{"id":1643,"date":"2011-02-05T16:36:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-05T21:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/earthsplash.com\/yogaslice\/2011\/02\/05\/chances\/"},"modified":"2024-06-14T15:17:03","modified_gmt":"2024-06-14T19:17:03","slug":"chances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/blog\/2011\/02\/05\/chances\/","title":{"rendered":"Chances"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As mentioned in my 1st post, it was really difficult for me to travel to India alone and this was an understatement. \u00a0The time between leaving home, my comfort zone, and venturing to the ashram in India took a toll on my mind and body. \u00a0I had a lot of time to think on the plane trips to India. \u00a0 These thoughts included how convenient it would be to meet someone I can share a familiarity with to help ease being alone in a foreign city.\u00a0 Maybe there\u2019s a Trini or a West Indian enrolled in this yoga course and I would have a friend!\u00a0 I wondered what the chances would be to meet a Trinidadian here at all in India.\u00a0 What are the chances that all reasons will be fulfilled for this event to happen?\u00a0\u00a0Trinidad is tiny in geographical size and population, India is large and largely over-populated, that person and myself would have to be in the exact area, exact time and for some odd reason that cannot be explained, we would connect.\u00a0 After a minute of thinking about this possibility, I got tired.\u00a0 I figured I might as well consider winning the lottery if this chance was at all possible!<\/div>\n
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Jain temple.\u00a0 Patio.\u00a0 The pic the Trini took.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

On my 2nd<\/sup> to last day in Mumbai, 34 days after arrival in India, Ricardo, Alvarro and myself hired a taxi for 3-4 hours of sightseeing.\u00a0 We set off at 9am and went to the Jain Temple- a small ornate temple, decorated in marble and gold.\u00a0 Colourful drawings on walls and words of wisdom painted on the staircase give it a somewhat modern twist.\u00a0 It is a place where devotees walked backwards after offering prayers and flowers to statues of Gods. \u00a0It is considered impolite to turn your backs on the Gods and on the devotees. \u00a0While Ricardo and Alvarro were taking pictures, I wandered out into the \u2018patio\u2019 where I didn\u2019t have to turn around in circles making sure there was no God or devotee behind me. \ud83d\ude42 This could be quite a challenge if anyone was paying attention to how incapable tourists are of respecting tradition.\u00a0 \u00a0The patio was relatively simple design, a cool, peaceful area with 3 beautiful marbled arches and greenery to greet the tiresome.\u00a0 Even though inside this Temple was filled with history, culture and tradition, this spot was a much welcomed space.\u00a0 I felt like taking a picture of myself below the centre arch.\u00a0 But, I thought how vainly stupid I would look setting up the camera to take a picture of myself.\u00a0 Just then, (drum roll) a lady bearing a camera backed out of the temple and I asked her if she wouldn\u2019t mind taking my picture.\u00a0 She agreed. \u00a0She said that my camera made a funny sound so she was not sure it worked.\u00a0 I told her it was just focussing so press it a bit.\u00a0 I thanked her and was about to let her go, but there was a quiet moment and felt obliged to ask where she\u2019s from.\u00a0 She said \u2018a tiny place in the Caribbean’. \u00a0I asked her where and she said ‘Trinidad & Tobago.\u2019\u00a0 My jaw dropped and thought that the \u2018holy shit\u2019 that was about to fall from my lips was inappropriate for this setting.\u00a0 So, I said \u2018Oh my God, me too.\u2019\u00a0 She gave me a big warm hug as if we knew each other for a long time.\u00a0 She said she\u2019s from San Fernando, the City I was born.\u00a0 She explained that she came with a group and apologized for her having to leave so quickly.\u00a0 Ricardo witnessed this event between us asked who she was since she has similar features to me and that she could\u2019ve been my mother.\u00a0 We later spotted her and her group in the Hanging Gardens just behind the Temple and I got her email address because I felt this situation was too weird in the 1st<\/sup> place. She’s due to appear in TO this summer for her brother’s wedding.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As mentioned in my 1st post, it was really difficult for me to travel to India alone and this was Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-india-yoga-training-2011"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8040,"href":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643\/revisions\/8040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}