Guruji's Birthday, July 18, 2008

Guruji’s birthday (see full set of pics and be sure to view it in slideshow). Up early. Jude greeted me with some Miso and a cup of chai. Wonderful! Early breakfast at Alia’s with the Scotts before going home to get ready for Guruji’s birthday party. We arrived a little after 11 to a large, very nice (by Indian standards) hall. This was Sharath got engaged and married apparently. It was a bit of a madhouse. Filled to capacity on the ground floor with theatre type seating and a stage at the front. Guruji and Saraswati were sitting at the side of the stage and there were a series of students performing various songs and dances. Most of the students in Indian garb and many many looking very uncomfortable wearing sarees for the first time. I opted for an outfit I had made at Badsha’s (not a saree).

Then Guruji went up on stage and the students formed a line to wish him a happy birthday. There was a minder trying to keep the line moving and trying to stop photos so that it wouldn’t take so long but people were milling at the stage with their cameras anyway. I got pictures of Peter and Jude with Guruji but they didn’t turn out very well. In fact most of my pics were blurry unfortunately. I got over confident with my camera and didn’t take doubles on the automatic settings.

When it was my turn I walked on stage, knelt and took the prana from the area of his feet. You couldn’t touch his feet because they were covered with flowers. This year for the first time they didn’t want you to touch his feet. Not sure why but it must have something to do with his health. I looked him in the eye and said Namaste, trying to convene my gratitude to him for what the practice has meant to me and what studying here, in this lineage means to me right now. I’m sure he got it on some level.

Dinner was amazing!!!! There were long, thin trestle tables with banana leaves and cups of water laid out. We mopped up the dew drops from the banana leaves and didn’t drink the water in the cups. Being Brahmin (of the priestly caste) they can only be served by Brahmin cooks and Brahmin servers. They were in the traditional garb of a lungi with a Brahmin “thread” over their shoulders. These Brahmin servers would come down the line with buckets of various foods (spiced rice, white rice, various subgee (vegetable) dishes both raw and cooked, rice pudding, some sort of coconut square, birthday cake and the real dessert of a huge pastry with icing sugar and some sort of custardy substance. This was all followed by more rice and curd (yogurt) which is supposed to cool you down after consuming all of the chilis in the subgees. I forgot to save the rice pudding to mix with the curd which is extremely sour so I didn’t have that. It was wonderful food but wayyy too much.

Rickshaw back home and a lazy night talking to Rachel. We had a really good chat (for about 6 hours...when do you ever have time to talk to someone in that depth???) She’s very disciplined. She’s got a beautiful practice, having practiced for 6 years and is getting a number of second series postures. She’s also a vegan and very strict. She cured herself from very bad rhumatoid arthritis a few years ago (she’s only in her mid 30’s as well). She’s made a commitment to come back here in January and hopes to come back several times over the next couple of years. She and her husband sound like a really interesting couple. She and I showed each other pics on our computers. She had a number of pics from the Burning Man festival which they go to every year. That’s on my list of things to do. So much to do in this big, wide world!!!!!