THE WORLD IS SURELY A SMALL PLACE!

[Guest guest]

THE WORLD IS

SURELY A SMALL PLACE!

My marvelous

world tour in September and October of 2009 had many interesting experiences

that made me realize that the world is surely a very small place.

When Doris

and Rajudev dropped me off at the San Francisco international

terminal after a great time in California,

the last thing I was expecting was to have another "the world is a small place"

experience.

The security officer

checking my passport at the passenger entry point had a look at it and then looking

at me asked, "Are you from Pondicherry?'

Having become accustomed to officials having doubts about this white guy with

an Indian passport, I was half expecting to have to make a detailed explanation

when he started talking in chaste Tamil. He then introduced himself as a native

of Cuddalore, a town just 20 kilometers down the coast from Pondicherry. You can very well imagine so

many new brain cells popping open in my head as I realized the amazing

situation where I was literally halfway around the world and then I go and hand

over my passport to a guy hailing from so near my hometown of Pondicherry!

The Berlin part of my tour

gave me a chance to meet the Sangeet Bird, a wonderful student of Swamiji's

correspondence course. She and I have had an immense amount of email

correspondence over the past many years with regard to a variety of topics

under the sun and so had a great time together when we met physically for the

first time. Imagine my surprise when after a few hours of lovely conversation, I

came to know that she had a friend in Pondicherry.

Upon further discussion it turned out that one of my close colleagues in the

Auroville Health Centre, Dr Uma was actually an old classmate of hers from her

school days in the Lawrence

School near Simla!

Of course the

best example of this "Small world" phenomenon was when we went to dine out at a

South Indian restaurant in Berlin

and enjoyed the lovely authentic Masala Dosa. When I complimented the owner on

it and started talking to him, I came to know that the chef in the kitchen was

from Pondicherry!

Not only that but he was from an area that was very close to the old ashram in

Lawspet where I grew up. Imagine my going all the way to Berlin

and having a Dosa cooked by a guy from Pondicherry.

 

What are the

odds on that?

 

 

-- Yogacharya Dr Ananda Balayogi BhavananiChairmanICYER and Yoganjali Natyalayam25, 2nd Cross, Iyyanar NagarPondicherry, South Indiawww.icyer.com

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