RIP Indian Slummer

I took myself off to India in search of a small slice of happy. I thought I could do it without hair mousse. My hair looked consistently crappy.

I travelled all over the country on the sleeper buses for which India’s renown. I found it quite thrilling. Whizzing about. On a flat bed. Sprawled out. Lying down.

I stayed in shacks and shitholes, which were cheap but a far cry from cushy. And every night, I became a mosquito’s delight and was devoured just like human sushi.

I visited temples and ashrams. Met sadhus, swamis and sages. I stopped eating meat and got back on my feet by doing more yoga than I had done in ages.

I studied Vedic Dharma and had a go at silent meditation. But then I got sick with severely bad shits and needed hospitalisation.

I splashed about in the Ganges and I scaled Himalayan mountains high.  I lolled lazily about on white beaches until my pale skin started to fry.

I met some incredible people and I made a great many friends. I dated some dudes. Drank too much booze. And I had a colonic cleanse.

Then six months ago I met Max. He was handsome and kind. A real treasure. He captured my heart. Right from the start. I thought he would be mine forever.

I moved into his place in South Goa. Looking back, I wish we’d gone slower.  Because living together isn’t that clever, when you’re with someone who don’t really know yer.  

A few weeks later I became ill. I discovered I had a stomach tumour. Then things went downhill, when blood started to spill and near death led to my lost sense of humour.

It took a good few months to recover. And I wasn’t much fun to be with. But by the time I was fine, Max was no longer inclined, to have me in his life as his lover.

I came home without further ado. My Indian dream’s now a thing of the past. Why slum when I really don’t have to? When I’m happy with life at long last?

Back to the Mat

The operation to remove the ten-ton tumour from my stomach had brought my body to its knees. But it was the six weeks spent flat on my back in recovery afterwards that totally sky rocketed me out of my mind.

Why had this happened to me? What sort of karmic crime had I committed to merit such a supersized sandwich of bullshit?  Was there some greater cosmic purpose to this unfortunate turn of events? If there was, then I just wasn’t seeing it. None of it made any sense.

So five weeks ago, I decided enough was enough. It was time to scrape myself off the sofa. And so with Bambi-like dexterity, I wobbled back out into the sunlight and headed to the one place where I knew I would find answers.

My yoga mat.

I’d heard about a school called Abhinam yoga that had recently been set up by a doctor called Namito Rakesh. Namito had been the personal physician to one of the world’s most acclaimed yoga guru’s, BKS Iyengar. During his time at the great master’s Pune Institute, he had developed a distinct medical approach to the practice. An approach that Iyengar himself had hailed a triumph. I figured if Namito was good enough for Iyengar (aged 95 and still busting some pretty spectacular moves), then he was good enough for me.

I signed up to the Teacher Training course immediately.

And so began a journey.

During the first week, I mainly learnt to cry…produce mucus...and shit…a lot. We were being taught the Kriya’s – ancient cleansing techniques which involve a series of strenuous breathing and abdominal exercises. They are designed to purge the body and mind of toxins. And boy, did they do the trick! I was reduced to a smelly, snivelling, dribbling mess.

I felt dreadful.

It was at this point that I began to foster a supreme dislike for ‘Doctor’ Namito. I mean, what godforsaken yoga was this man teaching? I wanted to quit. But with assurances that there was a method to this madness, I hung on in there.

By the end of week two, I felt even worse.

We had finally started our Asana practice. But it hadn’t gone well. For the first few days Namito had my fellow students and I performing these ludicrously difficult sequences of backbends, handstands and one-armed press-ups. I hadn’t yet fully recovered from my surgery and he’d given me this to do?

I wanted to die. I wanted to take Namito with me. And I wasn’t alone.

But then half way through this second week, the gears suddenly changed. We went right back to basics. We’d spend entire afternoons in Samasthiti (standing pose…literally…standing) or in Uttitha Hastasana, Intense Arm Pose (still standing…but with our arms over our heads). Yet as simple of these asanas were, Namito wasn’t satisfied. As far as he was concerned, I was inept. My alignment was totally off, my back was horribly rounded and my performance was clumsy and graceless. In just under a week this man had managed to comprehensively consign everything I’d learnt in my 15 years of practice to the trash heap.

