MY BANANA DAYS

Caution: In my endeavor to vent out frustration, references to any being living or dead is purely coincidental and not intentional

U might just be wondering as to why I have named this mail my banana days and you shall find out as u go deeper into the mail...

The first break of dawn on aug 31, 2005 spelt doom on the first years of scmhrd... reason... we were leaving for a 10 day calming known as Vipasana... the entire batch was divided into 3.. The boys... 120 of them were sent to a village called igatpuri which is an 8hour drive from pune and 35 girls were sent to panvel on the outskrits of mumbai and the rest 65 girls were at the pune centre...

What is vipasana? i still do not know... but there is one uncle called google uncle and he knows almost everything so i will give u his address and u can find out for urself... however, i shall attempt to describe it in my own version which may not have any correlation to what it really means...vipasana is what buddha learnt and got enlightened and also spread the knowledge or technique to his disciples.. its to calm the mind down and help to deal with realities... and buddha or rather vipasana preaches that the we ourself are the cause and solutions of the problems and miseries and happiness around us... they do have 10 day, 21 day and 45 day courses out here and the small scenic village of igatpuri houses the vipasana international center and attracts people from all walks of life from all round the world..




we reached this place which is called Dhammagiri on 31st afternoon and were welcomed with some lunch.. typical Marathi poha and BANANAS.. and then we were given an orientation of the course which highlighted : No smoking , No drinking, No nonveg, No
talking, Complete Noble silence, No books, No mobiles, No male female communication, NO nothing.. it was 10 days total detachment from the world.. we were shown our rooms, most of us were allocated single rooms.. mine was barely 6 feet by 9 feet in size which also included a toilet and bathroom ...so now i hope u can imagine the size.. the rooms were decent, a few of them in the new block looked like a 5 star hotel room.. although i wasn’t so lucky and got a room with resembles a dungeon.. i managed to Survive my days out there without cribbing about it..

we then had our first meditation sitting at 5pm on day 0 and from then on we were instructed to maintain strict noble silence. initially it was sort of fun only communicating in sign lang.. we were not allowed to smile or even maintain eye contact with "fellow sadhaks".. i felt that they were literally killing our emotions but this was the first step towards "enlightenment"...the time table for the next 10 days was as follows


4.30am to 6.30am - Group meditation in dhamma hall (which i never went)
6.30am to 7.15am - Breakfast
8.00am to 11.00am - Compulsory group meditation in hall (we had to attend this but never sat for more than an hour and a half)
11.00am to 11.45am - Lunch
12.00pm to 2.30pm - Meditation in own room (which meant sleep time ... yipeee!!)
2.30pm to 5.00pm - Compulsory group meditation in dhamma hall (again used to sit here only until 4pm after which used to walk out of the hall and stroll around)
5.00pm to 5.45pm - Dinner !!!!!
6.00pm to 9.00pm - compulsory group meditation and audio video discourse ( this was sort of relieving coz the discourse was a hilarious in bits and pieces)
9.30pm - Lights off !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

we "10 day monks" had to follow this time table very very strictly.. day 1 as soon as we sat for the first official sitting.. we heard gurujis voice on the audio tape and burst out laughing.. the voice is so grose.. now just imagine a man who has a sore throat speaking from his grave and not even half of the speed of a normal human talk.. man it was uncontrollable laughter.. but then the dhamma sevaks who were acting as cops came and joined hands and asked us to shut up.. each of us were given places to sit and these were called "aasan" and mine was somewhere in the centre of the octagonal hall.. apart from the 100 guys there were close to 200 others also in the same hall .. most of them aged 35 and above.. after the first group meditation sitting, i went upto the assistant teacher and explained my back problem and requested for a back rest or a chair and he was kind enough to give me a chair and also a place to sit on the floor against the wall right at the back.. i was enjoying vipasana ;-) very soon, there was hardly any place against the wall.. and i never knew that so many friends of mine had back aches.. this is known as herd-mentality... our noble silence never lasted for more than one hour and actions turned into words literally.. we started speaking in low whispers and giggling and it’s really fun to act that u are maintaining noble silence and yet giggling around.. by the end of the 2nd session, our frustration began and we realized that we are in the wrong place.. this place or this thing is not for us.. our revolt against vipasana started right there right then and we
guys decided to boycott this course, it was a lil too much for our "tender" minds...

we could draw a lot of similarities between dhamma giri and tihar jail.. and we did get to hear one more fact that kiran bedi
made her prisoners also undergo vipasana,. and then i realised that soon there would be a change in the Indian Penal code where the highest sentence one could get would be a 45day course of vipasana.. its death and rebirth 45 times..by the end of the 2nd day we were a group of 40 guys who were willing to run away and infact had a group talk with the head of the management in igatpuri and this issue blew out of proportions with our institute director stating that the 10day course is a criteria for completion of MBA in scmhrd and that dropped the number drastically.. this drama went on thru the night and finally no one left on the 2nd day.. but there was a lot of cribbing all round.. there were frequent raids in our rooms with dhamma sewaks hunting for mobile phones, mp3 players, books, eatables and on the third day they managed to confiscate close to 30 mobile phones... my room was raided 3 times inside out in 10 days and they could not find my phone.. i am not telling u my imaginative hiding place but one thing i can tell u , the insole of my right nike shoe has now become loose :( now i guess ur grey cells are working ..coming to food.. the menu would be as follows:

