The Adventures of Bindi Girl: (2012) (21 page)

And then, I heard Her—the goddess Kundalini who was indeed awakened, and manifest here and NOW.

Hiss-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s...

Glancing to my right, not two feet from where we lay stark naked on the ground, was the longest, scariest serpent I’ve ever come face to face with. She was slithering her way out of the jungle foliage and into our Garden, moving slowly but steadily in our direction.

S-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s...

I lurched up from the mat to get the hell out of the way, catapulting instantly in an adrenalin-filled, side-flip superhero move that launched me several feet across the camp into my hammock.

Jan hadn’t noticed her. “What is it?” he asked. Firmly, under trembling breath, I warned, “SNAKE! SNAKE!” Jan leaped up and bolted backward.

She was at least two meters long, with thick stripes of alternating shades of light and dark green, looking very poisonous—this was no sweet sea snake. I noticed every detail of her tiny tongue darting rapidly in and out, and she was moving deliberately in our direction.

The serpent slithered through our camp, knocking over our last lit candle with her trailing tale. The candle continued to burn, threatening to catch the straw mat on fire. Jan jumped into gear with a manly-man approach to handling the herptile, attempting to coax her out of camp with a stick. As he stabbed the air with his spear, the Shaivite serpent dramatically raised half her body high in the air, poising as if to strike.

“Oh my God, Jan. Do NOT piss her off!” I pleaded.

Granted, I was hiding out in my hammock, so it was easy for me to say. To his credit, Jan was concerned that the camp would catch on fire from the fallen candle; or, that the candle would indeed go out, and we wouldn’t be able to see the snake, which could be even worse.

She nosed around and traversed every corner of our camp, inch by inch. She lingered a while near our campfire embers. Then, for a freaky sort of encore, the serpent actually slithered up to and coiled herself around a massive seashell that, earlier that day, we had filled with dozens of “Shiva’s eyes.” Every morning in the Andamans, Jan and I would collect handfuls of round, flat shells, called “Shiva’s eyes,” with natural nautilus-spiral designs that symbolize the third eye as well as protection and positive energy. The Kundalini serpent seemed to like them, too. She would not leave until
She
wanted to leave.

Jan was still standing poised with spear like a naked jungle warrior. “Please, Jan, just let her pass.” Naked and shivering, I crouched in my hammock, in mid-air, feeling as if I were staring death in the face.
I could die, or Jan could die
, I thought.
But, if I do die, I can definitely say that I have
lived—
truly, deeply, and fully
lived
.

A reassuring thought anyways. It was scary as hell, and yet I was oddly calm. Perhaps I was in shock. Or that age-old survival mode had kicked in. I’m reminded of so many times in India—whether praying for my life on a fishtailing bus skirting cliffs in the Himalayas, or nearly deteriorating from sheer loneliness—where I’ve felt at or near the brink of death, if even psychologically. There’s an eerie, otherworldly calm that sets in at times like this. The witnessing mind takes over. And that’s what happened here.

We had to wait for another few minutes for the serpent to pass, on her own accord, in her own sweet time. She made her way in my direction, toward the hammock. Finally, ever so slowly and stealthily, she slithered toward the other side of the jungle…

…directly under my body.

Heart beating heavily, as the snake moved under me, I prayed to high heaven the hammock ropes would hold. The months of sand and sea spray had begun to rot the ropes, and we had experienced more than one bout of unexpected hammock-crashing-to-the-jungle-floor in the night. It was a moment of faith—one of those times when the veil separating life and Mother Nature’s virtual death is so thin, you’re at the brink of your personal bardo. And all you can do is breathe.

Yes, our seemingly-benign tantric experiment had worked. The Shakti had indeed risen. The visit from the serpent-sister was, for me, a direct representation of consciousness arising in reality. Our coiled Kundalini cobra confirmed to me that the cosmic fire beneath my feet was pulsing vibrantly in these wildly remote, dangerous, and deceptively-beautiful islands.

Jan and I finally agreed on something at last: clearly, it was high time to leave The Octopus’s Garden of Eden.

I was
so
tired. Not just physically. My soul was tired. After almost five months of hard traveling, I simply didn’t find camping on a cricket ground to be the most comforting. It’s also about the people that you’re with. I needed my friends. Sure, I was with Jan—someone I was relatively close to—but he wasn’t a long-time member of my
tribe
, you know? I needed to talk to a girlfriend, a confidante, a therapist! Someone I could VENT to. Someone who could understand I wanted a bikini wax, a cup of non-Nescafé instant coffee, a proper BED, for crying out loud. I lulled myself to sleep with promises of future good coffee (“Someday, you’ll have espresso!”).

Next morning, we went straight to work, hustling and bustling to get a week’s worth of food supplies together. Jan bargained for a machete to crack open coconuts while I stocked up on coconut oil,
nag champa
incense, and mosquito repellent. Long Island was to be the grand finale of our Andaman Crusoe experience. Jan was living out his fantasy, his Long-Island-awaited castaway dream. I, on the other hand, was cast somewhere between
The Blue Lagoon
and a complete loon.

Spilling over with sacks of lentils, rice, bananas, chai fixings, and chapati flour, we gave our backs a break and splurged for a shortcut to the beach: a half-dozen of us Westerners hired a flimflam boatman and his little brother to putter us over to Lalaji Beach, supposedly the
crème de la crème
paradisiacal find in all the Andamans.

