For the most part Linda and I had no idea what it meant to be a Hare Krishna devotee. We heard Vic talk about it with some reverence, but we’ve never seen them up close.
One day while visiting Pacific Beach we turned the corner on Grand Avenue and wham, there it was, our first glimpse of a Hare Krishna temple. It was big, square, salmon colored and dreadful looking. Except for the porch up front which was inviting. The sounds of singing and enthusiastic drumming escaped from the temple’s every orifice. The rhythms were foreign to me and intriguing.
We approached the temple’s door cautiously from the side, like we’re sneaking up on a bug we’re about to kill. Inside was dimly lit, perhaps using only whatever natural light filtered into the room. We stepped a little closer and cautiously peeked deeper into the temple. As our eyes adjusted to the dim light we saw in the background on the left a life size statue of an old man sitting in the lotus position atop a throne surveying the crowd in attendance. Or was he real and just very still? In either case, he was creepy. Straight ahead was what appeared to be an altar and upon it were brightly colored, flower festooned statues of four people. At the corner of the altar were three statues that looked like cartoon characters with big eyes and small, out of proportion bodies. Was this Indian culture or Indian culture on steroids?
With our eyes fully adjusted to the dim light we watched the ceremony underway. People were divided in two groups, male and female. Many males wore saffron colored robes, while some were in white. They were dancing and chanting with great energy (something I’d later learn is called a Kirtan). Their faces were unusually pale with a strange marking on their foreheads. The marking was painted in a mustard colored paste and went from the tip of the nose to the top of the forehead. It was painted in outline with a bulb near the bottom. The symbol looked a lot like the designs on the outside walls of the temple itself. Most of the males had very short hair or completely shaved heads. Not like a skin-head; a devotee’s head is shaved except for some strands of hair coming out the back, like a pony tail that crept up a couple of inches higher than it should be. In retrospect, it looked very much like what would be the place where the actors in the matrix movie were jacked into the matrix.
As we stood at the doorway’s boundary staring inward, waves of aroma from the temple paraded past us. The stench of must and sweat arrived first, closely followed by the scent of curry and finally came a hint of incense. This ceremony and setting was more chaotic and energetic than any Southern Baptist revival meeting that I’ve see on TV. Even so, there were many ordinary people of Indian heritage present.
Hindu religious practice was not well organized in America at the time and the existence of a functioning temple that displayed and properly worshiped the Hindu deities was, I’m sure, very comforting to many in the audience. To my surprise, the sight of ordinary people made me feel better as well. It made me think that this wasn’t just a crazy cult but instead an ill-formed offshoot of something authentic. It was vaguely familiar like a forgotten page from a discarded book.
My musing was broken by the sound of someone approaching from behind. We turned towards him; I waved my hand in the universal “No, thanks” gesture without concern for anything he might have had to say. We scurried away as quickly as we could.
The summer days were busy and passed quickly. Eventually I noticed that Vic was eating fewer and fewer meals with us. Instead, he selected mostly Indian restaurants and, of course, the Hare Krishna temple. Today was an on day and he was eating with us. It wasn’t any special occasion, so Linda prepared an everyday Italian dinner of salad and spaghetti with red sauce. We planned to take a walk to Heidi’s Frogen Yozurt after dinner for a net-zero calorie desert. When the pasta was served Vic declared that he wouldn’t eat it because it contained garlic. It takes either some serious motivation or lack of sensitivity to tell an Italian mom that her tomato sauce is no good because it contains garlic.
He explained some of the reasoning for this new restriction:
“Well, to start with it doesn’t smell very good.” He says while poking it with his fork.
“Yeah, if you eat it raw or have too much. But this is cooked in the tomato sauce just like it’s always been. It was never bad before.”
“Ayurvedic medicine says that garlic is in the mode of ignorance, and …”
Vic hesitates, and I jump in with guns blazing.
“Hold on, what kind of medicine?”
“That’s ancient Hindu medicine.”
“And it says garlic is ignorant?”
“Not the garlic itself, but how it affects the body.”
“Italians have eaten garlic for centuries - are you saying we’re ignorant?”
“And passionate, too. It causes passion.”
He may have nailed the Italian stereotype.
“Plenty of oriental cultures use garlic. Are they ignorant and passionate too?”
These conversations never ended well. I always found his reasoning to be faulty, primarily because it focused on insignificant details and then generalized the results to the entire topic. I sensed that Vic was certain my mind was closed to new ideas. This much was true: I didn’t like any of these new ideas and fought them at every turn. I guess not accepting face value was a big part of my problem. I always looked behind the curtains.
