The Anandas

Eleanor just fell fast asleep listening to "Isis & Osiris" off Alice Coltrane's Journey In Satchidananda. Know what "satchitananda" means? It's 3 Sanskrit words that all add up to one long one: "Sat" means "True Being." "Chit" means "Pure Consciousness." And "Ananda" means "Bliss."

I once lived in a suburban neighborhood. And there was this neighborhood Indian boy, about ten or eleven years old. His name was Ananda. He was a little bastard. He peed into styrofoam cups and tried to sell cups of his urine at a lemonade stand. He once stopped me and asked me if I was gay, and if my roommates were gay. I told him "no" and he started laughing. "A kid like this will probably do well in this crazy-assed world," I remember thinking.

Later in life, I went to graduate school with a girl named Ananda. I guess you could say we "dated" for a few weeks. This Ananda wasn't Indian. But her grandfather was the mayor of Pasadena or something like that, and he left her a huge inheritance. "This Ananda, too, will do well in this material world," I surmised. On her mantle, she had a big sword, which was a prop from the epic movie El Cid. It was also a gift from her grandfather. Apparently, El Cid couldn't have been made without his support. "Is it worth a lot of money?" I once asked her. "Yeah," she said.

I'm guessing the world is filled with Anandas. They probably pepper this world in exact proportions so that, if viewed from outer space, all the Anandas would look like sugar sprinkles on the cupcake surface of the globe.