Holding Tight to the Tiger’s Tail

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Kama Nagari, Vrindavan and I came to our Walden in May of 1977. Shesha was born in October of that year and we struggled making ski hats until the spring of 1978 when Kama Nagari’s sense of self preservation finally kicked in. Knitting ski hats was grueling work.

In those days I suffered greatly from my caste. Shukavak had barely been born which meant that Kama Nagari was still living with Brian, who himself was barely out of boyhood. I have spoken before of the differences between Brian and Shukavak. As Brian I was to have a job, not to be self-employed. I was to have only one or two children and then only at a planned time. The first child would come only after a few years of marriage, not within the first year, and a second could come a few years after that. My career would be established before the first child after which a house could be purchased. Only then could children come. I was a restrained and conservative white ango-saxan protestant, a WASP, but here I was married to a Jewish American woman who knew nothing of my Canadian middle class world. To make matters worse I was living under a restriction against contraception that made me in effect Catholic, a definite no-no in middle class protestant society. Catholics were considered “dirty.” Of course, no one would openly say this, but I knew it. So after a year of grinding it out like a good worker making piece-work ski hats the tiger within Kama Nagari begin to arise, and if I wanted to stay with her, I would have to hold on to the tiger’s tail with all my might.

Standing in front of the Greenhouse with Shesha and Vrindavan

There were many factors at work in this next phase of my life. Not only did Kama Nagari have this Jewish American background which made her aggressive and of a different class of society than I, namely a self-employed business class, but even with me, by joining ISKCON, I had entered into a fraternity of business people. Implicitly ISKCON members were trained to at least be self-employed (vaishyas) if they lived outside of a temple. After all, our founder/guru had been a businessman during his married days. We were taught that working for someone was inappropriate for a person of higher class and ISKCON people were supposed to be of the highest class. All these factors combined were about to push me over the edge of sanity and if I was to survive Brian would have to die and Shukavak would have to stand up and take charge.

So about a year into knitting ski hats Kama Nagari announced that she was quitting her job and going into business. Anna, my father worked at the same company for 55 years and had it been up to me Kama Nagari would still be knitting ski hats today. She told me that she was going to grow exotic miniature plants and that I should build her a greenhouse. Mind you, this was Canada and running a greenhouse in the dead of winter was not a cheap proposition. I worried all the time about money and to suddenly quit a job, no matter how meager, did not sit well with me. So I proceeded to freak out. A greenhouse would cost $10,000 and still need electricity, water and heat. Where was that money going to come from? Did Kama Nagari know anything about growing plants? I had never seen her grow so much as a potato let alone exotic plants. Her family was in the Jewish clothing trade in Miami, not agriculture! Where was she going to sell them? She had no experience in this business. We had no contacts with florists. These and many more questions and doubts leaped into my mind. Anna, to make a long story short I bought her the greenhouse and put it together complete with electricity, heat and water. If there is one thing that I was good at then, and still am now, is that I solve problems and get things done. You can see a photo of this greenhouse. I also quickly learned that Kama Nagari going into business meant that I was going into business. Thus our first company, Fancy Plants, was born. Unfortunately, business and studies do not mix.

Before one goes into business one should have a business plan. One should do research and make a cost analysis before making investments. At the time I did not know any of this, but then again I was not supposed to know this, I was not trained in the business world. Kama Nagari, however, should have known this. As it turned out I quickly learned that Kama Nagari was great with ideas, creativity and spending money, but short on practicalities and making things work. So in reality I was beginning my business training in the most difficult, but probably the most effective way, by doing. Anna, I now know a lot about the greenhouse business and it is not a business that I want to be in. You really need to know everything about plants, soils, fertilizers, insects, pesticide, not to mention shipping the plants in cold and hot weather, bill collection and general business management, none of which I knew at the time. To make a long story short the business quickly died a glorious death and my first business experience was a failure. However, a part from the greenhouse business I learned another most valuable business and life experience, one thing leads to another.

During the course of our business Kama Nagari used to meet wholesale florist distributors in order to sell plants. During one such meeting, while she was 8 months pregnant with Keshava, one buyer took pity on her and gave her a contract to sew all different sizes of skirts for thousands of colored plasitc pots that he had acquired at a bankruptcy sale. This distributer had the idea that if he put fancy skirts on these pots he could sell them, otherwise he would be stuck with thousands of pots. So out of the blue, Kama Nagari came home one day with a $6000 contract to sew these skirts. This meant that we were now going into the sewing business. Again it was nothing that we knew anything about, but at least I felt better about this scheme. In the end I purchased a sewing machine and Kama Nagari herself sewed the skirts, for which we were paid well. We even received a repeat order and actually made a little profit. I was getting some taste for this business thing. So according to the rule, “one things leads to another” this led us to the next phase of our business, sewing. Kama Nagari got the idea to make plastic baby bassinets that could be used for floral arrangements. These bassinets would be skirted in blue or pink for a male or female child. So I arranged my mother to loan us $5000 to have a special injection mould made so that we could make these floral bassinets. During all this time even though we were beginning to see some success, I was not happy with any of this. I was being dragged kicking and screaming into business. My goal in life was to study Sanskrit and theology and during all this time I was going to classes, studying and writing. I was struggling hard to maintain my studies as well as grow our burgeoning business. All the while I constantly worried about money and so I could not find the focus and joy in my studies that I was accustomed to. I was frustrated.

