The yoga is a cross between the more demanding Ashtanga and the slower moving Vinyasa. This is my wife’s idea; my chakras have always been in order, except for a post-operative vasectomy, when they were still centred, but very much enlarged. I know this for a fact as when I had to show them to our female family doctor, whom we both know well, and I felt a little self-conscious, she exclaimed, ‘Oh my God!’Even with no medical training I know this is not a good thing. Apparently, according to my wife in my confusion, ‘I’m talking chakras.’ So I happily agree to become supplier, in a supportive manner.

Initially the children come along, one of them farted, they both laugh uncontrollably and the Yoga teacher only suggested it might be better for everyone concerned, if the kids didn’t attend any more sessions. So now we are down to a class of two, we explain that we have professional jobs back in England when he enquires, and he mistakes this for us being intelligent in some way. So instead of describing the moves in English, he has decided on the ancient Sanskrit. We don’t want to do a degree in Yoga, especially in a confusing language, that according to the Indian census, in a country with over a billion people, less than 15,000 have as it their first;  it has pretty much died out, but he believes in the poetry/religion/mystic of the authentic semantics will add to our overall experience – we play along like buckram naive human guinea pigs.

I’m useless, fit-ish, but just not supple. I can’t touch my toes – never been able, and it doesn’t seem to have hindered me much. We’re having a bet who’ll be the first to fart, my wife is convinced I’m by far the most flatulent, but she is basing her assumptions on out of date data from the before the last century, when my diet consisted of a lot of ready meals and canned produce. I explain my digestive system is organic and has evolved tremendously this century, it is akin to a high performance Formula 1 car – it needs a team of about twelve people continually working on it. The only thing the wife is not happy about is the odd mosquito in the room, she reacts badly, and God knows what it will do to her chakras. The teacher cannot see what the problem is with mosquitoes, but he makes half-hearted platitudes about insect control.

The next day we are raring to go. ‘Ok, position zazakadhama.’we both look blankly at him, ‘The rabbit,’ he replies wearily in English. ‘straight into, carunghona kukkura.’Both the wife and I look at each other, with the possible chance of plagiarism, ‘crouching dog.’We crouch like obedient dogs, ‘adho mukha svanasana.’The wife looks at me while the teacher is distracted by a mosquito that has got through the wire dressed as nun. ‘Two dogs fucking, both with three legs, I think.’The multi-syllable names go on; Trikonasana (alcoholic pentagon), Ardha matsyendrasana (aggravated hernia), Eka pada rajakapotasana (racing pigeon at a discotheque), Russellta Crowetah attabravahata Bakasana (Russell Crowe tormenting a dwarf), and it went on, us confused, him getting more exasperated that we did not have doctorates in Sanskrit; thinking we would eventually pick the names up, we never did! He thought we were taking the piss, but not only was it a difficult language; he spoke it rather fast. We finish ten minutes early as there is a mosquito with my wife’s name on it, and the high-pitched whizzing tone is in the modern‘insect-vector’ language. The main topic of conversation on the way back to our accommodation was how incredibly useless we were at the language. On the very last the day the wife farts audibly, we both try hard not to giggle, I do well, until the wife starts to burst with laughter like a naughty schoolgirl, and she pricks my bubble. It sums the course up nicely for our Yoga teacher–a sort of Sanskrit full stop, or maybe a scratch-and-sniff ellipsis…

