Shiva's House of Extreme Weight-Loss

If my body was my employee, I'd have it fired; if it was my Indonesian sweatshop employee, I'd have the military beat it first. My second day into this bold new adventure, I'm laid low, just as I have been in the first week of three other expeditions. I should be tougher; I should be impervious by now; the gravity of this opportunity should by itself compel me into the midst of adventure, rather than the bathroom.

But sheer force of will can't affect biology, which at the moment has my iron will violently dehydrating itself into a toilet shaped like a lotus blossom. This, I'm finding out, is Shiva's Revenge.

There are two points which bear explaining; first, the toilet.

"When I go to the West," Dr. Gupta explained, "I can't poo! The seat, it's too cold. I prefer my country's toilets," which are porcelain-lined holes in the floor flanked by grooved pads so you don't fall in; screw that up, and you can break an ankle. India, like Asia and much of the Far East, is the land of the squatty-potty; they consider a seat you rest your nether regions upon to be repulsive, which is how most of us view the act of balancing around a fetid hole in the floor.

So our toilet, in a facility that caters to guests from around the world, has a Western-style toilet with foot grooves molded into the bowl. Lift the seat and you can climb onto the toilet Indian-style, balancing with much higher stakes-screw that one up, and you can break your leg.

And now Shiva, from way back in the Hindu gitas…

Shiva is one of the primary manifestations of Visnu, the supreme and ultimate God. Brahma is the manifestation of God who created earth and all life, and Shiva is the yin to that yang--the manifestation which destroys things and clears them out.

As land must first be cleared before it can be developed, as bodies first must die before the Hindu soul can begin anew, so too is there a need for a force that undoes things and breaks them down, such that there may be progress on Earth. This is my Christian understanding of Shiva--equal parts Grim Reaper and Tyler Durden.

My biological understanding of Shiva is as a force currently purging my body of old Western food and my first meals here. I blame the samosa, the other one of which I hope the monkey is equally enjoying. Annie blames my sudden compulsory switch to vegetarianism. Dr. Gupta blames mysterious toxins from my Western life.

Shiva knows the truth.

I'm getting pretty good at twisting out of bed, landing on the floor, and lunging for the bathroom to arrive in a nick of time.

Mostly.

Three bottles of water, two doses of electrolytes, and the tragic end to my favorite boxers later, I beg for death and lose consciousness. In the morning Annie weighs me, and from my last check in the States, I'm down fifteen pounds.

Individual results may vary.

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