Promotional Power
Vancouver, BC
The best time to cross a national border, if you have nothing to hide and no quirky stories to tell customs with no criminals on board, then do so at 1 AM like we did. Our going over the border into Canada with 2 massive buses filled with adolescents of an angelic kind made the procedure a piece of cake. There was no queue. We looked disheveled though, we had been sleeping, but we passed the customs test easy. I wish all things went like that.
Let me tell you what else was like being on easy street. That evening after a full day of activity at our ISKCON Centre in Burnaby, Manu, our bus party facilitator arranged for us to hit the street in downtown Vancouver with a warm up promotion through kirtan. Robson Street became the venue where several blocks of the street are bordered off for pedestrian liveliness. Some buskers were there such as the usual fire eating show man, but their flare provided poor competition for our kirtan. We provided a rockin’-sockin’-chant and be happy killer kirtan. And, as may be expected, the public were drawn in, to move in on the fun. A bit of licentious dancing crept in (who knows anything about folkish dance these days?). This was new for the eyes of some of our innocent kids. Nevertheless, the power of the chant overshadowed any little nuance of ‘I’m the center’, or ‘look at sexy me’. The sensation reminded us of what power does lay in kirtan, and it set us up for what was to come tomorrow in chant friendly Vancouver. Once the kirtan was over, one of the girls on the bus expressed to me, “Thanks for leading the kirtan.” And my remark, “Listen, it’s not my name we’re chanting, it’s Krishna’s.”
6 KM
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