Birthday...

...at home

Ever since I got a new apartment and named it after my Guru as Akshara Griha (Akshara's Home), I've been on the move. I used to love the vibrations of peace, calm and tranquility that surrounded the bright house which gave lots of room for a piece of the Universe inside it. My only job there was to do some cleaning and sitting quietly on a sofa in meditation. Everything else happened.Now, going around the city of Chennai on my car, I discovered that it was Akshara Griha that was moving around. The atmosphere around me at office, relatives' homes where I have stayed, friends places or wherever I went had the same character to it - cleanliness, order, peace, tranquility, joy, fun, alertness and energy. It continued in Mumbai where I stayed with a volunteer of the Akshara Foundation, Devika, in her 10th floor paradise at Kopar Khairane in new Mumbai. That felt like my home and not like someone else's. I visited the homes of other volunteers to be pampered with hospitality and everywhere I was at home in the smiles and hugs. Sitting on a steamer going around the Arabian Sea near Gateway of India, I was at home in the placid waters and the chill winds beating against my face.I continued to feel at home aboard Air India, listening to Hindustani Music and stories of Ganesha and Krishna being told by Karadi the Bear. Felt at home to see the smiling air hostesses, waiting to serve with a smile.At the Frankfurt Airport, the woman staff who said, "All passengers to Chee-ca-goo come to the left," felt like a familiar voice. Practising exercises at the lounge to break the monotony of constricting seats on the flight felt no different.Talking to a special child on board who told me to get some food for her as she was hungry and her guardians were sleeping, was a familiar scene of loving children whom I teach at the Aksharabhyas chanting classes in Chennai.At the O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, when a staff helped me with the luggage and accompanied me to the lobby to help me find out who has come to pick me up, was very much like what happened in Chennai and Mumbai when people helped me get my luggage on the trolley.Meeting my brother-in-law and driving home to Western Springs, to meet new-born Rishabh, his mother and grandmother was just like getting back home away from home.At the end of this all, keeping in tune with loved ones through Yahoo Messenger, e-mail and on my blog - I find that Akshara Griha is everywhere. I am now reminded of James A. Michener's autobiographical non-fiction the title and last line of the book are the same: The World Is My Home.

*****