The rickety boat dumped us off on the shore, threw our backpacks overboard, and the batch of us weary travelers scattered in various directions to find camping spots. After searching for a good hour, Jan and I came across a pre-scouted campsite of fallen logs and readymade fire pit, directly located on the white sandy beach, with the gorgeous backdrop of a coconut plantation. The turquoise, crystal-clear sea was our front yard. A pristine well was a five-minute walk. And, we weren’t in the middle of the jungle foliage.

Oh goodie!
No massive crabs crunching through our camp all night. And no sneaky serpents slithering through, either. We thought we’d scored. Something in the back of my mind said, “Hmmm. This is odd. If this is such an ideal location to camp, why is it empty? Why aren’t any other backpackers around?” My intuition told me something would be not quite right, but I would find that out later—once I had ignored my intuition, which my intuition says is never a good thing to do.

Chalking our perfect campsite up to Lady Luck, Jan and I got busy and built up our third and final home on the Andaman Islands. We set up a top-notch kitchen, and created captivating curries, breakfast
kheer
rice pudding with coconut milk, dried fruits and cashews. It was all topped off with the perfect masala chai black tea with cardamom, cinnamon, and heaping helpings of fresh ginger.

The highlight of my island life: exquisite yoga in the coconut plantation, which was our backyard. It was my little moment to shine, teaching Jan the beauty of hatha yoga. Each morning, we kept our commitment to shared practice, stirring at dawn and diving into the gifts of
asana
. Exploring the intricacies of a single pose—whether shoulder stand, or downward dog, or simple sitting in breathing meditation—held as much joy and fulfillment as any other travel adventure.

Each day, we added another round of
Surya Namaskar
sun salutations to our practice, feeling our breath capacity, spine strength, and flexibility increase with each cycle. Together, we felt a synergy unfold—the ultimate union of yin and yang.

But, after a few days, we discovered why there were no other travelers nearby, why no others had snagged our campsite. Why no one, but
no one
else was to be seen in our general vicinity.

Sand fleas.

Sounds relatively harmless. Sounds like, oh, a few bites here and there. A few nagging itches, right?

Wrong. Let’s just say I now have
tremendous
compassion for our feline and canine companions. Allow me to describe the following state of misery for your edification:

Suffering all night long in my hammock, trying without success to avoid scratching, which is about as futile as instructing a toddler to refrain from scratching chicken pox. I am in mental and physical agony, raging like a banshee on fire. At the very first hint of dawn, I hurl myself out of the hammock, tear off every stitch of clothing, and run naked and crying into the sea. Standing neck-deep in the surf, I am boiling with frustration and rage. The water is the only place I can be in any comfort. I could give a flying fig whether the fishermen collecting their nets nearby can see me in my birthday suit, and I let out a wail that would make your skin crawl. The beauty of the turquoise, crystalline waters set against the backdrop of a pristine pink and purple sunrise, the irony of this scene, makes it all the worse, and torrents of tears roll down my cheeks in sheer helplessness.

We tried every solution to stop the itching and quell the maddening malady: coconut oil,
Navratna
oil (an ayurvedic panacea, touted as being good for everything from impotency to sleeplessness to hair loss, but apparently failing in the flea department), Tiger Balm, antiseptic ointment…Even, at the advice of a sweet-natured Swedish hippie girl, tamari soy sauce. Anything, but anything to soothe the agony. I didn’t even care that I smelled like a shish kebab.

Who would have thought that a tiny little black insect, the size of a pinhead, could wreak such havoc? Jan was incredibly uncomfortable, too. I was truly at wit’s end. I needed someone, something to airlift me out of this misery. The next night of hell, instead of hanging in my hammock and counting the hours for dawn to come so I could plunge into the pacifying surf, I got up in the dark, went solo to the waterside, held my head in my hands, and bitched to the Bay of Bengal.

It was the darkest night of my life. Except for the soft sounds of the waves lapping against the shore, it was dead silent. I looked up at the ink-black sky. I had never seen so many stars. The half-Moon stared down upon me without emotion, seemingly mocking me. For the first time during my travels, she offered me no solace. Only emptiness. Nothingness.

I prayed, but there was no god or goddess there for me in that moment. Only a billion steely stars in the vastness. I couldn’t appreciate Nature’s beauty. Instead, I was wallowing in ugliness and harshness.

At that moment, the only thing that kept me going was faith. At that moment, the practices I’d worked with in the West surfaced from my soul to get me through—the sayings and parables that sound cliché when you hear them, but damn straight, they will get you through when the going gets tough. Teachings of impermanence, sayings like
This too shall pass,
or
This will also change.

The loneliness and despair was incomparable. Sure, Jan was being a good and fair team player, doing his best to take care. But we’d only been together for two months, and it hadn’t been the rosiest road. More than anything, I wished I could beam one of my best friends over to that remote island. Someone who knows me, you know?
Really
knows me. In that night of complete and total darkness and emptiness, all I wanted was someone close to be there, to hold my hand, and tell me, “It’s going to be okay, Erin. It’s really going to be okay.”

And in some way, my dearest friends
were
there. Because I thought of them, and they were there.

And dawn came.