Soon we hired our first employee, a local farm lady, and put her to piece work making baby bassinets. At about this time we finally moved from the log house and purchased our first home. If you recall, we had a house in Dallas which we sold and then used the money to buy our first home in Canada. Slowly, we were making progress. The house we purchased was actually a horribly run down place on a dirt road about 30 kilometers from the cottage. It was near the town of Warkworth and it needed a lot of work, but at least it was ours and it had land for a cow or two and our green house. We no longer grew exotic plants, instead we used the greenhouse as a sun room and play house for our growing family. Ramai was born about this time and although this was the official end of our plant and the greenhouse operation, a new company, Marvin and Tucker Limited, was about to be born.

 

 

Image Sources: http://fohn.net/tiger-pictures-facts/

http://fotode.eu/keyword/60+mm/

Le Flaneur avec l’appareil-photo

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Wednesday, July 19, 2006 3:47:11 PM

This was my first full day in Paris, a very successful one. Naturally I felt bad when I first got up. I had to absorb 9 hours of jet lag plus a 17 hour flight, what with all the delays, but as the day progressed I gradually pulled it together. There is a french word, le flaneur, that I have adopted as my attitude for this trip. I discovered this word while studying 19 century impressionism. The Flaneur was the gentlemen who moved about the city just going where his feet took him. He would let the city itself dictate where he would travel on that day. I supposed the english equivalent may be “moseying about.” So I am just going to mosey about in the streets of Paris for the next few days as the flaneur and see where life takes me. Perhaps I will let my camera take me where it wants to go so I will be le flaneur avec l’appareil-photo.

This seems to be the time of Asian women. This morning at the hotel concierge an asian women who had heard me grilling the desk for local information invited me to take a walk with her to see the neighborhood. She worked for American Airlines out of New York and came to Paris regularly. I see a lot of airlines personnel at this hotel, so she was one of them. Anyway she took me to a store that sold both groceries items as well as department store items, a Paris Wal-mart of sorts and she showed me where to buy the good sandwiches and pastries. I also learned where the closest ATM was as well as how to buy a train ticket. It was a useful meeting. I noticed that she had no desire to speak french at all. It was all English or nothing for this woman.

For me it is just the opposite. I always start with french before I downgrade to english to get the job done, but I never have trouble getting the French to speak english. Contrary to popular opinion I find the French to be polite and accommodating.

The weather here is hot and extremely humid. It is not nearly as hot as California, but the humidity makes it feel much worse and to make matters even more intolerable Paris has only limited air conditioning. The Metro and government offices are unbearable. A few stores are air conditioned, but beyond that little else has air conditioning. In spite of the horrible street conditions I have excellent living conditions. The hotel has first class air conditioning. Having a first class hotel room is the only way to go. Last time I had a three star room. Who knows if it had ac? It would be impossible if it did not. Luxuries have become my necessities. All you have to do it pay!

Today I purchased my first Metro pass. This has turned out to be excellent idea. I can move in and out of the metro system with perfect ease. I also bought euros at my local ATM, purchased my rail ticket to Italy and figured out how to connect to the internet and use my cell phone to call internationally. Gradually, I am becoming a season traveller. I even managed a nap. After my nap I grabbed my camera and took to the streets for an evening of shooting photos.

This time I have vowed not to shoot photos of buildings but to concentrate on people. I must admit that I am extremely timid at this, but gradually I am learning how to do this. I feel uncomfortable carrying a large camera in the streets. Before each shot I ask myself what do I want this shot to show and how can I make it more artistic. In total I took about 125 photos, half of which I discarded once I saw them on the computer. My work was getting better by the end of evening compared to the early evening shooting. There is a definite photographic state of mind that I am trying to develop. I am heading out by 7AM the next morning to take some early shots. As far as I am concerned evening and morning light is the only time worth shooting in. I plan to sleep during much of the day or just stay in the hotel and write. I also want to attend the 8AM mass at Notre Dame Cathedral tomorrow.

Life in the Log House

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Living at the cottage in the log house was no easy matter, especially for Kama Nagari, who was a southern girl and had never seen snow, what to speak of temperatures below 0 degrees Celsius. A Canadian winter can see the temperature drop to minus 40 degrees celsius! Kama Nagari had no concept of these kinds of temperatures. Nor had she seen black flies or the dreaded Canadian mosquito.