The very final part of the course is a full body Ayurveda massage–this was the part of the course I was very much looking forward to*. Sounds brilliant doesn’t it? We are in same small wooden barn-like building, in cordoned off bamboo rooms. The wife has a beautiful women administering oils and muscle relaxation. My massage is to be administered from above by a chubby bloke, who looks as though he’s had one too many chapattis, swinging on a steadying rope and using his feet, he gives off an air of confidence from up above, like he’s going to give me a friendly kicking. He starts with my back, which I know is doing me some good, then I’m asked to turn over. I’m naked and somewhat vulnerable but I let him get on with his trade, slightly more relaxed as he has finished my back then worked up my legs from the feet. He does the top of my left quad, but before he starts on the right with a deft touch of his toes he flicks my penis from one side, where it was quite happily resting, and generally where it always tends to rest, to the other incongruous side. I don’t know if anyone has ever flicked your penis from its happy resting place to somewhere else unexpectedly?, but it is slightly unnerving, especially when you know it might well trundle back like a devoted homing slug, to where it most happily dwells–will he flick it back? – this is the question at the front of my brain. My chakras are wacked out of line, it is a clumsy end to a first meeting. I’m guessing he’s working on the assumption that I won’t be returning ever again, and he does not have a complaints department – how do you start that letter? However positive it starts there is an elephant in the room that needs addressing: ‘Then quite surprisingly he flicked my penis from its contented side to its anxious side!’When I was regaling this anecdote to a male friend, he asked me if I had become aroused. He was asking in all seriousness. After having my penis knocked out of kilter, I was glad to get out, before any other ‘extras’ were offered. My wife is euphoric, she’s had a ‘penis-less’ wail of a time, converted to the health benefits of yogic pursuits, I’m moved, but in a very different way. She is in a drug-like euphoric post massage state, I regale her with my tale of penis-displacement, she has her eyes shut facing the sun, she speaks, “Don’t be a baby.” So if you want a moral to this tale; don’t get the yoga teacher to talk in Sanskrit, Ardhamagadhi or Pali, and during the massage phase make it clear you would like your penis to remain unfooted!

Varkala is a lovely place to spend time, leaving penises aside for a moment. The main beach is enclosed by forty-foot cliffs which gives the bay a cosy feel. Don’t be fooled by the inviting waters, they will rip you away easily, but there are vigilante lifeguards, which allowed me to read occasionally when the children weren’t demanding my attention. I remember that beach well because I had swapped a book in a guesthouse in Udapur, simply because I liked the title and the front cover: ‘The Boy with no Shoes,’ by William Horwood. It is based on his own quite harrowing and dysfunctional childhood, I remember it for two reasons, firstly it was gripping, and secondly because I thought this is as good as life can get, travelling, family, healthy, and reading a book simply because I liked the look of it. I’d not read any reviews or had it recommend, I’d never ever heard of it – I just liked the look of it. In our busy lives’when time is precious, if we are going to read a novel, semi-autobiography in this case, we are going to be pretty certain we’ll enjoy it, here I was reading a book I simply liked the look of – like I’ve already said, life was great to wonderful.

We stay at a guesthouse called The Red House on the edge of the main coastal habitation. There are individual small circular bungalows dotted around the verdant gardens, the kids have their own, there are hammocks strung in many of the tress. I like the owner Shah, he is a friendly ex-college English lecturer; he warns us of the dangers of the waters. The girl befriends a larval creature, a glow worm, she names it Glowy! She leaves it in the middle of the lawn, and it is still there the next night drawing attention to itself, sending out its tiny beacon. She is obsessed with it, like she was with the tortoise up in Udaipur. She wants both when she gets home. One will almost certainly outlive the other. A few nights later Glowy has multiplied to the form The Glowettes – she is mesmerised by this and is desperate to find Glowy the First, but the identity parade proves inconclusive.

It is still the end of the wet season and the first three days it either rains or is overcast. By the forth the weather is glorious by day. The boy is becoming more and more independent, then after playing cards one night he decides he is going to nip to a bar to watch Zoolander. The last time he was casually nipping out was back stage at Glastonbury, when he was only eight, and just nipping round the front to watch Stereophonics on the main stage. On that occasion the wife went to keep an eye on him, this time he is twelve and a half, nearly a man in some cultures! We let him go, so he feels independent, then as soon as he’s gone the hundred metres along the coastal path: “You go, keep an eye on him. A few people have fallen off the cliffs recently.” “They were pissed and on mushrooms.”I have no choice, as soon as I get there he is sat at the front and he says hello to me like he is a pensioner (Victorian-granddad) down the local. An almighty thunderstorm breaks out, and the power is cut, we stand watching the spectacular storm. I wonder if this amount of travel, independence and freedom, will make him want to spread his wings when he is older, I suspect it will. The film starts once more, and ‘I guess you can dere-lick my balls cap-E-tan’ enters his long-term memory.

