Manoj:
I just came to the railway station and I asked for the ticket to Kerala. OK, and they just gave me a ticket. And the ticket was … yeah … from New Delhi to Varkala. And the train at that time this train was stopping at Varkala for the first time. It was Kerala-Express. When I came to Kerala it was the first stop for the Kerala-Express in Varkala. Normally they do not stop here. They stop in Kollam and Trivandrum. So I got a ticket for Varkala.
So when I got in the train … OK … everything was fine. Cause it’s three nights and two days I think, yeah, three nights and two days you have to do the whole journey. So next to me there was a guy, it was a nice guy, and I was joking. And it is the worst thing I always remember. I always deal with me.
What happened is: I had only not so much money with me, and so I have to like small hearing walkman at the time, so I got it from somebody one of my friend he gave it to me. And then last night when I went to sleep, the next morning we will be in Trivandrum. This train will go to Trivandrum. So when I went to sleep, this guy asked me whether he can have my walkman, because he does not sleep because he is going to get down early morning at seven o’clock. So I say: ‘No problem, call me before you go. And I will wake up at six or five o’clock, so I can collect my walkman from you’. He said ‘OK, that’s a good idea’. And I gave my walkman to him and I went to sleep. Then also I thought ‘Ah, it’s a good idea, I can give my money purse to him, it’s save with him’. And then I gave my money to him.
And when I woke up at six o’clock, five o’clock this guy is not there.
And the people told me, this guy get down in Kannur, which was four o’clock in the morning.
Then I don’t know what to do. Then people, because in this train normally who are travelling in the train are going to Delhi, they speak good Hindi at least, so it was a good thing. Then I show the ticket, I want to go to Varkala.
And they tell I were in wrong train. ‘This train will not stop in Varkala. This train never stop in Varkala, because we have been travelling in this train for a long time and we know very well this train never stop in Varkala. You have to get down in Kollam or in Trivandrum’. So some ticket, it was my mistake, of course the ticket is from Varkala. I should see. I have to believe the others at that time. The situation is like this.
OK, then I get down in Kollam. Then what to do? The next what to do in Kollam … and I looked I’m really starving … I did not eat last three days because I need to save this money because I had to find this place. So I didn’t eat for three days, but somehow I managed to drink some cold water in the railway station.
Then I came out the railway station and somehow I came to bus stand and to come to bus to Varkala.
And I had like this business card and the phone number too. I tried to call this people. But the phone was not working because at that time they were using this phone connection in Internet. So there was off season time when I came at the time. The whole day … so I tried to call like thousand times for three, four hours. Then I was really … I didn’t know what to do, because the phone is not working. I have no money, money to go back to home. Money to nowhere to go. Same features than somehow in Delhi. What to do, what to do and what to do? But see, that’s the thing, it happens when you have nothing.
You cannot give up yourself, something will come to you.
When you just feel like ‘That’s enough, I cannot do or go anymore, I give up’, something will come to you, that’s how it is life science, I’m sure. That’s my experience. When I give up, I say ‘No I don’t know what to do’. I just sit down there. Let’s see what happens, what to do, I will see something. I don’t know what to do, I just sit down there.
And some group of students, girl students, they were really looking at me. Because I’m going to phone and coming back and I was just nervous. And then at the end I was coming sit down like this (leans his head in his hands). I was almost, I was not crying, but almost like crying and I was looking very ill. And they came to me. And they were speaking good Hindi at least. At that time I could not speak any word of English, because I’m dead. So they came to me. They spoke in Hindi and I was OK. Then I tell ‘OK, I’m lost, I don’t know what to do’. And then they ask me ‘Show us the card’. And I show the card to this group of the girls and they say ‘How this people, this Varkala, this places all exist we don’t know about this place, but you should go there’. Than I told ‘I have no single penny to spend anymore’. Then what they did, they gave me some money and also they asked me ‘Do you need some food?’ I was really thanks to them, to this girls.
I think ‘somebody’ sended them for me.
Because I can feel it when they came to me.
And the situation I was really hungry, because if I do not get any food. I was not hungry, but I knew, because I was so nervous and then I cannot feel the hunger. But I knew, that if I do not eat I will dehydrate or I will fall down. I will die something cause. I knew that, because my stomach was really at that time, was really to much finish. But of course I’m nervous, so I cannot feel the hunger. So it was a very bad moment.
You know it happens, it was happen sometimes to me. Somehow they gave me their food also. They ask me ‘Do you need the food?’. I said ‘Yes, I’m little hungry’.
They told me it is better. You should eat, because it is forty five minutes to one hour journey. Than gave me food and they wait for me until they put me in the bus, because I could not read Malayalam.
And they put me in the bus. And the bus directly came to Varkala town. And somehow I walked, walked from the town, somebody told me to go straight to the beach, and OK, I was walked from Varkala town to beach. I came here it was then … when I arrived in Kollam in morning ten o’clock … and when I arrived in Varkala at the beach it was eight or nine o’clock in the night. The whole day I was struggling. And it was raining too, when I get down. And it’s really dark night and somehow I came direct from the railway station. I asked a lady, a smaller lady. There is a small shop of wood and she took me to this place.
Then when I see the people again, this people I saw in Delhi, then I got like new life. And then I got like ‘Oh my god’.
