The last Raksha Bandan with my Sister

After having spent some time with my new friends in Sweden in summer 2006, I went back to Germany with my musician and finally returned to India in August, a bit earlier than I usually did.

In the years before, I had always spent the complete summer in Europe, working through August and often September as well. Sometimes I spent even Janmashtami in London instead of at the Ashram, where we usually had a celebration for this festival. This time however, the plan was different: Yashendu and I came back in the middle of August, would spend about a month in India and then he would return to Germany for the International Yoga Teacher Training while I would fly to South Africa, where I had been invited to for program.

With this plan, we would spend Raksha Bandan at home, too. Raksha Bandan is a family celebration day, a day on which brothers and sisters normally try to get together if in any way possible. The sister ties a wristband on the wrist of her brothers, the brother gives her some money for present and she feeds him sweets. It is the celebration of this connection in between siblings. You can imagine my sister Para’s joy when she got to know that both of us would be back and we would all be united for Raksha Bandan in this year after so many years that we were not!

Obviously it was a wonderful day. My family was and is very close, we all are connected by emotions, feelings and from the heart and we didn’t need to be together for such days to feel this. When it happened however that we were together, it felt just wonderful!

15 days later, we celebrated Radhashtami together. As it is also the birthday of my late grandfather, Sri Bindu Ji, we have always made this a big day. In this year, we invited all the school children that we had started sponsoring in other schools and had a party with them and our guests from abroad who were at the Ashram at that time. We had music, gave out presents and made a big Bhandara, a feast with delicious food for all.

Two wonderful celebrations and looking back, it seems the sweetest time of all. When the celebrations were over, Yashendu took off to Germany and I started towards South Africa. The plan was to be united again in Germany about a week later, not only me and Yashendu but also Para, for whom it would be her second journey to Germany. Would have been.

I didn’t know in that time that this would be our last goodbye, our last hug, our last touch.