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| A beautiful morning darshan in Delhi with Swami wearing a special-colored robe |
First morning darshan in Delhi
It wouldn’t be nice to be late on the first morning darshan of the Divine visit to Delhi! So we hurried and reached the entrance of Swami’s residence building. But there was another surprise. We were suddenly told that Swami may visit our rooms! Oh God! This was not the way to leave the rooms if the Lord was visiting. With the enthusiastic volunteers helping us, we tidied up our rooms to almost aseptic proportions. I thought that since Swami had asked about our beddings last night, maybe He wanted to examine them today. In ten minutes, the rooms were fit for the Lord to visit. Having satisfied ourselves thus, we rushed towards Swami’s residence.
The bhajans were on and we heaved a sigh of relief when we noticed that Swami was not in sight. Punctuality is the art of guessing the time of arrival of the other person. Since Swami had not yet come, we were not late!
Our relief was short lived. The reason Swami was not in sight was because He had already moved to the stage and was lost in the bhajans! No wonder the singing and chorus volumes were so high! I told CG that we should immediately move out and begin filming. As we moved out and into the erected pandal, Swami began to searchingly look at me. I felt that He was looking out for where the others were. As I saw Swami, the colour of His robe struck me immediately. It was not the orange of saffron, one that I was so familiar with! It was a few shades darker and had a kind of special shine to it. It was definitely the first time that I was seeing Him in a robe like that and I presumed that either Delhi, as His host, had presented Him with that robe or Swami, as a gracious guest, had decided to bless the devotees at Delhi during the first morning darshan in that special colour.
The ladies’ and gents’ bhajan groups were right in the front on their respective sides and about five thousand people had crammed inside the pandal. Descending from the stage, I moved to the back along the barricades to take photos from all possible angles. That was when I saw the enormity of the crowd that had gathered and the large number of people outside the gates pining to enter and have a glimpse of the lovable form in red. I was touched at the devotion of the people and expressed deep gratitude to Swami for being able to see Him daily. It is sad that we need to see some deprivation to feel gratitude but that is human nature. I thought of all the times when I had cried about Swami not giving me an interview or interacting with me. Today, I was like the person who used to cry for shoes when he met someone without feet!
{This is the 3rd part of an ongoing series. You can read the previous part at this link:
Or you can read from the beginning. The link to Part 1 is here:
Even as I was taking pictures, Swami asked for Aarthi. I had come late for the session and thus it seemed to get over quickly. Also, I noticed that Swami did not seem to be in the best of health. He appeared a bit tired and so, He must be completing the session a little earlier. I moved to the front to take pictures of the persons waving the Aarthi and offering a rose to Swami. The person doing the Aarthi was apparently unfamiliar with the style at Parthi. He kept waving the camphor long after the “Narayana Narayana Om” stanza of the Aarthi had started. Swami told him to keep it down but he didn’t get it. I went to him and gently nudged him, telling him to place the Aarthi plate down. When he continued waving after that also, I took the plate from his hands and placed it down.
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| The first morning Aarthi at Delhi was not without its sweet little drama. |
