Mangalore

We never know at what time we leave. It depends on when Darshan ends.
I was still lying on my mat, when I heard Priyan call out for big bags and bed rolls to be loaded. We're leaving within the hour. I sprang up, washed, took the mosquito net down, rolled up my bedding, zipped my duffle bag and was out of the door in ten minutes.
I was in my seat when Bhavya, my Neapolitan friend, climbed on the bus.
“I am looking for a river,” she said. “Tell me if you see one, I have to throw this coconut in a river.”
“As soon as I see one, you’ll be the first one to know,” I assured her.
“I did a Rahu Pooja, and now I have to throw the coconut in a river:”
For the next few hours we examined every lake, puddle, ditch, marsh and rice field.
“Are you sure it’s a river?” she would ask. “It has to be a river, it has to flow.”
At our C & P stop we see water in the distance and I tease her that the Ganges has been brought over, so that she can throw her coconut in it.
In the early afternoon there came a moment when all the elements fitted together. We were driving past a river (I think it was a river), the bus had slowed down and we were close enough to it.
“Now, Bhavya, now! Throw, hard as you can!” I shouted.
“Are you sure it’s a river?”
“Throw for God’s sake, or we’ll be stuck with this coconut forever.”
“OK, ok, I am throwing,” she says leaning across me to the window and raising her arm.
By now Lars and Kaivalya (the doctors) were laughing.
“Goal! Naples scores, one to nil;” I announced.
“Are you sure it was a river?”
At about three thirty we stopped at a coffee curing farm for lunch and as we sat on the grass, Amma served everybody their food. By four thirty we had climbed back on our buses for the next stretch of the drive. The downhill roads were steep, narrow, full of potholes and oncoming traffic. For what seemed like hours, we proceeded at ten miles an hour. But I had limited my drinking to small sips and in the “water” department, I was ok.
It wasn’t until eleven that we found an open field where we could stop for dinner and as usual the local police took up their position as Amma’s escort.
I stood behind Amma’s chair and watched her pass the dinner plates to everyone and I was struck anew by the energy and love that emanated from her being. This journey was challenging me at all levels; physically, mentally and spiritually and yet I felt that in travelling with Amma I was in a privileged position.
“God’s love in a human form,” was how Jane Goodall had introduced Amma to the UN, when she was given the Gandhi-King award. I was experiencing that love, as had the thirty million throughout the world that she had already hugged. For now though, we still had to get to Mangalore. It was three in the morning when we drove through the gates of the program site, on the grounds of Amma’s local school.
I quickly found my room, a classroom on the fourth floor, and chose a prime spot in a corner by one of two windows. Next we all helped unload the luggage and by the time I staggered up the steep stairs to my patch on the floor, I was panting and wishing that someone would carry my luggage and that I would be climbing into my own comfortable bed. Still, I kept going. I have become quite good at setting up camp. In Bangalore I bought a clothes’ line and a large straw mat. The thermarest is really narrow, but with the straw mat underneath, my knees and elbows wouldn’t spill on to the floor every time I turned. And using the clothes line to put the mosquito net up, my little corner on the floor didn’t quite look like a center hall colonial, but it looked quite cozy nevertheless, and gave me some privacy from the other sixteen women in the room. I still mind waiting in line for the bathroom or a bucket shower, but not as much, and my own showers are shorter so as not to keep the next person in line waiting too long. I haven’t worn make up since I left home and neither have I seen myself in the mirror very much (I don’t have one) and I have to say that it is a freeing experience.
I do miss my family terribly, even more now that my newly acquired Indian cell phone will not allow me to make any outgoing calls, even though I have a thousand rupees credit.
Anyway, that’s it for now. I have to go and do my two to five veggie chopping shift, that’s my seva (selfless service) on the tour.
Oh, one last thing, through the coconut trees from my room, I see what looks like a bay and boats that resemble Venetian gondolas.
Next stop will be Hyderabad a two day bus ride from here.

Baci e Abbracci,
Esmeralda

PS. Yesterday Amma consecrated a new Brahmasthanam Temple here in Mangalore. I have no time to go into details now (I will in the book) but I wanted to mention it at least. What an extraordinary experience.
In the early evening I went for a swim in the sea (the Arabian sea) with Kaivalya and Lars, and even though I was wearing a cumbersome Indian dress, I enjoyed it. There was a dog on the beach, he had caught some small prey and an eagle came and took it from him. The dog looked really bewildered and ran after the eagle, but soon gave up as the bird was quickly back up in the sky.