Friday 2 December 2022

Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Bloor St., Toronto

Still Here?

I was crossing the street at the corner of Bay and Bloor. It was after shopping hours and an older man, also crossing, said, “Are you still here?”

“Sure am!”

“I was at your temple last Sunday.” He informed.

“I hope you liked it. Sounds like you’ve been coming for some time, otherwise you wouldn’t ask that question.” When I said that, he continued walking in the other direction, but then turned around and shouted, “Hey!” So, I stopped and waited for him to come back with more to say.

“You Hare Krishna’s should start a bank,” he suggested, to which I responded, “I’m sure someone of us is already working on that.”

He came back with this, “I saw a show about the Vatican. They’ve got trillions. They started a bank.” The man moved on. I continued walking through the Yorkville area and came upon a street called St. Mary’s and there I stopped when I saw one of those historic plaques about a famous holocaust survivor from Hungary whose name was George Faludy. Apparently, he lived here on St. Mary’s and wrote a bestseller, My Happy Days in Hell, about the oppression of the war in Europe. I read the plaque, stood there and I imagined him still there on the street, in spirit, like a ghost.

It was then time to turn back for the ashram, and one fellow burst out the door of a concert hall in Yorkville. He saw me, undid the hood of his hoodie and opened his eyes wide, surprised to see me. “Since I was a kid, coming to the Hare Krishna temple, I’ve seen you. We just finished playing. We had a guy on mrdanga and everything. I still can’t believe you’re still around.” The theme for tonight was “Still Here?”

May the Source be with you!


 

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