I give Kama Nagari credit for trying to make a life in the Canadian Northland. She entered life with me entertained by  romantic notions of living with a nice Canadian boy, a lumber jack, and having a life in the great Canadian north. Another Walden myth. These romantic dreams, however, were quickly dispelled. Every time she wanted a shower she had to heat water on a wood fire then stand outside at 35 degrees below zero in January and pour buckets of steaming water on her head and try to get clean before the water froze to her skin, or every time she wanted to use the toilet you had to walk 50 meters through the snow and sit on a frozen toilet seat. In the end she was unable to make this adjustment and I think this was part of the reason for our eventual breakup. A Floridian urban girl is just too far removed from the rural life in northern Canada. Ultimately the life that I was offering her has beyond what she could tolerate. The first time we lived in Canada was easy. We came to downtown Toronto, secured an apartment, got a job and went to school. We successfully completed our academic year and returned to the United States, home. We even found time to make a baby. During this adventure to the North everything was more difficult, the cold, the snow, ice, insects, mud. We really did live at Walden pond this time. Like I have said, the simple life is not so simple. We would have done better had we repeated our previous adventure, living in the city, instead of trying to pursue our Walden dream.

Making money was also a problem. We had gone into the ski hat knitting business, but knitting turned out to demand huge skills and fortitude. The routine went something like this. Once a week I would drive into Toronto pick up knitting supplies and deliver completed hats. My little car was constantly filled with woolen ski hats and skeins of yarn and knitting needles. At the same time, while I was in Toronto, I would attend university. Usually this would involve an overnight stay so I would stay at my parent’s home. As I write this I marvel at the fact that this routine is similar to what I do now between Riverside and the desert, except that I have my own apartment in Riverside instead of my parent’s home. The distance from the cottage to Toronto was about 180 kms whereas the distance from the desert to Riverside is only 100 kms. When I chose my desert property I purposely kept the distance at 100 kms. In Toronto I learned that 180 Kms was too far to be a comfortable commuting distance. When we first lived in Toronto money was not a major concern. This time the need for money was all consuming and school became pushed into the background.

We made one dollar for each hat that we sewed and Kama Nagari could make six hats per hour if everything went right, but of course, it never did. The machine constantly jammed, the yarn had knots and the pattern card forever seemed to miss the design and break. So we spent as much time “un-knitting” as knitting. Plus pulling the knitter down the rails and over the needles, up and down, back and forth, was back-breaking work. Kama Nagari could only work for a few hours a day with breaks in between. If we made 30 hats a day we considered it a good day. Many days saw half that number. Then when you consider my travel time, gas and wear and tear on my car we barely made anything. I would drive to Toronto on a Monday and return on Thursday which meant that Kama Nagari spent a lot of time alone. Vrindavan was a year old and as you recall Kama Nagari was pregnant with Shesha for the first 5 months. After that she had two babies to care for. It was a hard life.

We arrived at the cottage in mid May which was the start of the black fly season. I have already described the effects of black flies during my sojourn to Sultan. Poor Vrindavan used to bleed so much. He was fresh meat for these flies. Any time he was outside Kama Nagari had to keep him under a net. Then the mosquitoes came in June. Canadian mosquitoes are huge and loud. I get nightmares even today hearing their droning sound. Again we had to use mosquito nets. With just the insects alone it was hard to enjoy our Walden! By late August the insects abated and more or less we were able to enjoy September and October. Then winter moved in. The first snows always came by mid november and the severe cold weather always hit by the first of December. I remember all the roads freezing over and snows falling so we had two feet of snow on the ground by the end of November and sometimes drifts as high as 2 meters. Many times I was unable to get home and had to stay an extra night in the city leaving Kama Nagari, Vrindavan and Shesha alone, and snowed in. In those days we only had one car and all supplies had to be brought in from the local town of Campbellford, 25 kms away. This meant that when I was away Kama Nagari was isolated. During the winters the roads could be treacherous. I have driven through so much fog, rain, freezing rain, sleet, snow and blizzards. It is a wonder that I survived and in those days my little VW bug barely had heat. I have seen snow on the ground until the middle of April. Even though at the time we viewed our life as an adventure, and this is a view that I still maintain, it was actually a difficult existence and between the driving, the getting of supplies, the constant driving into town, the chopping of wood, and the hauling of water, I had little time for study.

