To state the obvious, the yoga classes were totally awesome and the kirtan - headlined by the "chant master of American yoga" Krishna Das - rocked the house. Or the House, as in Patria's 50th Congress-elect, which was given a major infusion of shakti going forward to Inauguration day.
Disclaimer: the views expressed in the following two paragraphs are this blogger's own and do not represent the opinions of the Inner Realm of Patria or the 50th Congress-elect.
Making the trek to Madison, WI were the usual left-over hippies, most of whom were not yet born in the 1960s, sporting dreadlocks and dreadful tattoos. Do these people ever stop to think how lame that ink will look when they're, say, 60 or 70 years old? Or how do they expect to find a job? Unless, of course, they're self-employed, perhaps as the owner of a tattoo shop, in which case they don't have to worry about personal appearance at job interviews. There was no shortage of stereotypical new-agey bliss-blobs, vegan zealots and far-leftists (e.g. women who flaunt unshaven legs and/or underarms to make a political statement), but such demographics are usually expected at events like Bhakti Fest.
What was not expected, at least by Patria, was that the event seemed to be as lily-white as a Tea Party convention. Bhakti Fest might as well have been Caucasian Fest! As far as this blogger could tell, of the thousands in attendance during that weekend in the Wisconsin capital, there couldn't have been more than a handful of Indians (South Asians, not First Nations), and very few African Americans and Latinos as well. This is in stark contrast to the diversity seen at Amma's North American tour programs, where there is always a mix of Indians and Westerners - in some cases a 50-50 mix or a plurality of non-First Worlder White ethnicities.
One of the few non-white faces at Bhakti Fest belonged to Nina Rao, who led the daily chanting of the Hanuman Chalisa.
Having returned from Bhakti Fest and having received Amma's blessings for the new administration, Patria is locked and loaded, infused with the bhav for Inauguration Day on June 30. In the meantime, it's back to work for the lame-duck 49th Congress. There are still at least two more sitting days, and possibly the June 28-29 weekend, in which to ratify Patria's fiscal 2015 budget and get a whack of legislation passed before the Speaker of the House swings the gavel and blows the vuvuzela.
No comments:
Post a Comment