April - October 2017
by Carolyn Neogi - 23:27 on 30 September 2017
Following our wonderful 30 days in India Bibhas went to Cyprus for another month and I joined him for a couple of weeks around National Convention. This was the 40th National Convention in Cyprus, who formed their first National Spiritual Assembly on 29th April 1978, the same day that we were married... Little did we know that we would end up with a home and lots of lovely friends in beautiful Cyprus.
We then had a nice summer in England and France, going to local Fetes and gatherings and various Interfaith events before being summoned back to India, this time for our great-niece Komolika's wedding in Hyderabad. We had a few days as tourists, visiting temples, mosques, museums, palaces, forts and parks before being collected by the bride to join the wedding party based in a wooded military R & R Camp for 4 days of celebrations, rituals and feasting. We then went to Delhi for a week, commemorating the Martydom of the Báb with dawn prayers at the Lotus Temple followed by a programme at the National Centre. and attending a Feast at the Samandari-Hakim family's lovely home - with cake from l'Opéra, their award-winning Boulangerie. We then moved to our great-niece Reshmi's lovely bungalow for our final few days in India. We don't plan to visit again for a while...
After a few more summer activities in England we went back to Brittany for a couple of weeks, putting our little street house on the market. We don't expect it to sell immediately as we want a fair price to reflect all the work Bibhas has done on it, but are gradually moving things back to Godalming.
Next was the Bahá'í Summer School in Wales where we met up with many friends, and then the preparations began in earnest for the Celebration of the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Bahá'u'lláh. On September 24th, which would have been Mum's 100th birthday, we invited all our friends and neighbours to a Reception at the newly-refurbished Wilfrid Noyce Centre in Godalming, where we were the first community in England to view the film A Light to the World which had been prepared at the Bahá'í World Centre for the Bicentennial. The previous week we helped organise an event for the various Interfaith and community groups in Surrey. We build an exhibition for these two events, which was also displayed at Guildford, Epsom & Woking's celebrations in October as well as Godalming Library. Bibhas found a two week window to go back to Cyprus, where he built another exhibition for the festivities in Lefkosa!
Now reports and photos are coming in from every corner of the globe of wonderful celebrations in villages, towns and iconic buildings, some very moving from countries where it is not easy to be a Baha'í, with live video links to some of the programmes. We managed to watch live Services from the Delhi, Sydney & Wilmette temples and lots of archived material. Such exciting times to be living through!
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