Anna, I have a major blessing in my life. I am able to focus so deeply on what I am doing that I can enter a state of total absorption, a kind of samadhi. This brings great joy! As a student I was able to experience this joy in the form of scholarship. There have been times when I have been able to enter this state of prolonged meditation and total absorption on my studies that lasts for weeks. Indescribable joy arises from such contemplation and even though I was fully awake performing all duties, eating and sleeping, traveling and all my other daily activities, I was totally focused on my research. There is great joy in such a mental state, but at the same time there comes terrible suffering when you are unable enter this state. This was my plight while living at my Walden. The need to make money, the driving and the shear bodily maintenance of living the rural life, robbed me of my mental focus. I was forever distracted and could never enter that deep state of focus. And for one who had tasted that joy, being cutoff was hellish. It was during this period of my life that my seemingly endless struggle to make a living and to study and write, began. It is a struggle that goes on even today. I am forever searching for that state of absorption and the joy it brings.

Fire in the Desert

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Thursday, July 13, 2006 11:22:04 AM

View of the burn from the west

My desert paradise has turned into hell. Today my neighbor Mr. Wright, called me in a panic saying, “Call your wife; get her out; fire is coming. I immediately called but I could not reach her. I asked Mr. Wright to go and bang on the door. At first Sukulina did not believe what he was saying, but in a few moments she saw a wall of fire coming in the distance. Anna, you can not imagine what a wind driven desert brush fire looks like. It can travel so fast, as much as 50 kms per hour and it can be a wall of flame 10 meters high. This is because many of the desert plants hold creosote and other extremely flammable oils in their leaves and bark to give them protection from drought and predators. So when they burn they burn hot and fast! Sukulina grabbed Radhika, loaded the horses, dogs, cats and other animals into the truck and trailer and drove as fast as she could. Later she told me that she got out just ten minutes ahead of the fire. As soon as she was clear and had made it to a place where she could call me, she was out of breath and told me that our house would burn for sure. She saw neighbors homes already on fire.

Anna, you can not imagine a more depressing feeling, hearing that your home would soon burn. Life in the desert is different than life in the city. In the desert many people develop their own property and build their own homes. The attachment to the land for rural people is much greater than for most city dwellers. My heart sank. All that I had worked for was about to be destroyed. I was standing in a Riverside mall when I heard this and I cried in my heart. Sure we had fire insurance, but there is no way that I had the physical or mental strength to rebuild what was about to be lost.

An hour later Sukulina called and said that our house had not burned. The cement stucco siding and other things that we had done saved us. Our neighbor, Bruce from behind us, could not escape in time and had been trapped by the fire. Somehow he survived. The good thing about a desert brush fire is that it moves quickly so if you can protect yourself from the smoke you can survive. He told us that the fire came right up to our house and passed by. No damage; we were saved.

What a relief looking from our home. Anna, California is the land of nature attacks. What can I say? In the 18 years that I have been here I have seen incredible floods and landslides, earthquakes that have collapsed whole freeways, winds that have snapped electrical poles as if they were twigs and fires on such a scale that it is hard to imagine. Of all these disasters this fire has affected me the most. All during this disaster I have felt so depressed and even though my home had not been destroyed it is the most frustrating thing to see that everybody else hardly knows about the fire and how I was affected. At first the media reports on the fire were meager and yet my life had been so dramatically affected. Then last night I listened to the reports and watched the video on the news. They gave a full account and showed the disaster in great detail. I saw huge walls of flames and people telling how terrible it was. They showed both ground shots and air footage of the fire. This felt so good. Now my story was out to the world and I felt validated. Anna, I now know how important it is for the families of the soldiers in Iraq to know that the world feels their pain. I understand how important it is for the families and returning soldiers to see the welcome home signs. I grieve for the Vietnam soldiers who had to return to a country that neglected them and could not appreciate their sacrifice. For the first time I know their frustrations.

At a time of disaster communications are all important. This is one thing that I have learned. I have not seen Sukulina for days and without the cell phone I would have no idea of where she is or what her condition is. I still do not know where most of my neighbors are, but Bruce, the one who inadvertently stayed behind has turned out to be a Godsend. Had he not been there to tell us that our house had been spared, the pain would have been far worst. For sure I am going to set up my old ham radio equipment and get an emergency generator. When you live in the desert you must be self reliant. This I already knew, but now I feel it.

Today I have seen our property and it is as if the hand of death had passed over the land. No major damage to us, but many of our neighbors have lost animals and property. The sky is still darkened by the clouds of smoke and the light is amber. The feeling is eery. It is a land between life and death. Tonight Sukulina, the girls and the animals are returning and even though we have had no real damage we all feel that we have been violated. Time heals all wounds. I will not return for another three days, but when I get there I am sure they will have put much of life back together and removed the stain until the next disaster visits.

Image taken from: http://www.profimedia.si/picture/minitab/18577153

Fire

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June, 2005

I just got a call from my neighbor. There is a major brush fire burning near our place. There is a possibility that it may move in our direction if the wind shifts. So far over a 1000 acres have burned and the fire is about 3 kms away, but in the wind the fire can move over 30 kms an hour. The fire people are using water bombers and bull dozers. I hear there are over 250 fire fighters on the ground. The area is being evacuated and no one is allowed in. I could not get there if I wanted. In the night the wind drops down, but the water planes cannot fly.

