Memoir (Part 2)
July 2000, during a visit to Baba’s Ashram “Prashanti Nilayam ” in Puttaparthi.
I decided to create a travelogue about my visit to Prashanti Nilayam for a website I was developing. In order to post it on the website, I decided to take pictures of the buildings and plants in the ashram with my digital camera.
One day, as I was taking pictures of flowers within the ashram, a sevadal (volunteer) came up to me on a bicycle and told me that photography was not allowed inside the ashram, and I had to stop. I argued that they were just pictures of flowers, but he insisted that even that was not allowed. I decided to stop taking pictures at that time. However, I took several photos of flowers and buildings afterward without being detected by the sevadal.
One evening, while I was on my way to a shop, I saw that Baba’s words of the day were written in English on a chalkboard by the roadside. As I stopped in front of it, a Japanese youth came up to me and translated Baba’s words on the board, explaining their meaning to me. He introduced himself as Mr.Suzuki, his family home was in Yokohama, and he was currently studying at a graduate school in the USA and had come here for the summer vacation.
I encountered Suzuki-kun numerous times afterward. He accompanied me to my lodging building after the Darshan, helped carry my meal tray in the dining hall, assisted with shopping in the store, and offered various forms of help.
It was the morning of the day before my return home. After the Darshan ended and I was walking back to my accommodation, Suzuki-kun caught up with me. He offered to carry my cushion and said he would escort me to my lodging. Thus, I decided to follow his words.
As Suzuki-kun and I were walking and talking on the way to the lodging building, suddenly, a middle-aged Indian man blocked our way, saying he would give something, and handed me a photo of Baba. It was so sudden that without deciding whether it was alright to accept the photo, I reached out and took it. When I received the photo from the man, I glanced briefly at some English text written at the bottom, but I promptly tucked the photo into my chest pocket.
The Indian man also gave the same photo to Suzuki-kun. When he received the photo, Suzuki-kun translated the English text printed on it into Japanese and began to read it aloud. When Suzuki-kun read the English sentence that began with “God is like a cameraman, ” I thought, “Ah! “
My thought of “Ah! ” was, albeit an intuitive thought, because I believed the message was undeniably directed at me: “He knew I had been taking photos inside the ashram with my digital camera. “
When the message came, I was with Suzuki-kun. That was because someone was needed to translate the message for it to reach me. If I hadn’t been with Suzuki-kun, I might not have read the English text written on the photo, and only the photo might have reached me.
Suzuki-kun is on the left
GOD IS LIKE A CAMERA MAN, HE WILL CLICK ANY TIME.
YOU HAVE TO BE READY FOR THE PICTURE MUST COME OUT GOOD.
translator：Makoto Ishii