black coffee musceli, fruit and curd

the prison fare at the local cafe, inmates welcome sign on the door as the latest and greatest guru ji comes to town and threatens to shut down all traffic in all directions as hundreds of thousands of brown and white devotees flock in multi colored garland bedecked buses from everywhere around the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. i knew trouble was coming when i saw wooden poles with three foot fluorescent light bars lining both sides of the road around his temple worship spot last night, lighting the usually dark road into brilliant highlight, making it almost impossible to see the stark squalor behind the lights. this morning police and orange robed devotees filled the grandiose portico drenched in hanging ginger blossoms  sadhus began collecting expecting a generous crowd. the usually quiet tiruvanammalai road that goes round Mount Arunachala will be once again dangerous to navigate as hundreds of mammoth buses fill the roads forcing traffic to screech and twist to allow them passage, like a bull elephant among pygmy warriors. all gives way to the mighty bus. the air is heavy with moisture and seems almost coastal though we are hundred kilometers from the bay of bengal. i am wearing my only longsleeved shirt this morning in deference to the chill especially as i take my scooter through the streets at early 7am. the life in india seems to be such a passion for contrast with the US. the ox carts and ox plows in the fields, the uniformed schoolchildren filling the streets at 2:30 in such an outburst of energy and delight. all the patient and stoic people of the village, sitting in the shade and moving slowly, barefoot on the streets. the quiet knowing suffering of the population, without money or possesions, the old sadhus, who stare at the mountain all day,   they have a serenity and a sense of  place and purpose in their hearts, nothing changes here and once you have grown into your place it is yours and you are it. this is the fate of india. all is static amidst the noise and the chaos of life, all is fixed in place eternally bowing to whatever fate the gods decree.