One neighbor I talked to has a police scanner radio and so has been listening to the fire fighters and police. He says they have ordered eight more water bombing planes for the morning as soon as the sun comes up. There is very little brush to burn if the fire came directly to our place so I think it would just go around, but I am glad that I have my fire tank ! The fire people will hook up to it if necessary.

I now understand the importance of having such a tank even though it cost so much. My immediate neighbors are very concerned. Many of them have horses and hay barns and so they are trying to move everything in the dark. It is a very dangerous situation. There is absolutely nothing I can do. I wonder what will happen? I just I will find out in the morning to see what is left.

I hear the fire stared near Pioneertown the town about 10 kms away. So far it has been burning in a relatively non populated area on the mesas and in two canyons. Only a few structures have burned. We are not sure if any homes have burned. This is a new feeling for me. I feel helpless. I would like to go there to at least be prepared to stand on the house with a garden hose or to help my neighbors, but the authorities will not let anyone in. In fact they would force me to leave if I was there.

Balancing Matter and Spirit

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During my life I have passed through different stages of spiritual understanding. In my earliest days when I first attended the Hare Krishna temple in Toronto, I arrived with the idea of a dichotomy between spiritual and material life. Temple theology validated this idea and even went further by laying down specific rules about what was spiritual and that was material. To be spiritual meant to be in relation to Krishna and to be material meant to be not in relation to Krishna. In fact I came to the temple with a dichotomous view because this is what I had learned from my Christian upbringing and in the popular religious culture of the times. Although the cultural “look” of Krishna Consciousness was different from mainline Christianity in Canada, it actually added very little to my spiritual understanding except that Krishna Consciousness was “hot” compared to mainline Christianity. Krishna Consciousness demanded enactment of the dichotomous view of life whereas the mainline religions did not demand its adherents follow its theology. In other words, Krishna Consciousness was a lifestyle where its members were required to stress the spiritual side of life and minimize the material side of life. As a result the world was maya, an illusion, and only God in the form of Krishna was real. Going to school to acquire earthly knowledge was maya, holding a job or position in the world was maya, appreciating a beautiful sunset or smelling a rose were maya. Also implied within the dichotomous view of life are the dualistic ideas that spirit is good, matter is bad, up is good, down is bad, spirit is light, matter is darkness, and that you cannot be both spiritual and materialistic at the same time. The dichotomous view cannot perceive shades of grey. Life can only be viewed as “either or.” This, I fear, is what is occurring in American politics today now that the Republican party has been taken over by evangelical Christianity.

Later we learned a new concept that extended our range of activities by showing us how to engage in the world according to a concept called “yukta-vairaga.” This meant that in relation to Krishna, education could be cultivated, that in relation to Krishna, worldly position could be assumed. The beauty of the sunset or the scent of the rose could be seen as the smiling face of Krishna or the fragrance of God. We were still never permitted see the beauty of the world independently of Krishna, but at least yukta-vairaga removed some restrictions. However, common pleasures such as television, movies and other forms of entertainment were off limits, most foods, music and books were shunned and friends who were not devotees were not permitted. Even sex was still only for procreation. It was a strict and dedicated lifestyle indeed.

In this way I grew up seeing spirit and matter as opposites, and because my basic orientation was naturally towards the spiritual I tended to devalue the material side of life. This led to an imbalanced view of life. I consider my early and middle years lived in Krishna Consciousness to be imbalanced. I did, of course, receive a great spiritual training that has stood me well in terms of my career, but in recent years my dichotomous view of life has given way to a unified view with a resultant shift in outlook. I no longer view the spiritual side of life as separate from the material side. I view life as a whole.

However, for the purpose of explanation I divide life into four major quadrants representing various human needs, physical, mental, social/emotional and spiritual needs. Our physical needs include all activities in direct relation to bodily maintenance, cleaning, grooming, exercising, feeding, etc. Mental needs includes all kinds of educational and mental related disciplines, study, schooling, involvement of the arts, and so on. Social and emotional needs include friendships, membership in clubs and other social organization, relations with spouses, and so on. Spiritual needs are in relation to the religious side of life and may include prayer, meditation, rituals, sacraments, and so forth. All four of these areas of life are interrelated and at various stages of life one area of life may be stressed over the others, but in all cases they can not be neglected without creating an imbalance.

