Auspicious B'day :)

Kavadiyas in Saffron

This was the first time my b’day coincided with Shivaratri. And Meerut proved to be the best place to be in on this day. Thousands of Kaavadiyas, all in saffron, who had been walking for past several days, bringing holy water of ganges on foot from Rishikesh offered it to Shiva in various temples. The kaavads, in which they carry the water are not put on the ground since they start walking.  Meerut roared with the sound of Har Har Bam Bam. The roads which were blocked for them to pass were finally open.

Amongst all this started my day, after attending calls till 2 last night, the first call being my Mom’s. J Two hours of Sadhana followed by Rudra Puja chanting were the perfect start. I had planned to make Banana Caramel for the whole big family I am living with and went out to get the ingredients. But it turned out to be a 2 hour adventure ride because no one in Meerut knew what is Cocoa powder and they kept showing me some white powder instead which was I guess was coconut powder. And when I used to ask anyone where I would get it, they would tell me a place which was no good because the accent here is such that you can only guess what they are saying by matching the words they speak with the closest ones you have in your dictionary. Anyways finally I found it at a shop and the result was worth. It was yum, I served it with a big scoop of vanilla ice-cream.   

After this was our follow up (another adventure due to some venue issues :P), I did long Kriya after almost 40 days. The guard of our venue said that the electricity could go off any minute and we did not have batteries. And the power went off right when the Kriya was over :). As I opened my eyes, I had my b’day cake in front of me which Monika didi had brought. She is a lovely lady and is superb in managing hundreds of things along with the toughest of them, Shraddha, her daughter. We celebrated and they did everything to me that reminded me of my wing in the hostel. B’day bums were special. They asked my age and bounced me up in the air 22 times. I was remembering our Swami Ji in Ashram who is 101 yrs old ;). From there, Shubham took me to Abu Lane where he bought me my b’day gift :).

P.S. I received my first international b'day wish on my phone ;).