Saturday, 12 September 2009
Friday, 11 September 2009
Lifetime Experience !!!
What an experience it was!!! All along I had been chatting with my orkut friend IIRAMII so many times about Bapu and how I am holed up here and may never get a chance to visit Bapu, when my great friend who has been such a guide to me by the grace of Bapu conveying all the news and keeping me uptodate on the activities told me that there is a Ramkatha in London. I could not beleive it. It was in July and I knew it much before that I believe it was in April itself. How can I describe the events that unfolded then, I was supposed to leave for India in July, I had a sad feeling I might miss the katha and to top it all, I might not even the details. I have never attended the katha and I did not know the approach to the katha or anyone. Cant believe the grace as the day dawned near and I was checking the site and wanted to find out where I can go to the katha, what to do about the tickets and how much it will cost and can I get to go there everyday. I did not know a thing, but I kept looking at the IIRAMII site expecting some information, except for the email-id there was only the status of Awaiting Information. I just Emailed frantically asking for the ticket information and then to my utter surprise, an email arrived from the sponsor itself saying Jaisiyaram! by all means come, there is no ticket. What joy it was as I could attend whenever I want and how many times I want, this was the greatest moment of my life. Here I was thinking whether I could even hear a live katha in my life, when right next to my doorstep was Wembley Arena with a free ticket, I could attend all the 9 days. This was fantastic what else I could expect, nothing more. It was the greatest of the 9 days I had in my life. The centre was so accessible, I had the travelcard and time and whatnot. Cant describe anymore, words just fail to express it more.
Everyday taking the Metropolitan line, the same line I take to my office, I think of the 'bapu' train expecting that it will go to Wembley Arena to hear the Ramkatha again. Those 9 days I used to see fellow devotees on the Metropilitan train, it was like going to a wedding. A Wonderful experience. Sometimes as I near the Arena, I would start to speed up and run to get inside, it was quite a walk from the Wembley Park station after coming down so many steps and walking towards the arena I would feel the rush coming closer.
What about the great Hanuman, when on the first day I attended and was walking along the huge pathway towards Wembley Arena from the Wembley Park Station and upon seeing the venue building, I felt within myself the feeling that Lord Hanuman was inside ready to listen to the divine Rama Nama by Bapu. And just as it was inside the huge hall there was a massive placard of Lord Anjaneya listening to Bapu. On all 9 days Lord Hanuman was there. The arena is blessed to have the ramanama chanted by Morari Bapu. On the 3rd day morning I went it was so near to office and then got to sit so close to the podium and that was an unforgettable experience. Here I was in London on a working day and I am sitting in the morning in front of Bapu and listening to Ramkatha, how is all this possible when I could not even think or dream of listening to a ramkatha. Imagine on this day after listening to the Katha I wanted to rush back to the office but there was a crowd and a huge queue waiting for the prasad and I was thinking to myself, no I wont have prasad as I will be late for office. I wanted to come out of the venue when to my surprise the path I took landed me straight into the counter and I got prasad. I cannot describe it anymore. Another day I was sitting on the side gallery just across the podium and saw bapu so close, we all called out Jaisiyaram and Bapu looked at us. The most fantastic thing was Bapu mentioned in the discourse that there are people from Tamil Nadu in chennai and they like idli and dosa and they are very devotional and they also attend katha. This was astonishing. On an another instance we were talking why we did not hear Bapu mention Lord Murugan and out comes the statement, Bapu told about Karthikeyaswamy. One thing that was amazing as I was constantly worrying that I dont understand a word of Gujarathi, when to my utter surprise I found that in the iiramii site there was nice new Adobe pdf documents with detailed points Everyday on the katha. I was trying to capture the sanskrit verses on my mobile when now I could find that on the website itself. This was amazing. Another instance Bapu set my heart at rest when he mentioned that one of the Bhakthas were openly saying with a message, ' I dont understand Gujarathi or Hindi, but if I just sit there I am happy though'. This was the same feeling I had so I did not feel out of place there. Altogether I cannot describe Lord Hanuman and Bapus leelas or even begin to understand it, just took it as it came. I am awaiting another such experience If I could get!!!!! JAISIYARAM!!!! JAISIYARAM!!!! HARE RAMA RAMA RAMA RAMA RAM RAM RAM!!!
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