A short story... (Patreon)

I was on facebook today, and a post reminded me of something I did when I was younger. I thought I'd quickly write it here.

When I was a sophomore in college, my boyfriend at the time was visiting his family in Kansas. For his trip on the way back to Columbus, Ohio he caught a rideshare off of Craigslist - the precursor to lyft, except it was free. It was also dangerous. The number of people I've known who had strange experiences in a Craigslist meeting of any sort outnumber those with good experiences. In any case, this one turned out pretty well. The man driving the car was Indian and a Hari Krishna follower. Well, follower might be an exaggeration. There was a large historical home near the Ohio State Campus where there were Hari Krishna meetings and this man attended them - for the food, he said. He waxed eloquent about the food to my ex boyfriend on that long car ride back East. And by the time my ex arrived home, it was a done deal, we were going to the Hari Krishna house the next week.

Once we were there, they insisted on our removing our shoes and separating into a group of women, on the left side of a massive living space and men were on the right side. We sat on rugs, artfully spread in a collage around the room for the participants. It was surprisingly full for such a meeting. I'd seen many of the priests around the Ohio State campus raising money or chanting in common areas. They proceeded to discuss topics, much like a Christian sermon, for what felt like hours. About relics, about idols, about food routines and vegetarianism, about traveling to the Holy land, about traveling around India, about ceremonies, about feeding the idols.

And then it ended. There was silence for moments, then a long prayer. 

I sat, my stomach growling. My ex had told me all about the food - all the descriptions, the supposed smells, the spices. So, naturally, we hadn't eaten much that day. At the time, we were living together and not living on much money at all...so free food was an amazing thing. But first, we had to chant. In another language. They handed me a sheet of paper with verses written both in the original script as well as the phonetic interpretation. Even with the phonetic words, sounding them out at a rate that could be chanted quickly enough was difficult. I looked around the room at my ex, wondering what he'd gotten me into. He looked, as he normally did in uncomfortable and unfortunate situations, like he was going to forcefully emit a roar of laughter. 

I tried. I tried to chant the words. Pretty soon they wanted stomping, clapping. I wondered how to clap while holding this piece of paper in my hands, trying to read it. In addition to that, I felt like a complete fraud. Showing up to a religious meeting for free food...it would be like going to church on Sunday for the donuts and coffee in between the classes and sermon. Except the Hari Krishnas are smarter, I suspect that's why you have to chant for 30 minutes before eating. They know you'd just up and leave after chowing down on some curry and rice after the lesson. Then they wouldn't have the proper amount of people for the chanting. Or perhaps they thought stomping, clapping, and yelling wouldn't go well after eating plates full of curry and rice. 

 The curry and rice were worth the chanting though. 

I told my ex, however, that if he wanted more curry and rice, we could go to a restaurant like normal people and buy it. One time stomping and chanting and clapping was enough for me.