Kensho Coast

The most special new moon of the year awaits us as the Indian heat lessens in the breeze after sunset. Many pilgrims coming to the ashram of Puttaparthi spend the night awake to taste the magic of the new moon which is said to shift consciousness beyond the mind.
My companion suggests we should spend the night in the village. This is exactly what I feared.
As a child I have been to India several times, but I often relied on the protectiveness of the ashram. The village was a completely different world; loud, bustling, incomprehensible. Street mongers, beggars, children in rags, poor ladies carrying underfed babies, shrunken old people all around. As I grew up, I got used to the milieu, still the thought of the village at night somewhat alarmed the child within me. But my companion insists, so I give in.
We decide to go see how the locals celebrate the sacred new moon. First I weigh by-passers with suspicion, but slowly I realize that the streets hostile in my mind are actually friendlier than in the daytime. Enthused chanting filters out from the shrines. We enter a Hanuman temple, where we suddenly find ourselves amidst a pack of loud children. They shake our hands and cling to our arms, overjoyed by the fact that we have come to celebrate with them. We hardly believe the way we are welcomed in a temple where we have never been before. My heart eases off.
We continue our stroll and soon come across another group of youngsters playing badminton under the street lamps. As they notice us, they immediately pass over their rackets for us to play, as if this was the most obvious way to treat foreigners. I am so astonished at the turn of events that I miss every service, still the Indians observe my clumsy moves with the most innocent smile.
So much for the boogiemen. The frightened child within me had been surrounded by laughing, friendly kids, and the thought comes to me that eventually there is no such place on Earth where life would not be ready to receive us.