{"id":11,"date":"2009-11-01T21:26:49","date_gmt":"2009-11-01T21:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omsweetom\/2009\/11\/a-hare-krishna-halloween.html"},"modified":"2009-11-01T21:26:49","modified_gmt":"2009-11-01T21:26:49","slug":"a-hare-krishna-halloween","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2009\/11\/a-hare-krishna-halloween.html","title":{"rendered":"Halloween-Hare-Krishnas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Halloween has come and gone, without incident. Heidi Klum played it safe this year dressing as a crow, none of the neighborhood kids donned Lil’ Ganesh costumes after all, and my daughter Shruti’s first Halloween costume (an adorable pumpkin) was a hit.  <\/p>\n

But fresh on the heels of my Halloween hypothetical about the bona fides of dressing up as a Hindu deity,<\/a> a real-life example of the ultra-fine line between good-natured fun and tasteless pot-shot. I give you…<\/p>\n

\"HareKrishna_costume.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>
… the Hare Krishna Halloween costume<\/b>.<\/p>\n


\nYes, this is a real Halloween costume.  I know because every year,
\naround Halloween time, my inbox gets hit with a couple of emails from
\noutraged Krishna devotees about it. Usually, they demand that I help
\nspearhead a campaign against this blatantly offensive stuff.<\/p>\n

(In
\naddition to my work with the broader Hindu community, I also serve as
\nthe North American communications director for ISKCON, the Hare Krishna
\nmovement.)<\/p>\n

Personally, I don’t like the costume. I think its a
\nrather tasteless cheap shot at a misunderstood religious minority. And
\nadding insult to injury, its not even an accurate rendition — the
\norange “robes” are all wrong; the tuft of hair (called a sikha<\/i>) that monks keep is not usually braided like that; and that pseudo-Egyptian dance move is just lame.<\/p>\n

But
\ndoes it cross the line? Is it offensive? Tasteless as it may be, does
\nit warrant the protests, boycotts, and letter-writing campaigns that
\nsome would like to see?<\/p>\n

I’m not sure, but my hunch is no. <\/p>\n

I
\ndoubt that manufacturers of such Hare Krishna costumes intended to
\nsingle out one faith to mock; I think they just saw an outlandish look
\nthat — thanks to the fact that Krishna devotees zealously took the
\nfaith to the streets, especially in the 1970s — is recognizable
\nenough to get spoofed.  Seeing it in that light, having a Halloween costume modeled after you may even be seen as a bit of a compliment.   <\/p>\n

Oh, and contrary to what my outraged Hindu friends
\nmight think, other religions have been getting lampooned on Halloween
\nfor years. Here are some examples (I’ve spared you the “naughty nun”
\nvariety, but I trust you can use your imagination):<\/p>\n

\"priest<\/a><\/span>
\"rabbi_halloween_costume.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>
\"HK_costume_vertical.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>As for the folks wearing <\/i>the
\nHare Krishna costume… I imagine that very few of them mean any ill
\nwill towards real Krishna devotees. Most of them probably know very
\nlittle about Krishna consciousness or Hinduism. As reader LinZi
\ncommented on my previous post, “Halloween…doesn’t take itself
\nseriously… Halloween is about playing around,
\ndressing in costumes, and eating too much candy…” I tend to agree. In
\nfact, over the years I’ve bumped into more than a few
\nHalloween-Hare-Krishnas. They are invariably excited to learn that I am
\nthe Real McCoy, a bit embarrassed by their choice of costume, genuinely
\nappreciative of my having enough of a sense of humor to be friendly
\nwith them, and grateful for a crash course in what the Hare Krishna
\nmovement is really all about. <\/p>\n

So
\nwhen it comes to the Hare Krishna costume, maybe the best response is
\nto remind ourselves that Halloween and all its wackiness only comes
\nonce a year, and to not take ourselves so seriously that we can’t enjoy
\nit. <\/p>\n

What do you think?

Post-script: File this one
\nunder “Krishna gets the last laugh”… I remember reading an article
\nabout two guys who decided that it would be funny to dress up as Hare
\nKrishna devotees for Halloween and hit the streets. As fate would have
\nit, they ran into the real Krishna devotees (who were amused by their
\nimitations) and hung out with them. They were so impressed by the
\nexperience that some years later — you guessed it — they ended up
\njoining the Krishna devotees for real.<\/p>\n

<\/i><\/p>\n


 <\/i>
<\/b><\/div>\n

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Halloween has come and gone, without incident. 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He is a Hindu Chaplain and the Coordinator for Hindu Life at Princeton University, and serves as the North American Director of Communications for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), a worldwide organization representing the Vaishnava Hindu tradition. In previous incarnations, Vineet has been a New York City prosecutor, a cable TV show host, and a hospital chaplain. In his free time, he enjoys relaxing with his wife and his new baby, attending classes at The Bhakti Center, and teaching himself photography. As a second-generation, Indian-American, Vaishnava-Hindu, Vineet ponders new ways of further hyphenating his identity.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/author\/vchander"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/207"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}