It seems like a typical Ekadasi in progress. I try to do something online, but the connection is jammed like the queue at Mathura train station ticket office. Malati is cursing the electricity and the lack of water. So much time wasted on things you would usually do in a snap. Anyhow, that is a part of the practical realities of living in rural India. Somehow on Ekadasis this effect becomes pronounced, and even in the West a bit of India comes in to your day. We can generally recognize Ekadasi from the very fact that everything becomes messed up and nothing seems to work, even if we haven't looked it up in the calendar. They say it is an auspicious day. Certainly it serves to remind us of the inherent frustration built into all mundane pursuits.

We spot a tiny reddish bird relaxing on the roof, likely a Rosefinch. She is so calm and still that we begin to worry whether she might have injured herself. However, it seems she is just not afraid of us. (See a picture in Views for a good look at her.) She looks like someone has painted gopi-dots all over her. Roses and chandan-dots, what a sweet little being. However she flies away as we try to serve her sesame seeds just a bit too fast. We spend some more time engaged in japa in the pleasantly warming sunshine.

In the afternoon, we visit Baba and deliver letters from Jagadananda and Rasaraja. "Such a long letter", says Baba of the former. There have been some misunderstandings about Jagat's views on scriptures and the writings of the Goswamis which he wishes to clarify. We leave Baba in peace to read the letters and do his bhajan.

On the way back, we note that someone has built a boundary around the place of Radha-Syama's swing pastimes on the banks of Radha-kunda. A platform has been built around a tree next to the location, and the monument that denotes the place of the pastime — rather unnoticable at first, granted — has been converted into a doorway to the area surrounding the tree. Now that I look at the source of the swing-pastime narration, though, I see that there are swings all around the place. Govinda-lilamritam, chapter seven:



This swing is located on the Western bank of Radha-kunda, in Tungavidya Sakhi's ruby-laden crimson kunja called Tungavidyanandada. Tungavidya is the pandit among the sakhis. She is dressed in white or light yellow clothes, forming a beautiful contrast with her kunkuma-coloured skin. Tungavidya, more mellow in her nature than Lalita and some others, is expert in singing and dancing for the pleasure of Yugala-kishora.

We buy some potatoes from the bazaar and boil them in the evening. That's one of the rare things you can eat on Ekadasi. Anyhow, eating on Ekadasi 's a whole other story, then.