We wander into Varkala town, there a sign outside the train station:

Southern Railway Company

Vasectomy Month

Male Sterilization – simple method

Special incentives declared

There are no exclamation marks! Where do you start? Why the Southern Railway Company? Why is it only a month? Simple method? – is it two bricks and a blindfold? That’s about as simple as it gets! Special incentives declared – not on the advert there aren’t! Maybe you get to the shed/clinic/railway siding and the incentive is: have it done now before you have any kids and you’ll be millions of rupees better off and do whatever you want, whenever you want. There is no contact address/number etc. I take a photo to send off to Viz, but never get around to it when I get home. It reminds me of a story a friend’s dad (Steve–not his real name, is real name is Bill), tells of when he taught in an art college, and the mad caretaker, that he did not get on very well with left. Steve has been talked through and reassured about the procedure by the doctor and is waiting to have is scrotum shaved, by whom he assumes will be a skilled nurse, when who should stride in with a razor blade but the old care-taker that he has exchanged some sharp words in the past.

“Hi Steve, how you doing,’ the ex-janitor cheerfully chirps. Steve takes one look at the small weapon held aloft and replies, “Fuck this!” Gets up, leaves, gets divorced, and has three more kids to add to the two he already has! – If only the ‘special incentives’ had been more clearly declared.

We go shopping for gifts for the friends we will eventually stay with in New Zealand. The wife takes a shine to a T-shirt, the Nepalese shopkeeper does not speak very good English and the wife’s ampleness around the bust makes it hard for her to wriggle into, but she manages it. She wants it but it is far too tight, unless she is thinking of entering a middle-age wet T-shirt competition, which is highly unlikely. It is evidently far too snug, but we watch her come to her own conclusion. The shop assistant helps her out, “You are too fat!”It is a clumsy expression, but the boy and I find it amusing.

One afternoon we are having lunch in the Dolphin View restaurant overlooking the sea. I jokingly complain to the waiter that there are no dolphins, he takes a seafaring look at the ocean for a few seconds and points to pod of forty dolphins that have just broken the surface. Dolphins are like elephants, they are difficult to tire of*. The girl is amazed by this, and even more so as they move closer to the shoreline. She has ordered tomato soup with ‘coupons’ in; we all find this malapropism funny. But the winner always goes to one of the wife’s sisters, who has called the trams in Manchester, ‘tramps’ – twice. “I got the tramp back from town!”or a text from her will often say, “On the tramp now.”

Most evenings I have fish a main, we are next to the sea, the fish must be fresh, surely? On the penultimate day I have a fish molee, the famous Keralan fish curry. I wake in the night with a banging headache, which unbelievably gets even worse, until my body has no option but to empty my stomach contents. The next day I feel reasonable. I go back to the restaurant in question to inform them the fish curry is off, so they can dispose of it, to avoid the same fate befalling anyone else. I’m not looking for any compo, just being public spirited, they do not seem too concerned – I’m not dead! – they offer me another fish curry! I obviously decline, having performed my public duty.

The weather settled after the first few days and is now glorious enough to go to the beach every day. We were debating whether to get the train back up to Mumbai and fly out two weeks early while watching a deluge on the first day here. We have seen enough of India now. We are all glad we have spent a week and a half here; it has been our favourite hassle-free Indian location. It is difficult to know exactly what the children will make from their year away. I notice as I write this blog the girl is has left her laptop unattended on the kitchen table and is looking at McLeodganj and Varkala, planning a future trip without the embarrassment of her parents. I don’t need to ask her if these are her favourite places in India, it is obvious, they have stayed with her…

I’m going on holiday to Greece to make a very small contribution to their debt crisis, and support them by eating and drinking far too much, it seems a fair exchange! I also have a deadline for a book, so I will not be putting another blog out until Saturday August 29^th. Have a great summer/winter. Many thanks for supporting the blog in increasing numbers, which have far exceeded my expectations. BIG LOVE, Ian xx

Next time: Violence is a tool used by the weak, not the strong!

