Tag Archives: India

Dec9

bombay to kerala… om!

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bombay to kerala… om!

hari om… so… we last left our heroine in bombay… (that sounds so strange to say–like we stashed our smack in an alley in india) she was just finishing a performance of her new comedy show “eat, pray, laugh” along with her comedian friend samson at the jewish community center. she–ok, i–was worried that the indian jews wouldn’t really enjoy or understand the racier bits of my indian travel tales… but it turns out that those were the parts they enjoy the most. i capture most of the show on my awesome canon elph camera, which i then leave in a rickshaw the next day, along with all the other photos i took in england of jasper and i. jasper is six weeks old and adorable.

letting go

i am sad for a couple of days about losing the photos. and the camera too. it served me well on my last trip to india. so now i am learning lesson number 8,341 on letting go. but like i’m actually getting it. i mourned the loss, and then i got that, hey, this shit is all temporary. and it’s a great addition to my losses. meaning, now i don’t have a laptop, a cell phone, or a camera to distract me from what’s right in front of my nose. nothing exists but here and now. and what i’m seeing in the here and now with my eyes is also marginal on the reality scale.

whispering woods

co-incidence of strange co-incidences, the method acting teacher i studied with for four years, who has never been to india, is in bombay the exact same week that i’m here. i visit him at the film school where he’s teaching and sit in on a couple of classes. the studio is called whispering woods, and it’s like the canyon in LA. lush, green, undeveloped. i even get to do a deathbed scene while a kind of famous (so i’m told) actor is in the class. talked with some of the other professors there and the head of the film school and might get to teach a class on standup the next time i’m in the hood.

anandashram

i remember sam and his sister alice dropping me off at the train station, but i don’t remember anything about the ride. all i know is that it was overnight and i arrived in khanangad as the sun was coming up. one of my kirtan heroes, krishna das, told me after a concert that there’s a place in india where they chant “om sri ram jai ram jai jai ram” continuously. an ashram called anandashram. so that’s where i’m going. i arrive and somehow i’m not in the guest book, but they let me stay anyway–give me a private room and everything. and it’s a very special time to be there because a saint from tamil nadu (a state in india) is visiting for several days named thuli baba. i’ve never heard of him until now, but it’s very exciting. after each meal, i have the opportunity to have satsang and prasad with his group of devotees. the skinniest, frailest, loudest cat i’ve ever seen curls up next to thuli baba every day. they tell me that the cat was a guru in the last life and is working out some heavy karma for the world by coming back as this cat and not eating.

sun and moon

friends of my friend haridas bring me to the ocean to see the sunset and the full moon rise on the opposite side of the earth. i climb the mountain behind the ashram and leave all my worries there hanging in a tree. letting go for the 8,342nd time. you know what they say… “8,342nd time’s a charm!” the next day (or the day before… who knows!) my german friend sandra and i are walking back from a beautiful little temple in a field and we pass the cows’ maternity ward. on the ground is a five-minute old calf being licked by its mother. they milk the mamma cow and i peer into the giant milk pail of colostrum saying, “whoa.” “you like?” the guy says. the next morning they knock on my door with some cake for me made from coconut milk, sugar, and this thick cow colostrum–let me tell you–i have never eaten anything more rich. plus, when i was trying to “om” it started coming out as “moo” that day.

i joke!

i’m getting daily two-hour massages from these two young women with medicinal hot oil. after five days, it actually gets to be kind of boring! they don’t speak much english, so i’m cracking them up with my mime humor for two hour straight. “cheery” means smile in malayalam. and “tamasha” means joke. (these words strangely come in handy later when i’m being harassed at the train station.) “ichally” means ticklish and “idally” is a kind of breakfast rice dumpling. and they kind of rhyme so i’m just saying “ichally, idally, ichally, idally…” there’s nothing funnier than jokes between people who don’t speak the same language. i’m joking with gestures about how the oil they’re using smells like cooking oil and that i’m afraid all this basting means they’re going to cook me for dinner… and on and on…… stuff that’s way funnier without words.

i know by ths time in my trip that i’ll be spending more time in india in this life. it calls.

i hope your day of giving thanks was full of grace. i have returned from my time in india and i’m back in the bay, so blessed in so many ways. have a gander at the next installment of my adventures below… more to come about Tiruvanamalai in my next note..

In the meantime, I invite you to join Suzette Hibble, Erin Brandt and I, for the next Creativity, Sexuality, and Spirituality Workshop! Please register for the December 10th workshop event with me if you’re interested–soon–it is filling up–only a few spots left!

Namaste,
Alicia

Dec9

Trapsing: Oxford, London, Bombay…

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Trapsing: Oxford, London, Bombay…

Dear Lovies: (as they say in England)

The last ten days have been a whirlwind. As I type, roosters a cockadoodledoo-ing at 1:30 am. Wild dogs, doing the same. I don’t know if their internal clock is off, or there is some weird Indian breed of rooster who crows when the sun is down instead of up… Everything else is “backwards” here, so why not add farm animals to the list.

