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Going to an event to receive darshan from Amma, "the hugging saint", is a bit like attending Chinese opera -- pack lunch; if you're western, be prepared to have your aesthetic values utterly confronted; wear comfortable clothes, bring tylenol. I'm just warning you now, this story is one long series of punchlines.
So I decide to go to this thing on a whim, beause![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nisaa has talked about it a bunch of times. i get there at 5:30 for a program starting at 7, that I know can last well into the morning (and probably will go past 5am for everyone to be seen). It's at New York Center, which is a space in which I once was lowered from the ceiling tied to steel butterfly wings as part of an S&M performance _thing_ on Halloween. Have I mentioned I'm afraid of heights?
Anyway, so the line queues up outside the building and the guy in front of me is kind of beligerant. "How long does this take?" "I have an important meeting tonight, can I just go in and get my hug now?" "How long is the hug?" "Am I greedy?"
I watched the volunteers try to stay calm coping with him, but they were obviously struggling. They would ask me, "Are you together?" and I'd have to try to say "No" without a tonal quality. at one point he turned to me and insisted I must know how this all works because I'd clearly done it before. Uh, no.
So we get in and we're led to seats upstairs while they finish prepping the seats downstairs. He makes a call on his cell phone to a friend:
"Yeah, i totally want to see Harry Potter with you tonight, but I've got to get this hug thing and the Baroness is coming over at 8."
This is the Baroness: http://www.baroness.com
As the conversation goes on, it becomes clear I kinda know this guy from my fetish scene days and I think he's a scumbag. I consider hiding under my chair, but since he doesn't want to have sex with me, he never looks at me long enough to make the connection. Good.
Meanwhile, the hall is filling up, people come through with trays of fried foods, candy bars, bottle water, coconut juice. It's like being at a baseball game or hte circus, except there's loud Indian music playing and lots of random white people offering blessings in various Indian languages with every transaction.
Finally we are led downstairs to get our tokens for the darshan and to take a seat for puja. I get G2, which means I may be out at midnight (turned out to be 12:10). The guy and I are shunted to seperate sides of the hall and I lose the thread of his story.
Puja was puja, and the guy translating for Amma had so much charisma I can't even talk about it. At one point I thought to myself "Baz would dig this" -- a thought I note only because I am compulsive and assiduous about not referring to people I don't know by their first names, even in my head, so the impulse thought made me snort with laughter so hard I can't even be embarassed.
Then someone dropped a tray of holy water on themselves.
Puja ended, and I wandered around looking at the things for sale, and while the proceeds go to Amma's considerable and impressive charitable works, I was still weirded out the fact that one could pay $310 for the plain cotton bedsheets she had once used, or towels, that looked like they belonged to my grandmother, or beautiful saris that one is then expected not to wear, I suppose, but to venerate. There were a pair of her shoes there, with a note not to try them on.
Eventually, I sat down with my cell phone amidst a gaggle of Indian girls playing with a baby and played video games until it was my turn for darshan.
Once you are in the darshan line, it is very chaotic. You sit, you get up and advance one seat, you sit, you get up, you advance oneeat. Then you go up on stage. Then you do this agai for a bit. Someone holds your glasses for you. You wipe your face. And then you get down on your knees as you are guided to Amma through a crowd of other peopel also waiting for darshan and all her followers and assistants.
A woman asked me my native language. I said English, and it felt like a lie, but I don't know why. Another hissed in my ear to put my hands on either side of Amma's chair; I thought of strippers and the rules for not touching.
Amma took me by the shoulders, smoothed by already bound hair back, pulled me to her and then chanted in my ear.
And this is really the fucking punchline of the evening.
She chanted the name of one of the main characters in my novel (who I have been writing about and has had this utterly made up, complicated name for years). The name, followed by the repetition of the first syllable three times, then this whole pattern twice more. I'm entirely sure of what I heard, the second time being more insistent, as if I were a faulty child who had not been paying attention; the third time, whispered.
An assistant pulled me up. Amma shoved a rose petal and a hershey's kiss into my hands. Someone handed me my glasses.