In my early life due to an immature understanding I over emphasized the spiritual side of life and neglected the other areas of my life. I have learned that it is not possible to be truly spiritual without the involvement of these other areas of life. Spirituality can not be separated from the material, intellectual or even the emotional and social sides of life! This is a realization that seems so obvious to me now, but it has taken me decades to come to this understanding. It has taken years to overcome the fear and guilt that had locked me into the dichotomous view of matter and spirit. Years ago we, of course, would say that unless the body was fed, or unless the mind was trained and so on one could not chant or think of Krishna. It was not that we were unaware of these needs, but in those days the spiritual and other needs of life were always in a dichotomous relationship. Material needs were only a necessary evil that were always to be minimized. Today these needs are seen as inseparable and fully integrated with my spirituality. My career as a priest is as much a physical, mental and social affair as it is a spiritual affair. My travels to Europe are as much a spiritual affair as they are tending to my intellectual, social and emotion needs. I no longer make a value distinction between the different areas of my life. It has taken me years, but I now consider myself to be a balanced personality.

Image taken from: http://forinspirationclickhere.blogspot.com/2010/07/keep-in-mind.html

Fear and Acceptance

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Sunday, June 25, 2006 7:48:32 AM

Years ago, as a teenager, when I started to attend the Hare Krishna temple in Toronto I never told my friends or my parents. I was embarrassed to let them know that I was attending a Hindu temple in downtown Toronto. I kept it a secret for years. When I received the initiated name, Shukavak, I was so afraid that my friends and parents would object so I used the name only amongst devotees. I did not want anyone to know that I had this other identity. Then after I married I had my first son, Vrindavan, within just 10 months. It was too soon, so I was embarrassed. Then after two children I used to hide the fact that I had three children, then four children, then five and six, and so on. I was psychologically unprepared to have more than two children so I would down play the fact that I that I had such a large family. Anna, do you know that I have never had a job in my life? I have always worked for myself, but how can you survive without a job with such a large family? Again I used to be so embarrassed by this. From the time I started attending the Hare Krishna temple in Toronto there was been nothing “normal” about my life. I have suffered so much because I did not live according to my own expectations and by this I mean the norms of white Anglo-Saxon Canadian culture. For years I suffered with two identities, Brian Marvin and this strange and exotic Shukavak and gradually the Brian Marvin was becoming pounded and pounded down into the ground. He simply could not maintain. So I eventually came to the point of severe identity crisis. The situation was becoming dangerous. How could I resolve this? In the end the writing of my Ph.D. dissertation was the way that I ultimately resolved my identity crisis. I woke up one day and found that I had resolved the crisis. I was still alive and I had survived. In fact I have not just survived, I have prospered and I am continuing to prosper! Sadly, I have many colleagues who have not survived so well, some have even ended their lives.

So now I am able to tell all of my American friends in the desert or anywhere (and desert people are very conservative!) that I am Shukavak, I have nine children, I am a Hindu priest, I am also Brian Marvin the WASP from Canadian. Please call me Shuka. And I do it will complete and utter confidence without a hint of  embarrassment or hesitation. And what is the result? I am accepted fully. I go to a coffee shop and order a special drink and the girl asks me what name to put on the cup and I say Shuka, S-H-U-K-A and she says, “Wow, that is an unusual name.” And I explain, it is a Hindu name. “Oh, neat”! she says. I am accepted. I can site hundreds of examples. I primarily use the name Shukavak and only occasionally do I use Brian Marvin. I do this mostly regarding legal issues. There is only one identity now. Shukavak and Brian Marvin are one. How this is came about is actually an important and complex subject and something that lays at the core of my being. I will address this subject at length at another point, but for now I want to make the point that how I accept myself determines how other people accept me. So I have learned to be absolutely honest, outright and confident in myself. Occasional I will even tell people that I do not come to social events because I feel  awkward. I save myself having to attend many events this way.

All my children have “unusual” Sanskrit names, Shesha, Vrindavan, Keshava, etc. and yet they all use these names with complete confidence and nobody questions. And if they are asked they tell people how they got their names and that they are proud of their names. They are accepted in their worlds. All the time I see Indians changing their names in order to fit into American society. Krishna becomes Chris, Praful becomes Paul, Samdeep becomes Sam, and so on. This is the wrong approach. Be Krishna, be Praful, be Samdeep and be proud! And if you ARE proud and convinced you will be accepted. In other words, I have learned that how people perceive you is dependent on how you perceive yourself. If you are weak and lack confidence they will pickup on this and treat you accordingly. But if you are bold, honest and confident they will accept you on your terms. It is that simple.

End of Construction II

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But now that I am “self realized” (In fact I am worn out and I can barely look at a hammer without wincing.) it is time to turn my efforts to other matters and, of course, this can only mean writing for me. And so over the next few weeks all construction will cease in my life and I will turn my attention back to what is the true passion in my life, study and writing. But what will be the topic of my writing? I have been considering this over the last few months and at present I have three projects in mind. First, I want to produce a Hindu primer. Many students and parents ask for such a work. Second, like my Bhagavad-gita, I want to produce an edition of 10 Upanishads and finally, what is most exciting to me, I want to write a novel. All during these construction years I have continued to write and most of my writings can be found on the web in the form of my memoirs, but while I have been exploring this kind of writing I have become curious to write something in the literary realm. However, I worry. Can I do such a thing? Well, the answer is why not. If I can sweat copper plumbing, wire a house, cut floor drains into a concrete slab and install a shower, design and create a sewage ejection system, why can I not construct a novel? So now I am going to take a vacation in Europe and when I return I am going to attempt to become “self realized” again and take on these three writing projects.

