Being a monk doesn’t mean I can’t party!

[suchandra]

Being a devotee wearing dhoti&tilak doesnt seem a problem in a professional position as the head of the most public of associations in Nigeria.

 

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/features/showpiece/2006/may/07/showpiece-7-05-2006-001.htm

Bolaji Rosiji, PMAN boss

By MIKE JIMOH

Sunday, May 7, 2006

He is at home with anything Hare Krishna and the Performing Musicians Association of Nigeria, PMAN. His best reads are the ancient books written more than five thousand years ago in Sanskrit, now an obsolete language. His immediate duty is to bring peace and justice to PMAN, an association he was elected to head last year.

Bolaji Rosiji is at once a monk and an entertainer, the only Nigerian, as far as is known, to combine the unique duties as head of an association that has to do purely with entertainment and as a devotee of a religious order that encourages just the opposite.

When the dauphin of a famous family in Lagos first came to national prominence, Bolaji was no more than a recluse living in a scent-filled room in his father’s sprawling, waterside bungalow in Apapa. As the only child of Chief Ayo Rosiji, a wealthy businessman, he was the natural heir to all that his father had. But he certainly wasn’t impressed with all the money and houses left him.

He preferred, instead, the spare and ascetic life of a Hare Krishna faithful, shunning any form of ostentation or flamboyance. And he was never without his outlandish outfit – to none Hare Krishna devotees – the few times he made any public appearance.

There was the ankle-length cotton cloth wrapped around his waist, the completely shaved head and, of course, the chalk markings around the eyes plus the ever-present contemplative mien of a Tibetan monk at prayer.

Today, the clean-shaven, spectacled and soft-spoken 41-year-old is the president of Performing Musicians Association of Nigeria, PMAN. He has a spacious office somewhere on Anifowoshe, Ikeja, where reporters and aides flock around him much of the time. From unobtrusive obscurity as a monk, Bolaji has simply morphed into one of the most visible public figures in Lagos, seen everywhere from political rallies to human rights demonstrations and with people like Pa Anthony Enahoro and Professor Wole Soyinka.

Surely, there must be some conflict in carrying out his religious obligations as a Krishna faithful and his professional position as the head of the most public of associations in Nigeria. But Bolaji isn’t in any way disturbed in his dual roles. If anything, he is having a time of his life because, in his words, “it is all about service.”

And just in case you didn’t know, Bolaji says that not all monks are confined to monasteries.

“We have a category of monks known as Baba jis; they’re usually resigned to a life of solitude,” he says early on to dispel your fears for his somewhat precarious position.

“They stay only in monasteries similar to the Catholic monks, and they do study of the scriptures and meditation and prayers. Then we have another category with a more complicated name,” he explains. “They can travel all over, meet people, helping in things like seminars, workshops, developing society, etc. I am one of the latter category.”

That is to say, he is a monk that can host parties or attend one, sponsor benefit concerts or coordinate one or join in a march for human rights, all of which he has done in the last few months.

Just last week, he led a retinue of PMAN executive and a clutch of reporters to a monarch in Abeokuta. He hopes to work closely with multilateral agencies like the European Union (EU) United States for Aid and International Development (USAID) and Department for International Development (DFID). In short, Bolaji can get involved in anything as long as it has something to do with developing humanity.

To help realise this, he long ago set up Guaranga Foundation whose mission statement “is to develop the key constituencies that are relevant to nation building.” The four constituencies, according to him, are the police, the press, education and entertainment. “We identified four groups that if they are empowered can, in turn, empower others,” Bolaji says.

There is a food-for-life kitchen under the NGO, also. “We provide food for up to 500 people every day except Sundays.” Beneficiaries are orphanages, handicapped and old peoples’ home, and meals are strictly healthy vegetarian diets.

Of course, what else would you expect from devotees of one of the oldest religions in the world that forbids killing and consuming animal flesh? All through the Sunday Sun’s visit last week, most of the members had their meals meatless, from nursing mothers to babies and even cooks and waiters.

The restaurant serves only vegetarian meals, and it is about the only one in all of Apapa – an area with the highest number of Indian population anywhere in Lagos. “We cater to a largely Indian clientele here,” says Michael, a restaurant supervisor. Bolaji himself will later educate the reporter on the virtues of a strictly vegetarian diet, quoting relevant Bible portions to shore up his claim.

Though tabloid and soft sell reporters claim he has a child, the lack of a woman in his life makes him one of the most eligible bachelors in town. So, how does he cope with overtures from the opposite sex?

Whether in jest or spoken frankly, Bolaji says he has a female aide-de-camp whose duty is to ward off female intruders. But the reporter is more convinced when Bolaji says that “there is nothing to life.” It could have come straight from any monk worth his hood living in the bowels on a rocky mountain, for example. For one, he admits he’s been adventurous as a Hare Krishna devotee.

“I became a devotee at such a tender age,” Bolaji recalls. “So, along the way, I’ve been adventurous. I have dabbled into different things. And I’ve had my own fair share of experience of the world. And my conclusion is that there is nothing there. There is nothing there at all. All the pleasures of flesh are shallow and they end with death. So, I can never be found endeavouring in materialistic things because they die with the flesh.”