I wanted to punch myself in the face. And kick Namito somewhere pertinent, below the waistline. Hard.

Fantasy sucker punches aside, this was a watershed moment. I began to realise that my performance in these postures was telling me something important about the imbalances I was feeling in my life. My Quasimodo posture was a symbol of my tendency to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. My flat feet demonstrated a failure to stand tall and proud. The tumour in my stomach? I came to realise that even this was rooted in years of negative thinking – it was nothing but a ball of toxic emotions.

Suddenly the penny dropped.

As Namito lead us further into our studies, furnishing our practice with a firm understanding of yoga philosophy, anatomy, physiology and the bio-mechanics of the body, everything started to fall into place. My body and mind were becoming aligned. A greater awareness was beginning to emerge.

Today, the psychotic she-devil that once ruled my world has been toppled from her throne. And the blood-sucking sack of shit that had been growing in my abdomen has been replaced by something new. I’m not sure what it is exactly. But damn, I’m feeling good!

The Max Factor

It’s been three weeks since my hospital discharge. Since then I’ve received the results of my biopsy and I’m delighted to say that my tumour came back benign. The exorcism had worked. Its arse was grass. That malicious mo-fo was gone. I was so relieved. All I had to do now was heal.  

But the road to recovery hasn’t been easy. It’s actually been one big, fat long stretch of empty. A yawning, sprawling blanket of tedium briefly interrupted with intermittent flashes of unbearable pain, all of which have prompted displays of unparalleled psychopathic behaviour.

With the entire mid-section of my body held together with Egyptian mummy quantities of bandages and topped off with a stomach brace that gives Bridget Jones’ knickers a run for their money, I’ve been rendered completely useless.

I feel like I’ve fallen off the edge of the world. Marooned. A permanently pajama’d beached whale. So naturally, I’m dealing with this in the only way I know how…

By morphing into some kind of frothy-mouthed she-devil who spends much of her time wallowing in a cesspit of despair.  I could effortlessly reduce even the bravest of men to rubble.

Well…all bar one.

Max.

Max has just spent the last two years hiking around India. He’s scaled the Himalayas, grappled with ferocious wild animals and lost his own bodyweight in sweat crossing jungles and barren deserts. All to raise money and awareness for India’s poor. So if there’s anyone best equipped to deal with my shenanigans, it’s him.

Which is fortunate for me because Max just so happens to be my boyfriend.

Over the last few weeks Max has shopped, cleaned and cooked for me, endured my tears and she-devil tantrums, scraped me off the floor and genuinely saved me from disappearing up my own arse.

He’s even given me his own blood. It turns out we’re not just a love match, but compatible all the way down to the capillary level. Max, as I only very recently discovered, was my mystery transfusion donor. Even my parents, who've despised all my past partners, have started calling him ‘Saint Max’.

And it doesn’t stop there…

Here in Goa, his actions have acquired him legendary status. He’s helped everyone from the local village boy to the big shot businessman. Blokes want to emulate him. And girls want to throw their knickers at him. It’s like dating Brad Pitt. Except that right now, I don’t feel anything like his Angelina Jolie.

Nonetheless, his good nature and unflagging optimism have managed to tame the heinous she-devil that I’ve become and she’s slowly inching her back in her box. I’m beginning to feel much more human again.

And with the Max Factor beside me as well as inside me – I'm like a whole new person, ready to take on the New Year, armed with all the strength, courage and support I could possibly need.

The Cyst that Stole Christmas

I’ve now been at the Workhardt Hospital in Goa for three weeks. In this time, I’ve been subjected to several sonograms, three CT scans and undergone two operations. I’ve spent six days in intensive care, where numerous blood transfusions and blood tests were performed and along the way, I’ve been forced to pee into a range of ridiculously tiny receptacles. I currently have the delightful pleasure of a plastic catheter tube stuffed up my va-jay-jay and I’m permanently attached to an intravenous drip, pouring a medley of medicines into my now inflamed veins.

