Rishikesh bills itself as the Yoga Capital of the World, where the Beatles found their guru and the banks of the Ganges are lined with ashrams where one take undertake all kinds of meditation and yoga courses. Haridwar, an hour further downstream, offers much more stringent courses which require silence and prayer and thus most foreigners end up in Rishikesh.

Settling into the cute little Green Hotel, I wondered how I would find a suitable course. But as the Zen saying goes, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear" I ran into a woman who suggested the course in the back of the same Green Hotel I resided at.

Popping in for the evening class at 5:30, I found about a dozen other western backpackers being led by Pankaj, the 28-year old instructor. Fluent in English and very knowledgable in physiology, Pankaj led the group in some vigorous asanas, aimed more at intermediate practitioners, though a beginner could endure most of his course.

Unlike the more aerobic version typically found in US health clubs, we worked on iyegar yoga, with the focus on the correct assumption of each asana, held for several minutes. Pankaj wandered the room, correcting us sometimes with a gentle nudge or by leaping on our backs to help in a stretch (like 'child's pose').

He exhorted us with contradictory and seemingly impossible and incomprehesible instructions, "hit the thigh, pull the knee up, expand the chest, open the shoulders, close the hands, move through your pelvis, tuck under the sacram, elongate the vertebre." It resembled a sadomasochistic game of 'Twister.'

We stood on our heads, our shoulders, our hands, contorted into impossible shapes, all now candidates for Cirque de Soleil. Each day after class, I staggered to my room and luxuriated in the hot shower, from a bucket, of course! Afterwards, a meal of pasta or thali at one of the local restaurants before retiring at ten o'clock.

With no alcohol and a strict veggie diet for the past few weeks, I feel great! These holy cities in India forbid meat and alcohol, though not super strict, I have not yet found any booze or even eggs around here!

After morning yoga, I spend the day walking along the banks of the river; or lying upon one of the rocks, shaped like a lounge chair, reading. I saunter up to a cafe overlooking the town and dine on veggie chow mein, or a latte and a peice of homemade apple pie. Then I'd wander around more, taking in the peaceful Himalayan foothills amidst the soothing sound of the water.

The week passed quickly and with belt several notches tighter, and buns of steel, and able to grab my ankles and touch my face to my shins, I left for Dehli, where my own sadhana would end and I will live large with my Mom for the next ten days, aboard the Palace on Wheels through Rajastan.

I stood transfixed still watching the fire; something eluding the grasp of my brain. I flashed back to my time in the gulf when we rampaged through Kuwait on the heels of the Iraqi army, torched tanks and trucks lining the road, evidence of the relentless air war waged on the occupiers of Kuwait. The Iraqi soldiers...

It hit me. The log this guy kept pushing back into the fire was no log at all. The sticks he smashed with the bamboo were no sticks at all. The log was the blackened torso of a cadaver, being cremated at the Manikarnika Ghat, the most auspicious place for cremation on the Ganges in Varanasi. He was breaking the arm bones and pushing the corpse back into the heart of the fire. Deep down, I knew this all along, but sometimes the mind takes a moment to grasp what seems so unacceptable, a human body being burned on an open fire.