radhasoami. 195
stacked up in mounds. As we approached the langar, we could already hear the
women, busy kneading and rolling the dough for the rotis, singing:
Charan kamal tere dho dho peeyan
Deen Dayal Satguru mere
I wash your lotus feet and drink the water,
O my compassionate and merciful Satguru.The scene as Maharajji briskly walked around the “kitchen” with his hands raised
in benediction is one of my most striking memories of Beas. Squatting on their heels,
their hands clasped together in supplication, their glittering black eyes shining with
the light of purest pleasure, and their broad smiles expressing a child ’s unreserved
delight, the women sang louder as Maharajji passed close to them, while their heads
and the upper halves of their bodies seemed to strain toward him in unbearable long-
ing. In contrast, the men quietly raised their faces toward Maharajji in a look of
dumb devotion that was also full of awe—if not fear. In fact, whenever theSatguru
came upon a man working alone, the man would immediately squat down on his
heels and visibly cringe, as if prepared to receive a capricious blow. The Punjabi
daughter’s early experience of her father, I reminded myself from clinical experi-
ence, is indeed very different from that of the Punjabi son. The mutual adoration
and idealization characteristic of the former relationship is missing in the latter.