Here They Practise Denial, Unleash Joy (Newspaper)

July 12, 2003

By Renuka Suryanarayan (from Mumbai Newsline)

The room is pregnant with anticipation as 20-somethings, 500 of them, sit with chins cupped in their palms. They're waiting for Prerna - the festival of joy - to begin. Hoping to eschew all things base - wine, women and song, these young men are attending a 'A Vedic Perspective on Stress and Anxiety', a lecture by Swami Devamrita at ISKCON, Chowpatty. The de-stressing experience includes wild dancing to the Kirtan.

''I don't run after all those illusions any more - girls, intoxication, movies, MTV - things that can never give us the kind of happiness that Krishna Consciousness can,'' believes Mihir Thakar (22), a graduate from Hinduja College, dressed not in saffron but in a smart white and blue striped shirt. ''We are not expected to be sanyasis. When you get a taste for higher things, you can give up everything base,'' he explains, his fingers rolling a mala.

Just before addressing them, the New Zealand-based Swami Devamrita, a graduate in Economics from Yale University put things in perspective. ''Can we give up all desire? Certainly not! We are only asking them to channelise that desire into higher things.''

He adds: ''Do you know that one-fourth of all high school students in the US commit suicide; that in the last 40 years, there has been a 1,000 per cent increase in childhood depression? Or that in England more children are conceived outside wedlock? Do we want India to go that way?''

Only on Tuesday night, he remembers lecturing at IIT-Powai campus. ''I'm targeting different young groups but the content remains ''counter stress by giving up the materialism, he reveals. When after the lecture, the students told him that at least 80 per cent of students are into drinking and almost all are into watching pornography on the Net, he told them, ''This makes you incapable of making a meaningful contribution to society. Bhakti yoga teaches lifestyle management to achieve goals better without stressful experiences.''

Back to ISKCON. Just three months into Krishna Consciousness, and Abhijit Aklijkar (25), a doctor, speaks like a pro, ''If a doctor's consciousness changes to please Krishna, the evils of medical practice will be reduced.'' Dinabandu Das, a 28-year-old MD in Psychiatry, can hardly wait to hear the swami speak. ''I've left all my 'material' friends, but my activities remain the same - we eat out here, chat with friends, go out on picnics (read yatras).''

As the swami speaks, of giving up identifying with the body, they listen in rapt attention and the place resounds to applause.

Interspersing his words with verses in clipped anglicised Sanskrit, the Swami declares, ''Those who call this 'escapism' can go back into the house which is on fire (with stress and anxiety). We don't want to go in and get burnt.'' Half an hour of dancing to 'Hare Rama, Hare Krishna' totally de-stressed, they walk smiling towards the prasad counters.