Monday, May 27th, 2013

The Dentist’s Heroes

Toronto/Brampton

It is an annual event for a small group of us monks to visit a dentist’s office for an afterhours chanting session. Doctor Netan Bobby Bakri is a young dentist who hosts us for chanting. It is always a month or so before the Toronto Chariot Festival.

A Vedic custom, you could say, is to have priests come over to your home or place of business and ask them to bless your establishment. We were lead to the first room of the clinic, the children’s play room. A large poster of superheroes dominated the wall. Before we began chanting our mantras for fun, we identified each hero, drawing a comparison to a Vedic character.

Superman, in blue, is Krishna. Green Hornet is Ram. Wonder Woman is Durga. Some guy in gold tights is Gauranga; then Batman, the guy in black at the bottom of the poster was ascertained to be Yamaraja, the lord of death.

To be honest, the archetypes in the picture, unknown to the Bengali brahmachari monks who accompanied me from room to room, primarily matched or redefined the heroes. They put their Vedic spin on it.

In another room where the patient’s dental chair reclined, we identified this comfortable seat as the divine bed stead of Vishnu. There were even adjoining nozzles that resembled snakes. Snakes generally adorn and shelter Vishnu’s head while he lies down. In the next room one wall displayed rotten, decaying and damaged teeth and gums. Here we likened the dreadful images as reflections of the dodgy age in which we live – Kali Yuga, where the number of heroes are in the decline. Finally, the last room, and office, had affixed to the wall a replica of Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’. This impressionistic piece reminded us of Arjun, the hero of the Gita, and how he saw the awesome cosmic form of Krishna.

Just comparing these western prototypical personalities to Vedic superheroes and avatars gave us a good laugh.

On a more serious note, the dentist has been reading BBT books, in particular, Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He loves it when remarks are made by the author, Srila Prabhupada, when he smashes the scientists. It looks like our dentist friend can relate to the real heroes.

7 KM