In the Deep South

Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) is the capital of Kerala, in the southernmost parts of India. It is warm and some places down here are humid too. We stayed with Acarya Sadashivananda in his ashram on the outskirts of town, where he runs a KG cum primary school for some 50 children. A very pleasant large garden property with tall coconut and other palm trees. It rained very hard some times during our stay. Hundreds of people lost their lives and very many more their homes in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh states. The Ananda Marga people we stay with have therefore been busy in relief work. They are known for their expertise in removing dead bodies, cleaning out houses, distributing food stuffs, blankets, etc. -- not only in India but in most coastal south Asian countries especially after the 2006 tsunami. One night it rained so heavily that we could not go for the scheduled concert. Instead we listened throughout the night to the awesome drum beat of Mother Nature on the roof over our heads. Otherwise we attended two evenings of stunning vocal and dance performances at the Soorya festival here. The quality of classical south Indian art is something to be experienced, highly recommended! One day we visited Mysore, a historical royal city with a fantastic palace, grand temples, the vast Vrindavan gardens and other great sights. From Trivandrum we left for Bangalore and the AMURT relief HQs there where they were very busy rendering relief in areas hit hard by the rains, collecting funds amongst city people for the benefit of those suffering in the rural areas, etc. One night we were entertained at the home of Prabha, Sashirainjan and their two boys Dhyanesh and Devesh. We were much amazed by their level of education, which we found to be well beyond the Scandinavian. Devesh is 5 and spoke fluently with us in English and was able to show ample proof of his academic achievements in areas of writing, maths, etc. Dhyanesh rendered a beautiful song by Michael Jackson and played the keyboard very cleverly. We had a wonderful night with this most hospitable family. From Bengaluru (Bangalore) we left for Chennai (Madras) to attend the Ananda Marga Dharma Maha Sammelan (DMS) at a community hall there. It turned out a grand weekend with plenty of inspirational company of margiis from these parts of India, singing, dancing and meditating together, and listening to very good speeches by the spiritual head of the global Ananda Marga organization, the Purodha Pramukh. The food served at this meet three times a day was wonderful, south Indian specialties galore! We stayed at a nearby lodge and had a very good time indeed. Today we’re doing Chennai before leaving for Hyderabad tonight. It is very humid and well above 30 degrees here -- sweaty! From Hy'bad we will try to upload some more photos from the recent weeks for you. So long.