Australian Customs

At the Australian customs, they had to cut off the skin of my esraj. They would not allow it. It is like cutting the skin off your own child. Then they allowed us to keep the wooden piece, but the skin they have taken away.

Sumadhur gave them a list of all my musical instruments, showing how many items he was bringing. He made a very good list; then they became sick of his list. They allowed him to go through. Otherwise, my Beena also would have been cut. The skin would have disappeared.

Can you imagine? We brought the instrument all the way from New York, and we had to surrender the skin to customs.

In Tamil, the word for 'customs' also means 'suffering'. I used to laugh that customs means suffering and pain in Tamil. Now, I see that it is true.

4 January 2003

Cairns, Australia

From:Sri Chinmoy,The Canvas of Time, Madal Bal, Czech Republic, 2019
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/cat