Day 4: Beauty in the Ordinary
Written By: SaiKeertana Ganta
Our morning routine was muscle memory by the 4th of July. Usually if we were back in the states, we would have celebrated a holiday we don’t really resonate with. Lighting fireworks to celebrate the independence of a country that was not technically ours. But this year we were back home at Haritachala, celebrating each and every moment, (even the ones where we woke up at 5 a.m.)
Today the geckos started off the morning by sitting in the mandir. Last year we used to journal and sing along to namam in the mandir, but this time we were encouraged to sing namam ourselves. A couple of geckos this morning, including myself, sang namam for the first time! Although mine started off to a rocky start, it was such a fulfilling experience to sing melodies with all the girls. To our surprise we met some of our Gurubandhus from the US in the mandir that morning, so it felt nice to sing to familiar faces.
After arati, the geckos and uncles all gathered around the campfire for our daily morning tea. This morning we had delicious rosella tea. This tea reminded a lot of us of different berries and sweet flowers. It immediately became my new favorite. Its tangy-ness mixed with the sweet syrup the aunties provided us, became the perfect recipe to a good morning.
The morning concluded with sports of our choice before we all gathered into the kitchen for breakfast. This morning we were so lucky to eat ammamma’s flavourful crunchy masala dosas. The kitchen was filled with laughter and stories of the previous days as Ramakrishna anna was making dosas faster than any machine ever could. With our hearts full and stomachs even fuller, we headed to GTR to learn how to make flower malas (garlands).
Vasundhara aunty and Pushpa aunty’s relationship is the friendship that we all aspire to reach when we grow older. Vasundhara aunty and Pushpa aunty both sat down across from each other with a bag of flowers in their hands and an objective to teach us all how to make malas. While we segregated flowers and distributed thread to everybody, Pushpa aunty started to teach the most basic way of making a mala. This way only required flowers, thread and brainpower. But to our surprise we really lacked the last part. Pushpa and Vasundhara aunty twisted the thread in a way that took us 20 minutes to comprehend. Every time they tightened their wrapped thread around the flower, the mala would gradually build with all flowers secured and in line.
After we had a great session with the aunties, all the geckos headed to lunch and had our comfort food of pappu annam and avakaya. Afterwards we all gathered in the bakery to continue our painting. As we set up our materials, some of us started to hum the melody of the namam we heard in the morning. Soon it became a mix of geckos painting the walls and a namam workshop. Before we knew it, everyone in the bakery was singing including the uncles. It was a nice and fulfilling moment for everyone to sing and teach each other different tunes.
On the other hand, us girls would wrap the thread and tighten it around the flower, and 9 times out of 10 would end up with an unraveled mala and a frown on our faces. Nonetheless, the aunties were determined to help us learn. We would ask how to do it, they would show us. We forgot 2 seconds later, they would show us again.. and again… and again. And soon enough we were laughing and helping one another create our best malas. The girls got so excited because now we would be able to help all the aunties back at home tie malas for satsangs. Pushpa and Vasundhara aunty taught us the most beautiful way to tie malas, and most importantly taught us that everything takes patience. If it doesn’t work once, try again and you’ll end up with something beautiful.
Soon after we finished up in the bakery it was time for our photography workshop. This day we were given the instructions by Dev uncle to capture architecture. We spent snippets of our day capturing parts of the farm that really spoke to us. In the end, Dev uncle gathered us all together and reviewed each and every photo we took. In addition, he also appreciated every photo and found beauty in things we wouldn’t have thought of. The time we spent with Dev uncle reminded us that every subject has beauty, you really just have to look for it. Just because it's ordinary doesn’t mean it's not beautiful. We ended the day with the classic challati perugu annam (curd rice), sharing our laughs and stories of the day back again in the kitchen. This day was full of activities, hard work, and bondings for all the geckos.