But at least I now know that what caused all of this had nothing to do with yoga. In fact, Marichiasana D, the posture that made me go pop, pretty much saved my life. Well that – and my boyfriend. If it hadn’t been for him insisting on taking me to hospital, I would still be lying on the sofa, clutching my stomach, believing the pain I was in was just a pulled muscle.

Nevertheless, I’m still not entirely sure what it is exactly that is wrong with me. This is partly because my medical team and I don’t really have a common platform of understanding, owing to our language differences. And partly because my prognosis keeps changing as their medical investigations widen. After my initial scans, they were convinced that the rather large mass they’d detected in my lower abdomen was a haematoma.

But the first operation scotched that theory.

Upon draining this thing out of me, they discovered not blood, but a gooey, mucousy gunk filling up their syringes. They declared this to be some kind of supersized cyst that I’d most likely been walking around with for years. Still, at least they’d got the mucilaginous monster out.

But no. The cyst persisted.

Within hours, the pernicious fucker had refilled and returned with a vengeance. Further scans informed me that it was now on some kind of urological colonial crusade. It was growing into my pelvis, pushing into my bladder, it had taken hold of my left ovary and was now rapidly on its way to engulfing both my kidneys.

This beast was quite literally trying to possess me. I felt like the Linda Blair character from the Exorcist. I was quite certain that if this thing wasn’t gouged out of me soon I would be projectile vomiting while my head did a succession of full 360’s.

Cue surgery Number Two: The Exorcism.

This was going to be epic. Nothing like the neat little keyhole procedure I’d had previously. This time, the surgeons would be sawing my stomach in half to scoop the blood-sucking fuck monkey out of me. I would be like the magician’s assistant in some kind of twisted magic trick. Only without the magic. And no general anaesthetic either. Thanks to a congenital quirk that renders me completely inept when it comes to clotting blood, they decided that putting me under would be too much of a high risk. They didn’t want me bleeding out. I would be given an epidural to numb me from the waist down instead.

I’d become the unwitting subject of a Channel Five shock doc…and I had front row seats to the whole hideous horror show.

A flurry of frenzied activity then ensued as my doctors set about hunting down the gallon or so of extra blood they needed to staunch the impending haemorrhage, giving the nursing staff enough time to institute their own pre-op preparations. Most absurd of which included the shaving off of all my pubic hair and the rather half-arsed removal of my red toenail polish. By the time I was actually wheeled into the operating theatre, I had an extremely itchy six-o-clock shadow situation going on ‘downstairs’, while my feet looked like they’d just tap-danced their way through a murder scene.

And I was petrified.

I’d never had an open surgery before and as I lay on the operating table, squirming under the starkness of the bright theatre lights, I began to cry. Uncontrollably. I really wasn’t sure if I was going to make it out of there alive.

Still, at least the whole thing was going to be quick. No more than an hour, I was told.

Six hours later, I was finally wheeled out. Unconscious. Not one of the six epidurals they’d attempted had worked. I cannot even begin to describe the unconscionable pain I endured as they stuck the scalpel in and began slicing me apart. Suffice to say that once they were done peeling me off the ceiling, my surgeons had no choice but to knock me out cold.

And thank God for small mercies. Because aside from predictable blood bath, what they found when they finally got inside my stomach was so overgrown, odious and insidious, it prompted a riptide of shock throughout the hospital. This entity had engorged beyond all proportions and plugged its tendrils into the various vital organs of my lower body.

It was going to be a cluster-fucking nightmare to excavate.

When the surgeons finally emerged to showcase the mug shots of this monster to my now supremely concerned boyfriend – they were calling it a tumour. When I eventually came round, my man filled me in, conjuring a living, breathing being from what he witnessed of this angry looking, watermelon sized mass with pulsating veins, coated in viscousy goo. To me, it sounded like Captain Caveman. Less the hair. And if given half the chance, I’m quite sure it would have sprouted fangs, horns and a psychopathic Cyclops eye.

The good news is that I’m going home tomorrow. Two days before Christmas. And while this cyst/tumour/whatever-the-fuck-it-is may have stolen my left ovary, robbed me of my dignity and stopped me from doing any form of exercise for the next 6 weeks, I am pathetically grateful it’s out of me.

