Around 12:30, I started contemplating about the possibility of becoming a Saadhu. A simple life, with no belongings, just a piece of cloth to cover my body, and total surrender to God seems like a good idea. A better idea. What do you get from life anyway. God designed it to be a way to punish ourselves for this. If I reject society and this way of life as a whole, and follow a solitary one, will it make me a rebel in his eyes? I don’t want anything from him. I am rather ready to surrender myself completely to his will. Rather than dancing on the strings for the entertainment of these societal constructs. I don’t know if I’ve suffered enough, I will suffer when I surrender too. I feel, I will be more content there. For that world is a just world, made by God, for God.

Regardless of how I felt, I woke and did my workout as usual. Maximum reps till my arms would give in. I kept switching exercises quickly to make sure the muscles are engaged. I tried some variations of pushups which might help a lot for the arm strength too. I got ready and put on the best dhoti I had.

I went out to get some flowers and garlands because papaji had told me to do so. Mataji called once I was out to tell me some details as to what exactly was needed. I roamed the market to get the items for the best price. It was really interesting to see how the same sellers who were selling something for 100, came down to 50 in less than 30 seconds. It’s not that I want to undercut the poor man, it’s the actual price of the thing that they inflate thinking that a rich man does not know about the streets. Which is true to a great extent, though in no way do I imply I am rich. I just dress well.

Papaji went on and off with his shopping for some other items, I helped with some chores and setting up the things for the pooja with him. I recalled what my padh nanaji (great maternal grandfather) said to me once when we were doing some pooja long ago, at the bank of the river Yamuna. He called me Lord Brahma, for I was responsible to make sure that all the apparatus and arrangements are ready to ensure that the yagya / anushthaan goes smoothly. It seems like he was telling what he observed, rather than asking me to fit that role, because down the line, I can see that I am the one making sure things are there in the right place at the right time to facilitate these things to happen smoothly.

The pooja went on for 4 hours at least, and my sinus was deteriorating in the meanwhile. Once papaji started the havan, I had started helping mataji with the diyas, putting them at places. We caught a caterpillar chilling around in the pooja room. Must’ve come with the flowers or fruits, it’s usual for them to get stuck. I had him on a tissue, crawling around endlessly on the soft white desert of his own. I didn’t want to let go of him, he reminded me of that one caterpillar I had back in childhood. It didn’t go as well as I had thought with that one. Nevertheless, I took the lift, went down the 9 floors to give him a proper farewell. He was surely expressing his grief of parting ways too. However, when I put him close to the leaves, he gripped the tissue so hard, not ready to leave at all. I figured it was the wrong plant for him, so I went to another. He somehow lost the grip of his middle section, and I was able to make him dance midair before I placed him close enough to the leaves so that he could grip on them. I hope he will be alright there.

Back home, once everything was done and we had dinner, Dev put on a movie called “Te3n”. I believe we had watched earlier as well, because papaji had a CD of the same, but I couldn’t recall much of the movie. It was a real good one. After the movie, I remembered I had to do some mantrajap, as the muhurat was good to do so. I had lost all the time in the movie itself, so I did some of it in the last few minutes and went to sleep straight after.