*Never end a sentence with a preposition, the ghost of Winston Churchill will haunt you and he’ll bring his blacks dogs along!

@thewritingIMP  www.ianmpindar.com

I write books. You can buy any of them at very reasonable prices here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=ian+m+pindar

We are catching the train to the bottom of India: Kanyakumari, eight hours. The kids are a bit bored, the train stops for ten minutes, so we allow them to step off to buy something cold, as long as they don’t go far. The boy is very sensible when he feels he is charge of his ‘little sister.’’Victorian granddad’we call him when he is dishing out parental advice to his younger sibling, so we can clearly hear the tenets of ‘good parenting,’–we normally laugh uncontainedly on such occasions. I have few reservations that they have stepped form the train. But I go and keep an eye on them anyway. The station is not crazy busy, like a lot of Indian stations, but I can’t see them. I inform the wife I will go and find them. But I can’t, they are not by any of the hawkers stalls, or near the ticket office, or on the concourse. I’m still calm, but on the Beaufort Scale: calm, turning concerned. Even more so when I still can’t see them after a few more minutes’ reconnaissance. The wife is now watching me from the platform next to our carriage door. I shrug, as to say, I don’t know where they are: concern, turning slight panic. The hassle and stress it will cause if they don’t get back on the train, it’s southern India, it feels safe, the people are friendly. North India I would worry more that they might be kidnapped, blinded and made to sing Barry Manilow* and Celine Dion songs in public places for evil overlords. I rush back to the wife and demand she gives me my mobile. I know this will cause her massive anxiety, but it will be the best course of action if they don’t get back on the train. I explain the plan to the wife; she is too harassed to reply with any other plan of action. The train is about to leave, it pulls away slowly like a scene from an E M Forster novel, and down the platform of the enormous train I see the boy helping his sister on like they are running away from their home city and their evil parents. Relieved I get on the train and go back to the wife to reduce her stress levels. We have talked through what happens if any of us gets separated: Stop in the last place we all saw each other and wait for the others (bigger group) to return. In very hectic places the three older ones (parents, and Victorian grandparent) carry mobiles.

The wife and I discuss the event before the kids arrive back. I’m normally very calm in a crises–I was a St Bernard in Switzerland in a previous life and very rarely get shaken up. I have a vision, elicited by the train, of a ‘Killing Fields’ ‘Railway Children’scenario, when eventually after years we are reunited with our now, grown children once more. It is my idea to try and instil a greater sense of responsibility in them, by hiding in the overhead luggage rack, (‘in them’ I said!), their mother pretending I haven’t got back on the train, separated. When they get back they are both immediately concerned that I’m not there.

“Where’s dad?”VG chimes, and his sister’s look seconds it.

“He went looking for you two. When the train started to pull off he got off to find you.”She is lying very convincingly. Our daughter, I suspect doesn’t believe her, but the boy has bought it. He’s run over to the open carriage door window and is looking back at the disappearing station. He asks his mother again where I am, she continues the pretence. He is now almost inconsolable. So I climb down from my hiding place. He hugs me tightly, like I have survived a war; relief, and the timbre of emotion edging his voice.

‘I thought I’d lost you. You don’t know how much I love you.”

We talk through the event, which in a way is unnecessary, as he is always Sammy sensible when he is ‘designated grown-up.’But it does no harm to qualify the ‘lost’ strategy again. They had gone to buy ice-creams, and were watching a vendor cooking some form of carbohydrate very quickly in boiling oil, out of eye-shot. The boy had one eye on the cooking demonstration and one on the stationary train. I think of this occasion when he used to forget Father’s Day with annual regularity, his grandmother appalled at the misdemeanour. He remembers now, and even when he didn’t, I remembered those words and sentiments, honest words, brought about by circumstance, hormones, and…love.