Whether there’s a sequel to this ghastly horror story, I won’t know until I get the results of the biopsy next week. But for now, while my Christmas may be spent in a horizontal position, at least I won’t be lying in hospital feeling desperate and alone. I’ll be in my own bed, with the one I love. And for me, that’s a gift that not even Santa can surpass.

The Cow that Jumped Over the Moon

Miracles had happened. I’d high-tailed it out of Blighty. Moved in with with the man of my dreams. And returned to a land that nourished my soul and filled my heart with joy.  I’d hit the jackpot. Scored a hat trick. I felt unstoppable. Indefatigable.

I was the cow who’d jumped over the moon.

And there was no way I was going to let this rare interval of serendipity go to waste. I had Lady Luck’s nipple in my craw and I was going to suck the milk of her good fortune…‘til that bitch’s tit ran dry.

So my first few weeks were a tsunami of activity. I was excited. Optimistic. Rabidly gung-ho. I was a maniac on a mission. And like it or not, my man was joining me for the ride. Stage One was launched - our domestic set-up required immediate attention. Now, don’t get me wrong, my guy’s gaff is certainly very plush and palatial. And most people would have been deemed it a paragon of hygiene. But I’m not most people. I’m an obsessive, compulsive freak of nature. To my intolerant eye, it had issues. It needed to be cleaned - forensically. And the macho décor required a significant dial down. Then – and only then – could we begin the process of feathering our looming love nest.

So together we set about stripping, scouring, and scrubbing the place, before feverishly redecorating, refitting and refurnishing. Out went the old and after a steady succession of avaricious shopping trips, in came the new. Bed linen and bath towels; cookers, crockery and cupboards, saucepans, side tables and soap dishes - within a matter of days this one time lad’s pad had been utterly emasculated. We now had ourselves a fully-fledged, super-soft furnished, jasmine-scented, candlelit palace of passion.

Home was sorted.

With the wind beneath my wings I then soared straight on to the next major item on my agenda…

Me.

I was a fucking mess.

When I’d stepped off the plane I was pallid, puffy-eyed and porky. Nonetheless, I’d hoped that after a hot shower, a good night’s sleep and a few days of soaking up some rays I’d be right back on track. But two weeks on and I still looked pasty and felt positively rotundrahedral. I needed to shape up. My guy deserved a goddess for a girlfriend, not someone with the sex appeal of a swollen slug. However, unlike our home, a fresh coat of paint and a few scatter cushions simply weren’t going to cut it. What I needed was a full body overhaul.

So in came the draconian diet whereupon all foodstuffs verging anywhere near the colour beige were promptly banished. Chips, cheese naan and channa masala were dead to me. It was strictly fruit and veg all the way. Then began the extreme fitness regime.

Fortunately for me, my boyfriend takes his physique super-seriously. He has an entire room dedicated to the matter of exercise. A chamber of sheer physical torture – wall-to-wall weights, punch bags and various cardiovascular contraptions of terror. I wanted a washboard stomach. And he knew how to could get it. So together we fashioned a get-fit programme which included my usual 2-hours of ashtanga home practice, followed by an hour of press-ups, planks and weight lifting with him; a mid-morning Vinyasa yoga class and a late afternoon hour-and-a-half bout of light Hatha.

Day one went incredibly well. Day two was an unmitigated disaster.

I was halfway through my Vinyasa class, straining to get into a posture called Marichiasana D – an extreme abdominal twist which combined a half lotus with a contortionate hand bind – when it happened. Something inside of me snapped. It felt like my bladder. And it was accompanied by waves of sharp, shooting pain. It wasn’t good news. I wasn’t going to be able to finish that class. Nevertheless, I thought I’d just pulled a muscle. Overdone it a tad on all this newfound exertion. My boyfriend agreed. So I took a few days off.

And then I did something really stupid. I signed up for a weeklong ashtanga intensive, which involved 6 hours of practice a day. I thought I’d recovered. I thought I could hack it. I was that cow. Jumping over that moon.

Problem was, I hadn’t quite thought through the landing aspect to this lunar leap. So when I came down, I did so with one almighty thud…and I was promptly rushed into hospital.

Weigh To Go

I should have known when I busted the zip trying to do up the first suitcase that I’d overdone it on the packing front. But no. I just dragged a bigger version out of the attic and found even more crap to fill that with.