Then I settled down. Then it was fine.

Nicole:
And they also recognized you?
Manoj:
Yes, sure. They were really happy to see me again. Especially the wife of my boss. She really was happy to see me again, because she as a doctor says, she knew, that if I would be continue then I would have died. Because freshly my nail was really coming again and I could hold my stomach like this at the time (holds his waist with his hands).
I remember, I was really holding my stomach like this, this much like this. I was really holding my stomach. So I can, people can count my ribbercage even. Strange. I don’t have the old pictures … but, yeah, then I’m here and so far everything is fine now.
Nicole:
And then you got a job here?
Manoj:
Yes, yeah that’s true. Actually I got a job. The first I start with, I was a housekeeper like cleaning, to clean rooms and take care of the rooms, like housekeeping.
Then after few years they changed me to the kitchen. Then I worked in the kitchen. Because this doctor, the doctor was working here. She was very nice doctor and she knows a lot about the food and stuff and she taught me the diet …
Then I worked like as a cook. I don’t know one or two years. Then after, they want me put in to do massage, so helping in the side with the therapists and I also did learn very well that.
Then after that I worked in reception as a receptionist for a few years.
And two years, then after, then I end up with yoga. Then I want to learn yoga. And I’m teaching yoga (laughs).
And I was … this is … whatever I did, I liked everything. I did my best. Yes I did all my best how much I can.
And then, yes everything was perfect for me. But Yoga it’s more thing that, what I was needed in my life, I think. Now I feel like maybe I am born for this maybe. Because it really it feels like I know this from many lifes or something like this. Because it feels so close to me. When I teach Yoga like this is the moment. When I teach Yoga I’m being really in present moment. I’m really opening all my sense and my mind, my heart, my soul. All is open like I’m giving like. I feel so much I’m really being hundred percent in the moment. I don’t think about anything at that time, what is happening in the surrounding in my world. So I was just to concentrating the people and teaching Yoga. This is I think, that’s why I feel like somehow I maybe I was born to do this.
And maybe somehow it is all experience also took me here in this. It was a great thing to experience all this things through my life to get here and be a Yoga teacher. I think it’s also a good thing, I did that I carried all my experience with me as an experience or as a study.
And it hurt me. Maybe one of course it is, I don’t know when I tell my story something like this, all my story to other they really feel ‘Oh my god, how you did it?’ and this thing. But for me it was very normal, and still is, I think, is very normal for me.
Yes, I really was not unhappy or I was not really crying for anything. And everything was fine with me like. OK, I lived with the slum or I lived with this people or I had this all trouble. This was all part of my life and the way of my lifepath. So I have to, somewise if you think, I had to come through this. If I’m not coming through this, of course I’ll be not here. Then I’ll be somewhere else, maybe, I don’t know. And I’m happy that I did not take it, this all things, like it’s my bad time or my unhappy time or whatever. But I took all everything, every single step in my life I took as like learning.
We can learn until we die.
So it’s everything I took so far until now, everything I take as a part of my study. That’s why I think, somehow it feels good. Because I don’t know what is really happiness, but if you ask me what is happiness, I don’t know. That’s really I don’t know. So it’s one suffer that for me. Because, OK, teaching yoga it makes me really understanding me and myself. That I really concentrating myself more. So that could be means happy, but I don’t know what is really happy. Because I think why I carried all my experience, what I told you, so this is for you, who will listen ‘Oh my god, he is really be unhappy this guy, really. How he did this?’. For me, I was not unhappy, not at all. Like it was perfect. So how it could be, I was perfect at that time. When I was really worst time, so I was happy. So now when I’m happy, I’m happy too. So I don’t know what is happy, you know. So everything is fine. So I think, what ever is coming to you, you have to take it how it is.
So happy is happy and sad is sad. I think that’s, it is way of life. So this is what I’m saying we cannot say, I cannot really say, what is really happiness, because there is nothing like that. It is no exist. Nothing like this, trust me, there is no happiness or there is no sadness, everything what is coming to you that is yours.
So never compare anything. OK, I need news thing, I need happiness, and if I’m happy I have to be more happy. That means you are really kind of ego you are starting and maybe then you have to suffer through a lot, through unhappy, then you will get maybe some happiness somewhere. I think it’s better to take everything as is. It’s all for us, so why not. Let’s take it how it is. And because that’s what I’m saying in those what I suffered, in railway station, or on my train, or police station, or my boss was hitting all the time, for coming to me and he really shouting at my mother and my father, whatever is. But all was fine. I mean I was really, cause I really don’t understand so what is unhappy.
What could make me unhappy? All was fine with me. So that’s how it is. I think the people should not look for happiness, happiness, happiness. It will come to you. And whatever is coming, you have to take it as it is. Than you will be – I’m sure if you don’t look for happiness, and you just leave it how it is and leave it in present and just leave it how it is, whatever is coming to you – so you will be feel yourself more. Because I’m not arrogant myself, that I’m saying like this. But I must say, when I’m teaching yoga or talking to my friends, I’m really, it makes me really think myself or really understanding me. I can really understand myself really more and more, when I’m doing this things. So, yeah, so it’s always best just get it whatever it is coming to you. It is … really it is, the life has to go on, so no matter how we will not living so, whatever.
And we just have to take as it is. Whatever is coming, just learn from it.