And I wandered off.
I am used to a rather massive quantity of weird in my life. but... woah.
So I decide to go to this thing on a whim, beause
nisaa has talked about it a bunch of times. i get there at 5:30 for a program starting at 7, that I know can last well into the morning (and probably will go past 5am for everyone to be seen). It's at New York Center, which is a space in which I once was lowered from the ceiling tied to steel butterfly wings as part of an S&M performance _thing_ on Halloween. Have I mentioned I'm afraid of heights?Anyway, so the line queues up outside the building and the guy in front of me is kind of beligerant. "How long does this take?" "I have an important meeting tonight, can I just go in and get my hug now?" "How long is the hug?" "Am I greedy?"
I watched the volunteers try to stay calm coping with him, but they were obviously struggling. They would ask me, "Are you together?" and I'd have to try to say "No" without a tonal quality. at one point he turned to me and insisted I must know how this all works because I'd clearly done it before. Uh, no.
So we get in and we're led to seats upstairs while they finish prepping the seats downstairs. He makes a call on his cell phone to a friend:
"Yeah, i totally want to see Harry Potter with you tonight, but I've got to get this hug thing and the Baroness is coming over at 8."
This is the Baroness: http://www.baroness.com
As the conversation goes on, it becomes clear I kinda know this guy from my fetish scene days and I think he's a scumbag. I consider hiding under my chair, but since he doesn't want to have sex with me, he never looks at me long enough to make the connection. Good.
Meanwhile, the hall is filling up, people come through with trays of fried foods, candy bars, bottle water, coconut juice. It's like being at a baseball game or hte circus, except there's loud Indian music playing and lots of random white people offering blessings in various Indian languages with every transaction.
Finally we are led downstairs to get our tokens for the darshan and to take a seat for puja. I get G2, which means I may be out at midnight (turned out to be 12:10). The guy and I are shunted to seperate sides of the hall and I lose the thread of his story.
Puja was puja, and the guy translating for Amma had so much charisma I can't even talk about it. At one point I thought to myself "Baz would dig this" -- a thought I note only because I am compulsive and assiduous about not referring to people I don't know by their first names, even in my head, so the impulse thought made me snort with laughter so hard I can't even be embarassed.
Then someone dropped a tray of holy water on themselves.
Puja ended, and I wandered around looking at the things for sale, and while the proceeds go to Amma's considerable and impressive charitable works, I was still weirded out the fact that one could pay $310 for the plain cotton bedsheets she had once used, or towels, that looked like they belonged to my grandmother, or beautiful saris that one is then expected not to wear, I suppose, but to venerate. There were a pair of her shoes there, with a note not to try them on.
Eventually, I sat down with my cell phone amidst a gaggle of Indian girls playing with a baby and played video games until it was my turn for darshan.
Once you are in the darshan line, it is very chaotic. You sit, you get up and advance one seat, you sit, you get up, you advance oneeat. Then you go up on stage. Then you do this agai for a bit. Someone holds your glasses for you. You wipe your face. And then you get down on your knees as you are guided to Amma through a crowd of other peopel also waiting for darshan and all her followers and assistants.
A woman asked me my native language. I said English, and it felt like a lie, but I don't know why. Another hissed in my ear to put my hands on either side of Amma's chair; I thought of strippers and the rules for not touching.
Amma took me by the shoulders, smoothed by already bound hair back, pulled me to her and then chanted in my ear.
And this is really the fucking punchline of the evening.
She chanted the name of one of the main characters in my novel (who I have been writing about and has had this utterly made up, complicated name for years). The name, followed by the repetition of the first syllable three times, then this whole pattern twice more. I'm entirely sure of what I heard, the second time being more insistent, as if I were a faulty child who had not been paying attention; the third time, whispered.
An assistant pulled me up. Amma shoved a rose petal and a hershey's kiss into my hands. Someone handed me my glasses.
And I wandered off.
I am used to a rather massive quantity of weird in my life. but... woah.
