll be back I know.

Paul on the bike

One of the greatest gifts of our Cochin time has been Yoga with Sajee.  Sajee is a Yoga Master, and Yoga is life, not just postures.  I want to remember his teachings, and integrate them into my life.  In a way, it’s nothing new, all spiritual teachings lead to the same place.  Yet I am learning from Sajee and it’s sticking.  Some sayings (approximate):

We are all lonely travellers in this world.  We are born alone and we die alone.  We spend a few minutes with each other.  When we love someone, we are really loving ourselves.  We can only really love ourselves.  This is our purpose.  We are one in the cosmic conscious (sic).

In the child pose, he says: “Feel that you are an unborn baby in the mother’s womb.  We’re not doing anything, all is provided for us by the cosmic conscious.  We breathe the oxygen, we do not make it, it is given to us.  We eat food, we do not create it, it is provided.  If we can be like the newborn baby, then we experience the true self, and remove the ego.  Ego says ‘I did this, this is mine, this is not yours, I am this, you are that.’ All illusion.  If we are free from Ego and duality, all is one in the cosmic conscious.”

Paul and Sajee Backwaters

I have received a lot of healing energy from Yoga, Ayurvedic Massage (thank you Vivek!), and from living in Fort Cochin among these wonderful friends. 

Paul and Sandia

Thank you India, thank you Sajee, thank you Fort Cochin.