I’m not naturally one to travel light.

That said, the preparations for this trip have been a particular nightmare. With so many different eventualities to plan for, I’ve found the whole thing an exercise in torture. Firstly, there’s the whole hair mousse situation. I’m away for six months and frankly I’d rather die than spend a single day sporting a ‘do reminiscent of a circa 1970’s Michael Jackson. So that’s 15 or so bottles of product - around 10kg’s - right there.

Then there’s all my yoga paraphernalia. I plan to practice twice daily while I’m in Goa – and pick up a bit of teaching work while I’m at it – so I need a variety of options. Add to that bikinis, sarongs, sundresses, a few smart outfits and a couple of pairs of heels for business meetings, trainers, flip flops, some colder climate clothing (just in case), medical supplies, a few books, a couple of handbags and the full spectrum of underwear – for everyday, fat days, period days and those times when I’d like my man to know that I’m sluttishly available – and all of a sudden, I’m packing some serious poundage. I nearly broke a toe hoiking this little lot down the stairs last night.

But it was only when I arrived at check-in this morning that I discovered just how ludicrously over-bloated my load really was. For a start, I had to recruit the help of a porter and a nice American chap checking in at the counter next to mine just to lift the damn case on to the scales. It came in at 40 kilos…almost the same weight as me. No worries I thought. Only double the allowance. Perhaps a small excess baggage charge to pay.

But the jaw-on-the-floor expression I got from ‘Anne’, my check-in lady, told me otherwise. Apparently, my suitcase had cruised way beyond the limit of excess baggage, past the territory of ‘heavy load’ and had veered into the arena of health and safety regulations contravention. My case had been grounded.

But Anne - God love her -had a plan.

I needed to get myself a second case. Anne suggested a carry-on as I was allowed to take two of those on board. She just needed me to jettison 15 kilos to get my big case down to into the respectable heavy load bracket, which she said she’d waive the charge on. Then I was good to go.

Sadly, this was not as straightforward as Anne had made it seem. The only place that was selling luggage that morning was a store located at the farthest end of the terminal. A twenty-minute trek away. No mean feat when you have a two-ton travelling tumour to tow behind you. Nevertheless, I did manage to find a nice compact wheelie companion for it, before setting off on the long haul back to Anne’s loving bosom.

Only by the time I got back, Anne wasn’t there. She’d finished her shift. Some woman named Sinead was now in her hot seat. Sinead had a face like a sucked mango and the swagger of a person who thoroughly despised life. Needless to say she made me feel about as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit. I tried to explain my situation, bring her up to speed on Anne’s plan, but she remained hell-bent on slapping me with an extortionate £160 charge. As far as she was concerned I was some kind of travelling imbecile. And I was now cluttering up her check-in desk.

I, on the other hand, was reaching the point of a full body meltdown.

And that’s when Frank stepped in. Frank was the porter who’d assisted me during my first check-in phase. He was well versed in my plight. And like Anne, he seemed to be some kind of check-in guru, who took great pleasure in finding ways to beat the system. He immediately took me under his wing, escorted me to an area where I could reconfigure my cases, then dispatched me back to Sinead with instructions to waive me through, free of charge.

Sinead had no other option but to comply and within moments, I had my boarding card. I was finally on my way. I just had the small matter of getting through security.

Except that security, as it turned out, was no small matter…

As painful as modern airport security channels can be, I have to say I usually have the system pegged and can generally clear them without much of a kerfuffle. Transparent bag for liquids and laptop are normally at the top of my carry-on. Shoes and jacket are off well in advance. I don’t wear any jewellery to avoid setting off the detectors and I always leave the drugs and guns at home. I’m never frisked and my belongings are never subjected to a second check.

Today, however, thanks to my two carry-on bags situation, I got well and truly snaffled. In my haste to off-load as much weight as I could from my check-in suitcase, I’d placed a range of taboo items in the new bag, which managed to set every security alarm ringing. I was consequently molested from top-to-toe by some uneducated goon; forced to unpack all my belongings so that they could be swabbed and had several bottles of hair mousse, shampoo and perfume confiscated.

