praise the Lord...

Years ago, when we used to live in a Govt colony, some womenfolk had a group of which my mom was also a member. Each of them used to take turns in hosting a musical afternoon where the group used to get together and sing to the glory of the lord. With time, the group fell apart as one after the other left the city for work. Years later, post retirement of their menfolk, many of those women found themselves together again in the city of Kolkata. The group breathed back into life in the city of joy..the energy and devotion had reached a new level. As were in town, mom invited everyone over to our place for a gathering. It was going to be a big gathering and most of yesterday and early hours of today went into arranging things and preparing stuff. Though it takes a lot of effort and time to arrange for such a gathering lasting only a few hours, it does involve a lot of fun and pleasure.

Food was cooked, furniture rearranged, sheets changed, flowers bought, all the essentials and 'non-essentials' arranged well ahead of time. The first 'guest' arrived, the door was not closed behind her. A while later, there was no place open on the carpet. The songs and religious readings followed each other. As the harmonium passed on from one hand to another, the tempo reached a new high. Among the sound of the harmonium, cymbals and clapping hands, the singer swayed to the tune as if in a divine trance.

It is funny that the little things that we used to 'unlike' and consider 'uncool' as youngsters bring to us, so much of joy and happiness these things are not around on a day to day basis. Glad that mom decided to have this hosted at our place.