After the India benefit concert and a first date pizza, it quickly became clear that Ramesha and I were destined to be more than a temporary “item”. I lived in Assisi while he was in Lugano — a 7 or 8 hour drive — but we managed to get together pretty often. He would sometimes join me when the Ananda Singers performed in northern Italy and I would take the train to Lugano when I had enough free days in a row.
But remember the India pilgrimage I was raising money for? It was scheduled for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, which allowed devotees who were teachers to participate. Unfortunately, that meant Ramesha (a middle school teacher) was going, together with thirty or so other dear friends — many of them the core of Ananda Europa’s music, while I was needed at the retreat to “hold down the [music] fort” over the holidays.
I’m sure you can imagine our angst at having to spend our first Christmas apart! I traveled to Lugano in early December so we could celebrate early, then we made our tearful farewells until early January.
One of Ramesha’s last text messages to me before he flew to India was something about having “scaring thoughts”. I didn’t know what to think, but figuring it must be an English language thing, I put it out of my mind and went back to missing him desperately.
We made it through the 3-week separation (with only a little drama) and I traveled up to Lugano again to see him after the New Year. My brief visit was greatly extended when Ananda Assisi was subjected to a raid by the Guardia di Finanza, making it safer for me to remain where I was (a big drama; but that’s a story for another time).
Although concerned about happenings at our Assisi community, we enjoyed the additional time together and in early February he proposed (I said yes, of course)! We consulted with our friend and astrologer, Drupada, for the most auspicious wedding date and started making plans to fly to California in the summer. And this is when things started getting interesting…
I believe it was in April that I raised the question of what we wanted to wear for our wedding. Ramesha’s response was: “Don’t worry about it.”
Ummm….excuse me? “Yeah, it’s all handled. You don’t need to worry about it.”
Whoa, what just a minute! What do you mean, “it’s all handled?!?”
At which point he says: “You’ll understand when you get your birthday present.”
Now, friends, my birthday is June 20. And our wedding was scheduled for July 5. I’m pretty sure I remained calm and loving, but I definitely made it clear that he had better let me see my birthday present NOW. Which (thank goodness!) he did, and — as you’ve probably already guessed, the birthday present was my wedding sari!
Come to find out, the “scaring thoughts” he was having before leaving on pilgrimage were because he already knew he wanted to marry me — even though we’d only been a couple for about six weeks at that point. He told me about how at each shrine during the pilgrimage he would pray to Master about it and the answer was always “yes”.
Then he arrived at Yogananda’s childhood home in Kolkata, where one of Master’s descendants by marriage had a business selling clothing, and he was inspired to purchase our wedding outfits there. This despite the fact that he hadn’t yet proposed to me!
And that is the story of my beautiful wedding sari. 🥻💞
