We had another good weekend. Susi came over from ithaca, NY. She was visibly happy and excited to get a break from her usual routine at cornell. We visited Balaji Temple at Bridgewater. As always on a saturday night, it was flooded. There was a group of non-indian visitors, possibly from a community group, curiously stopping at every idol-house and astonished at the rituals, bhajans, dressings, jewellery etc. A japanese turned over to me, as we were doing a pradhakshanam ( a walk around an idol-house ) and asked me, why everyone is standing patiently in a line, to touch the brass bell hanging from the top, to make that sound (it sometimes is annoying when nobody around expects it). I was very happy to explain to him the reason, which i read incidentally, from one of this little books, that came as a gift to our wedding, from Swamini Vimalananda of Chinamay Mission, Coimbatore. The book explained the reasons behind some of these procedures that we do at home and in temples and at time on streets ( slashed pooshnikkai ! ).
The reason for using the brass bell in Hindu temples is to block and arrest those other unwanted noises coming from elsewhere. This more often happens during aradhana of the diety, when holy vedic hymns are recited. It also helps to grab everyone’s attention towards the diety and force them to listen to hymns instead of talking.
On our drive back home, susi mentioned that she wanted to see brookly bridge. I said no big deal. We drove straight into holland tunnel ( we live just off the entrance to holland tunnel ) and across manhattan and into the bridge. We didnt realize we were in manhattan bridge, until i looked over to see brooklyn bridge to my right. We took a short trip into brookly and turned around and this time I made sure we drove into Brooklyn bridge. Susi was happy. It seems she had a poster of the bridge in her bedroom and had always wanted to see it.
The rest of the weekend went pretty quick and here I am on this monday morning meeting spree. Got to go for next one, bye
