So today was Guru Nanak’s Birthday (Sikhism’s first Guru). We prepared Daal and curried veg (subjee) yesterday in village feeding quantities. Today was for cooking and honouring. The Daal and Subjee were cooked over fires in pots that would have been sufficient as a small children’s paddling pool. The way that serving one’s fellow human is enshrined in Sikhism is inspiringly exemplary. Their most holy site – The Golden Temple in Amritsar feeds over 100000 pilgrims a day all on donations and the wo/man power of volunteers. Today there were not quite 100000 people…in fact more like 100 + during the day, but each was given tea and fed till they could take no more.
Initially I served as Chai wallah…or to be more specific, I was assistant Chai wallah, which meant I put down the cups and my 11 year old boss poured the tea. Prior to this I was glad to be of aid to those who were preparing the two giant Japati-cooking fire pits. In seeking to light the fire they had taken smoldering logs from another fire and were trying to throw small sticks at them until, by some miracle, fire appeared. The result was enough smoke to flavour a river’s worth of salmon. Remembering my Indian mother’s technique of blowing down a metal tube, which rifles oxygen right to the heart of the embers to emblaze them, I did the same and the flames burst to life almost instantly.
(incidently, I can’t believe there’s such a word as ‘emblaze’. What a great word…but now that I think about it, I’ve known of the word ‘emblazoned’ for ages, so perhaps I shouldn’t be quite so astonished)

After Wallahing the chai, I helped to serve the kheal (Indian rice pudding). Daal and subjee to the village men and women. Once everyone had been fed, I was a little worried at the amount of waste that seemed to be left over. But this is India. There then began a steady stream of Labourers and labourers children from the fields each of whom was fed, and each of whom went home clutching a tiffin (Indian lunch box) with a hearty meal for their families that evening.

After washing up and packing away the paddling pool cooking pots, I grabbed a well earned power nap and relaxed in front of the India vs Australia cricket. An early evening’s walk gave me the opportunity to harvest my favourite kind of medicinal herb, in preparation for Nav’s arrival in December.

Tomorrow I move to the school. I am hoping the dial up connection may be able to handle at least the copying and pasting in of a blog post…but we shall see. There is also a rumour broadband may be possible. I intend to follow this up post haste and with vigour.

Some decent poetry of late too. Will up load once I’m reunited with my laptop.

Much love.
xx