19 Jan, Coimbatore — Bharata Yatra

Today Amma led the sani puja. The first part starts 6:30 p.m., with a talk by a brahmachari. At 7:30 or so, Amma came down to lead the puja. At about 9:00, Amma was ready to lead the bhajans, before concluding the last part. At this time, she said, ‘if you have any leg pain, you can stand up.’ This was translated in Tamil, and a few people stood. But the Westerners couldn’t understand, so all of them stoop up. At this Amma laughed. After some time, they figured it out, but one man didn’t want to again sit down.

After singing ‘Om Namah Shivaya,’ Amma sang ‘Adi Parashakti.’ This man enjoyed the song, clapping and swaying, with some yells of ‘Woo-hoo!!!’ here and there. When Amma sang the next song, ‘Mata Rani,’ he went all out. I could see Swamiji give a glance of curiosity, as he continued to dance, and motioned his hands for others to also get up. Soon, there was a big group up dancing. Some of his moves made more then a few Tamilians laugh. This is something not so strange in San Ramon, but I have never seen such a thing in one of Amma’s Indian programs.

The Tamil people also have their own dancing style, which they display from about 2:30 am till the end of darshan. In the West, many know about the native song and dance of Native Americans and Africans, through the recordings of performers of Baba Olatunji, etc. But I don’t think that anyone knows about the dancing of these people, from the baduji people in Tamil Nadu (see archives for more info). They have such a groove! They have chorus and response between the men and women, and they form a wide circle, all doing the moves in unison. It seems that everyone knows the moves, as all can be seen dancing, from the Vidyalayam students till the very old. This kind of dancing reminds one of the African and Native American dancing, because of the charged and spiritual atmosphere that it creates.

Piyush

Today’s morning set of bhajan were

• Sri krishna saranam mama
• Vilwattal archithom ( new tamil)
• Om shakti ( tamil)
• Ninave nyan ( new tamil)
• Ambe jagadambe (hindi)

This is the evening set

• Om namah sivaya
• Adi parashakti (tamil)
• Amma amma enna ( new tamil)
• Mata rani (punjabi)
• Jai jai jananni (hindi)