The material costs of devotional love

The Russian Hare Rama Hare Krishna follower sincerely loves Krishna and Mathura. She has been here for four years. She has sea-green eyes. But then you need a real-life Krishna in your life also. So she is on Tinder to seek a human manifestation of the divine love. An acquaintance of mine, an enthralled connoisseur of wine and women, is also looking for fresher pastures of love most of the time. They hit a match, exchange numbers and start chatting. He is in the deep blue of love, lust, companionship; name it anything, all these mean just temporary escapades of the modern man to help him run from his restless self. He is expertly pulling at the long strings of his expertise in handling women to his advantage. His words are sweet and slippery like exquisite muslin. 'Female spiritualists in casual low-necked T-shirts are very attractive,' he shares with me, almost water-mouthed. Ambling along the tidal fury of raw passion he is slowly pulling the lines. But these are classy fishes needing still classier baits.

‘Most of the people are chronically materialistic,’ she quips, with a mysterious light emanating from under her shadowy eyelashes during their chatting session. The guy sounds apologetic each time she utters the word ‘materialistic’ because he is always after money and women. ‘I need a MackBook laptop for translating my guru’s teachings into Russian…for larger good,’ she tells him as they seem ready to take on each other, testing each other’s worth at many levels. ‘And I need to go to Thailand for some time to mediate in peace and silence,’ she further elaborates her plan, expecting her sex-obsessed Indian Tinder friend, prominently cherishing a fling with a white woman, to come gallantly forward to spiritually meet the materialistic costs of this ascetic scheme. Well, the material cost of this immaterial wish—the gourmet choices of the stomach prevailing like the shadows of metaphysical hunger of mind—is at least two lakh rupees. The guy beats a hasty retreat. This love of a Krishna lover is too much for him. The immaterial demands of a devotee are too overwhelming for him.

I tried my level best to encourage him to fulfill these little demands of a devotee but he won't listen to me. 'See, I know you are very clever like an old fox. You will even convince me to lose this money with a smile. So it's better not to listen to your sermon,' he quipped and ran away from my sermonizing self.