I arrived in Oxford, via Heathrow ten days ago and stayed with my friends Christina and Brian, of new baby fame. Their six-week old bundle of joy is named Jasper, and we shot the shit (metaphorically and literally) all week. We all laughed and played and I learned that much of the external Harry Potter scenes were filmed right in Oxford. Which is why I kept expecting to see the students pull magic wands out of their matriculation robes and say something Latin-sounding, and no, not the salsa kind of Latin.

Visited Avebury, an energy center similar to Stonehenge, but way quieter and way cooler. Went to a local sustainability conference and festival. Ate amazing beef lasagna (even though I don’t do that.) Roasted a chicken for the first time.

In London, I hung out with friends I met last year at Sivananda ashram in India. I went on a date with a cute Irish guy (whom I’d met on the plane when I was coming home from Costa Rica.) Navigated the Tube, ate apple cinnamon cake with clotted cream.

Did TWO comedy shows in London–thanks to my friend Paul, who I met in India. One was at a pub in the theatre district, one was with some really good comics in East Dullich (sp?) ALso had a drink at the famous Ivy Room (though I didn’t spot any celebs) with a theatre producer before flying out to Bombay in the morning.

Last night I flew into Bombay at 12:30 am. Negotiated several hours of immigration lines, security checks, swine flu checks, and then night time in the city that’s never sleepy–my taxi driver didn’t know where Thane was–or speak English–or have a mobile phone–so every few minutes we’d stop and ask some more rickshaw drivers where Thane, Balkum, and Runwal Garden City are. I was about to give up and look for a hotel instead of trying to get to my friend Sam’s house when a guy on a motorcycle led the way and we finally arrived, sans cell.

The most amazing thing here has been not having a cell phone for the last ten days, and having sporadic email access. It’s so freaking liberating. Of course I’m aware of how much I use my iPhone. Every four minutes, I check something. What to do without all the checking? Without Googling something when it comes up and I don’t know the “answer”. Just something to chew on… I’m hoping that when I return, and set up a new place to live, I’ll create a new structure for my life, with my new home as my alter, and my iPhone as my bitch. And not the other way around. \
Oh, BTW, I just did “Eat, Pray, Laugh!” in Bombay tonight with my fellow comic Sam Koletkar at the Jewish Community Center here in India, and we rocked it! What awesome fun! All the bits I was scared they’d be offended by were the ones they laughed the hardest at! (Pics to follow–it’s hard to upload on vacation.)

Namaste,
Alicia

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Jul30

Sure I’m laughing… but is it comedy?

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Sure I’m laughing… but is it comedy?

laughter yoga
Alicia Dattner leads laughter yoga every week..

I have seen a lot of standup comedy. I have seen thousands of comedians perform in the last dozen years. And I’ve performed somewhere between one thousand and two thousand times… What did that do for me? I laughed a lot.

But I also got pretty jaded and, well, admittedly, a little bitter. I got so into analyzing the jokes, comparing comedians, cataloging bits, and thinking about what makes the funny… I stopped really laughing after a while. When I did laugh, it was either kind of fake, or just a smile… a “that’s clever” smile. I lost the actual pleasure I went into comedy for in the first place. The physical sensation of uncontrollable paroxyms shaking my body. The sense of being totally powerless, driven to pleasure. An itchy sort of pleasure… Joke-tellers are tickling your mind.

The only way I truly find that uncontrollable laughter these days is watching reruns of America’s Funniest Home Videos on Youtube. I consider myself a relatively intellectual person with relatively refined tastes… But something about watching people fall while dancing, get kicked in the groin,houses fall over, pants falling off… It kills me! Something to do with shutting of my brain and letting my limbic system take over. I laugh so hard that I start to cry–and then I’m bawling and laughing, tears, drool, happy and sad,gleaning some perspective on this short, crazy life we fall into and are pulled from… It’s very spiritual. But I decided there has to be another way to get my rocks off like that.

What’s a comic to do? Laughter Yoga. Of course! When I returned from traveling in India last year, I resolved to become a certified Laughter Yoga leader. I trained with Lydia Gonzalez, who trained with the Indian inventor of Laughter Yoga, Dr. Madan Kataria. And now I lead Laughter Yoga every Tuesday in Dolores Park.

What the heck is Laughter Yoga? Do you hold poses and laugh? Yeah… but mostly we just bounce around and giggle. Shut off the brain. We laugh for no reason, we act like idiots, we roll down hills, we do yogic breathing, sun salutations… It’s great. Plus, did you know that laughing reduces hunger cravings? I just read it in a study!
Wanna come? It’s Tuesdays at 6:00 pm in Dolores Park, at 19th Street, on the East side, just to the left of the steps. Look for the sandwich board sign and silly people. Suggested donation $10. You can sign up in advance at eventbrite.