The Beginning: Fall 2017 Trip to Amritapuri, India

I traveled to Amritapuri for five weeks this past August and September so that I could participate in three festivals, Ganesh Chaturi, Krishna Jayanthi and Onam. I hadn’t attended the festivals since 2005 because it didn’t feel right to leave my therapy groups so soon after having missed them for parts of Amma’s Summer North American tour. I had retired the end of May, though, so I now had the freedom to travel at any time of year.

Another major reason I have chosen to go to Amritapuri the end of November each year, instead of August, is because I love to be in Amritapuri prior to and during the annual Christmas play. My daughter Chaitanya writes and co-directs these Broadway style musicals and my son Sreejit and his friends write the tunes for most of the songs and work with the musicians and singers. I love to watch the script come to life and become so much more than words on a page.

While being at the ashram for the play is of major importance to me, I did not consider it an option to come to India twice. The 24-hour trip, along with a 13 1/2 hour time difference, is very hard on my body and the thought of facing jet lag, within months of having recovered from it, was most uninviting. I did not plan to return for the play this year.

I love the joke- Question: “Do you know how to make God laugh?” Answer: “Tell him your plans for your life.” This was certainly one of those experiences. I knew even before I left India in September that I would probably come back in December.

About a week before the end of my last trip, my son and daughter let me know they wanted me to return for the play. I knew that was true and I wanted to be there too, but that wasn’t enough to get me to change my mind. I gave them plenty of rationalizations for my choice.

The next morning, I woke up to find an email from a neighbor in my inbox. She told me that her landlady had informed her that her granddaughter was going to move into the house and that she would need to find another place to live by the beginning of October. Another neighbor had said that I used to have roomers, so she wanted to know if I would consider letting her rent from me.

It has been a long time since I’ve had a roommate, but I have been considering the possibility of doing that for awhile. That fact, combined with the synchronicity of the request, i.e. coming the morning after I’d had the interaction with my children, did not escape me. This development would certainly take care of my money excuse.

During that day, it also occurred to me that the person who normally house-sits for me when I’m in India was going to be in India himself this year, so having her as a roommate would solve that problem. And the third synchronicity was that only days before, I had published a post on this blog saying that I knew I needed to become more inter-dependent and less overly-independent. I decided I was willing to consider the possibility  of having her as a roommate, and I was also willing to consider returning to India for the play.

Skipping forward to December 11, I have had a roommate for almost three months. That was a remarkably easy transition for both of us, and I was on my way back to India, still dreading the flights and the jet lag but looking forward to being with Amma, Sreejit, Chaitanya, my Amritapuri friends, watching the play practices and the performance, and experiencing all that I will experience on this visit.