Rama Navami Session

Rama Navami Free Write

An African boy

These are pictures of Africans.

I’m in Trinidad where the majority of the population is of African descent and a large minority is dark-skinned Hindu descent. We will next go to Guyana where the population is the same with the slight majority of Hindu descent. In Trinidad it is warm and humid. I used the air-conditioner last night, but it became too cold. Now I have my kurta off, and we are running an electric fan. Today is Rama Navami, and I plan to attend the temple tonight and give a reading of Lord Ramacandra’s pastimes from Srimad Bhagavatam. Then I will stay for the arati as long as I can do it.

It has been difficult chanting my sixteen rounds because of the heat and no comfortable chair. I have been lying on my back in bed with two pillows and chanting silently and at a pace that is not too rapid. I am not even sure whether I am on my twelfth’s or on my sixteenth round, it has become so difficult to concentrate.

I see small mangos slowly ripening on the trees in their backyard. They have difficulty in sending the journal on internet, and we will be lucky if we get successfully all the postings done and done on time.

One of the pictures shows tribesmen (maybe Watusis) leaping high in the air. The Trinidadian devotees do a wild kirtana with high jumping and twirling and much sweating. In years passed I used to join in it, now I have to sit in the chair and watch. But the devotees do not expect me to dance. They just want me to be with them and chant and smile. That much I am able to do.

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