I spent the remaining time before boarding inhaling wine just to recover from the whole ordeal.

Mercifully, the minute I got on the plane, all the stresses and woes of the morning seemed to disappear. While the aircraft was packed to the rafters, somehow, I’d managed to land an entire middle row to myself. I wondered whether my new check-in friends Anne or Frank had some part to play in this? Or maybe it was just a benevolent gift from the universe. A sign to say that I was now heading in the right direction. So shortly after take-off, I unbuckled my seatbelt, sprawled myself out across those four seats and slept like a child all the way to Bangalore.

Since arriving in India, everything seems easy. I still have another two hours to wait before I can complete the final leg of my journey – the one-hour flight to Goa. But having checked-in both my cases without so much as a raised eyebrow and with the welcoming arms of my beautiful boyfriend waiting to envelope me once I get there, I now feel considerably lighter.   

Truly, Madly, Deeply

I can’t sleep. I’m not sure if it’s nervousness or excitement that’s making me toss and turn tonight, but with just 24 hours to go before I set off on another Indian Slummer adventure, my head seems to be swirling.

You see, this time it’s different. This time I’m not running away from the shit-sandwich that typifies my life in London. I’ve actually learnt to tolerate the taste. And I’m not setting off on some kind of soul-searching quest for happiness. I’m pleased to say that I now have a few chinks of sunlight perforating my dark armour of woe. No, this trip promises to be something quite special. Something out of this world. This is why I’m in a 2am tailspin. Frankly, I’m bloody bricking it.

Let me explain…

Six weeks ago, I met this guy. A totally extraordinary, one in a million kind of guy. The moment I clapped eyes on him it was like – boom! Thunderbolts and lightening. He reduced me to rubble. A palpable, physical wreck. It was love at first sight. Not something I thought actually happened in real life. Much less happen to me.

I’d met him through work. He was the subject of a documentary I was keen to get my teeth into. He’d flown to London from India to meet with me and I was hoping he’d like me enough to sign up. Suffice to say, I pretty much had him at ‘hello’. Professionally and personally we just seemed to click. What followed was a high-speed romance. 48 hours of sheer, unadulterated bliss. And then he had to leave. On the morning of his departure we clung to each other like limpets, neither of us wanting to let the other go. It was then that he told me that he loved me. And for the first time in 6 years I found myself echoing those same words.

Since then, we’ve remained in constant contact. Surgically attached to our Skype. We speak at least a dozen times a day. We whisper sweet nothings, remotely canoodle and on occasion, have even attempted a dry hump. We’ve started to sketch out a shared future - marriage, babies…a small troop of Chihuahuas - the whole nine yards. And every day this man manages to delight, charm and surprise me in a colourful array of new ways.

But it was when he asked me to come out to India and move in with him that reality actually started to bite.

With only the briefest of courtships it seems like we’re lurching headlong into cohabitation and this concerns me on a number of levels. I mean, let’s face it - you really get to know a person when you live with them and I’m not sure I want to burst our beautiful love bubble so soon. What if I discover he’s an inveterate farter? Or has woefully bad taste in music?  Will I still find him as irresistible? And what will he think of me when my own mask of perfection starts to slip? Will he still love me when he comes across one of the rogue hairs that occasionally sprout out of my chin? Will an unforeseen and unprompted outbreak of spotty botty render me utterly charmless? And crucially, will this man be able to handle the pathological lunatic I morph into each month when a certain ‘red guest’ arrives for a visit?

Added to all of this is also the inescapable fact that I’m monumentally shit at relationships. My track record is really quite shocking. Pretty much every meaningful partnership I’ve ever had has dissolved into a baleful and toxic pool of disappointment. My marriage in particular being the most exemplary.  Since that crashed and burned, I’ve become quite deft at body swerving commitment. I neither need the headache nor the heartbreak.

So as I lie here in these wee small hours churning over the enormity of what I’m about to do, I find myself wondering whether I should be chasing rainbows again, at my age. Whether this man is my pot of gold or just another regrettable crock of shit, who knows?

Nevertheless, I’m taking the plunge. One giant leap. Because my heart is telling me I’ve found something special, something truly, madly deep.