Hush Puppies

This saturday I with my full family went to Art of Living Ashram on kanakpura road. First we went to information center, there they prepared our itinary which started with a short video about Swami Ravi Shankar and intoduction to "Art of Living". It was followed by twenty minutes meditation which was eternal in experience. Then we went to the international center. There my father made numerous failed attempts to enter the hall. We had entered the internation center bare footed. We had kept our shoes and sandles at the start of the staircase. So my younger brother's hush puppies were also there only. My father gave his time teseted advice which no one followed. "You should never keep new shoes in pair. Put one part at one side and the other some where else". These internation centers have several halls for organinsing lectures on various courses. When we were upstairs the classes were dismissed and the candidates were proceeding towards the kitchen. When we came back all the shoes and sandles were entact but hush puppies were missing. We searched every nook and corner around that place but it was of no use. Then the allegation session started. My father said, "I had told you to keep all the shoes in group, or separate the pairs." My brother was saying I had kept it as you had told but still the puppies are gone. My mom started cursing the ashram and satarted saying that this trip has costed us more than 2000 bucks. We were just hoping that since this place is good so no one would have stolen it. Someone would have taken it just for using it from lecture theatre to the kitchen and then will come back and place the puppies at the same location. Too much of a hope. Anyways we also proceeded to the kitchen. There also the same ordeal. We would have scanned more that two thousand pairs but of no use. I could find one another puppies which was of the same size but it was much newer so we couldn't take it. We entered the kitchen. My mom was still lost in the puppies thought, so she couldn't signal the distributor to stop giving rice and there was too much rice in her plate. I was just behind her in the queue. I didn't take rice so that I could help her in eating her share. After the lunch we came out started to search outside the kitchen once again for the puppies. Still no success. Few other people were also searching there. One of them was saying, "I don't even remember the face of the footware that i had taken". Which means he had picked up some random footwear from the lecture theatre and now is unable to remember which one he had taken. Some careless person like him only would hace taken my brother's puppies. We left the kitched for Radha kunj. My brother was making all this travel bare footed and was proving himself to be the greatest disciple of Ravi Shankarji Maharaj, although this bhakti was not out of choice but out of compulsion. The path were also not showing any mercy to him. It was filled with gravels which for sure were hurting him. There was a lake beside the Radhs Kunj. We went there also. From Radha Kunj, we went to Gurukul where the classes were of the Treta yuga style. Students also were dressed in dhoti. From there we went to goshala where 250 gir forest cows were there. Their milk are said to have medicinal values. Their urine and dung is used for organic medicines. Their milk is said to be cholestrol free. From there we went to pancha Karma and then back to lecture hall through the kitchen with a hope to find the puppies. I and my father was trying some other shoe stand. We could find two hush puppies sandle there. One was a bit old and was not of the same design. And this guy had followed the golden rule of my father it seems. We could find only one pair. The other was of the same design but was of bigger size. My brother was relentlessely searching the place where he had left his sandle. We asked him if he has found it. He responded in negative. Then we called him to the shoe stand where we were searching. With a bit guilt in our mind we took the bigger puppies. We were folloeing "An eye for an eye." We were about to leave that place. But my father was not surrender so soon. He went to the other side of the staircase and there he found our puppies. He called my brother and he confirmed that its his only. All of us took sigh of relief. My mom started saying it was because of her prayers to Gayatri mata. She is far more powerfull that Ravi Shankar. He lost our puppies and Gayatri mata found it back. Finally kind of happy ending for us.