16 Sep 2008, Bowanipur, Bihar

A miracle took place today. So many take place very day – the sun rises, it gives us warmth; there is air to breathe; birds fly and trees grow drawing sustenance from the earth and the sun and the air and we live. I feel the coolness of the breeze as it blows in my face. I can feel. I live. It is a miracle.

And within a five days shelters have risen up housing some of the poorest of those displaced – about 500 of them.
Today we inaugurated the first shelters built by the ashram in Bihar. The Minister came and inaugurated our camp – wondering at the speed at which the shelters had come up he asked, “I see you working all the time. Do you ever sleep?”
It was a moving event – it seemed as the poorest of the poor were in our camp. Very simple people. Poor but with heart. It was so very nice to talk to them. To laugh with them, to tease the children, teach them to be nice to each other and study and respect life and not to waste and to maintain cleanliness and……… My heart was at peace. This was meaningful – giving something to these people.
In the night I started serving food to the people as they sat in lines, waiting patiently. You would not be able to imagine the amount of food that even the little tykes are able to put away – it was so nice to see them eat to their fill. There were many funny moments during food – it is a wonder – it is as if they had not lost anything at all – they are still able to smile, come up and tell us to advise their children to study more, talk to us about where we are from and what we do.

I saw an interesting site – a new form of massage! A child of about 3 was walking all over the mothers back, while the mother lay on her mat. He was very methodical – first the shoulders and back and then the legs – very good balance!

Being Ramzaan the muslims follow their own routine. They do not eat during the day so they are given some extra rations which they eat in the morning before sunrise. There 23 of them in our camp.
There is a lone sardar also, whom I did not get a chance to talk to.

I met the ‘Chief Minister of Bihar’ in the camp. I tried talking to him but he was too shy to talk, again and again he was putting his fingers into his mouth. Others used to pull it out and he used to put it back in, shy at suddenly being the center of attraction. Well, maybe he was not the Chief Minister of this state, it must have been a case of mistaken identity. And he was three years old. But his name sure was Nidhish Kumar!  All the children I talked to, interestingly had Kumar in the middle of their name.

The people seem to be happy to stay in our camp – a horde of children came over and started bowing down to us as their parents encouraged them to pay their respects to the Babas from the ashram. Life goes on as they too experience the love that flows in a perennial stream from Amma. Amma’s Love – that too is a miracle. But like the rising of the sun, the blowing of the breeze – this is natural, for Amma is love.

nijamrita