Nieves wanted to experience chanting meditation, so I offered to meet her and the others after their work at the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) centre in Stanmore Rd, Edgbaston, where they could also experience a typically Gujarati vegetarian meal. Unfortunately, they were not able to join me because Azam could not get into his phone to find the address which I had messaged to him. After several failed attempts to make contact with Azam and June, by the time I finally managed to call Jose Luis on his phone, they were already being dropped off to Fircroft College.
I later discovered that Azam had run the battery down on his phone by using the phone for photos and video, so unable to gain access to the address, the weather/something else was playing havoc on connections and messages dropped into my inbox hours after they had been sent. This was a clear example of things going wrong for relying too much on technology.
Anyway, this was my first visit to any ISKCON Centre. I benefited from partaking in some chanting in between trying to make contact with the volunteers, met some very nice people and the smell of the food being cooked for the feast reminded me of my mother’s Gujarati cooking, but I felt too tired to stay to enjoy that. However, I will certainly return for the full experience.
A week later, Nieves was in the midst of a spectacular Hare Rama Hare Krishna Ratha Yatra at Trafalgar Square and with members of ISCKON chanting in the street, all by chance- see photos - how odd!!
