Idli-sambar

When I think about Tiruvannamalai, the ashram and the mountain while sitting here at home it all looks so perfect, so divine. But when I am there, it feels slightly different. I think when I am there, the mind is expecting a miracle or a mystery any moment and in the procees does not recognize what it is going through fully. But once out of those surroundings it recognizes at once what it has missed. I feel I have never been able to fully immerse in that atmosphere the way I like. And yet there have been many significant experiences of my recent life in that area.

I feel an urge to write lot of things about my impressions there but it is a question of where to start and what to write. And it is also a question of doubt. I doubt that I will be unable to capture the full feelings of the atmosphere in words. Even if I attempt, I fear what I am going to describe might be discounted as merely my idealism for the place and my inclination for glorifying frivalous experiences. It will not carry the palpability of the situations the way I felt them and continuing to feel again and again.

For example, the tastes and sights of those idlis, sambar and chutneys on wet green banana leaf after walking 14km around the hill. Having entered the hustle-bustle of the town, tired and exhausted, I settle into one of those high-traffic mid-range south indian restaurants near the bus stand. The restaurant is full of people's chatter, full of air, flooded with white tubelights and fans running overhead. Once I sit down on one of those simple chairs fabricated from steel pipes and granite topped table, and loosen up extending my arm on next empty chair, I start to feel my breathing and exertion more clearly. Behind me there is continuous noise of vehicles on the road and in front of me, the scene of people eating which I admire so much. I silently observe their ways, their chatter and their food with my tired but calm gaze. At this point I am hungry and feel anything served quickly will taste like heaven, but when the idlis/plain dosa and sambar along with two chutneys arrive and I see them placed, poured and splashed on my green leaf one after another by one of many annas or ammas doing the rounds, I feel that, it is just a start of the gustational bliss that is going to last for next 15 minutes and then linger on my mind forever.