01:00:37:15
The pujari lives in a two story building a few hundred yards away from the temple across the street from an internet cafe that has no internet. He greets us at the front door and motions us to go in. The front room is empty except for a square pit at one end for the fire of the puja. He hands me the chart and I realize that they had typed in my name as ‘rama’ born in ‘newyark u.s Saint Helena’ instead of ‘amar’ born in ‘ithaca, new york, u.s’. The longitude and latitude are off by a few degrees, and they managed to reverse my name. These are not my stars. They belong to someone else or no one at all. He tells me to change into the clothes I bought for the ceremony in the back of the house– a pair of cotton pants, like pajamas, and a pancha, which is a wide scarf that covers your upper body. I wash my feet and hands with a small brass pitcher and watch the dirt from the tirtham flow down a small channel into the open sewer that runs under his front doorstep, carrying a black effluent to the ocean. Where did this water come from? There is no well to be seen behind his house. The water under the island is full of salt.
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Sep 27, 09:49 PM