Kushul

Bird who came to stay

Every morning, just before sunrise, when Rukmini Devi Dasi comes in to the kitchen next door, her pet bird, a dove called Kushul das, starts cooing. It is a rather pleasant wake-up call. (I wonder why nobody has thought to digitize the sound and use it in an alarm clock?)

Rukmini says that Kushul came to the Sri Govinda Math Yoga Center last year. All the devotees were sitting in the front room during a meditation class when he tap-tapped on the window as though asking to be let in. He was quite unafraid; Rukmini took him into the kitchen and gave him some cake.

Later, when she tried to get him to leave, but he would not. When the kirtan started in the temple room, he walked (not flew) into the room, and remained there for the Bhagavad Gita class.

I don't want to cast any aspersions, but at least in this respect, he seems to be more a little more pious than that other "Birdie" in San Jose (no offense, Jiv).

Like her counterpart in San Jose, Rukmini Devi Dasi takes umbrage at the suggestion that her pet might be a lowly pigeon — it's a dove, okay?

Rukmini initially christened the dove Krishtina (the husband of one of the women who used to attend the yoga class here, unable to pronounce the name "Krishna," did not approve of her "Krishtina consciousness" activity) but later Ramaray Prabhu renamed the bird Kushul (kush means bird, and ul is a diminutive suffix, so "Birdie") das.

Ramaray Prabhu acknowledges that "das" may be a bit presumptuous, not least because "he" might actually be "dasi"...