Mum's the Word

When I first passed my driving test, my Mother told me to “always keep up with the car in front”. A week later, I wrote my car off by ploughing it straight through a car showroom window. Mum tends to be pretty lousy when it comes to life advice, but yesterday, in a dark and lonely moment, I threw caution to the wind and called her.  For once, she made total sense.

She said, “Darling, if you don’t change direction, you may end up where you’re heading”.

I’d travelled to India to find a small town called happy. But so far, no matter where I went, I kept ending up in a cul-de-sac of discontent. So I decided to do as Mum said and change track. It was time to turn the frown upside down.

Mysore is famed for its magnificent palaces, its sacred temples and for being the home of Ashtanga Yoga. It’s a place where “mind, body and soul can come to their senses” and it seemed like the perfect spot for me to knock all three of mine back in line. I decided to fuel my brain first. I was hungry for a bit of Indian history and culture, so I headed for the imposing 3-storied, marbled domed edifice that sat on the opposite side of the road to my hotel. Mysore Palace.

Given the proximity, I assumed getting there would be a synch. But yet again I’d forgotten…nothing in India is ever straightforward.  It turned out that the Palace – the third largest in the country – spanned no less than 8 blocks and you needed a PHD in Orienteering just to find the way in. Mercifully, a man called Sammy saved my day.

I was wrestling with an origami of map, trying to solve the “where the hell is the entrance” conundrum when Sammy bounced over and chivalrously offered to show me the way. I quickly discovered that like Nihal, my go-to guy from Mumbai, Sammy was an orifice of local knowledge and in the 10 minutes that we were together, he gave me the entire potted history of Mysore, along with a long list of sights for me to see. Sammy was an ebullient bundle of energy who talked without pause. But his warmth and generosity floored me.

As too did his sense of personal style. On the one hand he characterised all that was typically Indian – he sported a Bindu  (the dot of dye you see many Hindus wearing between their eyebrows) along with the obligatory bushy moustache, and he did that funny head wiggle thing that most people over here do; but he also wore a Nike baseball cap – back-to-front, low slung jeans and slogan t-shirt that read “I Do All My Own Stunts”. He was a kooky confusion of East and West. But I thought he was magic. In fact, I was really quite sad when we arrived at the gates and I had to say goodbye to him. His parting shot was to fix me up with Mustafa, Mysore’s “most legendary tour guide”.

Mustafa had been showing visitors around the Palace for eons and knew the place like the back of his hand. The only drawback was that, saving 2 upper incisors, he was totally toothless. So while I was completely bewitched by the grandeur of the Palace’s 19^th century architecture and its treasure trove of art, jewellery and costumes, I might have enjoyed it a little more had I been able to make sense of Mustafa’s running commentary…and spared the jet spray of saliva that accompanied it. Still, what he lacked in verbal dexterity, he certainly made up for in the way he manoeuvred his eyebrows. They operated almost independently of him and every twitch, flick and spasm conveyed a world of meaning. They alone built a bridge of understanding between us. In fact, these two animated tufts of unruly hair had me absolutely transfixed!

And I had to hand it to him - Mustafa was fastidiously thorough in his work. He wouldn’t rest until I had investigated every inch of the Palace and its surrounding 36 acres. He held me captive for the entire afternoon. But I relished every second. By the time I limped out of the gates, I was completely frazzled and desperate to zonk out in the air-conditioned splendour of my hotel room.

Sammy, however, had other ideas.

I can’t imagine how long he must have waited for me, but as I exited the Palace gates, there he was. He’d apparently spent the day phone bashing every contact in his address book and was now itching to reveal the various plans he’d made for me. I was gobsmacked. The man had gone into overdrive – he’d scored me a week’s worth of free Ashtanga yoga classes, secured private visits to both a silk and sandalwood factory, booked me a complimentary Ayurvedic consultation and now wanted to usher me over to meet a rickshaw driver who went by the name of “Master Blaster”.

So much for my quiet night in. My time in Mysore was about to get seriously mental. But it felt like it was a step in the right direction.