with Sri Ganesh

found that some sort of adhesive rope had formed from the inner surface of that first scar and that now a section of the upper intestines had stuck to it and bent on itself, creating an occlusion... During the next 48 hours I often felt I was in imminent danger of going mad, of bursting out, of “losing my mind”: this was like a torture chamber, as I was parked under dazzling flood lights, strapped on my back and attached and harnessed by various tubes and wires, and the noise level was relentless and filled with strange acoustic phenomena which I later realized were after effects of the anesthesia, amplified echoes merging into several languages and underscoring scenes and glimpses of hellish figures and repulsive entities which seemed to be all over around that large room… The nurses and personnel were all, but for one or two, raucous and dumb and brutal and callous and having their internecine bickering and it was all so hopeless and such an indictment of humanity… So, the only way was to gather myself into a quiet little knot of silence and just hold out. Whenever Dinesh, Arjun or Selvam could make a run for my bed past the distracted nurses and hold hands with me, it was like a grace and the only respite I got, as I couldn’t shift focus and remained all the while unable to sleep. The idea was to try and get me an individual room – everyone was bent on getting it, including Vikram himself who could see I sorely needed some quiet and privacy. I kept track all along of how Parthy was faring and both Dinesh and Bhaskar were daily making sure he had everything he needed and Jean Yves was seeing to the money flow. In the morning of the 17 th , Shiva and Selvam were finally able to secure a bed in a semi-private room shared by just one other patient; they wheeled me there a while before noon: they had themselves – Anand had also come by then - cleaned it and arranged some flowers and incense was burning and the whole corridor to the general ward was fragrant and happy in a way that made everyone smile and it was so graceful and quiet, after that hellish exposure, that I nearly cried with thankfulness to them, my friends… It was to me a very great gift. Right there and then, Krishna, Kamala and Arjun came to see me on their way back from the Ashram: that day, the following message had been distributed: “Our Path.

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