Breakfast - Poha/Idli/Upma , chutney, brown bread (which i once mistook for cake), milk, tea and BANANA.
Lunch - Chapathi , Rice , Dal , some vegetable, boiled vegetables, salad, curds/buttermilk , BANANA.
Dinner - Kadalai podi (Ground nuts with puffed rice), apple/papaya/kiwi, BANANA, milk, tea

on an average, i ate 5 bananas a day.. and at the end of it i had a tally of 4 dozen BANANAS, i havent eaten these many BANANAS all my life and i am sure that the BANANA plantation owners find a good prospective eater in me.. and no i was not
alone.. i was given stiff competition by my fellow sadhaks.. every day at around 10.30am a group of 5 of us would walk out of the meditation hall and roam around like hungry dogs just waiting to attack the dining all.. at the stroke of 11, we literally have a walkathon (walking race) towards the dining hall and along with 5 friends there was one old frustrated man who ran along with us.. that guy also was so frustrated of life and being in this place.. we would giggle the moment we see his face in the meditation hall... the sly look of an 8yr old kid on a 40yr olds face looking down and smiling was a sight to fight for.. he apparently sat against the wall bang in between 3 frustrated trouble makers (anish, sriram and yours truly) and giggled his way thru vipasana.. at the end of it we discovered he was named Herbalkar Prasad and this chap is from bangalore and he looks nothing less than a circus clown.. he also wanted to run away on the 5th day and whispered into our ears that he is with us if we plan an escape !!! at the end of the course we did apologize to him and found the reason for his frustration.. his wife, father in law, mother in law, brother in law have completed the course and blackmailed him to do it failing which he would be chucked out of home !!! we hence found the reason for his frustration and weird behavior and active participation in the daily walkathon towards the dining hall.. not that our race as 20year olds was justified but for a 40yr old it’s a little too much to digest.. amidst all this we did have a couple of guys getting caught for smoking and chewing gutka.. one chap who just could take it ran back to campus on the 6th day only to find him expelled from the college.. we did fight a lot as a batch on his behalf to bring him back and eventually we did.. on the final day we did have guys sneaking out of dhamma giri to a village nearby which had a waterfall and also some non veg to feast on.. i had decided not to be too adventurous..with the passing days, we realised that only a handful students are doing it seriously and maintaining full and complete silence...personally for me, my frustration was ebbing.. i even spoke to the assistant teacher and he said that this was bound to happen, but that poor old man dint realise that it was happening even without me meditating... i told him very very frankly that i am bugged of this place and want to run away and scream out loud.. and all he said was "Shanth beta, yeh sab anich (impermanant) hai.. do din mein theek ho jaoge" and after two days it only got every crazier..for some reason I believe that these assistant teachers have a “never say no” attitude, u go to them with any problem under the sun, tell them that u are frustrated, or tried, or can concentrate or getting multiple sensations in the same place or rather no sensation at all, worse u get loose motions and they have a standard answer : politely in their shudh hindi they would say “dude this is bound or rather expected to happen” i was frustrated but just dint have a method to vent it out...we were not allowed to speak to friends although we spoke in low whispers hidingly..we were not supposed to have cell phones but i did have one which i did use to keep in touch with friends and family yet i had a mental block of this entire vipasana thing..

What i could have learnt with vipasana?
I really dont know..

What did vipasana do to me?
-made me more frustrated in life
-made me realise that i can eat 4 dozen BANANAS in 10 days
-made me realise that dal is good for health ( i know some ppl wil be smiling )
-made me realise that i have a weak spine and am very restless
-made me realise that if i can watch the clock tick minute by minute, second by second
-made me realise that i wasted 250 hours of my life
-made me realise that an idle mind is not only a devils workshop but also a creative thinker... i got all wild thoughts of having a regional office on the moon !!!!!!
-made me realise that i am shrinking by the day...all my trousers have become looser by a few inches..
-made me realise that campus is heaven no matter how many angels/devils we have back there..
-made me realise that i cannot keep quiet for long time
-made me realise that a mobile phone is one of the greatest inventions
-made me realise that i can sleep for more than 12 hours a day
-made me realise a lot of things .... which i cannot recall :-(

on the final day after the noble silence was broken, we could smell freedom, but the nirvana was when we entered back into our campus...i did develop respect for Mr. Goenka who brought in this technique to India and it was his voice that was being relayed during the meditation, and vipasana does help people if they do it whole heartedly and are not forced to do it..

but now i can boast of "Successfully completed a 10 day vipasana course" which is a rare achievement.. if u dont believe me.. ask Goenka.. he will tell u..


(This is wat happens -- post vipassna)



Mangal Ho!
Be Happy!


Abishek