Day 11 - 2000 word essay of my impressions of Dwarakimama

Dwarakinath uncle is a gregarious old chap who knows how to enjoy life as it comes at you. Alright, enough about that. Dwarakimama gave the assignment to write a 2000 word essay about my impressions of him. It is now a constant joke with us.

Happy Ugadi! It is the new year for Karnataka and Andra Pradesh. Their calendar is based on the moon so it does not have a specific date each year.

Dwarakimama woke me up at 6:30am to go get fresh milk. He rode his bike as I ran along side in my flippies. The usual puzzeled looks naturally accompanied the spectacle of the two of us together. It was a 1km jaunt to the ashram (basically a monastary or convent for Hindus). The cows had already been milked so we were served from a stainless steel container. His favorite part was of course feeding the cows the compost he had saved from the previous day. On the way home, he gave one liter to Sreevali, a neighbor and radiologist, whom I will probably shadow on Thurs.

After breakfast, we decorated for Ugadi. Mango leaves are hung over the front door and the God's room (this I will explain later) door. I was assigned to help with this because I of course did not need a stool to reach and attach the leaves. It was a good picture with myself standing next to Dwarakimama on his stool performing the same task. Aprameya was a great helper handing us the leaves and used matches. Later we cut and prepared a jack fruit. Yeah, I didn't know what it was either. It is huge though. Easily as big as my torso. It is a meticulous process and we had a good time dissecting each seed pod. Aprameya and I then played. He was fascinated by my juggling and adventured to give it a try (keep practicing buddy). We then played 'ball'. I think all games with balls are just called ball because this in no way resembled what we had played before. We of course played ball in the fort that he had made while I was extricating the jack fruit. Oh to be 5 again and be able to have that much fun with so little. What imaginations kids have.

For the festivities of Ugadi, we went to the Rajarajeshwari (Goddess of knowledge) temple. It is located in the ashram where we got the milk. The ashram started the school which Dwarakimama and Ratna aunty work at. We met the guru there, Swami G, and spoke with him for about 10 minutes. We then went through the temple which was again a very different experience for me. My understanding of deity is very different than what Hindus believe and I am trying to understand their beliefs better.