Sunday, January 16th, 2011

The Truth in a Mad World

Vaughan, Ontario

"Man is mortal. He who is a child today will sooner or later pass away. And although he knows his destiny to be dust..."

This is an excerpt from the script of "The Age of Kali" spoken by Madness, the character, is a personification of the notorious vice that seems to possess all of us at some certain time or another. The truth as expressed in the lines above may not necessarily reflect the insane character. As it is said by pundit Chanakya, "You can get gold from stool."

The reason why these words came to mind in the first place is because I had trained my host of today with these lines as the actor. Sanjay, the host, as in his teens when he played Madness in our temple festival. He did it well. Today is a preempted engagement with Shivi, to be formalized in the weekend to come. Sanjay and family wished to start off the engagement on a good note and that's the reason for the presence of our small kirtan (chanting) group. The chanting invokes something auspicious.

Nick, a friend of Sanjay's, had experienced the chanting for the first time. Being raised as the son of a UN diplomat, Nick has travelled the world and relates the kirtan to some of the Buddhist and Catholic ways which he was exposed to as a child being raised in those two traditions. He was particularly interested in the walking monk experiences that I was able to share with him simply through retelling. Oh, how that gets me hankering again!

The initial impression by some people who hear of the back-and-forth-big-cross-nation walk is that you're mad. But then there is always some truth behind madness, as pointed out earlier.

In any event, I'm happy for Sanjay's happiness who hope to tie the knot on April 30th with Shivi in the spring. "Just make your lives Krishna-centric," I recommended. It always makes for a happy medium in this mortal world.

0 KM