PARAMUS, NJ – In their latest newsletter, ISKCON temple president, Mahavikas das announced that area brahmins will be holding a two-month long clearance sale to make way for new Samskaras.
“The assembled devotees would be crazy to miss out on such an auspicious event,” Mahavikas said. “But with the new samskaras coming in, the old ones must go, go, go.”
For over a decade, the temple brahmins have offered the same samskaras at competitive prices. But with competition from the larger Shree Pooja Temple only 10 miles away, sales of samskaras have dropped off considerably.
“We must be able to remain an important player in the samskara market,” said temple treasurer Laxmipooja das. “What good will be be if we can’t compete with Big Hindu?”
The temple board quickly approved the sale proposal, though rumors that the brahmins offered board members discounts on Vahana Pooja could not be substantiated.
In a commercial aimed at the large Hindu population, temple brahmin Adwaita Acarya das, known as “Crazy Addie,” appears frantic as he flails his arms. “You’ll save money like never before! We have the guaranteed lowest prices on anything and everything samskara related! Save big, big, big bucks during Crazy Addie’s Samskara Blow Out Sale-O-Rama!”
The ad ends as Adwaita Acarya holds several packs of brahmin threads in his hands, shaking them as he says, “Upanyana for only $108? We’re practically giving the threads away!” Adding, “Our prices are INSANE!”
While the sale includes drastically reduced prices on all samskaras, not all are being dropped to accommodate the forthcoming rites. Standards like Vivaha and Antyeshti will remain while lesser-common rituals such as Shanty Havana, Nskramanam and Vidyarambha will be cut.
“The poojas that we will be adding are based very much on fun,” head poojari Ramesh Chatterjee, announced at a pooja ceremony to announce the clearance sale. “Birthday Pooja, Anniversary Pooja and Engagement Ceremony will all be added.”
He continued, “and if you place security deposit within next thirty day, we will give first class Bhangra DJ at practically no cost to you.”
The sale starts with the month of Phalguna, and will continue through Chaitra, if astrological calculations prove it to be auspicious to do so.
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10 responses so far ↓
1 Amul // Feb 29, 2008 at 9:10 am
haribol!!! I ACTUALLY LIVE IN PARAMUS, NEW JERSEY, no joke……..i am interested in how you picked that location for this hilarious article, please respond!
amulsutaria [at] yahoo dot kom
2 Bhakta Godhead // Feb 29, 2008 at 10:14 am
Another winner!
3 Madden '06 // Feb 29, 2008 at 10:53 am
Amul is the real NJ TP. You may catch him bustin coconuts and lemons under cars (car pooja) to collect a fat wad of roopes.
4 haribolmagazine.blogspot.com/ // Feb 29, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Good stuff!
5 JayaBlissNectar // Feb 29, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Very clever and humorous once again – look forward to your next submission.
Though curious and even somewhat dubious, I suppose supporting a temple through exploiting the market for Hindu ceremonies is preferable to aggressive book distribution, scams such as sticker and painting sales, and accepting money from drug sales. The historic “ends justify the means” approach to procuring funds has rendered the Hare Krsnas one of the most despised religious groups in the world.
6 Stuck // Mar 1, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Well – JayaBlissNectar – as the saying goes “Man is inclined to exaggerate almost everything – except his own mistakes”. Do you think this could be true of you too?
7 JayaBlissNectar // Mar 1, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Hi Stuck. I’m generally not known to be prone to hyperbole, in either speech or writing. To my knowledge the only religious group with a consistently worse public reputation than the devotees over recent decades has been the Moonies. In the last couple of years Scientology is becoming more and more despised, thanks largely to Tom Cruise’s histrionics. The Rajneesh people were universally unpopular, too, but they dropped off the radar rather abruptly.
I’ll stand by my comment of February 29 above . Endless scandals and unscrupulous fund raising have seriously damaged the public’s opinion of us. I strongly suggest devotees adopt more ethical means of financial support and veer more in the direction of being perceived as a mainstream religion in all respects.
8 Bhakta Godhead // Mar 2, 2008 at 8:22 am
“…adopt more ethical means of financial support…”
You don’t mean… get a job??? O.o
*cue dramatic music*
9 Priya-d // Mar 10, 2008 at 3:47 pm
I love Crazy Addie.
I remember the “real” Crazy Eddie commercials as a kid. So the picture alone cracks me up.
INSANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivhRPiQueaE
YS,
Priya-d
10 Bhakta Raj Prabhu dasa // Mar 19, 2008 at 5:12 pm
The humor is great…and in fact I didn’t even KNOW that some (or all?) of the articles were humorous…or did these events actually happen? R we in The Matrix, being controlled by the reptilians?
Here a conspiracy theory/there a conspiracy theory. Ah what the heck…it’s all the FREEMASONS’ fault!
On a less humorous note, I well-know the lousy rep we got because of aggressive and unethical means of fund raising – as well of some of the “justification” for same, i.e., that’s it’s in The Lord’s service, etc. In truth, my dear prabhus, it really comes down to knowing the difference between right and wrong.
I’m a bit optimistic that, moving forward, we can revive our good standing with the public; one
good way to do this would be for all of us to drop our guards and our insistences of being all right, all the time and to join together in reviving the public chanting of the Lord’s Holy Names. If we could come together and do that – and sweeten the whole service with prasadam distribution – we’d be well on the way to pleasing Spiritual Master and Krishna. Yes, I know that it’s being done in some areas. Perhaps you guys have some ideas on the subject that you’d like to share.
BW&GB (Be Well & God Bless)
Raj