Hare Krishna
June 2, 2005:
Had to go back to the Holy Family Hospital this morning. On my way there, I got stuck in a terrible traffic jam for more than half an hour in sweltering heat. It was simply unbearable. But the visit to the hopital was great. The senior Ayurvedic doctor was again very helpful with his insights in the working of Ayurveda within the health care system of India. He tries to work for an integrated system of medicine where there is a healthy and complementary co-existence of allopathy, homeopathy, ayurveda etc. - just as it is in the Holy Family Hospital. I was lucky to see a treatment today. A 13 year old boy suffering from muscular dystrophy was massaged with a hot mixture of special kind of rice, milk and juice of ten roots. The technicians (or nurses)explained me in detail the preparation and working of the treatment, along with the Ayurvedic ideology behind it. It is nice to have people welcome you in treatment rooms rather than making you go through a series of procedures to obtain permission and all other crap. Since it is a missionary hospital, there were a few "sisters" working there. I talked to one of them who is actually an Indian but has been working in Africa for 10 years now. She was in the the treatment room with me to observe and learn. It was neat to have a Christian, Hindus and Sikhs (the 13 yr. old boy and his mother) in one room - all resorting to Ayurveda. I was touched when the nurse (very much a Hindu, a Vedic scholar at that) asked the sister to pray to her god(s) for the young boy as she left the room.
When I got back home, Nicole, I and my aunt decided to visit a city where Lord Krishna is believed to have lived. We visited two beautiful temples. One was a traditional temple where I got some cool picture of the sadhus. The entire decoration of that place was done with flowers - I have yet to see such intricate floral work. The other temple was an ISKCON (international society for Krishna Consciousness) Temple: G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S. There were a lot of "hare Krishna" people there - that's the Indian term for all the white people who convert and follow Krishna. They played such fantastic music at the temple - all the priests were chanting and dancing too. I loved it there, absolutely loved it. Oh, and I got the special dessert of that area (mathura ke pede)...sooo good. I think that is easily my weakness.
The drive was quite long and I'm just very tired...off to bed.
Why can't I just call to US and chat forever?
Had to go back to the Holy Family Hospital this morning. On my way there, I got stuck in a terrible traffic jam for more than half an hour in sweltering heat. It was simply unbearable. But the visit to the hopital was great. The senior Ayurvedic doctor was again very helpful with his insights in the working of Ayurveda within the health care system of India. He tries to work for an integrated system of medicine where there is a healthy and complementary co-existence of allopathy, homeopathy, ayurveda etc. - just as it is in the Holy Family Hospital. I was lucky to see a treatment today. A 13 year old boy suffering from muscular dystrophy was massaged with a hot mixture of special kind of rice, milk and juice of ten roots. The technicians (or nurses)explained me in detail the preparation and working of the treatment, along with the Ayurvedic ideology behind it. It is nice to have people welcome you in treatment rooms rather than making you go through a series of procedures to obtain permission and all other crap. Since it is a missionary hospital, there were a few "sisters" working there. I talked to one of them who is actually an Indian but has been working in Africa for 10 years now. She was in the the treatment room with me to observe and learn. It was neat to have a Christian, Hindus and Sikhs (the 13 yr. old boy and his mother) in one room - all resorting to Ayurveda. I was touched when the nurse (very much a Hindu, a Vedic scholar at that) asked the sister to pray to her god(s) for the young boy as she left the room.
When I got back home, Nicole, I and my aunt decided to visit a city where Lord Krishna is believed to have lived. We visited two beautiful temples. One was a traditional temple where I got some cool picture of the sadhus. The entire decoration of that place was done with flowers - I have yet to see such intricate floral work. The other temple was an ISKCON (international society for Krishna Consciousness) Temple: G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S. There were a lot of "hare Krishna" people there - that's the Indian term for all the white people who convert and follow Krishna. They played such fantastic music at the temple - all the priests were chanting and dancing too. I loved it there, absolutely loved it. Oh, and I got the special dessert of that area (mathura ke pede)...sooo good. I think that is easily my weakness.
The drive was quite long and I'm just very tired...off to bed.
Why can't I just call to US and chat forever?