Find Me At the Gates
Part Five: Mysterious Chanters
11 April 2012 Wednesday
It can't be, I thought, pulling over to the curb. The band of Indian men chanting Krishna songs and dancing looked as if they belonged in the last century. They were a blur of saffron cloth, drums, and ponytails. The performers danced barefoot on an oriental carpet, their sandals in a pile to the side. Who are they? The World Krishnas had been gone since the 1980s, especially from my life. The temple that once stood on the site where the men now danced had once been my home. Unfortunately, the place met an ironic end after court cases forced the organization into bankruptcy. A nearby movie studio purchased the property (along with a few neighboring parcels) in 2007 and built Cinema City, a movie theme park that opened in 2010.
The temple and other World Krishna Society buildings were leveled to make way for a preview theater, movie-theme shopping mall, rides, movie sets, and a movie history museum. Cinema City wanted to build a park to rival Disneyland and Universal Studios. A solar-powered sky ride linked the Terrace Street park to the actual movie studios, and parking lots. The studio's corporate headquarters were located in the Culver City pyramid, which was now part of the park.
It was a busy corner now. Children loved the place. Families flocked to it. The park attracted visitors from around the world. All of Los Angeles benefited. After the park opened, the neighborhood council led a drive to beautify the streets and provide services to help poor people. I sat in my car observing the chanters contrasting with the good American dream that now dominated the neighborhood.
When the temple had closed down, I moved to San Francisco to stay with my family. My mother and stepfather own a Victorian house near Golden Gate Park with so many rooms that six people could live there comfortably. While living there, I attended grad school and wrote my book, then decided to spend a year in India.
Even after all these years, thinking of the World Krishna Society still made me mad. If only our legal department had refused to defend those corrupt leaders. But we were their puppets. We did anything they said. We cleaned up after all their messes, just like enabling spouses of alcoholics. We stood by, defending them for years while they drove the organization to financial and spiritual bankruptcy.
Besides the devastating lawsuits, which were wars of aggression between rival temples, we found out that the leaders had allowed rampant child abuse to take place in the organization's boarding schools, especially in India. Learning of the child abuse was a nightmare for me, because I had trusted and served the organization for so many years. Their attitudes about it ultimately drove me out. I could not live by the party line, which was that the children's karma was responsible for the abuse. Another lie was that the children deserved to be raped because they were provocative. I could justify practically anything else, but abusing children crossed the line. When I confirmed what had been going on, I silently packed up and left. From that time onward, I watched developments from afar.
When the property was sold, the Times ran their editorial under the headline, "Goodbye, Krishna." The writer spoke for people who were glad to see the last vestige of the World Krishnas go. The organization had gone royally off track, deceiving their own members and destroying any trust that the public could have placed in them. The coverage was harsh. My book on the subject was also starkly revealing because it explained the inside story of how leadership fell to a gang of criminals posing as religious monks.
Now, sitting in the solitude of my car, listening to the echoes of my former life, I started to wonder what would have happened if the organization had been honest. It was easy to visualize the peach-colored temple with cement steps and cool marble floor; the sound of conch shells and bells. All sweet memories. We loved God and only wanted to serve Him, however naive and brainwashed. After one last look at the chanters, I took off from the curb.
The chanters were there every time I drove by after that. I had parked several times over the last months to watch them chant. Did they realize this was once the headquarters of the World Krishna Society? Maybe somebody should tell them about it. After all these years away from the group and revisiting India, I still felt bitter over the betrayal. I loved God, but for me, religion was something to keep in a locked box. It was simply too dangerous, because if you spread it around, greedy humans who think they are better than anyone else set themselves up as emperors.
Krishna had been back in my life after the trip to India, but the priest in Ramesvaram taught me to relate to Krishna as a friend, on equal terms. He taught me to trust myself, not place my trust in a guru. The futility of trying to acquire a guru was illustrated in the Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy and her friends set off for the Emerald City. Dorothy had the power within herself, so she didn't really need the Wizard. The Wizard was, after all, just an ordinary man who had gotten lost just like her.
One early July evening, as I watched the chanters, I felt compelled to investigate, so I decided to park and find out who they were.
Entering the park on the sky ride, I could see the gates of Cinema City from above. They were like the Roman walls in northern England, thick, built with heavy stone. Along the top is a walkway with guard posts above the seven pillars. They flew the flags of America and California, with hundreds of smaller flags representing the other states and countries. Thick carved wooden doors were propped open when the park was open, allowing people to pass freely under the gate's stone arches.
As the tram descended into the park, I tried to visualize the layout of the old temple. The site where the temple had once stood was now a monument to popular movie stars, a huge, white domed building that looked vaguely like the U.S. Capitol. Everything else was unrecognizable. Cinema City had torn up the asphalt and demolished the buildings, remodeling the street beyond recognition.
The tram stopped just inside the gates, but instead of following the crowd to the ticket booths, I went back outside through the gates. The jingling of brass cymbals and beating of clay drums filled the air. The chanting was more musical than the chanting they did in the organization. Back then it was all about how loud and fast you could chant, how high you could jump, and how much energy you could generate running back and forth. These chanters struck me as classical Indian musicians with an unlimited resource of melodies.
Observers came and went. The music began to wind down. One of the men addressed the crowd while the others packed up their instruments. His accent sounded Indian, perhaps Bengali. "While you've been watching, you've been seeing and hearing God. Thank you all for stopping. I hope you'll chant the names of god."
