with Sri Ganesh

To walk on the path you must have a dauntless intrepidity, you must never turn back upon yourself with this mean, petty, weak, ugly movement that fear is. An indomitable courage, a perfect sincerity, a total self-giving to the extent that you do not calculate or bargain, you do not give with the idea of receiving, you do not offer yourself with the intention of being protected, you do not have a faith that needs proofs – this is indispensable for advancing on the path, this alone can shelter you against all dangers.” Later that same day, Shiva managed to secure a fully private room – which he’d been trying to obtain for several days; I was quite willing to stay put, but he and Arjun insisted that it would be so much easier to be independent, as anyone of us could also stay with me freely and a little comfortably at night and it would be so much quieter without any strangers or even nursing staff barging in any time of night and day… This new room was not very clean and was quite ugly and dark and its only window gave out on a garbage-strewn courtyard, well-visited by big rats, but it was “ours” and we could turn it into a bit of home. Dinesh brought a music player, pictures were added, shawls were laid on the couch and bed… Ganapathy joined the team and took turns with Bhaskar, Anand, Selvam and Jean Yves to be with me at night. More friends could now come and stay with me a while – John and Walter and Luca and Mechtild, and Pnina who, working on her new book in the Ashram had had no idea of what had happened until I sent her a message to explain why I hadn’t come to her, and Mikael and Deepti and Selvam’s wives and Kavitha, and Parthy’s parents and Parasu and Prabha and Pallavi and Arunasalam and his wife and Tania.; and Dinesh brought Aurevan as well, before he had to leave for his tour of the South. Parthy was getting very upset that, when everyone else could come freely, I wasn’t allowing him to see me; but I wanted to be first freed from all the tubes, so as not to remind him of his own experience as having spread over to me. And it wasn’t until the following Saturday that Vikram, seeing that my abdomen was almost back to its normal size and the bowels were no more swollen, gave permission for me to have my first sip of water and, soon after that, of coffee and juice and coconut water, and then soup and, after 48 more hours, my first semi-liquid food… Yes, 36 years had gone by since You had left the body…

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