End of Construction I

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 Thursday, June 22, 2006 8:32:14 PM

Dear Ramai,

I am so tired; I am so happy. Three years ago I devised a plan to create $100,000 of “sweat equity” in my properties. Today I am seeing the successful end of that plan. I have just completed the final patio on my desert home. Oh what a massive job it has been. You can see the photos.

In the last three years I have done electrical, plumbing, carpentry, masonry, roofing, heating and air conditioning, dry walling and so many other jobs that I can not beginning to describe. I have used tools that I have never used before. For me all this construction work is less about money, but more about exploring my capabilities. I have done so many things that I never dreamed I could do. So for me all this work has been an adventure in self realization. A person cannot know what they are capable of until they try. Granted, I grew up around this kind of work, so I had some knowledge, but I have done things way beyond that I ever saw my grandfather or father doing. There is also merit in know what it means when you turn on a faucet and then know where that water is coming from and where it is going and how it is coming and going. Most of us live too detached from the necessities of life. Drilling a hole in the ground and then seeing water bubble up is a wonder of life and then to direct the water for living is another kind of wonder. Because of construction I know these things.

Gender Identity

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A few years ago I recall watching the democratic political convention on television. Speaker after speaker, men and women, came to the podium. I noticed that most of the female speakers had the aspect of men. They wore pant suits, had short hair and wore only a meager assortment of jewelry. Makeup was almost nil. The image they projected was male. Then Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of John Kerry, democratic forerunner, came before the audience. She appeared in a dress, was well made up and beautifully adorned in jewelry. What a striking difference. The image she projected was contrastingly female. Not sexy, but respectable and with class. Both types of female speakers were educated and powerful, yet I immediately thought Teresa Heinz Kerry is the correct role model of feminine power that I want my daughters to follow, not the male model of most of the female speakers.

In this country, as a result of the feminist movement, women are gradually assuming positions of power and responsibility in politics, business, higher education, science and virtually every other facet of life. This is good, yet they are generally doing so in the image of men. I call such women “she-men.” On the other side we are seeing the feminization of men in this country. Men are being told to get in touch with their “feminine side” to become more sensitive and to ask themselves how they “feel” about important issues. The men who respond to such ideas I call girly-men. Women are becoming male and men are becoming female. A gender identity crisis is taking place in America. There are now whole university departments that deal with gender studies. I recently fell into a heated debate with my daughter, Lalita, when I suggested that she consider the model of Teresa Heinz Kerry instead of Senator Hillary Clinton, the powerful wife of former President Bill Clinton, who spoke at the democratic convention and whom I consider an example of the “she-man.” I was told that I was being sexist, but I disagree. So in this next series of installments I wish to express my views on the gender issue for my daughter Lalita.

Dear Lalita,

There are two obvious factors that govern the gender issue: biology and technology. Biology means the basic fact that man and women are physically and emotionally different. Men create sperm, women create eggs. Men place sperm, women receive sperm. Men operate under the influence of testosterone and women operate under the influence of estrogen. Men are generally physically stronger and women are generally more emotional. These are some of the obvious differences between men and women that we all know.

The second factor is technology. Human beings have always used technology to improve their lives. It started with simple tools and eventually included such things as fire, the wheel, steam power and so forth. Today it has led to computers and digital technology. Technology has always been used to overcome and extend the physical limitation of life. The number one technology that has affected gender relations, and even the very nature of society, has been the contraceptive pill. For the first time in human history, starting barely half a century ago, the pill reliably freed women from their biological imperative, pregnancy. The consequences have been enormous.

Lalita, I do not need to describe how the roles of women in society have changed and how this has affected gender relations during the past 50 years, but the problem is the pill appeared within just a few years whereas gender roles are rooted in biological nature that has evolved over millions of years and which have been worked out in human societies over thousands of years. This powerful technology is years ahead of society’s ability to absorb its implications and adjust to the new potential that women now have. So women naturally grasp the only role model they have for interaction with the outside world, namely the role of men. Hence the rise of the “she-man,” a masculine female. This has led to the development of feminism, a movement that has taken on significant political power. But feminism has not only worked to promote the female role in society, it has also contributed to the feminization of men by disenfranchising men from their traditional power roles. Hence the rise of the “girly-man.” The rise of both the she-man and the girly-man, while it might be one of the unavoidable stages a struggling society must go through when faced with a powerful contraceptive technology like the pill, is not a healthy situation for either of the sexes because it denies the biological nature of both sexes. It assumes that women can be like men or that men should be more like women. While this may sound simplistic and even trite, a more healthy alternative to redefining gender roles in modern societies is that women should be women first and men should be men first and from this point create their new cultural gender identities. Let me explain.

