Word: conch
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...just hope you'll be able to walk," Alice said, watching me go after the second course--a torte made with minced conch. I knew she meant nothing by the remark. She wanted to protect me from overeating in the same way I wanted to protect her from a volcano that had once erupted and killed thirty thousand people...
Agrani concludes his lecture and fields a question from the congregation of 200. Suddenly what sounds like a jubilant cow bays from behind the curtain. It is a devotee blowing a conch, signalling the beginning of the aroti, the offering of articles to Krishna. The orange curtain floats open. The congregation drops their heads to the floor, murmuring obeisances in Sanskrit...
...conch shells and cymbals sounded, the first flower-decked palanquin, bearing the leader of Hinduism's Maha Nirvana sect, moved toward the river bank near Allahabad where the Yamuna River meets the Ganges. Alongside marched a troop of elephants, trumpeting, their heaving bodies covered with garlands and painted symbols. Then through the police cordon flowed thousands of pilgrims from nine other ancient Hindu sects. Among them came a procession of Naga sadhus, celibate holy men who follow Shiva, the god of the forces of both life and destruction. They were all naked, except for a coating of sand...
...paper plane. Below a woman in a man's white shirt, braces and pearl gray trousers walks up and down rapidly in a diagonal course. Her head and hands twitch programmatically. Another figure, bent like a discus thrower, balances on one foot and listens raptly to a conch shell. A man dressed like a mechanic, a red wrench protruding from his hip pocket, obsessively chalks mathematical equations in the air. A handsome gray steam engine chugs into view. From the pit a chorus raises a wordless three-note chant...
Finally, last week began the Dhukor Wangchen (the sermon of the Wheel of Time), one of Buddhism's most elaborate rituals. For each of three days, the air exploded with the bellowing of conch shells and rhythmic prayer chants. Then, in the hush that followed, the Dalai Lama delivered an eight-hour discourse on tantrism, the most magical form of Mahayana Buddhism. Renunciation, enlightened motive and a correct understanding of sunyata (nothingness) are the three prerequisites for the tantric practice, he explained. Disciples were given two reeds to sleep on, one under the pillow, the other under the mattress...