As the crowd broke up, I stepped up to the man and bowed slightly. "Good evening," I said, slightly nervous. "Did you know this used to be a World Krishna temple?"
"Madam, please," he said, palms pressed together at his chest in a gesture of respect. "Please, this way. Follow me."
"But I--"
"Come," the man said, placing his hand gently on my arm. He led me through the departing crowd to a bench, where the other devotees were packing their instruments and getting ready to leave.
"Please sit down. We can talk."
I sat on the bench with my sweater draped around my shoulders. The night was warm, but with a slight, cool breeze.
"My name is Ganga," the man said. "What is your name, madam?"
Two or three devotees gathered behind us, listening. They all had dark skin and were dressed in cotton robes. Some wore beads or silk necklaces. Two of the men had shaven heads; the others had short hair with long ponytails.
"Ann Messenger."
Ganga and the other men laughed.
"What's the matter?" I asked, looking around, surprised that others were listening in.
"We--we--" Ganga couldn't stop chuckling to catch his breath. "Last week our grandfather in India said one messenger would come. Now here you are. What is the chance? We will tell Grandfather about this!"
The men laughed warmly. It reminded me of the casual evenings in India, talking with the villagers. It made me yearn to return to India, and I would, except for my job at I.C. Inc. There were now six men huddled around me, obviously lifted directly from an Indian village.
"Miss Messenger, madam, do you know where we are from?" Ganga asked.
"No, but maybe you're World Krishnas," I guessed.
The men broke into another wave of laughter. Now all twelve were gathered around.
"Just see, our messenger thinks we are World Krishnas," Ganga said. This brought more laughter from the others.
I laughed now, too, unsure of the meaning behind the joke.
"We are from Vaikuntha," one of the men said.
I recognized Vaikuntha as a Sanskrit word for the spiritual world of Krishna, the godhead, or heaven.
"No, no," Ganga gasped for breath, trying to control his laughter. "Just say we are from India."
"Yes, yes, India," the other man said.
"But are you related?" I asked. "The World Krishna Society came from India. There were many members in India."
"This World Krishna organization you speak of," Ganga looked up at the faces of the men around the bench, nodding and smiling at them. "We know this World Krishna group, yes? Some of these World Krishna people have made pilgrimage to our village. I have seen it."
"Your place in India?"
"Yes, Vaikuntha, a district of West Bengal."
"But why?" I wondered out loud.
"Why are we coming here?" Ganga laughed again, followed by a ripple of laughter from the other men.
"What are you doing here? This was the World Krishna Society, right here!"
"We chant here because this spot is good," Ganga said. "Many people come to listen."
"But did you know this was once a World Krishna temple?" I said, pointing toward the Cinema City gates.
"Yes, yes. These things we know." Ganga grinned, showing perfect white teeth behind his smile. "I have been here before, to see the temple. Many years ago."
"You came here when it was a temple?"
"Yes, yes." Ganga smiled, looking into my eyes.
I studied the dark devotee. He looked older than he had appeared at first. He must have been close to my age.
"I lived here once," I said.
"In the temple?" Ganga smiled, nodding at the others. The men began talking to each other in their own language.
"Miss Messenger," Ganga finally said, addressing me again. "We are needing your help. This is a good spot for our chanting, but today the guards came out. They asked to see our permit papers. But sister, we have no papers. Maybe you can persuade the officials to let us stay here."
"You need permits to be allowed to chant here?"
"Yes, yes."
"That might be difficult. What do you want me to do?"
"The headquarters building, down that way," Ganga pointed toward the south, "The Cinema City guard said we must talk to the people in that building."
"If I go for the permit myself, we may fail," Ganga said, pointing to his Indian garments, "But if you can help us, it will work."
"You want me to ask the Cinema City executives if you can chant here, is that it?"
Ganga smiled and nodded. The other men, still looking on, spoke to each other. It now definitely sounded like Bengali.
I made arrangements to meet Ganga inside the Cinema City pyramid the next morning, then took the sky ride back to the parking lot. It felt as though I was flying. They're from India, Bengal, India, yes, of course, where else? That was where the chanting of Krishna songs had originated. Most of the Hindus in Calcutta knew the religion; it was even more popular in the rural areas of the region.
The World Krishnas used to have a hundred-acre parcel in an outlying district north of Calcutta. They had built a temple and guesthouse there. During my years in the World Krishna group, I'd visited the place several times. But in the last thirty years, Bengali devotees had taken over the property. They were generally inhospitable to World Krishna members, claiming the temple as their own. Maybe these men were from the branch of the World Krishna Society in Bengal that had broken ties with the white, non-Hindu devotees. If so, why would they come to Los Angeles to chant? Also, the seemed so aloof from the wars of competition that had engulfed the World Hare Krishnas and their splinter groups.
Once home, J.D. greeted me jumping and barking.
"Down boy, come on! What's so exciting?"
The dog wagged its tail and barked.
"You missed me, boy, didn't you?"
He yawned and whined softly, still wagging his tail.
I heated up some rice and checked my answering machine. Max had left two messages. First there were some emergencies that he needed to talk about. The second message said the emergency had blown over, but he still wanted to meet with me the next day.
"Well, how about that, J.D.?" I said, "The crisis was solved without me."
J.D., lying on the floor, perked up his ears and looked at me.
