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Showing posts from January, 2024

Behind the Scenes -Shadows Rising AKA HOW IT ALL BEGAN

In 2016, I shared a room in London for two weeks with an ISKCON devotee. Vinod, as most people remember him was someone who had indulged in a whole host of activities that could be considered sinful. This included eating meat, drinking copious amounts of alcohol, not going to the temple, not keeping fasts etc. Until one day, he turned into a devout ISKCON devotee. The change was dramatic. And confusing. And I was fascinated. In those two weeks, I quizzed him on everything. What changed? How did you go from being a complete non-believer to a pious devotee in under a month? Why do you have just one wife when Krishna had sixteen thousand? Stuff like that.  Bemused but delighted at my interest. V gladly answered all my questions. His absolute conviction in theism clashed with my absolute opposite stance on the matter but I enjoyed our discussions. His biggest complaint was that Indian mythology was so rich and interconnected that he couldn’t fathom why everyone else wasn’t as passionate ab