All is not Lost

Whenever I call UK from India using Skype, with Mattindia's free WiFi to speak to friends and family, the same question always crops up: "How much have you lost?"

It's a bit like WeightWatchers, this desire for metrics and comparisons, and if I played the game, it would also be sadly depressing. I have no idea how much weight I have lost because the elderly bathrooom scales in the doctor's consulting room are woefully inadequate to cope with someone who is seriously large. They did promise me that digital scales were on order, but this is India, and the urgent takes a little longer than it might in a more stressed, Western environment.

So much for the kilos, and as for the centimetres, some of my shirts still feel tight but my shorts do - just possibly - feel looser. I have been through this cycle too many times and am not going to succumb to the quest for instant results, which is why I planned a 2-month break.

Retirement Tourism

 In the classic scenario of retired silver-surfers, two months would probably mean an extended tour of Asia-Pacific with a tedious amount of time being spent buying presents for the grandchildren. Just a few years ago, a similar amount of time might well be spent trying to find somewhere that does a proper pot of tea, but the world is standardising under the relentless bleach of globalisation, and you'll find a Starbucks or a Costa almost anywhere, or at the very least, a local clone dispensing something similar.

This journey has already taught me two important lessons. The first is that - quite apart from it being beyond the reach of my wallet - I have not the slightest interest in doing the "12 countries in 21 days" type of tourism.  

Free to do my own thing!

The other big lesson is the realisation that I am a cantankerous oldie, who cannot face the idea of compromising where I would like to go or what I would like to do to accommodate the preferences of a partner. I acknowledge that this last sentence is classically Famous Last Words, and I assure you that I would happily devour these words in public if/when I had my heart romantically stolen. But, right here, right now, I relish the freedom from the routine of planning where one should go and what one should see. 
Which is why I am sitting around, reading and writing while the dozen French who arrived 10 days ago are chartering taxis and organising trips on the backwaters with all the urgency and desperate need of the search for the right brand of yoghurt in Carrefour hypermarket on a Saturday morning back in France.

It's not about what I have lost; it's about what I have gained.

This secular pilgrimage to Kerala was all about reaching my 70th birthday and deciding what I wanted to do next and how I could make that possible. Part of that was about getting my body into a healthier state. I knew that if I could tackle my obesity, I would eliminate my obstructive sleep-apnoea, and this latter impediment currently means that I have to carry a face mask and air-pump in my luggage, in addition to needing an electricity supply every night, wherever I travel.  I can't put a tape-measure to that, I just have to see how things develop in the coming weeks.

Which leads to something the doctor explained, and which I had not realised. Ayurveda works at a deep level, and my body is learning new lessons. The medicines are teaching my body to need less and to process it efficiently, and this process will continue for the next two-three months. My body is also being reprogrammed as to what it enjoys consuming, and apart from a small amount of seafood in my week of travelling, I have been a strict vegetarian since Ash Wednesday. Not deliberately, just because here in Kerala, it's cheap and delicious.

But food is only part of the story: what has really surprised and gladdened me from the past weeks, has been the transformation in my peace of mind.

Finding what really matters

It comes back to the central principle I observed when I was living in Italy a couple of years ago: "Nothing is really that important." I sniggered when I first heard this apparently ridiculous philosophy, but a couple of years on an Italian hilltop taught me the truth of the expression.

The challenge now is to find things that can be worthwhile in the remaining years of my life. I have been challenging myself as to whether travel like this trip is a philanthropic use of my time, or sheer self-indulgence. I have been wondering whether I should - like my ex-wife - spend more time shuttling around the country visiting my children and grand-children. I have been considering whether I should focus on the charitable work I could engage in back home in Lincoln. 

But I have no immediate answers. And there is no need for immediacy.

I keep coming back to the intense experience of May last year,  when I confronted my spiritual beliefs and decided I owed it to myself and my  family to share my thoughts and reflections. The story is here, on another of my blogs: (Metamorphosis)  It's a conversation I would have liked to have had with my father, and never did. My children and grandchildren will have a choice to find out what made me tick from the various journals and blogs that I shall leave behind. 

In the past weeks I have done much research and reading, and can see certain organisations and movements that I want to get involved with. I have also done more work on the book, which is an attempt to describe a way of life that is based on Christianity, but with the need neither for ritual and liturgy, nor for happy-clappy enthusiasm. The more people I talk to about it, the more encouragement I receive. 

I am proud to say that some days here at Mattindia I have done virtually nothing. I have had my treatments, read a little, put my feet up and given myself time to pause and reflect. I highly recommend it, even if you label it: "doing nothing."

One way or another, my time here is delivering significant benefits, physical and cerebral.
I buttoned up my white linen shirt when I went down to dinner this evening, - and that's the first time in years.