Glad and relieved to be together we arrive in the tip of the stalactite of India: Kanyakumari. We have a great view of the 133ft Thiruvalluvar statue on the small rocky island just off the coast. It reminds me of that part from Jason and the Argonauts when the statue of Talos comes alive and I half expect it to slowly turn towards me at 24 frames per second. It is nice to have a statue that is not to a God or deity, Thiruvalluvar was a Tamil poet and philosopher an unspecified long time ago. We are also observing three large bodies of water meet, (Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea). I point this out to the children with the use of a map. These are places I would drift to in Geography lessons at school and try and imagine what they were actually like. This is not only where seas meet, but cultures also. I explain we have now travelled from the mountains of the  Indian Himalayas to the very bottom, which on a map looks easily achievable, but it takes some considerable effort overland. It also feels like we are more than half the way round on a circular walk of Hindustan, the hardest part accomplished, beaches and relative relaxation now lay ahead.

We are all keen to visit the off-shore statue first thing, which is interesting, but looked far more interesting from our hotel window. After lunch it is Gandhi’s memorial, there is a very informative attendant that explains the significance of the hole in the ceiling which illuminates the spot, where some of his ashes were placed on a stone table before they were scattered into the water. This only some of his ashes, there is much debate and controversy about his ashes, but safe to say if you do come across any, they need to be scattered in the sea, preferably by a decedent of his. I like the idea of being illuminated on the yearly anniversary of my birth, both when I’m dead, and alive – that’s why they are planting a tree on top of me. The attendant tells us that a 1000 people lost their lives in the small area around there during the Tsunami, largely fisherman and people on the main beach down the road; this is in an area that we didn’t even know was that badly affected by the destructive wave, or, one two-hundred and thirtieth of the total death toll!

We are awoken at 5.30 to watch the sun not come up in a cloudy sky. We wonder if this was some kind of hotel joke, rather than officious servitude, but we had requested the call, but with no chance of a sunrise they might have let us lie in?

Due to our early rise we are up the east coast in Kovalam by noon, it is a pleasant non-built up tourist spot; the beaches still not fully recovered from the Tsunami.  I’m put on sea duty; this is a ploy by the wife to allow her to read in peace.

We purchase an intricate elephant tea cosy by democratic family unanimous consent. I suggest we have a tea cosy anniversary day: ‘You really are a bored sad man.’’I don’t know what’s the saddest, me, the bored sad man, or you, for marrying the bored sad man.’’Oh, it’s definitely you.’The wife resounds with confidence. ‘ ‘You seem quite sure?’ ‘Oooh, I am.’

The deckchair attendant tries to rip us off, the wife is about to give him very short sharp shrift. ‘Coracle incident, Tipu’s Palace,’he gives me a puzzled, troubled look, I continue, ‘yeah, that’s her mate.’We get a reduction.

The first night we were there we leave the choosing of a restaurant to the girl. She chooses the venue because the owner outside had a ‘kind face.’ The adults had the best tandoried Barracuda they had ever tasted. It’s not a long list to reference from or against, but it meant the choice of restaurants was abdicated to an eight year old.

We stay for two nights then head up the coast to Varkala, where we hope to get our chakras centred on a three day beginners’ yoga course.

Next time: Leave my penis unfooted, thanks.

*During the Strangeways prison riot of 1990, the authorities played Barry Manilow’s ‘Copacabana: Her Name was Lola’ over and over again, to drown out the shouts of relatives trying to communicate with the prisoners on the roof of the goal! ‘There was blood in a single gunshot, but just who shot how?’ How very, very, bizarre?

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@thewritingIMP  www.ianmpindar.com

I write books. You can buy any of them at very reasonable prices here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=ian+m+pindar