Today was more symbolic then anything else. With our location now at the southern most city of India – Kaniyakumari – we intended to pay pilgrimage to legendary Vivekananda Rock Memorial which was a short ten minute boat ride.  Vivekananda Rock Memorial is a sacred monument and popular tourist attraction in Kanyakumari, India. The memorial stands on one of two rocks located about 500 meters off mainland India’s southernmost tip. It was built in 1970 by the Vivekananda Rock Memorial Committee in honour of the visit of the great spiritual teacher Swami Vivekananda to Shripada Parai during the month of December 1892 for deep meditation and enlightenment. He swam to this rock and meditated about the past, present and future of India. It is said that he attained enlightenment on the rock, and henceforth became a reformer and philosopher.

We all gathered at the memorial and took in the scene across the vast expanse of water, a place where two seas and an ocean meet. Five minutes of quiet contemplation was had within the meditation room to the rhythmic chant of  “ohm” followed by a visit to the memorial itself, an imposing yet delicately designed structure housing a life size bronze statue of Swami Vevekinanda.

The day concluded with a beach front media event hosted by CNBC TV18, during which a panel discussion was heald and a Q&A session was conducted to allow the audience to ask questions about the topics raised during the show. The recording was made with only one re-take sequence and ended on schedule. We do not have confirmed dates of when the show will be aired, but I believe it will be on during early January whilst the yatra is still running. It will be broadcast on CNBC TV18 in India which is also available are an online streaming channel via the CNBC TV18 web site.  Our second media debate will be held at Chennai.  The venue for the event was a picturesque beach front within the grounds of the Vivekanada Centre in Kaniyakumari. We noticed a couple of trees on-site were baring freshly ripe tamarind seed pods which tasted superb. We picked up a few of the pods which had fallen on the ground.

With the media event over, dinner served, we retreated back to the train for our next destination, Puducherry where we would visit the revolutionary and technologically advanced Aravind Eye Hospital which has helped millions of rural, poor and remotely located people receive life saving eye treatment at little or no cost.