Ganesha Puja in Cabella: Part 1/4

Saturday (Marriages Morning)

We've been here since last evening, but it feels like a month's worth of excitement has been imbibed. Yesterday 112 marriages were announed with 92 or so actually expected to happen in a few hours.

This puja has a special tinge of Romanian hosting to it, compared to Australian hosted Ganesha pujas I've attended. However the highlight of yesterday's evening of mehendi was music by the Hong Kong /Chinese collective.

It was a personal explosion of joy to see a Romanian presentation of interpretive dance to khalil gibran's poems. I had just finished reading gibran's "thoughts and meditations" on the way to cabella.

This morning was haldi, and those who know cabella, know that the river turns a deep shade of yellow and the haldi party's noise echoes in the valley. I am yet to meet my "daughter" whom I have to give away in marriage later. I was "voluntold" to be a "father of the bride" last night.
Many Americans on the list, which of course adds to the excitemnt.

More later,
From the lunch queue

Gondhali

Gondhali, we are gondhali
Mother Nirmala's gondhali,
We are our mother,s gondhali

Gondhali, smearing some haldi
On grooms to be
For the world to see

We are gondhali by name,
Taking our time to go insane,
In our holy mother's name
We announce our devotedness

We are yearning for attention
But only the divine kind
We are waiting for perfection
For enlightening our minds

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Chinese version of mauli ne thothavile daar

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Another egg falls

Today, I saw another egg,
Attracted by a fatal incline
Made its way, heeding mental notions
Towards a slope that ends in a precipice

The egg, bound to smash,
Would release the bird within
But the shell has to die
And suffer the illusion of pain

Fights for the soul are as such futile,
They are only won,
By avoiding them

I see another, bird enter a cage
And await the spikes to pierce
The spike comes down,
But the bird goes on, staring in disbelief

I asked the bird, if he can extract,
This straw of deadly pain
And choose quick surgery,
Over slow death

The human mind, feeble,
As I have seem my own
Chooses slow sweet poison
Over quick bitter medicine

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High fly cafe

Yogis, waiting point at Malpensa airport.

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The journey begins at DTW

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row row row your boat

in ascent, we climb and slip
but we get up and climb again
somedays, we will take more steps
forward, some days more steps away

but the way of Ganesha, is to watch
the leaking holes in our boat
to have it in the corner of the eye
take care of it, and keep afloat

most hangups, drop off
as nothing can stick to the spirit
but there are holes in the soul
that take years to fix