Report from India: Part 11: Day 4, A Day of Rest or Walking

We decided we needed a day of rest, because the heat can be fairly exhausting. I worked through some yoga (or, remember Part 1, “yog”) poses from one of the many yoga books in the apartment. F did some more reading in “Varieties of Religious Experience” for his Master's Thesis. We took things pretty chill.

Just a little side tower :)

However, we figured that we could use a little exercise, because up to then, we'd essentially been driven everywhere. F wanted to show me the Radhasoami Temple (more on Radhasoami later). 

We set off and smiled at the strange looks we got from the Indians. Many of them walk too, but it was probably unusual for them to see white people in their neighborhood, never mind white people walking. Several rickshaw drivers slowed down next to us, offering us a ride, but we declined.

The Radhasoami Temple is still under construction (and has been for several decades) but already has some beautiful marble work. 

One detail that I found particularly amusing was that they abbreviate Radhasoami with RS. 

RS is seen here in the central ivy circle.

(Where do I know this abbreviation from? From church. There it stands for the 'Relief Society' or the women's organization. So, it seems like the Relief Society has got a whole temple here in Agra :) 

However in my Waldorf teacher training I also had cause to want to use this abbreviation for Rudolf Steiner, the founder of the Waldorf movement. He got “RSt”, so that I wouldn't get confused in my notes.)

Before entering the temple, my water was confiscated at security. 

This was actually the second stage of security...seems sporadic pluralization is a thing.

Like F's post-its, water must be really dangerous....um....yeah, not sure why. Oh well. At least I was allowed to pick it up at the end. 

After lunch we walked back to the apartment.

We checked in briefly with the friend of F's mentor's mother (got that?) or, since F said that his mentor is his “mother away from home”, she called herself F's “mother's mother”, in that she is our contact person, while we are staying in this apartment (that belongs to F's mother's aunt. (Confused yet? Indians are big on family.) Anyway, the reason that I mention her at this point is because of her reaction.

She told us she had seen us walking and remarked that it was very hot and asked why we hadn't taken a rickshaw or an auto-rickshaw. We responded that the weather was not too bad and that we wanted some exercise. She laughed, patted her belly and said “That must be why you are so fit and I am… (chuckle)”. We had noticed that many older Indians, although almost all eat purely vegetarian, are somewhat large of girth. They like to eat and apparently also prefer driving or being driven.