This garlic prohibition reminded me of another garlic use that I didn’t like. When Vic was a baby of just a few months he had colic and the extreme discomfort that came with it. One day I came home from work to find Linda, Linda’s Mom and Linda’s Dad’s Mom circling around Vic’s crib. As they chanted Linda’s Mom rubbed a raw garlic bulb around Vic’s belly-button!
“Tre occhi a guardarmi, Tre occhi a spaventare” (Three eyes stare at me, three eyes be scared away)
They believed that Vic’s colic could be cured by invoking the supernatural. I was not happy; actually I was angry and yelled at them to stop. They said they understood and respected my feelings; I suspect what they meant was that they would time the ceremony better in the future.
The problem with garlic never went away. Our family had always enjoyed dinner time as a gathering that nourished our relationships as much as our bodies. When we dined with family members there were often long conversations after the main meal while awaiting dessert. We discussed everything from the boundaries of the universe to the performance of the stock market to why the Yankees weren’t clicking.
Vic lived away at school and when he did visit he ate most meals away from our table. Our lives were diminished.
We decided to work to keep Vic closer. We agreed that when Vic was around we would give up garlic and cook for Krishna. For his part Vic agreed to teach us the rules. We already knew that prasadam is the Krishna term for food prepared with the intention of feeding Krishna. So we wanted to learn to cook in that tradition. I was surprised at the strictness of the rules used by the Krishnas. Food that will become prasadam was prepared only by people who are devotees of Krishna; by this standard alone Linda and I were not qualified to cook for Krishna.
Preparation is a quiet time of duty and worship. The cook does not taste the food while it is being prepared. The food (or at least a portion) is placed in front of a picture of Krishna. After a period of time, according to Vic, Krishna is done and the food has become prasadam and can now be consumed. Since Krishna doesn’t eat much the leftovers make a handsome meal for the humans.
Vic made an exception and allowed his Mom to participate in the food preparation as long as she followed the rules of vegetarianism, abstinence from intoxicating beverages, silence and no tasting. If you’re an ordinary cook, not tasting what you are making can easily lead to food tragedy; undercooked, under-seasoned and inconsistent. This was Linda’s burden, one which she shouldered with some complaints but eventually with acquiescence and grace. Added to these constraints were unfamiliar recipes such as ghee (clarified butter), samosas, chutneys, curries and chapati (unleavened flatbread made in a pan). We even kept separate cookware for the Krishna meals - cookware that never touched meat. And purified plates - Krishna and Vic had their own set of plates and bowls made from polished aluminum. We don’t drink wine with the meal. We don’t even take water with the meal, we had to drink our water first. Not my first choice in dining arrangements, but worth the results.
For a time our compromises occasionally brought us back to one table. This was good; we had enough opportunities to eat lasagna when Vic wasn’t around which was happening more often than not.
But soon the monkey threw another wrench. The Krishna temple periodically had big feast-day events in which certain aspects of Krishna’s or other deities’ lives were celebrated. This seemed normal enough, except that somehow or other these celebrations would often coincide with Western holidays. Granted that the Hindus celebrate many more holidays than Christians; just think about how many more gods they have. But I do recognize the irony of ISKCON stealing a page from the old Christian playbook when the Christians appropriated Roman pagan holidays. Net result was scarce Vic on holidays.
It was a warm Saturday night in August, a few days before the Shelter tour kicks off. Linda and I had just finished dinner and were strolling down Prospect Street in La Jolla to where our car was parked when a commotion arose in front of us. I looked across the street and saw people pointing back to our side at a spot about twenty-five yards ahead.
The tourist crush in front of us slowed and then oozed to the sidelines revealing a roving band of Krishnas coming our way. They were chanting, dancing and playing drums and cymbals. Saffron robes swirled and billowed as the lead dancers performed a bobbing twisting motion, like pogo dancing at a cotillion. Two-headed drums were beat in odd rhythms, sometimes syncopated sometimes aggressive. The cymbals insure everyone was busy.
Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare, Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare, Hare
Linda and I recognize the chanting from the ceremonies we had seen at the temple and were in no mood to be any part of it. But it was too late to do anything but press on. We wanted to pass them without interaction, like two waves on a pond going in different directions. But I had to look; sweaty shaved heads with noses smeared in mustard paste, bouncing erratically to strange music. I felt defiance coming from them, a force that creates a sharp boundary between them and everything else. I tasted a world of difference that they didn’t want bridged. Their superiority was clear to them. Like a wreck on the road, I can’t resist looking at the faces in the Krishna crowd. Then I saw something I always hoped would remain a bad dream.
