…after lunch that day I decided to head out for another walk. This time, down a road I’d yet to discover. After a nice little chat with another shopkeeper who, by the way, was the first rug dealer not to ask me to have a look at his wares, I noticed a sandy path leading into an overgrown field. Ooh, this was fun. I loved all the space that India was offering. This field led into a more open pasture sprinkled with coconut and mango trees, as well as a few other varieties unknown to me. It was all so picturesque. Off in one corner of the pasture stood a lush, green tree leaning way out to one side, creating a large shady area in which to sit. Beneath it was a carpet of soft cow-mowed grass. Sitting cross-legged felt absolutely wonderful. So Light. So Beautiful. Large pariah kites floated overhead, gliding effortlessly under the clear blue sky. At some point a herd of cattle passed by, heading for another field. Such slick beings with much longer horns than I’d ever seen.

It occurred to me during my time under this tree that India was in fact a forgotten Dream come true. When I was but a wee lad I was so intrigued by India. Then as I grew older, I wanted to travel there. That desire remained until the Hawaii/Thailand voyage of just a year ago, at which point it all but vanished. But now, in a surprising turn of events, I was here in India sitting under a tree in the middle of such a picturesque pasture with fruit trees, some abundant with buds, scattered about. Not only that, but I was now a Yogi. Yoga had been somewhat of a turn-off for me throughout most of my life, something that looked boring – a limp pastel blue. Well things had certainly come together I would say.

Since I first sat down under that tree, I’d had my eye on some succulent-looking little green leaves that were springing up at random around me. They looked a lot like taro plants so I figured if the leaves of this plant, which is a well-known tropical root vegetable, were edible, I would probably have heard of it by now. Regardless, I decided to try one. The first moment or two of chewing brought no discernible taste, then all of a sudden, W H A M !! Instantly it felt as though my mouth was full of thumbtacks. It really hurt! The half-chewed leaf flew from my mouth like a toad escaping the jaws of a snake. I needed to rinse my mouth badly, but had no water. I did however, have a cucumber. I yanked it from my bag and peeled frantically. I chewed up a chunk then spit it out. I repeated this procedure until the cucumber was gone. A mild pain remained but gradually diminished over the next twenty minutes or so. I learned that enduring a less than desirable taste was not the only thing that could happen when sampling leaves. Sometimes Mother Nature ensures that no mistakes be made under no uncertain terms…!

…the next morning I awoke with the Golden Sun rising straight out at Sea. It was awesome. Again I felt so thankful for the blessings that had been bestowed upon me. I decided to walk back up the road in search of some fruit, leaving my bag and belongings at the beach. While negotiating one of the steeper stretches of the path my feet slipped out from under me on the loose gravel and I landed directly on my tailbone with a jarring thud. The fall stunned me.

I was very thankful to realize that I could still move my limbs freely, but the pain was heavy. It made walking difficult, but I would not be slowed down. I had a mission. Nothing could come between myself…and a fruit hunt. So off I hobbled out to the road.

I remember seeing wild guava growing by the roadside on my many trips back and forth the day before but as far as I could remember it would have been too long a walk. Considering I’d yet to see a car at such an early hour, hitchhiking wasn’t an option, so I searched the immediate area more thoroughly.

It wasn’t long before I spotted a papaya tree by the road with a nicely ripened fruit suspended from it. It hung way up high so I tried the tree shaking method and the fruit was immediately freed from its moorings and came zinging down at me. A perfect catch. What good fortune. I Loved Hawaii.

I ate the scrumptious tasting fruit immediately. Eating freshly picked fruit beneath the tree from which it came was an absolute thrill for me at this point in my life with which little could compare.

Pleased with the fruits of my labour, I returned to the beach to find that the one of the group from the night before who had also slept at Red Sand, had saved me half his coconut. Considering I’d just piled in the entire papaya, which really wasn’t that big by the way, I kind of felt a little guilty. I’d never eaten fresh coconut before and I found the taste to be rather appealing and unlike anything I’d previously indulged in.

After chatting for a while in this picturesque setting with the Sun quickly climbing into the sky and making the Seawater sparkle, I packed up my gear and headed for the highway again…

…one night while I was doing the dishes he and I engaged in a conversation about mucous-forming and mucousless foods, something I knew little about. “What did mucous have to do with food?” I pondered, completely bewildered.

Tye told me how good it was, now that he was following a relatively mucous-free diet, to be able to go through the cold winter months without having to deal with snots pouring out of his nose and into his moustache and beard. As he had never shaved in his life, he had an abundance of both.

Having switched to a vegan diet a little less than a year ago and thinking that my choice of food was at least almost as good as it could be, I was a wee bit defensive. And since my discovery of vitamin C pills, I led a relatively snot-free life anyway, winter or summer. But I quickly chose not to reveal my challenged state and muttered a very weak and no doubt unconvincing, “I see, I see.”

So that was the end of it for then anyway. I continued on doing the dishes, content with my presumably ‘ideal’ diet of pasta, oats, soymilk, spices, fresh fruit and vegetables, seaweed rolls, sprouts and rice, most of which was inorganic, all mixed together, and a fair amount of the time cooked to death. I did however, continue to ponder the idea of giving up soymilk. But simply thinking it was bad for my body, or even Rachel’s remark about the sugar content, didn’t seem to be enough to deter me.

Soon enough though, I found myself in a conversation with Tye about soymilk. He recounted his days of eating incredible amounts of dried fruit, followed by downing two liters of soymilk and then lying on his bed completely incapacitated. He went on to say that somebody had once told him that when you fill your body with mucous-forming foods like soymilk, which Tye referred to as “pasty mucous forming glop”, it prevents you from talking with the Angels. These words spoke loudly and clearly to me and left a solid impression. I had been more and more connected to and in communication with some greater force as of late and I wanted absolutely nothing to disrupt this.

Three days later, after a period of weaning, I’d cut soymilk completely out of my diet…