Visojit and Jal
Managers of the Foreigners' Guest House
Belur Math
(...and great guys!)
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11/20/05 – Saturday
JC’s parents are not up to the long excursion today, so Kamarpukur and Joyrambati will have to wait until the next incarnation. A DVD purchase in the monastery bookstore will probably do just fine.
JC taught the Foam some Hatha breathing exercises, then the two men wandered the Math grounds, visiting various gentle Swamis until time again for arati. This time it was easier to follow the ceremony and its allegories, which in some aspects must be the precursor of the Catholic Mass.
11/21/05 – Sunday
Tonight before arati, JC and the Foam sought out a palmist who plies his trade from 11AM-6PM from a sidewalk mat on the concourse leading to the monastery gate from Grand Trunk Road:
JC will always be somewhat poor, but will always move in intellectual circles. A 2 –year period of disease will be successfully overcome. At 52, he will find a wife. However, his lifeline is short.
The Foam is in for 3.5 years of difficult times, after which he will achieve about 70% (!) of his life goals and will acquire some notoriety in literature, spiritual matters or both. Saturn, Uranus, and Mercury are not his friends; Venus and the Moon decidedly are. He will live long and die suddenly (with only nominal suffering).
On the way back to the Math, the Foam puts an arm around JC and says, “JC, I’m very sorry to hear about your imminent demise. But look on the bright side: it could have been me.”
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From Left: Sri Vithya and her dad
from Malaysia; Susan from St. Louis;
Visojit and Jal; Mun Mun from Canada;
Sri Vithya's Mom
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11/22/05 – Tuesday
Return to the phenomenal world. JC, his mother and father and the Foam share a taxi to Howrah Station. Goodbyes are said in the roar of traffic at the Junction, where JC and his family are to catch a train back to Bubaneshwar. Later, the Foam finds out that JC’s dad wandered away and was lost in the station for over an hour until collared by a panicked JC.
The Foam slinks away to a luxury hotel in downtown Kolkata where he gorges on ham sandwiches and Coke and tries without success to sleep before the long flight from Kolkata to Heathrow.
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