Apart from the obvious, as I have already stated, “Men create sperm, women create eggs…” I cannot say objectively what it means to be a man or a woman, but I can tell you, from my personal perspective, what being a man is. This, however, is completely subjective and is based on my culture, my personal upbringing and my personal experiences. Besides the basic biological facts, the state of being man or woman is so culturally conditioned that it is impossible to define. Long hair for woman; short hair for men? Dresses for women; pants for men? Working in the home for woman; working out of the home for men? Anyone who has lived for just a few decades or traveled even a little knows that fashion and cultural norms vary greatly. Styles change rapidly. It is impossible to say what being a woman or being a man is.

Lalita, we live in a world that is full of incredible diversity. It is amazing to travel from one land to another and witness the unbelievable range of human expressions of gender. However, one thing is certain, amongst all this diversity, the effects of a powerful technology like the contraceptive pill is changing even the most insulated, traditional and remote societies. The impact of the pill is global and therefore the effect on gender roles is global. A modern society like America is on the forefront of gender crisis and experimentation and therefore is in the greatest degree of transition to redefine its gender roles.

Laying at the foundation of gender identity is biological reality and therefore, biologically speaking, there indeed is something objective called maleness and femaleness. This, to me, is the single most important factor that must not be overlooked as post contraceptive societies evolve and workout new gender roles. And as we have noted, above this biological reality is human culture, which, in an almost infinite number of ways, is constantly interpreting and reinterpreting this biological reality in terms of its gender roles. At present these roles, at least in this country, generally involve women emulating traditional male roles and men emulation female roles, the she-man and the girly-man. My concern about these roles is that they do not take into consideration the objective biological reality of maleness and females and therefore they are out of sync with biological reality. Instead of emulating the respective opposite gender roles, it would be better to start from the point of biological reality and build up from there. This is what I think Teresa Heinz Kerry or to cite another example, our current Secretary of State, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, have done.

Lalita, I can not tell you how to do this. It is all too subjective. Only you can decide what it means to be a woman in America. All I can do is suggest that you first consult your feminine psychological and biological nature and work from that point. I only have a sense that this is what Teresa Heinz Kerry or Dr. Condoleezza Rice have done, whereas Hilary Clinton has not. Even though I do not find the masculine female identity of Hillary Clinton appealing, I do not fault her for it. I fear that in todays state of gender transition only the “she-man” model of female gender identity may be able to win an election and become president. It may be that the rest of society would not accept a Teresa Heinz Kerry or a Dr. Condoleezza Rice as president at the present time. In spite of this, Lalita, I encourage to consider the Teresa Heinz Kerry or Dr. Condoleezza Rice model of American womanhood as the best model of feminine identity. Stay away from the she-man model.

It is fun to play roles. In your young life you already play so many roles, daughter, student, friend, and in the future you will play many more roles, wife, mother, career woman, and so on. Each one of these roles has its unique set of rules and nuances. In a similar way, gender is just another role that you will play in life. In the last few installments I have explored some of the issues relating to gender and made some suggestions how you may go about creating your own unique feminine identity. If you recall the time we were driving from the desert into Riverside, I told you so many specific things about male and female roles and you were horrified at some of the ideas that I suggested. These were simply “shock value” statements meant to get you thinking about the issues and to challenge the she-man model that may be in your mind, but as you can see none of those ideas are stated here. They are all too subjective and culturally bound to be useful. So I opted to layout some general rules that may help you create your unique gender role. Boil it all down and what a man wants in a woman is an attitude of wanting to please her man. And I presume this is what a woman wants in a man. Of course, what constitutes pleasing varies between the sexes and between individuals, but the attitude of wanting to please each other is the key to success in gender relations. It is that simple. So just look at gender as one of the roles that you will play in life like any other role, except that it has a biological foundation. You are not actually any one of these roles, so do not be overly attached or repelled by any role that you may need to play. Each role is just a part of what makes you who you are. I do not even think you are the conglomerate of all the roles you play. You are much more.

Of course, how you play any of your roles will always be circumstantially and culturally conditioned, and so if you lived in France or India how you would play the role of mother, wife or career person will be different than how you may play it in America. If you are married to one man you may play the role of wife differently than if you were married to another man. So take satisfaction in knowing that gender identity is just one of many roles that you will play in life. Enjoy playing the role of woman. There is a lot of power in it. Both biology and society have endowed it with many advantages. Do not squander your assets of being a woman by trying to emulate a male role. It is good to be a woman.