“Crap!” I spit the word out.
“What?” Linda asks.
“Look! It’s Vic.”
“No, it can’t be. He promised!”
But it was Vic. He was one of them. With his tulasi bead necklace, a shaved head and shikha pony-tail, dressed in flowing saffron robes. The ugly tilak painted on his once beautiful face branded him as a full-on Krishna.
The day before the tour was to start, Vic drove to RB to leave the Yugo with us. The plan was that Linda would drive him back to the temple after a little visit. While she waited for Vic, Linda sat in the side yard with Ruby, a neighbor. When Vic got there he apparently noticed Ruby and so waited till she left before presenting himself and his freshly shaved head.
“You promised! You promised me you wouldn’t shave your head!” Linda’s pain cracks her voice.
“But I had to.”
“Why did you sit out here all this time?”
“I didn’t want to scare the neighbors.”
He scared his mother instead; seeing him up close, she knew immediately that the battle had been lost. Blinded by hope, I still wasn’t convinced. He was always fiddling with his hair; from metal-head flowing locks to ratty dreadlocks to a shaved head. Sort of in style for the type of music he was into. Linda saw it for what it was, the end of a transformation. Our butterfly had turned into a caterpillar.
Linda drove Vic back to the temple. She wanted him to have something that will remind him of his family and his past while he was away on a tour that was planned to last several months. She decided to bring along Vic’s “Kitty Kat”.
Kitty is a little rag doll that Vic had since he was a little boy. It was made for him by my mom, his Grandma Jean. Linda had maintained it through the early years replacing button eyes and felt ears as needed. Vic’s Kitty was based on the Kitty Kat that I had as a child. My mom made that one for me. I have it to this day. My Kitty Kat is white with a red vest; Vic’s was blue with a dark blue vest.
Linda parked the car at the curb on Grand Avenue in front of the temple. She cried as she gave Kitty to Vic explaining how she wanted him to always have something from home with him wherever he goes. She sobbed as she held Vic close, always fearful for the future. Despite all that has changed there was still so much that was the same, so much that connects us.
She never left the safety of the car, she didn’t want any of them to see her weakness or feel her pain. Vic took Kitty as he left her and made yet another hollow promise; later discarding Kitty along with our hopes.
After Christmas Vic was going to visit Vrindavan again to continue his studies. All the money he earned was earmarked for the trip. Linda and I travel often enough, and feel that learning about Hinduism in India is probably a better choice than from some self-appointed guru in a downtown storefront. Vrindavan is in the heart of India, just south of New Delhi and devilishly hot. The average temperate during May is 104 degrees and then the monsoon rains arrive in summer turning it to a festering swamp of bugs and humidity. Vic wisely travels to India in the winter months of January February and March.
All told, our relationship was improving. We moved a little closer to him by trying on some of his practices and ideas, and he participated in most of our rituals. I had advised him that if he really wanted to understand the Bhagavad-Gita he should read it in the original Sanskrit. All versions of the book that I’ve seen take each verse and print it in Sanskrit, an English translation and then add a “purport” or their interpretation. So it’s not clear whether you’re reading the actual ancient scripts or something that has been filtered through some lens to focus on the author’s purpose. Vic agreed and learned Sanskrit while in India. I looked around and found a Sanskrit font for his computer so that he could write about the original texts from his viewpoint. If you can’t beat them, join them, I guess.
The relief was temporary. On February 22nd, 1992 Vic DiCara ceased to exist. In a ceremony unknown to and unwitnessed by us, he became Vraja Kishor. The cycle was complete; the wheel had turned fully; he was disconnected from his family. This trajectory was obvious. Indeed Linda was not surprised. I was probably more hurt than Linda since it was my name given to him at birth some 22 years ago. I held so many hopes in my arms. Hopes wrapped up in a tiny little bundle of Snoopy squeaks and ruddy skin barely an hour old. Hopes that played out with dinosaurs to space ships, Little League to The Cosmos. Hopes that drifted off into Dungeons and Dragons, and then veered off into rebellion and rejection. Hopes that have finally been boiled away by the brutal bitch called reality.
But I refuse to fall.
As long as Vic and I can still communicate, still share something no matter how trivial, hope is still alive.