Letters from India

72. Don't Write to Gents! - Jan 1988

Don’t Write to Gents!

January 15, 1988

Prasanthi Nilayam

Sri Sai Ram,

Hope all of you are quite fine and healthy and joyful. :-) I am so, so fine, enjoying to the fullest my “rest’ from extreme tapas. Receiving love from God – via different forms. All is fine, really.

I'm still in the room – studying less of Telugu, more meditation. I have practice talking with Parvatamma daily, though.

One day I had a few letters I was sending to USA via someone going. Parvatamma happened to see them and wanted to know who they were to. She got a very upset when she found that one was to a male – yes, Jim’s letter. (One of the patient’s in the convalescent hospital where I worked – over 65 years old, both legs amputated and one arm frozen in place due to a stroke.) She spoke long on how wrong it was to write to him – I should have no contact with gents - patients or otherwise. She said writing encourages them and it’s very, very wrong. She had me take off the stamp on the envelope, then tear the letter unsent, into tiny, itty, bitty pieces, and throw them away in her bathroom wastebasket. So, I must not write to him anymore. And I may have to tear up letters if he writes, unopened. It must be like this – she has spoken. She’s right, really: shouldn’t encourage him.

January 7-9 was the Sadhu Conference. Every night there was a discourse in the Poornachandra. Also two or three Sadhus would speak before Swami. A couple of sanyasis had such beautiful Telugu I could understand a lot of the talk, but still I cannot grasp more than 40% of Swami’s discourses most of the time.

On the 11th was the Sport’s Meet. We all gathered in the Hill View Stadium for the opening ceremonies. Parvatamma’s granddaughter Chaitana took part (she's studying in the Anantapur college). They did fighting with sticks – an ancient art in Indian villages. She also broke a coconut with her bare hand! We hear that Swami asked later, “Who broke the coconut? Ah! Parvatamma’s granddaughter!”

Parvatamma’s daughter and two granddaughters came for about ten days, during the festival (mid-Jan). They live in Hyderabad. They stayed in Parvatamma’s room. I became friends with the granddaughters Chandrika (16 years old) and Chaitana (17 years). (Their brother is 18 and studying in Puttaparthi college.) They’re very sweet, well-behaved girls.

Parvatamma’s younger son came also, for a couple of days. It was nice to meet him; I had never seen him before (he’s the only one in her family I hadn’t met). He's deaf and dumb (due to disease in childhood), but he reads lips and can communicate through body movements. He looks very young and I got very sweet vibrations from him. I had met his wife & two young children during birthday.

Parvatamma seemed worn out by the visit. The day they left just the two of us, Parvatamma and I, cleaned up the house, organized, then lay down and rested! (Foreigner’s privilege: instead of on the floor, I got permission to lie down on the second bed in the room!) When the family was here it was only talk, talk, talk, work, work.

The festival Sankranti was on Jan 14th. Sai gave a discourse at the college, only students allowed in. But we heard over the loudspeaker. Mostly He just talked about sports and awards (as He was distributing the sport’s award this day). Prasad was given – a sweet.

Weather is a bit better, but still very cold in the mornings.

Venkamma is fine as usual. Her granddaughter Neeraja with the baby VijayaSree has come for a few days - a baby is always a big hit. I even saw Parvatamma capture Venkamma’s granddaughter after Darshan the other day, and play with the baby.

I will be here until March 10th. Then I may go to Nepal or Singapore. Parvatamma told me Sri Lanka is out of the question because of political troubles; she said I must not go there. Also Venkamma has said that to me too.

Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu

Love,

Divya