Saturday, April 16th, 2011

Coincidence?

Triolet, Mauritius

Jet-lag still haunts me and so sleep was rather restless. I don’t know what engine I’m running on. The evening was hosted by a family from a town named Flacq. Our hosts Amar and Priya have relatives, acquaintances from Milton, Canada.

It is the third day on foot in Mauritius and it was a brief 10 kilometres. A windy road and a cane plant backdrop appear wonderfully usual each day. Leaves of the banana trees flap in the breeze sliding along each other looking like a man rubbing his hands. For the most part my companions and I move in the dark. There’s less distraction that way. Concentrating on sound comes easier, the sound of the name of Krishna which is uttered over and over again.

Thierry saw to it that I reach the Bon Accueil temple for the 8 o’clock class. The verse of the day was Krishna speaking of the effort made by sage Narada who had compassion on the two wealthy sons of Kuvera. Because a saint made the endeavour to help these intoxicated brothers Krishna expressed His obligation to further help them by awarding them liberation.

Great questions evolved from our discussion regarding compassion. A little more on this topic became my experience when a portion of the day was devoted to theatre workshop. It was day number two for some youth to come to me for lessons. I used the word compassion in this regard since I was compelled to conjure up some new ways for approaching improvisation.

Finally by late afternoon a hefty figure of 1500 devotees turned up for one of five Chariot Festivals held annually in Mauritius. Today’s was a procession on the main drag of Triolet culminating with a darshan (deity viewing) and kirtan chanting at the newly built temple of Rukmini Dwarkadish.

The day was nothing short of glorious. As I lay down to rest I marvelled at the coincidence, if you will, of the two large arjoon tree branches that fell in front of our pilgrim group yesterday. It reflects on the story of the two sons who became cursed as arjoon trees and then fell to land in Krishna’s own courtyard. Their punishment for indecent exposure was to be born as this species of trees. Their curse became a benediction.

15 KM