MAY 24, 2013 BY CAMERON CONAWAY
A trip to India with anti-radical radicals.
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.-William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming
Yesterday Maggie Chestney and I visited the ISKON Temple here in Bangalore. We’ve been living outside of the United States for over two years and our current explorations have brought us to India. Above perhaps all else, travel has taught us what major media disguises: the goodness of people. We’ve been treated so well and even welcomed into homes by people from a wide variety of religions, cultures, races, economic brackets and beliefs. We’ve had our fair share of being ripped off and mistreated, but on the whole our adventures have cemented within us the goodness of people, of humanity.
So when the locals and many online reviewers said the temple was worth a go, we went. They were right. But my goodness is our patience for radicals waning. And my goodness does that make us anti-radical radicals? Damnit.
