Wednesday 30 June 2010

Sunday, June 27th, 2010

Young Men

New Glasgow, Nova Scotia

An overnight stay at a doctor’s home landed us in New Glasgow. I had walked the Samson Trail along the river while our traveling party I left sleeping. I didn’t get the name of the river. A Persian cat came to greet me. A dog barked from the distance. A blue jay bird was riled up about something. All seemed natural and almost perfect on this peaceful Sunday morning. Then I met some curious humans when I detoured from the tree lined trail to the small downtown. Three young men pulled over their vehicle.

“Hey, are you a Hare Krishna?”asked the sober driver (the two passengers were juiced).

“Well, as a matter of fact I am.”

“I’ve never seen you in this town before. You should spend some time here and give the Mormons some competition,” he recommended.

“I wouldn’t mind being in your pretty little downtown. You will find some of our monks in Halifax though.”

“Yeah, you guys should do your dancing in these streets here,” he pressed.

The passengers with their bloodshot, hangover eyes were very much taken by the surreal looking person standing outside their vehicle. It could have been a peak moment for them. Anyways, I was happy to have made new friends.

In the late morning a fine young French Canadian Brahmana, Manu, conducted a fire ceremony in his backyard. The first ever Vaishnava initiation took place in Nova Scotia and for a Nova Scotian. Dustin, 23, is a young Nova Scotian who became a monk donning saffron cloth 2 years ago. The colour of his clothes are the colour of the eyes of the chaps I met earlier. Dustin assisted me so much with my personal needs on the February trip to India. He is a fine young man with good character. He received the name Dhruva (pronounced Dhroova).

Dhruva did a super excellent job play acting in our production “Lonely People”. It was the largest gathering at our Halifax centre yet. The feast the local monks cooked up was par excellence, a five star quality.

7 KM

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